Captive Beauty

At the elevator, I realize something. There’s no button to push. There’s a key pad. And I don’t know the code.

“Fuck!”

I turn back around to his desk, switch off all the damn monitors because fuck him. I don’t want this. He doesn’t need me. He can fuck his stripper. His strippers. He doesn’t need to keep me locked up.

I pick up the gun. I’ve never fired one before. I’ve never even held one. I take it in both hands like I’ve seen in movies and aim it straight ahead at the elevator. I imagine Judge Callahan’s face there. I put my finger on the trigger.

Just when I do the doors slide open and Kill’s surprised face comes into view.

“What the—”

I’m just as surprised as he is, but his reaction comes much more swiftly than mine. I swear it takes him all of a millisecond to lunge to the desk. To get behind me as I stumble. To catch me. Disarm me.

“What the hell are you doing?” he roars.

I’m on the floor and he’s looming over me and it’s like all that whiskey hits me at once.

He’s checking the gun. Taking something out of it. I guess it was loaded.

“Cilla, what the fuck are you doing?” He sees the bottle of whiskey, turns back to me with a raised eyebrow.

I try to stand, but it’s too hard, so I decide to lay down instead.

“I don’t know why you want me here,” I hear my words slur together. “I mean, you have Brandy. Brandy? Whiskey? Bourbon? What’s her name again?”

“Did you drink all this?” he asks, pointing to the half empty bottle.

I blink up at him. He’s a giant and from down here, he looks a hundred feet tall. “You don’t scare me, you know.” I roll onto my side. I need to sleep. I am so tired all of a sudden, it’s like my eyelids are sticky with glue.

I hear a chuckle, feel his strong arms lift me, turn my face into him and smell his cologne. I force my eyes to open and point a finger into his chest.

“Do you fuck her?” I hear myself ask.

“What are you talking about?” He’s still holding me and dialing a number on his cell phone at the same time.

“I saw you. Ordering champagne,” I drag out the last word, try to roll my eyes but it hurts my head and they just close instead. “See, that’s what I mean. I mean, you can fuck anyone. Why do you want me?”

“I need the car around back, John. I’ll be down in a minute,” he says into the phone. “And get Cilla’s coat out of coat check.”

He sets me down on the sofa and I look up at him. He’s taking off his jacket, wrapping it over my shoulders. I can’t even keep my head up and feel it loll into his chest when he lifts me up again.

“I’m sleepy.”

“I bet you are.”

We get into the elevator. I just keep my eyes closed as we ride down, my face buried in his chest. I keep it that way when I hear the music. We’re on the main floor. But a few minutes later, a door opens and a sudden gust of wind makes me shiver.

Kill unloads me into the backseat of a sedan. He gets in beside me. “Penthouse.”

“Yes, sir.”

I open my eyes to find him watching me, shaking his head. “You don’t listen.”

“Why did you leave your shoes there?” I ask, that question suddenly the most important thing in the world.

“What?” He acts surprised, but I know he knows what. I see it on his face.

I sigh a deep breath in, then out, and when the car turns a corner, I slide into Kill’s shoulder. He sighs too, lays my head on his lap, draws his jacket up over my arm.

“Sleep it off, sweetheart.” I feel his hands on my hair, brushing it away from my face, and when it closes over my shoulder, I do just as he says. I sleep.

16

Kill

Cilla doesn’t sleep peacefully. It’s three in the morning and I’m watching her. She keeps throwing the covers off, muttering angry words, then quiet whispers. It’s not those that make me keep vigil, though. It’s when she curls up. When she tucks her face into her arms. When she begins to cry.

Every time I touch her, she jumps, and I think I’ve woken her but I haven’t. She’s too drunk to wake up. Trapped in whatever nightmare world the whiskey and the past have created for her. She only settles into a calm sleep when the sun begins to rise. And only after speaking the words that give me pause: “I’ll take the pounds of flesh, Jones.”

Pounds of flesh.

“What the hell happened to you, Cilla?” I ask, drawing her to me, wrapping an arm around her and listening to her breathe against my chest.