One Plus Two Minus One (28 page)

“Me too.”

She looked
around.
She checked no-one she knew was
nearby.

“
Hey,” she
said.
“I want the thing with you. Just so
you know.”

He nodded.

She moved her
hand.
Slid it across the table, against
his, so the tips of one finger touched.

“You’re worried we’ll get in trouble?” Ethan
said.

“That I will, yeah.”

“Will he say anything?”

“
I don’t
know.
I don’t think he has. He’s still
hoping we can work it out, I think, so he’s behaving.”

“Can you?”

“Nope.”

He seemed
relieved.
He sat quietly a little longer,
looking down at their hands.

“How bad is it, if he does tell someone?”

She
shrugged.
“You’ll be okay. You didn’t do
anything wrong.”

“And you?”

“
I actually
have no idea.
There must be a rule
somewhere, but I’ve never seen it. And I don’t want to start asking
around right now.”

“Giving me marks is bad, though?”

“
Yeah.
But no-one knows about that.”

“
And if they
work it out?
Because suddenly someone
checks my work and it isn’t good enough?”

She wondered
if he’d been worrying about that all along, not her getting in
trouble.
Then she decided she was being
too suspicious, was too used to Robert.

“
Yeah,” she
said.
“That’d be bad, for me. Very bad.
But for you, I’ll just make them un-enroll you, take it off your
record. You won’t get hurt either way.”

“But you’d be in trouble?” he said.

She looked at
him very carefully, and decided she couldn’t see any relief at
all.
He was concerned about her, not his
transcript.

“I’d probably be in some shit, yeah.”

He nodded, and seemed worried.

“
We’ll wait a
bit,” she said.
“Okay? Let Robert sort
his shit out and then, probably, nothing bad happens.”

“Okay.”

“And even if it does, you’ll still have the
credits you need to graduate, right?”

He nodded
slowly
“But that isn’t the
point.”

“
It’s part of
the point.
I can look after myself. I
don’t want you paying for this.”

“
Can you
really?” he said.
“Look after this. I
mean, I know you talk like it, but…”

She wasn’t
sure how honest to be.
She didn’t want
him worrying.

“
I’m taking
care of it,” she said.
“But yeah, I mean,
some people would make a fuss, and some other people would go along
with the fuss hoping no-one looks at them too closely. But they
can’t really afford to lose me.”

“
Lose you?”
Ethan said.
“Shit, they could fire
you?”

She realized she’d made a mistake.

“
Nah,” she
said.
“That isn’t how it works. I do
research. I get funding for research. And I’m a woman in a
male-dominated field. And I’m good. The department won’t let me go,
and maths is still a department that matters. If Robert makes
trouble, they’ll fire him rather then me. You can get a new
political scientist by turning over a rock.”

He looked at her.

“
Seriously,
there’s a guy over in sociology who isn’t allowed to be alone in
his office with a student.
And that’s
sociology. I’m fine.”

“I want you,” he said.

“
I know,” she
said.
“Me too. Just give me a little
time.”

“And you’ll really be okay?”

She smiled and nodded and told him not to
worry, but wasn’t quite as sure as she was making herself
sound.

Robert
came home at three in the
morning, drunk again. Beth woke up when he opened the front door.
She heard him drop his keys in the hallway, heard him stumble
coming up the stairs. From the noise he was making, he was worse
tonight than he had been the night before.

She rolled
over and hoped he’d hurry up and quiet down.
She owed him something, and a bit of this was
understandable, but if he got into a habit she was going to get
sick of being woken up very quickly.

He came into
the bedroom.
He left the hall light on
and the door open and didn’t seem to realize, and she didn’t bother
telling him. He took his clothes off, fell onto the bed, climbed
in.

“
Hey,” she
said.
“I’m awake.”

He was
fumbling around under the covers.
It took
her a minute to realize he was looking for her, groping around
until he found her. He slid over, pressed against her back, hugging
her, whispering, “Beth,” like he was trying to wake her up or
something.

“What?”

“Are you awake?”

“
Course I
am.
You fucking stink.”

“I’m shitfaced.”

“I know.”

He put his
hand on her tummy, seemed to be pulling at her shirt.
“Really fucking shitfaced.”

“Yeah.”

“I want you.”

“I know, but you can’t have me.”

“
No,” he
said, his hand under her shirt, on her bare
breast. “I want you.”

She lay there
for a moment, not quite sure what to do.
He tried to kiss her. His breath stunk, and when he found
her cheek, he was slobbery too.

“Stop it,” she said.

“I want you, Beth.”

“I know, but fuck off.”

“
You’re mine,
Beth.
I can’t let you go.”

She reached
over and turned on the light and then looked at him for a
moment.
She was almost worried by that.
He didn’t normally say such things. She didn’t like the idea he
thought she was his, and she really didn’t like the idea he
couldn’t let go of her. She wasn’t sure if that meant he’d hurt
her, or he’d hurt himself, but whatever he meant, him thinking that
was her fault.

“
What do you
mean?” she said.
“That you can’t let me
go?”

“We’re meant to be together.”

“
We might not
be,” she said carefully.
“Not meant to
be.”

“We are.”

He was still
playing with her
tit. He pinched her
nipple a bit hard. He didn’t mean to hurt her, she thought, was
just drunk and clumsy. He reached down, rubbed her through her
underwear.

“
Oh shit no,”
she said.
“Fuck off.”

He shook his head, and kept trying.

“
Robert,” she
said. “You fucking asshole.”

“You’re mine, Beth.”

Her sympathy
was fading fast.
“I’m really
not.”

He’d got his
hand inside her underwear, and pushed his fingers into her.
She wriggled, tried to get away. She still
wasn’t sure how seriously to take this.

“
Hey,” she
said.
“What the fuck are you
doing?”

He slid over,
on top of her, trying to pin her down.
Holding her down, she thought, on the bed, like Ethan had a
dozen times.

She thought
about what she liked, and what she’d found out she liked, and how
the one time with
Robert she’d enjoyed it
he’d been holding her wrists.

She thought
about how she did actually care for
Robert, in a way, and whether it was okay to have one last
quickie with someone she was breaking up with. She wondered if
Robert would feel better if she did, and she thought about guilt
and the mess she’d made.

Suddenly she
wasn’t so sure she minded if
Robert
wanted a goodbye fuck.

“Wear a condom,” she said.

He shook his head.

“Don’t be difficult or I won’t,” she
said.

“
I don’t want
to.
Not for your other guy. Not to keep
him happy.”

“
Fuck,” she
said.
“Fine. But go brush your
teeth.”

“
Nope,” he
said, and kissed her.
He tasted pretty
bad, and she pushed him away. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to
kiss him anyway. She didn’t want intimacy, even if they were going
to have sex.

He
started.
He pulled off her underwear,
moved her legs. He was kneeling over her, looking down at her
now.

Not looking
down at her, looking down at someone he thought was his.
Someone he thought he knew.

Someone else entirely, who he’d never
listened to, and wasn’t listening to now.

She lay there for a moment and thought about
that.

Robert
lay down on her. He was heavy on her, was trying
to get himself inside her, but not managing to aim right. He was
poking into her leg, and she didn’t try and help him.

He was trying
to fuck her, she thought, and she didn’t really feel
anything.
She was a bit wet, and she
didn’t mind if they did, but she didn’t really want to do
this.

She probably
shouldn’t, she thought, if she didn’t really want to.
That wasn’t right.

“
Robert,” she
said. “I don’t want to. Get off me.”

He stayed where he was.

She’d almost
started to think she might like something like this.
To think that Ethan and his wrist-grabbing meant
something. She realized she didn’t. Ethan and his wrist-grabbing
meant a whole lot of different, slightly confusing things, but this
here, with Robert, wasn’t one of them. This wasn’t right. She
didn’t want to have sex like this.

“
Last
chance,” she said.
“I mean
it.”

He ignored
her.
He was pissed, and not especially a
threat, but he was still planning to fuck her and ignore her
telling him not to, that was fairly obvious.

She pushed
upwards, tried to get him off.
He grabbed
at her wrists, tried to hold them. He was drunk and clumsy, so she
shook herself free. She pushed again, and he put his whole weight
on her, squashed some of the breath out of her.

“
Hey,” she
said.
“Stop it,” and hit his shoulder. He
seemed to ignore it. He was trying to get himself inside her, and
she was starting to get scared.

“
Robert,” she
said. “You fucking shit. Get off.”

She could
feel him hard on her leg.
He seemed more
turned on now, and that surprised her. Then it didn’t. Of course he
was turned on. Unlike Ethan holding her down, this was the fantasy
he’d never had the balls to ask her to act out.

He was
actually going to do this, she realized.
She had trouble believing it. He was actually planning to
do this to her. He was drunk, and he might be too far gone to know
what he was doing, but this wasn’t him not hearing, or messing
around like Ethan playing kinky games. Robert was actually going to
try and fuck her, to rape her, and she couldn’t quite believe it
was happening.

She punched him.

She punched
him as hard as she could.
Up between
them, into the underneath of his jaw with a closed fist. It made a
thud and hurt her hand, and he stopped moving, and looked down at
her.

“
You hit me,”
he said.
“Shit.”

He’d lifted
up a little, made some room for her.
She
hit him again, quite carefully, on his nose. Something got bent
inside it, she felt a little squish, like crushing garlic under a
knife. She pushed, but he didn’t move. She hit him again, missed
his face, got his shoulder. By then he’d lifted up enough she could
get out from underneath him.

She slid
sideways, got off the bed, and went halfway to the door before she
looked back.
He was sitting on the
bed.

She
stopped.
There was something sticky on
her hand, and on her chest. She looked down. His blood.

“What the fuck was that?” she said.

She pulled
down her shirt, got herself covered.
Pulled on the jeans she’d been wearing earlier.

He didn’t move.

“
What the
fuck,
Robert?” she said. “Fuck. You
scared me.”

“It was just…”

“You thought I wanted you to? “

He looked at
her.
“I don’t know. I was
angry.”

“You were going to fuck me because you were
angry?”

He shrugged.

“
Fuck,” she
said, still getting it clear in her own mind.
“You were going to fucking rape me. I know there’s some
shit going on, and I know you were pissed, but that one was rape.
You knew I didn’t want to and you did it anyway.”

“Beth…”

“
Jesus
fuck,
Robert.”

“Beth, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t talk to me.”

She wanted to
cry and wasn’t sure why.
Relief perhaps.
That pissed her off. She was her. She was tough. It was Robert, and
she’d fought him off, and she was okay. She should be proud, not
upset.