Doing It by Melvin Burgess

Author:Melvin Burgess
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781448187546
Publisher: Andersen Press Ltd

21

six inches away from home

‘Are you sure you’re prepared to go through with this?’ asked Sue.

‘Go through it again.’

‘You’re very fond of him.’

‘Right.’

‘But for some reason’ – Sue sighed impatiently – ‘you can’t bring yourself to sleep with him.’

‘But I still want to go out with him.’

‘Yes, but with no sex.’

‘For now.’

‘No, not for now! That sounds like maybe next week, same as usual. You don’t want to even consider sex for the foreseeable future.’

‘He’ll chuck me!’ wailed Jackie.

That’s the plan, isn’t it? hissed her friend silently to herself, but what she actually said was, ‘Well, maybe, maybe not, who knows? Maybe it’s like you say, he’s more decent than you think. But if he loses interest just because of that, you don’t want him. Right?’

Jackie pulled a face but she knew it was right. She couldn’t keep on making promises about a sex life which, when it came down to it, she was unable to participate in.

‘Either he’s prepared to put up with it or he isn’t. If he wants you for yourself, he’ll say yes. And if he doesn’t, that’s that. And then perhaps we can stop having this conversation, and talk about something interesting. Like me, for instance,’ she added hopefully.

Jackie rehearsed her lines, did her make-up, wept and did her make-up again. Sue soothed her and patted her and plied her with tissues and told her to be strong. She was fairly certain Dino would chuck her. It wouldn’t last, of course, they’d be an item again within the week, but at least Jackie would gain a few Dino-free days. In the event, she didn’t even manage that. At the time it was a complete surprise to Jackie the way things turned out and it was only in retrospect that she realised what a typically Dinoesque situation it was, the way he sidestepped her plans so effortlessly and manipulated her so blatantly, like a man working a complicated marionette puppet with one hand, while his real attention was taken up flicking through the TV channels with the other.

It started out so well. Her parents were out late that evening. Dino came round as arranged and they had a couple of hours ahead if necessary, although she wasn’t expecting it to take anything like that long. She made him a cup of coffee and got straight on with it. She was very very fond of him but she didn’t somehow feel confident enough of their relationship to sleep with him. Sleeping with someone, she explained, was a very special thing, a very close thing, a very intimate thing. Of course, she fancied him something chronic, she couldn’t keep her hands off him; but something was holding her back. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she had decided that she had to respect it and she wanted Dino to respect it too.

‘Yeah. I think you’re right,’ said Dino.

‘Pardon?’

‘Right, I agree with you.’

‘You agree?’

‘Yeah. Let’s give it a bit of time. There’s no hurry. Maybe you have a problem in that department.

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