Dark Eden (Dark Eden, #1)

by Chris Beckett

And then we were sticking our tongues and things into each other, and licking each other, and he was pushing into me like he’d die if he didn’t get in there quick enough, and I was pulling him up inside like he was still taking far too long. And we rolled over each other and pulled each other this way and that way into every possible angle and every possible way of tangling our bodies together we could think of. And it was sort of a way of getting close, but at the same time it was a way of keeping apart and not having to be close at all. And it was sort of a way of feeling we were alive and in the world, and at the same time a way of shutting the world away completely.

I hate this whole world. I hate Eden, this miserable dark place we’re all trapped in for bloody ever. We shouldn’t be here, that’s the real problem: it wasn’t the world we were made for. We were meant to live in light.’

I took his hand, sort of expecting that he’d shake me off again, but funnily enough he didn’t. He squeezed my hand back and later on, when we went to lie down on our skins under the cavelanterns, we reached out to one another and had a little slide together, not like we’d done before, all panting and sweating and grabbing, not like newhairs normally do at all, but slow and quiet like you sometimes see grownups doing in the starflowers, grownups who’ve known each other and been friends for a long time, having a little slip and a little chat and a little cuddle before going back to their groups again.