The Girl Before

What’s gotten into you? he says, amused.

Nothing, I say. Maybe you need to get into me. Or one bit of you, anyway.

I wriggle in his lap and feel him starting to get hard. You’ve been so patient, I whisper in his ear. I slip down until I’m kneeling between his legs. I’d been planning to do this later, after supper, but there’s no time like the present and the wine is helping. I pull down his zipper and take out his cock. Looking up, I give him what I hope is a slutty, inviting smile, then slide my lips over the head.

For a minute or so he lets me. But I can feel him getting softer, not harder. I redouble my efforts, but that only makes things worse. When I look up again his eyes are tightly closed and his fists clenched, as if he’s desperately willing himself to get an erection.

Mmm, I murmur, to encourage him. Mmmmmm.

At the sound of my voice his eyes fly open and he pushes me away. Jesus, Emma, he says. He stands up, pushing his cock back inside his trousers. Jesus, he repeats.

What’s wrong? I say numbly.

He stares down at me. There’s a strange expression on his face. Deon Nelson, he says.

What about him?

How can you do to me what you did to that—that bastard? he goes.

Now it’s my turn to stare. Don’t be ridiculous, I say.

You let him come in your mouth, he says.

I flinch as if I’ve been hit. I didn’t let him, I say. He made me. How can you say that? How dare you?

My mood’s changed again, from euphoria to abject misery. We should eat the beef, I say, getting to my feet.

Wait, he goes. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.

He looks so miserable that I think, This is it. He’s breaking up with me.

The police came to see me today, he says. About a…discrepancy in my evidence.

What do you mean, discrepancy?

He walks to the window. It’s gone dark, but he stares out as if he can see something. After the breakin, he says, I gave the police a statement. I told them I’d been in a pub.

I know, I say. The Portland, wasn’t it?

It turns out it wasn’t the Portland, he says. They checked. The Portland doesn’t have a late license. So they looked at my credit card records.

It seems a lot of work, just to check which bar Simon was in. Why? I ask.

They said if they hadn’t, Nelson’s lawyer might claim they weren’t doing their jobs.

He pauses.

I wasn’t in a pub that night, Emma. I was in a club. A lap-dancing club.

So you’re telling me, I say slowly, that all the time I was being—being raped by that monster, you were looking at naked women?

It was a group of us, Em. Saul and some of the boys. It wasn’t my idea. I didn’t even enjoy it.

How much did you spend?

He looks bewildered. What does that have to do with anything?

How much did you spend? I shout. My voice echoes off the stone walls. I hadn’t even realized until now that One Folgate Street has an echo. It’s like the house is joining in, shouting at him too.

He sighs. I dunno. Three hundred pounds.

Jesus, I say.

The police reckon it’s all bound to come out in court, he says.

It’s just sinking in what this means. Not just that Simon’s capable of spending money he doesn’t have staring at naked women he can’t fuck just because his friends drag him there. Not just that he thinks I’m somehow soiled because of what that man did to me. But what it could mean for the case against Deon Nelson. The defense will say that our relationship is fucked up, that we lie to each other as well as to the police.

They’re going to say I consented that night, and that was why I didn’t report it.

I try to make it to the sink, but the sick—all that red wine, the black olives, nibbly things for our special night in—tumbles out of my mouth, a torrent of hot, bitter vomit.

Get out, I say, when I’ve finished throwing up. Just get out. Take your things and go.

I’ve been sleepwalking through life, letting this weak, feeble man pretend he loves me. It’s time to end it. Go, I repeat.

Em, he says, pleadingly. Em, listen to yourself. This isn’t you. You’re only talking like this because of everything that’s happened. We love each other. We’ll get over it. Don’t say something you’ll regret tomorrow.

I won’t regret it tomorrow, I say. I won’t ever regret it. We’re breaking up, Simon. It hasn’t been working for ages. I don’t want to be with you anymore and I’ve finally found the courage to say it.

NOW: JANE

“He said what?”

“He said there’s an exhilarating purity to the unencumbered relationship. I mean, I may be paraphrasing slightly, but that was the gist.”

Mia looks appalled. “Is this guy for real?”

“Well, that’s the point. He’s just so…different from anyone else I’ve ever been with.”