Please Sir (3) Louise smiled dreamily and flicked her light brown fringe out of her eyes with a careless toss of her head. “How special? Put it this way, he had the fucking Empire State building of all dicks!” “Louise! I thought you meant special in other ways. You know, special in ways you saw prior to jumping into bed with him.” “Oh he was certainly special in other ways, I can assure you of that.” “Such as?” Roni raised quizzical eyebrows. “Six two, broad shoulders, fabulous body, dark hair, the bluest eyes this side of a Barbie doll . . . mmm, we are talking hotter than Brad Pitt. Just about.” Louise lounged on the couch, her long limbs sprawled every which way. Veronica was getting a rather offensive view of her sister’s pink lace crotch. “And - did he like your underwear?” she enquired with great delicacy. “Yup, that he did.” Louise sprung from the sofa, pulled off her virtually non-existent outer garments and smiled smugly as she posed in the full ensemble - the wonderbra, matching panties and the shocking pink suspenders leading down to nude stockings. She resembled a beautiful, half-naked, female devil. The reamins of the little girl within in her mixed with the sexiness of the outfit to produce the perfect jaded-schoolgirl image that guys seem to be so turned on by. “Who is this guy?” Veronica felt absolutely cold with jealousy. How dare Louise have such a brilliant social life, so much better than her own (which was yet another aspect of her life which was non-existent), so many friends, guys queuing up to take her out and that body? The body that Veronica had always longed for herself? Tall and slender, tiny waist gently sloping to narrow hips, endless legs, tight little bum and - most imprtantly - massive mammaries. 5’8”, size 6/8 and 32D boobs,. Veronica was 5’4” (if she wore 3 inch heels!), a size twelve on her bad days, and a 34B, pretty much average, but obviously irritating when faced with Louise’d incredibly generous natural assets. Louise may have been a pain in the arse on an almost permanent basis, but Veronica loved her dearly. And yet, she couldn’t help pondering on the unfairness of it all. Louise, a complete bitch most of the time, had a perfect life,while Veronica, who considered herself to be an extremely nice kind-hearted person, had no life. Definitely unfair. “So who is he?” she repeated, realising Louise hadn’t yet answered. “Or doesn’t this fabulous specimen of male hormones have a name?” “Oh, he does,” Louise smiled lazily, straight white teeth gleaming like beacons in the dimly lit room. “I’m just not sure if you can handle the truth. After all, you do know him. Everybody knows him,. Obviously not the way that I do, but he is . . .” “I think we’ve established that he’s well-known. Although, since Garnsburgh isn’t really a hub of activity I’m guessing whoever it is is only well known in these parts, right? Not a famous person, right?” It had better not be, she thought inwardly. That would totally be rubbing salt into the wound. Or flesh-eating acid, for that matter. “Nope, no one famous famous,” Louise shivered in her sexy underwear and curled into a ball to keep herself warm. “I’m talking about Dave Michaels.” She rolled her eyes at Veronica’s blank face. “Mr Michaels,” she added pointedly. Veronica’s breath left her body in one startled exhalation of surprise. “Mr Michaels,” she whispered. She wisged now that it had been someone famous. Anyone other than him. The words to that Tampera song “Feel It” suddenly started to echo through her head: What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her? She was suddenly wishing deperately for a house to fall on Louise’s head. Three The Bombshell - a piece of news that shocks you to the very core of your being, leaving you in a state of disbelief. “Let me get this straight.” Veronica was still having trouble breathing, but she was determined to make sure she had heard correctly before she expired from suffocation. “You and Mr Michaels,” she began, staring at Louise. Louise nodded silently, an amused smile fixed firmly on her pretty face. “You had sex with your English teacher?” “You have a problem with that?” Louise uncurled herself from the sofa. Veronica quickly shook her head but Louise’s eyes narrowed into two suspicious long-lashed slits. “You do have a problem,” she realised with an air of triumphance. “You fancy him, don’t you?” Veronica forced her voice to sound relatively normal and tried to laugh, as if the very idea was absolutely ridiculous. “Nah, whatever gave you that idea? I just think you’re playing a little bit too close to home - well, school, in this case. You do realise it’s illegal, right?” “I don’t see why,” Louise muttered moodily. “I’m over the age of consent and we were outside school premises when we shagged.” “Oh, you put it so romantically,” Veronica said, more than a hint of sarcasm evident in her normally sweet voice. “Teachers aren’t supposed to get involved with their pupils. If someone finds out the truth, Dave could lose his job. Who else knows about this, apart from us and Dave?” “Just Juli,” Louise said innocently. “And a couple of Dave’s friends. And they don’t know exactly what went on - for all they know, he could just have been walking me home.” “Well, I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut,” Veronica warned quietly. “Unless you want your darling Dave to get into some serious shit. God Louise, don’t you ever think about the consequences of your actions before you do them?” “If I did that, I would not longer have the reputation for being impulsive. I’d be dull and boring like you, sis. No offence meant.” “I’m offically offended Louise. Thanks a lot! I was just trying got make sure you protect that impulsive reputation of yours and his too. Neither of you can afford to have this little discretion getting out.” Veronica was absolutely seething inside - Louise was just too much. How could she do this - put not only her own school record at risk, but also the career of a teacher? Sure, she ws impulsive, she was also clearly a little bit too free with her affections, but this move was downright selfish. And not only on Louise’s part. What had Dave been thinking of? Well, actually that was obvious, as was the answer to the question what had he been thinking with? Because it sure as hell hadn’t been his brain. When it came to girls like Louise Davidson, no guy seemed capable of thinking with that particular organ. And unfortunately, it seemed like Dave Michaels was just like any other guy. “Veronica, thanks for the advice, but I’m a good girl, I can take perfectly good care of myself.” Louise laughed and made her way to the living room door. “I’m off to bed now. Sweet dreams!” Veronica heard her tripping lightly up the stairs. “Yeah, you can take care of yourself,” Veronica murmured, glancing around the room. “Unfortunately, you can’t clean up after yourself.” She tossed the clothes Louise had left in a wrinkled pile on the floor into the laundry basket and picked up both mugs. As usual, she was having to clean up Louise’s mess. In more ways than one. Veronica wondered if she would have to put her shyness to one side and pay dave Michaels a little visit. Because, if the one-night stand that he and Louise had just shared turned into anything more - then there woud be trouble for a lot of people. Including Veronica herself. After all, how would Veronica be able to stand it if her sister got together with the man of her own dreams? It was the midday sun peeping in the window that woke Veronica the next day - or later that same day. She’d went back to bed after cleaning Louise’s mess and tried, unsuccessfully, to read the opening chapter of Wuthering Heights - she was currently trying to enrich her life by reading some of the greatest literature ever written. She’d alsready gotten herself through three Jane Austen novels (Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park), Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Far From the Madding Crowd. And after finishing them she still had absolutely no idea what they were all about. It had taken her three weeks of intensive reading to get this far and she was still experiencing withdrawal symptoms from her beloved Mills & Boons, Jilly Coopers and Jackie Collins novels. Her attempt to read Wuthering Heights had been the final straw in a growing frustration with these old-fashioned books, and she had chucked the book out of the wiondow before drifting off to sleep. Now, still half-asleep, she took the box of classics and relegated them to the bck of her cupboard. Then she crossed the room to her massive mahogany bookcase and ran her finger along the narrow spines of her cherished Mills & Boons, selecting one at random and throwing herself down on the ancient armchair in the corner of her room. The reason she enjoyed Mills & Boons so much, Veronica had decided a long time ago, was because she identified with most of the heroines. Most of them, whether they were age twenty or twenty-eight, tended to be virgins who fell madly in love with a confident, charismatic hero, eventually made love to him, and then the hero would be all shocked and apologetic afterwards when he realised she was a virgin - or had been. Well, she identified with the virgin part anyway. There didn’t seem to be many gorgeous, masterful heroes waiting in the wings to gain her attention in love. But there could be one day. And that mde her feel marginally better about her virginal status. Whereas what she’d learned last night . . . Veronica’s face darkened as she remembered the smug “I’m a woman!” expression on Louise’s face. What a sly little bitch that girl was - if Veronica hadn’t known better, she woudl think that she had known of her crush on Dave, of her longing for Dave to be the one to take her virginity, and had simply been determined to ruin her own sister’s life. But Louise wasn’t that spiteful. Her many faults aside, she was a nice girl, a good sister. Being the youngest of three she was, naturally, incredibly spoiled, but . . . Veronica loved her youngest sister deeply. But, at other times, she hated her more than life itself. And this was one of the hate moments. What did Louise have that she hadn’t? She answered her question aloud. “Bigger boobs for one thing. And so much more confidence than I could ever have.” She had just stumbled upon the reason for Louise’s attractiveness. She had such a confidence in herself and the power of her looks that it shone through in everything she did, the sensual way she moved, the things she said . . . It didin’t matter that she had mousy hair, a forehead that was slightly too high, a mouth that was a touch too wide. She was so convinced of her own irresistible charms that it had rubbed off on everyone else - they saw her through her own eyes. Truthfully, Veronica was by far the prettier of the two. Her hair was a rich shade of brown with natural lowlights of red and bronze running through it, much thicker and shinier than Louise’s, falling halfway down her back in loose, natural; ringlets. Peachy skin, relatively good cheekbones, full pink lips and the same long thick lashes as Louise which framed eyes which were a dark, intense shade of blue-green. She was a mixture of her mum and dad, whereas Louise took after their dad with her light brown hair and bright blue eyes, and Keri took after their mum with dark brown hair and green eyes. Veronica had been the luckiest, being the recepient of all her parent’s best features - apart from her mother’s average breasts and a slight weight problem. She wasn’t fat. Not at all. But inside her own head, like so many other girls her age who are manipulated by the ultra-skinny pics of Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Calista Flockhart, she was fat. Her weight fluctuated by a couple of pounds, rendering her either a size twelve bordering on a fourteen, or a size twelve which was almost a size ten. In today’s terms, she may be well below average, but to the fashion world as well as herself, she was nowhere near slim. And she hated her gently rounded stomach with a passion. When compared to Louise’s naturally washboard stomach and Keri’s gym-toned stomach, she felt like she had a massive beer belly. Apparently sexily curved stom,achs were the thing tohave. But Veronica felt her stomach closely resembled Mount Everest tipped on its side, as opposed to the gentle sloping hill the magazine articles were referring to. And it didn’t matter how much she exercised, how many sit-ups she did, how little fizzy juice she drank - she still looked, to her eyes, permanently bloated. “Fuck it,” she muttered. “Maybe I should decided I like the excess fat. After all, most things I decide I like suddenly disappear. Look at what happened with . . .” No! She wasn’t going to go there, she had enough to deal with right now, without adding her bad memories to the equation. Just thinking of Louise with Dave made her feel physically sick to her stomach and yet the thought kept popping into her head. It was like witnessing an accident and seeing a person with horrific injuries - you can’t help but look, you are drawn to it even though you don’t want to see it. She found herself picturing them tangled in the sheets, Dave’s naked body (which Veronica had always imagined would be magnificent, would make a Chippendale look wimpy and out-of-condition) covering Louise’s skinny, stacked one. Then Louise would probably take her turn on top, she was that kind of girl. Preferring to dominate, not be dominated. The fact she was dominating a teacher, someone usually in a postion of authority over her, would have been even more of a turn-on. What had Louise said again? The “Empire-state building of all dicks”, wasn’t it? How many previous lovers did Louise have to compare it to, Veronica wondered. She was, after all, only seventeen - but everyone seemed to start having sex so much younger these days. Look at that girl with the baby in “Coronation Street” - she’d got pregnant when she was only thirteen. When Veronica was thirteen, she’d barely known the facts of life, and her mum was still attempting to convince her that she was too old for Barbies. As it was, she was twenty-one years old and had yet to see a real penis - sightings of them in “Eurotrash” or “This Life” didn’t really count. “Maybe it’s a good thing me and Dave never got together,” she whispered to herself. “If he’s as big as Louise claims he would probably have torn me in half with it.” Her first time,she really should choose a guy with a small cock, shouldn’t she? Either that, or long and skinny. Shaking that thiught out of her system, she returned to her bookcase. On the bottom shelf there were hardback books from her childhood that she couldn’t bear to get rid of - mainly the Chalet School, St Clares and Mallory Towers - that her mum had picked up for her in second hand shops. She kept them for two reasons - first sentimental, secondly the hope that they may be worth something in a couple of years time if she was ever hard-up for cash. To the left of these books were her high school year books in chronological order from first through to sicth year, and in a multitude of dark, sophisticated colours. She chose the dark purple which marked the 1995/1996 yearbook, her final year at school and, slumping onto the floor she flipped it open to page 35, a page number she knew by heart. “Class 6D,” she read aloud, running her fingers along the names on the page facing the picture. “Sinead O’Brien, Lena Benson, Antonia Vali, Eric McGuiness, Veronica Davidson . . .” She gazed at her picture - she had photographed unusually well for a change, her hair had been ultra shiny that day, her skin dazzlingly clear and glowing. She’d been awarded the 2nd place for Best Babe twenty pages later. She studied that picture; there she was, standing next to the Best Babe winner, Carrie Casey, who’d resembled a Pamela Anderson wannabe, but was also one of the smartest, and nicest, girsl alive. Carrie and Veronica had first met in third year of high school when they’d been placed next to each other in maths class, and been inseparable from that moment till the end of school. They’d been known as “The Hot Chix” by the male contingent of the school. However, despite the plural, Veromica had always landed second-best to Carrie’s platinum blonde, sapphire-eyed good looks. Maybe it was the fact that Carrie was so remininescent of Pammy (although her Baywatch body was slightly more realistic than Pamela’s proportions), the woman a million guys wanked in honour of every Saturday night in front of Baywatch. Veronica had been Carrie’s smaller, plumper shadow, vitually unnoticed by the boys - unless of course they were Carrie’s “discards”, the guys she strung along mercilessly and then dumped callously, in whihc case they would suddenly turn their amorous attention in Veronica’s direction. “You know, I always liked you best,” they would slur drunkenly (these “events” tended to happen at the booze-filled parties The Hot Chix were constantly invited to). “Carrie just sorta - distracted me for a while. But it’s you I’ve always wanted.” “Oh?” Veronica would cooly raise an eyebrow as rage bubbled inside her. “What is my name then?” “Um - Vicky?” they would suggest blankly, angling for a leer down her top. “Valerie? Vagina?” The last suggestion made with a suggestive look at her lap. And resulting either in a slap across the face or a swift kick in the balls from Veronica. It was obviously Veronica’s closeness to Carrie that was the problem. She was constantly being compared to Carrie and perpetually fell short of the precedent that Carrie set. If she had been best friends with anyone else, she would more than likely have been considered the gorgeous one, she wouldn’t have been simply seen as “Carrie’s friend”. Veronica had secretly, unconsciously resented Carrie for overshadowing her so totally and so, when Carrie went off to a London university in the autumn of 1996, it had proved easier than Veronica had anticipated to get on with her life. It was at this point that Veronica had bumped (quite literally) into Aaron Ellis, a guy who had been an acquaintance of hers since primary school until he had moved away toward the end of fifth year. He’d returned to his native Garnsburgh because he was attending uni in Glasgow, and they’d met up on the first day of Freshers Week at that uni, while at a Punch Party. Veronica closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to recall her first real, honest-to-god romance. Although she had already avoided the memory of Aaron, only ten minutes previously, she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to recall the good times with him, of which there had been many. Starting with that night they had been reunited for the first time in almost eighteen months. Aaron had always preferred her over Carrie . . .
Copyright © 2000 Paula M Shackleford |