Chapter 29
A year and a half is all it took for things to take a drastic turn; June 6, 2001 was my 41st birthday. I was never one to make a big deal out of my birthday, but you can imagine the attention that it brought. I didn’t care about getting older, I never looked my age, and you are only as old as you feel. I did my normal routine early that morning until my phone rang; I was expecting it to be another celebratory phone call. Except…I was wrong.
“I found her,” Gregory declared.
As soon as I heard the words, my knees gave out and I dropped into my office chair in shock. He explained everything to me carefully and precisely and I took in every syllable. A part of me didn’t believe what I was hearing; so much so, that he had to repeat the address of where she was three times before I could write it without shaking.
The past always has its way of catching up to you, and mine crept in slowly. It took twenty-four years for me to get to that point and I had no idea what I was going to do with the information. Sometimes in life, you think you know the answers to questions that you constantly ask yourself, but when the moment truly comes to your front doorstep, you don’t know whether to answer the door or slam it shut. I don’t care who people think you are or the persona you have people believe is you, nobody knows what goes on in your mind when you lay your head to sleep at night.
And that is the reality of lies and secrets.
Defense mechanisms are a part of our everyday existence, and everyone engages in some sort of self-deception. My favorite would have to be denial; what is fact or fiction in one’s mind. That day, my mind was racing with thoughts of the unknown and that is by far the scariest emotion one can feel, especially for someone like me. I shut out the world that day and it took me exactly three weeks before I was able to recognize that I knew where to go to find my daughter.
The real truth behind The Madam is that I needed a goddamn prodigy. Someone to take the reins when I was done and I wouldn’t hand it down to anyone that didn’t have my blood in them.
It took me another week before I made my way to where she was, to where I could find her. It was exactly one month after Gregory first told me. As I drove in a state of trance, I hadn’t realized that I was heading toward the slums. At first, it was confusing because I couldn’t picture my twenty-four year old daughter living in this hellhole that I was driving by. I was fucking disgusted and I hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet. As I made my way toward the destination of the house, I couldn’t believe what was happening. I thought Gregory must have given me the wrong address or I took down the wrong information.
But something inside me told me to get out of the car, and so I did. I carefully walked up to the house trying to avoid stepping on shit, cigarettes, or needles and ruining my $3,000 shoes, internally praying that this wasn’t my daughter and this was some sort of mistake. The floor creaked below me as I stepped on the porch and I could smell the stench coming from inside the house, even with the door being closed. I knocked several times and there was no answer. I noticed a window on the side of the house and walked toward it. I didn’t see anything at first and was about to turn around and that’s when I saw her.
She was dressed in a tank top that barely covered her breasts and shorts that had filth all over them. I could see piles of garbage all over the house and liquor and beer cans everywhere. I watched and waited as she took a seat on the horrendous couch. Her face was red; I’m sure it was from massive doses of strong whiskey. Her hair was dirty, greasy, and straggly looking. I was positive she hadn’t washed it in days. Her darkened eyes were tunneled by the puffiness around them. She was a fucking mess, but beautiful.
Had she had the opportunity to blossom the way I did, she would have no doubt been a beautiful VIP goddess. She was a VIP, behind the drugs, the alcohol and God knows what else, the dreadful creature before my eyes was a VIP. Any parent in their right mind would have felt guilt. I felt fury. That part of my feelings didn’t exist. Not this time. All I kept thinking was, how dare she? How dare she pop the cap of a needle right in front of me? Who the fuck did she think she was?
She was a goddamn Stone and VIPs didn’t look like this. VIPs didn’t dress like some dumb cunt on a street corner. VIPs seeped poison from their pussies, not from their fucking veins. The stench, pouring from every crevice around me was revolting. The sight of that needle piercing the skin was disgusting as the blood trailed down her arm. The thought of this sickly little thing in front of me repulsed me. My daughter was a piece of shit, the bottom of the barrel, just another fucking junkie wasting her life away. I felt sick to my stomach; she was a weak, worthless nothing. I turned to leave immediately, not wanting to waste my time any more than I already had.
I got in my car and floored the gas pedal, wanting to get the hell out of the neighborhood. My fingers anxiously tapped on the steering wheel, trying to drown out the catastrophe that I had just witnessed and the awful taste it left in my mouth. I hadn’t even noticed that I ran a stop sign until I had to slam on my breaks because a woman was crossing the street. My body jolted from the impact and it was like a sign from God himself as I stared into the greenest pair of eyes that I had ever seen in my entire life. The girl was a fucking vision, enough that it took my goddamn breath away.
She was perfect.
I knew it right then and there. Come hell or high water, I would have her by any means necessary. She shyly smiled as she walked away; she must have been around sixteen. I made sure to wait a few minutes before I trailed behind her, keeping enough distance to where she didn’t see me but I wouldn’t lose her. She crossed the street and I watched in horror as she walked toward a house to retrieve the mail and then yelled, “mom”. I watched her mother walk out and it cemented my thoughts on needing to get her the fuck out of there.
She was mine she just didn’t know it yet and that would change real soon.
<>-<>-<>-<>
I spent the next few days getting everything in order. I had a plan, and it didn’t take me long to execute it. This will be the part of my story where you will think that I am fucking monster, you will turn the page and you will hate me. Like I’ve said from the beginning, there are always three sides to every story. Things don’t always go according to plan, but know this…I have no regrets for the things I have done, because the bottom line is, I am The Madam and I will ensure my legacy by any means necessary.
Money can buy anything you have ever wanted and it doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, green is the most powerful color in the world. I waited in my office for my “guest” to arrive. The minute he walked in, I knew I had him, and it wasn’t even going to cost me that much. I had no idea who he was or if I could even trust him, but it was a risk I was willing to take. He took a seat and crossed his leg; he looked about late thirties, stubble on his face, dressed decently, but nothing to brag about.
“Did I tell you could sit down?” I questioned with an arched eyebrow.
“You need me, princess, not the other way around,” he replied with a condescending tone.
It made me chuckle. “Mika said you could get the job done, so let’s get one thing straight, you work for me not the other way around. If you have a problem with that I will find someone who doesn’t.” He hesitated but nodded.
“I need you to scare someone for me and it will be the easiest ten grand you’ve ever made.” He nodded again as I handed him a piece of paper with the address.
“She lives there and I will give you an extra grand to pay off the mom. I have no doubt that she will eagerly and gratefully accept it. You scare the girl and then you come back and I pay you. Understood?”
“Perfectly. Where do I meet the mom?”
“She hangs out at this dive bar in town and the address is also on that paper,” I informed the piece of shit sitting in front of me.
“Can I fuck her?”
“You can stick it in whatever hole she lets you. As far as the girl goes, just spook her. Am I clear?”
“You honestly think the mother is going to go for this?”
“I have no doubt,” I divulged.
<>-<>-<>-<>
Five days later, he was back in my office sitting in the same chair as I grabbed the envelope full of money.
“I fucked her,” he beamed.
“Good for you, hope you didn’t catch anything,” I said, laughing as I handed him the envelope.
“I’m talking about the girl. You could have told me she was twelve.” I quickly pulled back the envelope.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I yelled.
“Listen…we smoked some crack and the mom pretty much threw her at me. What the fuck was I suppose to do?” he explained.
“What part of spook her did you not understand YOU FUCK! I wanted her out of the house not fucking traumatized,” I screamed.
“I did what you told me to do! Blame the fucking mother; she didn’t give a shit what I did as long as she was getting paid.”
“So you decided to rape a FUCKING CHILD?!”
He stood up. “Fuck you, lady. Get off your goddamn high horse; you’re the reason I was even there. Whatever happened to her, it’s on you. I did my job because you put me there; let’s get that fucking straight. You are no better than me. Just because you make your orders behind some fancy desk doesn’t make you any less of a villain. Now give me my fucking money.”
I grabbed the envelope and walked around my desk to stand in front of him. I shoved the envelope in his chest and then I spit in his face. “You have one minute to get the fuck out of my house or I’m calling the cops.” He grinned, showing his disgusting yellowed teeth, and walked out of my office, not bothering to even wipe his face.
I stood there in shock not being able to move, I couldn’t believe what I had done. I couldn’t even argue with him because everything he said was true. Even if she had been sixteen like I had originally thought, it wouldn't have made it any better. But the fact that she was only twelve made it so much worse. She was just a baby, no matter what kind of life her mother put her through. Hearing that her mom was fine with what he had done, made me even angrier. I should have just taken her when I was there and she was in front of me.
I felt violently sick. Over the years I had felt many emotions, most of them foreign to me...this one was no different. I had never felt so guilty or distraught before. And the feelings were quickly rising in my chest. I leaned over and emptied my stomach in the wastebasket next to my desk. I washed my mouth out with some Tequila I had in my office. I wanted to go get her, but I knew I couldn't. I just had to wait for her to come to me. And I was going to make sure that happened.
The days that followed left me feeling empty and soulless. Nothing I’d ever seen nor did, prepared me for the mental hell of what I was involved in with an innocent girl- an innocent twelve-year-old girl. What the fuck did I do? I should have gone after her. I could have paid the mother off. I could have taken her under my wing and taught her all that I’d been taught. It was all I could do not to do that. I had to wait. It was done, and there was nothing I could do about it but wait. I did something my mother would have despised. I wallowed in a drunken self-pity for days, feeling like a piece of shit. I was a piece of shit. I spent four days trying to drown myself in Tequila, hoping to relieve the scar from my brain and forget. After feigning an illness for four days, I picked myself up, and got back to my life.
I pushed back the emotions where I kept everything, deep inside me where no one could see it.
What’s done is done and there’s no going back.
Living in sin was the new thing.