Sunglasses After Dark (Sonja Blue)

by Nancy A. Collins

  She could not take her eyes off Morgan. It was as if he was drawing her gaze to him, sealing off her ears to any voice but his own. Every time he looked into her eyes, she knew he saw all her secrets and desires. They were soul mates, of this she was certain. She wanted to fuck him really, really bad.

  After he succeeded in separating her from the herd, Morgan suggested a midnight ride through the streets of London. How romantic. How incredibly stupid. The Rolls was the color of smoke. The chauffeur who opened the door wore livery so black it didn’t reflect light. The windows in the rear of the car were also heavily tinted. For privacy from the paparazzi, he assured her. A bottle of champagne awaited them in the back seat, nestled in a bucket of ice. Denise felt like she was in a movie. All it needed was a soaring Hollywood soundtrack.

  It wasn’t until her second glass of champagne that things began to go wrong. Suddenly the interior of the car rippled and warped like cellophane held too close to an open flame. She had trouble keeping her eyes from rolling like greased ball bearings, and her breathing became labored. She turned to look at Morgan, in hopes that he could explain what was happening to her.

  To her horror, he opened his mouth and his canines shot forth, extending a full inch. His tongue flicked over fangs, wetting the razor-sharp points. The pupils of his eyes wavered, like candle flames caught in a draft, then narrowed into reptilian slits. The whites surrounding his eyes abruptly filled with blood.

  Denise screamed and threw herself against the car door. She clawed at the space where the handle should have been, then pummeled the wall of glass that separated her from the driver. The chauffeur glanced back at her and smiled, displaying sharp teeth of his own. She shrank back into the corner, huddling in fear against the upholstery. She was too frightened to scream. All she could do was shiver.

  Morgan shook his head. “Silly girl,” he smirked. “There’s no mercy here.”

  She felt his will enter her own, hot as pig iron. She started to cry as Morgan pulled her to him. He did not use his hands, but instead reached into her mind and ordered her to crawl across the backseat. She struggled against him the best she could, but Morgan was far too old and far too powerful to be denied by a teenage girl. Her body was a marionette fashioned of meat, and Morgan the red-eyed puppet master.

  Her prayers were incoherent by the time she reached his lap, her fingers numb as she opened his fly. His penis was huge and marble-white. It was erect, yet empty of blood. It was cold in her mouth and felt dead, despite its pretense of life. Her facial muscles began to cramp and it felt as if her jaw would dislocate itself. Her fear turned into shame, then blazed into hate. She tried to force her teeth down onto the shaft violating her throat, but her body refused to cooperate. She nearly choked on her own vomit when it struck her tonsils.

  After what seemed like an hour, Morgan eventually grew bored with oral rape and retracted his control over her flesh. Denise collapsed in midstroke, her throat scalded by bile. As she lay there, her cheek pressed against the wool blend of Morgan’s pant leg, she could see that the crotch of his trousers was stained by her tears and saliva. She could hear the Rolls purr as it wound its way through the streets of London with no particular place to go.

  Morgan abruptly flipped her onto her back. By that point she was in shock, beyond reacting to what was done to her. She watched him shred her clothes with detached interest. His hands were cold as a dead man’s hands. He lifted one of her arms, turning it so the inner forearm was exposed. He ran cool, dry lips over the pulse point in her elbow. He drove his fangs into her brachial artery the same instant he shoved himself between her legs. Denise cried out then, her scream so shrill the dogs in the neighborhood the limo rolled through howled in sympathy.

  The horror of what was being done to her finally broke through the barrier of shock her mind had erected to protect itself. Everything that was Denise Thorne disappeared at that moment, raped into oblivion by her demon prince.

  And I was born.

  My first sensation was pain as Morgan punctured my forearms with his blood kisses and rammed his ice-cold dick into my vagina. When he ejaculated, his jism burned like battery acid. Orgasm meant nothing to him, as did the rape itself—it was simply a means to torment his prey, like a cat playing with a mouse before it bites off its head. He continued to slam against my bruised and bloodied crotch for several more minutes before finally growing bored with the game. As far he was concerned, I ceased to exist the moment he disengaged his dick. He was too busy buttoning up to even notice I was still alive. Or that I was no longer the girl he had picked up at the nightclub.

  I couldn’t move. I was still weak from being born and drained of blood. I felt the limo roll to a stop and the doors being unlocked. Then, a second later, I was thrown into the gutter like an empty fast-food wrapper. I heard a bottle shatter beneath me, but I couldn’t feel anything. With a squall of wheels, the Rolls sped off into the early morning gloom, leaving me behind. Only minutes old, I already knew I was dying.

  Death’s funny. Knowing it is nigh fans whatever spark of self-preservation is left in your carcass into an inferno. Somehow, I found the strength to pull myself onto the sidewalk. I dug my fingers into the cracks in the pavement and hauled myself along the concrete an inch at a time, even though the blood kept making me lose my grip. The whole time I kept thinking about how bad my teeth hurt. The pain in my upper jaw easily overwhelmed all my other injuries.

  I remember hearing a man yell, “Oi!” I also remember the sound of boots on pavement as my Good Samaritan ran to my aid. The very last thing I recall before I slid into my coma was a weird tingling in my fingertips, like bugs were crawling all over them. But it wasn’t bugs.

  It was my fingerprints changing.

  I woke up nine months later. But that’s not the point. The thing is, I woke up empty.

  That’s not to say I was a complete tabula rasa: I knew that two plus two equaled four, I could still speak and understand English, and I knew all the words to Strawberry Fields Forever. But as to who I was and where I came from, I drew a blank.

  When I came to, I found myself lying on my side in a hospital bed with tubes up my nose, a feeding tube down my throat, and an IV stuck in my arm. The first thought that came to my mind as I opened my eyes was: I gotta get outta here.

  I didn’t know my name, how old I was, or where I was, but I did know I couldn’t stay in that place anymore. It was time to leave. As I sat up for the first time in nine months, my joints cracked like dry timber. Pain bit into my calves and spine as I forced my muscles to flex and bend, but at the same time it all seemed very far away. I pulled at the tubes sunk into my nostrils and the feeding tube that was run down my throat like a gas tank siphon, ignoring the discomfort they caused me. I yanked at the IV need le sunk into the crook of my arm. I fumbled with the protective railing on the hospital bed for a couple of minutes before I was rewarded with a click, followed by the side rail dropping away. I felt a quick jolt of hurt in my crotch, and then realized I had succeeded in crudely removing my catheter.

  I felt giddy and numb. I wasn’t completely sure anything I was doing was real. Maybe I was just dreaming of escape? I lowered myself to the floor and stared at my surroundings, wobbling on thin, uncertain legs like a newborn colt. I was in a hospital ward. Beds were lined up to the left and right of me, each housing a silent, motionless mound of blankets and meat.

  I tottered toward the door, peering through the gloom at my fellow patients. They lay curled in their beds like giant fetuses, but with umbilical cords emerging from their arms instead of their bellies. It was night and the lights were off; but that made little difference to the sleepers. It was always after-hours in that ward.

  I passed through the door into a corridor. I hesitated on the threshold, the overhead lights bringing tears to my oversensitive eyes. I hunched my shoulders and continued to stagger along the corridor. I did not see a single doctor, nurse, or patient, but I could feel their presence nearby. I did not want to be discover
ed. I did not want to stay in that antiseptic, brightly lit place any longer. I rebounded off the door to the fire escape before I saw it. The fading letters on its surface read FIRE EXIT. I pulled on the handle with both hands, painfully aware of how weak I was.

  A gust of cold air mixed with light rain struck my face. I stumbled onto the fire escape and sucked in a lungful of fresh air. Old cigarette butts littered the metal landing. The interns no doubt used it for quick smokes while on duty. I had to hurry: I might be found out if I stayed put too long.

  As I began the long climb down to street level, my body finally started to wake up. The pain and discomfort were no longer ghost sensations. It was bitter cold and all I had on was a faded hospital johnny. My legs cramped violently and I was afraid I would overbalance and fall over the railing into the alley below.

  After what felt like an hour, I reached the bottom of the fire escape. My legs trembled and I felt feverish. I was still ten feet above street level and couldn’t figure out how to work the mechanism that released the escape ladder. Tears of frustration ran down my face. I was terrified of being caught, although I did not know who it was I was frightened of. I decided to lower myself to the sidewalk. Within seconds my arms felt like they were being pulled from their sockets, and probably were. Everything went gray and my fingers slipped. The next thing I know, I’m lying on my back in the middle of some garbage cans, staring up at a tiny strip of night sky sandwiched between two buildings. It was drizzling and raindrops were falling on my upturned face. I got to my feet and stumbled away. I had no idea of where to go, but I knew I had to get away before the sun came up.

  London is an ancient city, full of crooked streets and dead-end mews. It’s easy to get lost there. I don’t know how long I wandered the back alleys, avoiding the lights and traffic, but it was almost dawn before I finally collapsed in a shallow doorway that faced an alley.

  It was early spring, and it’s bloody raw in London that time of year. I was wet to the skin and shivering. I ached horribly and was badly bruised from my fall. My bare feet bled, but I didn’t care. I felt unconsciousness boiling up inside me, but I was afraid to close my eyes. I remembered the beds full of unborn sleepers, their eye sockets filled with shadow. I started trembling and could not stop.

  Suddenly, there were hands on me, lifting me from my deathwatch. A face swam into view. A thick-featured man with a broken nose clucked his tongue solicitously as he wrapped his jacket around me.

  “Cor, you look like a drowned rat,” he said as he lifted me in his arms.

  I relaxed in the big man’s. As I listened to his heart thump in his chest and the rasp of his breathing, I was warm and, for the moment, safe. I felt secure. My brand new world now had a focal point.

  My savior’s name was Joseph Lent. Joe was a pimp. He was in his early thirties and resembled Mick Jagger, if Jagger gained fifty pounds and played goalie for the Hammers. He wore his dirty blond hair long enough to touch his collar and dressed flash. He preferred nicely tailored suits that could pass for Savile Row jobs. He used to laugh at how the ‘pooftah bastards’ who ran the shops sniffed in disdain while they waited on him, as if smelling something bad. When he laughed he always showed his tooth—the gold bicuspid. That was always a bad sign. He’d laugh with his mouth, but his eyes would never join in. Later on, he’d get drunk and use his fists.

  Joe didn’t know what to make of me, but he had his guesses. After I was strong enough to keep down a little soup, he laid down the law. He sat on the bed and stared at me with his dark eyes.

  “I don’t who you are, girl, but it don’t take much to suss out you’re on the run. You escaped from rehab, didn’t you? I know what those scars on your forearms mean. You like smack? That’s cool. Whatever turns you on, eh? If you stay with me, you can have anything your little heart desires. I’ll protect you, and make sure the bobbies don’t nick you. What do you say, pet—do we have a deal?”

  I really didn’t know what to say. His guesses concerning my origins were as valid as anything I could volunteer. So I just shrugged my shoulders. And that is how Joe Lent became my man. But not just any man. He was the Man. He was my father, brother, lover, boss and personal terror. He’s the one who christened me Sonja Blue. He picked the name because it ‘sounded exotic, like one o’ them long-legged Danish birds.’

  He schooled me for my role in my new life. He taught me how to walk, talk, dress, and tell vice plants from the punters. I was a good student. I was so desperate for an identity, any identity, I allowed Joe Lent to define my world, and my role in it. It was perfectly natural that I should walk the streets and proposition strange men in exchange for money, and then hand over what I earned to Joe. Didn’t every woman do the same for their man? I was barely a year old. How was I to know any different?

  My life revolved around Joe. I fixed his meals. I cleaned his flat. I worked the punters for him. I gave him my money. I had a name, a function in life, and I belonged to someone. I was happy—save for when Joe beat me. And he beat me all the time.

  Pimps are an insecure lot. They live in perpetual fear of their meal tickets walking out on them for someone bigger and badder than they are. And Joe was real insecure, even for a pimp. He’d lost his last girl to the competition, not long before he found me, and got kicked yellow in the process. That’s why he carried the cane with the bronze knob on the end shaped like an eagle’s claw. The bobbies might not approve of him walking down the street with a cricket bat, but a cane...? Well, that was gentlemanly. Style made all the difference.

  Whenever Joe got pissed, he’d use his fists. He was good at slapping girls around. He knew how to beat the bloody daylights out of a woman without messing up her face or putting her out of business downstairs. And he knew how to do it so I would end up on the floor, my nose gushing like a hydrant, and beg him to forgive me. And I would mean it, too. After all, Joe was my life, my love, my universe. If I lost him, where would I be? Who would I be?

  Things went on like that for the better part of a year, with Joe alternately showering me with gifts and beating me until it hurt to breathe. I always recovered quickly and never needed to see a doctor. The only problem with my health was that my eyes became increasingly sensitive to direct sunlight, which forced me to wear sunglasses.

  However, when my appetite began to noticeably dwindle, Joe became concerned and dragged me to the aged quack who “fixed up” the working girls in the district. Joe didn’t want to lose me to disease or pregnancy, as I attracted the odd punter out looking for a bit of kink. You could charge extra for that. The old charlatan declared me anemic and prescribed a mixture of fresh ox blood and milk to “strengthen my constitution.” And it actually worked, for a while.

  Occasionally, Joe tried to get me to talk about my past. He doubted the extent of my amnesia and suspected that I was the black sheep of a wealthy family. His interest in my true identity had more to do with blackmail than concern for my well-being. His attempts at making me remember my past never worked. As far as I was concerned, Joe was the only family I had ever known. Yet I never told him about the hospital and the roomful of empty sleepers. Perhaps I was afraid he’d try to take me back there.

  I was a year after Joe found me when it happened. He was roaring drunk again, and had gotten it into his head that I was holding out on him and planning to leave him for another pimp. I’d never seen him so angry. He didn’t just use his fists that night. He came after me with the cane, as well.

  The first time it struck me, all the air went out of my lungs in one big whoosh! The second blow caught me in the pit of my stomach. I fell onto the floor. I couldn’t draw in a second breath. It felt like I was drowning. The third stroke caught me on the right shoulder. I heard, rather than felt, the bronze eagle’s claw break my collarbone. Then he started kicking me, all the while raving at the top of his lungs.

  I tried crawling away, but he followed me. He just wouldn’t let me be. And, for the first time, I began to hate Joe. It seemed to grow in direct proportion
with the pain and anger I felt. It rose within me, like water in a well, until it threatened to spill from my eyes.

  Joe brought his cane across my back and I felt my ribs snap and spear my lungs. Suddenly, my hate began to change, curdling and churning inside of me as it transformed itself into a force I couldn’t contain. I opened my mouth to scream, but all I could do was laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

  I do not remember what happened after that.

  I woke up on what was left of the bed.

  Every muscle in my body ached and my left eye refused to open. I could tell I had at least two broken ribs and a broken collarbone. There was blood in my mouth, and a lot of it. I squinted through my rapidly swelling right eye, expecting to see Joe sitting in his favorite chair, the cane propped across the armrests. Joe was always serene and composed after a beating.

  Not only was Joe not in his chair, the chair itself was a jumble of kindling. Then I noticed the blood on the walls. Some of it was spattered almost to the ceiling. I felt dizzy and looked down at my hands. My fingers were digging into the mattress and I could see the mattress ticking through the huge rents in the bedclothes. My ears were ringing. I looked up a second time, afraid of what I might see.

  I saw Joe.

  He was sprawled in the corner like a big rag doll. He didn’t move when I called his name. I got to my feet, although I almost swooned when I stood up. My stomach was the color of a ripe eggplant and hurt with every step. I staggered over to where he lay.

  His arms were bent funny, like those of a scarecrow. All the long bones had been snapped in two, and the jagged edges stuck out through his clothes. His head had been reduced to a mass of hairy pudding. His eyes were pulp and his teeth lay scattered like mah-jongg tiles about the floor.

  I told myself that it wasn’t really Joe. The corpse could belong to anyone... Then I saw the gold bicuspid lying on the carpet. I shivered and looked away.

  There was a ragged hole just above his breastbone, as if someone had attempted a tracheotomy with a can opener. His killer had torn off his trousers and shoved the cane up his ass. All that remained visible of it was an inch or two of wood and the bronze eagle’s claw protruding between his buttocks. I noticed that the claw was clotted with blood, hair, and brains. That meant Joe was probably already dead when his killer rammed three and a half feet of mahogany up his rectum. At least, I hope that was the case.