Help yourself

[ST (Aug 24, 2006)]

He stands at one corner of the darkened room, lights dimmed, a drink in his hand. She dances in the middle, along with some more students. Perhaps he wants to be carried away by a moonlight shadow too, as the singer of the song sings. He likes the catchy tune, the voice of the female singer.

A few teachers are idle at a table. They chat and laugh and drink and smoke, his tutor among them. His tutor, who back in the classroom had accused him of being a reactionary, a word whose meaning had escaped him at first, a word he hadn't even heard before. Surely he must have been teasing him - otherwise the purpose of the comment still does not make sense to him.

He turns his attention to her who keeps on dancing at the same song at the centre of the room. He wishes he could dance half as good as she does. Meanwhile, out of its own will, the little thought that his teacher has a fondness for Eurythmics sneaks in the stream of his consciousness. They had discussed music likings in the classroom. The fact that his were pretty old-fashioned for his age had stirred his tutor's remark, the little fool with his trendy likings of what's supposedly hot at the forefront of the ongoing music scene. As if all composed before should be discarded, as if aging had a faculty to turn decent music into non-audible torture. But yes, he must have been teasing him, that would explain his teacher's melodramatic grimaces.

The song ends. She approaches him and gulps down a large portion of his drink without a word. She sweats. They have been drinking and dancing for the last two hours. The summer course comes to an end and the party they're in is organised by the school as a kind of farewell ball. A tradition already. In a few days she is bound to France. He to Spain. Homeward bound. She sits down and lits a cigarette, puffing the smoke in short, determined blows. To him her English has improved little, still difficult to follow under the dominance of French sounds - voiced consonants and deep throat, soggy vowels. His is not much better than it was three weeks ago when the visit started.

The music stops. The lights are switched on. The exit door opens. It's time to leave. He feels a bit dizzy. Though she's drunk a lot more than him her walk is steady. She dresses in black, as she uses to, which only but enhances the beauty of her pale skin. His gradual approach to her during the last few days seems to be converging towards a something, a somewhere, a sometime. Her presence at school has not left any of the boys indifferent. All, one way or the other, have tried to prompt an interest, building bridges. The reciprocity he finds this evening, albeit mute, suffices to fill his little pride.

Outside the sky is already dark, damp and chilly. A moonless sky. No moonlight. No shadow. There's a bit of a mess at the pavement, a hum of overlapping voices. Suggestions on what to do next are raised. He does not want to spend the next few hours with the other guys. He rather fancies a walk along the promenade, a proposal he shares with her, addressing it without meeting her eye. She joins in. They leave.

Sauntering through the maze of lanes in the old part of town they emerge in front of the pier. A light drizzle accompanies their steps. It isn't unwelcome after the heat of the party room. He becomes gradually aware of the turn events may take. She has been aware long ago. The sea spreads before their eyes, a thick dark wall with no boundaries, the waves breaking far in the distance at low tide. Down the seafront the pebbles on the beach reflect the yellowish gleam of the street lamps.

So that could be it, he thinks, a culminating way to put a full stop mark to his stay abroad. More than he could've expected. Her expectations, however, have little to do with the particular moment in time she's living through. They are grand and appear in big gold letters in her sleep. They belong to a promising future, a parcel wrapped in brown paper with strips of silver along the edges, a package with contents still to disclose, a future yet to be discovered.

She walks down the steps towards the pebbled beach. Large wooden pillars hold the heavy structure of the pier above their heads on firm ground. He follows her with staggered movements. The nuisance of his tutor's comment succeeds a second attempt to regain conscience. Teachers, he ponders, have a power they sometimes underestimate to alienate a kid with a seemingly innocuous aside remark. He, who had been deeply hurt a few weeks back, unable to provide a simple sentence to link a story in a stupid game proposed by the literature teacher, he knows well about unexpected consequences of casual actions. A momentary lapse and a sentence for life, an innate inability for imagination and creativeness. His distinctive trademark, a sticker in his forehead for all to know.

She stops and turns back, smiling. It is then that he realizes of the presence of a few more couples scattered around the beach. So they must look like lovers too, like lovers soon to be. They sit down, his back resting on a pillar, her body on top of his, buttocks on pelvis. She kisses him. He lets that happen, unable to command a situation alien to him.

Here you are, an opportunity to seize, an offer you can't refuse, help yourself.

The tip of her tongue explores his earlobes, which she bits, his mouth, and meets his tongue. His body stiffens in the cold ground, he becomes rigid, tense. Her hands set out in a sweet exploration of his body, which he can hardly control. She guides his hands to her buttocks and under her unbuttoned shirt to her breasts, while kisses him passionately. His excitation grows but then he stops her. He wants to believe the reason of his acting is her distasteful breath, a dry mixture of alcohol and tobacco, which prevents his desire to kiss her. Excuses, he knows, the real reason a flickering red light at the back of his mind, fear, amateurish fear. She's not much more experienced than he is but compared to naught any other number, no matter how tiny, amounts to infinity.

There you are, a dreadful instant to remember, a moment to abhor through the years to come, do help yourself.

He can't meet her eyes. He's thankful to the surrounding darkness in which his embarrassment can be hidden. He's thankful to her too, who does not laugh, who does not poke fun of him, who does not even seem upset. In fact she doesn't say a word. Slowly, she buttons her shirt and stands up. He looks at her black jeans, at knee level, where he can't help noticing the cloth's partly worn out. The legs at the end of his gaze belong to the local teenage queen towards which the unanimous lust of his fellow companions at school has been aiming during the last fortnight, legs of a body to his disposal if only he could dispose of his own emotions.

The click of the lighter precedes the smell of smoke from her cigarette. He stands up at last and mutters and unconvincing sorry. She does not listen to him. She has just been refused, a circumstance she didn't think a boy could contemplate. She is confused, sensible to the actual competence of her feminine charm. She takes the burden of the fiasco on her own shoulders, unable to glimpse her mistaken guess.

On the way back to their surrogate homes silence is the only means of communication. It says it all, it fits it all. Shame and fear on one hand, surprise and incredulity on the other, each one of them engaged in their own meditations. They reach the school building, a natural place to split their ways in separate directions. Dizziness is now long gone. He does his best to draw an apologetic smile. She smiles back and kisses his cheeks. And then she's gone. Shameful tears run down the same cheeks a moment later, mixing with droplets of rain in his face as he enters the lawn in the park to cut short the last two miles to a strange room.