The Rape of Proserpina, Roman school, c 1700

I eventually realised that Lican was putting up a fight, but – and here, I just had to trust that I was reading her signals right – she wanted me to win. She wanted to know that I had the strength and the lust to force her, before she’d fuck me willingly.

Which is, you know, macho bullshit, and generally stuff that I hate. I don’t just hate it on political grounds; it makes me feel a bit stupid, to be honest, and that’s somewhere near the opposite of sexy. I really don’t enjoy ambiguity about consent.

But I relied on what seemed to be noises of pleasure amongst the struggling sounds, and little gives, like the way she’d stop for a second when I had my hand against her breasts or her cunt. And other places she liked touched. And the fact that she only had to say “no” if she wanted me to stop. I don’t know enough Spanish to cover a post-it note, but I know what “no” means. I’d have understood “basta”, because of Italian. 

So I pushed her legs open with mine, tugged a pleasantly damp bit of gusset out of the way, and pressed my cock forward, and it was only then that she smiled again, said yes-like things, and made me welcome. Which isn’t the order I prefer. I like consent first, then penetration. But we had different ways of getting to the things we both liked.