Suddenly he’d had enough. He fled the kitchen – leave the bastards to it – and made a dive for his friends in the dance room. He hid in the thick wall of music, drank a bottle of Ice Head quick, had a toke on a spliff and tried to relax. It didn’t work, so he rushed across the room, seized hold of Jackie and gave her a good snogging in a corner for ten minutes.
It was perfect. It silenced conversation utterly. No one likes to interrupt a good, hard snog. By the time he’d done, someone tapped him on the shoulder, he was feeling cool already. Jackie hung in his arms, her face turned up, ready for more – ready for anything by the looks of her. Dino answered the question about coats, and gave it to her again.
‘Oh, Dino!’ She pushed herself right up against him and stroked his face and whispered right in his ear, ‘That was some kiss. Oo-oo-oo …’ she panted, which made Dino feel very good indeed. The next time they came up for air again Dino was ready for a look around. It was getting there. The music was down so you could hear people if you screamed, the dance floor was moving, people were talking.
He’d done it. He’d survived by snogging with a good-looking girl in the corner of the dance floor. Cool or what? And now it was safe to go and mingle. Jackie had other ideas. She was thinking, Right, right. She could see Sue scowling and trying not to look at her over people’s heads, but she’d made up her mind. Tonight was the night. She just had to shag Dino. She was going to do it right now. She’d take him upstairs and ride him like a …
‘Come on,’ she said, pulling him into her. But Dino was already turning away.
‘Just a bit …’
‘Dino! Where are you going?’
‘Got to go see, Jacks. Won’t be long.’
‘Dino!’
But it was too late. Dino was out of the door and off to socialise. He had no idea how close he’d just got. Furious, Jackie looked over at Sue, who was talking loudly in a corner and refused to meet her eye.
Dino did the rounds, shaking hands, five high, five low, great do! How are you? Things were looking good.
‘Welcome to the Guesthouse Dinoroso,’ he whispered to himself, and imagined that he was walking on air and that everyone was looking at him shyly, out of the corners of their eyes. He elevated his power-beams to a foot above everyone’s head so they had nothing to worry about. Fasil was doing great with the music – he didn’t have to worry about that. He didn’t have to worry about anything.
What did you expect? Yeah – Dino did a great party. He walked up the hall and around the kitchen. He snogged Grace by the back door – it was a party, it was what people did – and coolly resisted her suggestion to go for a walk. Back inside, as he passed down the hall, he met with Ben in the hall, staring at something on the stairway. As Dino came up to him he saw what it was, an amazing sight – Jonathon enjoying a feeding frenzy with Deborah Sanderson on the stairs.
Jonathon had no idea how it had happened. They’d been talking at the bottom of the stairs and it was bit embarrassing because every time someone went up or down they had to squeeze past and Deborah had to push right up against him. That was a bit obvious, Deborah being a bit of a plumper. Jonathon was embarrassed – partly for her, but mainly because he didn’t want to be seen squashed up against her like that. He got teased enough about his friendship with her without that.
The kiss had come out of nowhere – he couldn’t even remember how it started. He had wondered so often how you actually knew when it was right to kiss a girl, that even as he was doing it, he was trying to work out what had happened so he could use it next time with someone he really fancied. Then, once it had started, it just went on. Deborah sighed, closed her eyes, pulled him almost on top of her and let him sink into her. Immediately, he was overtaken with a rage of hormones. Deborah felt his erection against her stomach and smiled up at him. She grabbed hold of his bum and moved him gently from side to side so that it rocked against her, twitching like Frankenstein’s monster in an electric storm. He let his hands creep round her to cuddle a breast. They half fell, half walked a couple of steps up the stairs and collapsed. Jonathon slid his hand under her top and stroked her bra.
Not having known how it started, he had no idea how to stop it, either, even though he was embarrassed to be snogging a fat girl on the stairs where everyone could not only see but had to squeeze past in order to get up and down. Under her loose clothes he felt her all over – every bit that he could get to, anyway. Only when he began to ferret under her knickers did she open her eyes and whisper, ‘Not here.’ She smiled a languid, warm smile at him and her eyes drifted up to the landing. Terrified, Jonathon closed his eyes and kissed her again, more deeply than ever. He didn’t want to be doing this. Or did he? Traitorously, his penis had turned to super-hard concrete in his jeans. Deborah was surreptitiously rubbing it with the back of her hand and he felt so good, he thought he could happily die.
‘But I don’t fancy her!’ Jonathon tried unconsciously to explain, but Mr Knobby Knobster grinned his woozy little hard man’s smile and said, ‘Yeah? But I do.’
It seemed to go on for hours. He was curled up almost on top of her and they were taking big, long, syrupy slurps of each other’s face. A steady stream of people were squeezing past on their way up and down the stairs. In the course of half an hour or so, everyone there would have seen what he was up to, and who it was with. He was feeling more and more uncomfortable, but he had no idea how to extricate himself.
‘Jonathon. I see you’re having a good party.’
He opened his eyes and saw Dino and Ben standing at the bottom of the stairs watching him. Dino was smiling like a flint. Ben was staring at Deborah, fascinated by this sudden glimpse of the woman sunk in a sexual trance. Deborah’s face hung beneath him, her eyes closed, her lips wet, half open, relaxed, hungry. She opened her eyes and looked sideways at Ben. Ben smiled, made a ‘Hi,’ face, but she just smiled slightly at him before closing her eyes and held her face back under Jonathon’s to be kissed. Lowering his, he began to feed. When he peeked out again a moment later, they were gone.
Jonathon came to a sudden decision.
‘I need a wee,’ he said, and immediately panicked at the thought that she might want to come with him up the stairs. ‘Out in the garden, the queue’s too long,’ he finished quickly. He leaped off her; the image came into his mind of a small raptor leaping off the carcass of a dead sauropod. Wincing, he jumped down the stairs and ran out into the kitchen.
Behind him, Deborah got up and rearranged her clothes. She fancied Jonathon something rotten but never thought she stood a chance. They had so much in common. She and Jon spent ages happily chatting together at school but they’d never seen each other out of it. She’d dreamed that something might happen at the party, but never thought it would. The way he’d leaped on her! She’d actually gasped with surprise. It might have been just a party snog, but he’d been so enthusiastic – it had to mean something. No one had ever told her that a stiff knob means a stiff knob and no more.
‘It was just a snog,’ Jonathon told Dino in the kitchen a little later.
Dino pulled a face. ‘I don’t know how you could do it, that’s just gross,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Gross.’
‘What’s gross about it?’
‘She’s fat.’
‘She’s not that fat,’ he said, and Dino replied,
‘Fat enough.’
Jonathon tried to be dismissive. ‘A snog’s a snog, so what?’ he said. He thought of suggesting she had nice tits – something he’d heard people say dismissively about a girl they’d been with they didn’t fancy – but he just couldn’t do that to her.
‘She still has feelings you know,’ said Ben severely. ‘Just because she’s overweight …’
‘Fat,’ said Dino. ‘She’s fat.’
‘She’s plump,’ said Ben. ‘Some people find that very attractive.’
‘People like Jonathon,’ said Dino, and Ben snorted in amusement.
‘Bet
ter than Jackie the beanpole,’ said Jonathon.
Dino rolled his eyes. Who did he think he was kidding?
‘She’s a nice person and she’s very fond of you, just don’t hurt her, that’s all,’ said Ben.
‘Fat’s fat. That’s all there is to it,’ pointed out Dino.
‘She has feelings.’
‘Just fat feelings, though,’ said Jonathon, who was utterly unable to resist a joke; and then felt awful the way both of them looked at him. His head was whirling. At that moment Jackie and Sue emerged meaningfully out of the crowd and cornered him.
‘Are you serious about Debs?’ asked Sue.
‘What?’
‘Are you serious about her?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t keep saying “What!”’
‘Do you really fancy her?’ asked Jackie severely.
Jonathon was horrified. Part of him refused to give Dino the pleasure of thinking that he didn’t fancy Debs merely because she was fat; part of him was scared of Ben and the girls thinking he was just using her; and part of him genuinely liked Deborah and didn’t want to hurt her. He just didn’t fancy her, but he wasn’t sure he had any right not to.
‘Well? Do you?’
‘You’re being a bit quick, aren’t you?’ said Ben.
‘She’s really fond of you, do you know that? She really likes you,’ said Sue. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, she’s such a nice person. You’re not just stringing her along, are you?’
‘No, of course I’m not …’
‘Do you fancy her then?’
Jonathon writhed, caught between Dino, Ben and these fearsome young women. ‘Well, yes of course I fancy her, I was kissing her, wasn’t I?’ On the tip of his tongue were the words, ‘But that doesn’t mean …’ But somehow they couldn’t emerge.
‘Good.’
‘You’ve done it now,’ said Dino after they’d left. ‘They’ve probably gone to tell her that you want to go out with her.’
‘I didn’t know you felt like that,’ said Ben.
‘Neither did I,’ said Jon. He pushed his way through the crowd to escape. He was definitely not in control of the situation.
‘So you like fat girls too, then,’ Dino told Ben, leering at him. Ben smiled blandly and slipped away to the back door.
The fact was, Ben was jealous. Not of Deborah herself, although he liked her. He was jealous of the sort of relationship she and Jon could have together. They got on well together. He thought how comfortable they’d looked on the stairs. He wished them well.
Bollocks, he thought to himself, as he stuck his head out into the garden and gulped down the cool air. All these lovely girls. All those lucky boys getting off with them, snogging with them, sleeping with them, feeling them up – and he couldn’t do it. As she’d said, Ali would find out somehow and give him hell. Ben was a popular and good-looking boy, there were any number of attractive girls who would have got into a clinch with him, but he didn’t dare. There wasn’t anyone he could talk to. Stupid though it was, for someone who was getting quality sex from an expert, he was feeling left out.
Oh well, he thought. One thing anyway, at least the old harpy can’t come here. The thought made him shudder.
Apart from having to watch one of his friends kiss a fat girl, Dino had ordeals yet to come: he spotted Jackie snogging Fasil in the kitchen. Suddenly, all the feel-good drained away out of the hole in his bottom. Out of order, or what?
Dino didn’t mess about; he interrupted.
Fasil did the right thing. He grinned meekly, abandoned all hopes of single number status for the rest of his life and scuttled off. But Jackie turned round and eyed him aggressively.
‘My girlfriend. My party,’ said Dino. ‘You snog me.’
‘I snog anyone I want.’
The thing that really pissed Dino off wasn’t just that they’d snogged. It was that they’d snogged in public. There was his girlfriend snogging one of his friends in full view of everyone. It was all cut and dried. Except …
‘You were snogging Grace, you two-faced bastard,’ Jackie snarled. It was true. Dino blushed. He’d been a twat, but that just made him angrier than ever. The one thing he really couldn’t bear was to feel like a twat.
He bent down and hissed in her ear, ‘Shut up, will you? Everyone’s going to think I’m a right twat.’
‘Is that all you’re worried about? Looking like a twat? You are a twat! Twat!’ she bellowed, and off she shoved, leaving Dino standing there feeling more twat-like than he had ever done before.
Dino was furious. ‘Slut,’ he called after her. ‘Slapper,’ loud enough for everyone to hear.
She turned round all little girlie and squeaked in a stupid voice, ‘Oh, Dino, I was only practising so I could kiss you better later on. Everyone knows you kiss soooooooooo goooooooood.’ And she said this in such a way that indicated – can you believe this? – that Dino was a crap kisser. Then she flounced off.
He stood there like a bare arse. He could feel his cheeks flushing redder and redder. Everyone had heard the whole exchange. He began, ‘Don’t give me that bollocks, everyone knows I kiss like a …’ And then he had to stop because now he was putting his foot in it very badly indeed. Boasting about how well you kiss! God, that was so childish.
Having no idea what else to do, he just turned round and walked out. Right out. Out of the room, out of the hall, out of the house. He was blind with rage and humiliation. Let them have fun! Let them enjoy themselves, the whole lot of them. He didn’t want anything to do with any of them.
Dino got halfway home before he remembered that he’d been at home in the first place. There was nowhere else to go. For a moment he thought about going back to the party and throwing everyone out, but even as he thought it, he realised it was impossible. That would not be a very cool thing to do.
He walked back. From outside it sounded as if the party was going like a bomb. He lurked, wondering what to do. It was a while before he realised the way out. Thank God! He’d been in the wrong! All he had to do was admit it. Admitting you were in the wrong was a cool thing to do. It made you more human, somehow. He’d been snogging people, so had Jacks. So what was the problem? Of course, he’d much rather not have stormed out, or lost his cool; and he’d very much rather Jackie had never snogged with Fas. But what was done was done.
He hung around a bit longer, plucking up courage. He practised laughing at himself. Then he took the plunge and went to ring the doorbell. It really was pretty funny, after all.
‘I went home,’ Dino told Stu, and started laughing and laughing. ‘Outta my head!’ he howled. Stu grinned back, and Dino knew he was going to get away with it. Once he’d recovered laughing at how out of his head he’d been, he went to look for Jackie and apologised. She forgave him at once.
‘OK?’ he said and she said,
‘OK.’
Dino leaned in and whispered, ‘Sorry.’
‘Yeah, so am I.’
‘No more snogging other people, eh?’
‘No more snogging other people.’
Dino thought, I’m still in. ‘I’m still in? Later?’ he said.
‘Mmmmm … OK. If you’re good.’
But it had been a close thing. He found Fasil and – this was really cool – had a chat with him about nothing much, just to show no hard feelings. But warned him off as well.
‘I reckon I’m in with Jackie after,’ he said.
‘Mmm,’ said Fasil.
Dino leaned up right close to his face and breathed, ‘Virgin hole,’ right in his face. Fasil moved his head back and stared at Dino with a horrified expression. Dino winked and leered.
The party went from quiet to friendly, to busy, to loud, to frantic. Dino had a few smokes and a couple more Ice Head beers and gradually a holy, rosy glow started to hover around him. It was a good party. He was a saint, really. All these people having such a good time, just because of him. His Holiness Pope Dino the First, he felt like, as he went from group t
o group, bestowing his benedictions upon them. The hardcore were like a bunch of apes by comparison, they were all jiggering about and shouting. They had indulged in something a bit stronger than a few spliffs. Dino himself declined. He didn’t want to do anything that might interfere with his session with Jackie later on. That, after all, was the main event of the evening. He didn’t want his vital parts shrivelled up like a frightened slug. He wanted big, stiff parts for that night’s action.
People were rushing up and down the stairs shrieking. People were yelling in the kitchen and having fights over the limited quantities of alcohol. Couples had moved into the bedrooms, or, if the bedrooms were full, into the garden and under blankets in the downstairs room. A row of them were snogging up the stairs.
‘What’s this, the queue for the bedrooms?’ bellowed Jonathon up at them. Standing in a group three metres and about fifty people away, Deborah looked at him and laughed far too loud. Jonathon pretended he hadn’t noticed. A crowd in the sitting room discovered that if they all danced up and down hard enough they could make the piano next to the door advance on them. It looked threatening and stupid at the same time, and someone christened it Dino’s Dad, because it looked like it was coming to chuck them all out.
A girl called Sam made love in Dino’s parents’ bed with a boy called Robby, who was sick on the sheets next to her as soon as he’d finished. They covered it up with the duvet and went home. Next door in the boxroom a kid called Simon Tiptree pretended to pass out on top of a pile of coats. When he was left alone, he began systematically to go through all the pockets and bags, looking for money and valuables. At about the same time downstairs in the kitchen, a thin girl in a tiny pink dress was opening the fridge door. She stared rapturously inside. Treasure! Cheese, pork pie, cold cooked sausages! Paradise. Cream cake! What comes next on the ladder up after cold sausage paradise? Cream cake paradise, of course. Without even pausing to moan in pleasure, she reached in and seized an oozing triangle of pleasure, and bit in.