She took him in deeper, closing her mouth around it, moving up and down the shaft.
‘Owww! You fucking stupid woman, you want me to take your teeth out or something?’
She stared at him, wild-eyed, sobering fast.
Suddenly he pushed her chin away, pulling himself free. ‘God, you ungrateful bitch!’ Then, wrenching her shoulders harshly, causing her to cry out in pain, he turned her over, right over, until her face was buried in the pillow, and for a moment she thought he intended to suffocate her.
Then she felt his fingers probing her vagina and thought she was going to throw up. She struggled to swallow the bile that rose in her throat. Then they moved from her vagina to her anus. Moments later she felt his erection trying to enter it.
Then, shrieking with pain, she felt him entering her. Further. Further.
‘No! Gogu!’ she screamed, almost choking on more bile.
Further.
She felt as if she was splitting in two.
Further.
She shook her head, her whole body, in desperation, trying to break free. He grabbed a clump of her wet hair and banged her face hard into the pillow, so hard she could not breathe. Then entered her further. Further still.
She was whimpering. Crying. Calling, ‘Gogu, Gogu, Gogu!’ Struggling. Struggling against the pain. Struggling for breath.
‘Fuck you, ungrateful little bitch,’ he whispered into her ear.
She turned her face sideways, gulping down air, crying in agony.
‘Fuck you, bitch!’ he hissed.
His erection was getting even bigger. Busting her in half.
‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, bitch!’ He smashed his fist into the side of her face. ‘Fuck you, ungrateful little bitch from the gutters!’
He pushed even deeper inside her.
She screamed out again and he rammed her face hard against the pillow, holding her there, jamming her airways. She struggled, tried to lift her head, but he kept it down, hard. Panic seized her, through the pain. She shook, trying to move, but she was pinned, as if a spike had been rammed through her. She began shaking in the final throes of suffocation, her chest hurting so much she thought it would collapse. Then he jerked her head back and kissed her deeply on the lips, as she gulped in air, his air, from his lungs.
Then he broke his mouth away. ‘Tell me you like this. Tell me you are grateful to me.’ He held his face hard against her cheek. ‘Tell me you are grateful to me for saving you. Say it. Say you are grateful! Say thank you!’
‘I hate you!’ she gasped.
He slammed the ball of his thumb against her cheek. Then he smashed his fist into her eye socket. He paused for a second before gripping her hair with both hands, so hard she was sure he was going to rip it from her scalp. He continued holding her hair as she felt him ejaculating inside her. Then she vomited.
Some time later, Simona did not know when – she had lost all track of time – she was in the back of the big black car once more. The same music she recognized from before was playing, that same rich voice singing those words of a song that had no meaning for her: ‘I’ve got you under my skin’.
The same Bucharest night was gliding past the window. She hurt all over. The most terrible pains. Her face felt puffy. Her head hurt. When she had arrived at the Gara de Nord she had felt dirty all over. Now she felt clean all over, but dirty inside. Filthy.
She wanted to cry but she hurt too much. And she did not want this man with the snake tattoo, who was driving, who had not spoken one word, but kept looking at her in the mirror and smiling at her, a filthy, dirty lecherous smile, to have any encouragement from her.
She just wanted to go home. Home. Home to Romeo, to the dog, to the screaming baby. To the people who cared about her. To her family.
He was stopping the car. The street was dark, and she had no idea where she was. He was opening the rear door and climbing in. Pushing himself next to her. He had banknotes in his hand. ‘Good money!’ he said, grinning. He pressed them into her hand, then unzipped himself.
She stared at him as he wiggled his erection out of his trousers. Stared at the tattoo of the striking snake that rose from his shirt collar.
‘Good money!’ he said.
Then he grabbed her hair, just like the man had done, and pulled her face down on to his erection.
She closed her lips over the head, then bit, as hard as she could, until she could taste blood in her mouth, until her ears were ringing with his screams. Then she grabbed the door handle, pulled it down, pushed with all her strength, stumbled out and ran into the night.
She ran without stopping, lost and disoriented, through an endless maze of dark streets and closed shops, knowing that if she kept running, kept running, kept running, she would eventually find somewhere she recognized, somewhere that would give her bearings and take her back to her home under the road.
In the blindness of her panic as she ran, she did not see that the black car, driven erratically but keeping a safe distance, was following her.
21
After driving for several minutes through the labyrinth of the Royal South London Hospital grounds, Lynn halted the Peugeot in frustration in the driveway outside the Emergency entrance, as the way ahead was barred by a metal barrier. It was just after half past nine in the evening.
‘Jesus!’ she said, exasperated. ‘How the hell is anyone supposed to find their way around here?’
It was the same every time; they always got lost here. Construction work was going on constantly and the liver unit was never in the same building twice – at least, that was how it seemed to her. And since the last time, a good two years ago, the whole traffic layout appeared to have changed.
She stared around in frustration at the institutional-looking buildings surrounding them. Tall monoliths, a mish-mash of architectural styles. Close to the car was a barrage of red, yellow and pale green signs and she had to strain to read them in the glow from the street lighting. None contained the name of the wing she was looking for, the Rosslyn Wing, which she had been told to access via the Bannerman Wing.
‘Must be in the wrong place,’ Caitlin said, without looking up from her texting.
‘Is that what you think?’ Lynn asked, more good-humouredly than she felt.
‘Uh huh. Like, if we were in the right place, we’d be there, wouldn’t we?’ She tapped her keys in furious concentration.
Despite her tiredness and her fear and her frustration, Lynn found herself grinning at her daughter’s curious logic. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Quite right.’
‘I’m always right. Just have to ask me. I’m like the Oracle.’
‘Perhaps the Oracle could tell me which way to go now.’
‘I think you’ll have to start by reversing.’
Lynn backed a short distance, then stopped alongside more signs. Hopgood Wing, she read. Golden Jubilee Wing. Main Hospital Entrance. Variety Club Children’s Outpatients. ‘Where the hell is Bannerman?’
Caitlin looked up from her texting. ‘Chill, woman. It’s like a television game, you know?’
‘I hate it when you say that!’
‘What, television game?’ Caitlin teased.
‘Chill, woman! OK? I don’t like it when you say that.’
‘Yep, well, you are so stressed. You’re stressing me.’
Lynn looked behind her and began reversing again.
‘Life’s a game,’ Caitlin said.
‘A game? What do you mean?’
‘It’s a game. You win – you live, you lose – you die.’
Lynn brought the car to a sudden halt and turned to face Caitlin. ‘Is that what you really think, darling?’
‘Yep! They’ve hidden my new liver somewhere in this complex. We have to find it! If I find it in time, I live. If I don’t, tough shit!’
Lynn giggled. She put an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders and pulled her close, kissing her head, breathing in the scents of her hair shampoo and gel. ‘God, I love you so much, darling.’