Walking toward me, two laughing girls are being held up by an equally happy guy. They push past me, knocking my cigarette to the ground, ash scraping one of the girls’ suede jacket.
“Watch it,” the girl warns, her chipper spirit now turned tart. She throws me a bitter look. “Idiot.”
I inch across the road to a bar I used to know, the nicotine hit killed by the girl’s irritation. My poor mood returns, bringing me to think again of Monica.
Why don’t we just call it a day? she’d shouted at me last week. You’re obviously still in love with your dead wife.
Cruel, I decide. Cruel and unnecessary.
Without thinking, I head inside and take a stool at the bar.
“Diet Coke,” I say, the monkey on my back ordering a Jack Daniel’s.
Two seats down, an attractive woman with blond highlights and ridiculously long legs catches my eye.
She smiles. Twists her body toward me while the barman pours my drink.
Smooth as a fox, I move across to the next stool, catching a whiff of her inexpensive perfume. Spoiled at the edges by smoke.
“Teetotal?” she asks, glancing at my glass.
“A little early for me,” I say.
She smiles again, her gaze like someone with a secret. “I’m Chloé,” she says, offering her hand.
“David,” I lie, shaking it.
“Good to meet you, David.”
I move in closer, immediately recognizing Chloé is stoned. Eyes bright, gaze fried.
We chat. Politely. Made-up answers, none of them true. Our bodies inching closer all the time.
“Fancy a rum in that Coke?” she asks, a knee gently grazing my thigh.
Chloé has turned into the mind-reading chimp on my back.
“Or I’ve got a little something else,” she says, tapping her delicate nose. “Want some?”
Chloé steps down from her stool. Beckons me to follow her to the bathroom. I watch the barman reach for a bottle of tonic water, his back to us.
Follow her, Danny Boy, the monkey beguiles.
I stand, Chloé awaiting pursuit.
Then leave.
The streetlights kindle my way back to Soho’s pay-and-display. A panic rising in my chest. I need to get to a meeting, I think, and quick. I rest my head in my hands, unsure how to free myself from grief, to unshackle the demons now clinging to my heels. Shaking off the wet from my boots, I key the ignition. A warm hum from the engine, a quick blast from the heater. The silver mist on my window eventually gone. All the while, the monkey, cunning, baffling, and powerful, telling me to go back to the bar and to Chloé.
Just one line, it whispers, you’ve got enough clean time now. You won’t get hooked. You’re not even an addict anymore.
I turn on my GPS, forcing the monkey into the back seat of my car and slapping his monkey face a half-dozen times.
“Buckle up,” I order him, Dolly’s handwritten note taken from my jacket pocket. The Groom House address keyed into the GPS.
Why are we going? the monkey asks. What do you think we’ll achieve?
“Justice,” I say.
After all, I think, a man needs a backbone.
70
Alexa Wú
Anna lowers her head in disapproval.
“Alexa, this is—” She casts her eyes down at the slim black binder, appalled and unable to find words to describe the heinous crimes against the young girls For Sale.
She picks up the binder from the floor and turns the page—
More girls, more codes.
Then turns another—
More girls, more codes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she speaks out loud, stomach heaving from the sour smell of vomit.
I stare out from the Nest, part of me relieved that Anna is finally aware of our situation, another part fighting the urge to pull her back inside the Body in case she messes things up.
I thought you’d try to stop me going to the police, I say.
“Since when have I been able to stop you from doing anything?” she says.
Since I made you into my stepmother, I reply.
I stay seated in the Nest while Anna continues to page through the binder, a tight clench to her jaw. I do not recognize some of the girls and wonder where they are now. Another house? Another country? Are they still alive?
One girl with painted red lips, I note, is particularly young. Her eyes are sad, her eyebrows drawn in fine pencil. She’s been dressed in a black silk skirt with slits on either side. A matching low-cut top slashed across her soft, unformed shoulders. She is seated uncomfortably, cut adrift from a life where unicorns fly and daydreams are wild, where butterflies land on freckled hands, the fizz of cherry-ade tickling the hairs on her nostrils.
Flash.
I am sitting on my bed dressed in a red mandarin dress, a Hello Kitty toy forced in my hand.
“Smile, Xiǎo Wáwa,” he says, a camera directed toward me, “it’s your birthday!”
Flash.
Balloons are raised in the corner. Ten, to match my years.
My red mouth instructed to perform heinous crimes.
Flash.
He leaves. The door silently closed behind him. The Body afloat. Cast, like an eleventh balloon.
Flash.
Tick-tock—
Wake up, Runner shouts, I need your help.
I watch Anna slap closed the black binder.
“I suggest that whatever it is you’ve got us all involved in stops right now.”
Quick, get her back inside, Runner orders, she could screw up everything.
I do as I’m told, forcing Anna back inside the Body and enlisting Runner for help, who is only too keen to assist, giving Anna a quick shove. Her dislike for Anna because she believes her a bystander.
Over the years, I’ve tried to explain to the Flock that we needed some kind of mother to care for us, but also to make more bearable what had passed between my father and me—the Body believing it was older when Anna took the Light and allowing my nine-year-old self to dissociate. It was just more manageable this way. I guess because part of me needed someone to rebel against, someone to blame, and let’s face it, stepmothers are such an easy target. Look at Cinderella and Snow White. But the terrifying reality of my having knitted myself a mother figure hits me. A certain and unescapable realization that Anna wasn’t, isn’t, and never will be my real mother.
I’ll never have one.
Because my mother is dead.
71
Daniel Rosenstein
You haven’t thought this through properly, the monkey says, his thick prickly tail coiled tightly around my throat.
“Shh,” I order, yanking him off.
You should turn back, Danny Boy.
“What, so I can get stoned with Chloé?”
Beats losing your license. Imagine that: Dr. Rosenstein loses medical license after he breaks ethical code and batters human trafficker to a bloody pulp.
“There will be no violence,” I say.
The monkey gives me a dubious look.
“There will be no violence!” I shout again, stepping on the gas. My throat, all the while, craving a Jack Daniel’s. On the rocks.
72
Alexa Wú
I rest both palms on Navid’s desk and catch my breath. The whirring fan at the back of the room cools my mood, its sound adding further distraction.
Right, do we have everything? Runner asks. Just make sure, but be quick. We’ve got to get a move on.
I scan the room.
What about his pockets? Runner points, Navid’s suit jacket hanging on the back of the door. I quickly check but there is nothing. Just a handful of toothpicks and two sticks of gum.
You need to stop all of this and get us away from here, Anna says.
Quiet, Runner orders.
You be quiet, Anna argues. You should have protected Alexa from this.
Runner ignores her, pointing to the back of the office. Check the cabinet, A
lexa.
I open the doors and find inside a huge plasma TV, a DVD player, and a library of catalogued DVDs—
Abbie. Abbie. Amy. Amy&Annabelle. Amy&Annabelle. Amy&Annabelle. Amy&Annabelle. Becky. Becky. Becky. Bella. Bella. Bella&AmyXXX. Bella&Amy. Beth. Beth. Britney. Britney. Britney. Britney. BritneyXXX—
My stomach flips—
Candi&Amy&AnnabelleXXX. Candi. Candi. Candi. Chantel. Chantel. Chantel. Chloé. Chloé. Chloé. Chloé&Annabelle. Charlize. Charlize. Charlize. Dana. Dana. Dana. Dana. Danielle. Danielle. Deena. Deena. Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor. Elisa. Elisa. Ella. Ella. Ella. Ella&Shaun&JaneXXX—
Ella?
Ella&Shaun&JaneXXX?
I pull out the case, retrieve the disc, and place it in the DVD player.
We need to go, Runner says. There’s no time.
Let her watch it, the Fouls insist.
The moment I press play on the remote control, I feel myself leave the Body—fear completely taken over.
I stare at the screen.
The back of a girl’s head.
A shiny black bob.
Tanned jutting shoulder blades.
I know those shoulders; I’ve placed my arms around them enough times in moments of comfort, and happiness, fun and despair.
The camera pans out slowly to show a dark room. My Reason lying on a double bed.
Her slim waist and perfect bottom are defined by gentle lighting. A slow soundtrack heavy on the chords. I recognize the shape of her body and the way it moves, the familiarity of the curve of her back, seen so many times as we were growing up—swapping clothes, skinny-dipping, showering after gym class.
The camera closes in on her black G-string, stockings, and three-inch heels—a pornographic cliché. Smooth in its glide, it follows in another girl with long red hair. Jane, Oneiroi says.
The camera pulls back. Slides around so that Ella’s body fills the entire screen, her face out of view. She touches herself and the camera zooms in: first on the circling of her hand, and then on her thighs. Jane leans against a dresser made of pine that I immediately recognize as the one back at the Groom House. There, she watches Ella pleasure herself. Jane, the voyeur.
A man enters—
Alexa, we need to go, Runner warns.
“Wait,” I shout from the ceiling, the Body still standing in front of the huge plasma TV.
—and walks across to the bed. I look away for a moment. The reality of what Ella’s been doing for the last six months feeling like an axe splitting open my chest. The man drops his trousers and enters her while Jane watches. Ella drives her ass high in the air, a panned-out shot of one of her red-heeled shoes, while he tilts his head back and slaps her, hard. All the while pulling tightly on her hair.
“Good girl,” I hear Shaun say.
Ella releases a moan.
“You like that?” he whispers. “You like me fucking you?”
Another moan.
“Turn around, baby, come and suck me,” he says. “That’s it. Let me see your beautiful face.”
Ella releases Shaun, and as she turns, still on her hands and knees—I drop the TV controls.
There, staring back on the forty-nine-inch screen, I realize, is me.
73
Daniel Rosenstein
Parked, I stare unblinking at the Groom House. The streetlights burning low on urban night life.
Seriously, you haven’t thought this through. It could be the end of you, the monkey grunts.
It’s true, I don’t have a plan, exactly, but I’ve got a good idea of what to say to whoever opens the door. Especially Navid.
My phone rings—
Monica.
I slide the switch to silent, forcing the phone into my coat pocket. She’s probably calling to apologize after speaking with Susannah, I think. Her earlier message, DON’T CALL ME, now void. She’s like a child, wanting what she wants when she wants. At some point we’ll need to have a conversation, but not yet. Not tonight. Relationships are for people who don’t mind disruption or change. It’s for those who are willing to compromise and trust again. But babies, babies are for those who are committed to a complete and honest life together when the lustful heart has cooled. And I am not that man, I will have to say. Eventually.
Because Monica’s right, I am still in love with my dead wife. Clara and I were good at loving each other. We were smart in love, and by that I mean we were realistic and understanding of our limitations of the love we could offer and accept. We knew when to avoid each other and when to stick around, were attuned and sensitive to our worlds together and our worlds apart.
I silence the engine and for a moment debate whether I should take a weapon of some kind, thinking of the metal toolbox in the boot of my car. Screwdriver? Wrench? Drill? I think, unable to decide, and then attempt to calm myself by putting on a baseball cap.
Heading down the path, I gaze up at the Groom House’s windows, alive with dimmed light. Night creeping in. I shudder theatrically.
Clenching my right hand, I rap on the door, and wait.
Someone on the opposite side turns a lock and secures a chain.
“Hi,” I say to a girl locked behind a gold safety chain, “I’m sorry to bother you. But I’ve broken down and my mobile is out of charge.”
I point at a random car parked on the street.
I recognize her immediately as the cowgirl on Electra’s website. No gun or Stetson this time, but instead one serious attitude.
She stares me up and down. Pulls her dressing gown tightly across her chest.
“So?” she sneers.
“So I was wondering if I could use your phone?”
“No,” she says. “Go away.”
“It won’t take a—”
“No!” she shouts.
I wedge my foot in the door opening, the gold chain straining against my force.
“Then you’d better give Navid Mahal a message from me,” I whisper, leaning in close, “tell him we’re watching him. Tell him we know what he’s doing and it won’t be a secret for much longer.”
74
Alexa Wú
The Body feels a million miles away.
Tick-tock—
Tap-tap—
Click-click—
Flash-flash—
I watch the startled me below staring at the TV, her wet green eyes wide open and flashing. She reaches, with one hand, for Navid’s desk, a corner to steady her shake, the other hand outstretched and clutching air.
Pushing both palms against her ears, she drops to her knees. The sound she makes akin to a rabid animal, a howling baby. Too much to bear.
The door opens.
Shaun appears. A drink in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” he asks, taking in the video playing and stinking odor of vomit.
Get back in the Body, Runner warns.
“Turn that off,” Shaun says, setting the glass on Navid’s desk. “What the—”
“That’s me? Doing that?” She points.
“Why are you watching this? You know it upsets you.” He locates the remote, kills the TV power.
“Me?” she repeats.
I force myself down from the ceiling and reenter the Body.
Shaun inches forward and stares at me, bewildered. “What’s going on, Ella?” he says. “Did you take too much?”
I do not answer him.
Runner seizes the Body at once, aware of my shake.
“Get the fuck away from me,” she screams, wielding Daniel’s letter opener.
Shaun steps back. Palms outstretched and raised.
“What the fuck?” he speaks quietly.
Runner picks up the glass and launches it at the wall.
Shaun inches farther back.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he screams. “You’re acting like a fucking lunatic! I don’t even know who you are anymore. You’ve become a total nut job.”
His words penetrate. The truth of my multiplicity clear and stark. His ob
servations and knowing of me fair and blunt.
Grabbing the rucksack, Runner heads for the door. The letter opener held out in front of our chest for protection. No longer able to trust what she might do, she backs out of Navid’s office, a trickle of warm pee sliding down our legs. Head filling up with dread like a tank about to capsize.
RUN, the Flock calls.
Tick-tock—
I wander the streets, my choose life T-shirt ripped, my sagging leggings soaked and stinking. I light a cigarette, not minding who watches me, what I look like, if anyone cares—I am already disappeared. The Mad Girl walking mad streets. The Vagrant. The Whore. The Rented Womb. The Industrial Cunt. Miserable and cheap.
My body was never home to any of you—to pierce and puncture. You were not even my guest. You were not invited.
I throw my cigarette to the curb and hail a black cab. My mind already made up.
The cabbie nods and turns off his light.
“Archway,” I order.
With balled fists I press on both temples, the Voices jostling for power and growing fierce—the kind of bedlam one really ought to fear.
You should have asked me for help, Anna scolds.
You? Help? Get real! Runner shouts.
Oh right, because you’ve done such a great job, Runner, getting everyone involved and acting like some halfwit mole. Your stupidity and selfishness are appalling.
Shut up. SHUT UP.
I won’t shut up, who do you think you are?
Both of you, be quiet, Oneiroi orders firmly. This isn’t helping.
A distant sob heard now from Dolly.
I stare straight ahead as we ride across Camden Town. Walkers, cyclists, and cars scooting at our side. Trucks barreling along as they shoulder up onto offshoot streets.
I attempt to focus, the Flock’s switching forcing a rise of pressure in my head.
I am breathing too fast, I think. My heart racing.
No best friend, no stepmother—just voices, I say to myself, aware the cabdriver is watching me through his rearview mirror. It’s all me.
The Eighth Girl Page 34