He chuckled at this. “It will get easier once you’ve had a chat with Kelly.”
“The girls filled me in. You can nail whoever is willing, just don’t let it interfere with work.”
“Sort of. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Plenty of people are in relationships, have kids, they just tend to hang in the married quarters on the other side of the compound. Things can get a little…intense in the mess hall.” As if to support what he said, I heard a high shriek that dissolved into a giggle as we passed the back end of the hall. “It’s up to you.”
I stopped walking and turned to face him. Maybe because in the darkness Shaun just became some dark anonymous figure, but now I felt much more comfortable talking about the whole situation. I was too tired to bullshit. I’d maintained a veneer of sanity over my overwhelming free-floating anxiety all day, so I hit him with it. “Y’see that’s what weirds me out. Like, where I was from, small town, small gene pool, finding someone who wasn’t your cousin who you were attracted to was hard work. When I got laid, it was like I’d climbed a mountain or achieved something momentous beside an orgasm, y’know.”
“OK.”
“You don’t get it, you can’t, I guess. But it’s like I went from that to here, where every kind of guy I could possibly want is on display, and so many of them act like they’d be grateful for the chance to explore whatever sexual fantasy I can think of. I mean, you were like that within ten seconds of me getting there.”
He took a step closer but stayed shrouded in darkness, the moon casting shadows on his face. “I was.”
“And y’know, instead of checking your family tree for possible incest, I just see the body and the hair and…”
“And…?” His voice came out in the low rasp that he’d used before.
I shivered and backed up. “And I’m going to bed.”
“Julie,” he caught my wrist, stopping me from walking off, but letting go the moment I stopped. “Look, I’m not going to try and get into your pants tonight, you’ve made it clear that’s off the table. But if you stay here, this is kind of important.”
“What’s important? That I feel like I’m punching above my weight here? Seriously, if insecurities are important, I’m a fucking VIP.”
“Julie.” He slowly reached out, then ran a hand through my hair, tangling his fingers in it. He didn’t move any closer, like this was enough for now. “If I have what you’re saying right, you are feeling a bit weirded out by finding so many guys attractive? The fellas would be stoked to hear that…” I gasped at that, thinking about the consequences of opening my big mouth finally. "But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Working in a very male-dominated environment, we don’t hear that a lot. Maybe if we were a bit more sensitive and New Age, we might compliment a bloke’s six pack or whatever, but usually we’re too elbow deep in mud and grease and shit to worry too much about that. Trust me, that’s a shed full of blokes who’d step over their mothers to hear a woman praise their looks, anything. I mean, Jack’s told me I have a nice arse…”
“Yeah, you do. Totally do.”
“Good to know, but it’s different coming from someone you’d like to see naked. Very, very different, and something we don’t have a lot of opportunity to hear. Something that most of us would go to great lengths to have.”
“Which is like, no pressure at all. God, I am too tired to deal with this weirdness…” I strode off, just wanting to be home.
“Julie.” He caught me around the waist, pulling me close, but not enough that our bodies would touch. “Julie, there’s no pressure, not unless that’s what you want. You’re not seeing it right, love. You’re in control, totally and utterly, right up until the point you don’t want to be. Those guys in there, me, Finn, we have no say unless you say so. With one word, you can tell us not to touch, say or pursue you ever, and it will happen. Every other guy here will make it so, so don’t feel pressured.”
“That’s probably the strangest thing anyone’s ever said,” I said, almost in a whisper. It was so different to my previous experiences with men that I found it virtually impossible to believe. I looked over his shoulder, where I could dimly hear the party going on in the hall. In Melville, girls weren’t raised with that kind of freedom. We were the ones who could get pregnant from teenage indiscretions, so it was up to us to make sure we went out with the ‘right’ guys. Guys who wouldn’t push us, force us, or take what they wanted and leave us to deal with the aftermath.
Parents formed a strange surveillance society, both obsessed with what we were doing and endlessly lecturing their daughters about their responsibilities, whereas sons floated by without constraint, while having no clue what we actually did when they weren’t around. My teenage sexual experiences happened in a totalitarian state. Don’t let guys go too far, don’t lead them on, don’t say no at the last minute, even if you were no longer into what was happening. Good girls didn’t. That loosened up with adulthood obviously, but still, I was bloody discreet when I slept with my trucker. Being grist for the rumour mill in Melville meant severe consequences, until the next person stepped out of line. I looked at Shaun’s dark outline, he seemed to honestly believe what he was saying. If he hadn’t, there wasn’t much to stop him from taking what he wanted here. Would anyone hear me scream? I realised I wasn’t being as careful as I thought I was.
“C’mon,” he said, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get you home. You don’t have to listen to me, you don’t know me from a bar of soap, but Julie…” He turned to look at me in the darkness as we walked up the rise, Buddy gambolling off in the grass. “I’d like the opportunity to change that.”
We arrived at my front porch, my shoulders and left-hand side warm from his contact. I climbed the steps, suddenly shy. What was this? Had this become a date? He followed behind me, slow, watching me the whole time, carefully picking his way towards me and giving me every opportunity to flee inside if that’s what I wanted, something that hadn’t occurred to me until now. He stopped just in front of me, grabbing my hand with his, holding it up, fingers loosely tangled in mine, dropping a brief kiss where our palms met.
“Can I see you again?” he asked in his low husk.
“You’ll see me at w
ork…”
“You know what I mean,” he said, coming closer. I could feel his breath, a mix of mint and tobacco smoke on my skin.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, half in a whisper.
He drew me against him, his groan tickling my ear, his body twisting, almost in a slow, freeform dance. I could feel the hard shift of his muscles against mine as we moved. “Don’t ask me that right now.” His hands ran down my back and up again, restive and shifting, like he didn’t know where to put them. “Julie…” he whispered as his lips trailed along my neck, not quite kissing.
My lungs felt tight in my chest, as if no matter how deeply I breathed, I couldn’t pull in enough air. My heart thundered in my ears, an erratic crashing sound, but none of that mattered. Every sense was attuned to the points where our bodies intersected, the pressure, the caresses all a maelstrom of sensation that held me captive. He said I was in control, but I couldn’t have felt less in control right now. Maybe that’s what spurred me to act. I reached out for his face as if in a daze, almost startled when my hand connected with his neck, my fingers sinking into the raw silk of his hair, thumb resting along the steel curve of his jaw. I felt the muscles flex and shift as my mouth drew closer, as I drew in his breath, so close my lips tingled in response.
I let out a little whimper as I closed the distance between us, brushing my lips against his, evading his attempts to deepen the kiss. I bestowed brief, glancing caresses, until he began to groan in frustration. His hands tightened over my lower back, jerking me hard against him so I could feel how much he wanted this. Him and me both. It felt a bit like losing consciousness when I kissed him properly, as everything but him dropped out of my awareness. His hands shifted to fist into my hair as I opened my mouth against his, and his tongue was flickering out the moment I did so. His lips felt like steel and satin, soft enough for me to sink my teeth into, pillowy and pliable, then hard and brutal. Finally, he pulled away, gasping, his forehead resting against mine.
“We’ve…we’ve only just met,” he said.