You know what she looks like . . .
Janie Quick’s eternally amused voice popped up, but Nina didn’t need her to finish the thought. She knew what the mouth reminded her of. It was some morbid version of a blow-up doll, the kind with the mouth primed for a particularly lonely cock. She reminded Nina a little bit of a girl she’d known at the Weeping Willow, not long after Nina was first put to work there. Although the Madam discouraged friendships as much as possible, some of the girls were too amusing to ignore. The girl was named Gina, and everyone used to call her “Gina the Steamcleana.” During dinner, she would brag about how she could swallow any cock, regardless of length. It was her specialty and half the reason this dump even stays open, okay?
The others joked on occasion about their rhyming names. Gina and Nina, Whore Wonder Twins, shit like that. Like most of the interactions that happened between the girls under the Madam’s rule, the laughs and the jokes were always a little forced. They barely concealed the animosity, the competition. It was all about who could pay off their debts and get out of the Willow first. Each girl for herself. Then, a few months after Nina arrived, Gina the Steamcleana was gone. Presumably because her term was up, but no one talked, so who knew? Nina knew where they all went, now. There was no Get Out of Hell Free card.
Nina remembered Gina’s red hair, big blue eyes, and fair skin. She’d reminded her a little of a life-size Raggedy Ann doll. Had she been one of Hank Ballas’s Good Girls? She wasn’t sure if this human doll was Gina or not, but it probably was. Maybe one the Madam sold outright because Gina wasn’t really bringing in a whole lot of profit anyway. Junior probably had every hooker who ever set foot in this house back in that special closet of his, made into a life size doll and ready to pull out and play with like a little kid bringing out his Army men collection.
Because he was a little kid at heart, wasn’t he? He had his puppets and liked to play pretend.
Junior pulled more ropes and Hank Ballas stood up from his usual spot in the wing chair. His stiff limbs moved in concert with Junior’s motions overhead, and the dead body did a funny goosestep over to where the Gina-doll was waiting. His strapped-on dildo of torture jutted before him like the nose on a sawfish. Nina watched the impromptu and bizarre play unfold with a dawning horror.
“Daddy, oh I’ve missed you. Play with me!”
“I don’t know. I hear you have been a very naughty girl,” he said in the booming and authoritative voice he used when he was speaking as his father.
Junior tugged on the ropes attached to Gina’s head, making the corpse mimic a shaky denial. “No, Daddy. I’ve been good. I promise.”
“I heard you say dirty words. Daddy doesn’t like his Good Girls to say dirty words. Not at all.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy. It was an accident.”
It was strange how the inflections seemed to add new expression to faces frozen in place. Gina now looked afraid. Nina supposed she had been when she died. Or maybe she’d been too catatonic to care. That would have been a mercy.
“That may be, but I am going to have to clean that dirt right out of your bad little mouth.” The Ballas puppet loomed closer, and Junior jiggled the ropes holding Gina, making her quiver in fear.
“I won’t say any more bad words. I swear. Please don’t hurt me. I’ll be a Good Girl. The best Good Girl you ever saw!”
“Don’t move, little one. Daddy’s going to teach you a lesson.”
Nina closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch anymore. The moral of the story was apparent enough. Unfortunately, she was unable to cover her ears. The muffled girlish screams filling the room as Junior made his father-puppet skullfuck the long dead hooker would stay with Nina for a very long time.
That’ll be me soon enough, she thought. Janie Quick, for once, had nothing to say.
***
After Junior finished playing with his toys, he put them away and left the room for a while. Kali came in later with lunch and undid the straps so she could help Nina sit up. Her ass was numb, the muscles of her arms and legs weak and floppy. No amount of turning and bed calisthenics could hold back the wasting away of her body. A pregnancy would only make things worse as the fetus sucked the rest of her dry in order to sustain itself, but Nina didn’t think they were too concerned about that. Maybe, when her belly was nice and ripe, they would just cut the kid out of her without pain meds, and she’d die—gratefully—in a pool of blood, hopefully before she ever saw the abomination living inside her.
There wasn’t much food on the tray, and what there was didn’t look good. There were spots of mold on the sandwich bread, and the meat inside had a matching greenish hue. The soup was cold and smelled distinctly of piss. Nina pushed it aside.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat it,” Kali said, her voice firm. “There will be a reward if you do. There will be punishment if you don’t.”
“Punishment? I’m strapped to a bed twenty-three hours a day.”
Kali gave a single nod. “That could change. If you take your lesson.”
“What lesson is there in eating rotten food? What about this baby I’m supposedly carrying. You want me to poison it?”
“The child will be fine. In fact, I think if you believed it wouldn’t be, you would be shoveling in bites by the handful.”
Touché.
“You must learn a lesson in purity. When you speak ugly words, you become an impure vessel. And when you carry his child, you will not be impure. He expects nothing less than a perfect spawn.”
Nina gaped at the woman. “Um, hello? Aren’t you a medical professional? Tell him a baby doesn’t become a mutated freak because its mother says ‘fuck.’”
Kali’s arm flew out, and Nina felt the open palm strike her cheek with a flat crack. “You will shut your mouth.”
“Fuck this. Fuck your superstitions. Fuck this filthy house and your fucking freak rituals. Fuck you!”
The woman’s hands were around her throat before Nina even saw her move. She squeezed, and Nina’s air narrowed to about the width of a coffee straw. Good. “Go . . . ahead. Kill. Me.”
Kali’s grin was reptile cold. “Oh, I won’t kill you. Quite the contrary. I’ll bring you close enough to make you think you’re free, and then I’ll bring you back. I will hurt you. I will purify you myself with pain and fire.”
Nina didn’t want to believe her, but she knew it was true. They would never kill her, but they would make her wish for it a million times over. Oh just eat the goddamn food, you baby. It can’t be worse than some of the filthy cocks you’ve had in your mouth.
“Are you ready to be reasonable?” Kali asked.
Nina nodded, and the woman’s hands fell away. She placed the tray on Nina’s lap and gestured to the spoiled food. “Now eat. And as you do, think of how the impurity tastes in your mouth.”
Nina picked up the sandwich. She refused to look at it. Just closed her eyes and took a bite. The meat squished between her teeth, filling her mouth with a rotten egg flavor that her stomach clamped closed against. I can’t swallow this. No way in hell.
Those words had flown through her mind on more than one occasion, usually when she had her head buried in some guy’s crotch, his hands gripping her head, keeping it in place for the imminent glut of hot stew he would fill her mouth with. She remembered thinking that this would be the time her stomach would revolt, she would vomit all over a client’s shriveling knob, after which the Madam would come in and cut out her tongue or rip out her teeth. But it never happened. Her body had not turned traitor.
And it would not now, even as she finished the last bite of the sandwich and gulped down the stinking congealed soup. She just thought of the Madam, who still had the power to enforce total obedience even from a hundred miles away. Nina wondered what the Madam thought of all this, if she knew the extent of Junior’s plans. It had to be putting a serious hurting in her business, not being able to send more girls up here for the fat half-mill. Good. She hoped the bitch was broke
and desperate. She hoped Victor Cassini had put the sadistic hag out of her misery.
Nina dropped the empty bowl on the tray and took the glass of water Kali handed her. At least it didn’t taste contaminated. She drank it down with gratitude, washing away the fetid taste that had been bad, but not quite as bad as she imagined it would be. Her stomach, cowed into submission, didn’t stir. At least for now.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Kali asked as she took the tray with a look of triumph pasted across her dark features. Nina wanted to claw it off.
“What’s my reward?”
“You’re so impatient. Wait a moment.” She reached into the pocket of her robes and took out a small silver key, which she used to unlock the rest of the straps around Nina’s legs and feet. When she finished, Nina was sitting on the bed completely unrestrained.
“That’s my reward? You’re going to untie me?” She tried to contain her excitement by reminding herself there had to be a catch to this whole thing.
“That is one of your rewards, yes. We feel that in order for you to properly nourish the child, you must have more use of the room and facilities. I’ve been instructed to bring you whatever you like. If you like to read, I can bring in a selection of books. We can arrange for the limited use of the television. I can bring you paints and canvasses if you would prefer to do some artwork.”
Nina’s mind was spinning. She didn’t know what to say to any of this. The story of Rumpelstiltskin briefly popped into her head, but she pushed it away. It felt too damn good to have these straps off her legs. The rest of it, she would have to think that over later. “Can . . . can I stand up?”
Kali held out her hands. “Be careful. You haven’t walked in a month. You may be a little unsteady on your feet.”
She swung her legs over and planted her feet on the floor. The pain between her legs was little more than a series of minor twinges, her wounds nearly healed even though they still felt like a strange mass of burgeoning scars between her legs. Using Kali’s hands for support, she pushed herself up to her feet. Her legs felt a little wobbly, but she was otherwise okay. Kali bent down and picked up the catheter bag so she could bring it along.
“I think you will be able to go without this very soon as well.”
“But . . . what’s the catch to all this? Why should I believe he’s going to just let me roam freely around here?”
“We didn’t say roam freely. You will be restricted to this room, and I will escort you to the bathroom so you may use the toilet and take your baths, all of which will be supervised. But he believes you are on your way to being reborn, and that you have come to accept your duty here, whether you consciously believe it or not.”
“What do you believe?” Nina asked.
“I believe you are willful and deceptive. You do not have my trust. I tried to dissuade him from allowing these things, as I believe it will only make my job harder and more dangerous. I believe if given the chance, you would kill me.”
“If the tables were turned, wouldn’t you do the same?”
Kali didn’t answer, but her response was clear enough. There was no sisterhood moment happening here, but there was a base understanding about the wages of human survival. The Indian woman’s proclamation was correct. If she could, right now in fact, she’d drive a stake through Kali’s head and then jump through the nearest window. But she wasn’t going to attempt such a thing until she was completely certain of her success.
Right now, she just wanted to enjoy her newfound freedom, as limited as it was. After over a month of being tied to a filthy bed, she thought she’d earned that much. She would bide her time for now. Explore the space a little bit, see what was possible. See what was in the secret room next to the fireplace. Maybe she would find something in there to help her get out of here. Maybe she would actually survive this thing. It was amazing how being out of physical agony and standing on your own two feet could infuse someone with the will to live.
“Can I look outside?” she asked Kali. The woman hesitated for a few seconds and then nodded. “Okay, I will allow it. Even though there are bars on the windows, I will keep hold of your arm.”
Nina had forgotten about the bars. So much for breaking out through a window, she thought. “Fair enough.”
The two women walked over to the nearest window, the one on the same side of the room as the bed. Nina stood before it, as anxious and giddy as a kid staring at a big, brightly-wrapped present under the Christmas tree. “May I pull back the curtain?” she asked.
“Be my guest.”
The thick and heavy velvet fabric puffed out a cloud of dust when Nina touched it. She parted the curtain down the middle, revealing blinds covered in a layer of dust so thick it looked like fur. The sunshine coming through the slats, however, was blinding. Especially after so many weeks in this dimly lit cave.
Once her eyes began to adjust, she pulled the cord on the blinds and peered through the grimy glass and the wrought iron bars to see a dead and forlorn fall landscape. The dead trees looked even deader than before. The stagnant fountain in the circular driveway looked much the same as it had when she first arrived here, only now it was choked full of dead leaves. She remembered the strange albino possum Ramón had almost hit, how it stopped and seemed to challenge them. It had been a terrible omen, one she wished she would have heeded, and might have if not for the promise of money and freedom.
She could have stared at the yard for hours, if only to take in the natural light, the organic ugliness made beautiful purely from her dramatic shift in perspective. She wanted to go out there and feel the crunch of the dirt, leaves, and grass under her feet while sucking in enormous gluts of fresh air. Maybe they would allow it after a time. After all, it would be good for the baby.
Her thought was cut off clean by the gleam of sun off metal in the distance, not far from the end of the lane that emptied into the circular drive. She squinted and finally the shape of the black sedan became very clear through the trees. It was just sitting there. She might have missed it if she’d turned away a second sooner.
It’s Ramón. Ramón’s come back!
But wait . . . No, that wasn’t the right car. Joey had been a gearhead, so she knew cars about as well as she knew her Scorsese. This was a Cadillac, and all of the Madam’s cars had been Lincolns. Maybe it was Junior’s car. Maybe it was Kali’s. It was a strange place to park, if so. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see the silhouette of someone behind the wheel. Nina did everything in her power to conceal her surprise and excitement. She wanted to start pounding on the glass, scream for help, but that would only make things worse for her, especially if the car was one of theirs. Besides, they were too far away to hear her screams.
Best to just remain quiet. Don’t let on what you’ve seen. If someone is scoping out the place, then that could be good for you. Just don’t get your hopes up. What if it’s the Madam?
Nina’s skin prickled with goosebumps. She didn’t see how that could be good news for her. Out of the fryer, back into the frying pan. But maybe in this case, the witch could become her ally.
“Have you seen enough?” Kali said.
Nina let the curtain fall back in a dusty swish of fabric. “Yeah. I’m good, for now.”
Chapter 14
The Ballad of Jenkins
Jenkins sat outside the Weeping Willow Shelter for Women two days before Halloween, watching dead leaves dance and swirl across the street and wondering if this was worth the hundred and fifty bucks a horrible woman from Des Moines, Iowa was paying him to check up on her likely horrible daughter. If it had been any other month than October, he would have turned it down, but his business was always slow in October, and he was already a month behind on child support. The money wouldn’t make his ex completely shut her yap, but it would fill in a little bit of the widening hole.
Anyone within a five hundred mile radius of the Willow thought this place might be a Cassini whorehouse. Anyone within a fifty mile radius knew
for sure it was. Jenkins just happened to live five miles away. He’d never visited, of course. Back when he was on the force, he did what everyone else did. He took the money and shut up. Jenkins wasn’t a white knight. He needed the paycheck. The human trafficking bust would have to go to some bright-eyed golden boy who didn’t care about becoming the biggest pariah in the NYPD. But in his tenure, no one had stepped up to the plate. Since the owner of the establishment paid her taxes and had all the right permits filed with the city, there wasn’t anything they could bust her on. Nothing that could get them a warrant. She was as untouchable as Victor Cassini himself. Rumor had it they were brother and sister, even though the man was old enough to be her father. And there were other rumors too—the sick kind—from the people who knew Dante Cassini back when the Family still had an upstanding reputation in the community. That maybe Victor was Contessa’s father and that the whole thing had been “kept in the family.”
Jenkins didn’t know about any of that. Didn’t really care. The last thing he wanted was to start poking the most infamous hornet’s nest on the eastern seaboard with a stick, or even a tiny little twig like he had here. But there was this horrible woman from Des Moines to contend with. Janie Quick. The name reminded Jenkins of the name of some Old West outlaw, and he had a feeling Quick knew that as well. When she first called him two days ago, she couldn’t even give him the name of the place she thought her daughter might be.
“She’s turnin’ tricks somewhere out there. Not sure where, though. Said she’d fallen into trouble with some Eye-talians and was trying to pay back some money she owed. But she was about finished with that and was gonna come home real soon. I went down to the diner where I work and made sure I could get her on with me, startin’ on the night shift. That was near two months ago, and Bernie’s about this close to sayin’ forget about it. He’ll hire someone who actually needs the damn job.”
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