The Goodbye Man (Red Market #1)

by A. Giannoccaro

  When Mateo showed his softer side, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to believe that it existed because that would mean holding onto a hope that doesn’t exist. That means hurting and I can’t do that. Hurting brings me closer to the edge of madness. Getting closer to insanity again turns me into someone scary. I wish death would find me before I continue to turn into someone else.

  I feel the cramping in my lower belly and my palms sweat. I look at the box of tampons sitting on the table, but I don’t grab them. I clench both fists and rock back and forth nervously on my feet while Mateo fidgets around with the other stuff he bought from the store.

  “I need to use the bathroom. I will be back.”

  I have to tell him what I am doing. It is something that is my new normal. My heart thuds in my chest as I hear his footsteps follow me. Tears prickle in my eyes, but I am too strong to let them fall. I feel the wetness pool between my thighs as the warmth escapes me, evidence of my monthly cycle. I shouldn’t care about this as Mateo has watched me piss and shit, never mind the fact that I pissed on him while fucking him. Every form of degradation has occurred, though it hasn’t bothered me with him. Because I want him to love me. I understand his need for control. He doesn’t beat me, besides the day he took his leather belt to my back from breaking his jars of love, though some days I wish for it. A girl like me is so used to being mistreated and feeling unworthy, after so long it seems like a dream without it. When Mateo exudes his need to know everything I do, I know deep down it is because he is trying to figure out his own way to care. I just hope I can stay alive long enough to feel it. If not, kill me, then let him love me. Teetering between being his almost-lover is hurting my heart worse than rape.

  I swallow hard as my eyes meet the commode. I can feel his strong presence behind me, his breathing is rugged and his stance is protective. He knows he affected me today. He questioned my life for the first time and showered me with little things that are big to me. I am confused. Very unsure about how to feel about all of it. I know I will have to face him when I turn around to sit on the toilet, and as much as I wish to avoid those black eyes of his, they magnetize me. They pull me in with unavoidable force. I couldn’t look away even if I tried.

  I turn slowly on my heels, my shaky hands making their way to my pants. I gaze at him, my breath is instantly hitched in my throat. I feel like his little puppet, moving along to a rhythm that only he controls. Because I want it. I immediately feel drawn into him as my past clings its sharp claws into me, paining me with humiliation as I am faced with a welcome one.

  I peel my pants away, stepping out of them while my womb compresses in pain with cramping. I feel the blood drip slowly down my inner thighs as I stand before my master, the man that I want to love me more than life itself. But he loves death. He loves order. I am messy. I am scarred. I don’t do order. I am unpredictable. This won’t ever work. I understand at this second as we look at one another through hopeful eyes that this will yield deadly results.

  His eyes reek sadness. I don’t want pity! I want love! I stay stuck like a statue because I know that his strong hands haven’t moved my strings yet. I obey because I want to. My chest moves up and down harder as I let myself breathe a sigh of yearning. The need for comfort. For acceptance. For his goddamn humiliation. Yes, degrade me. Strip me down. Make me bare. Hollow me out and fill me up with all of your fucked up self. Because that is what I need right now.

  “Come, Lettie,” Mateo whispers with his hand outstretched towards mine.

  My heart thuds wildly in my chest as his words strike a chord deep within my fucked up brain. I take his hand as he leads me to my bed; memories of Caesar are becoming more distant with every single touch of Mateo. His hands grip the sides of my shirt and he peels it away, leaving me bare before him in all my marked glory. Scars are over my body, but I am not ashamed.

  “Is this how those men treated you when they fucked your bleeding cunt?” he murmurs, gently cupping my breast, leaning in to kiss my neck.

  The discomfort from my cramping coupled with lust is a delight I never have felt before.

  “No,” I sigh, leaning into his touch.

  I revel in the softness of his hands as they massage my breast perfectly, erasing the memories of walking around blood-stained and disgraced. Mateo’s kindness is different, but I want more. I hate that I am letting myself feel this, knowing this part of him won’t last. His hand travels over the scars on my belly, making me shudder with need. He tickles the inside of my thigh and I move my hips towards him, an indication that I have to have more.

  “When you are raped and treated like whorish trash, do you feel like this?” he whispers into my ear, peppering a kiss beneath my ear while his fingers are so close to finding me, I am nearing my screaming point.

  “No,” I state louder, moving my hips further.

  His touch leaves me and I feel abandoned once again. He stands before me, brazen and needy just as I am. His steady hands strip himself free from his clothes and I look to his hand, marked with my blood. It makes me hot as hell and the need to be fucked by him has just risen a million times more. He grips his hard cock and strokes it in front of me. I want to drop to my knees and please him like the good girl that I am, but I am frozen in time as my eyes dance over every intricate detail of his body. His black eyes that usually haunt and confuse me make me feel safe. His mussed, black hair glistens perfectly beneath the flickering lights, and the artwork etched permanently on his skin tells stories that would trouble most people’s dreams. His olive skin ripples over his muscles and I want to reach out and touch every part of him, but I can’t. I am a statue and only he has the hammer capable of smashing me down to nihility.

  “When you were made to walk around with your bleeding pussy staining your pants, did you feel like this, my little Lettie Doll?” he breathes, stroking his hard cock.

  “God no.”

  His words make my belly tighten and I swallow hard, watching his hand move up and down his hard shaft, wishing it was deep inside of me making me forget the bad.

  “Lie down on the bed, little Lettie doll. Spread those bleeding pussy lips and let me see.”

  I walk backwards until I feel my bed hit the back of my legs. I lean back on the bed, opening up my thighs until my dripping folds are before him. He turns his head, as if to admire me. A grin splays across his face and I grip my bed sheets for dear life, propping myself up on my elbows to look between my thighs. There’s a faint blood trail from where I scooted up the bed, but this kind of degradation is welcome.

  I open my legs wider for him, the warmth trickling out of me a distant reminder of what it used to mean. Now I just need him. I need to remember this soft side of Mateo, because I know it won’t last. He climbs up my body until his eyes meet mine. It is taking everything in my power not to rake my hands over every part of him, but I have learned my boundaries quickly.

  “Little Lettie doll, did your cunt get wet with need when they beat you and raped you?” he asks while my eyes gaze at his full, pink lips.

  Silent tears fall from my eyes.

  “No,” I respond.

  He bends down, taking his tongue out to my cheek, licking my tears away.

  “Oh, little Lettie. You are a precious doll that shouldn’t ever be broken.”

  His lips find mine and I know that is my welcoming sign. I suck on his tongue and wrap my hands around his neck, bringing him in for more. Because more will never be enough for me and more for him is too much. We are a fucked up recipe for disaster, but neither one of us can say no. It is too beautiful to stray away from. Something about it screams out to the dark abyss of our souls. His fingers find me as he slowly finger-fucks me, his rhythm is gentle and full of intent. This moment is becoming too much. I find myself wanting more of it, yet wanting to push him away, fearing that the heartbreak from the fall will be my calamity.

  He finds my sweet spot as he continues to kiss me deeply and I explode into a million bits of bliss, coming around his finge
rs. He immediately parts his lips from mine, withdrawing his fingers from me and shoving his hard cock inside of me until his hips hit me. His bloody hand grips my cheek.

  “You are mine, little Lettie. No one else can break you!” he pants, fucking himself deeper inside of me.

  I stare at him, acknowledging his words. They weren’t just words. They were pleas. Promises. Begging for me to be the only one as he tries to heal himself from his past too.

  “Open, precious Lettie.”

  I open my mouth for him as he sticks his blood-covered fingers inside of me. I seal my lips around him, embracing the taste of copper liquid.

  “Fuck, yes. Such a good girl. You are mine, little Lettie doll. Only mine!” he growls, pounding himself inside of me.

  My world becomes black, my new favorite place to be as we are sucked into a never-ending tunnel of healing that will never come. But deep down, we will always try. Try to run from the people that we used to be, when the fact of the matter is, I will always be a dirty whore and Mateo will only love dead dollies.

  Juan

  Don’t tell lies, silly boy. Truths so horrid cannot be real. Don’t lie, boy.

  Tell the truth - the whole truth. Lies, lies, lies!

  Coming home was hard. Being home was harder, but getting better was torture. The runaway, prodigal son returned and the world was happy, but the boy was so broken and diseased that they couldn’t love him any longer. I was sent away to be fixed. Because I must be sick. I must be on drugs. They don’t see that the things I have lived and done cannot be fixed. I went to hell; you cannot fix that, I can’t even forget it!

  The girl next door to me is also sick, she sits on the porch and sings sad songs that make me scream and pull my own hair out. Maybe I have gone crazy, maybe I should be locked up here. When I close my eyes, I see things that cannot be unseen. I learned things in Hunts Point that I can never unlearn. My body has healed, although some things cannot be healed, they treated my wounds. Tests were done, some things you can’t change. I was murdered in Hunts Point. When the doctors told my mother and me that I was HIV positive, she sobbed her heart out. I didn’t cry for me, I cried for the person who just got a kidney and a death sentence. I wonder how long it will take them to know they have it. When the police came to see me about my missing kidney, I told them I woke up one day and it was gone. I should find a way to tell Mateo, or even the others I was with, but my selfish anger won’t let me. I go to therapy, hours and hours of talking. No one believes the things I talk about, so I stopped talking a while ago. I sit in silence and watch my sanity dancing around, teasing me. Listening to her sad fucking singing. I miss the rough touch of a terrible lover. I miss being beaten. I even miss the dead people.

  I thought about running away and going back, but I can’t; I need to tell someone the truth of The Goodbye Man and his horror shop. I need to tell my story, even if not a soul will believe it.

  She is scribbling in her notebook again, the singing has stopped for a few minutes, and I watch her. Her hand moves so fast as the pencil scratches across the paper. She gets visitors, I don’t. She is going home soon, I am not. I don’t have a home. I am the gay son with AIDS now, not the boy who returned home from hell. Now I am a burden and a shame. When I close my eyes I see Pavel and fire, I smell burning skin and hair. I swim in blood when I dream at night.

  “Stop staring at me, Juan.” She glares at me. I like her voice when she speaks.

  “Sorry.” I look away. “What are you writing?”

  “Everything. I am a writer. I write stories for the newspaper. Well, I did before I came here.” It’s the first time I have bothered to ask her anything. I don’t speak, no one believes me when I do. Her answer makes me think of something.

  “Can I tell you a story and you write it down?” I ask her, looking now to see if she answers.

  “Will it be good?” she asks me, a silly smile on her happy face.

  “No, it will give you nightmares. You can sell it to the newspaper if you want. I just need to tell it to someone who will believe me.” Her head tilts to the side and she tucks the blonde hair behind her ear, looking at me with light in her eyes.

  “Okay, Juan. Tell me your story,” she says, turning the page in her little notebook.

  “You will need a bigger book. I need to know your name if I am going to tell you,” I state seriously.

  “Milly.” She lies and I know it, but I don’t correct her. “I will fetch my laptop.”

  ***

  I spend hours every day talking to Milly, the words bleeding from me. Ripping open all the wounds that this place was supposed to heal. She listens, writes and sometimes she talks to me, asking me things, like how I felt.

  Feelings are not something you are allowed in the places I have been. Feeling would end up killing you. Now as I allow myself to tell the truth and feel, I am dying quickly. Milly is so pretty and funny, I can’t imagine where her sadness comes from, but as I tell her my horrors, her sadness slowly leaves her. She writes it all down with passion and she is alive with the story. She never questions the truth of it, not once. She believes me.

  “Do you think he saved you?” she asks me about Caesar. I think back to him, his silence. The way a sound would make him crazy. The way when he touched me it didn’t hurt, when he talked it wasn’t a nightmare. He gave me a choice. No one else had done that since I left home.

  “Yes, Caesar saved me, and I am sure he saved may others too.” It’s the truth. I think of the bodies lining that space and I believe he saved them from fates far worse.

  “But he chopped them up and sold them.” She states the fact, unable to understand it because she has never lived it like I did.

  “There are worse things than being dead Milly. You couldn’t understand it. I do. I don’t want to, because it is wrong but I have seen both sides of the coin and neither one is shiny.” It’s the truth. I hate what they were but they aren’t the worst. I remember Pavel, the fucking Russian and how he treated me and the others. No, Caesar wasn't the worst thing in the world. For many, I think he was an answer to prayer, a silent angel that lurked in the shadows, setting the broken free.

  I talk to her for hours every day. It sets me free and kills me at the same time. I have a choice, and I choose to make it all stop. I don’t want another person to get AIDS from the organ meant to save them. When I speak about Svetlana, my heart hurts. She is so broken and she is sick. My stomach turns, but my heart aches when I think about her with Caesar because he loved her. Not all love is right, is it? He shouldn’t have loved her that way. There are other ways to love people, like I love Milly.

  “He was screwing his daughter? That’s fucked up, Juan,” she blurts out, shattering my deep thoughts with her sweet voice.

  “It is, but he loved her and she understood love differently than we do.” I try to put the mess in my head into words.

  “It’s still fucked up and sick,” she answers, her eyes still on the keyboard in front of her.

  “There are places so diseased and sick out there Milly that we will never understand. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” She sighs at my answer.

  I am tired, so tired of everything and I hurt at the idea she may no longer believe me. I have bared the darkest part of me to her and I have nothing else to do or give. I grab her little book as I stand and scratch her a note in my awful, left handed scrawl.

  Tell my story for me Milly

  X Juan

  I close the book and hand it to her before a leave the little porch and go inside my small room. This place isn’t bad; it is a place to heal after abuse or trauma, but I am not abused or traumatized. I am dead inside. I fill the bath with hot water and undress, my finger tracing my kidney scar in the mirror. The sound of the water makes me remember the moment I should have died with his hands around my throat. I feel that same burning in my lungs as I force myself to breathe the water in. You cannot go to hell and live on Earth. The burning fire sweeps through my insides and I give up. There is
no fight to be found this time. I am ready to die. I told the truth, all of it.

  Milly

  I tell stories, not lies.

  When he started telling me his story, I couldn’t help but be drawn into it. The horrors, the pain and the lies. I think he made it up, but I also believe him. The way he spoke about that place, it has to be real. I saw his scar where they took a piece of him out, the jagged edges stitched so poorly that it looked like a shark bite in his side.

  When I found his blue body floating in the bath the next day, I knew I had to leave. I had to tell his story. He gave me the purpose I had lost. He healed me with his horrors.

  I sit opposite my editor and a police chief. They have read my story, seen my research and listened to the recordings I made of him telling me.

  I told his story, now this stupid policeman won’t let us publish it so they can infiltrate this business and catch them all.

  I am angry, but maybe this is what he wanted to happen. It just feels wrong to me. I leave the office and drive to the place Juan told me about, slipping a note under the door.

  Juan told me everything.

  RUN.

  The police know.

  Mateo

  Empty spaces.

  The beds are being emptied and no bodies are refilling them. I cannot do what he did and he is gone. In a cloud of air, he disappeared from this place and it makes me so angry, but I have Lettie now. She loves me. Not him. I don’t know what to do, there is always a plan B when you live in this world. I know what it is, I know where the money is, but I am not sure it is time for that yet.