Chapter 69

Drunk me, is not a good thing and I remember in my hazy stupor why this is not something I ever do to
myself. I am an emotional mess, sobbing into my own lap on the floor and cradling my umpteenth
cocktail of hard liquor while pulling my mental state into disarray.

I am a bad drunk and I can’t switch off the depths of feeling going off inside me like a hot flowing
volcano as lava bubbles out through my body. I was stupid to do this to myself, and instead of drowning
my sorrows I have opened Pandora’s Box and can’t seem to switch off the all-consuming pain and
turmoil coming from the dark recesses of my brain.

It’s like I have my own cinematic tragedy on replay, reminding me of my life and all my woes and stupid
buried memories which are springing out in all directions, to add to how devastated I already feel.

Despite all of that, HE is still foremost in my brain, plaguing me like the tormentor he is so apt at being,
and even in his absence he still has that hold over me.

Go figures that the demon would star in my self-inflicted daymares.

I fall back on the floor and spill my drink all over his white plush rug as I let out another wave of gut
wrenching sobs until I can’t breathe anymore. My nose is runny and blocked, my eyes burning with the
watery makeup that’s poured down my entire face and left little dark droplets on the rug around me. I
don’t care though, screw his stupid ridiculously expensive rug in his stupid Manhattan apartment. Fuck
Alexi and all that he is. I can’t remember feeling this way in a long, long time. Not since the day my
mother held me down at the age of eleven and let Rick rape me for a ten pound bag of heroin.

The feeling of complete hopelessness and devastation as she stole what was left of my sanity that day,
for a pitiful little bag of smack and showed me how little value I held in her life. After years of beating
me into submission and verbally stripping me raw of any self-respect or self-esteem I may have
naturally had, she made sure she took the last ounces of me away that day. I was her punching bag in



life and the source of all her anger. I was the baby who ruined her life, her marriage and the reason she
was a scummy piss poor addict in the worst part of Hackney.

A forgotten child that no one noticed, no one cared about, and I have never forgotten that is what, and
who, I am. I spent years hiding the reality of my life from school and those who lived around me, but my
story was not unique and many kids like me had abusive addict parents and lives that no children
should endure. I had to learn to suck it up and deal with it. I had to learn to fend for myself and not rely
on anyone else for anything in life. I fed myself, made sure I made my own money in any way I could
just so I wouldn’t starve or freeze. I stole, I begged, I manipulated people just to get by and I learned
that if you are streetwise and savvy and put all your frail feelings in a cold place to die, then you can
survive almost anything you set your mind to.

Age is just a number and the smallest children can find strength in survival. That’s what I did. I learned
that men and women can be equally cruel, that people will turn a blind eye to something distasteful
rather than help, even when you are a child. I learned that those in positions to help are sometimes as
bad as those who abuse. I learned you should never trust anyone, as all humans have their own
motives and it is never about your welfare in the end.

I have seen it all. I watched kids being taken by social workers, buckled into cars and whisked away,
only to end up in the children’s homes and running away at every opportunity they could. I didn’t have
friends, because I couldn’t trust anyone not to tell what I was enduring and fear of becoming one of
those kids being whisked off to a home to endure other kinds of wrong. I heard rumours, watched the
fear of kids when the workers came round, and it was enough for me to never trust police, care workers
or professionals who claimed to take us away from cruelty.

I learned to adapt by embracing the abuse and using it so I could rise above a lot of the street rats I
knew around where I lived. I excelled because I was taller, slimmer, and prettier, than a lot of them, and
I was smart enough to know it had a use. I started improving my dialect to appear older and more
educated, from a better standard of living which gave me an advantage in making cash for myself.



I tried to keep myself clean and groomed, so the school wouldn’t be suspicious over my care, and so
richer men would want to fuck me for faster profits.

I dropped out of school on my sixteenth birthday, as soon as I legally could without question, and never
looked back at further education. I played the game and hid what was done to me, what I was being
used for. I learned how to make men want me and act as though I liked what they were doing. I learned
how to make them come quicker and I became a queen of seduction and sex, made it an art form in a
way.

By the age of fourteen, I had lost count of how many men had used me for their pleasure and games, it
was just a way of life and some sort of sad acceptance of what I was. I stopped feeling. It stopped
being something degrading and wrong and became an act with a means to an end. I learned to lie, hide
and manipulate from a very young age, accepted that I was a prostitute no matter how I tried to pretty it
up and my days were spent screwing men and being exposed to indescribable acts on my body and
soul.

I died a little every second in the early days and never turned to anyone to rescue me, as I knew that
was never going to be a reality. There are no knights to come sweep you away from the crap I lived
through. You need to rely on you and you alone and that is how you survive in life.

I let myself rely on Alexi and that was stupid. It was my undoing. I broke my own rules of not letting
someone close or letting someone else call the shots. I flipped my entire gameplay on its head for him
and didn’t even try in any way after my first hurdle to play him to meet my own ends. He was better at
it, colder, smarter, and crueller, and I knew I was no match for him. He was a different kind of breed to
most men, and I let him lead me by the nose.

I only have myself to blame. I was too weak to deny his touch, too pathetic to keep my heart and head
out of this and too in awe of his extreme lack of emotion to try and manipulate him.



Drunk beyond belief and crying myself raw all I can think about is Alexi, that complete arse of a man
and how he can discard me this way, treat me this way. For all that I was in my past and all that I am
capable of, I did my best to be loyal and fair when it came to him. I never once played him or tried to
stab him in the back. I went against all I have been in my life, the person I made to survive ... all for
him.

I knew my limits and what side my bread was buttered with the chance he gave me. Safety, security
and shelter, that’s what I had by toeing the line in his world and it was all I have ever wanted. So I
made sure I didn’t screw it up by being foolish.

Except I was stupid, but not in the way I have been in the past. I was dumb enough to think he meant it
when he said sex meant nothing and would not interfere. He lied, he got what he wanted and it
changed everything between us. He took everything from me for absolutely nothing connected to the
job I did. I excelled in every way at running that club, and he chose to be a petty arsehole and put sex
over business. He is the one who wanted sex without effect, and he is the one who let it destroy all he
gave me. I deserve an answer for all of that, a reason he changed all the rules. I did all he asked and
yet he gets to decide my fate and throw me aside.

Why does he get to choose my future? Why does he get to use me and drop me so easily? Why does
he get to walk away as though I meant nothing without any sort of explanation? Why does he get to
take away my chance at a safe existence?

He said sex wouldn’t matter, and yet all it did was change everything and push him to despise me. I
want to confront him and be angry about all of this, yet I also want that night too. I want that feeling of
being safe, of being home finally. He showed me a possibility of another life, in another way. He
showed me what loving someone could feel like and it left its mark on me and now I am ruined. He
made me love him.



I know that he doesn’t want me near him anymore and I know it’s partly my fault. I made it too obvious
that I cared, clung to him. Maybe I was needy or overly obvious about how I felt and it suffocated him. I
triggered him, I disobeyed him and I found ways to rile him when I know what he’s like. I told myself so
many times to just close my mouth and nod in obedience and yet failed to do so.

Stop it Camilla!

You are justifying his behaviour, accepting his torment because you are weak. Stop being like her, stop
accepting his treatment because he has twisted your head to feel like you deserve it. Stop excusing
what he is doing to you. He has made you believe it’s what you deserve, and you are so far beyond
that. You deserve more. You deserve an ounce of respect for what you did for him!

 


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