by Raine Miller
I’d given this speech to dozens of cops, business men, politicians, even a priest. Everyone who’s someone of importance out in the community needs reassurance their freaky romp with an escort will remain confidential. I’m not into blackmail or extortion or anything stupid like that. It’s nasty business that never ends well. I have seen it done by the cartel to others less fortunate. Plus, being illegal, it wouldn’t be hard to get me deported.
She did not look pleased. I tried to put her at ease. “You already gave me a two hundred dollar tip, so I’m cool. And I really would like to see you again …”
She started looking at me funny, her head turned sideways, like I was the freak. I dug into her mind to see what the hell. She’d become extremely irritated over something.
“You’re a special kind of girl, aren’t you?”
She was trying to defocus her vision to see something else, off to the side of my head. Some kind of hazy color spectrum.
“Yes you are …” Her voice trailed off. She flipped like that into a raging-bull hatred. She pegged me with this totally wicked I-want-to kill-you-and-dance-on-your-corpse look. “You Bitch! You’re digging around in my head, you bitch!”
I caught it a split second before she hit me, and I reacted. I flinched away, stepped back out of her reach, except she hadn’t moved.
“Gotcha, didn’t I? I knew it.” Her lip curled into a snarl.
“What? What’s your problem?”
Then I finally understood. She had been trying to hypnotize me into ignorance. When she realized it wasn’t working, she began to suspect I had some kind of psychic sensitivity, a telepath, or clairvoyant. I had just proven her right by reacting to her thoughts rather than her actions.
Staring at me with her head cocked sideways, she recognized something about this weird color she thought she could see, something yellow-gold in my aura. That decided it for her.
“You already know way too much about me don’t you.” She had this half-smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I think it’s time you should go.”
I presented a dilemma. If I couldn’t be hypnotized into forgetting, and I had read her mind, what to do with me? The thought came to her instantly. A toothy grin slid across her face. She would probably have to kill me to contain the situation.
***
CHAPTER 3
“Okay. You’re creeping me out. It’s time to go now. I changed my mind. Don’t come back. Ever.”
I pointed her towards the front door while I shoved her clothes into her hands. She kept giving me these peculiar looks as she slinked back into her underwear and clothing. I watched her slide into her skirt, buttoning up her blouse. She stared back, smirking.
Then I caught it. She was gonna break my nose as soon as she finished dressing. And she wanted to do it so badly. She wanted to see blood flying through the air as my head snapped back.
Three buttons left … two buttons left … last button. Ding. She twitched and I jumped back two paces, and nearly toppled back onto the bed.
“Gotcha again.”
She hadn’t done a thing other than a little twitch. Another test, and I had failed miserably. And she wouldn’t leave.
I knew she was trouble, but my options were limited. I could kick her freaky little ass, but then I’d be in a world of shit with the cops. Might end up deported. Being in the country illegally put me at a severe disadvantage – exactly the way Faustino wanted it. Great for him, shitty for me.
I could call Arana. But he always took twenty to thirty minutes to get here from his place in Corona. Overall that was probably the best solution. I hated being in this position, under Faustino’s thumb, but there were some side benefits. I could get the purest coke in NYC any time I wanted, and Arana dealt with anyone who threatened me.
I’d once seen Arana break a guy’s collar bone because he donkey punched me in the back of the head right in the middle of screwing me from behind. A star tennis player in college, guy thought his shit didn’t stink, thought he could beat on an escort and get away with it. Arana caught him on his way out the door. He scared the guy so bad he pissed himself. Arana had him down on his hands and knees begging my forgiveness. A broken collar bone is especially painful.
Arana got off on it. He’s only five foot seven, but he’s two hundred pounds of muscle and straight up psycho. It’s like flipping a switch. He goes into super evil mode. The guy really scares me sometimes. I’ve seen what he can do, and I do not mess with him. He could kill me with his bare hands, and would probably enjoy every second of it. Violence is his thing. I guess that’s the kind of man that does well in the cartels.
I didn’t want to hurt Lia, but the chick wasn’t quite right in the head. Crazy people can be dangerous, unpredictable. I hoped Arana would scare her off without any real confrontation. But I couldn’t be certain how far he’d go. Like an attack dog on a chain, there’s no way to be sure what he’ll do when he’s unleashed.
Hoping for the best, I grabbed my cell and sent Arana a 911 text. Our problem code. Not exactly original, but it served the purpose. Since I didn’t send an address, he’d show up here at the apartment.
I barely hit the send button when I felt cold steel up against my left temple. From somewhere, Lia had managed to pull a little black pistol. The gun was so small she could’ve had it up her ass. It happened in the blink of an eye. I never even saw the bitch move.
She snatched my cell from my hand and dashed it against the wall. It fell in pieces. In one move my whole life had been smashed to bits and laid out on the floor. Every connection I had on this continent was programmed into my cell phone.
The really scary part was how fast she moved. Hell, I didn’t see her move.
“It would be so convenient to kill you right now, right this second.” That ice-cold smile of hers really freaked me out.
I needed to do something, she had that gun on me and she wanted to use it. She suspected I’d called someone for help. She was furious. The situation had become uncontrollable, and she hated things she couldn’t control. She imagined tearing into me with her nails and teeth, bathing in my blood and entrails.
“I promise I won’t say a word to anyone, ever. You don’t have to do this.” The words tumbled out fast and urgent.
I’ve read a lot of strange people’s thoughts in my life. Perverts, weirdoes, idiots, pedophiles, all kinds of oddity and creepiness. But this woman beat them all. My stomach clenched into knots, my throat constricted and it was hard to breathe. I was so terrified, she had me literally shaking. No one had ever given me such a vivid vision of carnage so personal, my own mutilated body.
She smiled at me knowingly as she imagined the various ways she might filet my flesh. “Put your robe on if you want to live a few seconds longer.” She spoke of letting me live while contemplating my death.
Naturally, I did exactly as she ordered. I knew the girl meant business. She radiated a barely contained, raw aggression, an unbelievably strong desire to hurt me. She flicked her gun towards the door. She wanted to leave before whoever I’d called showed up to complicate matters. I didn’t argue, but I snatched up my purse on the way out the door.
My life was in that purse: expired Visa, five hundred in cash, bankcard, and a box of condoms. That about summed up my miserable existence, an illegal immigrant taking money for sex.
I prayed silently for Arana to catch up with us on the way out. Fat chance of that happening, we moved way too fast. He’d probably miss us by several minutes.
“I’m not going to kill you. We need to see someone.” The gun never wavered, and neither did her intent to do me harm in the very near future.
“Oh that’s such a relief.” I tried not to sound like such a wuss, but I was fighting tears.
She stared hard, eyes filled with a feral hatred. Then I understood. She wanted to do it, but couldn’t. She needed permission from the Master. It almost felt like she had someone’s hand on her should
er, physically restraining her from pulling that trigger.
How weird is that?
At least I wasn’t going to be killed – yet. But what kind of sick cult-like group refers to the boss as the Master? That creeped me out even worse.
She pushed me to a limousine parked in the street, pistol at my back the whole way. Who the hell brings a limousine to Spanish Harlem? To the ghetto? It must have been sitting out there the entire time she was busy making me scream. All hope of escape flitted past the tinted windows as she locked the doors to the limo and sat across from me, pistol still pointed my way. Off we went, gone before Arana could even get into the neighborhood.
Then it came to me: Triads. She must be involved with one of the Triad gangs. But do the Triads have a setup on the Upper East Side on Park Avenue? Nope, couldn’t be Triads.
I knew we were headed there because she pictured it in her mind. A penthouse on Park Avenue. Whoever the Master was, dude had to be loaded, filthy rich. I’d been to a party on the Upper East Side once, the place dripped with money. A little dripped into my pocket, but I earned every penny of it bent over the bathroom sink. I wasn’t invited back to any more of those parties.
I tried to maintain composure, but Lia’s thoughts were the most disturbing I’d ever encountered. She played a silent game of torture with me. She imagined things while she watched my reaction. I’d learned years ago to suppress my reactions to people’s depravity.
I read my priest’s mind when I was fourteen. He imagined screwing me while I bent over to tie my shoes. My dress had creeped up to the point he could see my white panties. Totally shocked, I overreacted. I freaked out in the middle of church service, making accusations in front of the whole congregation. My father was so angry, shaking his head in embarrassment, apologizing profusely. He’d warned me on several occasions, not to react to things people hadn’t done or said, estas loca – you are crazy.
After that episode, Daddy decided he could no longer deal with my peculiarities. He figured if I wanted to accuse innocent men of perversions, then I should understand it. Colombian rationale doesn’t always make sense by American standards. Sometimes two plus two equals three. My father did the math, found me wanting, and sold me to Rubin the very next day.
I never again made the mistake of showing a reaction to people’s sick thoughts. But Lia sorely tested my composure. I tried not to react. I tried so hard to stay calm as she imagined atrocious, unspeakable things. But she noticed. No matter how quiet I was, how I stilled my shaking hands in my lap, she knew.
She could sense the changes in my respiration, she could smell my fear, and there was that other thing, the colors. She could see this hazy color, an aura. My aura screamed my terror and anxiety. She knew exactly what she was doing to me. She sniffed the scent of my fear, breathed it in deeply. She could even taste it, and it excited her to new levels of imagined violence.
As she envisioned shoving a knife up between my legs Jack-the-Ripper style, I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. The bitch smiled at me.
“Please stop. I’ll never tell anyone. I promise. I don’t want to die.” I begged shamelessly.
I was more afraid than I’ve ever been. I had this sense of her as something more than a petite little Vietnamese woman. She was a predator through and through, a Hannibal Lector, a Jeffrey Dahmer, a psychopath. The girl was extremely dangerous. The kind of dangerous people can be with all limits of propriety and conscience removed, zero regard for the sacredness of life. She was capable of anything, and somehow she had figured out I read her mind. She thought herself an actual vampire, and I was starting to think the same.
“You’ll not die … yet.” Not until we see the Master. “It’s too bad you’re so damn cooperative. And here I thought you had some spine.” All the more fun to rip it out.
She wanted me to come at her, to try to fight my way out. She was purposely trying to scare me into action. Leaving as quickly as we did probably saved my life. My immediate cooperation was the only reason she hadn’t pulled that trigger. She itched for me to make a move, anything she could construe as a possible threat. Then she’d be allowed to kill me. Those were the rules she lived by, the rules of her Master.
Straight up fucking weird.
“What, you’re not feeling froggy bitch? Don’t think you can take me? Come on. Do it. You know you want to.” She set the gun down on the seat next to her.
I stared at that gun so hard. Oh, how I wanted to go for it. She folded her hands in her lap and grinned with anticipation. She wanted me to go for it. She wanted it as much as I did.
“I’m not that stupid.”
“Perhaps. But are you that weak? I thought there was more to you.” She was slick. I wanted to break her slick little nose. I’ve been in a few fights, and knowing what they want to do before they do it makes for a distinct advantage. Knowing where it hurts. The nose is especially painful. I learned quickly where to hit to cause the most pain. I know how to find what hurts.
“I just want to go home. I don’t want problems. Why can’t you take me home?” I was starting to sound whiny, and I had more goddamn tears. I hate crying. I never cry.
“I guess they don’t make em like they used to in Mexico anymore.”
“I’m not Mexican.”
“Had me fooled.”
Who the hell are these people? I began to think I’d stumbled on some satanic chicken-sacrificing cult. There were several in Colombia, and I’ve heard of them here. But there were no religious fanaticism indicators anywhere in her thoughts. I have seen my share of fanatics on all sides of religion. I can’t stand any of them. They judge from the word go.
All Lia had on the brain was a desire for violence. Bloodlust, plain and simple. Violence for violence sake. The freak thought herself a vampire and wanted to drain my body of every drop of blood. She wanted to suck me into cardiac arrest.
Vampire or not, it didn’t really matter. She thought I knew the truth about her, and was willing to kidnap-kill-maim-mutilate to keep her secret. To think, I’d been totally enamored with her sensuality an hour ago. Now all I wanted to do was run and hide in the deepest darkest hole I could find.
I’ll never understand how a person can go from having sex with me to wanting to kill me in the span of a few minutes. I’m not made that way. Sure, I have a temper. I get angry, maybe hold a grudge for a while, but I can’t really stay angry. I did the nudity thing with Rubin to prove a point, to take away the power he held over me. I didn’t do it out of hate. I’m not that way, and I find it hard to understand people that are. People like Arana and Lia, and even Faustino. How could they commit such acts of violence against another person?
There must be something missing, something fundamentally flawed within. They are soulless, or their souls have been damaged beyond repair. Who knows, I don’t get it.
The limo stopped.
“Get out and walk very slowly. You move too fast, you start to run, and I will spread your skull all over this parking garage.” I got out and walked very slowly.
We had arrived at a massive Park Avenue high rise, the Clementine Building. Very nice, posh, ritzy. I felt like a mouse entering the lion’s den. I had walked out my apartment door in nothing but a black silk bathrobe – no shoes, shirt or underwear. I entertained the silly hope my attire would magically bar my entrance to the inner sanctum. Saved by one of those little signs that read no shoes, no shirt, no service. I kept looking for one of those signs with the foolish hope of children.
Turns out they had a residents-only elevator. I plucked from Lia’s mind and promptly committed it to memory. The limo driver accompanied us up the elevator. He worked for a limo service providing drivers, but they didn’t own the limo. Lia’s Master owned the limo.
The short, bald, fifty-something driver stood dead silent the whole elevator ride. He had excellent self-control with his demeanor, but his eyes and thoughts were all over me. Up my robe, tweaking my nipples, putting his finger in my ass, his fist in my hair. He imagine
d doing all sorts of things to me. I was nothing but a warm piece of meat to him, a trashy whore, which was kinda how I felt at the moment.
Though his view of me seemed accurate, I did not choose this life. I’d never really been given a choice. My father, Rubin, Faustino, they all told me what to do, whether I liked it or not. This was just another group of assholes taking away my freedom for their personal gain. Beyond killing me, there wasn’t much they could do that hadn’t already been done by someone else who got to me first. I tried to bolster my confidence with the idea that whatever happened, I could endure, like I have always endured. Truth is, I felt pretty dejected, and the asshole limo driver’s smug nasty thoughts weren’t helping.
The driver deposited us in the hallway and left.
“Move it. We’re almost there. But you already know that, don’t you?” Lia smirked, a wicked gleam in her eye as she waved her pistol at me.
The penthouse apartment rivaled the size of my church in Bogotá. The word apartment didn’t even come close to describing the opulent elegance of the interior. The place reeked of money. All rich dark wood tones interspersed with hues of cream, tan, red, and brown. A few maroon pieces here and there. It reminded me of something in an Architectural Digest I saw in a doctor’s office waiting room. A damn “Lifestyles of the rich and famous” exposé. Artwork on the walls – really expensive art – probably worth thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. I don’t know shit about art, but I could smell the money. Here I stood in my twenty dollar bathrobe, feeling more and more like a rat in a trap I might never escape, a trap constructed of money, power, and murderous intentions.
“We have a guest? What have you done, Lia?”
The sound of a bodiless voice startled me.
“We have a problem.” Lia snarled, casting a hateful look my way.
I opened my mouth to defend myself only to shut it as a tall, suave GQ model of a man walked out of the shadows. No mistaking that man, the Master. Dark, brooding, and dangerous, way over six feet in his shiny ink-black designer suit, he stared down at little ole me. Slender, and toned, he flowed with such grace I could barely tell he was moving. His long pony tail of dark brown hair matched a neatly trimmed goatee. I had seen museum statues with the same flawless, alabaster skin. I looked up into cold eyes, a light shade of brown, almost hazel, with little spokes of green and gold. It seemed his eyes actually changed color from brown to green to gold as he looked back and forth from me to the freaky Asian psycho-bitch.