What became of us

What on earth would she say to Roy if she saw him? All the questions she had been too drunk to consider earlier flooded soberly through her brain. But the quad was completely quiet.
    ‘Was it a good evening?’ Liam asked.
    ‘Sssh,’ she hissed as they picked their way through the darkness.
    As soon as she opened the door to her room she saw that she had left the bed unmade and thrown her damp towel on top of it.
    In the harsh light of the 60 watt bulb the curtains at the window looked thin and shabby. There was a cigarette burn she hadn’t noticed before on the utilitarian carpet, and miscellaneous dried spillages. It was as if the soft-focus fantasy she had dared to dream was turning tawdry before her eyes.
    Then Liam said, ‘Turn off the light.’
    Her hand, still on the switch, obeyed instantly and she felt a flood of sheer gratitude that he was taking over. She wanted to relinquish responsibility. In the darkness she closed her eyes, not wanting them to become adjusted and bear witness to what was going to happen.
    Liam ripped the fastening of Annie’s precious designer dress apart. It dropped to the floor and as Ursula stepped forward, he pushed his body against her back, felling them both. He twisted both her hands up behind her back and she lay with her nose pressed hard into the carpet breathing the odour of stale wine and dust and feeling his hands exploring her body like a brutal body search. Then his hands left her body and she could feel that his attention was on something else but she did not know what. She did not know the rules.
    She heard the plastic snap of a condom packet being torn open.
    The question of contraception had not even occurred to her, she realized with shame, because she had never really dared to think that this would happen. Barry had had a vasectomy after George was born. Their GP had said it would make his penis look like an aubergine for a while. ‘In shape or colour?’ he had asked, turning white. She must not think of Barry.
    She tried to flip over to look at Liam, but he placed his knee on the small of her back to keep her down while he put the condom on. She could sense his impatient concentration in the air, then suddenly the heat of his body close above her. He put a hand between her legs, and hoiked her to semi-kneeling. In the moment before he entered her she was frightened that he was about to bugger her.
    She said, ‘No...’
    And then he plunged his penis into her vagina and began to shunt backwards and forwards in the slick of her juices. Her elbows and knees chafed against the carpet, which smelt like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag. She tried to push herself up to kneeling, but Liam pushed her head down. She tried to give herself over to the sheer physicality of the way he was taking her, but all she could think was that it was like a punishment for wanting him so much.
    He leaned forward, arching his back to achieve a new angle. It made him feel bigger inside her. His face was next to her ear.
    ‘You’re so fucking wet,’ he was saying, ‘you’ve been thinking about this all afternoon, haven’t you? You’re gagging for it. Come on,’ he urged.
    She began to move as she thought he wanted her to, mirroring his movements, backwards and forwards, but his penis slipped out of her.
    ‘It’s not like this in the movies,’ she whispered with a little giggle.
    It was what Barry always said to her when something funny happened during sex, like her vagina farting as he went in, or his bad back twinging when they tried to do it in the bath.
    Liam did not laugh. He shoved himself into her again, raising her bottom further. For a moment she thought he was going to touch her clitoris and she yelped with expectation, but both his hands came back to the cheeks of her bottom and he squeezed her there hard, as if he was trying to press out his own orgasm. She felt the hot shudder of his ejaculation, then the wilting and withdrawal.
    He stood up and dealt with the condom. She turned onto her side and watched him giving his penis a quick sluice in the handbasin. He seemed very used to the routine, she thought suddenly. Then he knelt on the floor beside her and kissed her on the nose. It was the first moment of affection since they entered the room.
    ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said, smiling at her.
    Since what? she wanted to ask. Since you last had sex, or since we met, or what?
    He pulled her to her feet and led her to the bed, throwing the damp towel to