All That Matters (2 page)

I put my hands on my hips and stared at him defiantly. I was going to pay the price for all of this later but for right now I had to show that I “meant” what I was saying.

“I won’t ask you again,” he said leaning forward and gripping the edge of the bed frame tightly. Behind him I could see Betje wringing her hands. She was scared for me right now, more than I was scared for myself. I was more concerned for
her.

“Yes, your majesty,” I muttered as I dropped onto the mattress and pulled my knees back up to my chest. He eyed me dangerously for what felt like a lifetime. It was obvious that Kerstan was trying to decide if he was going to punish me just a little or severely. Defiance was not something he tolerated in his home for red light hookers.

I waited nervously now as he began to drum his fingers along the frame. He hadn’t taken his stare off of me yet and I was beginning to feel intimidated. I cleared my throat and broke our locked on gazes, conceding this disagreement.
The next one is mine,
I swore to myself.

“Betje, I’d like you to come with me please,” he said turning his attention back to her.

“Why?” I blurted out.

Kerstan glanced at me over his shoulder, his green eyes turning cold. But he didn’t answer me, then or when he came back with two new girls and no Betje in sight. Not when I broke one of the biggest rules in his little whore camp and pounded on his bedroom door.

Not even when I started banging my fists furiously against his chest. Not even when I started to scream in his face that I wanted to know where Betje was. Not even when he pulled his arm back and punched me as hard as he could in my face, knocking me out cold.

No. Not even then.

I can’t say it wasn’t unwarranted, but I
can
say that it was a cowardice act. I can also say that because Betje was gone, I was sick of being here, and he had laid his hands on me, that I had set forward an act of retaliation in motion that would echo throughout this house for years to come.

“T
hat looks a lot better today,” Margit said softly, sitting next to me on the bed.

It had been three days since I had taken the sucker punch heard round the world, and the only thing that was wounded was my pride. The swelling had almost gone completely down and my eye was starting to turn that weird sickly purple and green color. Since I didn’t look the part, I couldn’t “work” so he let Margit stay with me.

I knew better than to be fooled though. He didn’t leave her here with me out of a random act of kindness. He left her here because she was on her period which meant she couldn’t work either.

“Does it hurt?” she asked quietly.

I shook my head, “Not anymore.”

Margit nodded pushed my hair back so she could get a better look at my eye. “Does not look like he damaged anything,” she said peering closely.

“Optometrist, are you?” I asked with a grin.

She laughed and stood up. Moving next to me, she scooted me forward onto the bed so she would have space to sit behind me. A few seconds later, she grabbed two handfuls of hair and began to weave it into a loose braid. I smiled sadly and sighed.  There was no such thing as kindness in this place, but Margit knew Betje was my best friend and I could only assume that she didn’t want me to feel alone.

“Don’t let him catch you being nice to me,” I said quietly.

“What is the worst he can do to me? You and I are his most prized girls. To get rid of either of us would mean that he loses a lot of money. Besides, I’m not afraid of Kerstan,” she replied as her fingers continued to weave my hair together.

“Margit? What, um... what’s your story?” I asked nervously. We weren’t allowed to talk about our pasts, and even though she was being kind to me at the moment, I didn’t trust her still. If she went off and told Kerstan that I had asked her such a forbidden thing, chances were I’d wind up wherever the hell it was that he took Betje.

“My story?” she asked curiously.

“You know, about how you wound up here,” I said.

Margit’s hands hesitated. I could feel her sudden apprehension. I understood though. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust me (at least I don’t think) it was that she didn’t trust this entire situation.

I reached my hands back and undid the braid. I got off of the bed and dropped to my knees, feeling underneath the box spring. When my hand closed around the small rectangular box, I grinned and pulled it out from underneath. I opened the box of cigarettes and pulled one out. I offered one to Margit, but she shook her head. With a shrug, I lit the cigarette and sat on Betje’s old bed, one leg up, eyeing Margit.

“Listen, if you’re going to tell Kerstan that I asked you that, you might as well tell him about the cigarettes too. Hell, you should probably go tell him now so he can catch me in the act,” I said with a smirk.

“I wasn’t going to tell him. I just don’t want to get talking about things that are forbidden,” she replied uncomfortably.

“This entire fucking life is forbidden,” I replied with a dry laugh. I placed the cigarette between my lips and lit it, inhaling deeply.

We sat there silently for a moment as I flicked ashes onto the floor. I glanced out the window that sat behind Betje’s bed and wondered if she was out there somewhere in the busy city of Amsterdam.

“Did you love her?” Margit asked softly.

“No.”

I inhaled deeply again and flicked more ashes onto the floor.

“Then why did you do all that? Purposely degrade the others with words?” she asked.

“Because she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a best friend.”

I blew out a small succession of smoke rings and watched the last one drift into the window. I chuckled slightly and turned my attention back to Margit.

“I’ll tell you my story then. There was this boy that I loved. Well, he was a man, but for all intents and purposes of poetic love, I’ll call him a boy.” Inhale. Exhale smoke rings. Ash on the floor. “So anyway, I didn’t know what love was until Theo. That was his name, by the way, Theo. Could be because he caught me early on in my life. We were teenagers when we met, high school kids. Early on high school kids. I had suffered a substantial trauma for a consecutive number of years before I met him and I remembered how big and strong he looked to me and how I felt like he could protect me from it ever happening to me again. I had decided that I wanted him; not as a lover at first, but as a bodyguard of sorts. Of course, I didn’t tell him that until after the first time we fucked. See, by that point I was already in love with him. His arms were the safest place to be and his kisses always tasted like wild honeysuckle. His lips and eyes were always soft, and he never once raised his voice to me in anger. I needed that more than anything and I like to think that he needed me more than anything.”

I cleared my throat and looked back out the window, hoping she wouldn’t see the single tear that was rolling down my cheek.

“Lieve? You don’t have to tell me anymore if you don’t want too,” she said softly.

“I know,” I replied wiping away the tear and taking another drag of my cigarette. “But now that I’ve started, I want to finish.”

“Go on,” she said in a comforting voice.

I smiled at her briefly, “I fucked up. Plain and simple. But it wasn’t because I wanted too; it was because I
had
to. See that trauma I was talking about? It started when I was about seven years old and lasted until I was eleven because that’s when puberty hit. She was my piano teacher; yes I said
she.
” I took a deep shaky breath and closed my eyes tightly. “She taught me how to use my fingers on the piano and then she used her fingers on
me.
For four fucking years, that bitch would sexually abuse me every time I went to piano lessons and told me that if I ever told my parents, they would hate me forever and then I would have to live with her. And I believed her. So imagine my surprise about twelve years later when Theo and I are at an art gala reception in Woodland Hills and the “artist” just so happens to be
her.
Oh and the best part? She didn’t recognize me but apparently had been a friend of Theo’s family for years. That kind of set me of off into my downward spiral. He didn’t know of course, because I never told him that it was her. I mean, he knew what had happened to me and he knew that a woman had done those things to me, but never did I tell him who it was. I know it sounds really fucked up that I was raped by a woman, but it’s what
did
happen to me and it’s what
does
happen to some girls. And now here I am.”

I threw the cigarette onto the floor and used the bottom of my pack to crush it out. I picked up the butt and stuck into my pack, using my feet to kick away the ashes. As long as I remembered to put the cigarettes back into their hiding place, Kerstan wouldn’t be able to prove that I was smoking in here even in he could smell it. Fresh tears rolled down my face again and I irritably wiped them away.

“I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically.

“For what? Because I’m crying? Don’t think I’m shedding a single tear for what happened to me as a kid. I’m not a pity me type of girl. The tears happen whenever I think of Theo. Whether I want them to or not,” I explained getting to my feet.

I walked over to the closet that we kept our “work clothes” in and opened one of the doors. I reached toward the back and jimmied one of the panels until it slid over and I was able to reach in further to grab what I was looking for. Moments later, I was dressed in an off the shoulder t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. I pulled on a pair of silver reflecting Ray Ban sunglasses and stuffed the cigarette pack into my back pocket.

“Can you hand me the shoes underneath my bed please?” I asked Margit. “Just pull up the panel and reach in.”

She stared at me for a moment. I knew what she was thinking; that I had special privileges, but the truth of the matter was that I became a genius at hiding all of this shit and an even bigger genius at making myself feel like I was alive on the days that Kerstan wasn’t on the property. I rolled my eyes at her suspicious glance and went over to my bed and grabbed my shoes, before setting the panel back and slid them on.

“I’m going out into the gardens for a bit. Do you want to come with me?” I asked her.

She shook her head slightly and went back to her side of the room. I watched her silently wondering if she had plans of ratting me out, but I stopped caring as quickly as I began to wonder.

I walked out of the door without so much as a backwards glance. If Margit wanted to stay in the stale room that smelled like sweat, fear, and the occasional cigarette, that was her problem.

I left her in the room and walked quickly down the empty hall. We were located on the third floor which made the staircase an impossible option, so I learned how to open the window at the end of the hall and lean out the opening toward the giant tree that grazed against the home. I shimmied my way down to the freshly cut green grass and ran toward the gardens. If Kerstan wasn’t here, which I prayed he wasn’t, then I would have at least an hour outside.

My favorite spot was a stone bench that sat in the shady side that was home to the multicolored pansies. They were small and beautiful and made me the happiest.

I pulled my cigarette pack out of my pocket and placed it between my lips. I leaned my head back and soaked up the peeking rays of the sun, inhaling the scent of the gardens deeply, before lighting the end and putting the lighter back into the pack, before setting it next to me on the bench.

Flicking the first round of ashes onto the ground, I reached under my sunglasses and gingerly ran the tips of my fingers over my left eye.
At least it doesn’t hurt anymore.

I’ll never know what got into me that day that I was out in the gardens, and I’ll never know for sure just how long I was asleep on the bench. The only thing I knew for sure was that after Kerstan came back from wherever the hell it was that he went, and found me asleep
outside
of all places, I was in deep shit.

As for Margit ... I never saw her again.

F
our days and two new girls later, I was sitting at the large banquet table inside the home. My face was almost completely normal again and Kerstan decided to let us all stay in for the evening so we could get to know each other. I couldn’t help but chuckle at this ludicrous dinner. As per custom, we were all topless while he entered the room wearing a baby blue dress shirt, a black vest, and black slacks. And shiny black, obviously expensive, shoes. Even his tie was black and all I could think about besides the fact that we looked like a fucking gangbang waiting to happen, was that if I could get close enough, I could probably choke him to death with that tie.

But I relented and instead sat there with my elbows on the table, and my chin in my hands. The other girls sat around looking completely nervous as he sat down.

“Etiquette, Lieve,” he said as he unfolded his napkin.

“Seriously Kerstan? I’m here to fuck whoever you tell me to so you can get your money back. I’m pretty sure they don’t give a shit about my table manners,” I replied rolling my eyes.

He stared at me for a moment, a small sinister smile crossing his lips. “They may not, but I do. Elbows off the table.”

“Or else what? You’ll punch me in the face again? Get rid of another girl that I started to become friends with? Get rid of me, perhaps? No. No, you
wouldn’t
get rid of me because you know how much money I bring in for you. Speaking of which, so the new girls here know that you play fair, tell me again, how many more fucks do I owe you before I get out of this hellhole?” I asked defiantly.

Kerstan set his napkin down on his lap neatly before folding his hands in front of him looking at me in amusement. I could feel the tension and smell the fear on the other girls. I personally knew that he wouldn’t do much more to me because that would keep me out of his book and I’m sure that my regular “clients” had been requesting my company.

“Lieve, why do you test me?” he asked.