The Bad Girl (5 page)

I sighed as I reached one of the main roads in town and put my hands on my hips. It would’ve helped if I knew where I was going, but I’m sure if I said Luuk’s name enough, I would either run into one of his girls or clients. Either way, I’d get to where I was going eventually.

“Lieve?”

I turned around apprehensively and saw a man that looked vaguely familiar. He was giving me a charming smile with his brilliantly white teeth. I could almost swear if this were a cartoon you would hear the *ding* noise from the whiteness of them. His light brown eyes looked into mine and he ran a hand through his dark blonde hair.

“Hi,” I replied curiously, still trying to place him.

“Are you still, um ... You know,” he said cutting his eyes nervously around us.

Must be a former client.

“Yes.”

“You don’t remember me, do you? I was your first ... Um...
You know,
” he said giving me a lopsided grin.

I rolled my eyes.

“My first paying fuck?” I asked loudly.

An older couple that was walking by turned quickly and eyed us both distastefully before they continued walking. His face turned red with embarrassment as he mumbled a goodbye and started to walk away.

“Wait!” I called out. I walked quickly to catch up to him and put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Sorry. I can be a bit of a bitch sometimes.”

“I’ve noticed,” he replied darkly.

“Listen, do you know anyone named Luuk? Does what Kerstan does? Maybe you’ve paid for some company from his house?” I asked.

He looked at me sternly for a moment, like he didn’t like to be reminded that he paid for prostitutes, before he sighed loudly and nodded.

“So where do I go to find him?” I asked excitedly.

“Why would you want to?”

“What’s your name?” I asked impatiently.

“Joris.”

“Okay Joris, so this Luuk guy? He’s holding one of my friends hostage. I know, I know; how can a whore be a hostage, right? She doesn’t want to be there and I’m going to get her back, so if you could be a super awesome guy and just tell me how I get there, I won’t have to keep yelling out that you paid me for sex once upon a time.”

His eyes widened at that prospect and he lowered his voice telling me which way I would have to go to get to Luuk’s place.

“Thanks Joris! Stop by Kerstan’s sometime and ask for me!” I replied cheerfully as I walked down the street I had started on.

I gave a glance over my shoulder and saw him walking away shaking his head. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, kinda cute actually, so I wouldn’t mind giving him a go again. He would be my last great conquest before I ran away with Betje and Minnie.

I hadn’t exactly thought about how I’d do that last part, but I wasn’t going to stay in Amsterdam any longer than I fucking had to. Debts cleared or not, we were going to leave.

After about an hour of walking, I stopped to eat in a charming bakery almost on the edge of the downtown area. I was hungry, thirsty, and my legs hurt. I didn’t have much money left after this little feast, but I figured a cab shouldn’t cost me too much because I should be close to where Luuk kept himself and his girls.

I finished my coffee cake and my coffee fifteen minutes after I got to the bakery. With as much as I would’ve loved to just sit there and blend in with the normal folk, I knew that there just wasn’t time for it. The longer I wanted to sit there and pretend to be something I wasn’t, the longer Minnie had to be stuck in that place being subjected to God knows what.

After I threw my trash in the receptacles, I walked over to the counter and asked the young girl behind the glass if she wouldn’t mind too terribly calling a cab for me, to which she nodded and bounced away from view.

Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled up outside. I wanted to reach into the front seat and grab the man by his shirt collar and shake him for taking so long, but instead I hopped into the backseat. After I got comfortable, I told him which way I needed to go. When he asked for an address, I shook my head and told him to just go the way I was telling him.

Ten euro later, he pulled up in front of a large gated property and I got out. I wrapped my arms around myself as I made my way up the driveway toward the front door.

When I reached the large wooden front doors, I raised a fist to knock when I heard my name. My
real
name.

“Amity Crane!” a man called out.

I immediately looked around and saw that I was by myself where I stood with no one in sight, so I did what any normal person would do; I looked up.

And there he sat with that beautiful smile. Those deep dimples that set whenever he grinned the way he was grinning now shown even from where he sat.

On a window sill, on the third floor, with an arm draped casually over his leg, and a smile on his face.

That was the last thing I remembered before the world went black and I collapsed into a heap on the gravel.

Ten

Minikin

There was a sudden commotion in the house and I wasn’t sure why.  I had been rustled out of my sleep over it because of the girls running back and forth in the hallways whispering excitedly to each other.

It took me a moment to clear the grogginess from my mind as I pushed myself up to a seated position. I yawned before I swung my legs over the side of the cot and got to my feet. I stretched my arms over my head and leaned back a little, cracking any bones that had tightened while I was sleeping before I made my way to the door.

Ilse greeted me with big eyes and a huge smile.

“You’re going to be so happy! Follow me! Quickly,” she exclaimed as she grabbed me by the arm and yanked me into the hallway.

“What’s going on?” I asked impatiently as I let her drag me down the hallway, past the main staircase, and into the main dining room.

“Look!” she whispered as she pushed the other girls out of the way and let me see into the slit between the doors.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be seeing. There was a girl in the room with long brown hair, but nothing else, so it couldn’t have been her.

At least, that’s what I believed until I heard a wrenching sob come from the room. I knew that sound; it was the sound that I had heard the night that Betje was sent away.

“Lieve?” I asked, my voice shaking.

The blonde hair turned toward the door and wiped tears angrily away from her face.

“This isn’t a fucking freak show! You can all stop staring at me like I don’t belong!” she yelled, throwing a plate toward the door.

“Lieve!” I exclaimed happily, shoving the doors open. I cut my foot on one of the pieces of the broken plate, but I was so overjoyed at that moment, that I didn’t let the pain bother me.

“Minnie?” she asked, suddenly looking so pitiful that my heart broke.

“Yes; it’s me,” I confirmed falling to my knees in front of her chair.

Lieve put her arms around me and began to cry harder than I had ever heard from her before. I let my head rest on her lap as she brushed her hand over my hair, saying how sorry she was and that she knew that this was where she truly belonged now. She said that this was a set up and that she had fallen for it. She said that she had already bargained for my release and that I would be going back to Betje. She also said that I would never see her again but begged me not to worry about her.

I pulled away from her at that and grabbed a cloth napkin off of the table. I used it wipe her tears away.

“Lieve, you know I would never leave you here. This place ... It’s much worse than being in Kerstan’s,” I said lowering my voice.

“You don’t understand,” she said with a chuckle and fresh tears.

“What is there to understand? When I leave you leave with me. That is the bargain or we both stay,” I replied firmly.

“Luuk isn’t who you think he is,” she said with a sniffle. “I need you to leave and trust that I’ll be okay.”

She pushed me gently but firmly away from her. She nodded toward the door and when I refused to get up, she reached down and yanked me to my feet. She put her hand tightly around my arm and dragged me toward the door. She gave me a quick hug, a small kiss on the lips, and a gentle shove through the open doors, before she pulled them closed tightly and used a chair to lock herself in.

Eleven

Betje

It had been three months since Minnie had come back and still no signs of Lieve. Kerstan wouldn’t speak of her and if you dared to ask him where she was, he would correct you with a stern slap to the mouth.

I was proud to say that it still didn’t stop me from asking from time to time.

I had tried everything I could to pry information out of him. Asking questions incessantly, offering him sex for any piece of information, which he took, but never complied with a word about her whereabouts.

“I don’t fucking understand this!” I yelled in frustration. I was sitting on her bed and I became angrier, colder as the days rolled by without her.

Was she dead? Was she hurt? Was she ever going to be set free?

“I’ve told you to stop worrying about her. Even though she seemed scared, she kind of seemed at peace with everything,” Minikin said from her bed at the end of the room.

“That’s bullshit! I can’t believe you just left her there!” I seethed at her. “She went through so much to get us both back and you just let her. She loved you, Minnie.”

“I know. And I love her too, but getting slapped around or fucked by Kerstan for information obviously isn’t getting you anywhere,” she retorted. “If you know Lieve as well as you think you do, you know she’ll be okay. You also know that she’ll find her way back if that’s what she truly wants to do!”

I shook my head in disbelief. These months without Amity had made me cold and bitter. Nothing would be able to fix me if I couldn’t see her just one more time.

I was sick and tired of being the good girl of this goddamn brothel. I was sick and tired of being the push over and I was fucking sick and tired of being the one that was always sit around and just
wait.

Unfortunately, Kerstan had already warned that anyone that left without his knowledge or permission, he would make sure didn’t come back. To his house or
any
house.

“G
oedemiddag dames,”
he said tiredly, suddenly appearing in the doorway. Everyone in the room except for me answered him.

“Betje, I’ve been informed of what you’ve been saying,” he said turning his attention to me. I watched him slide his hands into his pockets as he liked to do when he was ready to “correct” one of us.

I glared at him, “And?”

“And I think it’s best if you leave well enough alone,” he replied with a heavy sigh.

“You know, with as much as you hate to admit this to yourself, I know you cared about Amity too,” I said to him.

He chuckled and rubbed his chin thoughtfully before replying.

“No. I cared about how much money she brought in for me. I cared about how she was willing to let me fuck her when I wanted and I cared about how she showed the most subtle hint of jealousy when I had you bent over in my bed. But her? I didn’t care about
her.
Just what she could do for me,” he explained with a shrug.

“I never thought that even you could be such a heartless bastard,” I said shaking my head in disbelief.

“Lieve is where she belongs and that’s all that matters,” he said sharply.

“All that matters,” I repeated huffily under my breath. Little did he know that I would not accept that she was away from us when it was so clear that she had come to get us. She had come to bring us home and I swore to myself in that moment that I would do the same for her. Amity wouldn’t be abandoned. I wouldn’t allow it.