Not Rape

"It wasn't rape," said Doug. "She got me all skank-arse drunk out of it and then drugged me, I mean, what could I do but oblige her, willingly, it seemed like the polite thing to do."

“Oblige her, willingly?”

“It seemed only fair, when she’d gone to all the trouble of getting the drugs and slipping them into my drink.”

“What could you do?”

“Well, not be too critical of her work, go with it, it’s tough work, but you know what they say?”

“No, what do they say?”

“Good for her, somebody has to do it.”

“Somebody has to do it?”

“Credit where credit is due. She bought the tape, she bought the knife, which bought a genuine feel to the whole thing, even if it was small, you know, that’s not a knife, this is a knife, chuckle. She laced the drink, she rented the room, she went to all that trouble.”

"That took some organising."

"I had to admire her work."

Ivan held up his fist, Doug bumped his fist with Ivan’s.

“You can’t help but admire it.” Ivan shook his head in admiration.

“Yeah, sure. Knives, tape, drugs," said Doug. "Just the organisation alone, you know, has to be commended.”

“Has to be commended?”

“Yeah, not to mention the muscle who cornered me in the parking lot.”

“There were other people involved?”

“Yeah, two huge thugs, in the car park, when I was trying to get to my car.”

“After you’d been slipped the mickey?”

“Yeah, the Mickey. Laugh. One of these huge bruisers were called Mickey.”

“What?”

“No, not what you are thinking. Mickey kept his pants on through the whole procedure.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.”

“I was out in the car park, it was dark and I was losing the fight against the strong sedatives, it turns out she’d given me.”

“Sedatives?”

“Yeah, Rohypnol. The date rape drug. Never thought it would be used on me.”

“Jesus!”

“And suddenly there were two massive guys standing in front of me, as I stumbled towards my car.”

“Massive guys.”

“They both had on shorts that looked as though they belonged to their little brothers. They had those massive thighs the ones that are all veiny.”

“Veiny?”

“You know, like the skin is set to bust right off the flesh they are so tight.”

“Mr Universe?”

“Two of them, right in fucking front of me.”

“What was it that my old dad used to say, like two brick shit houses.”

“They looked impressive?”

“Except they were blokes. I tried to walk, ha ha, stagger, around them thinking they'd just accidentally gotten there.”

“But not accidently?”

“No, that became pretty obvious when I couldn’t get around them no matter what I did.”

“What did you do?”

“I remember looking up at these couple of man mountains, and one of them said my name. I think my last thought was, how does this guy know my name.”

“That was your last thought?”

“The last thing I remember.”

“And?”

"I woke up in that dingy house, in that dingy bedroom, with both my wrists tied behind me to a brass bed head, and my ankles tied to the brass bed end like some terrible cliché from the worst B movie you’d ever seen.”

“You woke up like that?”

“It was more of a 'come to' situation. Jesus did I feel groggy. It took me the longest time just to kind of understand where I was.”

“Understand?”

“Well, there wasn’t so much understanding, as I didn’t have a fucken clue, there was a lot more, um, what would you call it, absorbing the situation.”

“Absorbing the situation?”

“Um, taking in something that was an absolute and complete befuddlement of all of my sense. I had no fucken clue where I was, or how I got there.”

“No clue?”

“Nothing. Just a huge fat blank.”

“Jesus.”

“It was as if my reality had been snatch from me, and while I was unconscious a new reality was morphed in.”

“Like that?”

“Actually, I don’t know why I say like, there was no fucken like about it, that is what had happened, I just didn’t know it at that point.”

“You. didn’t know what you didn’t know?”

“Exactly.”

“So, you woke up?”

“In the dingiest bedroom you have ever seen. With Mark Normand comedy playing constantly on a screen.”

“Fuck me. What did you do?”

“What could I do? Nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. I had no idea where I was. I had no idea how I got there. I assumed those two muscled guys had something to do with it, but what good did that piece of information do me?”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. I had no idea what they had to do with it, but that was all I had to go on.”

“Not much.”

“No. Except for that room.”

“The room you woke up in?”

“Except for that. It was green like ferns.”

“Like ferns?”

“No. More like algae. Rotting algae.”

“You mean it was wet, damp?”

“Not as such, just the colour, the wallpaper was the colour of slime, peeling off the walls in places. The ceiling was nicotine yellow as if a million cigarettes had been smoked in there. The carpet, what I could see of it, was green shag.”

“Green shag?”

“Old, like it was straight out of the 70s.”

“70s shag, sounds like my teenage years.” 

“There was one small window with a nicotine yellow blind pulled all the way down. It was the kind of room a 100 year old chain smoking grandma with dementia was left into die, that was the feeling it gave me.”

“That gives me shivers.”

“Until her emaciated, cancer ridden, 101 year old carcass was carried out in a body bag.”

“Poor grandma.”

“Poor fucken me.”

“Did it smell?”

“Like sweaty gym clothes left in a gym bag for too long.”

“Was it cold?”

“I was probably lucky it wasn’t winter.”

“So, what happened?”

“What happened? Ah, what happened?”

“Give me the gory details.”

“Well, it turned out to be my stalker, mad Charlotte.”