Chapter 8

The following morning, Matthew arrived just as Katherine emerged from the bathroom looking a little green. "You OK?"

"Bit of a stomach upset," Katherine replied and traipsed into the kitchen to get a glass of water. "Oh, how was your date at the weekend?"

Matthew gave a tortured smile and sat down, helping himself to a banana. "Ummm, bit of a communication problem."

Charlotte looked up from her newspaper. "Oh," she said, Matthew's less-than-candid reply piquing her interest.

"Yeah, she was told I am quite fond of being whipped and tied up and stuff, so she turned into a leather-clad female dominatrix the moment we got back to her house with a whip and ummm, yeah, it went downhill at that point." Charlotte and Katherine both burst into laughter and Matthew grinned at them. "It wasn't funny at the time," he told them, "but yes I can see the giggle potential now. If only she had asked if I wanted Miss Whiplash or not at the start of the date I could have told her and it would have been fine. She was a nice girl, just not for me."

Joseph entered and looked at Matthew. "What's funny?"

"Oh Matthew," Katherine said before anyone could reply. "He went on a date with a leather-clad dominatrix at the weekend." Joseph frowned and looked at his employee blushing and grunted.

"I don't want to know," he said and glanced down at his hands. "Still nicking our fruit I see."

"The Potassium in the bananas are good for whip wounds, right?" Katherine teased and Matthew groaned; Katherine would keep teasing him about Amy, he could sense it.

Charlotte shooed Katherine upstairs to get ready for school, despite her bout of sickness and was eager to get everyone ready and on their way out of the house. Lewis had barely shut the front door when Charlotte put on her boots and slipped out to go to the supermarket to do their "weekly shop" and then stopped at a run-down building on the main road leaving the town centre.

Charlotte sat down opposite the strange man in the empty pub, she had heard he was the right person and he looked like the description – tall, thin, white, short hair and a Rolex watch.

"Hello," Charlotte said with an air of inappropriate familiarity. "I'm Charlotte Wilson." He looked up from the betting pages of his newspaper at the middle-aged mother playing nervously with her hands, saying nothing but watching her squirm. "Ethan, right?"

The guy bit his lip. "Who told you?"

Charlotte stuttered. "Mary, Mary Hollins. She is a parent at the school."

Ethan bit his lip with a cursory smile. "What do you want?"

He looked at Charlotte. "A grand for four weeks."

He snorted and glared at her. "A grand?"

Charlotte bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah, a grand."

"If I lend it you, I will get back one four on Easter Monday at the latest. Yeah?"

Charlotte took a deep breath and licked her lips. "One three?"

Ethan laughed. "Ahh, ya desperate bitches, always try and haggle. It's one four lady or ya desperate ass can fuck off."

Charlotte sniffed, shocked by his vulgar language and attitude. She had already exhausted the savings she had access to and the bank had refused to extend her overdraft, citing the current amount she had borrowed was sufficient. "OK, One four."

"And if I don't get it back then I start breaking bones and taking stuff. You hear me?"

Charlotte nodded and he looked at her and then her car outside. He took out a small book and wrote her name, the amount, her car registration number, and then her phone number. He had been told by an existing debtor that she might be coming and he knew she lived in a big house containing a decent amount of "nice things" so he knew she was a good risk but the book was more to intimidate her that anything else.

"Whatcha writing?" Charlotte asked in a concerned voice and Ethan smiled at her.

"Stuff," he muttered and opened his jacket pocket and took out two bundles of notes and passed them over to the shaking mother who sniffed and started counting them. "Don't you trust me?"

Charlotte glanced up and went through the small bundles of cash. "No offence but you are a loan shark," she replied and he grunted. He was used to it, and knew the exact amount of cash that he had given her. She looked up and then thanked him, expecting a response but got nothing as she got up from the table and started walking towards the exit.

"Four weeks," Ethan reminded her. "And I'll be in touch."

"Katty, what's up?"

Katherine pouted and looked around the room. "I've missed two periods," she whispered. "I should have come on at the beginning of the week."

Rachel gasped, her hand gripping Katherine's wrist who looked down at the red nail varnish adorning the fingers. "You don't mean. Oh Katty, that Sam, he's in deep shit."

Katherine shook her head. "No. Not Sam. I had, I might have had one after then. I, um."

Rachel gasped and wiped her nose. "Have you? I my God, Kat, who? Come on babes, tell me? I can't believe you didn't tell me."

Katherine rubbed her brow. "No-one. Well possibly one, I don't know."

"Possibly? Kat ya making no sense. What's happened?"

"I don't think I am pregnant," Katherine whispered, not answering the question and glancing at the door when she heard a noise. "My breasts have been a bit sore so I am definitely due on, things just things feel different. But I could be hormones, right?"

Rachel glared at her friend. "I guess it could be. So what happened, and with who?"

"It might have been at the Christmas Party for Dad's work. I got pissed with someone Dad works with and got close to another guy but I don't think he touched me, but then I got walked home and I, er, well I ran into Callum."

Rachel groaned. "My ex?"

Katherine nodded. "I'm sorry Rach. I don't think we did anything. I vaguely remember him trying to kiss me and Mum coming home but he did get his cock out, so I don't know. I mean I would remember it, right?"

Rachel shook her head. "Yeah, you'd remember it. But Callum?"

Katherine sighed. "I don't think he did anything. He wanted to show me his cock and I remember that, but everything before then, I dunno."

"What about the guy who walked you home?"

"Matthew?" Katherine laughed. "No, he wouldn't. We were both too pissed anyway. So maybe I didn't have sex that night, I did feel a little tender the following morning. Oh I dunno, it must be stress."

Rachel looked at Katherine and then back at her folder. "Do a test. Do a pregnancy test, just in case."

Katherine took a deep breath and pursed her lips together. "Sure, if I don't come on by the end of the week. It's just worrying me but I am never that regular anyway."

Rachel smirked, she had had regular periods since puberty and joked that she knew when it was a full moon that year as she had been bleeding. Her friend was not so regular and wondered if it really was stress but Katherine didn't worry about much in life so her concern was striking in that it was unusual.

"Shall we go get something to eat?" Rachel offered and Katherine smiled.

"Yeah, please."

"Take your mind off of it."

Katherine got up and followed her friend out of the small college common room, idling towards the small canteen. They had plenty to talk about and Rachel took the opportunity to ask her about the Christmas Party, giggling like a schoolgirl as Katherine blushed with every word.

Sarah sniffed, her body shaking and looked down at the woman scrabbling between her thighs. "Pardon?"

"It's Genital Warts," her doctor replied with a casual sigh and took off her gloves, throwing them in the clinical waste. "You are the eight person I've had this week, there is some Lothario in the area who needs to come and see me."

Sarah rubbed her eyes as the Doctor told her to get dressed. "It's a simple treatment, topical, you've got small warts but it will take a month. It comes with a special applicator and I've got one here, I'll show you."

Sarah was on the edge of tears as her Doctor guided her through the treatment, advised her about cancer and then implored her to contact all of her sexual partners from the last nine months as one of them had passed it on to her, and she had probably passed it on to others.

Sarah felt humiliated and chastised, the Doctor, although respectful, talked to her about unprotected sex and how unwise it was outside of a committed relationship; Sarah felt like she was thirteen again. She was on the pill so she didn't need to ask Joseph to wear a condom but now she was going to have to tell him that she had given him a disease. She wanted to cry and left the surgery in a trance to go home via the pharmacy.

The applicator stung as she put it on her loins and she burst into tears, staring at her phone. She knew she should tell Joseph, if nothing else, but she just couldn't face the conversation she needed to have. It was too humiliating and too embarrassing, and anyway Joseph always had a shower after sex so his wife wouldn't smell any of Sarah's perfume on him, he probably just washed the warts away.

If Sarah was careful for the next month or two, then she might just get away with not having to tell him, as if Joseph though Sarah was dirty he might not want to spend any time with her, and that would spoil all her plans.

Lewis took a deep breath. It had been two months since that first night with Anna to watch a film and it had turned into a very regular date. Anna's adopted family would go out most Thursdays and Lewis was always invited to stay for the evening. Sometimes they would watch a film, other times play a board game, or cards or even just talk.

Lewis noticed a definite improvement in Anna's English, her speech was clearer and she even started teaching Lewis some Russian, although he skipped the alphabet as it wasn't the "normal" characters: learning a new language was perfectly OK but a new alphabet was simply ridiculous.

Lewis found Russian very difficult at first; Anna was entertained by his pronunciation of her mother tongue, but he tried very hard to get it right and be able to converse with her in Russian, and she gave him every encouragement. To her, Lewis learning her language and making such efforts to do so, made her realise how much of a friend Lewis was to her.