She starts to choke; he pulls her back by the hair releasing her mouth. Her jaw remains slack and just as the thick air reaches her lungs she is rewarded with a strike.
The blow to her chin vibrates through her head and sends a warm glow reverberating through her skull. For a second she thinks she has the privilege to glimpse God, but no, it’s just the hazy outline of his face swaying back into view.
The evening had started in a strange part of town; a bar filled with men in suits, aftershave splashed over fresh sweat, straight from the office. The cramped establishment had filled quickly and soon she found herself pushed up against a man with cropped dark hair and rough skin. A wave of the crowd forced them closer together and she stuck her rear out to meet with the dense mound below his waist.
His hand moves over hers and despite their difference in body size and strength, their palms are the same size. This is where the similarity ends, the hand inside of his is soft and weak, he imagines her moisturising daily, chatting to a foreign girl who manicures her nails twice a week, or curled on the sofa carefully applying coat after coat of clear polish. He wants to ruin her hands, make them rough like his own, tear her nails and make her touch places she never thought she could.
She feels him tug her arm and somehow she lets herself be led. With her free hand she rests her cocktail on the edge of the bar and just catches sight of the glass hitting the floor before she is dragged deeper into the crowd.
Soon she is in the thick of the revellers, the stranger’s coarse hand her only guide, surrounded by men taller than her, most unaware of her, these large men seem transfixed, gazing up to a wide screen TV playing baseball replays.
She thinks to herself this is not something she would normally do, even entering the bar alone was unlike her, but while these respectable thoughts glide through her head, between her legs her sensible cotton pants are soaked through.
The edge of the crowd ends abruptly, a wooden door is pushed open and the two strangers are now facing each other inside one of the public toilets of the bar. The room is empty but for the two of them and before she has a chance to check if there are urinals – she wants to know what gender toilet she has been led – he pushes her against a flimsy cubicle door and into the confined space.
He looks at her now properly for the first time, she is timid on the surface, white and pink dress, chest covered with cardigan, tights (he doubts she would wear stockings and he is right), flat shoes and a large brown leather handbag strapped over her shoulder. Everything indicates she is a sensible, God fearing girl.
Flat shoes to run away from muggers, clothes that don’t provoke male lust, tights that take time to rip, no doubt a bag full of mace and yet when he looks into her eyes he sees within them the want to be fucked. This girl wants to be broken, her mouth wet and red, her lips lightly parted yearn to be soiled. These are the universal signs.
