Darren snorted through his nose, a sound like he was coughing phlegm. ‘You parade around in those outfits, barely dressed coming out of the shower, sleeping in your underwear with a teenage boy. What else would you call that?’
“Those outfits”? I wore skinny jeans, a tank top, sweater and leather jacket. The most risqué I got was wearing just the tank top and sweater. Unless someone forced me into it, I wasn’t going to wear a skirt, and no one would ever catch me in a dress. And, seriously, how else was I supposed to dress coming out of a shower? I wore a dressing gown. Unless I wanted my clothes to smell like mildew, I was going to get changed in my room.
‘How long have you been sleeping with King?’ Darren asked, except he didn’t say “sleeping with”. ‘Or those other gang banger delinquents? Because it’s not just King, is it? You’re probably working your way through the whole lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had you at the same time. That’s what boys like that like, isn’t it?’
‘Stop,’ I managed to say. Rage was swimming in my mind like a physical entity. I could feel my eyes burning with unshed tears. My hands shook.
I’d been called a lot of things in my life, but I’d never been accused of being a slut. I’d certainly never had anyone thinking I was getting screwed by multiple men at the same time.
‘You shouldn’t have done it if you don’t like having it all laid out in front of you, girl. You have to take responsibility for your actions!’ Darren kicked over the trash can by my bed.
The evidence of what we’d done that night was among the spilled trash now over my floor.
‘I didn’t – it was only the once.’
Darren smiled like he was saying “gotchya” with an expression. ‘Only has to be once. He could get five in prison for this, more if he’s been taking advantage of you since you were fourteen and sharing you with his friends.’
‘Don’t.’
‘You don’t want to be some jailbird’s slut?’ Darren stepped closer to me.
‘What do you want?’ I asked, trying with all my might to keep my voice level.
There had to be something he wanted. There was a reason he was bringing this up. He didn’t care about me or what I did.
‘I want a favour-’ Darren stopped himself. ‘No, that’s not right. I have a proposition. A job offer.’
My stomach turned. ‘I’m not being your whore,’ I said. I’d read between the lines enough with the slut and gang bang talk.
Darren laughed obnoxiously. ‘Oh, believe me, Olivia. If I wanted to be a pimp, I would choose whores who weren’t so deformed. What price would I get for you?’
Bad body imagery, from all the scar tissue and broken bones I’d had over the years, might have hit deep with any other teenager, but as I’d grown up in opposition to the world and everyone in it – I didn’t care what people thought about me, looks or otherwise. But Darren’s words meant to hurt me, belittle me. I knew he used them so that I would be more pliable; want to be valued. All it did was sicken me at the thought of someone in a society were flawless skin and unbroken bodies were the ideal, what twisted person would want me? And for what purpose did Darren intend to use me?
‘But that does bring me to my proposition. There is a certain… clientele who don’t mind the freak fantasy. The damaged girl. They get off on it. You wouldn’t need to do anything other than pose.’
‘What?’ I hardly believed I was able to speak from the shock.
‘It’s a few pictures. What’s a few pictures in the face of sentencing King to five years in prison – if he’s lucky.’
‘You want to… take pictures of me?’
‘Do I need to spell it out for you? I didn’t think you were dumb as well as a slut.’
I had a feeling these wouldn’t be the types of images that would be acceptable viewing on the normal web. Certainly with the prospect of the “clientele” who liked “damaged girls”.
‘I think it’s pretty clear,’ I said.
‘Good. Then we know what we want from one another.’
He was serious. Deathly serious and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to say no. Not because I was afraid of what he would do to me – though I could see in his eye there was potential for violence there – but because he held Christian’s future in the palm of his hand.
‘I’m not taking my underwear off,’ I said. Darren’s eye ticked. ‘And you’re not touching me.’
‘I don’t want to touch you,’ Darren said. There was enough honesty in his voice that I could believe him. This was a power play for him. Blackmail into a business opportunity. ‘And you can keep your panties on… this time.’
I shut down, turning off every emotion, every exterior sense as I said, ‘where do you want me?’
The water from the shower was scalding. I saw the redness of my skin through the thick strands of my wet hair falling about my face, but I couldn’t feel any of it.
I turned the temperature hotter.
The only thing I could feel was sickness deep inside me. I still felt the ropes Darren had told to tie myself up in and the taste of the cloth he’d said me to put in my mouth. He was very sure never to touch me, never to be involved in any part of it, besides giving me the orders of what to do next and taking the pictures behind the camera.
There was nothing overtly sexual in my mind (besides me being in my underwear) of a teenager with scars across her body bound up, but I knew from how he’d lectured me on being a slut for Christian that out there was someone who took that type of pleasure in my humiliation and pain. If there was a way to sexualise the torture victim aesthetic, Darren had managed it.
The shower wouldn’t go any hotter. Why couldn’t it go any hotter?
I didn’t realise I was crying until my breaths came out in ragged sobs. My nose was stuffed, and I could barely breathe through the dense humidity of the bathroom.
Stop shaking, I told myself, but my body wouldn’t respond. Not like it had responded to every order Darren had given me. Any hesitation and he’d bring up Christian into the conversation, seamlessly like it wasn’t a threat, but we both knew it was.
The water wasn’t going to get me clean. I’d never been pure, but never in my life had I felt this dirty. A sponge wasn’t going to wash this away. I tried to scrub myself clean with my nails, taking off a few layers of raw skin. This would work.
‘Sweetheart, are you okay in there?’ Christian’s voice asked from beyond the door. It was late if he was home from work.
I couldn’t hear him. Not over the pounding of the scalding water on my back, and the thunder in my ears. Not as I clawed at my skin. It was all fine now. Darren got what he wanted, and Christian would be okay. I just needed to get clean before I could see him. I just needed to get clean.
‘Liv,’ he banged on the door. ‘Seriously, baby. Just tell me you’re okay.’
The water did a good enough job of wiping the tears from my face, but my eyes still burned from the bitterness of their presence. I couldn’t cry in front of Christian. He’d know something was wrong. A few more minutes and I’d be okay.
He banged several more times before he opened the door. Steam flooded out of the bathroom. I didn’t look up. Not even as Christian saw me huddled, in the foetal position, on the floor of the bath, the shower burning down on me.
I didn’t know when I’d collapsed from standing in the shower to simply curling in on myself. Perhaps when the water hadn’t worked, and my nails couldn’t go deep enough to find what was wrong with me and fix it.
He swore, going to pick me up, but stopped when he burned himself on the water. He swore more as he turned off the shower, grabbed a towel from the rail, and wrapped me up.
My skin was raw. Red from the temperature. Red from the gouge marks. All I could feel was that pit deep in my stomach that told me I’d done something wrong and that nothing could turn back the time and change it.
‘What’s wrong? Liv. Tell me what’s wrong,’ he pleaded with me.
I couldn’t get the
words out. I couldn’t say anything. His touch burned me, more than the water. It was a reminder of everything Darren had said. But I was frozen on the inside, trapped in my own panic. I let Christian pull me out of the shower and carry me to his room.
He dabbed me dry, then pulled one of his t-shirts over my head and threaded my legs into the holes of his boxer shorts. He sat me on the bed, and knelt in front of me, my hands in his. He stayed like that, waiting for me to talk, possibly for hours, though I couldn’t tell because I was numb to time.
When I stopped shaking, he started to talk. Not questions, or pleading to tell me what happened, just random shit. It was a stark contrast to the few grunts or short sentences he usually communicated with. He only ever spoke in length to pull me out of my own mind.
Eventually, I began talking. I wasn’t aware of it. It was like another person speaking and ridding themselves of everything that had happened. Whilst I knew it was me speaking, I felt like an observer to the whole scene, some alien taking over Liv’s mouth and telling Christian what Darren had threatened me with.
Christian listened patiently, holding in every swearword I knew he wanted to expel. He remained calm. At least surface-level he did. He tapped his thumb incessantly on the duvet of his bed.
‘Liv, there’s at least a three-year acceptable age difference for age of consent. He can’t get me arrested for what we did.’ His words pierced through the fog. ‘Sweetheart, did you hear me?’
I started slowly returning to myself. ‘You – you’re serious?’
‘Yes. It was consensual, and not to be that prick, but you’ve seen what it’s like. Even if it was rape, there’s like a one percent chance the guy gets convicted of anything.’
Shame filled me. It had been so easy to manipulate me. I deserved to be used like that if all it took was a half-hearted, not-even-valid threat to get me to do whatever he wanted.
‘Shit,’ a tear slipped from my eye. I wiped it away with my fingertips, one of the only places that weren’t burned or bleeding.
‘What?’ Christian asked.
‘I- I believed him.’
‘You…’ Christian swore. ‘What did he make you do?’
I clammed up. Shit. Shit. I couldn’t admit it to Christian. He’d kill him. He’d actually kill him.
‘Did he touch you?’ Christian asked, his voice like steel.
‘No. God, no I didn’t let him touch me.’
‘What did he make you do, Liv?’
‘Pictures. There’s just some pictures of me in my underwear, that’s all.’
‘Pictures?’ Christian’s voice had only lost a fraction of the furious edge to it.
Pictures were a lot better than molestation. At least if he thought it was just me in my underwear. Girls sent sexy selfies to their boyfriends all the time. No big deal, right? I was just freaking out because I’d been scared Christian was going to prison and Darren had seen me almost nude… Christian didn’t need to know anything else.
‘Where are they?’
‘In his camera, the SD card. I think he might have saved them to his computer.’
Christian nodded. He got up from the bed, heading out of his room.
‘Where are you going?’ I hissed, getting up and following him. My legs were weak, and my head swam, but at least I’d stopped shaking and was no longer living in third person.
‘To get that shit so he has nothing to blackmail you with,’ Christian said. ‘A few underwear pics will just be the start if I know guys like him.’
Christian strode down the hallway, marching into Darren’s home office. His camera was probably locked up in the safe; Christian started with the computer. He had to call Ali to help him get through the password, but he was still into Darren’s computer within the half hour. I paced by the door the entire time; terrified Darren would walk in on us. He was only downstairs watching some sports game.
‘I think I’ve found them,’ Christian said. Ali had coached him through finding hidden files since it was unlikely Darren would keep something like those pictures so out in the open for anyone to find.
I sped beside him, trying to take the mouse from him. ‘I’ll check,’ I said, trying to roll the desk chair out of the way.
‘Liv, quit it, I can do it.’
‘No, I don’t want you to. I can check they’re all there, just let me-’
‘Liv-’
‘What the hell are you two doing in here?’ Darren’s voice broke through the room at the exact time Christian’s finger clicked the mouse on the folder that brought up the files Darren had backed up to his computer.
Like an autopilot, Christian’s face devoid of emotion, he scrolled down through the hundreds of JPEGs Darren had taken. They weren’t full screen; he couldn’t see the extent of what was going on in each picture to the detail that they would be if they weren’t a small icon, but he saw enough.
Somehow, I’d been able to supress most of what Darren had told me to do, but seeing myself in the images now, knowing how I’d been manipulated with a bogus threat – I was sick to my core. And for the first time, I wanted Death to be in my life. Especially when I saw that the files on his computer went beyond what he had made me do tonight.
I’d known so many people who had been taken before their time, who didn’t deserve the awful things that happened to them, but Darren still lived. No. That wasn’t fair. If Death was my best friend, where was my perk? Huh? Why couldn’t for once someone who deserved it meet him?
Christian’s face, by the end of the folder, had turned into a hard mask. He pulled the mouse from the computer and launched it at Darren’s head.
Our foster dad wasn’t quick enough to duck. It hit him square in the face and broke his nose. Christian pushed over the table, running at Darren. I tackled him midway. He couldn’t hurt Darren. If he did, he wouldn’t stop.
‘Christian! Stop! Stop!’
‘Liv, get off me,’ he said, coolly. He didn’t grab to remove my arms that wrapped around me, but he hadn’t stepped forward either.
Darren wiped his bloody nose with his sleeve. ‘That was a dumb move, boy.’
‘Liv,’ Christian warned again.
‘Christian, please.’
‘Do what the little cock tease says before you land yourself in supermax.’
‘What did you just call her?’ His hands curled into fists. ‘You make her do that and you call her-’
I didn’t even have a chance to grab at Christian again, he had disappeared around me and started laying into Darren.
Fights were never like you experienced them in the movies. The sounds were dull thumps, there was no music in the background to give it that intense atmosphere. Darren’s gasps where what I mostly heard between the blows Christian gave him in the stomach, to the kidneys where he’d be in the most pain.
I wanted to pull him off, but with the high spike of Christian’s arms as he lashed into him, I was afraid I’d end up accidentally getting knocked out if I got close.
‘Christian!’ I shouted, when it looked like Darren was going to lose consciousness.
Christian paused at the sound of my cry. Long enough for me to realise that Darren had only been faking. His arm was outstretched to where he’d hidden my guitar and he swung with all his might, smashing it into the side of Christian’s head. He hit him for a second time before he whipped around and smashed the whole thing against the doorframe, splintering it into several chunks.
Darren took a broken piece of my fret board and grabbed me. I hadn’t realised how close I’d gotten to him. He put the sharp wood against my neck, enough that I could feel the splinters dig into where my pulse was hammering through my skin.
‘I’m going to make sure you go away for a long time, King,’ Darren said, his hand shaking with anger.
He nicked my throat. I could feel the blood drop onto Christian’s shirt.
‘You’re hurting her,’ Christian managed to say through the red haze of anger that burned within him.
Darren grabb
ed my arm harder, twisting me closer towards him. More drops of blood fell.
‘Then. Back. Up.’
Christian did as he was told, all the way to the back of the room until the back of his boots hit the desk he’d thrown over.
‘You should have just run,’ Christian said. ‘When you got the chance.’
‘Shut up,’ Darren said.
Christian laughed, low and hollow. ‘You chose Liv as your hostage.’ He shook his head; his whole body was quivering with anger. ‘That was the shittiest move you made tonight.’
Darren snorted. But Christian was right. I was the worst person to choose as a hostage – because only someone who’d assume I played the victim role well would ever grab me. And I might have been a dumb shit enough to be manipulated by Darren, but I was not a victim.
I was too short to headbutt him from behind, but Nowak had taught me how to fight anticipating I would always remain shorter than my attackers.
I moved my hands slowly, close to my body so Darren couldn’t see what I was doing until I’d already gripped his arm and wrist that was holding the broken fret board to my throat. Quickly, so he didn’t have a chance to react, I pulled with both hands in the direction away from my throat, cocking my shoulder up that was closest towards him.
The point was only away from my throat for a second. I kept his forearm tight in my grip, close to my collarbone, pulling it towards me. If I didn’t control his wrist, he would be able to turn and stab me. Darren struggled against me. I slipped under his arm, still holding his forearm, still making sure he was in contact with my collarbone, so I was in control.
I drove the fretboard into his side once, hard, aiming for the flesh that would hurt, before I pulled it out of his grip entirely so he couldn’t hurt me with it again. I kicked him to the face whilst his head was down, then ran out of the way, through the doorway.
‘Christian, come on,’ I said. We needed to get out of here. Darren was already recovering from the hit.
Christian didn’t move from his spot. He was still clouded in fury. He didn’t look at me. His eyes were entirely on Darren. As he slowly got up, Christian stepped over the broken pieces of my guitar.
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