Chapter 13
Thirteen
STEFANO WAS SILENT THE entire way home. Outside the club, he rang for a taxi which took us all the way to the apartment building’s front door.
I knew it wasn’t for my benefit though. He just wanted to get as far away from Victoria as he could, as quickly as he could.
When we got inside, I went straight into the shower room and locked the door. I texted Victoria.
Shannon Bell
Are you back safe? I’m so so sorry, I don’t know what happened there xx
She sent me back a picture of her shiny, tanned legs, stretched out along the quilted eiderdown, the hem of a fluffy white robe peeking just out of shot.
Sunday, 8th August at 02:34
Shannon Bell
Good. Such a relief! I was worried! Again I’m so sorry. He’s a dick. I don’t know what happened xx
And then her reply:
Sunday, 8th August at 02:41
V
Just get some sleep babe x
When I emerged from the shower room, the apartment was empty. I found a hurriedly scribbled note on the Formica table.
Gone for a walk
Don’t wait up
I felt exhausted and sick. I thought about deadbolting the door (accidentally) so Stefano wouldn’t be able to get in again. But then decided that might be a step too far after all the humiliation of that evening.
I sat down on the bed, and the apartment seemed to sigh.
The room was chilly. We’d left the clunky air conditioning unit on all day.
I shivered and rubbed the pimpled skin of my arms. Everything was in shadow.
A single lamp burned in the corner, casting malevolent tableaus on the walls.
I removed my sandals and rubbed the dark welts that had been slowly forming over the past few days, the plump virgin skin cut to ribbons.
Don’t wait up. I took a shower, washed my hair and crawled – the room spinning like a waltzer – beneath the stale sheets.
I HEARD A NOISE. I rolled over and peered at the glowing microwave dial. 4.37 a.m. It was still dark outside. I rolled back and saw light under the shower room door, movement.
I could hear Stefano in there, the taps gushing, on and off, then something falling to the floor and a grunt as it was kicked against the shower basin.
It shattered; I froze.
I thought back on the night, on the entire week and the eggshells I’d tiptoed across, the fragile casing of Stefano’s ego.
I wished I’d stayed home. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself back into that life: watching Grandma potter around the garden; reclining with Mum and her detective novels on the patio; helping Dad in the garage as he worked on some never-ending project.
The light disappeared from beneath the door.
Shivering, I curled in on myself, making myself as tiny as I could.
Footsteps. The feeling of another person entering the room.
‘Shannon . . .’
I didn’t answer.
‘Shannon, are you awake?’
I waited, my heart pounding in my ears.
I heard a buckle unlatch, a belt slap to the floor.
The mattress sank as Stefano clambered onto the bed. He manoeuvred himself behind me and, with sinking dread, I felt something press against the base of my spine.
His breath was warm and rancid-smelling; his body taut and humming with need. I tried to shift away from him, but his hand gripped my waist, pulling me closer. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he whispered playfully.
It was a question that required no answer, only discreet compliance.
So this is how it happens.
‘Stef,’ I croaked, feigning waking.
‘Hey, little bird,’ he whispered, nuzzling my neck.
‘Please, I’m so tired.’
‘Quiet now.’
‘Stef, not like this, I don’t want to—’
‘Shh.’
He lowered his hand and eased my pyjama bottoms down to my knees. I wish he’d pulled them all the way off. Somehow that would’ve been better, less transactional.
Her face disappears.
A body.
A chest.
Limbs.
Reduced to nothing, to lumps of meat, props.
Your end of the bargain.
‘Stef—’
You asked for this.
‘Stefano—’
Suddenly his grip tightened. ‘Just be quiet, OK? Just – just be quiet now.’
Invited it.
He wrapped his arm around my neck.
‘Please, Stef, I don’t want to—’
And then he pushed himself inside me.
Like a stranger’s finger in your mouth, the familiar made foreign, sticky and unwelcome.
Why didn’t you run?
Run where?
I stopped moving, let my limbs go heavy.
Play dead.
The rest I watched from above. Up in the gods. The cheap seats. Observer and participant. Audience and performer.
A mannequin.
He chuckled to himself. ‘Fuck, you’re so wet.’
A cardboard figurine, bent in half.
‘Oh God.’
‘Please—’ the girl whispered.
A paper doll.
‘Stop—’ she pleaded.
‘Oh fuck . . .’
Someone else, someone else’s scene.
I gazed at the girl on the bed. And she stared up at the girl in the sky.
Are you not an actress?
Yes, but—
So act.