Rotten to the Core (20 page)

Tanya smiled back at Billy
,
but her smile did not meet her eyes
.
S
he was close to losing it
;
why did things always come down to money with him
?
Ok
ay
, so it was
his
money, and she had
indeed
blown a small fortune on the flat, but he had told her to get what she liked
so
why was he being sar
castic
?

Sensing the atmosphere
,
Kate went to use the bathroom, leaving the room
quiet
, with the three running out of things to say.

Going through to the lounge with some glasses and a bottle of chilled wine, Billy’s mobile buzzed on the table
.

             
“I’ve just got to get this
,
” he said
,
as he picked
up
his phone and left the room
;
his calls came through at all times of the day and night because of his dealings abroad and the time differences,
so
his phone was never far from him,
which was
another thing that pissed Tanya off.

Kate came back to find Tanya and Jay laughing at some joke that Jay had
made
. Tanya had her feet up on the chair and you could practically see her knickers, she was defin
i
t
e
ly pissed.
Tanya
got up to fill her glass again, but stumbled and ended up in a heap on
the
floor, laughing and
struggling to stand. Jay
put
his hand under her arm and pulled her to her feet
.

             
“I think I need my bed
,
” Tanya slurred
.

             
“It
’
s upstairs on the right
,
Jay, you
’
d better help her,
’ Kate said.
‘
I’ll go and get Billy,
I’
ll ring us a cab too
,
babe, maybe it’s time to call it a night
.
”

Kate looked at Tanya
,
slumped over drunk and shook her head before heading off to get her brother.

Jay almost had to carry Tanya up the stairs,
as
her legs didn’t seem to want to go in the same direction as
her body
.
L
aying her down on the bed in the darkness, Jay was stunned by the strength of her when she reached up and pulled him on top of her. Her mouth reached for his, and he could taste the wine she had been drinking. He felt himself getting hard
. S
he reached inside his trousers,
laughing
quietly
.
H
e realised then that she had not been as drunk as she had made out
;
realising that maybe she had planned this,
h
e felt the urgent need to take her. He could feel her warm hand gripping him tight and he wondered how she would feel and taste. She was obviously gagging for it
.
L
ooking down at her
,
he
saw
she had
tits
to die for. What is it with the women in Billy’s life
:
they just can’t resist me
…
He kissed her hard and his hands cupped her breast, feeling his way down her body, almost making it to her thigh, and then jumping from the bed as he heard Billy coming up the stairs
;
he went to leave the room, reaching the door just as Billy did
.

             
“Fuck me, she is in a bad way, gone and passed out
,
” he whispered to Billy, who was poking his head into the room and could barely make out Tanya’s silhouette on the bed through the darkness
.

             
“
Y
eah, she knocked them back a bit tonight
,
silly mare
.
” Billy was physically holding himself back
;
Jay was standing in his bedroom, in his fucking house. It was taking all his willpower not
to
throw the fucker out. Jay stepped out of the room, and just as Billy closed the door out, they both turned as they heard Kate calling up the stairs that their taxi
had arrived
.

Emma was a mess. Her hair was greasy, her breath stank, she had big sore
s
all over her chin
and
her sunken eyes had large bags under them. She was rock bottom, and she knew it, and worse than that the punters knew it too.

When she had first started out doing this, apart from the
nutter
who had
attacked her
,
she had been treated like a sex toy
; she was
desired
;
the men had taken her body but in a strange way she had felt that they had almost been grateful to her, impressed by her eagerness and willingness and
,
of course
,
her womanly curves
.

Of course there had been a few weirdo
e
s
,
and a few of them she wouldn’t
have
gone near for any amount of money, but her standards were slipping.
Emma
thought she could handle it at the beginning, thought she could stay in control, but the drugs had taken over. The lower she
sank
so
too
did the
quality of
men she entertained. They were as filthy as she looked, and they just used her like she was a piece of meat, like she was nothing in fact. She had lost so much weight that her ribs
were
sticking out, her womanly curves
had
gone. She looked pale and gaunt, like a skanky druggie, which in fact was exactly what she had become.

The only thing that was of any concern to her these days was where her next bag of gear was coming from
;
first thing in the morning, last thing at night
,
the
se
were her only thoughts.

Emma knew where i
t had all gone wrong
;
the turning point had crept up on her slowly and then smacked her straight in the face. She thought that she had him right where she wanted him,
but she felt stupid now that she
had even considered blackmailing him and telling Kate what her precious Jay had been up to. Stupidly
,
she had said to Jay the night she had been attacked, when he had come to help her, that she could tell Kate at any minute what had been going on
;
her threat had been loaded, but Jay hadn’t risen to the bait, he had just ignored it, or so she had thought.

Jay had looked after her, he had sorted her out when that
nutter
raped her, he had cleaned the place up for her, spent a bit of time with her, and he had been nice to her. She
had
beg
u
n to think that he might have feelings for her. One night he had given her so much gear, she felt
as if
she was flying. He had told her that they were going to a party and that he had some special friends that he wanted her to meet. He had even brought her a new outfit, a very slutty looking
one
,
a black silk
babydoll
with lace around the plunging neckline, it
looked more like lingerie, but she just thought that that is what a typical red
-
blooded male would chose, and she was happy that he wanted to show her off. She had made a real effort, looked really sexy for him.

He had taken her to a dingy little flat, which she really didn’t think much of, the things he had told her about these “friends” of his didn’t add up to
a
pokey little flat in Vauxhall. They had money, they were supposed to be high flyers, men who knew what they wanted and got it
;
it just really didn’t make sense.

As
soon as she
walked
through the door and saw the five men, she had known. She was at a party
all right, only she was the main source of entertainment.
Emma
had felt scared, and had kept looking to Jay thinking that even though he had set this up, he was going to be her saviour.

Someone
had
given
Emma a
whiskey, and then she had a few lines of coke, or what she thought was coke. It helped,
as
she began to relax a little,
helped by
another whisky
.
T
he men were smoking
:
gear, cigars
.
S
he was feeling out of it, she had only had a few drinks but
then
she suddenly felt
as though s
he w
ere
losing consciousness.

She had s
lipp
ed
in and out of what
had
happen
ed next
.
S
he recall
ed
lying on a big bed, faces near her, bodies on her
:
touching, pawing. She couldn’t stop them, she was
too
weak.
She felt as though
she w
ere
floating, like she w
ere
asleep
,
but she could hear them laughing around her
;
strangely
,
they sounded far away
.

Even the next day
,
when she had woken back in her own bed
in her own
flat, she had no real memory of what happened,
o
r how she had got home. She was sore between her legs
and
felt sick with fear, used and dirty. She didn’t have to wait long to find out
what had happened
.

Jay had been sitting in
her
lounge with two spotty boys,
who
looked no more than fifteen
.
S
he didn’t recognise them, but that was nothing new, there were more people in and out of
t
here on a daily basis than Emma could keep up with. She saw that they were looking through some paper
work or something. They
snigger
ed
as she stumbled past
them
to
get
a drink of
water
.
Jay glared at her
;
she had a miserable expression on her face and this riled him
.

             
“
M
orning!” he had chirped sarcastically
.
“
W
hat’s got your knickers in such a twist?”
H
e smirked at the two lads
,
and they both laughed as if sharing some kind of private joke between the three of them.

             
“I’m fine, just need a drink
.
”
S
he fought back the tears
;
she felt humiliated, she couldn’t understand why he was acting so nast
il
y
.

             
“We
’
re just going through a few photos
,
Emma
,’ Jay said,
‘
you should have a look,
there’s
a few gorgeous ones here, bet your mum and dad would love a few of these for the family album
.
”

Her heart pounded in her chest
.
S
he knew even before she looked down at the coffee table what she was going to
see
,
although
n
ever in a million years
could
she
have imagined
that
the images would have been so graphic. The
pictures
were sickening
. She looked at a photo of
three or four men groping her, doing
horrible
things to her,
including
having sex with her. It was like looking at somebody else in the photos, the girl in the images had a blank expression
and
glassy eyes
;
she looked like
a hollow shell,
someone who
wasn’t really there.
Emma
knew
, looking at the photos, that
she had been drugged
last night
. Running to the bathroom
,
she
threw up.
The vomit burnt her throat. She dry-hea
ved for a few minutes.
When she l
ook
ed
up
,
she saw Jay in the mirror
; he was
standing behind her.