She Said, Three Said

by David B Lyons

  It was an argument Bracken spent too much time on; the jury weren’t swayed by it at all.

  ‘So…’ Number One says, ‘we had a strong movement towards not guilty in our last vote. Are we saying that this argument, about there being only one bed, will lean us back the other way?’

  ‘Doesn’t change my mind,’ says Number Twelve.

  ‘Me neither,’ says Brian. ‘There just ishn’t enough evidensh.’

  Number Six coughs into her wrinkled hand. It’s the only noise she’s made in about an hour. It makes everybody turn to her; interpreting her cough as her preparation to finally speak. She picks up her glass of water as everybody looks at her, takes a long sip, swirls the water around her mouth and then lets out a gasp.

  ‘I just would like to know… eh… how does the topic of group sex come up? I know I am from a different generation, but is group sex something that is a regular occurrence these days?’

  She turns to face Number Seven, not because she is aware that Number Seven is a bit slutty, but because there are only two people in the room who are particularly young looking, and she opted for Number Seven over Number Five, simply because she doesn’t fully trust the latter.

  ‘Well… no. I agree that our generation is a little more forthcoming when it comes to sex, but I agree with you, Number Six — I don’t know how the topic of group sex would ever raise its head,’ Number Seven says. ‘How does a guy ask a girl if she would like to have sex, not just with him, but with his two friends, too?’

  The jury stew on this notion, each of them playing it over in their heads when they are interrupted by the door unlocking and then re-opening. The young man dressed in all black wheels in a large trolley, then stands to attention.

  ‘These are the chicken dishes,’ he says. ‘Can you raise your hand if you ordered chicken?’

  He then places a dish in front of those whose hands are stretched towards the dim light bulb, before leaving the room again.

  ‘Has anyone, for inshtance…’ Brian says before hesitating. He knows he is heading into controversial territory. ‘Eh… I know some of you have been very kind to be forthright with your own experienshes, but has anybody here ever… y’know… eh.’ Brian blushes, scratches the side of his head before continuing, ‘anyone ever participated in group sex?’

  The door opens again.

  ‘These are the beef dishes. Can anyone who ordered beef now raise their hand?’

  The young man dressed in all black then rounds the table, placing plates in front of those who now have their hand in the air. He then tilts his head forward in a bow as he stands at the top of the table before wheeling his trolley back out and closing the door behind him.

  ‘Can you pass the salt?’ Number Five says to Number Eleven. Number Eleven reaches across the table, grabs at the shaker and then passes it along the line.

  ‘The chicken’s nice today,’ Number Three says.

  ‘Yeah… nicer than it was yesterday, isn’t it? Sauce is more sweet or something, isn’t it?’ says Number Seven.

  ‘I have,’ says Number Nine.

  Number One stares at her and raises his eyebrows as he takes a bite of his lunch.

  ‘I mean, I have eh… I have had group sex,’ she says.

  The sound of forks being placed back down on plates clangs around the room.

  All eyes turn to Number Nine. She just stares down at her lap, her fork still holding a bite-sized chunk of beef in its prongs.

  ‘And… for the record, we did discuss it beforehand. My eh… husband and his friend eh… Mike… we just…’

  Number Nine’s real name is Valerie Kinsella, a thirty-six-year-old factory operative who lived most of her life in Co Wexford before moving up to Clondalkin in Dublin two years ago to find employment. She dyes her hair platinum, packs her face with make-up. Her whole look screams insecurity, because that’s exactly what she is: insecure. But she’s nice; doesn’t wallow in self pity; is happy to concede that she’s not perfect and never will be. Though she does try to look as perfect as she can; or certainly what she perceives to be ‘perfect’. She’s actually had threesomes quite a number of times; but is only recalling the first time she did it to her fellow jurors. She doesn’t want to come across as too slutty. Though she doesn’t regard herself as a slut at all; she and her husband just have a more exciting sex life than most. However, she feels she owes the jury some sort of truth here. Is aware that consensual group sex is a real possibility with regards to the night in question. She believes Sabrina did have sex with all three and then perhaps regretted it the next morning upon reflection. She’s believed this from quite an early stage during the trial because she has seen it happen before. She once had sex with a friend of hers and her husband, only for her friend to never speak to her again out of sheer guilt. She genuinely believes Sabrina may have suffered the same — or similar — post-sex shame.

  ‘My husband and I got talking and we discussed what we’d like in the bedroom and so he asked his friend and…’ she sighs, stops talking, feels she has shared enough. She wants to get across the fact that – in her experience – threesomes are discussed before they occur. They don’t just happen by chance.

  ‘Thank you so much for sharing your truth with us,’ Number Twelve says. Number One’s mouth is slightly ajar, others just eyeball each other or look down at their dinner.

  ‘So… you feel as if the idea of everybody having sex during the night in question would have been discussed, it didn’t just happen?’ Number Twelve says directly to Number Nine.

  She nods her head, then finally bites beef she’d been holding on her fork for the past two minutes.

  ‘From my experience, yes,’ she says, her mouth full.

  ‘I always assumed she was having sex with Jason and then the others just walked into the room, took it upon themselves to get involved,’ Number Seven says, ‘but its just my own theory. I can’t imagine a discussion where Sabrina is asked if she would have sex with all three men and she just agreed to it. I think she was having sex with Jason, then either got caught up in the moment and had sex with the other two… or…’

  ‘Or what?’ Number Four asks.

  ‘Or they all took advantage of her, raped her.’

  ‘Why didn’t she scream the house down?’ Number Four asks, putting his fork aside. ‘If she was raped, why wasn’t she screaming “no”? That’s one thing I can’t get right in my head.’

  ‘When girls are being raped, they go numb,’ Number Five says.

  ‘And do you know that for a fact?’ Number Four asks.

  ‘No!’ she snaps back. ‘I think I read that somewhere,’ she says.

  ‘You think you read it shomewhere?’ Brian rhetorically asks in a condescending tone, almost huffing out a laugh.

  Not many around the table were buying Number Five’s argument. But she was right. Studies have found that victims of rape are more likely to fall silent during the ordeal rather than fight against their attackers. They can fall limp, waiting on the ordeal to be over and done with. This reaction, albeit quite sensible in a way, goes a long way to blurring the lines between consensual and non-consensual sex. If a victim isn’t saying ‘no’, how is the attacker supposed to understand their reluctance? Of course, another argument can — and often does — ignite from this: if a victim hasn’t given consent, why is an attacker having sex with them in the first place?

  This is just another element that makes rape cases as convoluted as any criminal case can be. Except, in this trial specifically, the claimant insists she said “no”. She admits she didn’t scream the hotel room down, admits she didn’t fight strongly against her attackers, but is adamant that she said “no”. Sabrina claims she said it “at least three times” when one of the three men was penetrating her from behind “while the others looked on”. All three men deny this. They say the word “no” never came out of her mouth.

  The reporting of this specific part of the trial has led to one of the hashtags that has gone viral over the
past couple of weeks via social media: #SheSaidNo. In fact both #MeToo and #SheSaidNo have trended every day of the past fortnight on Twitter in Ireland. Women’s voices are echoing around the hills and valleys of the entire nation as this trial dominates the media. The jury aren’t aware of this; they all agreed not to check any news during the entirety of their service. But they were made aware of some of the protestors who swamped the entry to Dublin’s Criminal Courts over the past two days as both sides delivered their final argument and it become apparent that the jury would soon be deliberating their verdict. Each of the jurors heard the chant ‘She Said No’ as they were escorted through the back door of the courts earlier this morning. Judge McCormick informed them that they needed to blank out any protests they had overheard, and re-established to them that they were the only ones who could make a proper judgement; that those protesting were not privy to the facts of this case like they were.

  ‘Uuuugh,’ Number One says as he rubs at his face. ‘No. Such a simple word. Two letters. I guess this is what it all boils down to, isn’t it? We’ve been arguing for…’ he hesitates, twists his left wrist, ‘almost four hours now. Arguments over who approached who first; did Sabrina give Jason a handjob; did Sabrina follow the men to Copper Face Jacks; why decide to go to Newcastle; why book one hotel room; who looked uncomfortable in the taxis… lots of different arguments. And while all those arguments and points are important in us understanding what happened that night, our judgement essentially boils down to what happened in that hotel room, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yep,’ Number Seven says, the ‘p’ of the word popping out of her mouth. ‘What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall in the hotel suite that night.’

  23:50

  Sabrina

  Jason swipes the keycard over the reader of the door and it instantly unlocks. He pushes at it, walks in ahead of me.

  Wow.

  I guess this is how the other half live. When I stay in hotels, I barely have enough space in the rooms to walk either side of the bed. But I can’t even see the bed in this place yet. There’s a huge plasma screen on the wall, facing two lush grey sofas. A bar area. A kitchen. The smell of the fresh tulips is subtle, yet it’s the overpowering scent. The hotel rooms I normally stay in are damp, musty. I walk towards the tulips standing in a gorgeous Waterford crystal vase on a desk on the far side of the room near the big window, take in all of their freshness through my nose, then read the message attached.

  ‘Welcome to the Merchant Penthouse Suite. Enjoy your stay.’

  I watch as Jason walks towards a huge wooden door, almost the entire width of the room before he slides it open. The bedroom. It looks so cosy, densely lit. Almost romantic. I walk towards the room and as I do, I can feel Zach staring at me. He’s still into me, there’s no doubt about that. He probably envisages getting into this bed with me, but that’s not going to happen. This room is for me and Jason. Zach and Li can sort themselves out.

  There is such a peaceful presence in the whole suite; the quiet, the subtle lighting, the smell of the flowers. An excited twinge twists in my stomach. I’m not excited about the sex, I’m excited about the prospective lifestyle I could be living if I become Jason’s girlfriend. Jaysus, even Jason’s wife. Imagine. Mrs Sabrina Kenny.

  I shake my head. I can’t get too far ahead of myself. In fact I’m still trying to figure out if he’s on the same page as me tonight, let alone years down the line. I thought he was a while ago, but he keeps turning from hot to cold. I strain my eyes towards him, trying to read his thoughts without making it obvious I’m checking him out. I watch as he runs his hand over the bed sheets, watch as he walks out of the bedroom towards the sofas, watch as he lounges down into one of them and grabs at the TV remote control. Only then does he look at me. He winks. Then turns away. I’m pretty sure his coldness is calculated. He’s trying to play it cool, trying to not come on to me too heavily, too eagerly. He intrigues me. His cold isn’t like Eddie’s cold. When Eddie was in bad humour, it was transparent. He didn’t hide it. He held no intrigue for me whatsoever. I didn’t feel any sort of loss after I’d dumped him. I only felt excited. Not just because I was starting a new life without him, but because I was starting a new professional life. My new job took up all of my time. Eddie was pretty much forgotten within a week of me telling him it was all over. Once Lorna filled me in on her entrapment of Eddie, she offered me a job.

  ‘I need a hot brunette,’ she told me. ‘I’ve got to know you well over the past few weeks and genuinely feel you could be an asset to the business.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I’d have the nerve to carry out the work. But I accepted her offer later that day for the simple reason that I felt it would be more exciting than handing out discount vouchers which was all my work seemed to consist of those days. Besides, the money on offer was too good to turn down. I’ve made thirty-eight thousand euro since starting with Lorna in the space of fifteen months. I’d never come even close to earning that amount as a model or in marketing. It’s not a life-changing amount, but it’s consistent and it’s fulfilling.

  I’ve carried out seventeen entrapment cases for her, including Niall tonight, and my statistics lie at ten green lights, seven red lights. I’ve had to break ten women’s hearts with my findings. I, rather pretentiously, assumed no man would turn down the advances of somebody who looked like me, or indeed Lorna. But that’s not the case at all; some men are genuinely faithful to their other halves. And I think that’s what gives me the most fulfilment in my job. The knowledge that great men do exist. Somewhere.

  It’s weird – I get my kicks out of being turned down, rejected. I almost fist pumped the air earlier when Niall told me he was ‘loved up’. I’m actually looking forward to writing up my report for Lorna tomorrow, ahead of meeting his fiancée on Monday evening to pass on the positive news. She’ll be delighted. And I’ll be delighted for her. She’s a lucky girl.

  Li motions over to Jason to turn down the volume on the TV as he walks to the door.

  ‘Just in here,’ he says to the waiter, ‘leave them on the table.’

  The waiter places a large circular tray — on which sits four yellow-coloured iced Margaritas — on top of the coffee table in front of Jason and then stands up, staring straight ahead.

  ‘Oh,’ Jason says, patting down the pockets of his trousers. ‘We eh… don’t carry cash on us, can you add a tip to the bill?’

  I intervene, pulling my purse out of my bag, retrieving a tenner from it.

  ‘Here you are… forget adding it to the bill.’

  The young man smiles at me, folds the ten euro note neatly into his waistcoat pocket and leaves us to it. As soon as he’s gone, Jason re-highers the volume on the TV, then picks up one of the glasses.

  ‘To the boys,’ he says.

  Both Li and Zach reach for glasses of their own, before I move between them and pick up mine.

  ‘And Sabrina,’ Li says as we all clink.

  ‘Yeah, and Sabrina,’ Jason says, before staring over the rim of his glass at me while he downs his first sip. He looks menacingly at me. Maybe he’s trying to be sexy; trying to motion to me that he’s ready for action. He’s not being presumptuous. I have told him, after all, that I’m horny, that I’m up for this.

  I look behind me, eyeball the bedroom and then look back at him. He smiles at me; gets the gist. A wave of excitement runs itself down my spine. I can’t believe I’m going to have sex with a celebrity.

  23:50

  Li

  I stroll into the room, and head straight for one of the big grey couches in front of me. I could actually spread out on it at this stage, lift me legs up, lie my head down, fall asleep. But I’m actually looking forward to the cocktails we ordered. That was the only reason I came here. I think.

  I watch Sabrina as she walks around the room, taking it all in. She’s probably never been in a suite this impressive before. I wonder what her life has been like; her family, her upbringing, he
r career. She’s really cool, really attractive. It’d be quite unfortunate if she hasn’t had these type of luxuries before, but I get the impression she hasn’t. She’s practically purring as she takes in the entire suite. I guess just because you’ve got the looks, doesn’t mean you also get the luck.

  Which is quite funny. It seems as if she has everything, yet I bet she’s not as happy in life as my Niamh. And poor Niamh, even I have to admit it, didn’t get the luck when it comes to looks. But that just goes to show. All these things we worry about as kids such as what we look like to other people it means sweet fuck all in the grand scheme of things. The main goal of life should be maintaining a level of happiness. But we seem to relate happiness in a bizarre way. If you looked at Jason from a distance, you would assume he has everything: fame, wealth, adoration — yet he’s the most miserable man I know. Sabrina looks as if God personally designed her, yet there’s a sadness behind her eyes. Then take me and Niamh; we’ve no money at all — just a very basic income that affords us a small flat in Drimnagh — and we certainly weren’t personally designed by any God, yet we are as giddy and as happy as any people we know. I don’t think there is any correlation with the things we equate to happiness with actual happiness.

  There’s a knock on the door. I swing my legs off the couch and go to answer it. A young man in a white shirt enters and places the tray with four cocktails on it onto the glass coffee table. Jason tells him he should add the tip to the entire bill, but Sabrina intervenes, handing him a tenner. Before the young man leaves I already have my cocktail in my hand. It looks just like I’d hoped it would — a large glass of slushed ice.