Veronica turned to the two boys, her delicate eyebrows raised. She lifted her chin and smiled.
“Well?” she said. “How about here?”
Chapter Twenty-One
“This is Candy.”
Veronica gestured to the girl sat next to her on the sagging sofa. She had one eyebrow arched, ever so slightly, and the deadpan tone of her voice told Jake she was sneering at the name, just a little. He smiled inwardly and held out his hand to the girl who took it, looking momentarily confused.
“Your name’s Candy?”
The girl sniggered. “Nah, it’s Candice really. Candy’s just what people call me. What’s your name?”
“I’m Jake.”
He smiled at her. Veronica shifted up on the sofa, patting the seat next to her. He squeezed himself between them, feeling the long length of her thigh against him on that side, the fat-padded softness of the girl’s hip on the other. He took a long swig at the beer in his hand, washing away the acrid taste of the recently snorted coke.
“Where’s Carl?” said Veronica.
“Dunno. He was queuing for the bog last time I saw him. Have you seen the rest of this place? It’s a complete shit-hole.”
“What d’you say?”
Candice poked him in the ribs. He turned to her, slightly annoyed at the familiarity of her gesture.
“What?”
“What d’you say?”
“I said, this place is a shit-hole.”
“Yeah, well. It’s a squat, innit?”
“A squat? Christ. Do you live here then?”
He didn’t know why he’d asked her that. Perhaps it was the way she looked; top glittering with badly sewn sequins, black roots smudging the crispy blonde cloud of hair, cheap perfume rising like swamp gas from her sweating cleavage. She looked as if she belonged here.
She sniggered again.
“Nah. I know one of the blokes here, Guy – he’s the boyfriend of a mate of mine.”
“And where’s your boyfriend then?”
He grinned down at her. It was the sort of thing Carl would say. She laughed again. He looked at her breasts, straining against the cheap white Lycra. She wore a necklace of blue plastic beads around her neck, the sort that looked as though they’d break with a single twist.
“What boyfriend?”
“Come on, tell me you don’t have one. I won’t believe you.”
She was giggling furiously now. He felt a sudden sharp pulse of desire. She was abundantly fleshy – he had a sudden longing to sink his face into her breasts. He was aware of Veronica, cool and sharp beside him.
“Hey – what’s up? What’s going on here? Who’s this?”
Carl. Jake saw Candice, Candy, whatever her stupid name was, look up at his brother. He followed her gaze and suddenly saw what she saw – his tall, handsome brother, saturnine, dark-jawed, dangerously cool. The way he himself must look. Jake glanced at Veronica. She was looking coolly blonde, coolly superior, the sharp planes of her face settled into arrogant beauty. He realised what this feral young girl beside must be thinking. How cool are they? Who are these beautiful people? It excited him. He put a hand on her thigh, noting its fleshiness, feeling at once repulsed and at the same time drawn. She turned to him, mouth slightly open. Her eye makeup had run in the heat – it made her look slutty. It made her look exciting. On impulse, he leant forward and kissed her, feeling her mouth loosen beneath his, the cigarette and alcopop taste of her distinct on his tongue, not caring about Carl’s sudden catcall, not caring about Veronica’s hardly heard gasp. He felt wantonly reckless.
He surfaced. Carl was grinning and there was a spark in his eye that Jake had seen before, in situations where the two of them were about to badly misbehave. A daring look, a challenge – where will you stop, little brother? How far are you willing to go?
Carl said nothing though. Still grinning, still silent, he reached for his bag of coke. Candice’s eyes lit up at the sight of it.
“Oh wow – is that, like, charlie?”
“Certainly is, darling. By the way, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Carl. Jake’s big brother.”
She sniggered one more time.
“Alright, Carl. What are you guys, doing here anyway?”
Carl grinned again.
“Slumming it,” he said.
They took a taxi from the party. Afterwards, they were to agonise over this decision. How much had the driver noticed? What had they said in front of him? Would he recognise any of them again? They’d been mostly silent, that was one thing, Carl giving directions when needed from his seat in the front, Jake and the others squashed against each other in the back. The guy could hardly speak English anyway.
Candice had stared in awe as they walked into the hallway.
“Fuck, it’s massive. Is this all yours? Are you guys rich?”
“Extremely rich.” Carl hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d left the party. He was drawling all his answers in a bored, ironic voice, the same tone he’d used when he’d turned to Jake and Veronica and said ‘I think we should invite this charming young lady home with us, don’t you think?”
“Wow.” Candice looked up at the high ceilings, the light fittings, the curtains. In the better light, she looked very young. Jake wondered uneasily whether she was even sixteen. Then a belated coke rush kicked in and he dismissed the thought.
Veronica brought in a bottle of champagne and Candice’s eyes widened further when she saw the label. She’s probably never been anywhere like this in her life, thought Jake, and felt a queasy mixture of pity, contempt and lust. He sat beside her on the sofa. Carl racked up some more lines and let the others snuffle them up as he searched for some music. Jake could feel the tension in the room increase with every drumbeat. His heart was thudding within his chest. He could feel Veronica on one side on him, tense as a coiled spring. Who’s going to start, he thought and opened his mouth just as Candice Stanton beat him to it.
“Let’s have some fun, guys,” she said with a giggle, and pulled off her cheap white top.
*
Carl’s bed. Jake’s bed. Dark, warm rooms, shifting limbs, damp slippery flesh. The wiry feel of pubic hair beneath his tongue. The shock of Veronica, finally, actually Veronica, her skin, no longer cool but blood-plumped, flushed with heat. After the mythology of Veronica, the shock of the reality; the ecstasy of actually being inside her. He’d already come once into Candice’s mouth, so he was able to take it slowly with Veronica, slipping back and forth, gasping with the pleasure of it, almost disbelieving. How could it be happening, after so many months of yearning? She felt like damp, warm silk, wrapped around him, her sharp angles beneath him, the tiny pink points of her nipples brushing his chest. Watching Carl with Candice, seeing his brother’s cock for the first time in years, so much bigger than he remembered, angry red, wielded like a weapon, slammed into Candice, glimpsed between her heavy thighs. Someone took a photo at one point, a Polaroid, the four of them blinking in the flash. Veronica and Candice, kissing, nipples touching, slippery fingers, flushed red cheeks. The sight made him hard again and this time Veronica put her hand on him, pumped him back and forward until he cried out for the third time, shooting the last pearly dregs into her hair. She licked her fingers, oh God, she licked his come off her fingers, he wanted her again, and again and again. He buried his face between her legs, sinking his face into her, surely he was going to die of pleasure… Carl had Candice face down, jammed inside her arse, her teeth clenched, crying out in pain or pleasure, he couldn’t tell, Carl’s face contorted as he thrust backwards and forwards, rocking like a metronome. Jake licked and sucked and kissed Veronica’s cunt, kept going until she began to pant and shake. I’ve made her come, he thought, and felt himself swell again, once more. He looked up and saw Carl bent over Candice, panting, spent. For a moment, Jake’s vision swam and his heart stuttered. Fleetingly, he felt a tiny cold finger of dread, a black glimpse of the aftermath, of what could happen once the voluptuous night ended.