The Goodbye Man (13 page)

I wish that I could
sleep. I wonder what time it is, but I don’t have a clock in here. Part of me wants to sneak downstairs to see how it all works out behind the scenes as they take apart a human life, but I am certain that would enrage Caesar greatly. Instead, I repeat his words over and over in my head and I step closer to madness with each fleeting moment.

I was destined for this. If not for death, then for a life of insanity and uncertainty as I play with the thoughts that I so desperately want. I curl up on top of the perch and hope for my fantasies to come to life as the sexual storm brews heavily in my body. I hear the buzzing from the elevator from outside my door and my heart whooshes in my chest. I feel it in my ears and my eyes pulse in perfect synchrony.

Moments that I have yearned for are soon to come true. I see a shadow from beneath the crack of the door and I swallow hard, imagining it was his cock in the back of my throat. The door opens and Caesar walks in. A waft of cigarette smoke and sweat billows thickly in the air and sends shivers down my spine, making me more aware than what I was before.

I am set free as his look tells me a story without words. He is tired, so tired, and he needs someone. He has come to me. I am his someone. I am comforted by this revelation as my soul swells to its limit. I smile at him as he makes his way over to me. He sits next to me as we stay silent; no conversation has been spoken yet. I feel the need to have him against me in some sort of way. I lay my head in his lap and the same connection I felt when his hand was laid in mine rushes through my body. Time is forgotten. Hatred is unknown and all I can focus on is the adoration that I have for the mysterious man beside me. His hand starts to dance in my soft hair and my scalp tingles. I wish I could understand why he wanted me.

“Why me?” I ask, drunk in the moment.

“Shh,” he coos, rubbing his strong hands through my hair.

I feel his cock harden under me and I take this opportunity to make him mine. He is mine, I will make sure of it. He just doesn’t know it yet. I have traveled through hell and back to get to him. Something screams home with him and I won’t let myself let it go.

“You say you don’t want me, but your body tells me different.”

I grab his hardened length through his jeans, surprised by its size. He snatches my wrist tight. It hurts, but even that can’t stop me.

“I am confused by you, Caesar.”

He lets go of my hand as our eyes are magnetized by each other’s. Like a weightless feather, I glide over his lap letting his hard erection push down on my cotton pants. My pussy clenches in pleasure as I push my soft lips onto his. His tongue is just as I imagined, delicious and graceful as it strokes alongside mine with perfection. He has stripped me free from the old me with each flawless movement of his tongue, with each passing second that he spends with me, I am undone and made into a new girl.

One that is loved and made worthy of this world.

But just as soon as goodness is felt, rage consumes the lust filled night. Caesar throws me from his lap like the old, useless whore that I am. My head bounces from the concrete and he steps over me and out of my heart once again. I am locked away and he has the key. I am a foolish, useless girl.

I want to drown in the old me. Suffocate me and leave me for dead.

I scream at the top of my lungs and pull at my hair, trying to get the feeling of his hands through my hair out of my crazy mind. Instead, I beat my head against the hard concrete ground because that is what I deserve. I wanted him. I got a taste of decency, but it never lasts. I want to revert back to the girl who doesn’t feel, but Caesar holds the map and the key.

I cry out again, out of fear, unknowing, and sorrow. My old, trustworthy friend creeps by me, hugging me, telling me in my ear that it’s alright to be crazy and unlovable. The voice in my head chants
“Worthless whore! Worthless whore!”
over and over again. Pangs of agony surge through my veins and existing is getting harder with each passing second.

I hate tears. I hate him. I hate me. I try to get the tears to stop, but they won’t listen. No one has ever listened because my whispers never mattered. I never mattered to anyone. I haven’t ever been a real person before. I have only been a dirty fuck doll. Still nothing changes.

My pleas for mercy are answered as the door is opened. A pair of familiar arms pick me up from the floor. I try to look at his eyes, but my vision is blurry from the crying. I swallow my fear, but it is still present. It will never be gone.

“You remind me of a beautiful doll I once loved, Lettie.”

His words shouldn’t ease my fears, but they do. I wrap my arms around his neck as he carries me over to my bed, tucks me in, and whispers, “Goodnight.”

I cry until blackness meets me again.

Ugly lies, beautiful truths and the filthy honesty.

I shower for longer
than normal, letting the water cascade over my body. The white noise of the shower drowns out the voices that I can still hear whispering. When I step out into the steam filled room, I feel marginally better, the boiling inside me has cooled. I brush my teeth three times; I need the taste of her to be gone. When I think of her lips on mine I gag, I want to let myself love her, but not like that. I cannot hold it in, I bend over the toilet and let the contents of my stomach go. I can’t stop once I start and I heave until there is nothing left in me. I pull myself up off the floor and brush my teeth again before I go and collapse on my bed, the soft clean sheets cling to my wet body and I let the darkness of my dreams take me away. I tumble from here into sleep, where the faces of so many wrongs can stare at me.

I can see Marta’s tears at what I did, and even though she is dead, I know I have done her wrong. I have hurt her. I want it to stop, the vision of her face streaming with tears, but then I have to tell the truth. I knew the truth, so did she, and so did Pavel, but not one of us spoke the truth. No one said it, so it was never real. Now it’s so real and so very, very wrong. Even in my dreams I am swallowed by shame, the guilt pulls me from my fitful sleep. I wake up cold and naked on my bed; sleep will not be peaceful tonight. Instead, I get up and pour a brandy. I search the dark room for my smokes and light one. I sit on my kitchen chair and drink and smoke. It is now long after the sun has risen and I am still there. My phone vibrates on the table in front of me, it’s Mateo.

You hurt her.

I know.

The first replacement is on the way to you now.

Fine

What must I do with her?

Nothing leave her alone Mat

She is crying, she won’t fucking stop.

LEAVE HER TO CRY!

I hate myself even more, but right now filling those three beds is what I need to do. I wait for the knock on the door. I drown my feelings just a little more before she gets here. Mateo will have told them how it works; the new Madame was all too willing to fill the gap in my supply chain. My cigarette dangles from my lips as I close my eyes for a minute. I suck on the death stick, pulling the heavenly smoke into my lungs. We all have our vices, smoking is mine. When I snub out the last smoke in the over full ashtray, I stand up and pull on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. A knock on my door means that another goodbye has arrived. I open a little first to see who it is, revealing just a girl with no pimp holding onto her. She is cleaner than some, but her empty eyes tell me all I need to know. She is ready for it all to be over. I open the door and step aside so she can come in. For the first time in many years, it feels like it did in the beginning - almost wrong. She is a pretty thing, a bit older than Pavel’s girls at maybe around twenty two. Her long hair is snagged up into a bun and her hooker clothes are clean, she isn’t starving either. It’s harder for me when they don’t look like their lives are as horrible. I know that no matter what, she wishes to end it all.

“Go shower please,” I tell her, pointing to the bathroom. She looks a little confused when she replies, “I am not dirty, I promise.”

“I don’t give a fuck, go shower,” I bark back at her, because I am too tired for bullshit. I try to calm myself down while she does, telling myself I need her to feel safe and trust me. It is not easy to take them kicking and screaming, but I will if I have to. I sit on the sofa and wait; when the water finally stops, she comes out naked and wet and vulnerable. Perfect.

“Stand over there and get dry.” I point to the spot where I can admire the perfect line of her body.

“You don’t have any towels?” she asks me, as if I am mad.

“No, I don’t. I don’t like them. Stand still. And if you talk - whisper.” I need her to whisper because my cock couldn’t be softer if she was a man.

“This is so strange,” she whispers. Her voice has a maddening feminine rasp and it makes me want her to stop, and not stop all at once. I adjust myself through my boxers so I am comfortable as I watch her shivering. She is so perfect standing there, but her eyes don’t match her body. She has a vacant stare that is begging for it all to end. When I am done looking at every inch of her naked skin, I call her over. “Come here, puta.” Her eyes immediately fall to look at floor when I use the word. Her crushed and battered spirit shows just then; she is waiting for the pain and brutality. I won’t give her that. She stands against the sofa between my thighs, cold and still a little damp. I run my hands up from her knees to her waist, her neatly shaved pussy right in my face. I grab her thin wrists, pull her down so her face is right in front of mine and seal her fate. I kiss her, but my mind won’t let go of another kiss. So I kiss her harder. Her moans fuel the noise induced hard on I have and I pull her all the way on top of me. My hands are all over her, in her hair, cupping her breasts, pulling her ass up onto my lap. She feels good, so fucking good and I want to make her feel even better. I don’t want to take her on the sofa; I want her to feel special so when she tells me she wants to die, I can hold onto her just for a little while.

Hours later she lies next to me, her body limp from sex and her mind racing with what she is used to. Nothing I just did is normal to her. Her restless tossing and twisting is stilled when I pull her into me, my arm restraining her. “When they beat you and rape you, what do you wish for?” She turns herself away from my eyes. I know she has tears in hers.

“To die, I wish to die almost every day.” Her words are whispered, doing horrible things to me. I pull her closer to me and hold her, my thumb rubbing against her soft skin.

“I can give you that wish, a beautiful, quiet, peaceful goodbye. Or I can send you back to your life. Go to sleep now, you can decide later.” We both close our eyes and sleep with the day’s sunshine streaming in on us.

I do this three more times over the next two days; I don’t go near Svetlana not once. Juan is up and about, not himself but almost as annoying. I feel like things are back as they should be, as long as I don’t see her, or hear her. So I avoid her at all costs, staying downstairs and focusing on work. I spend hours going over UNOS wait lists, looking for desperate people who we can help. I contact them discreetly and the next two weeks will be the busiest ever. It is perfect.

But she is still here. I still want to love her, comfort her and maybe save her. Fuck it all to hell.