‘I wish you would talk to Bibi,’ she says at last, in a quiet voice. It hangs in the air for a minute, making my bathwater feel cold. Under the flannel I fight all kinds of emotions but say nothing.
After a couple of minutes, I feel her get up and quietly leave the bathroom, shutting the door gently on her way out.
I squeeze my eyes shut and sink down under the water. The flannel floats away and the water deafens my ears. Everything is black and silent.
See how easy it is to shut out the world?
EX 2: CARL HURSTAKA The Work MistakePART THREE
A’Diva Restaurant
The kitchen countertop
11.12pm
‘I’ve been waiting to get you alone all night,’ he growls in my ear and my insides twinge, but not in a good way. Grabbing me by the waist, he flips me around to face him, like I weigh nothing. It used to make me feel wanted and sexy, now I feel… something else.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t…’ I begin, thinking about the other woman I saw him holding close outside earlier. But he is already kissing my neck and it feels rude to make him stop.
The truth is, I’ve been trying to avoid him tonight. Things between us lately have been edged with something. I feelincreasingly… notusedbut, well, yeah, used. It’s harder to ignore the talk about us in the kitchen, and the way I’m regarded by everyone else with suspicion and pity. It’s getting harder to ignore that Carl clearly has other women in his life. I’ve even heard awkward whisperings that he has someone at home. Which might explain why he’s only let me visit him there once. But I can’t ask him, can I? And either way, avoiding the man you’re sleeping with isn’t easy when that man happens to be your boss.
Tonight was busy in the restaurant and I was hoping to sneak away right after we closed, but Carl loudly instructed me to stay behind and help him clean the fridges. I saw the way my co-workers looked at each other as they filed out for the night. Even Paul couldn’t look at me as he said goodbye.
‘Get down on your knees,’ he orders me now, already undoing his belt. It’s been a busier than usual night, and we’ve been on our feet in a boiling hot kitchen for ten hours straight. He will not taste good.
This is sexy, I remind myself. I am sexy. I am a strong, empowered woman making an empowered choice.
He grabs the back of my head, ramming himself harder into my face. I gag, choking on it, unable to breathe.
I am a strong, empowered woman making an empowered choice to demean myself. To let him do this to me. He grunts, pushing harder against the back of my throat. When I start to gag again, he groans noisily, as if the sick, choking noises I’m making are hot for him.
My knees hurt. I have grazes that are still pink and rawfrom the last time we did this. The fashionably tiled floor was not designed for kneeling.
I want to stop. I really want to stop. He tastes horrible, I’m covered in my own foul-tasting saliva and all I want is to go to bed and sleep for twelve straight hours. I’m exhausted – by the work and by him. I want to stop. All of it.
But I keep saying yes to him, so why would he listen to a no now?
‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?’ The furious voice comes out of nowhere. Carl lets go of my head and I fall down forward across my own knees. I stay there, in a yoga child’s pose – afraid to lift my head to see what’s happened.
‘GET UP!’ I recognize the voice now. It’s the restaurant owner Hugo’s. He is my boss – he is Carl’s boss – he’s everyone’s boss. ‘GET UP NOW, RIGHT NOW!’ He’s screaming at me, at us both, and I try to find the strength to stand amid all this humiliation.
We’ve been caught. Caught by the one person Carl can’t bully into keeping quiet. People have walked in on us before – kitchen porters, waiters, even a customer once – but Carl knows how to keep the others silent.
The danger – the horrible risk – even invigorated us.
It takes me several long seconds before I can move, and when I finally look, Carl is already back in his trousers and at Hugo’s side, speaking in a low tone. I make out certain words though they’re both already moving away, heading out of the kitchen.
‘Seduced… Begged… You know what these young girls are like…’
I stand still, total fucking horror creeping over me. Caught out by someone I respect so much, doing something like that – there is nothing about this I could’ve imagined. But it’s all my fault, all my doing. I started this, I wanted this.
I feel my insides turn over, trying to exit my body, never to return.
Instead, I get up, brush down my knees and leave out the back way, as quickly as possible. As I go – as I close that outside door – I know I won’t be back.
I get a short, sharp text from Carl later that night, telling me it’s best if I find work somewhere else. And then I get a dirty bank transfer that makes me feel worse than any other part of the last seven months. I don’t see Carl or Hugo, or any of my old work colleagues – apart from one – ever again.
But Carl’s words to Hugo stay with me for a long time. Because you see Ididseduce him. Ididbeg him. Didn’t he say those very words to me many times when we were having sex? And didn’t Ilikeit?
