Just Say It

Beckie had tucked herself into the corner. Although it meant she had to bide her time if she needed the bathroom, wait for the others to move from their chairs, it did hide her from Gary’s line of sight. If she leant back into the shadows, dipped her head forward and shook her hair over her eyes, she could hide her expression.

‘It wasn’t bloody rape though, was it?’ Gary complained. ‘It’s just all about getting money from celebrities. Suing ‘em. Innit?’

There was a general murmur of agreement from the other guys, while the girlfriends busied themselves on their phones. Beckie closed her eyes, inhaled the stale beer and beeswax aroma of the Coach and Horses and let it out again.

‘I mean, if she went back to his hotel, she knew what she was gonna get, right?’ Gary continued.

‘All twelve inches!’ Andy piped up, Beckie glanced his way and swallowed nausea. Why did he do this? He was a decent guy. Why was it when he was around Gary he felt like he had to turn primitive.

‘And if she wanted him to stop, all she had to say was no, right? It’s a short enough word. Just two blood letters! What was her problem?’

Beckie folded her hands in her lap, but her thumbnails continue to worry against the bitten skin of their opposite number. She could say something. She could say something that would render the whole bloody table silent. Let them feel the shame of what they were saying. But that would be nothing to the shame she’d feel, sharing a wounded part of herself that she was huddled around, keeping from the light.

Beckie had learned it was no good saying no when she was just 8 years old. When a figure had stumbled into her bedroom through the darkness, the smell unfamiliar (whisky, she knows now) and only his voice revealing who it was. Daddy. He wanted to play a game. Their little secret. She said no. It didn’t change anything.

Beckie had heard people use the word no, she’d seen it work. But for her? No was a hollow thing; a porcelain cup, a house of cards. One shove from someone else, and her ‘no’ just shattered.

Why hadn’t the woman said no? Because she’d learned it was easier to live through the certain horror of a yes, than the unknown consequences of a no.

‘They say no all the time when they mean yes, don’t they?’ Gary asserted. ‘I mean if he raped her, then I’m a bloody rapist a dozen times over.’

Beckie’s thumbs found her way into her mouth. She chewed until she tasted blood.


Exhaling fruit-flavoured steam, Dan pulled his coat around him his widening middle. Perching on the edge of the railing, he eyed Sophie speculatively. She arched a perfectly shaped brow in return.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he said.

‘You just did,’ she replied with a smirk. He liked that. He liked the way she always had an answer for everything. She was way out of his league, though. She was easily an 8, and he was James Corden without the sense of humour.

‘Ha ha. Very good. No, I was just…you know all this thing about enthusiastic consent. If you’re with a new person?’

‘Ooh, Dan. Have you met someone?’ Her hands went to her hair, grasping the length that fell down the side of her face. Immaculately painted nails dragged through the black strands, and Dan felt the blood rush from his head to go south.

‘No. Yes. Never mind. I just…I mean, it’s just bloody awkward, isn’t it? It doesn’t feel…romantic, any more. It’s like you have to stop every five minutes and get a form filled out in triplicate or something. You have to be so bloody careful, not to put yourself at risk.’

Sophie’s smile froze. Her false lashes flapped a couple of times, lips pressed against each other briefly. She thought about her walk home from work last night. It was less than a mile away, if you used the alleyways, but now it was darker she walked the long way around. Sticking to the street lights.

She changed out of her heels and into trainers so if she needed to run, she could. Running was her first defence, but it wasn’t everything. She’d started self-defence classes but had wanted more. Now she did Krav Maga twice a week, and hit the gym three times a week for strength and stamina.

When she ran, she ran on a treadmill like one of a dozen hamsters at the local gym. Safer than running the streets, especially in winter. Not that the gym was without it’s dangers. Just last week she’d ended up alone in the weights area with a huge guy. The noises he’d made when he lifted were unpleasantly sexual and she’d caught him checking her out her via the mirrors. When she’d gone to leave, he’d tried to strike up conversation. Called her a bitch when she didn’t answer him.

‘Soph?’

Clearing her throat, Sophie reinstated her smile. ‘Sorry. Miles away. Yeah, you do have to be careful.’


Flashing lights on the drive again. Net curtains twitching, opposite. Lou was trying to control her shaking hands, but if she got them to be still, the shakes just seemed to spread out until she was trembling all over. Her eyes darted everywhere, mentally listing what she needed to do to make it look like this had never happened. Pick the chairs up. Clear up the gravy, congealing as it slid down the cupboard door. Dave would have to sort out the hole in the door, but she could wipe away the blood. Was it his or hers, she wondered.

And make-up, of course. The good stuff, that she kept at the back of the cupboard. It was meant for birth marks and pigmentation, but it covered bruises too.

‘Lou, he’s in a cell. But the only way we can keep him there is if you tell us what happened,’ the copper was the same one who’d been here before. He’d told her his name, but Lou couldn’t remember. Didn’t do to remember other men’s names.

‘I fell,’ Lou said, stuffing her hands under her armpits.

‘Lou…’ the policeman let out a sigh, some layer of professionalism sliding away. He leaned towards her, forced her into eye contact. ‘Lou, I don’t want to come out here and find you dead, one day. I’ve seen it happen before. Please?’

The shaking took control of her. God. If she told them the truth. When he got out. There’d be nowhere for her to hide. Nowhere. He’d whispered to her once that he’d killed his ex. They’d never found her. He’d left bits of her up and down the M1. Lou didn’t know if it was true or not, but she didn’t want to test him.

‘I fell.’

‘Lou…’

‘I fell. That’s all. Now please go, so I can get this place tidied up.’


15th October 2017. 1:21pm. @Alyssa_Milano tweeted:

If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.

And all round the world, countless women read the message, or a version of it passed on by someone else. And they thought, ‘Could we just say it?’ And they did.

#metoo