Free Hard by Lily Harlem, Natalie Dae

concern for your safety.’
    My stomach clenched and I wanted to be sick. My arms and legs felt
boneless, and my head…it seemed to be empty for a second or two.
    ‘What?’ I managed.
    I wanted to rage that I’d just walked in
off the street, that I’d planned to watch the session then go home and write
about it, not be up here, being told I was in danger. That was what he’d meant, wasn’t it? A concern for my safety translated to
me that I was in danger, and even a dim spark would realise it was in relation to that man.
    ‘The gentleman behind you in the courtroom,’ he began, rolling his
pen between finger and thumb, ‘has been known to…cause problems. Now, I don’t
wish to alarm you but —’
    ‘Alarm me?’ I blurted, ready to get right up and walk the hell
out. ‘Bloody alarm me? Of course I’m alarmed. What
problems? What am I meant to be in danger of?’
    ‘Please, calm down.’ He reached across and covered my hand with
his. Curled his fingers so one of the tips brushed the
underside of my wrist. ‘Let me just explain.’
    ‘I think you f —   ought to,’ I said, pleased that I
hadn’t said the rest of that word. In the circumstances it would have been understandable if I had, but he was so refined I didn’t want
to appear the common-as-muck woman he undoubtedly saw me as. A twenty-something
slung up not brought up.
    He looked at me for a moment before shifting his attention to the
guard. ‘Would you mind bringing up some tea? Perhaps some lunch?’ He returned
his gaze to me, tilting his head in question.
    ‘What?’ I asked, unsure if he was asking me if I wanted a
sandwich.
    ‘Lunch?’ he asked. ‘I have an hour before court resumes and really
must eat. Would you like anything?’
    I shook my head yet answered, ‘Yes. Please. Anything will do.’
Then wondered if, knowing my luck, I’d be brought an
egg sandwich and wouldn’t be able to eat it. Or one of those so-called All
Breakfast efforts that made me want to gag. ‘Cheese,’
I added. ‘Or ham and pickle. Or just ham. Please.’
    He nodded, and the guard left the room. It felt different with him
gone, less threatening, and I supposed that was because I’d seen him as my
jailer, the one who’d had the unfortunate job of being the messenger, the one I
shouldn’t want to shoot but did. I swallowed, smiled an embarrassed smile at the solicitor, and shifted, uncomfortable under his gaze.
    ‘I haven’t done this quite right,’ he said, his accent telling me
he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but that he didn’t hail
from my neck of the ravaged woods either. ‘My name is Michael Jacobs. And you
are?’
    ‘Rebecca,’ I said. ‘Rebecca Matthews.’
    ‘Right then, Rebecca Matthews.’ He smiled, another genuine one. ‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ He opened the
file and took out a legal notepad. Poised his pen over it and looked at me,
waiting for me to speak.
    I didn’t , just smiled stupidly instead.
    ‘How about,’ he said, ‘you tell me exactly what happened from the
moment you decided to enter court until you were brought up here.’
    I told him while staring at his stiff white shirt collar, and once I’d finished I idly wondered if that collar was
uncomfortable, whether it rubbed and he couldn’t wait to take it off at the end
of a long day. Couldn’t wait for a woman to run her
hands across his bare chest. Lick it. Graze her teeth over it. I shook my head
to clear it of stupid thoughts and smiled a bit, hoping I could go now that he’d heard my little story.
    ‘Repeat that again, what he said after he’d asked where you were
going.’ Mr Jacobs pulled his eyebrows together and
drew a circle around a sentence of his notes.
    ‘He asked me if I saw the woman on the stand, then said she’d be
next.’ A shudder went through me at having to remember it yet again.
    ‘What do you think he meant by that?’
    ‘It sounds mad, but I took it to mean she’d be killed. But I