Fiona

"I know," he smiled and disappeared up the stairs to get ready.

* * * * *

"What are you looking so pleased about?"

"I'm just in that sort of mood," Fiona replied. "OK, I've been in a troublemaker mood for two weeks, but it's a good place to be. I think I took myself too seriously before. Ambitious, demanding, firm, yes. But must come with a big dose of fun."

"So not so serious, Fiona."

"Course. Are you packed yet?"

"We got three hours." She sighed and crossed her arms. "Fun yes, not disorganised. If you were packed, I'd be tempted to take you upstairs and do that thing that you love."

"Ahhh ... so I won my bet!"

"Actually I won. He's got a date with Hannah off the netball team."

"You're kidding!" Greg cried. "She's soooo fit!"

"Yes, and your girlfriend loves to hear her boyfriend wax lyrical about other girls."

"After what you did ..." He trailed off as Fiona glared at him and sighed.

"We have three hours for you to pack and to have lunch. If you can do that in two, I'll give you a blowjob before we leave," she promised.

"And swallow," Greg asked in a hopeful voice. Fiona sighed.

"Maybe," she said. "Depends if I think you deserve it!"

"I didn't hear that," the voice of Greg's mother cried from the kitchen. Fiona swore and clamped her hand to her mouth. "Or that!"

"Sorry Mrs H," Fiona muttered. "I thought you were still out." Greg giggled and she slapped him on the arse. "Go pack. While I apologise to your family!" She watched as he walked up the stairs and then shook her head as she entered the kitchen. "Sorry," she muttered.

* * * * *

"Will you stop whinging," Fiona snapped and gave a wry grin to her boyfriend. "You always bitch about stupid things."

"Well thanks to you, I know have no time to do anything. I work three days a week at the café on top of keeping track of my Dad's books, then have to do my homework and I have exams next month. And then I've got you to see at the weekend and ..."

"Are you complaining?"

"Yes."

"Ahhh," Fiona mocked and flicked her blonde hair behind her head. "All that sex I force you to have."

"Yeah well, that's the other thing. My entire class know that you put it about and thanks to you my parents know we have sex too so I get awkward questions."

Fiona smirked. "I got news for you," she whispered in a teasing voice. "They already knew." Greg went to protest and Fiona interrupted. "They would have known. Mothers know when their son is getting laid. All women can normally tell, but mothers know as she knew how your father was, and you are so like your Dad it's untrue. When you get laid there is a confidence and ... you can just tell. Your mum probably knew the day after we met." He shook his head and Fiona smiled at him. "They did. And when your parents asked me if we were serious, I sort of intimated that it was just a casual, sexual thing."

"As you keep telling me," Greg snapped.

"Yes, and I expect you to be at my wedding," Fiona said with a smirk. "I want you as my bridesmaid."

"What?"

"You want your best friends with you on that day and ..." Her voice quivered and she held Greg's hands on the table of the train arrowing through Cumbria. "... you looked after me when I needed it and I like you loads, but I don't think you will fall in love with me and I don't see us as a really long-term thing."

"What if I did?"

Fiona bit her lip and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I had this with Eddie and with Peter and with Lee. I got dumped by Lee 'cause he got upset when I didn't want anything to do with Valentines Day." She gulped and ran her hands through her hair. "I don't know," she confessed. "You've said you don't."

"I didn't think I would feel that way 'bout you as it's not what we agreed, but I guess when you got attacked I just couldn't stop worrying." He squeezed Fiona's hand and took a deep breath. "I think'll miss you over Christmas."

"Yeah, I'll miss the sex."

"No," Greg said firmly. "I'll miss you. I know you cause me so many problems but I'll miss you. And I know whatever I think of you, it won't change what you think of me ..."

"I think you'll find someone wonderful and be very happy and make her very happy ..."

"But that person won't be you?"

Fiona shrugged. "I doubt it," she muttered. "I am not ready to be thinking of settling down at the age of eighteen. I want to see the world and try lots of things."

"So basically you are saying you want to split up?" Greg asked, a little aggressively. "Do I mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Fiona cried and tapped the plastic table on the train. "That's the point. Every time I have fallen in love with someone I like, we end up splitting up in a really acrimonious way. Sure, when I took you out to the woods three months ago I didn't think you'll be much more than a one-night stand but I got to know you and I really like you. You put up with me and you were there for me when I needed someone. And I don't want to spoil a friendship. I don't want to fall in love with you and I don't want you to fall in love with me 'cause in the future I am going to have my heart broken and I will need someone to go and talk to." Greg sighed and Fiona rubbed the back of his hand. "It's because I like you, I just want us to be a bit casual."

Greg tried to smile but was staring out of the window. "That makes little sense."

"Yes, I know," Fiona snapped, and then apologised. "Look, if you want some time away from me ..."

"No, that's the problem," Greg started. "I don't. I don't at all. I want to be with you as, sure, you make my life difficult but you make it fun. I'd love to spend New Year with you and ... and I sometimes feel that you don't want to be around me unless we are having sex. Sometimes I just feel that the only bits of my body you want is my cock and my tongue."

Fiona sighed. "I don't want us to get too close," she admitted, and shrugged. "Just not as partners." She looked out of the window at the Lake District spinning past the carriage and then back at Greg. "Your Mum spoke to me and told me not to break your heart. And I promised her I wouldn't but I just don't know what you really think and I don't want you to ..."

"Fall in love with you?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"There's probably a name for that phobia."

"I am not scared of it. I'm not scared of anything."

"Loveaphobia."

"I am not scared," Fiona thundered. "I am just wary." Greg smiled at the scowling face of his girlfriend. "What are you smiling at?"

"Nothing," he chortled. "So what am I doing meeting your family and staying with them for a few days if I am not a long-term thing?"

"You are a long-term thing," Fiona replied. "I've told you, you're the nearest thing I've got to a friend in Derbyshire. Well you and Kathryn. I love you as a friend, and I like you loads as a boyfriend." She sighed and crossed her arms. "And Mum and Dad want to take me out of that school so maybe if they see I've got a good friend who can be trusted nearby they will be happier." Her eyes narrowed as Greg's expression changed. "I am not being driven out of that school by those rapists. The Police aren't going to charge them as they've all said I consented and the Police can't prove anything non-consensual happened."

"I'm not sure it is the best school for you," Greg added. "And I know you want to prove that you aren't fazed but ..."

"But nothing!" Fiona spat. "Don't you dare tell my parents that! The school have made it that Jenny, Sophia and Michelle are banned from my wing of the school and they were suspended. And Angelina was expelled when they found drugs on her." Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. "And justice will be done on all of them. I don't care if it takes two months or ten years, I will get every single one of them." She clenched her fists and took a couple of deep breaths.

"Well if the Police said that ..."

"The Police can fuck off. I want them to know what I went through. Feel my pain. You don't understand."

"Then tell me," Greg replied softly. "You tell me nothing."

"I tell you loads," Fiona snapped, and took a deep breath, before beginning to pour her heart out to her "best-friend."

In her mind, justice would be done; one way or another -- and a copy of the footage of Sophia naked in her bedroom, as taken by Sophia's room-mate for a small fortune, with a spy camera ordered by Fiona, would be winging its way to the offices of a shady soft porn magazine the moment she got the pictures delivered. Not that Greg needed to know that, he wouldn't understand.

No-one would.

But she was one down, three to go.