The Blue Cantina

by Paul Blades

  “I want to tell you something, Anna. I don’t know who you think I am. I’m sure you’ve heard all the rumors. Helping out on your charity was a good way for me to get a little favorable PR. I don’t give a fuck about your wayward girls or any of your problems. I can tell you that it will be a great embarrassment to me when this all comes out. I will make sure that you are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Your Center cost me a pretty penny over the years and now to have my name dragged through the mud will undo all the good I got from it. It makes me want to toss you out on your ear. I could call the sheriff right now and you’d be in the county lockup in a half an hour. It’s probably the only way for me to escape this mess without the newspapers using me as a fall guy. I can see it now: ‘Alleged Mobster Implicated in Charity Scandal.’ That’s what the headlines will say.”

  The distraught woman sat through Devlin’s tirade with a building sense of dread. She broke into tears. “Oh, please don’t call the sheriff, Mr. Devlin! I didn’t take the money, I promise you! I wouldn’t do that, the Center is too important to me!”

  Devlin let the unhappy woman cry for a few minutes. When Anna looked up, she could see the wheels turning in his head.

  “Okay, Anna,” he said finally. “What’s in it for me?”

  Anna tried to stifle her sobs. Her glimmer of hope was tinged with confusion. “What do you mean, Mr. Devlin?” she asked hesitatingly.

  “I mean, ‘What’s in it for me?’ You expect me to shell out over 200 grand. What do I get in exchange?”

  Anna looked at the man, perplexed. “I told you that I’d pay you back somehow, Mr. Devlin. It’ll take a long time, but I promise you’ll get all your money back, with interest, if that’s what you want.”

  “Bullshit,” Devlin spat out at her. “It would take you a hundred years.”

  “No it won’t, Mr. Devlin! I’ll mortgage the house!”

  “You can’t get a mortgage on the house. It belongs to the Board of Trustees now. I doubt that that group of stuffed shirts will look on your defalcation with amusement. Anyway, it’s already mortgaged to help pay for the addition, or did you forget that?”

  Anna felt her heart sink. He was right. She fought back a renewed cascade of tears.

  “There is one thing you’ve got that I want, Anna,” Devlin told her in a cold, insidious voice.

  Anna looked at the callous man with surprise. “What would that be?” she asked, tremulously.

  “I think you know what it is,” Devlin returned.

  The pretty, shapely social worker felt a chill run through her. Devlin, although his actions towards her had always been above board, had asked her out on a number of occasions. She had politely demurred. Many times, at cocktail parties or other benefits for the Center, she had felt his eyes wandering her flesh and she had gotten goose bumps and a sickly feeling. Devlin always appeared with a languorous, beautiful, young woman on his arm, rarely the same one. Anna, like many women, had a sixth sense about men, and she had him pegged as a lecher from the word ‘go’. She had often joked to Carol about it, who had responded, “But a good looking one.” That didn’t matter to Anna. She hadn’t dated much since college. She learned to like sex, but the men she met had not inspired her. Burdening herself with a lover was something that wouldn’t add much to her life. Looking at the leering face of her charity’s principal benefactor, she hoped that she was wrong about what he implied.

  The attractive social worker stiffened in her chair. “No,” she said brusquely. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “That’s too bad, Anna. You could have saved yourself a whole world of shit. And me too. It seems that your precious Center isn’t all that important to you after all. Now, I suggest that you get out of my house and go and get your affairs in order. The sheriff will be at your house in about an hour. You can wait there for him or you can take it on the lam. They’ll probably catch you sooner or later, but you could give them a good run.”

  Visions of herself being led from her apartment in handcuffs, the headlines the next day in the local paper, appearing at the courthouse shackled in front of the newspaper cameras, filled Anna’s head. All that she had worked for would be gone in an instant. The girls at the Center would probably all be on the street in a week. She would never get a job in social work again. Her resolve not to surrender herself to the salacious suggestion of her benefactor weakened.

  “What is it that you want, Mr. Devlin?” she asked, trying desperately not to give in to her revulsion or her despair.

  “Stand up and turn around,” Devlin ordered churlishly.

  Anna bridled at the suggestion that she model her body for the man, but she knew that she had no other hope for avoiding calamity. Biting her lip, she rose to her feet and turned slowly in front of the evil man’s desk. She had come directly from work and was wearing a knee length, dark brown, woolen skirt and a loose fitting, satin, tan blouse. Her shoes were low cut and businesslike. Her long, black hair was tied up behind her head in a chignon. As she turned, she felt her firm, ample breasts sway slightly inside her modest, stiff brassiere. Her stockinged thighs made a little hiss as they rubbed against each other. She couldn’t believe that she was doing this! No matter how bad the ramifications of public exposure of her difficulties would be, wouldn’t prostituting herself be even worse?

  When the circle was completed, Anna looked back in the face of the man. His eyes were drinking in her flesh appreciatively.

  “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about fucking you, Anna,” he said. “You were always just out of reach. I knew that you despised me in spite of everything I did for the Center. I’m going to enjoy having you suck my cock.”

  Anna sat back down in her chair. “Please don’t make me do this, Mr. Devlin!” she pleaded desperately. “I’ll do anything else! Please!”

  “I tell you what, Anna,” the man answered, “I’ll give you one week to think about it. But let me make the deal perfectly clear. I want a full, signed confession. I don’t care if you took the money or not. I want our, ‘relationship’, let’s call it, to be ironclad. Don’t bother to put a date on it. I’ll just fill that in later if you ever break our deal. Second, you’ll be my toy for one year. You’ll do whatever I say, whenever and wherever. From now on, you’ll spend your weekends here at my mansion. You can go to work during the week, but you’ll come here on nights that I want you. You’ll dress the way I say, you’ll never talk back or disrespect me. When the year’s over, I’ll give you back your confession and we’ll call it even.”

  Anna was stunned at the man’s cruel demands. She would be his whore for a whole year! Her hands tightened into little fists. She cursed Carol, cursed Devlin, cursed fate. Maybe it would be better to get her humiliation over with, take her medicine. She didn’t have to decide tonight. He had given her a week. Maybe she could come up with something. She looked at Devlin coldly. “How do I know you’ll live up to your part of the bargain, assuming I agree, which I doubt very much? How do I know that you’ll give me the confession back?”

  “You’ll just have to take my word, Anna. The fact is that I’ll probably get tired of you long before a year’s out anyway. You’re good looking, but you’re no Venus de Milo. I’ve fucked a hundred cunts prettier than yours, and more willing too. I’m just doing this to teach you a lesson. Don’t think you’re so all high and mighty from now on. I’ve seen how you looked at me. You think that I’m dirt, a fool to be milked for his money. This is payback, bitch. Every time I fuck you, I want you to realize who the lowlife is now. So, be here by seven o’clock next Friday night or not. It’s up to you. If you do come, I want a signed, written confession, in your own handwriting; and you better come looking like you want to fuck me, high heels, makeup, the works. Do you understand?” He waited until he was sure that his conditions had fully sunken into the mind of the frail, unhappy social worker. “Now get out,” he spat at her.

  Anna spent the next week in agony. She had gone home and, after drinking a qu
arter of a bottle of scotch, cried herself to sleep. Each morning, she forced herself to go to work, dragging herself out of bed, standing listlessly in her shower while the hot water streamed over her nude body. Every day, at the agency, there were a hundred little details to deal with. There were counseling sessions to attend with the girls, minor and not so minor disciplinary matters, screening candidates for admission. This was always a difficult task as it required a fine balance between girls who were so far gone that there was little hope for them and girls who really just needed some counseling and a bus ticket home. There were always more applicants than beds. Since Carol was not around, Anna had to take up the slack of her work as well, putting together the scheduling of the staff, processing invoices and purchase orders, drafting correspondence that had to get out.

  The worst part was having to carry her secret all alone. Normally, she would have confided her deepest fears and worries to her friend, Carol. They had spent many a night in deep conversation about their pasts, how their abuse had damaged them, how it felt so good to be better and living a life of helping others avoid the same fates. Since Carol was nowhere to be found, she had to bear her fear and shame alone. Sure, she had friends, other social workers from other agencies around the county, one or two men that she had met and become friendly with. But how could she tell them about what was happening, that money had been stolen, that she was considering prostituting herself to save the Center. If she agreed to Devlin’s nefarious deal, there was no way that she would want anyone to know. The money problem would be solved. If she didn’t, everyone would know anyway as she was carted off in a police car and her reputation destroyed forever. No, she had to bear her torment alone, much like she had done in the past, too ashamed and fearful of the consequences if she asked anyone for help.

  On Tuesday, Wendy, one of the older girls in the center, a sprightly redhead, had a mini crisis when her job prospect rejected her at the last minute. Anna considered the girls in the Center as family. It was difficult for her to watch the pretty, 19 year old cry. She knew that if the Center closed, there would be tears all around as the hopes of her chances for recovery and to lead a decent, productive, rewarding life would evaporate. She calmed the young girl down as best she could and tried not to have her despondency about the Center’s future add to the girl’s dismay.

  “Don’t worry, Wendy, something will work out for you. I know it,” she said as she held the girl in her arms in her office, her sobbing face nestled in her shoulder. “We all experience setbacks. It’s how we deal with them that makes the difference.”

  When the tiny, shapely, red haired girl left, Anna went into the bathroom off of her office and had a cry of her own.

  On Thursday, she had finally accustomed herself to the decision she knew that she would make all along. She called Devlin’s office to tell him she would agree to his terms. Devlin either wouldn’t or couldn’t talk to her and his secretary indicated she would relay the veiled message back to her boss.

  That night, Anna had gone out shopping. Her wardrobe was generally conservative as befitted the director of a social service agency. She charged the $200.00 cashmere skirt and the $150.00 woolen sweater as well as the $120.00 bright red high heels. As the shop girl rang her up, she wondered where she would ever get the money to pay for it all. She stopped at the fancy lingerie store at the mall, but was unable to bring herself to purchase any of the expensive, revealing underthings displayed there. It was too much for her to deal with, the image of her exposing herself to the jaundiced eye of the perverse tycoon. He would have to be satisfied with what she had on hand. She did purchase a set of cheap, gold plated earrings, little golden circles that would dangle from studs in her ears, to make herself look just a little prettier.

  Now, sitting in the driveway of the huge, foreboding mansion, Anna regretted not buying something sexy. She had seen the beautiful, model quality women Devlin had dated and doubted that they had any reticence about showing him their lace clad bodies. Devlin held all of the cards. What if he fucked her and then decided that she wasn’t attractive enough to keep his end of the deal? Now that she had decided to go through with his perfidious contract, all her hopes were on its success. Keeping the Center alive was more important than anything else. There had been a short period, after she had run away from home, when Anna had exchanged her body for the means of life, shelter, food, clothing, and she knew what it was like to fuck someone who you inwardly despised. Then her rewards had been the basic necessities of life. Now, her reward would be much greater. She would sacrifice herself for a short while so that dozens of young women wouldn’t have to spend their lives in misery. It was just sex, after all.

  Drawing on her deep, inner reserves of strength, Anna forced herself to open the car door and step outside. She saw her stocking covered leg extend from the car seat to the ground and her short skirt ride up her thigh, flashing the trim, bronze skin above her stocking. She knew that she had great legs. She felt a sudden surge of sexual power as she pushed the car door closed. She would make the best of a bad situation and convince Devlin that she was the best fuck he had had in a year. There was a time, not so many years ago, that men had paid good money to slide their hands along her soft, inner thighs and gain access to her point of pleasure, had ogled with desire her round, well formed breasts.

  Anna’s courage faded the closer that she got to the mansion. The parking lot was big. Three of Devlin’s expensive, shiny, luxury cars were lined up like stallions awaiting their master’s pleasure: a long, black Mercedes limo, a luxurious, rust colored, Lexus coupe and a shiny, silver Maserati. The house loomed large over her, the broad, arching entrance well lit, the rest of its bulk dark and sinister with lights at only a few of its many windows. The November night was cold and moonless. Tall, eerie looking trees swayed and creaked in the biting wind. The crunching sound made by her footsteps in the gravel of the driveway sounded ominous, and she advanced unsteadily on the front of her shoes, fearful lest she stumble on the fine points of her high heels.

  When she reached the wide, granite steps that led up to the doorway, she paused, wrapping her arms around her for warmth. Once she crossed the threshold, she would transform her life. She would become, essentially, Devlin’s sexual slave. Maybe she was making a mistake. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. She held a small, black leather purse in her right hand. She had agonized about the decision of whether to bring a suitcase. In the end, although she had packed and unpacked her carrying bag three times, she had decided against it. There had just been something too final in the thought of preparing for a weekend stay with him. The excuse that she needed to go home and put on clean clothes would give her a respite from her subservience to him, a chance to put some space between what she knew she had to do and her inner self.

  Steeling herself for her ordeal, Anna climbed the three stone stairs and advanced to the door. She hesitated only a moment before ringing the bell.

  Just as he had a week ago tonight, Devlin’s tall, lanky, male servant opened the door. He was swarthy, with jet black hair and a long, suspicious face. He was dressed in a black suit with narrow lapels and a thin, black tie. There were traces of grey around the sides of his head and he looked to Anna to be in his middle to late fifties. Last week, he had hardly said a word to her and he was equally unloquacious now, admitting her with a small, condescending nod.

  The entrance hall to Devlin’s mansion was laid with shiny, gray slate and surrounded by deep bronze, polished oak paneling. An expansive, red carpeted staircase led to the upper floors of the house. Devlin’s office was off to the right. Anna slid off her gloves and handed them to Devlin’s servant who waited patiently while she removed her overcoat. He placed the gloves in the pocket of the coat and hung it in a closet embedded in the wall close to the entranceway. He signaled wordlessly for Anna to follow him.

  The tall, elegant servant strode across the stone floor towards the entrance to Devlin’s office. His footsteps were quiet, highlighting the loud
, echoing click-clacking of Anna’s heels. He was dressed in a dark, well pressed suit appropriate for his station. Anna wondered, as she followed him, how much he knew about the purpose for her visit. He undoubtedly was well versed in Devlin’s playboy lifestyle and she imagined that he had escorted dozens of Devlin’s conquests across this large, cavernous foyer. She also wondered how public her upcoming ‘relationship’ with the servant’s master would be. There would be nothing unusual in itself for her to have become enamored of the good looking, dynamic businessman. Eyebrows might rise among the Board of Trustees, but there was nothing unethical in itself for the executive director of the Center to be dating the president of the Board. Things would work out, they just had to.

  The entrance to Devlin’s study was secured by a large, ornate, dark stained door. The servant opened it and stood back, letting Anna precede him into the room. It was a large room, lit by an elegant, central chandelier and finely chiseled, glass sconces on the walls. The lighting was bright, yet soft. The rug was a thick, gold carpet and the walls were painted a creamy off-white. Facing the front and side of the building were large, arching, French windows offset by long, thick, brown curtains. The room was divided in half with an expansive, leather couch facing the window, a wide and long, glass coffee table in front of it and two over stuffed, fabric covered chairs on either side facing each other.

  Behind the couch was Devlin’s aircraft carrier sized desk. Devlin, dressed in an expertly tailored, light blue dress shirt and tie, was sitting behind it. His cuffs were bound by gleaming, gold cufflinks. Behind him, on the wall, was a large mural depicting a scene from antiquity. Anna had seen it before and deemed it appropriate for the hedonistic bachelor. It was called, if she remembered correctly, ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’, memorializing the ancient Romans’ seizure of women to populate their nascent city. The fierce, Roman men, bandits really, were grappling with the buxom, semi draped, protesting women prefatory to hauling them off as captives. Anna had a new insight as to how the women must have felt.