Free Don't You Want Me? by India Knight

oddly sharp incisors that gives me the horn.
    ‘Hmm,’ I said, thinking. Obviously, we couldn’t go to my house: it’d be like soiling your own nest. Well, not
soiling
, quite, but it wouldn’t necessarily enrich my home environment, either, to be reminded of William lying there, all bare, every time I looked at my cosy bed.
    ‘Would you like a nightcap?’ William asked, turning the key in the ignition.
    ‘Yes,’ I replied.
    ‘Your place or mine?’ he asked smoothly, flashing his teeth again.
    ‘Yours.’ I smiled back.
    ‘Good,’ said William, squeezing my knee. ‘Very good. It’s not far.’
    It suddenly occurred to me that Dr William here might, for all I knew, be a murderer, or a wild perv, or anything else at all. He might perfectly well take me back to his flat and tie me up and, I don’t know, torture me with electrodes, and keep me in a box, and feed me cat food. Sure, I’d met him in respectable circumstances, and doctorsaren’t usually loony types –
but on the other hand, Dr Crippen
. I decided to quickly text Frank, so that at least one person would know where I was.
    ‘What are you doing?’ William asked.
    ‘Just letting my house-mate know I may be back late.’
    ‘You certainly will,’ William leered. He licked his lips and squeezed my knee again, getting my upper thigh instead: either he thought I had freakishly short legs or he was revving up. ‘Good. Why don’t you just ring her?’
    ‘Him, actually. This is faster.’
    ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘Oh. Er, just “Back later” really, so he doesn’t worry.’ Which was a lie: I’d typed
Hv plld dr fr sx bck 2 am ltst or rng 999
before pressing ‘Send’. I’ve never quite got the gist of text messages. They all remind me of that ad there used to be on the Underground years ago:
If u cn rd ths msg, u cn bcm a scrtry & gt a gd jb
. Which made me think for years that secretaries were a bt hlf wttd.
    ‘All done?’ asked William.
    ‘Yes. Now I’m ready to check out your bedside manner, Doctor. I have a terrible ache in my, you know, lower regions.’
    William looked exceedingly pleased by this, and stroked my thigh.
    ‘Mmm,’ I added. ‘Ow. I can’t wait. Will you wear your stethoscope?’
    ‘Would you like that?’ William husked, pulling off the Euston Road into Marylebone High Street.
    ‘I’d rather like a full exam,’ I said, slightly revving up myself. I suddenly had a thought. ‘But not including rectal, obviously. No bottom action at all, in fact.’
    ‘What?’ said William, swerving to avoid a Fiat Punto. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘I dislike anal sex,’ I explained. ‘I’m just letting you know early. Being helpful. To avoid disappointment. I do hope you’re
not
disappointed?’
    ‘Er, no. No,’ he said. ‘That’s, er, quite all right. Here we are, then,’ he added, pulling up outside a Victorian mansion block.
    Cooper, predictably, lived in a shag-pad, though the shag-pad was so Seventies that I had to ask him how old he was (the reply, conclusively, was ‘old enough to show you a good time’). There were black leather shag-sofas all over the living room, and recessed shag-lighting, and long, tufty shag-pile, and one entire wall was made up of smoky shag-mirrors.
    ‘Got any Barry White?’ I asked, which was supposed to be a joke.
    ‘Of course,’ William Cooper said smoothly and somewhat solemnly.
    ‘Baby,’ I growled, in my deepest voice, and then laughed to myself because my Bazza impersonation is so eerily exact.
    Cooper, who had his back to me, fiddling about with the Bang (ha!) & Olufsen, seemed surprised by my sound.
    ‘Here we are,’ he said, turning around and giving me a strange look. ‘
The Greatest Hits
.’
    It happened very quickly after that. On came Barry, down went the lights, off came his coat, and mine. And then – oh no, oh
no
– he started to dance. He danced a snaky, writhy little dance, and as if this weren’t bad enough, he started untying his Turnbull & Asser