Blue stood over Amber’s shoulder as she walked her through the business model of life as an elite escort.
“You’ve been selling yourself short by working the streets, Amber. Your medical screening was clear, you’ve always insisted on condoms,” she said, clearing her throat as she fought back her imagination’s renderings of Amber being manhandled and fucked by anonymous men in the back alleys of Louisville. What a travesty. “Most importantly, I’ve changed your identity. I hope you like the name Amber. I think it suits you. I would have given you a total makeover, but you’re stunning exactly as you are. The wig will be enough when you start to work. Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she finished hoarsely. “The rest is up to you.”
Amber turned to looked at Blue earnestly. “I’ve been letting someone else sell me short. I can’t believe I let Huggy Bear use me like that for so long. While he drove around in an Escalade and wore mink, I was freezing my ass off wearing as little as legally allowed, no matter the weather. Do you know that, if a car was coming my way, he would make me drop my purse on the sidewalk just so I’d have to bend over to pick it up? Oh, yeah, I forgot -- and he got manicures and pedicures with the runaways he was grooming before he turned them out. He’d seduce them with the good life at high-dollar restaurants and spas, then turn them out onto the streets. Then the party was over; they either produced on their own or he’d have the girls work group events with kinky businessmen from out of town that were little more than orgies. A few of the girls barely survived them. He was a monster. And so are a lot of other people in this town. There’s a surprisingly big clientele around here for some seriously creepy sexual games if you know where to look.”
“Forget about all that; that was in the past and it’s a new day now. I mean, just look at you,” Blue said as she smoothed down the black bobbed wig her new protégé was wearing.
Amber cocked her head to the side, looking in the mirror at the unfamiliar reflection staring back at her. “Do you think it works—this new look?”
“It better work,” Blue joked. “I paid enough for that wig. You should only wear it when you’re with a client. When it’s just you and me, you can leave your hair down, soft and natural. Like you.” The wig was an impulsive decision designed to keep customers from seeing Amber’s real beauty. More and more, Blue wanted to keep that for herself, even if it was only to look at. But Blue wanted to do so much more than look.
“On a serious note, Blue, thank you for all you’ve done for me. You may have saved my life and you definitely rescued me from getting my ass beaten every other day.”
“Sweetheart…when it comes to money, I’m always serious. When it comes to you, I’m fucking deadly. You can count on it.” She bent down and kissed Amber’s cheek reassuringly, pausing in spite of herself to let her lips linger as her breath fanned across her skin. “No woman deserves to be used, baby. You’re going to be tempted to call him at some point and, trust me, he’s not going to let his cash cow go. No pimp ever lets a girl go. Huggy dropped you off on the corner to work and came back to find you gone. I’ve already confirmed that he’s asking around, trying to find you. You see, he saw you as an investment. Now that you’ve escaped, he thinks you owe him money. If he doesn’t make an example of you, he’ll be seen as weak.”
“What do you mean, ‘make an example of me’?”
Blue ran her hands down Amber’s soft upper arms, feeling the goosebumps emerge beneath her fingertips. “Well, it usually involves scarring, especially for a girl with beautiful, flawless skin like you. He would burn you, slice your face up, or kill you -- slowly. Don’t get near him, no matter what, because pimps are known for throwing acid in the face of women who escape. If he can’t have you working for him, he’ll want to reduce your value and steal away your beauty. But he’d still find ways to make money off you. To him, you’d be nothing but a hole – the lowest of the low in our world; a whore who might as well have a bag over her face or her head bolted into a box.”
“What?! That’s awful! That doesn’t really happen, does it?”
“I’m afraid so. There are pimps out there who have no sense of decency or style. They just want to offer customers a selection of holes for fucking. Orifices. And sadly, there are plenty of customers who like it that way; they like to debase a woman who’s just trying to survive and would probably be doing something else if she could. But, yes, if he destroys your looks then he ruins the chance of you making your own money. You know how it goes: ‘if I can’t have you, no one can’.”
“You’re scaring me, Blue.”
“Good. I hope I’m scaring you enough to stay out of his way. I’m scaring you because deep down inside, you know it’s true: there are only two ways for you survive this ordeal unscathed.”
Amber started frantically shaking her head, “I couldn’t possibly kill anybody and I don’t want to leave Louisville. Hell,” she whispered, her bottom lip wobbling, “I don’t want to leave you.”
Blue lowered her eyes to hide the satisfied gleam she could feel burning there. Amber was clinging to Blue like a lifeline, and it was intoxicating. At first, Blue had felt guilty about the possible impact the girl’s difficult circumstances might be playing in her growing emotional attachment, but then Blue decided that, really, it was better that way; it was better that Amber be loyal to Blue than to someone else. Who knew what kind of trouble or abuse Amber would have encountered if anyone else had intervened on her behalf?
“I’ll handle it and keep you safe,” Blue assured her softly, “but, I swear, if you run your mouth or try to get in touch with Huggy Bear, it won’t be him you’ll have to worry about.” She towered over Amber and kept her voice stern. “I won’t think twice about putting you over my knee and spanking your ass until it’s red and throbbing beneath my hand.”
Amber’s eyes widened and she shifted in her chair as her pupils dilated. She licked her lips and breathed, “Oh…”
“Remember, it isn’t just your life you’d be putting in danger.” Blue was aware of how pimps and abusers dealt with the friends who came to a hooker’s rescue and helped them escape. It was a blow to any pimp’s ego after investing time and money to groom their victims and teach them how to get customers and keep them coming back. The training was usually very hands-on. The pimp’s aim was to make the girl dependent on him at every level, so just imagine his rage when some do-gooder came along and unraveled years of manipulative mindfucks. Sometimes things got mighty ugly as the pimp put the girl in her place.
Amber was no longer looking into the kind face of a savior. It wasn’t just Blue’s countenance that had changed; her eyes had gone from sapphire to a dark navy blue and her cheeks were flushed. There was more to Blue than Amber had initially thought. Just who was this woman? More than that, what was she capable of? And why did the thought of being spanked – and spanked hard, apparently – by this woman make Amber cream her panties? Amber knew herself well; she wasn’t attracted to women. Huggy had tried to make her be with women more than once -- had even tried to drug her so a female client could go down on her -- but she’d managed to stop him. So why was her core tingling at the thought of being disciplined harshly by Blue?
Amber had indeed been tempted to contact her pimp but after the whole ‘he’s going to burn you, cut you, throw acid in your face’ thing, she thought better of it. Maybe fear had its place. Maybe sometimes fear served a higher purpose as a great motivator to do the right thing.
“I’m just glad he doesn’t know you, Blue. It wouldn’t be right for him to come after you because you rescued me. I’m so glad I met you on the corner that day.”
“I am, too, baby. I may have saved your life.” Blue knew all too well how far a pimp would go to protect his reputation. His ‘street cred’ was more important than money. Until Huggy Bear got even, he’d be viewed as weak. In a pimp’s world, that was as good as a death blow—one no pimp worth his salt would ever take lying down.