The Tabatha Diaries – Ch 6

It is surprising, and a little disappointing, to look back on my first time with Tabatha, and realise that a lot of details have been lost in the intervening years. I remember the feel of her wet skin in the shower; our first tongue kiss; my knees buckling as her soapy hand touched me between the legs; her pink bedroom, the teasing and the squeaky bed. Most of all I remember how she just switched off afterwards, as if it was nothing and I was nothing.

I remember at the time thinking that sex did not feel as strange and new as I was expecting. Unlike my other firsts, there was no pre-cursor dream. And yet I had that feeling that I was doing something that I had done before. It did not feel like I was losing my virginity.

I know now that the condom would have muted the sensations. Particularly a cheap one from a vending machine. They are not the most sheer. And I had bought a regular size, because that was all they had. That was why it was so hard to get on. It probably strangled me. I hadn’t worn a condom before, so I didn’t know what to expect.

For weeks afterwards, Tabatha avoided situations where we might talk privately. And in front of Mum, she maintained – and even escalated – the level of hostility. She didn’t come to visit me.

To be fair, it was a busy time for Tabatha. She was getting towards the pointy end of her schooling and started to get more serious about study. She was also learning to drive and looking for every opportunity to get her hours up. On occasions when Mum might have gone out shopping and given us some time alone together, Tabatha was now going along with Mum for the driving experience.

She also got a job. Or rather, Mum got her a job. Tabatha worked at the make-up counter of a department store at a nearby shopping centre. When she came home from work in her uniform, with her hair tied back and her face made up with some new colour of lipstick or eye shadow or rouge, she was no longer a schoolgirl. She looked like a woman. And she was more beautiful. Her complexion was so pale and her natural beauty was so subtle, that a bit of make-up and colour completely transformed her face.

She was always tired and going to bed early, or going to her room to study.

There were lots of reasons why she didn’t come to my room any more. But that didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but I had a crush on my sister. The way she shunned me during that time made me lovesick. I needed to talk to her.

Finally, one night, while Mum was busy baking in the kitchen, I went to Tabatha’s room.

“Come in,” she called out, after I knocked. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

“I just want to talk to you, Tabatha. We haven’t talked since that day. You haven’t come to play.”

“I’ve got this Biology assignment due tomorrow. I’m busy, Andy. I can’t talk now.”

I’d been polite and held back for weeks now. I wasn’t going to let her brush me off. Not easily anyway. I went up to her as she resumed scribbling in a notebook at her desk. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“I miss you, Tabatha.” There was perhaps more emotion in my voice than I had intended.

“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, and swatted my hand away with hers, looking beyond me to her bedroom door to check that Mum wasn’t watching. When she turned to face me, I could see smouldering anger. The blood drained cold from my heart.

“I told you not to come to me, and you come to me!” She spoke in a venomous whisper. “I told you not to fuck me, and you fuck me!” She stood up to face me and I backed away. “I made two simple rules, Andy, and you’ve broken both of them! And now you’re getting all clingy and you want to talk? Well, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to talk about. You had your chance, and you blew it. Now get out of my room and don’t ever come back in here again!”

I was stunned and horrified.

“GET OUT!!!”

I went down the hall to my room, walking faster and faster, and finally running to make it to my pillow in time to catch the flood of tears and muffle the howl of anguish.

The following weeks passed in a fog of pain and self-pity. I avoided Tabatha more than she had avoided me. I practised on my electric guitar in my room and listened to Coldplay. The music was more mournful and the lyrics were more meaningful than before.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, I got a call one night from Jo, just after dinner. Mum looked bemused as she handed me the phone. After some awkward pleasantries, Jo explained.

“You’re probably wondering why I called. I was watching an old James Bond movie on Foxtel and he ordered a martini, like he always does. They come in such a cool glass, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, tentatively, wondering where this was headed.

“I can’t wait till I’m old enough to go to a cocktail bar and order a martini. That would be so cool, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” The poor girl. I didn’t give her much to work with.

“Anyway,” she ploughed on regardless, “in the movie, the martini has a green olive on a toothpick. And it’s a stuffed olive, with a red thing in it. And I want to know what the red thing is. And no one in my family knows what it is. My dad says he used to know, but he’s forgotten, and Lisa said you would know because you know everything.” She pauses because she has run out of breath.

“It’s a pimento.” I can hear Jo turning away from the phone to talk to someone in the background.

“He says it’s a pimento, Dad.” Then speaking back into the phone to me, “Dad says you’re right. What’s a pimento, Andy? Can you eat it?”

“It’s a red pepper. It’s like a bit of capsicum.”

“Oh, I can eat that. You’re very clever, Andy. How do you know stuff like that? Lisa was right about you.”

We ended up talking for nearly an hour. Without the distraction of her beautiful eyes and her hidden bust, I was able to concentrate and have a proper conversation with Jo for the first time. The fact that I knew the answer to her question seemed to validate her call and we forgot that it was just a silly pretext. She overcame her initial verbal diarrhoea and became quite coherent. Although, she continued to play dumb from time to time to flatter me. It worked.

We talked about how we both liked swimming and lying in the sun and we both missed summer already. Jo suggested we meet at the local public swimming pool the following Saturday. It would be a poor substitute for the beach, but it was heated and indoors. It didn’t really sound like a date, but it sounded to me like a good excuse to see Jo in a swimsuit. So I wasn’t going to say “no”.

I am wearing my boardies. I am changed first and I wait on the pool side of the women’s changing rooms for Jo to appear. When she does, she is wearing a one-piece swimsuit that is a metallic grey blue, the colour of the sea under cloudy skies. It is very stylish and flattering, with a plunging neck line. It’s like a bikini, but with the bra and panties united at the front by a panel of lycra that narrows more than her waist and reveals the soft outline of her hour glass figure.