CHAPTER ONE
Kate’s shoes made no sound on the corridor’s worn carpet.
She’d finally surrendered to the sensible flats last term.
Arch support, cushioned soles, the sort of thing her mother would approve of.
By three o’clock, her feet had stopped aching for the first time in years.
A small capitulation to practicality. She tried not to think about what it signified.
“Kate.” Margaret Henson stepped out of the departmental office, a manila folder pressed to her chest. “Glad I caught you. Quick word about the external examiner visit?”
Kate slowed, shifting her bag higher on her shoulder. “Of course.”
“Ferguson’s confirmed for the nineteenth. We’ll need sample papers from your Victorian module by the twelfth at the latest.” Margaret glanced at the folder as if it contained the specific bureaucratic misery she was about to distribute. “I know it’s tight.”
“I’ll manage.” Kate kept her voice mild. “I’ve got a filing system that borders on the pathological.”
Margaret’s mouth twitched. The closest she came to laughter. “I heard your Tess seminar went well today. Third-years actually participating?”
“Voluntarily, even. We were discussing the bit where Hardy’s narrator gets rather judgy about fallen women.” Kate tilted her head. “They had opinions.”
“Dangerous.”
“Quite.”
Margaret tucked the folder under her arm, already half-turning toward the stairs. “Right. The twelfth, then. Papers on my desk.”
“You’ll have them.”
Kate watched her disappear around the corner then continued toward the staff toilet at the end of the corridor.
The late afternoon light slanted through the high windows, catching dust motes.
Somewhere below, a door banged shut. She thought about nothing in particular: the stack of essays waiting in her office, whether there was milk at home, the office hour she’d scheduled for half four.
She pushed open the toilet door.
The end stall. Kate latched the door and stood for a moment, bag hung on the hook, enjoying the silence. The fluorescent light hummed. She tugged her blouse straight, checked her phone. Nothing. She put it away.
Tights. She’d been adjusting them between classes all day. Something about the waistband. She hiked her skirt and sorted it out then sat.
The outer door opened.
Footsteps. Two sets. A girl’s voice, barely above a whisper. “What if someone comes in?”
A low laugh. Male. “Then be quiet.”
The middle stall door banged open. Banged shut. The lock scraped into place.
Kate’s hands stopped moving. She sat perfectly still, skirt still rucked around her thighs, and listened to the rustle of clothing, the soft thud of a body against the partition wall.
She didn’t breathe.
His voice came through the partition. Low, unhurried. “On your knees.”
The sound of compliance. Fabric rustling. A soft thump as knees hit tile.
“Good girl.” A pause. Kate heard a zip. “You know what to do.”
Wet sounds. The girl gagging then recovering.
Kate’s fingers pressed into her thighs.
“That’s it. All of it. Fucking hell, you’re eager today.” His breathing changed. “Look at me while you do it. Eyes up.”
A muffled moan. Affirmation.
Kate’s pulse thudded in her ears. She should cough. Flush the toilet. Announce herself somehow. Her hand didn’t move toward the handle.
“Such a good little slut.” The word landed in Kate’s stomach, hot and wrong. “You love this, don’t you? Tell me.”
The girl pulled off long enough to speak. “I love it.” Her voice was wrecked, breathless. “Please. I want more.”
“More what? Say it properly.”
“I want you to fuck me.” The girl’s voice cracked. “Please. I need it.”
“Need what?”
“Your cock. Please.”
“And what are you?”
A pause. Kate stopped breathing.
“I’m your slut.” The girl said it like a confession. Like a gift. “I’m your slut, and I need you to fuck me.”
Kate’s hand was between her legs. She didn’t remember putting it there. Through the tights, through her knickers, she could feel how wet she was. The heel of her palm pressed down, and her hips shifted without permission.
Through the gap at the bottom of the partition: bare knees on grey tile. The girl’s skirt bunched around her thighs. Kate watched her rise, watched her get pulled up and turned around.
“Hands on the wall. That’s it.” The sound of a condom wrapper. “Push that arse back. Show me what’s mine.”
The girl whimpered. Not protest. Anticipation.
A sharp crack. Palm on flesh. The girl moaned, long and low.
“Louder,” he said. “Let me hear you.”
Another slap. The moan that followed was almost a word. Almost thank you.
Kate’s hand pressed against herself, unmoving. Just pressure. Just heat. Her face burned. An academic. A professional. Crouched on a toilet with her hand between her legs, listening to a student get fucked in the next stall. She couldn’t move it away.
The rhythm started. The wet sound of him pushing into her, the girl’s breath punched out with each thrust. The partition wall shuddered.
“That’s it. Take it.” His voice had gone rough. “Fucking take it.”
“Yes. God, yes. Harder.”
Kate held her breath. Her hand stayed where it was, pressed tight, feeling her own pulse through the layers of fabric. She was soaked. She could feel it.
It built. The girl’s cries rising in pitch, his grunts lower, more animal. The slap of skin on skin.
Then he finished. A groan, a stuttered thrust, the girl whimpering beneath him. Stillness.
Rustling. The snap of the stall lock. Kate heard them adjusting clothing, a whispered exchange she couldn’t make out. The girl giggled. He shushed her, but he was laughing, too.
The outer door swung open and banged shut. Footsteps receding down the corridor.
Kate sat in the silence. Her hand still pressed between her legs. Her knickers soaked through, the damp obvious even through her tights. She stared at the back of the stall door and didn’t move.
She waited. Counted to sixty. Did it again.
When Kate finally stood, her legs were unsteady. She smoothed her skirt, adjusted her tights. Unlatched the door.
The mirror showed her a stranger. Flushed cheeks, bright eyes. Colour high on her throat. She ran the cold tap, splashed water on her face and wrists. Blotted herself dry with paper towels that left fibres on her skin.
Professional Kate looked back at her. Almost. Close enough.
Office hour. A second-year with questions about the essay deadline. A third-year wanting to discuss dissertation topics. Kate nodded, spoke, said the right things. Her voice sounded normal. Her hands stayed flat on the desk.
“Hardy’s use of landscape,” she heard herself say. “The way the Vale of Blackmoor functions as a kind of Eden.”
The student wrote something down. Kate’s mind slipped. The wet sound. I’m your slut. She pulled herself back.
“We can discuss it further next week.”
The drive home. Pulteney Bridge in the evening light, the weir churning below. Past the abbey, the Roman baths, the tourists photographing everything. Up through the Georgian terraces toward home. The same route she always took. The same city she’d lived in for six years.
She pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. Sat there. The sounds still playing. Her hand, pressed between her legs. What she’d done. Who she’d been for those few minutes in the stall.
Kate took her keys from the ignition. Sat for one more breath. Then she opened the door and went inside.
The kitchen was warm, noisy. Sophie at the table with her laptop, Oliver rummaging in the fridge. Daniel at the hob, stirring something that smelled of garlic and tomatoes.
“Mum.” Sophie didn’t look up. “Mr. Henderson said my personal statement needs to show more passion for helping people. Like I’m supposed to pretend I had a dying grandparent or something.”
“He’s not wrong,” Kate said. She set her bag down, kissed Daniel on the cheek. “Smells good.”
“Pasta. Nothing fancy.” He glanced at her. “Long day?”
“The usual.” She moved past him to the cupboard, took down plates, set them around the table while Daniel drained the pasta.
Oliver emerged from the fridge with a block of cheese. “Can I have this?”
“At dinner,” Daniel said. “Fifteen minutes.”
I’m your slut. Kate opened the cutlery drawer. The words arrived without warning, the girl’s wrecked voice, and Kate’s hand paused over the forks.
“Mum? Forks?”
“Sorry. Yes.” She counted out four, carried them to the table. Sophie was still typing. Oliver had his phone out. An ordinary Tuesday evening.
Kate sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and felt the echo of pressure between her legs, hours old now, still there.
Oliver talked about rugby practice, a try he’d scored. Daniel asked questions, made the right noises. Kate served salad, refilled water glasses, told Sophie that passion could be manufactured for a personal statement and she’d help her redraft it this weekend.
“Thanks.” Sophie speared a piece of pasta. “It’s due next Friday.”
“We’ll sort it.”
I’m your slut, and I need you to fuck me.
Kate reached for her wine. The glass was cool against her palm. She drank, nodded at something Daniel was saying about a client, and the evening continued around her like a play she knew all the lines to.
She cleared the plates. Loaded the dishwasher. Wiped down the counters while Daniel finished his wine, and Sophie disappeared upstairs, and Oliver turned on the television in the other room.
Normal. All of it. The same as any other Tuesday.
Kate hung up the tea towel, and her hands were steady, and no one had noticed a thing.
Daniel fell asleep at half ten. Kate listened to his breathing, slow and deepen; felt his weight settle into the mattress beside her.
The ceiling was a grey blank in the darkness. She should sleep. Tomorrow: a nine o’clock lecture, marking to finish, a department meeting she couldn’t miss. Her body was tired. Her mind wouldn’t stop.
I’m your slut.
Kate closed her eyes. The girl’s voice came back, clear as it had been through the partition. The way she’d said it. Not ashamed. Not reluctant. Like she meant it. Like she wanted to mean it.
I’m your slut, and I need you to fuck me.
Heat pooled low in Kate’s stomach. The same heat she’d carried through dinner, through the washing up, through the hours of performing normalcy. Still there. Still waiting.
Daniel’s breathing didn’t change. Slow and even. Unaware.
Kate’s hand moved under the duvet. Quietly. Carefully. She found herself through the cotton of her pyjamas, already wet, and pressed down.
The sounds came back. The slap of his palm on flesh. The girl’s moan. The rhythm through the partition wall, and Kate matching it without meaning to. Her hand in the stall, pressed between her legs, holding still when she wanted to move.
She moved now. Small circles, slow, biting her lip against the sound that wanted to escape. Daniel three inches away, sleeping. The girl’s voice in her head: I’m your slut. I’m your slut.
It didn’t take long. The tension had been building for hours. Kate came with her teeth clenched, her breath held, her whole body rigid with the effort of silence.
She lay still. Her hand wet, her heart pounding. Daniel’s breathing hadn’t changed. He didn’t know.
The room settled around her. The familiar shapes of furniture in the dark. The faint glow of a streetlight through the curtains. Everything exactly as it had been an hour ago, a day ago, a year ago.
Except her.
Forty-two years old. Senior lecturer in Victorian literature. She spent her days teaching about repression and desire, about women who wanted things they weren’t supposed to want and the prices they paid for wanting them. Tess. Sue Bridehead. Lady Audley. All those constrained, punished heroines.
And she’d just come to the memory of a girl on her knees in a toilet stall, calling herself a slut like it was a prayer.
Kate stared at the ceiling. Daniel shifted in his sleep, turned away from her.
What the hell was wrong with her?