“I know,” he replied with a heavy sigh. “I obviously can’t go back to do it and I won’t let you go. If we send her back he’ll kill her,” he said nodding at me.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked rubbing my temples. “It almost sounds like the two of you are working together when I know you can’t stand the sight of one another.”
Amity cleared her throat and glanced up at Kerstan. He nodded and she turned her attention back to me.
“We’ve come to an understanding; almost a stalemate to be able to co-exist. Part of my deal in cooperating with the new set of rules for me is that he gets you and Minikin back. So far, I can see he’s holding up his end of the bargain. One down, one to go.”
I looked at the large bump on her forehead and raised an eyebrow, “So he still gets to knock you around? That sounds like a shit deal to me.”
She laughed and put a hand to tenderly to the bump, “Still working out some of the kinks. That hasn’t happened in a long time and I think someone regressed back to their old selves for a minute.”
Kerstan chuckled slightly before he walked toward the door. “I’ll have one of the grandmothers take her to my room. She’ll rest better there. Amity, you come with me. We have to things to discuss.” I looked at Amity and she smiled at me before she left the room with Kerstan.
A moment later the same elderly woman who had helped me escape from Luuk’s house entered the room. She gently, but firmly wrapped an arm around my waist and helped me off of the bed. We went down the hallway back to a grand staircase and up to a private floor. It was kind of weird how there were barely any other doors on this floor yet so many on the others.
***
Amity
“That was pretty risky of you; to go into his house yourself and try to get them back,” I said quietly as I walked next to Kerstan.
He nodded without so much as a glance toward me and made his way to the formal parlor. I had only been in there once before, when we sat down and negotiated our new terms. We had spent nearly all night arguing, because he didn’t want to get Betje and Minnie. Of course, when I told him that Lieve would die an instant death and Amity Crane would be back in full force, he conceded.
Kerstan put his hand on the elaborate gold door handle when we reached the parlor and hesitated for a moment.
“Are you sure that you want to get Minikin back? What I did ... It has put a mark on this house,” he said uneasily.
“Don’t worry. If any ninjas come flying through the windows, I’ll be sure to fuck them back out,” I replied breezily, reaching for the door knob.
“This isn’t a game, Lieve,” he shot back angrily. “You still have the will of a child in many, many things and you don’t understand what can possibly happen now. To my girls, to you, to my grandmothers. Nothing will happen to me; that would be result in too much trouble for Luuk, but the rest of you are now targets.”
“Listen if it bothers you that much, then close the doors until we figure it out. There are other brothels in town you know,” I said pulling the door open.
“No. He would expect that and I don’t want to lose business. You’re do to be out and working soon too. You know how much money you make me,” he replied closing the doors firmly behind us and locking them.
I rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything. Apparently the world would come to an end if he allowed me to tighten up. Or any of the girls for that matter. I sometimes wondered how he would feel if he was being used for money he didn’t get to keep. I also wondered how he felt if whenever he was asked by one of us how much closer we were to paying off our debts, he would just smirk and dismiss it.
I had a theory about Kerstan and our debts. Even though I was pretty sure he had an immaculate book keeping system, I think it was the part of the psychological hold on us that made him feel so powerful. I mean honestly, where would we go once we left? What would we do? A resume with “red light entertainer” wouldn’t be impressive to anyone and we’d get judged for it. It would be instant and never ending and we’d probably come back to his house begging to be let back in until we aged into grandmother’s for the next person that would take over. It was an ongoing vicious cycle in the red light district; when one proprietor, I guess you could call him, aged out or moved on, there was another one ready and waiting to take his place with the eagerness of a salivating jackal.
But what became of them when they aged out or quit? The house owners? The men that conducted the sexual fantasies of so many others, what did they end up doing? Surely they wouldn’t have to want for anything, because I was damn sure that they kept all if not a huge percentage of the money that we made for them.
I guess the only way to know for sure is to ask.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, sitting in his big leather chair in front of his desk.
“If the question was if you could have my chair, I think you’ve already answered that,” he replied shaking his head.
“No, not that. I was ... Well, I guess I was just wondering. I think it’s safe to say that our lives are pretty much over after this, but what about you? What do you go on to do?” I asked, pulling my legs onto the chair and hugging them close to my chest.
“What do you mean?” he asked, sitting in the smaller leather chair across from me and crossing one of his legs over the other.
“I doubt that you’d ever quit this lifestyle. Are you a lifer?”
A knowing smile spread across his face. He finally understood what I was getting at, now the question was, would he actually answer me truthfully.
“I’ve been thinking about how to get Minikin out of there,” he said conversationally, completely disregarding my question.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. I don’t know why I expected an answer. Kerstan wasn’t built that way.