Lizzie and the After School Club

Hope its Lizzie. Please let it be Lizzie. I looked up and down the line of girls, desperately hoping I’d get Lizzie.

The boys and girls were in two lines facing each other across The Den, a big dark space in the heart of a massive wild rhododendron bush in the scrubby wasteland behind the estate, and we were about to have our first Sexual Education lesson.

Lizzie was standing with her head down, shoulders hunched forward, staring in fear at the empty space between the two lines. She was doing her best not to be noticed; she always tried not to be noticed. And it always worked: nobody ever noticed Lizzie.

Thinking about it, I only really remember just one episode of Lizzie joining in when we were younger, back when the boys and girls still played together: we played Cowboys and Indians and we’d tied Lizzie to a tree and everyone else had thought it really funny to leave her tided up when they went home for lunch. I was wracked by guilt and secretly ran back to untie her but she refused to believe that the game was over and refused to believe she’d been left by the others. I was a Cowboy, I was supposed to be guarding her not rescuing her, and she’d clung on to the two ends of the rope holding herself against the tree. I tried to reason with her but – away from the others – she was head-strong and clever. In the end I sat glumly nearby until, after ages of waiting, she gave in and asked dispiritedly “they really have left me, haven’t they?”

We raced back to the estate, late for lunch, and when we got to the edge of the wasteland we stopped, bent double, panting. When we’d caught our breath she straightened up and asked “why did you help me? Why didn’t you leave me too?” and I said “my mum told me to be nice to girls” which was the simpleton kind of thing I had in my head at that age. That was the only real memory I had of Lizzie. For such a small estate and for such a small group of kids, she really was invisible to all of us and always had been.

When puberty hit the girls stopped playing and went off to do their own thing. We lived on a new and isolated council estate built quite a way out on the edge of town and we were the oldest kids there, so the girls didn’t get to chase the older boys because there weren’t any. But they sure weren’t very interested in the boys their own age.

Eventually us boys stopped playing hide and seek too. Our games evolved. We spent a lot of time hanging out in The Den planning how to acquire booze, porn mags and cigarettes. We only really succeeded getting fags, but I was always too scared of my mum to dare come home smelling of smoke. I was the wimp in our gang. Oh, and we rated the girls. That was now our favourite game. Just because the girls weren’t interested in us didn’t mean we weren’t interested in them, and every hang-out ended with us fantasizing about fucking them.

My mind snapped back to now. I looked up the line. At its head was Maddie. She had a sweet face, golden locky hair to her shoulders and wide hips. But it was her boobies and the way she flaunted them to everyone all the time that made all the boys want to fuck her most. She was the ring leader of the girls, and to hear her talk she’d been sexually active since forever. Next to her was Emma, second in command and swearing every other word. Emma had even bigger breasts, massive jugs, but a plainer face and slightly plumper all over and was second in the boys fuck list. The girls were basically lined up in fuckability order. Next to Emma was Sarah and Cathy, Sarah being by far the prettiest with long straight perfect jet-black hair but dressing and acting more respectably and less obviously up for it, while Cathy seemed up for anything but was the plainest. After Cathy came Lizzie, last, trying to not get noticed. Us boys almost never even bothered to rate her, she was that invisible.

I was watching Lizzie intently now. I hadn’t ever really looked at her before. She was actually quite pretty. Pretty tall too, as tall as me if she would just stand upright. Her small delicately featured face with its tiny button nose was framed by her wavy mousy brown curly hair hanging like curtains all the way down to her shoulders. She had a very long neck but it looked elegant and delicate. She was slender. In fact she was skinny. She always wore baggy sweaters and, with her always bending forward with her shoulders hunched, there was no hint of breast. I was looking at her like I’d seen her for the first time ever. But I wasn’t rating her: I was feeling really sorry for her. Pit-of-the-stomach sorry for her. She didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to do this, and I was hoping I’d get given her so I could protect her. I was scared of what the other boys would do with her, what the other boys would make her do, and she looked shit scared of all of us too.

This was all Maddie’s idea. Maddie had finally decided that, as there were no eligible older boys on the estate, the boys her age would have to do. Being fifth-years we’d all just had our first sex education lessons at school and whilst they’d gone into detail on how babies develop from an egg in the womb they hadn’t touched at all on how the sperm reached the egg in the first place. So Maddie had decided she’d lead the instruction in practical Sexual Education instead. It was Sunday, this was Maddie’s Sunday School, and the first lesson was to be french kissing.

I’d never kissed a girl before and here were the girls lined up in fuckability order. But actually I wasn’t feeling very randy right now, I was feeling nervous. Scared, even. Suddenly Maddie and Emma’s assets weren’t appealing at all – rather, their up-for-it attitude was a turn-off, intimidating, disgusting. Sarah of course had a very pretty face and perfect lips but she seemed bored, uninterested, unimpressed.

I wasn’t really listening to the instructions. I was too busy feeling awful on Lizzie’s behalf. Lizzie looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her up. I wanted to stick up for her but thatt was silly, I wasn’t going to dare do anything.

To my surprise – I should have been listening more – we weren’t paired up. Instead, Maddie wanted the first kiss from each boy so the girls were going to work their way along the boy line so every girl kissed every boy with Maddie leading.

I forgot about Lizzie as I turned with everyone else to watch Maddie kiss Jamie. The boys were also lined up in pecking order and I was on the end, the least willing bad boy. Jamie was the baddest boy and our ring leader and the most vocal in rating the girls and nicking fags, and I think he and Maddie kind of had a thing going. They had probably kissed before. They kissed for a long time, their mouths locked and tongues pushing out each others cheeks. But there was no hands, no other touching, no embrace.

Then Maddie moved on to Simon, our second in command. Again she stood in front of him and leaned in and kissed him and, after a few seconds, he started to push back. As their jaws worked the temperature in The Den seemed to be raising. The watchers started to giggle. Emmas keenness overwhelmed her and she quickly rushed to attack Jamie. And so they worked along the line. As Maddie got closer and closer to me, so another girl would go first to Jamie and then Simon and so on. As expected, Sarah gave an almost perfunctory peck on the lips, no tongues and no passion. Sarah had probably been pressured into being here. But Emma and Cathy mashed their faces lustfully into each boy and sucked their lips off.

Now Maddie broke from Dave and took one pace sideways to stop right in front of me. The dread in the pit of my stomach had been growing each time she got closer. We were just far enough apart that we’d both have to lean forwards slightly. She had a wild crazy needy look in her eyes and her mouth was gaping open, slobbered and glistening. She lunged quickly forward, her puckered lips colliding with mine and her tongue jabbing hard trying to violate me. I felt a swell of nervous bile pushing upwards into my throat.

Suddenly Maddie broke off. Jamie was cursing and we turned towards him to see what the matter was. He was looking straight past us imploring “come on Lizzie, my turn, you can’t chicken out now!” I looked back to where Lizzie had been earlier. She was in exactly the same place, rooted in exactly the same spot, staring at the same patch of dead ground, waiting for the earth to swallow her up.

Everyone had stopped snogging and was staring at Lizzie. Her head stayed tilted downwards but her eyes jerked up, scanning us all with scared wild eyes. Then she turned and ran.

There was stunned silence. Then Maddie said aggressively “that frigid bitch better not tell on us”.

I don’t know what happened next really, it wasn’t a conscious decision, my body just acted itself. I turned and legged it after Lizzie.

I caught up with Lizzie quickly. She wasn’t running any more, just walking very fast, striding homewards very determinedly. She heard my feet pounding the dirt track behind her and turned around, stood her ground, looking me straight in the face as I struggled to brake so as not run into her.

Her face was taunt, her eyes sparkling with aggression. I was shocked – I hadn’t actually really ever seen her face before, not full on, her sharp penetrating stare. “Sent to fetch me back, were you? I’m not going back. I’m not kissing the others.” she spat. Then her fists clenched and punched down towards the ground and stomped with both feet together as she shouted over my shoulder back towards The Den “I’m going home and you’re not going to fucking stop me you cunts”.

Suddenly, at that precise moment, the heavens opened and there was an instant torrential downpour. The sun was shining brightly but right over us there was a massive charcoal cloud and, just like that, it was instantly pouring down rain. Lizzie jerked skywards, the rain streaming down her upturned face and without missing a beat shouted “and fuck you too God you cunt”.

There was a pause. She looked back down at me, grinning. Then the grin faded. We looked warily at each other. “Sorry”, I said. Then “I wasn’t sent to get you. I came to say sorry”. She looked surprised, she looked confused. “What have you, of all people, got to be sorry for Will?”

I paused. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing chasing after her. “Our mum says…” I reverted to form. “That you should be nice to girls?” she finished, smiling bemused. So she remembered Cowboys and Indians too!

“Are you my knight in shining armour, Will?” she giggled. The transformation to her face was total. I’d only ever seen the shy Lizzie before, and now I’d seen the angry fight-not-flee Lizzie and the happy smiley Lizzie in the space of just a few seconds.

It really was pouring with rain. She turned back towards the estate and said “great, now we’re soaked”. She started to walk slowly resignedly back home. A few seconds later I followed, single-file as the path was narrow. It was raining and I was looking where I was going but mostly I was staring at Lizzie’s skinny but wide little wiggly bottom as she walked, her long legs and the wide gap between her thighs which I’d never noticed before.

Suddenly my head kicked in and I shouted “wait! Its always dry under that tree”. I pointed to a leaning tree just on the edge of the path level with Lizzie. She looked over her shoulder back towards me, looked back at the path home, and then looked at the tree. “Ok” was all she said. We pushed through the undergrowth and took shelter under the tree.

We sat hunched in silence under the leaning trunk. We were wet but we were sheltered. She was hugging her knees and staring at the ground, looking shy again. Her hair was damp and limp, wisps stuck to her face by the wetness. I didn’t know how to strike up a conversation. Suddenly she shivered. My brain shook back to life. “Here, take my coat” I said, hurriedly taking off my thin jacket and putting it around her shoulders. She looked up and transfixed me with a piecing giggly stare “You sure you’re not my knight, Will?”. She shuffled closer and lifted the coat up over my shoulder too and said “We can share”.

We sat hunched up beside each other under that tree while it rained. The rain hammered on the leaves above us. Some spatters of rain got through and hit us. I didn’t know what to say again. We were both staring at the ground ahead of us.

Suddenly Lizzie broke the silence and asked, in a mild curious conversational tone “so who was the best kisser?”. “I only kissed Maddie, or rather she kissed me and I didn’t like it” I said. I said it without thinking. I realise now as I write this that Lizzie somehow bypasses my conscious brain, that voice in my head that examines everything I say before I say it, filtering out anything shocking. With Lizzie I just blurt out what I’m thinking, somehow before I’ve even had a chance to think it.

“Do you want to?” she asked. I looked up. She was watching me intently. “Do I want to what?” I asked stupidly. “Practice kissing” she clarified really quietly, as though she couldn’t quite believe she was saying it. She was looking down again, but not away; her eyes were locked on my lips. I suddenly noticed her hair. The sun playing through the leaves and the rain was making her hair glow. And I could smell her, the clean smell of shampoo and soap. I was still. She lent forward and just as her little button nose pressed past mine I lurched forward locking our lips together. I had instinctively closed my eyes and focused on the sweet sensation of our touching lips.

It was just lips, that first kiss, but it was magic. She broke off for breath, and we looked into each others eyes and smiled like we were sharing a guilty secret.