Part Five
Finding a pub where the patrons didn't cat call at her was proving difficult for Lucy. She had thought that the decent men would be out and about, when the only ones that she could find were old and fat and wore a wedding band. She really wouldn't mind if they were old and fat, and long as they were rich. In fact, maybe an old, fat man would be better, because they'd be knocked off their feet when she showed some interest in them. But no, always a ring on their third finger. The night was growing more and more dead. And Lucy was getting nowhere.
She'd almost given up, and was sat in a dark and dingy pub called the Goat and Duck tavern with a pint of that disgusting tasting beer that everyone seemed to be drinking. The last man she'd tried to talk to had left it there when his fat and ugly wife had come looking for him, and now she was sipping it, trying to look at home.
There seemed to be quite a number of girls like her in the place, dressed up in their best threads, and having a lot more luck chatting up the males than she was. She guessed that it was the fact that they seemed to have socks stuffed down the front of their dresses. The men weren't talking to their faces, they were talking to their chests.
"'ello darling, looking for a bit of company tonight are we?" a gravely voice said beside her.
"Well, actually, ye-" she turned around mid sentence, smiling, intending to try and dazzle whoever was talking to her, but was cut off. The man talking to her was short, and he had no hair. Or teeth. His clothes had a thin layer of dirt covering them, and his breath stank of beer and something else she couldn't quite place. She was sure she couldn't place it because she'd never smelt anything as foul as that in her life.
"Then you've found it," he breathed into her face.
"I don't think so!" Lucy said, pushing him away. Her hand came back covered in grime, and she curled her lips up in disgust. "What the hell do you do to get that dirty?" She exclaimed, rubbing her hand over the side of the table.
"Lean in a little closer and I'll tell you," he moved towards Lucy and grabbed her arms, moving in for a kiss.
"Ugh, no!" Lucy cried and tried to struggle away from him. For a small old man he was surprisingly strong, and she couldn't release his hands from her arms. His grip was like steel. "Let go of me!"
"Girls like you, gotta make their living any way they can, including doing people like me."
Lucy stopped struggling and stared into the man's eyes. They were brown, murky brown, dull and grubby like the rest of him. "Wha- what do you mean, girls like me?" she asked with a feeling of dread rising up in her stomach. The man laughed. When Lucy frowned at him, he made a sweeping gesture with his arms and said, "look around. You look sharp, can't you see what these girls are?"
Lucy narrowed her eyes at the man, and then looked around the room, really looked this time. The girls were dressed like her, yes, but at the same time they weren't. Her dress was new, the material shined like good material did, the seams and hems were neat and the edges solid. A blond girl over in the corner had a red dress on that was covered in murky brown stains. A green dress with four large holes in it, a cream one with frayed edges. The faces that glanced back at her were older, wiser, more worn than their bodies looked. Slowly, it dawned on her.
"They're…they're prostitutes?" Lucy said quietly.
The man clapped slowly. "Well done. And by the looks of you, so are you. So come over here and give me some loving." Faster than Lucy could react, he pushed her over sharply, so she was lying on the floor with her legs sticking up in a very unladylike manner into the air. His body crashed over hers, and a sharp pain shot up Lucy's back.
"Ow, you're hurting me!" she cried. "Help me, somebody, please!"
"Nobody will help you here. Each one for themselves," the man whispered into her ear, before his hands began to explore Lucy's body. She tried to plant her legs more firmly on the floor, but she was wedged between the bench she had been sat on and the man's heavy, smelly body.
"Oh, God," she murmured. Panic rose inside her, a burning consuming panic that told her to move. Move! She had to move, to get him off her, had to stop him doing what he was doing. This wasn't happening to her, no, no, no, it wasn't, she wasn't about to get…about to get…
Tears welled up in Lucy's eyes as terror began to consume her. Her struggles only made him hold on tighter and get rougher. Small, pathetic whimpers were coming out of someone's throat, it was her throat, as he found her undergarments and started to rip them apart.
Lucy took a deep breath and opened her mouth. She had intended to scream, but all that came out were desperate sounds, the occasional "help me, please" and muffled screams. This was it, this was happening, she couldn't stop it.
Oh God.
At some point she had closed her eyes, and as she opened them she saw the shadow of a man standing over her. Her heart jumped into her throat. Not another one, please, she thought, before the man on top of her was jerked off her.
"And what the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" the new man asked. Lucy looked up and saw him through a thin film of unshed tears- wavy brown hair, brown eyes, the most amazing cheekbones she had ever seen. He looked slightly drunk and very angry. She stumbled to her feet and smoothed down her dress, looking wildly around the room. Everyone was looking at them, and the men had stood up, forming a loose circle, obviously intending to do something about this stranger who had just interrupted one of their own.
"She said no, you idiot. A gentleman should never force himself into a woman in that way if she says no."
"But, she's a…"
The stranger laughed, and it made the circle take a collective step back. They'd heard people laugh like that before, at night in the shadows and down dark alleyways. The type of laugh that you ran away from, ran as fast as you could. Lucy shivered, but stared at the stranger, the man who had saved her.
"Look at her. Just take in this girl. Does she look like a whore?" he grabbed Lucy's attacker by the shirt and forced him to look at her. "This, you pillock, is a lady. A proper lady. Now, take a flight."
And the stranger picked the other man up and threw him across the room. He actually threw him! He hit the wall behind the bar and crumpled to the floor. Lucy took in a breath and caught the stranger's eye.
"Thank you, thank you. Oh God, I can't thank you enough. What he was about to do to me…"
The stranger looked right at her, and Lucy offered her hand. "I'm Lucy."
"Spike," he said, with a strange look in his eyes that almost made her want to pull away. "I'm Spike."
