by Anne Connor
This is a game to him. Those few percentage that he’s taking off of his cut, and giving to me? He wants control. Maybe it means a few hundred grand to him, but seeing me with my woman, and his fingers playing against her shoulder, gives him more of a thrill than the extra money ever would.
I feel a lurching sickness inside me. Don’t fuck with people who have so much money they don’t give a shit if they lose it. Men with nothing to lose don’t give a shit about anything.
“Of course she’s beautiful.” I push a tendril of her hair behind her ear and feel where her jaw meets her skull. It’s tight. Her molars are grinding down. Her teeth are set hard, her jaw won’t relax. Her smile shines bright, but when I feel her, I know the truth. I know it from the way her flesh pulls against her bones. Beautiful, undeniably beautiful. But fake. As fake as I am. As fake as the show we have to put on right now, for this man I don’t even know. For someone Cherry will never meet again.
“You two took a long time coming downstairs.” Vincent clenches his jaw down on the cigar clipped between his teeth. His chrome lighter materializes in front of our faces and he lights it, blowing smoke from his flaring nostrils.
Cherry melts into me. I hold her steady.
“Is it so bad that I can’t keep my hands off of him?” She puts a kiss on my cheek. I don't know what it looks like to the outside world. I can’t put myself out there right now. I can only feel how it registers inside my head right now. This girl is good.
I take her hand and bring it close to my chest as Vincent disappears into the background. The music around us swells and arches and becomes an old Italian ballad. I’m Irish, but I know this one. It’s from growing up in a Catholic neighborhood. The Italians and the Irish always grew up in the same neighborhood.
“You’re good, sweetheart.” I whisper my words into my girl’s ear. Her face morphs into an expression of worry. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re with me.”
“These men...I don’t trust them. Look at how that guy just threw that woman away.” Her chin shifts down as her eyes peer up through her dark lashes over at the stripper who’s resumed her place on the stage. Vincent now has his hands all over the cocktail waitress, the blonde who took my uncle’s order earlier. She’s brought over two more bottles of champagne. I can see the men are ready to party tonight. Become lubricated. Do whatever the fuck they want.
“But you trust me.” I say my words simply and honestly. The words move between us. They sink into her. She feels them. Her chin tips up and I place my fingers under it, tucking my index finger into the cleft on her chin. We fit together perfectly. I tip her chin up and her eyes become half-lidded, hooded in the red light of the room.
She’s like an angel. There’s a devil on my shoulder. But she’s pulling me somewhere else. She does fucking trust me. And why? Does she have a reason to, or not?
I’m not sure anymore. I don’t know if I can trust myself, let alone allow her to trust me.
Allow.
I allow myself to dip into her body, taking the small of her back against my hand. I get lost in her.
“I don’t know.” Her eyes flicker up to mine. I slip my hands down her shoulders and take her hand in mine, pulling her toward me. She gives in, yields to my touch.
“We’ll get you out of here soon.” I growl my words and they make her face flush. She looks down, her body swaying with mine to the music. “I have to collect at a hotel about a hundred miles out West. I have a house out there. I’ll drop you there and come back for you. No one will wonder where we are because I have to be out of town anyway.”
“No one will follow us?” Her eyes heat with concern.
“I can’t make any promises that no one will follow us. But I can make one promise to you.”
Her head comes down on my chest and she pushes into me farther. My guts tie up into a knot and I kiss the top of her head.
“I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
Cherry
Three Months Earlier
The red lights swirl against the metallic playground equipment. I’ve seen the red swirling lights of an ambulance before. I’ve seen it a million times. When you hear the sirens and see the flashing lights, you pull over to the side of the road. I’ve done it countless times, and when I do, I say a silent prayer for whoever’s inside. I say a silent prayer for the person the techs are speeding to rescue.
Then I pull back onto the road and go about my day.
I don’t give much thought to the lights as they bounce off the children playing. I push my charge on her swing and she giggles. Her blonde curly hair is tied up into two messy pigtails. Her shoes have fallen off her little feet, but I let them sit on the ground beneath her. Two white maryjanes on the hot, soft black asphalt. It would be okay if I didn’t put them back on her once she’s done. She has her favorite frilly white socks on to protect her little feet.
The ambulance slows down as it turns on the road behind me, looping around to the other side of the park. I only notice it because the sound of the sirens moves from one of my ears to the other. I feel the sound circle around me.
Then the ambulance slows down and comes to a stop. There isn’t much to see here in the desert, and beyond the only park we have in our hometown, there’s a shopping strip and not much else. Roads, byways, and a gas station down the road.
But the park is big, and I can’t see what’s going on. I should grab dad and we should get going home soon. The fireworks will start in about an hour, and Kay doesn’t like the loud noises.
“Come on sweetie, let’s go find my daddy.” I pull her out of the swing and set her feet down on the ground.
“Daddy!” She points at the ambulance and starts clapping. She has no coordination yet, and I laugh as she tries to put her hands together to applaud the EMTs.
“No sweetie,” I laugh. “That’s not your daddy. Your daddy’s at the hospital. He’s a doctor. He waits for the sick people to come so he can make them all better.”
I hitch Kay up onto my hip and peer out over the children running and laughing on the playground. Dad went off to buy a few sodas from the ice cream truck about ten minutes ago, and he should be back by now.
Two EMTs hop out of the back of the ambulance with a gurney. They rush over to a few people crouched around something on the ground.
I don’t know why, but my heart starts to speed up a bit, and a cold wave overtakes my body, starting at the top of my head. I reach down to pick up Kay’s shoes and crane my neck to see over the other kids. My head snaps over to the ice cream truck to spot dad.
It’s time for me to take him and Kay home.
I can barely see the two EMTs putting someone onto the gurney. I start walking faster and check my phone. I text dad to tell him to come back to the swings. But by the time I hit send, I’m rushing over to the ambulance.
I swallow thickly as my knees start to buckle.
“Miss, do you know this man?”
His eyes are closed and his hands are folded over his chest. He’s wearing khakis and a yellow and white striped polo.
It looks like dad, but it couldn’t be him. He just went to grab a few sodas and he was coming right back.
“Miss?”
One of the EMTs comes over to me as two others side the gurney into the back of the ambulance.
“Do you know this man?”
I have Kay secure on my hip, her little shoes about to slip off her feet again. The hospital hallway is cold, and I’m struggling to keep up with the gurney. I know I’m nearly running, but everything around me is moving slowly.
So, so slowly.
Kay’s dad spots us and comes over, interrupting his conversation with an older couple. He doesn’t look at me, instead focusing on Dad.
I can’t look, but I don’t know what to do with my eyes. The look on Kay’s dad’s face makes me feel sick. I want to fall down. Sink to the floor. Do something...anything other than hurrying behind my dad on this stretcher through the hospital.
The whi
te walls, the overhead lights, the smell of ammonia and illness. Everything washes over me. I feel it inside me, all around.
And I just keep following them.
A few nurses come over. Then another doctor. I slow down as Kay’s dad puts his hand out to me. He’s telling me to stop. I can’t go any farther. I feel myself slow down and halt before the stretcher is pushed a pair of big, glass sliding doors. It’s as though a force field is keeping me away. I stop. And I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Honey, no. You can’t have that. How about some sweetarts instead?”
Kayla tries to slide her dollar into the coffee vending machine, but I have to intercept. I’m supposed to be watching her, but I can’t focus.
I pick at the skin around my right thumb. It’s a nervous habit I have, although I do it even when I don’t realize that I’m nervous. I guess it’s my body’s way of reminding me that I have something on my mind, even when I try to push everything away.
I go over to Kayla and crouch down beside her. She gives me her dollar bill, flat and fresh and new, and I take her hand to guide her over to the candy machine.
“Little girls aren’t supposed to drink coffee, sweetheart. That’s a grown-up drink.”
“Grown-up!”
I force myself to smile at her as she points past me. I turn around to see her dad walking toward us. The ER waiting room is no place to take the little girl you’re babysitting, but right now I don’t have a choice.
When I see his face, my blood runs cold. It feels like someone’s turned on a faucet and all of the life inside my veins pools at my feet and drains away.
“Cherry...we should sit down.”
He guides me by the small of the back and brings me to the seating area in the middle of the waiting room. The bright lights make him look other-worldly. I’ve been babysitting for him and his wife for years. They’re both doctors. They’re both older than me, and glamorous, and beautiful, but right now he looks pallid and ill, the lights overhead casting queer shadows over his face.
I can’t talk. I don’t want to know what’s wrong. All I know is that everything was normal one second, and then the next…
“Cherry,” he says again, clearing his throat. “Your father has suffered a stroke. He has some swelling at the base on his brain, and we are going to do everything we can to help him.”
My arms feel light. My head feels light. I feel like I’m drifting away from my body. Maybe I am. Maybe this is a dream.
“We have him induced in a coma right now to ease the swelling, and he got here fast, which is good. A few good samaritans at the park were able to call 911 right away, and thank God they did.”
I should have been there with him. I should have been the one to call 911. If I had been there, would this have even happened? He always protected me. I never had a broken bone. I never even had a skinned knee. I should have been there to help him. Even if I couldn’t have done anything for him. And what was the last thing I said to him?
I don’t even remember what it was. I only hope it was ‘love you, dad.’
I don’t want him coming out of this and not knowing that. Even if I tell him every day, it isn’t enough.
And then my heart sinks when I realize the question I really don’t want to know the answer to.
“Is...is he going to die?”
The words are coming from my mouth, but it isn’t my voice. It isn’t me talking.
“Cherry, we are going to take the absolute best care of him possible. I care about him like family.”
Numbness hits me. I always thought when I got news like this, I’d break. I don’t remember my mom leaving, but I’ve cried over her. I’ve spilled a river’s-worth of tears over her.
I thought getting news like this would break me. That I’d be broken. But instead, I feel nothing. I feel numb. Numb and cold. I realize that my body is starting to shiver, and I clasp my hands together in my lap, looking down.
I almost wish I would cry. I almost wish tears would take over and let me exhume my emotions from deep down, under the surface, where I know they’re hidden. Where they’re somewhere...somewhere inside.
But I can’t. I just start to shiver.
“It’s okay,” Mr. Peterson says. “It’s okay.”
He wraps me up in a big hug and squeezes me so close, so tight. It does nothing to comfort me. The only one I want to hug me is Dad. Mr. Peterson rubs my back as his little girl comes over and nuzzles into me. It’s then that I feel the tears start to prick at the corners of my eyes.
I shut them tight, feeling little Kayla’s soft hair as she wedges herself under my arm. I blink, and the tears start.
“It’s going to be okay, Cherry. It’s going to be okay.”
Sean
Four Years Earlier
My uncle told me he had something for me. My vision dimmed as I entered his office, the heavy wooden slatted blinds shut tight. The sun still tried to stream through. Slits of light painted the floor in perfect lines.
There’s a girl here. I hear the door close behind me as the girl steps around my uncle’s desk.
She looks so small in comparison. Everything in the office is old, heavy. She’s beautiful. Her pale white skin glows as the lines of light from the window scroll over her cheek.
But she looks tired, and too pale.
“I heard it’s your birthday,” she says. She steps toward me, coming closer. I don’t look down, but I can sense that she’s wearing high heels from the way she’s walking. Her gait is uneasy. There’s something wrong.
There’s something wrong with me, too. My cousins and my uncle bought this girl for me. She gets closer and stands right in front of me, but she doesn’t touch me. I don’t know if I should make the first move, but my body moves before I can decide.
My hands come up and cup her chin. God, she’s gorgeous. The color in her eyes is light blue, and they gleam with a tiny spark that’s about to be extinguished. I feel her hands go to my belt in the darkness. I hear the clank of the metal, but it’s slow. She isn’t grasping at me, desperate to have me.
I feel my hands glide down her arms. She’s thin. Almost too thin, maybe. Her dress curves along her body, and as I glide my hands down past her elbows, I feel her bones pass under my fingers. I feel like I could break her.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “You don’t have to.”
I bring her hands into mine as she stops just before pulling down my zipper. I wonder if my cousins are outside the room. Maybe they’re off with their own girls. Maybe they’re with their girlfriends or maybe they’re with women they purchased. Maybe they’re with women they stole, or who owe something, or who are almost done paying a debt.
I don’t know this girl’s name. I haven’t seen her before, and I don’t know why she’s here.
Her fingers try to loosen themselves from my grasp, but I’m stronger than her. I keep her still. Her eyes freeze, and then shut, and then she looks up at my face.
“I have to,” she says in a small voice. “I need the money.”
My heart clenches up, and I feel it drop to my stomach.
She needs the money, but I still don’t know why she’s here. Needing the money isn’t a good enough reason to do this. There has to be more. But I don’t want to know her story. Not now. Not here.
“You don’t have to do this,” I repeat. “Let’s just talk.”
Outside the closed windows, down in the backyard, I hear the party going on. My uncle’s business associates, everyone is here. I’ve been waiting for my dad to arrive all afternoon and evening, but I don’t think he’s coming. It’s my birthday, and I’ve shaken hands with all the men outside. This is my present, though. She’s my gift.
I should be grateful. I should unwrap her from her dress and pull her down onto my lap. Or maybe tell her to get down on her knees. My cock stirs as I look at her lips, but I feel utterly empty inside. Contact might help. I know it would help for a moment. It might even help for more than a moment, as she lets me work he
r body, make her feel good, take my pleasure from her and make myself feel good, too. But I’d feel more empty afterwards than I do now. Somehow, that’s possible. I know it’s always possible to seem more empty.
Emptiness isn’t finite. The hole inside you can get bigger. More and more space inside you can be eaten away, until you’re hollow. A shell of what you used to be. And it’s shit like this, right here, that causes it.
The men outside...I know what they’ve done. Fuck, my cousins have done it, too. I haven’t done it yet, the ultimate sin, but I know there are some things I’ve done that may even be worse.
Worse than taking away a man’s life? It’s possible. What about making him beg to be spared. Is that worse? Making him think it’s all about to be blotted out in an instant, with the quick pull of a trigger. That one moment, and it’s all over. But what if you bring him to the brink and walk him back? That can break a man.
Is that worse than taking a man’s life?
The girl’s face is painted with fear. She probably thinks I’m a sick fuck. Maybe the gentlemanly thing to do would be to just get it over with. Fuck her fast and raw and throw her aside while I light up a cigarette and shut the blinds on the window tighter. That’s what she expects.
Maybe it’s selfish, but I can’t do it.
“You don’t have to be afraid. I don’t want this.” I take her by the elbow and sit her down on the couch at the far wall. “Just sit. We’ll wait here. I won’t tell them it didn’t happen.”
Her eyes drag up my body and flicker in a stream of light as she peers at me.
“You won’t tell them?” she asks. Her eyes haven’t been stolen of all their light. There’s still some there. I can’t take it away from her. I can’t.
“I won’t tell.”
Cherry