Izabel
Cesara greets Joaquin, takes his suit jacket for him and hangs it over the back of a chair near the door. He unbuttons the top two buttons of his dress shirt as he walks farther into the spacious suite; a sexy, confident air about him that’s surprisingly not off-putting. His face looks like it was sculpted by a Renaissance artist who gave him perfectly contoured cheekbones and shapely lips and piercing eyes that somehow look vacant, yet are full of intensity and expectation. He is an attractive man, I admit; the younger, livelier version of his infamous brother; but he’s still not Javier no matter how much I believe he wants to be.
Cesara sashays in and out of the room, returning with a bottle of wine and three empty glasses clutched in one hand.
“We did well tonight,” she says. “Sold all ten girls for more than expected. Tomorrow night is looking even more lucrative.” She sets the bottle and glasses down on a table and pours the drinks.
Joaquin nods. “Sure,” he says, “but many of them were sold to the same woman—a character, that one.” He takes a seat on a lavish antique sofa, resting his left arm upon the length of the sofa arm, his long, manly fingers dangling over the edge.
“I think her father is trying to break her into the business,” Cesara says, “by throwing her in head-first.”
“Costly way of doing it,” Joaquin puts in.
“Sure,” Cesara agrees, “but learning from one’s mistakes through head-first experience is the quickest and most effective way.” She pauses, and then adds, “I don’t suppose she’ll be joining us tomorrow night though.”
Joaquin smiles. “I’d be surprised if she did; a shame, really—an inexperienced buyer is always good for us.” He shrugs. “No matter; we’ve got more big buyers coming tomorrow night, that, I’m confident, will make up for Miss Lockhart’s absence.”
His comment gets my attention. More big buyers? Maybe all is not lost yet.
“Is that why you make it a three-night event?” I ask.
“Yes,” Joaquin answers, places his lips on his glass and sips as he eyes me. “Not everyone can show up on the same day; we like to give our buyers options.”
“Well, if I was a buyer,” I say, “I’d worry about all the best girls being sold off on the first night.” I remain standing, and I refrain from eye contact with him as much as I can.
Cesara hands me a glass of wine, and, with a look in her eye, and the subtle backward tilt of her head, she insists that I join her and Joaquin on the loveseat.
Fuck…
Reluctantly, I do. And I see she notices it straightaway, the reluctance.
Think fast, Izabel…you gotta get yourself out of this.
“Tell me about the buyers,” I say as I sit down—right next to Joaquin, because that’s where Cesara wants me, between them—and try to keep conversation the number one activity for as long as I can. “Are there any who I should be…aware of, for any reason?” I’m fishing for clues on Vonnegut; I just hope it comes off as an innocent inquiry.
“In time you’ll learn these things,” Cesara says, combing her fingers gingerly through my hair.
“Yes, but since we are in the middle of my first auction event, it’d be nice to have some pointers.”
“Head-first is the best way to learn, remember?” Cesara says with a grin, and then her eyes dance over the rim of her glass as she drinks from it slowly.
I take a deep breath, covering it up with the motion of my own drink, assuming I’ve failed at my information attempt.
She sets her glass on a side-table. “But in this particular situation,” she says, compromising, “head-first could look bad on me.”
OK, maybe not a failure, after all.
Joaquin smirks, agreeing.
He straightens his back against the sofa, places his glass on a side-table, and then turns at an angle to better face us, his shiny dress shoe propped upon his knee.
“The biggest buyers,” Joaquin begins, “usually attend on the third day—it’s quieter and less crowded. And because of our relationship with them, we pick girls for them ahead of time, based on their usual purchases, their preferences, and we set them aside.”
“Oh yes,” Cesara adds, “we always save the best girls for the biggest buyers. It costs three times as much just to get in the front door on the third day of the event, and they’re willing to pay it.”
“And even the least expensive girls,” Joaquin says, “start out at a quarter of a million dollars.”
“Wow,” I say, pretending to be amazed by this information. “Imagine someone like Miss Lockhart trying to bid against one of those buyers.”
Joaquin laughs.
A grin spreads across painted Cesara’s lips. “Yes,” she says, “that would be quite a sight to see.”
“I admit,” Joaquin adds, “I rather enjoyed the show with Miss Lockhart tonight”—he twirls his hand at the wrist, and his brown eyes roll upward momentarily—“these events can be so monotonous at times; I really get nothing out of them anymore.”
“I’d say your bank account does,” Cesara puts in.
Joaquin’s expression agrees. “True. And that’s the only reason I do it.”
“Oh?” I ask, though I didn’t mean to out loud; it just came out.
Joaquin nods. “I’d much rather be running everything—I’m practically just an event organizer, and truly, that’s a woman’s fucking job—or a fairy; the fairies do it even better.”
“You’re so homophobic, Joaquin,” Cesara says, playfully. “You know what that means, don’t you? Being homophobic?”
Joaquin’s right eyebrow hitches up curiously.
“It means,” Cesara says, “you secretly think about men a little more than you like.”
Joaquin doesn’t look as offended as I expected him to.
“You’re a nasty bitch, Cesara,” he says, grinning. “Sometimes the things you say make me want to put my hands around your throat.”
“But you do that already,” she says, suggestively. “And you know how much I like it.”
Oh, Jesus... Figuratively, I roll my eyes straight into the back of my head.
Before their sexual play goes too far, and I become the mayonesa in a Mexican sandwich, I pretend-cough, throwing my hand over my mouth and making the grossest hacking noise with my throat I can work up.
They both look at me as if I just ruined the moment.
“Oh, sorry,” I say, casually. “So, you were going to tell me how not to make you look bad?”
Cesara appears to think on it a moment.
Joaquin speaks up first.
“The three biggest buyers,” he begins, “they come on day three: Jorge Ramirez; he owns two hundred nightclubs in Mexico, United States, and Puerto Rico. The only thing you need to be aware of with Jorge is that you don’t want to be alone in a room with him. He…ruined one of our most expensive girls six months ago—of course, we made him pay for her afterwards—but he’s a serial rapist, and he doesn’t care who it is—trainer or merchandise, old or young, attractive or repulsive—he’ll fuck it.”
“Sounds like a charmer,” I say, mordantly.
“He tried to get me in a bathroom once,” Cesara says. “So, whenever he’s expected to be at one of our auctions, I always take a man with me everywhere I go.”
“If he tried anything with me,” I threaten, channeling Izel, “I’d cut it off, and shove it down his throat.”
Joaquin and Cesara look at one another from each of my sides—it feels like I said something wrong.
Joaquin shakes his head in a punishing fashion.
“You will never attack, or insult, a buyer,” he warns. “Not even in self-defense. They are what keeps us in business; kill one, and others will start to wonder if they’ll be next.”
“Our buyers are not saints,” Cesara puts in, and I turn to see her. “They’re as fucked up as you or me or Joaquin—look what we’re involved in, what you’re involved in—and the same rules that apply out there in the world, don’t exist in here. Simply put: the buyers are more important than you, or me, or Joaquin—kill one, or run one off, and you’ll end up in a shallow grave”—her eyes wander past me to find Joaquin’s—“isn’t that right, Joaquin?”
I look over at him again. He reaches for his wine glass and brings it to his pinched mouth; and after taking a sip that seems more like a distraction, he stares off at nothing with a hard look in his eyes. “Yes,” he answers, begrudgingly. “The jefe is a brutal man, and none of us are immune to his…punishments.”
I get the feeling he had wanted to use another word, something far more offensive than jefe.
Knowing better than to probe further on this particular subject, I focus on trying to still my raging heartbeat; I swallow, and gladly change the subject back. “And the other two buyers?”
Joaquin loosens up in an instant, probably glad he doesn’t have to think about his ‘jefe’, whom he obviously hates, a second longer.
“Iosif Veselov,” Cesara says. “One of the richest men in Russia; he practically owns the sex slave industry there; buys men and women from all over the world. He’s a lot like your friend, Robert Randolph: impeccably rude; thinks he’s the most important man to ever walk the face of the earth; and has absolutely no tolerance for imperfection. But Iosif is worse—not only will be never kiss your hand, Lydia, but if you speak to him without being spoken to first, he’ll beat you in front of everyone.”
“But I’m no fucking slave,” I say, angry at just the thought of him running loose.
“You don’t have to be,” Joaquin says. “Even in Russia, women know never to speak to him; he’s never seen the inside of a jail cell because no police officer would ever dare arrest him, certainly not for something as minor as hitting a waitress because she greeted him at his table.”
“Everybody knows his face,” Cesara says. “And if they don’t, they learn it quickly.”
I want this man dead almost more than Vonnegut. Maybe he is Vonnegut—that would be perfect; killing two birds, and all that. Oh well; if they’re not the same, at least I’ll have something to look forward to after Vonnegut is dead.
“And the third buyer,” Cesara says, relaxing against the couch; her body language suggests this man isn’t as brutal as the last. “Well, she and I have…a past.”
She? Ahh, I get it, Cesara; no need to elaborate—but I want you to anyway.
“Her name is Callista,” Cesara says. “Worth fifty million. She’s rich and beautiful, and she loves buying men strictly to serve her every need. Not much you need to worry about her.”
I’m not sure I believe her—maybe the smirk that followed has something to do with it.
“Oh, now don’t lie to her, Cesara,” Joaquin says playfully, and I turn my attention to him. “Callista loved Cesara once—I think she still loves her. If you want to call what they had, love.”
I pretend to be irritated at this ‘enraging’ and ‘unacceptable’ news—another woman and Cesara? I’ll kill a bitch! Of course, I couldn’t care less, but I can’t let her know that.
I turn to Cesara, lines of anger deepening around my eyes, the inside of my mouth pinched between my teeth. “And you expect me to treat this…buyer…with respect? That will be hard to do when wanting to kill her is the only thing on my mind.”
Cesara smiles, and she leans toward me; I can feel the warmth of her mouth nearing mine, and then the moistness of her tongue. I kiss her hard, almost forgetting that with her I’m supposed to be the submissive one. But with Joaquin in the room? I’m not sure what she expects of me in a situation like this. And I don’t want to be in a situation like this! Shit…I don’t know what to do!
“As I said,” she whispers onto my mouth and I can still taste myself on her, “you won’t have to worry about Callista. She’s weak—nothing like you.”
“Then why did Joaquin call you a liar?” I tug on her bottom lip with my teeth.
The heat of Joaquin’s body pressing against me from behind crowds me; one hand moves along my hip, the other brushes my hair away from my neck. “Callista doesn’t do anything herself; she has others do it for her,” he says, his breath on my neck.
When Joaquin’s hand slips between my legs, it triggers the plan to get out of this, that I never even knew I had. I turn on Joaquin like a captive lion turning on its trainer; my elbow spears his face, and he falls back against the sofa with me on top of him, my legs straddling his waist; my hands around his throat, my thumbs pressing against his windpipe; my face twisted with rage: teeth bared, eyes swirling with all the crazy I can summon.
“Lydia!” Cesara’s voice is like a whip; her hands grip my arms from behind, trying to pull me off of him. “Stop it! Stop it now! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
I grip Joaquin’s throat tighter, and bear down into his strained face, but alas, he’s much bigger, much stronger than me, and I can feel the tables turning quickly.
Two seconds later, I’m flying across the short distance, and I hit the floor on my back with a thud!
“LYDIA!” Cesara shouts; before I notice Joaquin coming toward me, Cesara is between us, trying to hold him back. “Joaquin, wait! Just wait a fucking minute, all right!”
But he’s not listening, and he grabs Cesara’s arm and shoves her aside before bearing down on me like a towering, murderous shadow. Joaquin’s eyes…he’s going to kill me; my ‘brilliant’ plan was the worst plan I’ve ever come up with.
Nonetheless, I stay in character, rounding my chin defiantly, daring him to do his worst; a grin dances on my lips. “Do it,” I challenge. “Do it!”
“Please, Joaquin,” Cesara begs, coming up behind him. “At least let her explain herself—please!”
Is that real begging? She’s actually begging this man for my life. Interesting.
Without acknowledging her, Joaquin crouches in front of me, propping his arms atop his legs; he cocks his head to one side, and then the other, studying me, as though undecided whether I’m the most intriguing thing he’s ever encountered, or the stupidest.
“Is that what you want?” he taunts me. “To kill you?”
“I don’t care what you do,” I snap back, “just don’t touch me like that.”
A hint of a smile appears around his eyes.
“Joaquin—”
He puts up his hand and silences Cesara.
“I’m not going to kill her,” he says, and it surprises me. “Just like you didn’t kill her when you first brought her here—like you, Cesara, I see something in her worth studying. Like you, Cesara…” he grins at me, and slowly rises into a stand. “…I see something in her I want, something I’ll have before long.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” I ask, still sitting with my back pressed against the sofa; my legs spread open; an I-fucking-dare-you look on my face.
He spears his fingers through the top of his hair, and then adjusts his tie. “I like a woman hard to get,” he says. “But one who hates men this much, presents an even more intriguing challenge—and I never back down from a challenge.”
He turns to Cesara. “Take off your clothes,” he tells her, and she knows he means business; she knows this isn’t the time to stall, or argue, or play hard-to-get herself.
Cesara steps out of her red dress, letting it pool around her feet.
Joaquin grabs a fistful of the back of her hair and he turns her naked body around, bending her over the sofa arm.
He looks right at me as he shoves himself into her from behind. “I want you to watch me fuck the woman you’ve…”—he thrusts his hips—“…grown so attached to.”
My jaw tightens, grinding my teeth; my nostrils flare; my eyes shoot him with hatred and vengeance. But I don’t test his patience, knowing I’ve already not once, but twice now, kissed the mouth of Lady Luck and saved myself from certain death. But Lady Luck, like all ruthless bitches, rarely ever offers thirds.