And yet he’d made his money in porn. It didn’t make sense.
For some reason I recalled sitting in this room with Kate, telling her what led me to discover Your Favorite Girl, Inc. Ted’s affair with Ellen, my discovery of the business card. Ted told me he’d found the card in his mail slot at work. He hadn’t sought out Your Favorite Girl. They’d sought him. A millionaire with a sex addiction. The perfect customer.
“So, Trent,” I said, fumbling for words. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
He seemed confused about the question—confused in general, really.
“Um, I got an email invite from a guy named Bob. He said I would be very interested in your line of products and that access is exclusive.”
“All true,” I said.
“So I called the number and made an appointment.”
“Do you know what this place is, Trent?”
“I think so. You sell sex dolls, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh … okay.” He sounded disappointed. His eyes began to wander around the room nervously. “So what do you sell?” he asked.
“Girls.”
That reclaimed his full attention. “Girls? Real girls?”
I started to go on the same spiel Kate had delivered to me when I came here, all those lies about genetic engineering deliberately fed to clients so they could see Flora and the others as creatures, animals—not human beings. Trent was sitting forward now, as much as he could with only one leg to balance himself. His curiosity was piqued, and despite his misfortune, I couldn’t help but imagine the erection growing in his pants. My sympathy for him was draining fast.
Not that I was any better. When I came here, I was mesmerized by Flora’s honey-colored skin, her youthfulness, her beauty. I didn’t want to save her. I wanted to coil around her like a snake.
Trent waited patiently for an answer, despite his obvious arousal. Right now I didn’t know whether to kick him out and deny him the satisfaction he craved or lead him to the Showcase Hall and let him give away his entire fortune.
“Tell me something, Trent,” I said. “What kind of business are you in?”
He coughed and sheepishly said, “Pornography, ma’am.”
“You own a production company or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I created an adult social site where people can rate and favorite videos, and then the site suggests new videos based on the user’s preferences. I realized one night how much time you spend searching for the right porn before finally getting to … well, you know.”
“So you’re a porn addict.” This was getting worse by the minute.
“I used to be,” Trent said. “When my wife left me, I was suffering depression and PTSD. I pretty much gave up on life and just stayed home all the time. Before I knew it I was spending all day every day watching porn. I started keeping a list of links to my favorite videos, and that’s where I got the idea. To make an adult social networking site that’s also a database. It’s gotten so intricate now that members are actually forming private groups and making videos for each other.”
“Don’t you feel like a creep?”
“Ma’am?”
“The business you’re in … it’s creepy.”
“More so than yours?”
I opened my mouth to respond but nothing came out. He had a point. What he did was mild by comparison. Even still, he had no idea what this place was about.
“Is that why your wife left you?” I asked, regretting it when I saw the wounded expression on his face.
“The porn?”
“Y-yeah,” I stuttered.
He shook his head and took a deep breath, speaking as he exhaled. “No, she was having an affair during my tour, and when I came home missing a leg, she put up with me for about two weeks before she left to move in with the guy.”
“Who was he?”
“I’ve never met him.”
“Is this your way of getting back at her?”
He smiled for the first time. “Ma’am, we’ve—”
“Stop calling me ma’am.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Was it Melissa?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Melissa, my wife and I have been divorced coming on three years now. She tried to get back in touch with me after I made my money—apparently it didn’t work out with the other guy. If you’re asking whether or not I’m over my ex-wife, yes, I am. Though I don’t see what any of this has to do with … what we’re doing here.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m … not really sure. I guess I was curious. You guys certainly like to be cryptic.”
“We have to be.”
“I imagine. After all, it’s illegal, right?”
I shrugged. The more dissenting my conversation in this waiting room—or anywhere in the building—the more I grew paranoid that someone was listening in.
Trent looked more nervous than me. He was fidgeting, rubbing his clammy palms on his one pant leg, casting his eyes away anytime they met with mine.
I had to quit stalling and make a decision.
Warn him that if he took one step into the Showcase Hall he would squander his entire fortune and hope he took the hint?
Or lead the way and let him make his own decision?
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.
He ruminated for a moment and then nodded slowly. “Yes, I want to see them.”
“They’re expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“A million dollars a day.” I wasn’t supposed to reveal this information until after I’d drugged him and shown him the Favorite Girls.
“People pay that?”
“Yes.”
“They must be pretty good then. When can I see them?”
I glanced at the door to the left and debated whether or not to drug him. My job demanded it, but I didn’t want to be in that position.
“If you’re ready, Mr. Sampson …”
I stood and waited for him to align his crutches and pull himself off the couch. Then I pressed my thumb to the panel and held the door for him. He beat me to the end of the hall despite working with crutches on such shaggy carpet. The eagerness showed on his face as he waited for me to open the Showcase Hall door.
“You don’t want to do this,” I whispered.
“I just want to see,” he said.
A jolt of anger passed through me suddenly. I jerked the door open and said, “Don’t say I didn’t fucking warn you.”
He hesitated for a moment, giving me the strangest look. Then he smiled and said, “I appreciate your concern, ma’am, but I know what I’m doing.”
His change in demeanor left me standing there stunned as he hobbled through the door and started down the Showcase Hall. I had to jog to catch up with him just as he reached the first display window.
“Not in stock?” he asked.
“This one and the next one. Keep going.”
We passed Frog Girl’s empty window and arrived at Diamond Girl. Trent leaned forward and put his forehead to the glass, staring down at the squirming, breathing ornament before him.
“Wow,” he breathed.
Then he moved quickly to the next window. Doll Girl. I thought he was going to drool.
“She can’t move?”
“Or speak.”
“I want this one.”
“Are you sure?”
“What’s next?”
“I believe Glow Girl is n—”
“No, I want this one,” he snapped, glaring at me. “Do I need to sign something or what? Let’s get the ball rolling.”
I took a step back. “This way.”
I stayed ahead of him all the way to Bob’s office, nervous to have my back to him but not wanting him between me and the Showcase Hall exit. His drastic mood changes smacked of danger. Later I would wonder if all the men lured into this hall had a propensity for violence.
I was happy to h
and this asshole off to Bob, who smiled tenderly when he saw the strapping young soldier with his misfortune.
“Good luck, Trent,” I said in the doorway of Bob’s office.
“Thanks for all your help,” he replied at a volume that called his sincerity into question.
I watched him ease into a leather chair. Then I fast-walked down the hallway and locked myself in my office, where I spent ten minutes crying and then took Patton’s note out of my pocket and unfolded it on the desk.
There I remained for the rest of the work day, reading Patton’s note over and over, worrying about the few minutes Liu would have alone with Flora right before I got back to the room, anticipating my early evening bath—at least that’s what I planned to tell the girls. In truth, I wanted some time alone so I could pop open the ventilation cover and do some exploring.
I fell asleep fantasizing about finding an exit and awoke sometime later with my cheek stuck to Patton’s note. I pulled it off and read it one last time. I must have cried in my sleep, because the word “love” was smudged, the faintest veins of lettering in a foggy blue blur.
When I read the P.S. this time, a lump formed in my throat. I’d carried this note for coming on twenty-four hours, endangering Patton and myself more and more with each passing moment.
I should have been focused on the vent. Escape. Instead I was acting like a thirteen-year-old, seeking protection, seeking comfort. I still barely knew this man, despite the fact that I’d had my lips on nearly every part of his body. He was the best of a bad situation, yes, but did that justify falling in love with him? His charming personality, his good nature, his plans to bring this company down—it could all be a stratagem, a cruel ploy to some greater purpose. How could I possibly know?
With an hour left in my shift, I finally talked myself into tearing up the note and flushing it down the toilet in my tiny office bathroom.
As I was returning to the desk, there came a thunderous knock at the door, so loud it made me jump.
“Who is it?”
More pounding on the door with no verbal response, so I opened it to find Sean standing there, grinning as always.
“We fucked up,” he said.
“What? How?”
“Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
But he was already headed to the elevator. I caught up to him as the doors were retracting and we rode in silence to Level B, where Sean stepped out ahead of me.
I hesitated. Brian’s apartment was creepy. The pit and pendulum. The shelves with jars of mutant creatures backlit by soft LED lights, tiny failed experiments glowing in their soups of formaldehyde.
I had to go through Brian’s apartment twice a day, and it never got any easier. Always empty, always silent, always dimly lit. Sometimes I would tiptoe through, fearful of what might lurk behind a door, Brian or otherwise, and thinking about the way he inspected me when I awoke on his stainless steel table.
The elevator doors began to close and I quickly stepped out to find Sean, his guards, and Brian all standing around the pit, staring down at the pendulum.
“What’s this about?” I asked, approaching slowly.
Brian looked at me, his cosmic eyes filled with rage, and pointed down into the pit.
I stepped up to the edge and looked down.
Trent Sampson leaned against the wall, completely naked, shying from the swinging pendulum as though it were electrified. His amputated leg looked like some shriveled deformity that had never been a complete leg at all, and in his hand he held his rock-hard erection—still recovering, I assumed, from whatever time he’d had with Doll Girl.
“Mr. Shriver is on his way,” Sean said to no one in particular.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He was wearing a wire,” Brian said.
I looked down at Trent again, then around the pit at the five men standing before me. Suddenly I felt vulnerable. Any one of them could grab me and throw me down in there with the one-legged soldier as punishment.
“How is that my fault?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to be frisking clients,” Sean said. His tone was indifferent, and it occurred to me that Brian was the only one angry about this.
“No one told me to frisk anyone,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Brian barked. “Sean? You trained her.”
“She’s right,” Sean said, to my surprise. “I took her through Kate’s routine, but I neglected to emphasize the importance of seducing the client for the purpose of performing a pat-down without the client’s knowledge.”
“So you fucked up,” Brian said, staring Sean down.
Sean just smiled and shrugged, which seemed to infuriate Brian even more.
“What are you going to do with him?” I asked, directing my question at Sean.
“Interrogate him,” Sean said.
One of his guards snickered and the other two followed suit.
I could hear Mr. Shriver coming up the hallway.
“Can I leave?” I asked. “I don’t want to be here for this.”
“Go ahead,” Sean said. “Straight to your room.”
I turned to go but Brian grabbed me by the arm. “You wait for Mr. Shriver,” he said menacingly.
I jerked my arm from him and backed away, but he advanced on me quickly, grabbing me around the waist and growling like a dog. I let out a shrieking string of curse words, trying to throw an elbow into his side, and then suddenly he let go.
I turned and found Sean gripping Brian by the neck, choking him with one hand. Brian clung to Sean’s meaty wrist, eyes bulging, face turning red.
“She’s my employee, not yours,” he said calmly. When he let loose of Brian’s neck, Brian collapsed to the floor coughing and wheezing, then cursing when he found his breath.
I ran to hallway, meeting Mr. Shriver as he came around the corner but not stopping, even though he called to me. In the elevator I pushed the Level C button frantically, keeping my eyes on the hallway in anticipation of Mr. Shriver sending one of Sean’s guards after me.
It didn’t happen. I took deep breaths until the elevator opened and then rushed through the lobby. When I entered the hallway I ran to my door, keyed into it, and slammed it shut behind me.
Dub-step music blared from the stereo system while Flora and Liu danced in their underwear with drinks in their hands.
Flora noticed me and broke from their grinding to run over and give me a hug. Liu turned the music down and followed, an embittered expression on her face.
She wasn’t even supposed to be off work yet.
“Of course the day Patton lets me go early, you get off early, too,” she said, making no effort to hide her mood.
Normally Flora would acknowledge Liu’s rudeness, but instead she was staring at me with a peculiar look about her. Like a teenager buttering up her parents for permission to stay out late. I knew the expression all too well.
“Are you gonna ask her or what?” Liu said.
“Can we invite James over tonight?” Flora asked immediately.
“No.”
“Why not?” Liu demanded.
I stared her down. “Because I said so.”
“You’re not our mother.”
“We just want to watch a movie,” Flora said softly, head down, and of course I wanted to oblige just because I hated to see her sad. If it were anyone else in the world, I would take her sheepishness as a play for sympathy, but Flora’s emotions and actions were completely honest.
Liu, on the other hand, was a duplicitous little snake, possibly capable of manipulating Flora into lying on her behalf. The jury was still out on that one.
“Okay,” I said.
Their eyes lit up instantly and Liu started jumping up and down, clapping her hands and squealing.
Flora just looked up at me and said, “Thank you.”
“I have certain conditions, though,” I said, “and I want no arguments.”
“What conditions?” Liu asked, her tone
cynical once again.
I went to the kitchen to grab a soda, gathering my thoughts along the way. It occurred to me that I might need a flashlight for exploring the air duct. I’d seen one in a drawer, but Flora and Liu followed me like dogs begging for the treat in my hand.
This was a bad idea. James was a little prick. I doubted, for the sake of his job—and his life—that he would initiate anything, but if Liu came on to him he most likely wouldn’t resist. I wasn’t worried about Liu so much as Flora. What if he couldn’t resist her? What if Liu turned on the device?
“No alcohol, no drugs, and no physical contact,” I said, taking a seat at the kitchen table and popping open my soda.
Liu let out a long deliberate sigh. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Yes.”
Flora sat next to me. Liu remained standing, hand on her flat stomach, drumming her fingers just above the seam of her underwear.
“We’ll be good, I promise,” Flora said.
I looked at her intently. “I know you will. You would never lie to me, would you?”
“No, never.”
“I have a date with Patton tonight,” I said. “Tell James to be here at quarter till seven so I can explain the rules to him directly before I leave.” I stood, leaving my soda half-finished on the table. “I’m gonna take a long bath.”
“You took a bath this morning,” Liu said.
“And now I’m taking another. I had a really bad day at work and I need some time to myself.”
Liu hooked her thumb in her underwear and pulled it down a little. “Sure you don’t want us to join you?”
“I’m sure,” I said coldly, patting Flora on the head as I went past. I stopped at the corridor entrance and turned. “Oh, I have one more condition. You guys need to clean this place up. Pick up all your clothes, make the bed, and light some candles or something. It smells like mould in here.”
Candles. As good an excuse as any to rummage through the drawers. To distract them, I demanded that they begin cleaning now and used the time to find myself a flashlight. Inevitably, Liu asked what I was looking for, and instead of lying I told her to mind her own business. I found a small LED flashlight, stuck it in my pocket, and continued searching the drawers until I found a half-spent cinnamon candle, which I set on the table before heading into the corridor.
His Favorite Girl Page 2
