CHAPTER 13: Piper
I needed some time. Anna made a fuss before I reminded her how much Vinnie was paying for me, then she relented. I just wanted to find the nearest bed and lay down in it. I wanted to cry myself to sleep, but I knew I’d have no chance of sleeping. The look on Theo’s face when I told him I didn’t love him haunted me every waking moment. Even so I couldn’t sleep, not yet, at least.
I picked up some things and went back to the tropical room. April was passed out on the floor where they’d left her. Either from trauma or sheer exhaustion, I wasn’t sure. I took the tape from her eyes, as gently as possible, and set about cleaning her poor frail body as best I could. I used a sponge and warm water with a cherry flavor soap to clean the dried jizz off her back, butt, stomach and face, as well as the grime that had built up on her hands and feet. Those animals, they didn’t quit abusing her even when she lost consciousness. And the more I pleaded for them to stop, the faster they’d fuck and the worse they’d hurt her, so I had to sit in silence and watch.
The cleansing seemed to bring her around. Her eyes slowly opened and she smiled at me. I wrapped a warm, super-soft and furry blanket around her.
“Thanks, Piper,” she murmured. “Mmm, I smell cherries, my favorite.”
“I know,” I sobbed, turning my face away from her.
“What happened?” she asked softly. She didn’t seem to remember anything. If she’d repressed it, I didn’t want to be around when the memories came back.
“You don’t remember?”
“I meant you,” she smiled weakly. “I remember Vinnie and all those mobsters, of course, but I’ll be okay.”
“Alright, we’re going to take you to a hospital. You’re in shock, you’ve been beaten and you probably haven’t eaten in three days.”
“Okay, Piper.”
She sounded delirious.
***
I got April downstairs. Anna even held the door as Joey and I took her to my car. I wanted to be mad at her for allowing this, but I knew it had nothing to do with her. Vinnie had given her no choice. Anna wasn’t above roughing up the girls who ran out on her, but she was always careful not to do too much permanent damage. She didn’t abuse and torture like this. I got the feeling that, in a sick and twisted way, Anna did actually care about us, at least a little. I wondered exactly how much pressure Vinnie was applying to her and her business, and how much it was hurting her to have to bow to him.
I hoped it was a lot.
I drove April to an urgent care clinic the other side of The Valley. I explained to her that I couldn’t come in with her, she needed to just walk in and tell them she was raped then claim amnesia.
“Sure, I understand,” she said clearly, and I realized what had happened to her, why she wasn’t crying or hysterical. She’d grown up. Even as an ex-junkie prostitute, April had always had a childlike view of the world. She believed everyone was decent and good things happened to good people. Vinnie and his gang of assholes hadn’t actually broken her; they’d just forced her to mature. Her body would heal. Her innocence, though, and probably her joy and will to live, that was gone forever.
And that was what I had to look forward to. Sure, Vinnie would be good to me on occasion. Maybe even for days or weeks at a time. I’d be wearing expensive jewels and dresses, walking in on his arm to the black tie charity events he’s invited to as a prominent local businessman, and maybe going with him to the lavish mob events he organizes for the families. He might be a rough and extreme lover but I would only have to fuck one man, instead of four or five a day. It might not be so bad.
But it would only take one bad day, one bad deal, and I would be able to tell it was coming. His rage would be palpable and, when he caught me, I would suffer. What he did to April, I could look forward to similar treatment on a semiweekly basis. I’d be waking up every day not knowing whether he was feeling cruel or kind that day, and have to tolerate being terrified every second that dragged by, until I found out.
I went back to Madam X’s because if I went home, I couldn’t trust myself not to run, or call Theo. I climbed back up to the tropical room and lay on the bed. If anyone wanted to use it, they could bite me. I wanted to cry but I felt too dry, like I had no tears left. I also wanted to sleep but I was scared I’d have a good dream, maybe even about Theo, and when I woke up I’d want to die all over again.
But what about that? What if I filled the tub in the bathroom and just drowned? No one could punish anyone for that, could they? Maybe that was the answer. No more pain for me, no more pain for anyone. I hauled myself up off the bed. I slowly walked towards the bathroom, discarding my shoes and my dress as I went. I sat my bare ass on the edge of the tub and opened the faucets. The water gushed out onto the clean white porcelain in a deafening rush, quickly filling the room with steam. I put my hand into the stream, testing the temperature.
The bath filled rapidly. I wasn’t scared of dying, I was just sad I’d only just got to meet Theo, only just found a guy I may have fallen in love with.
I hoped what I’d said to him would help him forget about me. I was pretty sure, though, that it was going to take a lot more than that, that he would keep coming for me no matter what. He was going to say he loved me, I was certain, before I stopped him. I felt like I loved him too, and among the things I loved about him were his fearlessness and his tenacity. I knew he was never going to quit trying to save me until one of us was dead.
I climbed into the water. It was hot on my skin and I welcomed it. I replayed some of my worst memories in my head as I sank down under. I remembered the cops and the social worker turning up at school to tell me my dad was killed in a car crash and how I wouldn’t believe them until they showed me his mangled body. They tried to convince me but I wouldn’t let them keep me from him, so they finally relented and I saw my father. Half of him was unrecognizable, mashed to a bloody pulp. The half of his head that was mostly untouched had its single eye stuck open and its mouth locked in a sickening grin, like he was happy this had happened to him, finally relieved his burden of raising me had been lifted.
I remembered the third foster family I had when I was thirteen. Or, rather the dad, Jesse Baxter. Two nights was all it took before he came to my room while his wife was out with the girls. He was hard, and he made me touch it but, when I wouldn’t stroke it the way he wanted, he held me down and put it in my ass. I ran away and was placed with another family when I was found but, for years I thought that was how everyone had sex, and that the vagina was just for making babies. I quickly got a reputation among the boys my age because I didn’t know how to say no. It got so bad I had to move schools. I didn’t actually lose my virginity properly until I was sixteen.
I was struggling for air now. I just needed to keep myself under for a few more seconds. I thought about all the guys I’d been with, personally and professionally, and how they’d all just wanted me for one thing; because I got them hard. I thought about Vinnie, and how my body wasn’t enough to make him hard, he had to hurt me as well. He made me feel like I couldn’t even get the one thing I was good right anymore. Just like Theo. When we first met he refused me. I’d failed at pleasing him too. But did I? He was hard too, he most certainly was, yet he didn’t fuck me. Instead, he allowed April to escape without making me sacrifice myself on him.
I made him hard, yet he didn’t fuck me, he got to know me instead.
I launched myself up out of the water, coughing and spluttering as I tried to force the air back into my lungs. How did I not see it before? Theo was maybe the only guy I’d ever met that was interested in more than just my body. He was going to say he loved me and it wasn’t just because he wanted to fuck me. And I was about to throw all that away?
And Theo would be destroyed if I died. As long as I was alive, he had a chance of rescuing me and that was all he needed. He would not quit, so I couldn’t. I couldn’t die and, I realized, I couldn’t let Vinnie have me either. Fuck, I hated being indecisive.
I needed to find a way to stop Vinnie or I’d always be running, and Vinnie would keep hurting other girls. I got out of the bath, finding new strength in my shattered body, and drained it. I’d let my sense of hope get the better of me before but, this time, I was going to end this, one way or another. I wondering how I could have been so foolish or selfish. I dried myself quickly and dressed, Theo’s perfect image running through my head the whole time, and walked out. I didn’t stop to speak to anyone, I didn’t think, I didn’t have time to be afraid, I just walked out the doors and got into my car. I drove to an anonymous gas station on the I405 and called him.