Samantha Jones

Extract from Cherry Bomb

Angelica's studio was at the back of the house, past an equally manicured and brilliantly lit sitting room, kitchen, and dining room. The studio marked a stark change from the previous rooms. “This used to be my Mom’s space. She was a designer.” 

I nodded and looked at each of the walls, strewn with paint-splattered tarps. The ground was grey and slate and was also splattered with colour. “I converted it a couple of years ago.” 

I nodded, silently, observing the canvases stacked in small piles around the space and scattered in corners. One particular canvas caught my eye and I walked slowly towards it almost hypnotically and knelt down to inspect it further. 

“What is this?” I asked, quietly. 

“Straight for the kill, eh?” 

I hadn’t realised she had followed only a pace behind me and her reply made me jump. I cleared my throat nervously and she laughed at the sound it made. 

“It’s called, ‘Alone.’” 

I nodded. The canvas was almost completely covered in black except for a sketchy outline in red of a beautiful girl with empty eyes and a haunted bone structure. Her hair was a mess and everything about the blank way she stared at me sent a shiver down my spine. 

“Spooky isn’t it?” 

I nodded again. 

“What made you…” 

She bent beside me until we were both at eye level with the girl. Then she waited a moment before answering the question I hadn’t been able to finish. 

“I had a lot of anger when my parents died. It’s when I started painting actually.” I looked towards her then, but her eyes were still glued to the girl.

“I was angry at everything and everyone. I was angry at myself for being so pathetic about my inability to imagine being on my own. I was angry at my brother for fucking off travelling and never talking to me about anything, never comforting me, never even crying. I was really angry at my parents for doing this to me, for leaving me here…” 

I felt a bead of sweat drip down my neck as she spoke, her voice growing in intensity as it lessened in volume. 

“But above all else I was angry at everyone else. Everyone who got to complain about their families. Everyone who complained about stupid stupid things. I was angry at teenagers who thought the world had been unfair to them. I was angry at old people for complaining about their knees. I was angry at everyone who got to live but who didn’t deserve to and would never know it.” A long silence oozed from the ground around us and the painting we knelt beside. 

“I get it,” I said with a confidence I didn’t recognise in myself. The feeling, however, I did. I felt it with a sincerity in me that hadn’t been touched in a long, long time. “Now come on,” she stood up then, her voice much lighter. She paced to the other side of the room quickly and I followed behind her again, this time to a high top table on top of which sat an impressive variety of camera equipment. She let her hands run across the top of each camera and then studied me carefully. I blushed but she didn't acknowledge it, focused on tracing the shape of my face with her eyes. And although this made me nervous, the serious and purposeful nature of her gaze—as though I were an apple or chair she was trying to understand geometrically—it forced me to step into my role as the limp subject itself. My conceit disappeared as I yearned to be styled and made into her mysterious vision. “I think I'm gonna take a few Polaroids first. Then I'll take some with the Nikon. I think…” 

Then she stepped closer to me and lightly brushed my hair behind my shoulders. Goosebumps lined my arms and neck. “I know, I know. Cold hands. I’m just trying to see something…turn around.” I turned around. 

Then she touched my back, triggering even more goosebumps. Her fingers were even cold through my top. “Straighten up.” 

I nodded dumbly and straightened my back as much as I could. 

“Hmm. You're quite an ambiguous height actually.…Are you 5’7?” 

I nodded. “You carry yourself like you're 5’5”, 5’6”. Did you knowthat?” I thought about it for a moment before she continued. 

“It’s very important to always carry yourself like you're two inches taller than you really are. As close to eye level as you can get to a man the more he sees you as his equal.” I swallowed. 

She then walked back over to the camera table and grabbed a large, heavy-looking camera. It was grey and had a complicated face. 

“Is that a Polaroid?” 

"It takes Polaroids,” she corrected. 

“How old is it?" 

“My mum bought it old when she was young.” She stood back from me and pointed at a white sheet which was hanging down from and covering a section of wall. There was a lamp beside it, ten feet tall probably, which was pointed towards the sheet. “Turn that on, will you? Switch is on the side.” 

I walked over to the lamp and twisted a knob beside the bulb which lit up brilliantly, staining my vision with black spots that I tried to rub away.

“Now. Why don’t you…here. I brought down some outfits I want to put you in.” She then kicked a banana crate towards me which was overflowing with garments, all clashing in texture and colour. "But I can take your Polaroids in what you're wearing now. American Mia, as she is.” I laughed and she motioned for me to stand before the hanging sheet. 

“Now sit, will you?” 

I stepped into the beam of the lamp. “Here?” 

She shrugged. “Here, there, anywhere. Just sit down.” 

I hesitated and then sat down exactly where I was standing and looked towards Angelica, trying not to squint from the light. The ground was cold on my bare legs. She looked into her clunky camera and as soon as I thought she was about to click a photo she let it drop and let a small smile creep over her face. 

“Alright, maybe not there. Scootch here.” She stepped over to me. “Sit here. And put your knees up. If you feel weird because your pants show you don’t have to, but I think it’ll look cool.” 

I nodded and put my knees up, leaning against the wall with the sheet, head tilted towards her. 

“They're pink—that's hot.” 

I smiled. 

“No smiles.” 

I frowned. 

She smiled. “No frowns either.” 

I smiled. 

“Just relax your face. Pretend the camera is the window in your bedroom on a grey day.”My mind flashed to my Old Street window, of the boys I’d seen racing scooters, of the cracked pavement and the Sainsbury's off in the distance where I bought my wine. I thought of all the times that week I’d stared blankly outside of it, distracted, but not satisfied by the noisy dullness that it held in its realm. 

“Just like that.” Angelica clicked and the camera flashed. “See you’re a natural! Now let's do some more.” 

I spent the next two hours taking on and off various leather and feathery and beaded vests and trousers and skirts. As it went on, Angelica coaching me the entire time, I became less and less self-conscious and more and more malleable. Soon hesitation had all but disappeared and I felt, in those clothes, in those poses, no longer like Mia, but like an extension of her own mind. 

It was when I was wearing a pair of golden leopard print cowboy boots and a long pale yellow slip dress that Angelica put the camera down. “I think I want you standing on something.” 

I shrugged as she cast her eyes around the room in search. 

“What about…would you grab that stool over there? Yes that one, the tall one.” I grabbed a metal stool that stood beside the high top camera table and dragged it carefully towards the light and white screen. 

“And, climb up onto it.” 

As I did I tried as best as I could to not let my thick heels get caught in the crisscrossing metal of legs and leg rests. She snapped photos as I scaled. When I got both my feet on the top of the stool successfully I slowly extended my legs and stood up out of my crouch, holding my arms out from my sides for balance.

“Nice one…You look cool!” 

“Thanks,” I said, trying to keep as still as I could. 

“But could you…hmm.” She lowered the camera again and tapped on her chin thoughtfully. “The dress looks really lovely but I can't really see the boots. Will you reach your leg out—the right one—off the stool and balance on the left?” 

I swallowed and looked down at my feet, nervously. “I can try, but I’m scared I might…” And before I could finish the redundant thought, I was crashing towards the ground. The transfer of weight to my left foot had swiftly unbalanced the stool and sent it on its side. I landed hard beside the toppled stool, the thump of my knee on slate drowned out by the crash of metal on steel. 

“Oh fuck!” Angelica observed, as I quickly stood up, realising with a sickening glance that my right knee had torn right through the dress, and was peeking out of it cheekily. “I…I'm so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I said, shaking from the fright of the tumble and the throb of my knee which was now oozing scarlet. She came towards me and knelt down, touching the wound which stung. I let out a wince. 

“Hush, don’t apologise. I'm sorry. Does it hurt?” 

"A little,” I said. "But the dress…” 

“It was just an old night dress. It’s fine…Are you sure you're alright?” 

I nodded again. “Just need a band-aid really. Looks worse than it feels.” As I said it I knew it wasn't true. It felt exactly the way it looked. I wondered when the bruising would begin. We both straightened up again. 

“I’ve got a first aid kit in the foyer—I’ll clean it up. But… Can we try something first?” 

I blinked, unsure of what she meant.

“It's just…here, sit down on the floor.” 

I did. 

"Now let me see your knee.” She knelt down again. I extended my leg towards her as smoothly as I could. "Tell me to stop whenever.” 

I nodded, still unsure of what she meant. I watched her put her hand to my knee, and let the blood ooze over it slowly. 

“Shhh” she said. I didn’t make a noise. And then, with her coated fingers, she smeared a line of blood under each of my eyes. 

I froze, unable to formulate a sentence, unable to formulate a thought. 

“Shhh," she said again. 

I stayed quiet as she reached down again, and coated her fingers with even more blood before smearing it again on my face. 

“Here,” she said quietly, taking my own hands in hers, and putting them to the cut. Her hands were cold and my blood was warm and I shuddered at the touch of both of them. My wound was now dripping down my leg in diagonal lines towards the boots. 

“Use it,” she commanded. 

I put my own hands then to my face and let the liquid drip down my forehead, my lips. “Wow,” she whispered. And then without another word Angelica stood up again and grabbed her camera. This time she didn't give me directions. I stared at the camera as blankly as I could. It flashed.

We’d finished the photoshoot in the early afternoon and after patching my knee with slim black plasters, she’d left me wandering around her kitchen with a callous “one second!” before reemerging with four glass bottles of Swedish cider, two in each hand. 

“We can go for a swim. It’s fucking hot out.” 

I nodded and took the bottle she held out for me. “If you want you can borrow a swimsuit. Actually, there’s one I know would look so elegant on you.” 

So we left the ciders on the counter and I followed her up the big marble staircase I’d ogled at on the way in, down a bright hallway with floor-to-ceiling windows, and into a room that was mostly empty except for a cream-coloured silky princess bed that sat in its centre and a walk-in wardrobe across from the bed. 

I sat on the bed as she went into the closet and sifted through a bureau of drawers, her fingers fluttery and birdlike. 

“I can never remember exactly where…oh! Here we are. Magic.” She spun around and held up a one-piece swimsuit, blue, and tossed it towards me. I leaned left and caught it, just, and then watched as she bent over to unlace her boots. As she toyed with the laces she hummed a song sweetly that made me feel strangely nostalgic. “You know that song?” I nodded slowly, unlacing my own shoes and sliding them off. 

“I’m glad.” She smiled big and I smiled back, sheepishly, before holding up Angelica’s swimsuit towards the light. It wasn’t exactly the elegant garment I’d expected—in fact it felt childish in its modesty. But I quickly brushed the thought away, aware and embarrassed of its inherent (and surely misguided) insult. When I shifted my eyes back towards Angelica she was admiring herself in a mirror that ran around two walls of the closet, flicking her hair about her neck, letting her fingers chase it down the backs of her arms. It was funny to watch someone

watch themselves, someone who spent so much time being watched by everyone else. There was a rawness to it, a centring. 

And then, as if I wasn’t there sitting on her silky bed and staring at her in awe from it like a toddler at her mother, Angelica peeled her panties off in one swift motion and let the dress she’d been wearing fall silently to her feet. I blinked, wondering if she’d forgotten I was still there, and in a hesitated bewilderment cleared my throat and wrenched my eyes away from her and towards the bedroom window; The humming stopped. 

“Mia,” she said then, her voice light. 

“Yes?” I responded, keeping my eyes focused on the glistening pool and manicured lawn of the level below. How beautiful it looks, I wanted to be thinking. It feels just like summer. I pressed the words into my head with the fickle conviction of an erasable marker. 

“Mia,” she said again, this time her voice demanding my eyes. I intentionally gave her another beat of privacy before turning my head toward her. 

When I did, she was still bare except for a curiosity of face that I neither recognised nor knew how to decipher. Her naked body stark against the shadows of the closet. “Do you think my nipples are too red?” Her voice was even and I waited a moment for her to break into a smile, to tell me she was joking, to roll her eyes at my nerves—but she did none of these things. There was an interminable pause before I finally let my gaze wander, cautiously, to her chest, where a set of ruby-red, nickel-sized nipples lived perfectly and symmetrically at the centre of perky swells of smooth pale flesh. 

“Too red?” I managed. 

She glided closer to me, the sun from the window now hitting her eyes and hair, which shimmered.“Yeah, do you think they look unnatural?”

I shook my head slowly. “No, not at all.” 

“How about too firm… feel them.” She then came even closer to me, her breath sweet on my face. 

I tried to stay calm as she took one of my hands in hers, which was still cold, and raised it to her right breast, a soft mound of twenty-two year old flesh that I cupped perfectly in my hand. Her nipple, which was both hard and tender, poked into my palm. “Squeeze it,” she said, in almost a whisper. When I did she let out a relaxed exhalation and a wave of aching pleasure rushed through me. 

“Are you nervous, Mia?” 

I breathed in as slowly as I could. Could she feel my heart beating from my palms? “No, no,” I stammered. 

She tilted her head left then and let the corner of her lips twist into a knowing smile. And then she touched my other hand slowly, and this time I didn’t need direction. I raised it until I had both of her breasts in my hands. 

A strange urge tickled my insides and with it I flicked her left nipple lightly, felt it grow erect and press harder into me. I looked down then, at my hands, and when I raised my gaze her eyes, big and hazel and intense, locked with mine. 

“So what do you think?” 

“What do I think?” 

“Are they too firm?” 

I shook my head, “No, they’re perfect.” 

But when I blinked next she was across the room again, my hands still up in surrender to her and now tingling from loss of contact.

“Well don’t just stand there, let’s go to the pool,” she said in half-mocking frustration as she pulled on a little bronze bikini top, her nakedness gone in the quickest of moments. “I’m gonna grab something—don’t wait up, I’ll meet you there!” 

—

I tilted my head back and finished the rest of my second cider, giggling as some of it dripped onto my chest, sticky and pink. We had taken shots as soon as we’d gone downstairs, which I’d gladly agreed to as a way of avoiding my thoughts about what had happened upstairs. 

We’d laid out big white towels on the Finch family pool chairs and Angelica connected her phone to a wireless outdoor speaker as we’d chinned more ciders. 

The sun wasn’t hot like it had been a few weeks ago, but it was warm and it was comfortable and it made my face feel tight with the promise of light burn. I was feeling almost drunk now, which meant I was probably quite a while past ‘almost drunk,’ and I was content. 

We were talking, we were laughing, and I couldn’t help but think about how easy it was with Angelica. She seemed interested in me in a way that made me feel interesting—and I felt myself hoping that this feeling could keep going. 

After a lull in conversation and another two ciders cracked, Angelica cocked her head and asked me, without any warning, “So Mia. Tell me… how many boys have fucked you?” I giggled nervously at this and hmmm’d in response, an approach which proved completely unsatisfactory. 

“Oh come on, Mia.”

When I turned she had an amused and intentional expression on her face, which made me laugh again. 

“I’m trying to count!” I said in defence. 

“Don’t tell me you’re not the kind of girl who doesn’t keep a list.” 

I laughed at this but didn’t answer. 

“I knew it.” She lay back on the chair, relaxing into her smugness and I rolled my eyes. “Fine, fine…It’s just not that many.” 

Angelica nodded with a smile. “Just tell me, Mia.” 

“Okay, okay,” I said after a pause. “Five.” I closed my eyes again then and tried to focus on the feeling of the sun on my skin while I waited for the inevitable disapproval, which took form in a hearty laugh. “Don’t laugh,” I said, joining in myself. 

“No, no, you’re right. Isn’t funny. Not funny.” 

I sighed. 

“But five,” and then she started laughing again, this time from her belly. When she finally could speak she added, “And how many boys have you fucked?” 

I blinked. "Five, I just said." 

She shook her head, with a pity that nagged at me. “ Oh baby Mia, you’re just so cute.” I blushed and rolled my eyes again. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just give me a shot.” And so she winked and skipped inside, returning not with shot glasses but with an entire bottle of silver Patron. She took a big swig from it and then held it out; I stood up and met her hand. 

“Go on, tiger.” She said, mischief in her eyes. “Big one now.”

So I took the bottle, held it up to my mouth, and knocked it back. I let myself swallow fully twice before putting it down and wincing at the burning taste. 

“Yessss Mia, gooooood girl.” 

I smiled, as nonchalantly as I could. 

“You’ve got so much potential you know.” 

I waited for more explanation, but she only smirked. 

“I feel like you’ve been waiting all your life for this” 

“For this?” 

“Moment of time. To bloom.” 

“Right” I said, a buzzing running through my hands and face now from the tequila. “And what do I do with that?” 

“Just let it happen,” she continued, stepping closer to me. Then she stopped and shook her head, thoughtfully. “No, that’s not right. That’s terrible advice. You’ve gotta seize it, and make your own place. You’re so bright and shiny, it’s inspiring.” 

I swallowed, but held my gaze. I wasn’t sure if this was condescending or if it was an honour. I did know though that I liked it. 

“And I can help you. You just need more confidence, someone to guide you along. It’s brutal out here.” She then took a lock of my hair that had been resting on my cheek and tucked it behind my right ear. And from there her lips followed her fingers and she was so close her voice tickled my face and my mind. “They won’t know what’s hit them,” she whispered, just to me. 

And then her hands were on my waist and I held my breath and let all my tension go, let her guide me. And as soon as I did—one quick push—and I was falling, in a slow, limp, arc, towards the pool which enveloped me in a cool still that swaddled and satisfied my every nerve.

It was crushing and it was freeing. Once submerged I opened up my eyes dove down to the bottom, watched my hands as they ran along the pool's rough white base, the growing slant of its floors, the blurry blue of the tiled walls. I kicked the wall then and pushed out sideways as hard as I could, spinning myself in two tight twirls as I glided, my face first in and then out and then in and then out again, of the light that beamed through the clear water. This is it, I thought. 

And then, before I even noticed I needed breath, I was back in the early autumn air which carried Angelica’s laughter in its breeze and muted heat. I took a deep, satisfied breath and climbed out of the pool, wandered to the kitchen, this time without nerves or hesitation, and cracked open another cider.