I tentatively opened the car door, trying to remember literally everything that I'd been told to do and say, whilst my panicked heart hammered hard against my tight chest. "I give head, for twenty quid?" I told the nondescript forty something man, who just stared back at me with narrow-eyed interest.
He quickly but quietly replied, anxiously glancing back over his shoulder to check whether anyone was watching us. "Get in!" He curtly told me, before throwing me a brief and nervous little smile.
As I slid into his leather-seated car, the smell of his woody aftershave invaded my, flaring with fear, nostrils. As I slowly breathed in his overly strong masculine scent, my eyes darted to the dashboard of the car. I had no idea what kind of car it was, I only knew it was a dark one; possibly black, and that it looked posh and luxuriously expensive.
"How old are you?" The well-spoken man asked, not taking his hands off the immobile steering wheel.
"Eighteen." I lied, casually looking out of the passenger side window as that lie remained thick and obvious in my throat.
He didn't need to know that I was only sixteen. He also didn't need to know that I was a runaway and that I'd never done anything like this ever before. He only needed to know that I would do it, and that he'd have to pay me for it afterwards. After all, I was hungry—like really hungry. I needed to eat. I hadn't eaten anything decent for three whole days.
The mans voice seemed much more relaxed when he replied. "That's good." Then he started up the engine and began to drive out of the street that he'd just picked me up from, obviously put at ease by my big fat humdinger of a lie.
He drove around in awkward silence, only once did he choose to break it. "What's your name?" He asked, briefly glancing sideways at me.
"Tanya." I lied again.
That lie was actually much easier to swallow than the last one. There was no way in hell I was ever going to tell him my real name. My real name was Angel, but yeah, only I would ever know that. Besides, there was nothing angelic about what I was just about to do.
He faced forward again, ever so slowly nodding. "I've not seen you before?" He probed a little more, concentrating on the road ahead.
I stalled with my response, growing more nervously averse to his questions. "I've just moved here." I mumbled back, resisting the urge to openly squirm in my seat.
I was feeling more uncomfortable by the second. I just wanted to get this over and done with. His questions were wholly unwelcome and totally unnecessary. I had guessed by the fact that he hadn't recognised me, that he was probably used to doing this kind of thing with other girls all the time. Probably the very same girls who had primed me for this; my very first illicit encounter.
Mandy and Stella were okay, though. They were both twenty, and kind of took me under their nurturing wing when I found myself wandering around the streets of Bristol some eight days before. I can't even tell you why I ran away to Bristol. It was just somewhere new, I guess. Where nobody knew who I was or what I was running away from. I was angry when I ran, and I remained angry. I was angry at my parents for dying in that stupid car crash, nine painful months earlier. I was angry at the foster parents who thought that they understood mine and my sisters tragic loss. I was angry at my grandparents for refusing to take care of us, because they felt that they were too old for the tragic burden. I was angry at myself for running away and leaving behind my ten year old sister, Faith. The truth was, I was just hopelessly angry at the whole entire world.
That anger just stayed with me. It never wanted to leave. Even as the nice smelling man pulled into a derelict industrial estate, that anger silently still remained by my side. It was all I had back then. Just me and my ever faithful anger.
"Looks like we're all alone." The man said, as he parked up in the squalid shadows somewhere.
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I was about to do something that made me feel so scared and sick, no words could be found in my fear-stricken throat.
The man turned off his engine, and pressed a button to the left of him, so he could push his seat farther away from his steering wheel. Getting himself comfortable, he then unzipped his trousers, looking for me to do something with his growing erection that was bulging beneath his exposed underwear.
My wide and full of fear eyes, fell onto his thick but covered fullness as it strained against his boxers. With an impatient huff, the man grabbed my hand and roughly pushed it inside. The girls had explained to me what I had to do, but I struggled to remember as the waves of nausea rolled around and around in my stomach. My fumbling fingers gently gripped around him, as they slowly moved up and down his harder still erection. I had no idea what I was doing, but when the man began to quietly groan with his eyes pleasurably rolling into the back of his head, I figured that I must have been doing something right. That was when I studied the soft-skinned, but warm and firm thing, in my hand. I'd never seen a mans penis before. Not like this; stiff and engorged. Being flashed by a group of silly lads as they walked into the showers after swimming at school, certainly didn't count. So I just kept on staring down at it. Confusingly, I was both fascinated yet repulsed. It kind of felt okay in my hand, but close up it looked so very ugly. I didn't have time to stare at it for too long, because soon, the mans hand is at the back of my head, forcing it down towards his pulsing penis. "Suck it!" He growled through gritted teeth, his eyes slightly opened with darkened arousal.
Although my nausea had somehow crawled its way up my throat, my mouth still obediently opened; quickly allowing the mans penis inside. His fingers twisted around in my hair, firmly holding me in place. "That's it, now suck! Suck it hard!" He growled louder, thrusting himself deeper inside of my throat. I gagged, the bile rising higher and higher. I struggled to breathe. With the man completely filling my mouth, and the bile needing somewhere to exit from, I just couldn't breathe. All I could do was close my eyes, and force the bile and my tears, painfully back. I squeezed my eyes tighter still, trying to focus on only my breathing and sucking, and not the ever-rising bile that was filling my burning oesophagus. "Shit!" The man bucked harder into my tense mouth, going so deep that he made me gag again. The more I tried to pull back, the tighter his grip became on my tangled hair. "Don't you move, just suck it!" He hissed, holding my head hostage. I knew what was happening, but had somehow managed to detach myself from the sickening situation. I kept on sucking, praying that it would be over really soon. My tears continued to fill my tightly closed eyes, and when they momentarily opened, those tears spilled over my lower lashes and fell without care down my cheeks. That's when my nose began to run, so I sniffed loudly, not wanting my dripping nose to make a mess in the mans pubic hair. I was in absolute hell, and knew that the contents of my stomach weren't going to remain there for much longer. So I tried to remember more of what Mandy and Stella had told me. Curling my fingers tighter around the base of the mans penis, I sucked like my life depended on it. With my hard sucking, the groaning man thrusted in and out of my mouth; a sickening rhythm soon established between us. "Shit...that's it! That's right, I'm coming...I'm coming now!" He grunted under satisfied, nauseating breaths. As soon as the first taste of him had entered my mouth, I heaved so hard: so hard and violent, that the vomit was soon there without any warning. Quickly removing my mouth from the head of the spurting penis, my stomach and throat were simultaneously in spasm, as they both tried to restrain the vomit long enough for me to at least open the car door. "What the hell are you doing?" The man shouted, continuing to curse at me as I violently puked just beside his car. "I don't believe this. My cum is bloody everywhere now!" He furiously complained, with loud huffs and tuts.
Bent over, with the ends of my straggly dark hair coated in dripping vomit, I tried to apologise between my ashamed sobs and shallow gasps. "I'm...so...s...sorry. I just...I...just...c...couldn't." Once the vomit had been fully expelled, then came my tears; uncontrollable tears that had to be set free. I slumped to my knees and just cried and cried. Too traumatised to apologise again, and too traumatised to think about what had just happened.
Hunched over like a wounded animal, I heard the car engine start up again. I hadn't even noticed that the man had stopped shouting at me. I was too consumed with my own sickening shame and humiliation.
"Here, have this!" The man shouted out to me, before something light hit the top of my dropped head. I lifted my eyes, and saw on the shadowed and gravelled ground, a crumpled up twenty pound note. That's when I looked up at the man. It was to be the only time that I truly looked at his face, his cleanly shaved but fleshy face. I skimmed across all of his mature features and then moved onto his neatly cut dark hair. I couldn't see the colour of his eyes, but his eyes looked so full of pity as they stared back at me. I didn't know what colour those pitying eyes were, but I did know how the stranger tasted. Waves of nausea rolled through me all over again. I had to quickly look away from him, as the taste of his semen still disgustingly sat inside of my mouth. "You'll have to find your own way back." He snapped.
I didn't bother to look back up at him, or even bother to respond. I remained where I was, hunched and hidden within the shadows of the night. I heard him slam the passenger door shut, the one that I had hastily left open in my urgency to throw up outside of his car before he drove away.
As the dust from the disturbed ground swirled all around me, I only felt relief. I was all alone, but I wasn't scared. I sat and looked up at the clear starlit sky, thinking to myself how beautiful all of the stars still were. As filthy as I felt, the sky still looked so wonderfully bright. If only I could have been one of those beautiful stars, instead of the sullied sixteen year old that I had made myself that night.
Beneath the admirable night sky, I thought of my mum and dad, my sister, and my long suffering foster parents. I thought about all of the reasons why I had ended up in Bristol. Why I had done what I had done. I looked up at the heavens, and prayed that my mum and dad hadn't witnessed what had just happened. I suppose I just needed to be assured that wherever they were, that they hadn't seen me dishonour them, and myself; my body shivered at the mere thought of it.
Slowly standing, I then thought of my foster parents, who had only ever tried to look after me and Faith. No matter how many times I told them that I hated them, they still wanted to be there for me. The truth was, I didn't hate them. I just hated what had happened. Mum and dad were killed in a car crash. That's what had happened. Witnesses said that dad had hit a deer on a dual carriageway, and simply lost control of the car and ended up crashing into the central reservation. They had gone out to meet some friends for dinner, and a stupid deer had killed them. A deer? The reason why my parents died. The reason why they were taken away from me and my sister. It's something that I've never really understood. It's something that never really made any sense to me. Mum and dad were both very religious, and if they could have explained, they probably would have told me that it was all Gods plan. That it was simply meant to be. Well, I didn't like Gods plan. Gods plan was fundamentally flawed. Gods plan had screwed me over, and my sister, too. How could God do that to my parents, when all they had ever wanted was us? Mum didn't get pregnant easily. She had to wait a long time until she finally did. After many years of trying for a baby, mum and dad finally managed to conceive me. Mum always told me that I was her little angel, which is why she called me by that name. After many more years of trying for another baby, they eventually fell pregnant with my sister, Faith. Once again, mum believed that her faith in God was the reason why she had been blessed with yet another child. So she named my sister, Faith.
Mum's unwavering faith in God was more than likely with her right up until the moment that she died. She died with hers, whilst my own faith in God very much died on the night that I lost my beloved parents. Me and God were never to have a relationship ever again. You see, my problem with God was this...why give my parents children, if he never intended for them to stay with us? It just seemed such a cruel thing to do, which was why I hated the world. All of Gods stupid world, I simply hated.
My foster parents did everything that they possibly could to help me, but I didn't want to be helped. Which was why I ran away. I ran away, and ended up doing something unthinkable. However, the unthinkable finally brought me to my senses. The unthinkable made me think clearly again. It made me pick up that crumpled twenty pound note from off the ground, and it made me walk. I walked with a new lightness within my immature soul. As I placed one foot in front of the other, I thought of only Faith. I needed to be back with her. I needed to give my foster parents a proper chance. I needed to give myself a proper chance. I would use the sordid money to return to the only place that was home. What had happened with that stranger was oddly my salvation. I knew that I could never put myself through something like that ever again. The mere thought of it, physically and mentally repulsed me. My fear was that deep and traumatic, it had scared me enough to bring me to my sixteen year old senses.
So I did return home, to Wiltshire. I was welcomed back with open and loving arms by both my sister and foster parents. Not once did I ever speak about that awful night, I never wanted to think about it ever again. What happened, had to be forever forgotten. Forever put in a shameful corner of my mind. In time, I did forget. I worked hard at school and at home. I grew to love my foster parents, and they grew to love me and my sister. Eventually they adopted the two of us, I was seventeen and five months, when I became Angel Lee, daughter to Alan and Diane Lee. I began to know how happiness felt again.
I was no longer that angry and confused sixteen year old. I had matured. I wanted to do well in life. I wanted a good and happy life. When I left school, I went on to college to study Art, History and Philosophy. From there, I went to University, and it was there that I got my BA Degree in Art Gallery and Museum studies. I didn't have Gods plan; I had my own plan. I was fascinated and beguiled with all things historic. I was in love with History and Art, and totally in love with British heritage. My heart and mind was like an absorbent little sponge, soaking up as much historical knowledge as it could eagerly hold. I desired to know every enthralling piece of historical information that I could get my hands on. I wasn't interested in going out and having fun. I just wanted to read all about Ancient Britain, Egypt, Archaeology, Natural History, The Romans, Vikings, Saxons, and the desire to know the names of all the greatest painters in the world. I could never understand why others weren't as passionate about History as I was. We are all so intricately bound together to those from our distant past, I have always found it kind of strange that some people just aren't interested in that. Our ancestors, whether they were famous, infamous, rich or poor; they were people just like us. Human beings who all had the very same thoughts and feelings – just in a very different world from our own. That was what had me hooked. That was why History enriched me as much as it did. Which was why, as soon as I had my degree in my hands, I managed to secure my first proper job at a Folk Museum not too far from my home. There, I gained so much insightful experience and confidence, that it helped me prepare for the bigger role of curators assistant in a much larger museum, some two years later. It wasn't as close to home, but it gave me the professional push to finally step out into the world as a real grown up. I moved from Wiltshire to Dorset, to live and breathe, Bisleybury House; a magnificent Grade II listed 17th Century mansion. From the moment that I first walked into that place, I fell in love with all of its historic beauty. And it was there, that I first fell hopelessly in love.
I was twenty three when I first met Rex Ford. He had brought his grandmother to visit, as she loved everything about period costume, and Bisleybury House had a wonderful interactive walk through exhibit that dated back from the Edwardian period. It was during the very comedic moment of seeing his eighty-something grandmother, trying to put on a corset and step into a crinoline slip, that our enamoured eyes first ever met. For a man, he really was the most beautifulest of men. I remember feeling this incredible pull towards him. His light green eyes soulfully spoke to me, even when he wasn't. His relaxed and inviting smile, had my stomach stupidly flipping back and forth in seconds. Everything about Rex Ford, completely enthralled me. I had brief but wonderful moments to absorb every beautiful thing about him. His suavely short and neat dark hair. His elegant and confident presence. Everything about him, every perfect muscle and membrane, simply excited me. No man had ever made me feel the way that Rex did. Just being in his presence, confusingly completed me. Within a few heart-stopping seconds, he had somehow managed to profoundly affect me. Our first blissful moments were of us being locked in this unified, fathomless stare; that just became more and more intense. It was like I had found the missing part of myself, although I wasn't even aware that I'd been searching for it. How I felt towards him, consumed me. The feelings were that mysterious and powerful, it reminded me of the ancient philosophical text by Plato, The Symposium. He transcribed that Zeus, one of the most powerful Greek Gods, had split all humans in half. He had done this because he feared their superhuman form of four arms, four legs and a single head made up of two faces. By splitting them, Zeus condemned all humans to a miserable lifetime of trying to find their other half. They would spend a lifetime trying to become 'whole' again. Plato's ancient myth has been dramatically romanticised over the years, and right up until I met Rex, I didn't believe in all that 'soul mate' stuff. Only, Rex did make me feel like I'd found the missing part of myself—he made me wonderfully whole.
Within weeks, we had become really serious. In a short amount of blissful time, Rex knew more about me than any other person in this big, wide world. I knew I had met the man that I wanted to spend the rest of my entire life with. I was proud of who he was, and I was proud to be with him. The qualities that he possessed were perfect for me, and perfect for his job as a policeman. Rex was a man who possessed the truest of integrity. He was empathetic and compassionate, courageous and assertive. Mentally and physically strong, with such a responsible manner about him. He was quietly charismatic, unassumingly noble. Others were often drawn to Rex, just as I was. I was in love with this perfect creature, just as he was in love with me.
Then as quick as our love happened, it ended.
Not because our love had died. It was because Rex took me to meet his parents. I never could have known that the simple act of going to meet his father, who was a Chief Constable, and his mother, who was a paediatric nurse, would be the unravelling of our perfect relationship. Right up until the moment that the front door to his parents' home opened, I was happy. Before that door had opened, I was just Angel Lee, about to meet the parents of the man whom she loved wholeheartedly. But when that door finally opened, my happy world devastatingly crumbled right around me. In seconds, my happiness was gone—bitterly gone.
The unthinkable stared right back at me. My past and future had violently collided. Looking into the silently afraid eyes of Rex's father, I felt as though I was shrinking and that the air all around us was being drained from out of the oppressive atmosphere. I simply couldn't breathe as an ashen face looked back at me from where he stood beside Rex's mother. That face was the unthinkable. That face belonged to the man who had paid the sixteen year old me, twenty pounds to suck him off. In that awkward but unsaid moment, he recognised me and I recognised him. We were both older, but we both knew what we had once done together.
I don't know how I did it, but I managed to endure a nauseating hour of being polite, pleasant even, before pretending to suddenly feel unwell. I made my awkward excuses, and left. Whilst Rex drove me home in heartbreaking silence, I had to make the most saddest decision of my life. I knew that there no longer could be an 'us' for Rex and I. To save him the humiliation and pain of what I and his father had once done, I knew that I had to end things with him. If we had stayed together, I knew that what had sordidly once taken place would eventually come out. I couldn't risk that ever happening. I couldn't do that to Rex or his mother. So to protect the man that I loved, I had to leave him. In order to spare him the hurt, I had to hurt myself. I didn't have the strength to do it face to face on that unforgettable night. I thought I could use my faked illness to put some distance between us for a few days before sending him a Dear John text message. I had it all carefully planned out before he had even dropped me off at my little flat. When Rex sweetly walked me to my front door and lovingly kissed me goodnight, I remember holding onto him a little longer than I really should have done, knowing that it would be the last time that I would feel him in my arms. I held onto him so tightly and just breathed in all that he beautifully was. He never saw my tears as I walked away, and he didn't know anything of what I had planned.
Within a couple of days, that heart-ripping text was eventually sent. Rex of course was understandably confused and hurt. On numerous occasions he tried to contact me. He would call, text, email or show up at the flat. On one occasion he even showed up at my work, but was promptly and politely asked to leave by one of the members of staff. All of his desperate attempts to contact me, were always heartbreakingly ignored.
Once I had ended things, I knew that there was never no going back. There could never be any contact. He would have only ended up asking me the reason why I had finished things, and that was a question I could never answer. It was a question I didn't want to have to ever answer. So I left him to think whatever he thought—I just left him.
A little piece of myself died when I left Rex. I knew I would never love someone in the way that I had loved him. My life was always going to feel incomplete without him in it, but I truly believed that I had done the right thing. I had to protect him from my past.
Eventually Rex's attempts of trying to contact me, ceased. I slowly tried to carry on with my life knowing that it would forever feel empty. As the years went by, the emptiness lessened, but it never truly left me. It was like an excruciating pain that had become more of a dull ache. My time at Bisleybury House finally came to an end just over a year ago, when I decided to move to the beautifully historic Bath.
Do you think you can fall in love with a place?
I believe that you can...I know I did.
Bath became my new place of work and my new home. It is historically rich, architecturally magnificent and gorgeously surrounded by the Southwest countryside.
I have landed my dream job, working as a curator at Stratley Museum in the Social History department. The role is challenging, vibrant, with a completely new level of responsibility, but I couldn't be happier.
The museum director, Angela Carr, has become a firm friend. She's someone I've quickly grown to admire and respect. We sometimes socialise outside of work, so when it was her husbands birthday party, I had kindly been invited, and I gladly accepted.
Although there were a few faces that I did recognise, I kind of just stayed on the outskirts of all the fun. I have always felt a little sociably awkward at such parties, so I just walked around the marquee, slowly taking in the beautiful surroundings of their small Edwardian home until Angela decided to call me over. I took my whimsical self and my half drunk glass of Prosecco to where she and some others were standing, all of whom were enthusiastically greeting one another with warm and natural laughter. As Angela animatedly introduced me to everyone, it was then that my life was about to completely change once again. Slowly turning to politely shake my hand, was the man who I once loved with all that I had inside of me. The man who I have always secretly loved. To see his face, after nine numb and very long years, felt awkwardly wonderful.
Rex's eyes quickly narrowed on me, as his relaxed smile simply slipped away from his impassive face. Although he shook my hand, he almost flinched as he did. With a charming half-smile, forcefully pulling on the corners of his mouth, he acknowledged me with just a small and curt nod before quickly letting go of my limp hand and turning his back on me. I was left feeling utterly bereft by his reaction. As soon as Rex's bright green eyes had fixed on me, they instantly dulled at the sight of me. I don't exactly know what I had expected to see in his familiar eyes after all that time.
A flicker of delight?
A small glint of happiness maybe?
But there was nothing sitting within them. Within his once adoring eyes...there was nothing.
*PHEW.... I KNOW THAT IS ONE LOOOOOOOOOONG PROLOGUE, BUT IT WAS NECESSARY FOR THE REST OF THE STORY.
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK, LOVELIES?
VOTES AND COMMENTS GLADLY WELCOMED XXXXX