“He’s so sexy.”
The words float through the black speaker grill in the front of the limousine. Beside me, Frank grins.
“I love his eyes. They’re so blue, like water at the perfect beach.”
“Like sapphires!” another girl says.
I roll my eyes. Regular bunch of poets back there.
“Who are these girls, anyway?” I ask, jerking my thumb back toward the two-way partition glass that separates the back of the limousine from the front.
They can’t see us or hear us up-front – it’s just a mirror on their side – but we can hear everything they say, see everything they do. I peer back, and right now they’re drinking champagne liberally from the limo’s bar.
“And can we turn the speakers off?” I add.
“Sorry, Deidre,” Frank says. He turns his ruddy face and sleepy eyes toward me, wears an apologetic expression. “Your father’s orders.”
“You have to listen to them? That would drive me nuts.”
“I listen to everything,” he tells me. “Re-re… I don’t know the word.”
“Redundancy. So who are they, anyway? Just some girls for Dad?”
Frank frowns, shakes his head quickly. “Not your father, no. They’re for his friends. But don’t worry, Deidre, they’re here of their own choice.”
I make a face. Usually, you wouldn’t need that qualification. Usually. Dad swears he doesn’t do prostitution, but I know that’s a lie. He only says it because I’m a woman and he thinks I can’t take it, thinks I’ll burst into hysterics or something over it.
Like women haven’t been living in this fucking world, too.
“You’d think they’d have something better to do. God, they’re practically my age. Why do they do this?”
All of Dad’s friends are his age… just the thought of it icks me out. I wonder again if these girls have a choice. Nobody has a gun to their head, but life is tough for a lot of people. The barrel is not always made out of metal.
Dad preys on those people specifically.
I glance back, look through the mirror. The girls, three of them, seem off. They’re hyper, jittery, almost trembling, but not from cold. The limo’s heated.
“They’re really here to see Duncan, Deidre. You know that. They just entertain some of your Dad’s associates, that’s all. It’s a transaction.”
The girls in the back, three of them all dressed up – impossibly-high heels, tiny dresses, glittering jewelry – squeal with laughter. I wince as the speakers erupt into a static hiss.
“Damn it,” I whisper, rubbing my ears, thankful I missed what they said. No doubt it was something about Duncan. No doubt it was something I wouldn’t like to hear.
Words float through the speakers, but I try to ignore them.
“I don’t think they’re talking about anything important,” Frank says, and he lowers the volume. He offers me a kind smile.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
“They’re obsessed with Duncan,” he says before briefly clearing his throat. “All the girls are. Every fight now, they’re all talking about him. More girls turn up to fights than guys now. Can you believe that? I shuttle more girls to these fights than I do guys. It’s… I never would have thought it, you know?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Yes, I know,” I say. I hate that they all come to watch him fight, call out his name, scream ‘marry me’ at him, flash their fucking tits at him.
I hate that they can’t see me on his arm. I’m his, and he’s mine. It’s petty… but why can’t I indulge in a little smallness every now and then?
“And yet,” Frank says. “I never see Duncan bring one of them home. He’s never cozying up with them, you know? He could have any he pleased, all at the same time if he wanted.”
My eyes narrow, and I turn them on Frank.
“What?” he asks, shrugging, a guilty and dirty smile prying his lips apart. “What I would give to be his age again with all them girls after me like that.”
“Frank, I really don’t need to hear this.”
But the truth is he’s right. Duncan’s practically a superstar. It’s not just people clued in to underground fighting, either. Even middle-class people from the suburbs are starting to get wind of him. Dad really took underground fighting and blew it up big time.
Despite everything wrong with it – the corruption, the betting, the dirty money, the sheer violence of it all – it is the sting of jealousy that I feel the most. I can’t stand all these girls rubbing their hands on Duncan’s body as he leaves the cage after a win, walks back to his private room. I can’t stand the thought of any other girl getting to look at him, let alone touch him.
They like to crowd around him, fancy themselves groupies, cell-phone flashes going off as each tries to get a selfie, as each tries to strike a good pose and get a non-blurry snap.
It’s completely ridiculous. They all look so stupid doing it. The selfie-sticks have only made it all worse.
I feel the indignation start to turn to anger, and force myself to just forget about it. There’s nothing I can do. What, am I going to control what other people think?
To his credit, Duncan never entertains them. He never so much as looks at them. Their hands grope him and he ignores all of them, never lingers.
I got on him once about it before. I was in a bad mood and looking to start a fight. He asked me what he was supposed to do… lay hands on them, push them away?
He’s right of course. He could never do that.
But sometimes I wish I could.
I take a flyer from my bag. Duncan’s on it wearing nothing but his fighting shorts. The lines of his body are cut deep, and he’s staring straight into the camera. His jaw is a sharp cut, shadowed, and his lips full, endlessly kissable. And then there are those striking, blue eyes.
The girls in the back are right, of course… his eyes are something else.
“Don’t tell me you fancy him,” Frank says. “That would be wrong. He’s your brother.”
Once again I look at Frank, now a growing feeling of unease in my belly. I correct him: “My adopted brother.”
Frank grunts. “You know, little sisters… and he’s more like a cousin or something, anyway.”
“Don’t tell me you’re opening up to me about your own childhood fantasies, Frank.”
He barks out a hoarse laugh. But little does Frank realize he’s right on the money… he’s always had a nose for these things.
I rub my belly absent-mindedly.
I turn my eyes back down at the flyer. They were handed out all around town the last few days. The biggest underground MMA cage fight of the year.
Duncan ‘Creature’ Malone versus ‘Manic’ Conrad Butler. Their nicknames aren’t exactly oblique; they describe their respective fighting styles perfectly.
I sigh, wipe my eyes over Duncan’s almost-naked body. We’ve been joined at the hip, inseparable, for so long. It’s not been all good though, but what is? Ups and downs are a part of life. It’s like a heartbeat monitor. No ups and downs means you’re dead inside.
But now… now I’ve got to break the biggest news of his life to him… of my life, too. Something I only just found out for sure this morning. Something I only just worked up the courage to go through with.
Of course, I already knew. The body doesn’t lie.
I fold up the flyer, put it back into my bag. I’m just going to have to come out and say it. It’s not going to be easy, but I have to, no matter how worried I am about what he might think. I keep doubting myself. I keep telling myself, Don’t think you know him that well. Don’t think you can predict what he’ll say.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just a way to protect myself. Dim expectations are a suit of emotional armor.
But I know what Duncan is like on fight nights. He’s so amped-up, so psychologically prepared to beat a man to within inches of his life, to get him into a choke hold and black him out, or to take a twisted shoulder right to its limit before it pops out of the joint, or the same to a knee.
When he’s that way, it’s often hard to get through to him. He puts up a mental shield, becomes resistant to considering anything but the fight. His face will drain of emotion, become statuesque.
That’s his mental suit of armor.
“We’re here,” Frank says a few minutes later. We drive toward a chain-link fence that swings open automatically, and then we’re on a short runway for small aircraft. We drive to the end, where a narrow beam of light splits the foggy night. The huge, sliding doors to a plane hangar are slightly open. Compared to the size of the building, they look open only a sliver, but I’ve little doubt the gap is wide enough to fit an SUV through.
I pull out my mirror from my bag, check my makeup quickly, rub smudged eyeliner away under my eyes. I don’t want Duncan to know I was crying earlier. Panic got the better of me, but only for a moment.
“You okay?” Frank asks. “You seem a little down tonight.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper back at him.
“Don’t want to watch the fight?”
I shake my head. “Watch my… watch Duncan take punches so Dad can earn more money? Not really.”
Now there’s a stony silence, and I look at Frank, that uneasy feeling in my belly turning into nausea.
“What is it, Frank?”
“You been avoiding your old man for a reason?” he asks.
I freeze. “What?”
“Forget it. Not my place.”
I swallow. Does he know? How could he possibly?
“What is this about, Frank? Don’t clam up on me.”
“Just you never come around the house anymore. He’s worried about you, Deidre.”
“No, he’s worried about himself.”
“Deidre, it’s not like that. I…” Frank’s voice trails off. “It’s not my place. You get going, now.”
I peer at him, decide not to push it so I don’t look suspicious, and then my gaze goes past him and out the driver’s side window. The three girls are all walking toward the hangar, their steps wobbly, and likely not just from their insane ankle-breakers.
“You let them do anything in the car?”
“Of course not!” Frank says, instantly indignant. “Rules are rules. They just drank the champagne. They’re on something, though, but it was before they got in.”
“Great,” I say, shaking my head. “Just great. Thanks for the ride, Frank.”
“Don’t sweat it. Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Tell Duncan I wish him luck.”
“Sure.”
Frank grins. “I put fifty-large on him tonight.”
“Alright, Frank,” I say.
I get out of the car, fix my bag over one shoulder, and walk toward the hangar in a perfume-drenched wake.