So Much to Learn (14 page)

Getting dressed
in my room I heard Matt thumping about in the lounge room and knew
that he too was getting ready to go out. I was proved correct when,
a moment later, he shouted out, "I'm off you guys. See you
tomorrow."

"Bye," I called
back and heard Jack do the same.

We were
alone.

Feeling
butterflies begin their, by now, very familiar dance in my stomach
I lashed a deep red lipstick onto my lips and added heavy mascara
to my eyelashes before giving my hair, which I had curled slightly
and mussed up into a Marilyn Monroe look, one final fluff before
deciding I was ready. Grabbing a small, red, beaded bag I exited my
room at the exact same moment that Jack came out of his room.

For a moment we
simply stared at each other. He wore black trousers and another of
his blue button down shirts with the sleeves rolled up. His hair
looked as messy as usual and his eyes, if it was possible, even
bluer than before. He was, in short, looking good enough to eat and
I gulped, feeling like a grade 7 girl meeting the hottest guy in
the school for the first time.

To stop myself
simply gawking at him I posed with my hip cocked. "Well?" I asked,
pouting slightly. "What do you think?"

I was gratified
to see that he also gulped. Stepping forward he took one of my
hands and span me around, making the hem of my skirt flare up.
"Natalia Jane Davenport," he said copying my habit of calling him
by his full name, "you look too hot to be legal."

Now
that's
the kind of thing a girl wants to hear on a Saturday
night!

I laughed and
danced away from him. "Good! So let's go!"

~*~

We drove for
over half an hour to a club I'd never heard of. I guessed Jack had
picked it because it was unlikely we'd meet anyone from uni there,
or at least, not any of our crowd. There wasn't much of a line so
it wasn't long before we were inside.

It was dark, as
most nightclubs are, and the music was pumping so loudly the walls
were vibrating. I could tell that it was the sort of place that, on
a different night, I would hate. I was of the opinion that if you
couldn't talk because the music was so loud and you couldn't see
anyone because the lights were so dim it kind of made the only two
reasons to go out kind of pointless. The two reasons being, of
course, to hang out with friends or to check guys out.

Still tonight,
as I stood to the side of the dance floor with Jack at my side, I
began to see a third reason: to go out with your date and not have
to talk or see anyone else!

The music
playing was the sort that thumps in your chest and reverberates all
through your body making you feel a part of it rather than just an
audience. Even the most dance-challenged can move to that kind of
music as your body moves of its own accord, with swaying of the
hips and bobbing of the head. And, with a communication method like
dancing, who needs conversation?

People were
having to push past us to get to the dance floor and, seeming to
realise at the same moment that I did that our choice of location
wasn't spectacular, Jack shouted in my ear, "Shall we?" And
gestured towards the mass of gyrating bodies in front of us.

I took a deep
breath then nodded. He took my hand gently and led me over to a
spot near the wall where we wouldn't be quite so crushed.

Stupid as it
sounds, as soon as we got on to the floor, I got a feeling in the
pit of my stomach somehow akin to fear. It was much more intense
down there with the other dancers than up watching it. I tried to
focus on Jack, but there were too many other people pushing and
crowding around me. The crush of bodies and the sights and smells
of other people seemed so primal as to be almost frightening to me.
It was as if my body was being assaulted by senses and it had
overloaded. It was something akin to claustrophobia and my dancing
faltered as it gripped me.

I was just
about to ask Jack if we could take a breather when strong hands
gripped me from behind and dragged me against an unfamiliar body.
Before either Jack or I had time to react the hands slid lower
until they were pressing against my pelvis and the person behind me
started to grind against me. And I truly mean grind as in, but for
the grace of clothes, I could well have become pregnant. Icy drips
of horror cascaded down my spine and all my insecurities at being
touched flew into my chest with a force hard enough for me to be
unable to take a breath.

My ordeal
lasted less than a few seconds, though, as Jack started forward and
pushed the grinder away as I struggled to get out of the guy’s
arms.

"Hey chill
out," the random dancer laughed. "I was just showing her some
moves."

I still wasn't totally free from the stranger and I felt Jack
give him another push which caused the guy's arms to fully release
me and I fell forward. Jack caught me deftly whilst growling,
"Yeah, well, show her again and I'll show you
my
moves."

If I'd been
feeling more myself I would have laughed at his corny one liner,
but as it was I simply allowed Jack to led me over to a stool by
the bar and, as I sank onto it in relief, get me a bottle of
water.

"Here, drink
this," he murmured, removing the cap for me, almost as if I was a
child. I was grateful, though, my hands were shaking so badly I
don't think I could have unscrewed the cap myself.

As I sat
sipping the water, I felt my panic subside and instead began to
feel extremely embarrassed. Why did I have to flip out like that
all the time? One step out of my comfort zone and, bam, instant
freeze up. It was so annoying!

When the water
bottle was almost half empty I finally looked up. Jack was standing
silently beside me, almost as if he was on guard and I felt a
sudden rush of affection for him as well as anger at myself for
ruining a good night.

"Jack, I'm so
sorry," I said miserably. "I don't know what happened."

"You don't have
to apologise," he responded fiercely. "I shouldn't have brought you
here, touching is kind of the order of the day at clubs and I
should have thought that through. I'm sorry."

I knew then
that if I didn't do something we would end up in one of those
endless rigmaroles where we each tried to convince the other that
we had been in the wrong. Unable to express what I meant in words,
my gratitude, shame and guilt, I stood up and threw my arms around
his neck.

For a moment he
rocked back in shock, then his arms came around me, strong and
firm. I buried my face into his neck and breathed in his familiar
scent which reminded me of home and comfort, but also of spice and
tingles in the belly. We stayed that way a long time, not moving,
but simply tightly clutching each other until, eventually, Jack
pulled back a little to look at my face.

"Alright?" He
asked and I nodded because, then, it was.

He released me,
I took a step back and, for a second, it felt as if every inch of
my body cried out to regain contact with him. It passed, but the
intensity of my reaction left me feeling like I'd been slapped in
the face with a cold fish. My expression obviously showed a bit of
this as well as Jack laughed and held out his hand.

"Come here," he
said and, when I took his hand he spun me into him. We froze for a
moment with him still holding one of my hands and my chin tilted up
to see his face and then he smiled, his teeth bright in the
flashing lights.

"Dance with
me?" He asked and I smiled too and nodded.

We made our way
back over to the edge of the dancers and then he released my hand
and rested his hands on my hips. I hesitantly rested my palms
against his chest and looked up into his eyes as we swayed
together. We weren't dancing nearly as close as other people around
us, but there are different kinds of close and we didn't need to
grind to achieve ours.

After a while I
grew daring, and turned around so that my back was resting against
his chest. A moment later his arms snaked around me and wrapped me
into his embrace.

I could see
that the club and the dancing weren't actually frightening at all
now. It was private, deep and personal.

I could feel
Jack's heart thumping against me and I focused on that until it
became like the music we were swaying to. I closed my eyes and
melted against him wrapping my arms around his. The song was a
fairly mellow one, but slowly it sped up and I found myself moving
against Jack in response. Lost in the beat, I lifted my arms up and
twined them around his head whilst twisting slightly so that one of
his legs was between mine. I refuse to admit that I was grinding,
but it couldn't have been that far off.

Once I realised
what I was doing, I gasped and felt my face heat up. "Sorry," I
said, dropping my arms and lifting myself as far away from his body
as his encircling arms would allow. "I didn't realise what I was
doing, I'll stop."

I attempted to
move even further away, but his arms tightened. "Don't you dare,"
he said in a voice that I almost didn't recognise it was so deep
and gruff. It sent shivers down my spine and into my legs so it was
lucky he was basically supporting me as I could quite easily have
slithered to the floor in that moment.

"Lesson five,"
he said, brushing some of my hair to the side so he could speak
directly into my ear. "If you trust me….him…the guy you're with, it
can be OK to relax and let yourself go. Physical contact doesn't
always have to be scary and it doesn't always have to lead
somewhere."

I smiled as he
accidentally included himself in the lesson, but the humour
lessened as I took in what he'd really been saying. In a roundabout
way he'd been asking if I trusted him enough to fully let myself
go. And I knew in the next instant that I did.

I let the music
take over me again and, this time, felt him moving back against me.
It wasn't like with the guy from earlier, it wasn't rough or pervy,
but rather as if we were in perfect sync with each other, almost as
if we could predict what the other was about to do. After a while
it no longer seemed as if there were two of us, but that we had
become one entity, corny and cheesy as that sounds.

I fully
understood, for perhaps the first time, how music is a very
primitive instinct. When we were dressed in nothing but loincloths
we would take the time to stamp out a beat around the campfire.
Music is necessary and, if you let yourself, can allow you to enter
a different sphere where nothing matters, but the rhythm.

Time slipped
away and I reckon we could have danced all night, as the song goes,
but we were rudely brought out of our own little world by a voice
calling out, "Jack!"

Jack released
me and I staggered to one side in my painful heels feeling that
fuzzy, tired feeling you get when you stumble, blinking, out of the
cinemas after a long film.

A girl was
elbowing her way through the crowd over to us and my heart sank as
I realised who it was. Kristin Bayers. Wonderful. Jack's
ex-girlfriend, just who I needed to see at that moment. Kristin was
extremely curvaceous and loved to show it to everyone by wearing
the skimpiest things she could find. Her hair was long and bouncy
and clearly not the colour she was born with and she had a smile
which was so big and toothy you felt she could snap you up with one
gulp if she felt so inclined.

"I thought it
was you," she shrieked, finally having made it to us. She threw her
arms around Jack and, to my extreme annoyance, he returned the
hug.

"How are you,
Kris?" He asked, his deep, calm voice at total odds with her high
pitched exclamations.

"All the better
for seeing you, we haven't hung out for ages. Why haven't we met
up? Where have you been? What have you been doing?"

"Steady,” Jack
laughed good-humouredly, and I shifted slightly beside him, making
Kristin's gaze suddenly fall on me.

"Natalie, I
didn't see you there,” she said with what I took for entirely
insincere sweetness. “Are you here with your brother?"

Bitch!

I felt like
saying, 'no actually I'm here with your ex and we were having a
damn fine time before you showed your ugly mug. And, contrary to
what many people believe, I do hang out with more people than just
my brother!'

Still, I
limited myself to saying. "No, Kristy, I'm not here with Matt."

"Kristin," she
corrected me and I gave her a chilling smile.

"Oh, I'm
sorry," I said, my voice dripping with artificiality. "I know how
annoying it can be when people get your name wrong."

There was a
pause and then, as Kristin turned to wave at somebody else she
knew, Jack murmured, "Down girl." And I bared my teeth at him in
imitation of a vicious dog.

As Kristin
faced us once more, I pasted a brilliant and oh so fake smile on my
face and gestured towards the toilets.

"I'm just going
to the loo, you guys catch up and I'll meet you by the bar in a few
minutes."

Kristin,
judging by her reaction, thought this was the best idea she'd ever
heard and latched onto Jack's arm immediately. Just before they
disappeared into the crowd Jack turned his head and rolled his eyes
in Kristin's direction before winking at me.

All the
butterflies that had been so cruelly driven off by Kristin's
arrival on the scene came back in force and flapped their little
wings for all they were worth. A real smile spreading across my
lips, I made my way, unsteadily due to my heels, over to the toilet
line.

It took a long
time for me to enter an empty stall, but, on the plus side, I
became very good friends with my queue partners. They were
extremely sociable although that may have been supplemented by some
artificial means, if you know what I mean.