“I’ll tell you my story then. There was this boy that I loved. Well, he was a man, but for all intents and purposes of poetic love, I’ll call him a boy.” Inhale. Exhale smoke rings. Ash on the floor. “So anyway, I didn’t know what love was until Theo. That was his name, by the way, Theo. Could be because he caught me early on in my life. We were teenagers when we met, high school kids. Early on high school kids. I had suffered a substantial trauma for a consecutive number of years before I met him and I remembered how big and strong he looked to me and how I felt like he could protect me from it ever happening to me again. I had decided that I wanted him; not as a lover at first, but as a bodyguard of sorts. Of course, I didn’t tell him that until after the first time we fucked. See, by that point I was already in love with him. His arms were the safest place to be and his kisses always tasted like wild honeysuckle. His lips and eyes were always soft, and he never once raised his voice to me in anger. I needed that more than anything and I like to think that he needed me more than anything.”
I cleared my throat and looked back out the window, hoping she wouldn’t see the single tear that was rolling down my cheek.
“Lieve? You don’t have to tell me anymore if you don’t want too,” she said softly.
“I know,” I replied wiping away the tear and taking another drag of my cigarette. “But now that I’ve started, I want to finish.”
“Go on,” she said in a comforting voice.
I smiled at her briefly, “I fucked up. Plain and simple. But it wasn’t because I wanted too; it was because I had to. See that trauma I was talking about? It started when I was about seven years old and lasted until I was eleven because that’s when puberty hit. She was my piano teacher; yes I said she.” I took a deep shaky breath and closed my eyes tightly. “She taught me how to use my fingers on the piano and then she used her fingers on me. For four fucking years, that bitch would sexually abuse me every time I went to piano lessons and told me that if I ever told my parents, they would hate me forever and then I would have to live with her. And I believed her. So imagine my surprise about twelve years later when Theo and I are at an art gala reception in Woodland Hills and the “artist” just so happens to be her. Oh and the best part? She didn’t recognize me but apparently had been a friend of Theo’s family for years. That kind of set me of off into my downward spiral. He didn’t know of course, because I never told him that it was her. I mean, he knew what had happened to me and he knew that a woman had done those things to me, but never did I tell him who it was. I know it sounds really fucked up that I was raped by a woman, but it’s what did happen to me and it’s what does happen to some girls. And now here I am.”
I threw the cigarette onto the floor and used the bottom of my pack to crush it out. I picked up the butt and stuck into my pack, using my feet to kick away the ashes. As long as I remembered to put the cigarettes back into their hiding place, Kerstan wouldn’t be able to prove that I was smoking in here even in he could smell it. Fresh tears rolled down my face again and I irritably wiped them away.
“I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically.
“For what? Because I’m crying? Don’t think I’m shedding a single tear for what happened to me as a kid. I’m not a pity me type of girl. The tears happen whenever I think of Theo. Whether I want them to or not,” I explained getting to my feet.
I walked over to the closet that we kept our “work clothes” in and opened one of the doors. I reached toward the back and jimmied one of the panels until it slid over and I was able to reach in further to grab what I was looking for. Moments later, I was dressed in an off the shoulder t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. I pulled on a pair of silver reflecting Ray Ban sunglasses and stuffed the cigarette pack into my back pocket.
“Can you hand me the shoes underneath my bed please?” I asked Margit. “Just pull up the panel and reach in.”
She stared at me for a moment. I knew what she was thinking; that I had special privileges, but the truth of the matter was that I became a genius at hiding all of this shit and an even bigger genius at making myself feel like I was alive on the days that Kerstan wasn’t on the property. I rolled my eyes at her suspicious glance and went over to my bed and grabbed my shoes, before setting the panel back and slid them on.
“I’m going out into the gardens for a bit. Do you want to come with me?” I asked her.
She shook her head slightly and went back to her side of the room. I watched her silently wondering if she had plans of ratting me out, but I stopped caring as quickly as I began to wonder.
I walked out of the door without so much as a backwards glance. If Margit wanted to stay in the stale room that smelled like sweat, fear, and the occasional cigarette, that was her problem.
I left her in the room and walked quickly down the empty hall. We were located on the third floor which made the staircase an impossible option, so I learned how to open the window at the end of the hall and lean out the opening toward the giant tree that grazed against the home. I shimmied my way down to the freshly cut green grass and ran toward the gardens. If Kerstan wasn’t here, which I prayed he wasn’t, then I would have at least an hour outside.
My favorite spot was a stone bench that sat in the shady side that was home to the multicolored pansies. They were small and beautiful and made me the happiest.
I pulled my cigarette pack out of my pocket and placed it between my lips. I leaned my head back and soaked up the peeking rays of the sun, inhaling the scent of the gardens deeply, before lighting the end and putting the lighter back into the pack, before setting it next to me on the bench.
Flicking the first round of ashes onto the ground, I reached under my sunglasses and gingerly ran the tips of my fingers over my left eye. At least it doesn’t hurt anymore.
I’ll never know what got into me that day that I was out in the gardens, and I’ll never know for sure just how long I was asleep on the bench. The only thing I knew for sure was that after Kerstan came back from wherever the hell it was that he went, and found me asleep outside of all places, I was in deep shit.
As for Margit ... I never saw her again.
Three
Four days and two new girls later, I was sitting at the large banquet table inside the home. My face was almost completely normal again and Kerstan decided to let us all stay in for the evening so we could get to know each other. I couldn’t help but chuckle at this ludicrous dinner. As per custom, we were all topless while he entered the room wearing a baby blue dress shirt, a black vest, and black slacks. And shiny black, obviously expensive, shoes. Even his tie was black and all I could think about besides the fact that we looked like a fucking gangbang waiting to happen, was that if I could get close enough, I could probably choke him to death with that tie.
But I relented and instead sat there with my elbows on the table, and my chin in my hands. The other girls sat around looking completely nervous as he sat down.
“Etiquette, Lieve,” he said as he unfolded his napkin.
“Seriously Kerstan? I’m here t
o fuck whoever you tell me to so you can get your money back. I’m pretty sure they don’t give a shit about my table manners,” I replied rolling my eyes.
He stared at me for a moment, a small sinister smile crossing his lips. “They may not, but I do. Elbows off the table.”
“Or else what? You’ll punch me in the face again? Get rid of another girl that I started to become friends with? Get rid of me, perhaps? No. No, you wouldn’t get rid of me because you know how much money I bring in for you. Speaking of which, so the new girls here know that you play fair, tell me again, how many more fucks do I owe you before I get out of this hellhole?” I asked defiantly.
Kerstan set his napkin down on his lap neatly before folding his hands in front of him looking at me in amusement. I could feel the tension and smell the fear on the other girls. I personally knew that he wouldn’t do much more to me because that would keep me out of his book and I’m sure that my regular “clients” had been requesting my company.