The other girls dispersed, probably grateful to get a small break from being forced to fuck a stranger.
But I didn’t want to think about their pathetic lives. There was nothing I could do to improve their existences. My conscience was already filled with guilt—I didn’t need to add their sob stories to my burden.
The whore led me down a hallway into a tiny room. The place reeked of cum and sweat, covered by some sort of coconut spritz. What did I expect for twenty dollars?
A tiny cot was pushed up to the left side of the room, a tattered teddy bear sat on the floor, and a plastic end table filled the other corner. Was this where she lived? There were a few needles lying haphazardly in the trashcan. Of course she was a heroin addict—how else could she live this life? I was a SEAL—I knew that these women were probably all forced into prostitution at a young age. They had once been little girls playing make believe, dreaming of princes and castles. But I was no prince. I’d done enough lifesaving in my time and I’d learned the hard way that I couldn’t save them all.
“Star? What’s your real name?” I didn’t really care, but I felt that since she’d be sucking my dick, I should at least know her name.
She pursed her lips as if she was trying to say something but couldn’t get the words out. Her face looked vaguely familiar, but I was certain I hadn’t fucked her before. My last whore was Dominican: dark, curvy, black eyes. This chick seemed different, more tragic.
“Fine, we don’t have to talk. Blow me.” I took twenty dollars out of my pocket. If she did a good job, I’d give her a tip.
Over the years, I’d learned blowjobs were the best way to go with a whore. They always gave amazing ones, and I never felt guilty like I did when I took extra-long to come as I had with my ex-fiancée. I couldn’t risk getting a nameless hooker pregnant and leaving a kid fatherless and growing up in this hellhole. Plus, there was less chance for a disease, especially since I always wore a condom. The Navy tested me every month so I figured there was minimal risk.
“Take your panties off.”
Her panties dropped to the floor, revealing a nicely trimmed triangle. I loved it. Why did all those American bitches wax everything off? I was a man; I didn’t want a little girl.
I sat on the edge of the cot. She knelt in front of me, unbuckled my belt, and glanced up at me, taking a moment to stare. She wore a rusty necklace with a small key charm. There were drug tracks on her forearms and a deep scar on her right shoulder. Her eyes were hazel, deep set, and disturbed. I closed mine; I couldn’t deal with her pain.
She rolled on the condom I’d handed her and took my cock in her mouth, slowly. I felt her warm tongue dance around me. Flicking, teasing, sucking. Damn, this bitch was good. Sometimes while getting a blowjob I couldn’t help but imagine the whore was my girlfriend, or even my wife. That she loved me, was faithful to me, lived for pleasing me, and that having me take care of her even for just a few months out of the year was worth enduring the loneliness when I was gone. That she respected how I saw being a SEAL as more than a job—it was my calling.
I opened my eyes and placed my hand on the back of her head, her dark, wiry hair bobbing up and down. She stopped for a second, looked me dead in the eyes, and shifted from kneeling to sitting on her left side, exposing her right ankle. It had a tattoo of a surfboard painted with the American flag—why would a woman in the Caribbean have an American tattoo. Weird.
She got back down to business.
I didn’t want to come, didn’t want this moment to be over. But fuck, it had been so damn long. I mean, I barely even jerked off in my rack because my buddies were in the ones right next to mine.
Her mouth sucked on me hard, pulling and pushing. Man, why did this feel so good even with the latex barrier between us? I couldn’t hold back any longer—I exploded into the condom.
She handed me a towel. I took off the condom, threw it in the trash, cleaned myself up and then pulled on my shorts. This part was awkward, always was. At least she hadn’t spoken, so her voice wouldn’t haunt my dreams or my conscience.
Her lashes blinked twice, as if she was deep in thought and wanted to tell me something. I didn’t want to know her problems—I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
I threw down five twenties and pushed myself off the cot. She stood up on her tiptoes, took my hand, and her lips grazed my ear, making sure to shield her hair over her mouth.
“My name is Annie Hamilton. I’m an American citizen. I was kidnapped on spring break five years ago. You’re my last hope. Please save me.”
What the fuck? This bitch wanted me to believe she was a sex-trafficked American? What kind of con was this heroin-addicted whore trying to pull on me?
“I gotta go.” I shoved her off me. This was not my problem. She was not my problem. I walked out of that smelly room and didn’t look back.
The streets of Aruba were bustling now in the early evening; tourists strolling through this idyllic Caribbean island, unaware that around the corner from where they were buying shot glasses and sundries, women were turning tricks for less than the price of their margaritas. The view of the beach was blocked by the endless taxicabs and the cobblestone streets were littered with cigarette butts.
Dammit. Of all the brothels, all the whores, why did I go there? Why did I choose her? I didn’t need this shit. I headed to the closest bar to get drunk. Not one of those pretty tourist joints which served up fruity drinks. A seedy local dive, which offered nothing but hard liquor. No pictures of palm trees and beaches. The walls were barren, the air was thick with tobacco, and the bar stools had been cut with blades.
I should’ve listened to Kyle and fucked some college girl.
“Tequila, straight.”
The bartender poured me a drink, then another. Smooth, sweet, salty, tart.
The more the liquor flowed, the more I tried to push her out of my mind. I thought about my dog back home, my mother, my ex-fiancée, my truck. I made small talk with the bartender; lied about my job, told him I was a tourist on a business retreat.
By the end of the night, I was blazed senseless. I stumbled back to the USS Ronald Reagan, our huge, naval nuclear-powered super carrier, and collapsed onto my rack.
There was one problem. Her voice. She had spoken with a perfect American accent; sounded like she was from California. And her vaguely familiar face now made me think I had seen her picture once in a magazine.
Christ. One fucking blowjob and now the whore was a constant presence in my brain. Maybe Kyle was right—I did need to get laid more often.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, praying to erase her from my memory.
2
Star
ANNIE HAMILTON.
IN MY DRUG-FUELED HAZE, I took a chance. The words that I thought, that I knew I wouldn’t have the strength to say overpowered my lips as if they had a mind of their own. I hadn’t uttered my name in years. They’d given me a new one—Star—and a new identity—whore. Analía “Annie” Rose Hamilton—San Diego University’s soccer star, Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority girl, and Bob and Linda’s “perfect” daughter—was dead. Star—heroin addict and prostitute—was barely hanging on to life.
I hobbled over to the sink and brushed my teeth, scrubbing the bitter condom taste out of my mouth. My panties remained scrunched up on the floor, so I pulled them on and slumped back onto the cot. The bell would ring any second and I would have to line back up and greet the next group of men, or face a beating. I reached into my stash to get a quick fix.
What the fuck had I been thinking? For five years, I had lived this life, accepted my fate, and fought the urge to escape. I focused on survival, one day at a time, one man after the next. I knew my family was most certainly still looking for me, desperate to find answers as to what had happened to their princess the morning I had disappeared from the resort. I couldn’t face them knowing what I had done to stay alive, who I had become. Would they accept me? Could I accept myself? And I didn’t know if I would be abl
e to live without the friend who had been there for me over the years. And that friend would never fit in at my parents’ country club or with my sorority sisters. The friend that had held my hand through the beatings, the rapes. My only friend: heroin.
And I held a secret. A secret I would die for. The one light left in my life. And the truth behind my secret was yet another reason I doubted I would ever be accepted back into my former life.
The man who had just been in my room, in my mouth, he had been different. Different than the other men who’d haunted my doors, stuck their dicks inside me, penetrated my body and mind.
He’d asked my name—my real name. No one had ever done that.
That man was gorgeous—looked like he had just walked off an action movie set. He wasn’t just another American—no, that man had to be Special Forces. What if he was a Navy SEAL? Would he save me? I grew up in San Diego and would always see them training on the beach, running through the surf carrying logs and boats over their heads, when I was having brunch at the Hotel Del Coronado. They were a cult of masculinity: chiseled, wet and sandy. I could tell by his muscular body, his longer dirty, blond hair, and his scruffy beard. His attitude. He didn’t try to make small talk or make me feel better about myself. He approached me like a job. A job he needed to accomplish. He was the kind of man who could save me. The kind who gave me hope that one day I could escape. And he picked me—I usually got chosen by old European businessmen and crooked Caribbean cops. My first thought when I saw him was maybe my parents had finally located me, and had sent someone to extract me. So, I took a chance. Knowing if my pimp found out I had opened my mouth for anything other than sucking cock, he’d kill me. I’d always thought that by age twenty-three, I’d be married to my college sweetheart, living in Encinitas with my dog and starting my career as a teacher. Maybe I’d be on my honeymoon in paradise, instead of turning tricks for tourists in hell.
I’d risked my life by revealing my identity. And he barely listened to me before he bolted.
I tied the rubber tube around my arm then shoved the needle in my least-bruised vein. The warm, smooth fluid spiked through my body, soothing my soul. My pain stopped and I pretended I wasn’t splayed on this filthy cot. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds of the most intense pleasure, warmth, and joy—the only release I had left in my life. I wrapped my arms around my body to contain my euphoria.
The bell rang. I leapt from the cot. Maybe he had returned? His eyes had given me a glimmer, a glint of warmth. I’d broken my own rules—I looked him in the eyes, I showed him my tattoo and my scar. I did my best to please him, imagined when I was servicing him that he was my boyfriend.
The girlfriend experience.
I’d never done that—I don’t even remember what it’s like to be turned on by a man. And I highly doubted I would ever enjoy sex again—even if I somehow managed to escape from this nightmare.
I returned to the line. Two Middle Eastern men stood there, picking out their victims. One pointed at me. Fuck.
Why me? I’d already pretty much aged out. Men always went for the barely legal girls. My face was now weathered; my eyes were hollow. How could any man get turned on by fucking a corpse? I was a shadow of who I once was. My family wouldn’t even recognize me now. I’m sure I’d be an embarrassment to them—what if they didn’t even want me back?
He followed me back to my tiny room, but I could still sense that beautiful man’s presence. At least he had asked my name.
This guy said something to me but I didn’t understand him. My mom was Mexican-American so I grew up speaking Spanish, a skill that definitely helped me blend in with the other girls. Over the years, I’d learned the nasty words in most languages. As my high school French teacher said, you never knew when you’d have an opportunity to practice your foreign language skills. If she only knew.
He took off my clothes and threw me on the bed. I shoved a condom in his face and luckily for me, he didn’t fight it. I lay back on the cot and closed my eyes, praying it would be over soon.
Each pump, each thrust, each moan, made my skin crawl. His rum-spiked breath blew hot on my neck. Finally, he collapsed on top of me, and I didn’t even have the strength to push him off. After a few torturous minutes, he rolled off me, threw the money on the floor and walked out of the room.
This was my life. How many more men could I take? Once my pimp decided he no longer had use for me, I would be history. He would trade me to another brothel, another island. Or kill me.
No hero was going to sweep in and save me. I had to find a way out of here, back to my life, back to the United States. I was running out of time before Star wiped every piece of Annie away forever.
I knelt by the side of my bed and clasped my hands in prayer. I was Catholic but stopped praying years ago, after all my prayers went unanswered and I endured daily beatings, rapes, torture, and drugging. But this time I wasn’t praying to Mary, the Saints, God, or the Holy Spirit, the Trinity. I was praying to the man with the deep blue eyes and shaggy blond hair. I prayed he was the man I thought he was. I prayed he was capable of what I thought he was. I prayed he would believe me. I prayed he would return and bust me out of this hellhole so I could discover if life was worth living again.
3
Patrick
I ROLLED OUT OF MY rack the next morning and hit the head to take a piss. A hot shower would’ve been nice, but I had something more important to do.
I poured myself a cup of coffee, black, and went over to our computer and typed in the name she had given me. Annie Hamilton.
The screen lit up—articles, news clips, videos, websites. “American Analía ‘Annie’ Rose Hamilton Vanishes on Spring Break.” There was even a wiki: “The Disappearance of Analía Rose Hamilton.”
Could the drug-addicted prostitute from last night really be America’s missing sweetheart? Maybe she was part of some elaborate con job? A light-skinned prostitute could’ve faked the American accent, learned the story, and used it to bilk johns like me out of cash.
I clicked on the first image—the cover of People Magazine. “Vanished without a Trace: Annie Hamilton.” Those deep hazel eyes from last night stared back at me.
Fuck.
Those eyes were about the only part of her, which resembled the girl from last night. She was hardened, despondent, and scared. Those pretty eyes were now encased by dark circles, and had only given a dead stare.
I skimmed the first line; five years ago, just as she’d said. And by all accounts, she was still missing.
After five years, surely she was dead. Yet no trace of her body had ever been found. I remembered hearing about her disappearance, but I was deployed in Iraq at the time so I never knew all the details.
I read the first article. Annie and her boyfriend, Chris Porter, had taken a spring break vacation to the Caribbean. They’d partied until around two a.m. in the nightclub at their resort and multiple guests saw them dancing together. By all accounts, they’d both been extremely intoxicated and a few guests recalled that Chris seemed to be jealous when Annie climbed up on stage to dance with a professional ballroom dancer from the resort. At two thirty a.m., her boyfriend’s key card was used to enter their hotel room, and he swore she was with him. Chris stated the last time he saw her was around five a.m. sitting on the balcony of their suite the morning she went missing. He figured she wanted to get fresh air and watch the sunrise, so he went back to sleep. A few other guests claimed they saw her around six a.m. in the elevator with the dancer. Chris passed a lie detector test and repeatedly insisted on his innocence. The dancer was also questioned but there wasn’t any evidence to hold him. Authorities believed she’d committed suicide, or was killed by her boyfriend after a fight. Despite a FBI search The FBI had conducted a thorough search of the resort and the nearby ocean but no trace of her had ever been found.
Suicide? Doubtful. She was young, hot, in college and in love. Came from money. I guess she could’ve been depressed, but I figured it was a long shot.
&nbs
p; As for the boyfriend? I felt bad for the guy. He was a pretty-boy, wealthy surfer from La Jolla who had probably never worked a day in his life. Tan and blond, he looked like one of those guys who sat on the beach smoking weed, laughing at the BUD/S candidates while they were running around carrying logs over their heads during Hell Week. Came from a good family, played water polo at San Diego University. He seemed normal enough, but how did anyone really know how he treated Annie behind closed doors? Maybe he abused her. If he killed her, then he got away with the perfect crime. If he was innocent, his life was ruined from the suspicion and the guilt he must’ve felt not knowing what had happened to her.
I gazed across the ocean from my porthole. The resort was only a mile away. If she had been killed, surely there would’ve been some evidence—blood, clothes, a body. It didn’t add up.
In the weeks, months, and years, which had followed, there’d been a few sightings of Annie on Aruba and on other neighboring Caribbean islands, but nothing ever panned out. Her family had even reportedly hired a former SEAL to find her, but he turned out to be a fraud.
I fucking hated any motherfucker who lied about being a SEAL. It was easy to figure these assholes out—just ask them their SEAL training class number. Not knowing your SEAL training class number is like not knowing your last name.
I still wasn’t convinced yet that the prostitute was who she said she was. I didn’t want to stake my career on a maybe.
I studied a few more websites. Her parents had created www.findannie.com.
There were childhood photos, lists of sightings, news articles, and links to television programs.
There was a letter begging for her return posted from Chris with pictures of the happy couple.
Then a photo caught my eye.
The tattoo on her ankle.
That surfboard with an American flag. So that’s why she made sure I saw it. Just in case I was the man she thought I was.
BEAST: A Bad Boy Marine Romance Page 17
