I watch her get dressed and my heart clenches up. She doesn’t belong with a fucker like me. She deserves better. But she’ll never get better than this. I see it in her eyes, the way she scans over the shithole I live in. Even if this was just a cheap fuck. I want to keep her. Claim her as mine for good.

For good.

“Anything I need to know when we get down there?” She pulls her pants on. The panties are ruined, the wet fabric lying on the ground between the two beds. She ignores the panties. I want to keep them as a fucking souvenir. But the way they shredded in my hands - that isn’t a sight I’ll never be able to get rid of. I’ll play that shit over and over, every time I jerk off from now until I’m elderly and in a fucking old folks home.

I line my pockets with a few wads of cash. This shouldn’t take long. Get her in and out, let my father and Vincent see her, and before we know it’s we’ll be riding off into the desert tonight and I’ll be dropping her at a safe location.

I have a house out in the desert, where it’s all dust, out past where the pavement ends. No one knows it’s there, and if they ever did find it, I doubt they’d be able to find it twice. I’m the only one who knows the location, and I’ll let her stay there, safe, until I can let this shit blow over and my uncle forgets I ever even had a girl.

As much as it will wreck my heart to let her go, it’s the only way to keep her safe.

“Just be cool,” I say. “Don’t ask a lot of question, and don’t provide a lot of answers. It’s fine if you need to flirt. A little bit of that can go a long way.” I know we’re just pretending, but my feelings for this girl are getting real. She might have to smile and wink at a few of the old scumbags at the club, but I don’t want them to think for a fucking second that they’d have a chance at touching her, even in another fucking lifetime.

What the fuck is this feeling? It’s lust, I know that. The way she grinded against my body made me crave more. I couldn’t just let her cum. I couldn’t just get inside that tight cunt. I needed to see her move. I wanted it to last all fucking night. Longer than that. Longer than one night.

When I get my dick wet, there’s few times that I want to put it in the same girl twice. She’s really got a fucking hold on me, this one. Sweet, innocent Cherry. My pretty little butterfly. I’d fuck her again in a second.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it? I have to keep asking myself that. I should check myself into a hospital and get my fucking head examined.

I’m thinking about forever with this girl. That isn’t even a concept for me. I always thought I’d go into semi-retirement when I’m fifty because any longer than that and I wouldn’t be able to outrun my adversaries. But there’s no real retirement. If you’re lucky enough to make it to fifty, you sleep with a gun under your pillow in your condo in Boca, because even if you’re out of the game geographically, you’re never really out entirely.

And that’s just if you’re lucky enough to live to see fifty. If you’re not already six feet under dirt in a tomb, or even fucking worse than that. Dumped off the shore up in Jersey or down in a quarry somewhere out in Arizona.

This fucking life is all I know.

“Questions,” she repeats. “I don’t even know what kinds of questions I would ask. What kinds of questions do you think are going to be asked of me?”

“Where you’re from. What you do. Just be vague. We shouldn’t be away from each other for even a second, so it isn’t going to matter.”

I pull a fresh shirt t-shirt over my head and select a black button-down. These guys from the shore like to see a lot of flashy shit, so I also slip on one of my best watches. I pop the cuffs of my shirt and make sure everything’s in place as I look over at Cherry.

“Well, what if someone starts asking questions about you? We’re supposed to be in love, aren’t we?”

She turns away from me as she slips her shoes on. She buckles them at the ankles. I can see the curve of her ass on those pants again.

“No one will expect you to answer questions about me. Even two people in love don’t know everything about each other.”

Her face turns to look at me, pained and confused.

“What are you talking about?” she says softly. “I’m not supposed to know anything about you?”

I can’t let her know about me. Not entirely. And if we really were fucking engaged, and if we were really in love - whatever the hell that means - she wouldn’t know much more about me than she already does.

If she knew more, she might not be able to stand to look at me.

So I say nothing, take her by the hand, and lead her where we need to go.

* * *

The girl still isn’t completely naked, but now she’s on Vincent’s lap.

A disgusting grin dances on his face. I want to pummel it off of him. His hands roam over her body. That’s one of the things that’s different about the club back here, behind the third door. Behind the first door, you can’t even look. The coat check girls, the hostesses. They’re family members of the owners. Don’t look at their tits. Behind the second door, you can look but you can’t touch. Though the way some of these men look at these girls, I think there isn’t much difference between seeing and feeling. The girls look sick with regret sometimes. Some of them like it, don’t get me wrong. But most don’t.

Behind the third door, you can look and you can touch. The girls back here are paid a premium for that. It’s why only the high rollers and the politicians are allowed back here. You need the cash to make it worth these girls’ while. To make it worth it to the owners.

There’s always risk. It’s a technicality, but in this part of the state, what goes on in here isn’t necessarily considered legal. And you get the wrong green cop in here on a raid, or a group of them, a group that isn’t amenable to bribes, and it’s a hefty fine until all that shit can be sorted out with their captain and they’re either transferred out or they’re given a stern talking to.

Some of them want to be heroes, but not everyone can be saved. Save yourself. That’s all you can do.

I move my eyes away from her and I don’t let myself look. I don’t want to. Any other time, and I’m all over it. Her pussy, her tits, free and swinging in the face of one of the men I’m working with. Or a man I’m working for. I’ll look, I’ll even touch. I’ll share. I’ve done that before. I like it. Spit-roasting a woman, if she wants it too. In the back of the club, there’s a fourth door. That’s the door you can’t even pay to get past. You can’t knock, and you can’t open it up. You can’t touch that door.

Off-limits? It’s not off-limits. It’s something else entirely.

Cherry and I slide past the first door easily. We stopped by one of the boutiques in the hotel first. I have an account there. She chose a black, short cocktail dress. Her ass looked incredible in it, but I didn’t think it was right. Not for tonight. Instead, I made her put on a slinky, gold dress that drags slightly along the ground when she walks. Her ass sways in that shit like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

I need this to be believable. She looks like the perfect mafia wife. Her auburn hair is done up, tucked onto the top of her head. Her face is heavenly, but her body is sinister. I can’t help it. I need her to be a fucking distraction for the knobheads.

I look over at Cherry as I put my hand to the gun on my hip, just to make sure it’s still there. It’s slick and almost like water.

“Let’s go, Cherry.” I put my elbow out and she links her arm through mine. She’s a fucking champion at this. My heart pulls a little, trying to sink down to my gut. I feel something sharp in me, because I didn’t have to do this to her. That fucking piece of shit who wanted to pay her to get on her back...I could have let her fuck him. And all of her debt would have been erased. The quick transaction between me and her would have taken place. I would never have let her feel what she felt, and I would have never felt her sweet lips on my cock.

But I can’t feel regret now. I won’t allow myself to feel that. I told her she had twenty-four hours to bring me the cash; is she still working it off? I can’t work out my motives. Did I save her or did I capture her?

She’s still using the small pleather purse she had when I first met her this afternoon. It doesn’t fit with her outfit. The gold fabric sliding like a perverted fucking waterfall over her tits and hips should have had something better for her to keep her lipstick tucked in.

Her lips...I look over as she links her arm through mine. We weave together, our arms taking each other’s like a chain-linked fence. The only thing that’ll pull us apart is a pair of sharp, shiny shears. She’s linked to me. She’s here on my arm.

We weave through the crowd, too. She sways. Her hips move. She moves like she did when I first saw her. The little girl behind her eyes, the woman moving through the room. I saw her when she collapsed on the fountain.

Does she know I saw her? We locked eyes when she started to stand up. She saw me seeing her be strong. Did she see me looking at her when she was weak?

But she’s not weak. I pulled in that sharp breath through my lips and I made it hurt. I pulled in that drag from my cigarette too hard, kept it in for too long. I wanted to hurt. I wanted the nicotine to go to my head and I wanted to feel light-headed because I didn’t want to feel that pang of guilt at seeing her with her head down and her eyes trained up at the sky, at everything and at nothing all at once, saying a prayer. I saw her eyes pray. I saw her hands fold in silent reverence, pleading with her maker.

My uncle catches my eye. Cherry’s glance shifts toward me and glides through the room. She takes stock of everything. I see her as she moves. One foot goes in front of the other. When I see my uncle’s eye, I look down. I see Cherry’s toes move from under her dress, sliding forward in her gold strappy shoe. It comes down under the edge of her dress, and then the other comes forward.

“My boy.” My uncle comes up to us and puts an arm around each of us; around my shoulder, first, and then around Cherry’s waist, second.

“Does Vincent still want to meet me?” Cherry’s voice is smooth against the hard, jagged notes of the bass coming over the sound system. It’s not loud, but the bass is coming from the room on the other side of the door, where we just came from. I don’t want to know what’s happening behind the fourth door. Not anymore.

“It looks like he’s occupied, but I’m sure he still wants to meet you,” my uncle says. I look over at Vincent again. He has his sex face on. The room smells too much like man. It should smell like woman. That’s how it usually smells. But now, it smells like testosterone and a competition between dicks.

I feel my own cock get hard as I look to Cherry. Her innocent blue eyes are open wide as her gaze scans over Vincent and the stripper. She knows she could have ended up like that. Forty thousand dollars isn’t a small amount of fucking money.

Shit. Vincent spots Cherry and pushes the girl grinding against him off of her, sending her tumbling back slightly. I want to reach out to catch her, but I can’t risk it.

The risk? The risk would be letting him see my vulnerability. My weakness. The men here don’t give two shits about the women, unless they’ve got a ring on their finger or they’re carrying a child. Even then, those women can get disappeared real quick if necessary. It’s fucked up. The women are used and cast aside.

Vincent comes over to us. He walks with a slight limp, and I can see it’s because his cock is hard. He does nothing to conceal it.

I think about what I would do if this were a woman I actually loved. I don’t know that there would be much difference between that situation and this one, because I can’t imagine it. I don’t know how it would feel to have her next to me if I really loved her. At least, I don’t know how it would feel any fucking different from how I feel right now.

Vincent stops when he gets close to Cherry. A little bit too fucking close.

“My dear.” He puts his arm around her and his nostrils flare. I get a sick feeling in my gut as he breathes in the air around her. The air is filled with something else; it isn’t her. But he sniffs her out. Maybe he’s trying to get to her, too.

“So nice to meet you.” Cherry puts her hand out. The gold strap hanging from her delicate shoulder slips down. I quickly reach up and slip it back onto her shoulder. She looks at me and smiles tightly, her lips pulling up into a smile. That smile is gorgeous. But behind her eyes is nothing. There’s no light there. It’s all darkness.

“I heard from Sean’s uncle that he was finally settling down.” Vincent laughs. “I talk like I know the man from a long time ago. I don’t know him at all. But when I heard about his woman, I wanted to meet her. I heard she was a beauty.”

This is a game to him. Those few percentage that he’s taking off of his cut, and giving to me? He wants control. Maybe it means a few hundred grand to him, but seeing me with my woman, and his fingers playing against her shoulder, gives him more of a thrill than the extra money ever would.

I feel a lurching sickness inside me. Don’t fuck with people who have so much money they don’t give a shit if they lose it. Men with nothing to lose don’t give a shit about anything.

“Of course she’s beautiful.” I push a tendril of her hair behind her ear and feel where her jaw meets her skull. It’s tight. Her molars are grinding down. Her teeth are set hard, her jaw won’t relax. Her smile shines bright, but when I feel her, I know the truth. I know it from the way her flesh pulls against her bones. Beautiful, undeniably beautiful. But fake. As fake as I am. As fake as the show we have to put on right now, for this man I don’t even know. For someone Cherry will never meet again.

“You two took a long time coming downstairs.” Vincent clenches his jaw down on the cigar clipped between his teeth. His chrome lighter materializes in front of our faces and he lights it, blowing smoke from his flaring nostrils.

Cherry melts into me. I hold her steady.

“Is it so bad that I can’t keep my hands off of him?” She puts a kiss on my cheek. I don't know what it looks like to the outside world. I can’t put myself out there right now. I can only feel how it registers inside my head right now. This girl is good.

I take her hand and bring it close to my chest as Vincent disappears into the background. The music around us swells and arches and becomes an old Italian ballad. I’m Irish, but I know this one. It’s from growing up in a Catholic neighborhood. The Italians and the Irish always grew up in the same neighborhood.

“You’re good, sweetheart.” I whisper my words into my girl’s ear. Her face morphs into an expression of worry. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re with me.”

“These men...I don’t trust them. Look at how that guy just threw that woman away.” Her chin shifts down as her eyes peer up through her dark lashes over at the stripper who’s resumed her place on the stage. Vincent now has his hands all over the cocktail waitress, the blonde who took my uncle’s order earlier. She’s brought over two more bottles of champagne. I can see the men are ready to party tonight. Become lubricated. Do whatever the fuck they want.

“But you trust me.” I say my words simply and honestly. The words move between us. They sink into her. She feels them. Her chin tips up and I place my fingers under it, tucking my index finger into the cleft on her chin. We fit together perfectly. I tip her chin up and her eyes become half-lidded, hooded in the red light of the room.

She’s like an angel. There’s a devil on my shoulder. But she’s pulling me somewhere else. She does fucking trust me. And why? Does she have a reason to, or not?

I’m not sure anymore. I don’t know if I can trust myself, let alone allow her to trust me.

Allow.

I allow myself to dip into her body, taking the small of her back against my hand. I get lost in her.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes flicker up to mine. I slip my hands down her shoulders and take her hand in mine, pulling her toward me. She gives in, yields to my touch.

“We’ll get you out of here soon.” I growl my words and they make her face flush. She looks down, her body swaying with mine to the music. “I have to collect at a hotel about a hundred miles out West. I have a house out there. I’ll drop you there and come back for you. No one will wonder where we are because I have to be out of town anyway.”

“No one will follow us?” Her eyes heat with concern.

“I can’t make any promises that no one will follow us. But I can make one promise to you.”

Her head comes down on my chest and she pushes into me farther. My guts tie up into a knot and I kiss the top of her head.

“I promise I’ll keep you safe.”