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New Book First Chapter- what do you think honestly!!
Shadows in the night
One woman’s tale of how the attentions of a young troubled boy can in a short period of time change your life forever,
Chapter one: The beginning
“Look I don’t do this for fun mate, show me the money excuse the pun or this arse is out of your car” .
I opened the door to the run down off-white Nissan Micra he’d probably borrowed from this girlfriend or even worse his mother. I guessing I suppose from the this bitch bites sticker in hot pink across the windscreen. At which point he grabbed my arm, but not roughly so I closed the door and he pulled out a roll of five pound notes (I wanted to laugh but had to stifle the giggle rising within) he opened his mouth to speak and in a nervous voice announced that the reason for his delay was that he only had twenty-five pounds and not the thirty-five I’d originally asked for.
“Maybe, you know….. If your working tomorrow or…..no I know take this watch too. I’m sure its worth something my Nan got it for me Christmas just gone…I”
I interrupted him mid-flow. If only knew that on a bad day he could have her for fifteen quid.
“ How old are you big boi?, I’m not into cradle snatching”
He looked down at his hands which were wringing around each other and said almost inaudibly
“Eighteen”.
I smiled and started to say that’s ok then when.. “nearly” he added.
I thought of the cost of my highlighting appointment with Carlos the following week and took that roll of five pound notes. Properly his first time poor thing. He’ll learn the haggling soon bless him.
After that night Danny began to appear once a fortnight, the other girls as I did thought I was on to a winner, in other words a regular that didn’t smell and wasn’t after anything unsavoury and believe me us street girls get the kinda filth that ain’t welcomed in no so-called escort agency or Adult massage parlour. It was every other Wednesday nine till ten and now most Sundays Danny paid me two hundred pounds to prepare dinner and well kind of pretend that we where a couple. I’d take his coat when he came to the door ask how his day was and then we’d eat and chat about everything from Weather, T.V. He also talked about holidays and fantasy getaways. All in all I got paid to spend the day with someone I was beginning to enjoy the company of anyway. Secretly.
Just the other day a young girl… Chrissy I think her name was, got herself beaten half to death. Only seventeen an all, the dirty bastard wanted to fuck her in the arse and then come in her mouth only what he didn’t tell the poor thing is that she wouldn’t be getting paid none… it happens so often especially to the young one’s and I should know, so she went psycho of course at which point she beat the old git with a wooden platform, at the time she was properly thinking about the fix that was gonna keep her warm that night slide slowly and slickly down her throat. She’s not gonna work the streets hereabouts again I heard she wont be working anywhere again. Some of the more vicious girls where none to pleased about the bad rep these sort of retaliations brought with them and made sure that the hit she got later that night would be her last. Chrissy was found in the bushes near the park with a heroin needle still hanging precariously from her lifeless childlike arm, This is what my life had been like and yes trade would be low for us all for the next week or two. Some of the regulars even stopped at times like these. Everyone except Danny. The other girls used to joke saying
“You wont get rid of that one Zen, be back like a bad penny that one.. You mark my words”
Now how rude of me I’m Zenya. I’m 25 but I feel 50. I’ve been on the game for 10yrs now it seems such a long time when you list all the things that I should have done in that time. Had a Mother and a Father instead of two alcoholic idiots for guardians, been at school, had mates, gone to the cinema and not just to toss off some spotty teenager or suck off some dirty old man for a couple of quid. Those days where the worst I started off with the knowledge that my body could be more valuable than anything else within my reach. My body brought the clothes on my back and the food in my belly from I was old enough to steal a mascara and have the sense to lie about my age to the other street girls. Some of them are really rough, would mess me face up if they though I had something they didn’t have such as genuine youth.
The only difference between me and them was that I went home to a warm house each night and believe me once a punter found out you went home to loving parents in there mind it made the high even more euphoric.
But not a home. My house was in Connaught Estate. It was a two bedroom high rise flat filled to the brim with council tenants and illegal immigrants I’m sure. When I laid in bed at night all I could hear where the sounds of the city. Music blaring from one flat, fights braking out in another properly another domestic …. Another wife who made the dinner too late …. Or who just happened to catch her husband in a bad mood forced to come home to eat a meal ready prepared for him! Nothing ever changes in places like this and I swore that I would rather die than live the rest of my life like this and while in that state of mind I made a decision most 14yr olds never have to make. So under my tea stained, biscuit crumbed bed I had to really think… Do I stay here and become another blank face in the sea of down trodden shells or do I leave this place in search of something bigger. Well I often wonder if I would have been better to stay between those dirty sheets and within those walls which at least provided some sort of protection. Some Security.
As his visits became more regular we began to talk more. He told me that he was the son of two really hard-working parents, lived in a six bedroom three bathroom detached house in Chiswick with his younger sister Rebecca and he drives 19 miles to get to our little gatherings. He’s like a fish out of water, Plumstead is a far cry from Chiswick. South of the river, the setting for insanity.
“Daniel Birkenhead you get down these stairs now, I want a word with you” Marcus Birkenhead bellowed from the bottom of the four story-high staircase. A rather stout man in both body and nature with reddish tinted cheeks and rebellious silver grey hair that tended to flop to one side, Susan looked at her ageing husband she pondered on the fact that he wasn’t a bad looking man for his fifty-five years however there was no condolence in these thoughts as they only seemed to make it harder to believe that she could never really make him love her.
The night before she had even discussed the possibility that her eldest child and only son could be A homosexual to which his father almost physically hit the roof he was so outraged.
“It is the naughties apparently Marcus darling, Remember Harold and Jane Dunn their middle son is that way inclined you know”
“No I didn’t know and I don’t really care” came his quick reply so devoid of expression she knew better than to press the point any further.
She’d be talking to her self for the rest of the night until sleep left him snoring and her starring at their perfectly plastered walls in their perfectly plastered life and she knew it. All the cracks and kinks in their lives where always plastered over and their lack of affection was no exception. Its how it had always been, lying there with her Gucci silk lined pyjamas, and her soft glossy hair falling gracefully around her shoulders……. she felt like a fake, she was a fake. She was the typical trophy wife. Only now did she realise… two almost grown children, and twelve years down the line only now did she realise that this was it for her in life. A husband that provided everything she could ever need, regarding protection, lifestyle but not the one thing she’d wanted her whole life ….. Love.
Susan Birkenhead had had just about as much as she could bare. And so had her husband by the look of things. All the late night drives and secret rendezvous were un-nerving for a boy of his age he should have friends, go to dinner parties, lads weekends or whatever it seems young lads do today.
“Get down here at once Daniel, don’t make me come up there son” Marcus was growing increasingly demented as he hated waiting for anyone, Daniel
knew this and as a rule waited at least five minuets before appearing before his father when summoned.
She has a son who is out doing god no’s what most of the time and when he is about seems to be in another world entirely. A daughter that is embarrassed socially by the said brother who decides to cast himself out from the crowd he has grown and matured with and as a consequence become no more than a lost little boy living in Daddies pocket. With no career prospects or possible marriage developments to be seen. Things could not go on like this any longer.
She slid down the hall to the kitchen and watched the disgust roll over Marcus’s face as his only son strolled down his orderly stairs in his tidy, clean house looking like a vagrant and bringing with him the undisputed smell of stall smoke and alcohol. It was then that I finally gave up completely on happy ever after. I had sat a begged my mother silently the day Marcus proposed. Prayed she’d tell me that Marcus was to old and set in his ways to take a wife of 19 at the age of 43 I just needed to be told I was worth more… but my mother told me instead how proud I had made her. By marrying so well and finished but confirming my belief that she never really believed I could be anything but a rich mans wife, like my mother and her mother before her. A whore sworn till death do us part and in the eyes of God.
“Where the hell where you last night?”
“I was out obviously, and you know that otherwise you wouldn’t be asking!” came Daniels reply.
The comment was out before even he could stop it and the sarcasm was so acute you could almost taste it, Another fault Marcus hated about his only son.
“If you had friends I could understand the late nights and sneaking around” he paused and seemed lost for words before adding…..
“…But quiet frankly son its worrying the amount of time you spend out of the house at night or on your own”
Daniel had heard it all before and as per usual was not about to let the spiteful undertones slid under the carpet.
“Would you prefer that I was loud and un grateful like Sarah” and as if by magic she waltzed in the kitchen her face continually stuck on the mock-surprise expression. A picture of innocence.
“Would you prefer that I hassled you for things I don’t need like CDS, clothes, festival tickets to see bands I don’t even like, like she does and trips to the Alps just because everyone else is going and it cant look like mummy and daddy cant afford it this year………. Come on answer me for once!”
The air was still and the silence full of surrender.
And there was anger in his voice now when he said “There are people out there that are twice no …three times the people we are and they deserve all that we have, they know what it’s like to struggle to really feel pain.”
All the time poking his finger hard into his own chest.
“The pain of not being able to feed a loved one or knowing that you can never provide better for your family”
“Oh don’t give me that bullocks…”
“Marcus…. Language please!” exclaimed Susan.
“No Sue, he’s always going on about the blinking poor and the sodding faults of us all….. Well what the hell has he ever done…..? Just what has he ever done for anyone!”
“Now everybody just calm down…..calm down before the neighbours hear you going at it like council folk” was Rebecca’s input on the subject matter.
Daniel slammed his fist into a kitchen cupboard door which dented in under the presser of his punch and with that he ran up to his attic bedroom, leaving his confused family downstairs not really knowing what to make of such an explosive reaction.
Last edited by jadakiss : 11-27-2007 at 08:24 PM.
Reason: extended - more to the story
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