The Dark Star - Hillcliffe Pt. 01

Such was life on the Hillcliffe. The irony of street names such as Hope Street, Heavenly Mount and Melody Avenue, to think of but a few, was not lost on Lisa Walters as she turned a corner into the even more ironic Paradise Boulevard.

'Paradise,' Lisa thought to herself as she looks up the street lined with a Convenience Store, two book makers, a Charity Shop the windows of which had recently been smashed and had been boarded up, at the far end a Fish and Chip Shop and a Kebab Shop. Flanked on the opposite side of the street by a terrace of two-story houses outside of which lay gardens that bore more weeds and brambles than flowers and manicured lawns even in warmer Summer months.

If the buildings that flanked Paradise Boulevard did not look rough enough the pavements themselves were festooned with litter, smashed glass, miniature silver gas canisters and occasion dog faeces. Lisa could not think of a better adjective to describe the street, but a boulevard of paradise it certainly was not.

The sky ahead between the buildings glowed a vivid shade of orange as the early evening sun set beyond the hills far away in the distance. Hills offering a glimpse of a better place, within touching distance that might as well have been a million miles away. The same hills Lisa and her sisters used to visit set in the rolling countryside.

Summer days spent with her sisters, short journeys for picnics of sandwiches, cakes, and the treat of a bottle of cola, not Coca Cola, just the simple pleasure of a budget brand had been enough for Lisa and her two elder Sisters.

Happier days before the darkness, before the scandal that had befallen her Father. Days before the Family had been judged, a retrospective judgement that even thirty years later Lisa would go well to go a week without still being mentioned behind her back by passers-by, by old faces long not spoken to and even by friends or those she was close to. Or at least felt she was close to.

She spotted him before he spotted her. Recognising the long grey coat, he seemed to wear whatever the weather.

"Good evening, Mister Jukowski... how are you?"

Felix Jukowski looked up startled at Lisa, his face craggy and weary from the ravages of time, he had lived on the Hillcliffe as long as he'd lived in the Country from what Lisa could recall and had been told. Felix had moved to the Hillcliffe as one of the first residents when the likes of Paradise Boulevard may well have lived up to the name that now hideously flatter to deceive.

He had always been alone, said that he preferred life that way should anyone ask him. Lisa had heard stories of a lover who he had lost long ago. She had also heard the scurrilous and unfounded rumours that people whispered. The rumour that Felix Jukowski had no love interest because he was fond only of children.

Lisa knew this not to be true, give that she had always known him to be a deeply private man even after all these years, private but with a heart of gold.

Felix lived in the same tower block, Whitestone Tower, as she now did. There probably was not a day go by that she did not see Felix out and about shuffling through the estate fulfilling his daily routine. Papers in the morning, a jaunt back out to the Bookmakers to place a bet in the afternoon.

"Oh... oh, hello Lisa," his aged voice offers on a little stammer. "So, so lovely to see you. |Are you well?"

Lisa smiled softly at his compliment noting he made such a comment, as he would always do rather than offering up a response to her enquiry as to how he was.

"I'm good thank you my dear," Lisa offered on a smile.

"The nights are getting longer, and the days are getting shorter I'd say ...wouldn't you?" Felix offered an observation that Lisa could not disagree with.

"They are ...they sure are...clocks change at the weekend you know," Lisa replied.

"Yeah, and all then little bastards will be Halloweening and letting of fireworks soon?" A scowl crosses his normally friendly face. "Perish the thought."

Lisa offered a lopsided grimace and nodded her head, ill at ease knowing that while he might be to kind to name direct, two of her three sons were likely guilty of such annoyances last year, and undoubtedly will be in coming weeks.

"Anyway..." Felix responded, "Don't let me keep you...where you off to anyway?"

His contradiction in attempting to end the brief conversation only to ask a further question is not lost on Lisa who smiles softly once again.

"Just headed to get me and the boys something for our tea," she offers.

"Fish and Chips?" Felix enquires further.

"The boys want kebabs," Lisa replied.

"Eww No," Felix raises a hand and swats the air, "That spicy mucks not for me."

"You don't know what you're missing," Lisa playfully chuckles.

"I do..." Felix offers a devilish smile that reveals several missing teeth "...It's called salmonella."

Felix turned without another word leaving Lisa shaking her head at his dry wit. She did not look back as she made her way in the direction of 'Ali's' Kebab Shop.

The fast-food fix was her treat to herself and her boys, after an unexpected cash in hand job had come her way only that morning, cleaning offices at a factory down in the Docks.

There were better things she could spend the money on, Bills that would need paying but Lisa loved her three boys enough to spoil them at the unexpected, miniscule windfall. They meant the world to her. Their names Jayden, Markus, and Raheem, tattooed across the underside of her left forearm. Three children, three brothers from three fathers. She had fallen pregnant with Jayden when she had just turned eighteen, the age now that he rapidly approached his Father had left shortly after her announcement. Markus had turned twelve two months ago, in those twelve years he had never seen his Father, Reg, given how he served a twenty-year prison sentence for the Murder of a man he had gotten into a fight with outside of a city centre nightclub.

Raheem at 3 years old was the unexpected baby of the group. An 'immaculate conception' Lisa had told everyone from the outset not wishing to impart the details on how Raheem had been conceived, let alone who the father was.

Such was the way of life living on the Hillcliffe. There is always someone worse off than yourself her Mum would say. Lisa would very much like to find that one person because she did not believe they be much worse off if notes were compared.

Lisa could not remember a time when life had been easy for her, or anyone around her. Prior to the pandemic she had found settled work in a telesales office, life had been reasonably good to her. Hers was not a tale in isolation. Losing her job, turning to the relief of benefit payments for financial support, being unable to make ends meet while being locked away behind closed doors as the virus had gripped the country.

Sweeping blonde hair off her face while pressing open the door Lisa entered the takeaway taking in the familiar sights and smells. Humidity caused condensation to run down the windows from the inside, behind the counter three male staff served and in the partially visible kitchen two others could be seen going about their business. The owner Mehmet glancing in her direction, whilst slicing thin strips of meat from a rotating 'elephant leg' of greasy looking lamb meat, offering a nod of recognition. Lisa offered a weak smile in return, as she took her place in the mercifully short queue of three people before her.

Approaching the counter, a young-looking male who Lisa had not seen before stepped before her.

"What can I get you?"

"Three medium Doner's... chilli sauce on one and garlic mayo on all three with... two small chips and a kid's portion of chicken nuggets," Lisa reeled off her request which he scribbled down dutifully onto a little paper notepad.

Lisa stepped aside from the counter having placed the order. Watching as the two other customers were served and left the establishment, leaving her alone as the sole patron within minutes.

"How are you, Miss Lisa?" Mehmet approached her from behind the counter.

"Good thanks Mehmet and yourself?"

"Not so bad... not so bad," Mehmet offered, wiping his greasy hands on the white heavily stained apron he wore. "Not seen you down the Highwayman lately,"

"It's shit in there and I'm always skint these days." Lisa chuckled in response to his referencing the run-down public house.

Mehmet simply chuckled as his own response, nodding his head in agreement as his new young assistant handed him a carrier bag of polystyrene boxed food.

"Twenty-two fifty please," Mehmet offered.

Plunging her hand in to her jacket pocket Lisa retrieved the long black purse and opened it in her hands, the purse she knew to be containing more receipts than cash.

Unzipping the compartment of her purse that contained money Lisa rifled through the any number of receipts trying to locate the twenty note she had only been paid earlier in the day. Which was nowhere to be seen let alone found. Her hands frantically searching her pockets, even plunging desperately into the tight pockets of her denim skirt, even though she knew the plastic note would not be there, knowing full well she had placed it into the purse for safekeeping.

"I... I had a twenty note... I don't know where it's..."

"Hey... hey... it's alright.... You wanna go get cash?" Mehmet offered sincerely.

Lisa knew immediately that cash withdrawal from the hole in the wall would not be an option with her bank balance so heavily overdrawn.

"That's... I can't..." her voice stammers, tears of frustration begin to well in her eyes.

Mehmet glances around the empty takeaway, leaning over the counter, his eyes glance up and down her body. A look creeping across his face that fills her with a sense of unease.

"You wanna come to an arrangement like last time?"

Biting her bottom lip Lisa Walters looked up into the eyes of the Turk opposite of her feeling an immediate fresh twist of anxiety in her stomach.

********

"Man is fucking bored," Jayden Walters announced from his prime position lay across the three-seater sofa which sat along the back wall of the cluttered living room.

"Too right bruv" his friend of thirteen years, Kelvin Hancock's agreed.

"How much money you got left?"

"About a fiver?" Kelvin responded "You?"

"Same's innit," sucking harshly on his teeth Jayden flung down the PlayStation remote control. "Knew we shouldn't have gone down the Chicken Shop ...and that burger was well rank... should have bought some weed with that twenty."

Kelvin simply nodded, setting his own remote control on the arm of the chair in which he sat.

"It's a bad idea innit..." Jayden offered ambiguously.

"What is?" Kelvin looked up from under the brim of his cap.

"Dipping into that Weed that Marlon's man gave us to shift"

"Yes Bruv... like fucking suicidal" Kelvin offered back. "They count every ounce and every penny you don't skim if you want to keep breathing.

"What's the point in a backpack full of weed that can't be fucking smoked."

"You know we need to make it my friend." Jayden offered swinging his legs over the side of the sofa and sitting up. "We need to do something that gets us noticed by the Three's... something they earns us Marlon's respect so we can start earning all the money, drugs and pussy we deserve."

"Recognition," Kelvin simply states.

"I know how" Jayden offers, looking directly into his friends' eyes "We solve a Fucking problem, and we get our props"

Kelvin sat and listened intently as his best friend detailed how they could raise their stature in the eyes of the local gang they so desperately sought to impress.

********

Her teeth grit together as she endures.

In the dim confines of the storeroom Lisa Walters clenched the sides of the stainless-steel surface of the table she bent over at the waist.

Her body absorbing hard heavy thrusts pushing her across the cold surface as she tried to hold herself upright and prevent the edge of the table to digging into the exposed flesh of her upper thighs.

Denim skirt around her waist with her black leggings and panties pulled down around her knees she closed her eyes tightly as she let Mehmet Erdogan fuck her.

Clenching her eyes shut in repulsion at what he does and more what she lets him do to her. The desperate need to treat her children cruelly exploited. Having been guided through the kitchen of the restaurant minutes ago, all eyes of the staff had been lecherously watching as she followed obediently, as she readied to give herself to him. Feeling physically sick as the gaze of every one of the kebab house staff appraised her, as if Mehmet paraded her.

There was no passion, there was no desire, there did not need to be.

No sooner had she slipped her coat off he had pounced on her, turning her pressing her down bent double over the table that she now gripped.

She had barely a moment to contemplate before he had roughly exposed her to him, seconds later she felt the harsh penetration of her body as his hand fell over the back of her neck, where it had remained throughout. Pinning her to the sterile work surface.

Taken hard and fast from the outset, Lisa succumbed, there was no point in hiding from what she was doing even less reason for dressing up what she had agreed to with barely a moment's thought. In her desperation she let him take her.

Mehmet knew the response before he had even asked her, he knew the response because she had given herself to him previously.

Face side on to the cold metal surface shame clouds her mind, she switches off as best she can, accepting his harsh heavy thrusts repeatedly delivered into her body, praying silently that he will not last long.

She cannot escape, she cannot ignore him, his firm heavy right hand gripping the back of her neck tighter and tighter as he labours away behind her. The reek of stale greasy food on him as his left-hand sinks into her left hip. She gasps for breath under the ferocity of the strenuous brutal fuck she receives.

Lisa takes matters into her own hands pressing back against him, she clenches her pelvic muscles, feeling him stretch her around him as his dick continues to thrust back and forth, she hears his throaty groan as she does so.

"That's good," he offers in response, "Fuck that's good"

Lisa holds the position screws her eyes shut tighter as he starts to speed, thrust after thrust, hearing his raspy, wheezy, heavy breaths behind her.

Sensing he's close Lisa keeps her body taught.

"Don't..." she offers from her dry mouth "...Mehmet ...Mehmet don't cum."

With the haste with which the scenario had played out she knew he was unprotected when he had entered her, the thought to protest in her mind throughout. Only now as he bucked his hips buried deep in what she senses were his final throes did her conscious mind reel with the potential ramifications.

"Too late... too late," Lisa heard his breathless response. It had not been too late, but he did not care as after several more vicious thrust she felt him press deep into her, followed by the uncomfortable feeling of a wet warmth spill from him into her.

"You bastard," she softly uttered.

Lisa slumped, the tension dropping from her body, disgusted at herself. A shocked reality of the now desperate need for emergency contraception from the little pharmacy two doors down, the pharmacy that would now be closed for the evening.

Unceremoniously Mehmet slipped from her.

Lisa attempts to rise but he keeps a grip on the back of her neck, now with his left hand as he steps slightly to her right.

Panic grips Lisa immediately as she feels a fresh pair of hands grip her hips.

"What..." her words fail her in disbelief as she manages to look back over her left shoulder to the somewhat nervous face of the young man that had served her step up behind.

She thrashes attempting to push herself up off the stainless-steel surface.

"No" she gasps, "No what are..."

Her exasperated words lost this time as Mehmet's right-hand clamps over her jaw firmly.

Begging and screaming into his hand as she tastes the grease of foods on his dirty hands.

"Go on Hakan..." Mehmet gruffly offers "...she's an easy one this one."

Lisa struggled, even as she felt him enter her.

"Relax... let my Nephew enjoy your wonderful cunt Miss Lisa"

Angrily Lisa fought for all she was worth as in the grips of the older and younger man in the secluded storeroom she was taken for a second time.

The younger assailant's style was quick, rough, and quick, she felt him jack hammer his hips quick and hard into her from the outset.

His hips slapping against her exposed ass, digging the surface of the table into the tops of her thighs.

Lisa begged into the hand over her mouth, muffled pleas lost into the sweaty palm that covered the lower half of her face and only tightened over her slender jaw as she pleaded.

She heard him before she felt him, a strangulated little groan, his body rigid. She felt him cum as she fought to escape him. His premature ejaculation mixing with that of his Uncle's deep in her unprotected body.

Mehmet's deep rolling chuckle filled the room as he realised what had occurred.

"Hakan... Hakan... Hakan..." he spoke off the back of the booming laugh, "...you must learn control."

An acerbic comment ran through Lisa's mind in regard to Mehmet's lack of prowess as his grip left her face and neck, but she held off on speaking. Even after she had been released from his vice like grip.

Feeling the young man leave her she slumped once more across the surface of the table. Panic gripping her momentarily as she mentally counted the other employees who worked at the takeaway restaurant.

Silence filled the room, silence punctuated only by hers and their heavy breathing.

Pressing herself eventually up from the surface of the table, her body aching, Lisa heard the two of them leave, their voices blurring into background noise as the reality of what had just played out dawns on her. She does not listen to what they say she concentrates on herself.

Pulling her leggings and pants back up hurriedly she wriggles her tight denim skirt back over the tops of her thighs. Taking her coat which had been discarded in the corner of the room next to shelves stacked with bottles of sauces and tubs of condiments Lisa hurriedly slipped her arms through sleeves as she made for the door, drawing her unzipped coat around her.

"This way," she heard the voice to her left. Turning to see a flushed faced, sweaty browed Mehmet holding open a rear door with the words 'Emergency Exit' above it. A white carrier bag full of the same food, served twenty minutes ago, clutched in his other hand. "Leave by the back I don't want customers seeing you in my Kitchen."

Lisa shook her head, speechless, still processing what had happened and what she had ultimately been responsible for.

Mehmet held the bag of food up, as if to bait her towards the door.

Lisa did not even grant him the satisfaction of eye contact as she snatched the bag from his grip and headed into the darkness that had fallen outside.

She heard the door close behind her as she stood there in the gloom amongst lines of festering wheelie bins.

Lisa Walters bent double as she retched hard, before throwing up on the heavily cracked tarmac between her trainer covered feet.

**********

Felix Jukowski scraped the last of the beans from the little metal saucepan he had just taken from the little gas stove in his kitchen.

The beans running across the thin slices of toast with melted butter. Barely a meal, but sufficient enough for him.

Before taking a seat, he turns on the radio noting the time to be a little before 8pm. The late hour the reason behind such a paltry meal.

The radio turned up as a necessity to at least try to mask the cacophony of heavy modern music that flooded the paper-thin walls of his one bed flat on the tenth floor of Whitstone Tower.