by Holly Archer
But there was no escape. I was here and I’d have to keep coming here whenever he wanted or risk him telling Mum everything. There was only one answer I was allowed to give: ‘Yes. I like you.’
It was like he hadn’t heard me.
‘You do as I say,’ he said. ‘Or I rape your mum. I come for your sisters and I rape your mum.’
As I lay down in the back of the car on the journey home along the dirt track, my pain hidden from the world, I wanted so badly to cry but no tears would come. With tears came a sort of release, even if it was only temporary. Instead I felt on edge, with a gnawing, horrible knot in the pit of my stomach. It was one thing threatening to tell Mum I was a prostitute. It was another threatening to rape her, to put her through the awful ordeal I’d just been through myself. How could I ever, ever live with myself if I allowed that to happen?
Nausea swept over me as I pondered on what he’d said about my sisters. How did he even know I had sisters? It was pointless trying to figure it all out, because he knew everything about me there possibly was to know, and he’d use it all against me. I could barely get enough air into my lungs as I thought of poor little Lauren and Amy, so young and innocent, so unaware of the evils that existed in the world as they squabbled over their dolls and watched The Powerpuff Girls. What did he mean when he said he’d come for them? Would he rape them too?
I felt so, so guilty. I’d taken this man’s money, I’d let him buy me food, and I’d fallen straight into his trap. It was my own fault for being so stupid, for ever answering the phone to him and giving him the time of day.
Now, I had two choices: obey his every command and have him use and abuse me, like a piece of meat. Put up with the constant phone calls, the rough, painful sex and the abuse. Or, risk saying something and have him do to Mum – and maybe, God forbid, my little sisters – what he’d done to me.
What else could I do, but never defy this man again?
It was only when Mr Khan dumped me by the phone box that I remembered it was a Tuesday. I was already late for Kev and the Chinese man.
Kev screeched up beside me and threw open the passenger door without even pulling on his handbrake. I don’t know if he’d seen me getting out of Mr Khan’s car but, if he had, he didn’t say.
‘Late again,’ he spat. ‘You better not fuck this up, Holly. He’s one of my best customers.’
I sighed. ‘I won’t.’
‘Yeah, well, we can’t piss him off,’ Kev went on. ‘OK?’
Luckily the Chinese man was as quick as ever. It sounds silly, but compared to Mr Khan it was a walk in the park. He was much smaller and much less rough and I could just lie there and block out what was happening. It was over in no time.
I got back into the car and handed Kev the money, which he counted as meticulously as usual. Thankfully he gave me sixty quid, just like the first time. I folded it carefully and put it in my purse. He drove me to the end of the street, like nothing had happened.
‘Tomorrow, I have someone new for you,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you.’
I nodded and closed the car door, before walking to my front gate. I was in a bit of a trance, like I was some sort of zombie. In the space of just a few hours I’d slept with two different men, both old enough to be my dad. Six months ago, I’d have been horrified and repulsed if someone my age had told me they’d done that.
Now, I just felt empty.
‘Have you been at Carly’s?’ Mum called, as I walked through the door. ‘Would you like some dinner?’
I nodded, as Amy toddled along and jumped into my arms. I’d always loved playing with her but, as I picked her up for a cuddle, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Mr Khan had said. As I held her close to me she chattered away, but my brain couldn’t process a word she said. She was just two years old. How could I let anyone hurt her, ever? I had to do everything in my power to stop it.
Suddenly I thought of my purse and the sixty quid. My stomach lurched again, as I wondered what Mum would do if she were to go through it and find all the money. How would I ever explain the fact I had so much cash on me? She’d probably think I’d nicked it and go mental.
I put Amy down and quickly dashed upstairs to the room I shared with Gemma. Our house was so crowded that Gemma now spent lots of her time at Dad’s, so I often had the room to myself. Now, I was happier than ever at that prospect. One of the wooden floorboards was a little loose, so I pulled it up and shoved the wad of ten- and twenty-pound notes underneath it before going back downstairs for dinner.
The next evening, Mr Khan picked me up again. This time, he took me to the car park at the foot of the Wrekin. I lay motionless in the back as he had rough, angry sex with me. He chucked me a tenner when he dropped me back on the main road, but I’d quickly got past caring. A tenner was nothing compared to what Kev gave me, yet the sex was ten times worse with Mr Khan than it was with the Chinese man.
I quickly ran home, threw the money under the floorboard with the other notes, and told Mum I was off to meet Carly. My phone was already ringing with a call from Kev.
‘Right,’ Kev said, as I sat down in his car. ‘This guy is a bit unsure. You’re going to have to be careful.’
‘Careful?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
Kev tapped his hands on the steering wheel, as if he was trying to figure out exactly what to tell me.
‘We’ve had a few problems in the past,’ he replied.
‘Problems?’ I said. ‘What like?’
Kev inhaled sharply. ‘Just don’t upset him, right? He gets a bit, well, a bit edgy.’
By now, I was really confused and I wondered what Kev was planning.
‘What are you on about?’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with him? And where are we going?’
‘We’re just going to a restaurant,’ he said. ‘This guy – well, he wasn’t going to take any more girls from me because something happened with Lily Brown and he wasn’t too happy about it.’
I started to feel a little uneasy. ‘Like what?’ I asked.
Kev sighed. ‘She wanted more money from him, greedy cow. She started blackmailing him when he wouldn’t give her it and it got a bit out of hand. She attacked him with a knife.’
I tried not to look too shocked, but I was quite taken aback. I didn’t know Lily, but she’d always seemed quiet at school. Usually, when I saw her shuffling along the corridors, she wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, almost like she wanted to blend into the background, like she didn’t want anyone to know she was there. I couldn’t imagine her going mad and knifing someone, and I didn’t understand why she’d be bothered about blackmailing anyone if she had £17,000 sitting in the bank. Surely she could just get on and find some more customers? She was clearly in demand. It didn’t really make sense.
‘Does Lily still do it?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Kev said, vaguely. ‘Sometimes.’
He parked up outside a grim-looking Indian restaurant on a grey, forgotten street on the other side of Telford. Kev pulled the handbrake on, as I tried to peer into the window and catch a glimpse of this man. I probably should have felt scared but I just wanted to get it all over with and get my money.
Kev explained that the man I’d be seeing was from Bangladesh, but his English was good. We walked through the door and the smell of the curries wafted into my nostrils. The ground floor of the restaurant was a grubby little takeaway, with a grease-smeared counter and threadbare chairs where customers could sit and wait for their food – not that there was a sign of any. It was dismal, and a bit like Kev’s own takeaway.
Above me I could hear people chatting in a language I didn’t understand. There were about four or five Asian men, who all looked to be from Pakistan or Bangladesh, or somewhere like that, and in their late twenties or early thirties. I looked up to see them standing on the stairs. When they saw me, they dropped their voices and started speaking in whispers.
‘Come up here,’ Kev said, as he led me to the stairs.
As I walked pa
st, each of the men fell silent in turn and I felt really uneasy. I could feel all of their eyes on me, but I just had to ignore them and focus on the money I was going to make.
It was then that I saw the man Lily had attacked. He was tall and thin, with a sleek black bob which was flicked out a little at the bottom. He was wearing traditional clothes, a bit like Mr Khan’s.
Wow, I thought. Lily Brown isn’t that quiet after all. I didn’t give any thought to why she might have attacked him, other than what Kev had told me. It was easier just to accept what he said and get on with it.
‘I’ll be outside in the car,’ said Kev. ‘Don’t be long.’ To the man, he said: ‘You can trust her.’
He disappeared down the stairs and the man led me silently to the top floor of the restaurant, where there were lots of tables and chairs but no sign of anyone eating a meal. The lurid purple carpet was horrible and sticky. I wondered where the man might lead me, but he simply took me to the corner of the room.
‘Can I trust you?’ he asked. His English was good, like Kev had said, but his accent was very strong. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t really want a conversation, or a fight. I just wanted to get things over with, take the money and go.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Let’s just get on with it. You can trust me.’
He stared at me for a few seconds, as if he was trying to work out whether or not I was telling the truth.
‘The last girl Kev brought,’ he said. ‘She was . . .’
I cut him off. ‘I know. But I’m not like her. Let’s just do this now.’
He shrugged. ‘Take your trousers off, quick. We need to finish before my boss gets back.’
I stepped out of my jeans and he started to touch my breasts over my clothes. He lay me down on the sticky carpet and climbed on top of me, his cream trousers at his ankles. As he started to have sex with me, I could hear a low murmur of chatter from a few yards away. I tilted my head as far as I could to see the other four men standing on the stairs, eyes wide, watching as their colleague had sex with me.
Watching as their colleague had sex with a fourteen-year-old girl.
Despite being worried about his boss returning, this man took a lot longer than the others, and it was horrible thinking of all the others on the stairs watching me. It was one thing having sex with an older man whose name I didn’t even know; it was quite another having an audience. I just felt glad he’d only insisted I take my trousers down and I wasn’t stark naked.
But even back then I remember thinking that it was hardly the kind of thing that dreams were made of. I wondered just how many times Lily Brown had had to do this to get her £17,000. Maybe that’s why she’d got so wound up.
After a couple of minutes, I managed to zone out and ignore the spectators. I just gazed straight ahead at a stack of chairs in the corner of the room and tried to think about anything other than what I was doing. Eventually he finished and handed me two hundred and twenty-five quid, because he hadn’t used a condom.
I was playing Russian roulette. At the back of my mind, I knew how easily I could have got pregnant but I chose to live in denial. It didn’t bear thinking about, so I simply didn’t. It would be another few weeks before I’d even go for the morning-after pill for the first time. Pregnancy was too big a problem for me to contemplate so, in those first few weeks, it was easier to ignore it than to comprehend what would happen if I was caught out.
None of the waiters said a word as I counted the notes carefully, making sure there was exactly two hundred and twenty-five quid there. I shuffled back downstairs, eyes to the ground, as I made my way into the cold evening air and back into Kev’s car.
I handed him the pile of notes and he snatched them off me, angrily. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to have done.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said. ‘That was half an hour you were in there! Don’t you listen to a fucking word I say?’
He punched the steering wheel in rage and counted the cash, checking several times that I’d not come back short.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What am I supposed to have done?’
‘I told you to hurry up!’ he seethed. ‘You stupid cow. It’s gone seven. Lisa will be fucking fuming at me. I’m already late. Don’t you know I have things to do?’
‘I don’t know what else I could have done,’ I protested. ‘He just took much longer than the others.’
Kev didn’t even look at me as he started the car. We’d been driving for a few minutes when he spoke again.
‘It’s your fucking job to make sure they don’t take that fucking long!’ he shouted. ‘Didn’t I teach you anything? Watch some fucking films, Holly. Be an actress. Do the kind of things that will make sure he doesn’t take that fucking long! Do you get it?’
I sat back in the passenger seat, feeling a bit deflated. The only way I could get through having sex with strangers was by zoning out, but now Kev wanted me to pretend I was having the time of my life. As we stopped at some traffic lights, he pulled on the handbrake with an almighty jerk and I lurched forward.
‘The stupid cunt didn’t take Viagra, did he?’ he asked me. ‘Well, answer me! Did he?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, honestly. ‘I wasn’t gone that long, Kev. Why are you being like this?’
‘Fuck this,’ Kev said. ‘You’ll have to learn. Now you’re going to have to come to Lisa’s with me. I don’t have time to fuck about.’
We turned onto the motorway, barely saying a word as he sped down the road, signs flashing by, until he turned off at the junction for Lisa’s. Just before we got there, without any warning, he pulled onto the hard shoulder. He didn’t say a word as he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car, leaving me alone in the passenger seat.
For a moment, I wondered if he was going to leave me there, as I watched him tear up the grassy verge and out of sight. I’d already been abandoned by Mr Khan, so it seemed possible that Kev could do the same, especially as he seemed so mad. I wondered what I would do, as I couldn’t exactly walk home along the M54. But what would people say if they found me in an abandoned car on the hard shoulder? How would I explain that one to Mum?
I needn’t have worried. Two minutes later, Kev came running back down towards the car, clutching a massive bush he’d obviously ripped from the earth. It was covered in lots of little purple flowers. They looked like violets, but I couldn’t be sure exactly. It was the most bizarre sight.
I gazed at Kev in bemusement, as he threw the uprooted bush into the back and little flecks of soil landed all over the seat. He jumped back into the driver’s seat and turned back onto the main carriageway, as if what he’d done was the most normal thing in the world.
‘What are you fucking staring at?’ he said, as my eyes travelled from him, to the bush, and back again. ‘Never seen flowers before?’
‘Why have you got them in the car?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘Well, Lisa wants fucking purple flowers for the garden, doesn’t she? Won’t stop going on about it. Maybe this will shut her up. She won’t stop moaning at me for missing Saif’s bedtime. I’ll be fucking blaming you this time.’
He turned off the motorway and we drove along the main road for a few minutes, before he turned into Lisa’s street and swung the car into her driveway.
‘I’ll give you your money now,’ he said. ‘But you’re only getting half. Thirty quid.’
He pulled three crumpled ten-pound notes from the pile I’d given him and stuck out his hand.
‘But that’s not fair!’ I cried. ‘Thirty quid! I didn’t even do anything wrong.’
‘Listen, Holly,’ he replied. ‘You kept me waiting. And I don’t like to be kept waiting. So you’ll learn the hard way if you have to. Thirty quid. That’s it.’
I didn’t know what to say as I took the notes from him and carefully folded them in my purse. I followed him as he pulled the bush with the purple flowers out of the back seat and opened Lisa’s door.
She was immaculate, as alwa
ys, as she stood in the hallway, arms folded, looking pissed off. She was wearing a long, floaty white skirt and a pink blouse that matched her trademark nails and lipstick. She had super-high wedges on, but they were different from the pair she’d been wearing the first time we’d met.
‘Got you something,’ Kev said, holding the bush.
Her sneering expression softened a little. ‘OK, OK, Kev,’ she said. ‘You do know you’re late, don’t you?’ She paused for a moment. ‘Oh, but it’s pretty, isn’t it? I do love purple flowers. But leave it outside. I don’t want all that dirt being trodden through the house. I’ve just hoovered.’
I stood in the doorway, feeling uncomfortable.
‘Oh, hello, Holly, love,’ Lisa said. She was smiling now. ‘Come on in. Can I get you a cup of tea, babe?’
9
Secret Slave
I suppose you might wonder why I kept going with Kev. He didn’t threaten me like Mr Khan. He never claimed he’d go after Mum or my sisters if I didn’t turn up to meet him. Some people might think I should have just ignored him, blanked his calls and tried to get on with my life. If only it had been that easy.
Kev scared me. He got really, really angry when things didn’t go his way. It was almost like he didn’t have to make those threats to keep me in line. He knew that if he shouted at me enough, I’d do as he said. This also might sound silly, but it was hard not to do as he said because he was an adult and he had kids my age. He was probably the same age as Dad or Phil. I just felt I had to do what he wanted because he had some sort of authority over me.
It took a while for my family to notice things weren’t quite right. I became an expert at hiding my new life from Mum and Dad and Phil, and I was good at it. Very quickly, I adapted to my messed-up double life.
For a start, my grades never once slipped at school. It sounds a bit sad, but school was often the highlight of my day. It was a safe haven and I felt like no one could touch me there. I suppose it helped that Carly wasn’t at my school, and neither were any of the boys who taunted me on the street. Now, it seems like a minor miracle, but very few of my classmates seemed to know about my new-found reputation. I had a nice little group of friends, who often asked me why I was never free in the evenings, but I always mumbled an excuse about having to baby-sit my sisters or do my homework, which they seemed to accept. I still think of them and of how utterly gobsmacked they’d have been if they’d known what I was really up to when they were swapping nail varnishes and still going to the underage discos at the snooker hall, never doing more than snogging a boy.