“My seven-year-old daughter’s in a coma,” I say, hoping the same line that worked on Steve Torrance’s assistant will work on the Grey’s bouncer. “And Alex Henri’s her favorite player. I just want a recording of him saying ‘Get well soon, Charlotte,’ and I’ll be off. Honestly, I’ll be in and out of the VIP area in no time.”
The security guard crosses his arms but doesn’t look at me. He’s still scanning the crowd at the bar.
“Please, she’s very ill.”
“Look, love.” He gives me eye contact at last. “Your daughter could be drawing her last breath, but I’m still not going to let you up the stairs. If I let you go, I’ll have to let everyone go up there.”
“But they haven’t got sick children. Please, I spoke to his agent’s assistant earlier today and she said it was fine for me to approach him.”
“What was her name?”
“She didn’t say.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Funny that.”
I look at his colleague imploringly. He’s wearing a wedding ring and he’s got a “Connor” tattoo on his neck. “You look like a family man. Have you got kids?”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’ve just rested my hand, very lightly, on his forearm. “You’d do anything to protect your children, wouldn’t you? Do anything to make them happy? To keep them healthy? I want the same for my daughter. I want her to wake up and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. You can understand that, can’t you?”
His eyes flick toward me. They’re dark and hooded, almost hidden in his big round flashy face. “You’d do anything?”
“Of course.”
He looks me up and down and grins. A gold incisor glints at me. “Would you suck my cock?”
I make a sound somewhere between a laugh and a gasp.
“I…” I don’t know what to say. I’ve got no idea if he’s serious or not. “I…”
“How much are you paying her to suck your cock? Or is she paying you?”
A tall blond man in a white shirt, dark jeans, and an expensive-looking black jacket is standing behind me. He looks me up and down then catches the married security guard’s eye and laughs.
“What is it, grope a granny night? Jesus, Terry, your standards have really slipped, haven’t they?”
I expect the security guard to punch him on the nose, or at least order him out of the club. Instead he laughs good-naturedly and unclips the velvet rope.
“I take what I can get, Rob, ideally without paying for it.”
“Excuse me.” I sidestep so I’m standing between the rope and Rob and pull myself up to my full five-foot-six. “I am a person, you know. I have got ears.”
“Well fuck me, she’s got ears!” He glances back at the group of people gathered behind him and laughs uproariously. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you, darlin’? What happened? Take a wrong turn on your way to bingo?”
“Are you always this rude or just to women who are too old to be impressed by a pretty face and a well-cut suit?”
“Oh.” His face lights up with pleasure at the unintended compliment. “I get it. You don’t go for the pretty boy thing. You’re more into a bit of rough like Terry over here.” He nudges the security guard.
“Actually, I’m not interested in either of you. I’m here to see Alex Henri.”
“A French fancier, eh? Like a bit of foreign, do you, Granny?”
“Stop calling me that, you jumped-up little twat.” The words are out of my mouth before my brain has time to process them.
Terri takes a step toward me and lays a warning hand on my shoulder, but Rob waves him off.
“Leave her, Tez.” He looks me up and down and narrows his eyes. “Alex Henri, is it? That you want to meet?”
I nod but say nothing.
He glances at his colleague. “Has Alex ever had a tart this old?”
I knot my fingers behind my back, suppressing the urge to slap Rob around his smug, patronizing face. The bouncer shrugs noncommittally.
“Let her in. This should be funny.” Rob nods his head at Terry who raises his eyebrows but steps backward so the way is clear for me to ascend the stairs. I take a step forward.
“Off you go, Granny. Shag his pants off,” he calls after me as I take the stairs two at a time. The sooner I speak to Alex Henri and leave, the better. There’s something horribly claustrophobic about this club; the ceilings are too low, there are too many people, and it’s too hot. It crosses my mind, as I reach the top of the stairs, that if a fire started in here, half the club would be trampled to death in the charge to get out the tiny entrance door. I fight to suppress the thought as my chest tightens and I squeeze past a group of Mitzi look-alikes and dodge around two huge boxer-types with broken noses. The last thing I need right now is a panic attack.
The VIP section is busier than it was on the ground floor, and it takes me ten minutes to battle through the bodies to the seating area against the far wall. I lose count of the stunning modellike women and athletelike men knocking back champagne, dancing on the chairs, and gyrating against each other. I catch more than one confused look as I make my way through the crowd. I’ve never felt older, uglier, fatter, or more out of place in my life, but I plough on anyway.
“Alex Henri.” I breathe his name as I catch sight of him.
I wasn’t sure I’d recognize him from a couple of tiny Internet photographs and a half-naked poster on Charlotte’s wall, but there’s no mistaking those pale brown eyes and razor-sharp cheekbones.
“Excuse me, excuse me please.” I wriggle and elbow my way through the throng of bodies surrounding his around his table. “I need to speak to Alex.”
I receive countless dirty looks, a jab to the hip, and what I hope is white wine down the back of my dress, but I make it through and suddenly I’m standing a meter away from him. Only a smoked glass coffee table loaded with an ice bucket, champagne bottles, and glasses separate us.
“Alex.”
He doesn’t so much as glance in my direction. He’s got a willowy brunette on one side, a voluptuous blond on the other, and an army of good-looking men and women flanking them. This is what teenagers aspire to, I think, as the table cuts into my shins and the white wine seeps through my dress and rolls down my back, gathering in a pool at the top of my buttocks. This is why they want to grow up to be “rich” or “famous” rather than doctors, lawyers, or flight attendants. There are probably a dozen paparazzi crammed outside the front door right now, waiting to earn their share of the riches by grabbing a shot of a footballer leaving hand in hand with a woman who isn’t his wife or a glamour girl falling into a car with her pantyless crotch exposed. But Charlotte wouldn’t have thought about any of that when she was introduced to Alex Henri. She wouldn’t have considered the dark side of this lifestyle—the superficiality, the lies, the drugs and alcohol problems, and the hangers-on. She would have been dazzled by the bleached smiles, big hair, designer clothes, and fat wallets. And who could blame her? This is a million miles away from the life she normally lives.
“Alex Henri!”
Shouting his name gets his reaction and he looks up. It attracts the attention of several of his friends too.
“Hey, Alex, it’s past your bedtime!” one of them shouts as the rest bray with laughter.
“Your mum says you’re not allowed to play out anymore,” shouts someone else.
There’s a chorus of guffaws and snorts. Alex smiles too, but I can tell from the way he’s twisting his cuff links around and around that he’s nervous. He doesn’t know who I am or what I want.
“Please, maman,” he says, looking me straight in the eye. “Please can I stay out for another hour? I promise to be a good boy.”
The brunette on his right spits out her champagne as she explodes with laughter, and one of the men reaches across the table and high-fives Alex.
“I need to talk to you about my daughter,” I continue. “My name is Sue Jackson. My daughter’s name is Charlotte. You met her a few weeks ago. You…spent some time together.”
“Charlotte, you say?” He pulls his mobile phone out from inside his jacket and presses a few buttons. I hold my breath, my heart thudding with apprehension. “A few weeks ago. Charlotte…” He looks up and shakes his head. “Nope, no mention of shagging a fat British girl here.”
For a second, I have no idea what he’s on about, and then I understand. He thinks Charlotte looks like me. I think of my beautiful, slender daughter lying in her hospital bed, and anger burns in my chest.
“My daughter’s name is Charlotte Jackson,” I repeat steadily. “You met her on March 9. She’s the same height as me but she’s young, blond, and beautiful. Her eyes are the brightest green you’ve ever seen. She’s very distinctive-looking.”
Henri shrugs. “I meet a lot of beautiful women.” He looks away at the blond to his left and throws a lazy arm around her. She snuggles in gratefully and giggles at something he whispers in her ear. His friends turn away, back to each other and their glasses of champagne. I was entertaining for five seconds, but Alex has established that the show’s over now.
“You took her into the club toilets, Alex.”
The room falls quiet. The blond looks at me in surprise, a man in a gray T-shirt and silver cross necklace says, “Get in, son!” and Alex Henri looks at me blankly. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a bald man in a dark suit and lilac tie frown and try to catch Alex’s attention. He looks familiar but I can’t work out why.
“You took her to the toilets,” I say again. “I want to know what happened.”
“What the fuck do you think happened?”
“Want me to show you, Granny?”
“He read her a bedtime story, didn’t you, Alex?”
The comments come at me like mortar fire. The laughter has stopped and the air is charged with aggression. The parasites think I’m attacking their host and they’re on the defense. I look at the floor, just for a second. When I look back up, I’ve dressed myself in an invisible coat of emotional armor. They continue to shout insults at me, but now I shrug them off.
“I’d like to talk to you alone please, Alex,” I say steadily. “My daughter is desperately ill in the hospital and I think that what happened here that Saturday night might have something to do with it.”
“Enough.” Alex stands up, his expression grim, all trace of amusement gone. He looks toward the corner of the room and clicks his fingers.
“Please,” I say as two security guards start toward us. “I just need five minutes of your time. I’m not accusing you of anything. I need to find—ooph—”
The words are knocked out of me as I’m yanked backward, out of the throng of bodies, away from the table, away from Alex.
“She was fifteen!” I shout as I’m frog-marched toward the stairs. “She was underage, Alex.”
“Only fifteen!” I shout again as I’m half-marched, half-dragged across the nightclub. “Alex Henri, she was fifteen.”
People stop talking and stare. The music continues its relentless thump-thump-thump, but the room may as well be silent. All eyes are on me. A girl nearby snickers. “Your mum’s pissed again,” someone says. A man guffaws and spits out his beer.
I stop shouting as the humiliation sinks in.
“Enough!” I dig my heels into the carpet and squirm from side to side to try and loosen the guards’ grip on my upper arms. “That’s enough! I’m leaving. You don’t have to throw me out.”
They share a look then warily release their grip.
The crowd parts as I step forward, my “bodyguards” following in my wake, and head for the exit. The doorman I argued with earlier touches a hand to his earpiece as he unclips the rope.
“Don’t come back,” he hisses as I leave. I say nothing. Instead I continue to walk, my head held high, past the queue, down the street, and around the corner. Only then do my knees buckle and I slump into a doorway. I sink down onto the step and hide my face in my hands. How has it come to this? Lying to my husband, being laughed at by strangers, humiliating myself in public? What happened to Susan Anne Jackson, respectable forty-three-year-old politician’s wife, and who is this desperate creature, this figure of ridicule who has taken her place? I might have walked out of Grey’s with my head held high, but that didn’t stop me from seeing the horror and revulsion in the eyes of the people I passed. What happened there, Charlotte? Was it as bad as what happened to me? I run my hands over my face. Or worse?
I sit up and look at my watch. It’s past midnight. If I don’t pull myself together, I’ll miss the last train to Brighton and Brian will want to know why. I stand up slowly, straighten my skirt, arrange my handbag on my shoulder, and set off down the street, my chin pressed to my chest, my arms folded against the cold. Every couple of minutes, I wave at a passing cab, but taxi after taxi speeds past without slowing. It’s only when I reach the end of the street that I realize I have no idea whether I’m even going in the right direction. I glance around, in search of landmarks, but the only thing I can see is the neon glow of a tube sign at the end of a narrow alley that runs between two huge Victorian buildings to my right. I’m too shortsighted to make out the name without my glasses, but I assume it must be South Kensington. Maybe if I hurry I can get the tube to Victoria? A cab speeds toward me, half-blinding me with its headlights, and I throw out a hand but it whizzes past, splashing through puddles, then disappears into the darkness, the “for hire” sign streaking through the night. I look back at the alley and rub my hands up and down my arms. The tube it is.
I set off, tottering as fast as my heels will carry me along the cobbled street, my eyes fixed on the familiar glow of the tube sign in the distance. I keep to the pavement, staying close to the tall buildings on my right, and up my pace. I’m halfway down the alley already, and now that I’ve left the streetlights and cars of the main road behind, long shadows and looming shapes appear from nowhere. There are no houses, no flickering televisions and yellow-hued table lamps warming curtained windows. Instead bars, boards, and shutters creak and slam as I hurry past. The sound of a can rolling down the street makes me jump, and I glance behind me to see where it came from. A man has appeared at the far end of the alley. He’s silhouetted against the blurs of cars on the main road, a black shape with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and he’s moving toward me. This isn’t someone on a late-night stroll through London; this is a man trying to move quickly but without attracting attention. I wait for him to change direction, to cross the road so he’s on the opposite pavement—something most men would do to reassure a lone female at night that they had nothing to fear—but instead he quickens his pace. I glance at the tube sign. Two hundred meters to go. Two hundred meters to safety. I quicken my pace and start to run. The sound of my heels on concrete echoes through the alley—clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop. Seconds later, it’s joined by a new sound—thump-thump-thump—the man has started to run. He’s closed the gap between us. He’s wearing an army jacket, the hood pulled tightly over his lowered face, but I can still make out the shape of his jaw. It’s wide, narrowing to a strong chin, cleft in the middle.
I run. The cold night air whips my face and grabs at my dress, pulling me back, slowing me down, as I run as fast as I can, the underground station in my sights. A woman in a baseball cap and denim jacket crosses the road at the end of the alley and I shout, willing her to turn and see me, urging her to help, but no words escape from my mouth. The only sound I can hear is the hoarse wheezing of my breathing and the thump-thump-thump of my pursuer’s sneakers on the pavement. He’s getting closer. I can feel him closing the distance, sense him staring at me, his eyes boring into the back of my head. Not much further, just a hundred meters or so and—
No!
A man in a yellow security jacket pulls the metal grating from one side of the tube entrance to the other.
Stop!
I try to shout, to tell him to wait, to let me in, but he disappears through a side door and slams it behind him. I burst out of the alley and onto the main street. I’m panting, my thighs are burning, and a cramp is ripping at my side, but I continue to run—left, after the woman I saw a few moments ago, but now I’m closer I can see she’s got headphones on over her cap. She doesn’t look around. An elderly Asian woman on the other side of the road gives me a curious look then glances away quickly when I catch her eye. I step into the road, to go after her, but a car speeds past and I’m forced to jump back. I’m forced to stop running.
“Sue.” A man breathes my name and my body shuts down. I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Cars speed past and I wait. “Sue.”
I wait for the end.
Wednesday, August 12, 1992
I need to write this quickly because James has popped out to go to the hospital and I’ve got no idea when he’ll be back. It’s become too dangerous to leave the diary hidden in my sewing room, so I’ve started keeping it under a loose floorboard in the hallway. That way, if anything happens to me and the police search the house, they’ll find it and the truth about James, and what he did to me, will be revealed.
So I’m going to say it as clearly as I can—I think he’s going to kill me.
I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but he said he’d rather spend his life in prison than think of me “spreading my legs” for another man, and considering what he did to the man I did sleep with, I’ve got no reason to doubt him.
This is the first time he’s left me alone since Sunday night, but he’s not taking chances on me escaping. He’s locked me in the house and disconnected the phone so I can’t call anyone for help and I can’t hammer on the wall because the couple who live next door have gone on holiday and there’s no one on the other side. I’ve checked all the windows—twice—but they’re locked shut and the back door is double glazed so I couldn’t shoulder it open even if I tried. An hour ago, I shouted through the letter box at a woman pushing a stroller down the street, but she didn’t so much as twitch. I can only assume the traffic is drowning me out or the house is set so far back from the pavement, my shouts don’t carry.
I can’t even ask Mrs. Evans to help me—not that she would, because she’s not here. She suffered a heart attack while I was in York visiting my mum. That’s why James has gone to the hospital, to see her. And I’m trapped and there’s nothing I can do but write.
I came back from York on Sunday early evening in a very good mood. I’d finally been to visit Mum thanks to the £50 James had given me for the train fare (I think he wanted me gone so he could spend the weekend with whoever it is that he’s shagging), and Mum’s mood was brighter than the last time I’d seen her.
Mum had asked how I was and I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. I told her that James and I were impossibly happy and we’d gotten engaged (she cried when I showed her my engagement ring and said she wished Dad was around to walk me down the aisle), and I was making a huge success of my costumier business. So convincing was my little tale that I started to believe it myself, and as I settled myself into my seat on the train home, I was bubbling with excitement. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell James about my visit, maybe even grab a little bit of time to organize my fabric while Mrs. Evans took her daily nap. It was as though stepping outside London had removed the gray fog from my brain. I wasn’t neglected and put upon. I’d just become a bit depressed after everything that had happened. I needed a bit of fighting spirit, a bit of positivity back, and I could turn things around. Besides, I had nearly three hundred pounds saved up. With the cake tin Mum had pressed into my hands before I left (containing nearly two hundred pounds in assorted crumpled bank notes), that was almost enough for a flat deposit and the first month’s rent. Maybe, I thought as the train chugged into King’s Cross, I won’t have to work in Tesco full time after all. If I live with James and his mum for another two or three months and my business takes off, I’ll only work on the tills part time to cover my rent.
“James,” I called as I pushed open the front door and stepped into the dark hallway. “James, are you home? I’ve had the most wonderful couple of days.”
The answering machine light was flashing red in the gloom, but I was only vaguely aware of it as I abandoned my suitcase, replaced my shoes with soft, suedette slippers, and padded down the hallway and into the living room. The black mask wall hanging leered back at me as I glanced around, but other than that, the room was empty.
“James?... James? Mrs. Evans?”
I glanced at my watch. 7:30 p.m. There was every chance James had decided to stay on at the theater for post-rehearsal drinks, but his mother should still be at home. She normally watched Songs of Praise in the living room on a Sunday night. Perhaps she was in the toilet? Or taking a nap in her room? The house was uncommonly quiet, and I felt like a burglar, tiptoeing around, barely breathing for fear of disturbing the peace.
“Mrs. Evans?” The bathroom door was open so I tapped, nervously, at her bedroom door. “Mrs. Evans, are you okay?”
There was no answer so I poked my head into the room. The bed was made, the curtains were pulled, and everything looked normal apart from…I stepped closer to the dressing table. Margaret’s mother-of-pearl-handled brush was missing. So was the brown leather case that contained her manicure set and the tiny silver jewelry box that contained her wedding and engagement rings. Where had she gone? She couldn’t drive, she was terrified of leaving the house, and when she met up with her friends—which was so rare I could only remember it happening twice in all the months I’d lived with her—they came to her.
I shrugged as I made my way to my sewing room. If James and Mrs. Evans were both out of the house, what better excuse to start sorting through my fabric? Everything was still boxed up, and I knew for a fact my silks would need attacking with a cool iron before I hung them up, never mind the lin—
“Oh my god.” My hands flew to my mouth as I pushed open the door to the spare room. My sewing table was lying on the floor on its side. Half a meter away was my machine, a dark footprint staining the body, the delicate thread guides, tension regulators, and spool pins snapped and bent, the foot control ripped away, lying on the other side of the room. My boxes of material that I’d so neatly stacked in the corner were upended and crushed, the material spilling out—ripped, mangled, and smeared with what looked like red paint. My mannequin leaned drunkenly against the back wall, black-handled sewing scissors plunged into its chest. The floor was a riot of color—thread, ribbons, buttons, bindings, cords, elastics, and tapes, all splattered with the same red gloss paint. The curtains were ripped from the window, the mirror smashed, and the upholstery on the chair I’d so lovingly covered before I moved in was slashed open, the white stuffing bursting out like a puff mushroom, the elegant wooden legs snapped clean off.
I backed out of the room, my hands pressed to my mouth, certain we’d been robbed and the burglar was still in the house. Why else would my room be trashed and Margaret’s things missing? But where was she? An image of James’s mum, tied up and terrified, flashed into my mind, and a cold shiver pulsed through my body. I stepped across the landing as softly as I could—heel, toe, heel, toe—trying to avoid the creaky floorboards. The blood pounded in my ears as I stepped past mine and James’s bedroom door. Did they have her in there? I paused midstride one heel pressed into the floorboard, the ball of my foot raised. All my senses prickled with anticipation as I listened, then, as a floorboard creaked behind me, I sprinted across the landing, took the stairs two at a time, and ran across the hallway. I vaulted my suitcase and sped past my shoes. I had one hand on the front door handle when it flew open and I was grabbed around the neck.
“No!” I slapped at my attacker as I was forced backward, away from the light of escape and back into the dark hallway.
“Bitch.”
I recognized the voice immediately.
“James, stop.” I tripped over my suitcase as he powered toward me and fell to the floor. “It’s me. It’s Suzy.” I reached my hands up toward him, certain he’d help me up when he realized his mistake. “James, it’s Suzy.”
He bent down and peered at me, his pupils dark pools in the gloom. His fingers made contact with my head and he stroked my hair back from my forehead.
“James.” I reached up and touched his face. “Something terrible has happened. My sewing room…it’s awful. Everything I worked so hard for has been destroyed. Why would someone do that?”
The pressure of James’s hand on my head changed and he began raking his hand through my hair, pressing the tips of his fingers into my skull.
“Ow.” I wrapped my hand around his and tried to relieve the pressure. “Could you be a bit more gentle?”
“I don’t know. Could you be a bit more truthful?” He stood up suddenly, yanking me up by the hair.
It was as though my scalp was being ripped clean from my skull. I screamed and lashed out, but I barely had time to find my feet before James set off, striding toward the living room, dragging me, still screaming, along the hallway behind him. Each step made my head burn like it was on fire. Just when I thought I’d pass out from the pain, James released his grip and threw me across the room. I raised my arms to cover my face as I flew toward the glass cabinet, then there was a crash, I hit the floor, and a thousand shards of glass rained down on me. I lay still, too dazed to move, and then James was on me again.
“Lying down on the job again, are you, you slut?”
He grabbed me by the ankle and dragged me across the room, back toward the door, then yanked me to my feet.
“Tell me the truth,” he bellowed in my face, then CRACK! His fist made contact with my cheekbone, and I fell back to the floor.
“Please.” I tried to scrabble up, my fingers pressed to my cheek. “Please, James, just tell me what I’ve done wrong. Let’s talk about it, let’s—”
CRACK! His boot made contact with my shoulder. He towered above me, his face a mask of anger, his eyes black, glittering holes, and he raised his boot as if to kick me again when—
Ring-ring, ring-ring.
James glanced toward the living room door.
Ring-ring, ring-ring.
He looked back at me.
Ring-ring, ring-ring.
Beep! This is 0207 4563 2983. Please leave a message after the tone.
The phone went to the answering machine.
“Hello? Susan, this is Jake from the Abberley Players. Sorry to call you again, but I really need to talk to you. There’s been a fight between Steve and James. Steve’s in the hospital, but we don’t know where James is. We’re worried about him. And you. He was saying some…um…unusual things. Could you give me a ring when you get this please? My number is 0208 9823 7456. Thanks.”
I looked at James. There was a bruise on his cheek I hadn’t noticed in the dark hallway, and the edge of his mouth was split, caked with blood. There was blood on his neck too, and on his fists. I didn’t know if it was Steve’s or mine.
He caught me looking at him, and the look of worry on his face morphed into disgust.
“Stand up.”
I slowly picked myself up from the ground.
“Take off your clothes.”
I did as I was told, slowly, painfully, undoing the buttons of my shirt before slipping it off—I winced as it caught on my swollen right shoulder—then let it slip to the floor. I undid my jeans, pushed them past my hips, and stepped out of them.
“And your underwear.”
“James, please. We weren’t going out together when Steve and I…when we…it was all a terrible mistake. I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t feel anything. In fact, it just made me miss you more and—”
“Your underwear.”
I pushed my underwear to the ground first, then reached around to unclip my bra. My shoulder twisted sharply and I gasped in pain, but I was more scared by what James would do if I didn’t comply, so I undid my bra and dropped that to the floor too.
I flinched as he took a step toward me, but instead of hitting me, he sidestepped me and walked up to the window, threw open the curtains, and opened the window.
“Stand here, Susan.”
I hesitated. There was a row of houses opposite. They were separated from us by the busy road below, but just as we could see into their illuminated homes on a dark night, so they could see into ours.
“The window, Suzy.”
I walked forward like I was sleepwalking through my worst nightmare.
“That’s it, walk right up to the window. I want everyone to see what a disgusting, fat, dirty whore you really are.”
I gripped the sill and looked out at the cars below. Maybe if one of them saw me, they’d realize something was wrong and call the police. I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it crossed my mind. No, they wouldn’t. This was London. No one cared enough to call the police. I heard a noise behind me and spun around, sure James was about to push me to my death, and came face to face with a lamp, the bright bulb pointed upward, blinding me.
“Turn back around,” James said. “I want the world to see how ugly and flawed you are. I want them to see how riddled with flab and cellulite and stretch marks and saddlebags. I want them to look at your saggy breasts and your enormous thighs and I want them to wonder how anyone could ever have stomached making love to you. How anyone could have loved this.” And he prodded me in the side.
I fought back tears but said nothing. If this was James’s punishment for me sleeping with Steve, then so be it. There were worse things than public humiliation, far worse.
“Ever wonder why I stopped sleeping with you, Suzy?” He paused for a reaction then continued anyway. “When this is how you look? Do you have any idea how much of a turn-off men find a body like yours?”
A tear dribbled down my cheek. Fucking bastard. When this was over, when he finally ended my ordeal, I’d run so far away from him, he’d never find me again.
“And to think I felt guilty for going back to prostitutes!” He stifled a laugh and I realized I must have stiffened in surprise. “I just couldn’t bear making love to a fat, lardy lump anymore. And you were never very good at sucking dick.
“Right.” The sofa creaked as he stood up, and the room suddenly dimmed. He must have turned the lamp off. “Enough entertainment. I want to know why you fucked Steve, how many times you fucked Steve, how you fucked him, and whether”—he grabbed hold of my hair and yanked me backward—“you laughed at me the whole fucking time.”
“James, no!” I twisted and fought, hitting him, scratching him, and kicking him as he dragged me across the room and bent me over the glass table in the corner of the room. “Just let me go. Please.”
“Let you go?” I heard the zip of his fly opening and then the weight of his chest on my back as he hissed in my ear. “Suzy, I’m never going to let you go. Never. You’re a filthy whore, but you’re my whore. And besides”—he lifted my head from the glass then smashed it back down again—“I want you to apologize to Mother. She had a heart attack when she saw what I’d done to your room, what you made me do. I want you to spend the rest of your life apologizing, to both of us. Now then”—he kicked my legs apart and pressed his penis against my anus—“did Steve fuck you here?”
I stared across at the batik wall hanging and let the wide white eyes hypnotize me. My mind went blank as I slipped into the gaping dark mouth and disappeared.