Asking For It

Danny King

I love London. It’s an immense city. Big enough to lose yourself in, if so desired. Eight million souls, the vast majority of whom are complete and utter strangers to each other and happy to stay that way. It’s a great place to go about business – if your business calls for anonymity. Because in London there’s no end of anonymity. No end of opportunities. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

I call them “opportunities” because I feel I should call them something and I can’t bring myself to call them “victims”. I mean, “victims” – it makes them sound like they’re poor little innocents or something doesn’t it, when clearly they’re not. They’re anything but.

I believe the clichéd and somewhat overused expression is they’re “asking for it.”

Asking for it.

Looking for it.

Begging for it.

Gagging for it.

And they certainly are.

So I give them what they want. I give it to them “good and proper”, another cliché, but one just as apt.

I leave the house at half past ten on a Friday night and head for the tube station. A paper Travelcard lets me ride the Tube until my heart’s content and at this hour the carriages are packed with silly and vulnerable little girls. Secretaries who’ve celebrated the coming of the weekend with a pitcher full of cocktails and a belly full of laughs. Posh PR types who’ve chalked up a dozen bottles of Pinot Grigio on the company account. Students who’ve come to the big city to play at being grown-ups only to end up sleeping like babies on trains and buses after downing one too many vodka shots in the union bar.

There are half a dozen such silly girls on any given carriage during the drunken rush hour. Some with other silly little girls. Some with grinning wanker blokes they either can’t get rid of or don’t want to.

And then there are some who are alone.

These are the ones that catch my eye. These are the ones that catch everyone’s eye. They’re fair game. Easy meat. Asking for it.

One such girl sits opposite me for a couple of stops wearing little plastic devil horns in her hair and glitter all over her face. She sparkles like a sleepy-eyed prize and smiles at the rest of the carriage as she lollygags in her seat, her legs and cleavage lolloping open for all the world to see. Just how many drinks has she had tonight? And just what is it she’s trying to say about herself with those stupid little plastic devil horns? Of course, there would’ve been a whole gaggle of them out in devil horns earlier on, all cooing and giggling and naughty as the night is long, dancing and cavorting in some West End playground in front of a load of horny blokes. But where were the rest of them now? And why did she still have her horns on?

When she smiles at me I want to grab her by the scruff of the neck and shake that over-confident smirk right off her face. Show her just what a nasty, spiteful and cruel world she’s travelling through. My world. Give her something to think about; something she’d think about for the rest of her life, the silly little bitch.

But there are too many people about. It’s still early, only half past eleven. I’ll have to travel on into the night before I’ll get a chance.

This first hour is just for me. It’s about getting a feel for it. Getting into the zone.

On the next train, a drunken couple snog opposite me like I’m not even there. They kiss the way only drunken strangers kiss; deeply, passionately and desperately, like the only things that matter are the here and now. They don’t even exist outside of this moment – and neither do we.

Everyone on the carriage watches. No one speaks. No one grins. We just watch.

At one point I half-expect the couple to slide off their seats and start the floor show in earnest.

And I have no doubt the little slut would’ve too