CHAPTER 4
He was a big man, and I thought I recognised him from somewhere, but my mind wasn’t working as he slid sideways in the car, pushing the door open and then reaching round it to take another handful of my hair.

I found myself almost spinning on the spot as he dragged me backwards through the now open car door. Something poked the back of my neck, and he was breathing hard, but his voice was under full control.

“Get your legs in and shut the fucking door. Do it now or I cut you”

My bladder wanted to let go, but my thoughts were so screwed up I could only worry about the shame of pissing myself, and of damaging the upholstery. I was in a car with a man threatening to cut my face off, and I was obsessively panicking about wetting the seat.

“Put the seat belt on, whore. Do it now.”

I did as he demanded, and then followed the next instruction, which was to slide my hands under the lap strap. He pulled the whole thing tighter, then pulled away from the kerb before stamping on the brake, which locked the belt’s inertia reel.

I knew that voice, but my mind didn’t want to play as he continued his little speech.

“A little drive, bitch, and then we’ll see how clean you are, you filthy whore”

He was making no real sense, but I had felt the knife, and I was seeing my blood already, feeling the slice, the stab. He drove on, steadily, not too fast, not too slow, careful at junctions, until we were away from the street lights, where his driving became just a little quicker. I realised he was also beginning to breathe more quickly and deeply, as all sorts of nightmares ran through my mind. In essence, they all came down to two questions: was it going to hurt, and would I see the next sunrise?

That first shifted steadily to a sharper thought: how much was it going to hurt?

He had something attached to the glove box that he was fiddling with, and as he got it adjusted to his satisfaction I realised it was a map-reading lamp on a flexible stalk. He tilted it up, and I was effectively blinded, my thriller-fed plan to check for signposts blown away in a haze of yellowish light. In the end, it simply added to the tears already falling from my treacherous eyes.

We drove for what seemed like an hour but was probably a lot less, and then we pulled up in a darkened sweep of tarmac, a car park somewhere, deserted. He killed the engine, and as it ticked away, cooling, I could hear just a hint of a rhythmic shushing. Waves on a beach.

“Don’t fucking move or you’ll feel it, bitch”

He was out of his door and round to mine almost before I could move, and as mine opened he took another handful of my hair, pulling my head straight into his crotch as he reached over me to unclip my seatbelt. I could feel something in his trousers, hard, pressing against my cheek through the cloth. I’d never seen one, much less felt one, but I knew damned well what it was.

He jerked me out onto my knees, the rough surface hurting like hell, and then all but dragged me over to a low wall, the rhythmic sound of shingle, pebbles maybe, in waves filling my ears now, a faint glow of white on breakers, and his first punch was to the side of my head. I stumbled, stars eclipsing the wave line, and stumbled into a low wall. My leggings went in a wrench of his hand, a seam cutting into me as it tore, and then my knickers, and as something hard pressed at me, something else, harder, went against the base of my skull. I froze, but he didn’t.

I was tense enough to snap, rigid in fear, but that didn’t stop the thing that tore into my insides, and it did bloody tear, but my screams didn’t get very far past the gloved hand over my mouth. He settled himself, and then hammered into me again, the wall’s coping stones sharp and cold against my naked belly, and it hurt even more as he started to move faster. Panting, grunting, he kept up a running commentary about dirty whores who liked it rough, and real men, how I was never going to have it better, how I was loving it.

At last he reached under my waist, pulling me back onto him, and there were a few last, short thrusts before he whimpered slightly and twitched, something warm filling me as he murmured “Fuck, aye!” and I knew that voice, I’d seen it somewhere, on local telly, and he was---

He jerked hic cock out of what was left of my privates, now public, and once more punched me in the side of the head. This time it was much, much harder, and I collapsed to the ground, sobbing. I felt rather than saw his feet move to either side of my head, and then he grunted once more as a long stream of his piss poured over me.

“Aaaaaah! Best way to get all the spoodge out!”

I heard his zip, then his steps as he walked away. A car door slammed and an engine started, wheels hissed, and that was it. I lay in the wreckage of my clothing, the smell and feel of his piss on me, filling my nostrils with its stench, as I sobbed my teenaged heart out.

I don’t know how long I lay there, but it was cold and wet both from the rain and the other, till a sweep of lights fell on me. Another car. The lights went out as it stopped, and three seconds later they went on again, directly on me. I heard voices, a young woman’s at first.

“There, love! There! That’s not rubbish!”

A man’s voice. “Fucking hell, Kerry! It’s a kid!”

Steps; I tried to curl up, cover my shame, but it hurt to move, and I didn’t want them to see me like that, naked in my shame and his piss, but they were gentle, and they had a rug, and thankfully it was the man who ran off and not the woman, who stayed and held me after covering me with a rug of some sort.

“What happened, love? Who did this to you?”

I could only sob in reply, but she was patient, and gentle.

“Hal’s gone off to the craft place, love. Lights on there, innit? Look, I’m Kerry. Can you tell me your name? Where you’re from?”

I managed to stammer out some sort of answer, and she muttered something about men, as I heard running footsteps again, and I knew it was him, coming back, and the name came to me, Evans, the councillor, and he was going to finish the job, show me the knife, but it wasn’t, it was the man, Hal, and he was breathless, but he said something about an ambulance before pushing what turned out to be his rolled-up jacket under my head. Kerry’s voice was soft, but with a real edge to it.

“She’s only sixteen, love. Been raped. We better make sure the ambulance boys call the coppers out”

Things blurred, but there were blue lights, and gentle hands with an odd muttered “Shit” and “Bloody hell” as I was lifted gently onto a stretcher of some kind, and then I felt the world moving, but it was spinning round me as well as rolling under the vehicle, the ambulance. I drifted off more than a few times, but I was awake in a distorted way at last, in a bed with nurses fussing round me.

“Hello, what’s your name, love?”

I found it somewhere. “Diane. Diane Owens”

“How old are you, love?”

“I’m sixteen, miss”

“Call me Janice, love. Now, what happened?”

I started to say something about a man, knife, punches, but I left the world again. There were some flashes, and she was doing something to my privates, and the name was there, Ashley Evans, councillor, and I must have muttered something, his name perhaps, and she drew her breath in sharply.

An hour or more later, I was shaken awake, rather roughly, and I opened my eyes to see two big men in suits, ties, damp raincoats still on.

“Diane Owens?”

“Yes”

He read out my address, and gave my date of birth as I simply nodded, his mate’s mouth twisting, either in contempt or disgust, I couldn’t tell, but it was something I could understand. I was filthy now. What else would a normal and decent man think?

The first policeman, for that was what they clearly were, sat on the edge of my bed and leant over me, the smell of alcohol and cigarettes on his breath.

“Here is how it is going to go, you filthy little whore. You are not going to come in here spreading shitty lies about Councillor Evans. You are going to get cleaned up, and you are going to wrap up your filthy whore’s cunt and take it home, and if we ever hear another lie from you or see you anywhere on the street we are going to pick you up for soliciting, and don’t forget, bitch, we know where you live. Got that?”

I nodded, and he stood, turning to his colleague. Who looked as if he wanted to spit on me.

“Pint, butt? Got a bad taste here, need to wash it out”

He turned back at the door.

“Oh, and that applies to your whole fucking family, whore”

They left me with my shame and tears, and when Mam and Dad came in I said nothing, for their sakes.