An hour later we decided it was safe to begin crawling towards the house, not having seen or heard a single movement from within. Jake took the lead again, and as I was still in a state of heightened sexuality, I couldn’t help focusing on how his tight jeans curved around his butt... Focus Taylor! Mission of extreme importance. Abusive stepfather. Getting rid of Jake’s girlfriend. Yes, that was the point. I just wanted to bite it or something...
We crawled through the weeds until we were crouched under a window, and slowly we both peeped our heads over the sill to see a sitting room. Inside the house wasn’t as neglected as the outside, but it was clear that Peter Hancroft hadn’t been doing any spring cleaning since Jenny’s mom had run out. There were plates and bowls on the floor and coffee table, as well as empty bottles of beer, cider, vodka, whiskey, and gin stacked behind the door and laying horizontally on the floor where he’d obviously dropped them in a drunken stupor.
Jake reached up and tried the window; it didn’t budge. He jerked his thumb to the left and we crawled towards the back door. Jake tried the handle but again there was no luck. I lifted the doormat but there was no spare key underneath and with only one ground floor window left it was starting to look like we were out of luck.
‘Taylor,’ Jake was whispering even though we were certain nobody was around. I think it had just hit us that what we were doing was breaking the law, and maybe it would have been better if we’d asked Jenny to come with us after all.
‘Yeah?’ I whispered back.
Jake pointed vertically upwards and I followed his gesture, to see an open bathroom window about ten feet off the ground on the first floor.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t realise you could fly,’ I said dryly. ‘Shall I climb aboard or are you going to carry me?’
Jake scowled and cupped his hands, intending to boost me up so I could grasp the bathroom window sill and hoist myself in first.
‘Are you joking?’ I hissed.
‘You’re lighter than me,’ he hissed back.
‘But you have better upper body strength.’
‘Which would only be of benefit if you could get me to the window sill in the first place.’
‘You’re also taller,’ I pointed out lamely.
‘Just step up,’ Jake sighed, cupping his hands again.
I huffed but put my left foot into Jake’s clasped hands and felt my stomach drop as he boosted me upwards without warning. I scrambled around until I was standing on his shoulders, and reached for the sill.
‘Left,’ I hissed, and, groaning, Jake made a wide sweep to the left, taking me further from the sill than before. ‘Right,’ I sighed. We were going to be doing this circus act all day. Eventually my fingers grasped the sill and I reached further up until I could feel the jamb on the inside, and began hoisting myself up. Jake reached up and caught my feet in his palms, pushing me further up until, with embarrassingly great effort, I had the top half of my body inside while the bottom half was still dangling in the air, feet swinging.
‘I can see up your shorts,’ Jake whisper-called with mock seriousness.
If I hadn’t been face-to-face with an unflushed toilet I probably would have stopped procrastinating and pulled the rest of myself inside, but as it was I called back, ‘Stop being a pervert,’ and worked on trying to reach the toilet seat so I didn’t land into the toilet bowl when I flopped in. Soon I was kneeling on the thankfully now closed toilet seat, looking out the window at Jake.
‘Okay, go downstairs and open a window so I can climb in,’ he instructed.
‘What if it’s alarmed?’ I asked.
‘Then you climb out instead and we run like hell.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Ten minutes later we were both standing in the stale, smelly living room, examining the list Jenny had given up. Jake tore it in half and gave me one.
‘We’ll be faster if me split up.’
The first thing on my list was passport – bedroom drawer. I trekked upstairs while Jake made his way to the office room to grab her laptop, and found her bedroom door second on the right, easy enough to spot by virtue of the fact that it had her name plastered all over it in rubber letters. I eased the door open and poked my head around. The only girls’ rooms I’d ever been in were Kelly’s and Harriet Ford’s, who I’d enjoyed a brief fling with in my twelfth year when I still thought I was straight. Then again, she had a lesbian haircut and a strong jaw, so maybe deep inside I had some idea.
But I digress. I walked into Jenny’s room, somewhat stunned at the pinkness of the place. There was a fluffy pink carpet, the walls were pink, the bed was pink, the small TV in the corner was pink, attached to a pink Playstation 2. The only things in the room that weren’t pink were the desk, which was cheap wood, and the curtains, which were purple.
I snapped out of my pink-induced daze and made my way to the desk drawer. I opened the first one and there on top of a pile of crumpled papers was the little red book that was Jenny’s passport. I opened it and looked at the picture just to make certain, and sure enough there was a picture of a twelve year old Jenny De Silva, staring forlornly at the camera. I pocketed the passport and looked at the list again.
Clothes – bedroom closet.
‘Typical girl,’ I thought, and then felt bad for stereotyping. You can’t move all the way across the country to move in with a woman who can’t even buy you a plane ticket if you haven’t got any clothes with you. What would you wear?
I grabbed Jenny’s schoolbag from behind the door, emptied out all the books and started shoving clothes roughly into in. I figured she wouldn’t mind the wrinkles, having somewhat bigger problems to deal with, such as an insane abusive stepdad and an unemployed mother.
Once again I glanced at the list but couldn’t read what it said. I walked over to the window but there was a gauze thing stapled to the edges that I couldn’t pull back, which ruined the light, so instead I went to the bed and sat on the edge, turning on the bedside lamp. It was a high wattage, but Jenny’s scrawl was indecipherable.
Then I heard footsteps on the landing and froze. Jake was supposed to be downstairs. Who was in the hall? I hadn’t heard a car but then Hancroft wouldn’t be driving if he’d been to the pub. Had he been asleep all along? A cold sweat broke out on my skin and my heartbeat started to race.
‘Taylor? Taylor, where are you?’
I breathed out in relief and immediately felt like an idiot.
‘In here,’ I called, having a sudden flash of genius and laying myself out on the bed on my side, facing the door.
Jake poked his head around the door and frowned. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Draw me,’ I said, reaching one hand behind my head, ‘like one of your French girls.’
Despite the gravity of the situation, it was the comic relief we both needed and we snorted with laughter.
‘I’m glad you’re taking this seriously,’ Jake said, coming over and sitting on the bed by my head. ‘It’s not like we’re breaking the law or anything.’
‘Oh calm down,’ I said, overcompensating for my earlier panic. ‘I’ve got everything on my list except for this one last thing I can’t make out.’ I handed it to him. ‘Can you read it?’
Jake squinted at the page but shook his head. ‘Nope. Do you think it’s important?’
‘I doubt she would have put it on the list if it weren’t,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘I think that’s a P,’ I said, reaching across him and pointing to the first letter of the first word. ‘And that’s definitely a H.’
‘I thought that was an R,’ Jake argued.
‘The P or the H?’
‘Both.’
‘This is getting us nowhere.’
‘Well maybe if you sat up. I can’t think straight with you... Like that.’
‘Like what?’
Jake scowled. ‘You know what.’
‘I genuinely don’t.’
‘You look distracting, okay?’
‘You want my body,’ I smirked.
Jake growled. ‘Shut up.’
I stretched out catlike. After two years of him teasing me with his body at any given time, I had no concept of when it was appropriate to return the favour now that I knew I could. ‘Mmm,’ I moaned, pretending to enjoy my stretch, which was so exaggerated that my shirt rode up exposing a few inches of skin.
‘Stop that,’ Jake hissed, shifting uncomfortably. Who knew it was so easy to make the boy hard? ‘This is so not the time...’
But I could tell he was giving up from the way he was staring fixedly at my abdomen.
‘You have a dirty mind, Jake Chaplain,’ I said, sitting up suddenly, but I reached across and put my hand on the back of his neck bringing him forward for a kiss. I captured his lips with mine and kissed him long and lingeringly.
‘Did we do enough of this like an hour ago?’ Jake protested, but he was kissing me back more eagerly than I’d kissed him in the first place.
‘You might have had enough,’ I retorted pointedly, and licked his bottom lip.
‘Oh, so that’s how it is,’ Jake answered, pushing me back roughly so I was lying on the bed with him hovering over me. ‘Let’s see how we can even things up then.’ His rationality and caution were gone, and his eyes were dark with desire. He placed his hands on either side of my head and his knees at either side of my hips but didn’t touch me with his body, only leaning down to kiss me hungrily.
Now that he had given up the role of responsibility I knew I should put a stop to what was happening, but I could feel the electricity off of Jake’s body even though he wasn’t touching me, and I let myself go. Hancroft wouldn’t be home til after closing time which was more than twelve hours away, and not even a Tae Kwon Do master would have the self control to last that long if Jake was kissing him the way he was kissing me know. I could feel myself hardening as his cool lips pressed against mine, and my hips bucked involuntarily, craving his touch.
Jake smirked. ‘Just for all that,’ he said referencing my earlier retort, ‘I’m gonna tease you.’ Still careful not to touch me, Jake tugged my shirt off over my head, then untied the string on my board shorts and tugged them down and off, leaving my boxers on. Then he ran his fingers across my bulge so lightly it was almost painful, and I turned to stone. I moaned, clutching the pink sheets as he cupped his hand around my erection. I tried to push towards his palm with my hips, but he took his hand away and leaned up to kiss me again. He kissed down my jawbone to my soft spot behind my ear, and his breath tickled and teased me. I was squirming with unrealised pleasure now, and I reached down and grabbed his hand, trying to bring it back to my crotch.
‘Not yet,’ Jake whispered, pulling his hand away, and he bit my earlobe gently.
‘Jake,’ I moaned; this was the sweetest kind of torture.
He kissed slowly across my chest, licking my hardened nipple, and down to the waistband of my boxers. Then he slipped his hands under the waistband and slowly tugged them off completely, throwing them on the ground beside my shorts. I was completely naked now, laid out of the bed in front of him. Jake sat back and looked at me, and I blushed. I’m toned, but my body was nothing compared to his.
‘So adorable,’ he whispered, coming in to kiss me again, and his hand trailed slowly across my sensitised skin and finally wrapped around my erection. My hips bucked again, needing a release, but Jake just stroked it slowly and lightly. He pulled back from the kiss again and positioned himself lower down on my body. He bent down and blew slightly on my dick, which was dribbling pre-cum.
I groaned in frustration until Jake lowered his mouth and kissed the tip, then took my full length into his mouth and started sucking up and down my shaft. One hand was slowly pumping the base while with the other he ran a finger lightly across my hole. I started moaning and pushing my hips forward involuntarily; the warm wetness of his mouth felt incredible. After a few moments I started gasping.
‘Move your head,’ I spat out, but Jake continued sucking me and I exploded in his mouth; he swallowed the lot. I breathed heavily, and he crawled back up and kissed me again, then lay on my chest, wrapping his arms and legs around my naked body.
‘Happy now?’ he asked, smirking.
‘You’re the most evil person in the world,’ I groaned, my body still shaking with pleasure. ‘I love you.’
Jake nipped at the skin on my chest once. ‘I love you too.’
‘Well that was horrifying,’ said a decidedly unmasculine voice, and we both bolted upright, Jake edging quickly in front of me to hide my modesty. We both relaxed slightly when we saw Kelly standing at the door, leaning against the frame.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Jake asked harshly. ‘And how long have you been here?’
Kelly scowled and came to sit on the bed, making me more than a little uncomfortable. ‘Jenny forgot to put something on the list and she insisted we come back and get it – she figured you two would already be gone since you weren’t answering your mobiles. But of course you’re not already gone and it’s now clear exactlywhy neither of you were picking up.’ She paused and regarded us severely. ‘Seriously? In her bed?’ She grinned, ‘Nice one,’ and held up her hand for a high five, which neither of us gave her; me, because both my hands were currently cupped around my private parts, and Jake because he was staring at her incredulously.
‘Get out!’ he finally spluttered.
Kelly rolled her eyes again. ‘Fine, get dressed, whatever. But Jenny’s downstairs so make it fast.’
As soon as the door was shut behind her, I turned and buried my face in the pink sheets, groaning in embarrassment. ‘How much do you think she saw?’ I asked the duvet.
‘Nothing, if she knows what’s god for her,’ Jake muttered darkly, picking up my clothes and handing them to me. ‘Uh,’ he said, looking at the ground and scuffing his foot against the carpet. ‘Sorry.’
‘Worth it,’ I said truthfully, meeting his gaze, and we both grinned sheepishly. I tugged on my clothes quickly, and there was a knock on the door.
‘Can I come back in yet?’ Kelly whined.
Jake walked over an wrenched the door open. ‘What now?’ I don’t know if it was embarrassment at getting caught in the act or annoyance at getting interrupted, but he was particularly aggressive with Kelly now.
‘The thing Jenny is looking for is her DS,’ Kelly said scornfully. ‘Can you believe it? We’ll miss the next flight over this fucking DS. Anyway, she asked me to look around in here for it. And also to see if you guys are still here.’ Kelly grinned. ‘I didn’t tell her.’
‘Come on,’ Jake huffed. ‘Let’s just find the stupid Nintendo.’ He went to the bedside table and I walked over to the desk and opened the drawer again. I pulled out the crumpled papers and dumped them on the desk, poking around in the remaining debris to see if the compact was in there. My hand touched off something soft and wet and I withdrew it quickly, and I grimaced. I looked in more closely and poked some old eyeliners, a Kinder Egg toy, and some fluff and dirt out of the way, and picked up the wet slimy thing gingerly.
I nearly threw up when I saw it, for a multitude of reasons.
‘Um,’ I said loudly, getting the twins’ attention. ‘Jake?’ I turned around the relatively fresh and filled condom dangling from my thumb and forefinger.
Kelly’s eyes widened and she looked from me to him and back a few times.
‘Not mine,’ Jake said hurriedly, shaking his head. ‘I swear.’
‘Nor mine,’ Kelly added, unnecessarily. ‘Shit, Jack, how many people does your girlfriend have on the go?’
I looked for somewhere to drop the condom, disgusted.
‘And why the fuck did she keep it?’ Kelly went on. ‘What. A weirdo.’
My eyes landed on the bunch of crumpled papers I’d dumped on the desk and I reached to grab some. I don’t know how it happened or why my gaze happened to land on those five words at the bottom of one of the pages, but it did.
With all my love, Peter.
Confused, I picked up the letter and smoothed it out. Kelly and Jake were still bickering behind me, but I was lost in the letter, becoming more and more confused and horrified with each sentence.
‘Guys,’ I said, ‘I think you need to see this.’
I handed the letter to Jake and after a second he began to read it aloud.
‘My darling love, Jenny,’ he began in a strangled voice.
Just then there was a crash downstairs, followed by a voice that definitely wasn’t Jenny’s speaking loudly, answered by a squeak that definitely was. All three of us turned to look at each other, horrified. Peter Hancroft was home.