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IN
HIS ROOM
It's been two months, three weeks and three days since Geoffrey moved in with Mr and Mrs Wainthropp.
The bed in his room doesn't have a feather mattress or anything, but it's soft and he's even used to the dip on the left-hand side that threatens to tip him out if he rolls too far over. At first it felt a bit weird, sleeping around the lumps someone else's body left behind, and with his face buried in a pillow that smells completely different from the ones at his mum's. It's been a while, though, and the dent in the bed is more Geoffrey-shaped now. He's even getting used to Mrs Wainthropp's funny floral soap powder. And even when that spring in the middle of the mattress gives his back a prodding at odd times in the night, it's a sight more comfortable than huddling under the covers at his mum's house, feeling her eyes on him like a weight, trapping air in his chest and making his ears buzz.
"You awake, Geoff?" she'd whisper, and Geoffrey would squeeze his eyes shut, keep his back to his bedroom door, trying not to move so his mum would go think he was asleep and stop watching him like he'd run away if she took her eyes off him for too long.
Which is exactly what he did in the end, but Geoffrey doesn't want to think about that, so he rolls onto his back and looks up at the model aeroplane Mr Wainthropp hung from the ceiling the day they took Geoffrey in, official-like. "You can use this room," he'd said, gruff and proper and not meeting Geoffrey's eyes as he hurried out of the room, leaving Geoffrey to grin and jam his hands in his pockets and rock on his feet in the middle of his new room.
He's not changed it that much since he's been living there - not that he thinks Mr and Mrs Wainthropp would mind. Derek hasn't been anything but a weekly phone call and pictures on the mantelpiece for a while now, Geoffrey knows that. And truth be told, he's not got that much to change it with. He went and got a few more of his things, after his mum agreed to stop pestering him to come home permanent - just clothes and CDs and that, and a couple of football posters for his wall. He left the girlie ones behind, though. He doesn't think Mrs Wainthropp would take too kindly to seeing Pamela Anderson's bikini bottoms staring down at her every time she came in to do the hoovering.
The thought makes Geoffrey smile, and he stretches his arms above his head, linking his fingers and letting his mind wander to the other things he brought back from his mum's. He hasn't looked at them since - they're hidden at the bottom of his holdall at the back of the wardrobe, and wrapped in a Tesco bag he pinched from Mrs Wainthropp's collection under the sink. He couldn't very well leave them at home, though. He'd told his mum she could let his room out if she wanted, and what if she found a lodger and got it into her head to turn the mattress?
"You'll have to take 'em with you, Geoff," said Shane, when Geoffrey rang him that afternoon.
"I can't!" Geoffrey hissed, peering out of the window to check his mum was still outside, watering her delphiniums. "Mr and Mrs Wainthropp are old! I can't turn up on their doorstep with a bag full of pornography!"
"Don't be a twat. I'm not saying you should use it to wallpaper their front porch, like."
"Where will I hide them?"
"Flamin' 'eck, Geoffrey, how much space do you need?"
Geoffrey huffed and sat down on his bed, staring at the small pile of magazines on his pillow. "Not much. I've only got four, you know."
"They must be bloody good ones to cause this much fuss. Playboy specials, are they? Collector's issues?"
"Don't be daft," said Geoffrey, grinning. "They're five quid a pop, them."
No, Geoffrey has always been more of a Reader's Wives bloke, although he can't for a minute understand why you'd be a reader in the first place if you had a missus who was willing to shag you every night. Why anyone would waste time with masturbation and magazines when they could be having sex with a real live person is a mystery to Geoffrey. Not that he has anything in the way of real experience, mind, but everyone says it's much better doing it with someone else.
It's been three weeks and six days since Geoffrey had a wank. He was so embarrassed after the first time he took advantage of the lock on the bathroom door that he couldn't look Mrs Wainthropp in the face for two days. The second time wasn't much better, because halfway through tea Mr Wainthropp reminded him that other people had to use the hot water too, and what had been taking him so long in there anyway? It was all Geoffrey could do to not spit hotpot all over the table. And what with there *not* being a lock on his bedroom door, and the fact that retired people don't seem to go out very often, he hasn't had as much time alone with his right hand as he would like.
This kind of talk isn't doing Geoffrey any favours in the not-wanking department, and he shifts his hips slightly, getting a jab in the spine from that flipping spring for his trouble. Somehow his hand's made its way under the covers and he gives himself a brief squeeze through his boxers, biting his lip when it makes him arch his back just a little bit. The walls are pretty thin in this house, but the low hum of conversation from Mr and Mrs Wainthropp's room died down about an hour ago, and Geoffrey risks a slow stroke, closing his eyes and settling back into the pillow as he starts to pick up a rhythm.
Christ. He doesn't know how he's managed to go so long without this. He's seventeen, he's supposed to be playing with himself at every given opportunity. It's healthy and normal, all the programmes on television say so and -
There's a noise. Geoffrey yanks his hand out from under the covers and lifts his head up, blinking into the darkness and listening hard. He can't hear anything but the usual creaks and the cold tap dripping in the bathroom sink, though, so he lies back down and tries to relax.
He's got to be quiet, he knows that, but he should really get this over with. The first time is always the hardest, and what's he going to do, book a room in a bed and breakfast every time he fancies a tug? No. Although he would if he could afford it because this just feels sort of, well, rude. The Wainthropps took him in when they could have packed him off back to his mum's, but they didn't, and Geoffrey isn't sure that wanking himself off in their son's old bed is really all that polite. But then again - it's his bed, now. His bedroom, and he's going to be living here for a while, probably, so he should just get a move on and christen it.
Geoffrey pushes his hand back under the covers, curling his fingers against his stomach a few times to warm them up again. His dick twitches, like it wants to know what's taking so long, and Geoffrey shuffles further down into bed. He can't help grinning guiltily into the stuffy darkness under his duvet as he slides his hand down further, inside the boxers this time. There's only footballers on his walls to look at, so Geoffrey closes his eyes and concentrates on not thinking about anything in particular as he wraps his hand around his dick and starts stroking.
Turns out he doesn't really need visual stimulation to get things going. It really has been a while and it's not long before Geoffrey's toes are curling inside the socks he's forgotten to take off, again, and he's turning his face into the pillow in an effort to keep quiet. His other hand has somehow got itself in on the action too, and it's only the smell of the still-slightly-unfamiliar detergent on the pillowcase that reminds Geoffrey why he was reluctant to do this in bed in the first place. The sheets.
He can't risk making a mess, Mrs. Wainthropp strips the beds every Friday so he kicks the duvet off and keeps going. It's freezing in his room without the covers, cold enough to make all Geoffrey's skin go into goosebumps and he mutters "bloody hell" under his breath but it just comes out as a mumbled gasp. His right hand moves harder and faster and Geoffrey pulls his left hand up and claps it over his mouth, biting into the skin on his thumb as the world starts to fade out and narrow itself down to the way his hand feels, tight and warm and familiar. In not very much time at all, he's biting back a moan and shoving his boxers out of the way and to be perfectly honest, he can't be sure that he's entirely silent as he shudders and slams his fist down into the mattress and comes.
When Geoffrey's breath starts to come a bit easier and he can open his eyes again, he looks down at himself and groans quietly. The sheets have escaped being made a mess of, but Geoffrey hasn't, and he tries not to move too much while he fumbles around in the drawer of his bedside table for the tissues. When he's cleaned himself up he has a brief argument with himself over whether putting the tissues in the bin in his bedroom or getting up and flushing them down the loo is more risky. The bathroom wins out.
After a tip-toed trip during which he forgets which floorboard creaks and spends a terrified thirty seconds wincing on the landing when he treads on the wrong one, he's back in bed, curling up under the duvet and rubbing his socked feet together to try and get them warm again. He's got work early tomorrow, and Mrs, Wainthropp's got a plan she won't tell him about, although Geoffrey suspects that it has something to do with the blonde wig and huge high heeled shoes he saw in a plastic bag in the porch. She probably thinks that if she doesn't tell him about it until the last minute he'll have no choice but to do it. She hasn't yet cottoned on to the fact that Geoffrey would do anything for her and, as Mr. Wainthropp told Geoffrey over tea and toast the other morning, it's best all around if she doesn't find that out at all.
Geoffrey laughs quietly and turns onto his side, hugging the pillow closer. The radio clock on his bedside table tells him it's past midnight, and he closes his eyes. It's now two months, three weeks and four days since he moved in to this house. This room. This family, really. And now Geoffrey supposes he can really call this his bed. And he just hopes that wherever Derek is in Australia, he isn't in any hurry to claim it back again.
Because Geoffrey's not going anywhere.
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