“Sure, buddy. I believe you.”
“You don’t. I can tell you don’t,” he sighed. “It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to. No one ever will.”
He scrubbed his hands down his tired, pink face.
“What did she mean by the pink sticker?” I asked.
He sprung to his feet and flung open the door.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
“Okay, but Harold I need to be in theater in just under thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be quick,” he said.
“Fine,” I replied and followed him out, not having the faintest idea as to what was going on.
~
Operating room eight was my favorite mainly because it was the biggest. It also had the best speakers of all the operating rooms which meant I could listen to Mozart’s Requiem as I worked, its low, melancholy tones helping me to focus and see the art in every inch of human flesh.
As Harold and I stood looking up at the ceiling, I saw just how large the room was. The ceiling seemed to expand up and up until the light failed to penetrate the upper realms of the building.
“It’s up there,” he said.
“What is?”
“The pink sticker.”
Pulling his phone from his back pocket, he turned on the torch and shone it up toward the ceiling. It looked like little more than a speck at first but as I squinted I saw the pink hue of the circular sticker.
“I put it there,” he said.
Gauging how far away it was, I couldn’t fathom how he got up there.
“You put it there? How?”
He tapped the side of his nose.
“The how is not the important part. Are you not going to ask why?”
“I was getting to that,” I huffed. “Why did you put it there?”
He smiled, his yellowing front teeth protruding like a rat’s.
“As an experiment,” he answered. “Outer body experiences. Apparently, they’re pretty common.”
“Yeah… Apparently.”
Looking down at my watch, I saw I only had a few more minutes until I had to hurry down to operating room three. It was my least favorite room but one that at least boasted easy clean tiles should the procedures get unexpectedly messy.
“You know it was just a joke. Just a childish prank. Maybe it was a little too elaborate on my behalf. I don’t know.”
I looked over to him and saw his eyes were glossed over as they remained fixed on the little pink circle that shone vividly amidst the flashlight’s glow.
“A practical joke?”
“Yeah. The stickers,” he explained. “During my first year here. A few of us thought it would be neat to put stickers up high in the operating rooms in case a patient floated up and saw them. There were all these stories in the news at the time about how people had near death experiences on the operating table. They were a real laugh, Bosworth, like something out of a crappy movie.”
He sighed and looked back up into the ceiling.
“It was just a drunken prank really. We all piled in here shitfaced on Tequila one night and climbed up to fix bar stickers all over the place. It was so long ago I barely remembered it. I never once expected someone to actually see them.”
A shiver ran up my spine and I shook it away. I didn’t have time for all this nonsense and hocus pocus. I had to get into surgery.
“That’s… That’s quite a story, buddy,” I said as I made for the door. “Once I’m finished up tonight you can tell me more about it.”
Although I planned on making a hasty exit out of here long before I’d bump into him again. He could see the insincerity in my eyes and slumped his shoulders as he switched off the flashlight.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Choosing my words carefully, I took a deep breath.
“I think you have one hell of an imagination,” I said with a forced smile. “Catch ya later.”
I left him in there still staring up at the ceiling, still looking up at that damned pink sticker as though it was haunting him.
Meanwhile, I jogged down to the operating room. As I walked inside the ante-room, I prepared myself to step into my gown and mask. I noticed as I loosened my tie that I’d put on the same blazer as yesterday. Obviously, Etta had distracted me this morning but it reminded me of the small package I’d secreted away in the pocket. The one I would have filed away in the laboratory were I not in Etta’s company.
I felt for it now, waiting for my fingers to connect with the thin plastic film of the Ziploc bag. But all I felt was the silk lining of my pocket. Panicked, I looked inside, my hand almost tearing open the delicate material.
“What the fuck?” I gasped.
The panties were gone. They must have fallen out, but where?
“Everything okay?” asked the anesthetist as he poked his head around the corner. “We’re ready for you.”
Mozart’s Requiem began playing its echoic tragedy through the theater but I couldn’t enjoy a single note of it.
I need to find those panties, I raged inwardly. I need that DNA!
Chapter Four
Jet
"Shhhh... If that old bitch hears us she'll go crazy."
I held his hand in mine and felt how soft his skin was which was unusual for a client. Usually, they were ungroomed and callused with hard hands like their hearts. This guy though, he was different.
"I really appreciate you bringing me up here," he said as his feet fell softly on the stairs.
"Well I don't do this for everyone," I said. "I must really like your face."
He smiled to reveal sparkling teeth and his skin glowed a deep brown beneath the dim light of the house.
"Been on vacation recently?" I found myself asking as we entered the bedroom.
"Vacation?"
He was as baffled by my small talk as I was.
"Yeah. You're tanned."
"Oh," he looked down at his hands as though he was seeing them for the first time.
"St Moritz," he said. "With a friend."
"A girlfriend?"
"No, just a friend."
He laughed as his salt and pepper hair bounced. I felt dirty in front of him, dirtier than I usually did with customers. Maybe it was because there was something so respectable about him as he sat on the edge of my single thread bare bed in his sharp suit and brogues.
"I'm Dylan by the way," he said. "I forgot to mention that earlier."
"Jet," I replied. "I'm not really used to formal introductions."
To prove my point, I looked down and saw I was already unbuttoning my jeans.
He watched for a moment and waited until they fell around my feet before he reached into his jacket for his wallet.
"Fifty dollars, right?" he asked.
"Yup," I answered as I pulled my top over my head.
I'd stuffed my bra pretty tight with an assortment of scrap fabric and odd socks. Cupping my fake breasts, I felt how solid they were but hopefully, he could never tell. I never removed my bra. It added an air of mystery to the sex as the men could only imagine what my huge imaginary breasts looked like beneath the stretched lace and silk.
"Fifty doesn't seem like a lot for what you do, does it?" he said but I noticed there was no hint of hatred in his voice. Instead, he sounded sad.
He pulled another fifty out his wallet and lay the cash down on the bedside cabinet.
"Is that okay?" he asked, pointing at it.
I slinked over to him and placed my hands on his shoulders.
"Honey, don't you worry about a thing. It's enough to take you around the world."
Breathing in the smell of his cologne, I noticed the undertones of alcohol, scotch maybe. Or was it brandy? He was probably out at a business dinner and decided to get some action before he headed home to his stagnant, dry marriage.
There were so many men like that who hung around these quarters. Men who fetishized poor, desperate girls. Men who got turned on by the power of getting some skanky slut to
do whatever they wanted for the measliest amount of cash. And I couldn't complain because I was one of those skanks and I'd done things for money most people wouldn't believe.
"Come right here," he said and patted his lap.
I straddled my legs around him and pressed my body up against his.
"I've never brought a guy back here, you know."
"Really?" he asked, skeptical.
"It's true," I said and I almost meant it.
The truth was that I rarely brought men back to the house and only did so when I thought there was some real money to gain. Most jobs on the street were done in seconds but this guy wanted the full shabang and that couldn't happen up an alleyway.
"So you're okay with the whole girlfriend role-play?" he asked.
"Sure, sweetheart."
I kissed his cheek and held him tight, trying to imitate love as best as I could despite never having felt it.
"You had a long day at work?" I pouted. "I bet things were real, real hard at the office."
I slid my hand down between his thighs and felt him, rock solid already. He gasped and looked into my eyes as though he'd been touched for the first time.
He curled his fingers around my bicep and the glint of his wedding ring caught the light of the bedside lamp.
"Your wife not touch you like that?" I whispered in his ear before sliding my tongue down the length of his neck.
He let out a long exhale and lay back on his elbows, his hardness tenting up the front of his pants. He was bigger than I expected. These business guys usually had little peanuts that required a whole ten seconds of attention. Throw in a compliment and they'd be coming all over your hand with their bald faces wrinkled up so they looked like tiny maggots frying in the sun.
This guy was something else though. He was actually attractive for starters but he was polite too. That combination was about as rare as a diamond encrusted dildo, which I assumed Dr Bosworth maybe owned. He could own anything with his money and that pretty Florence fucking Nightingale was getting a taste of it all.
One of the girls said she'd seen her flee in the middle of the night with him just before the cops showed up. There wasn't a sign of her when we all woke up this morning. The bitch must have some prize pussy if she can get a man like Bosworth to save her. He never was interested in me. Or rather he was never interested in actually touching me.
He wanted the panties, of course, but that was the most interaction he wanted. I looked down at the ring on my hand and beamed with pride. It was the most beautiful thing on my body. More beautiful than my body itself. Phaedra looked as though she was on the cusp of having an aneurysm when she saw it.
"Bosworth's playing you!" she'd screamed. "Can't you see that, girl? He's onto us, he's playing games."
But I didn't care. The ring was mine and it was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever owned, more precious than my own life.
“You’re real beautiful, you know that?”
The voice seemed to come from someplace I barely remembered and I was snapped back into the moment. I looked down at Dylan’s face and saw he was looking up at me with drunken eyes that were as glazed over as they were brown.
“Are you daydreaming, baby girl? Are you dreaming about me?”
“Always dreaming about you my precious boy,” I said and kissed him hard.
He tasted like cigars, whisky and garlic, the quintessential taste of the businessman’s day.
He pushed his tongue against mine, soft and eager and wrapped his arms around my waist, tight, too tight. The bones of his fingers dug into my ribs, his nails tearing into the skin.
"Woah, calm down," I urged and he grinned like a mischievous school boy.
"You don't like it rough, baby?" he asked.
"Rough?" I said. "I can do anything rough."
The confidence in my voice wavered but still, I thought of the money on the table and the promise of more. I'd do what he said, even if it hurt.
In one swift movement, he spun me around and dropped me to the bed, leaning over me until his body eclipsed the light of the solitary light bulb.
Outside in the hall, a floorboard creaked. A second later, a muffled cough escaped Phaedra's throat, easily recognizable by its moist rasp.
"Shhh.."
I held a hand over his mouth as his hardness pressed into the inside of my thigh.
She suspected something, that was for sure but she sure didn't know what. Although if she tried hard enough she could have guessed.
"I'm so hard it hurts," he whispered as he struggled free from my hand. "And I didn't pay up to play games."
In silence, I held my breath and pulled down his zipper. He sprung out of his boxer shirts, ready to be touched with the end wet and engorged with blood.
Clenching my fingers around him, I felt how he pulsed in my hand, the diamond ring glittering between us. I kept my eyes on it and ignored the gentle moans he made as I stroked my hand up and down.
"That's so good, baby,” he said, a phrase I’d heard a thousand times.
A client's lexicon was a stunted one and I found that they all said the same catchphrases, used all the same lines that came in movies.
"You ever seen a dick that big?" he asked and looked into my eyes.
His cheeks were damp with sweat and I could feel the heat off him as he perspired the luxuries of his day. As he lay down further on top of me, I caught the sour tang of alcohol and the bitterness of stale smoke between the cotton fibers of his shirt. I breathed it in and felt how masculine it was, pulling my legs apart as he grunted and buried his head in my cleavage.
"You've got the best tits," he said as he latched his hands around the top of my stuffed bras. He moved around to my back to unfasten it but I stopped him.
"Touch me here," I said and guided his hand south.
I was wet already and his fingers glided in easily.
"Woah, baby girl you're ready for me."
It felt good to have his fingers fill me up, to have his warm hand press against me. I closed my eyes and drifted away with the feeling, letting him do whatever he wanted with me. At last, when I heard his breath quicken, I opened my eyes to see him poised in front of me with his cock in his hand.
"I'm gonna fuck you till you pass out," he said. "Turn around."
I did as I was told and reached up onto all fours, facing the faded floral wallpaper. With baited breath, I waited for him to enter me and he wasn't gentle. Thrusting himself into me as he roared.
"Shut the hell up!" I hissed over my shoulder and he bit down on his lip as he moved into a steady, ever quickening rhythm.
It felt good. A little too good. I found myself focusing on the pattern of the wallpaper to distract myself from the impending orgasm that was ripping through me. Coming always came so easy to me but I liked to hold off, liked to wait until the critical moment when I couldn't take it any longer.
"Harder," I whispered.
He didn't hear me and I pushed myself onto him, reaching through my legs to grab his balls.
"Harder!"
Leaning forward to grab my arms, he pulled my wrists tight like handles and fucked me until I was nothing but a surrendered body, a ragdoll that belonged to him.
His thighs shook as he came, his fingers clenching around me so tight I felt my hands begin to tingle from the loss of blood.
"Let me go," I said.
"Why? Are you scared?"
"No. I wanna make myself come."
He let go, throwing my arms to my sides and I immediately pushed my fingers between my legs and rubbed furiously at my clitoris, reaching a hard, intense orgasm with my face pushed into the pillow and my ass in the air.
When it was over, I fell exhausted onto the bed with my heart hammering in my chest. The smell of alcohol and cigars returned and I sat up. Now seeing the room for what it was, the magic was over.
"That was the hottest thing I've ever seen," he said, zipping up his pants. "Here, have another fifty."
He dragged his hand over hi
s sweaty brow and sighed.
"I can always find you at the docks, right?"
"Always," I nodded as I reached for the money. "Mind if I get a cigarette off you?"
"Sure thing."
He handed one over and I stared at it, not sure what the black skinny stick was.
"Gauloise," he said. "They're French."
"Huh... You travel to France a lot?"
"Only for pleasure."
As he pulled on his jacket, he looked around the room as though it was some dismal sort of exhibit.
"You live here," he said with a touch too much derision.
"Yup," I sighed, breathing out a plume of blue smoke. "Although hopefully not for long."
"You deserve better. I mean, Jesus. A cockroach deserved better."
I lay down and scanned my eyes across the cracked plaster of the ceiling knowing he was right.
Chapter Five
Etta
I couldn’t face the house and I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because I felt unnerved, maybe even stupid for returning to the place I'd escaped. Maybe I was even scared of Phaedra, terrified even. The closer I got to the house, the more I knew she kept secrets, ones that pulled Lincoln and Jet into their orbit, ones that put diamond rings on teenage girls' fingers.
It was dark now and I'd spent most of the day walking through the neighborhood trying to pluck up the courage to knock on that rusted door. I just couldn't do it. Not yet.
Sitting at the window of the diner, I looked into my coffee. A plate of discarded pie lay beside it untouched. I knew I had to eat but my stomach was tying itself in knots. I imagined it inside me twisted up like a poodle shaped balloon.
"You okay honey?"
I looked up and saw the waitress from the last time. Her hair was bigger today, more dried and frazzled like she'd bleached it into oblivion.
"I'm fine," I said although I obviously didn't feel it.
"You were here with the doc, weren't you? Bosworth’s his name isn’t it?."
I nodded, my lips stuck together with nerves.
There was a hungry glint in her eyes which she flicked up toward the clock before looking behind her.
"Supposed to be finishing in ten minutes," she said as she topped up my cup. "But there's no harm in quitting a little early. It's dead in here anyway."
Jewels and Panties (Book, Three): Sea Of Secrets Page 2