by Amber Burns
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered to myself, pushing my glasses up my nose and running my hands through my hair. “How the hell did I end up here? What did I get myself into?”
I was about to sneak back into the lounge and sit down for another moment, and maybe try and hide in the comforts of the vacated room, when a voice intruded my thoughts.
“And who are you, pretty young lady, standing in the darkness all alone?”
My neck snapped to the left, and I caught sight of the outlines of a tall, lean man, his body draped across the hallway entrance. The light was dim, and he blocked what little chandelier glow managed to twinkle its way through to the wings of the dance floor. All I could make out was the general shape of his body, and the sleek lines of a very tall top hat balancing jauntily upon his head. I took a breath and gripped my hands together at my breast.
“Hello,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. “I am sorry; I did not mean to disturb you.”
The man chuckled, but it sounded more like a grating, wheezing cough. He pushed himself upright off of the door frame and the top hat tilted slightly to the left.
“Not at all, little lady, not at all,” he said, and his voice was like sandpaper upon my ears. “In fact, I might say that I am the one who is disturbing you.”
My cheeks flushed nervously, and I pushed at my glasses again. I was not sure whether to try and slip by him and find Nikko again or simply stutter my way through this awkward conversation. I opened my mouth to speak but realized that I could think of nothing to say. I slapped my lips closed again and took an uncertain breath.
The man laughed again, that awful, rasping laugh that grated against my insides.
“Ah, I see that the cat has got your tongue, little lady,” he wheezed. “That is quite alright, though, because I happen to like kitties; very, very much. Allow me to introduce myself,” he said and took a step forward. The light played lightly upon his shoulders, and I was able to make out tiny fragments of his face which consisted of sallow, sunken cheeks and a scarred and bony chin. “My name is Carmichael,” he coughed, and then he swept a skinny arm before him and bent his long, thin form at the waist so that he was able to execute a very low, very over the top bow. His top hat someone managed to stay perched upon his head the entire time. “I am ever so pleased to have disturbed you here and, aha, made your acquaintance,” he wheezed, straightening to an upright position yet again.
I clutched my hands more tightly to my chest and stuttered.
“I... uh, well… thank you… good to meet… yes,” I tried, my words falling over each other as my cheeks continued to grow redder and redder.
Carmichael laughed again, that rasping, scraping sound sliding through his lips.
“Oh, sweet little honey,” he wheezed, and he took several slow steps forward until his face was inches from my own. “You are one very special little thing, aren’t you?” He whispered.
His voice was hot on my face and smelled strongly of alcohol and smoke. I pressed my lips tightly together and tried not to breathe in. He stood there for a moment, his face hanging inches from mine in the darkness of the hallway, and then I heard him cough a hollow, short cough.
“You know,” he said, his voice loud again. “When someone pays you a compliment, you would do best to thank him for his kindness.”
I felt my neck grow hot and squeezed my fingers even more tightly together to keep myself from shivering.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my eyes staring straight ahead of me.
There was a pause, and I hoped the man was taking a moment to smile. Then I felt his bony hand slap against my shoulder, a fistful of metal rings pressed against my collar bone.
“See?” He rasped, guiding me down the hallway and towards the dance floor again. “I knew you were a good girl. Such a special little thing as you can just not be anything but a very, very, good, good girl.”
He pushed me out into the light, and I blinked furiously, my eyes trying their best to adjust to the blinding contrast. Champagne still fell slowly, like a soft rain, from the arched golden ceiling and people laughed and flicked their eyes suggestively at each other. As Carmichael guided me across the floor, a group of girls who had been pressed up against a long table filled with clear jars of colorful candies turned our way. One of the girls, a blonde whose breasts threatened to escape from the confines of her dress each and every time she moved, whispered something to the woman that pressed up close against her. Another girl nodded, and then, as if all one body, the girls began to cross the floor in perfect unison: their arms and legs matching each other’s arms and legs, hip sway for hip sway, hair toss for hair toss, step for step with their stilettos clicking across the floor with electric energy.
Carmichael turned to face the group of girls that approached, a gang of pink silk and nude chiffon strutting into battle. He lifted his free hand up in greeting, all the while keeping one of his hands pressed against the small of my back.
“Ladies, darlings,” he greeted, the words sliding off of his tongue with the ease that only syllables that have been spoken countless times.
Something about the ease with which this man, this Carmichael, addressed these young women sent a chill straight through to my bones. And that was when I first thought to look at him. We had left the blackness of the hallway behind and were now bathed in pure and sparkling light. I turned ever so slightly, ever aware of the pressure that the cool metal of the thick rings he wore on every finger of his hand pressed into my lower back. I risked the glance, and my eyes took in his profile.
He had a gaunt, orange face, the product of far too many tanning sessions, and sunken lips that twisted as they spewed his raspy words at the circle of girls. His bony jaw was covered in shallow skin with scars that cut their paths across his face; their dark lines riddled with secret stories from the time after midnight dies. And then, of course, was the shape of his dangerous eyes: their tiny, angular corners jabbing into his sunken, stretched orange flesh. They somehow managed to take on the physicality of tiny black beetles come to die upon his face. Those eyes glittered with something evil, something awful, whenever his voice rasped at the woman; whenever his twisted lips leapt up to carve a scowl across his sallow flesh.
And then, there was the way his bones protruded. The skin of his cheeks seemed to hang loosely from the blades of dull knives hidden beneath his flesh. His jaw was not chiseled, but jagged, stitched together from the work of angry fists and bits of broken glass. His neck stretched and snapped with the dance of leathery sinews and too thin bones; he was, from his head to his toes to his eyes to the rings that now pressed deeply against the lower part of my back, a man who ruled a world. Not the world, but some part of the world, if only in his mind. And I could tell that; I knew that, and I tasted that, simply from looking at him… from putting the sound of his voice and the picture of his body together, combining them and, of course, feeling them, pressing into my back.
“What brings such pretty, pretty ladies across the floor tonight?” Carmichael drawled, his eyes tracing the outlines of the voluptuous silhouettes clad in silk and gold and pearls that were draped before him. As he licked at his lips, I felt my stomach lurch with disgust, and I was forced to inhale quickly and swallow so that I would not be sick right there, down the front of my modest dress.
The blonde girl, whose breasts were each individually larger than my face, took a measured step forward. Something about her presence simply commanded attention. She exuded some sort of energy, or force that you could not see but could immediately feel. With just one simple, subtle movement she could succeed in making all eyes fall upon her, and all voices fall silent with the expectation of hearing her speak. She possessed the sort of power that I had always, always envied. A sort of incomparable sexual energy, that unmatched confidence that fierce, beautiful woman always seem to own. I found myself staring at her, my lips falling open, wondering what words she was felt confident enough to spit into the face of this powerful, intimidating man whose dan
gerous fingertips drove sharply like knives into the small of my back.
“We noticed you had dragged a bit of dirt across the floor,” the blonde spat, her high pitched voice raking into my ears like nails down a blackboard.
The other girls eyed Carmichael, their stares silently confirming their agreement with the blonde’s statement. At first, I could not understand what they were talking about and I found myself glancing back across the dance floor, towards the hallway we had left behind, trying to see if they were right. Had Carmichael had tracked dirt across the room. Had his shoes been dirty? Or had mine? I self-consciously glanced down at my feet, but my flats seemed as clean and shiny as they had been this morning. It was only when I looked up again that I realized what the blonde had meant.
Seven sets of perfect almond shaped eyes stared me down, seven pairs of expertly plucked brows arching hatefully over thick, false lashes. I swallowed as two stunning Asian girls, definitely twins, ran their eyes over my body. They did it slowly, painfully, taking in every inch of my silhouette. Then, in sync, raising their gazes back up to meet my own. They both shook their heads. I understood. I was the cause for their anger. I was the dirt, the dirt that Carmichael had dragged across the floor. I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat and forced my eyes down at my shoes again. I could not look these angry beauties in their faces. I worked hard not to cry but the tears were hot against my cheeks, and I was trembling as I stared at the floor. I watched the salty droplets snake off of my face and splash, as if in slow motion, around my feet. I did not dare raise a hand to wipe the tears away; I was too stubborn to admit a physical show of that level of defeat to these people.
The blonde girl glanced at me and rolled her eyes.
“The girl is crying, Carmichael,” she complained, tapping her pointed, white snakeskin heel against the polished floor.
I felt Carmichael’s fingers loosen their grip on my back. I was nearly relieved, but then he began to move his hand in small circles, up and down, around and around, rubbing my back in a soothing motion, as a mother might try and calm down a very small child.
“Oh, no my dear, no no,” the choked, grating sound crackled as the ringed fingers traced circles around my back. “We must not have tears.”
He patted me awkwardly on the shoulders and then grabbed my shoulders and roughly spun me around to face him. My tears had ceased falling but I still stared at the floor, refusing to meet his gaze. All I could think of was the strong, muscular, protective body of Mr. Cartwright, and how Nikko had, seemingly moments ago, embraced me. I imagined his arms wrapped around me, the safety and security of those brief seconds in his arms were very, very difficult to force my mind to forget. And now, I stood trapped in the clutching fingers of a man with yellow nails and breath that stunk of rot. Where was Mr. Cartwright now?
“Anything,” I heard Carmichael say, and then his rings clacked together as his long nails slid under my throat. He jerked my chin upwards so that my eyes were forced to look into his own. “Anything but tears, my little pretty one.”
He stared at me, his lips inches away from my own, his tiny beetle eyes glittering with something I could not read, did not want to be able to read. His long yellow nails tickling my neck, sending shivers dancing down my flesh. I swallowed and forced myself to maintain his gaze. To our left, the seven women simply stood, and watched. After several long, long moments, he finally let his breath fall from his mouth. It slinked across my face and filled my nostrils with the smell of powerful aftershave mingling with that now familiar stench of alcohol and tobacco and filth. Then he dropped his fingers from beneath his chin and turned back to the seven women that waited upon his words like wolves waiting for fresh, bloodied meat.
“Now then!” Carmichael wheezed, clapping his hands together as his beady eyes skittered hungrily over the bodies of the woman that stood before him. “What were we all having such a marvelous time talking about?”
A girl with short, white-blonde hair and purple eyes sighed dramatically.
“Well I know that I was talking about how I needed more cocaine, but I guess that is not going to be on the menu for the rest of the night,” she drawled, glancing at me from the corner of her eyes.
Carmichael’s face took on an expression of shock.
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense,” he coughed, waving his hands through the air as if the idea of no more cocaine was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. His rings caught the light and danced as he brushed the red head’s comments away. “I happen to have something far, far better than cocaine, my little pretties,” he wheezed, his voice dripping with filth.
The two Asian girls stepped forward, their silky hips pressing against each other as they walked.
“There is no way she is going to do anything like that,” they both said in shocking unison, neither of them looking my way, but everyone knew that they were talking about me.
Carmichael glanced at me with those glittering eyes, and I felt chills skitter down my spine.
“Now where,” he began, his voice slinking across the floor like broken glass across concrete. “Did you pretty twins ever come up with such a ridiculous, silly idea?”
The girls stared back at him, their faces heavy with disbelief. The blonde looked at me, and then rolled her eyes. A tiny, rail-thin brunette picked at one of her nails and snorted.
“What?” A stunning woman, all cheekbones, purple painted lips and dark, glistening skin, pushed through the woman. Her long body leaning my way, poking the question at me. With a toss of her long neck, she flicked pastel pink hair away from her eyes. “Does this little mouse have a passion for drugs?”
The girl leaning on the shoulder of the breasty blonde chortled, her laugh stabbing me in the stomach as she ran a hand through her mane of curls.
“Yea okay,” she snorted.
Carmichael’s smile remained glued to his face, but his eyes narrowed as the woman mocked him. He reached out a hand and wrapped his silver adorned fingers around my waist and roughly yanked me to his side, pressing my body tightly, fiercely, against his hips.
“Oh this little thing? This little girl right here?” He snarled, his voice rasping barely above a whisper while his nails worked against my hips. He tightened and re-tightened his grip upon my waist. “Oh my fucking silly honeys,” he rasped, his lips curling to expose golden teeth. “You have no idea. You have no idea.”
He stared at them for a moment, breathing heavily, his breaths rasping in his throat, his position predatory, the top hat leaning towards the woman threateningly. I stood there, frozen, my eyes staring straight ahead while I watched as the girls seemed to soften. They curled back slightly, their shoulders rounding and their hands falling away from their hips. All at once their eyebrows relaxed and their lips grew plumper, softer. Then the blonde took a step forward, her hands fluttering up and around her full, round breasts.
“Well then, we are so excited to get things started up again!” She gushed, rushing forward and showering Carmichael with juicy, adoring kisses. Her fingers caressed his gaunt cheeks, and I stiffened as her breasts and lips came within inches of my own face. After a moment she pulled away and eyed Carmichael lovingly.
“Ebony?” She called, her blue, almond shaped eyes still playing seductively over Carmichael’s face. “Can you please be a babe and go fetch Carmi his favorite drink?”
She ran a hand slowly down the buttons of Carmichael’s shirt, batting her long lashes at him. The red headed girl she apparently had spoken to skittered off, her high heels clacking against the floor. In a moment that seemed like an hour, she was back. Her long black painted fingernails pressing against the stem of a glass. She strutted forward, her thin, pale legs swaying back and forth, and presented the creamy blue liquid to Carmichael. He shooed the blonde away with a fond grope of her breasts and then kissed the red head on the top of her nose.
“Thank you, my sweets,” he said, his grip on me relaxing slightly as he grabbed the blue drink from the girl’s
hand. “See how lovely things are when all of you pretties get along?”
He looked around at the girls encouragingly, his beetle like eyes glimmering with something different now. The girls teetered and purred in enthusiastic agreement, batting their eyes and laughing. I glanced around the room, still desperately searching out Mr. Cartwright. Where could he be?
Carmichael sifted the creamy blue liquid beneath his nose, and his eyes rolled back as his lips snarled their way into a grin. He nodded approvingly at the drink and then raised it high into the air, above the tip of his tall top hat.
“A toast!” he cried, his voice rasping with excitement. “I propose a toast.”
The girls skittered quickly about, grabbing up glasses that sat nearby, glasses that had been discarded by other party goers moments before. They were a rush of silk and gemstones and chiffon as they hurried to comply the man that still hung to my waist.
“A toast then!” Carmichael repeated when all seven of the woman clutched glasses between their painted fingers. “A toast to all the good that we are lucky enough to experience in this life and to the new good that is about to come our way!”
