Madame X - Wilder Jasinda - Страница 41
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“The problem?” I pretend to not understand her meaning.
“Don’t play coy with me, Madame X. ‘Find her,’ he said. You’re running away from Caleb.” The last is an accusation, blatant.
I sigh. “Yes. You’re correct.”
“He’ll find you.”
“I know that.”
“Ain’t nobody else like him, you know. I’m only twenty-two, but I been on the streets since I was thirteen. Met all kinds of men, turnin’ tricks. Some of ’em weren’t bad, just . . . lonely. Or too busy to bother with even trying to set up casual sex, I guess. Some were curious. A few virgins, here and there. But in all of ’em I ever met, there’s never been nobody like him. You must not understand what you’re running away from.”
“My situation is . . .” I have to hunt for an appropriate word. “Unique.”
“Ain’t everybody’s?” Rachel eyes me.
“Well, I guess that’s true, but I’m different. I don’t mean to sound—”
“You’re different. You’re special. I get it. You’re Caleb’s big secret on the thirteenth floor. What you don’t get is what he’s done for me. For all of us here. I know what you think of us. I can feel you judging us.”
“I’m not judging—”
“The hell you ain’t!” She closes in, her eyes intelligent, proud, and piercing. “I was a meth head. Okay? You don’t—you can’t understand that if you ain’t lived it. Alls I cared about was the next fix. I was gonna die, and Caleb Indigo saved me. He got me off the street, gave me a place to live, fed me. He’s gotten me off drugs. Before, I was turnin’ tricks to afford the next high. No one gave a single shit about me, myself least of all. Now, here? I got a reason to live. I got a reason to stay off drugs. I’ve got value, here. Yeah, I know I ain’t the only one, but Caleb spends time with me. Me, the whore, the drug addict. When he’s with me, I’m the only one that matters.” This last in a quiet voice that quavers with conviction. “He makes me feel like I could amount to something besides what I used to be. I can get put in the Bride pool, and who knows, maybe I’ll even get matched with someone who—who could love me.” Such hope, clung to with tenacity. “You run away from all that if you want.”
A long silence. I do not know what to say. I have too much in my head, in my heart.
“Garage is your only real shot, I’d say,” Rachel says. “Take the elevator down, make a run for it. Good luck to you. I won’t say nothing, but if Caleb asks, I’m telling the truth.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to lie for me.” I try a friendly smile. “Thank you, Rachel. And . . . congratulations on your—promotion, I suppose it is?”
She does a part nod, part shrug. “Thanks.”
I give her one last smile, one last glance. Then pull open her door, peek, step out. Close the door behind me, a sense of finality in the soft click. Stride away from the door marked 3. Focus on the now, focus on reaching free air, reaching sunlight, reaching the outside.
Step onto the elevator, and my finger hovers over the G. But I hesitate. Why am I hesitating?
I need answers. That’s why. Who am I? Who am I to Caleb? What does anything mean?
The conviction in Rachel’s voice. Feeling like she was the only one that mattered when she was with Caleb . . . that sounds all too familiar.
Instead of G, my thumb stabs the L, for the lobby.
Descent, my stomach twisting. The doors whoosh open. I step out.
Surprised faces. “Madame X!” Hands reach for me.
I stop them with a glare. “Keep your hands to yourself. Bring me to Caleb.” I feign authority.
Pretend I’m not a mess of nerves, shaking, furious, disoriented. Pretend as if everything I thought I knew hasn’t just been upended.
Len parts the crowd of onlookers and security guards. A familiar face, at least. “Madame X. Gave us quite a scare. Thought maybe you’d gotten lost.” Len’s face is impassive, giving away nothing.
“Take me to him, Len.”
“Why don’t we get you back to your room? Been quite a morning; I’m sure you’d like to rest.” A politely phrased command, that is.
“I don’t think so, Len. Take me to the penthouse. Now.” My eyes are narrowed, my voice hard and cold.
Len blinks twice, lets out a short breath. Lifts his wrist to his mouth. “I’ve got her, sir. She wants to see you . . . no, she wants me to take her up to the penthouse. . . . Yes, sir. Got it, sir.”
Len takes my upper arm, gestures to the elevator on the far right of the bank of doors. This elevator for authorized personnel only. A key opens the doors, the same key twisted to the PH. Ascent, my nerves ratcheting with each foot the elevator climbs. Len is stoic, silent.
I try to formulate thoughts, try to decipher my feelings.
Everything I thought I was going to say flees when the doors slide open at the penthouse level.
“Madame X. Please, come in.” Oh, that voice. Deep as canyons, rough as sandpaper.
FOURTEEN
I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses.” Suppressed fury, teeth clenched.
The doors slide closed behind me, and as soon I hear the elevator whine and fade, I step forward. “You bastard.”
“Excuse me?” Disbelief, shock.
“Would you like to know where I was just now, Caleb?” I ask this in my sweetest, most innocent voice.
Dark eyes narrow in suspicion. “Where were you, X? Do enlighten me.”
I am chest to chest, staring up. I seethe. “I was on the sixth floor.”
“I see.”
“In room three. I met a very interesting young woman who said her name was, strangely enough, Three. But then, you see, I was privileged to overhear a very . . . illuminating . . . assessment and promotion, in which she earned a real name.”
“I don’t know what you think you heard or saw, X, but it’s not what you think.”
“It isn’t? That’s strange, because it seemed very much as if what I heard was Three sucking your cock.” My blood boils at the memory, at the indignity of my own unstoppable arousal. I cannot temper my fury. “I’m pretty sure what I heard was you fucking her. Just like you fuck me. Which I must say, raises some very interesting questions, Caleb.”
“You saw this, did you?” This is said calmly, quietly, in far too even a voice.
“Saw it? No. Heard is a more accurate term, I think. I was under the bed, you see. Hiding from you, and your thugs.”
Jaw muscles work. “X, there are elements to all this that you don’t—that you can’t—understand.”
“Then enlighten me, Caleb!” I shout. “Because it feels like I’m just another one of the girls on the sixth floor. Except, I don’t get the future they have. I’m kept in the dark, alone, day after day, serving client after client. But I’m not allowed to form a friendship with any of them. I’m not allowed relationships of any kind. Except you, when you deign to visit me, in the middle of the night. Are you training me, too? Like you’re training girls Two through Eight? Teaching me to please a man, before you sell me to the highest bidder? Is that it? Or am I just your dirty little secret on the hidden thirteenth floor? The secret you sneak in to, late at night, to have sex in the dark with, after you’ve finished training all the other girls. Or am I—”
“You are mine!” comes the venomous hiss, cutting me off. Huge hard hands clutch my face, tilt my head up, brutal fingers holding tight, not allowing me to escape. “You are not like them, X. You’re secret because you’re special.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You think I’m selling those girls, X? Is that what you think?” An abrupt change of tactic. “That’s not how it is, and if you’d really talked to Rachel, you’d understand that.”
“You’ve got her brainwashed. Like you did me.”
“I saved her life, like I did yours! I took her in off the streets and I sat by her as she went through meth withdrawals. I bathed her, and I held her as she shook so hard I thought she’d break a bone, and I fed her with my own hands. That’s not something I’d sell like a bag of fucking potatoes! I’m giving her a future, and I’m not going to sit here and defend myself to someone who doesn’t have the first fucking clue what I’m about!” I am abruptly released, and long legs begin pacing back and forth, impatient, angry. “You know nothing about me, X. Not the first thing.”
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