The party's winding up. The music is still playing in the living room but the candles have burnt low and the dancers have slowed down and stopped as if their batteries have died. There's a bloke asleep in the hallway, snoring beside the radiator, with streamers in his hair. Someone's drawn a rabbit nose and whiskers onto his face with black eyeliner. Beer cans litter the carpet. The table- which started out adorned with bowls of crudités, dips, crisps- is now a mess of crumbs. Cigarette smoke hangs like a fog. The window is open but the summer air outside is hot and still.
Janie's asleep on the stairs. Her eyeliner has smudged and her face is shiny, her hair damp and sticking to her neck and shoulders in sweaty strands. There's a half empty bottle of Smirnoff Ice in her hand, and you take it from her and set it on the floor. Some people are smoking outside in the yard. The low hum of their voices drifts in through the window and into the hall. You could ask them to help you take Janie upstairs to bed, but she's slim and small and it's no bother to you. She's one of your best friends, and it's her boyfriend's house. You'll wake him up in a minute and get him to bed too. It's what best friends do, after all.
She grunts as you take her arm and sling it over your shoulder. One of the spaghetti straps of her top is sliding down her arm. You whisper in her ear, come on girl, let's get you to bed. You shake her gently. Her hair smells of fresh dance sweat and apple shampoo. She smiles and murmurs something as you half-pull, half-carry her up a few steps, then you stop. It's just easier to sweep her up into your arms. You're tall and muscular from the summer you've spent on the construction site. Her head sags against your shoulder and you plant your feet carefully on the stairs, avoiding the crushed beer cans, the piles of orange peel and the broken remnants of the plastic party poppers.
As you round the top of the stairs, you feel her hand brushing against your chest. Your heart is beating hard, with the effort of carrying her and also you've never been this close to her, even though you've loved her most of your life. You remember Janie as a little girl, chocolate curls flowing down her back, big brown eyes with thick dark lashes. The curls are gone now. Her hair is streaked with auburn and when she greeted you at the door, it shone straight and sleek under the hall light. She had silver sparkles on her eyelids, and her fingernails shone silver to match.
Now one of the impossibly high stilettos she'd been wearing has come off, you can see her perfect little toes are also glinting silver. The hall light is dim and the tan on her legs looks darker. She and Michael have just got home from two weeks in Tenerife. He proposed to her there. They announced it together at the start of the party and she laughed and twirled and flashed her new diamond solitaire ring to oohs and aahs from all her girlfriends. Everyone cheered and clapped, even you. Michael even made a special toast to you.
"To Chris," he said, holding up the plastic champagne glass and grinning. "Thank you for introducing me to the love of my life."
"To Chris," everyone had echoed, and you smiled until your cheeks hurt and then took a bigger gulp of the champagne than you planned. And another, and another, until your head is spinning and your teeth are numb. It wasn't meant to turn out this way. All you'd wanted was to show Janie off, because you still thought you had a chance. You wanted Michael to be jealous that you had such a wonderful girl as a friend. She wasn't meant to fall in love with him, and crush your hopes like the ice she loves to bash when she makes her mojitos.
You push open the bedroom door. The light shines a crooked oblong into the dark room. They have a king sized bed, almost too big for the room. Janie's clothes hang off the exercise bike in the corner. The bedroom cupboards have sliding mirrored doors. One of them is half open and you can see the suits Janie likes to wear to work, hanging there in their plastic covers. You know that if you went over and looked, you'd find them all an inch apart. She's OCD that way. She knows it and often makes jokes about it but it doesn't stop her arranging her shoes according to the date she bought them, or putting the books on the shelves in alphabetical order. You know these things because you love her, and she loves you too. She's told you often enough, that you're her bestest friend ever and it's just like having a GBF who's not gay. She added that last part pretty fast. You know she thinks you're gay because you never have a girlfriend, and you never have a girlfriend because your heart has never been yours to give. Your heart is soaked with regret, but you try to be happy, because you want her to be happy, and Michael is a decent bloke when all's said and done. He'll look after her, do all the things for her that you want to but never will.
You lay her down on the bed and her head rolls to the side. She's so drunk. Silly girl, you whisper, and smile. You want to have a private moment with her, just to say congratulations. You want to see her smile just for you. Her lips are smeared with fruity smelling gloss, that she's recently applied, but she's gone over the edges a bit. You shake her a bit but she doesn't respond. But she's breathing regularly, in and out. The strap has slipped down her shoulder again. She isn't wearing a bra.
Your head is spinning pleasantly from all that champagne, and you get up and stumble for a second and put your hand out to steady yourself and then the door clicks shut and the room's in darkness. Her breathing is soft and you can smell the fresh laundry on the radiators. It's flowery and sweet. Your eyes adjust to the darkness and the bed becomes grey under the faint moonlight that's coming through the window. You sit down on the bed again, beside Janie. Your heart is starting to beat a bit harder and you feel your blood pumping around your body.
The noise of giggling and conversation makes you jump. You stand up and take off Janie's remaining shoe and place it by the foot of the bed. If someone comes up, you can just say you're putting the drunkard to bed, laugh it off. But then you hear the front door closing. The music's been turned off downstairs. The stragglers have left, laughing at the state of Michael lying down there beside the radiator with the bunny face drawn on. You hear the slam of a car door and the rev of an engine. It's just you and Janie now, in the bedroom, and the strap of her top is black now against her arm. It wouldn't hurt to have a look, she'd never know.
You sit down and give her a last shake. Janie, you whisper, but she doesn't respond. She lets out a faint snore, and then you reach out a shaking hand and hook your finger under her top. Slowly, you draw the thin material up, centimetre by centimetre, until it catches for a second on the swell of her breasts, then releases. Her tits are white, and you can see clearly the line of where her bikini top was. Dark little nipples. It wouldn't hurt if you just touched her there. She's fast asleep. Your hand is hot and big enough to hold almost all of her breast. Her nipple pokes out between your fingers and youfind yourself leaning towards it, slowly, slowly, until you can reach it with your tongue.
If she wakes up now, it'll be the end of everything. But you can't stop. A little lick, that's all. Then another and then her nipple is in your mouth. You suck on it gently, squeezing the firm flesh under your sweating fingertips. Not so hard, in case she wakes up. Her nipple hardens on your tongue and it's the sweetest thing you've ever felt. She moans and you freeze, but she just settles against the duvet and you lick and suck until you realise your cock is a hot, hard, pulsing stone in your pants. You've never been so aroused, it's almost painful. It won't hurt if you pull it out, give it some release. You'll just look at her tits and have a quick wank, that's all you'll do. No one will ever know. There's a box of tissues beside the mirror on the bed, near the digital alarm clock that casts a faint electric light over the shadows of her chest.
