Suspended, those girls must be, just like Natalia had been above her bed all weekend. Monday morning, finally donning the new uniform polo top and cardigan with a smiling sigh at herself in the mirror, Natalia headed into school knowing she wouldn’t see Stacey and Marcia; trusting that wily Neill had pulled something off, somehow.
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Seeing neither the girls nor Neill anywhere all morning, toward the end of lunchtime she began to wonder whether she'd need another taxi home. Or rather, she knew she wouldn't, but that she could hunt Neill down with the excuse of ascertaining that fact.
Climbing the stairs toward his floor, Neill suddenly appeared through the double doors with Miss Barnes, wearing a rather extravagant, purple chequered suit, spotting Natalia immediately. She avoided dropping her eyes, suddenly remembering him complaining about not looking up at him, but with a clear of her throat and a little whirl of guilt in her pelvis of all her thoughts over the weekend.
He lagged a deliberate step behind Miss Barnes, as he and Natalia drew toward each other as casually as north and south magnet ends, and she began:
'Neill, what's hap-' but he leaned in to her ear, so delicately close and quick, and simply uttered in a low husky whisper:
'Gone.'
She looked up just as he swept off down the stairs wafting his familiar, pleasant fragrance in a flash of jacket and a slight wiggle to his stocky bottom, as she watched smirking over their arse jokes, and disbelief that she was actually watching his bottom - the bottom of a man, a staff member, the headteacher - then her mind turned to wonder how that swaggering smart arse had wangled the suspension.
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She pulled out her phone on the bus later to stare at their last text message exchange. Have a good weekend - she'd had that alright. Add that whispery 'gone' onto their messages since; so brief and tantalising the way he delivered it and promptly vanished like a smooth proud purple ghost. She wanted more of that ghost. She wanted to hear, or read, him say something, something more, more...
Was it worth texting a thanks, or a question? Maybe it would it look too needy, too nosey? Give him the first sigh of regret of giving the pesky school loner his number? Surely one message wouldn't hurt. It would give her something to go on all evening...
Back home, she thought long and hard and began:
'Mr Neill. Just want to say thanks for keeping me safe...'
She backtracked and deleted. Stupidly geeky formal.
She tried:
'Hey - thanks again,' but stopped. Too colloquial and self-centred.
Then: 'What did you do?' She hesitated, taunted by the blinking cursor.
And then, bam! Suddenly on the screen his name was flashing... confused for a second, she almost dropped the phone thinking she'd activated an alarm of the thought police.
He was calling her!
She stared in disbelief as the screen flashed in tandem with her heart rate, and she swept a shaking finger over the cracks.
'Heh - hello?'
His loud unmistakeable voice came through. 'Hello, Natalia? It's Neill, your Head.' His voice ringing out in her ear, in her bedroom...
'Oh, hi, Mr Neill,' casually pretending to be surprised, as though she hadn't already filed his name into her phone the first chance she could.
'Hello,' he said again in an amused tone of friendliness.
'Hello,' echoing the amicability.
There was a pause, a silent taboo energy as if they could feel each other's smiles, as her eyes fell to the same spot on top of the wardrobe, where the box spines of Monopoly and Scrabble that she'd bought from a charity shop gathered dust for no-one to play with, and she'd gaze at them whilst playing with herself instead - and now Neill's voice, her new mental playmate - was encroaching her ear for real, oh dear! Cue bristle of urethra - correction, vagina...
He cleared his throat. 'Sorry, been busy all day, but I just wanted to check, did you get home alright?'
'Oh yeah, yeah, yeah...'
'Oh, good. I wanted to tell you that today the two girls have been suspended, but I er, needed to be sure they'd cleared off, and that you're ok.'
'Oh! Thanks for checking. I'm fine.'
'Good, good. Sorry to call you like this.'
'It's... really fine honestly,' she enthused.
'Have a nice evening.'
'You too. Bye.'
'Bye.'
A tear came into her eye as she laid back and thought of how much it meant to her to have somebody step in to curb what was, to most everyone else including Mrs Williams, petty drama, teenage angst, a thin skin; but somehow Neill got it, or judged it important enough to deal with. 'Gone,' he'd whispered. 'Suspended,' he'd confirmed just now. For how long? Obviously not forever? With what reason? She should have asked him on the phone, but she'd been too busy smirking up at Scrabble recalling how she'd imagined last night him spelling out: 'Rescue! Resurrect! Resuscitate!' as she orgasms from melancholy to pretty Polly, 'good heavens girl! You're so fucking good at this!'
She couldn't put her finger on the answer of what he would do, but she'd put her right middle finger on what she could, so she took an early bedtime for the paint-mixing palette to come back out, stirring and stroking till the raft of butterflies from their earlier brief visceral phone conversation were released, she imagined, up across town to him. Somewhere up toward sleepy Scarcroft where he lived, in the lovely lucky walls of his house somewhere, where there was evening and bedtime Neill, smoking evening Neill, oh my! Neill in casual clothes. Neill in pyjamas. Neill in the shower, in the bath, in bed. Neill watching TV. Neill brushing his lovely teeth... Neill's bottom... Neill brushing his bottom... that doesn't make sense, young lady... good gracious! Bottoms on the brain, his brain on my bottom... she fell asleep with mouth gaping, hand parked between her legs too clammy to withdraw, holding her other arm across herself to again emulate that shield that he carried for her, carried for herself.
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Setting off into school with an even heavier hanging guilt that she'd fantasised so much about a man she already had trouble looking in the eye of, the day was to prove a relief somewhat that she didn't see Neill anywhere, so Natalia relaxed for what felt like the first time in ages and focused on her work. English first up that morning; her eyes fell deep into the words of Jane who upon finding a new job, was the happy loner, still 'solitary and unsustained,' but just as Natalia last night, her 'couch had no thorns in it that night, her solitary room no fears.'
Drawn into a happy bit of small talk on the bus with the old lady she had hidden behind the other day, a streak of dim November sun prismed off the window and life felt like it suddenly had its Brontë 'gleam of sunshine' again, as her mind now turned to the trip to Haworth that was now less than a week away! A coach, like this bus, with Neill upon it! Tattling to the woman with a confident alive face, immersed in a daydream of being watched by Neill a few seats away, she marvelled at how she'd never normally enjoy speaking to a stranger on the bus like this before.
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The next day at break, Natalia noticed a pair of badge-wearing visitors emerge from the hall toward the stairs, and loitered tying her shoelaces to catch the word 'committee,' scuttling up the stairs to wait and try hear more, and there, spying from a top view through the window: Marcia herself, arriving with presumably her mother beside her, walking in the drizzle under a black umbrella and disappearing into a side entrance.
A day of curious thoughts led to home time, drifting out of the school driveway in a train of fellow grey and black bodies, when she felt in the corner of her eye, Neill's black Mercedes emerging past her. Her heart thumped not having seen him for two days, and now his wagon was alive, like a large black horse on a moving belt, purring right through her. Expecting to see it roll off to the gate as usual, he lingered, as the driver's window hummed down, and she turned to see an ivory-white suited arm hang a familiar fag-smoking hand down the car's dark outer shell.
There he was like opium to her eyes, his haughty eyebrows reeling her into his transfixing gaze all open and suggestive, whilst his mouth said loud but low enough, for just her and her alone to hear:
'There you are. Come for a ride?'
She stopped with surprise, almost jolted toward him, then checked herself with a dubious glance at the other pupils around. She'd heard a 'bye Neill!' cried from a scattered voice, but no-one seemed attentive to them, as she stared back. Into his car? For a ride? Was she still in her bedroom wank reverie? Even if this was a dream, she wasn't going to mess it up with her trademark hesitation and quickly said:
'Yes? But how...?'
'Go to the end of the street and turn right,' his eyes gestured. 'Meet me behind the shop.'
Throwing his fag back into a pursed mouth he whooshed his gleaming alloys off ahead.
She walked in a daze, impatient but cautious, turning at the end of the street as instructed. Spying his sherry-red taillights glowing through a genie cloud of exhaust fumes, through which she walked like a willing wisher, and after looking casually around her to check no-one was looking, she yanked open the door and fell with a soft plop into the seat of its warm plush interior.
'Hello Natalia.'
'Hi,' came back her croak, as she looked across at Neill. Looking suave, the ivory suit setting off a radiant tone to his skin, his hair swept back with a little oiliness now after the day; a twinkle in both blue eyes as he looked back at her, as though he was bursting to tell her something, and spoke now with a tenderly excitable tone in his voice like a father taking his daughter for some birthday surprise:
'Are you ready? Duck down till we're past these houses!' He promptly accelerated, pelting the car forward as she jerked violently back with no chance of leaning forward to duck.
'Whoops! Bit fast, but better to be doing the running over than being ran over, eh?'
'Wait! Neill! Where are we going?' She was bewildered, delighted, amused and alarmed all at once, trying to pull down her seatbelt at the same time.
'I need to talk to you, but not here.'
'This is so totally weird getting into your car like this,' she almost panted, struggling to get upright, as he now turned up the volume of the music she could see playing: Soul Kitchen on the bright LED screen.
'You like The Doors?' he said in a louder voice over the music.
'Erm...'
'I WhatsApped you at lunch asking you up. Did you not get it?'
'Oh, what...' She fumbled for her phone to catch sight of a message asking 'add Neill to contacts?' Technophobe Neill was WhatsApping her? How could she have missed that! So much for fearing looking like a texting pest!
'No matter, because this will be much more fun!' as he swerved round a residential chicane and she fell to one side. 'I won't kidnap you for too long. We're just having a meeting, on the move. I come bearing gifts!'
Kidnap? Oh, gusset be damned.
She sat up straight. 'Gifts?'
One hand on the wheel, he rummaged and tossed something with his other hand out of his pocket.
'That's part one, spot what's wrong with it.'
'It's a packet of cigarettes.'
'And?'
'And what.'
'Well, I smoke Marlboros,' he said, as it if was obvious.
'And these are... Silk Cut,' said Natalia reading the box.
'So...'
'So these are what, Marcia's? You nicked them off Marcia?'
'No, she gave them to me. Hmm, we need to go somewhere with a quiet spot to stop,' he said, slowing the car as he examined the signs.
'Follow the signs to Temple Newsam,' she said. 'There'll be a quiet spot there.'
'Ah, the place you endorsed. Very well!' He swung right, going through the traffic light just as it hit red, as he motioned at the fags. 'Have one. Grab my lighter.'
'What?' she laughed. 'Are you serious?'
'Yes I'm serious. Do you still get surprised by me?'
She laughed again.
'Come on,' as he pushed the packet toward her, turning down the music now. 'Stacey and Marcia are both suspended, for smoking. So let's celebrate.'
She had to throw her head back and close her eyes and just smile into another laugh.
'I really can't believe what you do.'
He chortled. 'Look, it's just a fag. A fag belonging to your bully fiends, that now spells their defeat. We'll now sit and smoke them. A nice conclusion, n'est ce pas? If we speak French does this count as an extra curricular activity?'
'I don't smoke.'
'You do now, with me. Take one.'
As the daylight dimmed, whilst Jim Morrison crooned of street lights hollowly glowing and cars crawling past stuffed with eyes, they were pulling into the car park by Temple Newsam House.
'Hmm. Nice pad,' he said as a floodlit, Tudor-Jacobean manor came into view with a long neat lawn-flanked driveway.
'Lake and a farm down there too.'
The car park was deserted all for two other cars. He parked well away from them, and turned off the lights.
'Best turn these off. Don't want those doggers joining our party.'
She sighed now. 'I have to pinch myself that this is real. Is this real?'
He shot his hand on top of hers and squeezed it. 'It's real.'
She couldn't help smiling as his warm touch radiated through her knuckles. But her hand still continued to finger the packet with hesitation.
'I... don't know.'
'Well, if you're not going to light one up, will you share one with me?'
She watched as he slid one from the packet, held it between his pursed lips whilst clicking his lighter, a fascinated front seat viewer - literally now - of what she thought was the sexiest thing she'd ever seen. He inhaled sharply, rolled down his window, and then held the glowing stick toward her.
'Come onnn!' he heckled now. 'Have a faaag! Life's too short!'
She didn't care for smoking, but liked the idea of being involved in the sexy and rebellious act with him, of putting her fingers near his, and having something that touched his lips, touching hers.
She took it, her fingers lingering to brush against his.
She took a tepid suck on it and breathed out a faint trail.
'Er, yeah, very nice. Done,' she croaked.
He chuckled. 'Well, it's a start.' He took it back with an expert flick into his sucking lips, as Natalia now asked: 'So they're suspended for what, a week?'
'That's part one, yes,' exhaling a cloud over the steering wheel. 'You want the next bit?'
Holding the fag in the vice of his mouth he rummaged in his pocket for a small clear bag in which were two white-coloured roll-ups.
'The smoking gun.'
'What are they?'
'Grounds for not just suspension. Grounds for expulsion,' he said with a sly face. 'You can indeed learn History here at Temple's Newton or whatever it's bloody called, because, today,' he announced in a drumroll voice, 'Marcia has been expelled from school for possession of a Class B drug. She's gone for good.'
Natalia gaped. 'Oh, wow! Oh, my god!'
She knew he'd do it. She knew it.
He smiled at her as he dragged on the fag.
'So, this is what, weed?' peering closer.
'Bingo.'
'I didn't know weed was that bad.'
'Oh it's not. Which is why we're about to smoke it. Cigarettes to learn to forget,' Neill murmured. 'Rather apt words by Mr Morrison. Let's have it again,' as he flicked it back on.
Half giddy and half groaning 'oh, god,' she watched him now extract the joints from the clear bag, and bring one right toward her mouth.
As the blues notes of the Doors song built up again, she gently pushed away his offering with a 'hang on, hang on, hang on!'
'Whaaa-at?' he chuckled back, sounding for a moment as if they were a bickering couple.
'There's a few things here. First, aren't these important evidence that need to be saved?'
'All done and dusted.'
'Right, assuming that's true, I've just got over my initiation with tobacco literally moments ago, and now you're having me on the hard stuff?'
'It's not such a big deal.'
'Big enough deal to have Marcia expelled?'
'Yes, it's considered a Class B drug. But weed's a fun and highly insightful substance.'
'What does it actually do to you?'
'It makes you feel good. Much more directly than tobacco. Happy, giggly, high. Something you could do with, frankly.'
'Oh, really?' she scoffed. 'Haven't you already arranged Haworth for that?'
'This takes you out of your thinking brain, and into your body.'
'Is that what all the stoners say?'
He smiled. 'You know, cannabis has been highly corrupted. Inside the human body, believe it or not, we have an entire cannabinoid system which cannabis goes into like a key into a lock. This plant is part of nature, designed to pair with us.'
'So if Marcia was regularly dosed on this key natural stuff how come she would go round with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp?'
He chuckled. 'Well, pardon my language for a young innocent lady as yourself, but frankly it's because she's a cunt, and cunts are cunts. When you smoke it, angels appear. When she smokes it, the devil gets a hard-on.'
Natalia laughed.
'Now let's smoke them.' He stubbed out the finished tobacco cigarette.
'What if it's laced with something else?'
'Well, we'll both find out then, won't we?' he said as his hand came right up to her face and placed it resolutely in her mouth.
_______________________________________
Read on to find out what happens next in Chapter 18, Joint Jaunt!
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