Skye and I share the rest of the joint. After the initial dizziness, I feel fine, the effects creeping up on me slowly. Skye moves closer and starts to chat to me about London while Roman goes off to have a wee in the bushes. Despite my drug-induced state, I’m still guarded about what I tell her about myself. She has no idea who I am, and I want it to stay that way. I tell her I work in the fashion industry, and she seems happy enough with that. Everyone around me seems to have a silvery glow coming from their skin, and it looks beautiful. Roman comes back and sits next to me; I’m hyper-aware of how he smells, and I suddenly feel extremely horny.
“Do you model, Georgia? Is that what you do?” Skye asks. She’s already told me she’s a dancer, but I’d sort of guessed that by her posture; shoulders back, neck straight, head held high. It’d been years since I’d gone to dance classes, but I would never forget Madam Yvette screeching at the top of her lungs if one of us wasn’t standing right. She shouted at me once too often when I was about eight; I took off one of my points and threw it right at her head. I was banned from the entire dance school, and my mum was called to come and collect me. I hated ballet, didn’t mind tap, but was pissed off as I loved disco and modern but they barred me from the whole school, so I never got to go back. Madame Yvette and her silly accent, what a bitch. She wasn’t even French; she came from Bethnal Green, the lying cow. Thinking of the look on her face as the block from my point shoe hit her on the head suddenly gives me the giggles.
“Georgia works more in the retail side,” Roman says from beside me, pulling me back to the beach and the conversation. I look up into his face; his eyes are bluer than I’ve ever seen them before, and he smiles down at me. “Feel good, baby?” I smile back and nod.
“I feel fuckin’ great!” I hear Skye laugh, and it’s like a bell. A little bell tinkling, I think to myself.
“I told ya you would. Let everything else go and just feel it.” I nod at him.
“Well, you’re quite beautiful, Georgia; you could easily be a model.” She’s sitting with her legs crossed in front of me; her blonde hair is short and spikey. Her skin is pale and her eyes are huge and blue.
“You look like Tinker Bell,” I say without thinking too much about it. Roman laughs from beside me, and I turn and look back at him. “What? She does! Tink’s cute. Skye’s cute, shush you,” I say to him. I look back at Skye; her eyes are looking over my body, then back up to my face.
“Thank you, Georgia. I’ll take cute, if that’s all that’s going, but I’d rather you thought I was sexy.”
Fuck. I don’t quite know what to say to that. I look back to Roman; he smiles and shrugs.
“Well, do ya?” I look her over.
“Yeah, you’re sexy.”
Skye smiles. “Thank you, Georgia. Ya know, I really wanna kiss you right now.” She bites down on her bottom lip. “Have you ever kissed a girl? I mean full-on kissed a girl?”
My heart is pounding in my chest; there are a myriad of colours bouncing off the waves of the ocean as they roll onto the beach. The noise from all the other people has disappeared, and all I can hear is Skye, Roman and the water.
“Can I kiss you, Georgia?” she asks.
“I’m not gay,” I blurt out; I look up at Roman and shake my head. “I’m not gay,” I tell him, and his smile does something to my insides. He leans in and kisses my neck, right where it curves and meets my shoulder. I shudder and close my eyes.
“No one’s saying you’re gay, baby. She just wants to kiss you. D’ya want her to kiss you? Don’t think about it. Just go with what you feel.”
He pulls me to sit between his legs, and I lean back against his chest. I turn my head and look up at him.
“I want her to kiss me.”
What the fuck? Where did that come from? I close my eyes in embarrassment. It’s not really that I want her to kiss me. I just have this strange desire to know what it feels like.
“See, just doing, not thinking, sometimes it’s good, Georgia. Like I keep telling ya, just go with it.” I open my eyes and look at him. My inhibitions have gone, all of them, floating away on the waves and swept out into the Pacific Ocean. I feel in control but out of control. He kisses me gently on the mouth, cupping my jaw in his big hand. “Don’t do anything you don’t wanna do; just go with it, baby. I’m here and I’ll keep you safe.”
He leans back on the blanket we’ve been sitting on, then pulls me down next to him; he leans over and kisses me again. I wrap my arms around his neck as his hand travels from my hip, up my side, his thumb resting and rubbing over my nipple. He pulls away, pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at me. I’m flat on my back now looking up at him, and I feel like I’m floating. Skye is on the other side of me, her fingers gently brushing over my cheek and my lips. She looks up at Roman.