After You'd Gone Read Online Free PDF Page A

corner of a room. It was a second-year's room, covered in posters of the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays and crammed with people; the bed was sagging under the weight of six people and a girl in a tight white catsuit was dancing on the desk, shouting at a few of the goggle-eyed boys to look at her.
Alice found the boys here odd: they were either incredibly
introverted, with an excess of knowledge in an esoteric subject, or stunningly arrogant, but yet completely unsure of how to talk to her. It was the first time she'd mixed with large numbers of English people. On her first day a boy called
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Amos had asked her where she'd come from. 'Scotland,' she'd replied.
'Ah, how many days did it take you to get here?' he'd asked, in complete seriousness.
She looked around the smoky room and told herself she'd g1ve it another five minutes and then she'd leave. Mario waved from the other side of the room, Alice drained her mug of warmish, syrupy wine and smiled back thinly.
Mario was an Italian-American from New York, very rich and very beautiful. He was at the university for a year, courtesy of his father. When Alice had asked him how he'd arranged an exchange year from America, he said, 'My father opened his cheque book,' and roared with laughter.· She had met him in her first week while wandering the corridors of the university library. She'd seen him smiling at her and had asked him for directions to the North Wing. He'd offered to show her and led her instead to the tearoom where he'd bought her tea and cakes. He sent her flowers that ·soaked her room in a heavy, sweet scent, he called on her at all times of the night and day. He wanted to be an actor and would recite great chunks of plays to her in public places. He had long, wild, curly black hair that reached almost to his well-formed shoulders. She'd met no one like him in her life and he seemed large and colourful compared to the bland, well-brought-upness of most of the people she'd encountered so far. Aside from that, she was flattered by his attentions: Mario had so many women after him.
Last night, they had been walking through the deserted streets of the town centre after seeing a film. Mario suddenly pressed her up against the metal framework of an empty market stall and kissed her hard. She was amazed. His body was hard and hot and his hands travelled over her body. He was pushing his pelvis into her, making the metal pole behind her press into her back.
     
'God, Alice, I have the largest boner ever,' he breathed into her neck.
'Boner?' she managed to say.
'Boner. You know, erection. Do you want to see it?' She laughed incredulously. 'What? Here?'
'Yeah. Why not here? There's no one around.' He pulled open her shirt and started biting her breasts.
'Mario, don't be ridiculous. We're in the middle of town.'
Alice felt him start hitching up her skirt and feeling for her pants.
'Mario!' She wriggled and pushed him away. 'For God's sake.'
He grabbed her by the hips and went to kiss her again, but she struggled free. 'What the hell's the matter with you?' he shouted, his face red with exertion.
'Nothing is the matter with me. We're in the middle of town. I just don't want to get arrested, that's all.'
She started walking away but Mario caught her by the arm and swung her round. 'Jesus Christ, I'm only human, Alice. Don't you think I've been patient? I bought some condoms today, if that's what you're worried about. I assumed we might get around to it at some point.'
'You assumed, did you?' she scoffed. 'Well, you assumed wrong.'
'For fuck's sake, honey, anyone would think you were a fucking virgin or something.'
They stared at each other, Mario panting and Alice rigid with anger. 'Well, for your information, I am,' she said softly and walked off.
Mario caught up with her outside the darkened windows of a bookshop. 'Alice, I'm so sorry.'
'Go away.'
     
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'Alice, please.' He caught hold of her and wrapped his arms around her, suffocatingly, preventing her from