The Reason

The Reason - prologue - The Beginning of the Past

I tentatively opened the car door, trying to remember literally everything that I'd been told to do and say, whilst my panicked heart hammered hard against my tight chest. "I give head, for twenty quid?" I told the nondescript forty something man, who just stared back at me with narrow-eyed interest.

He quickly but quietly replied, anxiously glancing back over his shoulder to check whether anyone was watching us. "Get in!" He curtly told me, before throwing me a brief and nervous little smile.

As I slid into his leather-seated car, the smell of his woody aftershave invaded my, flaring with fear, nostrils. As I slowly breathed in his overly strong masculine scent, my eyes darted to the dashboard of the car. I had no idea what kind of car it was, I only knew it was a dark one; possibly black, and that it looked posh and luxuriously expensive.

"How old are you?" The well-spoken man asked, not taking his hands off the immobile steering wheel.

"Eighteen." I lied, casually looking out of the passenger side window as that lie remained thick and obvious in my throat.

He didn't need to know that I was only sixteen. He also didn't need to know that I was a runaway and that I'd never done anything like this ever before. He only needed to know that I would do it, and that he'd have to pay me for it afterwards. After all, I was hungry—like really hungry. I needed to eat. I hadn't eaten anything decent for three whole days.

The mans voice seemed much more relaxed when he replied. "That's good." Then he started up the engine and began to drive out of the street that he'd just picked me up from, obviously put at ease by my big fat humdinger of a lie.

He drove around in awkward silence, only once did he choose to break it. "What's your name?" He asked, briefly glancing sideways at me.

"Tanya." I lied again.

That lie was actually much easier to swallow than the last one. There was no way in hell I was ever going to tell him my real name. My real name was Angel, but yeah, only I would ever know that. Besides, there was nothing angelic about what I was just about to do.

He faced forward again, ever so slowly nodding. "I've not seen you before?" He probed a little more, concentrating on the road ahead.

I stalled with my response, growing more nervously averse to his questions. "I've just moved here." I mumbled back, resisting the urge to openly squirm in my seat.

I was feeling more uncomfortable by the second. I just wanted to get this over and done with. His questions were wholly unwelcome and totally unnecessary. I had guessed by the fact that he hadn't recognised me, that he was probably used to doing this kind of thing with other girls all the time. Probably the very same girls who had primed me for this; my very first illicit encounter.

Mandy and Stella were okay, though. They were both twenty, and kind of took me under their nurturing wing when I found myself wandering around the streets of Bristol some eight days before. I can't even tell you why I ran away to Bristol. It was just somewhere new, I guess. Where nobody knew who I was or what I was running away from. I was angry when I ran, and I remained angry. I was angry at my parents for dying in that stupid car crash, nine painful months earlier. I was angry at the foster parents who thought that they understood mine and my sisters tragic loss. I was angry at my grandparents for refusing to take care of us, because they felt that they were too old for the tragic burden. I was angry at myself for running away and leaving behind my ten year old sister, Faith. The truth was, I was just hopelessly angry at the whole entire world.