Chapter 39: Starry skies

It was an idyllic night, clear, still and moonless. The stars shone with an almost unnatural brilliance. In silence Fran and I walked into the darkness. I was desperate to speak of my new-found feelings for her but I felt unaccountably shy, like a lovestruck teenager.

Unable to find the words I needed, I slackened my pace so that I fell slightly behind and could watch Fran walking in the starlight. There was something odd about her, I realised; I had never noticed before that she walked in such a graceful way, almost sinuously, and somehow she seemed taller. It suddenly dawned on me that although she was barefoot she was walking on the balls of her feet; her heels never touched the ground.

"Starry skies," murmured Fran eventually.

"Cloudless climes," I replied, waving a hand at the sparkling and unblemished heavens.

"Cloudless climes and starry skies," she repeated. "That's Byron, isn't it?"

"It is," I confirmed. I could have added that I had the happiest memories of this particular poem. On two occasions in my student days I had trotted it out in circumstances not unlike these, walking a girl in a secluded spot on a starlit night, and it had got me laid both times. Nor, may I say, had I any bad conscience about having put Byron's wonderful lines to this use; from what I knew of him, I felt he would have approved. In fact, I am sure that was why he wrote the poem in the first place, to get inside some girl's knickers (not that girls wore knickers in his day).

I hardly needed poetic assistance to get inside Fran's knickers, of course (not that she was wearing any either), but the poem still seemed fitting. In a low soft voice I recited.

"She walks in beauty, like the night

Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

Fran stopped and turned to me. She sighed deeply and melted into my arms. Every young man starting out in life, I thought, should do himself a favour and learn these lines by heart. "Oh, James," she breathed, "that's so beautiful." She turned her face up toward mine. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly open. I shut my own eyes and slowly lowered my head, my lips seeking hers as she raised her heels higher, reaching up for me. As our faces brushed together a frisson ran through us and I heard her small intake of breath as tenderly we brought our lips together...

"Hey, guys, is this a private party or can anyone join?"

A precious moment shattered beyond recall, we spun round to see Connie, wearing nothing but a broad grin and holding up a large bottle of wine. "The girls told me you'd come out here and I thought you might fancy a drink," she said.

"Connie —" began Fran reproachfully.

"Oh, sorry, am I interrupting something?" asked Connie disingenuously.

I heaved a resigned sigh. Maybe it was for the best, I thought. I really ought to speak to Wendy before saying anything to Fran. "Never mind, you're here now," I said, extending a hand for the bottle. The three of us sat on the grass and chatted, passing the wine to and fro.

"James, you were fucking unbelievable today," said Connie.

"It was a remarkable performance," agreed Fran.

Connie corrected her. "It was hot," she said. "Hot, hot, hot. One after another, bang, bang, bang, thirty-one happy girls sorted just like that."

She had touched a sore point. "Thirty happy girls," I pointed out, "and one rape victim."

"But James," argued Connie, "she's fine about it. I talked to her afterwards. She said, [and here Connie made a woeful attempt at a Polish accent] 'I was silly and frightened but it was fantastic. I should have known he would never hurt me. I'm his now, for ever.' 'You and all the rest of us, ' I told her."

I pondered this. "Well," I said doubtfully, "I suppose it's good she feels all right about it but it was wrong, all the same."

"James," insisted Connie, "you mustn't go on beating yourself up about this. She's OK with it. I told you she would be, remember?"

"You didn't see the look in her eyes," I said. "I don't know if I'll ever forget it. She was scared, really terrified."

"Yes," agreed Fran. "It must have been awful for her. Rape must be every girl's worst nightmare. The thought of it is bad enough; I can't imagine what the reality would be like. So, Connie, I know you mean well but I don't think you should make light of it because you can't know how she felt unless you've suffered it yourself, can you?"

"Er —" began Connie, and paused.

Alarmed, I gripped her by the arm and looked her straight in the eye. "Connie," I asked gravely, "have you been raped?"

"I'm not sure," she replied.

Fran and I exchanged perplexed looks. "How can you not be sure?" I asked.

"It's like this," explained Connie. "Back home in Ghana, I suppose I must have been seventeen, I was at college and to earn some money I worked in the evenings at this lawyer's office. Gus, his name was. Big bloke, about forty. I knew he liked me but he never tried anything until one day, we were working very late and everyone else had gone and he called me to his private office. As soon as I went in he grabbed my arm and twisted it right up behind my back and pulled me against him and kissed me full on the lips. I struggled but he was much too strong and he had my arm twisted so far I thought he was going to break it. Then he leant right over on me to force me down on the desk, still holding my arm twisted under me. With his weight on me I couldn't move and then with his other hand he reached down and unzipped his trousers."

Fran held her hand to her mouth. "Oh, Connie, how awful!"

"Go on, Connie," I said.

"He was such a big powerful guy I knew I couldn't escape and my arm was hurting so much and I knew I was going to get it whether I wanted it or not, so I thought maybe he wouldn't be so rough if I played along. So I reached up with my free hand and patted and stroked his face. He sort of smiled and released my arm a bit, but he still held me down. I didn't resist when he reached up under my skirt and pulled my knickers down and then he clambered up on the desk on top of me, among all his files and papers and this big framed photo of him and his wife and kids. He came down on me and he had me, right there in his office."

Fran took Connie's hand and squeezed it. She oozed sisterly sympathy. "That must have been so horrible. Was it — I mean, was he the — er, were you still a —?"

"A virgin?" Connie seemed taken aback at such a suggestion. "Jeez, Fran, you haven't been listening. I told you I was seventeen, didn't I?"

"Seventeen?" echoed Fran. "But I was twenty when I first let a boy —"

"Twenty?" interrupted Connie incredulously. "Twenty?" She shook her head in astonishment. "Fran, Fran," she said, "I've really got to like you over these last few weeks but sometimes I think you're —" she paused and waved a hand vaguely at the stars above us, "from out there somewhere. Why, by the time I was twenty I must've..."

I called the meeting to order. This was fascinating stuff, to be taken up at some later date no doubt, but we were getting sidetracked. "Connie," I reminded her, "you were telling us about this lawyer."

"Oh, yeah. Well, like I say, he had me on the desk but Fran's wrong, it wasn't horrible at all. I thought it would be wham-bam and all over in a moment but once he realised I wasn't going to scream or fight or try to get away he took it quite slow, almost tender, like he was expecting a response from me. 'Not a chance, ' I wanted to tell him, but for once I had the sense to keep my mouth shut so he carried on, taking his time, shifting angle slightly to see how it felt. Then, I just couldn't help myself — I heard myself moan and felt my insides go tense and I thought, 'Holy shit, this guy knows what he's doing!' and before I knew it I was going for it just like he was and in the end I came like a train. And after that, we used to work late several times a week if you know what I mean, and when my course finished and I stopped working there he gave me a bonus of two weeks' wages."