Disordered Minds

'Jee-sus.' The drink had made her quarrelsome and she cast a scornful eye over the prone bodies. 'Blokes are so fucking pathetic. Me and Lou's had the same as you, but we ain't passed out.'

'Don't push your luck,' said one of the boys. He wasn't the tallest, but he was dark-haired and dark-eyed, and to her immature mind he looked like Paul McCartney.

Another, a freckle-faced redhead, reached a hand up Lou's thigh. 'Slut,' he jeered, squeezing hard.

She squeaked and pulled away, smacking at him. 'Virgin, virgin, virgin!' she chanted. 'You ain't never gonna get it, you're too fucking ugly.' He made a grab for her foot and she wailed at Cill to get him off. 'He's gonna pull me over.'

The taller girl put a boot on his chest. 'Let her go!'

He relaxed his hold with a grin. 'What d'you expect? You're a coupla tarts, ain't you?'

She maneuvered a stiletto heel over his nipple. 'You wanna say that again?'

He was visibly pubescent, with hair above his lip and acne crowding his neck, and he was too drunk to be intimidated. 'You're a fat tart,' he slurred lazily,' 'n' you've been laid so often I could park a car up yer cunt. Want me to try?'

His two friends rolled onto their fronts and watched the tableau with a gleam in their eye. To a girl with more experience, it would have been a warning sign, but Cill was a novice. She brought her full weight down on her heel as she stepped over him, dancing away before he could catch her. ''N' don't never call me fat again or I'll put my heel on your cock next time.'

The redhead clutched at his chest. 'That bloody hurt!'

'It was supposed to, dickhead.' She jerked her chin at the other girl as she started to walk away.

But there was no such easy escape for Lou. She was trapped against the bench and lost her balance when the dark-haired boy made a lunge for her. He grabbed her arms as she fell and spread-eagled her on the grass, and her wails of fear brought Cill running back. Their mothers should have warned them about the dangers of whipping up testosterone, but the only advice either had been given was: if you dress like a tart, you'll get yourself raped, and it'll be your own fault when it happens.

Believing she was streetwise, it was Cill who was the more naive. With animal instinct, Lou became catatonic immediately and held no attraction for the aroused adolescents. Cill fought back determinedly and took the full brunt of the assault. She kept calling on Billy to run for help but, at ten and drunk, all he could do was bury his head in his arms.

It was when they pulled her by her hair into the lee of the trees that Cill gave up. The pain was indescribable and sent tears coursing down her made-up cheeks. It masked all the other pains she experienced. All three wanted her-she was the dominatrix-and they took it in turns to have her. The dark one raped her twice. She was too young to understand psychological trauma, but the ripping of her clothes-so loved and so longed for-the sweat, heat and filth of a prolonged gang bang and their leering, triumphant faces as they repeatedly violated her destroyed her in a way that their overexcited, briefly sustained penetrations could not.

'That's the last time anyone calls me a virgin,' said the redhead, standing over her and zipping himself with a flourish.

The dark boy kicked her. 'Bitch! If you run to the cops, you'll get more of the same. Understood?'

With a belated sense of self-preservation, Cill closed her eyes and shut him out. She could name each one, although she never would. Her dad would kill her if he knew she'd been raped, and the police wouldn't believe her anyway. It was broad daylight in a park in Bournemouth, and no one had done a thing to help her. Part of her brain wondered if the road was too far away for passersby to see what was happening, the other part reproached her for dressing sexy. Her mum was right-she had brought it on herself-but all Cill had ever wanted was for people to say she was pretty.

Lou crawled across the grass to lie beside her. 'They've gone,' she whispered, stealing her small hand into Cill's. 'You OK?'

No-oo-oo! It was a scream that would reverberate in her head for days. 'Yeah. What about you?'

The child curled into a fetal ball with her head on Cill's chest. 'Your dad'll tan your hide when he finds out.'

'I ain't telling him.'

'What if you get pregnant?'

'I'll kill it.'

'Billy'll tell our mum.'

'Then I'll fucking kill him, too.' She pushed Lou off and sat up. 'Where is he?'

'Over there.' She jerked her head toward the bench

'You shouldn't've stood on him, Cill. Ma says it's always the girl's fault when a man gets angry.'

Cill tugged her torn top over her exposed breasts and stared at the hymenal blood on her thighs. She didn't need a lecture on blame, she needed to get home without being seen. With a vicious grab she caught Lou's hair and twisted it round her fist. 'I wouldn't've 'ad to if you hadn't called him a virgin. Now, are you gonna help me, or you gonna drop me in it again?'

Tears sprouted in the other child's eyes. 'You're hurting me,' she pleaded.

'Yeah,' said Cill unemotionally.

'It weren't my fault it happened.'

'Bloody was. It was you called them virgins. You're a fucking stupid bitch, Lou, and you didn't do nothing to stop it.'

'I was scared.'