Just for the Rush. Jane Lark

a casual smoker.’

      He opened the tin, then glanced up at me and smiled. His look took the piss, calling me naive.

      I sipped from the bottle of ale and watched him pull out a long, white bit of paper. He lay it on the lid, then put what I thought was tobacco in that. I’d never been a smoker at all, so I knew nothing. Then he lifted out a bag of greener-looking stuff and sprinkled that along the tobacco.

      He glanced up. ‘I haven’t put too much in, so you can see if you like the feeling first. But I wouldn’t put too much in anyway – you only want enough to relax and feel good.’ He looked back at what he was doing and rolled the paper up into a tube about the tobacco with his dexterous long fingers and thumbs.

      I drank my ale while I watched him.

      He licked the edge of the paper, then grinned at me as he rolled the joint so it sealed.

      The last thing he did was tear a little bit of card off the packet he’d taken the paper from, then he rolled that up and slotted it into the end of the joint.

      He looked up and grinned at me again as he lifted it to his lips and then, sucking on the other end, he held a lighter flame to it. It flared as it lit. He took it out of his mouth and blew out the flame, so the end glowed and nothing more.

      ‘You don’t smoke,’ I said really stupidly.

      ‘No.’ He sucked on the joint again, breathing it in deep, and held the smoke in his mouth for a while, then blew the smoke out upward.

      ‘But you smoke that.’

      ‘I don’t smoke it all that much now.’ After he’d inhaled from it three times, he held the end he’d put to his lips out to me. ‘Do you want some?’

      ‘You can still get cancer from that if it has tobacco in it.’ God, that was such a Rick thing to say.

      ‘Yeah, but one isn’t going to give you cancer, and you can get cancer whatever. Do you want it?’ He lifted it up in my direction, his arm out, like now is your moment, take it or leave it.

      My heart knocked against my ribs. It was telling me to choose – not to do it – or do it. Heat and adrenaline pulsed in my blood, a rush of life, a rush of feeling. I wanted to feel like this. I wanted to take risks. ‘Yes.’ I reached out, took it and put it to my lips, then drew in a breath and choked.

      He laughed. ‘I take it you’ve never smoked.’

      I shook my head, still coughing.

      When I stopped coughing, I took a mouthful of ale and swallowed it, my throat had literally burned.

      ‘Just put it to your lips, breath in a little, let the smoke fill your mouth, then blow it out for now. You won’t get the hit so hard, but it won’t make you cough.’

      I did that; it still felt a weird thing to do.

      I blew the smoke out upward. Then I took a swig of ale, and then tried again, this time I breathed in slowly. It didn’t make me cough. I handed the thing back to him.

      He was smiling at me, like he thought I was funny.

      I poked my tongue out at him. ‘How did you get so successful?’ I knew he worked hard, but where had it started.

      ‘I’m a natural entrepreneur, Ivy. I have ideas, I put them out there, and I work my arse off to make them a success. And my brain buzzes with stuff. That’s why I need things like this to bring me down.’ He lifted the joint. ‘That’s why Em and I work so well together – she has all the qualities I don’t. She’s calm, cool and organised.’

      He inhaled from the joint.

      ‘You two are good together.’

      ‘I know.’ He breathed out smoke. ‘She knows it too.’ He laughed.

      ‘I like you,’ I said to him as he held out the joint to me.

      His smile quirked as I took the joint from his fingers.

      ‘I mean, I haven’t just always fancied you. I’ve always liked you.’

      ‘Thank you. I’ve always liked you too. That’s why I employ you.’

      ‘You don’t employ me any more, I gave you my notice.’

      He laughed as I breathed in some of the smoke. I felt different already, woozy, like being drunk but sober. Weird.

      ‘Oh yeah, right, I’m your lover now.’ His eyes looked at me in a different way when he said it.

      I wondered what the cannabis was doing to him.

      After my third turn smoking his joint I handed it back. I could feel it in my blood. The music seemed to play louder and I could pick out the sounds within it more: the beat, the lyrics, all seemed – separated out.

      He watched me as he inhaled, then said, as he let the smoke slide out of his mouth, ‘How do you feel?’

      ‘Different.’

      He handed me the joint again. I breathed the smoke in and held it in my lungs for a minute, like he was doing. Then breathed it out.

      Shit, it hit my bloodstream hard and my head spun. It was like being drunk, except when you were drunk you had no control. I still felt in control.

      I handed the joint back to him. It was making me feel sick.

      ‘You okay?’

      ‘Yeah.’ I nodded. The room spun.

      He took two more puffs, then leant and opened the burner and threw the rest of it into the fire.

      I drank the last of my ale.

      He drank his, set his bottle down on the hearth, then took my empty bottle and put that down too.

      ‘Take your top off, Ivy.’

      I still had my hoodie on. I slipped it off as he got up, and I toppled on to my back, with my hoodie stuck on my arms.

      I laughed as I stripped it off.

      He’d gone into the kitchen.

      When he came back. I threw my hoodie on to the empty sofa.

      He had a tea towel in his hand.

      ‘Blindfold, remember.’ He waved it at me. His forfeit. Then I remembered my choice. After he’d done whatever, I was going to tie him up with it.

      His legs straddled mine when he dropped on to the cushions and he lay the tea-towel over my chest and folded it over several times on a diagonal until it was a band. ‘Lift your head.’ He set it over my eyes, wrapped it around and tied it behind my head. It was tight. I couldn’t see.

      My heartbeat was a sound joining in with the music; I could feel its rhythm in my chest. It reverberated through my body. Then there was a rush of adrenaline, but the rush came in an odd way, it was as if someone had pressed slow motion.

      I wanted him.

      I wanted to do things with him.

      I wanted him to do things to me.

      ‘Ivy. Ivy. Ivy.’ His words danced on the air as he began unbuttoning the blouse I’d worn into work this morning – I was never going to be able to wear it to work again.

      His fingers brushed against my skin – he wasn’t hurrying, he was doing it slowly and I could sense him watching what he did and looking at the skin he revealed. It made my pulse race, and my body hotter, and both sensations were amplified by the cannabis.

      ‘Oh, my fuck… You have abs.’ His fingers slid another button loose and then began tracing lines on my belly. ‘I always knew you were fit – I mean fit as in the amazing-looking sense of the word. But you are beautiful.’

      His fingertips skimmed over the hollows on my stomach. Following the lines with reverence.

      Rick had never made