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 question. “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.