“I said your curls were cute. I didn’t say you were.” He laughs. “You areformidable.” He gives the last word a French twist, sounding out all four syllables distinctly.
Jasmine stills. She thinks it is the nicest compliment anyone has ever given her. And suddenly, it is important to her to know. She lays her hands on the table. “What are we doing here?” she asks.
Ben looks around the restaurant and raises an eyebrow. “Eating?” he ventures.
“Cute.” She looks him directly in the eye. “No, I mean, what is this? Us? Are we just friends, or is this a date?”
“We’re friends,” he replies, and Jasmine gulps. “But if you let me kiss you at the end of the night, it might become a date.”
Jasmine smiles. For the first time, she feels in control. “Wait and see.”
But when they are standing together at her door, Jasmine no longer feels like playing games. She slides her arms around his neck and lifts her face to meet his. He lowers his head so slowly, his breath whispering along her lips, raising goosebumps over her body. When they touch, there is an explosion inside, heat searing through every artery and vein, spreading arousal in its wake. Jasmine lets out her breath. She has never had a kiss like this before. Her hands move over shoulders wider than she is used to, her fingers feeling muscles more powerful, and in that instant, she realises Ben Khan is no boy to be dallied with, taken out when she has need of amusement and put away when she is occupied with other matters. No, Ben Khan is a full-grown man who could hi-jack her life.
When they pull apart, both of them appear a little stunned. This time, when Jasmine stammers out an invitation to coffee, Ben accepts and both of them realise no hot drinks will be involved.
The Khan Clan
From that first time, the relationship develops. At the next lecture for Globalisation vs Democracy, Jasmine takes her usual seat and is surprised to find Ben comes to sit beside her. His mate with the cornrows settles on the other side of him and his group of friends arrange themselves along the row. So easily is Jasmine assimilated into their group, she scarcely notices it has happened.
Sean, though, is less accepting. The first time he sees Ben in their flat, in nothing but his underpants, is a shock for Jasmine, who has not admitted the extent of her infatuation, which is moving at lightning speed. Sean waits until Ben has departed to pull Jasmine into a chair and warn her about fuckboys like Ben, repeating a lot of her own advice to him in the process. But she has never been so sure of anything in her life as she is about her love for Ben. Sean – who had his heart broken in the first year, who sobbed for days on Jasmine’s shoulder – has a different view. He sees Jasmine loves wholeheartedly, as only those who have never known true heartbreak can love. He knows wholehearted love is dangerous because it can so easily break a person into little pieces when it goes wrong. But how is Jasmine to understand?
Raised since birth with the experience of her parents’ happily-ever-after, it never occurs to Jasmine that her story could be otherwise. Jasmine loves Ben and Ben loves Jasmine. For her, it is simple. Sean’s words of caution are ignored. His entreaties not to lose contact with her friends, her people, are misconstrued. Instead of spending time away from her lover, mixing with her own clan, Jasmine keeps trying to drag Sean into Ben's coterie. Jasmine is certain she has found her life-partner. Proof comes as they lie in bed one morning toward the end of the winter term.
“I wish we didn't have to be apart over this holiday,” she sighs as she idly twists his chest hair around her fingers.
“Then let's not,” he says simply.
“What do you mean?”
He turns on his side to face her. “Come home with me for Christmas. You could meet my mum and dad.”
To Jasmine, it sounds like a divine plan. She imagines dinner table discussions on the important business of holding the government to account for its iniquities, calls with some of the most powerful people in the land, and constituents dropping in with urgent concerns. The chance to meet and learn from one of her idols is enticing. She compares the ordinariness of her own family’s Christmas with her aunt and her boring boy cousins and their endless competition over inane imaginary wargames and her grandmother espousing views a hair’s breadth short of fascism. Her younger sisters would be vying in discontentedness over their unwrapped presents and her elder sisters would be perfunctory in their thanks. Christmas with Ben and real people, who work for a living, would be amazing.
Then Ben grunts. “I’m sorry. That’s selfish of me. You have a big family. You’ll want to be with all of them.”
And Jasmine knows the time to come clean has arrived. “Not really,” she mumbles into his armpit. “I don’t think my family is like yours. I’d quite like a grown-up Christmas for once.”
“Do you mean your little sisters?” He twists his neck and kisses the top of her head. “I’d love to have siblings. Think of all those extra presents under the tree.”
“All the crap under the tree, you mean? I can tell you now what each present will be. Eleanor will get me a truly hideous jumper, knitted by some women’s co-operative she thinks I’d support. Anna’s present will be edible or drinkable, picked up on the way to the railway station. Lily will get me some airy-fairy romance book she absolutely loved. Phoebe will get me a gift she wants and I hate, and when I don’t use it, she’ll appropriate it so it isn’t wasted. The whole thing will be totally fake and completely wasteful. And don’t forget, I have to buy them equal amounts of crap, too. Last year I gave them all charity subscriptions. You should have seen their faces,” she giggles. “To be fair, Lily genuinely loved her Adopt-an-Orangutan.”
“What about your mum and dad?”
“They give a combined present because my dad is, of course, far too busy for shopping. Which means my mother is in charge of all things Christmas.” Jasmine moves her fingers to stroke down his side, trying to tickle him, as if the lightness of her touch will balance the heaviness of her words. “So my present will be skincare, haircare, or weight loss. Something to improve me. I’m the ugliest of the family and my mother finds it difficult to live with it.”
“Ugly? Don’t say things like that. You are perfect as you are, and your mum can sod off.” His hand tips her chin up and his lips skim hers before settling on kissing the corners of her mouth. She accepts his reassurance, although she doesn’t need it. Jasmine is merely telling the truth. Despite her mother’s conviction, Jasmine has never felt a lesser human for being born plain. She is aware some of Ben’s friends think he is out of her league, but as Ben himself does not think it, Jasmine is content. She believes in his sincerity and is confident his love is the equal of hers. Nevertheless, she is more comfortable moving the conversation away from her level of beauty.
“At least she doesn’t make me go to church anymore. Not since I sang off-key very loudly through all the hymns.”
“Are your folks super-religious, then?” Ben looks interested, as if he’s found an oddity.
“Not at all. It’s just expected the family support the local church.” Jasmine fortifies herself before continuing. “One of my ancestors built it and it’s on my family’s land.”
“On your land? How much land do you have?” Ben sounds suspicious.
“Not my land, my family’s,” Jasmine corrects. “I’m not sure – a few thousand acres, maybe. The Park is five hundred itself and then there are a few farms dotted about, some forests, some scrubland.”
“The Park? Jasmine, who exactly are your parents?” Ben asks. It is the moment she has been dreading.
