Junk - Melvin Burgess [40]
She kept dancing over to her bloke and kissing him or rubbing up to him. You could tell he was as proud of her as if he’d poured out a glass of moonjuice. I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was as if she was in a completely different room, at a completely different party from anyone else in the room. She was different from everyone.
After a bit I noticed what she was wearing and… POW! I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. I looked around and saw all the guys eyeing her up and I almost burst out laughing because it was so daring and at the same time…
She had this black net string vest on. That was it. It took a while to sink in. At first glance you saw this vest, it was just clothes. And then suddenly your eyes went POP, right through it and there she was, bare as a baby. But some baby. I mean, you could see everything. It was quite long for a vest but even so when she bent over to put on a new cassette you could see her bare bum.
Everyone was watching her but it wasn’t just because she was more or less naked. She had the power. People were talking about this and that but they were all just pretending. She was everything that was going on in that room. Some of ‘em couldn’t bear to watch her like I was. They carried on talking and watched her in little sneaky glances out of the corners of their eyes. Some of them were staring at her gobsmacked, mouths hanging open like fridge doors. But they were all looking. And she was lapping it up, jiving around doing little jobs, making little remarks to people, laughing at jokes.
Her bloke, all scruffy and stubbly with a tatty Mohican and at least two teeth missing, he was loving it as much as she was. She’d get a joint off someone and she’d take it over to him and give him a toke and then jive back. He behaved as if she was dressed in jeans or a T-shirt, except that he touched her bum a couple of times. No one seemed to mind about her pinching their drinks and their smokes. If it had been anyone else they’d have been offended, but with her it was like it was a privilege. Or maybe they just didn’t dare complain.
Did you ever see someone and think straight away, I want to be that person? I want to look like her and think like her and have the same effect as she does… you know? This girl – nothing mattered to her. All the rules, all the things you do do and don’t do, the manners, everything – she had none of that. If she didn’t like it she just didn’t do it. If she did it, it was good. She didn’t have to say please or thank you. She didn’t have to be offered anything; it was already hers. She was more herself than anyone else ever was and as soon as I clapped eyes on her I knew I wanted to be myself just as much as she was herself.
I didn’t have the courage to talk to her but it made me feel so good just watching her, just knowing you could get like that, that someone else had done that.
I stood at the door for a while. I was so excited. After a bit I wanted someone to talk to so I went to look for Tar, but he wasn’t there. I went and sat down in a hard chair near to this bloke; he was one of the people from the squat.
I asked him, ‘Where’s Tar?’
‘Dunno.’
I took a swig of my drink and I thought, Shit, he’s left me here, he’s left me here to go and do anarchy. I felt like giggling. I got up and had another drink and sat there glugging away at it, just because there was nothing else to do, no one else to be with, nowhere else to go.
Then the girl was there, dancing about, moving her head to the music in front of me.
‘Hi, what’s your party like?’ she said, as if she couldn’t imagine not having a good time.
‘Great,’ I said, and I started to take another swig but I started giggling just as it got to my mouth