Ari
The cigar smoke is so heavy in the air that my eyes water and burn. Every shallow breath I suck in is so hot in my clogged lungs I can feel the seconds of my life being drained away with each puff the finely dressed men around me take.
It’s all men here, except for the few of us women daring enough to enter this place.
But you don’t come here unless you desperately need something that only one of these grisly men can give you.
Squirming in my chair, I roughly shove the fallen cream colored strap of my dress back up onto my shoulder and smooth the sheer silk against my thighs. My knees tremble as I gaze out around the dimly lit bar, watching the grey smoke reflect glimmers of flickering fluorescent light with subdued interest.
My phone vibrates in the purse tucked between my ankle and the leg of the heavy wooden chair where I’m perched, but I don’t take it out. It’s probably my sister, and I can’t have a distraction right now. Instead, I reach down into my purse and yank a plastic wrapped peppermint free, plunging it onto my waiting tongue.
I toss it around in my mouth, passing it cheek to cheek in an attempt to distract myself from the flurry of nervousness in my belly.
I’m a girl on a mission.
A mission for cold hard cash.
No matter what.
Across the bar, my gaze locks with another woman, the only other one I’ve seen tonight. She has big, sad eyes that cautiously appraise me, as though she’s worried I’m going to steal someone from her. Even from here I can see the track marks on her arms.
Drugs. That’s what brought her here tonight. I fought the urge to stand up and wrap my arms around her and beg her to leave.
The cornflower blue dress she probably swiped from the outlet Macy’s hangs off her stick figure frame like a pillow case. She swallows, shifting the way her hands are clenched tight in her lap, uncomfortable with my prolonged watching.
I try to imitate the dewy glimmer of her nervous eyes, the innocence of flesh still untouched. I know what she’s bargaining, it’s what I’m going to attempt to bargain as well.
“What are you doing here?” A man suddenly asks, breaking the silent communication between the girl and I. In the second I’m distracted, another man moves over to the young woman under the neon ‘Winslow Scotch’ sign, leaning against the bar and sipping whiskey on the rocks with eyes that rake across her like he’s reading an easy book.
Tearing my eyes away from the girl, I look curiously up at the stranger, taking in the wobble of his thick jowls as he speaks and the cruel hook of his nose. He clutches a silver flask in his hands, one that glints like a dirty marble tile.
“Well?” He grumbles, eyes narrowing.
A spoiled one. He’s not to be ignored, I realize.
In the shadows of the smoky bar, it looks like he has no pupils. Like his entire eyes are black. The man is a shark, a predator, and he’s coming for me. I slide the peppermint over my tongue as I study him. I don’t have to fake the shudder that claws up my spine. He grins, pleased with my response, and slides into the chair opposite myself.
“Just enjoying the scenery.” I offer uncertainly, stirring my spoon in the long cold cup of coffee before me on the table.
He smirks, leaning back into his chair and tossing an easy ankle over his thick thigh.
“Women like you don’t come to places like this just to enjoy the scenery. You want something, pretty girl. I might be just the man you’re in search of.”
“I suppose so.” I murmur, not missing the pleased glint in his dark coal eyes. I inspect the fine threading of his suit and the polished gleam of his black shoes.
Good. He has money. Then again, they don’t let just anyone in this place. It’s why I’d chosen it.
Loudly, I crunch the candy between my molars, the man’s eyebrows lifting quizzically.
As he shifts I notice the girl by the bar has vanished. She’d found what she was looking for. Now it was my turn. I had to remember why I was here, what the stakes were.
I toss my hair over my shoulder, exposing the flesh to his gluttonous eyes. He licks his lips, practically purring already. If I played my cards right, this could be it.
“I’m sorry.” I whisper, batting long lashes.
I’d spent two hours getting ready for this, picking just the right dress that would make me look more young and innocent, putting on just the right amount of makeup. Claire had watched me with cautious eyes though she didn’t ask any questions. I was glad for that.
I’ve never been able to lie to my sister, not the way she can.
“I’m just… so nervous.” I add with a shy wring of my hands, “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
A grin splits his plump face as he chuckles, a sound like grating metal on my ears, “That’s okay, sweetie. I can take care of you now.”
The way he says sweetie makes me jaw set on edge, my brain sizzling with the approach of danger. Every hair on my body stands on edge, telling me to run. Instead, I settle further into my chair.
He leers at me from across the table, his fingers dragging heavy over the rickety wood to capture my hand in his clammy grasp. I suck in a breath, resisting the urge to lurch backwards from his grubby touch. His hands are sticky, like he’d just washed them with caramel.
As though the ugly man can read the revolution in the lines of my stiff face, he scoots around the table to draw closer to me. He’s feeding off my desperation, I realize. My repulsed reaction to him only makes him more satisfied. His chair squeaks beneath him as he moves it, scraping noisily against the rough red striped carpet. I inhale a mouthful of musky cologne that makes my head spin.
“What do you have to offer?” He asks in what I think is a shameful attempt at a whisper, though his voice carries over the rumbly prattle of men playing poker and chatting over crystal glasses of expensive whiskey.
Not one of them looks this way. Not one of them is surprised by our conversation.
Dread flips over in my stomach, blood turning to sharp shards of frost in my veins. Still, I keep my face delicately arranged. As much as the man disturbs me - I’ve run out of other options.
I watch numbly as he turns my hand over in his like he’s already decided he owns me, inspecting my pink polished fingernails as though he’s appraising a new car or bike. When he’s satisfied, he places my hand high on his thigh, lips twitching into a disgustingly satisfied grin. He doesn’t need my name, my words, my act. He only wants my body. One he believes is untouched.
He moves his thigh under my hand, forcing me to rub against him. Biting back a bitter tongue, I don’t jerk away, I don’t shove him from me. I can’t. Instead, I make my eyes a little wider, I force a blush onto my cheeks. I hope I look young and naive.
“I have me.” I say quietly, lips pursing into a taut, displeased line.
My back is so stiff I could be mistaken for a corpse, but he doesn’t care about that. In fact, if anything, he’s enjoying it.
His moldy green eyes flicker over my lips, ignoring the frown on my face, his tongue wetting his own hungry mouth while my stomach dips queasily.
“And what of you can I have, exactly?” He asks slowly, choosing his words like he’s choosing a horse at the races. His faded grey eyebrows rise and fall, the same dull shade of my father’s. I cringe, taking a gulp of the ice cold coffee and trying to shove away any thought of my dad. I didn’t want to think of him in a time like this, though this man could be even older than my father was.
A glower crosses his petulant, wobbly cheeks, “I asked you a question.”
I know what he’s getting at.
“All… all of me.” I whisper with a gasp I hope sounds shy.
Hastily, I draw up the image of the nervous girl by the bar, sucking my lips together and trembling like a helpless waif. Hopefully I looked virginal enough. That was what all of these men wanted. A pure, delicate daisy of a girl. One that they could crush between their fingers if they so felt like it.
“Are you saying you’re a virgin/?” He asks intently, scrutinizing my expression as though he could tell whether I was a virgin by the way I blinked. Just in case, I bat my lashes and suck in a nervous breath.
My hand drifts in front of my face, hiding coyly while I tried to think up something dirty enough to make me blush.
“How old are you?” He probes forcefully, his voice going more gruff as he snatches my hand and clutches it in his fingers so that he can see me more clearly through the dim shadows of the bar.
I lean forward, letting my long hair tumble over my shoulders, “Twenty four.”
His grimy touch leaves my hands as he leans backward in his chair, foot fidgeting over his leg. He strokes his fingers across his chin, critical stare remaining locked on my face.
“Twenty four and still a virgin?” He finally growls skeptically.
My heart flutters in my chest and I know that I’m losing him. I can see the growing disinterest in his eyes. But I need this, I need him. It’s the only way-
“I’ve been saving myself for someone special.” The words rush from my tight throat between my lips, “Someone who can… who can tend to me in just the right way. A… master.”
He gazes at me coolly, fingers tapping on the arms of his chair. I lower my eyes from the intensity of his stare, clasping my hands in my lap. The strap of my dress slips down my shoulder again, though before I can fix it the man is reaching out, cold fingertips stroking up the length of my arm to dance along the edge of the thin cotton.
A low rumble echoes in his throat as he rubs his palm against the softness of my bicep.
“A master, you say?”
I just nod, not trusting my tongue to keep my utter revulsion of this person a secret. He leans back once in his chair, hands grasping his elbows in thought as a quiet, soft sigh of relief wells inside of me.
The fish has bitten the line once more. And what a slimy, nasty fish it is.
“Come here.” He says abruptly, patting his thighs with sausage like fingers, “Let me get a closer look at you. The light here, it’s hard to see your face.”
As much as I hate the thought of his touch on me any further, to reject him here was just begging for him to reject me. And he’d been the only man to approach me all night. If I missed this opportunity, then who knew how much longer it would take to find someone willing to buy me.
I didn’t have time to spare.
With a simple clear of my throat, I stiffly stand from my chair, gazing down at the man’s beady eyes. He outstretches his arms, waiting for me, and though every hair on my body is standing on edge and bile threatens the back of my throat, I sink back down onto the rolling expanse of his fleshy lap.
Almost instantly his hands descend on me, one stroking my back and the other edging up under the hem of my dress. He bites his lip as I yelp in surprise and grab at his wrist to stop him climbing higher up my leg.
“You don’t want me to touch you?” He growls into my ear, the fingers on my back gliding easily upwards to tangle into my hair harshly. His fingers go taut at the nape of my neck, threatening me with further roughness, “I have to see if your claims about your body are true…”
The hand at my thigh glides further under my dress, making my skin burst with disgusted goosebumps. He plays teasingly at the strap of my panties, tracing over the delicate, suddenly too thin fabric. Though it’s unbearably hot in the dank bar, my whole body shivers like I’m naked in a tundra. I claw at his wrist but it only makes him grin, his nauseating laugh echoing in my head, taunting me.
“Tell me your name.” His breath is cold against my neck, his mouth still at my ear, his hands still tangled against me. I stare up at the ceiling, watching clouds of smoke drift higher and higher, obscuring the gold tiles above us, pretending that I could grab hold of the clouds and drift happily away.
But I put myself in this position, didn’t I?
The whole way here I’d promised myself that it would be okay, that I would be okay, but now my heart thunders against my ribs and my toes curl in the strappy heels, and I want to run as far from this dingy place as my feet will take me.
When I don’t respond right away, his hand tightens against my scalp.
I’ve made a mistake.
I’ve grossly misjudged the men who would frequent a place like this.
“Ariana.” I finally grunt in pain, letting my eyelids close tight.
Like this I could pretend I was somewhere else.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” He nods in satisfaction, breath still cold as ice against my quivering neck. I’m afraid to swallow and let the skin dip against his mouth.
“My name is Doyle Sheek.”
Lovely name. Truly. I had yet to meet a man who so fit that title.
“Well, Doyle-” I begin through gritted teeth, giving an undignified squeak as he yanks at my hair again.
“That is my name but you will call me sir.”
“…Yes, sir.” The word is thick and bitter as poison on my heavy tongue.
He hums in pleasure as I struggle not to breathe in another gulp of cigarette smoke and tacky cologne. He frees my head from his grasp, his whole palm slithering down my spine, reveling in the shudder that follows the wake of his touch.
“How much do you want for all of yourself?” He asks, the hand under my dress still stroking a line over my panties.
I could recognize a power play when I saw one, and trust me, I’d seen a few in my day.
“Three million-” I hiss as he cackles and drags my face down against his so that his lips are back on my earlobe, damp breath stroking my face as my eyes squeeze shut and a shriek burns in my lungs and behind my set jaw.
My fingers stretched out, begging to be allowed to strike his ugly face.
“You think your virginity is worth three million?” He laughs so heartily that he wheezes, releasing me slightly so that he can hack into his hands and all over the front of my dress. Guess I’ll be burning this one then.
“I know it.” I reply with forced conceit, hands balling up into fists as I look down on the pathetic man dabbing his mouth with my napkin.
“In that case, I’ll make it five.” Another cool, calm voice flows smoothly up from behind us, long and strong fingers curling around the back edge of Doyle’s chair.
Doyle lurches slightly in unnerved surprise, his clammy hand clutching roughly around my thigh as he sputters and turns to look upwards, “Just who do you think you are?”
The new man smirks, flicking a business card quickly from the chest pocket of his navy blue suit and extending it towards Doyle.
My eyes flicker over the burly chest of the new man, trailing the popped open buttons of his shirt and flowing up the familiar, square jaw. When our gazes meet, my heart turns to a lead weight, dropping to my stomach so fast that it drags my jaw down with it.
“Noah James?” The red faced man pouts, his jowls rustling with displeasure, “As in the Noah James?”
“In the flesh.” Noah replies frostily, his muscled arms crossing over his chest, “I don’t suppose you’ll let me take over from here?”
“This girl and I were just negotiating a deal.” Doyle sputters, clutching me against him as though Noah were a thug trying to steal a purse, “She’s mine-”
“If you were only negotiating, then she isn’t anyone’s yet. Is she?”
The heat of Noah’s stare on my body makes me squirm as much as Doyle’s touch. I sit stiff in the ugly man’s lap, frozen.
Honestly, in this second, I wasn’t sure which one I’d prefer to lay claim to my body.
“Yes, but-” Doyle begins, wrapping his arms around me possessively. His fingernails dig into my forearm, leaving an ugly red mark
“Are you prepared to offer more than me?” Noah sighs boredly, quickly tiring of the insipid argument. All three of us knew who was going to win out eventually.
“No, but-”
“Then I suggest you go try and convince some other poor woman to go home with you, Mr. Shriek.”
“It’s Sheek…”
Noah doesn’t respond, his endless eyes boring into Doyle as though he could control him from the brain out. Disconcerted, Doyle thrusts me from his lap. I stumble to my feet, clumsily knocking the cold coffee all over the front of Doyle’s suit.
Doyle yelps, the red tint of his face turning flaming crimson.
“This was imported from Italy, you simpering bitch!” He howls, taking a step forward as Noah holds up a single hand between us.
“I am so sorry. Sir.” I sneer back, clinging to this one single second of triumph. Those moments had been far and few between as of late. Plus, it was nice to shed the sweet little girl act. Like taking off an uncomfortable bra after hours of it digging into your chest.
Huffing like a temperamental toddler, Doyle waddles away while Noah lowers himself into the chair. Still standing, I gaze down at the familiar man, hands still curled up into tight fists.
“Long time no see.” I whisper softly, unwilling to draw more attention from the curious patrons of the shady bar.
“So, Ari, this is what you’re up to these days? Selling the virginity you lost in high school?” He smirks, head cocking slightly to the side.
He would know, wouldn’t he? The bastard.
“Save me the fucking judgment, Noah.” I snap back, “You just lost me three million.”
A tiny trace of a grin crosses his too handsome face.
“No. I didn’t, Ariana. My offer is serious. Be mine for five million, I already took your virginity years ago. Let’s call that a down payment.”