Heart (5 page)

The phone rang. Dex peered at the screen, though what he expected to see, he wasn’t quite sure. Only one number called the phone he was given to hold every night. He pressed the call button. “Yeah?”

His “Uncle” Braden growled, “Get out here. You’ve got a job.”

A job
. Even in Braden’s thick Traveller brogue, it sounded almost respectable. Shame it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Dex sloped across the muddy yard and got into the waiting van. Mikey, his driver for tonight and every night, turned to him with a leer. “You ready to get fucked, ya little poof?”

Dex ignored him and stared out the window, watching the site he called home roll by until they hit the brightly lit streets of Hatfield. Mikey’s words were crude and cruel, but they were true. Dex worked the fairgrounds from time to time, but his main contribution to the “family” business was this: getting fucked by dirty old men. There was more money in hooking than all Braden’s other enterprises combined, and Dex was a popular whore.

Fucking. Sucking. Sometimes a beating, but he took it all with little resistance. What was the point? He’d had a glimpse of another life, but it wasn’t for him. He didn’t belong in a world so free and beautiful.

Mikey drove to an estate on the outskirts of Hatfield. He pulled up by a block of flats and pushed Dex into the passenger door. “Flat Six. You’ve got thirty minutes, lad. Don’t be late.”

Dex slithered out of the van and drifted to the exterior door of the flats. He didn’t have to turn to know Mikey was watching his every move, ready to drive over him if he put a foot out of place.

Don’t you run, boyo. We’ll always find you, and you know what happens to little boys who run.

The door to the flats was open. Dex let himself inside and paused, checking his pockets for his kit. Braden didn’t believe in creature comforts for his “employee,” and he didn’t give two shits what happened behind closed doors, but perhaps because he was partial to sampling his own wares, he kept Dex supplied with condoms and lube.

Dex found the right door and knocked. An overweight middle-aged man answered, already half-undressed and sweating. Dex didn’t take much notice as he followed him into the musty flat. After a while, they all looked the same.

“Do I have to pay extra to kiss you?”

Dex unzipped his thin coat. He knew he should say yes, that Braden would be pleased if he came back with extra cash, but he couldn’t do it. Johns didn’t usually want to kiss, and he’d only ever kissed one man for pleasure. “I don’t kiss.”

The man accepted it without complaint. Perhaps Dex had visited him before. He honestly couldn’t remember. “Where do you want me?”

“On the couch,” the man said. “I want you to suck me.”

And so it went on, but as nights went, it turned out to be a pretty easy one—a run of blowjobs, hand jobs, and just one fucking from a john with a cock inadequate enough to cause a little discomfort.

Around dawn, Mikey drove Dex back to the site and ditched him outside Braden’s plush mobile home. The site was a dump, but not Braden’s place. He was the kingpin, and for him, no expense was spared.

Dex trudged up the steps, but before he could knock, Braden wrenched the door open, glaring from the comfort of his luxurious home. Dex shuddered a little as the warmth hit him. He was cold and so tired he was ready to drop.

“Give it to me.”

Dex handed over the rolled-up wad of grubby cash, three hundred pounds in total. A decent amount, but not enough. It was never enough.

“Get inside,” Braden growled. “Go clean yourself up, boy.”

Dex slipped past him and made his way to the bathroom. That was the one good thing about being Braden’s personal slave: the use of his bathroom. After a long night of hooking, a shower was worth far more to him than the rolled-up tenner—Dex’s cut of the night—in his back pocket. Showers were like gold dust. Sometimes a good john would let him use their bathroom. One time, an oddly tactile guy had even scooped him off the bed and put him in a steaming hot bath in his grotty hotel room, but those jobs were rare. Most times, it was a quick fuck in a car or a dirty bedsit. Or worse. And for fifty quid a pop, what did you expect? Johns with real money didn’t call the numbers in the back of the local rag.

Nah. The johns who called Braden’s hotlines were the men too vile and seedy to find company elsewhere. The kind of men who made Dex’s skin crawl. He stepped under the hot spray and shivered.
Still
made his skin crawl even hours after they’d had their hands on him.

Dex cleaned up and then lingered as long as he dared before he shut the water off and made his way like a good boy to Braden’s bedroom. Any longer, and his uncle was sure to come looking for him, and Dex didn’t want
that
.

He sat naked on the bed and hugged his knees to his chest. Perhaps Braden would give him some food when he was done with him. He couldn’t remember the last thing he ate. It could’ve been the crisps he stole from a john’s house a few days ago—Hula Hoops, naturally—or maybe the sausage roll Mikey had tossed his way in a rare flash of humanity.

Humanity like…. No. Dex stopped the thought in its tracks. He wouldn’t think about
him
. Not now. That memory was too pure to follow him here. Too precious to share with Braden.

Braden appeared in the doorway, his hulking frame blocking the light. Dex zoned out. He’d been Braden’s plaything for years, and some days, their encounters even felt normal, though a stubborn part of him knew they weren’t.

Life hadn’t always been this way. His childhood in Ireland had been happy and carefree, running wild with his cousins in the woodland surrounding the county they lived in. The caravans moved every year, but by and large, remained south of Kilkenny. Dex knew they were different, that they weren’t accepted in the wider community, but it had never mattered.

Not until he’d turned thirteen and his father had sent him to England to earn his keep for “Uncle” Braden. In the six years since, he’d only seen his parents twice. He missed his ma, but that was life and the way of their world.

Braden cuffed his head. Dex rolled from the bed in surprise. The blow didn’t hurt, but it caught him off guard. “What?”

“Don’t
what
me, boy.” Braden reached for a smoke, done with Dex for the night. “I said you’d better be ready when I come for you tonight. I’ve got a big job for you, and it starts early. Now get the fuck out and go back to whatever pit you came from.”

Dex didn’t need telling twice. He dressed and stepped out into the cold early morning. He picked his way across the muddy camp to the rusty caravan he called home. The yard was quiet as he walked with his head down, hands thrust in his pockets, but there were some faces around, faces he did his best to avoid.

Too bad they had other ideas.

Dex collided with a hard chest. He didn’t have to look to know it belonged to Tarry, Braden’s youngest son. Tarry was three years younger than Dex, but twice his size—tall, broad, and well fed. And he was a nasty, vicious twat with a penchant for making Dex’s life hell.

“Watch where you’re going.”

Dex mumbled an apology and stepped aside, but not quick enough to avoid the swinging blow from Tarry. The force of it sent him tumbling to the ground, soaking his clothes in the wet mud.

Dazed, he lay there for a moment, absorbing the dull pain of the punch to his ribs. It had always been this way with Tarry and his brothers, and it was another reason for Dex to suspect they shared no blood… that his service to his “uncle” was a business arrangement and nothing more.

The other families on the site seemed to share Tarry and his pals’ disdain for Dex, and he’d heard it said before that his own family was particularly low down in the hierarchy. For Dex, it seemed like being caught between a rock and a hard place: too far outside for any respect, but accepted enough for there to be no escape.

He pulled himself from the ground to a chorus of mocking chuckles. Ignoring them, he crawled up the steps to the freezing-cold van and tried to find the will to care what tomorrow would bring.

Seven

D
EX
SPENT
his day cleaning caravans. The work was cold and wet, but he enjoyed it in a strange kind of way. It was a chore he’d done since he was old enough to help his da, which was as long as he could remember.

When he was done with the last van, he went to the dilapidated outbuilding that served as a stable to clean out the horse stalls. The task was his favorite job. On most sites, the animals came and went as often as the people, and some were even left behind from time to time when the caravans moved on, but not here. The site was as permanent as any Traveller camp was likely to get, and some of the horses had been there from the start.

Dex cleaned out the rudimentary stalls and fed each horse. When he was done, he stopped by the stalls that housed the shabbiest horses. He knew each animal by name, and he made them up for the creatures too knackered to have one. Cora, Lalla, Jon-Jo. Carric and her companion, Tauna.

Dex whistled. Tauna looked up, but Carric paid him no heed, too busy with her evening feed. He watched her with a sad smile, knowing he was the only one who bothered to feed the oldest horses, and sooner or later, he’d be forced to stop doing it too. That was the way when you lived your life at the bottom of the food chain. Once you were deemed worthless, you were left behind to die. Sometimes, he longed for that day.

It was dark when he finished his work, though he had no real idea what the time was. He said good-bye to the horses and, remembering Braden’s parting shot from their early morning encounter, went to wash under the outside tap.

Mikey came to find him as he was pulling his clothes back on. “Come on, kid. Time to go.”

Dex followed him to the van and stared out the window in silence as Mikey drove them to an industrial estate in the middle of town. Braden waited for them outside a nondescript building. He caught Dex’s shoulder and yanked him forward, glaring at him with critical eyes. “Have you grown, boy? Maybe we need to drop you in bleach again. You sell better that way. Younger the better.”

Dex kept his gaze down. He didn’t remember having his hair dyed. Mikey had put something in his drink that made him sleep, and he’d woken up blond. A few weeks later, Braden had sent him to Cornwall to work on the beach. He’d wanted to cry when the last remnants of his bleached locks grew out, like they were his last link to that mystical summer in Padstow.

The door to the industrial unit opened and the booted feet of another man appeared. Dex heard the murmur of voices as he bantered with Braden, but he didn’t catch all the words. The English way of speaking Shelta went over his head. Besides, what did it matter? Most times, it was better not to know what he was walking into.

Mikey flicked his cheek. Dex raised his eyes and saw Braden was gone, leaving him alone with Mikey and another heavyset man.

“We’ll wait outside for the boy,” Mikey said. “Do what you like with him, but not his face. We make a lot of money from this pretty boy. Don’t want him back as damaged goods.”

The other man nodded his agreement, and Mikey disappeared into the night. The man took Dex’s arm and pushed him toward the open door. “Come on, then, lad. Time to service the gorjers.”

He directed Dex into the cold, drafty building and along a utilitarian corridor until they came to a locked metal door. Behind the door was a staircase that led down to some kind of cellar. Dex tensed, but his guide shoved him forward.

“Down.”

Dex felt his way down the steps. He’d lost the will to be afraid years ago, but as he walked blind into a situation he knew at best would be unpleasant, his long-dormant nerves prickled to life.

The stairs seemed to go on forever, but eventually, he walked right into another solid metal door. His guide reached around him and pushed it open, shoving him forward into a warm, dim room cloaked in cigar smoke.

“Fresh meat,” the man said. “We’ve got him all night. Who wants him first?”

Dex stared at the group of men in muted horror. He counted eight of them in total, all of varying age. The youngest was in his thirties, the oldest closer to seventy. Some of them barely glanced his way, too engrossed in the card game and whiskey set out on the table of a room that appeared to be an office, albeit with a private bar, but a few did look up, and the naked appetite in their eyes turned his stomach.

Really? A fucking orgy?
It wouldn’t be the first time.

One of the men stood, came over, and tipped Dex’s head back with two fingers under his chin. “Looks better than the last one Braden sent. Lift your arms up, boy.”

Dex obeyed, and suppressed a shiver as the man pulled his grubby sweatshirt over his head, leaving the top half of him bare. The man turned him from side to side, flicking the dark bruise formed by Tarry’s fists.

Dex flinched, he couldn’t help it. The man laughed and flicked him again, harder this time. “Think we might have a screamer here. Who brought a gag?”

Without warning, he yanked Dex’s arms behind his back and bound them together before Dex could resist. Then he pulled a length of rope from his jacket pocket and reached for Dex’s head.