by Anne Connor
The door creaks open and a man steps out. I know him. It’s the man who wanted to buy Cherry. He didn’t get his taste last night, so here he is, brokering a deal to get his dick wet with one of these young women. My eyes narrow as he starts past me, the smile on his face grinding into an ugly sneer.
He shoulders through the hall and doesn’t look back as he disappears into the light of the hotel lobby. Clenching and unclenching my fists, I move toward the office and rap quickly on the door a few times with my knuckle as I walk in.
He already knows who it is. I don’t have to announce myself. I come here every week at the same time. He’s expecting me.
“Sean,” he says, settling into his seat on the other side of the desk. The office is windowless, the walls lined with bookshelves and filing cabinets overflowing with binders and folders. This guy hasn’t paid local or state taxes in years. Federal is a different story, but he has an agreement with the locals, just like he has with my uncle.
There’s a cool expression on his face. He’s usually like this. I take a seat across the desk from him, trying to settle into the fake leather chair with its torn cushion and its cheap foam stuffing popping out. The floor is sticky beneath my feet.
“When’s the last time you cleaned this place up, man?” I take a look around. I’ve seen the office so many times, but it’s seemed to have become worse over the years. Sometimes that’s just what happens to places like this. He hasn’t taken care of it, but maybe he should. He cares about his girls, or at least he acts like he does.
I have relationships with all my clients. I can’t fucking help it. But at the end of the day, even when it’s my job to take what is owed to me and to my family, these are just men like I am. That’s what Cherry’s father was. Just a man. Just like anyone else.
I close my eyes tight, thinking back to Cherry. Maybe I should have said goodbye. But I didn’t want to wake her up. She looked so peaceful and beautiful sleeping safe in my bed, tucked away. Let her have one last dream in my bed, before I have to leave her. Before I force her to leave me.
My heart clenches and I push the heat away the heat rising inside me.
“I have a business to run here, Sean. I don’t have time to clean up. Too many other important things going on.”
The man grabs his cane and wobbles over to one of the shelves against the right wall and braces himself, leaning against it with one hand.
“I have a few new girls coming to work here,” he says. “They should be able to bring in a good amount of cash.”
I roll my neck and crack my knuckles. I don’t know where he’s getting the girls from, and I don’t want to know. I don’t want to deal with them, and I won’t. I’m not getting involved. I’ll let them deal directly with him, and I will pretend they’re invisible. It’s not my job to protect them. In exchange for the kick-back this man gives my uncle, he has another hired hand to protect the girls.
It’s fucked up, though, because they’re protected from men on the outside, but who they really need protection from is the family. Our hired men aren’t really protecting the girls, anyway. They’re protecting their assets. The money the girls bring in. It’s all the family really cares about.
“Uncle will be happy. A bigger pie means our piece will be bigger.” I speak through a clenched jaw.
The man clears his throat.
“I’m glad you mentioned that,” he says, leaning forward on his cane. The thing looks about as old as he is, as though he came out of the womb and into this world with it, as though he was born unable to stand, instead of time and age doing that to him. “I’m gonna be a little late this week with the money.”
I take a deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. The office smells like old newspapers and ink.
“You know that’s not going to work for my uncle,” I say. I want to give him more time, but I can’t do it. I have to keep on a straight and narrow fucking path from here on out if Cherry is going to be safe, kept away from my uncle’s critical eye.
From mine, too. No, I have to get this money right fucking now, even if I have to shake it out of him.
“Come on, Sean. You and I go way back. You’ve made exceptions for me before. Plenty of them.” He’s pleading. His eyebrow twitches. He’s trying hard to keep that cool expression he had when I came in.
“Can’t do it.” I keep my feet planted firmly on the ground. I’m going to make this easy for him. No sense in forcing it out of him. I know he has cash stashed away for a rainy day. I won’t use force. I won’t have to. “The fact that I’ve made exceptions before should be all the more reason for you to want to keep the program straight now, isn’t it?”
He puts a finger in the air and hobbles over to his door, opening it slowly.
“How about this,” he says, “next week, there’s going to be a little bit of a bonus for you. An extra five percent for you, plus one of the girls. On the house.”
I sigh and stay seated, turning slightly to him. I don’t want to rough up an old man like him; I’ve never had to before, and I don’t want to do it now. Someone my own size, I don’t give a shit. But someone like this or Cherry’s old man is someone I wouldn’t touch.
Not unless I absolutely have to.
“I don’t want a girl,” I say. I’m deflecting his offer, trying to make it seem like I’m saying no because I’m not interested in the product. And that much is true. Now that I’ve tasted the sweetness of Cherry, I won’t be able to fuck anyone else for a long, long time. The idea of it makes me sick. But the real reason I’m not taking his offer is because there’s no exceptions this time.
No extensions, no exceptions.
I get up and walk over to him.
“Listen,” he says, closing the door, his eyes growing wide. “I don’t have it. But I promise I’ll have it soon. He didn’t want me to tell you this, but your friend Cullen has a few girls lined up like I told you, and he even mentioned that there’s one you’re going to really like.”
I shake my head and can’t help but laugh. Cullen is a piece of shit, but I don’t know why he wants to get involved with any of this mess. It’s out of his league, even for what a fucking asshole he is.
“I don’t want a girl, man. I told you. I just want to do my job and be done with it.”
“He seemed to think you’d really like this one girl,” the man says, his eyes narrowing. “I’m only telling you this because I like you.”
“Bullshit,” I spit out like venom, the heat rising inside me. The man’s cool exterior is crumbling, and he’s bluffing. “You’re telling me this because you’re trying to save your own ass.”
The man’s eyes shift downward and he clutches the end of his cane. I shouldn’t feel sorry for this fucker. He’s running girls in and out of the state, and he’s at my fucking mercy. He knows it. He’s as big a scumbag as I am, but I can’t help feeling bad for him. His hand shakes and the wrinkles in his face begin to harden as his eyes drift up to mine, swimming with icy fear.
My blood runs cold when he looks up into my eyes. I swallow thickly as I scan over his weathered face.
I’m not good at reading people. That’s why I like blackjack over poker. For poker, you have to be able to inuit people, know what they want before they do, read their eyes and know what they’re thinking. In blackjack, what matters most is being able to follow rules. That’s something I’m really fucking good at. That’s why my uncle gave me this job, dealing with clients and being the enforcer. I can do this shit with my eyes closed.
But the way this man’s eyes drop down again to the floor when I look at him, I know he’s hiding something. I can smell it on him.
“He didn’t want me to tell you everything,” the old man says. “He said there was a girl you’d be particularly interested in.” He smiles slightly and looks back up at me. “He told me Cherry was her name.”
My mind skips a beat when he says her name.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I put my index finger int
o his chest. He puts his hands in the air as his cane crashes onto the ground, wood against wood, the sound absorbed into the shithole off a room we’re stuffed into.
“I don’t know,” he says, “I don’t know. All he said was that he would give me some girls and you’d really like one of them. He seemed to know her pretty well. He didn’t say anything else. I swear.”
I swallow the heat inside my chest, fueled by adrenaline and fury.
“Where was he going?” I take him by the shirt, unable to control myself. “Where?” I growl. His feet come off the floor and his eyes plead with me.
“I don’t know. God, please don’t hurt me.”
The room spins as I shove him against the wall and leave his office, barreling down the hallway to the back exit. I push the emergency exit bar and the alarm goes off as I enter the hot, thick night air.
The only thing keeping him safe right now is very thing he wasn’t supposed to tell me. And now I have to get to Cherry before Cullen does. If he hasn’t already gotten to her.
Cherry
I stretch my legs out in front of me, pointing my toes and putting my arms over my head. My spine cracks as I let my toes sneak out from the bottom of the blanket. The room is dark, except for a sliver of light coming in through the blinds on the windows.
The air is cool and comfortable. It’s not like outside. Out there, everything is so dry, and so, so hot. I roll over in the bed to see the blankets on the other side of it pulled back. The pillow Sean rested his head on hours ago looks like no one’s slept on it recently.
Maybe it wasn’t hours ago that he was here. It’s nighttime, but I don’t know what time it is. There’s no clock in the room. I feel present, though. I feel safe for the first time in so long.
I’m not hiding from anything. I’m not running. I’m just...here. Here, in this place, at this time, even though I don’t really know where I am or even what day it is.
Sean rescued me, I understand that now, but I can’t allow myself to think about it. The one man who’s been able to make this all better, wipe Dad’s debt clean and get me out of trouble is the one man I have to say goodbye to.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and put my face in my hands. In the darkness, I feel clear and calm. I can breathe for the first time in months. I know I have to go back to the hospital and check on Dad, and I know this feeling in temporary, but for the moment I feel okay.
And okay is much better than the alternative.
Stepping down out of the high bed, I pad over to the window, the soft carpet soothing against my bare feet.
I didn’t dream while I slept. I don’t dream often anymore. I don’t know if what I experienced at the hospital with Sean was a dream or something else. It felt good, though, even if it wasn’t real.
When Dad first got to the hospital, I dreamed a lot. Sometimes I would get up multiple times a night, woken up before I was ready by bad dreams. I’d dream over and over that my dad needed help and I couldn’t find him. I’d be in my car, driving far out into the desert, or sometimes I’d be on the beach, running toward the water, but I’d never get to the place where the edge of the water lapped against the shore. I’d know Dad was somewhere out there, and he needed my help, but I just couldn’t find him.
But last night, I didn’t dream. It feels good to not dream when you’re used to nightmares.
I pull back the heavy white curtains from the window. It’s almost daybreak. I peer up at the sky and see the heavy, inky blue-black start to waver, the beginnings of the sun floating just past the horizon. Its rays will begin to sweep over the sand and rock soon.
I wonder how long I was sleeping. I wonder when Sean will be back for me.
I go back over to the bed and lay down on top of the covers, where Sean was lying next to me last night. My fingertips come to my lips, where his mouth crushed me with the passion of what felt like a thousand kisses. More than that, even - too many to count. It was so intense, I feel like I shouldn’t allow myself to think about it. It was too good, and I want it to stay inside me as a memory. I don’t want to spoil it by thinking about it. I want that memory frozen inside me.
My body heats as I brush my fingertips lightly against my lips, and my body shudders. His touch was so pure, so needy, so hot. I feel myself becoming aroused, turned on by the memory of just his touch on my shoulder. My eyebrows crease in the middle as I allow myself to bring forward the memory of his strong hands parting my knees slowly, the way he looked at me.
No one’s ever looked at me like that before. I can’t imagine anyone looking at me like that again.
I sigh, my fingers trailing down my neck to my collarbone, tracing against my flesh, goosebumps plumping up beneath my fingers. I want it to be him touching me, his fingertips on my lips. I want him to come home to me and tell me that I belong to him now, forever.
I close my eyes and put my arms down at my sides, shaking my head. The beginnings of tears prick at my eyes as my body rolls over, face-down on the bed. I breathe in deeply, his scent lingering on his pillow, all around me, and I throw the covers on top of my body. I’m still so tired, and the blankets weigh down on me, holding me, swaddling me. I sigh deeply, letting my breath out in a shaky, soft moan. I squeeze my eyes closed tightly.
He saved me, and now he’s being taken away.
I open my eyes, but it’s dark. When I fell asleep, it was almost morning. I must not have been sleeping very long. It was almost morning the last time I thought of him. It was…
The door opens, and relief washes over me. It’s Sean. I hear his footsteps against the floor. My mind feels cloudy, uncertain, but I’m relieved that he’s back. It’s bittersweet, because it’s almost time to say goodbye. I almost wish I could have lived in limbo forever, the memory of his touch always alive on my skin. If he never came home to me, I would never have to say goodbye. I would never seen him again...but at least I’d know he’d be on his way home to me. He’d be leaving me in a state of suspended animation. Unable to move forward, but not willing to go back. I’d have to play the memory of his touch over and over inside my head.
But now, he’s home. He’s come back for me, only to give me away.
It’s okay. I’ll go back to the way everything was yesterday, before I met him. Before I knew him. Before I knew his touch.
I start to roll over onto my back, and I sit up slightly, resting my elbows on the bed. They sink down into the mattress. It’s still dark in the room, but I can make out his silhouette by the door.
He says nothing. He gets closer. He…
“Cherry,” his voice says. But he sounds different. That’s not how he says my name. It’s…
Heat floods my body as he reaches under the blanket, grasping both of my ankles with his hands.
It’s not Sean.
I don’t know who it is. But it’s not Sean.
I swallow hard, and I freeze. I can’t move, and I don’t know if I can speak because I don’t try to. His hands pull my ankles toward him and I slide down the bed.
But no, I can move. Frantically, my legs start moving on their own. I kick my feet and I grab the topsheet, grasping at it with fistfulls of the adrenaline soaring through my body.
I start to fight. He doesn’t expect it. Flailing, I my legs move under the weight of his grasp, and I almost slither out of his hands. Almost...I’m so close, but he slides me down the bed like I’m a swimmer trapped in the undertow.
“Get your hands off of me!” The words don’t sound like they’re coming from me. It’s like they’re coming from someone else, someone whose voice I don’t recognize at all. But it is me. I turn over and grab at the headboard as it slides away from me in the dark.
“Come here, girl,” he says. I can recognize his voice. I know him. I’ve met him. I kick harder, but the more I fight, the harder he grasps me.
The harder I fight, the harder he fights.
And he’s bigger than me. A lot bigger. He flips me over so I’m on my back again, and I see his silhouette
up closer now.
It’s the man from the casino. The man who wanted to buy me. He’s come back for what he wanted before.
I gasp when I see his face, the rough outline clear as day, even through the dark.
But Sean promised nothing would happen to me. He promised…
Did this man follow us to the house? Has he been watching the house this whole time?
My mind races with questions. I go to a dark place inside my mind. And as the man pulls me close to him, I can feel his hot breath against my skin, and my body becomes stiff. He pulls me close to him and my stomach churns with disgust and anger.
“Your boyfriend didn’t want me to have you,” he sneers into my face. “But now I’m going to have you for free. That okay with you, darling?”
“He’s...he’s my…”
I can’t get the words out. Even now, I try to stick to the lie Sean told about us. I try to keep it up as though my life depends on it.
Because maybe it still does.
I struggle to swallow as saliva rushes into my mouth, but I can’t. My throat is tight and my cheeks grow hot. Every hair on the back of my neck pricks up, and I feel the back of my neck swells with cold sweat.
He knows Sean...how does he know Sean…
I go to a dark place inside my mind.
A very dark place.
And then I feel the hard, thick plastic of zip ties against my wrists, and my world flips upside down as he carries me out of the room like a ragdoll.
And then everything goes black.
My eyes flutter open. I don’t know this place. But I’m not harmed. My body is alright.
Panic churns inside me, but my body is alright.
I’m inside a hotel room. My eyes scan over my surroundings carefully. I try not to make any sudden movements, even though I’m alone.
This hotel is nothing like where Sean works. This hotel is a piece of shit. I can’t tell what the smell is, exactly. It’s like soap covering up sweat. It’s sour being covered up by sweet. It’s sickening, and I breathe shallowly, trying to ignore it, but it makes me feel sick.
