by Faye, Amy
Seth’s jaw clicks off to one side. His eyes drop shut. I turn back to Bill. “Now, about that money. I’ll take cash if you’ve got it, or I’ll take a check. Make it out to Lucas H. Mercer, if you don’t mind.”
He pulls against Tom’s arms, but Tom’s shifted his arms to get a better grip, and there’s not much give in it. If Tom were a little bigger, and had a little experience, I bet he’d make quite a wrestler. Or maybe he has the experience, back in high school. Not like I know the guy well enough to say either way.
“I ain’t got it,” he says softly.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You came here without any fucking money? Really?”
“I mean, I ain’t got the money, alright?”
“That’s why you write a check, numb-nuts.”
“It’s not there.”
“What have you got, then? We’ll get the next best. I’ll take nine.”
“I gotta eat, Lucas, come on.”
“I’m not the one who came to a ten-grand buy in game of poker with no fucking money!” I slam my hand down on the table. A pile of chips rattles in the center. “Tom!”
He raises his eyebrows in silent acknowledgment.
“You got ten grand?”
“Of course I do, Luke. I came to the game, didn’t I?”
“Of course you fucking do. Seth?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“That’s what I fucking thought. You think I’m gonna have trouble paying my debts? You tell me, Tom. I ever squelched? Ever backed out of a bet after I fucking lost?”
“Not to my knowledge,” he said, shrugging.
“So you see, this ain’t that kind of game. You’re going to get that money for me, or I swear to God…”
A doorbell ringing sings through the house. I try to peel the scowl off my face.
“Somebody want to get that?”
Seth moves. Apparently he doesn’t think that letting Bill go is going to be a smart move. I think it would be great. Let him get clobbered. Maybe it would teach him a little lesson.
A minute later, Seth comes back in, silent. A woman is walking behind him. She’s thin, youngish, and attractive. Her eyes are framed by heavy black plastic glasses, though not the big frames like kids these days are wearing. Along with her pencil skirt, it gives her a look like she ought to be running a library.
“Uh, Dad?”
I eye her suspiciously.
“Oh, shit. Katie.” Bill stops fighting, like he just realized what an ass he’s been making of himself. “You, uh. What time is it?”
“You said to come by around eleven.”
“Is it eleven? Fuck me. I guess it, uh…”
“You going to ask your daughter where to come up with ten grand?”
“I’m just a ride home. I don’t know what my dad’s been telling you, but…”
“He’s been telling us that he’s not paying his debts,” I growl.
She takes a deep breath like this isn’t the first time she’s been in this conversation.
“Wait! I know!”
I turn to Bill. Tom’s letting him go. He’s got a look on his face, like he sees a tactic. Some real clever move to get himself out of this situation.
“Oh yeah? You just realized you left ten grand in your fucking glove box?”
“Kate!”
“What about her? Talk to me, don’t talk to her.”
“You can have her. She’s pretty, don’t you think?”
I blink. But I’m not the one who speaks. “What the fuck, Dad?”
Two
Kate
There’s a long moment of silence. “Come on, baby, it’ll only be for a couple of days. Until I can get the money together.”
I run through the whole conversation in my head before I start answering. Dad is a special sort of person. Not in a particularly good way. He’s got a unique ability to say things that work out so you’re getting yourself all kinds of screwed up, and then he tries to paint it like you’re getting out ahead.
For one thing, it sounds like ‘oh, it’s just a few days.’ I heard the number ‘ten grand’ thrown around just a minute ago, and I have to assume that’s what they’re looking to get. A few days? It would be fine.
I mean, it wouldn’t be remotely fine, but I could at least get over it, eventually. Probably. There’s nothing to say that I couldn’t. I’d just be humiliated and used like some kind of slave or worse. But you know what? I’ve been with Dad for twenty years now, and I know a little bit about being used like a slave. It’s just the ‘whore’ part that’s going to be brand new.
But then again, even that isn’t that new really. After all, most boys through high school figured that, I don’t know, because I had tits, I was probably easy. So there’s a certain familiarity to playing whore, too.
But it’s not a few days. It’s basically forever, because he’s not going to get the money.
“I don’t want your damn daughter, I want you to pay me the money you owe. Go get a fucking loan.”
Dad laughs. I laugh, too. A loan. That’s cute.
“You think if I could get a loan I’d be doing this?”
The other guy, the guy that Dad apparently owes money to, closes his eyes. “You’re a disgrace.”
I don’t agree with him out loud, because I’d regret it. So I do it silently.
“So you’ll take her?”
The guy’s jaw flexes. “I have to get paid somehow, don’t I? Fan-fucking-tastic.”
The big guy storms towards me. Towards the door, I guess. He passes me without a second glance and then turns back at the last minute. For a moment I think he’s going to snap at me to follow. I start moving before he can say anything, but he looks right through me.
“You guys can get me my money in the morning, yeah?”
“Yeah. Hey, don’t leave the other checks.”
They pick up a few slips of paper, the ink already dry on them. My new ‘owner’ takes them without looking at them. But there’s enough time for me to see the words ‘Ten Thousand Dollars and no/100’ written on the Amount line.
Then he storms out. I don’t know if I’m supposed to follow. For a minute I turn to Dad, wide-eyed and uncertain.
“Go on, hon. It’s going to be fine.”
I don’t think he’s got half of an idea of what he’s doing at this point; I could be raped and murdered or worse, and there’s really nothing he could do to stop it at this point, because he’s sending me off with some complete stranger.
But hey, at least he’s not going to get his ass kicked again, right? That’s progress. I roll my eyes as I walk back outside.
One of the cars outside has come to life, and shines its lights on the front of the house. It growls loud enough to hurt my ears as I walk across the hood, and slide into the passenger seat. The leather is cold, but at the same time it’s soft and comfortable. I settle in because I don’t have much else choice.
“What should I call you?” The man’s voice is low and annoyed. I wish I’d thought to ask the question first.
“Kate? Katie?”
“Kate? Nice to meet you. I’m Luke Mercer. I guess thanks to your good-for-nothing father, you’re going to be staying at my place for a while. There’s no fucking way he’s going to be paying me, is there?”
I think about lying for a minute. But I figure that if Luke is good enough at reading people to walk out with two blank checks and another two men promising to get him his money at the next available opportunity, and the buy-in is ten fucking thousand dollars, he’s probably decent at reading people.
“No.” So I tell him the truth.
“So I’ve got to figure out how to get my money’s worth out of you, huh?” He takes his eyes off the road, and I can feel him undressing me with his eyes. “Well, if I were a younger man, maybe I’d have some very specific ideas of what you could do for me.”
The comment makes me look at him a second time. He didn’t give me the impression of being terribly old. At first I�
�d have placed him in his middle twenties, maybe, but as his rage fades into frustrated anger, and looking at him closer, he could be a little bit older than that.
But forty is the absolute highest I would guess for him. If he were older than that, I’d be surprised.
“So… what, then?”
The engine makes it hard to hear, but it’s not so loud that I would miss something he said completely. Particularly not when I’m watching to see what he’s going to do next. His lips don’t move until we’re pulling into the driveway of a large house, on top of a hill.
“Home, sweet home,” he says, with a sourness in his voice. He still looks like he’s ready to kill Dad, and at this point, I don’t know that I have it in me to stop him if he tried.
“What do you want from me?”
“What do I want? Follow me.”
I follow him. I don’t know where we’re going, but when we get to the stairs I’ve got some pretty solid ideas of what’s on the other side of the steps.
He presses open the first door on the left. Inside is a small bedroom, sparsely furnished. Then again, much of the rest of the house wasn’t very well-furnished either. Just what was necessary. For an extravagant house, it’s quite modestly furnished.
“Do you want me to… go lay down?”
“I don’t give a shit what you do,” Luke says. “This is your room. In this house, I’ve got two rules for you.”
“Okay?”
“First, I’m not here to entertain you. I’ve got shit to do.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Second, if I tell you to do something, you do it. We can play twenty questions after, if you’re so fuckin’ curious, but if I tell you to do something, I want it done. Then you can start jabbering about it. Now go on. I’ve got to go work out some frustration, and I don’t want to look at you right now if I’m going to stop wanting to put a fist through something.”
I blink at that comment.
“Now, please. Bedroom. Go on. We’ll get better acquainted tomorrow. The Wi-Fi password’s ‘Dog Gone.’ Two words. Both capitalized. Now please. Go lay down, and don’t come out unless it’s to use the bathroom. You need food, order a fuckin’ pizza. Tell them you’ll pay cash, and I’ll get it taken care of.”
I step inside, halfway stunned. The door closes behind me, harder than necessary. What the fuck did Dad get me into? Who the hell is this Luke Mercer guy? I take off my jacket.
What the fuck is going to happen to me? This guy’s nothing like what I expected. Part of me figured that this was some sort of sex thing. He was going to get me for a little while, fuck me, and that cleared the debt. Ten grand is quite a lot of money, probably quite a lot of fucking.
That wouldn’t have surprised me. It wouldn’t have been pleasant, and I would have tried my damnedest to get out of it. But I would have understood it.
But as it stands, I feel more like a hostage, being kept until the money comes. Except it’s never going to, and both of us know it. So now I’m essentially his property?
What does that even mean? What happened to the women’s liberation movement? Wasn’t that whole thing supposed to stop shit like this?
Was I being sex-trafficked? My eyes widened. He wanted to get ten grand out of me. He thought there was no way Dad was going to pay him, so he was going to have to ‘get his money’s worth’ out of me.
The idea hadn’t even occurred to me before, but now it seemed impossibly likely. He was going to sell me to some eastern European sex ring and they were going to pass me around until I didn’t know which way was up. Until I had no choice but to get killed by someone for knowing too much, or kill myself for seeing too much.
I don’t want to lose it. I need to be smart here, and I need to be tough. But when I lay down, my body starts shaking all on its own, and a minute later, I feel the hot, wet trails of tears running down my cheeks.
Three
Luke
I ought to have known better than to believe that Bill was going to pay me. When you know that someone isn’t going to pay their debts, it’s not a big deal when they squelch. It’s not like you were ever going to get their money, no matter how much you might have wanted it or tried to get it.
Same principle here. I knew. Or, I should have known. Nobody shows up with no cash in their pocket and then pays their debts. It’s why you don’t clean them out. You take just enough money to see that they’ll show green.
Then you can start thinking about playing for blood. But when someone just shows up and thinks that he’s hot shit… well, I didn’t think. I thought that it would be real nice to be able to teach him a lesson. And that was where I got myself into trouble. I guess in the end it’s really all my fault that this shit happened. I should have known better, right?
Well, if I’m going to get something out of this girl, the place hasn’t been cleaned in a while. Maria’s been out of town, and that means that I’m not getting the maid service I’m supposed to be getting.
That’s not going to pay her off any time soon, of course. There’s not that much work to be done around here, maybe three hours a week. Even if we pay an absurd amount of money, that’s not two hundred dollars a week. That’s five weeks to make a grand. Fifty weeks? A year?
Jesus. I don’t have a year. And of course, it doesn’t count feeding her. It’s not like I can let the girl go hungry. So I’ll be spending more than I’m making back on her every week, without a doubt. She’ll end up just owing me more money.
But it’s a start, right? So I write it down. Clean the house. I make a checklist. Windows, clean dishes into the cupboards, dirty dishes into the dishwasher for tomorrow. Get rid of anything expired in the fridge and make a list of what we need. Get together a list of foods she needs in the house for herself. Sweep up the floors.
I let out a long breath. It’s a start. At least I can go away not having to think that I’ve lever her with nothing to do. That’s the best I can hope for, right?
The note’s on the bathroom door. No way she’s going to miss it. At least, I tell myself that. Leave for work. I could do it from home. Most of the time, I do. But at this point, I don’t want to stick around when there’s some chance that I’m going to distract her. For that matter, I don’t want her distracting me.
I repeat to myself the mantra I’ve been repeating since Bill Ashley told me that he was going to give me his daughter for ten grand. If she wanted to fuck, then she would say something about it. I don’t have to pay women for it. So in the end, I’m not getting any money out of it. I’d really like to make money, not just cut costs. As much as it might be a good time, burying myself inside her gets me neither.
I have to get that image out of my head. I turn back to the graph. I need to work. I need to get my head on straight and get work done. But now all I’m thinking about is her tits, and her wide hips, and how nice it would be to taste that forbidden fruit. But no. She’s my cleaning lady, now, I guess. As a rule, I don’t fuck them.
The day does what it always does. Trading isn’t my favorite game. It’s gambling, same as anything, I guess. But it’s all about reading patterns and hoping that you’re reading them right. With very few exceptions, it’s a matter of luck, day trading.
You can make a mint just sitting on one stock as it grows. Almost ten percent growth on average. Higher if you make the right calls.
Or you can double your money in a heartbeat, if you bet it right. But like I said, it’s mostly just guessing. There’s nothing really to it. That’s if you want to be average, make a little money, but nothing amazing.
I didn’t get to where I am today by being average. Which means that I don’t really have a whole lot of time to be fucking around imagining fucking a girl whose name I barely know. Kate’s cute. Imminently fuckable. But she’s not for me and I don’t want her.
The day goes slow. Of course it does. I’m distracted, and I’m not making money. Like I said, it’s mostly luck. With few exceptions. But not without exception. I’m at least on a l
evel today that I’m not losing money. I walk away with my money still in my pocket, at least, and that’s something. More than Bill fucking Ashley can say.
Then I head home. Ease the car into the usual spot, beside the lift. The garage door is locked, just like it was when I left it. That’s not that weird. I turn the key, turn the knob, and step inside.
I don’t spend a ton of time here, and when I am at home, I don’t generally make a mess. So it’s not immediately obvious whether or not she’s swept. There’s a penny on the floor, but that could be new. For that matter, she could just be a piss-poor cleaning woman, which is what it is.
The slip is on the island in the kitchen. A checklist. Just like I left it. Nothing checked off. Dishes in the sink. Clean dishes in the dishwasher. A full fridge. No list of food to buy, even which isn’t that much of a fucking request.
“Kate?” I raise my voice enough that there’s no doubt in my mind she heard me, assuming she’s even still here. Not that I know where she could have gone.
There’s a sound from upstairs. But no response. I start up the steps.
Her bedroom door is shut. I turn the handle and push. Something catches on the handle and holds the door from opening more than six inches or so. She’s sitting on her bed. Brooding.
So I put my shoulder into the door. Wood cracks and something budges. I close the door and open it again, and a chair with a broken stretcher slips onto the ground and gets pushed out of the way.
“Kate?” She doesn’t look at me. “You want to tell me why you couldn’t even do some simple chores?”
“You’re not in charge of me.”
“Stand up.” I put the threat into my tone, so I don’t have to speak it out loud. Stand up, or I’ll stand you up, and I’m not going to be gentle about it.
She stands up.
“You think you can defy me because I’m not around? Is that right?”
She pulls a face.
“Answer me.”
“You’re not going to get out of this. You’re stuck with me at this point. And I’m stuck with you. So if you’re not going to do what I ask you to do when I’m not here, I’m going to have to make sure that I’m here to see you doing it.”
