Three, Two, One (321) Page 10

  She flashes me her new smile. “Any time, sugar.”

  “What happened to your tooth?” I point to the missing one she’s flashing, but her smile fades quick.

  “Nothin’. Just a misunderstanding.”

  I smile at her. “OK, Shadow. Stay safe.”

  “You too, honey.” But she’s already walking off.

  I sit on the wall for a little longer trying to figure out what that bit of information might add up to. Blue is running, that’s for sure. And they were violent with her. Beatings, torture maybe, possibly rape. They’ve got her ID. They marked her as property. And she’s afraid to call home.

  Add that to JD’s missing girlfriend from four years ago and that means something.

  Back in the early days, before the money started pouring in, JD and I were winging it hardcore. It took weeks to clean him up and he had like two dozen relapses. Every time I took him back to rehab, they asked me why I bothered. And I always told them the same thing. Because no one else will.

  Everybody’s got a past. Everybody is running from some demon or another. Everybody needs a second chance. If there’s a person out there who has not fucked up royally and needed a second chance… well, that person hasn’t lived yet.

  And four years later, I do not regret one moment of all the effort it took to drag him out of his depression, his addiction, and his self-loathing, and hand him the opportunity of a lifetime.

  Because no matter what JD is, he’s smart. And he took that chance. He moved on. He made movies with me. He made money with me. Hell, he did more than move on. He moved up.

  But that scar…

  I saw his face last night when he lifted her hair. I saw him look up at me like that kid I found trying his hardest not to get his ass kicked in front of this very wall of concrete four years ago.

  He expects answers this time.

  And he expects me to help get them.

  I get up and start walking back to the loft and then spy a drug store across the street. I cross and go inside to pick something up for Blue that she will surely be needing.

  I find my dress in the trash. Not that I’d wear it again. It looks like it went through hell. But it would’ve been nice to be asked if I wanted to wash it, considering I have no other clothes.

  I found something, though. Sweats and a t-shirt of JD’s in his closet. But the pants have to be rolled over so many times, it makes the t-shirt bunch out over my belly. When I look in the mirror it makes me look pregnant and that just hurts like hell.

  I unroll the sweats and hold them up as I make my way to the kitchen. There’s still mess in there from last night, so I start cleaning up. I’m just closing the dishwasher after loading it up when the door opens and Ark walks in.

  He throws his keys on a small table in the foyer and then hangs up his leather jacket. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt with the cuffs casually rolled up. There’s a tie around his collar as well, but it’s loose.

  I squint at him. Is that a fashion statement? Or was he really wearing a white shirt and tie for business reasons?

  “What?” he asks, looking into the open kitchen.

  I shake my head and start wiping down the counters. His shoes—dressy, I realize as I try to concentrate on the countertops—tap across the floor and stop just off to my right.

  I lift my head a little to look up at him. “What?”

  He throws a package down on the counter. “For you. I didn’t see any birth control stuffed in your panties yesterday. And we both came inside you. So…”

  I look at the package. “What is it?” When I look up at him, he’s puzzled. “What?”

  “It’s the morning-after pill. You’ve never taken one?”

  I open my mouth to speak, then close it immediately and go back to cleaning. I’m not even going there. “Thanks. I’ll take it as soon as I’m done here.” But he doesn’t move. I wait a few more seconds before looking up again. “What?”

  His dark eyes are squinting down at me. “You’re not the maid.”

  “I know. I’m just…” I shrug. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

  “We won’t kick you out. Even if you don’t help.”

  “OK,” I say meekly.

  “You should eat. And then go back to bed. You look…”

  “Beaten?” I fill in the word he won’t say.

  “Like you need someone to be more careful with you.”

  When I look up this time, he’s already walking away. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything. Oh—” He stops and looks over his shoulder just outside the entrance to his office. “We’re going out to dinner tonight.”

  “Who?” I ask, stupidly, since I can figure that one out. “What will I wear?” That’s a better question.

  “You. Me. JD. We’re gonna get this all out in the open over a nice meal. Talk it through like civilized people. I have parcels coming. When they arrive, please have them delivered to my office.”

  He turns back to his office and walks through. “Ark,” I call out. “What if JD doesn’t come back?”

  “I texted him. So he will. I told him I’m going to keep you for myself if he doesn’t.”

  And then Ark goes inside his office and slides the doors closed.

  I sit at my desk staring at her images for hours.

  Hours.

  The clock on the wall ticks away the seconds before I take this step, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the right choice. I’ve been this man for four years. Can I be any other way? Can I imagine a life after this? Away from this work I’m so steeped in I don’t even notice the things I do are wrong?

  No one sets out to sell sex. It’s not something to aspire to. It’s something that happens. An opportunity, maybe. A stroke of luck for some. A way forward for others.

  Do I take advantage of girls? Yes. I know this. We offer them money in exchange for a ten-minute video of them on their knees in public, licking JD’s dick like it’s candy.

  But I’ve always rationalized it away. Perhaps our money pays for a babysitter for another week? Or fixes their car? Or feeds their family?

  Perhaps I am helping to keep a girl away from more dangerous predators than myself?

  Or not.

  It’s far more likely that giving them a taste of the money is the gateway drug that ruins their life. The ones who don’t show up… those are the smart girls. Those are the ones who see what I am, and once they get a little fresh air and the smell of money is blown off them by the wind of reality, they come to their senses.

  Selling sex is dirty.

  Selling sex is filthy.

  Selling sex is lucrative.

  And I enjoy it.

  No matter how much I hate myself, I enjoy it. I like the stalking JD does. I like watching him work the room from my seat at the bar, my camera trained on the approach. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, that first meetup is gold. I add it to the movies. Those always get more hits online than the ones that just have some random girl sucking him off in an alley.

  I like to see the girl from afar when she realizes the money is too good. The opportunity too fleeting. The repercussions too far away.

  I love it. Because we are buying something they don’t want to sell, but they can’t turn us down.

  I’m scum for this. I’ve come to terms with it. Hell, I’ve all but embraced it.

  My name is Ark and I buy sex.

  But one blue-eyed girl has turned my world upside down and I don’t even know how it happened.

  And now I couldn’t be more disgusted, and yet so delighted, that I have these pictures on the screen. Whatever I sold to the Devil to get them, it was worth it. It was totally worth it.

  I scroll through them again, choosing the best five to bring up in Photoshop. I crop our heads off first, so we’re only shown from the waist down. No need to proclaim to the world that I am scum.

  Plus, I don’t want her to be seen online. Not her face, anyway. Her face belongs to me.

  Her body, though… I wi
ll share her body. With JD here in the loft. With the world from the safety of anonymity. From the impersonal distance of a Tumblr blog.

  Why would I do that? If I want her, why would I share her?

  I can’t say no to JD. It’s not possible to deny him this. Not now. Not after he saw her scar. Not now that he has this desire to go looking again.

  He needs to stay home. He needs to forget. He needs to let this girl take the place of the one he lost.

  Because if he doesn’t… if he slips up and starts down that path again…

  I can’t think about that right now. Not with these images of the three of us staring back at me.

  Blue is sadly beautiful on the terrace, her body between us. Our hands between her legs.

  JD is lost in his own want, still blissfully unaware of the scar on the back of her neck that will flip his entire world upside down.

  And the rain. The streaked makeup running down Blue’s face. The dress, the bare feet… all of it says I need help.

  “I’ll help you,” I whisper to the lost people on the screen.

  There’s a knock at the door, so I reluctantly pull my eyes from my computer and redirect to the door. “Come in.”

  Blue appears, poking her head through the parting doors, like she’s afraid I might bellow at her for interrupting. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be.” I smile, and she smiles back. “The delivery is here?”

  She nods. “Yes, they’re on their way up now. I’ll tell them to—”

  “Come in, Blue. Have a seat on the couch and wait for me.” I get up and walk to the door. She stares at me like I might flip out and strike her. I touch her arm and she lets out a breath. “Sit.” With a little urging, she does. She walks over to the couch and takes a seat, folding her hands in her lap and trying her best not to drop her head and look at the floor. “Wait,” I command.

  She nods, and then I leave and walk to the front door and open it to the sound of the arriving elevator. “In my office, please,” I tell the woman. “Other side of the living room and through the sliding doors. Hang them on the suit rack.”

  The delivery woman smiles and moves forward to complete her task like a professional, and then exits, accepting the twenty-dollar bill I hand her with a slight nod as I close the door behind her.

  Blue is still sitting on the couch, just as she was instructed, when I walk back in. “Your clothes for tonight,” I say, waving a hand at the garment bags hanging from the suit rack. “Go ahead, take them out.”

  I sit on the edge of my desk as she walks over to the rack and begins unzipping the first bag. She turns her back to me and that’s when I see the blood.

  “Blue,” I say, walking over to her and taking her by the arm. “You’re bleeding.”

  She swallows hard and looks at her feet. “I know. I’m sorry. They’re still fresh.”

  I lift up the t-shirt she’s wearing and look at the welts down her side. They aren’t bloody, not really. But they are oozing a clear liquid and that mixes with the little bit of blood to make it seep through her shirt. “Why didn’t I notice they were so bad yesterday?”

  “I was naked yesterday,” she says, her eyes darting to mine, then dropping again. “Today I’m wearing clothes. It rubs them and makes them worse.”

  I lift the shirt over her head and she ducks out of it. “You can’t go to dinner tonight. I won’t make you uncomfortable just so I can take you out.” I reach for my phone and dial JD. It rings through to voice mail so I end the call and text him instead. I was hoping this dinner would draw him out of whatever it is he’s doing, but it looks like he’s won.

  “We’ll eat at home,” I tell her as I finish up the message. “We can look at the clothes when you’re feeling better.”

  “I’m fine,” she says, placing her small hand on my arm. “Really.”

  I squint my eyes at her. “Fine? Please don’t, OK? Your skin is oozing from being beaten. You have bruises all over your ribs. I found you barefoot and wearing a sundress in the rain yesterday morning. You’re not fine.”

  “I know what you guys want and I can’t give it to you. I don’t have the answers JD’s looking for and even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are bad, bad people, Ark. And I can take what they dish out, but I can’t fight back.”

  “Sure you can,” he says in that businesslike tone he’s had all day. Yesterday he seemed like a broody asshole who runs a porn website. Today he seems like a professional who runs a million-dollar corporation.

  I don’t get it.

  “I get that you’re afraid, but we’re here.”

  I just shake my head. “You don’t understand. I don’t know enough to give you the information you need. I only know enough to allow you to alert them to dispose of the evidence before anything can be done.”

  “Evidence,” he repeats. “That’s an interesting word.”

  I cross my arms over my bare chest. Not out of modesty or embarrassment, but because I have a chill.

  Is it sad that I’m more comfortable naked than clothed?

  He grabs a blanket off the back of his office couch and drapes it over my shoulders. I wince when the soft fabric touches my welts. “Come here,” he says, taking my arm. He brings me to the couch and sits down, patting his lap. “Lie across my lap, face down.”

  I do as I’m told, still hugging the blanket around me. Once I’m settled he gently lifts it off me and places it over my legs.

  When his fingertips touch my side, I have to hold in a sob. Not because of my cuts, but because his fingertips are so light and gentle, it’s almost more painful than if he was rough.

  “Shhh,” he says. “Try to enjoy it. Try to relax. Close your eyes.”

  I take a deep breath and when I let it out, I relax my shoulders and let the weight of my body settle into his lap.

  He traces patterns on my skin. Little circles around each of the scars. The stars. And then a long, slow line down my spine that dips below the waistband of the sweats I’m wearing. That sends a chill down my whole body and suddenly, I’m craving more than he’s giving me.

  “Mmmm,” I moan. “It feels so good.” He says nothing, but his hand leaves that area and starts playing with my hair. My sex begins to throb as the craving for pleasure takes over. I hate that men can make me feel this way. I hate that even the most vile bastard can stimulate me and make me want more. But I don’t hate that Ark can do this. I don’t hate anything about him. I want more of him.

  The front door opens and then closes and a few seconds later JD is standing on the office threshold. “What’s going on in here?” he says, like he hasn’t been missing all day. When I look up at him he smiles. It’s warm and genuine from what I can tell. And then it falters as he notices my back.

  “Hand me the camera, JD,” Ark asks, calm as you please. JD takes the few steps over to the desk and unhooks the camera from the computer and brings it back. “Let’s get this on film,” Ark says, turning the camera on so that it makes a whirring sound.

  “Why?” I whisper as JD lifts up my legs and takes a seat on the couch. Now I’m lying across both their laps. JD’s fingers immediately wander between my legs, giving me the pleasure Ark denied me a few seconds earlier.

  “I want them,” is all Ark says in response.

  But I’m gone. I’ve moved past the idea that the images of marks will be sold to sadistic assholes who get off on pain and sex.

  People like me.

  Because I get off on pain and sex. I crave it. I want it so bad.

  JD’s fingers slip inside me as Ark stands up and walks out. Weren’t we going to have a conversation about this… arrangement?

  JD’s cock grows beneath my legs. I squirm down a little and place my mouth over his thickness, licking him through his jeans.

  “You’re a horny little thing, aren’t you?”

  “She’s in trouble, JD,” Ark says as he comes back into the room.

 
; I am. Because I’m lost in the haze of lust. And when Ark kneels down on the floor and begins to clean my welts, the agony of his touch, mixed with JD’s fingers teasing the bundle of nerves between my legs, send me straight into that place between pleasure and pain.

  I stop feeling.

  All the shame and fear falls away.

  I give myself to these men as they tease me. One trying to elicit pleasure as the other unknowingly brings out the pain.

  And when I come, I cry again. I lean on JD’s chest and sob as Ark dabs ointment over the open wounds that feel like they will never have enough time to heal before the next one arrives.

  “She’s asleep,” I say, putting the ointment away. “And honestly, JD, I think she needs to go. We need to take her to the police—”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” JD looks down at me as I kneel on the floor trying to doctor up this girl. “We’re not taking her to the police. If she wanted to go, that’s where she’d be.”

  “We can’t keep her like this. Someone’s been abusing her. Raping her, JD. Holding her prisoner. She ran away.”

  “Yeah, and we found her. She’s put her trust in us. We’re not handing her over to the police.”

  “Her family—”

  “Fuck her family. She’s here, Ark. And as long as she wants to stay, she can.” And then he stands up, cradling her in his arms, and walks towards the door.

  “Where the fuck are you going?”

  “I’m putting her back in my bed. Where she belongs. If you’re not interested, fine with me. But I am.”

  I stand up and walk back over to my desk and take a seat. Why am I so reluctant with this girl?

  Because it reminds you of who you are, my mind is screaming.

  And she does. Everything about her reminds me of who I am. Why I’m doing all this. What I’ve spent the past four years building.

  I go back to Photoshopping my images as I listen for sounds from JD’s room down the hall. I hear nothing. He never comes back. So nothing is resolved. In fact, things are less resolved now than they were this morning when he left.