by Chris Mattix
Jackie whose name I did not know. Jackie who bled to death on the floor, my name carved into the skin on her belly. Jackie who was plenty good enough to lay, but apparently not good enough to save. Not when it was tantamount to destroying a good marriage.
10
I had Jennifer propped up against me: her left arm draped over my shoulders and my right one tightly gripping her waist. I’d yanked my shirt off and buttoned it up on her, a gesture of forced modesty nobody really cared about at this point. The parallel wasn’t lost on me, but this time the girl was getting rescued in my shirt, not expiring in it. We made it to the top of the steps with a lot of stops along the way. I nudged the door all the way open with my knee and hefted her onto the linoleum floor.
Patricia gave a yelp and pivoted to face us, the kitchen phone gripped in her hand like a pistol. She babbled helplessly for a moment, then slammed her mouth shut and gawped at the girl in my arms. Caught by the other woman with another woman. I almost had to laugh, but the phone was alarming.
"Pat—who are you—?"
"Your—it’s Hannah, I don’t think she’s breathing…"
"Oh," I said, and gingerly sat Jennifer down on one of the kitchen chairs. I strode over to Pat and slipped the phone from her hand, hung it up. "What are you doing here, sweetheart?"
"I’m not kidding, damn it—she’s blue in there!"
"Allergic reaction," I explained. "Let me deal with it. You’d be a huge help if you’d just take Jennifer home."
"I think I need to go to the hospital," Jennifer put in. I shrugged.
"Or that."
"But Hannah, goddamnit!" Pat hollered. I winced, tired of all the yelling. I had had enough of raised voices and shouting matches.
"Hannah’s dead, Patricia."
"Jesus…"
"And Jennifer needs your help."
Jennifer’s head bobbed. She looked even worse in the daylight than she had in the dimly lit basement. Her eyes were glassy and bloodshot and her innumerable cuts were already bleeding through my work shirt. I must have torn some of the scabs hauling her up the steps.
"But who is she?" Pat asked. "What the hell is going on here?"
"She’s what turned my marriage bad," I said with a lopsided smile.
Neither of them seemed to get it.
But hell, I laughed.
Happy Ending
By Rob W. Hart
The piano notes of Debussy’s Clair de Lune fall around me like raindrops as Sunny strokes me to orgasm with her small, tight hand. When I hit the target my body goes rigid and I grip the medical-grade tissue paper beneath me until it tears in my fist.
Sunny regards the mess in her hand and says, "Big boy."
I close my eyes and pretend like I’m too relaxed to open them. Really I just don’t want to see how she’s looking at me.
She disappears to wash up and get a hot towel.
As the door swings closed I jump from the table and dive for the pocket of my pants. The pocket I left facing out when I hung them on the hook.
The message has been typed. All I need to do is hit ‘send’.
I do it, my head spinning, and climb back on the table right before Sunny re-enters the room. The look of me slightly out of breath doesn’t arouse suspicion. Not that it would, given the circumstances.
As she cleans the lube off my junk I close my eyes again, afraid to look at her, afraid to see what’s going to happen next. I wish I could put my clothes back on.
I run the whole thing through my head one more time, while I wait for the bullets to fly.
*****
Richie put his cigarette out in a near-empty glass of whiskey and looked at me through the dissipating smoke, pointing another unlit cigarette at me.
"This is how it works," he said.
It was the fourth time he’d explained it. I didn’t know if it was because he wanted me to memorize it, or if he was afraid I wouldn’t.
The place he picked to knock over was an AMP.
Also known as: An Asian Massage Parlor.
Also known as a jerk-off joint, Richie said.
There’s a website where guys rate and review AMPs all around the country. They use words like ‘accommodating’ to say whether the girls crank you at the end of the massage. Not surprisingly, there are many of these places in New York City.
Richie picked one in downtown Manhattan, on William Street.
At this place, according to the site, for an hour massage, you pay $60 to the house, then you tip the girl $40 on top of that. There were eight girls to a shift, and the place was open twelve hours a day.
So a packed house would clear $9,600 by close of business.
But that wasn’t the best part, Richie said.
The best part was that the Republican National Convention was in town.
Why they chose New York City to meet, nobody understood. But with so many politicians in town, Richie figured the jerk-off joints would be packed. And with rich politicians tipping big, the take could be way north of $10,000.
It wouldn’t make us rich, but it would keep us comfortable for a few months.
Richie said, "Rolling a bunch of ladies in an office building? Easier than a bank. And what the fuck are they going to do? Call the cops?"
We needed to get a look at the inside. Usually Richie does it, but this time he decided I should be the one to go. He thought he looked too shady and they would suspect him of being up to no good.
It wouldn’t be the first time somebody did that.
Every photo of Richie looks like a mugshot.
I would have to go twice, he said. First, to get the layout. Second, so they’d know my face and they would trust me. We would pull the job on the third visit.
Richie said, "When the time comes, all you have to do is hit the floor, little brother. Pretend like you’re scared. And if anything happens, you pull that piece I gave you and cover me from the other end."
I was scared, but I didn’t want Richie to know that.
*****
It was a plain office building. Richie left me and went into a pizza place across the street. I went through the glass doors and there was a sign saying everyone coming into the building had their faces videotaped. I was wearing a hat, and knew to not look up at the camera.
I rode the elevator to the third floor, and when I got off there was a blackboard on the wall, with the names of the businesses listed in white letters. Under each name was an arrow, pointing to the right or the left.
Rainbow Spa was to the left.
I walked past a bunch of doors. One door, for a travel agency, was open. A woman in a suit sat at the front desk talking into a headset. She didn’t look at up as I walked by.
At the end of a long hallway was a dark red door with a peephole and a doorbell. I rang the bell and waited. There was a camera above me. I looked into it, then looked away, not knowing which would be better. My stomach twisted itself like a pretzel and I wanted to puke.
I thought of running out, telling Richie the place was closed. He’d probably even believe me. But I didn’t want to let him down either, so I stayed.
The door opened and an old Asian lady peeked out. She had a big smile on her face. She said, "Hello!"
She reached down and took my hand and led me into a dark hallway. She patted my hand, and in a hushed voice asked, "You first time?"
I tried to answer her, could only making a squeaking noise.
"You handsome boy. I find pretty girl for handsome boy."
She pulled me around the corner. There was a desk to the right. To the left was a narrow hallway with a row of doors. Four on each side. The walls on the rooms didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. I felt like I was the only one there but I couldn’t really tell.
There was classical music playing. Bach’s cello suites.
The woman clapped her hands and a door opened at the far end. A young Asian girl, a few years younger than me, came out. She was wearing black sweatpants, a black top, and flip flops. She wa
s a little thick but in a healthy way.
She smiled from under a mop of brunette hair with blonde highlights, said, "I Sunny. You come."
The old Asian lady handed me over to Sunny. I wondered what kind of Asian they were. Korean? Chinese? I couldn’t tell. I wondered if they could tell I couldn’t tell.
She took me to the room all the way at the end. It was small—barely bigger than the massage table in the center of it. There was a thin band of light poking around blackout curtains covering the window.
She closed the door and gestured to the table. She said, "Undress. All go." She had a voice like a cartoon animal. I could have listened to her accent all day.
I stripped down and she busied herself in the room to give me some semblance of privacy. I took off my boxers and laid down fast, found a hole to put my face through. When I was settled she whispered in my ear, "Was you name?"
"Billy."
"How long?"
"One hour?"
"Hard or soft."
"What?!"
She pressed her fingers into my back. "Hard or soft?"
The massage. "Uh, medium."
She laughed and placed a sheet over me and kneaded my back, gently at first, and then a little harder when she saw I could take it.
The massage was good. I liked her hands. They were small and hard but smooth, and she found spots in my back that made the muscles in my body unfurl.
Every couple of minutes she would move the sheet. First it was up around my shoulders, then across the middle of my back.
At the top of my ass.
Around my calves.
Then it was gone, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable.
After a little while I wondered how much time had elapsed, and I panicked. What if I had to keep track of time, and we went too long, and then it cost more? Richie only gave me $100.
Then she leaned down to my ear and whispered, "Turn over."
I was at full attention when I did, and she put her hand to her mouth and gasped, looking at me like I’d been caught stealing from a cookie jar.
"Big boy," she said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
I didn’t last long, either.
When we were finished she helped me get dressed. I sat on the edge of the table and she asked me questions as she rolled up my socks. Was I from New York? What did I do for work? I said whatever came to mind. Some lies, some truth.
She smiled and nodded as she pulled up the zipper on my boots, patting my knee as she stood up.
She asked, "You like me?"
I nodded.
"You come back and see me?"
I nodded again. She clapped her hands and said, "So, hour. Sixty dollar."
I handed her $100, only shaking a little. She took the bills with two hands and bowed slightly, leaned forward and hugged me. Her body was like her hands. Soft and tight and warm. She smelled good too, like fresh flowers.
She kissed me on the cheek and all the blood in my body rushed to my face.
Most of my blood did, at least.
*****
Richie was waiting on the sidewalk, his back against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette. When he saw me he smiled and slapped my shoulder. "How was that? You a man now?"
I snapped at him, even though I didn’t mean to. "I’ve been with girls."
"Sorry, sorry," he said, putting his hands up. "C’mon, let’s go get you some food."
He took me to a bar around the corner and we sat all the way in the back in a booth. He ordered a beer for himself and a burger for me. As we waited he turned over the paper placemat and handed me a pen. Asked, "Can you draw the layout?"
He was being really nice to me now. I think he saw I was upset by what he said.
As I drew the outline of the massage rooms I asked, "You’re not going to hurt any of the girls, right?"
"Everyone does what they’re told, no one gets hurt," he said.
"Just, maybe we should wait until the girls leave," I said. "That way there will be less people to deal with."
Richie shook his head. "We’ll go in a half-hour before close. What if someone comes at the end of the night to pick up the money? Why are you so worried about a bunch of gashes, anyway?"
"That’s not a nice thing to say."
"You okay, little brother?"
I nodded, said, "Just curious." Not wanting to argue, and especially not wanting Richie to ask me any more questions.
Not about the girls, definitely not about Sunny.
*****
The next time Sunny saw me she clapped her hands and squealed. "You come back!"
I smiled. Richie never clapped when I came home. He just grunted.
It was less embarrassing to get undressed this time. She didn’t even bother putting the sheet over my back. As I lay on my stomach and she rubbed my shoulders I asked her questions.
Where was she from?
Bangkok.
Did she like New York City?
Very loud. Very busy.
Did she like classical music?
She giggled.
Did she like her job?
She said something but I didn’t understand it and I was afraid to ask again.
After a few moments of silence she said, "You nice. I like you. You come see me all time."
I lifted a few inches off the table when she said that.
Not in the way that probably sounds.
I asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
She hesitated. I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have asked that question. Finally she said, "No boyfriend."
I thought it would have been terribly smooth of me to say, "Well, I wouldn’t judge you for what you do for a living, in case you ever wanted one."
Instead I just turned over when she told me to, and after we were done and I had dressed, it felt like she lingered a little, when she kissed me on the cheek.
*****
Richie says he learned all this stuff that he knows on the internet, so I went on the internet. The stuff I read made me feel pretty bad.
The word ‘prostitution’ got thrown around a lot. I wasn’t too worried about that. It would be wrong of me to judge someone else for breaking the law, as long as they were happy doing it.
But phrases like ‘human trafficking’ and ‘sexual exploitation’ made me a little more nervous.
I read stories about how a lot of the girls who work in AMPs—or jerk-off joints, or whatever—are brought to America from other countries. They’re forced to work in those places against their will.
Sunny didn’t look like a slave. She had such a sweet smile and she looked so excited to see me. When she kissed me it was so tender.
Not like the girls we meet at bars, who Richie talks into coming home with us, and I always end up with the fat one, and they always smell like an ashtray soaked in vodka.
Sunny was nice. And pretty. And if it was true, what was happening, that someone was forcing her to be there against her will, she didn’t deserve that.
I thought about telling Richie, that I had come up with a new part of the plan. But I didn’t tell him, because I didn’t want him to try and talk me out of it.
One of the things he likes to say, whenever he’s caught doing something, is, "It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission."
Maybe he was right.
*****
Sunny positions me so I’m sitting on the edge of the table, and places a sheet over my shoulders, so I feel less awkward about being naked. I wonder what she looks like naked. She never takes off her clothes, but maybe it’s because I haven’t asked?
She kneels behind me and digs her fingertips into my shoulders. I keep thinking of how to explain what’s going to happen, but the language barrier is too high. I can’t see a way over it.
I need to get my clothes on. Everything is hanging from hooks on the opposite wall, behind Sunny. I get up so I can get dressed before Richie gets here.
Before I can make it around the table t
he doorbell rings. Feet shuffle across the carpet and the door creaks open.
Muffled through the walls, the old Asian lady says, "Hello!"
The door slams. There’s a pause. It feels like forever. Finally there’s the sound of metal clacking against metal, and a gunshot. Richie likes to fire a warning shot, whenever he thinks he can get away with it.
Richie yells, "Where’s the money?"
Sunny slides off the table and backs against the wall. We listen. There’s commotion and the sound of a struggle.
I’m still naked. The room is suddenly very cold.
Richie says, "Fuck."
Another gunshot.
Something heavy thumps on the floor.
I reach for my boxers. As I pull them on I whisper to Sunny, "Is there a back door?"
She just stares at me.
"I won’t let him hurt you, I promise. You don’t have to do this. I can save you. But I need to know. Is there a way out of here?"
In my head, this was the part where Sunny would nod and help me get the rest of the way dressed, and I would lead her to the back door and tell her to meet me around the corner, and then me and Richie would clear the place out and we’d go outside and meet Sunny, and Richie would be okay with it because sometimes he looks around our mess of an apartment and says we need a feminine presence, and also maybe he’ll be proud of me for finding a girl as pretty as Sunny.
But Sunny just stares at me.
There’s a crashing sound from up front. A man yells in a language I don’t understand. Loud, frantic, in control.
A shotgun racks.
Richie doesn’t have a shotgun.
I turn and Sunny has found the gun stashed in my jeans. Her face is flat and hard like a rock. She presses the barrel to my neck, and in perfect unaccented English, says, "One move asshole, and I will splatter your fucking brains all over the wall."
