Gutta Mamis (15 page)

“A quarter of a million more reasons men will be addicted to these. Isn't life grand?”

The taste and feel of an implant pulled Harvey into a world of ecstasy. There was nothing he was more infatuated with than a set of fake breasts. Smith and four other doctors hired to remove heroin-filled implants from out of Colombian women's bodies stopped what they were doing and watched the obscene act. They all knew of Harvey's addiction but never had they seen it with their own two eyes. Smith turned away from the scene and his vision fell on Bobbi.

She was standing behind the glass window in the comfort of the
dimly lit observation room watching Harvey's every move. Her bloodshot eyes shot daggers into Harvey's back, and curly locks the color of mocha, covered her cheeks. Her large hair made her head appear to be drastically small. Seconds passed and Bobbi's eyes met Smith's. Immediately he turned away and focused on what he'd forgotten was important—retrieving her heroin.

The intercom came alive and Bobbi's voice filled the room.

“Harvey, keep fucking with my product and I'm going to send you to Colombia and have them stuff your balls with that shit.”

Harvey fondled the implant a little more and then dropped it into the tin pan. “I'm sorry. Sometimes I get a little carried away and can't help myself. Maybe if you let me play with yours sometimes, Bobbi, we wouldn't have this problem.” Looking over his shoulder, his wrinkled skin stretched, and Bobbi's silhouette filled the corner of his eye.

Bobbi shook her head. She didn't understand Harvey's fetish, but she did understand that she needed him. He and Smith were two of the top plastic surgeons in America and she needed them to train the new doctors she brought onboard to be just as good as them. Business had taken off and the two of them could no longer handle the workload coming their way. Colombian women engulfed in the drug world were running at the chance to smuggle heroin into the U.S. through their breast implants. They all wanted the opportunity to have an upscale, free boob job performed by America's best once the drug was removed. For women obsessed with vanity, quality implants were hard to come by in the land of the poor, so when free was thrown in their face, they all ran to catch it, regardless of the consequences.

“You wouldn't want to; mine are real.”

Harvey nodded his head and placed his attention back on the task at hand.

“Okay, ladies, let's stop fooling around and touch some more jugs! I don't want to see any scars! We're in the business of making this shit look as natural as possible!” he told the men in scrubs. And just like that, the professional super surgeon with a waiting list of women wanting him to revamp their breasts was back. The imagery of real breasts sickened him and immediately he retreated back to a world of silicone and saline breasts. Bobbi grinned. Harvey was like every other man she stumbled upon. The second things got real, he got ghost. She pushed the round white button plastered on the wall and the high-tech observation room lit up. Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata” blared through the speakers and the curtains closed, giving Bobbi and her workers their much needed privacy.

Sitting on the leather couch, Bobbi removed a small bag of cocaine from her purse and emptied its contents on the coffee table. She divided it into four thin lines and with a hunch of her back, cleaned the table dry. Within minutes, the drug had entered her system and all was well. Her head moved to Beethoven's piano and in that moment, life was the way it used to be, and should have been, until the day she died.

Images of happiness plagued her vision and sent tears jumping to their death, but her head wouldn't stop moving; instead it moved faster and on beat with the dark, chilling song. Stuck in a world of bliss and depression, past thoughts crept into her mind. Bobbi never understood men's obsession with women and why they had to have several women when they had one whose qualities made up the perfect woman. Her fingers danced in the air, pretending to play the piano when her right hand grazed the oxford fabric curtains. The feel of the material pulled her out of her zone and forced her to peek inside the operating room. She watched as each man handled each patient's breasts so delicately, anyone would have mistaken it for love, but Bobbi knew the truth. There was no
one that could tell her once the pieces were put together and their bride of Frankenstein was brought to life, they wouldn't treat her like shit and discard her for another pair of breasts that came their way. Women were nothing but knick-knacks men collected and set along their windowsill so they could admire their conquests.

Bobbi slammed her back against the couch and allowed a river of tears to flow down her dark-chocolate cheeks. This is why she stopped watching the surgeries. Like these women, she had been reconstructed and made into what a man desired. They were a reminder that her significant other was reasonable for crowning her queen of the underworld and granting her the East Coast to reign. He killed who she once was and in its place created a monster; there was no coming back for her, because now she was too comfortable to go back in time. He made her into his life-sized horror Barbie and shortly after, fell into the beds of countless women. His betrayal opened up a door inside of Bobbi she never knew existed and didn't wish to close. The pain, which circulated through her veins, was indescribable and suffocating. Each day she woke up with an ounce more of rage and a conscience full of anger. But this was the life she chose; therefore every day she told herself that this would be the life she led.

Wiping away her tears with the tips of her fingers, Bobbi laughed at her weakness.
In time I'll feel nothing and pain will be but a figment of my imagination.
Getting herself together, she stood up and slammed her hand against the white button. Instantly the curtains opened and her bread and butter were once again revealed to her. A soft, soothing smile spread across her face, and a sense of ease took over her. “Keep doing what you're doing, Bobbi,” she told herself. “Keep doing what you're doing.”

Two hours later, all three pairs of implants were removed and replaced with silicone breasts that filled the mules' chests. Bobbi watched the entire procedure and not once did she move from where she stood. The human body was a beautiful thing and it amazed her how much it could take without giving out. From time to time, flashbacks blocked her vision, but she pushed them away and watched her men dehumanize the Colombian women. Once upon a time when she was in her natural state of mind, she yearned to be a plastic surgeon. The art of it all stimulated her senses and caused her to come alive. She once viewed the human body as a block of clay, and her hands the sculptor, but now, it was her moneymaker. Her passion for medicine died a long time ago when she was forced into a new world and turned her into a new person.

“Another beautiful, big-busted woman now walks the earth. Where is my trophy for the fine work I have performed?” Harvey walked inside the observation room, his eyes fixated on Bobbi while removing his scrubs. “You're not answering me so I assume that means I get no trophy. So how about a kiss?”

“What do you want?” Bobbi hissed, irritation pulsating throughout her tone.

“What I want you won't tell me, not even if I begged.” He threw
his soiled scrubs on the couch and stood beside her, his hands clasped behind his back.

Bobbi observed the cleaning ladies work their magic. Within minutes, the operating room was almost spotless. “Try me.”

Any trace of humor evaporated and was replaced with attentiveness.

“You lied about your breasts being real, why?”

Bobbi turned in Harvey's direction. “What are you talking about?”

“You told me your breasts are real, when you and I both know that's a lie. But instead of me coming to my own conclusions, I'd rather ask why you would lie in the first place.” Harvey's eyes burned holes into Bobbi's overly worked-on face. An uneasy feeling came over her and instantly she became defensive.

“Because it's none of your fucking business. You're hired to recover my shit, not to ask questions.”

Harvey smirked, a light bulb going off on top of his head.

“Oh, I see.” He paused, his mind wandering off for a brief moment. “Take my advice and direct that anger to the person who's responsible for it.”

Bobbi's face scrunched up and her body temperature rose. She gritted her teeth, inhaled and exhaled like she was in Lamaze class.

“I'ma ask you one more time; what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I've been a surgeon for over twenty years. I can tell when a woman's had work done, and because I'm a man, I can tell when a woman's hurt over doing something for someone other than herself.”

Silence slammed into the room and Bobbi felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. This was the first time since she could remember someone actually caring enough to observe her behavior and come to their own conclusion. Her mouth glued shut, with just one lie, he'd read her like a book without skipping any pages.

“What you know doesn't matter; what's done doesn't matter.”

“I think it does, because if it didn't, you would be numb to it all. You're in a business where one slipup can cost you everything, yet this is the first time in four months since you last showed your face in your own operating room. I bet you hide in here behind the glass and cry yourself a river, don't you? Tell me, do you gloss those high cheekbones of yours with your tears every chance you get? Watching these surgeries is like looking in the mirror, isn't it?”

Bobbi's head pushed back and after one good snort, spat into Harvey's face. Mucus dripped from his nose and fell onto the floor.

“You know nothing about me; you know nothing about how it feels to watch women have a choice over whether or not their appearance is reconstructed while you stand there and look like this.” Bobbi's unpolished fingernail directed his attention to her sunken face, permanent eyebrows, and high cheekbones. But even though she pointed to the multiple works done on her face, he couldn't take his focus off the scar stretched across her throat. “They come to us to make them beautiful and cut into their skin; we don't force them.
They
have a choice, but
I
didn't. I wish all I got was a fucking boob job.”

Harvey maneuvered his way toward the corner of the room and retrieved a tissue from its box that sat comfortably on its wooden stand and wiped off her bodily fluids.

“You're right, I don't know how it feels, but I do know you're too beautiful to hold on to the past.”

“Beautiful? Do you see who you're talking to?” Bobbi's once normal-sized forehead wrinkled. Her last job had altered her hairline and made it significantly smaller.

Harvey walked across the room where a waist-length mirror hung from a nail.

“Come here,” he instructed.

Bobbi hesitated. She stood clear of her kryptonite, known as
mirrors. It was the cat to her mouse that she avoided at all costs. When her boots didn't lift from off the floor, he encouraged her once more to come his way. Buying herself some time, Bobbi activated the curtains to shut, and watched them separate herself from the room. Her legs felt like cement and for a brief moment, she stared at the fabric, preparing herself for what she was about to see. She put on a brave face and slowly walked in Harvey's direction. When she reached him, Harvey moved out of her way and allowed her to stand in front of him. Bobbi's head dropped, refusing to look at her own reflection.

From behind, he reached around her and touched her chin. She flinched; no one had touched her face since her last surgery. But instead of her sudden movement startling him, he lifted her face up to the glass. They stood in that position for minutes at a time, when finally her eyes fell on the mirror. She took in her appearance. Her first reaction was to turn away, but the longer she looked, the easier it got. Her skin was tight and shiny, her lips thin, and her cheekbones high; she was beautifully ugly. The only thing she recognized about herself was her nose and eyes; everything else was completely foreign. She turned her head to the side and viewed herself from a different angle. She stared at her reflection straight on. Her eyes eventually dropped to the scar on her neck. Her fingers began to trace its outline.

“How did that happen?”

Bobbi's eyes bounced over to Harvey's reflection. She completely forgot he was still standing behind her.

“I tried to kill myself.”

Harvey's eyes locked on hers. He was not expecting that response. He wanted to ask why, but the question seemed too personal, even for him. But Bobbi sensed his curiosity and awarded him his satisfaction.

“I couldn't stand how I looked after the surgeries. I just wanted it all to end. Every time I thought he was done using my face as a canvas, another surgery was scheduled. I was tired of it.”

Harvey suddenly grew quiet. There were times when all a person needed to do was listen; sometimes an ear was mightier than the mouth.

“I don't know why I tried to slit my own throat. At the time, I was so enraged and willing to do anything just to stop the pain.” She looked at the scar a little harder. “Every surgery that rolled around, I told myself I would stand up to him and tell him no, but I never did. He's not someone you can talk up against.”

Harvey moved his hand from her chin and allowed it to plummet down to her neck. He pushed her hand away and began caressing the scar. Bobbi's eyes widened. She never imagined anyone ever wanting to touch it; normally she would receive looks of fear or sympathy from strangers walking by. Its unattractiveness created a force field around her entire being that no one wanted to puncture, until now. Frozen in shock, Bobbi watched as Harvey rubbed and poked at the scar. Right as she was beginning to feel comfortable with him touching the keloid, his hand slithered down to her breasts, his free hand seconds behind the first. Her heart raced and throat instantly became parched. She had no idea how to react; a man hadn't touched her in months, so the sudden change in routine threw her off course. Her hand flew up and pushed his away.