S K Paisley Read online

  The shallow hiss of someone exhaling made him suddenly alert. He listened more closely and realised he was not alone in the room. Someone was breathing.

  Just as it hadn’t been silent, he started to notice it wasn’t pitch black either. His eyes were adjusting to the dark. Daylight seeped through the heavy velvet curtains and vague shapes began to appear from out of the hazy red hue. Fireplace, table, lamp. Cabinet filled with bone china. Annie’s living room took shape before him.

  The breathing was coming from behind. Fainter than before, the person trying to stifle it. Conscious of him listening. In a burst of anger Paul began to rock. He screamed and spluttered through the gag. The chair legs banged off the floor. Again. Again. Each time the chair hovered for longer, ready to topple. Each time it crashed down, the bang louder than before. Feet padded quickly across the room. Two small hands tightened around his upper arms, trying to hold him down. He couldn’t see the figure but sensed it was slight. It was reaching over him but not from a great height. He could smell perfume and a chill of recognition went through him. Lena’s perfume.

  The struggle ended when a small hand grabbed his hair, yanking his head back. His neck snapped, the suddenness and violence of the wrench stopping him dead. Nails tore his cheeks as his gag was pulled down, damp and sticky now around his neck. His hands clenched into fists. His bladder felt fit to burst.

  “Don’t struggle, Paul. You’ll only make things worse. If that chair falls, you’re staying down there.” Annie’s words ripped like a serrated blade across his neck. The hot sting of her breath lingered on his skin.

  His grinding teeth were beginning to hurt. “I’m going to piss all over your fucking floor!”

  “So piss.”

  “FUCKING LET ME GO!” Reverberations of his cry shook the room.

  With even less care than when she’d taken it off, Annie dragged the gag back up. Pain erupted where’d she made deep scratches in his face.

  His pleading went unheard as her soft feet padded off again and the door banged shut behind her. A warm stream of urine trickled down his leg, splashing onto the floor.

  When he awoke with a start some time later, Annie was sitting in front of him again. He must have been asleep a while. She was sitting, staring. He hated the way she was looking at him, analysing him like a lab rat. A fucking cavity search would be less probing.

  “Pleasant dreams?”

  Sweat clung to his brow.

  “You’ve got to wonder what a person’s done in their life to have dreams like that.”

  Annie had mopped the plastic sheeting beneath him but the smell of his own piss was overpowering the disinfectant and making him feel sick. The denim of his wet jeans had rubbed away the top layer of his skin. In front of him sat a glass of water, slick with condensation. Drinking it would only make him piss again, but he was parched and needed to wash the stale saliva out of his mouth. He mumbled at her. She waited a moment before pulling his gag down.

  “I need water.”

  She nodded, picked up the glass of water and placed it at his lips. He tried to drink, but she pulled it away before he’d had any.

  “Why’re you doing this to me?”

  She looked at him with an ugly smile.

  “Why did you drug me?”

  Her smile was silent.

  “Why are you doing this to me!” His cry exploded loudly.

  Reaching for his gag, she started yanking it into place.

  He jerked his head away from her. When her hand came close to his mouth he seized the chance and bit it. She jumped away in pain, then, harnessing the full force of her body, slapped the side of his head, leaving him momentarily stunned.

  When he regained focus, Annie was pacing the room, rubbing her hand.

  “How does it feel, Paul? To be helpless?”

  Her pacing grew more frantic. “How does it make you feel to know I lured you here? I went looking for you. I’m in your house. And what are you going to do about it?” She mimicked his voice then stopped and said, “Is that what you say to all the girls?”

  She came close to him, her nose almost touching his. Her face was blazing, manically charged.

  “You’re an animal. And you need to be caged.”

  She secured the gag and left the room. His head bowed as he contemplated a life full of sins and wondered for which one he was being made to pay.

  Chapter Three

  Fourteen years ago

  Deep in the park, the amber streetlamps flickered on as the soft glow of the sun began to fade. The happy squeals of spinning, swinging, sliding children had been replaced by the high-pitched screams of adolescents, inebriated and oblivious to the cool, damp evening air. Having no place better to be on a Saturday night, the dozen or so teenagers were passing the hours with stories of bravado and rebellion, war wounds and sympathy. Most of the group congregated at the roundabout, but over on the swings two girls sat slightly apart from the rest. One, a big-boned girl whose strawberry-blonde hair was scraped back in a large ponytail, frizzy tendrils escaping at the front, sat with her feet flat on the ground. The other – small, dark-haired, and with an almost boyish charm that would one day mature into real beauty - swayed slightly, uncharacteristically subdued.

  Gillian, the blonde, passed her a joint. Taking a long draw, the girl exhaled and watched the cloud of white smoke as it rose high into the air and dispersed into nothing.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” Gillian said.

  Lena shrugged. “Not much to say.”

  Gillian wriggled uncomfortably beside her, the metal chains digging into her hips, exposing the skin on her lower back to the elements.

  “Well, I’ve got some news that might cheer you up,” Gillian began, and then waited for Lena to tease the information out of her. When she got no response, Gillian went on. “It’s a secret. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while.”

  The soles of Gillian’s trainers scraped the AstroTurf beneath them. She nearly lost her balance. Unable to contain the news for long, she let the words bubble out of her like water from an overfilled kettle.

  “Hughsey fancies you!” She righted herself and looked at Lena, waiting.

  Lena’s face remained pointedly blank. “I know,” she said.

  Gillian paused, thrown. It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. She took a minute to go on.

  “He told me to tell you,” she eventually continued, her excitement ebbing. “Says he’s liked you for ages.”

  A short distance away a skinheaded, freckle-faced boy in tracksuit and trainers stole a quick glance, his black eyes darting over the two girls on the swings. For a brief second the girls both looked at him and he knew their conversation was about him. Bursting with pride, he reared himself up and then, with all his strength, fired the trolley he was holding into the nearby roundabout, watching in wild-eyed amazement as it crashed, toppling his friend out onto the concrete. The girls turned away, ignoring the eruption of laughter that followed.

  “What do you want me to tell him?” Gillian said, her voice wavering.

  “Tell him nothing,” Lena said tiredly. “I think he’s a moron.”

  Gillian’s round cheeks, pink with cold and cider, flushed a deep scarlet. An emotion flashed across her face. Not easily identifiable. But for a second Lena thought Gillian was going to hit her.

  At that moment, two new arrivals appeared and sauntered towards the girls on the swings. The rest of the group gathered round to greet them. Dressed in jeans and shirts, they brought with them the smell of citrus cologne. Their stubble was shaved into strange, inventive shapes around their chins. They looked old enough to buy their own booze. None of the others had even seen them before.

  “Dropping by for old times’ sake,” one of the older boys said condescendingly. “Proud to see you’re keeping Saturday night drinking sessions in the park alive.”


  Suddenly conscious of her limbs, Lena sat back in the swing and flicked her hair while the older boys shared their joints and laughed about the depravity of their distant youth. It didn’t take long for the other boys to get bored and walk away, frustrated that the newcomers had stolen the attention of all the girls in the group. Retreating to the roundabout, each of them soberly self-conscious now, they eyed their scuffed trainers. The loud laughter from the swings floated back to them like a challenge.

  “If it’s anything like the others, it’ll be legendary!” one of the older boys boasted about the party he was going to in town. The six girls squealed like a box of kittens.

  “A mate from way back,” said the other, in his deep, throaty voice. Lena noticed the thick dark hair sprouting from the open neck of his shirt and wondered how old he was. Maybe as much as twenty.

  “Are we invited?” asked one of the girls and giggled.

  “I don’t know,” the older-looking of the two said uncertainly. “You never know how these things are gonna go. If something kicked off…”

  “The guy’s just out of lock-up,” his dark-haired friend added, dangerously.

  “Yeah, we used to hang about, years ago,” said the first. “Little Paulie the prank monkey. Always trying to run about with the older boys, asking for ciggies. We’d be like, ‘Paulie, jump off that first-floor balcony, don’t break your neck and we’ll give you a fag. Go nick some munchies from the shop.’ And he’d be like, ‘OK.’ He was scabby as fuck. His da was always kickin’ his heid in. We called him Scabby Do.”

  “He was wee but he was gem,” his pal added. “Fighting the Pakis—” He stopped mid-sentence and looked at Lena. “All in good fun of course.”

  She noted the significance of his retraction but pretended not to. A year-round tan, her mum’s boyfriend called it. A touch of the gypsy.

  “Wee wide-o.” The first one came to his rescue. “Rumour has it, he works for some serious people now though,” he said and they both raised their eyebrows in demonstration of how serious.

  Lena took a final drag of the joint she was smoking and flicked it away.

  “We can look after ourselves,” she said, feeling bold. Gillian poked her in the ribs but she ignored it. She could feel the envious eyes of the other girls on her as the boys exchanged glances and laughed.

  “Yeah, we can look after ourselves,” the other girls added in mistimed chorus.

  “Well, I suppose,” said the first boy to the other. “As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  Lena fluttered her eyelashes.

  In the end only Lena and Gillian left with them for the party. The others, full of drunken abandon, at first wanted to go but then dropped out one by one, making excuses. Gillian had tried to protest but Lena had fixed her eyes on her, cutting her short.

  “OK. But I can’t stay too late,” Gillian said grudgingly. They both knew the trouble they’d get into for staying out past their curfew, but they put that to the back of their minds.

  As they left, Gillian nodded over to Hughsey to let him know her loyalty was still to him. Lena kept her eyes ahead.

  On the way to the bus stop, the boys shared their vodka. Lena tried not to think about the long journey home.

  They got off the bus in the centre of town and walked down bustling Sauchiehall Street, busier now than it ever was during the day. The bright lights of pubs and nightclubs washed the dull sandstone walls with colour. Car horns blasted and motors revved. Rowdy crowds flowed between venues, faces charged with frantic energy. A feeling rippled from person to person that anyone could do anything at any time.

  Lena scoped it with wide-eyed longing.

  The boys led them up to Charing Cross and turned onto North Street, heading south, flanked by the M8 on one side. They passed the Mitchell Library and the street grew steadily quieter. The towers of the Anderston high-rises, their destination, loomed in the distance. As they approached them, the lights and the noise began to fade. Beyond the high-rises, a shadowy church creaked beside a deserted school yard, the faded yellow sunflowers painted on its windows defiant against the stark urban concrete. Under the tangle of motorway bridges, a pedestrian underpass led into the seedy underworld of the city’s streetwalkers and kerb crawlers. Lena looked over and shivered.

  It was after midnight by the time they reached the towers.

  A sickly yellow glow lit the graffiti-scarred lift as it rattled all the way to the fifteenth floor. “Penthouse,” the dark-haired boy said as the doors slid open. They were hit by a blast of sound and the pungent smell of skunk. “Here we go!”

  “Stick close to us,” said his friend. “We’ll keep you safe.”

  Both boys bounced towards the end flat, from where people were spilling out into the corridor. They disappeared through the open front door. Lena looked at Gillian, shrugged and followed their lead.

  There were bodies everywhere. Every inch of the flat was filled. A thick cloud of smoke hung in the air. The boys were swallowed by the crowd. Lena began to push through, the pathway they left behind disappearing like footsteps in fresh snow. Music blasted from a room up ahead. Colourful lights escaped, illuminating the dark hall in flashes of yellow, magenta, azure. The floor vibrated as they walked towards it. Lena’s heart pounded in her chest. She drew close enough to catch a peek inside. It was packed with people milling around, dancing, being happy, beautiful.

  Gillian’s damp hand closed around hers. “How long do we have to stay?” she asked, her muffled voice fading into the music. They were being jostled from right to left.

  “We just got here.” Lena’s voice carried thinly to her friend.

  Gillian’s grip around her hand tightened. She was shouting something else, trying to pull her back, but Lena pushed onwards. Somewhere in the struggle her hand broke free of Gillian’s, but she didn’t look back.

  Her back streaked with sweat, her arms outstretched, Lena swayed to her own rhythm on the improvised dance floor. She and Gillian had separated almost as soon as they’d got inside, but the boys they’d come with were standing in the corner of the room, smiling over. The pill they had given her created a pleasant tingling in her belly. She felt so happy and filled with love for everyone around her and she wanted it to last forever. Her slim hips snaked in her skinny jeans and she lost herself in the light and music. Every song that played was her favourite. Every stranger in the room, a friend.

  When Gillian appeared in front of her, she had no idea how much time had passed. With two strong hands, Gillian clasped Lena’s shoulders. “Where did you go? I searched everywhere for you.”

  Lena could barely hear her over the music. She wriggled free and continued dancing.

  Gillian grabbed her again, her fingers pressing into Lena’s upper arms. “What have you taken?” Effortlessly, she turned Lena towards her.

  Lena’s head lolled and she felt Gillian’s nails digging in, puncturing her flesh. She struggled to get free but Gillian pressed tighter and tighter.

  “Fuck off!” Lena hissed and dragged her nails down Gillian’s hand, drawing blood.

  Gillian recoiled, rubbing her wounded hand against her chest. Lena jerked free. Red marks rose where Gillian’s nails had dug into Lena’s arms.

  “Fine,” Gillian sobbed, tears welling in her eyes. “I hope you get raped.”

  A few seconds later she left the flat, standing on toes and throwing elbows as she went.

  Lena suddenly felt sick. The room was hot and the lights were making her dizzy. Seized by cramps and nausea, she made a beeline for the toilet. Other people were in there but she managed to clear it and push shut the door behind her. The music was muted by the ringing in her ears. She placed the toilet lid down and sat on top of it, putting her head in her hands, trying to steady the dizziness. When she moved again, her legs were glued to the floor but her head floated off somewhere in space. Staring into
the bathroom mirror at the black holes that had become her eyes, she unsuccessfully willed herself sober.

  Splashing cold water on her face, she continued to stare, until she realised that the steady thumping was not in her head but a hand beating the bathroom door. She opened the door and someone pushed past her, diving for the toilet. Leaving them to it, she re-entered the crowd, the sound of retching behind her drowned out by the music.

  Back in the room, the heat was overpowering so she fought her way to the window. She tried to open it but it was locked. Placing her forehead on the cool glass, she attempted to focus but the ground outside, fifteen floors below, wavered before her eyes. She was burning up.

  “Nice view?” came a male voice from behind her. “You should take this.”

  A hand placed a plastic cup of clear liquid in her unsteady fingers. Slowly, she lowered herself to the ground and crouched just below the window; surrounded by legs and feet, she felt oddly peaceful. The chilled water washed through her as she drank.

  “Do you want to go get some fresh air?”

  She looked up but his face was in shadow, backlit by the flashing lights. His hand reached down for hers and she felt herself being pulled to her feet.

  He took her up to the rooftop, unlocking the door with a set of keys he produced from his back pocket. The air felt like frosted ice against her bare skin. She was shivering from the cold but it helped clear her head. Before her, the hazy jewelled skyline danced and twinkled. She thought about her mum, out there, one tiny amber sparkle that would last through the night.