Chapter 4: a
The notebook lay open on her kitchen table, a smear of jam near the spine. The overhead light was too bright, humming a flat, industrial note. Bethany’s finger, calloused from a childhood of violin strings but soft now, trailed down the columns. The entries weren’t in order. She wrote where there was space.
Name: Leo (The Bassist)
Date: 08/15/12
Rating: 5/5
Acts: backstage, against his amp, my skirt around my waist. He played the riff from “Seven Nation Army” with his left hand while he fucked me with his right. Came on my stockings.
Notes: Smoke machine smell in my hair for days. He said my thighs were a revelation. Didn’t call.
Name: ? (The Roof Terrace)
Date: Sometime in ‘14? Summer.
Rating: 4/5
Acts: Blowjob under table at his friend’s party. Swallowed. Then later on the roof, doggy style, overlooking the city lights. He spat on my ass before entering.
Notes: Champagne taste. His watch left a bruise on my hip. Good bruise.
Name: Marcus (Barrister)
Date: 11/03/18
Rating: 3/5
Acts: Hotel suite. Bath first. He ate me out for precisely seven minutes (he timed it). Missionary. Condom. Quiet.
Notes: Told me I had “a potent allure.” Billable hours, probably. Felt like a transaction. A clean, expensive transaction.
Name: Festival. The Three Kings.
Date: Midsummer ‘09
Rating: ~~5/5~~
Acts: ~~Everything.~~
Notes: ~~Best night.~~
[The entry was scratched out with aggressive black lines, the paper slightly torn. A fresh coffee ring obscured the rest.]
Name: The Gym Guy (Didn’t get name)
Date: 02/22/23
Rating: 1/5
Acts: Stalled shower. He was rough. Pushed me against the tile, hand over my mouth. Came quickly, grunted, left.
Notes: Tile was cold. My knee hurt. He didn’t look at my face once.
Name: Aris (Therapist)
Date: N/A
Rating: N/A
Acts: N/A
Notes: Told him about the festival today. His silence was different. Not judgment. Something worse. Clinical curiosity. Like I was a fascinating specimen of decay. He asked, “And how did that make you feel then?” Wanted to scream. Said, “Alive.” He nodded. Wrote it down.
Name: HollowPoint
Date: 04/17/37
Rating: 2/5
Acts: My place. He pushed my face into the pillow. Called me a fat slag. Pulled my hair. Came on my back.
Notes: Condom. Left marks on upper arms. Felt nothing after. Less than nothing. The smell of his cheap deodorant is in my sheets. Can’t get it out.
Name: The Married One (Paul)
Date: A Tuesday, 2029
Rating: 4/5 for the risk, 2/5 for the act
Acts: His car, rain on the windows. Quick, frantic handjob. He came on the steering wheel. Wiped it with a McDonald’s napkin.
Notes: He cried afterward. Said he loved his wife. I told him it was okay. It wasn’t okay. The rain made everything grey.
Name: University Library, 4th Floor Stacks
Date: 2010
Rating: 5/5
Acts: Him: a philosophy post-grad. Me: skipping lecture. Fingered me between the critical theory shelves. I sucked him off. He came in my mouth. I didn’t swallow, let it drip onto a copy of Being and Nothingness.
Notes: He whispered, “Je suis une pipe.” We laughed. Sunlight through dusty windows. Felt infinite.
Name: Delivery Droid (Designation: AX-77)
Date: 03/10/37
Rating: 0/5
Acts: I was drunk. UBI day. Tried to get its sensor to… nothing. Metal. Unresponsive.
Notes: It said, “Please sign for your parcel.” Over and over. I cried. It left.
The entries grew sparser, the notes more fractured. A ghost of her own perfume, something sweet and cheap from a decade ago, seemed to rise from the pages, mingling with the smell of stale coffee and dust.
Name: The Shift.
Date: Ongoing.
Rating: N/A
Acts: N/A
Notes: It happened slowly. Then all at once. The looks changed. From invitation to tolerance. From tolerance to annoyance. From annoyance to invisibility. My body changed. Their eyes changed first. Now when I smile at a stranger on the tube, it’s a threat. Not a promise. When I wore that dress to the pub last week, the one that used to make men buy me drinks, a woman patted my arm and said, “Brave.” Brave. Fuck you.
She turned the page. A blank one. The lines waited. Her pen hovered.
The buzz of her interface implant was a dull shock in her temple. A new connection request. Profile: ChainLink. Bio: No talk. Just action. A picture of a torso, abs, the waistband of work pants.
She stared at it. The humming light. The empty page. The ghost of festival piss still in her sinuses, or maybe that was just memory.
Her fingers typed a reply. Where?
His came back instantly. Your place. 20 mins.
She didn’t write back. She picked up the pen. At the top of the blank page, she wrote the date. Then she got up, cleared the jam jar, wiped the table. She didn’t tidy anything else. The mess was part of it now. Let him see the mess.
When the buzzer sounded, her heart was a dull thud, not a race. She let him in.
He was older than his torso, face lined, eyes scanning her, then the flat, in one dismissive sweep. “You Beth?”
“Yeah.”
He followed her in, close enough she could smell engine grease and stale smoke. No deodorant. He didn’t sit.
“So,” he said.
“So.”
He reached out, grabbed a handful of her breast through her shirt, squeezed hard. “This all real?”
“It’s real.”
“Good.” He unzipped his pants. His cock was half-hard, thick, uncut. “Get on your knees.”
She did. The floor was hard against her knees. She didn’t look up at him. She took him in her mouth, the taste of salt and fabric and man. He didn’t touch her head. He just looked down, watching, his hands on his hips.
“Use your tongue. Yeah. Like that.”
He got fully hard, pushing against the back of her throat. She gagged, tears springing to her eyes. He didn’t pull back.
“Suck it, you fat bitch. Suck it proper.”
She did. The obscenity was flat, routine. It lacked the chaotic music of slag, the creative cruelty of the past. This was just plumbing. Her jaw ached. She focused on the texture, the veins, the way her own saliva dripped onto her thighs.
He fucked her mouth in short, aggressive thrusts. “Gonna come in your throat. You swallow it. All of it.”
She made a noise, a guttural assent. Her mind was elsewhere. In the library stacks. In the festival woods. On the park bench with the torn paper.
He grunted, his body stiffening. The hot, bitter pulse hit the back of her throat. She swallowed, once, twice, mechanically. He pulled out, wiped himself on her shoulder, zipped up.
“Alright,” he said, as if concluding a business meeting.
He turned and left. The door clicked shut.
Bethany stayed on her knees for a long minute. Then she pushed herself up, her joints protesting. She walked to the table, picked up the pen. Under the date, she began to write.
Name: ChainLink.
Rating: 1/5.
Acts: Blowjob. Swallowed.
Notes: Kitchen floor. Tasted of diesel. He called me a fat bitch. It sounded like he’d read it in a manual. Nothing. Felt absolutely nothing. The notebook is full. Need a new one.