Page 58 of The Family Remains

She felt him start to leak from between her legs and pushed past him to get to the bathroom.

‘You liked it,’ she heard him call out behind her. ‘I know you liked it. Don’t fucking pretend that you didn’t. I felt you come, Rachel. I felt you fucking come.’

She sat on the toilet and emptied herself of everything inside. Her bare flesh rippled with goosebumps. She wiped and she wiped and then she wiped again. She soaked a flannel in hot water and cleaned herself with that. She washed her hands, her throat, her mouth, her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and she thought of all the times,all the timeswhen she had followed the rules: paid for the taxi instead of walking, tipped the drink into a plant pot rather than take a risk that it had been spiked. All themen she’d wanted to tell to fuck off but she’d smiled at politely for fear of making them aggressive. She thought of all the convoluted plans, the longer routes home, the bogus phone calls, the text messages to say she’d made it home safely, all the dates she’d told her friends about so that they’d know where she’d been if she didn’t come home. She thought of how she’d contorted herself and her habits and her behaviour for twenty years to be a person who would not be raped, and now she had been raped in the place where she was meant to be safe, by the person who was meant to protect her. She felt the artifice of the last twenty years of her life, the pointlessness and futility of it. She might as well have taken the shortcut, worn the tarty top, flirted with the shady guy. She might as well have lived her life free.

Black rage crept through her psyche. She stalked into the bedroom and took her pyjamas from under her pillow. Michael stood and watched her as she pulled on the trousers angrily. ‘There’s no coming back from this, Michael. You know that, right? We’re done here.’

Michael laughed drily. ‘Right.’

‘Right?’

‘Yeah. Whatever, Rachel. Paint yourself the victim.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You.’ He extended a finger towards her, a hard, pointing finger. ‘You creep in here, stinking of booze,fuck knowswhere you’ve been. You left me here, no word—’

‘I messaged you.’

‘Oh, yuh.Eventually. Yeah. When I’d already cooked for you. When I’d already planned my whole evening around you.’

‘Go to bed, Michael. Please.’

‘Out looking for it. No doubt. Well, there you go …’ He arced his arm across the sofa. ‘You got it. You got it hard and you got it good and don’t ever fucking pretend that that’s not what you want. Because it fucking is.I felt it, Rachel. And now we both know what you are and what you want. Don’t we?’

She left the bedroom, letting the door slam behind her. For a moment she had no idea what to do. She stood, looking around her, as if an answer might present itself to her from one of the dark corners of the room. Then she snapped out of it. She threw a coat on over her pyjamas, pulled on her trainers, grabbed her handbag and left the apartment, letting the door click shut softly in her wake.