by S. E. Lynes
Women like strength, Adam had said. Christopher pushed Angie back against the wall and sealed her lips with his own, pushed his tongue into her mouth. Not too far in, Adam had said. You don’t want to choke ’em to death. But don’t mince about on her teeth either.
The taste of beer and cigarettes. Their bellies touched, her hands on the small of his back. Her ribs rose against his, her breasts pushed against his chest. He was already hard and willed himself to keep control. He kissed her again, and she gave a quiet hum of what he hoped was pleasure. He stroked her face and hair, her neck, the hollow at her throat. Her skin was soft, impossibly so. He pressed his mouth against the brush of her eyelashes, her cheeks, her neck. She smelled of something warm, a spice, maybe an oil. Her skin had blended its scents together into a mix that was her, Angie, and eyes closed, he breathed her in. He kissed her mouth again, that hollow at the base of her throat.
His blood raced. He dared to let his hand slide to her breast. She caught her breath and gave a soft oh. Dear God. She arched her body into his. Gaining confidence, he searched out the hem of her blouse, pulled it from her jeans, slid his hand beneath. At the touch of his fingertips on the naked skin of her belly, he stopped.
‘Angie.’ He rested his forehead against her chest a moment.
‘Hey.’ She lifted his chin with her finger and kissed him gently once, twice. He felt himself swell, insist against the flat of her abdomen. He wanted to strip off all her clothes, her underwear, he wanted to…
‘Is the wall all right?’ he said. ‘I mean, is it comfortable? Is it dry?’
‘Let’s go somewhere.’ She led him out of their secret passageway and nodded towards some trees, bunched and silhouetted, nearer the halls. He listened for people but heard nothing.
There were shrubs too, a hedge – no more than a miniature garden, or a large flower bed. Behind the hedge, the shadows became blackness. He could see her, but only because she was so close to him. She laid down her sheepskin coat.
‘It’s grassy here,’ she said. ‘You probably can’t see, but it’s OK.’
He took off his rainproof jacket and laid it next to hers. The chill air bit him through his sweater, its teeth blunted by alcohol and desire strengthening by the second. No more shrieks in the air; all was silent now.
‘There’s no one about.’ She sat down on her coat and patted the space next to her. ‘Come on. Don’t worry.’
He crouched then sat beside her. He could smell damp soil, flowers. ‘Is this OK?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean this. I don’t want you to feel you have to.’
She gave a half-laugh, a sarcastic laugh. ‘I think those days are long behind us, Christopher. Women acknowledged their right to desire some considerable time ago. This…’ she slipped two fingers into his waistband, ‘is a political act.’
He nodded. Dear God. ‘Absolutely. Of course.’
She let her hand trail up the inside of his thigh, sending electrical currents through the rest of him. She was leading again; that would not do. Women wanted power, strength. He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her to the ground, covering her mouth with his, her body with his. He kissed her neck, unbuttoned her blouse and slid his hand inside. He wanted her naked, so badly it shocked him – the urge to rip her clothes from her and feel all her skin on all of his, the length of their bodies pressed together. He drew away and lifted up her blouse.
‘No.’ She pressed her arms down to her sides so that he could not pull the blouse over her head. ‘If someone were to come…’ But her fingers were at his waist once again, unbuttoning, unzipping. She pushed her hands down the back of his underwear, ran her fingers over his naked buttocks until she was holding them, pushing him towards her. He caught his breath, astonished. She wanted him, but clothed, perhaps as some safeguard against embarrassment should someone catch them. Her blouse fell over his hands. He reached beneath, and up. She did not object. He met the swell of her breasts, her nipples, felt the surge within him as they rose to his touch. Too much, too much. He stayed dead still and rested his forehead against the base of her neck. Breathe, Christopher. Breathe.
She pushed him back a little, drew his glasses from his face and threw them onto the grass. His world fogged, its lines faded, its colours bled. Her hands were beneath his sweater. She felt for and found the hem of his shirt and yanked it roughly from his jeans. The night fell cold on his belly and he shivered. She lay back on her coat and he eased her legs apart with his own, sank his face into her belly and traced his lips up to her small, round breasts. With every moment, he expected her to stop him, but she did not. Her bra had come loose – she must have unclasped it though he could not remember her doing it. He took her nipple in his mouth, could not believe what he was doing, what she was letting him do, and his blood bubbled through his veins like lava. He wanted all of her at once, wanted to suck her down like milk through a straw. She was pulling at her jeans now, wriggling out of them, just enough. He lifted himself up, let her pull his jeans and boxers as far as the tops of his legs. At the breath of cold air, at the touch of her fingers wrapping themselves around him, that feeling of panic came again. He groaned and closed his eyes.
‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘No one’s here.’
‘I can’t…’
‘It’s OK, Christopher. I’ll hold it, that’s all. I won’t move my hand until you’re ready. Nice and slow.’
They were half-naked, the two of them, in the dark gardens. They were hidden from view, but still… The air chilled his buttocks but her hand was warm and tight. More than anything, he felt alive. He clamped his lips shut, fearing that if he opened them he would shout so loud it would be heard all the way over in Headingley. She was stroking him towards her now, moving herself towards him. He could feel the tickle of the hair between her legs, now the warm wetness of her most private place. Oh God, oh God. He pressed himself onto her, felt her part as he pushed gently, so gently, unable to believe it was happening but knowing it was – it was. It was happening at last.
‘Oh, Angie,’ he said.
Her hand had fallen away. It was her body that guided him now, her insides that held him tight.
‘It’s OK, Christopher,’ she whispered. ‘I’m on the pill.’ She was all around him, her skin cloud-soft against his, her arms around his back. ‘Open your eyes.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’
He made himself look at her. Through the sparse light, the blur of his own short sight, the glint of her eyes, staring into his, the pale cream of her teeth. She was smiling in that mocking way she had. He wished she would not smile like that. He pushed hard into her and she threw back her head. Again he pushed, and again, enough to stop her smiling.
‘Slower.’ She was still looking at him – arch, knowing – her eyes boring into his. That smile – that smirk. She was laughing at him, under her breath. She thought him ridiculous, a story to tell later to her girlfriends. She, she had reduced him to this half-clothed beast, bare buttocks pumping white and naked as a gibbon. To this monster.
The inexorable rush threatened to overtake him. He searched for a focal point and found the top of her head, the pale track of her parting. He pushed hard and fast.
She cried out, as if in pain.
He glanced at her face. Her expression had changed. Her brow furrowed and something else flashed in her eyes. She looked away, towards the halls. Was someone coming? Had she heard someone? Please God, no. She cried out again. She was not smiling. She was not laughing. She looked, if anything, afraid.
‘Stop,’ she shouted. ‘Christopher, stop.’
He pushed again, and again, his teeth gritted. Adam said women liked to resist, to play, that sometimes they told you to stop but really they wanted you to carry on.
‘Christopher, you’re… Stop.’
He could not. Not now. She was the one who had reduced him to this. Perhaps she thought he could not or would not go through with it well he would make her see
he would show her he could he would he was close too close to stop too close too close…
With a cry that seemed not to belong to him, he felt himself empty, felt the flood of tension released in roaring, urgent silence. He fell onto her, his nose against the hollow at the base of her throat. ‘Angie.’
She was thumping his shoulders with her fists. ‘Get off me.’ Her voice was ragged, tearful.
He rolled off her, bewildered. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I said stop.’ She was pulling down her blouse, pulling up her jeans. She sniffed.
‘Angie, what’s the matter? Are you crying? I thought you wanted me to. I couldn’t stop. I thought you were just saying that. I couldn’t stop.’
She was zipping up her jeans. She sniffed again and gave a sob. She was crying, she really was.
‘Angie,’ he said. ‘Don’t cry. I didn’t realise. Did I hurt you? I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
She stood, grabbing up her coat.
‘You’re not him, are you?’ She was backing away. ‘You’re not him?’
She turned and ran towards the halls. He stared after her, burning with humiliation, his jeans and underwear around his knees, his penis limp on his milk-white lap.
Chapter Seventeen
Adam was still out when he got back. Even tonight, when Christopher had finally managed to, as Adam put it, get laid, Adam was still out of reach, going one better. Perhaps he had turned up late to the pub, picked up Alison or Sophie or both, why not, just like that. Perhaps he was with someone else, having skilful sexual intercourse with a woman who had not changed her mind halfway through, who had not left him exposed and alone in the dark. What was it that he, Christopher, had not understood? Angie had wanted him in that way, she had done everything to encourage him, but then – then she had not. Did normal men understand something he didn’t? Was that what separated them from that monster on the streets, from him, Christopher? What was he then? A monster?
The following day, Adam was still asleep when Christopher left for breakfast and the library, and that evening, he did not see Adam until much later. He had expected as much, he told me, since Adam had said he was meeting Sophie in the Skyrack at eight. Christopher supposed that meant another casually successful interaction with the opposite sex, another conquest. It was a surprise his room-mate didn’t have a tally carved into the wood at the foot of his bed.
When Adam came home around midnight, Christopher was in bed but still awake. He was having difficulty getting to sleep, he said, his mind too full of troublesome thoughts. Adam crept into the room. Christopher heard the creak of his bed and then first one boot drop to the floor followed by the other.
‘Hello,’ he said into the darkness. ‘Everything all right?’
‘I suppose,’ said Adam. ‘Got bloody stood up, didn’t I?’
The great lothario had finally met his match. Despite himself, Christopher cheered inwardly. ‘Oh dear,’ he said.
‘I wasn’t even that late.’
‘You mean no later than usual?’ By this time, Christopher said, he had got the hang of pulling Adam’s leg.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘Twenty tops. I should have known. Sophie’s not the type to wait.’
‘She might have got there later than you. If she’s wise to you, she might have known you’d be late.’
Adam pulled his shirt over his head and threw it to the end of his bed. Jumped up, dropped his trousers, which presently sailed through the air to join his shirt. He shivered, swore and got into bed. Christopher’s eyelids felt heavy. He let them close.
‘You could be right,’ Adam said. ‘I didn’t think of that. Fuck. I didn’t think to wait. I went into town instead. A few of the elec-eng boys were supposed to be meeting, but I couldn’t find them either. Ended up drinking on my own like a Billy-no-mates. What about you, anyway? Got laid yet?’
‘As a matter of fact…’
Adam sat bolt upright in his bed. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Who? When? How?’
‘A gentleman never tells.’
A moment later something landed on Christopher’s leg, causing him to startle. A book.
‘Secretive bastard,’ said Adam, and laughed.
* * *
The next evening, Adam came back to the halls in time for supper, his face stern, preoccupied. Before he even spoke, Christopher knew something was wrong.
‘Christopher, man,’ he said. ‘Sophie’s missing. I just bumped into Alison. Well I met her for lunch, actually, in the refec, and she told me Sophie never came home last night.’
Christopher had been about to go over to the canteen but instead sat on his bed. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, and then, ‘I’m sure it’s all right. The others said she’s a bit of a one. Perhaps she’s shacked up with someone?’ He hoped that was the correct term. It sounded rather derogatory.
Adam came to sit on the side of his bed opposite Christopher. He put his thumb to his teeth and tore off a strip of nail. ‘Aye, I know, but she was supposed to be meeting me and her friends knew she was meeting me and now she’s gone AWOL.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Well, with this lunatic on the streets, I’m worried something bad’s happened.’
Christopher thought for a second. He could not deny this was a possibility. It was, quite simply, not safe out, and by all accounts Sophie was foolish, arrogant and brazen. He did not say this to Adam.
‘Look, it’s not even been twenty-four hours,’ he said instead.
Adam had begun to scratch his head, had hooked his bottom teeth over his top lip. ‘Aye, man, I know, but what if they come to me? The police? The girls have told them she was meant to be meeting me, so I’ll be the first person they question, won’t I? What am I going to say?’
‘What do you mean, say? Just tell them the truth.’
‘But that won’t wash, will it? They’re questioning blokes left, right and centre. I was supposed to be meeting her and now she’s not turned up and I have no alibi. No alibi at all. And if something bad has happened to her… Fuck… I’m in deep shit.’
‘I’ll be your alibi.’
Adam stopped scratching and looked at Christopher. ‘What?’
‘I’ll say I was with you. You’re my friend. That’s what friends do.’
‘But you can’t do that. I can’t let you do that, man.’
‘Why not? It’s not as if anyone will have noticed me in the library, is it? I didn’t check any books out, so there’s no record of me even being there.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘Yes. Call it the big advantage of my complete lack of charisma.’ It was supposed to be a joke, but Adam did not even smile. ‘Look, I know you didn’t do anything to Sophie,’ he went on. ‘You never would. Besides, she’ll be fine. She’ll turn up tonight, you’ll see. And her friends will be jolly cross with her.’ He stood. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat. You can tell me where we were and at what time, what we drank. I’ll remember. I have a very good memory.’
Adam stood and shook his head. His face, his shoulders, the whole set of his body relaxed.
‘What can I say?’ he said, and threw out his arms. ‘You’re a true mate.’
Christopher knew what that meant and what to do. He too threw out his arms and hugged his friend.
* * *
The next day, Wednesday, Adam did not return to the halls. No one had seen him. The day after that, Christopher came back from his morning trip to the bathroom to find two policemen in his bedroom.
‘Can I help you?’ He pulled his dressing gown tighter around him and knotted the belt. It was odd, he said, how guilty the sight of police uniforms made you feel.
The taller of the two introduced himself and his colleague. Normally Christopher has a pretty photographic memory, but he could not remember either of their names when he came to tell me all this.
‘Are you Christopher Harris?’ said the taller of the two. He had a moustac
he not unlike David’s.
‘Yes.’
‘And you share this room with Adam Wells?’
‘Yes. Is he all right? He didn’t come back last night. I was getting worried.’
The policeman nodded. ‘Adam’s fine, don’t you worry. He’s helping us with our enquiries. We need to ask you a few questions as regards your whereabouts on the evening of Monday, 3 April. Can you tell us where you were between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight?’
‘Of course. I was in the Skyrack with Adam. We wandered along there together from here after dinner and had a pint. That would have been around eight-ish, I think. I bought the drinks. I wasn’t supposed to be staying because he was meeting a girl, but she didn’t turn up. So we caught the bus into town.’
‘What was the girl’s name?’
‘Sophie. Is this to do with her? Is she still missing?’
‘And which bus was that?’
‘The twenty-eight, I think.’
‘And how do you know Sophie is missing?’
‘A friend of mine told me on Tuesday she’d not come back the night before, but I assumed she’d have turned up by now.’
‘And where did you go after the Skyrack, Mr Harris?’
‘We went to the Union and stayed there until they closed. We were quite sloshed actually. Then we went for chips and ate them walking home. We must have got back here at about midnight, give or take. Listen – is Adam OK? He would never hurt anyone, you know.’
The policeman smiled, though not in a friendly way. ‘And is there anyone who can corroborate your story?’
‘I’m pretty sure the barmaid at the Skyrack would. We either go there or the Original Oak opposite, so she would know our faces. Is there anything else I can help you with? You’ve not found her, have you, Sophie?’
‘Thank you, Mr Harris. You’ve been most helpful.’
When Christopher relayed this conversation to me later, I remember remarking on how easily he’d lied and how implicitly he’d trusted his friend. But, he said, he saw no reason not to lie, to trust.