Behaving Like Adults by Anna Maxted Page A

show in my voice.
    â€˜No, Holly,’ he replied. ‘I want
you
.’
    I felt myself being kissed before I had agreed to it. Stuart’s hands were hard everywhere, plucking at my clothes. You don’t think a man is that much stronger than you, until he is. My legs and arms felt weak and light, my heart was racing again. This time I didn’t ignore it.
    â€˜Let’s slow down,’ I said.
    â€˜Why? Don’t you like me?’ He smiled. His teeth were white. Oh Grandma, what big teeth you have. And suddenly I knew I was in trouble.

Chapter 5
    IT’S NOT AS if he leapt on me in an alleyway with a knife. Maybe he misunderstood me. But he had that smile on his face as if he didn’t want to stop. I tried to pick off his hands. Imagine trying to remove a wheel clamp with your fingers. I said, ‘It’s too soon.’ I thought that was a fair compromise. But he didn’t respond, he just kept kissing me, pinchily dragging off my clothes like he hadn’t heard. He pushed me flat on the floor, his shoulder was pinning down my neck. Then he prised apart my legs with his knee. My hands were at my pelvis, pressing upwards with flat palms to keep him off me but it seemed that he merely brushed them out of the way. The fear was so black and thick it was like drowning in tar. I got stiff with panic, breathing in quick little gasps, and he murmured, ‘Relax, sshhhh, relax, enjoy it,’ but he wouldn’t look at me, and then I couldn’t speak. It was as if my eyesight was a watercolour that had got wet. I was seeing in reds and oranges, my vision blurred and ran.
    I’d never been treated like that. I lay there like a helpless twit, I had no idea how to defend myself. So I focused elsewhere. I’m a coward when it comes down to it. I don’t like to get hurt. I see it in Emily when she has to get her injection. At first she’s all scratch, wriggle and hiss, not
ssssssssss
like a snake; a cat’s hiss is more venomous,
hhaaaaaaaaaaach!
And then survival instinct numbs her and she goes limp. I never liked it when she gave up, I preferred her to bite me, I hated to see the end of hope. Then I did it myself and I understood her.
    Nick says it takes a lot of little burns to understand what a big burn feels like. You learn to be afraid of fire. My problem was, I’d never been burnt. I probably should have been.
    When I was fourteen, I got into a stranger’s car, mainly out of laziness. I was going to visit a friend, took the wrong bus and got lost in suburbia. So I approached some guy coming out of a shop, and asked if he knew where this road was. No, but he had a map in his car. Well, I
watched
myself trot down a side street after him, and when he said, ‘Look, it’s only there, I could give you a lift,’ I heard myself accept. Guess what? He dropped me at my friend’s door, and when I thanked him he replied, ‘No problem, it’s my first time in London, and I’d hope someone would do the same for me.’ Yeah, I thought, they won’t.
    My friend freaked out. Holly, are you mad, etc. No, merely invincible. I’m highly intelligent, I could tell he was harmless. Believe me, I am alert to danger. I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not suicidal about it. For instance.
    One night a few years back, I was on the tube and two middle-aged men sat opposite me. One looked as if he was on drugs, scruffy, crazy, and the other, mean and big. They kept trying to scare me. I’m not kidding. The druggy one leapt out of his seat and screamed ‘Raaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!’ in my face. I jumped halfway to the ceiling and they keeled over laughing. All the potential heroes in the carriage looked away. What was I going to do? Quip, ‘Aren’t you big and brave, picking on
me
’? No way. Fear told me to move carriage and I did.
    Afterwards I was cross. Why would anyone be like that? How dare they? But I was annoyed