Paradise Postponed (Not Quite Eden Book 2)

by Dominique Kyle

  The taxi driver still divined what I’d been up to. “Good night out was it?” I ignored him.

  As I walked in the house SHE trilled, “Oo, what a dirty stop-out!” I ignored her.

  In my room, sitting on the edge of my bed, I got my phone out. I had to ring work. I had to get it over with.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t feel very well,” I explained feebly.

  There was a long, cold silence in response to this. Then Entwistle snapped. “I’m not amused, Eve. Trevelyn says you were out with him last night, knocking back the vodka like there was no tomorrow. He says you were well trolleyed by the end of the evening, so don’t imagine you can pull the wool over my eyes. You get your arse in here in half an hour or you’re sacked for gross misconduct.”

  I panicked. How could I possibly go in there in half an hour’s time? “I’ll come in tomorrow morning as normal and you can dock me a day’s pay,” I said desperately.

  “Today in half an hour, or not at all,” he said inflexibly.

  Tears sprang into my eyes. “An hour,” I pleaded.

  “An hour from now, Eve.” And he put the phone down.

  Shaking, I made my way into the shower, mechanically scrubbed myself repeatedly, desperately, all over, got my work clothes on, scraped my still damp hair back, put my own leather on, and walked out to my bike, throwing Trevelyn’s jacket in the wheelie bin as I past.

  As I drove into work I became aware that my head was still pounding and I still hadn’t had anything to drink. My mouth was so dry my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I should have cleaned my teeth. They were all furred up. After all the alcohol I’d had last night I wasn’t sure if I was even legal on my bike yet, but I figured Entwistle wouldn’t care about that right now.

  I tried to draw up out of sight of the men, but Trev came out as I walked the back way to the office and blocked my way.

  “Feeling better sleeping beauty?” He smiled mockingly.

  “You’re a complete cunt,” I attacked. “What did you put in my drink last night?”

  “Why would I need to put anything in it?” He dismissed with superior raised eyebrows. “You seem to have forgotten how much you were putting away on your own accord! You were gagging for it, couldn’t keep your hands off me as I remember. Couldn’t let the side down and disappoint you, could I?” His thumbs were hooked in his jeans. “You seemed to want your own cunt seeing to, I seem to remember.”

  I stared at him with utter hatred, my breath completely taken away.

  “Is that you, Eve?” Entwistle was at the door of the office. His tone was angry. “Come in here at once.”

  Trev’s blue eyes looked glitteringly down at me. “Uh oh, you’re for it!” He said deliberately, and he watched me have to turn away from him and go past Entwistle into the office.

  I sat in the chair in front of Entwistle’s desk, avoiding his eyes, my fists clenched out of sight. I was acutely aware of the large picture windows on the three sides of his pre-fab office, and who might be watching.

  “So, Eve -” His tone was heavily sarcastic. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “You don’t have to sack me. I resign.” It came out of my mouth without my even planning it.

  He looked shocked. It was clear that the game plan had been that he’d come down heavy on the young person to teach them that they couldn’t get away with messing their workplace about when they fancied a night out, and then the young person was supposed to grovel a bit and feel so grateful that they’d been given a second chance that they’d never be late again and would become a model responsible member of staff.

  “You can’t just resign, Eve, you’re supposed to give me a period of notice.”

  “I don’t care. I’m never setting foot in this place again!”

  He sighed, as though he were sorting out a kiddies squabble. “You can’t give up your job just because of a lovers tiff.”

  “Trevelyn and I are not lovers,” I bit out between gritted teeth.

  “From what I was given to understand, you spent the night at his.” He looked severely at me.

  “Well clearly he didn’t happen to mention the fact that when I refused to go home with him, he slipped some sort of drug into my drink then took me forcibly back to his and once I was incapable of resisting, proceeded to rape me.”

  Entwistle sat back in his seat as though someone had struck him. “Are you seriously making the allegation that Trevelyn raped you?”

  “I’m not making an allegation – I’m just telling you what happened.” I pulled up my sleeve on my right arm and held it out. The bruises were such obvious finger marks that it was clear that something must have happened. And unless I enjoyed it rough, that something couldn’t have been consensual.

  Entwistle’s office phone started ringing but he ignored it. It rang and rang.

  Here goes, I thought. This is where all the men club together to say that because Trevelyn got me into trouble with the boss, I’m now saying this just to spite him.

  Entwistle was sitting with his palms flat on the table pushing back away me. I stared him out. I was good at that. I’d learned from a very young age how to make people feel uncomfortable.

  “So have you reported this to the police?” He asked at last.

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?” He said it sharply as though that meant it proved this was just a stunt I was pulling.

  I glanced at my watch. “Because,” I said pointedly. “Until just over two hours ago I was still unconscious as a result of whatever he put in my drink. And then the minute I got home I rang you, and you insisted that I come straight into work. So I had no option but to get in the shower and then come down here.”

  “You shouldn’t have showered,” he said immediately.

  I looked blankly at him. Then I understood what he meant. “Well it’s too late now,” I said. “You gave me no option except to come straight in, and I couldn’t come in the state I was.”

  There was a long silence. I stared down at my hands.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, Eve,” he said awkwardly. “I’m going to have to think about this.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t look up.

  “I’m not going to accept your resignation, I want you to go away now, and stay away till Friday. We can call it unpaid leave, or you can take it as paid holiday if you prefer. I am going to tell the men for now that I’ve suspended you. Come in at -” he paused, thinking. “ – Five thirty on Friday when the men will be guaranteed to have gone, and we’ll discuss the situation again.”

  I stood up, the chair scraping back noisily. I had no intention of coming back on Friday, but it wasn’t worth saying that. I just wanted to get out of here. As I got to the door I paused. Without looking back at him I said, “Talk to Bolton. He’ll tell you.” Then I left.

  On the way home I stopped at the Spar and got a carton of pink grapefruit juice. I wanted to wash this taste from my mouth. I drank half of it straight from the carton standing right outside the shop. Then I got back on my bike again.

  As I walked through the living room SHE accosted me. “Well?” She demanded proudly, waving a hand at the walls. “You’ve not said what you think.”

  I glanced around, I could barely see right now. I realised that as soon as I hit my bed I was going to cry. A feature wall of bright green, gold and blue flock wallpaper, and the other walls and woodwork in contrasting green and blue. Plenty of bling, but not unlivable in.

  “Oh – yeah – um – quite nice really,” I managed, and escaped upstairs.

  Some hours later, her voice was calling me for tea. I never seemed to hear Dad’s voice any more. She seemed to expand to fill all the space available.

  “No thanks,” I shouted back. But my voice was so hoarse I had to shout it twice before she heard.

  I lay in the dark staring at the wall. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to rip my insides out. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill someone. I wanted to kill myse
lf.

  Sometimes I was also thinking practically. What was I going to do now without a job? Would Entwistle give me a reference? Thank God I hadn’t moved out of home yet because at least I didn’t have to find the money to pay the rent.

  I felt sick. Trev had said I was gagging for it. But I knew I wasn’t. I knew I’d made the decision to go home. But what had the drug made me do? I strained my brain until it felt like it would pop, but I couldn’t remember anything beyond getting into the car. What if he was right? What if the drug had made me rampant or even just blankly compliant? Was he just messing with my head or did he really believe that I was wanting it? Could he really be such a bastard that he could drug me, rape me and then pretend that it was just that I had a poor head for alcohol and had thrown myself at him? Perhaps I was wrong and he hadn’t put anything other than strong mixed spirits in that drink and I’d had an unusually bad reaction to it for once?

  I felt for the sore places on my wrist and arms. And I’d found some more rapidly bluing patches on my inner thighs. That’s all I had to go on. Surely I must have been struggling, or trying to fight him off for him to have to be so rough? And when I’d gone for a pee again it felt like boiling water coming out and stung for ages after. I didn’t know what it was meant to feel like after you’d sex for the first time, but I didn’t think it was meant to feel this sore. I felt completely mashed up. It must have been a fight…surely?

  The next morning I lay in bed and didn’t bother getting up. At some point Dad yelled up the stairs, “Eve, aren’t you going to work today?”

  “No,” I shouted, “I’ve got a few days off. I’m having a lie-in.”

  He left. SHE left. Jamie left. At last I was on my own. I drank tea all day, cried all day, ate nothing, and retreated back to my room before Jamie got home.

  About eight o’clock Jo rang me. She sounded cross. “Where are you Eve?”

  “I’m sorry Jo, I’m sick.” I could barely speak my throat was so sore from all the crying, so it must have sounded convincing.

  “Well you’d better be fit for Saturday after all this work on the car,” she said sharply.

  “That’s why I’m staying in,” I lied. “To get better. And I don’t want to give it to you. Pete’s immune system is probably down and I really feel I ought to keep away.” I was beginning to really believe in my own fake illness.

  Jamie came in. “Can I have the computer?” I could see he was tensing ready for a fight.

  “If you must,” I said listlessly.

  He glanced warily at me. He’d been keeping away from me pretty much since I’d told him I knew about the dealing. He retreated swiftly with his prize before I could change my mind.

  Downstairs I heard Dad asking Jamie where I was tonight. Jamie told him I was upstairs in bed. I heard Dad expressing surprise.

  “She looks awful,” Jamie reported. “I think she’s sick.”

  Dad trotted up and sat on my bed.

  “I’ll be alright,” I said hoarsely. I sniffled deliberately as though I had a cold. Not hard to do as I was bunged up from all the crying. I avoided his eyes lest he somehow magically know what had really happened.

  He felt my forehead like he used to when I was a child. “You don’t feel hot.”

  “Told you I’m Ok, it’ll pass.”

  He insisted on bringing me a cup of tea and a jug of orange squash and a glass with instructions to ‘keep hydrated’. I accepted it. It meant I wouldn’t have to emerge again until they’d all gone out again tomorrow. I slept.

  On Thursday when I woke up, I knew I couldn’t go on like this indefinitely. I was afraid I was on the path to self-destruct. I got out my mobile and rang Jaimi. She was the only person I could think of that I could bear to discuss this with. We used to be best friends. I was relieved when she answered. I didn’t want to just text her.

  “Will you come round Jaimi, I need to talk to someone? Preferably some time during the day so no one else is around?”

  She promised to come round after her morning college classes. Apparently they were given free periods on Thursday afternoons to plan next week’s menus. She didn’t ask what it was about.

  When she arrived I didn’t do a Siân on her, throwing my arms round her and weeping. Instead I made her a coffee and took her up to my room in case anyone came home unexpectedly during the afternoon.

  “You look dreadful,” she said as she sat down beside me on the bed. “I heard about the Daisy thing. I know it’s upsetting, but really Eve, there’s plenty more fish in the sea, and it was never going to last with Adam was it?”

  “It’s not about Adam,” I said abruptly. “I’ve been raped.” I hadn’t meant to come out with it like that. In fact I’d been wondering how I’d get up the guts to speak to her about it. As I said it aloud again, I knew I was right. Whatever Trev claimed or tried to make me believe, I just knew I had been raped.

  “Oh my God, Eve, that’s awful! What on earth happened?” She looked utterly shocked.

  As I told her about it I got increasingly upset. She held my hand sympathetically.

  “And I woke up naked, Jaimi. I don’t even know what exactly he did with me. He might have done anything with me! He might have had all his mates round and had a gang bang party. He might at this very moment have pictures on his phone of me for insurance purposes. He might have already posted them online!”

  She put her arms around me and I clung to her. “That’s awful Eve, I’m so sorry!”

  “I should have rung for that taxi,” I berated myself, choking back the sobs. “I shouldn’t have cared about offending him! I shouldn’t have drunk that last drink. I told him I didn’t want it!”

  “You weren’t to know what he was planning,” she soothed. “You didn’t want it to be awkward at work. It’s not your fault, he sounds like a complete bastard! I don’t understand why he did it though.” She frowned as she puzzled over it. “I mean, he had weeks and months ahead of him to get you into bed if he wanted you that much. What was he getting out of drugging you and forcing you? Unless he’s a complete pervert who only gets off on sex if it’s kinky or violent or he feels like he has power over you?”

  I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand and rubbed my eyes with my palms. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I sniffed. “You’re right. It’s weird. It was the first time I’d gone out with him and I was making it clear I wasn’t putting out and I didn’t promise anything. He could have asked me out every day for the next year if he’d wanted to…”

  “He sounds bloody dangerous to me,” Jaimi’s tone was forceful. “He wasn’t even drunk. He must actually get some kind of kick out of it. You shouldn’t have peed at his flat, Eve. You should have come home and peed into a jug or something because you can’t report him now with no evidence. They might have been able to find the drug in your urine.”

  “Too late now,” I muttered. I hadn’t been thinking straight. I’d barely understood what had happened to me at that point. Now it was my word against his.

  “So you are on some sort of contraceptive aren’t you, Eve?”

  I looked blankly at her. “No.”

  “No, what do you mean no? You were always the one telling the rest of us to make sure we didn’t get pregnant!”

  “Well I wasn’t sleeping with anyone, so I didn’t need anything…”

  “But surely by now-?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never slept with anyone,” I repeated.

  I watched a number of expressions flit across her face. Finally she said, “I’m so sorry Eve, really I am. It would be awful whatever, but if you’ve never actually slept with anyone then it’s just really really awful.”

  I leant back against the wall and stared at the ceiling, this was the last time I was ever telling anyone about this and the last time I was ever going to talk to anyone about my sexual status.

  “So, Eve?” Her mind was obviously working through the ramifications of what I’d just said. “When was your last period?”


  “Dunno,” I said. I tended to lose track. “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “Shit Eve, you’re bang on mid-cycle and you’ve left it three days already!”

  I turned my head sideways along the wall and looked listlessly at her.

  “You need to get hold of the morning after pill,” she told me firmly. “Today.” She saw my expression. “I mean it Eve, you have to go out and get it today. Go to the town centre Boots, no-one will know you there.”

  After a few minutes of arguing with me, she realised she wasn’t going to persuade me to leave the house for any reason whatsoever, let alone go into town to get questioned in public by a pharmacist. She gave up. “I’ll go and get it for you. I’ll pretend it’s me that needs it. Are you on any medication or have any hereditary issues I need to know about if they ask me?”

  I shook my head.

  “And thing is, Eve,” she added awkwardly. “Within the next couple of weeks you really ought to go and get tested…”

  “Tested for what?” I said blankly.

  “STDs,” she said bluntly. “If he’s capable of doing this to you, what else is he into? You’ve no idea what infections you might have caught off him…”

  As I burst into tears again she reached out her arms and hugged me like a mother would. At least, how I imagine a mother might. She’s really kind is Jaimi.

  I was dreading Friday - the meeting at work. I couldn’t tell if I was getting any of the potential side effects of the emergency contraceptive pill because I already felt so crap. I hoped it wouldn’t affect my driving on Saturday. I rang Lyndale and told them I wouldn’t be coming in because I was sick.