by Penny Birch
'Nice weekend was it, Isa?' he drawled. 'Smacked a few bums, I bet.'
There was a group of my fellow history students at the far side of the quad, and I was forced to make an abrupt change of course to avoid them overhearing.
'I don't know why you should think that,' I said. 'Leave me alone, please.'
'A bit hoity-toity this afternoon, aren't we?' Tierney said. 'I know what you get up to, Isa, and what I want to know is, why didn't you invite me and the boys?'
'That should be perfectly obvious,' I told him.
'Not to me it ain't,' he said. 'You love a bit of it. You posh tarts always do, once you learn to let go.'
I didn't answer, but he obviously wasn't going to go away and there were altogether too many people about for my liking. The lodge was close, and offered access to the relative anonymity of the street, but it also contained two boats' worth of rowers just back from the river. My own quiet corner of college was the only alternative, and I made for it.
'So what's the problem?' Tierney demanded as I changed course once again. 'Come on, you can tell old Stan.'
'Shut up and go away,' I told him, although I knew it was futile.
'No, really,' he insisted. 'You used to be well into us, so what's the problem?'
'You really are extraordinarily obtuse,' I told him. 'Just because you took advantage of me and pushed me into things does not mean I was ''well into you'', as you put it.'
'Didn't look that way to me,' Tierney said.
I answered with what was intended to be a contemptuous sniff but came out as something closer to a sob. We'd reached the bottom of my stair and I was steeling myself to keep him out of my room, by force if necessary, when I was rescued by the Chief Scout, who presumably wanted to tick Tierney off for slovenly work. I made a dash for my room, up three flights of stairs, slamming the door behind me and collapsing onto the bed. My head was full of memories of what Tierney had done to me and my heart overflowed with bitter shame because I knew full well that I'd been at least half willing. Yet there was no question that he'd used me, tricking me into tossing him off, sucking his cock, and worse.
My teeth were clamped over my bottom lip as I struggled to get the images out of my head, determined that I would not give in to my weakness and masturbate over the memories. There was only one other way my thoughts were willing to go, which was to ask myself how Tierney had known that there had been a Rattaners meeting. Everybody had been sworn to secrecy, and among the men I couldn't imagine even Walter Jessop telling him, not when it would mean losing any chance of future invitations. I couldn't imagine any of the girls telling him either, not even Portia, not when it meant being sent to Walter's for the night. That left Amy Jane, the Owl.
She and I had been to see a film the previous night, and while I obviously hadn't told her what I'd been up to at the weekend she knew that I'd been out with a group of friends. If Tierney had primed her it wouldn't have been hard to put two and two together, and now that I thought back I recalled that I'd seen Tierney on both the Monday and the Wednesday morning. Neither time had he done more than give me his usual familiar leer.
I could hardly ask Amy Jane. If it was true she'd simply deny everything, while if it wasn't I'd be putting myself into a highly embarrassing situation. Asking Tierney would be equally pointless, but if they were communicating then there had to be some link between them, and the Owl had to have a reason for feeding him information. Perhaps somehow he'd established a hold over her, which was just the sort of thing he liked to do. It was hard to imagine the Owl doing anything wrong, but it fitted the facts and also made her as much a victim as myself.
Perhaps I should have a heart-to-heart with her – but, again, that meant making some highly personal revelations. Amy Jane looked up to me, and I just couldn't bear the thought of admitting what I'd been up to. Even knowing that I'd performed striptease at the Red Ox was sure to horrify her. Only if I could catch the two of them red-handed would I be able to speak openly, and that wasn't likely to be easy. They could communicate by phone or email and I'd be none the wiser, although that wasn't really the way Tierney worked.
He liked his sex too much, and if he did have a hold over her he was sure to take advantage. Amy Jane was pretty, in a cuddly sort of way, while I was sure he would enjoy exploiting her shyness and personal insecurity. More importantly, her breasts were almost as big as Caroline's. There was no way on Earth he'd be able to resist trying to get his hands on them, and I bit my lip as I pictured the Owl with her top up and her big white boobs pressed together so that Tierney could fuck her in her cleavage. If it was her, then he would meet her in person, at least occasionally.
On the other hand, he almost certainly hadn't done so in the last day. She and I had come back from the cinema at nearly midnight and I'd left her at the Newman lodge, while he had to be at St George's for work from eight o'clock. It was just about possible that she'd immediately cycled up to his house, but unlikely. Yet they'd communicated, and if I knew Tierney he'd have demanded a meeting at the earliest opportunity. Knowing that there had been a Rat-taners meeting would have been sure to turn him on, and he'd have wanted to take it out on the most easily available female, and as soon as possible.
That meant, of course, that had I not been so brusque with him I would at that very instant have been impaled on his cock, one way or another, a thought that made my stomach lurch. As it was, it would be the Owl, perhaps sitting on his lap with her big breasts pulled out as she masturbated him, or on her knees with his fat white cock in her pretty mouth, even on all fours on his bed as he pumped into her from behind, enjoying the resilience of her ample bottom.
Tierney would be finishing work in just under half an hour, and as Amy Jane was hardly likely to entertain him in her room at Newman the meeting would be at his house if anywhere. I could follow him, although I'd have to be careful. He kept his bike in the service yard and my own was in the main shed, which made it easy to fetch it and position myself some way down the road where I could keep an eye on St George's.
Tierney emerged a few minutes before he should have finished work and cycled east, towards Magdalen Bridge and the Cowley Road. I followed at some distance, as I knew how to get to his house anyway, but he was so slow that I had to keep stopping. When we finally got to Cowley he didn't go to his house at all but to somewhere I knew only too well – the Red Ox. It was really a working men's club rather than a pub, and consisted of a low concrete shack with a car park and a storage yard at the rear. Every detail of the place was painfully familiar to me, and there was a lump in my throat as I stopped.
It seemed rather unlikely that Tierney would meet the Owl at the Red Ox, but if he did then she was sure to come the same way I had. I was going to turn away and try to find a café from where I could watch the road and the bus stop closest to the Red Ox, but just as I was wheeling my bike around a voice spoke from almost directly behind me, making me jump and spin around in surprise. It was Big Dave, the largest and most threatening of the Red Ox crew, at least in appearance. He was actually the least obnoxious of them and had even been known to stand up for me when Tierney was making a real pig of himself. I managed a shy smile while I struggled for something to say.
'You all right, love?' he asked.
'Fine . . . thank you,' I stammered. 'You just made me jump, that's all. I . . . I was just going to see if Caroline and Jasmine were here.'
'Stripping night is Saturday,' he told me. 'This is darts night. Could be they're around, maybe. Come on in and I'll buy you a half. This is Isabelle, lads. She's a student, but she's all right.'
I managed another smile for the group of eight or nine men coming towards us through the alleyway from which Big Dave had emerged. They were typical of the sort of men who used the Red Ox, mostly workers from the car plant, and while I didn't recognise any of them I found myself blushing at the thought that some of them might have seen me strip. None of them said anything, too engrossed in their own conversation to give me more than a
rough but friendly acknowledgement, which gave me a twitch of pique, immediately followed by one of shame for my own reaction.
'You coming, then?' Big Dave demanded as the last of them passed me.
'Um . . .' I began, and then realised that I could hardly refuse, because it would look very odd indeed if I didn't go into the Red Ox after claiming I'd been looking for Jasmine and Caroline.
'I'll just pop my head in,' I told him, and began to wheel my bike towards the Red Ox.
It was exactly as I remembered it, the outside seedy and disreputable, the inside a cloying fug of beer fumes and smoke. Quite a few people were there, and before I could pretend to complete my search for the girls and retreat Big Dave had brought me a half-pint of lager. All I could do was accept it, sipping thoughtfully and trying to look inconspicuous as I looked around.
Tierney was seated with his back to me, thankfully, and appeared to be engrossed in a heated conversation with a man who was either an Elvis impersonator or hadn't realised that it was no longer the 1950s. I also recognised Mike, the barman, who gave me a casual nod and a smile, just as if he'd never more or less forced me to strip naked in front of a couple of hundred leering men. Yet I found myself returning the gesture, and to one or two others as well, despite feeling distinctly insulted that none of them seemed to consider my presence at all out of the ordinary. Mo was also there, and Yazzie.
The last time I'd seen her she'd been on her knees, stark naked with her hands tied behind her back and her head buried between Jasmine's thighs while Caroline used a vibrator on her from behind. It was a shock to see her in ordinary clothes, a top and a denim skirt, but no more of a shock than the sound of her voice as she greeted me.
'Hi, Isabelle. All right?'
Gone were the meek tone, the sibilant accent, the respectfully downcast eyes, also the honorific. She sounded and acted exactly as she looked, an Oxford townie girl.
'You two met then?' Mo asked.
'Yes . . . at Jasmine's,' I said quickly, praying it was only the kinky sex that Mo didn't know about.
He merely nodded and took a swallow of his beer, leaving Yazzie to carry on.
'Do you play darts?'
'I have . . . once or twice,' I admitted, before taking the time to think my answer through. 'Just in the JCR, mostly.'
'Help us out, yeah?' she asked, jerking a thumb at the throng behind her. 'These gits have put up a hundred quid to a packet of nuts against us beating them.'
I made a face. A hundred quid against having their cocks sucked would have been more typical of the sort of bets the Red Ox crew liked to make, but even Mo wouldn't demand that sort of thing in front of his daughter – or I hoped not. It would also be immensely satisfying if we did win, to say nothing of my share of a hundred pounds. On the other hand just being in the Red Ox was making my stomach churn, and I knew that there were at least a dozen men there who thought of me as little more than some sort of animated sex toy.
'Thanks, but—' I began, only to be interrupted by the familiar voice of Jack, a greasy ex-Teddy boy who vied with Tierney for the title of the most squalid of the lot.
'If she's playing, let's make it two hundred.'
'Against the nuts?' Yazzie asked.
Jack began to speak and my skin went cold in dread of what he might say. But he thought better of it, presumably because of Yazzie's presence.
'Yeah,' he said instead. 'Two hundred against a bag of nuts. Five-oh-one and five on five.'
'You're on,' Yazzie answered on. 'Come on, Isabelle. So if we lose we have to buy them a bag of nuts – big deal.'
The last time anything similar had happened I'd ended up being the evening's amusement for a group of rowdy football fans, but I found myself smiling and nodding my head. Jack began to laugh, and that sealed it for me.
'Come and meet the girls,' Yazzie offered.
The only 'girls' I'd met at the Red Ox had been the men's wives, who looked on me as a complete slut, and the strippers. This made me hesitate but Yazzie had dragged me over before I could think of what to say. Sure enough, my teammates were three women I'd seen before: a mother and daughter, both dyed blonde and brassy, and a huge black woman who I was sure I recognised as a scout, but couldn't remember which college she worked for. They were introduced to me as Elsie, Sandy and Edna respectively.
'You strip, don't you?' Sandy asked immediately, and I felt myself blush scarlet.
'I used to,' I admitted, since it was pointless to deny it when I could vividly remember the expression of amused contempt on her face as I'd peeled out of a diminutive cowgirl outfit.
Sandy merely nodded and began to talk darts. The only man I knew in the group we were playing against was Jack, for which I was grateful, except that they seemed to think it would be best to put me up against him. He liked to think of himself as a professional gambler, but in practice he lived on benefits. His high opinion of himself meant that if he was against me he would probably try and show off, in which case I might beat him. That showed how little faith they had in me, even Yazzie, but I had never claimed to be any good.
Much the best player in the men's team was a tall thin man with an exaggeratedly large Adam's apple, rather alarmingly called Choker. He was up first, and beat Sandy so easily that I more or less gave up all hope of us winning. Evidently when the men had put the bet up they hadn't simply been bragging. Edna was better, if only by managing to annoy her opponent so much that he could barely aim straight, and she won, which left us level. Elsie put up a good fight but hit the wire with her last dart, costing her the game, and again I thought we'd lost and I probably wouldn't even have to play. Yazzie proved me wrong, winning really quite easily, and then I was up against Jack, who was sneering as he looked me up and down.
'Tell you what,' he said. 'To make a game of it I have to call out my shots, and if I miss what I said I was aiming for I don't get nothing.'
'You mean you don't get anything,' I pointed out, but he merely looked blank.
'Don't be stupid, Jack,' Choker advised. But Jack just laughed and leant close to my ear to whisper.
'Here's the deal, though. I win, and you can have the nuts, my nuts, right in your mouth while I toss off in that pretty face.'
The blood rushed to my cheeks, all the hotter because Jack's whisper hadn't been all that quiet and several people had heard. A ripple of laughter passed among the spectators, who I now saw included Tierney. He leered and raised his glass. They were obviously trying to annoy me, just as Edna had done with her own opponent, so I ignored them both, stepped up to the mark and managed to hit two twenties and a triple one, scoring a respectable forty-three. Jack responded with a confident nod and took my place.
'Twenty.'
His dart hit the double five.
'Shit. It's about time you got a new mat, Mike. It gets my balance all wrong. Triple twenty.'
He hit the one.
'Fuck! Jesus, Mike! Twenty.'
For once Jack's dart hit home, but a few minutes later I'd managed to finish with a double sixteen and he still needed over two hundred points. There was immediate angry recrimination from his teammates who felt he'd thrown the match away and were refusing to pay their share. Elsie and Edna joined in the argument, while I stayed well clear, but eventually the men were forced to pay up, with Jack contributing most of the money. By then I was feeling extremely pleased with myself – forty pounds in my pocket without having had to show off so much as an ankle. But I was also doing my best to ignore the nagging sense of disappointment beneath my triumph.
I was also having to tell myself that had the game gone the other way I would have refused to meet Jack's dirty demand. All I'd have had to do would've been to tell him to get lost, and there would've been nothing he could have done about it. But that didn't stop me thinking of what he'd threatened to do to me. He'd said he wanted me to suck his balls, and in such a way that his come would've splattered all over my face. It was disgusting, but as I cycled back towards the university I couldn't help thinki
ng about how he might have gone about it – perhaps with me pinned on the floor so that he could dangle his scrotum into my mouth as he masturbated.
College was quiet, with only a few people about. I wanted to think about something else and so avoid what was beginning to look inevitable, but all my friends seemed either to be out or busy with their essays. In the end I went to bed, telling myself I would be strong and that I was a completely different person to the naive, susceptible girl who had allowed herself to enjoy being used so badly.
It was a lie. As I lay in the warm darkness of my room the voices of pride and temptation were warring in my head, one telling me that I should fight my feelings, the other that it didn't matter when nobody would ever know. I tried to escape into sleep, then to make excuses by telling myself I ought to do it specifically because that would let me sleep and I needed to get up quite early. The college clock chimed eleven, the quarter, and the half, before I told myself that if I was still awake at midnight I would give in.
I closed my eyes and tried to think soothing thoughts, of how good it felt to hold Katie in my arms and kiss her, how pure and fresh she felt, how to have her in my arms made me feel like a goddess, completely removed from the grovelling little slut who had stripped on stage at the Red Ox, who had been made to suck the cocks of men she didn't even know and had enjoyed every moment, who'd held her own bottom cheeks apart to let men into and up her, so dirty, so willing, so gloriously degraded . . .
My thighs came up and I was pushing down my panties under my nightie with a desperate urgency. A sob escaped my throat as they came off, but that didn't stop me pushing down my bed covers and kicking them away, nor did it prevent me from hauling my nightie up to show off my breasts. I closed my eyes, my head full of shame as I began to touch myself, stroking my chest and tummy and thighs with my back arched in rising excitement. Now it was too late, and I let my mind run as my hands sneaked down between my open thighs to find my sex.