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SIXTEEN

Suzie

‘It’s midnight. I don’t care if other Spanish people are up. Go to sleep,’ says a beleaguered Charlie in the hallway. What are you doing with that shaving foam? Give it here? No, put it down.’

Contrary to what we previously thought – that the early start would have made these kids super tired – it transpires that dancing and too much Coke (the drink) on the rooftop has turned these kids into whirling swirling overtired child beasts.

This hostel is going to hate us, they’re going to tar us English all with the same hooligan brush.

It’s been like this for the last six hours so this also means Charlie and I have barely spoken, let alone touched or had the time to do anything remotely steamy.

‘Please put some clothes on, why are you in swimming trunks? Where are you going?’ I can still hear Charlie trying to control them and herd them into their rooms. ‘I will ring all your parents. All of them, look at me! I’m holding my phone.’

I lie back in my top bunk and try to rest for a little bit, grateful for a night breeze coming through the window.

All the staff are rotating patrol duties so I try to think of ways to calm them down when it’s eventually my turn.

Cough medicine? An attempt to block all their WiFi/data signals?

Money? I scratch at my left ankle. Urgh, I’m also getting bitten.

I scratch that itch again and reach down to feel a red bump.

Not just one bump, it’s a little cluster of them.

Some Spanish mosquito has had a feast. I’m calling him Miguel.

The little prick. I turn on my phone torch to try and look for him and give him a good piece of my mind.

But as the light hits my ankle, I look at the bites and my face creases up.

I don’t think those are mosquito bites. A quick Google images search confirms my suspicions and I do some sort of strange spasm-like movement in the bed, crawling towards the slide so I get down and out of here.

The bizarre jumpy seizure like dance continues on the floor, just as Charlie enters the room.

He stands there for a moment, watching me.

‘God, not you too. Is this still part of your euphoric dancing?’ he enquires.

I am suddenly conscious that I am in my pants and a vest top.

‘No,’ I say, shimmying in my discomfort. I lift my leg a little in the air to show off my bites. ‘I’m getting bitten. I think my mattress has bed bugs.’ I continue to do my dance as he tries to pretend he’s not smiling.

‘Are the kids in bed yet?’ I ask.

‘No, Mark has taken over. He’s already threatened to throw someone’s suitcase out of the window so we shall see how that goes.’

I am listening but also have my phone out examining up and down my legs with the torch from my phone.

‘This is a strange way to present your legs to me,’ he says. ‘Lighting them up like this.’

‘Do you think they’re in me? Are bed bugs like nits? Do they cling on?’

He continues to just stand there looking at me in disbelief. I am not a biologist. I teach verbs .

‘I think they live in the bed which is why they’re called…’

‘Bed bugs…’ I repeat, slowly. ‘Why are you laughing at me? They might be in your mattress too. There could be an infestation…’ I whisper. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe I don’t want the bed bugs to be offended.

‘That’s a sexy word,’ he says, poking his tongue out, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Are they itchy?’

I nod, reaching down subconsciously to grate my fingers over the bites. ‘Sit down on the edge of my bed,’ he says. I do as I’m told while he digs through his bag. He then comes to kneel down in front of me and puts out a hand.

‘I’m going to touch you now,’ he says, a cheeky look in his eye knowing that we haven’t done that yet.

The touching. ‘Give me your ankle.’ I hold it out and he cups it gently, running his fingers along the bites like he’s reading braille.

I feel that touch everywhere and shudder again, feeling it run up and down my spine.

‘I think with bed bugs you have to suck the poison out?’

‘Really?’

‘No.’ He strokes his fingers up and down my foot and ankle and looks me in the eye. He reaches down for a jar of ointment. ‘They went for you. You must be tasty.’

‘It has been said.’

‘I’m rubbing some Tiger Balm on this. It will calm down the bites and help with the itching,’ he says, using his index finger to rub the balm over the bites lightly in circular motions.

He’s good at that but we knew that already.

I remember a moment next to a swimming pool where he was exceptional at that.

I try and steady my breath. He then leans over and kisses my knee.

‘This poses a very serious question, you know?’

‘It does?’ I ask.

‘Where on earth are you going to sleep tonight?’ He rests his hands on my knees and looks up at me. It’s started again, hasn’t it? All of it. This tension, feeling so incredibly turned on every time he’s close to me .

‘Your mattress might have bed bugs too,’ I tell him.

‘Maybe if we sleep on it together, our combined weight might scare them off,’ he suggests.

‘Is that a scientific method of prevention then?’

‘Yes.’ He kneels up. ‘We can do this as fast or as slow as you want though? We can top and tail, I can sleep on the floor if that would make you more comfortable?’

I shake my head, appreciating his good manners.

I pat the space next to me. ‘Let’s share.

’ This is the moment, right? Lying on the same mattress, a singular pillow and a shared space where we can have sex.

The sort of sex we’ve craved all day, we can recreate Mallorca and I can feel him inside me, I am aching to feel him inside me.

He takes off his shirt and I look at the outline of his shoulders.

He comes to sit next to me, our bodies not quite touching yet.

‘What a day,’ he says, his eyes heavy, exhaling loudly.

He rests his head on the pillow and invites me to curl into him, to rest in his arms. I find a space, our legs meeting and he finds a space just above my hip to rest a hand.

I feel the warmth of his breath on my neck as he goes to kiss it, just below my hairline.

‘I like this,’ he says, sleepily. And I will admit to liking it too, to feeling safe in his arms, like this is a good place to be. I adore the feel of his skin against mine.

‘I hope you don’t snore?’ I whisper. ‘Or steal the covers, not that there are any covers. It’s basically a sheet.

’ I should stop talking because I think talking is what killed it last time.

The fan in the corner of the room still rotates and the breeze is still soothing, making the curtain dance around the window.

‘Do you think if we move around a lot it may just crush all the bed bugs?’ I ask.

It was a bit of unorthodox way to initiate sex but I’m hoping he finds it funny.

I can literally feel his groin pressed up against me.

I think about him slipping my knickers down, sliding his fingers over me, me putting a hand to his chin, as he whispers absolute filth into my ears.

Charlie still hasn’t answered. Instead, his lips are against the back of my neck but I can feel the steady stream of him breathing against me.

‘Charlie? Are you asleep?’ I don’t know why I ask this because if he is asleep then he won’t answer.

I know what’s in his shorts is asleep. But I don’t mind.

I like this, quiet space where the energy just lets us rest for the moment, it lets us become entwined in each other.

‘Sleep tight…don’t let the bed bugs bite…

’ I laugh at my own joke. I’m half glad he’s not conscious to hear that.

‘Ummm… yeah… wha… no…’

Oh no, maybe he did hear it. ‘What was that, Charlie?’

I don’t think I can cope with a sleep talker, I’ll think him possessed half the time.

‘Put the shaving foam down.’

Well, maybe he isn’t possessed. I giggle quietly. In this in-between sleep, he also rubs his feet together. It makes a strange noise like he’s trying to start a fire. I smile and close my eyes, feeling like I’m at peace, like I could fall asleep very, very quickly.

Charlie

Max always tells me there’s a test to know if you really love someone or not, and that’s when you wake up in the morning, and the sight of them and the smell of their morning breath doesn’t completely scare you.

With his fiancée, Amy, he says it happened when they first went camping together in the New Forest. In his own words, Amy woke up looking like the Gruffalo.

She swore profusely at how cold and rainy it was and then got out of her sleeping bag, threw a hoodie on, opened the tent up and ran into a bush to go and have a wee.

He said he lay there, laughing at her and knew he was in love.

I look over at Suzie now and see her curled up on the bed like a little kitten.

Her dark wavy hair is swept over her face so she just looks like a massive hairball with a body, her knees curled up towards her, those red bumps on her ankle still visible.

She also drools when she sleeps. I woke with a very wet arm, assuming it to be sweat but no.

I just laughed and inhaled her hair which smelt vaguely of sweat and coconut.

It felt like I was just where I needed to be.