Dirty Seduction

ROSIE

IT was so much easier to be holed up in apartment six than face the world outside. I didn’t want to leave Julian, and I didn’t want to leave our fantasy life. Talking, laughing, eating together. Showering, watching TV shows. And learning to be the best slut I could possibly be. I loved it. I loved it all. I was reading all his old manuscripts as he was reading some of the charity shop paperbacks on his shelf, and we were sleeping while holding each other tight, right through the night. And we were fucking, of course. There was lots and lots of fucking.

We barely even bothered to get dressed. My body was almost constantly covered in marker pen, craving his. I loved it. I felt branded by the man of my dreams, his eyes filled with filthy adoration every time he looked at me. Touches said more than anything. Our bodies screamed out for each other every second, day and night.

It was him who brought up the obvious question late on Sunday evening.

“Are you going to go back to college tomorrow?”

I had no choice, really. My exams would be looming soon enough, and I didn’t want to bail on my studies. I didn’t want to be a leech on Julian’s cash for ever, and my calling in sick wasn’t going to hold up much longer. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll go back to college tomorrow.”

He looked so concerned for me. “Do you want me to accompany you to the gates?”

I laughed at that, squeezing his hand on the sofa.

“It’s ok, thanks, Daddy. I don’t need a chaperone.”

He laughed at my reply but didn’t seem all that convinced.

“I hate stating the obvious, but it could get nasty. The whole place will be a sea of shitty whispers, I’m sure.”

I shrugged. “I don’t give a shit about the whole place. They can all fuck off.”

He squeezed my hand back, giving me a smile. “It’s lovely as always to see your confidence blooming. I just hope you’re not battered by people’s opinions. I’m certain they’ll ram them in your face at the first opportunity.”

It wasn’t confidence that was blooming in me, though. It was me. I was feeling myself blooming, becoming my true personality for once in my life, rather than shrinking into the background.

Just a shame Mum wasn’t around to see it. Maybe if she could, she’d be thanking Julian, not hating him.

Part of me had hoped she’d come knocking at the door, even just a little bit calmer and wanting to talk, but no. Nothing. Radio silence. It always hurt when I checked my phone and saw she was online. I’d called up the message window plenty of times, but no. I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. I wasn’t going to beg or back down.

On Sunday evening, we’d lain in bed and Julian set up his laptop and we watched the very first video he’d taken of me.

It just felt so right, spooned into my naked hero, his arms around me as I saw myself being stretched wide. But most of all it was Julian I couldn’t take my eyes off. The look in his eyes as he made me his slut. It wasn’t the look of a filthy pervert. It was the look of adoration. I felt it from him, too.

It was bliss, feeling so loved, so safe.

Julian fucked me tenderly that night. Fucked me and kissed me with beautiful passion. And then he held me tight all night long, which was just perfect, but I’d be lying if I said my stomach wasn’t churning as reality kicked in. Through the bravado it was still there. I knew I’d be facing the world tomorrow. The morning only made it harder.

I took a shower to make sure every visible scrap of marker pen and filth was gone before I got dressed for college. I used a bit of lip gloss and put my hair up in a high ponytail, trying to look as bouncy and happy as possible. I packed my bag for the day with my books and pens, and it felt like years since I’d been there as I slung it over my shoulder.

“Good luck,” Julian said, as if he was packing me off to war. Maybe he was. So be it.

I could do this. I had to.

I felt sick as I left our apartment block and began my journey to college. I was just grateful I hadn’t seen Mum or Trisha. It would have made my smile so much harder. I almost made it to the college gates before I spotted Jayden. My heart dropped as I saw the rage on his face. He charged over and glared at me like I was trash.

“You’re fucking him, then? The perv upstairs? That’s why he really fucked Dad over, isn’t it? He was playing you. The sick fucker was fucking playing you.”

My own rage flared up in return.

“Fuck off, Jay! He fucked your dad over because your dad is a cunt who’s been abusing my mum for years, and was about to hurt me, too.”

Jayden stuck his face in mine.

“Yeah, well thanks to you, the whole estate thinks they know what Dad’s like now. Bev’s been spouting about it every chance she gets, telling the world he’s an abuser.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

That took me aback.

“What? Mum’s been telling people?”

I saw hurt underneath his rage. Despite trying, he couldn’t hide it. He had been as fucked over by his dad as much as the rest of us, he just didn’t want to see it. Loyalty is such a blessing and a curse.

“Her and Trisha have been saying Scottie assaulted you. They’ve been telling everyone. Trisha’s like a fucking trumpet everywhere she goes.”

“Trisha’s always like a trumpet everywhere she goes.”

“She’s got plenty to trumpet about now. Everyone might as well get popcorn to listen. Dad assaulting you, the sicko upstairs assaulting you, too. She’s screaming it to the whole fucking world.”

“Hey!” I said at that. “That’s crap, Jay. Julian isn’t assaulting me. He isn’t a sicko, and I’m with him because I want to be. He’s great to me, always has been, right from the very first second I knocked at his door.”

Jay’s eyes went wide. “YOU, knocked on HIS door? Fucking hell, I guessed you must be desperate for it but that makes you fucked in the head as well.”

“Hardly. I knocked on his door, because I needed help getting YOUR dad off MY mum before he choked her to death.”

“Sure, yeah. Whatever you say. He’s a fucking pervert. He’s using you.”

I hated the thought of all the people gossiping about how I was just a stupid girl being taken advantage of. People preaching on about how I was a kid who didn’t know better.

“I’m saying what’s true,” I said. “Julian isn’t using me. He loves me, and I love him.”

Jay laughed at that. He actually laughed.

“Think what you want, Rosie. Your glasses have gone rose-coloured. The creep’s full of shit and you’re buying into it. Shame he had to fuck his own family over, let alone you on top. He’s told everyone he’s a dirty old cunt who likes fucking teenagers himself, you know. At least he was fucking honest about it. Sick twat.”

He barged past me and stormed off into college. He was right about that, of course. Julian had been honest about it. Noble, but such a shame that he’d condemned himself to a load of idiots.

I was reeling a bit, standing outside the gates as my lessons were about to start. It was time to get myself together. I needed to face my classes.

Everyone was staring. Everyone. News must have spread like wildfire, as the whole community seemed to be whispering and casting snidey glances, and I felt every single one of them. My friends did nothing but dig, but it was angled, as though I was even more of an outsider than usual, and they were only out for their own amusement. I knew they’d be bitching the moment I walked away. So, I did walk away. I walked to the library and sat there on my own. At one point I wished I had Trisha’s trumpet voice myself. I wished I could stand up in front of the whole college and tell them they were all talking shit about me and Julian, but what would be the point? They’d never believe me.

I was reading a thriller paperback in the kind of genre Julian wrote when someone put down a satchel on the table beside me. It was a battered dark brown leather, and had glitter and stickers all over it, strange. I was still looking at it when its owner took a seat beside me. I’d seen her around vaguely. She had glasses like me, but thicker framed, and she had long, red hair in a braid. She was from the art college block, I was sure.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” I said back, suspicious, since I knew there was something more to it. There were plenty of empty tables.

“I heard about you and the guy,” she told me, and I wanted to roll my eyes and say you and the rest of the universe, who gives a shit, but her tone wasn’t like any of the others. Hers was nice.

“I get shit all the time, too,” she told me. “My boyfriend is nearly forty, and that’s bad enough. Your gossip must be like a tornado.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Just thought I’d say, that if you need anyone to talk to, or hang out with or whatever, you can talk to me. I get it. Well, kind of.”

She smiled and got up to leave, but I held out my hand for her to stay.

“Wait, just…” I smiled back at her. “That’s really cool. Thanks. I’d love that.”

“Sure,” she said, and plopped her bag down as she took her seat. “I’m Lola, great to meet you.”

“You, too.”

“What are you reading?” she asked, and I showed her the cover.

“Midnight on the Run.”

“Nice.”

“Are you a reader?”

She shook her head, and got a laptop out of her satchel. “Not really. I’m more of an artist.”

That figured.

“What kind of artist?”

“Digital,” she said. “I love it. I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, just got it onscreen now rather than using colouring pencils.”

I turned the conversation back to the obvious.

“You live with your partner now? And he’s forty, right?”

She nodded with a grin. “Yeah. My mum thinks I’m a twat. Won’t speak to him. It’ll be a year next month.”

I laughed. “Yeah, mine thinks I’m a twat, too.”

I prayed it wouldn’t be a year until Mum spoke to me and Julian, but I wasn’t feeling all that optimistic.

Lola didn’t push or pry or anything, just sat next to me, unassuming as she switched on her laptop. The backdrop on her screen was incredible. Vivid colours and flowers intertwined with her name in the middle in italics. I looked at her afresh, and she was quite a character. She had three different piercings in her ears, and her braid had a yellow ribbon at the bottom. She was cool, in a purple sweater, and her glasses suited her, with their thick black frames.

“I’m really pleased to meet you,” I said to her again. “Honestly, thanks for coming over.”

It felt great to talk to someone outside of me and Julian who actually got it. She told me all about her situation. Her guy, Peter, sounded pretty cool. He was a neighbour who she’d known since she was a teenager and had been crushing on for years before she managed to get in through his front door. He’d fought it, like Julian. He loved her now, like Julian loved me. And they’d embraced it despite all the bitching, and the gossiping, and the judgements, they were holding hands together wherever they went.