Sebastian Priest
A voice drifts out of a small portable speaker on the bedside table.
A woman’s voice, breathy and soft, which sits close and feels intimate, the lyrics half-whispered but dreaming of love.
Belle latches on to the voice. She spent an hour the previous evening making this playlist especially for tonight.
A soundtrack full of love songs, to sing to.
To shag to. She had hoped it would impress him.
She’d been more nervous than usual. Had spent two hours this afternoon bathing, shaving, tidying her flat.
She’d plucked out her nipple hairs, taken time to curl her highlighted blonde hair, fresh from the salon that week, and stuffed her dirty washing to the bottom of her wardrobe.
She had even put on a matching lace set. She smiled when she thought of him.
She’s below him now and she’s not thinking of how well the playlist is working. Instead, she can’t shake the creeping claustrophobia.
His hand was on her thigh, then her waist, then her breast. Then it wasn’t.
She feels fingers at the side of her neck, a thumb pressed below her jaw.
Words dissolve before they reach her mouth.
She can’t feel her hands. They’re above her head, clasped in his other palm. The weight of him feels heavy.
She sinks into the mattress.
He pants.
Her mouth opens, then closes.
It’s difficult to swallow. She said yes to this, she reminds herself of that. It’s fine.
His eyes are shut, and she can’t look at him, can’t catch his eye, so she turns her head and focuses on the window.
The flicker of the light through the trees outside casts everything in an amber hue.
The streetlamp is amber. She hadn’t noticed that before.
How long had it been that colour? She counts the shapes on the curtains.
One. Two. Three.
She tries to remember the words to the song but can’t. On the windowsill, her little cactus droops to one side. She’d been meaning to water it.
The song fades into the next. A husky, rough male voice.
She squeezes her eyes shut. Everything has gone still. Very still, except him.