He had no intention of softening the blow he’d just delivered and he’d half turned to walk away from me again when he changed his mind. I didn’t like the scowl he turned back with. He pulled me into the open garage and pushed me ahead. He was going to show me the error of my ways. There’s a kind of calm that descends before someone wants to hurt you badly. I could feel it move towards me, like an old childhood friend. I looked to see if there was another way out and didn’t get a chance to look back.

He yanked the waist of my jeans down and kicked my feet apart. He was determined, unaware that he didn’t need to use such force. I was as weak as a kitten. I turned my face away and put my hand over it to block out the fluorescent tube humming on the ceiling. I steadied myself against a shelf with the other one, wedged against the side of an old tin bath. It was dusty in here, cobweb streamers swayed from every corner. A small grey feather caught my eye as it danced in a draught from the open door. Pigeon?

Joe was silent bar breathing heavily in and out of his nose. My head hit against the bath’s side and made a rhythmic muffled sound. There was only one other: the dry push, the dryer pull.

It didn’t take long – a matter of minutes. He took what had been promised to him all those years ago when we were both innocent. When he was finished, I didn’t look. I didn’t want to see how my legs had been arranged. With the one hand still over my eyes I reached down and pulled my clothes back into place. I dropped to my knees and let my whole body flop over ’til I was looking at a blank wall. When I finally breathed back in after minutes, the smell of motor oil and cement dust came with it. I was cold to the bone; all the heat was in my face.

The pain I felt was in my throat; it had travelled up my body as it was being administered and lodged there, gagging me. I heard him step away, and when he had his back to me he zipped his fly. He spat out the last of his rage.

–  That’s all the ‘us’ you deserve. Don’t forget it was you who wanted this, not me.

The fluorescent tube pinged off when he slapped the switch and made for the kitchen. He would wash his hands with fresh soap and dry them on a beige towel. I’d never felt like an animal before – not once in all the years of making love with John Johns, not even while I was giving birth. Now I was meat: butchered and torn.