Competitive Nature Read online

  A Total-E-Bound Publication

  www.total-e-bound.com

  Competitive Nature

  ISBN # 978-0-85715-324-1

  ©Copyright Justine Elyot 2010

  Cover Art by Lyn Taylor ©Copyright November 2010

  Edited by Delaney Sullivan

  Total-E-Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2010 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom

  .

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.

  COMPETITIVE NATURE

  Justine Elyot

  Dedication

  To Charlotte Stein.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Facebook: Facebook Inc.

  James Bond: Ian Fleming

  Wonderwall: Liam Gallagher

  You Are Not Alone: Michael Jackson

  Missing: Everything But The Girl

  World of Warcraft: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

  Scrabble: Hasbro, Inc.

  Chapter One

  The old place still smelt the same, like over-boiled vegetables sealed in varnish, and the zigzag of the parquet was like an old friend, but there were different, newer, more golden names on the Honours Board now. Hers was still there, if you looked hard enough…‘1995–Head Girl—Elyssa Bradshaw’. The names that accompanied hers still gave her that little thump-thump of the heart when she didn’t look away quickly enough. ‘Head Boy—Jay Marriott’. Oh dear, what a blow that had been to ‘Captain of Sports—Patrick Robertson’. At the time, she’d thought their strange friendship would never recover. And in a way, it hadn’t.

  “Do you think Jay and Patrick will come?” asked her old friend Juliet, helping her lug the punch bowl across the hall to a white-clothed table. “Do you still hear from them?”

  “Oh, no. I haven’t heard from them since, um, I think it must be at least ten years. I used to see Jay a bit, what with going to the same university, but we kind of drifted. You know how it is. Life gets in the way.”

  “It sure does. Let’s not let it get in the way again, eh?”

  Elyssa smiled. She would not have guessed that Juliet, the raver of her year, would be an interior designer and mother of four at the age of thirty-three. Juliet, though, would probably have accurately predicted Elyssa’s path in life, she realised with an odd jolt of depression. Single, career-focused, travelling the globe from conference to conference, unable to commit to even a cat—it had been exactly what she’d wanted at twenty-one, but now…no point getting despondent. Life had got in the way of…life. That was what it did.

  “No. I mean, everyone has email now. Facebook. No excuse to lose touch again.”

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  “Do you remember our first day?” Elyssa looked around at the handsome, spacious hall, taking herself back to the shy eleven-year-old hiding behind her fringe in the welcome assembly. “I thought this place was so huge. So scary.”

  “I remember old Vickers asking that question about how many pupils there were in the whole school. And Jay and Patrick’s hands going up like a shot. Then Patrick got sent out for elbowing Jay in the ribs when he got chosen to answer.”

  Elyssa laughed, but there was a wistful pang behind the laughter, closing up her throat. “And they were like that for the next seven years.”

  “You were just as bad.”

  “I wasn’t!”

  “Oh, come on! You tore up that history essay you wrote when Patrick got a better mark.”

  “I didn’t! Did I? Oh, actually, I think I did. God, we were donkeys, weren’t we?”

  “Asses! But clever ones.”

  “That’s an oxymoron. I’m more of an Oxford moron.”

  “Morons don’t get into Oxford.”

  “I don’t know. I did. Anyway, let’s change the subject! Did you or did you not snog Robbie Whitman at the Year Eleven disco? You never did confess.”

  * * * *

  Cackling reminiscence occupied the reunited friends for the next half hour, until the Hall was ready, the lights dimmed, and the top tracks of 1995 burbled discreetly from the disco unit in the corner.

  “I just need to check my make-up,” said Elyssa, flitting out of the double doors.

  Behind her, Liam Gallagher’s voice sang the opening lines to Wonderwall, words that always transported her back to the Sixth Form Common Room. Yes, she thought, freshening her lipstick in the ladies’ toilets. She really should have realised what she had to do by now. A memory of Patrick dancing with her on the beach after the Leavers’ barbecue, his cheek to hers, singing words that implied he considered her his saviour, sent a shiver through her and she held the cap and the lipstick apart, staring motionless into the mirror for as long as it took for the song to finish.

  Gathering her strength, she capped the lipstick, shoved it back in her handbag and stepped briskly back into the hall, knocking a cup of punch from the hand of…

  “Jay!”

  “Elyssa!”

  For a moment, careless of the spilled punch, they stared at one another while Juliet sighed and went to find some kitchen roll. He looked…almost…exactly the same, lanky and high-cheekboned, with brown hair flopping everywhere and heavy-framed rectangular spectacles that might even be the pair he wore to sit his A-Levels. School uniform had never suited him. There had always been a Bohemian dandy waiting to burst out of the regulation blazer and stripy tie, and now he was embracing that side of himself in a baggy brown velvet suit and floral shirt.

  Jay was first to recover. “How are you? What are you up to these days?”

  “I stayed on at Oxford, went into research. I do some writing, a bit of teaching.” Elyssa, always a tad more modest than her old friends, underplayed her stellar success in the world of academia. “How about you?”

  “I’m well, thanks. I’m, uh, I do rocket science. It isn’t brain surgery.”

  Elyssa laughed at the quip and poured herself a paper cup of punch. “Do you still play the guitar? Chess? All that?”

  “Yeah, all that.”

  There was a silence, a tension, incongruously overlaid by Michael Jackson singing, You Are Not Alone.

  “You hear anything from Patrick these days?” asked Elyssa.

  “Oh, I wondered how long it would take for him to come up. What was that? Eight seconds?” Jay checked his watch, and Elyssa wasn’t sure whether or not to laugh. Something told her that Jay might not be joking. “No. Not really. Not since…you know. God, how pathetic was that? Seven years of friendship. We should have had our fucking heads knocked together.”

  “I would have done it.”

  “It was you we were locking horns over.”

  “Well, yo
u shouldn’t have. It was a shame.”

  “Yeah.” Jay looked her up and down, his eyes glinting behind the lenses of his glasses. “A shame neither of us won the battle as well.”

  “I’m not a prize.”

  “You certainly looked like one. Sorry, shouldn’t use past tense there.”

  Elyssa could not shake the awkwardness she felt. She wanted to throw her arms around him, to take him into the middle of the floor and dance, to get tipsy with him and laugh all night about the stupid behaviour of their schooldays, but something prevented her from making any kind of spontaneous gesture. Something she couldn’t quite fathom.

  “Are you…with anyone?” he asked.

  Oh! That was it! She needed, really needed very much, to know Jay’s status.

  “No, no, not right now.” She paused, hoping her question would come out in the casual tone she intended. “You?”

  “Tonight?” Jay lowered his spectacles, peering over the rim at her.

  “No…just…you know. Generally.”

  “I go to bed each night with the best lover in town.”

  “Jay! So you’re single.”

  “Well, if you really are interested, I’m between dalliances.”

  Elyssa snorted. Jay had always been a romantic butterfly, sucking the sweet nectar from one flower then moving on to the next. He had cut a dashing swathe through most of the more sensitive Sixth Form girls until…until…that thing.

  “You’ve never had a serious relationship?”

  “I hate that word. Relationship. It’s so official. You have to get yourself properly documented and stamped. You can’t be a lover anymore, you have to be a partner. The first girl who introduced me as her partner never saw me again.”

  “You’re nobody’s partner, then?”

  “No. Not since you and Pat, anyway. We were proper partners. Pardners. Like in the old west. Hip young gunslingers.”

  “Who were always trying to get one over on each other.”

  “You’re saying that as if you think it’s a bad thing. Competition breeds excellence. Ambition leads to success. A stranger is a networking tool you haven’t yet met.”

  “Jay!” Elyssa was not as scandalised as she sounded. She remembered, quite fondly, all the outrageous aphorisms he used to come out with in the Sixth Form Common Room, showering them upon his adoring audience from the least-wrecked armchair.

  “What about you, Bradshaw?” he asked, his voice lowering to that broken, dark chocolate tone that used to drive all the girls into his arms. “You haven’t signed yourself over to some undeserving wretch, have you?”

  “I’m single,” she smiled, then she gasped at a tap on her shoulder and another voice from the past in her ear.

  “You broke my heart,” it said.

  “Patrick!” Elyssa squealed.

  This time she couldn’t help herself. She accepted his grizzly bear hug, squeezing her eyes shut and enjoying the keenly remembered strength of his arms. He hadn’t been the cricket and rugby captain for nothing. He was shorter than Jay—to his disgust at the age of fifteen, when his rival had overtaken him in height—but broader, more muscular and conventionally handsome with blond hair and a wicked smile.

  “Jay,” he said finally, with a formal little nod, once he’d squashed the life out of Elyssa and left her gasping for breath.

  “Patrick. Good to see you. How did medical school work out?”

  “Not bad, mate,” he said, reaching over to shake Jay’s hand. “I kept it up and now I’m doing brain surgery. It’s not rocket science.”

  Elyssa, catching both of their wary eyes, burst into a peal of laughter.

  “Oh my God. You two. You just haven’t changed. Fifteen years and you’re still—look. What’s done is done. Can we enjoy ourselves tonight? Just for old times’ sake? Can we all be friends again?”

  Jay and Patrick unconsciously squared up, thrusting back shoulders, puffing out chests, Jay in his floral shirt and Patrick in his rugby top.

  “We’re grown men,” said Patrick.

  You got that right, thought Elyssa, resisting the temptation to lick her lips.

  “We’re gentlemen,” said Jay. “And scholars. Including Elyssa.”

  “Is that sorted then?” she asked, hearing the opening chords of a favourite song. “Let’s dance.”

  She grabbed a hand each and pulled them onto the slippery parquet, where they bobbed along to, Missing, by Everything But The Girl, until thirst drove them to the punch bowl once more.

  * * * *

  Much later, after hours of anecdotes and legends and jokes and catching up, the three of them sat out on the little grassy bank that had been ‘their’ spot of the playing field from Year Seven, taking in the summer night air and enjoying the novelty of each other’s company. Elyssa lay back on the furled daisies and buttercups, and looked up at the moon.

  “So we’ve all won the competition,” she said dreamily. “We all win at life. Don’t we?”

  “All except one aspect,” said Patrick gloomily.

  Elyssa had heard from mutual friends that he’d divorced, unhappily, two years previously after rushing into marriage with a cardiologist.

  “I never looked at another girl in that way after you crushed me so spectacularly,” said Jay, his tone as droll as ever, but seeming to mask some genuine emotion.

  “I did not crush you,” said Elyssa. “I didn’t do anything to either of you.”

  “Yes, and that’s the problem!” exclaimed Patrick. “We wanted you to!”

  “You both wanted me to,” clarified Elyssa. “Thereby hung the dilemma.”

  Jay and Patrick both turned to her, looking down into her upturned face.

  “Dilemma?” said Jay. “We always thought you didn’t fancy either of us. That’s what you told us!”

  “Of course that’s what I told you,” said Elyssa, wondering if that last glass of wine had been such a good idea. It seemed to have stopped the discretion part of her brain and was letting all this stuff flood out without monitoring. “I had to tell you that, didn’t I? Unless I wanted you to be at each other’s throats. If I chose one of you, I had to reject the other. If I chose one of you, the other was doomed to be a third wheel, rolling along in our wake. If I chose one of you…the whole thing collapsed. I just couldn’t do it.”

  The air became heavy with reflection. Elyssa was aware that her words might have changed the complexion of everything for her two former suitors. Both men had hinted at the remains of sadness, regret, disappointment, but slipping through that fog Elyssa sensed a possibility, one that almost seemed too difficult to name. It sharpened into ever more distinct focus until, like a thought bubble hovering over their three heads, preparing to latch itself on to them, it couldn’t be ignored.

  “So if you had chosen…” said Patrick slowly.

  “Don’t! Don’t ask me! It’s impossible. I loved you both. Still love you…love you both…” Elyssa thought she had better shut up. This was getting more and more difficult to laugh off and take back by the second.

  “Still? Love us both?” Jay didn’t seem about to allow any taking back of sentiments. He was sitting bolt upright, his silky hair endearingly rumpled.

  Where Jay led, Elyssa knew Patrick would inevitably follow, and attempt to overtake, like a rat up a drain. Almost before his old adversary had the words out, she could see the cogs turning in Patrick’s head.

  “Elyssa, would you go out to dinner with me?” the brain surgeon gabbled, apparently in such a rush to get his bid in first that the words were almost unintelligible.

  “No, with me!” exclaimed Jay indignantly. “Fuck it, Patrick, you knew I was going to ask her out! I had the idea first!”

  “I said the words!”

  “I’ve been planning this for months!”

  “I’ve been planning it for years!”

  “Stop!” Elyssa did not know whether to laugh or cry. She held up a hand, forcing Jay and Patrick to retreat from their imminent clash. “This is craz
y. I’ll go out with both of you. Are you both here for a few days?”

  They nodded.

  “Sister’s birthday on Wednesday,” mumbled Jay, while Patrick said something about catching up with his rugby club friends.

  “Right. So that means I can’t go out with Jay on Wednesday. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Jay, tomorrow I am at your disposal. Patrick, I will go out with you on Monday. All details of activities are completely up to you. Surprise me. Excite me. Do whatever it is you feel you have to do with me. If I can make a choice by Tuesday…I will.”

  “Are you serious?” Patrick was staring, blue eyes popping.

  “Don’t ask me that. It’s a never-to-be-repeated offer. When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll undoubtedly regret it, but you have the right to hold me to it. Just now, right at this moment, I’m deadly serious. I couldn’t split up your friendship when we were eighteen, but now that we’re thirty-three, and the friendship has faded…well. What’s stopping us?”

  Jay and Patrick, recovering from momentary shock, met each other’s eyes with grim determination. Patrick, ever the sportsman, was first to hold out a hand.

  “Fair play, old friend,” he said. “And may the best man win.”

  Elyssa knew that Patrick was sincere in the sentiment, but she had her doubts as to Jay’s commitment to sporting values. He had never been one to shirk a dirty trick or two in the pursuit of love or high marks, and, while fifteen years might have mellowed him somewhat, she could not imagine anything short of a personality transplant changing that. She assumed he would take full advantage of his pole position in this little contest.

  “Oh, the best man will win, Robertson,” he said airily. “You can count on that.”

  * * * *

  “Bloody, bloody hell.” Elyssa pulled a face at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were watery and her cheeks florid. She had definitely taken too much of that punch, but her mother’s full English breakfast still smelt as good as ever, and a few chugs of hot, sweet tea would put everything right.