Aurora - Wings of the Goddess Pt. 03

"You were actually there?" Vicky asked in a tiny voice. "While she was... fornicating?"

"Well where else was I gonna go? Outside with the meth-heads? Outside with the derroes? And the drunks and the hookers and the kiddy-fiddlers? There was no bloody way, and it wasn't like she could send me to day-care."

"And She let you watch?"

"Made me more like it. Called it on the job training. And why not, most of the punters got off on it. You know how it is, when you drive past a really bad car accident? You don't want to look but just can't help yourself? It was like that. Every now and then I'd just have to take a peek and there they'd be, her 'clients', staring at me over their shoulders, their great big asses bouncing up and down, eyes bugging out and mouths hanging open..."

Vicky put a hand to her mouth. "How old were you?"

"Nine? Ten? Honestly, I don't know. I still have no idea when I was actually born."

"So you might actually be-"

"Do NOT go there." Beck warned. "'Okay? Just don't."

"But those men... Did any of them ever... you know... try to touch you?"

"All the time... offered some serious money, too... but the Thing would never be in it. Don't go thinking she was protecting me though. It was just, if word got out and I was taken away she was gonna lose all of her bennies... child support, free housing, free medical, that sort of thing. Heaps of scumbags had been caught hawking their kids and they were gone so fast it made their heads spin. We had this joke... 'what's the difference between a pit bull and Child Services?' Give up? 'A pit bull eventually lets the kid go'."

"What about school?" Vicky asked.

"What about it?"

"Surely they would have given you refuge?"

"I never went." Beck said matter-of-factly, "Or only rarely. The Thing never went so why should I? Not learning to read and write never did her any harm. And it was such a hassle anyway, waking up before lunch, washing my uniform every couple of weeks. And have you any idea how it feels to be called 'povvo'? To have the other kids laugh when you turn up to school, with all your bits and pieces in a shopping bag?"

"Why didn't you turn to the church?"

"The church?" Beck glared. "Get real."

"If you went to the right one."

"Maybe," Beck said dryly, "but there weren't any Buddhists around."

"There are many, many good people of faith, Rebekah."

"And plenty of bad ones, and they're the ones who'll fuck up your whole frikken' life. And besides, I was in enough trouble, because the Thing finally managed to score herself a boyfriend. She was a real catch, let's face it, in the same way as herpes or syphilis, so who could resist?

"So, enter the the Maggot. At least that's what I used to call him. Picture your typical junky... a scrawny, scabby, rat-faced little scrote with missing teeth and a mullet, all covered in jail tattoos. With that whiny junky voice," Beck shuddered, "you know the one. Or you should, if you've spent any time hanging around court. He just turned up one day when the Thing was holding a pissup and never went away. Then one thing led to another because even scumbags need a partner and before you know it they're making me call him 'dad'. And that was it, the Thing had herself an official relationship so we could move back to community housing. It was like Christmas.

"So what on Earth could anyone, even a small time dealer and wannabe pimp, see in a foul-mouthed, obese, twenty-something slut missing most of her teeth? A business opportunity, that's what. With his brains, he said, and my looks, they could make a killing. She'd look after the 'advertising' and take all the bookings, while he took care of the cash. She'd take sixty percent, he'd take forty, and have free access to all the fringe benefits. It was gonna be awesome. They'd be rich, he said, buy a car, take a holiday, and she'd get something back for all those years she'd wasted raising me."

"Wasted?"

"According to her."

"But why?" Vicky pleaded, "Why did she treat you like that? Why did she hate you? What did you do?"

"You'll have to ask her." Beck Shrugged.

Vicky was shaking her head again. "But why would anyone, let alone a moth... woman, do that to their child? It doesn't make sense."

"You reckon? Well hold onto your hat because it's about to get better. Because soon we reached the point where I was about to make my debut. On the Game. Not that I had any say in it, but word went out that the fruit was nearly ripe and a mate of the Maggot's put in a bid. And that was that. I was about to be dished up to my very first customer, just as soon as he got out of jail."

The colour had drained from Vicky's face. "Jail?"

"Maximum security, to be precise," Beck nodded, "for almost killing a dude. Convicted armed robber. Mid-level dealer and outlaw biker, not to mention rapist and child-abuser... apart from that a model citizen. He'd just done a five year stretch and was about to hit the streets on parole and I was gonna be his welcome home surprise. His nickname was 'Shank', as in the stabbing implement. He was six foot-four and weighed-in at one-twenty kilos and hadn't touched a female in over five years. I was four foot-nine and barely weighed forty kay-gee. And I was a 'virgin'," Beck made air commas, "which was technically true, though I'd done just about everything else. Not bad, eh? For a cool five grand? Forty-eight hours to do what he liked with me- invite his mates for all they cared. They thought it was a great joke. Said he'd either squash me flat or just split me in half, then after that it was 'first serve, first cum'.

"I only found out a few days before the 'appointment', while they were counting the cash at the kitchen table. And it suddenly made sense why they'd both been staying so close, almost smothering me, keeping me in their sight, dragging me everywhere they went night and day. Because I was suddenly worth something. Which is how I came to bobbing around in a tinny, fifteen miles out to sea, with the Thing and the Maggot one afternoon."

Vicky shook her head in confusion. "Tinny? What's a tinny?"

"A small metal boat. You know, a runabout. With an outboard motor. Which in this case had run out of fuel."

"What were you doing out in a boat?" Vicky frowned, thrown by the sudden twist.

"Fishing. What do you think?"

"Fishing?"

"Geez, Vicky. You really should do something about that irony deficiency. Of course we weren't fishing. We'd just nipped out to pick up some drugs. From a prawn trawler. This was another of the Maggot's brilliant ideas, use fishing boats rather than moving the gear by road. Only the bloody thing never turned up, or the Maggot just got the directions mixed up cos' he was so fuckin' dumb. In any case we just kept looking, and looking, and looking till we ran out of gas. And there we were, stranded in the middle of nowhere. Under the sun. No food, no water, no beacon, no mobile phone. Not so much as a rusty fishhook. Nothing. And it's not as if we'd told anyone... 'we're just popping out to pick up some meth'. No. No one had the faintest where we were."

Beck took a big, deep breath then swept back her hair. She'd always kept these memories so deeply interred the exhumation was taking its toll. Her hands were shaking and her belly was tight and she was sweating in spite of the aircon. Vicky hadn't budged, she hadn't even blinked, torn between horror and sheer disbelief.

"Anyway," Beck carried on, "what's the first thing you do in a situation like that? Running out of fuel in a little tiny boat beyond sight of land? That's right, you have a massive fight. A stand-up, ding-dong brawl with lots of kicking and punching, and do your best to capsize the boat. Luckily they were both so hung-over it couldn't go on for long and eventually they puffed themselves out. And the Thing just sat there, sniffling and whining, while the Maggot chain-smoked the last of his durries, sucking down the last of his beers. And suddenly the Thing says,

"'How long will it take before we both die of hunger?' We both, mind you. And the Maggot goes..."

'Fucked if I know. One week maybe, maybe two.'

"'A weeeek?' the Thing howls, 'I can't last a farken' week. Look at me. I'm farken' famished as it is.'

"And the Maggot says, 'For fark's sake just settle down, sooner or later someone's gunna find us.' And the Thing says,

'Settle down? How can you say settle down? We're gonna die! We're gonna starve to farken' death! For fark's sake we have ta do somethin'.

"'Do something?' the Maggot screws his face up. 'Like farken' what?'

"And the thing starts darting her eyes at me, jerking her head. 'You know what...'

"And the Maggot just sits there, racking his brain cell. Then suddenly he says, 'You don't mean?'

"And the Thing says, 'Well what else can we do? I don't wanna die!'

"And the Maggot goes, 'But that'd make us cannonballs...

"And the Thing screams, 'WE'VE GOT NO FUCKEN' CHOICE. She's retarded remember, she won't even know...'

"And meanwhile I'm sitting there, in the middle between them, head swivelling like I'm at a tennis match. And I'm going, 'What the fuck are they on about?' Until the Maggot, ever practical, says, 'but we don't have a knife.' And suddenly I realised what they meant."

The penny dropped and Vicky looked like she'd just swallowed a mouthful of sick. "Rebekah... n... n... no. You can't be serious."

"Can't I? The Maggot even thought up a way they could do it. Without a knife. Tie the anchor rope round my ankles, then throw me over the side and let the sharks open me up. 'They won't take much if we drag her in real quick' he said and I started crying, and the Thing gave me a back-hander on the cheek."

"Stop!" Vicky raised a hand. "Seriously? Do you seriously expect me to believe they'd actually... actually..."

"Eat me?" Beck sniffed. "Why not? Wouldn't be the first time the Thing took a bite out of me."

Sweat popped out on Vicky's forehead and she was shaking. "I don't believe you."

"You don't?" Beck challenged then tugged her collar open and fingered a faint, crescent bite-mark- almost invisible- on the tender skin where her neck met her shoulder. "Check it out. This was back in the day when the Thing still had most of her teeth. I've got another one on my bum if you wanna see."

"No!" Vicky put a hand over her mouth and it looked like she was about to throw up. "Rebekah please... please. Please tell me you're making this up."

"Well that would be a lie, wouldn't it?" Beck said. Getting to her feet, she hiked up her skirt, then pulled down her panties and twisted at the hip to reveal two vague, dashed parentheses on her left buttock. "See? You can actually count the teeth. Top and bottom. There was so much blood it filled up my shoe." Restoring her garments, she straightened her arms. "See my wrists?" she said, "These marks? From fending off when I got thrown through a window."

"Stop it!" Vicky surged to her feet and staggered to the sliding glass doors. "This just can't be true. What sort of woman could do that? To her own child? It's... it's... inconceivable."

"Pfft!" Beck scoffed, "Don't even ask about the hot iron."

"Nuh!" Vicky breathed, her body shaking. "It just can't be true. If she hated you so much why didn't she just give you up?"

"I was her meal-ticket, like I told you. And why bother anyway? Probably figured she'd be doing me a favour."

"Well you would have told someone. You would have gone to the authorities."

"The authorities?" Beck demanded. "Seriously? Like the cops? Who used to drag my ass home every time I got busted for shoplifting? And joke between themselves about looking forward to my autopsy, so they could see what I kept in my knickers, aside from snickers, without breaking the law? Then they'd stand there going 'tut tut' while the Thing ranted and raved, going on about how she was at her wit's end when she was the one who sent me out in the first place. You mean those authorities? Or Child Services? That bunch of fat, stupid, sociologist do-gooders and mincing homosexuals? The ones who tried convincing the Thing I was profoundly autistic. And it'd be much better for everyone if they just put me away. Because I was retarded... sorry... 'intellectually challenged'... since I wouldn't make eye contact or so much as open my mouth, but only because I didn't need the two fucking black eyes. Or the education depart-"

"Stop." Vicky said, raising her hands in surrender. "No more. If this is true it's an abomination. If it's not then you are. Either way I've heard enough."

"You sure about that?" Beck asked, "Because this is where it starts to get interesting. Because this is where you-know-who is about to turn up. You know. The monster. The beast."

Vicky looked around in a quandary. She was in love with the old man, there was no doubt about it, and part of her still longed for paradise-lost. But to hear the little blonde out might be mistaken for giving him the benefit of the doubt, for the act of betrayal that had just rocked her world.

The silence ran into overtime so Beck finally made the first move. "Fair enough," she said, calling Vicky's bluff, "it's no skin off my nose."

As Beck went to rise Vicky held up a hand. "Becky wait. Okay, if you insist, please go on. But don't go expecting me to ever forgive him."

"So, what you're saying is I'll just be wasting my time?"

"What? No, I'm sorry Beck, I'll try and keep an open mind. If nothing else this will just reinforce my decision."

"Well let's just see about that. Now, where was I? Oh, right, about to be butchered and served up for dinner. They would have done it, too, in spite of everything they tried to say later, and even came up with a cover story. I just fell overboard, they'd tell the cops, and before they could save me, along came a nasty old shark and dragged me away. Of course the boat would have to be scuttled to do away with the evidence and if the cops had their doubts, then let them go after it."

Beck flung her arms up and Vicky jumped. "Then suddenly up jumps the Maggot and I just about shat myself. This is it, I figured. One was gonna hold me down while the other tied me up and I was going over the side like it or not. Instead the Maggot just starts jumping up and down, waving like a maniac, shouting at the top of his lungs. Then the Thing joins in, shouting and waving, cos' over on the horizon they'd just seen a sail.

"Want to hear something silly?" Beck smiled wanly. "I thought it was an angel at first, and the sails were her wings. A real one. And she'd turned up because I was about to die, and she was coming to take me back home."

Beck paused to swipe a tear from her cheek then took a deep breath and continued. "But, no," she said thickly, "it was a yacht, and it was more or less heading our way. Then all of a sudden it turned away and the other two just went ape, jumping up and down, screaming and swearing, pelting empty beer cans in its direction. Then the yacht turned back almost as if it had heard, and they were both laughing and cheering, and roughing me up all friendly like as if as if all that talk... the stuff about killing and eating me... as if everything they'd just said had been some kind of joke."

Sitting there in her pretty skirt and pale pink polo-shirt, Beck looked less like the confident young woman who'd first walked into the apartment, and more like the little lost girl of her sordid tale. Looking up, she patted the cushion beside her and to her immense surprise, Vicky shuffled over and perched her bottom on the edge of the seat, head bowed, hands clasped in her lap.

"It took him twenty minutes to reach us." Beck said, "Then there he was. 'The Beast'. The creature as you like to call him. He looked like a kind old man to me, a little on the startled side, standing there on the stern of this beautiful yacht. He asked if we were okay and of course the answer was 'no', so he threw us a line and hauled us in and one by one we all climbed on board.

Beck gave a grunt of dour laughter. "The other two thought it was Christmas... cold beer, sandwiches, being waited on hand and foot, lolling around in the cockpit like tourists on a cruise. And even though the Thing told the old man I wasn't hungry, he fed me anyway... rice and fish curry... on the sly when I went down to use the loo. It was incredible. I had never ever, in my life, met anyone like him. He was so quiet and polite and he spoke in a funny voice... sort of calm, gentle, with none of the filth I was used to. And he looked different too. His hands were clean and so were his feet, with none of those gnarled yellow toe-claws. Even his smell was different... almost sweet... the whole kit and kaboodle, like nothing I'd ever experienced."

Beck shivered at the onslaught of memory and goosebumps sprang up on her skin, while her nipples gathered themselves up and stood to attention. Beside her, in spite of everything, Vicky was undergoing a similar flush of arousal.

"And all the way back," Beck said, picking at her nails, "he kept asking if I was okay. And calling me 'Sweetheart', not in a sleazy way, but a kind way. A lovely way. Have you any idea how that feels? To be treated like that? After a lifetime of being told you're utterly worthless? Being told your whole life it would have been better if you'd been drowned in a bucket at birth? Can you imagine?"

Vicky bit her knuckles, eyes tight shut, as tears spilled onto her cheeks. Yes, she could. Only too well.

"And I started thinking... maybe this was it. Maybe this old man was going to save me. Maybe he'd realised what these people were doing and somehow he'd take me away. And I started cooking up these wild fantasies... maybe he was super-rich and when we got back he would buy me, make me his servant or just keep me like some sort of pet. Or he'd just fight them for me, throw them both overboard... I spent the whole time dreaming up all these crazy scenarios. But nothing happened. In the end he just left me there, standing at the boat ramp, then turned his back and puttered away. It was like a kick in the guts. After all that kindness, all the sweet talk, he left me behind feeling totally and utterly betrayed. And I thought, 'You heartless old bastard'. He must have seen what was happening, he must have, so why didn't he do something? Save me, rescue me, tear me out of the clutches of these drug-fucked scumbags?

"So that was that... off we went, back to the dump, and they all sat around getting hammered, the Thing, the Maggot and the Maggot's big brother. That frikken' asshole was another piece of work, fresh out of the slammer with nowhere to go, sleeping on the couch, throwing his weight around, another fucking scumbag breathing down my neck. And the other two were making out it had just been one great big adventure... the search for the fabled fishing boat, the running out of fuel, all that talk about killing and eating me. And the weird old man in his poncy boat with all the free beer. And what the fuck was he doing out there all on his own? Running drugs?

"Then the Maggot snaps his fingers and goes 'why fucken' not?' A senior citizen? In a nice big boat? That thing could carry tons of drugs and who'd look twice at a doddering old idiot? Why not grab some petrol then pick up a carton, and pay the silly old prick a visit? Just to say thanks, wink, wink. And maybe line him up for some part time employment.

"So off they went with a jerrycan for fuel but they were both so smashed at first they forgot me. So they had to double back, before the Maggot's big brother had a chance to get his hands down my pants. That meant it was dark by the time we reached the yacht and then they just left me there, sitting in the tinny getting eaten alive, while they were downstairs partying-on."

A big fat tear welled in Beck's eye and she swiped it away. "And all I could think about was that kind old man." she sniffled. "He must have known what was going on, he must have, so why didn't he do something? And then it hit me... if the kindest human being I'd ever met in my life, if he wouldn't help me then nobody would. It was an epiphany. I finally realised I was all on my own and no one was going to save me but me. My fate was in my hands and my hands alone. And if I was gonna do something I was gonna have to do it right now, because in a few days time they were flogging me off to a drug-dealing crim. Once he was done I was going on the open market and that would be that, I'd eventually wind up a fat, drug-fucked hooker just like the Thing. And for the first time in weeks there I was, out of their sight... It was now or never."