The Blood That Bonds

The Blood That Bonds - By Christopher Buecheler




Chapter 1

Darkness and Despair





Vermont Street. October.





Her name was Two, and she sometimes thought she could smell her death, blowing in from the cemetery that lay south of her building in East New York. Sometimes she even hoped for it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and dark. On these occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the grave would be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. She thought, maybe, she might find some sort of peace that had been missing all her life.

Darren owned her building, like he owned the girls who occupied it. Three stories tall, four rooms to a floor. They lived two to a room, two bathrooms per floor, two kitchens in the building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of them selling her body each night at his command. In return for the money they brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. He gave them drugs, and the drugs gave them escape.

Two was not supposed to be here. She reflected on that often, and if she’d ever believed in a God, she’d have cursed him now. Fickle, twisted fate had delivered her into Darren’s arms. Promises of salvation, undercurrents of doubt, desire, desperation. The cold prick of a needle.

She tried not to think about it.

Darren held the plastic bag filled with heroin above her now, like a treat for a dog. Little better than a dog she was, really, down on her knees, eyes wet with tears ready to spill over. Angry, vengeful Darren, so filled with hate. Hate for his parents, who’d given him his gorgeous mulatto features and then abandoned him on the street. Hate for his ex-wife, who’d left him immediately upon discovering the nature of his business, but still found fit to take half of what it had earned him. Hate for the girls he had made his slaves, and who had made him rich. Hate for the very money they handed over to him every night.

Darren didn’t know of his own hate, but it burned in him so brightly it scarred his features. Twisted, cruel lips. Pinched brow. Two might have understood this hate, seen reflected in it her own self-loathing, but Two spent most of her time thinking about the heroin now. She had no sympathy for Darren, or his girls, no sympathy for herself. Lucid existence was the time between sleep and drug, drug and sex, sex and sleep. Short bursts of clarity, ever more painful, amid an otherwise blurred, waking dream.

“Beg for it, Two,” Darren snarled, and Two’s mouth formed words of penitence against her will, pleading through tears without even realizing she’d meant to do it. She begged apology for some imagined slight, some invented twist in her voice that had caused this punishment.

“Darren, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for what I said!” But what had she said? She’d only asked for her daily ration of the drug, in the same manner she had for the past four months. If Darren had detected any real change of inflection, it hadn’t been intended. But here she was, on the floor, begging and pleading for something she didn’t even want. Begging and pleading and dreaming of death.





* * *





Born Two Ashley Majors, her initials – substituting the number for her first name – worked out to the approximate time she had been conceived. Her parents had thought this terribly clever. Two would have gladly held it up as evidence before God that, whatever mistakes she had made in her life, never appreciating her parents was not one of them.

For her first fourteen years, she was Ashley, and no one was allowed to call her otherwise. Maturity had lent a different outlook, and she had begun to see the name as a sign of what was becoming a fierce individuality. She would never like it, perhaps, but she was most definitely not an Ashley.

She’d left her father at the age of sixteen, her mother long in the grave. Alcohol, and the overwhelming desire to fill the void Two’s mother had left, had brought rage and lust into him when before he’d felt only apathy for the girl. He’d never touched her, either in punishment or in passion, but the tension and the fighting, starting around her twelfth birthday, had over the course of years grown unbearable. At times Two found herself wishing he would simply rape her, so she could have him arrested. She wondered if that was a healthy line of thought, and decided it likely was not.

She took with her very little when she finally left. She had very little to take. Trinkets, clothes, shoes … these things meant nothing to her, as during life her mother could never be bothered to pass down any of the traditional, societal definitions of womanhood. Could never be bothered with her daughter at all, really, nor with her husband. Two had learned by herself about womanhood, in back alleys and cheap motels, years after her mother had died. Her education handed down by what men told her to be, what they told her to do. Promises of love, drops of blood on the sheets.

When that didn’t work, when she realized she could be more than this, it came as an epiphany. A rare glimpse of sunlight in an otherwise dark life. She’d left her father, apoplectic with desire and dismay and alcohol-fueled rage. She’d left behind their hole of an apartment. She could do better on her own.

And she had, for a time.

Pool was easy, the angles naturally making sense to her. Slipping into a bar even easier. New York City cops had far better things to worry about. Bouncers knew it, owners knew it, and a patron was a patron. Particularly short, pretty blondes with good legs and a cute face. The type of girl who could entice an entire crowd of rowdy young men to stick around for more drinks, dropping dollar after dollar into pool tournaments that, invariably, they lost.

She didn’t go home with these men, though many had asked, and in the end this factored into her undoing. Descent and rebirth, and descent and rebirth again. These men could not understand her, or why she spurned them. She’d leave them with a knowing smile, standing dismayed in the street. Sometimes she kissed them lightly, thanked them for their interest, but always with that mischievous gleam in her eyes, that sardonic grin on her face. The look that proved that, regardless of pretty words, she took vicious pleasure in walking away.

It was power, and Two reveled in it. The ability to make men throw their money, their bodies, their hearts at her. Lots of men. Lots of bars. She walked away from every one … walked away grinning her savage grin. For eight months Two lived, celibate as a nun, feeding on the hearts of men.

Eventually they tired of it. Patrons began complaining. Bouncers began carding. Bets around the pool table, even when Two could manage to enter the bar in the first place, dried up. People had heard of her. Two was forced to give up the pool earnings, and her tiny studio apartment with the mattress on the floor, the only piece of furniture she owned.

One bar remained, the only one at which she’d allowed herself to develop friends. The owner, Sid. The bouncer, Rhes. She didn’t play her game here. She didn’t taunt the men, break their hearts. It was here she went when she wanted a glass of beer and a conversation. It was here she turned now, desperate for somewhere to stay. Rhes offered the use of his apartment. Two didn’t decline the offer.

Her relationship with Rhes was entirely platonic. This surprised her; surprised both of them. Two was attractive, young, charming. Rhes was in his mid-twenties, with a powerful build and a handsome face. Two would have broken her celibacy for him, if he’d asked. Sometimes she wished he would. Rhes never did, and Two came to realize that he could not. He knew her age. He knew her past. It would have felt like taking advantage of her, regardless of her own willingness.

After nearly eighteen months of living with Two, Rhes had been forced to turn her out. He was in a new relationship with a young woman named Sarah, a blind girl he had met with her seeing-eye dog at a jazz club, and this new girlfriend worried about him sharing a studio apartment with a teenage runaway. Eventually Sarah warmed to Two, and would likely have accepted her as a roommate in a new, larger apartment, but by then it was too late. By then Darren, and the needle, had hold of Two. For better or for worse, it would change her life forever.





* * *





“Please, Darren …” Two whimpered.

Darren, towering above her, the bag still in his hand, the sneer on his face half grin, half expression of disgust. She could see this excited him, plain as day. To her own surprise, she found that she couldn’t blame him for it. Two knew the aphrodisiac of power. Hadn’t she played with it for years before, outside of those dimly lit bars that lined the city streets?

“You were a bad girl,” Darren growled. Two repeated his words, agreed with him, petulant, her breath hitching. But now the tears were drying. She thought she knew how best to resolve this. Was her lower limp trembling just a bit more than necessary? Were her eyes just a bit bigger?

“I was a bad girl,” Two said again, and arched her back, drawing out the words like warm honey on her tongue.

Pain flashed across her face, sudden, explosive, unexpected. Two recoiled from the blow. Darren’s expert delivery rarely left marks, but it hurt no less than any other slap.

“Don’t play that shit with me, girl.”

Two looked up at him, sniffling. The slap had brought fresh tears to her eyes, and she blinked them away.

“Say you’re sorry, and mean it.” Darren looked down at her like a dark king, and Two realized that this had been just another in a long series of lessons. Darren was in control. Darren was the boss. Darren was God, dispensing pleasure and pain at his whim.

“I’m sorry, Darren.” Two meant it. No tears, now. No hysterics. Just rapid breathing, clenched teeth. The need was a tight ball in her stomach. She tried not to look at the heroin. She tried to look at the windows, the clock on the desk, anything else. Again and again her eyes returned to the bag.

“Take it and get out.” Darren tossed the bag into a corner, and turned to his ledgers. Two scrambled after it on all fours, like the dog Darren had trained her to be. By the time she was out the door, shouting some hurried, half-meant words of appreciation after her, Darren had forgotten entirely about her.

Her roommate’s name was Molly. The girl had been in the business for fourteen months, a fact that repulsed Two whenever she gave it even a moment’s thought. Molly was a sweet, honest, quiet girl. She had become wrapped up with the wrong people. These people had led her to heroin, and heroin had led her to Darren. Darren had led her to the clients, of which there were many. Molly was an absolute premium, the Rolls Royce of Darren’s line of whores. Even after fourteen months, she was still the youngest girl in his service; only twelve. Her work earned more in a weekend than most earned in a month.

Two believed she didn’t think about this, but looking at the bags under Molly’s eyes on a Sunday morning when the little girl returned, tired and often bruised, to shoot up and go to sleep, was like a physical force hammering on her. They’d shared a sister-like relationship at first, but Two had been forced to establish some distance after a nightmarish group-job they’d been ordered to perform. This had happened occasionally since, and perhaps the most horrifying thing about the events was the way in which Two had become inured to them.

She and Molly were popular, as individuals and as a group. Two, with her large eyes, upturned nose, and small breasts, could pass for much younger than she really was. She received the clients who wanted to f*ck a twelve-year-old, but who still retained some sort of conscience, some semblance of a soul. Molly’s clients, as far as Two could gather, had no soul at all.

Sweet lips, big blue eyes, long brown hair tucked back in a ponytail, Molly was swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, watching Two. Her client had backed out tonight, but as he’d pre-paid, Darren had treated Molly to a night off. She had absolutely nothing to do and this, compared to her normal nights, was bliss.

Two cooked the heroin, pulled down her pants, and pushed away her underwear, exposing the joint between thigh and pelvis. She still shot up here, a remnant of the days when she’d hoped to escape, the days when she was still concerned about needle tracks. She had no qualms about exposing herself in front of Molly. How could she? Molly, in turn, registered no expression of disturbance or concern as Two slid the needle into her skin, pressed the plunger, set the syringe on the dresser.

The effect of the fix was near-instantaneous, as always. First the burst of pleasure, warm and pulsing like an orgasm. Vision blurred, muscles relaxing, Two seemed to float off into a cloud of euphoria. She lay back on the bed, hands crossed behind her head, and heard Molly speak as if from the end of a long tunnel.

“I saw the baggie in the trash. Did you steal Cindy’s shit again?”

Stupid bitch leaves it out, what does she expect? Two thought. She didn’t need to answer Molly. The question was rhetorical.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.” The concern in Molly’s voice was lovely in its innocence. Two drew in a shuddery breath, happy to let the drugs do their work. Caring was pain. Apathy was bliss.

“No one gonna miss me when I’m gone,” she told Molly, still looking up at the ceiling.

“I’ll miss you.”

Two smiled. Of course Molly would miss her … until the drugs and the pain and the sheer horror of their life took her, too. Assuming Molly outlived her in the first place.

Two dozed.





* * *





Descent and rebirth. In April of the previous year, Two had decided to take a walk, an innocent enough beginning to this disgusting end. She was not a foolish girl. She knew better than to wander down the wrong streets at the wrong hour. Broad daylight and known streets seemed safe enough.

She had spent the last few months in a homeless shelter, unsure of what to do next. Slowly, though, she was learning new ways of making a living. She was not always proud of herself; there was no glory in shoplifting, no beauty in fishing wallets from people’s pockets, no redemption in breaking into apartments. But she survived, and as her skills in these areas grew, so did the sum of money Rhes held for her; deposit for a new apartment. He didn’t know where she obtained it, never asked, probably tried not to think about it. Two never volunteered the information. She was ashamed, though she had no real idea what shame was at the time. Real shame would come later.

Walking in the city, watching the men in the ethnic groceries unload their trucks, the women chattering in their exotic languages, children playing hopscotch in the street. The sights, smells and sounds of New York were all about her, and Two enjoyed them as she always had. She felt no fear of the city, nor any of the constricting claustrophobia it inspired in so many others. Two loved New York, because it was like her. It made no excuses for itself, hid nothing of its nature. New York was the sum of its many, many components, and yet so much more.

A common, garden-variety mugging was all it had taken to send her spiraling down into a life of alternating horror and numbness. A grab from an alleyway, the click of a gun, a grunted threat. Two would have given them money, if she had money to give. Would have given it happily. She knew now she could live without it. She had no illusions of bravery. When someone pointed a gun at your head and demanded your money, you gave it to him.

She had nothing, not even pocket change. A pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a wallet with a wide selection of fake IDs … these were her possessions. Her attackers were unenthusiastic. They decided that her body would serve as an acceptable form of currency.

If Two had known the eventual outcome, she would’ve let them ravage her. Would’ve simply lay back and let it happen. If she’d known where her cries for help would land her, she would’ve suffered this singular violation in silence. One night to salvage the rest of her life. She didn’t know, couldn’t know, and her cries brought her saviors, and her saviors brought damnation.

Two young girls, brandishing a gun they didn’t even know how to use, successfully chased the two men away. Two lay in the alley, battered, bleeding, clothes torn from her body. She was slipping rapidly into unconsciousness, but she tried to tell them to take her to Sid’s. Tried to tell them about Rhes and Sarah, her friends. They would help her.

Two couldn’t make any sounds. She’d used up her voice calling for help. She heard a name: “Darren.” Then, darkness.

Memories like crumpled Polaroids, floating in a muddy pool. Blackness, floating, a flash of light, a voice asking her name, asking about her parents. So gentle, this voice. She told the truth. Why shouldn’t she? Her mother dead, her father gone. No parents for Two, only the street.

Sharp sting of a needle, and then gentle bliss, descending down, back into warm darkness.

By the time her wounds had healed, and she was capable of getting out of bed, Two was fully addicted to the heroin Darren brought her once a day.

Days passed. Escape. Why not? The heroin already held her in an iron grip, but heroin was in ready supply. She would not submit to Darren’s ownership, would not accept him as her source of the drug. She would not let him own her as he owned those other girls.

She left him in the subway. Sliding onto the train, darting out from between the doors just as they closed, laughing and cursing as his angry face slid away. People all around her not-looking, a New York practice perfected to an art form. Two stole food and drink from a news-stand, ran from subway cops, still laughing.

Withdrawal came, and Two was horrified by how quickly her willpower dissolved under that onslaught of pain and need. Unable to steal enough to get what she needed, she had found a dealer and paid for the heroin with the same currency Darren had initially proposed. The irony of this was not lost on her as she lay there, burning from fever, the pain of withdrawal lancing through her, and let this strange man thrust into her again and again.

When it was done, she felt sick and defiled, but could not stop herself from asking for a fix. The dealer gave her a needle, and disappeared to obtain the rest of what she had paid for. Two shot up, nodded, dozed, unaware that she was doing so.

Thumps on the stairs, the door kicked in, Darren’s face, raging, screaming, dragging her by the hair down the stairs, naked, jagged splinters embedding themselves deep within her thighs. Wailing as the car sped back to the apartments, shrieking as she was dragged into them and thrown into Darren’s office. There, Darren had beat her in a manner both savage and methodical, using a leather belt wrapped around his fist, beginning with her legs and moving up her naked body. Twice had Two managed to get to her feet and run for the door. Both times Darren had caught her, stronger and faster than this weak and strung-out girl. He had punched her in the stomach, threw her back into the corner, continued to hit her with the belt.

Finally, lying on the floor, naked and sobbing, unable to move, she’d learned what the small scar he’d burned into the webbing between her left thumb and forefinger meant. It was Darren’s mark, known to the other pimps and dealers, and they understood that returning one of his girls would be worth more to them than keeping her for themselves.

Two was trapped, branded like cattle, and there was not a dealer in the world (or at least, the scope of that which made up her world) who would sell to her. If Two wanted the heroin – and within hours, she knew, the need inside of her would be a ball of fire racing through her veins – she would have to earn it.

She went out on the corner that very night, still bruised and aching, and stood on the corner with the other girls until one of the strange men in their dark cars finally pointed at her, and she went with him to a nearby motel. Later, in the early hours of the morning, she lay on the floor of the shower, knees pulled nearly too her chin, arms wrapped around her calves, and let the hot water wash away salty, bitter tears.





* * *





“Get your ass up and get ready, Two!” Darren shouted from down the hall. He kept his office near his best earners, the dubious honor of which often went to Two or her roommate.

“Get ready for … what?” Two questioned, yawning and trying to clear her head. The heroin had made her drowsy, and she had slept through the strongest part of the high. Now there was only the afterglow, and that was rapidly fading.

Molly was in the bathroom, probably getting high. She liked to use frequently but in small amounts, skin-popping or mixing the heroin with crack cocaine and smoking it. Two preferred larger doses injected directly into a vein.

“Didn’t I tell you? Must’ve. Your stupid ass just forgot.” Darren’s voice held a rare tone of uncertainty.

“Why is it, Darren, that every time you f*ck up, it’s my stupid ass that just forgot?” Two muttered under her breath.

“Somethin’ to say, bitch?” The words startled Two. Darren had come down the hall as she’d been muttering to herself, and now stood in the door.

Two looked up at him, the fear passing. The high was already fading, but the drug was still calming her, keeping her from sustaining any strong emotions.

“No,” she told him. “Nothing.”

“F*ckin’ right. Listen, you got a client tonight. Weird motherf*cker. I told him and told him, ‘Look, we got girls f*ck you twice as good, and look better doin’ it too.’”

Two rolled her eyes. Despite her worth to him, Darren never let a chance go by to put her down.

“He was real particular though. Said he wanted you, and motherf*cker gave me a whole list of shit you supposed to wear. Listening?”

“Sure.”

“Black panties, black socks, black pants, black shirt. Tie your hair back in a ponytail. Wear a gold chain. Make your pale-ass little white-girl face even paler. Black lipstick, dark eye-shadow, lots of liner. Shower first, and clean yourself well. One gold chain, no other jewelry. No deodorant, no perfume. He says it ‘disagrees with him.’ Don’t look at me like that, I’m just quoting him.”

“What … the f*ck?”

“Look, if he wants you to look like some strung-out addict–”

“I am an addict.” Two grumbled, her voice more insolent than was prudent. Darren looked at her for a moment.

“You’d do well not to mention that, or I could see some severe problems developing in your future,” he said, dropping the street dialect. This was a warning; Darren never adopted this manner of speaking with a girl unless she was perilously close to severe punishment. He’d cut a finger off the last girl. Cut her finger off and turned her out in the streets, bleeding and begging, in withdrawal, without a source of the drug. All alone.

“I’m sorry. Darren, I’m sorry!” Weak voice, heart pounding, Two was amazed that she still had this much capacity for fear in her.

Darren sneered at her and left. As soon as she heard the door shut, Molly peeked out from the bathroom. Seeing Darren gone, she moved back into the room.

“Even if you don’t hurt yourself, you’re going to make him hurt you sooner or later,” Molly said, and to this, Two found, she had no reply at all.





* * *





“You look wicked!” Molly clapped her hands and grinned. Even Two, preening before the mirror, had to admit that it was the truth. Her own predilection for black clothing had made dressing simple. The gold chain had been a bit harder, but it had been there, shoved into the back of a drawer. It would probably be broken; Men liked to tear them off in the heat of passion. But it had been requested, and Two knew Darren would inspect her before she left.

She was pale, her wavy blonde hair tied back with a simple piece of black rawhide. Big, green eyes now nearly luminous against her white face. Her silk blouse was low cut, her bra pushing her small breasts up and together. Her jeans were tight, emphasizing her legs, which Two had always thought the best part of her. She couldn’t claim they were long; she stood at just over 5’4”, but they were smooth and supple, shapely, the muscles not yet ravaged or wasted away by the drugs.

She had no black lipstick. Darren’s answer to this made her grimace. “Borrow some from Lisa.”

Molly arched an eyebrow. “This should be fun.”

Lisa had attacked Two in the kitchen a week ago, screaming something about Two’s using ‘her shower.’ Two, who had no idea that shower territoriality was even of any significance, had been unprepared. She’d stood up, and Lisa had shoved her backwards against the table. Two had reacted instinctively, swinging back around and giving a shove of her own.

Lisa had fallen backwards, and the altercation might well have ended there. Two could see from the other girl’s eyes that she was not accustomed to anyone putting up an actual fight. Lisa was used to simply commanding and being obeyed.

Two had thought then of an earlier incident: Out of sheer spite, Lisa had forced Molly to turn over all of her money, strip naked, and shove the clothes down one of the building’s laundry chutes. She’d then stood at the top of the stairs and watched as Molly climbed down into the dank, spider-infested basement to retrieve them. The incident had given Molly nightmares for two weeks.

A circle of girls had formed, though, and before either Two or Lisa could walk away, they were shoved right back into the center. Lisa, deriving confidence from the crowd, began shrieking again.

Looking incredulous, Two drew back her fist and punched Lisa in the mouth.

All of the fight went out of the other girl in an instant, and she crumpled to her knees. The blow had cost Two the skin on her knuckles, but it had cost Lisa two teeth.

Darren had arrived to prevent any further damage from being done, though Two had no intention of pressing the attack. He’d grabbed Two, dragged her to his office, and slapped her twice across the face before grabbing her by the throat and forcing her up against the wall.

“Bitch had it coming,” He’d conceded, “But now she can’t work and she looks like a damn hillbilly. Who gonna pay for the dentist? Not me.”

“I’ll work extra,” Two had gasped, barely able to breathe, and Darren had seemed to find this amenable. He had let her go, told her to get the f*ck out, gone back to whatever it was he did during the day. Gasping and choking, Two had made her way out, and had taken multiple clients a night for the next three weeks.

Two and Lisa had not spoken since, but now Two had no choice. She took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. No response. Two knocked again, waited, grew angry. She hammered on the door. “Lisa! I know you’re in there. Open the f*cking door or the next time I see you, I swear to God I’m going to make a necklace out of the rest of your teeth.”

Click of a lock being undone. The doorknob twisted in Two’s hand and she let it go. Lisa’s puffy, petulant face stared out at her.

“I was sleeping,” she said, not a trace of it in her voice. The dentist Darren had hired to fix her teeth had been neither sober nor careful, and there was a large, dark space between the girl’s two false front teeth.

“I don’t care. Darren says you have to lend me your black lipstick.”

Two had taken half a step into the room. Now she managed to move backward in time to keep the speeding door from hitting her in the face. She looked over at Molly, who was standing in their own doorway. Molly rolled her eyes. Two turned back, preparing to kick the door in, when it opened. Lisa hurled the lipstick at Two, who missed the catch. She heard it clatter against the wall behind her.

“Don’t ever f*cking ask me for anything again, cunt!” Lisa slammed the door closed again.

“You know, you really should get that gap in your teeth fixed, hon. Your S’s whistle!” Two called, her voice all sunshine and sugar. Behind her, Molly burst into bright peals of laughter.





* * *





Her friends knew very little of Two’s new life. Rhes, Sarah, Sid; light that she used sometimes to drive away the dark. Darren, the epitome of kindness, gave each girl two days of the month off. Two’s were the first and third Sunday, and she typically spent them at Sid’s. She would take the drug early, letting most of its effects wear off before arriving at the bar. She didn’t want them to know. She didn’t want anyone to know.

They still suspected. Her visits were too infrequent, yet too regular, for them to believe that she was “just busy.” Yet whenever Rhes attempted to learn where she’d been, what she was doing for money, where the bags under her eyes had come from, the air went immediately cold. Two’s expression would forbid further discussion, and Rhes, for all his kindness, could not stand to hurt. He wouldn’t interrogate her.

Eventually, the questions stopped.

Two felt sure that they knew of her occupation. She thought that Sarah would have guessed by now, even if Rhes was busy trying to fool himself. What was the most logical way for a young girl to survive on the street? Why would she give no information about it?

She desperately hoped they didn’t yet suspect the drugs, though she could feel her body beginning to break down under their onslaught. Of this, far more than giving strangers the use of her body, Two was ashamed. To be enslaved so fully by something so darkly and desperately evil. Horror masquerading as bliss, disease and decay and death hiding behind a porcelain visage of joy. When the drug ran new through her veins, Two felt as if all problems had ceased to exist. When it ebbed at its lowest, Two spent her time staring out of her window at the cemetery down the block, thinking of death.

Seeing Rhes and Sarah together depressed her. Seeing Sid, Tina the waitress, Dan the other bouncer, free to live their lives as they chose, slave only to their own whims and desires; it was terribly beautiful to Two, and she was beginning to abhor this beauty. She was beginning to hate those she so desperately wanted to love. Lately Two had begun skipping even these visits, choosing instead to spend the day in bliss and forgetfulness and floating white.

Rhes and Sarah did not let on how much they knew because they understood how badly it would hurt Two. They were sure about the profession, had strong suspicions about the drug. Were it within their means, they would gladly have lifted Two up and stolen her away from the life she had fallen into, but they could not. There was no money to support her withdrawal, or enter her into a clinic, particularly given that such an act would likely procure wrath from unknown sources.

So they observed, horrified, as Two began to fall apart in front of them. Her naturally light skin took on a sickly pallor, bags formed under her eyes, her voice fell to flat monotone. Worst by far was the expression of complete apathy. Two’s body moved, her mouth formed sentences, but her eyes were dead.

Sarah wanted to confront her, at least to hear the truth. This was one of the few areas in which Rhes had ever denied her. He’d known Two far longer, lived with her, understood her. She was killing herself, but if they brought it up, he knew that she would only turn away, descend even further, let the drugs kill her that much faster. It was better to watch her die slowly, as they searched and hoped for a solution, than make it happen all at once. That was his line of thinking.

Two might have thought differently.





* * *





It took Darren a moment to remember to sneer when Two entered the room, a sure sign that she had impressed him. Two stood before him, letting him survey her appearance. This was customary for Darren’s top-tier girls.

“Not too f*ckin’ bad. Lose the purse.”

Two tilted her head, surprised. Darren was fond of purses, liked his girls to carry them even if they had nothing to carry. He said they were classy.

“Client wants you to leave it here. That shirt tight enough? It’s starting to get cold out, and the client wants to know it’s getting cold out.”

Two rolled her eyes. “He’ll see. He’ll know.”

“Good. Get. Smoke on your way to the corner, because he doesn’t want to see a cigarette for the rest of the night.”

“How does he know I–”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Probably been stalking you. So what?” Darren looked her in the eyes, a rare occurrence. “Look: You make this guy happy. Price he paid up front for you don’t even make sense. He goes home satisfied, I may throw in an extra ration for you.”

Two’s eyes lit up. An extra ration was Christmas. Her birthday. The return of Jesus Christ himself. She grinned, turned, and left, tossing her purse into her room as she went by.

Outside it felt like Autumn: cool and dry. Dark. It had been a hot September, but edges of winter were lurking on the wind. The nights would be cold, before long.

Two lit a cigarette and glanced around. A girl with bright purple hair was leaning into the window of a police cruiser, smiling and snapping her gum. No trouble there. Across the street, a man was pretending not to look at the girls loitering around. Was this her guy? If it was, he was welcome to stay where he was, looking nervous, for as long as he wanted.

Two was still comfortably held in the afterglow of her heroin, but this had passed enough for her to feel a twinge of annoyance. The nervous ones were always a big pain in the ass. They needed constant reassurance. It was almost like babysitting, except it paid more, and you skipped right to the part where the father tries to cop a feel on the ride home.

But no, the guy across the street was heading toward another girl whose name Two didn’t know, and who looked nothing like Two. The guy who had contacted Darren had known exactly who he was looking for. This couldn’t be her man. Her client.

Darren insisted they call them “clients.” Never “Johns” or, God forbid, “tricks.” Two supposed he thought that girls who were forced to behave in a professional manner when it came to the little things would do so instinctively for the big things.

Two leaned against a lamp-post, looking down the street at the glowing pink neon perched in the window of an adult bookstore, waiting for the night to begin.





* * *





Two dragged at her cigarette, blew smoke out into the October night. There was no hint of rain in the air, and barely a cloud in the sky. The moon was a bright sliver, not the bloody, bloated full October moon that would arrive later in the month.

Normally Two used this time to prepare, strengthening herself mentally and emotionally to deal with whatever lay ahead. Tonight, though … tonight was different. It was more than the simple promise of an extra ration. In truth, this was already slipping her mind. Tonight her heart was beating a little too fast. Her lungs pulled in air differently. The smoke from her cigarette, which had not bothered her in years, made her cough. She felt shaky, without shaking. Wound up tight in anticipation of something, but unable to determine what that something was.

Tonight felt new.

The client, whoever he was, was late. Two had been standing at her corner for nearly half an hour. Three cigarettes consumed, she loaded up on nicotine. She guessed it would do no good, that she’d be dying for one within a few hours, but the instinct was always to try. It never struck Two as odd that she was, and had been, as much a slave to these little white sticks as ever she would be to heroin. Two had not gone for more than a day without a cigarette since her eleventh birthday. They were as much a part of her life now as breathing, but they could be easily bought or stolen, and Two had never wanted for them like she had for heroin.

She’d give him five more minutes, and then she was going to her normal corner, to try to pick up some work. Coming home to Darren empty-handed was beyond unacceptable; it was nearly suicide. This would not be a problem tonight; she looked good in what she was wearing. Two dragged at her cigarette, tasted flame hitting filter, threw the butt into the street.

It was at this moment that she became aware of the presence behind her. Before she could move, before even she could process this feeling, a hand gripped her shoulder.

“Hello Two,” said a voice, and behind it Two seemed to hear everything and nothing, now and forever, love and lust and hate. She drew in a gasp without meaning to, a surge of adrenaline bursting through her body. The touch of the hand scared her, and called to her, like driving by the scene of an accident.

Then it was over. The hand was a hand. The voice was a voice. She turned and looked at the man who stood behind her, wondering how he knew her name. In the momentary confusion that had swept over her, this was the question she’d clutched at to maintain her grip on reality. Darren never gave out his girls’ real names, nor allowed them to do so. It was forbidden. Clients had called her Ashley for the entire time she had been in his service. How did he know her name?

He towered over her. Maybe six feet, maybe more. Handsome face, tightened with what might be cruelty, what might simply be intensity. Jet black hair cropped close to his head, pale skin, oddly luminescent eyes that seemed tinged with yellow, the color of dust in a shaft of sunlight. He wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, black trench coat. His thin, lanky body seemed unaffected by the gusting wind, like he could not even feel it. He did not flinch as their eyes met, only stared calmly. Two couldn’t look away.

“I am Theroen.” It was a proclamation. It was the quiet whisper of a lover.

“Theroen.” Two was breathless, unable to proceed. Oh, I’m drowning, she thought, I can’t breathe.

She grasped again at her question. “Theroen. How did you know my name?”

Theroen smiled, looked away from her for the first time, glancing down the street to their left. Two followed his gaze, and felt again that surge of adrenaline, this time from excitement, and pleasure.

Not twenty yards away was a piece of art in chrome and fiberglass, black like his clothes, black like hers. Two’s father was an auto mechanic, and she knew her cars, but this was not a vehicle with which she was familiar. The lines of the car seemed Italian.

Without meaning to, without even thinking about it, she moved forward, looking over the car. Classic styling wrapped around a modern dash with air conditioning, an eight-speaker stereo, and scooped bucket seats. The prancing horse gave it away: Ferrari. It was immaculate. The convertible top was open, and she could smell the leather from six feet away.

“What kind is it?” Her voice was a whisper, and she realized that he couldn’t possibly hear her. She had moved away from him, and had not heard him follow.

Yet when she turned, he was behind her, and he smiled again, a predator’s smile, beautiful and dangerous like his car.

“It’s a Ferrari Five-Fifty Barchetta, or it was when I purchased it. I’ve made some upgrades.” Theroen said. Two was again taken aback by the quality of his voice. She did not know the words tone or inflection, and might not have used them if she did. There was something inexplicably aged about the way he spoke, yet the man who stood before her could be no more than five or six years her senior.

“Barchetta,” she echoed, peering at the tires, the lights, the smooth curves of the wheel wells and powerful side scoops of the doors, the reflection of the city lights in its flawless shine. She wanted to ride in it. Oh, yes. She thought at that moment she wanted this more than anything before in her life.

Theroen took her hand now, and again that flash of fear and desire. He led her around to the passenger side, opened the door, gestured for her to sit down. Two let out some sound of disbelief. Surely this was not right. She was a whore. A junkie. A thing to be used and discarded. This car was beyond her, above her, in some other world.

Theroen only pressed gently on her shoulder, still smiling his dark grin. Two sat down. The leather enveloped her like a second skin. Theroen shut her door, and Two took the seat belt in a daze, buckled herself in. Theroen sat down next to her, turned the key, glanced over at her as the engine roared to life.

“Are you ready to leave?” He asked. The finality in his voice caught Two’s attention, the stress on this final word unmistakable. The words she had been about to say caught in her throat. She swallowed hard, unable to speak, an indescribable emotion welling up inside of her. Looking up at him, grinning, laughing though tears had sprung to her eyes. She nodded her head, emphatic. Yes, she was ready to leave. Yes, she wanted to leave. Yes.

Theroen’s smile became a wide-toothed grin for one brief moment, and there was something strange about it, but it flashed and was gone too quickly for inspection. He put the car in gear and gently reversed, pulling out of his parking space and aligning the car. He revved the engine once.

Two glanced down the street and to the left, and saw that Molly had come outside to sit on the stoop and smoke a cigarette. The younger girl was watching Two and her client with interest.

Look at me, Molly, Two thought, I’m ready to leave. Molly seemed to sense this. She grinned and waved.

Theroen stomped on the gas pedal. Two was thrown back in her seat, unable to contain a laughing cry of fear and pleasure and joy, joy like she hadn’t felt in years.





* * *





Theroen took her through Brooklyn.

He drove as if anticipating not only every traffic light, but every possible interaction with anything at all. Never braking, never needing to swerve, he cut through traffic, making every green light, changing lanes before it even became apparent that he needed to. He guided the car with preternatural ability, at speeds well above what should have been safe. Two enjoyed every moment of it.

“Where are we going?” she asked at last, unable to sit quietly. She was too excited, nervous, full of something approaching manic glee.

“Food.” Theroen glanced at her. “Nice place. You’ll like it.”

“Food?” Two asked, bemused. At its core, she knew well that evening represented a business arrangement. Never before had a client taken her out for food first. Never before had a client done much of anything other than what was expected.

“Food.” Theroen nodded, and smiled his strange smile.

Pulling away from East New York now, moving west. Four miles, maybe five, the neighborhood began to change. Brownstones replaced chop shops, the streets grew tree-lined. High-end restaurants, Italian and Japanese and Turkish, packed with young men and women, sprung up. Two watched them, jealous of these people out eating and drinking, going on dates, living their normal lives. Theroen made a left turn and continued down the street, the car drawing stares from everyone they passed. They don’t know who I am! Two thought. They don’t know who I am! They just know I’m in this car.

Not herself, not the whore, not the slave. Not the girl who f*cked for money and to earn the drug she could no longer live without. Just an anonymous girl in an amazing car with a handsome young man. Was this who she was supposed to be? Was this what life was supposed to be like?

Sudden emotion, so strong it was nearly pain: here only a few miles from where she lived was a world just beyond her grasp, a world that she would never have. This night would end. This pleasure would not last. Two took a shuddery breath, fighting back the onslaught of depression, the coming of tears. Theroen slowed the car, looked over at her.

“Don’t.” Not a request, not a command. Almost a piece of advice. Two looked up at him.

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m not used to this.”

“Then you should focus on enjoying it.” There was no sense of emotion behind Theroen’s words. He continued to look at her with his casual, nearly disinterested smile.

“I can’t think like that.”

“No?”

“I’m just a–”

“Stop.” He cut her off, suddenly intense, the first time she’d seen his face animate, his expression change. He pulled the car over the side of the road and turned again to her. When she met his eyes, they seemed to pull at her, draw her in, command her entire attention. She felt her heart speed, her breathing deepen. Fear? Lust? She couldn’t be sure; she knew only that she could not look away.

“Who you were yesterday, this morning, two hours ago is immaterial. Understand that. Believe it. I do not choose to measure your worth by past actions. Of all of the women in this city that I could be with tonight, I am with you.”

Two considered this. “Why am I here, Theroen? You don’t need me. There’s no way you need to pay for what I’m selling.”

“Does it matter? Is it worth worrying about? Will it change what is?”

“No.” Two said, and was somewhat surprised to find she meant it. She felt the grip of despair loosen.

“Good. We’re here.” Theroen gestured to the right of the car. Two saw that they had stopped in front of a small Italian restaurant. There was a raised terrace in front, where people were dining under heaters, their tables covered with long white cloths, silverware resting beside china plates. Most of them had turned to stare in amazement at the Ferrari.

“Does it bother you that everyone is constantly staring at your car?” Two asked, stepping out onto the curb. Theroen grinned.

“No,” he said. “It keeps them from looking at me.”





* * *





The restaurant was dim, lit by small sconces on the wall and by candles flickering on each table. It was warm, and smelled like herbs, garlic, and oil. The woman at the door raised an eyebrow at Two’s appearance, but another woman behind her recognized Theroen and quickly ushered them to a table near the back. Theroen requested a bottle of wine with an Italian name and watched Two as she studied her menu, seemingly uninterested in his own.

The waiter returned with their wine, and Two regarded it for a moment with a small amount of trepidation. Beer she knew, and hard liquor, but wine was a new experience, and she wasn’t sure what to expect.

The drink, a Chianti, bit gently at her tongue and spread warmly over it. Two smiled, relaxed. Theroen nodded slightly at this, as if to himself.

“Good?” he questioned. Two nodded. He smiled, sipped at his own glass, watched her with his preternatural calm.

“You look lovely,” he said at last. Two felt herself blushing, a reaction she would not normally have expected from herself. Compliments from clients were common, nothing to be surprised at. This, though, felt heartfelt. More to the point, it seemed as if Theroen was truly enjoying her as a person rather than an object. She smiled, lowered her eyes, took another sip of wine, unsure how to respond.

A waiter arrived, asking if they were ready to order. Theroen waved him away, saying he didn’t want anything, directing the attention toward Two.

“Whatever you want,” he replied to her questioning look. “Don’t concern yourself with me, I’m not hungry.”

Normally, Two would have demurred, insisted that she couldn’t eat if he wasn’t going to, that she would feel odd. Normally, that would be the truth. Tonight she was hungry, and felt at ease, as if she could do or say anything with Theroen. Around him, she felt both as odd and as completely natural as possible.

She ordered chicken with angel-hair pasta in a red-wine sauce. The waiter took their menus and left them alone. Theroen sipped again at his wine, his eyes glinting above the glass, never leaving Two.

They were quiet for nearly fifteen minutes. Looking, drinking, enjoying the air, the wine, each other’s presence. Theroen did not prompt her for conversation, and Two did not volunteer. The silence was oddly comfortable, nearly intimate. She seemed to fall into Theroen’s eyes, as if they need not talk, as if he knew what she would have said. Finally, Theroen broke the silence.

“Where are your parents?”

The question should have upset her, sudden and personal as it was, but Theroen had delivered it in a tone which belied any judgment. It was nothing but a simple question, and Two answered it as such.

“One’s dead. The other might as well be.”

“And this man who … employs you? What of him?” a slight sneer, not directed at her. Two laughed slightly, turned her eyes down momentarily, not from embarrassment so much as because it seemed she should.

“I hate him.”

“Have you any friends?”

At this, Two looked momentarily pained. “A few. They’re … We’re …”

“Estranged?”

“Something like that.”

Theroen nodded, regarded her again with inscrutable calm.

“Why do you ask?” Two couldn’t help it. She wanted to hear it out loud, wanted to know if the intentions he seemed to be so clearly communicating were true. Theroen shook his head slightly, looked away for a moment, smiled his maddening smile.

“The food is here,” he said, glancing over her shoulder.

So it was, and it was very good. Theroen watched her eat, sipping at his wine. Two had subsisted for years on instant noodles, microwave burritos, and fast-food value meals. She relished the pasta, with its dark wine sauce, full of tomato and garlic, herbs and oil, tiny bites of chicken.

This was the best meal she had ever eaten, but she didn’t eat a lot, ever mindful of the fact that this evening had a predetermined end. Sex on a full stomach had never been something she enjoyed, and for once Two wanted to enjoy the act. She felt a connection with Theroen, too strong to ignore, and found herself looking forward to the rest of the night, whatever it might bring.

Dessert, a light pastry with exquisite dark chocolate hidden away inside, came all too quickly and with few words spoken, dinner was over. Two noticed that Theroen paid for his dinner in cash, and that the tip he left appeared extraordinarily large. Ferraris, fancy restaurants, gigantic tips. A life unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was fascinating.

“What do you do for a living?” she asked as they left.

Theroen smiled, said nothing, held the door open for her. Two sat down.

“Come on. I’m curious. Are you mafia or something? I won’t mind.”

Theroen laughed. “No, not that.”

“Then what?”

“Let’s just say that I’ve had a lot of good training on how to invest, from someone who’s done it for an awfully long time.”

Theroen backed the car out. Two mused for a moment, then laughed. “Will I get any straight answers from you tonight?”

Theroen’s eyes gleamed. “Anything’s possible.”

Whatever response Two might have had was swallowed by the rush of wind as the car roared into motion.





* * *





The road, again, and that same feeling of complete control emanating from Theroen. They moved west on Flatbush Avenue, crossing over the Manhattan bridge and into Chinatown. Theroen cut a haphazard course across the island, avoiding heavy traffic and eventually joining with the fast-moving, late-evening traffic on the island’s western side. They passed Trinity Cemetery, and Two thought again about sitting at her window and looking out over the rows of gravestones, waiting for death. Right now those moments seemed far away.

They left the city and began the drive north through Westchester County along Route 87. This was further out of New York than Two had ever been before, and she supposed she should worry about how she would get back to Brooklyn, but found it difficult to care. She was racing along the highway in a Ferrari, the distance between her and her unsavory past widening at nearly a hundred miles per hour and, for the moment, everything felt right.

Theroen neither spoke, nor turned on the radio, but simply drove in silence. It seemed to Two that he was giving her this opportunity to enjoy the car, the ride, the night. A small idea, not unwelcome, began to grow within her mind: Two thought that he was also allowing her the time to say goodbye.

They were cutting over west, again, now on Route 17, following it along the lower border of New York State. Theroen left the highway sometime before Binghamton and raced off on a back road, through the woods, in the dark. The Ferrari was now the only car around, traveling fearlessly, speedometer hovering at more than double the posted fifty-five speed limit. Two, filled with fear, energy, and a strange excitement that had something to do with the car and even more to do with its driver, lay back, eyes closed, feeling the wind rush through her hair, dragging it out behind the seat.

“Faster?” Theroen questioned, and his voice was a whisper cutting through the noise of the wind, the sound of the engine.

“Yes!” Two cried, knuckles white against the hand-hold molded into the door. Theroen stepped on the clutch, shifted rapidly, stomped again on the gas pedal. The Ferrari’s engine roared to life, throwing Two back in her seat. Terrified, unable to stop laughing, she tried to watch ahead for curves, deer, other obstacles, but couldn’t help peering at the speedometer, watching it rise.

And rise. And rise. The needle moved past 150 miles per hour, and Two, still laughing, still terrified, shut her eyes. We’re going to die, she thought. We’re going to die and I don’t care, because I’ll be in a beautiful Ferrari with good food and wine inside of me, and I’ll be with Theroen. I’ll die with him, and then it won’t matter. No one will know. I’ll just be the girl who died in the Ferrari.

But they didn’t die, and finally Two felt the car losing speed. Theroen was easing off the gas, bringing the car down to a normal level. No more danger, but the joy remained. Two wanted to kiss him. She felt warm in her belly, between her thighs, places she’d sometimes thought dead since starting to work for Darren. Theroen looked over at her, as if hearing these thoughts, and Two gave him a radiant grin.

Was he ready? She asked him with her eyes. Told him with her eyes: It didn’t matter that he had paid for her. She wanted it, badly. Her clothes seemed hot and scratchy, cumbersome.

Theroen stopped the car at the side of the road, nothing visible for miles but trees and sky, and Two’s first, confused thought was: But … there’s no back seat? Then she laughed at herself. Theroen was already getting out of the car. Whatever this was, the Ferrari was not a part of it.





* * *





The woods were pitch black. Two felt smooth ground under her feet: a path. She held Theroen’s hand, and he led slightly, apparently unfazed by the total darkness. She could feel wind on her face, and now it seemed as though there was a faint glow up ahead, the trees ending. Another minute, maybe two, and the silhouette of the surrounding forest was visible, backlit by something up ahead.

Theroen stepped out and to one side, turned, beckoned to her.

“Oh my God,” Two said under her breath, stunned. Before her, in sharp contrast to the urban cityscapes she’d looked at all of her life, was a massive valley, filled with trees, a small town marked only by a few illuminated windows at its center. They were standing hundreds of feet above this, fifteen feet from the edge of a steep cliff carved out of the Appalachian foothills by the force of passing glaciers, tens of thousands of years ago. It was a sight unlike anything she had ever seen, and Two took it all in with eyes wide like a child’s. She could see forever, a universe of trees, stars clearer than she could possibly have believed.

“Theroen, this is beautiful,” Two whispered, looking around. She felt him shift behind her, closer, a hand on her shoulder, turning her. His eyes looked down at her, luminescent, catching the light from the moon and holding it.

“Did you enjoy the evening?”

Two nodded. “Oh, yes.”

Theroen studied her a moment. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Two pressed herself against him. “Why don’t you go ahead and start, and I’ll let you know if we get to that point.”

Theroen smiled and kissed her. Two wrapped her arms around him, her breath and his breath twining together as one. It was an eternity, an instant, and seemingly over before it began. She took a deep breath, let out a shuddery sigh, head against his chest. They stood like that for a moment, and Two reflected that of all the possible directions this night could have taken, this might well have been the least expected, the most unlikely.

And then his fingers, gently under her chin, raising her lips to his again.

They lay together in the soft grass, clothes in a jumble to their sides, forgotten, his lips at her mouth, her throat, her breasts. Two felt on fire, out of breath, flashes of heat and cold, goose bumps running in rippling waves down her arms, legs, back. Theroen caressed, teased, her body registering the contact of his fingers, the touch too gentle to satisfy. She twisted her fingers into his hair, bringing his head forward, wanting once again to share breath with him, to be connected.

Hard, against her, and Two soft, ready, wanting. Open thighs, arched back. Theroen entered her and for a time her past ceased to exist. She was brand new, every nerve ending electrified, feeling everything for the first time. Two couldn’t have explained what had brought her to this state, nor did she care. She was content to live in the moment.

They found rhythm, moved against each other, soft on hard, delicious friction. Two gasped, strained, clutched her fingers into the skin of his back. It had never been like this, building to this pleasure so quickly. As they neared the height of their passion, Theroen bent his head as if to whisper into her ear, but instead, as Two took a deep, gasping breath, he drove the sharp points of his eye teeth into the soft flesh of her neck.

The pain was immediate, exquisite, the sensation so overwhelming that it seemed if anything to enhance the eroticism of the moment. Pleasure and pain indistinguishable. Two’s gasp locked in her throat – she was unable to breathe, unable to scream, unable to move. Theroen fastened himself to her, powerful arms holding her in an embrace that Two could not have broken, even if she could have moved.

As the draining sensation began, as the pain receded, as the world began to fall into black, she realized that her passion had reached its apex. Her body clenched over and over again, in time with her heartbeat, in time with her hips, which still moved against his. The pleasure coursing now through Two’s body was above and beyond anything she had ever before experienced.Her arms tightened momentarily around Theroen, and then fell away, her breath let loose in a soft sigh, muscles relaxing. Death, desire, acceptance.

And then, darkness.





* * *