Yazmin
Something I’ve always done when I’m nervous is talk and talk and talk. When I was a girl and my friends discussed their dads, I would always spin fantastical lies, telling them that my dad was an astronaut on his way to Mars or a secret agent who could only visit me in the dead of night. If I kept talking, I thought, then they would be forced to believe me. If I never stopped talking, they wouldn’t have a chance to prove me wrong.
This is exactly what I’ve been doing with Spike, just talking to fill the silence. I’m on his side, but I don’t know how to broach the topic without seeming like I’m trying some sort of plan. I need to bide my time. I need to wait until he’s desperate to hear something. For the first time in my life, I need to learn how to shut up.
So when the men walk into the office, all seven of them, and when the ginger-haired man is holding a roll of duct-tape, I’m almost glad. It gives me a chance to keep my mouth closed. He wraps the duct-tape around my head, sticking it to my neck, clamping down on my lips. The men fill the room, the seven-foot giant looming over me, Spike leaning against the wall watching me. None of them say anything.
This is a scare tactic, I know. Dad has used it on me before, just stare and let the person they’re staring at imagine what’s going on behind the cold gaze. I’m scared, I have to admit. When the giant man steps forward, I wonder if I’ve made a mistake. Maybe I should’ve blurted that I wanted to help right away. But he doesn’t lay a finger on me. He just kneels down, staring at me, trying to psych me out.
At least I have a roof over my head. There is that, I suppose. And at least I have a vague chance of getting Dad back for killing Mom—I push that thought far away. I can’t think about that, not now. It’s too painful. The giant wide man turns to the men behind him and laughs, a laugh that shakes my bones. “I reckon I should go first, lads. She looks like she needs breakin’ in.” The men behind him laugh, all except Spike. He just smiles. But it looks like a forced smile. It looks like he doesn’t have a taste for this at all.
Who knows, maybe he’s as interested in me as I am in him.
He’s tall and lean, his muscles sinewy, the sort of muscles men who work with their hands develop. His hair is jet black and cropped close to his head, his eyes a bright green which seem all the brighter for his clipped black beard. At the moment he’s wearing a black T-shirt which shows the viper tattoo which slithers around his arm, ending with an opening mouth on his hand.
“Nah, I reckon we should all just go in on her,” the ginger-haired man says. “She looks like the sort who’d like it in the ass.”
They have no idea that I’ve spent almost a year hearing the same shit from the Scorpions. They think I was in there being pampered by the Scorpions, protected. I’m accustomed to this, jaded by it, even. I just watch Spike, watching me. It’s like a little game we’re playing to see who’ll look away first. In the end, he does. Maybe he doesn’t want to admit that there’s an attraction here. Despite everything, there’s an attraction here. I think about meeting Spike in a club, his bright eyes, his dark hair, the way his body moves as though ready for action at any minute. I’d be all over him in a second.
“She looks like a bleeder,” another man croaks. He’s the oldest man I’ve ever seen. He looks like a skeleton. He leers at me. “But that don’t have to be a problem.”
The way they see it, they’re softening me up for later. They want me to be so scared that when they leave, my mind will go into overdrive thinking about all the horrible things they’re going to do. Everything is in place. They’re doing a good job. The room smells of oil and cigarettes and whiskey. The men are big and scary and some of them ugly. Any woman would be quaking in her boots right now. Maybe I am, deep down, but I can’t let it rule me. I have to remember Mom, the bed of blood, the crimson sheets, the lifeless eyes, judging me. I have to remember Dad and his desire to turn his only child into a stripper or trade her off like a pet.
“I’m going to hurt her,” a kid squeaks out, younger than me. He looks sick as he speaks. “I’m really going to make her hurt.”
I think I would be more scared if Spike looked like he would let them touch me. I’ve seen the look in men’s eyes when they want me, and Spike wants me. He looks as though he wants me with the intensity that causes men to fight off anybody who tries to touch their woman. He even winces as the men talk about hurting me. The performance hinges on his reactions, and his reactions are plainly negative. He wants me all for himself. I wonder what he’d look like without that black T-shirt on, wonder how many scars he has, wonder what it would feel like to have his hands on my thigh. If this is a strange train of thought to be riding in a situation like this, then I’m a strange woman, there’s no question about it. But I’ll never claim to be anything different.
A man with the flattest nose I’ve ever seen and the reddest eyes I’ve ever seen takes out a knife and waves it around while pacing back and forth in front of me. “I want to hear her moan,” he says casually. “I want to hear her scream.”
Fear pricks me. He’s the only one so far who I believe would actually do it. He stumbles as he paces, clearly drunk, and his words come out slurred and hungry.
I see Spike move as if to push away from the wall. I see his fists clench as though to punch this man in the face for going too far. I see his eyes flit to me, not just to my body, but to my face, too. I heard that my father killed his girlfriend recently, last week, if the gossip is true, but he doesn’t seem at all traumatized by it. Maybe it wasn’t serious.
The red-eyed man lurches at me. I flinch back, a scream stifled by the duct tape.
“All right, let’s get going,” Spike says. He’s at the man’s shoulder, his hand on his arm, squeezing so hard that the red-eyed man drops the knife.
One by one, the men spill out of the room, leaving Spike and the knife. Outside, music starts blaring and drinks are being poured. A woman giggles. The party resumes.
Spike cuts away the duct-tape. He doesn’t say a word, just stares at me. I don’t say a word, either. It doesn’t feel like the right time. I need to judge the moment just before he’s going to be forced to do something he doesn’t want to do. I need to reveal myself as his ally just as he’s ready to make me his enemy. He doesn’t want to hurt me. I have to believe that.
He silently moves from the room, leaving the duct-tape sticking painfully to the back of my neck. I sit there for two hours, or more, staring at the wall and wondering how my life became this. It’s strange how life can be fairly normal one day and completely batshit the next. I mean, I’m not saying I was the most well-adjusted woman in the world. I was coasting through life, certainly. I was lost, and I had no clue what I was doing. I wasn’t being fair to my mom, going out and getting drunk when I could’ve been helping her with bills. But I was normal. I wasn’t a criminal. And now, I’m tied to a chair getting a crush on the man who may very well be torturing me soon.
If life is strange, lust is stranger. It’s the strangest thing a person can experience, I think, or one of the strangest. It can hit in the most unlikely places. At the grocery store. At an interview. In the gynecologist’s waiting room, even. And apparently when I’m meant to be terrified out of my mind by the hard-as-nails biker who is keeping me prisoner.
About three hours later, the party pounding next door, a woman about my age walks into the room holding a can of polish and a dusting pad. She’s short, with small dark eyes and a small mouth. Her hair is combed back into a tight ponytail. “They do this sometimes,” she says quietly, as she goes around the room dusting. “A party that lasts all day and all night.”
“You shouldn’t be talking to me!” I hiss. I think of what Dad would do if one of the girls talked to a prisoner. “They’ll kill you. They’ll torture you. They’ll rape you.”
The woman laughs softly, making sure to be quiet. “You’re in the wrong place for that. They don’t do that here, not to innocents, anyway.”
“Who says I’m innocent?”
The woman turns to me, a crooked smile on her face. “Are you hungry or thirsty?”
My stomach is growling and my throat is dry. “Yes, both. But I don’t think you should try and bring me anything. They might see.”
“Oh.” The woman’s grin gets wider. “Don’t worry about that.” She approaches me, bringing a bottle of water out of one pocket and a candy bar out of another. “I can’t untie your hands.” She kneels next to me and brings the water to my lips. I drink greedily, the water cold and refreshing in my bone-dry throat. Then she feeds me the candy bar. I feel like a little kid, but I’d rather feel like a little kid than have my belly twist in angry hunger.
“What’s your name?” I ask, once she’s stowed the trash in her pockets.
“My name? Why do you want to know my name?” She continues with her dusting.
“Because you’re my Good Samaritan, that’s why. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” I smile at her, wiggling my eyebrows.
She hides her laugh behind her hand. “You’re weird,” she says. “Tied to a chair, acting like that. You’re very, very weird, do you know that?”
“You just told me they won’t hurt me.”
“Only if you’re innocent,” she shoots back.
“What’s your name?” I repeat.
She sighs. “I shouldn’t tell you. But it’s Georgia Castle, okay?”
“Yazmin Lafayette.”
“Nice to meet you.” Georgia rolls her eyes.
“So are you the cleaner and the cook and the—” I don’t know how to phrase it without causing offense.
“Whore?” Georgia offers.
I nod.
“You only do that if you want to. We have a lot of girls who used to be with pimps who wanted to go independent but didn’t know how, so they come here where the pimps can’t get them; the men hurt the pimps if they try. The girls get to keep all their money. And they can leave anytime they want. Lots of girls have left and bought nice big houses. But no, I’m just a cleaner and a cook. You can’t imagine how messy this place can get.”
Outside, somebody crashes into the wall.
“Oh, I think I can.”
We giggle together and then Georgia makes to leave.
“Wait,” I say, when she’s at the door. “He sent you, didn’t he? Maybe you shouldn’t have talked with me, maybe you went too far there. But the food and the water, Spike sent you with those.”
Georgia’s hand pauses for a fraction of a second before turning the door handle and I know I’m right. Despite his performance, Spike wants me to be as comfortable as a woman awaiting torture can be.