by Marni Mann
“Any of the girls behind that glass can provide a service that you’ll be more than happy with,” I said.
“I’m sure they’re all good at what they do, but my tastes are a little different than what I’m seeing in there.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard this; therefore, I had several phone numbers Lawan could call.
“No problem. We can accommodate those needs, too. Why don’t you give me a description of the type of man you’re looking for and my staff will do their best to find someone?”
“Man?” The guy crossed his boot over his thigh and laughed. “I’m not looking for no man.”
“Then, why don’t you tell me what will make you happy?”
He leaned to the side of his chair, the same side I was on, and put his hand next to his mouth to direct his voice at me. “I’m looking for a girl a little younger than the ones you’ve got in there.” His other hand reached toward me, trying to give me the bills that were tucked under his fingers.
“How much younger?”
“Much.”
“I see.” I slid the cash in my pocket.
“I’m not looking for no virgin, but I’m not looking for her to be used up either. I want prepuberty, hairless, someone who knows my cock from my balls, you hear me?”
He handed me another bill. I didn’t bother to see how much it was before I joined it with the others.
“Go find me someone who fits that description. I’ll tip her real well when I’m done.”
My hand went to the man’s shoulder, and I squeezed hard enough to make sure his attention stayed on me. “Let me see who I have in the back.”
As I walked through the lounge, I pointed at the security guard standing at the entrance. With his eyes on me, I turned two of my fingers in a circle, signaling for him to lock the front door, and then gave a second sign that told him to follow me.
“There are four security guards on tonight, right?” I asked the guard in Thai when we reached the hallway.
“Yes, sir.”
“I need you to grab one of them and make sure the other two cover your areas, and then I want you to escort someone outside.”
“The old man from the lounge?” he asked in Thai.
I nodded. “I want to make it clear to that motherfucker that I don’t sell children in here.” I glanced in the old man’s direction, his gray ponytail dangling down his back, as greasy and as goddamn slimy as him. “Actually, when you’re done with him, I don’t want him to be able to even say the word children.”
“What did this one ask for? A boy or a girl?”
“The sick fuck asked for a girl. A hairless one.”
He ground his teeth together. “I’m going to take it further than last time; I’m just warning you.”
I had a feeling that had something to do with the two daughters he had at home. That was the reason I had picked him and not the guard who was standing by the elevator.
“I hope you do,” I replied in Thai. I reached inside my pocket, pulled out the bills the ponytailed bastard had given me, and counted them. Then, I added some of my own money and handed it to him. “Here’s seventeen thousand baht. You’ll get another seventeen when it’s done. Same deal for the other guard.” It was enough money to cover his rent for at least two months.
“I’d do it for free.”
“I’d never ask you to.”
He clasped his hands in front of his face and bowed.
I returned the gesture with a slap on his shoulder, and I went up the stairs to go to my office. As I passed Arin’s door, I paused.
I had so much fucking work to do, including blacking out the security cameras so that the ponytailed guy would be deleted from all our footage. If his disappearance got traced back here, I wanted to be able to prove that he hadn’t walked through my doors. I also had to scan the live feed to make sure my two other guards were covering all the areas now. I had tips to pay out and new girls to enter into my system, and tomorrow’s deposit needed to be counted.
Yet my goddamn feet wouldn’t move from her door.
Nine
Arin
I heard a pair of footsteps coming down the hall. I listened to them get closer to my room until that noise was replaced with a pounding on my door. As I waited for the door to open, I closed the browser where I had been checking out Serviced’s website and set the phone on the nightstand.
“Lawan,” I called out, “is that you?”
When no one answered, I climbed out of bed and cracked the door, gasping when I saw Huck on the other side. He said nothing at the way I had responded. He just continued to look at me with an intensity I felt all the way down in my toes, his fists clenched like they were about to punch something.
I hoped that something wasn’t me.
“Are you okay?” I asked. He said nothing, so I tried a different route and said, “Do you need something?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth stayed open as he breathed through it, his brows scrunched together, anger filling his eyes.
I felt so small as I stood before him, so naked in my white T-shirt and cotton shorts that were large on my frame, but his stare made them feel see-through.
“You don’t know?”
After the way he had treated me earlier, I was afraid of what his answer would be. He’d made it clear he wouldn’t force me to give him a blow job. However, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t force me to give someone else one. I had stupidly agreed to do whatever he asked, and I had no idea how far he would take that. But, by the way he was looking at me, I was definitely nervous.
“I want you to get in bed.”
When he took a step toward me, I took one back and kept on moving until the mattress hit behind my knees. Quickly tucking myself underneath the blanket, I sat so the pillows were between the wall and my shoulder blades.
Huck stood in the middle of my room, his hands still gripped into tight fists. I couldn’t stop staring at them, at the heads of the snakes and their beady pupils. As my gaze eventually shifted upward, he seemed even bigger than the last time he had been in here. He had to be at least a few inches over six feet with hair that wasn’t blond or brown but a mix of the two. His cheeks and chin were covered in scruff. The short beard didn’t appear intentional, more like it was out of laziness. But his eyes weren’t lazy at all; they were extremely focused. On me.
The whole time I’d been in his presence—when he’d carried me up the stairs, placed me on the toilet seat, stared into my mouth—I’d felt the seriousness in his gaze. I’d felt the way he assessed me. I’d felt him on every part of me even though he didn’t touch me.
And, as he flipped on the light, I felt it all again.
He had brought me water. He’d had Lawan offer me soup and crackers and slices of bread that had a strange spread on it, which I’d turned down because my stomach still wasn’t settled from the drugs. Now, he was here for a different reason. A reason I couldn’t wait any longer to hear.
“Tell me what you want from me, Huck.”
Instead of a response, I got more silence. More intensity deep within his eyes.
No one had ever wordlessly looked at me like he was doing. And I had no way of knowing what his stares meant because he was the hardest person to read. I wasn’t sure if he was about to pull out a knife and slice me into thirds or if he was about to say something that would put me at ease. I just knew that I couldn’t take too many more seconds like the ones that had just passed.
“Huck?”
He walked over to the window and glanced down at the street. I heard scooters drive by and voices from the people who were walking near the building. I imagined some of them were talking about the brothel, although I couldn’t understand a word of Thai, so I had no way of knowing.
“You could have gone straight to the police,” he said, our eyes finally connecting, “or the US embassy. But, when Chati gave you my name, you trusted him, and you came here. Why?”
I carefully thought about his quest
ion. “I don’t know.”
He breathed through his mouth again. “I don’t believe you.”
When I bent my knees and wrapped my arms around them, my shorts rode up to the tops of my thighs, exposing most of my legs. I should have shimmied them down, but his glare kept me from moving again.
“Well, there’s sort of a reason, but it’s small, and it’ll make you laugh.”
“I don’t do that very often.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Get to the point, Arin.”
“When I was a kid, my mom used to read to me. She wasn’t a good reader. She…” I paused, remembering her face and her hair, both almost identical to mine. And then I recalled the way she had held my cheeks and kissed them before she closed the book and said good night. I missed her. Oh, God, I missed her so much. I shook those thoughts from my head, so I could continue. “My favorite book was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She probably read it to me twenty times at least. So, when Chati said your name, I felt this weird sense of comfort, and that’s what led me here.” I squeezed my legs even tighter. “I’d never met anyone named Huck before.”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile either. Not even the tiniest bit of hardness fell from his face. “You live in New York City, right?”
I nodded.
“Then, where does all this innocence come from? Because the New York I’ve read about and seen on TV doesn’t breed women who would go to some stranger’s place, especially not after she was drugged and stuffed into a sack and dumped on a pier. What she would do is run her ass to safety.”
“You’ve kept me safe.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but his stare turned even sharper. And, as it did, I pulled the blanket all the way up to the bottom of my lip.
“What’s funny is that you believe it’s going to stay that way.”
My body didn’t shake this time because there was nothing keeping me in this room. I wasn’t chained to the bed. The door wasn’t locked. If I wanted to leave, I could easily find the stairs and walk down them.
What made no sense was that, if he wanted me to leave so badly, enough that he was threatening my safety, then why didn’t he just kick me out?
I wasn’t going to ask that.
But I would ask something else.
“Is it always this dark here?”
I’d slept through the morning and afternoon light. Still, I wondered what those hours would have shown me, whether our conversations would have gone differently had they happened in daylight.
“In Bangkok, no.” He put his back against the window and leaned into it. “But here, in this brothel, yes.”
He sounded so honest, I felt a chill run through me.
“Why do you stay then?”
He’d warned me not to ask questions, so I knew I was pushing my luck.
“Things weren’t always like this. At one time, I could help. I just can’t do that anymore.”
“Help whom?”
He shook his head, almost like he’d been talking to himself and he’d just realized it.
When he didn’t answer, I said, “What changed, Huck?”
He looked away from me and began moving toward the door. He’d reached his limit, but I hadn’t.
“Wait,” I told him, “I’m not done yet.”
“I am.”
I threw off the blanket and rushed toward the door, placing my hand over his as he pulled on the knob.
I almost jumped from the feel of his skin.
The images were only inked on. I knew that. But it felt as though the snake had licked me, and the noise I made sounded like I had enjoyed it.
I did.
Jesus, there was something definitely wrong with me.
I couldn’t remember what I was going to say. His touch made me lose my train of thought. Knowing he’d brush past me within the next few seconds, I had to come up with something. Just a few words, a question, anything that would give me more time with him.
“Don’t make me wait.” It came out as a whisper. “Tell me what you’re going to have me do here. I know I can’t stay for free.”
His other hand rested above the open door, and the movement sent me his smell. It was clean, a little soapy, with a splash of cologne that reminded me of the citrus I used to buy at my favorite fruit stand in the city.
“Do you want to sell your pussy, Arin?”
Pussy.
It wasn’t like anything else he had ever said. That word sounded different, special, like it held value.
“No”—I shook my head—“I really, really don’t.”
His eyes dropped to my nipples, and I knew they were getting harder, pushing even further into my T-shirt.
“You told me you’d do anything.”
“I know.”
“You lied.”
“I—” My voice cut off when he walked through the opening, not giving me a chance to explain myself, just disappearing down the hall.
I stood in the same place, waiting for him to return. I knew he wouldn’t. Huck wasn’t the type to give second chances or to listen to bullshit. But I was pretty sure he was fed up with me, and my ass would be on the street by morning.
I needed to change that.
Fix it.
But I couldn’t do that now, so I climbed back in bed and pulled the blanket up to my face, and I stared at the framed snake on the wall.
I wished the one on his hand had bitten me. I wished his touch hadn’t caused any pleasure at all. Because, now, I was filled with nothing but pain.
Ten
The Kid
Before
I don’t remember the prison.
I don’t remember the time I spent with you on the beach.
I don’t remember calling you Dad.
But I remember the stuffed rat. I was told you were the one who had given it to me and that you’d named it Demon. I have no memory of that part, only of how much I loved that thing. I never let it go. Most kids that age play with trucks or cars. Not me. I built a bed for it to sleep in and a table for it to eat on. I took it everywhere until, one day, I felt too grown-up to be carrying a rat with me. It then got moved to a shelf. Eventually, a drawer.
I’ll never forget that damn thing.
I have a lot of questions about your last note. Before I get into those, I want to hear about Toy.
You don’t seem like the kind of guy who’s capable of love.
Am I wrong?
Eleven
Shank
Before
Demon.
Fuck, I missed that rat.
The stuffed one that I’d given to the kid was named after my own pet rat. Demon had been with me a long time. So had all his babies. But, really, they had been my babies, and that was what I had called the hundreds of offspring Demon had produced.
The babies had had their own room at the prison. They’d fed on our inmates while they were still alive or dead, whichever I decided they deserved at the time.
They’d had a perfect life and delicious food. I’d made sure of that.
But Demon hadn’t been like his children, nor had he lived in the same room as them. He’d stayed in mine, and he had been my fucking partner in crime. He’d observed all the inmates I tortured. He had seen my cock get hard and the cum spill into the pools of blood. He’d hung out with Beard and Diego. He’d watched while I fucked Toy. Just like the kid and his rat, Demon had come with me wherever I went.
We had more in common than I’d thought.
When the kid had come to live with us, I’d told Beard he needed to get the kid a pet. A live one. So, I had gotten a cage, put one of the babies inside it, and stuck it in the nursery. After only a few hours, Tyler had thrown the cage away and set the rat free on the beach. She’d said it carried diseases, and she hadn’t wanted her son around it.
What about what I wanted for our son?
That was a question I’d asked her once when we were alone.
I remembered her hand slapping me
in the face and, “Don’t you ever say that again,” had spit from her mouth.
She was such a feisty cunt.
Since she wouldn’t let the kid play with a real one, I’d bought him a stuffed rat during one of my trips to the States. And, when I’d returned, I had given it to him in front of all the guards, so everyone could see his gift, and they would all notice if it went missing.
That had infuriated Tyler.
Her anger made me happy.
So did the news that the kid had taken the rat with him when he left the prison. They’d fled in such a hurry without much time to pack or grab all the essentials; therefore, I never thought the rat had made the cut.
But, back then, I didn’t know what had been taken or left behind.
I just knew that I’d lost.
The kid.
Toy.
Demon.
And everyone else in my life.
Christ, I didn’t want to think about those memories. I’d done enough of that shit during my time in this prison. Fortunately, the kid hadn’t asked about those days. He’d asked about someone I enjoyed as much as blood.
My Toy.
I’d always preferred men to women, and I’d tasted plenty of both until we got together.
But no one had ever tasted anything like Toy.
I could endlessly talk about him. I just didn’t want to talk about the end.
That part hurt way too fucking much.
It had been a while since I went back to that beginning, and my cock was already getting hard as I began to rewind things in my head.
I reached across my blankets to the pile of paper, grabbed a sheet, and started writing.
Was I the kind of guy who was capable of love?
Based on everything I’d told you, you probably assumed I wasn’t. I could understand why you would think that way, and before Toy, I hadn’t thought I was either. But, once I met him, I had feelings that I’d only ever gotten from blood, and that was fucking confusing.