Steve Mosby - The Third Person

His name was Jack, and she fancied him from the moment she set eyes on him. It was reasonably obvious that the feeling was mutual and they got talking, but – although he was flirting with her quite openly – she sensed that he was also holding back a little. The reason became obvious when she met the people he’d come with: four male friends… and his girlfriend. Foiled again , she thought, and so drank more wine. But she sat with them for a while anyway, and seemed to get on with them all. The male friends seemed all right, although it was clear that they knew what was going on. The girlfriend seemed oblivious and dull. Perhaps she was used to Jack, or simply not very bright.

They chatted for a while, and then Jack told her that they were all going back to a shared flat in their halls of residence, and would she like to come? They were going to drink and hang out: maybe play some guitar, listen to some CDs, and it would be fun, so how about it? The girl was drunk by then, and so she said yes. Like a good little girl, she even managed to find her friend, break her off her conquest’s face and tell her where she was going.

It was a quarter of an hour walk through the cold to get there. Jack walked with her, deliberately holding back way behind his girlfriend so that they were out of sight as they walked. He reached around and put his hand on her ass as they walked, giving it a squeeze. She looked at him and smiled. She wasn’t sure why, but she was drunk and she wanted him, so she gave him that smile and swigged from the wine bottle she was carrying. They arrived at half-past ten.

Oh shit , said Jack as the group settled down in the lounge, we forgot to get booze. Who’s out ?

His girlfriend said, I need some , and – after sharing a glance with Jack – one of the other guys said he needed some too.

It’s only just around the corner , this other guy continued. Why don’t we both go?

So Jack’s girlfriend and this guy left the flat on a last-minute booze run. A few other people wanted stuff as well, but had been keeping quiet, and so the pair of them went away with quite a list. As the front door closed, someone flicked on a Pulp CD and everybody collapsed into armchairs and sofas. Except for Jack and the girl.

Come on , he said, I want to show you something .

Her heart was beating quickly with the excitement. Jack led her down the hall to his bedroom, and they fucked quickly and gracelessly on his bed. Here . She just pulled her knickers to one side as he unzipped himself and climbed on top of her. It was dictionary-definition bad sex, but she’d never wanted it so much in her life; he came in under a minute, with her nowhere near, but it didn’t even matter. Thanks , she told him afterwards, as he wiped his wet, reddened cock on tissue paper and grinned at her. I needed that .

They returned to the living room to knowing smirks, a few minutes ahead of the returning booze party. And then it all started to go wrong.

What happened was – after a while – Jack and his girlfriend went off to bed and left the girl with his friends, who were yawning and stretching and talking about heading off to bed. Despite herself, the girl was annoyed. She’d had a lot more to drink in the meantime and wasn’t necessarily thinking straight, but she felt rejected, frustrated and angry. She felt used. Hurt, even. The kind of resentful feeling that’s more directed at yourself than anyone else – you’re an idiot – but when you’re drunk you attach it to others in the same way you grab their shoulder to stop yourself falling over.

All in all, the evening felt like a bad day at work: nothing much accomplished, but she didn’t want to leave, head home and go to bed, because that felt like defeat. Here everyone was, though: a few of them asleep already; others collecting their coats. It was depressing.

So when this quiet boy – who she’d barely even spoken to all evening – wandered over and told her uncertainly that he had some wine upstairs in his room, and would she like to come up if she wasn’t ready to go home yet?, she thought about it for all of a second, and then said yes, of course, I’d love to . She thought, did you read my mind? He was big and cumbersome: average-looking. She didn’t fancy him in the slightest, but from his virtual silence he was obviously an outsider in the group, and at that moment she hated Jack’s group for using her and smirking and generally being bastards.

She said, Let’s go .

At that point in the story, there was always a break: a fracture. The way Amy always told it, the girl and the boy sat and drank wine in his room, and talked, and then at one point the boy told her that she was going to have sex with him. The girl laughed and said no, I’m not , and the boy said actually: yes, you are . The girl hadn’t even been thinking along those lines up until that point. According to Amy she experienced something dropping away inside herself. She reframed everything that had happened. Mentally, she unpicked the seams of their conversation, pulled away the cloth and for the first time saw his intent for what it was.

She was scared – but not properly. It was too soon to be properly scared and, after all, this wasn’t going to happen.

No , she said more definitely, standing up. I’m really, really not .

The boy looked back at her. Yes , he told her again. You really are.

Then he stood up and took hold of her arm. She tried to shake off his hand, but she couldn’t even move him. He was half as big as her again, and for the first time she started to appreciate what that fact meant.

Properly scared now: You’re hurting me .

It’ll be nice, he said. You’ll see .

Afterwards, a sympathetic policewoman would tell this girl that the decision as to whether or not to press charges was entirely hers, but that she needed to be aware of certain things. The first was that both she and this boy had been drunk, and she’d gone back to his flat voluntarily in the early hours of the morning with the intention of getting more drunk. She didn’t know this boy, but she’d already had consensual sex with one of his friends earlier on that evening, and she hadn’t known him either.

We’d need to question the first boy, she said. What was his name?

She said it like that – the first boy – as though the two encounters were similar.

Jack , the girl said. I don’t know his surname .

Instead, she gave the address; the policewoman made a note of it.

We’d need to question Jack. We’d also need to take samples from him to match against the semen we’ve taken from you .

Without much in the way of emotion, the policewoman told the girl that there was very little chance of Jack’s girlfriend not finding out. She said they’d have to interview everybody who’d been at the party, including the girlfriend. In fact, if they took the boy to court, his lawyer would probably explain to everyone present how the girl had had sex with an attached stranger only two hours earlier. He’d go into detail.

If you press charges, she is going to find out .

The policewoman had a wedding ring on, but she was sympathetic anyway.

It won’t help matters that you didn’t fight back , she said a minute or two later. I’m not judging you because of that, but other people will. They’ll take it as evidence that you didn’t want to fight back .

The girl started crying again.

I did want to fight back . She wanted to hit herself. I was just scared.

The policewoman remained implacable.