Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey

Author:Susannah Dickey [Dickey, Susannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473573420
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2020-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen years old – April 14th (one month ago)

You are drunk. The fake, curated graffiti on the hostel bar wall is inflating and deflating, and your voice is simultaneously too loud and muffled, like it’s coming from inside an airing cupboard. The barman – Yahcob – is gripping your hand and leading you down a flight of stairs. The floor is black and speckled and sticky, and you realize that this is the nightclub, and you are excited that you’ll be able to tell the girls that you made it here when they didn’t. There are groups of people sprinkled across the dance floor. The barman’s hand stays on yours and he leads you to a corner. You put your palms on his shoulders and find the hard knuckle of bone. You press your fingers into it and imagine twiddling it like a dial on a console. His smile meets your mouth and his hands find the soft dollop of flesh above your waistband, strategically concealed beneath your top.

And now he’s taking you somewhere else. You feel the soles of your shoes peeling off the floor with every step and suddenly you’re in bright white, like when an optician turns the lights on after an examination. You put your hand to your eyes and stumble into the wall and the wall is white, the surface of it is gritty with dust and the barman is in front of you, pushing you against the wall and kissing you. You put your hands in his hair. He puts his hands between your legs. He starts to rub, and it doesn’t really feel like anything, but you let him keep doing it and

and now he has turned you around so you’re facing the wall and you notice there is a long, thin, black crack in the white dust and

and he’s tugging at your jeans, tugging them down over the parts of your middle that undulate like a waterbed and you wonder if the fabric has left an angry red indent in your skin. You try to speak but your tongue feels heavy and

and he’s pulling the jeans down round your knees and you place your hands against the salty grit of the wall and try to push yourself away from it but then his hand is on the back of your head and he’s pressing your face into the wall and you feel the rough texture rubbing at your forehead like sandpaper and you say, ‘No, no,’

you think

you think you hear your voice saying ‘no’, but nothing happens, so maybe you didn’t say anything. His hand is wrapped up in your hair and your eyes are level with the thin black line.

You try again, ‘No,’ and this time the voice coming out of you sounds like your mother’s: it’s deeper and older than yours. You wonder when she got here, and won’t she be angry at the thick, red ridge in your skin – she’s always telling you not to buy clothes a size too small.

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