Eight men. Two prostitutes. Enough Mexican cuisine to feed a small homeless shelter. One stressed out waiter, and me. Me, with the full plate of homemade enchiladas that I hadn’t touched. Me, with the stiff back and rigid smile that threatened to break if I didn’t slip away to the bathroom soon. Not that there was ever really any slipping away.
Besides the eight men at the table around me, there were six more mengiants, really surrounding us. Two of them were assigned directly to me. Their names were Marcos and John, but I called them Rattle and Snake. One of them was noisy while the other was as mean as his namesake. He was quick to lash out, never at me, but at most of the people around him.
Another business meeting for Antonio. If you could call it that. Before Antonio, I’d never known prostitutes could be a complimentary item handed out like pens at a job fair. I hadn’t known a lot of things before Antonio.
He always picked the same restaurant, a small Mexican restaurant in the outskirts of Aberdeen. On the outside, it looked like it was crumbling. The cream-colored stucco had massive cracks in it and every plant that had been planted while Mrs. Hernandez was still living was dead, with litter filling their brown branches. The inside wasn’t much better, but for some reason, Antonio loved it.
It was probably because Mr. Hernandez let him do whatever he wanted, including bring in prostitutes that weren’t shy about doing their jobs. As far as I knew, you couldn’t bring your prostitute to Outback and have her suck you off under the table.
The room we always ate in was marginally better, with the wallpaper still mostly sticking to the walls and the faux greenery only slightly covered in dust. The round table took up the whole space and between us and the guards, there wasn’t enough room to shift without bumping someone or something.
I had even less room with Antonio’s arm around me, keeping me right up against his side. His large body was warm and smelled expensive, like the cologne he always wore and a fresh shower. His crisp, white button-down was silky as it brushed against my skin, just slightly smoother than his hand on my arm. His long fingers grazed the side of my breast, openly toying with me.
That was the kind of man Antonio was. He liked to show off for those around him, but with plenty of thought involved. He would never do enough to make me uncomfortable because it might show on my face and he couldn’t have the men around him thinking that his touch did anything other than turn me on. Anything less than that thought-out touch might make the men think that I was available. Like a timeshare. Thankfully, Antonio wasn’t into that.
A low-hanging, rusted chandelier hung over the table and as the lights flickered once, I blinked. How was it possible that I’d found myself in a place where I was grateful for something as small as a man not lending me out to his associates? I was finally understanding why the man in hell begged for even just a drop of water from his family in heaven. When you were at the bottom, a drop above nothing felt like everything.
Business had been settled before the entrees were brought out. Antonio knew what he wanted and was direct. He handed out tasks to the men he knew could handle them and didn’t take no for an answer. Not that anyone at the table would ever venture to say no to him. It was insanity. We’d all seen the result of saying no to Antonio.
The men, other than Antonio, were talking and laughing, taking their turns touching the women with a familiarity that sometimes still shocked me. As I watched, one of them, Francisco, reached up and pulled the blonde woman’s halter-styled top down, exposing her bare breasts. He cupped them and buried his face between them over his empanadas.
Francisco was an asshole, worse than most of the other men, which was really saying something. He didn’t care about privacy and he’d never met a woman he didn’t think he should be allowed to touch freely. Among his many other sins.
The other woman, the redhead, was being positioned on top of Jeremy with her thong yanked to the side. Antonio’s fingers grazed my breast harder as the redhead sank onto Jeremy’s suddenly exposed cock.
I turned my eyes down to my untouched food and forced myself to keep breathing. I knew what the show meant. It meant that before the night was over, I would be sprawled on my back, under Antonio while he powered away like a champion purebred.
“You didn’t touch your dinner, Clara.” He dropped his voice and nuzzled my ear. “Your conscience bothering you again?”
I turned my head so I could meet his eyes and studied his face. He was painfully handsome. His tan skin was smooth, only marred by a white scar that cut across the top of his cheekbone. His beard was groomed to perfection, just enough to give him an edge. His eyes had always been what captured me. They were so dark that I could never separate the difference between the iris and the pupil. They were alarming at first glance, and so deep once you’d looked at them for longer that they felt like a tight hug. Until you realized that they weren’t just deep. They were a black hole, sucking you into nothing and everything for the rest of your life.
“Clara.” His put his drink down and caressed the side of my face. “Talk to me, baby.”
I forced a smile and leaned into his side. After everything, there was still a part of me that responded to him when he spoke to me like that. “What do you want me to talk about?”
Something flashed in his eyes and he captured my mouth in a bruising kiss. His mouth moved over mine in a practiced way, lingering with my lower lip caught between his, the way I’d always liked. When he pulled away, he moaned just loud enough for me to hear and licked his lips. “You always taste like sugar. Tell me why that is.”
I shrugged, causing the tiny strap of my dress to slide down my shoulder. When I reached to fix it, his fingers were there, stopping me. “I don’t know. Are we almost done here, Antonio? It’s been a long day.”
He stared at me in the way that always made me wonder if he was plotting mayhem. When he smiled, it reached his eyes. “Of course, sweetheart. Just a little while longer while I finish everything and then we can hurry home. I want to see more of this dress slipping off of you.”
“Of course.” I took my glass of wine, something brought in by some of Antonio’s extra men, and took a long swallow. I worked to level out my heart rate, irrationally concerned that he would be able to see my pulse fluttering at my throat and he’d know that I didn’t want to hurry home with him. He knew I didn’t want to hurry home with him, but it scared me to be so obvious when we were in public.
“I asked why you didn’t touch your dinner.”
Jeremy, directly across from me, stood up and bent the redhead over the table while the other men watched. Her face looked bored, but she made sounds of pleasure, her mouth moving in an exaggerated way.
I turned to face Antonio and frowned. “I don’t enjoy a show with my dinner, Antonio. You know that.”
His eyes narrowed just slightly, just enough for me to understand that I’d pushed him. He shifted his chair out and patted his thigh. “Come here, Clara.”
My fingers tightened around my wine glass, but I tried to not let it show. Instead, I moved to his lap and perched there.
“How can you not appreciate this? Look at how much my men are enjoying themselves. Look at how happy these women make them. The only thing that would make them happier right now is if the women they were toying with were their own. My men haven’t found their great loves, yet. They don’t get how I can enjoy sliding into the same woman over and over again without ever getting bored.”
My face flamed and I kept my eyes on the stained tablecloth. Antonio’s hands wrapped around my neck as he gently tipped my head backwards so I could either watch what was happening or close my eyes.
“The real show would be taking you right here, while you watched these women get fucked. I love the way you flush. Your whole neck and chest go red and it makes me hard, Clara. Look at me.”
I did and was rewarded with a hand slipped under the hem of my dress. I swallowed and squeezed my thighs shut, but Antonio just grinned and slipped his other hand down my chest and stomach to hold my thighs open. Even though no one could see anything, I felt like I was going to go up in flames of shame.
Just as quickly as it’d started, he pulled his hands away and sat me back in my own chair. He leaned in close and draped his arms around me. “I would never do that to you. You have to know that. Know that and stop acting like I’m some monster. I love you, Clara. You need to remember that.”
My head spun as he moved away, settling into his seat to finish his dinner as he glanced around the table at his people enjoying their night.
Jeremy had finished. The grunting while Antonio’s hands were trying to get up my dress were his, and then another man, George, had taken his place. George had moved his plate of enchiladas onto her back and was taking bites in between bouts of thrusting. The red sauce was dripping down the woman’s back and down her sides, leaving more stains on the tablecloth, I was sure. The blonde was on her knees at the edge of the table with two men presenting their cocks to her like they were some kind of prizes.
Suddenly angry by Antonio’s games, I wanted to demand an answer for how they felt anything but shame for whipping out such small pricks in public. I wanted to take the sizzling plate that someone’s fajitas had been brought out on and cook their tiny dicks on it. Darkness had rubbed off on me and I was getting darker by the day.
I pushed back from the table and stood up. “I’m going to the restroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Antonio caught my hand and stopped me. “I’m torn between reminding you what’s at stake and hoping you forget so we can go back to normal.”
I barely held in a scowl. “I will never forget.”
I exited the small room, followed by my two guards, and entered the small hallway to the right of me. The women’s bathroom was occupied so I leaned against the wall opposite it and counted to ten. I had to stay calm. He’d been right about reminding me what was at stake. I didn’t have the liberty to throw the fit I wanted to throw. I had to remember.
Snake leaned against the wall next to me and stared down at me. “Trouble in paradise?”
I did scowl at him. “Don’t talk to me.”
He laughed, low in his throat. “Why not? You going to throw a hissy fit about it? Mr. Carver gives you the world and you still act like a brat. He should get rid of you and bring in someone who appreciates him. You deserve nothing.”
My face instantly transformed into a smile as the door opened and an older woman stepped out. I straightened and shrugged as I looked back at him. “That’s something that you and I agree on. Why don’t you run and suggest to him that he get rid of me?”
I slammed the bathroom door shut and leaned against it. My heart raced in my chest, frustration and helplessness bubbling inside of me and threatening to spill over.
Life wasn’t fair. The words repeated inside my head over and over again, until I was tearing up. My life had never been fair. There’d only ever been one truly good thing in my life and I’d lost her.
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at me. Would that little girl even recognize the woman I’d become, the woman clouded in darkness? I had to doubt it. Just as I seriously doubted that I’d ever want her to see who I’d become.