Hello to you all and welcome in my new story! Do you say it like that? I don't think you do. Anywayyyy… I love writing and I always write in English because there are a lot more people who understand it but I'm not all that great at it so I'm looking for a beta please. If you're up to it please let me know! Anyway I hope you enjoy this story!
I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling of my room again. I don't know if you can really call this a room. It's just a little square with a bed in it. No closet because I don't need one anyway. Every night I get the dress I'm supposed to wear and take off. I can leave whatever clothes I want to wear after on my bed. I still wear the same pyjama that I wore the first time I got here. Every two weeks someone washes it for me and throws it back were they found it.
I'm wondering if the handsome stranger with the golden eyes will be here this time. I assume he will 'cause he hasn't missed a show ever since I started here. The first time he was here he was with a black haired boy with black eyes who appeared to be his friend. He looked really uncomfortable and like he didn't really want to be here. I had already spotted him from behind the curtain and was wondering why he was here if he so clearly didn't want to be here. Maybe he was here because of his friend? But a good friend would understand if the other didn't want to be there, right?
I wouldn't know, it had been a long time ever since I'd had any friends. The last one I could remember was Simon, but that was before my father made me drop out of school and forbid me to see anyone ever again. Simon was dating this girl at the time, I think her name was Isabelle or something like that, I always wondered if they had made it through. I considered her a friend too at the time, but I'd always been closer with Simon.
But like I said, that was before my dad made me stop my life. In that year my mother died, and my dad was completely devestated, he had loved her so much and got it all taken away from him in just one second. My mom had died in a car accident with my older brother Jonathan. I was barely fifteen at the time and Jonathan was seventeen. He would go to college next year. But he and my mom got all of that taken away by some drunk driver who didn't know what he was doing.
You'd think that my dad would never touch a glass of alcohol ever again because that was what killed his wife. But he did the complete opposite and used the alcohol to forget all of his trouble. Soon after I didn't ever see my dad sober again. I hadn't only lost my mother and brother to alcohol but my father too.
He became aggressive around me and blamed me for looking so much like my mother. It only went downhill from there. He made me drop out of school and break all contact with my friends. He lost his job as a succesful lawyer because he never showed up at work anymore and he started a new business, but this time he was his own boss.
He opened a club called Pandemonium were the guests could enjoy a stripshow every night. They could even take the girls home with them for the night if they wanted too. I knew I had lost my father but I stayed around him in hopes that the sweet and caring man I knew before the accident would come back. I don't know why I did it but I just couldn't let go if him so soon. Maybe he would stop with the alcohol and realise he still had me and would be grateful for that.
I stopped hoping the night he first forced me to go out on stage and put up a show for everyone to see. That was the first time I saw the golden eyed stranger. His eyes were the only ones that didn't make me feel uncomfortable or make me want to run for the hills. Quite the opposite actually, if I could just imagine he was the only one I was dancing for, everything was allright.
Later that night my dad came into my room and started yelling at me. He was mad that I hadn't taken off my underwear and that I hadn't made the show last longer. He slapped me hard across my face and threatened that if I didn't do better the next time, the bruise on my cheeck wouldn't be the only one I had to cover.
From that night on I stopped referring to him as my dad. He was a monster and I wouldn't associate him with the man who raised me and was madly in love with my mother. It just couldn't be the same one.
Valentine comes into my room grinning at me like he isn't the one who destroyed my life.
"So honey, are you ready for you show tonight?"
I just nod and don't look him in the eyes. I don't know why he keeps on calling me honey. Is this his twisted way of pretending I'm still his daughter and he's still the father I need him to be?
"You ungratefull child, look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you!"
He pulls my chin up and slaps his hand hard across my cheeck. I don't let the tears roll out of my eyes yet and wait for him to leave, I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Some days he's done rather early while other days he just keeps on hitting me untill I can't hold it anymore and the tears roll out of my eyes.
Luckily, today is the former. He just turns his back on me and leaves, but not before hitting me one last time. As soon as the door closes after him the tears start to leak out of my eyes.
What happened to the man that used to give me everything I desired and let me sit on his back, pretending he was my horse? What happened to the man that dressed up as Cinderella on my sixth birthday because the real one couldn't make it that day? Most of the time I don't let myself miss him because I know he is gone now. My dad would never touch his little princess, let alone make her strip in front of some old creeps.
I don't know why no one has noticed the bruises that covered almost every part of me. Maybe it were the lights, or maybe they just didn't care. It was probably the latter, but I just wanted someone to notice and save me. The first night I had hoped that the golden eyed boy would help me, but he was just as helpless as I was, there was no way that Valentine would ever let me go.
Sometimes I wondered what my mother would think if she could see all this. Would she be able to calm him down? But if she hadn't left, nothing would've happened in the first place, so I try not to think about this all too much. When I do I imagine that she starts yelling at Valentine for doing all this stuff to me and that he should have known better. That he should have known that she would never want this.
I step out on the stage in the so maniest skimpy dress Valentine makes me wear. You can barely call it a dress, it doesn't even reach under my butt, but I guess that's what the guests want to see. The golden haired boy is here again, like I expected. I see that Kaelie is flirting with him – again – but he doesn't seem able to keep his eyes off of me. I feel a weird feeling of satisfaction pass through me.
When I was still in highschool I wasn't the most popular girl at school. I wasn't ugly but I clearly wasn't the most beautiful girl around, that were girls like Kaelie. So yes, it kind of made me happy that the golden eyed boy seemed more interested in me than in Kaelie. If only the circumstances were better…
The golden boy always gave me mixed feelings. I don't know what it was about him, but he always made me feel safe and if I just imagined he were the only one there, I was able to make it through the night and through my dance. But on the other hand, he reminded me so much of Jon. He had exactly the same expression on his face as Jon had always had, the look that said "I'm sexy and I know it".
I never got what girls saw in it when they hung around Jon, but now that it's not my brother that has that look on his face I completely get why they like it so much.
The golden haired boy also looks like he plays some kind of sport, he's really toned, I can see it from up here on the stage. I always imagine him playing football just like Jon used to do.
Even the friend that was with him reminds me of someone Jon used to know. I think the name of Jon's friend was Sebastian. They were almost inseparable. At some point me and Sebastian had dated but we broke up because it was really uncomfortable around Jon, I didn't want to be the sister that ran away with her brother's best friend plus I didn't feel the IT they talk about in movies. I don't know if that really is a thing but I was fourteen at the time and in love with the idea of love.
We broke up on good terms and stayed kind of friends after that. After the accident the contact between us stopped, mainly because of my father, but we also just didn't know what to talk about anymore. Jon had always been the only thing we had in common.
The cold air hits my stomach when I lift up my dress to make the men in the room see what they want. I feel the goosebumps all over my skin and I hope Valentine won't get mad about this later. He thinks it's very unattractive for a woman to look like some kind of bird. I wonder if he thought about my mom this way too. But I guess it just reminds him of all the times he would give her his jacket because she was cold but had been to stuborn to bring her own jacket because it didn't match her outfit.
The men in the room are all watching me with a horny look in their eyes and I know at least three of them want to take me home with them tonight. Luckily for me, that's something Valentine hasn't made me do yet. He always tells me it's because one day, when I'm fully grown up he'll make a lot of money out of selling me because I'll still be a virgin then. I don't know how to feel about this, I'm grateful he hasn't made me do things yet, but I know he won't wait with it too long anymore.
That night after my show he comes to my room. I'm already fully prepared for all the things he's going to say and the hits I'm going to have to take. Instead of angry he comes into my room smiling.
When I was younger I used to love his smile. He and Jon smiled exactly the same way. A slow grin that spred across their face when the thing that made them happy was happening in front of them. After my mom died, the smile was gone and it was replaced by something that looked like it, but in a twisted version. Like a zombie that smiles, it still is the same body that is smiling, but everything inside is gone and replaced by emptiness. The twinkle in his eyes that I used to love so much is gone.
"I have big news for you Clarissa."
I didn't dare to look him in the eyes but remembering the slap I gor earlier this morning I forced myself to look up at him. His eyes were pitch black and even though they merely looked a dark brown when I was younger, they appeared to be a demon's eyes now. They were a demon's eyes.
"Aren't you even going to ask what it is honey?"
I didn't want to know, but I was so scared of another slap that I asked anyway.
"What is it Va-dad?"
Even though he had stopped treating me like a daughter years ago he still wants me to call him dad. Maybe it makes him feel like he still is the perfect father he used to be.
"You're finally a young women. I think you know what that means, don't you? You've always been a smart girl. Smarter than a girl should be. You were smart enough to not get into that car. It should have been you who died that day, not Jocelyn or Jonathan. It should have been you."
You would think I would get used to him saying this, but it still hurts just as much as the first time he said it. He may be an asshole and he may have done a lot of things wrong but he was right about this: it should have been me who died in that carcrash, than Valentine would continue to be a normal dad and husband for Jonathan and Jocelyn. He would miss me but he would have his wife and his son and he would get over it. It would take some time but together they would get over it.
"I asked you a question: do you know what that means?"
He was yelling at the top of his lungs now. I could guess where he was going with this but I didn't want to say it out loud. That would make it so much more real, so I just pretended that I didn't know what he was talking about.
"I'm sorry dad, I don't."
"You useless little bitch, have I send you to school all these years but if I ask you something you don't know the answer to one fucking little question. One fucking thing I want you to remember. At least I can get rid of you soon. This night you are going to get selled you little bitch, and for a great amound of money." Valentine took me by my hair and dragged me out of my room, I was still wearing nothing but my underwear, but he didn't seem to care. Maybe I would sell better that way.
I'm dragged onto the stage and I hear Valentine scream. "This little bitch is being sold. You'll have to put in some work to make her listen to you but I promise she'll be worth it. And for the record: this one's still a virgin so you'll be able to see her squirm in pain underneath you when you take her for the first time."
I lock every noise around me out, I don't want to hear them yell the price they are willing to pay for my body, I don't want to hear Valentine, the man who was supposed to love me most, encourage them, and I don't want to know which pig will be able to take me home with him tonight. Valentine's dragging me off of the stage again so I assume it is over. When we're back in my room he slaps me across the face.
"You didn't think it would be necessary to look at least a little bit alive? You really are a useless bitch, I'm surprised someone even wanted to pay for you. For a second I thought I would have to pay them to take you with them. Now pack your stuff and make sure you look presentable. Your new owner is coming to get you any minute."
I slowly packed my stuff, but it didn't take long. Seeming as the only thing I owned were my pyjamas and a picture my dad had taken of my mother, my brother and me while we were playing in a parc. I didn't remember much of that day but I think we were playing tag. It was the only picture I'd been able to hide from my dad when he was destroying all the evidence we had been a happy family.
Just thinking about the day he smashed all pictureframes we had and broke the paintings my mom had worked hours on in just a few seconds made me want to burst into tears again. When my bag was packed I went to lay on my bed again, hoping I'd still have some time to myself before my new owner came to pick me up.
I don't know what I was going to do when he came to collect me. Was I going to try and run away? Were would I go? The sad truth hit me that I had no place to go so I couldn't run away. I'd just end up on the streets and I would eventually have to start working as a prostitute somewhere else, so I wouldn't have won anyway.
At least with my new owner I will at least be able to hope he'll get tired of my one day and that he will just leave me alone. Maybe he'll just want me to become a maid than or maybe he'll give me some money to make it on my own out there. I know that I'm just wishfull thinking and that the person Valentine hooked me up with will be some old creep, that I'll only be dissapointed in the end. I hear a light knock on the door and I know tha moment has come: my new owner is here to collect me.
I try to make myself look a little bit more presentable and try to pull the hem of my dress underneath my butt. It doesn't seem to work so I just walk up to the door. I breath in one last time and open the door. Standing in front of me is the golden boy.
Sooo, I hope you all enjoyed this! Please review and let me know what you think and wether I should continue this. I also wrote a chapter in Jace's pov but I don't know if I want to publish it yet. It just doesn't sit right with me at the moment. Maybe if I reach 100 reviews someday! Hahaha (I'm just kidding) I don't really know where I want to go with this story yet so things you want to see happening are welcome!