by Zoey Parker
As Jane explodes into a barking rebuke, Maria Fernanda hangs her head.
“I apologize.”
Carlos advances, yells at the graying roots of her hair.
“You apologizing isn’t good enough, you useless old hag! What’s the point of my father hiring you if you can’t do anything properly?”
She says nothing, keeps her head lowered. But even this doesn’t appease Carlos.
He advances further, so that he’s so close that Maria Fernanda can’t back up any further because she’s pressed up against the wall.
“You did this on purpose,” he snarls, his hand slowly rising as he speaks, “Didn’t you? Toni’s always been your favorite, hasn’t she?”
As his hand towers over her, casting a shadow over her averted, terrified face, I step forward.
“Carlos, that’s enough.”
I keep my voice even, my face expressionless. So he won’t see the fear.
Carlos rounds on me. His hand is still raised and quivering with rage, while his eyebrows are thick angry clusters.
I lift my chin up, as if daring his blow.
I repeat, “Carlos, that’s enough.”
Mouth contorted in a snarl, Carlos turns from Maria Fernanda’s bowed form to my upright one.
He aims a kick at Jane, who dodges his blow. Then he storms down the hallway and out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
I stare at it for a minute, grab the handle.
“Let him go,” Maria Fernanda says softly.
I turn to her.
Her bun is sagging and her eyes have their own quiet fury.
“Okay,” I say.
Maria Fernanda comes beside me.
“The dog is true to her type,” she says, patting Jane fondly, “Fast and good and gray as a greyhound should be.”
Jane isn’t as happy at being patted as she usually is. Her gaze is locked on the door, as if she expects Carlos to return any minute.
The poor dog doesn’t understand. That Carlos is gone, and that it’s what he’s left that is much worse.
After a minute, Maria Fernanda rises, says, “Tea.”
I follow her to the kitchen. Her hand is still shaking as she lifts the old “P” emblazoned kettle to pour out peppermint tea for the two of us.
Even as slowly as she walks, her tremors cause droplets to surge over the sides of the cups.
She puts the cups down on the kitchen table, then dabs the spills off the saucers.
I sit down at the table and, sitting down herself, folding her hands into a creased single shaking entity, Maria Fernanda says, “She came – Madame Laurenz.”
“When?”
“Last night when you were gone.”
I nod, stirring the milk in my tea, swirling it around as the thoughts in my head swirl around.
It’s never a good sign when that witch Laurenz is in town. She is Papa’s ex-wife after all. What can she want now? What is she planning?
“Like a crow circling carrion,” Maria Fernanda says to her tea glumly.
She grabs my hand. Her clasp is not as comforting as usual with her next words, “Be careful. They’re planning something.”
I try sipping my tea, but my impatience only burns my tongue.
I nod dully.
I say, “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry Maria.” Though I believe it even less than she.
I check my phone but there’s nothing from my wild albino friend from last night. It’s been less than an hour; he’s probably not even up yet.
The screen goes black, and I glare at the worried stranger reflected there.
What’s wrong with me? Why did I even give the guy my number anyway? So we had mind-blowing sex, so what? I’ve never given any of the others my number – why start now?
I shove my phone back in my pocket.
Whatever, it’s not up to me now.
Maria Fernanda grasps my hand again, and I meet her kindly gaze with a smile.
“Be careful,” she repeats, her hoarse voice almost a sob.
I nod, but Maria Fernanda’s face is only growing more discouraged.
“Be careful of the darkness,” she whispers.
My heart goes cold.
“What do you mean Maria?”
But her gaze is rooted over my shoulder. I turn and follow it to our family portrait from a few years ago.
I find the photo just as hideous now as I did when it was taken four years ago. The too-bright too-sharpened image is the definition of overdone. It’s the whole family, and yet we all appear half there, like caricatures of ourselves. All our arms are enlaced, our smiles propped-up. As if our family wasn’t falling apart.
My gaze goes to my mother, her face all jagged angles and hollows, her smile the most propped-up of all.
“Your mother tried to resist the darkness, but in the end, it swallowed her too.”
At Maria Fernanda’s whisper, I glance over. Her deep brown eyes are on the same doomed enigma. My mother.
“What do you mean?”
At my words, Maria Fernanda doesn’t react, only shakes her head, repeats, “In the end, it swallowed her too.”
When I squeeze her shoulder, she flinches.
I say, “Maria…”
The words seem to emerge from her against her will, her mouth twisted, her gaze fixed on something invisible to the eye, she says, “Every morning only one side of the bed had to be smoothed out.”
Then she leaps up and rushes out of the room without another word.
My gaze returns to the family portrait, to my mother’s dead eyes, the crease of concern on my father’s smiling face.
For years, I’d sensed it, the rot under the sheen of our easy lives, trips and gifts stacking up like so many useless idols. After what Carlos let slip about “the girls” the other week, there’s no doubt of what the darkness is. And yet, after Maria Fernanda’s admission just now, I’m beginning to think that what my family does for a living is just scratching the surface. That the full horror lying behind the truth is worse than my worst nightmare.
Chapter 7
Gabriel
A nothing of a day and it’s nighttime already. And I still haven’t texted her.
Sprawled on the armchair I’ve spent most of the day in, I force myself upright.
Just because it’s the weekend, that doesn’t mean I get to be a piece of shit for the entire day.
I’ve already exhausted “The Godfather” series, and that phone number is still on my bedside table waiting for me.
I pick it up, twirl it between my fingers.
How about I start with: Never got your name.
No, I should just stick to the usual: Hi. It’s never given me problems before.
Actually, just a time and place would be best. That’s what I really want after all, right? To have her vanilla musk wrap around my skin, lose myself between her olive limbs, forget all this for another night. I want to experience her, feel her. Have her.
I tuck the number back in my pocket.
I’m not putting it in my phone. Not just yet.
I tuck my phone in my back pocket. Go outside and get on my bike. Start driving to the club.
It’s time for the nightly check-up.
Already I don’t like how this latest fling with the red zipper dress is going. I just spent five minutes more than I should’ve wondering what to text the woman whose name I don’t even know. This isn’t a good sign. I can’t have another time like before.
I speed up the bike, so my attention is forced to shift to the present.
Ah, the road flying below my wheels, the city sailing by – a movie I’m in charge of, I can step into.
It never gets old. The world on fast forward. Vehicles and people and stores– all of it sailing past in a blurred montage that somehow makes sense to me, that I can somehow piece together into a whole. The city is beautiful. My city, Toronto.
Stopped at a light, I see Uncle Tetsu’s Japanese Cheesecake is almost empty. For the first time
in months, there’s no lineup.
I lick my lips, the creamy moisture in my mouth summoned up just by memory.
I could do it. I could go in there, grab an Angel Hat, have a nice snack for the rest of the way.
I glance at my phone, the light changes and I speed off.
I only have five minutes as it is, and that’s how long it’ll take to get there. I can’t be late. It took ages to get this routine in place: the girls being ready an hour before we open so I can inspect them.
Rebel Saints didn’t rise to be the most prestigious strip club for no reason. I mean, yeah, it’s a front for where the money really is, my other girls, but I still take pride in how I’ve run it.
It is named after our motorcycle club, after all.
I park my bike in front, though I walk to the edge of the building, let my hand run along the chrome exterior fondly, as the pink tilted lights cast my shadow into colorful hallucinogenic shapes.
Even the chrome walls have been scrubbed clean of their weekly grime.
No, I never saw any point in half-assing the club, even if it was just a front. I’ve always believed how you do anything is how you do everything. Laziness is like an infectious poison, and if I practice it here, it would only be a matter of time before it infects everything.
Pip’s already there, giving me a bear hug.
“They’re all ready, Boss.”
I stride in, grinning at my almost haloed reflection in the mirrored walls.
The white suit was a good choice. Not very practical, but look at what a striking contrast my full-white form makes to the black walls.
The girls can’t help but regard me with awe, hold my every word as law.
I step in the room and the music starts blasting.
It’s Britney, and the girls are ready.
Orange is in front tonight, and if the way she’s twining around that pole is any indication, she’s happy to see me.
At the top, she wraps around it with both legs, dangles her head down, says, “Hey Boss.”
My gaze slides from her flaming hair to her coral lips, to, finally her orange peel bra.
I nod. Yes, this is good.
I continue on. Next is Coconut, her pout all a-ready for me. Her hips are an entity in themselves, gyrating and rotating and shaking the little grass skirt into constant motion, sashaying the song itself into submission, her hips controlling the beat now, not the other way around. She runs her teal nails over her coconut top slowly, and I’m convinced.
She’ll be a hit, I can tell.
It wasn’t easy replacing three of the girls in a month, but I didn’t have a choice. Taryn was one overdose away from being carried out of here on a stretcher, and Nicole’s crying bouts in between shows was starting to get on my nerves. This is no place for lost little girls.
Before I even move, on the next pole down, Strawberry is ready for me. By the time I’m there, her legs are spread, beautiful long limbs extending out in perfect olive lines, her red-chained hands gripping the pole they’re attached to as she lowers herself over the huge half-strawberry on the ground.
I grin.
It was Jaws’ idea. It’s brilliant.
When I return to the first stage, the girls have switched out. Now its Cinnamon, the light dusting on her body glittering as she shimmies up that pole, her tan ass jiggling eagerly.
Perfect.
Next is Icing, rolling up her sock. Seeing me arrive she turns around so I get a nice view of her ass as she leans over.
“Sorry Boss,” she coos, shoving her ass up further.
I step onto the stage, then stop.
Hold on, Gabe. No touching the dancers. That’s my rule, and for good reason. No way am I getting involved with one of them again. Not after what happened last time.
“Get your shit together, Icing,” I call.
She pouts, disappointed that I didn’t come over to discipline her in person.
I turn around, stride away to the back, to my office. I’ve just thought of something to take my mind off things.
Inside, enclosed by hardwood walls, supported by a maroon leather recliner, I feel more in control already.
I’m not going to be controlled by my urges, like some animal. No, not anymore. I’m past that now.
Icing will just have to suck some other guy’s dick to get away with being late.
I take out my phone and the little piece of paper and put them on the desk in front of me.
If I really want to get this over with, I’ll call her, not text. That way there won’t be any waiting. Just me, telling her what I want, her agreeing. That’s the way to do it: short, sweet and simple.
I lift my phone, then put it back down.
She never even told me her name. I don’t even know if this is her phone number.
I lift my phone.
What does it even matter? Why do I even care? What about Hannah?
I get up, shove the phone and paper back in my pocket.
This is a distraction. I shouldn’t be starting anything, not now that Hannah is missing. I don't have time.
When I stride back out, Icing’s finally ready. Her stockings rolled up to her thighs, the tips of her nipples erect through her tube top, her gaze doesn’t shift from me as she strides up to the pole, wraps her arms around it, then her legs, then fuses with the cool metal.
My hand dips in my pocket, crumples up the paper.
Why would she not tell me her name?
Chapter 8
Toni
As soon as my tea is done, I get Jane’s leash and put my coat back on.
What I have to do now is clear.
I flip up my hood and put on my big sunglasses.
The drive to the office doesn’t take long. My father has never been a patient man, so the office is all of five minutes away. Parking is leaving my nice red Porsche with a nice dignified young man whom we pay, who I think actually waits there the whole day until the odd time one of our six or so employees roll up and need their car parked.
As I walk up to the familiar black building, I glance at my reflection in the two-sided glass.
It’s always seemed fitting how we can see out the walls and no one can see in. The only thing is that you forget that you can be on the other side of that. I wonder how many other things are like that. Like our feud with the Rebel Saints. How we think we are one step ahead of them, yet the opposite is actually true.
Inside, the kindly Nelson Mandela-like desk man nods at me as I pass. I’m just in time to catch the elevator and, as the doors close, I study his diminishing face.
Has he known all this time?
I inhale, then exhale.
No, there’s no way. The poor old man he wouldn’t be able to smile at me like that if he knew.
The elevator stops on my floor – the penthouse – and I stride out with my head held high.
Well, what we do won’t have to be kept a secret much longer. Not when I’m done with it.
At the front desk, Lila gives me a wan smile that’s about as convincing as her newly blonde hair.
I give her a curt nod back before I stride past the front desk, down the hallway into Clarence’s office.
He’s on his phone, chatting away.
“Yes, yes, excellent…”
I stare at the perfectly-coiffed back of his head, thinking of the last time we spoke. The last time I found out everything.
He had known too, the sick bastard. Known full well that I had no idea.
It was clear in the smile playing on his face as he said it, “I can’t get in touch with Carlos, but you’ll tell him the latest shipment of girls came in, won’t you?”
And, as my mouth formed a shocked “o,” his follow-up question was just digging the knife in deeper, “Oh, damn, you did know, didn’t you?”
I had walked out of the office without a word, my mind swirling already.
Now, Clarence is facing the window, but after a minute he swivels his chair around.
“You got
it,” he continues, his gaze on me, “Sorry, but I’ve got to go. Pressing business.”
