Consensual Read online

RHYS. Sex. Obviously.

  AMANDA. I think honesty is most important. Because without complete transparency in a relationship nothing else works – including sex.

  BRANDON. Have you had sex? Has she had sex?

  TAYLOR. Owen’s snoring in my ear.

  DESTINY. Can I just say, miss, that I disagree with Amanda. Cos sometimes it’s good to have secrets, like I don’t want some boy knowing everything about my business, you get me? Just cos he in my bed don’t mean he has to be all up in my head!

  KAYLA. Ohhh, snap!

  RHYS. How often is a healthy amount of times to have sex, miss?

  GRACE. That’s different for everyone, isn’t it?

  RHYS. I want a number though. Miss, how often do you and your husband have sex?

  AMANDA. Rhys. That’s not appropriate.

  RHYS. Why isn’t that appropriate? Miss, is that inappropriate?

  AMANDA. Yes.

  RHYS. How come?

  KAYLA. Because she’s a teacher innit.

  BRANDON. And can’t be making assumptions, maybe she’s not had sex.

  AMANDA. Obviously she’d had sex.

  BRANDON. How do you know?

  AMANDA. Because she’s pregnant.

  BRANDON. Maybe it was IVF though.

  LIAM. It’s not about how often. It’s about it being good. Good sex. Like my parents have sex sometimes

  DESTINY. Nasty

  LIAM. So did yours. But that doesn’t necessarily mean their relationship is healthy.

  AMANDA. Miss?

  Miss Andrews?

  Though DIANE’s been staring ahead the whole time, she’s clearly been somewhere else.

  DIANE. Yes. Amanda.

  AMANDA. Nathan’s had his hand up for a while.

  DIANE. Oh. It’s a… discussion, Nathan. You can just speak.

  NATHAN. I don’t have a point of view on the secrets thing or sex thing but I think it’s really important to acknowledge that we’re taking a really heteronormative view of all this.

  KAYLA. Oh my days.

  DIANE. That’s a… good point.

  Perhaps now would be a good time to do our first worksheet. (Looks at notes.) There are various scenarios and you move them into the healthy or unhealthy column. And then we’ll… discuss. Right, have a go.

  Pause.

  TAYLOR. Miss?

  DIANE. What is it?

  TAYLOR. We don’t have any worksheets.

  DIANE. Yes. Good point. (Smiles.)

  And it seems… (Keeps searching.) that I left them in the office…

  In which case does anyone have anything else they’d like to add?

  RHYS. About what?

  DIANE. About. What we were just talking about.

  RHYS. About honesty?

  DIANE. Yes.

  RHYS. Or about sex?

  DIANE. Either. Both.

  BRANDON. Sometimes it’s good to be dishonest. Like when you’re having sex and picturing someone else. Should you tell them that?

  GRACE. If you’re picturing someone else then it’s probably not very healthy.

  BRANDON. You think Liam’s never pictured anyone else?

  GRACE. No.

  BRANDON. Lies. Liam?

  LIAM. No.

  BRANDON. Do you see how he hesitated?

  And also. I think like you gotta keep secrets if you don’t like like something they’re doing to you in bed? Cos it might hurt their feelings. Like sometimes you know how a girl slips you the finger back there.

  RHYS. You are so gay.

  BRANDON. How is that gay?

  RHYS. Some girl’s putting her finger up your arse!

  BRANDON. That’s where the male G-spot is.

  RHYS. You’re gay.

  Nathan, he’s gay, right?

  BRANDON. I’m not putting a dick up my ass. It’s just a finger or some beads.

  KAYLA. Oh. My. Days. My precious ears.

  BRANDON. What I’m saying is even if you don’t like something you don’t wanna like tell them cos might hurt their feelings so you just gotta like go along with it.

  AMANDA. That sounds a bit rapey to me.

  BRANDON. What you talking about, fool?

  AMANDA. Well, you’re saying if two people are having sex and one of them doesn’t like something that they should just suck it up or whatever. That not only sounds unhealthy, that sounds a bit like sexual assault.

  BRANDON. How is it sexual assault if it’s with your girlfriend?

  AMANDA. People can still be assaulted or raped in a relationship?

  It’s called consent.

  NATHAN. None of us can actually give consent because we’re not yet sixteen. It’s actually illegal for us to have sex.

  RHYS. What’s Tom Daley talking about?

  NATHAN. You are not old enough to give consent. And if you’re having sex with someone underage then she or he can’t give consent either.

  RHYS. You saying I’m a paedo?

  TAYLOR. They going to prison, miss?

  DIANE. No one’s. Going to prison. They don’t. Enforce the law on young people having sex.

  RHYS. So then why do they have the law?

  DESTINY. To protect us from creepy fifty-year-old men online pretending they’re fourteen.

  GRACE. I think the age of consent should be lowered.

  DESTINY. Course you do, cos your gohno-mouth is a daily crime scene.

  GRACE. I think that we all mature differently and we should be able to decide when we’re able to consent to sex, not the government.

  BRANDON. Should be when you hit puberty innit?

  DESTINY. Guess that’s like another ten years before you can have it then.

  BRANDON. That’s funny, flappy fanny.

  DESTINY. Eat me.

  BRANDON. I would but hear Samuel Canning already doing that.

  DESTINY. Kayla!

  KAYLA. What? I didn’t tell him.

  LIAM. What do you think, miss? Should the age of consent be lowered?

  DIANE. Um, well that’s not really what we’re talking about.

  KAYLA. It’s like literally what we’re talking about right now.

  DIANE. There is a lesson in a couple of weeks when we shall certainly talk about consent. And the age of and I think right now we should focus on…

  LIAM. Do you think we’re wrong, miss?

  DIANE. I’m not entirely sure what you’re

  LIAM. Do you think it’s wrong for people our age to have sex?

  DIANE.…No.

  GRACE. So we should be able to consent, right?

  DIANE. Probably. Yes. I mean. No. It depends.

  GRACE. Depends on what?

  DIANE. We should really save this for our…

  Looking at you I would say you seem able to make a decision of what’s right for you. That you would know if you’re ready and know what you’re doing. So… yes. But for others…

  Nathan, you don’t need to put your hand up.

  NATHAN. But then who decides?

  DIANE. Who decides what?

  NATHAN. If someone knows what they’re doing. If they’re ready. Who decides if they’re able to consent?

  Pause.

  A knock at the door.

  DIANE. Hello, Ms Willis.

  MARY. Sorry to interrupt, just, there’s a phone call for you.

  DIANE. You’ll have to take a message. Tell them I’m in form, where you should be as well.

  MARY. It’s just… he says it’s important…

  DIANE. Well, who is it?

  MARY. It’s um… a Detective Tyler?

  RHYS. Boom!

  Scene Three

  DIANE and PETE’s house.

  PETE. If they were going to arrest you, then they would have.

  DIANE. You think?

  PETE. Yes. Probably.

  DIANE. Probably?

  PETE. Did they say it was under caution?

  DIANE. I don’t remember.

  PETE. I wish you’d called a solicitor.

  DIANE. They just said the
y wanted to ask me some questions. I think that was all they said. And I said, what I told you.

  They just said they were following up a. There had been an accusation against me. They wanted to ask me some questions. That’s all.

  Maybe they did. Maybe they did say under caution.

  PETE. Next time call a solicitor.

  DIANE. What next time?

  And how does one even call a solicitor? Just look a random one up in the phone book?

  PETE. I work with solicitors all the time.

  DIANE. You think your tax buddies are going to be any help to me? Yes it’s possible she coerced him into sex but we can say for certain she paid her taxes.

  PETE. I’m trying to help.

  Pause.

  DIANE. Am I going to prison?

  Beat.

  You haven’t even asked me.

  PETE. You just told me.

  DIANE. I told you what I told the police.

  PETE. That’s enough for me. It doesn’t matter to me.

  DIANE. It doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter if I’m a paedophile?

  PETE. You’re being silly now.

  DIANE. But that’s what they’ll say. That’s what this is.

  Seven years his senior.

  PETE. I’m seven years your senior.

  DIANE. And was that part of it? The attraction? My being a vulnerable naive young twenty-two-year-old that you could have power over?

  PETE. No. And I don’t know where this is coming from.

  DIANE. No. Because you’re not that sort of man.

  PETE. No. I’m not.

  DIANE. He’d appear like this abandoned mutt that’s gotten its leash caught in your back-garden fence. And you give him a little bit of food, brush his fur and soon he won’t leave. And pretty soon he gets strong enough he starts biting, and pissing on the couches, but still all you allow yourself to see is the poor mutt that couldn’t find its way home.

  I just didn’t want to abandon him lest all the hard work I’d put into him go to waste.

  PETE. You care too much. It’s why I fell in love with you. And they’ll have seen that, that it’s all the deluded fantasies of a deranged kid blaming the one person who tried to help him.

  DIANE. What if it’s not a delusion?

  He came to my flat. I didn’t tell them that. But he did, Pete. I can’t remember if I gave him my address for emergencies or – because he had this violent dad – and probably I shouldn’t have, if I did at all, but the kid had no one. And he came to my flat. And I was drunk. Very drunk. I’d been out. And.

  I don’t remember what happened.

  PETE. When was this?

  DIANE. Shortly before I left the job.

  PETE. When we started going out.

  DIANE. Yes, maybe. No. Before that. I’m not sure.

  PETE. So he came over. And what happened?

  DIANE. I don’t remember.

  PETE. If you don’t remember –

  DIANE. I don’t.

  PETE. Are you saying he, that he

  DIANE. No. No. I’m saying. No, we didn’t, Pete, I didn’t, I’m saying it doesn’t matter. Because it can still be grooming without sex. That’s what they said.

  PETE. You didn’t say that before.

  DIANE. I just remembered.

  PETE. When did they say that?

  DIANE. After I said. After I said I didn’t have sex with him.

  After I asked if there was some sort of… evidence?

  PETE. You didn’t say that before.

  DIANE. Well, I’m saying it now. And they said no.

  And I said well, it didn’t happen, so that should be the end of things.

  And they said, that it doesn’t necessarily matter about the sex. That it’s the intention.

  Asking me if I ever talked to him about his personal life, or mine. I was a pastoral assistant – it was my bloody job to talk to kids about their personal lives! Every day kids tell me about some video they saw on the internet, or their parents divorce or friend’s abortion, and I’m meant to teach them about bullying and peer pressure and alcohol and porn and gonorrhoea – seeing them more hours every day than their own parents, but I’m meant to do that without ever getting personal, lest something be misconstrued.

  PETE. I hope that’s not what you said.

  DIANE. I said of course at times it was necessary to speak about my own life – an anecdote or – But that the only intention was to help a troubled young man.

  They could put me on the sex-offenders register, Pete. They could take away Maddie and. (Touches stomach.) All because of some attention-seeking – why is he doing this? Why me? Us?

  PETE. It will go away.

  DIANE. You need to make it.

  PETE. It already has. How could anyone think of you as a predator?

  DIANE. You’re not listening to me. Your daughter will be born in a cell.

  I know this kid. And he won’t roll over if he doesn’t get a biscuit.

  Make it go away, Pete.

  PETE. I’ll take care of it.

  DIANE. Do you promise?

  PETE. Yes.

  Beat. DIANE picks up a naked Barbie from the floor, begins to clothe it.

  DIANE. Where did you tell Maddie I was this evening?

  PETE. She didn’t ask. Think she was relieved. Had to see the headteacher today.

  DIANE. Why?

  PETE. She stole someone’s crisps. Apparently she didn’t want her organic rice cakes. Hid the crisps in her pants, but forgot about them, and they fell out during PE.

  DIANE starts laughing about it. They both do.

  DIANE. Guess I’m not the only one facing prison.

  What? It was a joke.

  (Hearing movement above.) I think we woke her.

  PETE. Do you want to check?

  DIANE. You go.

  He exits. DIANE stares into the dark through a window. Flicks on the outside light. FREDDIE is standing there. She turns off the light again. (He’s not actually there.)

  Scene Four

  Three weeks later. A small mechanics garage.

  JAKE is working on the body of a car. FREDDIE stands with coffee and doughnuts.

  FREDDIE. She’s nice.

  JAKE. Where’ve you been, Fred?

  FREDDIE. Yeah sorry.

  JAKE. Meant to come by like three weeks ago to help go through Dad’s stuff. Don’t pick up your phone.

  FREDDIE. Yeah sorry.

  JAKE. And the probate guy’s being a pain in the arse, needs us both there for the will. And looks like there’s probably bills and stuff of his we’ll need to take care of. You speak to your buddies at the bank?

  FREDDIE. Yeah. Yeah, course. They’re looking into it. Just behind on other applications.

  JAKE. You’re full of shit.

  FREDDIE. Jake.

  JAKE. You didn’t talk to no one.

  FREDDIE. I will.

  JAKE. Cos if you can’t actually, I don’t know why you’d tell me that. Why you’d make something like that up.

  FREDDIE. I will, Jake. Just been a bit of a. I sent you an email. Three weeks ago.

  You didn’t… respond. Except your ‘Come by’ text this morning, you haven’t actually…

  JAKE. I deleted it.

  Beat.

  What the fuck you gone and got yourself into now, Freddie?

  FREDDIE. I dunno what you mean.

  JAKE. What the police ever done for us, huh?

  Someone come see me.

  FREDDIE. What did they come see you for?

  JAKE. My accounts. Start asking questions about the business.

  FREDDIE. That’s got nothing to do with me.

  JAKE. Say the HMRC might do an audit. Check I been doing everything correctly. Declaring the right tax and that.

  FREDDIE. Since when do the police care about audits?

  JAKE. This guy wasn’t police. Tax inspector he was. Says I could get in a lot of trouble if things don’t add up. Could even go to prison for that. And when I ask what
he means by might do an audit he says well, that depends on your brother Frederick.

  FREDDIE. The slippery bitch.

  I’ll tell them. Tell them she’s getting people to threaten you.

  JAKE. You don’t tell them a thing about me, Freddie.

  I wonder if all this doughnut sugar’s been going to your brain.

  Didn’t you get any with the sprinkles?

  (Bites one.) Oh this one’s got chocolate cream inside – here, you want it?

  FREDDIE. You know most people, if they got an email like that. I dunno. They’d maybe email back or say something or I don’t know but they sure as hell wouldn’t be talking about doughnuts.

  JAKE. Well, most people if you told them might not know you’re full of shit. Most people don’t know you like I know you.

  FREDDIE. Maybe you don’t know me, Jake.

  JAKE. No? You know I actually laughed when I got your email. Like proper lols. I mean I knew you were one crazy motherfucker – but this, this. But then as I deleted it I thought actually it’s no different to anything else in Freddie’s little world, is it? When you shat yourself when you were seven it were the fault of the coach who didn’t pause for a toilet break. When you failed every subject in Year 9 it were the fault of staff out to get you. And now, I don’t know, you can’t get laid and it’s the fault of some teacher you banged a million years ago.

  FREDDIE. I don’t have to… justify myself to you. I remember, alright.

  JAKE. Yeah? What do think you remember?

  FREDDIE. I don’t think… you know what, to hell with you, and her.

  JAKE. Tell me. Go on.

  I’m your brother and I should… I promise to listen. She invited you round her house and she…

  FREDDIE. Yeah.

  JAKE. Say it. You went round her house and she…

  FREDDIE. Like I wrote in the email.

  JAKE. No you didn’t actually say it. You went round hers and she… it begins with an R.

  Cos that’s what you’re saying, right? That you didn’t want to and she

  FREDDIE. I’m saying I wasn’t old enough to make that decision. She bought me things and said things and so that I’d… do what she wanted.

  JAKE. Poor Freddie.

  FREDDIE. I don’t care what you think, Jake.

  JAKE. It’s not what I think, Freddie. Cos what I think is if I hadn’t grown up sharing baths with you then I’d properly doubt if you’ve even got a dick under there cos you’re acting like a right pussy.

  You think you can barely get a girl now; you’d be a fucking pariah if this got out.