When I Was Invisible

by Dorothy Koomson

  Absolutely. 15 mins? x

  More like 5.

  Your place or mine? M x

  Yours. See you soon. N

  Of course, his. I lay aside the guitar, pick up my keys, slip on my glasses. I might be trying to reach out, make connections, but I’m not ready to let him in completely.

  Birmingham, 2015

  Reese was waiting for me outside my workplace, which meant something serious had happened. He’d been sober and straight for a while now, he was daily going to the day centre and searching through options on what he could do next. He was looking much better, too. He’d taken to staying in a halfway house, so he had access to washing facilities, and his clothes were clean for longer periods, his face was clean, he’d even started to grow his hair in, and was flirting with the idea of shaving off his beard. He was often telling me while staring right into my eyes that he wanted to do something with his life, to maybe settle down with someone. When I saw him standing across the street, his manner tense, his face barely masking the terror, I knew it was serious.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked him. I was expecting to hear of an accidental overdose, an arrest, a person who’d simply decided enough was enough and whited out. (I was secretly shoring myself up for the day when Reese would decide that, when he fell into the hole again with no intention of waking up again after a huge hit.)

  ‘Oh, God,’ I replied when he told me. ‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!’ This was probably the worst one. I’d actually forgotten. In four short weeks I’d turned my thoughts in on myself and I’d forgotten. ‘You’d better show me.’

  Lori sat on a torn piece of cardboard under the arches down by the canal. If she was in hiding it wasn’t a very good place to hide, since everyone who lived on the street came down here at some point, but Reese probably took her there to make her feel safe. The solidity of the bricks, and the sheltering nature of the arches, made it feel secure. You could see light at either end, but you could have your back to the wall, use it to prop yourself up, and have the tranquil sound of water flowing beside you, too. I used to come here a lot, when I first lived outside. I never slept here because too many other people did, but I liked to be here when I needed to be alone and feel safe.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,’ she said when I sat down beside her. ‘I’m sorry I thought I knew everything and it’d be different for me.’

  ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  ‘He says I’ve got to pay him back for everything he’s subbed me. Everything, with interest. Judge. I thought he really meant it when he said he’d look out for me and everything seemed so much easier. And he was so, so nice to me. I didn’t think he’d do this. I just want to go home. But I can’t. He said if I don’t pay him eight hundred pounds by Friday, I’m going to have to work for him. He said it’d only be for a little while, and he’d pick really nice men for me, but if he doesn’t get his eight hundred then that’s what I’ve got to do.’

  Eight hundred. Judge was a bastard. I knew it, I’d always known it, but at moments like that, it was a stark reminder of exactly how evil he was. He knew she was little more than fourteen or fifteen, he knew this would break a person’s soul, and he probably got off on it. Breaking someone, making them his to use, was what he liked best, I think. Making money from that simply added to his pleasure.

  Eight hundred pounds. My stomach turned over for her, I was suddenly hot and cold at the same time. There was no way she could raise even half of that. Running away was an option, but it’d have to be right away if he wasn’t going to find her, and anyway, she’d just fall prey to the same thing in another town. Lori desperately wanted to be loved and wanted, for someone to take care of her. It was easy to see Judge was a bad man, but if life had been bad enough for her to run away, to stay away for this long, then she was going to overlook the obvious markers on someone like him until that moment came. If she stayed here and tried to reason with him, he’d have no worries about hurting her very badly – not so badly she couldn’t ‘work’ but badly enough that she would know she was his.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Reese asked. Apart from me, Reese didn’t generally befriend new ones. He was nice to them, he looked out for them if it was his turn to in the shelters, but he was usually strictly arm’s length – known to everyone, friend to few. He preferred it that way to protect against the times when he fell down the hole. He obviously saw something kindred in Lori because he had made it his problem, too.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ I whispered. I couldn’t think, panic and flashbacks were stopping my mind from forming thoughts and hanging on to the ones that did come up. I didn’t want her to end up like some of the other women I had seen working for Judge – not least because their usefulness had a short shelf life, and normals rarely noticed when they disappeared permanently. I didn’t even want her to end up like me, and I was something of a homeless success story in that I’d been ‘out here’ on and off for over ten years and I was still alive and drug-free.

  Right then, I needed music. I needed music to stroke its melodies over my mind, hush me and settle me enough that I could think. I needed to think.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ Lori whimpered beside me. She wouldn’t last very long at all.

  Reese was wearing the hat I’d got him for Christmas last year. He still had his last one, but I was sure he put on the blue woolly one I made him whenever he saw me to make me happy. I remembered the driving licence he got me all those years ago. If Reese hadn’t helped me, would I be the me I am today, or would I have been used up and spat out by Judge, or someone like him, a long time ago? ‘How many people do you think you can get together to help us?’ I asked Reese.

  ‘Twelve, maybe fifteen.’

  ‘It can’t be anyone who’s using at the moment,’ I told him. He knew I was including him in that.

  ‘I’m clean,’ he said defensively. ‘And if they’re definitely not using, then maybe ten.’

  ‘Right, OK. With us, that makes twelve. We’ve got four days to each get eighty quid. It doesn’t matter how. We just need eighty each. When you explain to them what it’s for, I’m sure they’ll help. They just need to make eighty quid by Thursday.’

  ‘Eighty?’ Reese asked. ‘But she said he wanted eight hundred.’

  ‘Yeah, and no one has ever paid him back before. I bet you he wants a grand when we go to hand it over.’

  ‘We? I ain’t going to hand it over, Ace. Are you crazy? I’ll help, I’ll get everyone else to help, but I ain’t going near him.’

  ‘All right, I’ll take her then,’ I said. Judge’s leering face as he reminded me of what he’d got me to do that night came into view, but I shoved it aside, dumped it on to the pile with all my other horrifying memories. ‘We’ll meet here on Thursday night.’ I turned back to Lori. ‘You can come stay at my place until then. You have to keep out of sight because I’ll be chucked out if anyone finds out you’re staying there, even for a little while. But we just need to keep you away from Judge until Friday.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said between sobs. ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’

  I sat on the window ledge, the windows opened wide so I could smoke without the whole room smelling of cigarettes. I could be chucked out for that, too. Time was when you could smoke in your room, but not any more. I had actually given up over fifteen years ago. These past four days I’d started again.

  Lori was sleeping in my bed, her gentle snoring filling the room. I’d have to face the Devil tomorrow. And I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. I drew on my cigarette, felt that horror that seemed to live permanently at the bottom of my stomach rise up. More than anything I wished I could plug my music player into my ears, and play something to take me out of here for a while. I couldn’t, though, I didn’t have a music player any more. I wished I could plug my music player into my ears, and have something that would drown out the sound of the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ playing over and over in my head.

  ‘You have my money,
Little One?’ Judge asked. We’d found him in one of the booths in a pub on the other side of the city. There were several pubs that he ‘owned’ – in that he could walk in at any time and people would clear out of his booth, the bar staff would bring him his usual order and everyone knew well enough to stay away. While he spoke to her, he was focusing the strength of his navy-blue eyes on her, his non-physical way of terrifying her, ensuring that she would submit to all his demands. He was also pretending I wasn’t there, for now.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. She glanced sideways at me before she reached into her inside pocket and removed the white envelope and laid it on the table in front of him, next to his teacup. He was taking tea, a full white china tea set – down to the fancy sieve – was laid out in front of him. He wasn’t a drinker. Everyone knew that. Judge always liked to be in control, which is why he never took drugs, never drank alcohol and was always trying to push them on to other people.

  That envelope Lori had laid in front of him wasn’t simply full of money: it was bulging with the things a group of people had done to help out a young girl; it was crammed with all of our dreams of a different life, our chance to rescue her from the life we were living.

  Judge slowly took a sip of his tea, settled his cup back on to its saucer. He didn’t pick up the envelope, or even acknowledge it, but instead he took his time to look up at her and then intensify his stare. She started to tremble as she stepped back so we were side by side again, in this together. ‘I’m impressed. All eight hundred?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Ah, Little One, I’m sorry, I really am, but it’s actually a grand now. I was being kind, but it’s a thousand I need from you, for the trouble and for being so patient. So,’ he pushed the envelope back across the table in our direction, ‘thank you, but no thank you, until you have it all.’

  ‘Is it a grand, then, and the debt is all settled?’ I asked through my dry mouth, my nervous, wobbly throat.

  ‘Yes, Little One,’ he said to Lori, while pointedly ignoring me, ‘if you can get me another two hundred pounds in the next few hours the debt is settled.’ He smiled sadly at her with his mouth closed, hiding his jewel that looked like a spot of blood on his front tooth. He pushed the envelope right to the edge of the table. ‘Go on, take this, go off and have a good day. Report back to me here tomorrow morning and we’ll get you started on paying back your debt.’

  The next time I spoke I knew I’d be condemning myself. A part of me was terrified for what would happen to me, but most of me didn’t care, really. I was doing this thing, it was going to go badly for me and I had found a way to be all right with that.

  ‘All of it – the full thousand – is in the envelope. Count it and see. She got you the thousand.’

  His hard stare shifted from Lori to the envelope, resting there. I could almost see him counting to ten in his head, reaching that, going to twenty … a hundred … a thousand … any number that would stop him going through the table as a shortcut to get to me.

  ‘Well, ain’t you the clever little psychic?’ he said.

  I said nothing and lowered my head, kept my gaze fixed on the red-carpeted floor.

  ‘I presume this is all down to you, Ace?’ he asked.

  ‘Lori got the money herself. It’s all her money, she’s the one paying you back.’ That had to be clear if Lori was to have a chance. After this, she had twenty-four hours at most to do what I said she had to do to get this money: she had to go and get help from social services. She was a child and they had to help her, it was the law. It might only be until she was sixteen, but those two years could make all the difference.

  When we’d met last night at the arches to collect the money, everyone had told her what they had done to get it. They all spoke plainly, openly, about the crimes they had committed, the things they had sacrificed, the things they had endured, the repercussions they were going to experience, as they handed it to her.

  We weren’t simply going to give her that money: we wanted her to know what life was like out there, what she would go through if she stayed. She had to know that this wasn’t only money we were giving her, it was the gift of a second chance. Something none of us had yet had.

  I had sacrificed my music, had pawned my music player, knowing that it would be virtually impossible to get it back when I’d had to add some money from what I had stashed away to make up my eighty-quid share. She didn’t realise how lost I was without my music, how it was the only thing that got me through the toughest times, that it was the place for me to hide. I’d wanted to explain that to her but couldn’t. There were some things too private to share with anyone.

  ‘Good for you, Little One. I guess you’re free to go. But if you need any help, any time, come to me. My door will always be open to you.’

  For the first time he looked at me. ‘And you, Ace … I’ll be catching up with you very soon.’

  I nodded. I knew he would be. Over the years, when our paths had crossed, and he hadn’t taunted me, he’d always given me the look that said he hadn’t forgotten. He had a long memory, he didn’t like the idea that he hadn’t ‘won’ with me. It’d crossed my mind several times that there must have been other people who had turned him down, who had come close but had pulled away at the last minute. I’d never met any of them, though. It wasn’t something to brag about, I suppose. I’d never told anyone about that last party I’d worked, about not taking his money so I would be free. Defying Judge wasn’t something anyone would brag about if they wanted to stay healthy. Helping someone to escape Judge wasn’t anything anyone did to stay healthy, either. My day ‘catching up’ with him was fast approaching, there were no two ways about it.

  10

  Nika

  Brighton, 2016

  Kissing Marshall is so much fun.

  We’ve been kissing for a week, and it’s so much fun. I can’t think of a word more appropriate. It is fun. With Vinnie, it was nice, but it wasn’t like this. With Marshall, there is so much pleasure, so much to enjoy, so much to feel.

  Eliza, who went away for the long Easter weekend visiting her parents and telling them everything (apparently), is still away, so we have no worries about her dropping by while we are kiss-kiss-kissing the evening away.

  This evening, I haven’t even bothered with going to my flat first or changing out of my grey maid’s uniform. I have worked a double shift and have a lie-in tomorrow, so in my head, in my fantasies, this would be the time to see if I can move things forwards, strengthen that connection. Knock-knock-knock on his door and the varnished-wood door is suddenly thrown open and he is tugging me inside.

  ‘I missed you,’ he tells me with his lips against mine.

  ‘Not as much as I missed you,’ I reply. And the fun begins again. The kissing, his tongue gently exploring my mouth, my hands on his face, pulling him towards me until my back is against the wall and he is right up against my body. The fun shifts towards pleasure, sliding into desire. His kisses become firmer and he moves closer, presses himself against me a little harder. My fingers reach for his belt, unhook it, and then undo the top button of his trousers.

  He pulls back a little. ‘Are you sure about this, Nika?’ he asks. ‘There’s no pressure to do this. Especially since I hardly know you and you hardly know me.’

  ‘That’s what makes it all the more fun,’ I whisper back. ‘We could be anybody.’

  ‘Only if you’re sure,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure.’

  He steps away, takes my hand and pulls me down his wide hallway to the back of his flat. We pass the bathroom, the propped-open door of another bedroom, done up like the room of a young boy – obviously his son’s room. On we go until we’re in his bedroom. He shuts the door, and then we’re on each other, he’s slipping my jacket off my shoulders, I’m unzipping his trousers, unbuttoning his shirt, until my hands are on his chest feeling the short, curly chest hairs under my fingers. We fall on to the bed and move up, not kissing, p
artially undressing each other, until he reaches out for his bedside table, pulls open the drawer and takes out a condom. In the dark of the room, the heat of the moment, I feel safe enough to take off my glasses and leave them on the bedside table. His fingers are up the skirt of my uniform, pulling down my knickers. He kisses me again, deeper this time, harder, a promise of what is to come. He moans against my lips as I roll the condom on to him. Then the pause, the moment in the dark, where we stare into each other’s eyes and I take him, guide him into me, causing us both to groan.

  It all falls away, everything that I carry with me, that I’ve been clinging on to, falls and I am enjoying this. I am here. With someone. He is inside me and it is sublime, I am with him, and I am here. I am present. I have pleasure flowing through my veins. And I am here to witness it. He moves deeper into me and it’s delicious, a thousand sparkles of an unnamed feeling swarming through every vein; I move against him and his moan fills every part of me with joy. We move together, groan together, hold each other, until we come together, the ecstasy of it reverberating around the room.

  We haven’t spoken since we came apart. We are side by side on his bed, both of us too spent to move, it seems. His body is wonderful next to mine. I am here. So often, during, but especially afterwards, I am not there, I do not feel, I try to scrub away every trace of it from my mind. I am here with Marshall and it feels … good. I haven’t got a word for it because it’s never happened in the past. Good is what this feels like, good is what this is.

  Good that my body has been mine to do with as I please, good that I have felt pleasure from sex. Good that for the first time I have felt an equal in the act, in the initiating, in the participation, in the afterwards.

  With Todd I didn’t need to be there. My body was for him to dress up in the clothes he bought, and for him to have sex on when he wanted. And with Vinnie, it was something I did because we were in a relationship. Vinnie showed me that sex wasn’t something to endure or to hate. It wasn’t hideous, and he always showed me respect, but I was absent then, too, coming back afterwards and not feeling sick like I always did with Todd.