Killer Women (6 page)

Everything in Heathway was the same. The houses. The gardens. The street lights. Even the colour of the front doors.

It was one of those typical between the wars roads in a suburb that became a convenient overspill when London’s population explosion really began to gain pace. The once neat rows of semi-detached three-bedroom houses had rapidly
declined in appearance. Heathway also had other problems – like its location. Dagenham, Essex, is hardly the sort of place to inspire happiness. They say it peaked in the 1960s when the local Ford factory was churning out saloon cars at a rate of hundreds per day. Then came the lay-offs. Thousands upon thousands of Dagenham residents suddenly found themselves unemployable. It marked a turning point in the town’s fortunes. Now, its biggest claim to fame is that it is the birth place of film star Dudley Moore.

But Dagenham has retained one thing – its reputation as a typical lower-middle-class London suburb. A place where armed robbers learn how to saw off shotguns. A place where Sharon and Tracey are two of the most popular names. A place where net curtains prevail in virtually every front room window. For behind that petty, finger-wagging façade there are a thousand sins being committed.

Marriages come and go in Dagenham these days. The family unit is frequently split in two by divorce. Neighbours are often locked in bitter feuds. But despite all this, the residents of Heathway like to keep up appearances. It might well be a scruffy little street littered with waste in every gutter. But it was still home to hundreds of ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

Then there was Barbara Miller. She never really
fitted in. Her parents George and Gladys sometimes wondered what they had done to deserve Barbara. She was just not the same as their five other children.

For a start Barbara did not even want to be a girl. Throughout her life she had longed to be one of the boys. She loved to play football, cricket and climb trees. She always kept her dark hair cut short. The longer she could fool the other kids then the longer she would be accepted. Of course the boys always found out eventually – and it broke Barbara’s heart.  

But that was nothing compared to what had happened to Barbara when she was just four years of age. It was an incident that scarred her for life and helped shape the following years of torment and waste.  

She had always been a friendly little girl up until then. And it was no surprise that she befriended a local gardener in her favourite park. She would often accept gifts of sweets from the man. Barbara was just a small child. She did not know any better. But he did. He knew exactly what he was doing when he took little Barbara to an isolated piece of wasteland and ripped down her clothes.  

When the terrified youngster was found wandering the streets distraught, a fundamental change had taken place in Barbara’s character. The
rot had already begun to set in.  

The end result was a troubled life as a teenager and then an adult. Barbara, somehow, just didn’t seem quite right. Dagenham was a brutal place for a misfit. And all the time in the back of her mind she kept remembering the horror of that attack on her innocent body.  

Time and time again she was beaten up by other children. They used to tease her relentlessly about her hair. About her bucked teeth. About her being a girl. She wanted to be a boy to teach them all a lesson. She convinced herself that if she had been a boy then that monster would never have assaulted her. He was the root of all her evil.

Barbara bottled it all up inside herself. She never told her parents what was happening. She did not want to accept the fact – she was a girl. She just let the beatings continue. But they were inevitably affecting her life. They were etching hatred in her soul. Barbara had always hated certain people. Now she hated the world.

Perhaps George and Gladys Miller should have done something. They certainly saw the signs. But, like many parents, they chose not to say anything. To ignore it, hope it would go away. They were afraid it might push Barbara even further down the road to self-destruction. They were completely unable to put their feelings into words.

She came across to everyone as reckless and uncaring. The truth was that she was eaten up with guilt inside. She felt a failure. She had failed herself by allowing that animal to molest her.

Barbara felt that life had become one big bitch – and she was going to take it for all it was worth. Sexually, physically, morally. By the time Barbara was in her mid-twenties she had long since lost her self-esteem. She had waved goodbye to ambition. There were few jobs out there for a girl like her. She knew she had nothing to lose.

Barbara’s only pleasure in life was the ultimate act – sex. She craved it day and night. Yet it was that very act at such a frighteningly young age that had damaged her temperament in the first place. What made it worse was that so few men were interested in her. With her closely cropped hair, jeans, T-shirt and hobnail boots she didn’t turn many heads. As a teenager, she could only attract the boys by promising them literally anything if they would take her out. Her outlook on life was shaped for ever by that first horrendous experience and the subsequent adolescent sex behind bicycle sheds and in disused railway yards.

Sometimes the boys would line up and take it in turns. She knew it was wrong. But at least they were nice to her before they had their way. The trouble was they were invariably really horrible the
moment they were done. But it hurt the most when none of them would even acknowledge her in the school playground the next day. It was as if she did not exist. She couldn’t stand that. She would go to the toilets and cry. But she soon learnt to stifle the tears. The world hated her and she hated it back. What was the point of letting them get to her?

By the time Barbara left school at 15, she had become a regular visitor to the centre of London. She would skip off school and take the long tube ride up to Piccadilly Circus and wander the streets gazing at the bright lights of the big city. In her regulation uniform of short hair and jeans, she even managed to scare off the pimps that normally home in on young girls like Barbara. Those bucked teeth and cold, dark, staring eyes were like a sign around her neck that said: ‘Keep Away. Danger.’

In any case, Barbara wasn’t interested in selling her body. She had already been so badly abused by those animals that she did not care if she never slept with another man. If that was the way men behaved she wasn’t interested.

But that closely cropped hairstyle and those boyish looks attracted another sort of predator. These intruders in her life did not abuse her and hurt her. They gently seduced her in a loving, caring, sensual manner. They touched her smoothly not roughly. They explored her and gave her
pleasure. For the first time in her life Barbara began to discover what it was like to share her body rather than give it outright to some brute who only wanted to satisfy himself. By the time she was 18 years old, Barbara realised that the soft and caring caress of another woman was far more preferable to sex with a man.

Back in those days, she had always been the one seduced by older women. They would pick her up in clubs and bars. They would hardly make much conversation. They each knew what the other wanted. Barbara was a more than willing participant. She was experiencing something she had never come across in her entire life. A sharing experience. Giving and taking from the same person.

But as she got older those encounters got less and less frequent. It was as if the women were not interested in her because she was no longer a teenager. It seemed that the sort of women Barbara was encountering wanted ‘fresh meat’ not the old and soiled variety. And Barbara was starting to age rapidly. By the time she was 25 she looked almost 40. The toll of life was bearing down on her – and she knew it.

Barbara also realised she had to find a fresh approach if she was to continue finding satisfying female partners. She had let her hair grow during
that period in her life. Perhaps that was the mistake? She now looked like an out and out woman for the first time in her life. Maybe that was what scared off her would-be lovers?

Barbara decided to return to her old tried and trusted ways – she shaved her hair short, almost into a skinhead style. She wore baggy shirts and those short, masculine windcheater jackets together with loose-fitting jeans that did not give away any tell-tale curves. The wardrobe was complete. Now she just had to find the girls.

Barbara was living back with her parents in Heathway by this time. The frustration of being sexually inactive was making her positively withdrawn. Now she had decided on a plan of action. She felt good about it. She was going to find girls who were just like her when she was that teenager wandering the streets of London. They were the best. The ones whom she could teach. The ones whom she could love.

‘Mum. I’d like you to meet Bobby. He’s taking me to the pictures this afternoon.’

Jackie was just 16. But she had already had her fill of boys. They only wanted to use you and abuse you. They never tried to caress you and adore you. They only cared about one thing.

Now she was introducing ‘Bobby’ to her
mother. Barbara Miller’s guise as a boy was brilliantly convincing just so long as she did not open her mouth.

Barbara – or rather ‘Bobby’ – just nodded her head in acknowledgement towards Jackie’s mother. But she couldn’t help herself. She had to inspect the body of her new lover’s parent. Her eyes travelled down over her breasts and then down to her crotch, a nestled swollen mound that clearly showed through her skin-tight jeans.

Jackie’s mother caught ‘Bobby’s’ eyes as they stripped her and lusted after her. She felt a tingle of delight. She could read ‘his’ mind and she felt highly flattered. If only she had known that her daughter’s ‘boyfriend’ was, in fact, a fully grown woman.

She watched lovingly as Jackie and ‘Bobby’ walked down the garden path hand in hand at lunchtime on that hot summer’s day in 1987. They seemed to be laughing so happily together. They looked such a sweet sight together, she thought. If only…

Jackie and Barbara were laughing. In fact, they were in hysterics.

‘She fell for it. I can’t believe it. She fell for it.’ Barbara was holding tightly on to young Jackie’s hand now. She was not going to let go…ever.

As they walked up the street towards Heathway,
Barbara wanted to make sure that Jackie knew precisely what lay in store for her. Barbara began to tickle the palm of Jackie’s hand with two of her fingers. Gently scratching and tickling. Then she pushed her forefinger deep into Jackie’s clenched hand. In and out. In and out. In and out. Barbara just wanted to ensure that this pretty, silky skinned young girl got the message.

Jackie laughed as she felt Barbara’s finger going in and out. She bent over and kissed ‘him’ there and then.

‘I can’t wait …’

The television was blaring. But no one was watching it. A cat lay curled up by the gas fire desperate for some loving care and attention. The brass horses on the tiled fireplace looked as if they could do with a good polish. The swirly red patterned carpet had worn thin, tattered at the edges. Suddenly, a lamp stand crashed to the floor.

‘Shit.’

Barbara Miller came up for air. She knew her parents would be furious if they found the lamp missing when they got home.

Lying underneath her on the sofa was Jackie. They were both naked.

‘Come on Bobby. Come on.’

Barbara’s momentary lapse was over. She looked down at the firm young body beneath her and
knew she had to have more. She could not help herself.

Their lips locked tight on each other. Barbara opened her mouth as wide as she could and felt Jackie’s slithery tongue exploring deep, probing into the walls of her mouth.

‘Wider. Wider.’

Barbara commanded her young lover to open her mouth even more. She wanted to feel its entirety with her tongue. She loved it when she ran it around the inside of her gums and then across her smooth young teeth.

Sex with another female was so much better than with a man, thought Barbara. Little did she know that Jackie was thinking exactly the same thing at that precise moment. They had already climaxed twice earlier together. Now they were going for a third crescendo of lust. Nothing could stop them. Barbara started to run her tongue down Jackie’s neck. Every few inches she would stop to kiss and suckle that soft, smooth skin. Then she carried on down towards the teenager’s nipples. At first she gently slurped on them. Then she nipped them between her teeth and bit. Jackie let out a small squeal. It could have been a sign of pain or pleasure. Barbara did not care. She bit again. This time harder and longer. Then she lifted her head and watched the agony etched across her lover’s face. It gave her
even more satisfaction. Now it was Jackie’s turn. She was firmly trapped under Barbara’s body as they lay locked together on that sofa. However, that did not stop her sliding down past Barbara’s breasts and lower. She stopped at her older lover’s tummy button and began sucking air in and out of it. Barbara’s felt the stabbing sensation from her stomach. It provoked a weird combination of feelings. She did not like it so she pushed her young lover’s head further down.

It was not even 4pm by the time Barbara – or rather ‘Bobby’ – saw her lover home. Once again, they held hands tightly as they walked slowly and lovingly towards Karen’s house.

And there was Jackie’s mother waiting at the window for a sighting of her darling daughter. But this time there was no smile on her face. No look of delight at the happy couple wandering along. Instead, there was a look of fury and hatred. Of disgust and shock.

For minutes earlier, Jackie’s mother had met neighbour Vivienne Elliot in the street and she had told her about ‘Bobby’s’ secret. Her daughter’s ‘boyfriend’ was a woman. An evil woman who had just seduced her innocent child.

Barbara sensed something was wrong when the front door to Jackie’s house flew open.

‘You fucking dyke. Don’t you ever go near my
baby again. Do you hear me?’