Red Notice Ch. 16

Being jealous of my room, which was several times the size of hers, Cherry didn't need much convincing to hang out there once work concluded. She even brought her PlayStation 4 over so we could play 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and she could laugh at my relentless confusion. Eventually, feeling guilty that I was the only one holding a controller, we switched to some racing games whose name I can't remember and chased each other around a track.

"How's archaeology going for you?" I asked.

"It's going well," Cherry replied, lounging on my sofa, cross-legged in angel-white pyjamas. " Lecturer's a bit of a knob but, you know, we move."

"A knob how?" She shrugged.

"Expects you to know the syllabus before he's even covered it. I guess it'll be in the textbooks but I'm not gonna read loads of shit before I know it's even relevant, am I?"

"I guess not, no," I conceded, as my car span out again. " Just be careful. Worst thing in the world would be you getting sent to my office."

"Well, yeah, but if that happens you'll go easy on me, right?" She looked at me with a freckled face that I had expected to be good-humoured, but there was more than a bit of hope in it. I wondered if she'd taken this chance to address an anxiety she'd been harbouring since we met.

"I'd go more than easy on you," I said. "You can just hang out for ten minutes and we'll pretend I did it."

"Ideal," Cherry laughed, her face flooding with the same relief I'd been seeing all day in my office, her attention returning to the game. Even having been barely looking at it for the last few moments, she was still on the edge of lapping me. Again. " One of the benefits of friends in high places."

"Is this something you've been worrying about?"

"So much," Cherry laughed. My car crashed and she winced at the volume. "Mind if I turn the sound off?"

"Go for it." She stood and went to the TV to fiddle with the buttons, poorly positioned under the frame -- as she did, bending over, I could see through her pyjamas the dark silhouette of Calvin Klein underwear hugging her plump bottom. I tried not to stare and, feeling a strange twang of annoyance that I'd probably never see it bared, failed.

For a time, we were sat in silence, but a n uncomfortable thought was niggling away at my brain. " One of the benefits of friends in high places," she'd said.

"What's up?" Cherry suddenly asked.

"Huh?"

"You've got a faraway look going on."

"Apparently I always do." Cherry smiled.

"Come on, what's up?" I took in a deep intake of breath -- if I could put girls over my lap, I reasoned, I could say what was on my mind.

"You're not just hanging out with me so you can get an easy time of it, are you?" I asked. "I'd feel a bit-"

"Used?"

"Yeah."

"No, Kel, I'm not. I don't waste my time on people I don't like. Don't fuss about it." She patted my thigh reassuringly.

"Well, even if we weren't hanging out, I'd still just let you off," I said. "It's what I've been doing today and I'll probably keep doing it."

"Oh, really?" asked Cherry.

"Yeah..." I sighed. " Every girl who came to me today, I just sent that away. Well... except the first girl. I went too far, I think."

"Too far how?"

"It was like a, you know..."

"Bare ass?" I nodded. "Wow."

"Yeah. It felt great at first, like I'd really figured it out, but it all drained away so fast. Now I feel awful and I don't have the energy to do it again. Two days in and it's already too much for me. I can't just pack it in -- I can't go back to working in a kitchen -- but every time I get into it like I did this morning I scare myself."

"You get into it, huh?" I felt my face stain red.

"N... no?" Cherry cackled.

"Maybe I was wrong about you being all subby. Well, I've been wrong before."

"It's not comfortable, though," I said. "It's like sometimes there's someone else in charge of me. Like I stop being myself occasionally."

"Now that sounds like one hell of an awakening," Cherry giggled. "What darkness doth reside in you?"

"Reminds me of a painting I saw in Bristol," I said, absent-mindedly.

"What painting?"

"I can't remember its name," I said. "But it shows two people fighting but in the mirror behind them you can see it's just forced perspective -- and actually it's two headless bodies fighting over one head."

"That's deep."

"It's how I felt. A little bit." Cherry sniggered.

"It's definitely a profound way to describe yourself as a switch."

"A what?"

"Really, mate?" I gave her a quizzical look and she swallowed another laugh. "Someone who likes being a dom and a sub. Depends on where the mood takes them."

"Well... " I thought of last night, in the woods, with Kam, and wondered if they'd like Cherry. Probably. And if they did, I thought suddenly, I could have a little circle of friends for the first time in my life. Wouldn't that be something? " Maybe that is me. I don't know. Sexuality isn't really something I've ever grappled with, properly. I learned as a kid to just shut up and never engage with people cause I'd always say the wrong thing. Now I'm all stunted. "

"You're not stunted, my love," laughed Cherry, holding my arm. " Don't talk about my friend Kelly like that." At those words, I almost wanted to cry, but I pushed it down.

There then came a knock at my door. I almost called "come in" with as close as I could get to an authoritative voice, so used had I become to doing the same in my office, but stopped myself at the last second.

"Who'd that be?" asked Cherry, as I got up and went to the door.

"No clue." I opened it -- there stood outside two students, both wrapped in fluffy dressing gowns, one with flowing brown hair and a stern, almost square jaw, and the other shorter, rounder, and brightly blonde. Both had nose rings.

"Ey," said the taller one, in a fierce Glaswegian accent, "are you that Kelly lass?"

"Well, my name's Kelly-"

"Yeah, but are you the Kelly? The woman, the myth, the legend?"

"Uh..."

"You are, ain't you?" They sniggered.

The shorter girl spoke up in a shrill voice : " You're a real gross bitch, you know that, right?"

"Sorry?" I sensed movement behind me as Cherry stood up and took a couple steps towards us.

"Heard what you did to Zara," said the taller girl. "Everyone's talking about it. And then you go easy on everyone else for the rest of the day?"

"Fuckin' abuser and racist," hissed the other.

"How am I a racist?"

"You get a Muslim girl and you suddenly go mental? Yeah, we're not thick."

"Right. That's not what happened. "

"You're gonna die here, Kelly."

"Alright," Cherry suddenly called, marching over, "think we've had about enough of you two, thanks very much."

"We're gonna get you," came a snarl as Cherry closed the door in their faces. She turned back to me with a sympathetic look.

"Friends of yours?"

"I don't think that'll happen," I said, weakly. " Should have expected I'd get abuse. It's the least I deserve."

"Not really. It's your job and they agreed to what they get. Could' ve gone to a different uni but they chose this one and now they complain? Get real."

"Can't believe they called me racist," I sighed. "Most of the people I went easy on today were people of colour!"

"You can be prejudiced towards a particular type of person of colour," Cherry observed.

"Maybe. But I'm not. I mean... I get we're all capable of prejudice and have unconscious bias and everything, but..." I sighed. "I should've seen this coming."

"Definitely. Maybe y ou should move out before you leave the flat one day and a bucket of pig's blood falls on your head."

"Honestly, for free board, that's a price I'd pay every now and then," I said, smiling. "We can all bear to go a bit Carrie every now and then. As a treat." Cherry laughed.

...

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