Riley: Through the Looking Glass
We leave the poker room through the ivory door and walk along the same path we took just hours before, but it feels like a different world. I was on the outside before. The illusory, placid surface. Now I’ve fallen through a mirror and entered the dark city underneath. Everything is upside down.
My dress was destroyed, so Jack wrapped me in his own coat. It just covers my bottom, and I keep my arms crossed to hold it in place over my breasts. Earlier in the night I would’ve been mortified to walk around in something so revealing. Now it barely registers.
Turns out being ravished away to some gangster’s lair is a lot calmer than I would’ve expected. Jack doesn’t throw me over his shoulder and carry me off. We almost look like any other group out in the neon night. Jack knows that I’m smart enough to realize I’m stuck with him, whether I’m physically detained or not. Every person I know—everyone who he could hurt—is a thread that ties me to him.
And then suddenly Caleb is running away from us. We’re on a dim street just a block or two from the poker room. He’s running towards two uniformed police officers standing on the next corner. It’s just Jack, Matt and Tom with us now. I curse Caleb—I know there’s no way this could work, but it could get us and two innocent cops killed.
I try to think of some way to help the officers. Two against three isn’t bad odds, is it? I realize I should move—I could be a hostage or a shield. What if they actually manage to take Jack out? They could take us to the FBI. Maybe my whole family could go into witness protection.
I think again about how that’s probably not how witness protection works. It would just be me and Caleb. I’d rather be kidnapped. Besides, the mob would find my family. We have to cooperate for their sake—what the hell is he doing? Caleb’s putting his own family in danger, too.
I think of how fast Jack moved in that poker room. I realize he definitely has a gun on him—the one he won. It was loaded. Caleb even fired it.
I see Matt and Tom going for something in their jackets under their arms. I try to open my mouth to scream, but it comes out as a useless croak. I realize Caleb is going to get these cops killed. They don’t stand a chance against these men, not with Jack there. He’s going to grab me as a shield, I have to—
And then Jack steps lazily past me, a bored look on his face. He’s not reaching for his gun or crouching into a firing stance.
He sticks a cigarette in his mouth. “What the fuck are you morons doing?” he says to his men. He smacks Tom across the back of his head, almost, for a ridiculous moment, like an angry mother chastising her child. “Take your fucking hands out of your jackets, put them by your side, and keep them in view. What the hell is wrong with you?” He says it as if he’s actually a little shocked. “There’s fucking people in this neighborhood.”
I don’t know if he means as victims to spare or witnesses to avoid.
“Is it so damn hard to walk a guy two blocks to your car?” He’s walking towards the cops and I follow after him.
Caleb is blubbering, "…and threatened to cut off my hand! And kill me! My father's Hector Montcrest! From Montcrest Investment Securities? That doesn't ring a bell? You have to arrest these fuckers!" As Jack approaches, Caleb runs around and hides behind the cops. One's an older man and the other's a young woman. The woman's beautiful—delicate features, golden hair, and brilliant green eyes. She's a perfect balance of slimness and curves; it's visible even through her uniform. They both nod to Jack.
“Officers,” Jack says. He offers them each a cigarette.
He's going to try to talk his way out of a kidnapping? I think in awe.
They each take a cigarette.
“Jack,” they both say.
I realize that the look they’re giving him isn’t suspicion. It’s respect. Or terror.
“Damn, these are nice,” the man says.
“How’s the family?” Jack asks.
The man reports on his kids and wife almost dutifully. Caleb is too dumbfounded to speak or run.
“What’s going on here?” the woman says.
“Friend of mine,” Jack says. “He has…schizophrenia…and we let him get drunk. Bad combination.”
He says it completely convincingly, but the lie is absurd.
They both nod along. The older cop looks like he’s about to simply turn and leave. But the woman is still. She’s considering me, Jack, and Caleb steadily. Finally, she says, “Are you okay, miss?” She’s so young—as young as I am. I feel terribly afraid for her.
Jack looks at her with a mixture of respect and pity, and tension sears back into the air. Don’t let anyone die tonight because of me, I beg the universe.
“You’re Ariadne, right? Ariadne Jones—new to the force.”
“Not too new," she says calmly. But I can hear the tension, too, like a piano wire stretched too taut. She knows what she's facing with Jack. I look at the girl and I feel like I can see lightning in her. Somehow, I know she could draw that gun at her side with blinding speed—there's something about her, like when you see an Olympic athlete and the grace from years of brutal practice is apparent in them, even simply standing still. But I don't think it's enough. Not after what I've seen from Jack.
The surprise in Jack's eyes grows, and I think I see admiration there, too. He nods as if to say, So that the choice you’ve made. This is how it will be.
I have to stop whatever is about to happen. I step forward and wrap myself around Jack’s arm. “Yes, officer. Thank you. Just a long night,” I say, nodding towards Caleb.
Jack and Ariadne both seem taken aback. She pauses for a moment but then nods, and the tension dissipates.
Matt and Tom step past the officers and go for Caleb, and he takes off running. They look to Jack and he looks back, exasperated. "Best not let our good friend get lost again, gentlemen." He shoos them off after Caleb and says, "Officers," and then we're walking again. I let go of Jack's arm. I try to breathe and slow my racing heart.
“Will they hurt him?” I honestly can’t make myself really care if they do. I’m just curious.
“Sure. But not badly.” He tosses his cigarette away unsmoked. “Fucking disgusting.”
“You don’t smoke?” I surprise myself with how normal a question it is.
“That was the third addiction I had to quit after I tried to use it to get off the second."
“What was the second?”
“Alcohol. And every drug I could find.”
We walk in silence through the city. I take my precious time to think. But my eyes keep drifting to him. It's strange, walking the city with a man. No one bothers me, for one. Fucking patriarchy. Caleb refuses to walk or explore, so I usually end up out on my own.
I’m used to being crowded and pushed around by New Yorkers, but the crowds part for Jack. We have a foot on either side of us, which in this city is complete luxury. Jack’s eyes seem to take in everything and he knows his way around effortlessly. He never has to stop to think about a turn.
After ten minutes, my heel starts to hurt from a day of walking, and Jack raises a hand. A gleaming black car pulls up and he opens the door. “It’s fine!” I say. I’m used to Caleb being annoyed when I disrupt plans.
“If I wanted you to walk, we would’ve kept walking. If I want you in the car, I tell you to get in the car. Each time you protest or disobey, that gets added to your punishment. Now get in the car.”
I obey.
Benjy, the friendly, young one with the ponytail, is driving. It’s the most luxurious car I’ve ever been in. I’ve never even thought about whether a car seat was comfortable or not, but I notice now how my tired body sinks into the plush leather and find myself relaxing involuntarily. I had no idea just sitting down in a car could feel so good. Is this why people want to be wealthy? The windows are thick, tinted glass. I'm pretty sure they're bulletproof. We slide through the city in bus and taxi lanes, unbothered by the police.
The car pulls up outside the San Sorreno hotel, right along the edge of Central Park. It’s stunning lit up against the velvety night. It's the nicest hotel in the city, but I want to laugh. Caleb and I have been staying here all week. Caleb's bragged to everyone that we got a seventh floor room in the southern tower. He wouldn't shut up about it. The northern tower and the entire northern structure of the building have been closed for the last decade. Even with Caleb's money—or former money, rather—the room had been absurd for him to swing. It had been a status symbol to show his friends and talk about with his business partners.
I forget myself for a moment and blurt out, “You live in a hotel?”
“The Amontillados own the San Sorreno.”
“What room do you have?”
“It’s in the northern tower,” he says, bored. “It’s the entire northern tower, actually.”
My mouth drops for a moment and I snap it shut. “I thought criminals had secret hideouts—not palaces in the middle of the city.”
“I’m not that type of criminal.”
Jack walks around and opens my door for me then offers me a hand out of the car. Benjy pulls it around to a parking garage under the building. We approach a gold-plated front door that I had assumed stayed permanently shut. A gorgeous young woman opens it and bows her head to Jack.
We walk down a rich red carpet to a golden elevator door, and a man next to it opens it with a golden key. He’s taking me to live in a palace, I think. For the briefest moment, I indulge in a fantasy of being a princess—until I remember that I'm being kidnapped by a violent sociopath.
The elevator is all red and gold, too. I see myself in the mirror walls. My hair is wild and frizzy. Mascara stains my face, and my eyes and eyelids are blotchy and red from crying. Okay, not so much a princess. I look down and blush at how much of my legs are on display—all of them, basically. I’m not terribly ashamed of my body, but I don’t like showing this much of it.
I realize Jack's eyes are on me, too, but when I look at him he doesn't look away. In fact, he purposefully moves to get a better view of my bottom. I shudder with quiet rage, but I don't do him the honor of moving to avoid him.
I engage in a lurid fantasy of stabbing him in the throat until blood is gushing from a dozen holes. Then I wonder if that idea would actually work. Maybe I could find a way to kill Jack. I push it out of my mind. Even if I kill him, I don’t know what the mob would do for retaliation—would they just kill me, or would they murder my family for good measure?
Besides, I don’t think I could actually kill Jack. He moved so fast in the poker room. And he’s far, far stronger than me. And he’s a trained killer, judging by the way he handled the gun. I can’t think of a way I could attack him that he couldn’t counter.
Is it better to die like that, though, rather than let him do whatever it is he wants to do to me? I never thought I’d have to face a choice like this. But I’m no Lucretia. I don’t have the courage to face a death like that. I want to live. I want to make it out of this. I’ll do anything to make it out of this.
The elevator dings and I come back to myself. Jack's watching my face intently. It makes me blush.
The door clicks open and there's another man at the top with a key. Jack takes me down a long hallway to an ornate double door—one half ivory, the other ebony. I start trembling and I’m unable to stop. I think of all the demands in the contract I signed. I agreed to this, I try to remind myself. But it doesn’t help. I’m terrified and revolted and I hate him. I’ve never felt so disgusted by a man.
The monster draws me into his lair.
It’s different from the hotel. The colors are dark mahoganies, burgundies, golds, and greens. The room is enormous and there are windows on two sides, revealing a sweeping view of Central Park and the city as I’ve never seen it. It’s so beautiful that I almost forget my revulsion. Tapestries, paintings, and bookshelves line the walls. The arrangement of it all is breathtakingly beautiful.
It looks like some bizarre, dream-logic combination of the palace of some ancient Roman emperor and the lair of a James Bond villain. I look at the art on the wall and somehow I know that it’s all real—no reproductions. There are gorgeous renaissance scenes and newer modern paintings that somehow complement one another perfectly. And he has actual fucking marble statues. Not reproductions or molds. Actual chiseled marble. I don’t know how I can tell that, either, but they look different than replicas. This all looks like stuff out of a museum. It’s almost too perfectly arranged. It’s unnerving. The place is immaculate—there’s no mess and no clutter.
I think of Caleb’s apartment—a weight set clutters one corner and his dirty gym clothes always seem to be hanging off things. The walls are covered in haphazardly arranged football posters.
What world is this? Where have I fallen?
Jack turns and my mind comes back to the present.
“I don’t want this. I don’t want you!” I blurt out. I keep telling myself to be quiet. To just survive. But I can’t bear the thought of giving my body up to this man. Lurid images of him taking me keep flooding my head and I keep pushing them away. I think again of what I agreed to in that contract and shudder.
Jack’s dark eyes reveal nothing. He’s so beautiful that it almost hurts.
“It’s not about want or not want. It’s about survival. About making a deal.”
“You can’t just do this to people! There are laws and rules and…”
“Of course I can. The strong do whatever they like to the weak. It’s been that way for all of human history. You think a few centuries of civilization is going to change that? Men see what they want and they reach for it, and if they’re strong enough they get it. That’s all there is. Laws are pretty words meant to keep the weak and the stupid in check.”
Pretentious dick. But his words eat at me.
“Why me? What, does your boss have some…I don’t know, what kind of fetish? Am I some kind of weird kink he’s into that I haven’t realized? Half the girls on the street are prettier than me. You—he—could have anyone in that poker room bar. They were all more gorgeous than me…I’m just…I’m meant for a boring, normal life…This isn’t me…”
“You really don’t see yourself, do you?”
For a split second, I look for a mirror, thinking he's telling me I've got a booger on my face or something.
“Please…maybe I can find some way to pay you back.”
“I want more than you can pay in money—you’re a fool for thinking you could.”
“A fool for not wanting you to take my body?”
“A fool for a lot of reasons, really—for following an idiot into a trap. That’s what love does to you, doesn’t it? And you didn’t even love your fiancé. You just wanted the idea of love, and even that was enough to do you in. It’s a lie, just like the law. Just like most things that hold society together by manipulating idiots. Look where wanting love has led you: Your former fiancé whispered nice-sounding nothings into your ear some night, years ago, and you followed him blindly into a den of wolves. Then he abandoned you. He didn’t try to save you even once tonight.”
Tears sting my eyes because I do feel like an idiot. “Yeah, I picked the wrong guy. Is that your point? I have bad taste. You know, you’re right: Love’s stupid. I wish I could find a guy who could just win me at a poker game, like a piece of meat he’d buy. That sounds so much better.”
“I’m manipulating you and controlling you, but I’m not lying to you or deceiving you.”
“What a great gift! Thank you so much!”
I hate this. I hate that these men are using me and probably mocking me. I know they’re playing some wicked game. I can feel the mockery lurking behind his eyes. Even on top of everything else, it still stings.
Why the hell am I bothered about whether he likes me or not? I scream at myself. I feel like I’m losing my mind. He’s a monster. It doesn’t matter how beautiful he is.
And suddenly it feels like too much. My legs are weak from standing, and exhaustion races through my body like a drug. I spent most of the day wandering the city and most of the night fighting for my body and soul. The adrenaline has finally run out and I feel like I'm going to collapse. Something inside of me is crumbling—my courage, my self-respect, my resolve. I hate myself for it, but I just can't fight anymore.
I sink to the floor and sobs rack my body. I try to look out but tears are blurring my vision and streaming down my face. I worry, stupidly, about my mascara staining my cheeks more than it already has.
Caleb hates it when I cry. He usually leaves if I do. He prides himself on “knowing when to give her her space.”
I brace myself through the sobs, preparing for Jack to mock me or storm out. Instead, he watches me for a long time.
“Can you stand up?” he asks.
“No,” I choke out through my tears.
He walks to me and I say, “No, don’t. Don’t.” But he doesn’t hurt me; his arms wrap gently around me and he lifts me off the floor. I shudder. His muscles are like twisted steel. I’ve never felt a human body so hard and so stable. He lifts me like I could lift a pillow. His warm forearms press against my naked thighs.
I feel like an idiot. I try to tell myself to stop crying, but I can’t. He carries me through his apartment to an enormous white marble chamber. I think it’s an indoor swimming pool for a moment before I realize it’s a bathroom with an enormous tub.
He sets me down in the bath and leans my back against one of the marble walls. It’s three times the size of any bath I’ve ever seen. He turns the water on and it washes over me from a giant rainforest shower above us, already warm and perfect. He strips his jacket off of me, then, with strong hands, effortlessly snaps my bra open. My breasts tumble out. I wrap my arms around them. He reaches down and pulls off my panties, and I’m left wet and completely naked.
I tremble and sob at the thought of what he’s going to do to me, but he only steps back and throws the clothing away.
I cry for a long time, hugging my legs to myself under the warm water, and Jack sits on the counter and watches me.
Try to use the time to think. Plan something. Find the next step, I tell myself, but I can’t. All I can do is sit under the water and sob.