by Holly Archer
After he’d tested me out, Kev wasted no time in getting me to work. My first customer was on a Tuesday night – I remember it really clearly. I’d been dropped at the roadside by Mr Khan as usual when my phone started buzzing with a call from my new boss, so to speak.
‘Be ready at half past five,’ Kev said. ‘I’ll pick you up at the end of your road. And don’t be late.’
Mum was taking Lauren and Amy somewhere after work – I can’t remember where. She’d told me she’d sort our dinner when she was back around seven, but I sent her a text and told her Carly had invited me round to hers instead, and not to bother with my tea. A perfectly reasonable explanation. Why would she ask any questions?
I wasn’t sure how long Kev would keep me out. How long did these things take? I didn’t have a clue. I knew I’d be really hungry now I’d told Mum not to keep me any food, so I took one of those horrible ready-made bags of mashed potato and shoved it in the microwave. When it was ready, I squeezed in loads of tomato ketchup to give it some flavour. It was nothing like a proper dinner, and a bit lumpy, but it didn’t taste as minging as I’d expected, and at least it would fill me up.
Then I went upstairs and took off my school uniform, carefully selecting a pair of loose-fitting leggings and a denim jacket. I’d guessed Kev wasn’t exactly going to take me to meet anyone who was young and fit, but I thought I might as well try to make myself look presentable, to boost my chances of getting good money.
After all, that’s what this was about. Money. Kev was going to make me some really, really good money.
A couple of minutes later, my phone began buzzing again.
‘I’m at the end of your road,’ Kev said. ‘Now, be quick. This man’s wife is only out for a couple of hours. We can’t waste any time.’
I put my phone in my pocket and ran out to the end of the road, where he was sitting waiting in his car, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. For a moment, it felt like he was my dad and he was driving me to school or something, getting impatient as he waited. As soon as I climbed into the passenger seat, he let off the handbrake and went tearing down the road.
‘This man is rich,’ Kev explained, as the streets flashed by. ‘He owns a big shop in town. Every Tuesday, his wife goes out to visit her sister.’ We pulled up at some traffic lights and he took his eyes off the road for a second to look me square in the eye. ‘But she’s always, always back sharp at half-seven. So we have to make sure we get there in time for you to go in, do your bit, and get back out before she comes home. You get me?’
I looked at the clock on the dashboard, which told me it was a quarter to six. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘How long will it take?’
Kev let out a weak sigh. ‘It takes however long it takes, Holly. Just make sure you’re done before the wife gets back or there will be big trouble for all of us. Don’t mess about, is what I’m saying.’
We drove in silence for a few more minutes before Kev pulled up outside a really fancy house. It was detached, with a massive, well-kept garden. From the outside, it looked like it had five, maybe six, bedrooms.
I expected Kev to bundle me straight into the house, desperate to get me in and out as soon as he could, so I was surprised when he parked up and turned the ignition off, stopping me just as I moved to open the door on the passenger side.
‘Don’t go in just yet, hold on a minute. There’s a few things we need to get straight first.’
I took my hand away from the door handle. ‘Like what?’
‘Well, if he asks,’ Kev said, ‘your name isn’t Holly. You’re Nikki, and you’re fifteen. Got it?’
I nodded. I didn’t see what difference it made, whether I was fourteen or fifteen, but I wasn’t about to argue with Kev. Despite what he was doing, I still looked up to him a bit because he was a dad and he had kids my age.
‘And don’t let him think you’re stupid,’ he added. ‘He’s not to take you for a mug, the dirty old bastard. Sex is £200. And if he tries to do it without a condom, it’s a £25 charge. Make sure he knows that. OK?’
‘OK,’ I echoed.
‘Right, on you go, then,’ he said. ‘He’s left the door open for you.’
Maybe I should have been nervous as I walked up the long garden path and took the big stone steps, one by one. But I didn’t feel anything, really. I just wanted to get it over with and get my share of the money. I’d already blocked out what I was going to do and what it meant. Anyway, even if I wanted to back out now, I couldn’t. Kev would go mad.
The main front door was ajar, just like Kev had said it would be. The house was as grand inside as it was outside. The smell of expensive furniture polish wafted through my nostrils, as I instinctively wiped my feet on the mat and gazed along the long, sweeping hallway, with its large oriental ornaments and freshly arranged flowers. At the other end of the corridor, the door to the lounge lay open. I could see that it was full of expensive, luxurious furniture. I just stood there for a second, before a little Chinese man popped out from another of the rooms.
He was about sixty, and really, really small. By that point I’d grown to around five foot seven and I towered over him. He was peering over thick varifocal glasses. We stood staring wordlessly at each other for a few seconds.
I expected him to say hello, maybe to ask how I was or even for my name. I silently reminded myself that I was Nikki, not Holly, and I was fifteen, not fourteen. It almost made it all a little bit easier, pretending to be someone else. Maybe Kev was right. Maybe it was all about being an actress after all.
But the first thing the man said to me was: ‘Go upstairs. First bedroom on the left. And take your clothes off.’
His accent was strong, but his English seemed good. I didn’t say a word, as I obediently walked up the stairs. I pushed open the first door on the left to find a big, king-sized bed. The room was large, with an expensive wooden dressing table and a big mirror. I made a mental note not to look in its direction, as I didn’t really want to see what I was doing.
I took off my leggings, then my top. I was standing in my underwear when the man pushed open the door. He didn’t say anything, as he too began removing his clothes. I instinctively shielded my eyes, as the thought of seeing him undress embarrassed me, despite what I was there to do. When I turned around again, he was standing in just his little white pants. He had tufts of dark hair all over his short, scrawny body.
‘No condom,’ he said. ‘Two hundred and twenty.’
I remembered what Kev had said about not letting him take me for a mug and I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘No?’ he repeated.
‘No, it’s two hundred and twenty with a condom,’ I said. ‘You have to pay more if you want to do it without one.’
Perhaps I should have been thinking about my health. If this man paid for sex, he could have had all sorts of nasty diseases that could be passed on to me. And then, of course, there was the possibility I could get pregnant. But all I was thinking of was Kev and how I was scared he’d be mad if I came back short on the money. Maybe he’d just drop me and I’d never have the chance to make my £17,000. After all, he’d had sex with me without a condom and I’d just put it to the back of my mind.
But he hadn’t finished, so there was no risk of pregnancy, or so I told myself.
The man shrugged and gestured to me to lie down on the bed. I did as he said. He sidled up beside me and said, ‘Suck me.’
I looked at him and I almost laughed. He was so little and pathetic and he couldn’t have scared me if he’d tried. He was nothing like Mr Khan or Kev or even the teenage boys who shouted abuse at me in the street.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here for sex.’
I even surprised myself at how confident I sounded. My voice didn’t even waver. I glanced down at his crotch and he was already hard. He paused for a few minutes but he didn’t argue with what I’d said. He simply took a condom from its wrapper and fiddled with it as he tried to put it o
n. He said something in his own language – something that sounded like a swear word – as he struggled to get it on. He seemed agitated, on edge. I looked at a clock on the wall, which told me it was now a quarter past six. We still had over an hour until his wife was home, but I figured maybe he was scared she’d come home early and find him in bed with a teenage girl.
Eventually he managed to get the condom on. As he rolled on top of me, pulling my pants down and awkwardly unhooking my bra, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the bed he shared with his wife. The room was immaculate, but there were no personal touches, no signs of life. No make-up on the dressing table, or clothes draped over a chair. I figured that we were probably in the spare room. I couldn’t imagine he’d want to risk having the smell of another woman – or girl, in this case – on their sheets. I wondered what kind of marriage they had. Did they talk, or kiss, or even have sex themselves? Or did they live separate lives under the same roof, unhappy together but scared to part?
As he entered me, my train of thought was interrupted. He was really small down there, so I could hardly feel him, as he gave a couple of weak thrusts, and some hollow little grunts.
But before I had time to look around the room, it was over. He let out a barely audible moan and that was it. Done. He climbed off me and took off the condom.
‘Go into the bathroom and clean yourself up,’ he ordered. He didn’t meet my eye.
I felt a bit strange – the sex had been so brief I wasn’t really in too much of a mess, if truth be told, but I grabbed my clothes and went into the en-suite bathroom, where I hastily pulled them on again. I looked at myself in the mirror, just the same as before. Nothing has changed, I told myself. I’m just making a bit of extra cash. What’s so bad about that?
When I came out, the man had got dressed too. He’d put his glasses back on and he was counting out a wad of twenty-pound notes. He looked up and pressed them into my hand.
‘Two hundred and twenty,’ he said. ‘I will see you next week.’
7
Into the Trap
I got in the car and handed the notes straight to Kev. I’d already hurriedly counted them out as I walked down the garden path, making sure the full two hundred and twenty was there and the client hadn’t taken me for a mug, like Kev had warned me he might.
Kev started to count them, too, and he stopped in his tracks as he got to the end of the pile.
‘There’s only two hundred and twenty here,’ he said. His brown, leathery face was contorted with anger. ‘You’re a fiver short.’
I couldn’t understand why he was getting so worked up over a fiver but I didn’t have time to reply. He thrust the notes in my face and said: ‘I told you not to let him do it without a condom unless he paid two hundred and twenty-five!’
It was the first time Kev had raised his voice to me – like, properly shouted. I guess I’d always been a bit scared of him, even though he didn’t seem as aggressive as Mr Khan. There was just something about him that said: don’t mess, or there’ll be trouble.
‘He used a condom,’ I said. Proudly, I added, ‘It’s just that I managed to get an extra twenty quid off him.’
Kev started the engine, but his eyes weren’t on the road. He was looking from me to the money to me again, as if he wasn’t sure he believed me.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well you better be telling the bloody truth. Because if you haven’t used a condom, you’ll need to use some of your own money to get the morning-after pill. And it’s up to you to get it, by the way.’
I hadn’t thought about getting the morning-after pill. I’d heard of it, of course, and I knew it stopped you getting pregnant, but I didn’t know where to buy it or how it actually worked.
‘Well, he used one,’ I said. ‘So it’s fine. And he told me he’d see me next week.’
Kev’s expression suddenly changed and his black eyes lit up. ‘Did he? That’s good. You must have done all right then.’
He sounded almost proud, like I was his daughter and I’d told him I’d come top of the class in a test.
I shrugged. ‘It didn’t last very long,’ I said, honestly.
Kev let out a little chuckle. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Sad little fucker. Sad, sad little fucker.’
I quickly came to realise that he talked about all of his so-called clients like this. He had almost as little respect for them as he did for the girls he sold to them without a second thought, but he knew his market. Most of them were sex-deprived and lonely: immigrants who knew no one in the UK and couldn’t meet women because of the language barrier, and older men trapped in loveless marriages and communities which frowned upon divorce. Of course, there were also those who were too downright minging and filthy to ever attract a woman in the normal way – but I’d get to know all about them later.
‘Can you drop me at the phone box?’ I asked, as we drew back into my part of town. Kev stopped the car and handed me three, crisp, twenty-pound notes.
‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘Sixty quid.’
I shut the car door and called Carly straight away.
‘Come and meet me by the phone box,’ I told her. ‘Imran’s dad just gave me sixty quid.’
‘Sixty quid!’ she echoed. ‘Amazing! I’ll be ten minutes.’
It was certainly true that sixty quid was a fortune to us. Although neither of us had ever gone without, we didn’t come from wealthy families and we most definitely had never been given this much money in one go before. What stunned me the most was how easy it had all been. I’d barely had to do anything. The little Chinese man must have been inside me for a minute, two maximum. I could barely feel anything, and yet I’d come away with sixty quid. Sixty bloody quid!
I thought: Kev was right. It really is easy money.
I was so excited it took me a few minutes to do the maths, to work out that the Chinese man had paid Kev two hundred and twenty quid, so he’d given me sixty and kept one hundred and sixty. It was hardly a fair split, considering I’d done all of the work. But I shrugged it all off. I figured that Kev would start giving me more money the more experienced I got. He’d just given me sixty this time because he wasn’t sure that I’d really known what I was doing. Lily Brown had probably been doing it for ages, so maybe her cut had gone up every time. Maybe that’s how she got the £17,000.
Carly came bounding down the street a few minutes later, her ponytail flapping in the wind and her fat spilling out of the jeans I’d noticed were now a size too small.
‘Sixty quid!’ she shouted, while she was still yards from me. ‘How the hell?’
‘Sssh!’ I said to her. ‘You don’t want someone to hear.’
‘Well, what did you have to do?’ she asked. ‘You must have done something to get sixty quid.’ Suddenly realisation shot across her face. ‘Oh shit! You did what Lily Brown’s been doing, didn’t you? Did you shag someone for money?’
Her words made me flinch a little but I kept my cool. ‘Don’t say it like that,’ I said. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s the easiest sixty quid you’ll ever make in your life. You just lie there.’
Carly giggled. ‘What was it like? Who was it?’
‘Oh, just some old guy,’ I said. ‘It was over, like, straight away, and his dick was tiny. I couldn’t even feel it.’
We both laughed.
‘It’s well easier than a blow job,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to do anything. What should we spend the money on, then? Shall we top up our phones?’
We walked to the nearest corner shop and I bought us each a twenty-quid top-up. Then we bought some sweets and crisps, like we had whenever Mr Khan had given me money, except we had a bit more this time, so we went a bit wild and ended up with too much to carry. By the time we’d finished, I had barely more than a tenner left, but I wasn’t really too bothered. After all, I was seeing the same client again the next week and I’d get more money then, wouldn’t I?
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a twenty-quid top-up,’ Carly said. ‘Not in on
e go. Hey, do you think Imran’s dad would let me do what you do? It sounds like a piece of piss.’
‘I can ask,’ I said. ‘See what he says.’
Before it was time to meet the Tuesday night man again, I got another appointment. It was the following Monday, and I was sitting at the end of the dirt track in Mr Khan’s car. He was stroking my leg and I was trying to distract myself by focusing on a horse meandering through a field in the distance, at the edge of the horizon. I could feel his horrible hot breath on my cheek, and it turned my stomach. My phone was buzzing furiously in my pocket but I didn’t dare answer it because I knew what would happen: Mr Khan would go mental and leave me to walk home. It was another ten minutes before he drove me back to the phone box where I’d arranged to meet Carly and, by that time, I had loads of missed calls and a voicemail from Kev.
‘Why the hell haven’t you been answering?’ he thundered down the line, when I eventually called back. ‘I need you to go somewhere tonight.’
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say I’d been with Mr Khan, partly because I was ashamed and partly because I knew that would make Kev even madder – that I’d gone off with an older man and he wasn’t making any money out of it.
‘Can you be at the phone box in five minutes?’ he asked. ‘Answer me!’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘Oh, but can my friend maybe come? She wants to do it too.’
For someone who seemed to be in such a hurry, Kev paused for a long time at the end of the line. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘It depends. Just bring her anyway.’
Thankfully Carly appeared before Kev did and when his car came tearing down the street, we both climbed in: Carly in the back, and me in the passenger seat next to Kev. He looked round at Carly, giving her a good stare, taking in all of her features and her figure.
Then he turned back round and started the car again. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said to me, as if she wasn’t there. His voice was a bit flat. ‘I’ve seen her with you before.’
Kev drove through the town for five or ten minutes before he turned the car into his own street, the one I’d visited with him several times before. At first, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I didn’t want him to take me into his house to meet a man, to make me walk past Farooq and Imran, and watch them smirk as some stranger led me up to the bedroom.