Dirty Seduction

The case was in my hand. My feet were ready, but they wouldn’t move.

“Scottie would have pulled himself together,” she said, “We argue. Just like any other couple. It’s me as well as him. Yeah, Julian helped me, which was nice, but Scottie was trying to do better, and he would have done. He’s doing great since he’s been in Scotland. He means well. There are two sides to every story, Rosie.”

It was too much. I couldn’t hold back any longer.

“BULLSHIT!” I yelled. “That’s absolute BULLSHIT, Mum! Scottie is a piece of shit who should have fucked off long ago! He’d still be here causing shit and fucking you over if it wasn’t for Julian. And he’d be fucking ME over, too! He’d be fucking ME over, just like you, if it wasn’t for Julian saving me!”

The memory hit me hard again. The memory of him pinning me to the bed and threatening me in the dark, and it was horrible. Vile. Disgusting. Like he was. Scottie was disgusting. He was a cunt, as Julian rightly said.

My eyes met Mum’s and she saw my pain.

“It’s not just you Scottie was a cunt to, Mum! Not at the end!”

“Scottie fucking you over? What do you mean?” she asked. “Scottie and I had our arguments, sure, but he wouldn’t fuck you over, Rosie. It’s about me and him, not you. He loves you!”

My own tears came then, along with hysterical laughter. I should have walked. I wanted to. But my feet still wouldn’t move. I was frozen to the spot. It was me covering my face with my hands this time. Broken.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Scottie doesn’t love anyone,” I sobbed. “I knocked on Julian’s door more than once, you know, and that was for a reason. It was for a REASON!” “What?” She paused, keys still in her hand. “I don’t get it. What reason?” I tipped my head back, wishing the tears would go away.

“Talk to me,” Mum said. “Rosie, seriously. You’d better start talking to me. What is this about Scottie? What did he do?”

I could have collapsed on the floor in front of her, hating how my feelings ran wild inside me, twisting and stabbing. I managed to spit my words out, barely audible through the tears.

“Scottie threatened me. Your boyfriend came into my bedroom and pinned me down while you were waiting for him in the room next door. He told me he’d fuck me up as well as you if I even dared to stand up to him. He said we’d both pay the price, me AND you! He meant it, Mum! He was going to hurt both of us! He’s the sicko. Not Julian. Scottie is the fucking sicko.”

Her mind was struggling to keep up with me. Her eyes wide.

“What? Before he went to Scotland? But things were good then. He couldn’t… he wouldn’t…”

My voice choked as I spoke.

“He’s not in Scotland,” I told her. “He ran away, finally kicked in the ass by someone who had the power to stop him! And thank fuck for that! Julian’s not on the run, Mum. Scottie is!”

“But of course he’s in Scotland… with his job…” she began, but then she stopped. Her expression changed as she looked at me. My stare was steady, my truth holding firm.

“He was going to hurt me,” I said again, more quietly this time. “I swear to you, Mum, he was going to hurt me. I ran to Julian because I had nowhere else to go. He saved you twice and saved me, too. You just didn’t know it. I didn’t tell you.”

She was shaking her head in shock.

“No… it can’t be… no way. Just no way.”

My eyes must have been so honest. I hated myself as I saw how hurt she was.

“It’s true,” I told her. “Scottie threatened me. It was Julian who saved me, and Julian who chased him away.”

The keys fell to the floor as she took her hair in her hands.

“Why?! Why the fuck wouldn’t you have told me that?! That’s crazy! Fucking crazy!”

I kept as calm as I could, letting my words sink in.

“It’s crazy, but it’s true. I’m not lying and you know it. I know you know it. You know him.”

“This is crazy insane,” Mum said. “If that’s true”

“It is true,” I said. “Scottie was going to hurt me. And you.”

I watched her eyes register my words, and yeah, she did know it. It was sinking in.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have protected you myself! My God, Rosie, if he’d have hurt you, I’d have killed him. I’d have torn him to pieces! I’d have stabbed him, right in the fucking throat!”

I closed my eyes, struggling.

“Yeah, really? You think so?” I couldn’t hold back my hurt. “You know what he told me when he pinned me down? He said you’d have believed him and not me. He said he knew what your choice would be. And I knew it, too. That’s why I had to go to the man upstairs.”

“That’s BULLSHIT!”

“IS IT?” I met her stare again.

She looked so shocked.

“YES! If I’d have thought for ONE SECOND he was going to hurt you, I’d have killed him. I swear to fucking God!”

“You mean that? For real?”

She nodded, frantic. Eyes still wide.

“Yes! OF COURSE I MEAN THAT! YOU’RE MY FUCKING DAUGHTER!”

I had to wipe my tears away with my cuff.

“You should be thanking Julian then, not hating him, because he’s the one who would have killed Scottie. He threatened him in the hall downstairs, and told him if he didn’t fuck off, he’d put a knife in his ribs. THAT’S the man you think is taking advantage of me. The one who cares about me enough to risk putting himself in jail for the rest of his life, just to keep me safe! People can whisper all they want about him, about his past and his sicko ways, but they are all full of utter crap. They don’t know him!”

Mum was silent, so I carried on. I let it flow. I let my heart run free.

“Julian treats me like I’m worth something. He treats me like I light up his world. He treats me like I AM his world. And I’ve never seen that before. I’ve never seen it in this shithole of an estate, and I’ve never seen it in one single shit relationship in this apartment. I’ve seen people who claimed they loved you, but have they fuck. And Scottie was the worst of all!” I had to take a breath. “So don’t you dare criticise Julian! DON’T YOU DARE!” The passion in my words seemed to stun her. She stared at me, mute.

“I’m in love with him,” I told her. “I don’t care what anyone thinks or says about it. I’m in love with him, and I want to be with him. That’s not going to change. Trisha, or Martha, or Bertie, or anyone in this block, or anyone on this fucking estate, or in the Brewery Tavern can say what they like, I don’t care. Nothing is going to change!”

She slumped against the wall at that, her fire burnt out.

“My God,” she said. “You should have told me. About everything.”

I knew then that she believed me about Scottie. I knew she believed me. She closed her eyes and I waited, letting her brain catch up with the outburst.

“And Julian loves you back, does he?” she said. “That’s what he claims, is it? That he loves you?”

“He doesn’t claim he loves me. He does love me.”

She changed her approach. “He’s got to be at least thirty years older than you.”

I sighed. “So? Who cares?”

“He must care. He should do.”

“He did care, before he listened to me and believed I was aware of my own mind, and my own thoughts, and was able to make my own decisions on what the hell I wanted.” I dared to push it. “I’m asking you to do the same, Mum. Listen to me. Thirty years or not. I don’t care.”

“People say he’s filthy, a pervert… they say he cheated on his wife, and fucked loads of young girls, and did disgusting things to them.”

“There are a few tiny bits of truth in a whole load of lies. People can say what they like. I love being with him.”

“People say he fucked his family over and left them behind! That’s not ok!”

“People don’t know him. Maybe you should get to know him yourself before you judge. You can ask him the questions yourself, rather than listening to bullshit.”

“I can’t believe this…” she said, shaking her head. “I just can’t believe it.”

“You’d better start believing it, Mum, because I’m not leaving him. I don’t want to be without him, not for anything. I mean it. I’m going upstairs. Choose to listen, or don’t, but I’ll be going back up there tonight.”

I was a different Rosie than the innocent, scared little girl she’d always known. The contrast in my own strength was enough to make my heart soar, despite the pain, and it was Julian who’d enabled that in me. I could have thanked him for all time, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“You’ve been staying with him? Upstairs? This whole time?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Constantly.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know. It was so fucking obvious.”

I opted for more honesty. “You’ve been so busy dreaming up plans with Scottie that you didn’t give a shit where I was. If you had, maybe you’d have figured it out.”

“Stop it!” she said, but she didn’t deny it. She cursed to herself.

“Tell me it’s not true,” I pushed. “Go on. Tell me you’ve been thinking about me, really keen to know who Jenny is. I haven’t seen it. You haven’t even called.”

“I didn’t suspect a thing!”

My tears sprang up again, even through my strength.

“Scottie’s had you on puppet strings, just like usual. He’s been dangling you, lost to everything in the world but how fucking great he is.”

I saw the rage on her face at that.

“Scottie is a cunt. He’s dead to me now.”

I blew out a breath, not knowing whether to believe her or not.

“He is,” she went on. “He’s a cunt who should be strung up for what he did to you.”

“He’s a cunt who should be strung up even more for what he did to YOU.”

She didn’t shrug it off with a just a temper or arguments comeback. She nodded. She agreed with me. For once in my life, she actually agreed with me.

We stood in silence. I still had the door open, paused to leave. But I didn’t. I didn’t move my feet.

“Julian would have really killed him? He meant it?” Mum asked, finally, and there was just the faintest hint of approval in her eyes.

“Yeah, he would have. I’d bet my life on it.”

She was still leaning against the wall, and the silence between us was deafening, but it wasn’t horrible anymore. There was a sad closeness in it. And I dared to hope. I dared.

I risked it. I asked her.

“Will you get to know him? Can you accept me being in love with him?”

She was crying again. I saw her battle, and I got it. From the outside it would look horrendous, with all the gossip and bitching about him, and me being a young girl on the arm of someone three decades older than me, but I prayed she would try. I prayed she would at least give it a chance.

But she couldn’t. She took a breath before she answered me. My heart fell through the floor as I saw the hurt in her eyes.

“I can’t. I don’t want to speak to him, and I don’t want to see you with him, and nothing is ever going to change that. Not ever. He’s not your boyfriend, Rosie. He’s a guy who likes to play dirty games with vulnerable girls like you.” Her tears fell, but her jaw tightened. “Don’t go up there. Stay here with me. We’ll work things out, no Scottie, you don’t need the dirty prick upstairs.”

My jaw tightened too.

“I don’t need him, I want him because I love him. And if you can’t accept that…”

“I won’t accept that.”

My heart was swimming in the depths but I took hold of my suitcase again and my feet finally moved for me.

“You know where to find me if you change your mind,” I said and closed the door behind me.