Nearly two weeks had passed since Ethan had, for the first time, been brought to a point of physical ecstasy at the hands of another. News of his conquest, well known to the rest of the party there present, had spread faster even than wildfire to most every teenager who had even once before heard his name, and several beside. Though many heard the information with disinterest, many more (especially virginal, adolescent boys) found it to be quite the most captivating intelligence of the summer so far.
Why this tidbit of seemingly limited scandal was causing such a stir was easily guessed at. Ethan was thought by all but those who knew him best to be a young man of unquestionable virtue and, as a consequence, a prude. This was a reputation which had grown from his being a general favourite with teachers and quite disposed to stay out of any manner of trouble. The student body of a comprehensive high school in central Scotland is not often inclined to believe that a student who invariably achieves high grades and seems ever cheerful to be learning can also be capable of partaking in such drunken debauchery as this. Such an apparent fall from grace was scandalous indeed.
He himself had not thought the gossip quite so juicy as to deserve the widespread interest it received and was eager, out of respect for the lady concerned, to not have it any longer discussed in his company. Indeed, his closest friend, Gretchen, received reproach from him more than once for her having broached the subject. He was neither in a mood to be reminded of the particulars of the camping trip nor to be congratulated by his peers on what they saw as a triumph.
It was regret over the lovely Aurélie being now so far removed from him that made him act with such a lack of good humour on the matter. One rarely wonders at a boy forming such a strong attachment to the first girl that ever touched his penis, but his melancholia since her departure was deemed by many to be quite extreme. Even with the imminence of his seventeenth birthday, it seemed little could return him to good spirits and Gretchen could not prevail upon him to include more than their two selves in the celebratory meal.
"Even just invite Scott," she appealed to him in yet another attempt to secure some more cheerful company for the evening, "He's always a good laugh."
"No," he replied with a sigh, "Because if I invite Scott, then I have to invite Luke and if I invite Luke, then I have to invite Michaela and before you know it, just about everyone we know is there and I'm sat talking to Big Dave about his gran's new stairlift, again." Gretchen laughed, remembering having the same conversation with Dave on their 'date' just over a month previously. She looked at him again despairingly and resolved to press the hopeless matter no further.
Her tone was purposely vibrant as she raised another topic she hoped might assist in curing her friend's depression. "Speaking of Big Dave," she began, "He's got an empty tomorrow night and rumour has it that he's having a big party. You game?"
Meaning to reject the proposal, he faced the well-meaning redhead but, upon seeing her pleading, blue eyes, he was powerless to resist and acceded with a laborious, "Fine." He supposed any distraction, particularly one involving copious amounts of alcohol, could only be a good thing. If nothing else, it made Gretchen, who had struggled to get him much past his own garden fence for the past two weeks, rejoice in her success so much as to provoke a rare smile from the otherwise glum Ethan.
When finished with all her self-congratulation, she addressed him once more in a daring attempt at humour. "Maybe you'll make it two for two and find some other foreign bird to finger." Despite his best efforts to glower at his friend, he could not help but laugh at her vulgar choice of words and cheeky grin.
Gretchen's elder cousin, Danny, was on hand the next day to unlawfully supply them with more beer than two people should drink of an evening and deliver them to the unauthorised house party of their friend. Ethan, even in all his own exaggerated misery, felt rather sorry for the twenty-year-old who, on the face of it, didn't have many friends of his own and who admitted to having no Friday evening plans of his own. He was not, however, so desperate for company as to accept the pity invitation to join them at a party where he would be the only one old enough to drink and, ironically, the only one not able to do so.
The festivities were under way when they arrived but by no means in full swing. The house was near silent between the distinct absence of music and the reluctance on the part of the half dozen party-goers to converse much. Immediately she entered the living room, Gretchen scolded Big Dave for being such a pitiful host and the small gathering already there assembled for looking so utterly miserable. Within less than ten minutes, she had filled the house with uncomfortably loud music, kicked off a fast-paced drinking game and induced two nervous-looking boys to do tequila shots with her in the kitchen. A bemused Dave stood, mouth agape, as what was to become a memorable evening unfolded around him.
Ethan watched all this with some amusement from a secluded spot in the corner of the lounge whilst taking large mouthfuls of lager. Thankfully, no one paid him much notice and after his initial refusal to join in Ring of Fire he was pressed no further. Left to himself, his mind soon wandered to the subject which had plagued it so regularly of late. Still fresh were the memories of the gooseflesh of her legs as she sat on his lap by the campfire, the heart-melting way she pronounced his name and the sweet taste of her full, pink lips. What he would have given for another night, alone, with her; how he now lamented his stupidity in not pursuing her sooner.
Three full beers and several mindless acknowledgments to friends had passed before Ethan realised quite how lively the proceedings had become. The house was full, the guests were merry and the host was in a fluster about the raiding of his parents' drinks cabinet; it was precisely as any noteworthy party ought to be. He scanned the room for his exuberant companion but, finding her not within sight, made a move towards the kitchen where she was likely acting as the primary cause of Big Dave's distress. As he edged his way across the room, not wishing to be drawn into any conversations with his peers, he noticed a gaggle of girls with whom he rarely associated eyeing him with a great deal of interest. One, in particular, a made-up, fake-tanned blonde by the name of Lindsey, seemed to be watching the lean figure of Ethan Blake very intently until it disappeared from the room in search of more pleasing society.
On seeing him, Gretchen quitted herself of the two flirtatious gentlemen with whom she was then engaged to receive Ethan in a joyous hug and insist on his joining her in a tequila slammer. Two were done directly by each in rapid succession, effectively emptying the misappropriated bottle. There was a gaiety about her person that, combined with the alcohol now swilling around inside him, lightened his heart and made him happy to have been persuaded to come. He would almost have gone so far as to predict his having an enjoyable night.
Just as he was about to express this gratitude, in walked the busty Lindsey, overdressed in an obviously expensive, provocatively short blue dress and extravagant heels which she tottered about in unstably. She had the laughable appearance of a child desperately yearning to be seen as an adult in the eyes of her contemporaries. Gretchen, who detested such girls, could not observe her with a straight face and restrained herself just long enough to excuse herself from the kitchen, leaving Ethan quite alone with her. It seemed this was just the audience she was hoping for. With an affected flick of her hair, she approached the cornered young man and ran a bony finger down the length of his left arm. What the hell is she doing? he thought to himself, quite bewildered by the suggestive actions of a girl who had never before shown any interest in him and to whom he had never intentionally given any encouragement.
Though Ethan was aware of how his reputation as a 'golden boy' in the eyes of some had crumbled in light of his recent tent-related indulgence, he was yet ignorant of some of the consequences of this perceived alteration in his personality. Thought generally to be very handsome, he had not been without admirers amongst the young ladies of his acquaintance, especially those who ranked aesthetics more highly than most when selecting a potential boyfriend. However, being that he never seemed much in the way of taking any interest in them, and given he was regarded by them as something of a puritan, their pursuits to attain his affections were always short-lived and he rarely knew anything of them at all. He was blissfully unaware that the respectability of his character had, for some time now, been driving away the attentions of the likes of Lindsey, the image of teenage vanity now before him.
Now, with all that had passed in the last two weeks, the deterrent effect of his good name was vanished, leaving a clear path for the would-be sluts to the ever more alluring Ethan. What had especially renewed their partiality to him was the secondary rumour that he had brought the French exchange girl to an orgasm, an occurrence most of their young bodies were yet to experience but one that they anticipated with great curiosity and excitement. An attractive young man that they believed able to bestow that kind of pleasure was one worth pursuing. It was therefore inevitable that, with Aurélie so promptly out of the picture, the wolves would descend.
And here she was, the first representative of all those girls who had previously fancied their chances negligent, the first willing to try her hand at obtaining the 'new' Ethan as her trophy. Nor was she come without the expectation of success. With an unbecoming air of confidence did she now accost the confused young man who stuttered a polite hello. She meant to be seductive as she moved in close to him but did it with such a lack of grace as to seem awkward, clumsy almost.
Chewing gum was an abominable habit in Ethan's view and one which Lindsey undertook for the duration of their conversation. Everything she said and did was said and done with such overt flirtation that he was left in no doubt as to her intentions towards him. Nothing she said or did, however, was in a way to make him inclined to feel likewise. Her conversation was wretchedly dull and superficial and, quite aside from her repulsive gum-chewing, nothing about her person or gestures were in the least appealing to him. He endured her company alone for a full ten minutes, muttering disinterested responses to her torrent of flattering questions and observations between long draughts of beer.
As he wracked his booze-addled brain for some reason to get away, some pretext under which to excuse himself from her undivided attention, she was forever moving closer to him, touching his arm more affectionately or giving him her over-rehearsed come-hither look.. It was with great relief and gratitude on one side, great disappointment on the other, that they were interrupted by Ethan's friend Scott, presently requiring to consult with him, and with a civil goodbye to Lindsey he was quickly gone from the kitchen, leaving her indignant at the slight.
Scott only wanted Ethan for his opinion on the looks of two older looking girls, unknown to them both, who had joined the party and on his chances of pulling one of them. Ethan, feeling so indebted to his friend for the rescue, declared the very plain girls as "absolutely stunning" and assured the gullible youth of his astonishment were neither of them to take a shine to him. This was all the encouragement he needed and set about preparing his charming introduction and trying in vain to persuade Ethan into the role of 'wingman'.
A smirking Gretchen appeared at his side just as soon as Scott left it. They both watched as he embarked on his inevitably fruitless mission and she casually asked, "What did that slag Lindsey want?"
"Me," he answered with a sigh, "The girl is insufferable."
"Get your hole! Hit it 'nd quit it, Ethan." He chuckled lightly at her advice. "It might help to take your mind off - "
"Aurélie? I doubt it." His expression saddened as he recollected the infinite superiority of the French beauty to the intolerable tart in question. The Lindsey Raffertys of this world couldn't hold a candle to that sweet-tempered girl and were barely fit, in his opinion, to be mentioned in the same breath.
"All I'm saying," she went on, quite oblivious to his preoccupations, "Is you can't talk with a mouth full of cock." She was away to speak to Big Dave and Luke before Ethan heard properly what she had said and he laughed aloud when he did. True though her words were, he was sure it was not a good scheme for several reasons, not least his continuing feelings for Aurélie. He did not desire to have a new reputation of promiscuity, nor to be harassed for the remainder of the summer by Lindsey or any other girl for sexual favours or, worse, a relationship. No, he settled instead on the strategy of avoidance and hoped that she would take the hint.
It was incumbent on him to mingle a little in the revelry and as he started to move the degree of his insobriety became apparent. Managing to steady himself enough to not cause himself embarrassment, he joined a small gathering by the window. The merriment and laughter around him made Ethan forget, for the present, both the woman he ought to be on the look out for and the one who most often occupied his thoughts. So engrossed was he, in fact, by his companions' merriment that it quite escaped his notice that Gretchen had absented herself from the room with Big Dave. He was not so blind, however, to Lindsey's entrance and as she scoured the room (for him, he suspected), he manoeuvred himself so that he might be unseen. It succeeded, but she was on the move and it would not be long before he was discovered if he did not remove himself. With what ninja-like qualities he still possessed in his inebriated state, he skirted round the room to the door and exited unnoticed, finally letting out his breath on the other side of it.
The kitchen wasn't a safe enough hide-out so he passed right through it, picking up a fresh beer en route without missing a step, to the dark, empty garden. If memory served, there was a secluded bench where he could lay low for a while on the far side of the lawn. Solitude he did not mind, especially considering the alternative. Fumbling around a little, he eventually took his seat and contemplated for a moment what pleasure there was in silence. He leaned back and stretched his arms out and, to his complete surprise, his hand came into contact with another person, seated in the shadows on the other end of the bench. A short exclamation and quick apology followed and he tried to discern the face of his neighbour. Female, to be sure, and small but too shielded by darkness to be made out.
"Who are you hiding from, Ethan?" were her first words to him. Her soft voice was familiar to him, and they were clearly acquainted, but still he could not recognise her, no matter how much he stared and squinted. When no response came, she leaned forward to let a stray beam of light from the kitchen window land on her pale face and satisfy Ethan's curiosity.
"Morag? I didn't even know you were here. How are you?" Morag Millar was a person with whom Ethan was on friendly terms but about whom he did not know a great deal. He thought it odd, and testament to the success of the party, that such an introvert, rarely seen at any kind of social gathering whatsoever, was in attendance. She was a nice girl, but too quiet to be noticed by most and too strange to admit many close friends. Ethan always delighted in conversing with her, however, for he found her always extremely interesting and full of good humour; she was always gratified that he ever gave her the time day.
They talked animatedly for a quarter of an hour at least on the only topic he knew for certain they had a common interest in - literature. Of all Ethan's classmates, Morag alone could be considered his equal in knowledge of the subject and, though their tastes were different, they always found much to discuss and debate. On this evening, Ethan found the naturally shy girl to be much livelier than was her wont and much less reserved in speech and manner than he was used to. It was a welcome change and their intercourse was distinguished by an easiness that was wanting in their friendship until now.
In a natural break, he took the opportunity to ask a question he had been wanting to since he was sensible of who she was: "Where's what's-his-name tonight then?"
'What's-his-name' was Morag's boyfriend, Damian. He was older, just left high school, and carried with him an affected impression of mystery which intrigued no one. Her association with him, considered a most unsavoury person, was just another reason for her own classmates to alienate her. Since the beginning of their courtship, it was almost unheard of to see either in public without the other and Ethan had been at once struck by the rarity of finding her quite alone. Still, he had not suspected what she next told him to be true.
"We broke up." Despite the flat, emotionless, matter-of-fact way she said it, the information could not fail to surprise. One who knew them as a couple never doubted the longevity of the match, regardless of their opinion on it or either of the persons involved. They seemed as devoted to one another as a young couple can be and certainly she saw him, or had once seen him, as a faultless, incomparable creature. Not a person living had seen her, before or since, as happy as the day he had asked her out; she had regarded it an honour that he, who was so 'dark' and 'brooding', had even ever taken notice of her.