by J. C. Allen
And I am goddamn hungry.
And when I feel hungry or out of place, I get anxious.
And this is a hell of a place to be showing some nerves.
The only benefit to the heat was that no one had the capability of differentiating hot sweat from cold, nervous sweat. I would look just like everyone else did—stuffy, miserable, and making small talk with people we didn’t give two shits about. It was more or less the life I’d tried to escape after two years ago, and now it seemed to accomplish my life goal, I needed to get my sorry ass dragged back in.
Still, I had never exactly called the CIA for disguise work, and as I approached the guest list, I had a nervous fucking fit that the guards would see right through me. Yes, I looked much different. I doubt Eve, should she see me right now, outside of my Waffle House glory, would not even recognize me.
However, unlike many of the hotshots here, I did not have body guards. To do so, to bring along Savage Saviors with me, seemed akin to bringing a unit of six into Normandy against the entire German army. But now, seeing that I had no one, I probably stood out like a red-painted man in a green yard.
I could not exactly pull back and take time to contemplate. While I was far from the worst of the goons—the further in I went, the greater Rock’s coverage would be—I already had eyes on me. Not necessarily suspicious eyes quite yet, but any eyes on me meant I had a part to play, a role to act out.
So, pretending that an old geezer speaking Russian was the man I was supposed to be with, I feigned surprise that I had “lost my group,” put on some sunglasses, and walked over to make his quintet of bodyguards a… whatever the number of six is. I couldn’t think, I could barely believe I’d remembered what quintet was.
The Russian man approached the intensely muscular bodyguard and handed him an envelope. The steroid-jacked Falcon looked intensely at the contents of the envelope. I hated having absolutely no control over the matter—to think that I might die listening to a Russian accent complain about unfairness was at least morbidly funny, but every other part of me was screaming “bullshit, you let this be your plan?”
“You come to right place,” the bodyguard said with a terribly fake Russian accent. I could not tell if he was mocking the old man or trying to connect in some terrible fashion, but it drew a laugh all the same—as any half-assed attempt at interpersonal behavior did—and he waved us in.
I did not dare look anywhere other than straight ahead.
I had gotten in.
Fate, for at least the first obstacle in my mission, had smiled upon me.
Now, only about five hundred and thirty-eight more obstacles to go, and I might even get Rock in sight! Easy peasy!
I tried to stay with the group I had joined, but I didn’t want to seem too close—the last thing I needed was the guards of the Russian wondering why some white boy with weird hair was tailing them. Once I felt confident that eyes would not track me—or at least not care—I broke off, always making sure to stay reasonably close to one group or another.
As far as I was concerned, with my sunglasses on, silence was the name of the game. The less I did to draw attention to myself, the better. That meant my motions were limited, my mouth was mute, and my presence was small. There would be a time when I had no choice but to be the center of the party, but hopefully that came after the gun tucked into my pants had fired its first round straight into the skull of that fucking prick Rock.
Fortunately, the rich and the powerful seemed to enjoy having their own Secret Service type guards, for they spoke amongst themselves but no one else. The guards were there to protect the rich if shit went down—which increased the likelihood of my death. Oh, well. Life ends well, hopefully.
At some point, the group that I tailgated made its way near the stairs. This seemed like an opportunity I could not waste—to go up a level would grant me the chance to have an eagle’s eye view of everything beneath me, including the bald ugly head of Rock. I wasn’t too sure of my aim from where it appeared the second floor was, but I didn’t need to snipe—I just needed to know the terrain for an ambush.
There was just one problem—finding that asshole was fucking impossible.
I was far from searching for a needle in a haystack; if anything, I was hunting that same needle among a mountain of AIDS-infected hypodermics. Matty hadn’t been bullshitting when he said that this was a dangerous move—one wouldn’t be crossing any lines or daring any argument to say it was a flat-our stupid move, too—but the needle in question was Rock, and that meant I had a better chance of sneezing around that metaphorical haystack and blowing away everything but that famously elusive length of metal.
Put simply, I probably had a better chance of catching AIDS and then curing it with the force of my own will than finding Rock with anything other than dumb luck.
I walked as if I was communicating with someone over a headset, putting my hands to my ear and moving without looking at anyone. This was beyond fucking stupid, and every passing second made me more and more paranoid that someone was going to wonder who the lone wolf climbing the stairs with an earache was. I was violating my rule of remaining subtle.
But I made it to the second floor without getting noticed.
At least, not that I noticed being noticed.
The second floor of the building, carpeted in the same scarlet as the staircase leading up to it, was a large square that served more as a balcony that overlooked the first floor. Doors occupied the outer walls, some open and offering passersby a view of various interiors—fancy private offices, libraries, and what appeared to be a trophy room loaded with shocked-looking animal heads—while others, most of them, were shut.
A few people stood around the perimeter, seeming, at a glance, to be innocently chatting amongst themselves or overseeing the party below. A few, however, slipped envelopes of varying cash amounts, drugs, or other illegal and illicit activities. Guns were clearly visible on the belts of many people. If I ever needed a reminder that I’d entered hell disguised, for the time being, as heaven, I got it here.
I take it back, I thought as I saw what was going on to my side.
In my peripheral vision, three men walked very close to each other, as if arm in arm. It took a strain to keep my eyes ahead but my vision on them to realize that was exactly what they were doing, actually—and the man in the middle looked none too pleased.
Which meant…
Oh shit.
He’s dead.
Rock’s cronies were, without making it obvious, dragging the middle man to one of the closed doors. Were I a betting man, I’d be willing to wager that at least one of those outermost men, if not both of them, had their free hands tucked inside their jackets with a Saturday night special cocked and leveled through a concealing layer of formality at their “buddy.”
Hell, even if I wasn’t a betting man, I’d take that bet, because it wouldn’t be gambling, it would be a guarantee.
The middle man tried to make a move, but the guards were smooth and prevented him from getting away. I was surprised that the man didn’t scream—perhaps he thought silence might get him a deal of some sort—but by then, by the time he had tried to escape, the guard whispered something that prevented any scream.
The door opened, the three men entered, and then the door shut.
And nobody else, having either missed the moment entirely or seen it as something entirely different, had a twinge of suspicion that they’d been present—some by mere feet—to a murder.
Damnit. They are not fucking around here.
I have to get focused.
If the man they’d just dragged in there wasn’t already dead, I was certain they were, at that very moment, finishing the job. In only a matter of moments, the door—
Swung open.
And sure enough, only two men emerged, the two who had been on the outside of the man. That was bad enough.
Making it even worse was that one of the men, seeing me stand by myself, looking on, came over to me. F
uck.
Fuck.
Fuck!
I could not run. To do so would draw the attention of every man in this room, every gun, every bullet. Even to begin to walk away would at least draw a similar reaction—it wouldn’t have the theatrics of running away, sure, but the end result would be the same.
So I stood still, looking ahead until the last possible second, when the guard approached me.
“How are you, buddy?” the guard said.
Shit.
“Enjoyin’ the view,” I said, putting on the thickest, most fake Southern accent I could muster. Anything different than my normal voice. “This here be one of the nicest places I reckon’ I ever been!”
“Indeed,” the guard said, though he spent several seconds eying me up, as if daring me to break, daring me to show some sign of fear—some excuse to throw me in the dumping room. “You do know that this floor is authorized personnel only, right?”
“Why, for real?” I said. I didn’t have to fake my surprise—I really did not know that. “Why I apologize good sir, I certainly did not mean—”
“It means go downstairs.”
His voice left little room for argument. It also told me I was going to be trailed for the rest of the night.
This was getting a hell of a lot harder.
“Yes, sir, right away sir,” I said.
I moved as calmly as I could, thinking I was smooth, but let’s be honest, I probably had swamp ass from sweating so much and looked the part of hillbilly. I didn’t dare look back to see if Rock’s man was eying me, because I knew he was. I just prayed that the guard wouldn’t spread the word about me, that he’d remain upstairs as a sort of second-floor bouncer.
When I got to the stairwell, I almost mumbled “shit” to myself before thinking saying anything out loud was a grave mistake.
Well, one thing was for sure. I was now a Southern man, who… had not given his name out yet, so I’d think of something. Sam? Sam sounded pretty damn Southern, but why think of it until I needed it?
Because no prep got you dangerously close to being outed, and there’s no reason to do such a thing again?
I ignored that worry. If I got outed, I was killing everyone in sight to get to Rock. My personal mission would become something like a John Wick mission.
I checked my phone, which I’d also changed the background of to… the skies of Chicago. Not Southern at all. And too late to change it now.
And for all that had happened already, for all that had taken place… I’d only spent about fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes to draw the first suspicious eye.
Fuck me.
Forgive me, Maggie, if this fails. You deserve better.
“Rock sends his condolences!”
“The Saviors are dead!”
Sucking in a deep breath, I promised myself that things would change when—hah, when… if I got out of there. Once Rock was good and dead, I was certain that the shackles that were holding me beneath the waters of my own misery would shatter and let me breathe the sweet air of happiness once more.
It was there, I knew—Matty had been trying to tell me that for years, I realized—but a person could point and declare that shimmering light just on the other side of the water’s surface as a happy life they wanted, but if you could only stare at that divide—if you had no earthly way of even touching it, let alone crossing over—then what difference did it make?
Rock had taken my happiness and, in doing so, thrown an anchor over my neck and cast me into these cold, dark depths. His existence kept me down there. He’d die and, just like that, I’d be free and I’d be happy again. And then, yes, I could commit to making everything else better.
I might even get over Maggie’s death, finally.
If I could get out of here alive.
I came back down to the first floor, adjusting my suit to try and look like I’d just come from the bathroom or something.
And then, just as I came to the open expanse, in the corner, I saw him.
Rock.
With him was a sight I could not bear myself to believe, something that left me so stupid as to believe I could ever believe in innocence again.
Eve.
14
Eve
I felt ridiculous.
Utterly, stupidly, completely ridiculous.
Beyond insane ridiculous.
I was sure I looked great—I had goddamn better.—but I felt ridiculous. I wasn’t fooling anyone. No one was going to see me and think that I was a classy, high-end broad who could be won only by the most handsome billionaire.
No, I could address what I was seen as with the one question that never left my mind.
“You a whore or not?”
Sure was.
And, judging from the glances I was getting and the way some of the people made a note of leaning in to whisper something to their neighbors, I had to guess that they thought I was ridiculous, as well.
And a whore.
But then again, I suppose that part wasn’t much of a secret. I think Rock had told everyone beforehand there would be whores to satisfy any man who walked in—God knows there were no wives or girlfriends present—and it wasn’t like we had signs that said “we are classy.”
If anything…
We just emphasized further how much sluttier we were.
But I’d gone above and beyond for Rock, simply because being mocked for having overdone our dress was a far better fate than death, no matter how it got spun.
I’d gotten exactly the sort of dress I imagined he’d want me in. I’d decided to take the extra step in leaving early.
This, however, wasn’t so much my own decision as it was something Crystal and I decided would be wise in the long run. Neither of us had been to this part of town, and so neither of us really had any idea of where we were going or if we’d have trouble finding the place. It was as much a business decision as it was a “suck up to the boss” decision.
In doing so, we caught the 7:15 bus—drawing all sorts of jaw dropping looks from the casually dressed riders—and arrived just before 7:45, plenty early to avoid drawing the ire of Rock.
Well, not that he couldn’t find reason to be pissed at us anyways. But at least we had eliminated the options he had for being angry at us.
And what little it mattered, because Rock was nowhere to be found. We’d wasted our energy trying to get here early.
“Figures,” Crystal muttered. “We give an A-plus effort and teacher’s not even here to hand out gold stars. I’m gonna go see if I can find a high-payer who’d be willing to buy me a drink if I let him slap me with his balls.”
Well, that’s one way to think of it.
This was probably deadly to me in the long run, but meeting Derek had completely turned my world around. It made me see hope for the future. It made me… I wouldn’t say believe in men again, but it made me begin to believe in the possibility of a single good man again. It made me have hope.
But the problem with hope—aside from it crashing hard in the end—was that it made my current status with being an enslaved prostitute all the more unbearable. When I didn’t see a way out, I could just shrug it off and die a slow death until I couldn’t take it anymore.
But now, now that I saw a future without these chains, having the chains actually on me was brutal—to make no mention of the fact that there was no telling when, let alone if, these chains would ever come off.
And tonight, it was going to suck even more, and not just because Crystal had left me on my own.
There’d be no reading—no escaping into fantasy worlds or actual intellectual thought via the neutral glow of my cell’s e-reader app—and no dimly-lit and rushed jobs for me tonight. Only ten minutes on the floor and I got the look from a man with a scarred face and an Eastern European, presumably Russian accent.
“You, come,” he said.
It took so much goddamn energy on my part to pretend I was interested. I didn’t just have to fight resignation,
now I had to fight hope. It was like the absolute worst-case of receiving a job offer that paid triple, but the current job wouldn’t let you quit until a day you couldn’t know.
Except, you know, the current job also destroyed your sense of self-worth and soul and took away any value and attachment you had to sex.
Two minutes later I was in a stuffy, leather-scented library on the second floor. The old Russian man—wrinkly skin and all—just dropped his trousers right at the door, showing me a cock that would take many, many, many strokes and moments of almost gagging to finish off.
“You, suck me,” he said.
“Oh, anything for you.”
God, make me puke.
It got worse. It smelled like he bathed his dick in cologne. I really would vomit—I just had to hold it in until he came. Guess I’ll find out how good of a whore I am.
You know what’s sick?
It was, once I got past the part where I was basically being strangled and choked at the same time, sort of nice to be on my knees instead of in a car. It certainly took a lot of the usually neck-straining work out of the equation to just be able to kneel there and basically let the guy masturbate with my face.
OK, nothing about it was nice, not even sort of nice. It just didn’t suck as much.
After three minutes of holding my breath and stifling my gag reflex, the James Bond villain grunted some word I didn’t understand, buried himself to the hilt, and began a series of pants that sounded like a dying animal. I felt the tip of the condom begin to bulge inside my throat, only a few inches above my sternum, and it occurred to me with some distant and morbid intrigue that, had he not been wearing the condom, I wouldn’t even have had a chance to taste his cum.
Just bear it, smile, take your payment, and wait till he leaves.
“You, good,” he said with a satisfied sigh and an approving nod.
He reached into his pocket, retrieved two twenties and a ten from an expensive-looking wallet, and dropped the money between the two of us, letting it divide and flutter to my knees. Then, still wearing that smile, he tucked his wallet back into his pocket, pulled off the condom, and dropped that, too, between us, letting it splat atop one of the twenties.