I felt pain gushing through my cheek. Each tiny molecule in my skin tearing apart from one another, as my sweet blood gushed to the surface of my cheek. My body was trying desperately to ignore the pain but I knew that when I took my hand away from my cheek that familiar red liquid would be slowly attaching itself to my tired fingers.

I was right.

I felt the bruises and bumps bubbling up, and through a tiny crack my blood was dribbling down my face.

"Shit" I whispered beneath my breath. I then winced as I reapplied my fingers to my cheek.

I was bent over double like the dog I was, clutching at my scrawny little knees. The cloth of my trousers was drowning my little legs, whilst my tight leather jacket was strangling my torso and neck. For once I wished these leathers weren't as revealing as I cowered below he who hated me. I cursed the rings that clung to his fat fingers, and which made the dents in my delicate face. I gazed down at my own little fingers, annoyed that the only rings they could hold were the diamond-incrusted rings of women, which wouldn't make even the smallest of scratches on a proper man's cheek.

But I was no proper man. This was particularly true today as in each crevice the blood ran it revealed another bit of ruined makeup. The tiny stream gripped the edges of my nose stripping it of the thing that made girls think my skin was free of imperfections, concealer.

I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. The blood trickled towards my eye which was heavily covered in a thick black ring of eyeliner which flicked at the end, connecting it to my eyebrow, which was slowly absorbing my blood. But that was already dyed red.

It was strange. One side of my face looked like a normal face of which boys would wear before the collapse of the monarchy. Free of makeup and full of innocence. The other side was much different. Dripping in blood and bruises, smothered in makeup, the exact bruiséd monument of these days.

I finally had the strength to look at my oppressor. Stood at the front of my vision was he. I looked around quickly, no one was looking at me, obviously a man being punched to the ground was not worthy of their attention (!)

But there he stood. My mind flickered back to the few precious moments before my face was battered. I saw him across the dance floor, grinding against any unprotected male that came into his vision, his tight bondage trousers hardly concealing his true desires. He wore no shirt but instead a layer of sweat hung to the muscles of his torso. Squeezing the veins on his head was a sailor's hat, it was grimy and covered in dust, but still looked surprisingly white and white to my dulled eyes. The bright blue lettering on the hat hurt my eyes even more and I could only just make out what it said, "Titanic." It seemed to be engraved in the tight white band, which hid beneath a white flat circle covering his head.

He came over to me and carefully twirled one of his fingers through one of my tight black curls, then dragged his hand down to my pointed cheekbones then down to the middle of my chest. I was breathing heavily and carelessly turned my gaze away from him, pretending to ignore him.

"Hello, my name's Captain…" He said with a strong manly voice, so unlike my own. I continued to look away, and so Captain undid the flies on his tight jeans. I heard the unmistakeable sound of the zip and I looked down at his trousers. A deep smile appeared on Captain's face as he raised one of his well-plucked eyebrows.

"Fuck off mate," I barked out at him "I have a fucking g…"

His ringed fingers had struck my face and I stumbled to the floor, trying desperately to grab at the dancers around me with my flailing arms, trying, in my own little boy ways to regain some stability, and to punch him back.

I never did. I ended up scrabbling my way out of the club on my hands and knees, throwing myself into the grey streets. I keeled over into a puddle and held my aching face. I curled myself up into a ball and felt my clothes starting to dampen and my skin growing colder. My hair was getting more tangled as I rolled about in the puddle, my makeup now thoroughly ruined.

I limped my way back home, past the burning debris, the graffitied walls and the failed riots and revolutions. Why did I ever go out?

My home was the home to several others, my girlfriend Bullet, her friends and my band. Bullet owned it, she used to clean Buckingham Palace with a group of other maids who were all given one bedsit to share, one tiny shack for all their efforts. But through the entire rioting Bullet had kept hold of her home.

And then she met me. I remember it so clearly, that memory would forever be etched into my mind, entwined into the marrow of my bones. Our eyes met across a burning car. A local gang had recently tipped the car over, trapping the Hippie driver inside. One of the gang members took a match from behind his ear and struck it against his belt buckle. His followers opened the petrol cap and in went the match. The car blew up into the sky, flames reaching high into the air. When the gang had run off in fear I moved closer to the burning wreck. I peered in at the mutilated driver, his face burnt beyond recognition, whoever he was. By then his dreadlocks were burnt to ashes and I carefully reached through the smashed window and plucked his little round glasses from his burnt face.

"Nice," I said to myself as I checked my reflection in the smashed shards of glass.

But suddenly I heard footsteps in front of me and I looked up in shock.

"Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?" I shouted out into the distance. The sound of gravel footsteps echoed around me and I saw a dark shadow stretch over me.

It was a girl.

The girl had short blonde hair on one side and a long black fringe on the other, which draped across her face. She wore a tattered and torn military jacket with a thin T-shirt on underneath. The jacket had gold embroidery with lots of gold buttons that shone in the blazing fire. She had covered her face with white face paint, with a thin black line starting from either ear, reaching nearly to the tip of her lips, her perfectly lined lips. I then saw the silver knuckle-dusters gripping to her fingers. But I wasn't scared; I looked into her hazel eyes and saw that I would not be punched that day.

That was the last time I saw her properly.

"Duck boy!" She shouted out, but I was still looking into her eyes, I didn't move, just stared and THWACK!

The mechanics of the car had exploded, debris was flying everywhere and a piece of metal hit me squarely in the face. The Hippie's glasses flew off and I was propelled backwards.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was black. Then the small room around me slowly came into a sort of focus. Everything was blurry. I felt someone grab my hand and whisper into my ear.

"Hello Kid," It was HER voice, the girl that had told me to duck.

"How do you know my name?" I whispered back.

"It's written on your shirt, Kid," I looked down and saw that I had been stripped of my leather jacket and was left lying in my T-shirt. It was plain and dirty white with the word "KID" cut into it. It hung loosely over my small shoulders and stopped just short of my belly button. Suddenly, I felt embarrassed by the small hairs reaching down my stomach, and I tucked my knees into my body. "Here I think you may have hurt your eyes, try and focus on something,"

I looked quickly around the room and saw a tiny fuzzy square hung onto the far wall. My skin crinkled around my eyes as I stared intently at the square, desperate for it to become something.

"Are you trying to look at the picture?" She got up and walked over to the picture, taking it off the wall, then gave it to me. "That's the house that I wanted to live in, see? Thatch roof, stone walls, just a sweet cottage in the country… of course it's in Dorset, and that's all blocked off, you know there's no music on Dorset, it's all been banned, couldn't live without music…"

"I can sing!" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, The girl moved closer to m, and wrapped her arms around my little shoulders. She giggled into the nape of my neck, the sweetest school-like giggle.

"Go on, give me a sing-gong!" And suddenly I had never felt so nervous, my throat dried up, making me cough. "Go on," I looked up into her eyes, and even through my damaged vision I could see them sparkling.

"Ummm…" I smiled to myself as I thought of the perfect song "You put my head into the stocks, and then you, you went to choose a cane, but hey, your cat has got nine tails, you like to leave me lame… I can't thank her, my Sunday spanker, there's a whip in my valise, oh yeah…" I sang, and stroked my thumb down across the middle of her lips, curling her bottom one.

"Oh Kid," She whispered as she picked my hand off her face. "That was beautiful…he, and cheeky!" I could just about see she was looking into my eyes, and then we both stared, me, trying to focus in on her hazel eyes. Then she broke it, she lifted herself off the bed and skipped over to a black box. "Here, you have to watch this," She flickered on a switch and a moving picture slowly grew onto the screen.

It was a band playing their music. And. They. Were. Amazing. They were completely different to anything I had heard before. They wore elegant makeup and military jackets. I grabbed at the box with my hands and pressed my nose against the screen. The lead singer electrified the stage, with each word his voice rang through the octaves. With each step the singer jumped, and span around on his heels, his scarves twirled around his thin body. Then he turned around and looked directly down the camera, straight into my eyes, down to the depths of my very heart, and he growled. His teeth gritted, his mouth twitched, and his brow furrowed over his eyes, those eyes that stared so deeply into me. His sweet voice swallowed me whole. I closed my eyes in perfect pleasure, and fell apart around the crashing drums. From the back of my throat a deep groan ricocheted around me.

"It's only Top of the Pops, Kid. God haven't you seen it before?!"

"Top of the Pops?"

"Yer, all the musicians go on it and they perform the same few songs over and over and over…"

"You mean this band will be on again!?"

"Sadly. Trust me, you'll get bored of them. Hey, maybe YOU should go on Top of the Pops?"

"I haven't got a band," I was still staring at the screen, trying to look at the singer's face one more time, but then the band finished and a crisp voice sounded over the speakers.

"And that was Polly Politics everyone, their new albums out soon, remember to buy it folks!"

"Don't get your hopes up Kid, you'll never be able to afford their album" And with that she switched the box off, and the screen went black. My face was still pressed against the screen and then I realised I didn't know this girl's name.

"What's your name?"

"Bullet,"

"Your name's Bullet(?)"

"Better then Kid,"

"THE Kid actually,"

"THE Kid?"

"Yer, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing" She smirked.

"Are you laughing at me, Bullet?" She stared directly into my eyes, just like the singer did, and smirked.

"Hey listen to this, this is MUCH better then that Top of the Pops," And with that she turned away from me and went to switch on another little box. She concentrated hard on putting the little needle on the vinyl and suddenly the most awful screeching noise filled the room. I screwed my face up and quickly put my hands over my ears. I was still scrunched-up by the first black box, and Bullet was looking at me like I was the maddest person in the world.

"Come on, it's not that bad!" I continued to cower from the horrible music. It was full of harshly-written beats, clashing chords, and god-awful lyrics. "Fine, I'll turn it off," And with a disappointed face she removed the needle form the vinyl.

I was suddenly brought back to the present, and found that I was standing in front of my door. Despite my bad sight I could still see that it was old and battered, and the black paint was peeling off. But before I could reach the door knob I was met with Bullet crashing through the door.

"Kid?!"

"Yer?"

"God Kid, where were you?!" She looked at my face and noticed my bruising eye "What happened?" Her eyes grew wide and her mouth formed a perfect "O" shape.

"Just this stupid guy, that's all," I pushed past her and strode over the threshold of my house, and there, on the bed at the side of the room were my worried looking bandmates and Bullet's friends. "I was gone for like an hour guys, nothing to worry about,"

Grey, one of my drummers stood and walked over to me and gave me a pat on my shoulder.

"What the fuck are you doing Grey?"

"We're just glad to see you back Kid, there have been loads of rioting, we thought you could have been caught up in them,"

"And you forgot your glasses…AGAIN," I turned around and Bullet was stood behind me, hand on hip. She swung my glasses around by one of her fingers. I hated wearing my glasses. They were thick-rimmed and their cheap plastic covered my skinny face. I reluctantly took then from Bullet's hand and wrapped the plastic arms around my ears. The world became suddenly clear around me, and the people came into perfect focus.

Bullet stood with her characteristically long, black fringe that hung over her face. She had drawn a little black heart under the left of her nose, her slick sideburns still just only toughing her lips. I turned round and Grey's bright blue eyes hit me, but his bright, blonde, shoulder-length hair hit dazzled me more. I looked down at the sofa and saw a great mound of leather, makeup, and tired faces. Heritage, Callous and Virtue sat huddled together, all ex-maids that used to work with Bullet, now sat in dirty squalor. Student, my other drummer, Shades, my guitarist, and Vote, my bassist all sat slightly further apart from one another then the girls, were trying to think of a way to fix my ruined face. I couldn't look bashed up for the fans now could I(?)

"Kid, tell me who beat you up"

"I'm fine Bullet" Not believing my humble words she slapped me hard on the bruised side of my face. I let out a howling scream and dropped down onto my knees, still wincing from the pain.

"You really can't take pain can you now?" Callous said as she grinned her malicious smile, a smile that had been the last thing that many men had seen, She got up of the bed and strutted over to my withering body, the sound of her hob-nail boots crashing against the stone floor. Time seemed to slow as shivers ran up my spine. If I was the Queen I would've never employed her, even the sight of her intimidated me. She had scarily big eyes with dark layered hair, matching the jagged lines of black she drew on her face, her many piercings shining in the light. She stood gazing down at me and placed one of her boots on my body, the widest grin spreading across her face.

"Oi! Get off him!" Bullet screamed. She ran over to Callous and grabbed the lapels of her jacket, picking her up and throwing her across the room, into the TV.

"Bitch!" Callous sat up, rubbing the back of her head "I wasn't going to hurt your precious little GIRLFRIEND!" Finally on her feet she ran over to Bullet and pushed her lightly on the shoulders. Bullet pushed her back. And soon they were fighting. Callous dragging Bullet across the room by her hair, Bullet ripping the piercings from Callous' face. Grey and Student ran towards the squabbling girls, grabbing one in their arms.

"Calm down alright!" Student shouted, slightly out of breath, "Look, we have to stay together, and we can't have you two destroying the tele every time Kid gets hurt!"

"The TV!" Realisation hit me and I ran over to the TV, still wincing with pain. The screen laid shattered, the aerial twisted into an unruly mess of wire. "Top of the Pops…" I murmured. Bullet walked over to me and hugged me tightly, rubbing my shoulder, her rings digging into my skin.

"It's alright Kid, I won't fight with Callous anymore," her empty words doing little to comfort my smashed idols that lay smashed on the floor.