Fiction, Love, Cheating, Family

For the Love of Money She Traded Body and Soul

Eloise was petite but had curves in all the right places

I will never forget the first time I saw her. Hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes reflecting the sea on a stormy day. She was nine years old, and I was ten. I loved her from that moment on.

“What you doing?” I inquired, watching her determinedly putting all her body weight behind slinging one stone after another, into the stream which made up one of the boundaries of the local park.

She ignored my question, bent down, purposely flashing her white knickers, and grabbed another handful of gravel. But not before she looked over at me to make sure I was blushing. I was. I’d never seen a girl’s underwear before. Only my mum’s on the washing line.

I went and stood next to her, noticing fine freckles peppering her cheeks. She turned and skimmed a stone that bounced off the water three times.

“Yes. Yes. YES.” She exclaimed, throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me.

“You’re my lucky charm.” She whispered in my ear.

Some people know the effect they have on others from a young age. She was one of those, a manipulator I suppose, but a good soul, not malicious in the slightest.

Why wouldn’t I love her after that? Meeting Eloise changed my life.

We sat on the bank, sharing candy, while she chatted non-stop. It turned out her older brother, who had a paper round, bet her a tenner she would not be able to skim stones before she was ten.

“I am only nine and three-quarters so, wanna know what? He has to give me £10 now. How about that?” She smiled just as the sun came out from behind a cloud.

£10 was a lot of money in the late 80s.

“I can help you practice if you want?” Offering so I could spend more time in her company.

She did want, and for the next hour we played by the river and chatted about important things like only kids can do.

“What’s yer favourite colour?”

“Where do you go to school?”

Have yer ever seen a ghost?”

That kind of thing. By the end of the afternoon, we were best friends, joining pinkies, and in my heart I made myself a promise, to watch out for this effervescent angel until the day I died.

Eloise lived on the local council estate and attended the primary school on the east side. I went to the catholic school in the west of the town and lived nearby. The park was common ground in between, and we met there whenever we could.

It was my twelfth birthday and we sat eating ice creams, dangling our feet in the stream where we’d first met.

“George, what yer going to do when yer grow up?”

I knew all Eloise wanted was to be rich — she was in love with money as much as she hated the slum life she had to endure. Her mum was bringing up three children alone. Working evenings at a pub in town and the kids basically had a free run. Eloise went out every weekend washing cars for money. With this in mind, I replied,

“A banker. You know, in one of those big city places where they pay large bonuses. Then you’ll marry me.” I laughed and gave her a side poke in the ribs to make her giggle.

Because Eloise was often home alone, I spent a lot of time in and out of her house. She didn’t really have any girlfriends. There was something about her they didn’t like. I said they were just jealous. But the boys liked her. Oh yes, they couldn’t get enough.

Time passed, and we became teenagers, still remaining the best of friends…

One evening, I walked in through Eloise’s back door when she was a few months shy of fifteen, to find her dancing provocatively to music in just her bra and knickers. Not only that, she had an audience. Two of her brothers’ mates. They were a year older than me — so sixteen — and had already left school. Eloise was petite but had curves in all the right places, even at such a tender age.

My instinct was to grab her arm and drag her from the room. She was better than this. But I knew she’d be furious. So I sat down and watched. No better than the perving duo on the sofa, noticing how Eloise’s nipples poked at the sheer material of her bra and her panties crept in-between her ass cheeks as she moved around seductively.

When the music stopped, she bent forward shimmying her breasts before putting her hand out towards the other lads and demanding,

“Hand it over. A tenner each. Or one of me brothers will have something to say to yer both, with his fist!”

Both the guys pulled out a crisp note and as they left one of them slapped Eloise’s bum.

“I said no touching,” she scolded.

Slipping on her dressing gown, she waved the money at me…

“Now I can get a new skirt for the school party in a few months.” The corners of her mouth slowly turned up into a beaming smile, “and I’ll be the belle of the ball.”

How could I be cross with her? She just wanted what the other girls had. Nice clothes.

On the night of the party she looked stunning. Her new skirt was like a second skin hugging her slender hips and showing off her flat stomach to perfection. Of course, I was proud to be her guest. All the boys’ eyes were on her as she swayed to the music on the dance floor. But that night I didn’t let anybody near and when I took her home, she rewarded me with a kiss. A proper Frenchie. Tongues. Little nips. Hands groping.

I knew she’d already dated some lads but assumed she made them pay for the privilege.

After the kiss, she told me she loved me. I didn’t need to reply. I’d already explained to her a million times that there was nobody but her, for me.

“Let’s make it official. Tell the gang we’re a couple.” I was high from her taste.

She insisted there was no need, as everyone thought we were anyhow. I climbed into the single bed with her for our first carnal sleepover and as my fingers found her heat, she told me,

“There’s no point pretending. I ain’t a virgin. Bill Simpson. Last month. He took me up the back alley, gave me a gold chain. I sold it. Got quite a bit of cash.”

My heart sank, but I stayed hard. And took what was mine — what had always been mine.

Six months later we were down at the social club. One of Eloise’s brothers and I were playing pool when I noticed she’d disappeared.

“Where’s your sis?” I inquired.

“What? Didn’t she tell you? I set her up with Fred Smith. The guy who owns the newsagents. She’s out back with him now.”

I legged it round the side of the car park in time to find her wiping her mouth with a tissue while Fred zipped up and handed her some notes.

I was speechless. How long had my girl been the local tramp?

“Look George. It’s jus’ business. For the money, like.” She explained while I sat on the wall, head in hands. “My brothers look out for me so there’s no malarkey, and I don’t do PIV.” She said as if this was meant to make me happy.

My mates all told me she was a wrong-un and tried to set me up with one of the sixth form convent girls. Apparently, they had morals yet rutted like banshees. That was the recommendation. I stuck with Eloise. Studying hard, so I could get the well paid job, and she could stop turning tricks.

Over the next eighteen months, I turned a blind eye to her shenanigans. I made sure after school work I slept over at hers. At least then I knew she was home.

I got three As, applied and was accepted on the fast track at one of the merchant banks.

“We’re made now, Eloise. If I don’t put a foot wrong, in a few years we’ll have money to burn.”

Straddling my lap she kissed me long and deep telling me she was so proud. And that she’d try to be a better girlfriend. But to me, with all her faults, she was the best and only girl I wanted.

Eloise didn’t do too well at school. She got a job at the motorway café, waitressing, but it didn’t last long.

“Why did they fire you, Eloise?” I asked sternly.

“I — eh… got caught…”

I stood waiting to hear how she’d cheated on me in the name of money again…

“…caught with this.” She emptied the content of her pockets onto the table — a small purse of cocaine.

Turned out they’d warned her not to take it into work and so she was fired for disobeying. It has to be said we both dabbled but Eloise loved the feeling it gave her of being special and invincible. I already knew she was doing too much and too often.

Soon, I was earning enough to rent out a pad nearer to where the bank was, so I had the idea that perhaps if we played at house, being a proper couple, things would improve. And for a while it worked. Eloise settled into making an evening meal for us which was great. She was a good little cook, as she’d frequently had to take on the role as a kid.

When I arrived home she was usually still in her nightclothes, having got up late, but dinner was always tasty, and after there was the added advantage that she was ready for me to take her to bed. It has to be said, she needed a lot of loving and physical attention. And I knew if I didn’t give it to her, she’d have no problem finding it elsewhere. Anywhere. They’d be queuing up.

Then, everything went wrong the night of the office Christmas party.

We’d had a bit of blow before arriving to get in the mood and I noticed during the evening Eloise nipped to the bathroom, before returning high as a kite. Shortly after, she disappeared. I waited twenty minutes before going to look for her.

And find her I did.

Hearing some odd noises inside the small back office I opened the door. Eloise was laying on the desk, head falling over the side, vacant, soulless eyes — glazed over — staring out as one of my colleagues shafted her while another jerked over her naked tits.

I am just an ordinary guy. That night I learned love does not conquer all.

I applied for a transfer and stayed with my parents until it came through. Then I moved two hundred miles north. To flee the heartbreak, not to mention the humiliation. Particularly when I learned the guys had paid her for the threesome. She could never resist the promise of money.

I threw myself into my new position, pushing myself so hard I didn’t have time to think. Eloise had begged me not to leave. She was taking even less care of herself than normal. But I couldn’t stay. I felt betrayed.

I woke in the night sweating, about six weeks after I’d left, thinking of her as a nine-year-old skimming stones and the promise I’d made myself — to take care of her forever. I knew immediately something was wrong.

My heart felt empty and lost. Disconnected.

I had no choice but to jump in my car for the three-hour journey south.

They’d only found her the day before. She’d gone missing a week prior and had been discovered washed up on a riverbank ten miles downstream. Irony of it was nobody worried as they thought she’d come up north to find me!

The police informed us that there wasn’t any suspicious circumstances. It seemed likely she’d jumped in from the bridge upstream, probably on a downer after a high.

Looking at her in the mortuary was soul-destroying, heartbreaking — all those clichés you think are just words until they happen to you, then you know they describe physical ailments caused by grief.

Eloise was dead and I knew this would take me a lifetime to get over.

In death, she looked smaller than normal. More like the girl I first met rather than the woman I came to know, who loved money more than her own body or soul.

RIP Eloise, my stone skimming, corn haired, money-loving angel.

(Big thanks to Mrs. K for proofing suggestions.)

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