Selling Out (35 page)

“Hell,” he said, rolling off me.

I followed, tucking my body against his, heedful of the
jagged cut that ran wetly along his side and the matching one on my leg.

In the aftermath, cold settled over us by degrees. With it
came dread, that he would forget or go back to the old way.

“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.

“I’m fine, I promise.”

He turned his face away, and I clutched his arm as if it
were a life raft. Where did this clinginess come from? I didn’t know, but it
gripped me, and in turn, I couldn’t let him go. I didn’t mind his roughness
earlier, my split lip. I couldn’t stand for him to push me away. If he left me
now, there wouldn’t be any time to make it right between us. It wasn’t fair to
him, putting all that pressure on one experience. Was it real? Intimacy, love?
For once, finally? I had to know, as the unseen timer ticked down to zero. I
had to believe I’d lived before I died.

“Please, Luke. Don’t shut me out, not now.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked with a challenge in
his voice. “Tell me what you want me to say.”

I want it to be real
between us
. It was my plea this time, my unspoken words butting up against
an uncaring lover. No, not uncaring. He was hurt and fighting back. I
understood that, though I’d rarely done it myself. But that was Luke, who had
clawed his way up until the world had given him respect. And this was me, who
accepted what I was given and wondered, wondered, wondered if it would ever be
enough.

“I’m sorry I pushed you. Forget I asked.” I stroked his
chest, hoping his heart would calm.

He sat up, pulling away. “You know what it’s like. Right,
Shelly? You know we don’t like to be touched. So why are you all over me? Why
can’t I seem to shake you?”

Tears ran down my cheeks. I hated to see him like this,
raging and hurting.

“I don’t know,” I said, shivering. I just wanted him to feel
better. “I’ll pretend he never told me.”

“What for? You know the truth. You know that I was too much
of a coward to tell you myself, even when I knew you did the same. You know
that I took it up the ass since I was sixteen, but you know what else? I’m
guessing you did too.”

I recoiled. “Stop it.”

“Am I right? If I guessed right, I think I should win a
prize.”

My breath exhaled in shaky jolts. “You’re being cruel on
purpose. To push me away.”

“Way to state the obvious, Shelly. Next you’ll tell me I
know how to suck a cock. Probably better than you, and between the two of us,
that’s saying something.”

I stared at him, burning the image of him into my mind. He
was rabid, a cornered animal, a tortured one. And I couldn’t help him. I turned
and crawled to the other side of the cell. It didn’t have quite the same effect
without a slamming door and screech of tires, but we were beyond theatrics.
There was only desolation here, only tears streaming down my face as I curled
up, facing the wall. The problem with crying is that once you start, you can’t
stop. Soon my silent tears had turned into sobs that racked my body. I put my
hand to my mouth to try to keep them in, but somehow that only made them worse.

Luke picked me up and cradled me in his lap. I fought him at
first, striking out, landing blows only God knows where. It didn’t deter him.
If anything, he probably welcomed them, so rife was he with self-disgust.

“Oh God, Shelly. I’m sorry. Yes, hate me. I’m so sorry.”

I curled into his warmth and his hate and cried into his
shirt. He rocked me, murmuring endearments and apologies and self-directed
epithets until my tears had dried.

My head felt hollow but strangely heavy. “Did you think I
would judge you?” I whispered.

His laugh was hoarse. “I don’t need you to judge me. I do
that plenty for myself.”

“You did what you had to do to keep your sister safe.”

“I could have walked her into any police station. I should
have. If I had, she would still be alive.”

“You were a teenager. You couldn’t know what would happen to
her, especially after they had left you in that man’s care.”

“And I thought I could do better. I was so damn cocky. Isn’t
that funny? The gay-for-pay guy was cocky.”

It was like watching myself from the outside. So full of
anger and hurt, covering it all up with sexually insulting humor.

“How did she—” I bit my lip, stoppering the words.

“I wasn’t her pimp, if that’s what you thought. There are
some lines even I wouldn’t cross.”

“I didn’t think that,” I said quickly and felt some of the
tension leak from his body.

He swallowed. “I was gone every night. She was bored, like I
told you. She started hanging out with a bad crowd who got her hooked on
heroin. That was the point I really got scared. I knew we were both in over our
heads, but I was so wrapped up in my own shit. I thought I could handle it all.
I started being more careful with money, so she wouldn’t spend it all on the
drugs. That’s when she started hooking, to make up the money. Most of the girls
she hung out with were already doing it, so I guess it didn’t seem like a big
deal. I only found out later, after she had gone.”

His grip on me tightened, and I couldn’t quite breathe, but
at that moment, I would rather have suffocated than deny him comfort.

“I failed her,” he said, his voice cracking. “I failed her
so bad, and I could never stop trying to make it right, even though I know it’s
too late.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him to me. We
shifted slightly so that his head lay on my chest. I wondered if he could hear
my heart race, and I struggled to calm myself as if that could calm him too. At
length, his breathing evened out, though small shifts in his body told me he
was still awake.

Pulling himself up, he faced me, solemn and determined. His
eyes were streaked red, though they didn’t look nearly as bad as mine probably
did—puffy and swollen from tears unshed.

He brushed a tear that had remained on my cheek. “I owe you
an apology. The things I said were unforgivable.”

“You were upset.”

A ghost of a smile touched his swollen face. “I think you
would excuse me from murder if I tell you I had a bad day.”

“I forgive you.”

His voice grew husky as he said, “I don’t deserve that.”

“Forgiveness isn’t about whether you deserve it or not. It
comes freely or not at all. Like love.”

He swallowed. “You do love me, don’t you, Shelly? And I
don’t deserve that either.”

He was more deserving of love than anybody I had ever known,
but it wasn’t even relevant to how I felt about him. Love wasn’t a choice; it
was an accident. Not a climb but a fall. I had slipped somewhere along my
prickly path and down, down to the murky depths, hurtling ever farther, ever
faster, and the only question left was whether he would meet me at the bottom.

I crouched behind the flat of the table, which had been
turned on its side, wondering how Luke had talked me into this.

It was a suicide mission. His.

The plan was chillingly simple. Luke waited, prone on the
floor and armed with our crude and blunt weaponry. He would lure the men to his
side and fight them, distracting them long enough for me to escape through the
door. I had argued vehemently at the beginning, flat-out refused. How could I
leave him to his death? I could go for help, but we both knew it would be too
late for him. But then he had pulled me tight and said that if we did nothing,
we would both die. Let him do this much, he’d said.

Live, he’d told me.

I understood about guilt, however undeserved, and how it
would eat at him in these final minutes if he believed I would die. So I
agreed, still unsure whether I could run away. There were moments that defined
a person, choices that separated me from my mother. Could I leave him to suffer
in my place? Could I live with myself after? It was the same as when Henri had
given me that gun. Could I become a murderer? I would save myself, but there
were things worth more than my life.

My ankles ached, cold from the chill of the floor. I missed
his body warmth, the way he breathed.

It felt like days passed before footsteps sounded from
outside the room. I strained to make them out, to separate them into parts and
count how many men were there. Two, maybe three.

They paused outside the door. I heard the faint sounds of
two men conversing—arguing. That gave me hope. Maybe it wasn’t Henri. No one
would argue with him.

I heard a creak, and yellow light flooded the room from the
hall, stinging my eyes. A single man walked inside, to Luke. Clop, clop. I
recognized his gait. Henri’s gravelly voice muttered something from the center
of the room. He always sent his men in first. What was different this time? Who
still stood outside the room? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

There was a thud, as if he’d kicked Luke, and an exhalation
of breath.

“What’s wrong with him?” came a voice from outside. My pulse
beat a rapid tattoo in my temple, though I struggled to place his voice. Low,
male. Unsurprising in our current situation. There were women who held power in
this industry—Jade, for example—but they were rare. Confident, impatient. Those
also were hallmarks of a man in power.

“How should I know?” Henri snapped.

The strange part was the power dynamic. I had never seen
Henri before with a man more powerful than himself, at least without a
full-fledged power struggle. But in Henri’s voice, there was a tremor of
uncertainty. A bit of subservience, which was why it took me so long to place.
The Henri I knew would never submit, but now I wondered if that undaunted power
was as much a mask as my own limitless capacity for subjugation, as if we had
both played our parts to the fullest. As if we were each consumed by our roles.
A social experiment, indeed.

The other man came into the room. It felt like déjà vu, like
I should know him just by the way the air shifted at his presence. One of
Henri’s men? An old client? But this felt older than that—ancient, like I had
heard this story in an old fairy tale.

Before I could figure it out, Luke made his move. A sharp
cry of pain was followed by the fast exhalation of breath, the hair-raising
sounds of two bodies in combat. There were only two men, neither of them paid
henchmen; it was better odds than we had counted on. I scooted around the side
of the table. A quick glance revealed a blur of limbs and boots.

I dashed out of the room, thinking of going for help, of
getting the car, of doing something.
“Let
me do this much,”
he had said, and I was, but he would let me do something
for him in return. Well, he didn’t really have a choice.

A shot rang out. I thought I heard footsteps. Bursting
through the door, I sucked in lungfuls of outdoor air. The woods looked so
peaceful. I headed for the line of trees, knowing that if either of them had
followed me, I would be safer out of sight.

A flashlight chased my feet, and I stumbled into the woods,
hiding behind a tree. I glanced around wildly. I would run to the car. I
wouldn’t think about Luke, not yet.

“Michelle Ann Laurent, come out here this instant.”

The words rang out with crushing familiarity. My breath came
shorter. I saw black spots covering the wintry foliage before me. I suddenly
wished I had known. I should have. If Luke had wanted to show me mercy, he
should have conked me on the head with that wrench. Anything to save me from
this.

I thought of running again. It was what I had done in that
hotel suite. What I had done for so many years. Why not keep going? Leave Luke
behind.

Stepping aside from the tree, I said with as much casualness
as I could muster, “Hi, Daddy.”

“You went too far this time.”

“Have I been a bad girl?” I smirked, wrapping the cloak of
whorishness more tightly around me. Let him see what I had become, what he had
made me. “Am I going to get a spanking?”

He came closer. “Don’t make me come get you. It will only
make this worse.”

My laugh had a maniacal tilt, breaking cover. “How exactly
could it get worse? Please explain that to me.”

“I let you have your fun. But you always knew you’d come
home.”

He walked closer. Even in the twilight, I could make out the
lines of his face, the gray of his temples. It made him more dignified.
Objectively, I could see that he was handsome, to someone who wasn’t his flesh
and blood. I hated it, the way beauty could be a privilege and a curse. The way
it turned me into a commodity. No, he did that.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why now?”

“I’ve never left. How do you think Henri found you? I had
trained you. You were mine, and I wasn’t going to let you go, working for a
C-note a night. I told him where to find you. I told him to hire you. I’ve been
here since the beginning, getting a twenty-five percent cut.”

I felt sick but strangely unsurprised. “Henri isn’t family.”

He frowned. “No, but he was useful. For a time. He always
had a weakness for that Chinese bitch. He should have killed her.” His laugh
sent chills down my spine. “And then he found the girl. You should have seen
him, the proud papa. I almost bought him some cigars.”

A gasp escaped me. Claire was his daughter? “Then why did he
pimp her out?”

“Henri is unoriginal,” he said flatly. “He tried to do the
same thing I did, but he didn’t understand. I had groomed you from the
beginning. So very early. He wanted to take a shortcut, and now look at the
mess he made.”

“Groomed me for what?” I spat. “For being a prostitute? Are
you telling me you were that hard up for money that you needed a few extra
grand a week?”

“It’s not about the money you earned. That was nothing. This
is a family business. How else were you going to run it if you didn’t
understand it? I couldn’t just put you at the helm. They would have eaten you
alive. But now…now you’re strong enough.”