THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter Three - Part Four

In the dream she was going to be raped again.

The memory was so lucid Selina was there, walking down that same path in Shelley Park, even as she lay face down flat on the slabs near the edge of Bournemouth Square, a trail of spittle running out the side of her mouth.

It was night time in the dream as well and she was shouting back at her boyfriend, Travis, telling him to go and fuck himself. He yelled something back at her but she didn’t turn round, just kept walking in her heels and short leather skirt, knowing the way the stilettos made her bare legs look would be driving him crazy. The original argument had been cut from the dream. It started here, with the walking but it ran on chronologically, not as Joey’s dream had done, jumping back and forth in time.

Her arms were folded in tight under her boobs, the cold night chilling her exposed shoulders deeper than the bone, but she didn’t show it, just kept walking, even though there was nothing that way out of the park except the cliff top. She had to keep going because Travis was behind her. Boscombe and her house was back that way but she wasn’t going to turn round. He wasn’t going to get anything up on her, even if she had to go right along the cliffs and back down Woodland Walk.

He was calling her a slut and a whore but her dream self was laughing; shouting, “Yeah but you’re not gonna get any! Ever again you limp dick cocksucker!” Kept her back turned on him. Kept walking. There where the path was turning; getting close to the bushes.

Then hands were on her shoulders, the big fingers digging into her flesh, jolting her forward enough so she almost lost her footing. His head was on her shoulder, his teeth and eyes glinting, obscenities spewing; reek of white cider and cigarettes. She started a scream but her arms wrenching back cut it off. Travis slammed her forward, her legs only just keeping up, her ankle almost twisting on her spiked heel, then he span her round, mashed his lips against hers, forcing his tongue in, pushing her head back painfully.

When he jolted her again he let go and she staggered backwards off the path into the vegetation. Now her ankle did twist and she cried out, falling backwards, one of her shoes coming off and disappearing in the dark. She slammed down on her back in the undergrowth, winded; dazed; nauseous from the drinking. Travis was laughing like this wasn’t what it was; like her pain didn’t matter; like what he was about to do wasn’t rape. She wasn’t crying but she was terrified, every girl’s nightmare coming true. She scrambled backward on her elbows, screaming as he stepped off the path after her.

But he didn’t rush forward as she expected him to. He reached down into the tangled foliage at his feet and brought up her missing high heeled shoe. He revolved it in his fingers, eyeing the glint of streetlamp on the fake alligator skin; then he tossed it at her, underarm, so it landed on the earth near her leg.

“Put it on.”

And paradoxically she felt herself getting wet, getting ready for him, despite his snarling face, his clenched fists, his blazing rage-filled eyes. She did what she was told, scrambling for her shoe without delicacy, slipping it onto her foot, her eyes fixed on Travis as he waited until she was done before he came toward her again. “What the fuck you looking at you little slut? Get them eyes off me!”

She did, turning her face into the foliage. He grabbed her ankle, the one she’d twisted, squeezing, making her grimace and yelp, then ran his fingertips up the groove in her calf; did the same on the other leg, tenderly enough for her to think this wasn’t going to be forced after all. Then he grabbed both knees and thrust them apart making her cry out again in shock.

“Don’t fucking look at me you whore!”

Tingles in her crotch. The sound of scrambling as he fought with his belt and jeans. Her wrists pinned down; legs jammed apart again.

Then she was being shaken. Her name was being called. Her eyes came open and she wasn’t in the woods of Shelley Park, but big fingers were digging into the flesh of her shoulders. Travis was in front of her but it wasn’t the dream anymore; it wasn’t the rape. He was shaking her awake and she wasn’t in the woods. She was in the square; in Bournemouth Square.

“Selina, you alright luv? What’s wrong with you?”

“Travis?” She pulled herself up to sitting, bringing her feet in closer for support, resting her back against the low wall at the edge of the square. “What happened?”

“Fucked if I know. I found you like this.

She looked around at the people passing by, still hooked into the dream memories. She stared at Travis, trying to reconcile the concern on his face now with the spiteful damaging anger in the dream. It was like she was existing in both times simultaneously: here in the square, dazed and sleepy, and there, in the bushes as he pinned her down, laughing at her cries for help as he forced his way in. And she was wet now, in real life, thinking about it happening all those months ago, more tingles rippling down her body as he pulled her to her feet and sat her down on the smooth stone wall.

“You pass out or what?”

“I don’t know.”

“You been taking something I should know about?” He snapped out a single deep chuckle full of the same white cider and smokey breath he’d had on the night in the park.

Selina rubbed her head. “No. Nothing. I was begging. Not getting much. Then I...”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I feel like shit.”

“Here, get some of this.” He opened the carrier bag he’d discarded when he found her face down on the slabs and withdrew the three litre cider bottle inside. The pressure release hissed as he opened it with his gigantic hands and she took a long swig followed by another and a third once she’d caught her breath. Travis didn’t say anything, just waited patiently. “That better?”

She nodded. “Some. I don’t know what happened.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He stroked her hair gently. “This kind of shit happens from time to time, you do the crap we get up to. Take it in your stride. I do.”

Selina gave a dim smile but her head was throbbing.

“You don’t look bad for it anyway,” said Travis. “Not so pale. Bags under your eyes a bit but your skin’s a good colour.” He grinned. “You ready to go meet the troops? It’s sucker’s night at the churchyard, remember?”

Selina nodded again, resting for a moment, palms on her knees. She glared at the people passing by, none of them staring now in her direction. “Look at those bastards. Walking past while I was lying here and not one of them came and fucking helped me.”

“No one was even looking when I found you.”

“People are wankers. All of them. You can’t trust a single fucking one.”

“You can trust me!”

She looked up at him, reliving the rape again for a moment, her face in the foliage, his big hands thrusting her knees apart then pinning down her arms at the waist.

He put his hand out to help her up. “Come on. Let’s go!”

She didn’t question why she was still with him – she never had; not aloud – but as she took his hand and walked where he led, she wondered suddenly if she could get him to do it again.