All That Matters (Red Light Ladies #1)

by Yolanda Olson

  I closed my eyes tightly when I heard the sound of the car tires stopping on the cobblestone driveway and willed myself to let her go.

  “I’ll miss you, Minnie,” I said affectionately. Even though I had spent most of my time trying to push her away, I would miss her brief company.

  She was sobbing too hard to make any intelligible words, so instead she hugged me again and gripped the letter tightly in her hand.

  “Tot ziens,” Kerstan said, appearing behind us in the doorway, giving her a nod, and pulling me out of her arms.

  The eldest grandmother exited the house and took Minikin by the arm and steered her toward the car. I watched her open the door for her and let her in before getting in behind her and firmly slamming the door shut.

  I raised my hand and waived at Minnie as she looked out the back window, still sobbing, hands pressed firmly to her face.

  “Why didn’t you go with her?” I asked Kerstan with a sniffle.

  “I only go when I bring back new merchandise. She was a gift to the other house, I guess you could say,” he replied with a shrug.

  Merchandise? Deep breaths, Amity. Killing him right now won’t solve anything.

  “Is that all we are to you?” I asked, turning to face him.

  “The others, yes. You? No.”

  “I know I’m an investment,” I replied rolling my eyes and pushing past him back into the house.

  Kerstan sighed unhappily as he closed and locked the doors behind us. He had to practically run to catch up to me and when he fell instep beside me he tried to take my hand. I pulled it away and crossed my arms in front of my bare chest.

  “I did what you asked of me, you know. Minikin is now safe and you still behave like this,” he said, shaking his head in frustration.

  “Get used to it. Think that because you shipped her off to someone else that I’m all better? Think because I know that Betje is in a ‘kinder house’ it makes all of this okay? Get with it Kerstan. Shit like this is beyond wrong and you know it,” I replied stopping and sticking my finger into his chest.

  He looked down with a raised eyebrow, before turning his questioning gaze to me. Hushed voices suddenly filled the grand hallway we had been standing in having our “disagreement” and because of that, I knew this would result in some sort of punishment.

  “What am I to do with you? You’re such a beautiful disaster, Lieve. I don’t know how to get you to obey me without using force,” he said softly.

  “Then be forceful and be done with it,” I replied dropping my hands to my side and preparing for whatever he felt would be appropriate enough to put me in my place.

  “Not today, Lieve. I have no time for this nonsense today, but I will address this tomorrow,” he said, shaking his head as he walked toward the staircase.

  My body became rigid. I felt the anger boiling inside of me at being blown off and having to be made to wait, so I followed him and reached him as he got halfway near the top.

  “I said do it and be done with it,” I snapped, grabbing his arm to stop him.

  There was a collective gasp below us. It was obvious that the others had followed to see what I was going to do and they were probably afraid for me now.

  Kerstan looked down at my hand. He didn’t speak, not right away; just stood there, half turned, staring at it.

  “I lied to you,” he finally said.

  “What?” I asked in confusion.

  “I lied,” he repeated, prying my fingers off of his arm. “I didn’t send them to a kinder house. Betje and Minikin? They aren’t any safer where they are now than when they were here. You didn’t save them Amity; you can’t even save yourself.”

  I let out a scream of anger as I lunged at him. I was so furious that my vision became blurry. I tumbled forward as I knocked him back onto the staircase and began scratching at his precious face. Don’t get me wrong; by no means did I fight like a bitch, I just knew how much a face like that would mean to a bastard as vain as Kerstan.

  He was taken by surprise at my sudden bout of rage and tried as hard as he could to get a grip on my wrists. But each time he did, I found the strength to pull out of his grip and resume my assault. I was going to take one of his fucking eyes out before I was done.

  Somehow, he managed to get his knee in between him and me, shoving it as hard as he could up into my stomach. I almost lost my footing and fell backward, but my anger wouldn’t let me give up so easily. I grabbed firmly onto Kerstan’s vest and used his weight to hold me in place, before I resumed my attack.

  It wasn’t until Xandra and two other girls pulled me off of Kerstan did I understand the severity of my actions. There were tiny red marks on his cheeks and forehead, and as he sat up he gave me the most dangerous look I had ever seen from a human being before.

  A couple of grandmothers appeared, one attempting to tend to Kerstan, while the other gripped me firmly by the arm waiting for him to tell her what to do with me.

  “I’m fine,” he said gently shoving the one away from him. “Take her to my room. Now.”

  She led me up the stairs quickly and half dragged me down the hall. I was surprised at how strong she turned out to be. No way did I twist or turn would get my arm out of her hand and as he door loomed closer and closer, I felt the blood draining from my face. I wasn’t scared of Kerstan; I wasn’t. I just wanted this life to be over and if it was going to be tonight, then I could only hope that it would be quickly.

  Nine

  Remember that feeling you would get when you were sent to the principal’s office in school? Sitting outside his door, hands tightly clasped together, sweat pouring down your body, and your legs nervously twitching? That’s how I felt while I waited for Kerstan, only I was already inside his “office.”

  I heard the sound of his footsteps approaching the door and I took a deep, steadying breath. I would look him straight in the eye and fight my way out of this room if he offered me anything other than a quick death or freedom. I didn’t see death as giving up; I saw it as finally escaping the hell I had spent the last three years in.

  He pushed the doors open violently and I jumped where I sat at the edge of the bed. Kerstan had a hand on his cheek and looked absolutely infuriated with what just happened. When he stopped in front of me, he was breathing heavily and I was barely breathing. Quickly he undid his belt and looped it around my neck, securing it almost a little too tightly before ripping my panties off and turning me over onto my stomach. He reached forward and shifted me so that I was on my knees with my ass in the air, while my arms were stuck underneath me.

  “Stay just like that. If you move, I’ll break your fucking neck,” he seethed quietly.

  After a few moments of him rifling around in a drawer, I felt the unmistakable sting of a leather belt being whipped across my bare ass. I grit my teeth and refused to let myself cry out as he lashed me again, and again, over and over, in a furious rage.

  He was done about a minute later. I think it was exhaustion that finally caught up with him from how hard he was striking me, from how viciously I had attacked him, from my constant challenging of his authority. The belt hit the floor with a dull thud and Kerstan threw himself onto his back on the bed. I turned my face away so he wouldn’t see how red my face was and how my tears stained it.

  I sniffled and cleared my throat. I wanted to ask him if I could lay down too because my legs were shaking, but I didn’t want to speak to him. I hated him.

  I heard a phone ring and Kerstan sighed as he moved slightly on the bed. I assumed he fished it out of his pocket.

  “Hallo?”

  The tone of the voice on the other end of the conversation told me it was a man or a woman with a very low voice. Normally, I would have tried to listen to the conversation, but not now. Not ever again would I concern myself with matters that pertained to Kerstan Janssen.

  I jumped when he raised his voice. He sat up quickly on the bed as an argument ensued with whoever was on the other end and finally ended with a mocking
laugh from Kerstan, who hung up the phone mid argument.

  “Bastard,” he mumbled. “Would you like to know who that was?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Amity? Did you hear me?” he asked, leaning on his side and putting his hand gently on the back of my head.

  I still didn’t answer.

  “You cannot be angry with me for the discipline you received. You deserved it; I think you can agree with that,” he said with a chuckle. “Look at me please.”

  I took in the deepest breath in the world and held it for a moment. I knew that if I looked at him without preparing myself, so to speak, I would cry and I just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of my tears again.

  “Amity?” he pressed gently.

  I let out my breath in a huff and turned my head toward him. His expression softened when he saw my melancholy eyes meet his.

  “That was your final liaison. He wanted me to deliver you to him tomorrow but I told him that you were not ready yet. I ... I apologize for shouting but he told me that I obviously wasn’t doing my job and that he would seek someone else to do what he asked with you. I told him he’d have to kill me first. I won’t let you go to another home; believe it or not, I am one of the kindest you will find in this business. I don’t kill my girls if they don’t see to what I ask for as many do,” he said running his hand gently down the side of my face.

  But would that mean that Betje and Minikin are in danger? If this sadistic bastard is one of the kindest, what the hell did he send them to?

  “Betje and Minnie? Did you send them to a kind house? Please, I need to know the truth. No more lies,” I said softly.

  “They are with him; the one that wants you,” he replied softly. “What he will do with them or why he wanted them, I do not know, but he paid me a great deal of money for them once I told him what they meant to you.” Kerstan sat up on the bed and looked back at me over his shoulder. “I don’t think he’ll hurt them if that is what has you concerned, but I cannot guarantee that which I do not know.”

  I closed my eyes tightly and buried my face into the bed. I didn’t know who the fuck it was that ordered my prostitution and semi-torture, but I hope that they didn’t hate Betje and Minnie as much as they hated me. Those girls had nothing to do with whatever it was that I had done to wrong this person and I just wanted to go home.

  “You did not ask for Margit,” Kerstan observed. “She did not mean as much to you as the other two, did she?”

  “No,” I replied rubbing my face with the palms of my hand, I pushed my hair back and sat back on my heels, wincing at the stinging pain of my backside. “I want to make a deal. Not a request, not a demand, not a barter; a deal.”

  “I’m intrigued,” he replied as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  “I’ll do whatever you want, whenever you want, and however you want it, if it means getting out of here faster. I won’t try to leave. I won’t even go in the gardens without your permission. I want to know who is doing this shit to me and the only way to find out is to go to where I’m apparently meant to be,” I said, glancing at him.

  Kerstan gave me a triumphant look, “What else would you require from me, if anything, before I give this consideration?”

  “No more trade-offs. Any girl that speaks to me or shows some kind of interest in being my friend gets humiliated, beaten, raped, or whatever it is that you have happen to them. I don’t want them to be punished because of me.”

  He looked away for a moment and mulled over what I had presented to him. If he didn’t take this deal, he was fucking crazier than I thought. I had pretty much just laid out my plan to be the perfect little whore and he was considering it? What more could I possibly have offered?

  “Done.”

  Ten

  A week of playing house with Kerstan had gone by and three new girls had come into his home. I made a special point to avoid them in the event that he had lied to me at some point in our deal and would see them off.

  I isolated myself from the others as well. I knew I was a serious danger to them just being around them and had asked Kerstan if I could have a room away from them. He offered to share his with me. I guess the perk about that was that he would often leave me alone in the room because he knew I gave my word to not try to escape.

  So as I sat in his comfortable, large leather chair by the window smoking a cigarette, I started to make a list of people I had wronged; a list of people that I could have damaged or a list of people that I had abandoned.

  Something, anything, to tell me why someone was making me feel like I had obviously made them felt at one point.

  The black ink glided over line after line on the yellow papered pad as I wrote out endless possibilities, with no one standing out. Okay it was obvious why any of these names would want to see something happen to me, but why like this? And none of them even had the money for something as elaborate as having me turned into a fucking prostitute against my will of all things.

  Having me shot would’ve been much easier and a lot quicker, but less satisfactory I guess, I thought to myself with a chuckle.

  After giving the names another once over, I sighed and tossed the pad onto the floor next to where I sat. The evenings in Amsterdam were beautiful; cobalt blue skies, a dash or orange and purple as the sun faded away, and a brilliantly silver moon once the last rays of sun were gone. If it were any other time and under much different circumstances, I would have found myself loving this beautiful city.

  “Goedenavond,” Kerstan said as he entered the room.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, glancing at him.

  “It means ‘good evening’,” he replied with a smile.

  I nodded and pulled my legs up onto the chair and reached for my box of cigarettes. The shit I had been going through here had turned me into one hell of a chainsmoker.

  “Any new acquisitions today?” I asked, setting the lighter down on top of the pack.

  “No,” he replied with an amused smile. “No, today I traveled to Diemen and I sat and watched the boats on the waterways. Tourists are interesting if you stop long enough to pay attention to them.”

  “You spent all day watching tourists on water boats?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes. And while I watched them I had a thought. One that I never had before,” he said making his way to the bed and sitting down. He ran his hands over his face before he sighed and began to pull off his fancy shoes.

  “Do you want to share your thought with me?” I asked.

  “I thought of setting you free,” he said quietly. “Of wiping away all debts and dealings regarding you.”

  I chewed my lower lip nervously waiting for him to continue. I wanted him to tell me that he was going to stick with his thought and that I was free to go, but I wasn’t going to prod him for it for fear that if he had thought this, one wrong word from me would make it go away.

  “But what would I do without you, Lieve? You have challenged me like no other that has come through my doors. You cared for some of the girls; none that has come into this home has done that,” he said looking at me. “So I asked myself, what I was risking by letting you leave.”

  “And?” I asked, taking a nervous drag from my cigarette.

  “And ... I have decided to let you buy out your debt,” he said slowly.

  Buy out my debt? I don’t even have a debt! I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to remind him that I had done nothing wrong, that I didn’t do anything to deserve this, and even if I had; where was I going to get the money to pay him off?

  “Guess that means I’m in for the long haul,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “I don’t have any money, Kerstan and I don’t have anything worth shit to trade for my freedom.”

  “There is one thing I would consider for this,” he said clearing his throat.

  “Which is?”

  “I very much enjoy your company, even when you are being defiant. I like how you look when you are dressed as an elegant
woman and I like the thought of having a mistress for one of my houses. With as headstrong as you are, and with as much as you care for these women, I think you would do an amazing job with this. And quite honestly, I’m tired of clashing with you. I would rather simply ask that you do it for six months and then I will grant your freedom,” he said.

  “But you said he was ready for me in one month like two weeks ago. How are you going to hold him off that long?” I asked staring at him.

  A smile started to slowly appear on Kerstan’s handsome face. A devious smile that told me that he had already thought this through and I would probably wind up getting fucked in the process either way.

  “I have more houses around Amsterdam. If you agree to this, we will leave this house in the capable hands of Saskia, and move to one of the others,” he explained.

  “Saskia?”

  “The one who went deliver Minikin.”

  Oh. So that’s her name.

  “And if I refuse, I go to this mystery bastard?” I asked.

  Kerstan nodded and leaned past me, reaching for my cigarettes. He placed one between his lips and lit it, inhaling deeply. I never even knew he smoked. But as I watched the smoke being expelled from his full lips in rings, I somehow became overrun with fear of this person that I could be potentially sent to. Would he kill me? Torture me? Abuse me for entertainment? Pass me around?

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Good. I was hoping you would. Tomorrow morning we will leave. If you do not wish to stay in Amsterdam, we can stay at my home in Diemen.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Not a home like this one, an actual home,” he added quickly.

  I nodded and turned my attention back to the night sky. My last night sky over Amsterdam and sighed. I was conflicted. On the one hand this was a good thing; on the other hand, I didn’t know what I would have to do to keep him happy as a mistress.

  “What happens if I fuck up?” I asked.