Great Yarmouth was "the place to be," according to the billboard. Grace Lawlor had been staring at it for quite some time, when she wasn't staring at her phone -- if you had to tell people it was a good place to come when they were already there, she thought, that might be a hint that you're wrong.
Grace would take any distraction she could get -- staring at her back-and-forth texts with Elly wasn't helping anybody. They'd met on Tinder just a few hours earlier and Elly, noting Grace's description of herself as "kinky as fuck" on her profile, had asked for her 'help.' Now, just a few short hours later, here Grace was, waiting for this stranger to arrive and pick her up. Where they'd go, she didn't know. What they'd do, well, she wasn't ready to think of anything which had been said on the app as guarantees. It was easy to say -- rather harder to do.
She stood on the pavement, facing the flat with the billboard, a petrol station behind her from which she'd got the Evian bottle she was clutching. Easy to get dehydrated. Cranes crowded the more distant sky, which was grey as old mashed potatoes, sunbeams struggling to get through. Grace really, really hoped Elly put her money where her mouth was. It was only a week before she left to start her master's degree and Elly left for some other university. There'd be no time for rescheduling or second chances. It was now or never -- and she wanted it to be now. After all, Elly, as far as her carefully curated five profile images indicated, was pretty hot. All Grace had to worry about was whether, given she was the experienced one with all the so-called help to offer, she needed to give off the dominant air befitting it. She wasn't sure she could quite manage to exude the dominatrix-ian authority required -- she wasn't even sure she was that kinky. This would be a test for both of them.
Play it chill, she kept reminding herself, as cars breezed past. Just play it chill. Come across like a normal person, if you can. Maybe even a cool one. Remember, she wants this -- she said she did. She wouldn't say she did unless she didn't. Unless she doesn't. Cars, buses, a cement mixer, all rumbled by.
"Is that her?" Grace would mutter at the sight of each approaching car -- it never was and she had to keep looking away lest drivers think she was staring at them. Maybe Elly wasn't coming. Of course she wasn't coming -- look at her.
Grace liked her body, sure -- slim, athletic, taller than average, a vaguely toned tummy that she worked self-destructively hard to keep that way, small breasts but perky enough -- but her face was the only part of it which was entirely visible to the world in this increasingly unseasonal pleated cherry-red summer dress flapping about around her knees and she wasn't so sure about that. She'd spent longer than usual at the mirror, carefully applying makeup, trying to hide the acne scars which still insisted on breaking through no matter how many layers she daubed on herself, trying to be as presentable as possibly for Elly. A gust of wind snaked up her dress and she shivered, wondering if dressing like this was a bit much -- she'd thought of changing her underwear, putting on something matching, something racier, but decided against it. Now she was just regretting not wearing gym shorts under her skirt.
There were things, though, that Grace couldn't alter at all. Her cheekbones were just a little too sharp, her face just a bit too angular, as if the sculptor who made her had chiselled too much away and had to compensate. Grace did her best with her hair -- it used to be much longer but now ended at her shoulders, bleached blonde for the summer and not yet bleached back to black, getting curlier the further down it went -- but she couldn't shake the feeling she needed to do better, whatever better was, that she'd only be presentable once she fixed herself in a thousand other ways. That mole over her eyebrow needed to go, for a start -- she kept putting it off.
Grace sighed, aware of how ridiculous she looked, stood at the road waiting for a hook-up. It must have been a picture of desperation -- was the chance of getting laid really worth this? In all likelihood, Elly had driven by, seen her, changed her mind, and kept driving. And if not, she would once they were in the car together and she heard Grace's gratingly posh voice. It was hard to believe that someone so unsure about herself was now called upon to be a teacher, even a mistress, in this way, but Grace supposed that was just the magic of Tinder.
Then, as another cold breeze gathered force to again rudely snake up Grace's dress, which she clung to in a bid to retain her modesty and not flash the traffic, coming in off the North Sea from which also drifted squawking gulls, a car came from around the houses. It was a Vauxhall Corsa, the colour of baked beans and rusty pipes, obviously second-hand or just unloved going by the dents and scratches, driving just a little bit too fast. Somehow, Grace knew this was th e one. She took a step forward, closer to the curb, watching it intently, hoping to be recognised and hoping not to look t o o much like a streetwalker, as her mum still called sex workers -- the headlights flashed, a sudden luminescence that almost startled her, before the Corsa turned into the petrol station without indicating and pulled up near her. Grace hurried over, passing a newspaper rack full of tabloid stories about a transgender soap actress and a footballer's dead wife, as the driver's window came down. So, she hadn't changed her mind just yet. Oh, God, her dress wasn't too short, was it?
Elly didn't look entirely like her photos -- she had the same sweet and innocent face, always pulling the same knowing smile, but the smile was a different one, now. It told of churning nerves and burning anxiety. Her hair was shorter, too -- in her pictures it was flowing and curly and falling to her shoulders. Now, it was a pixie cut, messy and unkempt as if she'd just woken up. Grace didn't mind -- it looked good and those big, almost excited blue eyes behind round glasses, the first thing Grace had spotted and the only thing she'd needed to swipe right, hadn't gone anywhere.
" Elly?" Grace asked, and the girl nodded, quickly. "Should I get in?" Elly looked around.
" I think I'll get in trouble if I park here." It was Grace's turn to nod and she opened the door -- or, rather, she tried to. Elly had forgotten to unlock them, and there was a nervous giggle as this was corrected. Then, Grace was sat down in a seat she had to adjust a fair bit to be comfortable, balancing her leather handbag on her lap, noting Elly had gone with a very different outfit -- a black t-shirt on an almost delicate, but still slightly pudgy (excellent), frame, some heavy metal band called Incorruptible Mages splashing their jagged logo across it, dark jeans, and even darker boots. Grace was pretty sure she was braless but was hardly going to look too closely. She had a home-made necklace on, adorned with colourful seashells, and Grace imagined her foraging along the Haven Seashore for each one.
" Better hurry," Grace joked, looking over her shoulder through the rear windscreen, seeing how full of old clothes and crushed cardboard boxes the rear seats were as she did. They wouldn't be ending up back there, she didn't think. Her hands were trembling. "That guy's looking at you."
"Hang on," Elly mumbled, her voice high and cute and almost unsteady, as she pulled down the handbrake. Then they were away down the A47, passing a KFC and a car showroom and a plumbing supplies warehouse and other thoroughly romantic scenery, Elly's phone plugged into the speakers and playing Kate Bush as they went.
Grace realised, suddenly, that she wasn't speaking. They were just driving to nowhere in particular. Despite, apparently, being the sub in this equation, Elly had the bravery to break the silence.
"So, where am I going?" she asked, as they passed a bath enamel repair business. Grace didn't even know such a thing existed. Maybe they'd both be learning things today.
" I've no idea," Grace admitted. "Maybe... my place?" Even after the things they'd said to each other online, just saying that felt risky. Oh, it was so unfair. Now they were face to face it felt different. It became real. All the energy had dissipated. Elly rolled her tongue about in her mouth.
"I was thinking, maybe, we could just park up first and talk?" she asked, speaking carefully, nerves on her soft- looking pink lips. She turned onto a roundabout, a pair of magpies prancing across its island, again failing to indicate.
" About what?"
"You know, just, stuff." Grace nodded.
"Okay, yeah, sure," she said, unsure exactly what Elly meant but ready to give her whatever she needed if it meant leading her into bed, adjusting in the seat and wondering if she ought to hike up her dress a little, further past her knees, just to see if Elly would look. She didn't do it.
As Kate Bush transitioned to Papa Don't Preach, Elly following a vintage Jaguar into the Sainsbury's car park, stopping the car near the recycling units. Oblivious shoppers wandered back and forth outside as she shut the engine off and the car fell silent -- Grace felt the nerves bubbling away in her belly. Her mouth felt dry no matter how much of the Evian bottle she sipped from -- she tried to resist the urge to lick her lips too often. Elly might misinterpret it. She wanted to tell her how excited she was. That might be a good start.
"I like your hair," was, instead, what came out of her mouth. Grace tried to keep a straight face and not crumple up in embarrassment. She had a persona to maintain. Elly's hand went, perhaps instinctively, to feel the hair she'd complimented.
"Thanks," she mumbled, smiling sweetly. "I got it cut yesterday. I think it's more 'me'."
"It's nice," agreed Grace.
"I like your..." She paused for long enough, her eyes going up and down Grace's body, that Grace could only break the tension with laughter.
