Survivor Read Online Free PDF Page B

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     also terrified her parents would find out, she was in a state of perpetual anxiety.
     Sometimes she even hoped Sam wouldn’t come back to Russell, and then she could
     forget him. Yet, a week later, when she spotted him from her bedroom window, leaning
     against the tree at the shore end of Robertson Street and looking up at her house,
     she felt she had to rush out to meet him again.
    Stupidly, she thought she could change
     him by trying to make him just talk to her, kiss and cuddle her, without anything
     else.
    ‘I’m not too happy with the
     way you’ve been with me,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you, get to
     know all about you. So can we just go for a walk and do that, without
     the …’ She hesitated, not really knowing what to call it. ‘You
     know, the thing?’
    He stroked her
     cheek in what she thought was a really tender way. ‘Look, sweetheart,
     you’ve been on my mind ever since the last time,’ he said earnestly.
     ‘I want you so badly. Don’t do this to me?’
    Looking back now, it was obvious that he
     didn’t care about her at all, that all he wanted was sex. But she didn’t
     see that then; all she saw were his pleading eyes, and so she went along with what
     he wanted.
    By the fourth time, he was becoming even
     rougher with her, tossing her down on the ground and forcing himself upon her. After
     he was done, he degraded her still further by telling her to run along home as he
     had to see someone about some business.
    Mog had an expression she used when she
     suddenly realized the truth about someone or something: ‘The scales fell from
     her eyes.’ Mariette had often laughed at it, saying only fish had scales. But
     she finally understood what the expression meant ten days ago, the last time Sam had
     been in Russell.
    He had been really vile to her.
     He’d pushed her down on to her knees in some bushes and entered her from
     behind like a dog. There hadn’t been even one kiss. As he buttoned up his
     trousers afterwards, he told her to meet him there again a week on Sunday – and she
     wasn’t to be late.
    It was like having a bucket of cold
     water thrown over her, but it did finally bring her to her senses.
    Since then, she hadn’t stopped
     smarting with shame for allowing him to treat her in such a callous manner. She
     fervently hoped that he wouldn’t come back to Russell ever again, and that
     could be the end of it.
    But that wasn’t to be. Yesterday,
     as she was walking along the Strand, there he was, waiting for the Duke of
     Marlborough to open.
    He was very dirty,
     he smelled of stale sweat, and it wasn’t a smile he gave her but a leer, which
     said everything he felt about her.
    ‘Don’t forget our
     arrangement tomorrow,’ he said, and rubbed his crotch in a suggestive manner.
     She had walked on quickly without stopping.
    As she saw it, she had two choices. One
     was just to not turn up, but there was always the danger he might come to the house
     and alert her parents to what had been going on. The only other choice was to meet
     him and show him what she was made of. The latter appealed to her much more, and she
     knew it would make her feel better about herself.
    But now, as she spotted him up ahead
     sitting on the grass smoking a cigarette, her stomach lurched with fear. He looked
     round as she got nearer, but he didn’t even smile or stand up to greet
     her.
    ‘I’m not stopping,’
     she said as she got within earshot. ‘I just came to tell you I don’t
     want to see you any more.’
    ‘Is that so?’ he replied
     with a lazy sneer. ‘You could’ve said that yesterday and saved me the
     effort of walking up here, but I guess this is the usual Sheila’s trick to get
     me to say something soppy. No chance of that, love, you’ve picked the wrong
     man.’
    She went right up to him and looked down
     at him. ‘I certainly did pick the wrong man,’ she retorted.
     ‘You’ve treated me shamefully, and I never want to see you