WIFE FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  Despite the attention, it’s the quiet moments that are eating me up on the inside. It’s the time when a woman walks by, her shirt almost completely open, her ass hanging out of a pair of denim shorts, that I have a moment to think about Vanessa. Just the smell of another’s perfume sends me back to her, when I leaned her back and took a plump pink nipple to my mouth.

  It ramps up as I suck down even more drinks. And by last call, I’m wasted on the thought of her. I can’t let this be it. Before Jonah and Martin can get up to cover their bills, I’m already racing out the door, my feet huffing it to my bike. It roars on my command before taking off down the road, back towards the house I shouldn’t be within a thousand feet of. The death wish that awaits me just makes me ride harder and faster towards Vanessa and her castle.

  I park my bike a few blocks from the Barber home in a parking lot of an all-night fast food place. It’s well hidden from anyone passing by, but I yank a few garbage cans in front of it just in case. Then I take off towards her home. The whole time, my ears were perked and listening for the sound of the boys beating me back to their homes and to Vanessa.

  From their neighbor’s yard, I spotted my way in. A large oak tree leaned against a window where one desk lamp was still illuminating a bubblegum pink room. It had to be Vanessa’s. My only shot up there was to scurry up the tree like a little kid and hope that the branches would hold my weight so I could leap up and over to the second floor bedroom’s window.

  Climbing the tree is easier said than done. As soon as I’m past the trunk, the limbs begin swaying and cracking from my weight. I know that any wrong move could mean I’m a second away from sending me crashing down to the ground. And the last thing I want is for whomever is inside to notice me sneaking up to a bedroom at two or three in the morning.

  But I have bigger problems than that. Right before I’m ready to start knocking on the window, the sound of the Barber choppers comes roaring up the block. I pull in closer to the tree’s center, praying that I’m concealed enough. When the boys pull in, their headlights aim right at me, blinding me with the sharp white light pointed directly in my eyes. I hang on even tighter.

  Yet, they don’t seem to even notice me. They stammer in drunkenly, talking about something one of Martin’s boys did that night. I can hear the conversation continue well past their front door being closed and locked. I wait, watching the lights of two of the rooms spark and light up. And through the curtains, I can see Martin Barber flop into bed without even undressing and the outline of Jonah Barber moving up through the hallway straight towards Vanessa’s bedroom.

  Vanessa’s room flashes bright yellow as a door flings open. Jonah walks in and pulls off a cover from Vanessa’s bed revealing Vanessa curled up around a pillow. I can just make out her red, swollen eyes and her terrified glances, as he surveys her room. He checks in every crevice and hiding spot but comes up empty, almost disappointedly so, before leaving the room without even helping her tidy it back up. Another light pops on, and Jonah undresses behind a curtain and then hops into bed.

  I’m still focused on Vanessa and her shaking hands. She rushes over to the closet door he has flung open and a few coats he removed from a hanger on the door. She moves tiredly through the motions, as if she is resound in the fact that she deserves to be terrorized like this. I have to make my move. I can’t stand to see her like this.

  I reach over to a smaller branch and slide my legs across the line of the bark till I’m at the windowsill. With one hand holding onto a limb above my head, I lean over and tap gently against the window. Vanessa turns towards me, completely frightened. Nothing in her even softens when she recognizes me lingering among the branches. Still, she walks quickly to the window and lifts it up and open for me to slip in.

  I begin to speak, “Vanessa, what the he—?”

  Her hand flies up to my mouth, covering it quickly. She places a finger to her lips, as she guides me over to the side of her bed facing away from the door. I slump down onto the lumpy mattress before turning back to her, waiting for her to make the first move. Her warm, soft hand slides down the length of my bare neck, her fingertips sweetly caressing at my stubble and dry skin.

  Those fairy tale eyes lock in on mine, as she asks as quietly as possible, “What are you doing here, Gavin?”

  And in that moment, I don’t know what to say or how to answer. I have no idea why I am here, risking both of our lives. So I give her the basic answer, the answer that just scratches the surface of what I am feeling. “I had to know what happened to you. Why the hell did you leave me?”

  A small smirk crosses her face as she explains, “I didn’t leave you. My dad caught me outside the bathroom. He doesn’t know that we were together. He thinks I snuck out to see you so I could apologize for what happened at lunch.”

  “Shit.” I finally notice the way she is turning her cheek away from me. My thumb reaches up to spin the other side to face me. Before I can see it, I already know what it is. The stormy colors of a large bruise take up nearly half of her cheek. And that’s not even half of that. As she lifts her chin, I spot the brown, dim finger marks around her neck.

  Something in me bursts, as I immediately stand, my hands knotting into thick fists. Motherfucker, I think to myself. I don’t say that out loud, though. Instead, I look down at her as I command, “We have to go. You can’t stay here anymore. That fucking bastard is not allowed to do that to you.”

  She follows me yanking me back down. Her voice raises slightly, as she points at the wall her bed leans up against, “Gavin, no. You don’t understand. If I leave, he will kill my mom.”

  “You can’t stay here, Vanessa. I’m not going to let that twisted son of a bitch do this to you.”

  I pull her into my arms, cradling her against my chest. She rocks slightly, and I can feel her holding back the tears threatening to fall. As she pulls up and away, I reach out towards her, gently pulling her in for a long, drawn out kiss. I don’t want to hear her protests. I don’t want her to tell me no. I just want to protect her for as long as I can in this embrace.

  Her small hands find their way to my chest and gather up the material of my t-shirt in her fists. She pulls me in tighter as the waves of our body hit us again. Her tongue slips into my mouth, exploring and plunging head first into our union. As she comes closer to me, I can’t help but hook a finger under the strap of her tank top, the same one she took off for me hours earlier. The material slides down easily over the curve of her tan skin.

  She pulls away and watches helplessly as I trace a line along the top of her breasts from shoulder to shoulder. I reach out to one of her hands to place it on my thigh so that she is mere centimeters from my crotch. She turns away from me, so I trace the nape of her neck with my nose. She shudders, and I can’t tell if it’s out of pleasure or pain. Probably both. Weakly, she bats me away. “We can’t, Gavin,” she insists, though it’s not the kind of tone that tells me “no.”

  I continue to kiss her, making my way around the bruises of her neck to behind her ear. “Then come with me,” I whisper. “Even if it’s only just for tonight. I’ll get you back home before they know you’re gone.” I feel like a goddamn kid again, like a teenager trying to sneak in a quick bang before I hear the door open to signal Mom and Dad are home.

  But with Vanessa, it’s different. I want her to come with me not so that we can continue with what is happening in her own bedroom, but so that she feels safe and wanted. I want to make her feel what I am feeling when I’m with her, no matter how murky and unclear that was for me.

  She pauses, the air stopping in her throat. A hand presses against me and pushes me away as she says firmly, “No. I can’t. I can’t do this. Gavin, this is not going to happen, and I can’t let it happen. There’s too much at stake.”

  I wonder if she means my life. The way she peers at me makes me think that she’s more concerned with me getting out of this alive than anything else, but she slowly says, “He’s going to kill us if he catches me, and
I can’t let that happen. Please, just go.”

  “But you want this.”

  “But I can’t have it.” She looks up at me with pleading, terrified eyes. “Please, just make this easier on me and go. I can’t do this anymore.”

  In what feels like someone fast-forwarding my life, I walk backwards towards the window and out into the tree. My hands scrape against the bark as I don’t look back. My feet hit the ground, and I give myself just three seconds to look back up at her as she closes and locks her window. In those three seconds, I watch as she hesitates before closing a pair of pink blinds on me for good.

  CHAPTER 13 My room goes black as I shuffle softly back into bed. Outside, I listen to Gavin scurry down the tree, the branches scratching up against my window. And it takes everything in my power to just lie here in bed, listening to my chance at freedom walk right out of my life.

  I pull my hands up to around my chest. The feeling of his calloused fingertips on my bare skin is still leaving heat impressions on me. I follow the line of fire from my shoulders to the tips of my breasts before forcing my hands to the side. As much as I wanted him to continue, to give me back what was missing from earlier in the evening, it just couldn’t go past this invisible line I drew up.

  I curl myself up back into a ball with my knees pressed firm against my chest. My head tucks in and pulls itself under the blankets so that the small glimmer of light that is seeping in through my bedroom disappears along with the sound of the man outside of the window. My mind floats off as the hours pass and I pray for the sunrise.

  In that time, I dream wistfully about life with Gavin on the run. I can see us as a caricature of my parents on our way to Reno in hopes of not being found. Or maybe we want to be found so that we can declare ourselves. I don’t know. But it doesn’t work out the way my parents’ lives have. There’s no grandfather relenting and giving a place to Gavin. My brother has made it clear that it would never happen. Gavin would never be my family as much as those who are my own blood are. The future I could dream up is just not a reality.

  As I toss and turn and push away the thoughts of white fences, open roads, and Gavin and I lying in a big brass bed together, the house around me starts to stir. It begins with my mom. She’s always an early riser. Her footsteps are heavier today as I listen to her quickly turn off her alarm and then shuffle towards the master bathroom. A few minutes later, she returns to the bedroom where my father is waiting for her.

  Usually, he barks an order about breakfast or murmurs where he is going to be that day, but this morning is different. Something has shifted in the room adjacent to mine. His voice is sterner, more focused on her. And she sounds less tired and run down than usual. Her words are pierced and firm.

  I pull myself up to sitting, my ear to the cold spackled wall as I catch the end of their conversation. “Don’t make me angry, Olivia. My word is God, and you don’t question God.”

  “I’m not questioning you, Jonah. I am saying that your daughter is an adult. She’s almost done with school, and it’s her right to do what she wants with whomever she wants. We can’t treat her like a teenager anymore. She’ll only get more hurt when she does get herself free.”

  There’s a pause before I hear my dad’s voice growl even louder. He must have charged at her as she was dressing near her mirror. “What did I say about this? I make the decisions for this family. I know what is best! And Vanessa is not going off with some Pagan just because he flirted with her! You hear me? I won’t fucking have it! And I won’t have you standing up for him either!”

  My mother doesn’t back down. Her voice grows stronger “What the fuck do you expect her to do?” she demands. “Grow old, stay unmarried, have her brother take care of her? You know that is not what’s going to happen. When we’re gone, there will be no one for her, and I don’t want her to be left in the cold to be passed around like one of your whores.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like that, Olivia! You’ve got no say in this!”

  “That’s what I don’t understand. Why don’t I get a say in my daughter’s life? What big plans do you have for her?”

  “Martin and I have it settled. She’s going to graduate from that vet school, and then she’s going to be paired up with Brock. When Martin takes over, he’ll be second in command so she will still be protected.”

  There’s a long, deafening pause as the blood in my ears pounds and my mouth goes dry. My mother breaks the ice, her voice so low that I have to press my entire body to the wall to hear her. “Jonah Douglas Barber, you will not marry off our daughter like some prized cattle. I won’t have it. I won’t. This isn’t the fucking Middle Ages. She’s not some currency being bartered for twelve cattle and a tract of land. Not. Fucking. Happening.” The last three words thump out of her mouth, every syllable dripping with contempt.

  But he’s not having any of it. “It’s done, Olivia,” he snaps. “Martin’s grooming Brock, and I’m working on Martin. When we retire, the club is set, and Vanessa’s life is decided.” I can’t believe it, but my dad actually sounds proud of himself, as if he has done this great and wonderful deed on my behalf. Even with my mom’s resistance, I can tell from how his voice drips with self-righteousness that he won’t be persuaded.

  “Why won’t you think of us then? The only reason why you sit on your throne so high and mighty is because my father had mercy on you. When we were in Reno, he could have had you killed with a wave of his hand, but he didn’t. I had to beg for your life, and he gave it to you.”

  “You didn’t have a brother, Olivia, and he knew you were knocked up. Things are different with Vanessa. She has Martin, who deserves his head spot. If we want to keep the Barber name alive, Martin has got to take over.”

  “Then what’s wrong with letting her pick out who she wants to be with?”

  He sounds exasperated, as if this should be so obvious. “If she sticks with that road junkie, Gavin, how long do you think he’s going to be satisfied with her? She’s his path to our spot, and as soon as he overthrows Martin and me, he’ll drop her.”

  “You don’t know that. You saw how he looked at her at the table yesterday. He’s not there to take your precious presidency. He was there for Vanessa. Any smarter man wouldn’t have taken two steps into our home if he was planning some grand coup like the one you cooked up in your paranoid mind. And you know that.”

  “It’s over, Olivia. Gavin Wren ain’t getting within spitting distance of her ever again. And if he does, he’ll be in a body bag out in the Pacific. I’ll even be the one doing the tossing.”

  Their words become more muffled as I hear their door click open. I sink back down into my bed and roll over towards the window, waiting for what comes next. There’s the sound of the twisting doorknob followed by my mom, who walks even slower today. She sits down at the edge of my bed, pausing to look off in the distance. I feel her cold, thin hands on my shoulders as she lightly pushes me from side to side. Her voice hoarsely saying, “It’s time to get up, Vanessa. You’ve got class in an hour. Breakfast will be waiting for you.”

  As she leaves and heads back down towards the kitchen, my eyes flicker open once again and I stare off towards the window. Just hours ago, that window was my path to my own freedom. And now, all I can see is a way to avoid the months or even years to come of being stuck with a man I didn’t know, having babies I didn’t want, and living a life very similar to my mother’s.

  I run out of bed, shutting the door my mother had left open before grabbing a pair of jeans from a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. I grab my backpack, tossing the textbooks out one by one. I shove them under my bed, being sure to hide them out of sight with a pink sheet from my bed. I fill the rest of the empty backpack with clothes, chargers, my toothbrush and paste, and my laptop…anything I think I’ll need while I’m on the road. I don’t have time to double check. I just toss the heavy pack over my shoulders, my back slouching from the weight, and shut the bedroom door behind me.

  As I pass my parent
s’ bedroom, I spot something…my dad’s wallet. I peek my head into their dark-colored room, listening as my dad showers in the other room. I just have a minute, but it’s enough time to run in and grab the wallet off of the dresser. Inside is a large stack of hundred bills wrapped together in purple rubber band. I hesitate taking it all, and I instead settle on half of them, hoping it won’t be an easy giveaway. I stuff them in the inside flap of my backpack without even counting. I just need enough to get me to safety.

  Down in the kitchen, my mom is all stiff, broken smiles as she hands me a plate of pancakes she’s managed to whip up. She doesn’t even notice my panicked expression as she mindlessly asks, “What’s on your schedule today? How long will you be at school?”

  I take the plate from her, placing it back on the table. I allow myself a large drink of orange juice before anxiously replying, “I’ve got lab and rounds over at the animal hospital. I’ll be gone all day. I probably won’t be back until after you’ve gone to bed. Don’t wait up for me, okay?”