The Parlour (VDB #1)

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The Parlour

An erotic novel

The first part of The VDB Trilogy

Copyright ©2015 by Charlotte E Hart

Cover Design by MAD

Formatting by MAD

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of those trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Acknowledgements

English definition of “Survive”.

Continue to live – or exist

To continue to live or exist in spite of (an accident or ordeal)

To remain alive

Fight

English definition of “Fight”.

To take part in a violent struggle

To struggle to overcome, eliminate, or prevent

A violent confrontation or struggle

Flee

English definition of “Flee”.

To escape

To avoid capture

To keep oneself free of potential harm

Survival

English definition of Survival

Line breaks: Sur/vi/val

Adjective:

1, of/relating to, or for use in surviving, especially under adverse of unusual circumstances

The Parlour

By

Charlotte E Hart

2016

I don’t why I’m here. I can’t even remember when I came here. I was scratching marks into the wall at first, but I lost the will after day nine. It didn’t really seem to matter anyway.

Every day is the same since that man asked me to go with him. He seemed kind and nice. He offered me some food and a drink, both of which I hadn’t had for days. I don’t think I had anyway. Then he gave me his coat and a blanket, tucked me up in the back of some expensive car and brought me here. I think he was just a driver or maybe a chauffeur. He had that look about him with his double breasted uniform and a pair of leather gloves. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what or who he was, or is, because I haven’t seen him since I got here. Wherever here is.

It’s the same every day. I found it odd at first but I’m used to it now. I was so tired and weak when I got here that it was helpful really. A small woman comes in to help me wash and get dressed. I don’t know where the clothes come from, but they’re nice enough, and at least they’re clean and dry. Not like the rags I arrived in. They were taken from me the moment I took them off to get into the shower, the first shower I’d had in God knows how long. Nearly a year I’d been running the streets – a year without a real bed or a home of any sort. There isn’t a long and awful story to tell about an abusive family member or a broken home. I suppose I just slipped through the cracks and got lost at some point. I lost my job first, and then I couldn’t afford the bills on my apartment, so the landlord threw me out. I don’t blame him. My father always told me I’d need to work hard to survive New York when I told him I wanted to go. He said,
“Lilah, you come from the countryside. New York’s no place for you. Stick to what you know. London’s got some great law firms. Work there so we can stay close. Why do you wanna go all the way out to America?”
I didn’t listen, and I took that job after university at Cutlers and Associates, and then a year after that, he died from a massive heart attack, leaving me with no one else in the world.

So I went home to bury him. There was only me and a few close friends of his there. Mum had died years before and we didn’t really have much family around us. So I just stood there and looked at the grave until everyone else disappeared. I remember feeling so alone at that moment. No real friends, no family left. I’d lost all the people I’d considered almost friends when I moved to New York, and then I’d never really made any more when I arrived here. I was too busy working, trying to make a name for myself. It didn’t happen. I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough to be seen by any of the important people in the company. I was just yet another junior nothing in a firm full of better candidates trying to get through each long day. I’d get up at 4.30am and run. Run like my life depended on it. It was nothing to do with being fit. It was to do with keeping my weight down, to make me look like all the other size six women; that was all. My normal size ten wasn’t acceptable in New York. Size ten people were called fat, or chubby, so I ran every day without fail. Then I’d get myself to the office for 6.30am in the hope that I might bump into someone significant enough to notice me. I never did. In fact, the only important person I ever met was the postie who handed me my notice in a drab brown envelope. Fired. Not required anymore. Clear your desk and be gone by the end of the day. We don’t like you. You’re useless, inconsequential.

I cleared my cubby hole of a desk out and went home to organise the rest of my life. There was nothing in it to organise, really. I owned very little and had no money in savings because the family home was mortgaged up to the hilt to pay for my university fees. I scoured the papers, the adverts, the recruitment companies, but there weren’t any jobs available for me. I did find a bit of temping work for a while, but that didn’t pay half the bills on my tiny one bed apartment. So I lost that, too. There was nowhere to go and no money to get back to England, and no one there waiting for me anyway.

I suppose I just became another person on the streets of New York, lost and alone. I’m just one of those thousands of cases that no one wants to talk about or listen to. I’m not unattractive, but not attractive enough. I’m not stupid, but I’m not clever enough. I tried to look after myself, but not well enough. I’m not even hard working enough apparently, or that’s what they said when they fired me.

I stopped running. There was nothing to run
for
, and interestingly, when you don’t eat, you lose weight quite rapidly anyway. It just falls off and leaves you with that size four look you’ve been craving, maybe even a two. And when you’ve got nothing to do with your life but roam the streets trying to find a safe place to lay your head down for a couple of hours, there’s no reason to run anymore. Homeless shelters were useless, and invariably more dangerous than the streets. Charities, while great, have only got so many resources to give, and I wasn’t a lost enough cause for them to worry about. I still had a chance, apparently. I just needed to get a job. You don’t get a job in New York without an address. It’s as simple as that. Not a decent one, anyway. Maybe I could have worked in a back alley dealing drugs like some of the others did, or I could have bunked down in one of the junkie holes, but that’s scarier than just trying to get through each day and find some food at the end of it. Too many times I’ve seen some woman being dragged off into a corner and used for a sniff of coke, or brown. Not a road I’m willing to travel, I’m afraid. I’d rather die than be used like that. Just once, it happened. Just once I was corned by three of them, used and then discarded like some useless toy. Raped. I can still smell their breath now as they hauled me around and laughed. I can still feel them inside me as they forced me to the floor and took what they wanted, one after another. I can still feel the pain in my backside; they took that, too. And I can still picture the smart appearance of the first one when he asked me for directions and I smiled in reply. How naive, pathetic. I gave up fighting them after a while. I just lay there and let them get on with it. It seems when you do that it’s not so much fun for them anymore. I don’t even think the last one actually came. Well, maybe he did. I don’t know. I’d switched off the need to care by that point. What was the point? It was happening. Happened. Done.

Just like my life at the time.

And so that’s what happened. I just rotted away and became another poor girl on the side of the road, foraging about in dustbins for something to eat, finding the strength to run when I needed to, and keeping one eye open constantly.  It was a slippery slope into nothingness, a long and treacherous road to self-destruction and there was nothing anyone could do to help. I was pragmatic about it. I had assumed nothing good would come of anything anymore. I just tried to stay alive. I’m not one of those whiny girls. I don’t find amusement or comfort in self torture or reeling things over and over in my mind. I’ve never understood why women feel the need to over emotionalise everything. Why? What good does it do? I’m afraid my more legal approach to life holds more gravitas. Sensible decisions based on the situation at hand. Methodical planning and intelligent guess work, on occasion, when necessary. This emotional reaction to life is simply that. Emotional, and of no intrinsic use to anything. It makes no difference to anything, including being on the streets. The only three emotions I needed out there were fight, flight and survive. All of them, just about, kept me alive.

And then that man came and offered me some food and a place to stay. I was just sitting on the sidewalk in a back road somewhere, with the few possessions I still had loaded in my backpack, when he pulled up. He just got out and held his hand down to me. He was tall and had a kind smile. He just asked if I needed help, and told me he knew somewhere I’d be safe. I knew at the time I shouldn’t go with him, knew I should run away, but how bad could it be? It couldn’t be as bad as sitting there on the streets trying to use what little strength I had left to fight off more rapists and freaks every moment of the day. So I went with him, and I ended up here.

I’ve tried to leave on a few occasions. After a few days of sleep and some hot food, I thought maybe I could talk to someone and get a job, or pay my way somehow, but the door was locked, and it’s stayed that way. The only thing I ever see or hear is the small woman who comes in and helps me. She wanders about precisely and brings me my clothes or food, but then she just disappears again. I’ve tried talking to her, asking her questions, her name, anything really, but she doesn’t answer. She just goes about her business and then leaves.

Brushing down the front of my white shirt and plain beige skirt, I wander over to the small window to gaze at the wall opposite. That’s all I’ve had to look at for however long I’ve been here, just a wall and this room. It’s a nice enough room, and I can tell by the view that I must be ten stories high at least. There’s a sliver of an alleyway running between this building and the next, but where I am, I don’t know. The room is a bit drab with slightly old fashioned furniture, but it’s clean and has a prettyish lemon flower wallpaper on it. There’s a chair, a desk, a dressing table and a bed. There’s also a bookcase filled with all kinds of literature – the classics, porn, children’s stories, detective stories – something to suit everyone really, except me, that is. I can’t stand reading. Working long hours into the night trying to figure out complex legal documents is enough to put anyone off reading for a lifetime, let alone doing it for pleasure. The bathroom door is right beside the bookcase, leading into a small room with a shower, bath, toilet and basin. It’s compact but in good order, and gives me chance to lock myself away every now and then. For some reason, I get the feeling I’m being watched in here most of the time. I haven’t found a camera or anything, but every time I’ve tried to fiddle with the door, that woman has quickly appeared again.

A man came in the day after I got here. He looked me over and scowled a bit, then just stared at me for ten minutes as I hovered by the wall, not knowing what to do or say. He asked me to turn around as he stood on the other side of the room, so I did. He eventually left without a backward glance and slammed the door so hard the room shook. I’m not sure who he was or what he wanted, but I haven’t seen him since. I don’t really know what anyone wants with me, or why I’m even here. Regardless, I am thankful for the help. Without it, I’d still be out there on the streets in the depths of winter. I think it’s still January, or possibly February now. I’m not sure. Whatever month it is, though, it’s snowing, and it looks bitterly cold out there.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I stare around the room and wonder what to do with myself for the rest of the day. There’s nothing to do, is there? I wander over to the desk and open the drawers for the hundredth time to see if anything has appeared inside. Maybe if someone left a pen and some paper I could write my life down, all twenty-six years of it, but nothing has materialised. They’re still as empty as they were yesterday, so I sit in the chair and just stare at the wall above the single bed, trying to think of something to do with all this time. If someone would just let me out of this room, I could go and search for a job. I could say thank you for the help and then get back out there and tackle the recruitment agencies again. If I’ve got an address now then I can work. Anything would do. Just something so that I can save up some money and get a place of my own again. I’ll clean, or waitress – I don’t care. I just need some freedom so I can get on with my life again. Maybe I could even pretend this shit never happened.

There’s a sudden knock at the door, which damn near has me jumping out of my skin. No one knocks on my door. Only the unknown woman comes anywhere near it and she never knocks. She just unlocks it and walks in. I’m instantly unsure of what to do, so I stay quiet and melt into the chair, hoping that whoever it is goes away. A few seconds go by and then the knock happens again. It seems they’re not going away.

“Hello?” I call out, nervously.

“Are you decent, Lilah?” a woman’s voice asks. My nerves instantly disperse at her calm and pleasant tone.

“Yes,” I answer, pulling myself up from the chair to stand. I’m obviously going to meet someone new. The door clicks open after a few seconds and an incredibly tall woman comes into the room as if she’s not even walking. It’s almost like she’s floating on air. She’s dressed in a woman’s version of a man’s black pinstripe suit, with a hat perched on her head at a jaunty angle. She looks like she’s walked straight out of the forties. It’s quite appealing really.

“Hello, Lilah,” she says, taking a seat at the dressing table and crossing her legs. She waves her hand at the chair behind me and nods at it. “Please, have a seat. Are you well?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m fine. I don’t know who helped me or why, but yes. Thank you.” She smiles at me as I back my way over to the chair, and she flicks her gaze over my frame, almost studying my movements and analysing my appearance.

“Good. I’m pleased you’ve recovered from your ordeal. Now, I’ve come to talk a little business with you. You’ve seemed distracted these past few days, and I thought you might like something to occupy yourself with.” Oh, thank God. Something to do. Perching on the edge of the chair, I lean towards her eagerly.

“Yes, of course. I was just thinking that I could get a job, make some money, and then I could find an apartment again or pay you back. If you’re the one I need to pay back... Sorry, I’m rambling. Who are you?” She looks at me with a raised brow, probably aimed at my inane chattering.

“My name’s Roxanne, and I’m here to help you. Women should never become what you became. I try to help as many as I can.”