Page 12 of Electric Boy

Definitely probably not again.

Bugger all…

Chapter Eight: If There Is Something

1975

Roxy Music floated lazily through the air, the music as lackadaisical as the thick, golden afternoon sunlight that caught the slow-moving dust motes in Rahul’s bedroom. The two boys lay horizontally across the bed. Two parallel lines, so near yet not quite touching. Rahul gazed unseeingly at the uneven surface of his ceiling as Bryan Ferry crooned out of the little blue record player on his nightstand. It was a muggy, stifling summer’s day, and Rahul felt uncomfortably sticky in his clothes. He found himself unable to relax the way his friend seemed to, too worried that he might begin to smell and put the other boy off.

Julian’s fingers traced the music’s notes through the heavy air and Rahul’s eyes were drawn to them, entranced by their unpredictable patterns. Julian reminded him of a toasted almond. He was all one rich golden colour -- skin tanned from his outdoor sports, hair bleached lighter from the sun. His long, skinny, brown legs stretched out from the football kit he still wore, with a pale band of lizard-belly-white skin visible just at the top of his thighs where his shorts had ridden up. The heat under Rahul’s collar seemed to be intensifying. He tugged on it and mentally cursed this wretchedly hot day.

“They’re brilliant, aren’t they?” Julian breathed. The whole day felt hushed. Even the birds outside the window were muted under the heavy blanket of summer’s heat.

“Yeah,” Rahul agreed succinctly. He liked Roxy Music just fine. He preferred his dad’s old jazz records, but he wasn’t about to tell Julian that. He didn’t want the boy to think him uncool -- even if he very much was.

Julian’s hand slowly descended and came to rest idly on his stomach. Rahul was grateful. It had been making him dizzy.

“You know what I heard from Leroy?”

Rahul turned his head to look at him. Julian was gazing down thoughtfully, his pose making his eyelashes spread out over his cheeks. Rahul couldn’t understand how his hair could be so light but eyelashes so dark. They often gave Julian a girlish appearance.

“Leroy said he got off with Helen Pruneridge in the shed behind the football pitch.”

“He didn’t,” Rahul scoffed. Leroy was a well known liar. Also, he was spotty. There wasn’t a chance in hell Helen Pruneridge would give him the time of day.

“He did too,” Julian insisted. “He had details and everything.” The way he said “everything” somehow added a “k” to the end of it. “He isn’t smart enough to come up with details like that if it didn’t happen.”

Rahul snorted, but he let Julian go on. Clearly the smaller boy was in a mood to share.

“He said they kissed. With tongues and everything.”

“How was it?”

“He said it was weird at first, but then it was kinda nice. Said it was wet.”

The boys fell into a contemplative silence, each trying to imagine what a wet kiss with tongues might feel like.

“You reckon we ought to practice before we do a first real kiss with a girl?”

Rahul’s heart sped up behind his ribs but he tried valiantly to ignore it. “Who says I haven’t kissed anybody yet?”

Julian gave him an incredulous look. “Yesterday, you told me you had a dream where your mum’s tits turned into barracudas and tried to eat you. You don’t think you’d have told me if you’d had a first kiss?”

“I kissed my cousin Amrita when we were seven.”

“That doesn’t count!” Julian waved a dismissive hand. “In nursery school, I kissed Dan McBryer on the roundabout. You think I go around saying that was my first kiss? Get stuffed. I mean a proper kiss. Like with a real girl.”

“All right, so I haven’t. Whatever. You haven’t either.”

“I know, you knob! That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying, shouldn’t we practice or something? So that we, like… aren’t bad at it or anything? When it really does count?”

“Wh-who should we practice with?” Rahul stuttered, pretending to study his fingernails with a nonchalance he didn’t feel.

“I dunno.” The duvet shifted as Julian shrugged. “Probably somebody we can trust or… or whatever. Like, I dunno, with us being best mates and all… if we practised kissing it wouldn’t count or anything. It’d just be practice. So then we won’t be rubbish when we really care about who we’re kissing. And we can, like, impress them. Or something.”

Rahul was suddenly very aware of the place where Julian’s bare leg was brushing his. He imagined he’d be able to feel the tickle of the golden hairs there if he weren’t wearing trousers either. He bit his lip hard, trying to use the pain to steer his thoughts back on course.

“Erm, yeah, that, uh…” Rahul’s words seemed to be getting stuck in his throat on the way up. He couldn’t quite think. The heat was turning his brain to mush and his heart couldn’t seem to stop its infernal throbbing. “That’s probably a -- a good idea. Just so we’re not rubbish. And it doesn’t count.”