BLACKBIRD

by David Harrower

At his workplace, 55-year-old Ray Brooks is shocked to be visited by a young woman, 27-year-old Una Spencer. Fifteen years earlier, they had a sexual relationship for three months when Una was twelve and Ray was forty; subsequently, Ray had been jailed for three years for statutory rape.

Ray takes Una to the office break room, where the two engage in a long and difficult confrontation involving Una's continuing struggles to understand and come to terms with the abuse and her intensely conflicting emotions, which pivot between anger, curiosity, confusion, and even a persistent attachment to Ray, whom Una loved – and she believed that he loved her. The fearful Ray, who is himself trying to forget the past and the potential feelings he had for Una, parries her demanding questions and descriptions of her feelings and experiences, all the while uncertain of her intentions.