Three, Two, One (321) Page 6

  Janine went from scared fifteen-year-old, to sexually active sixteen-year-old, to knocked-up seventeen-year-old.

  She had an abortion. I can’t judge her, but her parents did. They sent her away after that and she spent the last half of junior year and all of senior year locked up in some boarding school for bad kids.

  This is where things really went wrong.

  My parents got divorced and my dad got a new job. It was a government job, a very high-profile government job, and one of the perks was that I got to attend a very exclusive boarding school in the DC area. So my dad and I moved to the States.

  But Janine and I kept in touch and wrote letters. She was not allowed to have a phone, so no texting or anything so this century. Occasionally she came home to see her parents and I’d be home visiting my mother over holidays, and then we were allowed to hang out on the front porch of her house and chat. Which sucked because all the holidays she came home for were in the winter, so it was too cold to be chatting on her porch. And she never came home in the summer at all. She was sent to church camp. Some Bible-thumping megachurch camp where the kids sing songs of praise and redemption.

  I’m OK with that. I was raised in a moderately religious family. But Janine… I don’t know. She was just never the same. She said she was doing well. And she was off the drugs, so that was a good thing. But she never convinced me.

  After graduation I went to New York and attended Columbia, and she went… I have no idea. I lost her. She disappeared. Her parents were frantic for months—posting pictures of her on telephone poles, talking to people around the neighborhood in case they heard something. Normal stuff that parents would do if their eighteen-year-old daughter went missing. And then there was a rumor that Janine was spotted working as a waitress at a topless bar in Denver, Colorado.

  Her parents never mentioned her again after that.

  But she was my friend and I never forgot her. So when I came home after graduating from Columbia and she called my mom’s house while I was staying there, I was thrilled.

  I was thrilled she was alive. I was thrilled she wanted me to meet her. I was thrilled she remembered how close we were all growing up.

  So yeah. I went. I flew to Denver.

  And that’s why all this shit is Janine fucking Delgado’s fault. Because I had lunch with her.

  She filled in the missing years with information I wish I could forget. She told me things that made me swallow down the vomit. She pointed to her swollen belly and begged me for help.

  And I said yes. Because after graduating the top of my class from an Ivy League school, filling out one hundred and fifty applications, going on twenty-seven interviews, and even doing a two-month summer internship with a very prominent company—I had even fewer prospects than her. No one even looked at me twice.

  I said yes. I’d help.

  So even though I’m playing the victim card, all of this is Janine Delgado’s fault.

  Because she pulled the best-friends-for-life card and said I was gonna be an aunt. And I said yes.

  I’d save her.

  But I didn’t save her, I only succeeded in losing myself. Because seven months later Janine was dead, the baby was missing, and I was being held prisoner in a locked room down in a basement.

  “I know you’re awake.”

  I’m not afraid of JD, even though I should be. He and his friend filmed me giving them sexual favors. But I said yes, even though I was still fucked up when I met them. I said yes.

  And now, seven hours later, in bed, refusing to come to terms with my life… I still trust him more than the people who were holding me prisoner in a basement.

  “You hungry?”

  He’s got his arms wrapped around me with my ass pulled up close to his hard-on. One arm fits perfectly under my neck like a pillow, and the other hand is lightly dragging up and down the center of my belly.

  I imagine what it would feel like if his fingers slipped a little lower and then I feel disgusted with myself for thinking perverted thoughts. If I was back in the basement I’d be punished for that. Because no matter what they did to me there, they changed me. They made me enjoy it. And once they discovered I enjoyed it, they took that enjoyment away. I was forbidden to touch myself, but my appetite for pleasure was insatiable and my fingers always wandered, just like they are doing now.

  I pull back, expecting the slap, but it never comes.

  Just his soft, rumbling voice. “Hey.” He whispers it this time. Like he can feel the internal struggle going on inside me. “I know you’re hungry. Want me to make you dinner?”

  “Dinner?” I ask. Holy fuck, yes. I contain my excitement as I nod, and then turn my whole body to face him. “Yes, please,” I whisper back. His hand drapes across my ass with the move and then he squeezes one cheek.

  His fingers are almost between my legs and I let out a little gasp from the touch.

  His eyes search mine. They dart back and forth between them as they try to figure me out. “Tell me your name.” It’s not a request, but it comes out soft. Like all his other words today.

  “I can’t,” I say back, matching his somber tone. “I really, really can’t.”

  “Do you want to call someone?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, I can’t do that either.”

  “Is it because you’re afraid of them?” I know it’s a generic them he’s referring to, but I shiver all the same. He doesn’t need me to speak to get that answer. “You’re safe here. You can stay as long as you need to.”

  “What about your friend?” Ark is the one I asked for help. He’s the one I’m worried about because he looked at me like I’m broken. Like I’m beyond saving. Too much trouble. Too few prospects.

  “He likes you,” JD says. “I can tell. He’s pissed off that we’re here together right now, I know that for sure.”

  “Where did he go?” I study JD’s face and decide I like it. Before, when he and his friend were taking the pictures, JD was talking to me like the men in the basement did. Like I was a whore.

  But right now he’s just talking to me like the men in the waiting room did.

  Like I’m a possibility.

  I was a possibility a few times over the course of this last year. But thankfully, none of them ever took me home.

  “I’m so hungry,” I say.

  His fingertips trace the outline of my ribs. “They didn’t take very good care of you, did they?”

  I have to swallow that down before I can shake my head no.

  “I’ll take good care of you, Blue.”

  I stare up into his own blue eyes. They are light, like the blond scruff on his chin. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “You’re welcome,” he says, wrapping his arm tightly around my waist and pulling me close again. “It’s my pleasure.”

  And then he kisses me on the head and we rest there for a few moments before he pulls me up, takes my hand, and walks me out to the kitchen.

  Seven hours of sleep has done wonders for my observation skills, because if you had asked me anything about this place when they brought me here, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. It’s such a dangerous situation. And after all I’ve been through this past year, I’m so stupid for allowing myself to be taken in by a pretty face.

  It was the drugs. I was better off than the other girls, but only because I vomited up the sedative they gave me once the night was over. It was supposed to keep me subdued until we got back to the basement.

  “What’re you thinking about?” the guy called JD asks me. I’m standing in the middle of their kitchen. He’s busy at the island counter, where ingredients for the food he’s making are scattered around. “You look a little lost.”

  A little lost doesn’t even come close.

  “You can sit if you want.” He points to the living room, which is open to the kitchen, so he’d still be able to keep an eye on me if I sat over there.

  I walk around the island and head towards the chair he pointed to. />
  “You don’t have to sit there, you know. You can sit outside. Or on the couch. Or go back to bed.”

  I just take my seat and pull my legs up so I can wrap my arms around them. I’m so skinny these days, I practically curl into a little ball.

  “You like spaghetti and meatballs?” he asks. “That’s pretty much all I can make.” And then he flashes that grin at me. A smile that says he’s charming and devious and dangerous all in one. It should set me back. It should send me running. But it doesn’t. It makes me feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time.

  Relaxed.

  I smile back at him.

  His whole face lights up. “Fuck if you aren’t one of the sexiest things I’ve ever laid eyes on. I can only imagine how beautiful you are when you’re healthy.”

  Healthy. That’s a nice sterile word for what I’m not.

  “So spaghetti?”

  I take a deep breath and nod.

  “I have to run to the store for bread. Will you be OK here alone?”

  He stares hard at me as he washes his hands in the island sink and then tears the plastic off a package of hamburger. I realize I’m still wondering if I’ll be OK when he calls out softly, “Blue? Will you be OK if I run to the store for bread?”

  Blue. I have a new name again. Not Star, but Blue. I nod at him because he’s waiting for an answer. His hands never stop moving as he rolls the meat up into little balls.

  When he’s done with that, he puts them in the oven, washes his hands, and starts the water boiling.

  I never take my eyes off him.

  He comes around the island towards me when he’s done and this is the first chance I’ve had—first sober chance—to see his body. He’s tall and lean with defined muscles in his arms, his abs, and his neck. He’s only wearing a pair of cut-off gray sweats that hit just below the knee, so I have a pretty good view. His blond hair is neither long nor short, but something in between. It’s messy in a very nice way. And his face is beautiful in a way only a man’s can be.

  They make porn, my inner self cautions me. They make porn and his beautiful face is the lure they use to get girls to agree.

  That’s true. But for some reason I don’t think I’m here to make them money.

  “Blue,” he says again when he reaches me. He leans down, placing one hand on the chair arms on either side of my body, and looks me in the eyes. “If you want to bail on us, let me know. We’ll take you wherever you want to go. But don’t just walk off, OK? Because then I’d have to go back out into this shitty weather and find you all over again. And you’d be cold, and scared, and we’d have to start all over again with the warm bath and rest. So just stay and eat with me.”

  I swallow hard as he stares at me.

  “OK?” he asks again.

  “OK.”

  My voice makes him smile again and Jesus, yes. That smile is even better up close.

  He kisses me on the head again, and stands back up. “I’m gonna go change. The store is just a block down. So I’ll only be gone like ten minutes.” I turn my head to watch him as he walks away and I’m still looking in that direction when he comes back out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black leather biker jacket that has zippers that jingle with each thud of his boots on the hardwood floors.

  He looks a lot more dangerous in these clothes, my inner voice says. A lot more.

  But that smile is still the same. “BRB,” he says with a straight face. And then he’s out the door and I’m left in this strange apartment. Alone. A state which has eluded me for the past year and a half, up until this very morning.

  I sit there in the chair for a few minutes and take it all in. The penthouse. I do remember that from coming up here. Everything says masculine. The floors are dark gray concrete, but not the rough kind you see outside in driveways—the kind you see in malls, where they’re so smooth you can ice-skate on them. And the furniture is all made out of steel and glass. Cables are used as a design element, making the whole place look like a mix between futuristic and industrial revolution.

  There’s a large sectional couch made of the light gray leather, accented with steel rivets on the arm seams. One end is just like a regular couch, but the opposite end is more like a lounger. The chairs are another shade of gray, overstuffed and accented with the same steel rivets as the couch.

  There’s art on the walls. Black and white photographs of places I can only assume are in Colorado. They are of mountains and lakes. Snow and ice. Pine trees and aspens.

  The kitchen has black cabinets and dark gray stone for countertops. It’s not something a woman would choose, of that I’m certain. The appliances are all high-end stainless steel and there is no clutter, other than JD’s in-progress mess, to indicate they use it often.

  And then there’s the view. My eyes dart to the terrace. I get up and walk over to the massive sliding doors and open them up. It’s still wet out, but the rain has stopped, so I tentatively place one foot into a puddle and step outside.

  The railing is some kind of clear Plexiglas and the city is wide open in front of me. They took pictures of me here. I was kissing JD, I think. And then I was on the ground and they were both there, arms around me, hands exploring, mouths hungry.

  I walk over to the edge and look down and see JD with his hands in his jacket pockets, his head darting back and forth as he crosses the street and then, just like he said, he enters a store a block down and disappears.

  “He’s not one of them,” I say out loud. “They’d never leave me alone like this.”

  I stand there until he reappears, brown paper bag of fresh bread in his arms, and watch him walk. He lights up a cigarette and takes his time so he can enjoy it. They must not smoke inside. The apartment does not smell like smoke. His eyes flash up to the terrace and he waves. “Keeping an eye on me, Blue?” His yell is so loud I blush when every person on the street stops to stare at him. He picks up his pace and when he’s just across the street from the building, he yells, “I’m moments away, baby. Now go back inside and get warm. It’s too fucking cold for you to be standing out here.” He looks both ways, flicks his cigarette, lets a car pass, then crosses the street. “Go.”

  He disappears before I turn around and go back inside. I’m still wiping my feet on the little mat in front of the terrace when he comes into the apartment and tosses his keys onto a small table near the door. “Spying on me now, Blue?” He grins as he shrugs off his jacket and hangs it on a hook, then walks into the kitchen. I love the way his black biker boots thud across the floor and I’m captivated by the muscles in his arms as he takes the bread out and cuts it in half. “Can you make garlic bread, Blue?”

  I nod at him and walk over to the kitchen. I can smell the cigarette on him, but instead of making me sick, it smells good. Familiar.

  No one in the basement was allowed to smoke. And I was not a real smoker before they took me, but I enjoyed one every now and then, when I was drinking.

  JD’s smoke smells like the past. A long-ago past that was far better than yesterday.

  “OK,” he says. “You do the bread and I’ll start the pasta.”

  Twenty minutes later the food is done and we’re sitting at the table eating spaghetti and meatballs. But even though the scene seems normal, I feel anything but normal. And after a few minutes of silence, this is painfully obvious.

  “So,” he says as our silverware clanks and I stare down at my food. “See any good movies lately?” I look up at the question, my mouth half full of pasta, and stare at him for a few seconds. “No?” he prods.

  I shake my head no to end the questioning.

  “Books?”

  I don’t look up this time.

  “Hmm,” he says after letting me stew for a minute. “What do you do for fun, Blue?”

  I take a deep breath and on the exhale, I’m talking automatically. “I enjoy touring museums, traveling, and taking art classes.”

  “Oh,” he says, surprised. And the
n he works out that I’m lying. Because a girl who looks like I do now does not do any of those things. “Hmmm,” he says again. “Maybe we can go to the art museum or something one day.”

  I look up and smile, then quickly look back down. “Yes, that would be fun.”

  That’s the last question he asks me all afternoon. And I’m too timid to ask him anything. But I have a lot of questions.

  What does that tattoo mean?

  Where is his friend?

  What will they do with me?

  But never once does it occur to me that I should get up and walk out. Not once. And now that I’m here, lying with him in his bed, with his arms tucked around me, that startles me more than anything I’ve been through or anything that might come.

  Because even though this morning my acceptance felt a little bit like salvation, this evening it has a whole new feel.

  Defeat.

  It feels like I’m giving up. Like I’m giving in to what they made me. A prisoner.

  It feels like the end.

  And after a few minutes of pondering this as I stay still and silent like I’ve been taught to do, I realize I like that.

  I want the darkness to take over. I wish I was drugged up again so I could stop caring. I wish someone would drug me and make the darkness cover me like dirt over a grave.

  And maybe these guys are the answer to that prayer. Maybe these guys will finally do what the other ones never would.

  Maybe these guys will just let me die.

  I turn my key in the door and let myself into the loft. There’s a light on over the oven in the kitchen, but aside from that it’s dark. I walk past and see the remnants of spaghetti, a sink full of dishes and evidence of an evening spent here without me.

  I sigh as I hang my coat up and walk down the hall to my room. I don’t even want to think about JD and that girl. I spent all day thinking about them, and now I’m done. I kick my shoes off as I enter the room, then flip the switch on the wall. The first thing I see is the bathroom where this morning that girl sucked me off and I came so fast I’m almost embarrassed.