Apples Read Free

you had to because the house music was so loud. I nodded, a bit zombified, watching Rachel getting hitted on. I didn’t realise she’d come out in the gold porno top, and I laughed to myself because she always took guys for a total ride. She ended up with two watermelon Breezers, then fucked off to the dancefloor with us lot. It was emptyish round the stage, but that’s what you got for setting off too early – we’d only been to Zantia and the Ex, and in winter it feels a lot later than it really is. The love-heart on my arm said 10:16, and it seemed to be spinning slower than normal.
    Bacardi Breezer Person tried to hang out with us for a couple of dances, swishing about Rachel like a floppy dick, then he got the hint and slinked off someplace else. In a way you felt bad about blowing men’s wages, but at least they had the money and you weren’t really forcing them. Rachel smiled an eensy bit, then went to me, Here have one of these. I know you’re skint and that …
    I didn’t even like watermelons. I clenched the bottle, then spotted Dan Williams in the opposite corner and I had to go over. He was cute as anything in a new whitey shirt, and I tried to chat him up but he wasn’t receptive to that sort of thing. Rachel liked him too, and I wondered how long her promise to stay off boys was going to last. She appeared at my elbow in two seconds flat. So we bantered for a while, not really knowing what each other was saying, and I couldn’t really get rid of Rach because I was drinking her drink. Dan was sexy, but he also seemed to care about you and loads of times we walked home together and went on adventures. Over there, it looked like Jenni and the Dyslexic had got the hump and they stormed up the ledge to the bar, trailing Grace since she was easily taken into stuff. Debbie had this boyfriend from North Ormesby called Brandon (coloured, of course), but Jenni always got jealous of me and Rachel knocking around with stud-muffins. Jenni wasn’t the prettiest bush in the garden; she tended to settle for absolute monsters or worm her way into mine and the girls’ sexy rejects. The last lad she’d been with was a twenty-year-old care-worker with a hare lip.
    I stammered around on the dancefloor, then erupted into full-blown dancing as the place filled up. The drinks were starting to feel quite whirly, and I managed to drag Rachel off Danny boy and get her for a boogie – she was just about to perk her tits up in the gold top. We kissed him goodbye very competitively.
    Where are the others? Rachel yelped, getting about as excited as me as she finished off her Bacardi. I pointed to the balcony where those three were intentionally looking sour-faced, probably booing and hissing while we span each other round and round. But I didn’t want them being sad on a Friday night. In the end I grabbed Rachel’s hand and we had to go collect them – we were too mature for any stupid attitude like that. We fell up the stairs.
    What youse doing?
    Jenni just looked at me, but she was pleased we trekked up. I was blistering in new heels, but the girls were worth it. Jenni had an overbite and one boob bigger than the other, and I always figured that’s why we fell out so much – sometimes it was over boys, sometimes it was over outfits and doing things at breaktimes, but she’d been jealous of me since Beechwood Juniors. I was sheer perfection. But it turned out the girls weren’t even that cross with us – Jenni had poppers in her bag and they were all getting whacked- out while me and Rachel were dancing. I took it off them – me, Debbie and Brandon often had laughs in that sex shop down Boro, giggling at the horse sex and fetish videos then getting the Turkish guy to score us nitrate. He always had the real gayboy types like Hard and Liquid Gold, but that made it funnier and we tended to sniff them on the way back to Brandon’s, him driving while me and Deb floated in zero gravity.
    Woo, I said, getting a hot flush as