Dirty Seduction

Welcome back to another Story which will leave you thrilled. I hope the journey has been amazing this far…

Title: My Next door Neighbor

Prologue

ROSIE

It was five months ago that our block got a new resident upstairs in apartment number six. The new resident might have been beautiful, without the heaviness of the world on his shoulders.

He was tall, with dark hair stranded with silver, and a sculpted brow over bright green eyes. Well-dressed but unkempt, in tailored suits slightly too big for his lean frame. He looked gaunt like he’d seen happier days. Much, much happier days…

A man like him shouldn’t be here in block four of Crenham Drive, with its faded green carpet hallways. He was out of place amongst the stale smell and the peeling paintwork.

No. The man in apartment six didn’t belong here, but he’d arrived with a barrage of whispers. Disgusting, seedy, nasty. Fucked up. Perverted. Arrogant, reclusive. Sinister.

They said he was a disgraced teacher, who’d preyed on his students. A sick man, who deserved prison. Someone on the run.

They said a lot of things.

Other residents would scowl at me with hissed voices, always the same morbid tune.

Rosie, don’t you ever, ever talk to the man upstairs.

You’d better stay the fuck away from the man upstairs, he’s trouble, Rosie.

So I, sweet little Rosie, heeded their advice. I’d shiver whenever I caught sight of him, eyes dropping whenever he passed by me in the hall. I did what I was told and I never, ever talked to the man upstairs.

Not until one night, in total desperation, when I had nowhere else to turn…

***

ROSIE

Mum’s scream was so loud, I heard it over my earphones, my audiobook drowned out by her terror. Fuck, how I ran.

Dinner plates were crashing from the draining board as I raced into the kitchen, smashing into jagged chunks over the floor. There was Scottie, slamming Mum into the oven as she lashed out and battled against him. She screamed obscenities in his face until the vicious, stumpy weasel clamped his hands around her throat.

“You’d better shut the fuck up now, Bev, you stupid, fucking bitch!”

I screamed before I charged, set to wrestle him to free my mum, but he elbowed me away like I was a scrawny wisp, knowing I wasn’t strong enough to stop him.

“FUCK OFF, ROSIE! KEEP OUT OF IT!”

Mum was choking, her eyes wide as she struggled, and I didn’t know what to do. Then he slapped her and shook her and slapped her some more before he was at it again, hands back crushing her windpipe. I was shaking too badly to try to put a knife into him, so I bolted out of the apartment and down the corridor to hammer at Martha’s door.

“MARTHA, IT’S ROSIE! HELP! HELP! IT’S SCOTTIE! HE’S GOT MUM!”

I could hear the roar of the TV from her living room as I hammered. Thank fuck she was in there.

“MARTHA, PLEASE! OPEN THE DOOR!!”

The TV went quiet, and I could hear Rolo barking. I heard her approach the other side, but she didn’t open up for me.

“Call the police!” she shouted, but I didn’t have time.

I slammed my fists against the wood.

“MARTHA, PLEASE! HE’S CHOKING HER!” “CALL THE FUCKING POLICE!” she screamed back.

Fuck it, she wasn’t going to open the door.

I ran to the end of the corridor, but Trisha ignored my screams, even though I could hear Ramsay crying in her hallway.

I ran down to the floor below, but I knew nobody there would help me. Everyone hated Scottie Barnes, and they didn’t like my mother much, either. I was alone and petrified, and there was no way the police would show up in time.

So, fuck it.

I grabbed hold of the handrail and ran upstairs.

Gerald and Eveline in number eight were in their 80s, and Bertie in number seven was on crutches from a fall, so there was only one option left, and I took it. I raced to the end of the upstairs corridor and I hammered on number six’s door.

“PLEASE! WILL YOU HELP ME! PLEASE! I NEED HELP!!”

I prayed, still hammering, trying to scream out through my sobs, because I was sure Scottie was so fucked up tonight that he was going to kill my mum.

“PLEASE! I NEED HELP!”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

I could barely see through the tears when the door of apartment six opened, and there he was. The tall, sinister man upstairs. He was in one of his suits, his striped navy tie hanging limp as he towered high. His eyebrows were pitted for a moment as he looked down at me through hard green eyes. I pushed my glasses up my nose to meet his stare and managed to suck in enough breath that he could hear my words.

“Scottie has got my mum in the kitchen, and he’s choking her. PLEASE, please, come and help me. Please, save my mum!”

I was so relieved when he stepped out and raced ahead of me. He took the stairs three at a time, on a mission as he ran, already storming through our open front door by the time I got back to our floor. I’d only just made it to our hallway when Scottie came sailing across into the living room, clattering over the coffee table. It busted underneath him as he hit the deck, and I hoped his rotten legs were broken too, but unfortunately not. He hitched up on his elbows, unscathed.

The man from apartment six stepped up to him, and he looked so tall in there, showing up Scottie for the pathetic little shit he was. Mum’s asshole of a boyfriend looked up at his assailant, but he didn’t move, didn’t protest, didn’t try to fight his way out of it. Pathetic wimp.

I found Mum sobbing on the floor in the kitchen. Her lip was red and bloody, and her cheek was already swelling, but at least she wasn’t fucking strangled. Not this time.

“Stay there!” I told her, like she had anywhere else to go.

My slippers crunched on broken plates on my way back through to the living room. The man upstairs was still standing there, staring out at the idiot on the floor.

“GET OUT!” I yelled at Scottie. “Seriously, Scott, get the FUCK OUT OF HERE! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”

The vile prick dragged himself up from the floor and slid away against the wall with a sneer, daring to look at me like I was the piece of shit and not him.

“Bev fucking started it!”

He brushed himself down and loped off with a self-righteous swagger, as though he was the one in the right for throwing the damn punches. It still hurt me when he did that, every single time.