xxx
By which she meant no. No way.
But, predictably, that’s not how Josh took it. She hadn’t been clear enough or, more likely, he’d chosen to go with a different reading of what she’d written. He replied, saying he’d hold her to that. Then, over the next couple of weeks, he gradually dialled up the pressure, reminding her she owed him a nude pic and promising to delete it as soon as he’d seen it. She didn’t need to be a prude. She had such a beautiful body. He loved her so much. He’d do anything for her. Didn’t she trust him? Yada, yada, yada.
Eventually, he wore her down, but she was careful not to show her face in the photo. Nothing that gave away her identity. For several days, he was like the cat that got the cream. He was also particularly attentive and loving. He said and did all the right things. The perfect boyfriend.
She thought that would be the end of it. But, nope, it was just the beginning. Before she knew it, they’d moved on to videos. He sent one of himself in the shower, all lathered up and spendingwaytoo long soaping his genitals. She knew she’d be expected to return the favour, if you could call it that. Every time she sent a pic or a vid, she made him promise to delete it after viewing it.
Mrs Davis, the day matron at school had talked to them a few years ago about sexting and sextortion in PSHE – personal, social, health and economic education. Mrs Davis was clearly out of touch with reality as well as uncomfortable about standing in front of a group of prepubescent teens. She stared at the floor and went red every time she said words like ‘sex’ or ‘nudity’. She reeled off definitions of words like grooming, catfishing, upskirting and fake porn. She repeatedly used terms such as ‘illegal’, ‘without consent’ and ‘against the law’. She insisted on ‘stranger danger’ when communicating online.
There had only been one PSHE lesson on this, shortly before lockdown, a few years before Iris was even going out with Josh. Not that that was an excuse. Iris was aware of the dangers of sending nude photos and videos, but to begin with at least, it didn’t really cross her mind that those dangers applied to her. She wasn’t being taken in by a catfish; she was exchanging intimate pictures with her boyfriend. He’d seen her naked body IRL, so it wasn’t like she was revealing anything he wasn’t familiar with. And he said nice things about her body when she sent him pics, which made her feel good about herself. He made her feel beautiful. Plus, he was sending her photos and videos of himself, too. They trusted each other. He would never use her photos to blackmail her. He didn’t need money – his parents were minted and Josh always had rolls of cash on him.
A nagging voice in Iris’s head, that sounded creepily like Matron’s, piped up every now and then to tell her she was being stupid and naïve. But Iris did her best to stifle it. She’d overheard Mum saying to Jo once that teenagers needed ‘new and naughty’, that becoming an adult was all about ‘taking risks and pushing boundaries and having sex’. All her life, Iris had been a good girl. She’d done everything she’d been told – by parents and teachers alike. And since meeting Josh, she’d realized something. Her life had been boring before him. She’d been boring. And bored. Plain vanilla.
But, after a while, when things started to go tits up with Josh, Iris saw how dumb she’d been. When she finally dumped Josh for the third and last time, not long after his eighteenth birthday party, he texted non-stop. He would write things that Iris didn’t know how to interpret. When she didn’t react this time to ‘I can’t live without you’, he tried a different tack.
I can’t stop looking at photos of you. I wouldn’t want anyone else to see you like this. Ever.
xxx
Was this a thinly veiled threat? Why did he say ‘I wouldn’t’ instead of ‘I don’t’? Was she reading too much into it? But since she’d known him, Josh had alternated punishments with rewards. That was his nature. That was how he behaved. Was he going to punish her?
Iris thought about blocking Josh – his phone number, his email, his social media accounts. But that wouldn’t make the problem go away. And it might be better if she got his messages. That way, if he was going to blackmail her, at least she’d receive the threat and know about it. From that day on, Iris lived with a knot in her stomach. It tightened whenever she was likely to encounter Josh – at school, at cross-country training or competitions.
But time passed and nothing happened. He didn’t blackmail her. The messages kept coming. Sometimes the tone was angry; at others he was apologetic, nostalgic or even loving. His words were never threatening. After a while, he wrote less frequently and the knot in her stomach eased.
His punishment, when he did inflict it months later, was ruthless. And the fallout turned out to be worse than she could ever have imagined.
Chapter 14
Carla
NOW
It’s a simple question, or so it seems to me, but it quickly morphs into a confrontation and I wish I’d let Ash handle this after all.
‘What are you accusing me of, exactly?’ Iris demands, her hands on her hips.
‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ I say. ‘I just want to know how you came to have Josh’s necklace in your possession.’
‘You think I killed him, don’t you?’
‘No.’ It doesn’t sound convincing, not to me anyway. I hope she doesn’t notice. ‘Iris, sit down and let’s talk.’
Iris remains standing and starts pacing up and down the floor of her bedroom. She’s stomping, but I don’t think it has the desired effect with her socks on the thick carpet.
‘You do! You think I killed him! That’s why you’ve been checking up on me! You had no right to go through my things!’ She’s almost shouting.
‘I only checked your pockets before I washed your clothes!’ My voice has ratcheted up a notch, too, and I force myself to lower the volume. ‘The necklace was in the pocket of your jeans.’
‘I’m not talking about my jeans,’ she says. ‘I’m talking about the drawer in my nightstand.’
My mouth opens and closes again. How does she know I went through the drawer? It was a mess in there even before I tipped out her stuff.
‘And don’t bother to deny it,’ Iris continues, ‘I know you went through it. I found the anti-stress ball under the bed.’
Ah, now I remember the ball rolling under the bed when I tipped the stuff out. I must have forgotten to put it back in.
