Free Trial of Passion by William Deverell

fear we are the more stupid sex. There’s a tendency among members of our endangered gender to think more erratically than erotically when dealing with matters carnal. Don’t you think women are more likely to see through her?
    I began thinking: O’Donnell, old sport, is she offering her body for a passing grade? Be on the alert. But all the time she has this gold chain around her neck with a cross on it, and a ring on her finger as big as a stop sign. Where was her fiancé, I asked. She said, “We’re enjoying a little time apart together.” Apart together. We both realized how odd that sounded. We laughed. You know how people sometimes connect? I
liked
her.
    Gowan, I’m not going to lie. I had
thoughts
. Any normal human male would have thoughts. But that’s all. It’s not as if I’ve been forced to make out with Man Friday on a desert island for all my years of manhood. I date. I’ve had girlfriends. We commit consenting acts.
    I didn’t pursue her.
I
am the victim.
    In current time, as I write this, it’s almost 11:30 p.m. Inhalf an hour I’ll put on my funny hat and blow one of those paper whistles that curls out like a snake and bops someone on the nose.
    Happy New Year, Gowan. I look forward with joy to the unfolding events of the coming year. I’ll finally emerge from jail talking like a greeting card. Best wishes to my favourite parolee on his seventieth birthday. You’ll have to forgive some of my typing errors. My fingers keep slipping between the keys.
    We had the last dance together, a slow one, but I managed to keep her at arm’s length. She carried on in this deep, melting voice of hers about how she enjoyed my classes. Thought I was a wonderful teacher. Such understated wit. So cute with my little half-moon spectacles perched on my nose. I think I said something flattering, too, which no doubt will be used against me.
    â€œThank you for the dance, Kimberley.” “Oh, no, Jonathan, thank
you.”
She doesn’t like to be called Kim, by the way. Kimberley.
    For a reason I cannot fathom, I accepted her invitation to an after-party. No, that’s not fair. There was a reason. I was having a good old-fashioned time. It was Friday night, I had a weekend to recover.
    So a throng of us went in my car. I was still sober enough to ask someone else to drive. Charles Stubb, a young Liberal with an obscene ambition — he wants to be prime minister. We were crammed four in the back seat, and I was thigh on thigh beside the Dragon Lady. I remember us both being sweaty from dancing. She began reciting lines from
Saint Joan. Yes,
Gowan, Kimberley is the shepherd maid of the battle of Orleans, the heretic saint. But it is I who shall be tied to the stake
    Do you know, despite everything, despite the supposedtrauma of being bound and raped, she gave four performances of that play? In the middle ofJanuary at the Frederick Wood Theatre. Shaw would have been proud, he loved his plucky heroines. Gowan, if
you’d
been tied up, and had your loins girded with Shameless lipstick, and been buggered and raped, could
you
sit around and memorize all those exhortations about going into battle with God on your side?
    We went to some great shambling house in the West End where several students were jointly renting the ground floor. I think I was mostly talking to Charles, explaining how his beloved Liberal party was a collection of fuzzy ideologues in politically correct multiculturalist drag. Kimberley kept hovering. She had at least one refill. They didn’t have ginger ale, so she mixed her rye with Sprite one time, and if I’m not mistaken with lemonade a second time. We’re up against some dark forces here, Gowan. Satan rules.
    After a while I said, okay, someone drive me to my house. There was a debate about the mechanics of this, and I agreed to pay for a taxi home to whomever volunteered. Several of them offered, and ultimately five