-
Double
Entry
Richard
stands in all-black, his back against the unlit street wall, his
breath misty in the night air, and watches her.
She's
across the adjoining street, walking on the footpath on the other
side of the junction, the clip-clop of her stilettos reverberating
off the houses. When she walks past him, a few metres away, Richard's
lust overwhelms him.
Who
wears a denim skirt that short, he thinks, on a night like
this? Are you serious, woman?
He
finds himself following her, a few paces behind on the other side of
the road. He clenches his fists. He can't make himself stop what he's
going to do. There were times when he couldn't stop himself before.
Tonight is no different. Hands shaking, he rolls down his balaclava.
And
that's when she turns and looks right at him.
His
heart leaps. Decision time. Walk away now? She's not got much to
tell the police. Act on instinct?
She
looks nervous, which excites him more. He has made up his mind. She
trots on a few more paces, quicker now, her wrists out for balance,
and stops at a door. She fumbles in a handbag, shakily drawing out a
key. Then she bends forward, checking the lock with a strange
intensity, and pushes the key in slowly, her butt stuck out.
When
she's got the door open, Richard is already running at her.
She
walks in and doesn't even put her hand on the door to close it.
Richard has already darted across the road and slammed his way into
her corridor, breathing heavily. She has turned to face him, waiting,
standing very still, her chin down, her breath shaky.
Then
Richard dives at her. He drops to one knee and grips the back of her
ankles, taking her legs out towards him. It's a move he'd planned
beforehand. She lands on her arse and Richard scrabbles forward,
panting, out of control.
“No,”
she whimpers, terrified. “No.” Then, in a strangely authoritarian
voice, like a mother disciplining an infant, “No. You've got to do
it from behind.”
He
takes his hands off her skirt, fingers twitching. What? he
thinks.
“Look,”
she says, gripping his hands and impatiently pressing them on her
hips. “Turn me over. I don't want to see you.”
Richard
still doesn't move.
Bang.
Richard
turns himself- they are both facing the door, and the figure in the
corridor.
Hey,
thinks Richard. His balaclava's just like mine.
“What
the fuck is this?” asks The Figure. To the woman, he says, “The
dating agency said it would just be me and you!”
There's
a second-long silence in the room, but in Richard's brain there's a
whirring sound, as if an old projector and its audio have just been
kicked back into life.
Think.
“That's
what they told me too,” Richard says, although he has no idea what
he's talking about himself.
“For
fuck's sake,” says the woman. “All right. Shut the door. We'll
talk this through.”
Richard's
lust has drastically ebbed. She sounds bored, like most women did
when he could be bothered to actually date them.
“Listen,”
she says, rolling her skirt back down. “You're gonna have to tell
me your names, so I can straighten this out with the agency.”
“No!”
barks The Figure. He's nervous. “I'm not telling you my name; I'm
not taking my balaclava off.”
“Why
not?” She asks.
He
sighs, looks at the bottom of the room, as if he'll find the answer
there. “I run an accounts business in town,” he says. “I've got
adverts all over the place with my face on. No way.”
“Fair
enough,” Richard says quickly, feeling claustrophobia kick in. He
just wants to get out of there. He thinks of an advert he saw in a
bar above a urinal:
RAPE:
SHORT WORD, LONG SENTENCE.
“Just...
so we don't cross paths”, the woman says, turning to Richard, “you
go out the back door.” Turning to the figure, she says, “You, out
the front.”
The
Figure stands, staring at them both.
Richard
guesses that The Figure is thinking he's being ripped off, that
Richard is getting more out of this than him. Well, he thinks,
Maybe I kind of already have. Under his balaclava, he smiles
to himself.
“Fuck!”
The Figure turns marches out of the front door and slams it, hard,
behind him.
The
woman steps to Richard. “Stay for a drink,” she says, a hand on
his chest.
He
smiles. What a dumb bitch, he thinks, and starts to wonder
when's the best moment to pounce.
She
walks him back to the couch. He steps back until his heels hit the
seat and he falls back into it.
“SoCo
and Coke?” She turns, looks at him over her shoulder, smiling,
flirting.
“Yeah,”
he says, thinking it's weird that she actually wants him here.
She
walks into the kitchen, out of sight.
Play
along, Richard thinks to himself. “Gonna have to have words
with that agency,” he says. I didn't even know there were places
that set up deals like this, what, rape fantasy? I wish I could ask
her. I'd love it.
“I
bet you are,” she says, and because she's raising her voice there's
something that sounds like sarcasm in her tone.
He
doesn't question it, though, as he realises he wants to play along,
to consent. He can't remember the last time a woman did.
She
steps back into the lounge and hands him the fizzing, black drink.
He
takes a big gulp as she sits down next to him. This is going to be
easy, he thinks.
“It's
been kind of a strange night, hasn't it?” she asks, stroking his
thigh.
His
skin tingles, and he can't figure out if it feels good or not. One
thing he has figured out: bad people get what they want. He's proved
it before with women, and he's proving it again.
“You
could say that,” he says, smiling to himself. You have no idea,
woman.
He
takes another sip as her hand slides up to his crotch. Something is
wrong, though. He can't get hard, and his stomach has started to
hurt.
“Come
here,” she says, and starts to peel back his balaclava.
He
lifts his hand up to stop her, but it feels heavy. He realises he can
taste something dusty on his tongue. His face feels moist and cold,
exposed to the room's air, as she throws the balaclava on the carpet.
He's slumped, exhaling shallowly through his nose.
“I
know you're not from the agency, boy,” she says, still flirting.
Richard
recognises something sinister. This isn't just a come-on.
“I
asked for a man in black. Those trainers aren't black.”
He
looks down, cursing his white Nikes, then looks up to his glass.
Dusty residue has gathered on the surface where his lips were. That's
what I can taste, he thinks. “Bitch,” he mumbles, and lifts
his arm to throw the glass at her. It bounces off her bare legs,
soaking the carpet.
“Correct,”
she states, turning, and unzips her denim skirt and pulls it down.
She walks away.
Still
leaning forward after the throw, his balance is off and he lands on
his hands and knees, panting. He can see her at the back of the room,
bent forward like when she unlocked the door. She's looking in a
cupboard, reaching right to the back of it. She pulls out something
purple and long, with straps hanging off it. She lays it on the
linoleum, the dildo pointed at Richard's grounded face, and steps
into it. His lips, squashed between the floor and his teeth, look
like they are puckering up for a kiss.
As
she fixes the straps around her waist, he growls in frustration and
tries to lift himself up.
“You've
brought this on yourself, boy,” she says, and he recognises lust in
her voice.
I
couldn't stop myself, he thinks, balancing on his knees.
She
walks past him, the dildo eye-level to him, her heels clip-clopping
on the linoleum, sounding like when he first saw her. Then he feels
one of those stilettos dig into his spine, forcing him face-down
again, and her firm hands grip his hips.
