The Goodbye Man (Red Market #1)

by A. Giannoccaro

  “Jesus Christ,” Mateo breathes.

  I smile on the girl’s bare skin, continuing to nurse her breast. I pepper kisses down her skinny body until I make my way between her thighs. I pull my fingers out, licking them clean. I hear chaffing movements in the background as pride swells in my chest, realizing Mateo is jacking himself off. I force her legs further apart, inhaling her stale scent. My mouth makes its way to her pussy as I allow my tongue to make tender movements along her lips, flicking her clit in a way that would be pleasurable if she were conscious.

  “Fuck this shit!” Mateo screams.

  I continue to eat her pussy, grazing and thrashing her with quicker swipes of my tongue that would bring her closer to a release if she were awake. Mateo’s strong hands grip both my hips, spreading my legs apart. He pushes himself hard inside of me.

  “Fuck, why? Why do you have to be so fucking perfect, Lettie? Why can’t I resist wanting you?” he pants, thrusting his hard cock inside of me.

  I moan out loud as he hits my sweet spot, sending a rush of ecstasy to my legs, flooding me with gloriousness. My knees give out, but he holds up my tiny frame. My lips separate from the girl’s pussy.

  “No, no. Eat that fucking pussy. Eat it, Lettie!” he bites between gritted teeth.

  I part her folds with my fingers, flicking her clit quickly with my tongue while crying out as my belly tightens as the feeling my impending orgasm chases me.

  “Why do I have to want you so fucking much?” Mateo demands, pounding his cock deeper inside of me.

  My vision goes black as my lips leave her cunt. I shake as he continues to fuck me roughly. I yell, gripping onto the girl’s legs for dear life as the man who I wish for takes me perfectly from behind in the most dysfunctional way. He stills himself inside of me, his pulsating cock making my insides twitch with delight. He kisses my naked back and pulls out of me, remaining silent. I hop from the bed and walk to the girl’s head, running my hands through her blonde curls, still breathless with the taste of her still lingering on my tongue.

  My hand grips onto her hair and I yank a fistful free, turning until I face Mateo with her golden strands safely in my hands. As I make my way over to Mateo, his arms wrap themselves around me, pulling me into his hard body for a searing kiss. His fingers find the hair in mine and I let it go, giving it to him. Maybe this is a peace offering.

  Mateo

  My mother said I couldn’t have my cake and eat it!

  Well my cake is in front of me and I am fucking eating it too.

  When a little stone is flicked up against a large pane of glass, the glass breaks into a million pieces, radiating out from that small spot. Lettie is my stone. She is so small and touched one tiny spot and it has radiated out into a shattered mess of disaster from there. Now I stand here kissing the mouth that just loved one of them, one of my dolls, with no shame at all. I am confused and conflicted. My anger still hovers below the surface because she is mine and Lettie touched her, she broke my precious bottles. She kissed my lover. She fucked her with her fingers and her mouth, but she let me fuck her while she did it. My body loved the feel of her, but my heart doesn’t want this.

  I grab the handful of hair from her and break the kiss that is killing me slowly. Her eyes are filled with the smugness from her illusion of winning. Fuck you, Lettie. I win, not you. This is my world and my game. I want to slap the satisfaction off her face, but I know it won’t work. Instead, I step away from her and dress myself. I don’t have words for her. I rub the stolen hair between my fingers and I feel robbed of something that was mine to do. How did she turn her punishment into pleasure? I want to growl as the rage starts to bubble to the surface again.

  “Come, Lettie.” I bark at her as she scrambles to get dressed again. I can’t have her wandering around naked, there are other men here like Hugo, and she is mine. Even if I want to kill her, even more so because I do. She scurries after me, just where I want her. Today she can see the ugly truth below; that love she won’t let go of. She can see just what Caesar does here. I am going to turn her savior into her devil. She can’t love him and me. I want her to myself. I wonder where he is. He always comes back, but his car is still here, so he should be here somewhere. He might be hiding away, trying to find quiet.

  I open the office door and chaos still greets me. Where the fuck is that little pest? He is being lazy and I am going to teach him a fucking lesson, maybe one she can watch and learn from. I grab the clipboard for the afternoons harvest and deliveries before I sit at the desk. When she moves to sit on the small sofa, a small tick snaps at the side of my mouth and I can’t ignore it.

  “No, here,” I point to the floor next to me. “You sit here, Lettie. I can’t leave you, you can’t leave me.” Her body sinks to the floor next to me and I start my work by calling the clinics to make sure all the recipients are ready and waiting for their spare parts. I tick the list as I go, keeping everything in order. Lettie picks at the carpet with her fingers as she sits like a little girl next to me on the floor. If she is right there, she cannot leave. I slide my chair back, getting her attention, “Come sit here, Lettie.” I pat my lap and she looks at me with those dark eyes. I want to do terrible things to her, but I need to make her understand who is in control first. She stands up and slides onto my lap, her warmth infuriating yet comforting. I pull her into me, my uncle’s voice in my head, “Make them feel safe and they will sign their lives over to you. Love a lonely girl and she will give you anything.” Why his words are burning in my ears now, I do not know, but I pull her against my chest and hold her like he would have. Softly lulling her into that space where she feels safe. No one is safe from me, I have filth in me and I cannot get rid of it. I feel her body slowly unwind and the fear evaporates as she slowly melts against me. I take those few moments to try to love Lettie, even though I am not sure I really want to. I can’t not.

  “Come, Lettie. I have work to do. You are coming with me.” I speak softly, trying to hide my anger. If I make her think I love her, it will hurt more when I punish her. She still needs to hurt for what she did. She stands and waits for me to lead her back to the scene of our earlier debauchery. I seek out the number I need for today’s harvest. Her papers are all on the board including the one Caesar got her to sign stating she was a willing donor receiving no compensation for her voluntary organ donation. I kick the brakes off her bed as she is already disconnected and ready to go. I wheel the squeaky bed towards the automated doors, just like he does. When we get to the door, I push the button and whisper goodbye to the pretty girl with ginger hair. I kiss her dead cheek, she has been a beautiful lover to me for two months now. One last brush of her freckled cheek and I push her through the doors to her end and the waiting doctors. One insignificant life for eighteen others this time. It seems so justified, yet I feel something tugging in me this time.

  When the doors whoosh closed, we turn and go to the packing and distribution area where each piece of her will be packed and transported. My drivers line the outside wall waiting on their precious cargo. The misfits and criminals are all just happy to do anything for a paycheck at the end of the day. I pull Lettie through the swing doors and plastic curtains to the sterile washing area, and I start to scrub her skin. She needs to see it all.

  I watch the security I made her feel slipping away. The love is being replaced with sadness and fear. As the first organs appear through the other side of the room, her eyes widen in shock as she gasps at the truth, the real truth of how Caesar, her precious fucking Caesar, saves them. She covers her gaping mouth so I can’t hear the cries escaping. I ignore her despair and focus on my job, these are going to save others.

  Two hours later, the last pieces of my love have passed through the doors and it’s time to take her away. Sweet little Lettie is a mess and I cannot wait to destroy the last little tether to her love of Caesar once and for all.

  Once all the doctors have cleared out and the room is deathly silent, we go in. Her body is wrapped in the blue t
heater cloths and she is ready to leave. I heave the bed so it starts rolling towards the doors while Lettie remains close behind me. I think reality of the girl’s death has sunk in and she looks sad. As we pass through those still waiting their turn, I see my lovers, all of them so peaceful - all of them there. The wheel of the gurney I am pushing squeaks annoyingly as we start down the passage towards the lift. My finger presses the cool metal button to open the doors and I can hear the metal sounds from inside as they slowly slide apart. I love the feeling in my stomach as the lift moves down below the real world into the fiery pits below. My silent little Lettie doll just follows me. The fire I saw earlier has been extinguished and she looks defeated and heartbroken. Her eyes are planted on the floor; she doesn’t look at me or the blue cloth covered girl invading the space between us. An honest wall of violent, bloody truth is now between us.

  We jolt to a stop and the doors grate open, where we are met by the searing heat of this place. I feel my body begin to leak sweat from every pore. I can never get used to it. I push the dead body so that it starts to move again, it’s just a short way now to the door of the furnace rooms. The metal bed hits the heavy door hard as I force it through into the scorching heat that waits inside. I wait until Lettie follows me inside, her eyes taking in the space wide with fear, confusion and disbelief. I watch as her hand comes up to cover her nose; the rank smell of burnt flesh and hair never leaves this place. It hangs here like the death it represents. I turn the conveyor switch on, the door of the incinerator opens, the load roar vibrates, and the mechanical sounds of all the machinery coming to life fills the room. I lift the almost weightless girl onto the already moving belt and watch as she is sucked into the flames, and after a few seconds the furnace door closes again. As I turn around, I am met with Lettie’s tears as her savior image of my uncle burns with the girl. I slip my arm around her and hold her against me, she feels too alive, but I need her to take her comfort from me.

  “Come, Lettie. Let’s leave here for a while.” I say, letting her go so we can get out of the fire pit. I need to go to the store for smokes and food anyway, and since she wants me never to leave, she gets to come too. There is something sick about the incinerator rooms that always makes me hungry.

  ***

  The bell chimes loudly as we enter the dirty little grocer nearest to the factory. I grab a basket to put the few things I need, and a few things I am sure she needs, into. My stomach growls with hunger and I can’t actually remember eating today at all. I wind my way through the few aisles, picking out some staples that I can actually cook, grabbing a bunch of unhealthy junk snack foods too. I walk through the few rows of limited basic items that this place keeps; they don’t have much but it’s close to home and I didn’t want to go too far with Lettie. Her eyes are dancing over every item we pass, and I have seen her reach out and touch a few of them with her fingertips as if they aren’t real. I wonder how many times she has shopped for anything. As we stroll silently past the small selection of personal hygiene products, I grab a tube of toothpaste and toss it in the basket and she stands still next to me. Her eyes are fixed on the shelf of things I am pretty sure she has never had the luxury of. I feel the sudden need to provide for her and give her all the things she has been robbed of, even if those things are tampons and deodorant.

  “Do you need some of these?” I ask her, pointing to the feminine products I would usually ignore. She cocks her head to the side a little and looks at them.

  “I have never used them before,” she says as she looks at me, a slight glint of tears reappearing in her eyes. I take the decision away from her and grab a box of tampons, a ladies deodorant and some body lotions and potions; it’s not fancy shit, it is just basic stuff. She touches a packet of pink shiny hair ties so I add them in with a cherry lip balm. We keep adding things to the basket on the way to the checkout counter, and mindlessly I do something very strange. My body did it, not me. I snake my fingers between hers and hold her hand as we stand at the counter. She didn’t look up at me, instead down at our joined hands as a small smile, a sad smile made, its way onto her face and she was even more like Ophelia. More alive and it hurt me. I pay in cash and we leave the store, walking the short way to where my car is parked. Her small hand squeezed in mine feels so normal, so alive it burns. I can feel something stirring inside of me and I want it to stop. Stop breathing, Lettie. Stop living, Lettie. Stop needing me. Stop. Stop. Stop. The insanity that is in me speaks to me as I let go of her hand to open the car door for her. I was raised with manners and I might have some seriously fucked up perceptions of love, but my mother would have beat me with a stick for disrespecting a woman. My mother would have beat me for many of the things I do now. Lucky for me she is dead.

  “You really never had, um, ladies things?” I ask disbelievingly, as it seems like such a basic necessity.

  “No.” She gives me the one word whisper that would have caused Caesar to want to rape her.

  “Why not? Was your life so bad?” I want her to tell me things, anything really so I can try to know her. The scars on her body tell a terrible story.

  “Pavel wouldn’t have paid for things like that. I barely had food. I only know about them from what some of the whores told me. Bleeding didn’t stop them from fucking me.” This time she tells a little more, her sadness is still there. I hurt her deeply, showing her the harvest today.

  “Did they hurt you often?” I push her for more.

  “Yes.” Her arms move to cross her chest, showing me she clamming up again and stares out the window as we drive around aimlessly. I don’t want to go home just yet in case Caesar is there and she wants to go with him. I want her to go with me. No more leaving.

  Svetlana

  Burnt nightmares always come back to haunt the dirty princess.

  Something inside of me is dying again. I thought that I had begun to live again, truly feeling what it was like to be loved, not beaten. Cherished, not raped. Cared after, not thrown out like garbage, but nothing good lasts. My nightmares will always linger like a dark cloud, squeezing my heart just when it sensed it is starting to feel normal again.

  I loved someone once, though forbidden in all ways, he left me. He is gone because for some reason, my love wasn’t good enough for him. Now with Mateo, I am desperately playing this wicked game of push and pull, and I can’t play it anymore. After watching the pieces of the life being taken away from the girl with no name, I came to understand something I have wished for that I was never granted, death. I am enveloped with envy and sadness. A mixture of emotions is overtaking my mind as I revert back to the girl who wants to embrace demise.

  When I was sure that my despondency wouldn’t get any worse, the empty body of Mateo’s once-lover was wheeled down to the fiery gates of heaven below. I was reminded of stolen dreams again, along with my nightmares; Kisa, you burn, you burn in the fire! What happens to bad girls who take what isn’t theirs, whore? They die! Pavel’s voice disturbs me still as truth to his awful voice churns about in my dysfunctional mind. I wish for it again.

  Death. For many reasons. For peace. For an end. For acceptance. To finally be loved. I have done everything to show Mateo that I can be his, yet still I remain second best to all these fuck dolls. That cunt still had the upper hand with me as I watched her skin melt away in the incinerator like candle wax, gracefully depleting to nothing while the stench of burnt skin made me revisit one of the single most horrifying days of my life. Not for reasons you may think. Not because I was tortured, burned, and shamed. But because I lived. I survived this hellacious place to embrace almost-love. To have that silly little sentiment that makes people useless. Hope. Hope is for the lonely.

  I am turning into one of those. I wish Pavel would have succeeded. My heart is dying and turning into something that even I fear. Someone as venomous as the man that raised me. Anger is replacing the sadness with each passing second as I take everything in, dancing to my terrifying serenade while I imagine all the destructive things I co
uld do to bring myself peace as I still seek death.

  ***

  Push. Pull. Love. Hate. That is the game that Mateo and I play. I am not playing it anymore. I can’t. I will never be good enough until I am dead. One second he looks at me with such hatred, then the next he takes me into a store buying me things I would have never dreamt of.

  Mateo takes me back to my living space, dumping out all the staples he has purchased me. We don’t speak much, unless it is between our eyes. I can tell with one look what he wants. What he needs. What he means. His eyes can glaze pliability one moment and change to hardness the next. I know how difficult it is for him to withhold his urge to suck the life away from me so he can love me properly like the others. But what he doesn’t realize, I am wishing for that more and more.

  He showed a side of himself that is make-believe in my mind. He feels pity for me. But he shouldn’t. Girls like me know nothing different. When you are born into the ghastly elements, it is all you are used to. Lovely little things mean nothing. Men didn’t care if I was bleeding from my monthly cycle, as long as they sheathed a condom over their cock, they would fuck me however they wanted. I would take dirty cloths and stuff them between my legs, or if I was lucky enough to slide away to a public bathroom, I would fold up clean toilet paper to stop the blood from marking my pants.

  Pavel didn’t care. Many times if he knew I was on my period, he would ensure I wasn’t able to leave his side to find a proper restroom to clean myself. It was a form of public humiliation since the age of twelve. Conveniently around the same time I started to fuck men for money. It was all part of his game and I knew nothing different. I thought that was a normal part of life. The fellow whores would tell me other ways to stop the blood from coming out of me, makeshift plugs they would stick up there to make it stop, but I was never brave enough to wad up dirty cloths and push it up myself. I suppose I became accustomed to the embarrassment. Again, it was my life. What I was used to. Nothing else would have been normal to me besides that.