The Book of Firsts

Sixty-Six

I spent the beginning of my last formal week of classes at Corascur happily finalising plans for the Rialto Bridge with Ms Johnson. Actual construction wouldn’t begin until the exams were over, but we worked out costs, ordered material, and wrote up a detailed assembly schedule.

"Does your family work in the industry?" Ms Johnson asked, as she looked over the plan on Tuesday lunch. "You’ve obviously had plenty of exposure."

"My mother visits a lot of sites," I said. "I tag along as often as I can—it’s always fascinated me to watch the process of making massive structures. At one site they gave me a time lapse of the deconstruction of a skyscraper in order to build a subway station, and then erect a new skyscraper over it. The complications of the foundation took longer than the rest of the project."

"Do you have it on you?"

"I’ll email it to you," I said. "I’m running a little late to meet a friend."

She nodded. "Good luck on the exams, if we don’t chat earlier. Remember to check in with your counsellor if you’re having any issues."

I waved and headed off, remembering halfway to be cautious. There’d been no sign of anyone following me, but the closer we got to the exams, the more risk-adverse I became. My low-profile style had worked well for me earlier in the year, but it was inevitable that after so many months my classmates recognised me, and perhaps would notice the direction I wandered off to on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The app indicator turned green while I was still en route and so, with a glance over my shoulder, I directly followed the wall to the adaptable fence. Turning the corner, I saw Bran just coming out of the gate, and smiled. He didn’t look in my direction, walking past the barred gap toward the entrance to the administration building. I hesitated, then heard a voice, and took a few steps back to the corner of the wall.

A pleasant female voice said his name, followed by something indistinguishable. I recognised Celeste. Since she was moving closer, I left, heading back to the dovecote. I added a quick message to the Cheshire app, then settled down to play a game of Tyranny.

"Mika?"

Carr’s voice. Moments from winning the battle, I didn’t glance up, but smiled. "You’ve found my hideaway."

"Do you come out here every lunch?"

"No, it’s a bit dank when it’s not sunny, but it’s good for bright days like this. Only problem is it’s not strictly still inside the school grounds, so I try to avoid the teachers noticing I go here."

I popped my ultimate, clearing the field, and then looked up at Carr and Natascha, who were unexpectedly hauling buckets filled with flowers.

"Flash florist?" I asked, blinking.

"For the Rose Court Afternoon Tea," Natascha said, with a shrug.

"I didn’t know you two were members," I said, vaguely recalling that there was a social event later in the day. "It’s some kind of handover ceremony?"

"We’re not members, just pushovers," Natascha said. "The members are busy primping. The flowers are for awarding attendees, and if you’ve been identified as a Rose Court candidate, you’re given a specific colour, but the colour changes each year, to ensure everyone is at maximum anxiety and low self-esteem levels, and spends all their time judging by who got what colour."

"The intention is to celebrate all female students," Carr said.

I looked at him, and he couldn’t hold back a wry curve of the lips.

"The Club has evolved a very long way from its original purpose," he admitted.

"Heading toward Hunger Games territory," I said. "I’m glad I missed that part of the Corascur experience."

"Behind the scenes it’s about business interests," Carr said. "People connecting on behalf of families."

Natascha snorted lightly. "Yeah, it’s the junior social set of the local powers that be. The only problem is, they like to pretend people outside that set might qualify." She glanced at Carr. "We’d better get on—not least because I’ll be accused of monopolising you if you don’t show up, with or without flowers."

Pretending not to hear that, I waved, and sat back, checking my phone. There was a message from Bran in the app, giving the all clear, but I waited until Natascha and Carr were well out of sight before heading up.

Bran was leaning against the open gate, where he had a view of both the walkway and the gap through the hedge. He moved quickly as I came into sight, twisting the bars free, and replacing them almost before I was through. He closed the gate firmly behind us and locked it with a twist of the key, letting out his breath as he did so.

"Worried more of the Rose Court will try to drag you off to give out flowers?" I murmured, as we headed to the summer house.

"Guessed that, did you?" He shut the summer house door, tossed the key on the coffee table, and dropped down on the couch with a disgusted expression. "Bad enough spending years putting up with the right people doing proper activities, but nothing could force me into an exercise of rubbing social gaps into the noses of the excluded."

"Is this what Sirocco used to humiliate Lania? Lania was very quiet this morning—I’ll have to check on her. It’s strange that Corascur can be so progressive, but tolerate something so retrograde."

"The school’s owned by one of the founding members of the Court." Bran had recovered his temper a little, and was examining me with a frown. "Did you cut your hair again?"

I grimaced. "Yes, but only because a brat sitting behind me on the bus decided to fill my ponytail with chewing gum, and I was too focused on Tyranny to notice until it was thoroughly clogged. I managed to get most of it out, but had to sacrifice a chunk. I’m surprised you can tell."

"What did you do to the kid? Wasn’t it supervised?"

"His mother was with him, but either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and wasn’t interested in apologising. So I pulled out the biggest wad I could manage, dropped it down her décolletage, and got off a stop early."

Bran nodded with faint approval. "No time wasted arguing, but still made your point." He reached out a hand and pulled me into his lap. "I hear you don’t like being tied up."

"I didn’t like Rin’s interpretation. I don’t know how I’d feel about milder forms."

"We changed the challenge to blindfold only. What point ruining one of these afternoons seeing how much you can tolerate something that you’re already dubious about?"

"How do you think Rin would feel about being tied up?"

"Hate it like fire. He can’t stand anything that restricts his mobility."

"What about you?"

Bran didn’t seem to have considered it before, and tightened his arm around my waist. "Might be fun. I’ll—" He paused, looked down, then reached for his backpack and hooked out a strip of white cloth. "You should be wearing this."

I obediently fastened it over my eyes, then adjusted it against a tendency to slip. "Blindfolds are enjoyable, but have a big negative of not being able to see you."

"Ogle me afterwards," he said, pulling me even closer, but only to bury his face into my throat. It didn’t seem to be an upset action, so I began to explore his back with my hands, and found that he seemed to want me to take the lead despite the blindfold.

Stripping a compliant Bran while not being able to see him was oddly exciting. Both of us were breathing hard, even before I got his pants off. When he was finally naked, we tangled for a while, all hard kisses and hot hands. I gradually tipped him onto his back and then sat myself on his thighs, and held him down until he stopped moving. Then I slowly stripped off my uniform.

When gasping from urgency, Bran would try to hold himself back, then slip his leash a little before restraining himself again. It worked exceptionally well with the blindfold, because it was harder for me to spot when he was about to lose himself. Bran had gained a lot of control since our first time on the school trip, and we kept working each other to new levels of intensity, not stopping for the longest time.

Tugging the blindfold off, I looked at his profile. His skin glowed under a light sweat, he had his eyes closed, and his brows were drawn slightly together, as if he were thinking of something difficult. I had come close to disliking Bran, when that was what he was trying to achieve, but now we had established a comfortable accord, and my first instinct was to try to cheer him up.

But it was too easy for me to guess what he was trying to conceal, and I had no solution for that, so I sighed silently, and kissed him.