Bad House (13 page)

Wayne got up and crossed the short distance to the fridge to retrieve a can of lager.

“You need to get yourself cleaned up. You’ve got to go to work in a few hours.”

Pam had another cleaning job this afternoon and she mentally groaned at the thought of it. She took her weary body into the mould ridden bathroom and set about the arduous task of cleaning herself up.

Work passed without incident. Another four hours of mind numbing, soul destroying crap, cleaning up other people’s shit. When she got home on the bus, weighed down by a shop in Tesco, Wayne was laid out on the sofa snoozing.

“Hey. What’s for dinner?” he asked through half closed eyes.

Pam dumped the bags of shopping in the kitchenette and proceeded to stab holes in the microwavable lasagne.

“Lasagne,” she said, casting her eye around the shambolic, filthy flat on the fifteenth floor of a tower block situated in Bethnal Green. Empty tinnies surrounded Wayne, along with Pizza crusts on dirty plates. There was crap everywhere, so much so her head hurt just looking at it all.

“Lasagne?” he asked.

Something in the tone of his voice had her on edge.

“Yeah,” she said warily.

“But you’re not working tonight.”

Four nights a week she did a twelve hour shift down a care home where she got to wipe shit fresh at the source instead of from a toilet.

“No, I’m not.”

“So therefore you’ve got plenty of time to cook a proper evening meal. My God, I’ve had nothing to eat all day apart from last night’s pizza, and now you’re gonna serve up something from a fucking
microwave
?”

Pam was bone weary. She knew where this was headed, and after the day she’d had, she didn’t think she could face it.

“I’m sorry Wayne, I’m just a bit tired. I’ll make a nice salad with it.”

“A salad?” he spluttered incredulously. “You have got to be shitting me.”

He got up from the sofa and joined her in the tiny kitchen, grabbing her by her soft upper arms and violently shaking her.

“Stop it!” she protested, her teeth rattling in her head.

“Shut up, you lazy bitch.”

His face had gone that same shade of red it always went when he was mad. She noticed that his pupils were dilated. Probably speed, she reasoned. He was always cranky when he took speed.

He spun her round and bent her over the kitchen work top.

“Oh no Wayne, please, I’m too tired for this…”

“Shut up and pull down your pants.”

She heard the
whiz
of his belt being pulled through his jean loops and she knew she didn’t have a choice. Not unless she wanted to make it ten time worse for herself. So she pulled down her jeans and knickers and offered up her fat, pimply arse.

The belt came cracking down on her fleshy buttocks. Tears stung her eyes and the singing pain in her backside had her gasping and choking back the sobs. She gripped the work top and took her punishment like a good girl, counting the devastating blows to her arse.

He stopped after six. Her arse throbbed like it had a heartbeat of its own and she had great difficulty righting herself.

“Now get the fuck out of my sight.”

She hobbled into their bedroom which was right next door with not even a hallway dividing the two rooms. She shuffled to the bed with her jeans round her ankles and collapsed onto it face first.

She could hear the whir of the microwave as Wayne heated up the lasagne and her stomach grumbled, despite having eaten her own body weight that day in various pastries from Greggs.

She doubted that Wayne would talk to her for the remainder of the night. When he was cross with her he usually stayed up late and watched porn. Sickness and dizziness enveloped her as she lay on the bed. The sound of grunting women drifted to her through the closed door. So he was starting early tonight then. Tears stung her eyes and she eventually fell asleep to the sounds of the violent pornography he so enjoyed watching.

End of sample.