Paul can hear the sound of the fairground rides a little way away. There’s shouting from the pikeys trying to get the dodgems working so they can spin the pretty girls around. Closer, there’s his mates kicking the ball about, the girls lathering themselves up with oil hoping to get brown. He’s aware that there’s chatter but Paul can’t hear what they’re saying. He could if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to right now. He likes the sound of the waves gushing in and out, the seagulls cawing obnoxiously. It’s nice here. He feels safe.

Paul’s mouth is dry and his throat is tight as though he’s been smoking cigarettes, except he hasn’t and he doesn’t understand why this always happens to him. He’s hungover. He can feel his bran pulsing behind his eyes which is part of the reason that he wants to keep them closed. He doesn’t want his brain to leak out. The sweat dripping from him smells vaguely chemically and he wants to jump in the sea to get clean, but right now he’s too comfortable to move. If he’d brought sunglasses it might be alright, but for now he just wants to keep his eyes closed. The sun acts as a big warm blanket covering his body and face. The sand is soft beneath him. He could live here, he thinks, if he needed to. Then he remembers that it isn’t hot all the time. In the winter, he wouldn’t like it much. And where would he go when the sea came in? No, long-term doesn’t work. Still, it’s okay for now. It’s definitely okay for now.

‘Shove over,’ says Kelly plopping down next to him. ‘What’s up with you are you dead or summat?’

Paul smiles. He keeps his eyes closed.

‘Who’s that?’ he says, rubbing his hand up and down her leg, reaching up so he can tap her stomach and breasts with the back of his forearm, pretending to fumble like a blind man.

‘Oi! Ge’ off, you cheeky article.’ Paul keeps smiling. ‘Are you coming in the sea with me or what then?’ Kelly asks. Paul didn’t think she’d have wanted to go in the sea, what with having spent all that time putting her slap on. He supposes she’d like the opportunity to hide their bottom halves. That should excite him. Paul knows he should go. She probably wants him to splash her with water, to rugby tackle her into the waves so that they can kiss and touch each other. But he doesn’t want to move right now.

‘I’ll recover in a bit,’ he says. And he will, he knows that. He just wants to lie down for a little while.

‘Suit yourself then.’ He feels her get up.

Paul is on his own now. He can still taste the bubbles from the coke in the back of his throat. There’s salt on his lips from the air, and he licks them, knowing that they’ll crack even more. He feels bad, but not quite as rotten as he’s pretending to feel. The fact is he’s hungover a lot of the time and usually, he’s a bit braver than this. Last night was a big one though. The girls had been there. He’d snogged Kelly for the first time, although it’d been building up for weeks. Round the back of the pub, they’d been at each other’s faces most of the night.

‘You’re real good-looking, you know?’ she’d said, half-laughing.

‘Uh-huh,’ Paul responded, trying to get her to shut up so that he could keep on kissing her. He liked it though, that she’d said that. When she went home he thought about it for a lot of the night. Kelly thought he was good-looking. That was nice to know.

She was a very pretty girl was Kelly, just like the posters on his bedroom wall, hollow features and blonde hair with black eyebrows. She was a skinny malink, but he liked that. She wanted him to go back to hers, but he hadn’t. He’d wanted to stay out a little bit longer and he knew the rest of the boys would be off to the club. She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Alright, if you wanna be a gentleman about it.’

‘We should go to the beach though,’ he’d said when she was climbing into the taxi.

‘Tomorrow. We always play footy there on a Sunday, but you can come with if you want? Bring the girls?’

‘I dunno,’ she’d shrugged. ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’

Paul liked that too. Lasses were funny. They always pretended you were mad at them and they weren’t all that bothered, but he knew that Kelly was more bothered about him than he was about her. She’d been sidling up to him for weeks. He hadn’t even noticed. It wasn’t until one of his friends asked him: ‘Are you gonna get in that, or what?’ that he’d turned around and seen her looking, smouldering over her shoulder as she went to get the drinks in that he’d failed to buy her. So he started being properly nice to her then, more because it was what was expected than anything else.

He did like girls. He liked snogging them. He just never went doolally over them, that’s all.

Ian did. It was well funny. Paul sat on the other side of their bedroom listening to him as he read a girl’s poetry. Poetry, for Christ’s sake. The girl was as nice to him as she could’ve been about it, but she kept glancing over at Paul very embarrassed that he was in the room. Paul didn’t make it any easier for the poor lad. Really though, it was Ian who made it difficult for himself.

‘Thanks, Ian,’ she’d said at the end. ‘That was really, really nice.’

Brutal. And he didn’t get a snog out of her.

‘This is why you’re a virgin, mate,’ Paul said when the girl had left.

Ian scowled.

‘Not exactly easy when you’ve got some knobhead right next to you, is it?’

‘Never stopped me before,’ Paul said. And that was true. It hadn’t.

Thinking about that now makes Paul feel bad. He isn’t sure why. It’s something to do with Ian being a virgin. He’s starting to think that maybe it’s not so bad to wait. Till marriage, maybe, like his mum says. He doesn’t know.

He does want to shag Kelly, that’s definitely true, but not today. Today he’s quite happy lying on the sand. No one else is bothering him. Someone tried to shout over to let him know Craig had turned up with the tinnies but they’d sorted it out between themselves. ‘Is he fucking deaf?’ ‘Leave it, mate, he’s having one of them days.’

Paul’s been acting like this more often, sleeping in till later, not really wanting to get up. He wouldn’t be here today if he could have avoided it but he promised to see Kelly. He isn’t really up for it, though. His friends are used to this by now. They know Paul has his moments where he likes to wallow, but then he’s usually back on form after a couple of bevs. He doesn’t know why things are hard now. Maybe hard isn’t the right word but… effort.

Last night, they couldn’t get into the club for a dance. Apparently, they were too pissed, which was bollocks. They’d tried to get a taxi but they were too pissed for that too, apparently, but that was lucky because Paul had no idea how much more money he had left in his pay packet. They all went their separate ways and wandered home. Paul saw a lad he knew. Course you know everyone round here, but this was a kid that he hadn’t seen in a long time, not since they were all back in school. He looked rough and not in the way Paul was, but the way that shows someone’s been looking rough for a while.

‘You alright, mate?’ Paul shouted over. He couldn’t remember who he was but he knew he could remember him. He was ignored. For some reason that really bothered him. ‘You went to my school, dintya?’ he asked.

The lad looked him over then. Joseph. That was it. Little Joey. Half the size of the other kids and hardly ever in class. He gave a smile that was more like a smirk.

‘Y’alright?’ he said.

‘Yeah, not too bad, mate, not too bad.’

It was awkward then. They were kind of at an impasse and Paul didn’t know how to proceed. He looked at where Joey was standing just outside the pub. He wished he hadn’t stopped to talk.

‘Don’t suppose I can use the loo in there, can I?’ Paul asked.

‘They’re closing.’ Joey lit a cigarette.

‘Ahh, I’ll er, I’ll just go round the corner then.’

Joey shrugged in response still looking at the ground. Paul didn’t actually have to go but it would seem weird if he didn’t after saying all that. He went round the back of the establishment and pissed against one of the bins. As soon as he’d started he realised he wasn’t gonna be able to stop anytime soon and after he’d managed to pee he realised he needed to vomit and by the time he’d finished that he felt a lot more sober, but tired and empty too. He staggered off and just as he was turning to wave goodbye to Joey, he saw the lad he was necking off with. No, not lad. Man.

It was horrible. He was balding, kind of fat too, that kind of chubby that dads get when they spend too long in the pub. He was kissing Joe’s neck but Joe kept looking forward just smoking his cigarette as though he didn’t even notice it was happening to him.

‘Oh right! Puff are you?’ Paul shouted. Joe looked at him, indifferently. The old bloke immediately scarpered off pretending he had nothing to do with it. Paul wanted to go and fight him or something, but he didn’t. He’d just been sick. He wouldn’t do any damage. He sauntered off but he kept turning back to look at Joe who wasn’t moving. He just stood there, smoking his cigarette. He didn’t even have the balls to look ashamed.

Paul got home and went to sleep but he woke up after a couple of hours and he really needed a drink of water. He lay down for a while, but he didn’t sleep at all. Eventually, he noticed the sun was coming up, staining the curtains orange. His alarm went off. He just had time to shower and dress before jumping on the train to Bridlington with everyone else. Kelly was there waiting for him. Guess she was keener than she let on.

Now, he feels sick again. He doesn’t want to think much about what he saw last night. He wants to think about Kelly, but he feels sort of rubbish thinking about Kelly because thinking about Kelly makes him think of Joey and then he thinks of that fat, old man. What the fuck was he letting him do that for? He can’t have liked it.

Paul decides that he’s gonna be nice to Ian when he gets home. It’s alright if he doesn’t wanna get off with girls for a few more years. It’s alright if he wants to write poems and that.

His friends are leaving to get fish and chips, but Paul doesn’t move.

‘You’re alright, I’m gonna stay here for a little while.’

‘You’ve not moved in hours,’ Kelly complains. She’s not joking now. He can tell she’s annoyed that he’s invited her but isn’t talking to her. He reckons Craig probably wants to get off with her. That’s alright, Paul thinks. He’s not all the bothered, actually.

‘I’m knackered,’ he says, by way of apology. Apparently, that’s not really good enough. He hears them walking away, kicking their ball on the sand. Kelly laughs too loudly at something Craig says. It’s really high-pitched and a little bit annoying. Paul can smell his sweat.  He’s happy here. He can stay here for a long time. He feels his face and arms getting sore. He thinks he might burn. He’s probably going to burn. It doesn’t matter. He likes it here. He lies still.

– Cathleen Davies

Author’s Note: “Reading Position for Second Degree Burn” is part of a long collection titled Fluid, in which each story is based on a 1970s art piece. This story, in particular, is inspired by Dennis Oppenheim’s incredible photography. Other stories in this collection can be found in Story, Literally Stories, Weasel Press’s anthology Vagabonds, and The Fictional Cafe.