What Lies Beneath

June sat at the kitchen table flicking through the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. She paused to take a bite of her chocolate bar and stared at the picture of the beautiful actress coming out of the restaurant, man on her arm. She looked at the clock on the wall, sighed and grabbed her books. As she left through the front door she caught a glimpse of her brown crumpled cardigan in the hall mirror.

Her friends were waiting for her at the usual place behind the clock tower. They walked the mile and a half to university, stopping off at their favourite department store on the way. They tried on different clothes and each decided on a particular item. June wanted a blouse she was sure would win him over, but they didn’t have her size. She tried desperately to get into a smaller size, but ended up leaving the shop fed-up and empty handed.

An hour later, she was sitting at the front of the lab watching Peter with her chin resting in her hand as he spoke sagely on the topic of anatomical research. His long brown hair enveloped his ears like a Kinder Egg shell around a surprise. He raised his arms, exposing the patches on the elbows of his corduroy jacket - they gave him an air of authority. His hand hovered in the air, scalpel between two fingers as he prepared to cut the Common Frog which lay spread-eagled and helpless on the table below. As she watched, she tried to think of a question to ask him that would make her sound clever.

It was a friend of hers that had given her the idea. Lorrie had asked June to borrow her notes the week before as the building work had been going on for quite some time now and it was hard to hear what Peter was saying with the loud drilling going on outside - it was an unusually warm spring and they had to keep the windows open. She went back to the department store several days later and was delighted when the shop assistant came out the back with her size. As soon as she got back to campus she ran to the ladies and changed into her new blouse, shoving the one she was wearing into her bag. She hung around after the lecture, making sure that everyone had gone first. By the time the last person had left, she had bitten her nails right down to the bare skin.

‘Anytime’ he said smiling handing her the notes.
She took him up on the offer and started staying behind after every lecture. The scarlet colour in her cheeks dropped a shade each time she spoke to him.
They chatted about Biology at first and then the conversation moved on to music and food. Peter told June about a wonderful little place in Florence that did the best Florentine steak. June admired him all the more for his adventurousness as well as intelligence.

‘Tell me what it’s like Peter. I mean, what’s it really like to travel like you have?’
‘Well, it’s wonderful really. All the sounds and smells. There’s nothing quite like it.’
‘I’ve been to France before. With my parents when I was younger. And Spain. ‘What was Florence like?’ she asked.
‘You’d like it there’ he said as though reading her mind.
‘Would I?’
‘Right up your street.’
‘Really?’
‘Would you like to go for a coffee?’ he said unexpectedly.
‘That would be nice’ she said looking down at her shoes.
‘I’d like that very much’. He smiled, touching her gently on the arm.

June nibbled on her Battenberg whilst Peter chatted about travelling around Tuscany in a Fiat 126. She could hardly swallow her cake. She hadn’t been hungry in days.
‘I don’t normally do this June’ he said wiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.
She looked up from her plate.
‘What I mean is, go out with students like this. It’s just that I like you. I mean, I’ve enjoyed our conversations’.
‘Me too’ she said touching her cup with both hands. ‘Thanks for helping me. With the lecture notes and everything. I’d be lost without them. What with all the noise from outside.’
Peter leaned over and touched her lightly on the cheek.

Months went by and the coffees and chats became more frequent. June brought in some old records that belonged to her father which they played on an old record player Peter had brought in to the college. They listened to these records in an old storeroom nobody ever used. It made her feel rebellious and playing these old records with Peter comforted her somehow.

‘Would you like to come and see my house? Peter said one day. ‘It’s nothing special. Just a terrace with a small garden. I promise, I’ll tidy up first’ he said punching her playfully on the arm. ‘I have a large collection of books. I’ve been collecting them for years’.
‘I like books. I mean, I read a lot. That would be nice’ June said, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be just his book collection she’d be looking at.

As they walked side by side along the street, she watched a woman get her shopping out of an Austin Maxi whilst a child with a chocolate smeared face tugged impatiently at her hem. Clutching her sparse lecture notes protectively to her chest, an awful thought occurred to her. What if she was wearing her big white buckets? The emergency ones she only wore if she had no other clean ones left. She wished she'd saved her pretty pink ones. Or her gingham ones. But then how was she to know this was going to happen so quickly?

Peter held the front door open and she stepped into the magnolia hallway. She followed him into the living room and stood there agog. She had never seen so many books; books on politics, books on geography, books on history, books on nature. Her eyes moved like a ball around a roulette wheel. She looked up at Peter and smiled nervously. He took her hand and led her to the sofa. He released it and she drifted ghostlike to the edge where she perched demurely, hands clasping her knees. She took a deep breath and Peter leant over and kissed her. His tongue felt alien in her mouth as it moved around touching every surface, brushing her palate, gums, uvula and lingual frenulum. It reminded her of a Chamelion she’d seen at the zoo zapping its pray with its huge tongue.

His hand moved from her waist and crept slowly up her blouse. She leaped to her feet. ‘I need the bathroom’ she said. Locking the door behind her, she lifted up her skirt. It was as she’d feared -

What if he sees them and never wants to see me again? But if I don’t go through with this now, I might lose this opportunity for ever.

She had to take the risk. She'd kissed boys before, but never gone any further. If she was going to lose it, it had to be now. Then she’d be able to join in the conversations so many girls her age had instead of looking on in silence and nodding occasionally pretending to know what they were talking about - she felt such a fraud and she wasn’t going to let a pair of knickers ruin the chance. She released the crumpled sweaty mass of skirt she'd been clutching and resumed her place on the sofa.

'Is everything ok darling?' he asked her. He’d never called her that before. She smiled with her mouth closed and looked down at the brown carpet and started counting the tiny beige lines in each square. Peter put his hand under her chin and lifted her face towards his.

'It's ok', he whispered. 'There's no need to be nervous. I'll look after you'.

He kissed her again and she felt her head touch the back of the sofa. She thought he was going to rip off a button as his hands fumbled clumsily with the openings on her blouse. She wondered if he had a sewing kit in the house, and repressed a giggle as she thought of something her grandma used to say, he's all fingers and thumbs. He got up and held her shoulders with both hands as though about to kiss her, then changed his mind and stood up, undoing the fly on his trousers. Peter stood in front of her, Y-Fronts round his ankles. She couldn’t move. Before she had time to protest, her skirt was round her waist and he was on top of her. Closing her eyes, she said a prayer and thanked her grandma for the distracting thought. She lay there as stiff as an anesthetized fox and thanked God that he hadn't seen her big white buckets - they'd come off so fast, there was no way he could have seen them. She wondered why she was even worried in the first place.

As Peter dozed next to her, she picked up her knickers from behind the sofa. She had stupidly thought that men cared about looks and clothes. But after all, she thought to herself smiling, it really is only what’s underneath that matters.