From that day, Charlie’s youth was set. He had sex with Brogan Smith later that day, with his friends recording it on their phones. They all had sex that summer, they all had it recorded and posted on social media. They all had more drugs. It was that kind of summer when endorphins and hormones collided with each other to explode violently in a litany of sexual attacks, drugs, alcohol and violence. The boys all had that teenage trait of having little or no empathy. Charlie was especially sociopathic. He thrived on the degradation and shame of the girls when they realised the whole school and the rest of the town shared their exploits. The girls were humiliated, their reputations tarnished forever in such a small town. Charlie liked it. It gave him stature with other boys. Girls were frightened yet drawn to him. Girls liked a bad boy, it’s a story told time in memoriam. Charlie left school with a set of qualifications he hadn’t worked for. He also left school and didn’t work in the proper sense. He didn’t need to. He had a regular supply of legal drugs to sell, suppliers were happy to sell him drugs that were legal and illegal. They were happy to do trade with Charlie as he was always honest in business. He had a network of contacts and addresses at his disposal. He knew he was at the top of his particular food chain so he was always ready to “climb the ladder” as he put it. This was the reality of Charlie’s social mobility. He dressed in the best of clothes and together with his muscular stature, the measure of his physicality filled every room he entered. Charlie was Mr Big.
Charlie sat in the corner seat in the Crown nursing a pint. It wasn’t normally his drink of choice but he fancied something zesty this morning. He particularly liked the zesty new girl in town behind the bar. Cute little thing. He was more than happy to watch this little girl at work. Watching people was Charlie’s favourite hobby. She never looked him in the eye, she was shy and totally beguiling. Charlie’s girls were forthright, they knew what they were about, they enjoyed the challenge of being with Charlie, each one of them thought they would be the one to tame him. He liked to throw the hard faced bitches out when he was finished, he hated to get messy in the morning, couldn’t be doing with the social niceties. That’s not to say he didn’t have relationships with women, he did, but on his terms, only when he wanted them to be around. He had a regular for a couple of years, she did what he wanted and he didn’t mind having her on his arm when certain social functions arose. It looked good in business to have a stable home life. Although he didn’t understand human relationships, he observed and fully understood the necessity of them. That’s how Charlie played the game.
Little Ruby had only been in the town for a couple of months when she took the offer of the job in the Crown with a room upstairs thrown in. The room was big, the bed was big, the bathroom en-suite, it suited her perfectly. She wasn’t sure how long she was staying so it was easier than getting involved with rentals, deposits and landlords. The regular clientele of the pub had already tried to come onto her, to see how far they could get, but after three or four weeks they had given up trying. Ruby just wasn’t interested. Ruby on the other hand had been drawn to the unnerving countenance of the stranger sat at the end of the bar. He liked to sit in the corner reading his paper, not saying much to anyone who came in. He had a broken jaw, that would make things difficult she thought as she placed the pint on the bar with a smile. He barely looked at her, a cursory glance of approval above his reading line was as much as she got. Charlie was in no hurry, he could put her on the back burner while he was keeping up with his business interests. Business always came first with Charlie. He did fancy little Ruby though. He flashed an image of the fun he could have with Ruby as she lay down a pint before him. He intended to get way more than a pint from little Ruby.