CHAPTER ONE
I guess sometimes we look at the world or the one we have created around us and simply question its very meaning. As I sit there looking into the mirror placed upon my old wooden dressing table, all I see is a broken woman staring back at me. Blond hair cascading down my peach shaped face. My eyes still blackened from smudged make up I had refused to remove the night before. "Amy look at yourself" I said in a slight huffed voice "Pull yourself together" Dam I needed to sort out my life.
Now you may ask yourself what could be so bad that I felt the need to change. My childhood was the same as any other child or so I thought anyway. I remember playing out in the garden my father sat with uncle Mike sipping on an ice cold beer while my mother was baking cookies in the kitchen. I can still smell the aroma in the air. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath before opening them and within a few moments I’m transported back to the dying reflection that now stared back at me. I was twenty one years old yet to me I saw an old woman inside. Sucking every ounce of youth that once lived out of me.
My life had always been crazy. Just one big mess I could never escape from. But the one thing I had around me now was people I could trust, or so I thought anyway. Little did I know how wrong I was? I guess I never really learned to trust anyone not fully anyway. Who could I trust no one under stood me. I’m not sure if anyone even cared I know I didn’t. So many memories I had blocked from my mind but one stuck firmly there forever. That moment in the tree house will always haunt me. Every time I close my eyes I’m pushed back to been a child a helpless little girl who craved to be loved. Today was the day I changed no more was I living in the past from today I was on my own my future panned out before me.
My friend Rhianna had got me this job in a club not ideal at first but hey we all need money to have a new life right? Rhianna and I had been friends from high school and in a way she was just as fucked up as me. Well maybe slightly a bit more. I guess it was in my teens I started to go off the rails. Staying out late partying. I used to drink and I mean I drank a lot. Numbing the pain inside me I was feeling. Slowly isolating myself from the whole world around me. My whole family started to turn against me I had lost so many people harbouring this secret. Too scared to tell truth or to relive those moment that affected me most. By the time I had reached fifteen I was on every drug I could think off. Drinking no longer blocked the pain I felt inside so I need to find a sense of relief. That was the first time I had ever took heroin. I was at party with a few friends well I called them friend but I guess I knew deep down I was just been used. I was the easy girl. The girl who would do anything to get her next hit. I remember leaving my family home on the night of 31st of October at the age of fifteen and never going back. As I made my way to another party it was here I met Rhianna little did I know on that night that several years later we would still be friends.
Rhianna broke me from the trap I found myself in. She help me get clean If it was not for her I’m not sure if I would still be around today. A part of me was always grateful to her for that. It was our friendship that made me strong. I never spoke much about my childhood not to anyone. I just wish I still had the closeness with my father after all a daughter and fathers love could never be broken.
I remember the moment I walked up to the dingy little club just off North Street. I had lived in London for three years now. It was not much but it was home. As I approached the club there was a neon sign with half the bulbs missing attached to the side of the building.
It reminded me of something you would see in a tacky American diner. I glanced up to the sign to see it clearly read Temptress. I took in a deep breath and slowly opened the shabby wooden door at the entrance. The paint on the door was peeling at the edges worn out by the elements. It rained a lot in London in fact I don’t remember the last time I saw sunlight through the thick smog that now covered the city. I always thought London was the city of dreams. So far it was like the city of nightmares. As I walked into the club I noticed the walls were painted a deep purple barely viewable in the very dim lighting. I wondered to myself what type of place I had walked into but that answer soon became clear. What the fuck had Rhianna done no way was I working in a place like this.
Out of nowhere came a tall red headed women she was wearing what looked like a dark blue bra which pushed up her large perfectly formed breasts and a small skirt that just covered her crotch.
"Ah you must be Amy? Her voice was sweet and tender
“Urm yeah” you could hear the nervousness in my voice as I spoke.
“Rhianna has told us a lot about you. All good mind. Rick is expecting you."
I wondered to myself what she meant by that comment. Even though we had been friends for years I still kept a lot from Rhianna. So what she could have told them I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
“Follow me please” The women placed her hand out to mine as I stood there for a second before reaching out to her while not saying a word.
As I'm lead me down the hallway and into what looked like an office. I notice the walls are painted another vile colour, this time a blood red. I never did have a thing for blood red to me it seemed cheap. Then again nothing about this place cried out class. Well not the type I thought of anyway. Everywhere I turned tackiness poured out from every angle. I felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach as I’m slowly lead into the office. In the far corner of the room was a desk.
A large blue lava lamp glowing. Cascading a slight shadow over the face of a dark haired man who sat firmly out of view. Slowly the man stood up from his high backed leather chair. His face now perfectly visible in the blue light. His skin was smooth and tanned like a golden beach glowing in the sunlight. Maybe this place was not as bad as I first thought. Well if every man who worked here looked like him I knew I was in for a good time. As I approached closer I notice his crystal green eyes shimmering. I gaze deep into them mesmerized as he began to speak in a soft cool voice.
"Amy come sit. I'm Rick" I slowly take a seat in the dark high backed leather chair, desperately trying for him not to notice me blushing.
A slow sexual energy creeps over my body. Twinges of sexual excitement emerge between my legs as I flowed away into a hypnotic trance.
"So Rhianna tells me your looking for a job, well I think we have the perfect one for you. Drink?"
The more he spoke in his soft tender voice the more I became sucked into the sexual fantasy that now raced through my mind. Visions of his soft hands stroking down my neck onto my tender breast and working his way down to my crotch.
I could feel his warm breath on my neck as he slowly kissed me. Suddenly I awoke from my fantasy realizing I was still in the room. I composed myself as I cleared my throat before speaking.
"Thanks ill have white wine" I think he could hear the slight fear in my voice as he just stared directly at me and gave a slight grin before turning away as he headed to the bar in the opposite side of the room.
"So what is this job that's so perfect? I asked.
You could still hear the hint of fear and excitement in my voice as I cleared my throat once more. As Rick slowly walked over I noticed he had a slight swagger to the way he walked. I think it was this what made him so much more attractive. He had that certain smoothness about him that made him too hard to resist I was putty in his hands and he knew it.
"Just be here tonight 9pm" Rick just gave me this sweet smile and I was gone. It never entered my head to ask what the job was I was too mesmerized by Rick to care. All I knew was that in less than four hours I was going to spend the first night of my new life working with a gorgeous man, and hopefully many more.
To me this couldn't get any better. I walk briskly home visions of what my night would be like raced around my head. The firm image of Rick imprinted in my mind. It had been a long time since a man had that effect on me. Not since my high school sweet heart had I even wanted a man to touch me so bad. To feel that sweet sense of passion that made me tingle in every inch of my body. I was fourteen the last time I felt like this and even then it was nothing like looking at Rick there was something electric about him. Something deep inside that I now craved. I was like some sexual beast that had awakened something that had been hidden deep inside me. I walk out of the club with a beaming smile across my face and head my way back down North Street into the bustling city. Oblivious to my surrounding. People rushing past me stuck in their own little world. Office workers in there sharp suits racing in and out of food stores. Children screaming as there been dragged along by the mothers who are carrying mountains of shopping but yet still searching for the next sale on shoes?
If there was one thing that London did well was separate the wealthy from the poor. I knew my place in society and it was worlds away from the middle class people I found myself surrounded by. As I approached my apartment block it was a clear reminder of how much I wanted more. I walked into the run down building that I called home. A strong stench of urine filled the air. This was normal and a smell I had become accustom to within my first few weeks of living here. Graffiti covered the walls along with excrement. In the far corner of the hallway lies a man his coat covered in mud. His pale face pressed against the wall with saliva slowly dribbling from his mouth. We called him smack head Pete. It reminded me of when I was younger. I saw an image of how my life would have turned out if Rhianna had not saved me from that world. The first few times I saw him lying there it scared the hell out of me but if there was one thing that living in London taught me was to get used to the drugs fast. This city was full of them it was a constant reminder of my past, a world I was so heavily involved in. It was not an image of something you expect to see from the most famous city in the world. Well that's what all Londoners think anyway. I slowly make my way up the six flight of stairs that now faced me. The elevator was always broken and even if it was not I still found myself using the stairs. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck for hours in something that was no bigger than a shoe box. After what seemed like ten minutes of walking up each flight of stairs I found myself out of breath. I was not the fittest person in the world far from it plus I smoked I had ever since I was a child.
As I enter my apartment I notice that my window was ajar.
“I was certain that I closed that" I said to myself as I entered with caution.
I scour the rooms for any signs of a break in but nothing. I guess the window must have just slipped my mind. I throw my pink Dior bag on my heavily stained couch. Its vibrant colour stood out like a sore thumb against the brown worn leather it rested upon.
My Dior bag was a gift from my grandmother it was one of the few thing I received worth any value. It was my only designer bag in fact it was my only bag and I loved it. I guess in the same way any woman loves her prize possessions. Some girls its shoes others it's diamonds. Mine was this bag and I held onto it with dear life.
I head over to the window and pull it shut creating a gust of wind filling the air with the stale smoke smell of the bustling city below me. I hated that smell but It was better that the smell of urine that filled the air of the tower block lobby. I head back into the kitchen and switch on the old plastic kettle and make myself a strong cup of tea before slumping back on to the brown leather sofa that stretched the length of my living room. I sit down and close my eyes only for a moment before drifting of in to a nice long nap.
When I awake a few hours later I glance up at the golden carriage clock that rested upon the top of my television. Another gift from my grandmother. I had always admired it as a child I guess I somehow knew that one day it would end up in my possession.
I see that the time reads 7.30pm I pull myself from my slumber and head into the bathroom to get ready only a few more hours and I was going to see the fine specimen of man that is called Rick.
As I walk into my bathroom I stare deeply into the mirror still in a fixation on tonight when I see a figure move in the refection. I turn around quickly to discover there was nothing there. As the hairs stand up on the back of my neck a rush of fear enthrals my body.
"Who’s there?" I wait for a moment before calling out again "who's there?"
I slowly walk out of my bathroom into the hall. If this was Rhianna playing a joke it was not funny. She was known for playing jokes sometimes it crossed my mind if she was all there but there was something about her I loved. Rhianna is my best friend and one of the good ones.
"Rhianna if that's you this isn't funny anymore"
As I walked into the living room I felt a hand reach out and grab me on my shoulder. Suddenly I was in the mist of darkness as a blindfold was placed across my eyes. The grip on my shoulders becoming tighter as I struggle to break free. All that raced through my mind was this had to be some joke. It wasn't my birthday or I'm sure it wasn't. Sometimes I even had to remind myself of that.
As I'm lead out of my apartment and down into the lobby of the tower block. I could hear the sounds of racing traffic. The sounds of people rushing past grew louder. I questioned why no one helped me as I struggled to break free. That was another thing about London no one cared. So many people vanish without a trace in this City. Who would care if I was just one more?
I'm slowly bundled into the back of a car which raced off at some speed. After what seemed like a fifteen minute journey the car came to a sudden halt. The door to the car opened and I am pulled from the vehicle with such force that I fall to the ground banging my head.
At this point it began to cross my mind this was no longer a joke. Panic begins to set in as I wonder to myself if I was ever going to get out of this alive. Dragged by my hair across the floor I find that I was suddenly thrown into a blackened out room scared I tare the blindfold from my face and drastically search for an exit.
Frantically I bang my fists against the walls. What the hell was happening to me? I was trapped struggling to break free from this nightmare that I now found myself in.