by Gabi Moore
“What you staring at?”
The redhead shot me a sharp look.
“Nothing.”
“What’s she here for anyway? A new girl?” she said, ignoring my response and speaking directly to the other stripper.
“No idea, baby. JD said to ignore her, so…”
The redhead continued to look down at me with something halfway between pity and curiosity.
“You speak English?” she said slowly, mascara wand still hovering in her hand.
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to dance? Work with Peter?”
I didn’t know. Dance? Like on a stage? Stripping? What a preposterous idea. But everything that had happened to me so far was about as preposterous. And Peter? I shuddered to think what that ‘work’ would entail.
“I don’t know,” I said and tried to convey as little emotion in my voice as possible. The other striper was chuckling under her breath and applying some sort of lotion all up and down her neck.
“Lily, if she had met Peter already, she’d know about it, don’t you think?” she said. The way she said it made my skin crawl.
“They hurt you or anything? They do anything to you?” the redhead asked, lifting an already massively arched eyebrow at me.
“Lilly, leave her be. They said to make like she isn’t even here.”
“I’m just asking her questions.”
The redhead loomed over me and then peeked behind to look at my bound hands.
“They tied her up though. Seems mean.”
“Lily, leave it alone for fuck’s sakes.”
But Lily was already leaning over me and cutting the cable ties on my hands with a tiny pair of nail scissors. The blood rushing into my fingers was almost painful.
“You scared, honey?” she said, ignoring the other’s disapproving looks.
I said nothing.
“You got a guy or something?”
“A guy?”
“Yeah, you married? Boyfriend?”
I was mesmerized by the glitter on her nipples. For some stupid reason, I pictured myself with glittery nipples. Maybe this was my life now. Maybe I had slipped into some parallel universe and now I would have to dance and wear too much perfume and …do things with Peter.
“Yeah, I have a boyfriend, so?”
“He into anything shady? What work does he do?”
“Why?”
She stood tall again and shrugged.
“Well, that’ll go some way to explaining how you got here, that’s all. Don’t listen to anyone who says money’s the root of all evil. Men are the root!” she said and laughed to herself.
“He’s not …he would never be involved in any,” I said, my brain waking up to the crazy idea that this could have anything to do with Leo.
The redhead shrugged.
“So you landed here by accident, huh? Seems kinda weird, huh?”
“Lily, if you’re done torturing the poor girl, you’re on in a minute,” the other one said and jostled her breasts so they hung better in her halter top.
The ache returned. What if Leo did have something to do with ‘this’?
The redhead took a pinch of some brownish powder from a little jar attached to her belt and snorted it quickly, rubbing her nostrils and taking one more quick look at her reflection. I could tell the music outside had stopped and some people were applauding.
“Coke?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“No, ma’am. Not for a while now. This is that new shit. This is PK, this is stuff that cocaine takes when it’s having a bad day...” she said and laughed again. “You know it?”
“I’ve been clean for more than a decade,” I said. “And I’ve never looked back. I don’t need that stuff anymore.”
She gave me a strange look, then smiled at me.
“Honey, everyone needs a drug. We’re human. We can’t live without our addictions. We’re all dying anyway, right? Something kills us all eventually. Might as well choose the drug that kills you the slowest, that’s what I say. Choose one you’re willing to die for,” she said, with a faraway look in her eyes.
The other stripper snorted at her little speech.
“Lily, you’re almost on, get out of here.”
“Well I’m not addicted to anything,” I said.
“Sure you are.”
“No, I’m not. You snort that stuff and strip and you think that’s just fine?” I realized I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t want to be alone here in the room, or with my …thoughts.
“Damn straight I do,” she said.
“So those men just ogle you, and abuse you, and--”
“Honey, look at it this way, those men out there have their addictions too. I’ve been poor. I’ve been pretty desperate. But I’ve never been so desperate that I’ll throw money at a girl who shows me her titties. You get that? You want to lecture someone, lecture those men out there. Maybe it’s me abusing them,” she said and winked at me. In a second she had flounced out the room, high heels clacking, and slammed the door behind her.
“Don’t mind her, that shit’s cooking her brain,” the other one said with a scowl, still not turning to look at me.
Something buzzed and the stripper scrambled to answer her phone, then wandered out through a corridor and away till I couldn’t hear her voice anymore. I examined my raw wrists, tried to stand on wobbling legs, then made a dash for the door.
Outside was a landing – down below seemed to be a series of heavy black curtains and the source of the music, a dull thumping trance beat that seemed to reverberate through the walls. The stage? I turned to look at my other option: a staircase going up. It’d have to do.
I raced up, legs still shaky, and found another door, unlocked. I opened it a crack, then opened it more fully. Inside, it was a small room, dimly lit, with a plain wooden desk holding up a mountain of paperwork.
I went over to see files, bank statements, random envelopes. Under this was a thick yellow folder, which I opened. A woman’s photo caught my eye, it was accompanied by stats – her age, height, weight, eye color, nationality. The folder would have looked like a modelling agency’s portfolio were it not for the row of dollar figures handwritten at the bottom of each page.
My eye paused on “$450 000”. Some higher amounts, some very small. I turned the page. A 16-year-old girl with brown eyes. Underneath her name was “$25 000” scratched with amounts subtracted from it till it was “$1000”, with a little smiley face scribbled beside the amount.
I dropped the folder and broke out into a cold sweat.
Not just stripping.
Not just prostitution.
The amounts in this book were too high. I gulped and looked around the rest of the room, shaking hands rummaging through whatever I could find. The music pumped away down below, muffled like it was coming from deep in the ocean somewhere, not real somehow. But the men who had abducted me were real. If they found me here…
I had to find a way to get out of here, no question. They could kill me. Or worse. My fingers found a beat-up looking notebook with some more handwritten numbers. Codes. Passwords. Why would anybody leave such a thing in the open like this? I felt around in my pockets – my phone had been taken from me.
I looked over my shoulder, stuffed the notebook into my pocket and rushed out again, clicking the door closed behind me. I was on the stairwell again, and mercifully the stripper’s room was still empty. I heard footsteps and laughing coming up the other stairwell and sped inside so quickly I thought I’d have a heart attack.
I threw myself back onto the floor and thrust my hands behind me, trying to look like I hadn’t budged. A dangerous looking mountain of a man walked in, took one look at me and then frowned.
“You awake?” he said, and then peered around the room.
“Tay? Tay, where the fuck are you?” he bellowed, and then peered round the corner to where I had seen the stripper walk off.
The moment went liquid and electrified all ar
ound me. The beat from the music below seemed to press itself right to the front of my consciousness, travelling up from the ground into my bones; my body ignited. Something hot and sticky was buzzing at my core as I watched his form move around the room, menacing. The adrenaline became like static snapping through my veins. But it wasn’t fear.
It was something far, far more delicious.
I stared out the still opened door and thought about making a run for it. There was nothing in this room to use as a weapon. I could never fight him – he was three times my size.
But maybe I could run.
Just as my muscles were firing up and my spine coiled up and tightened to spring to action, I heard more voices come up the stairwell, and in an instant, two people had blustered up, throwing their bodies against the wall. Both me and the man-mountain turned to look.
A drunk looking guy was pawing at a giggling stripper, who was practically naked and trailing the last of her clothing on the spike of her high heal. The guy kissed ravenously at her chest, her stomach, her arms and shoulders, and she flung back her head and gave a big, juicy laugh. In an instant her one leg was hoisted up almost to under her armpit, the guy shirked off his trousers and I caught a glimpse of his swollen cock before he threw himself into her and she laughed even louder.
No sooner was he inside her did he begin to fuck savagely, each pump bumping her hard into the wall and up a few inches, her long black hair and bangles shaking as their hips slapped into each other again and again. The guy curled himself up into her and pawed at her waist, pulling her down hungrily onto him.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were just …fucking. Right here. Like animals.
I turned to see the man-mountain watching the spectacle with me, through the door where the two seemed not to have noticed us in the slightest. He turned to look at me and our eyes met. The heat in my spine seemed to nearly engulf me. I swallowed. For a moment it looked like he was preparing to yell at them, but when he saw my face, something strange crept into his expression instead, then he smiled slowly.
“You like that?” he asked, something mocking in his voice.
My eyes went wide.
He chuckled and looked me over, and I swear I felt every cell in my body spike to attention as he did. He was ugly. He was dirty. He looked positively evil. So why was I sitting demurely in front of him, head tilted a little to the side, staring right back at him as he gave me that filthy look?
I shook my head clear and tore my eyes from his. He turned his attention to the drama unfolding on the stairwell.
“The fuck is wrong with you people? Get out of here, Tasha, that’s it, you’re off, go the fuck home, I’m sick of this happening,” he yelled out into the doorway and then slammed the door on their surprised faces. Then he turned to look at me.
“I swear this place is falling apart right before my eyes,” he said to nobody in particular. Then he noticed I wasn’t really bound at the wrists anymore, and his face got even angrier.
He leapt forward, grabbed me hard by both shoulders and shook me.
“You got free, huh, little bitch.” He then flung me hard back down on the ground. The other stripper came back into the room, a look of panic flashing over her face the instant she saw the man-mountain.
“JD, I’m so sorry, I just took a call…” she said and backed out of the room a few steps.
JD looked so angry he might bite through his own jaw.
“Just get out and do your fucking set”, he hissed at her, his eyes throwing daggers at her near-nude, sparkly body.
She hurried off in the direction of the stage, belt tinkling behind her, and slammed the door. Now I was alone with him.
“You trying to run away or what?” he said as he looked around for something to tie me up again.
“Why am I here? Why are you doing this?” I said, realizing how trembly my voice was.
“How about you shut up, huh? It’s not enough I have to babysit everyone in this fucking hole, now I have answer your stupid questions?” he said, and started rummaging through the makeup drawers like he wanted to punch something.
“You’ve made a mistake. Please just tell me why I’m here. I don’t know what’s going on. Please don’t hurt me.” But as these last few words left my lips, he looked at me again and I felt, I actually felt something kick inside my body. What was I saying? He could hurt me if he wanted to. He could kill me with his bare hands.
He looked me over again, top to bottom, as though sizing me up. In that moment, he knew it and I knew it. At that moment, he could have done anything he wanted to me and I would be powerless to stop it. I swallowed hard and stared at him, even though I was so petrified it felt like I had forgotten how to breathe.
“You pushing me, little bitch?”
He said it quietly, almost a whisper. A threat. It sent a sick, strange little thrill through me. I said nothing, just kept looking into his small, black eyes. I could tell his hands had clenched by the way the muscles in his forearms and biceps tightened and bulged. His nostrils flared.
I stared back at him.
“If you fucking make another peep, you’re going to be sorry,” he said again, in an even lower voice than before. He had stepped closer, and the sheer size of him felt like it eclipsed my small, crouched body. Like his very form cast a shadow over me and made me shiver deeply.
I parted my lips. Maybe I would make a peep. He wanted to threaten me? So what?
“You know what I think, JD?” I said, loud and clear. “I think you’re just a hired meathead who’s supposed to be looking after me, and if you fuck up I think the real person who’s in charge here is going to be pretty pissed at you.”
I had no idea what I was doing. His jaw dropped as I spoke, and he unclenched his fists, truly surprised that I had talked back.
“So let’s not pretend that you can lay a hand on me. I bet you’d like that, though, wouldn’t you…?”
I didn’t know what I was saying. I only knew it seemed to come from somewhere deep inside, from that deep, liquid, crackling, electrified stirring in the pit of my belly, somewhere at the base of my spine, between my legs.
He stared dumbfounded at me, unable to speak. I saw the tiny muscles twitch in his immense jaw. I lowered my head and locked eyes with him. I could tell he was doing his best not to stare at my body. I could tell he was thinking about it. He could tell that I was thinking about it.
He snorted loudly and tore away his gaze, then found a string and bound my wrists again, without any finesse or mercy, and I smiled quietly to myself as he did so, a weird thrill of triumph washing over me.
I had never done something so outrageous.
And it had never felt so good.
I squeezed my eyes shut as he came round to stand in front of me again, and, kneeling square in front of his crotch, I squared my shoulders and dared him internally to do something. Anything. I didn’t care. I wasn’t scared. But what was I, then? I don’t know. He didn’t know either. But it felt good.
He left, muttering under his breath, just as the redhead came back in from her set. She winced a little as her eyes met with JD’s for a second before he disappeared and she came into the room and looked down at me.
“You ok?” she asked. Her perfume was like a thick, intoxicating hug around me.
“I’m fine,” I said, but I was more than fine. “But I need to get out of here.”
She looked down at me with pity, then at the door, then at me again. She handed me her cellphone from inside one of the drawers and waved her hands at me.
“You can use that. But quickly, ok? Just the once so make it count.”
My fingers were shaking violently as I started to type a message to Leo.
Chapter 13 - Leo
I’m sitting, throwing rocks at the corrugated storage facility doors. If I stare at it hard enough and stop thinking about everything, I can start to imagine that it sounds like sadness. Like the metal is crying or something.
Someone appears next
to me.
“Leo Bianchi?” he says. I hate it when people say my name like that. Like an accusation.
“Who wants to know?”
A thick wad of fifties lands at my feet, just like that, making no sound at all. I look up to a see a guy smiling.
“That’s for you.”
I snatch at it and stuff the money under my coat pocket, then get ready to scram.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Friend of Vito’s. He said you could probably use the help,” he says as he looks down at my broken shoes. “You gotta do a little favor for him, though.”
I look up at him suspiciously.
“What favor?”
The guy looks over his shoulder and pretends to kick around some of the stones, like he’s not doing anything at all, like he’s never done any particular thing in his life and nobody could ever prove it in a court of law.
“You go over to the corner of Fifty-seventh and Main, you look in a big blue trash can, OK? In there you see a plastic bag and in there’s a box. Take the box out, throw the bag away. You give the box to the guy at this address.”
I see him take out a lighter to light a cigarette and as he does so he drops a small note scribbled with an address on it. I don’t pick it up.
“You knock, you say Vito sent you, you give him the box. Then you fuck off and say nothing to anyone. You got a mother or something? Family?”
I say nothing.
“Well, if you got someone, go and visit them immediately after, OK?”
Before I can say anything he’s turned around and walked off, like nothing happened, and the only proof he was even there is the little note still lying on the floor.
Later, when I fetch the box from Fifty-seventh and Main, it feels heavy and cold in my hands. When I stop to think about it, I imagine it feels like fear. Like guilt. I think how glad I’ll be to get rid of it.
The guy who opens the door is big, with skin is the color of an eggplant and his eyes are tired looking and bloodshot. He takes the parcel from me and I run away as fast I can. I run before he opens it. I run even before he has time to look at me, time to close the door. I run, feeling free and light without it. Outside, the sun is clear and bright and when I stop to think about it, it feels a bit like relief. I hug the money against my chest and daydream about what I’m going to do with it all.