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“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had.”
“Do you have a better one?”
“Pray about it,” said Bee helpfully.
Tanya sighed, more from guilt than her best friend’s suggestion. She felt bad dragging Bee into her story tonight. Bee was a Christian and what Tanya was about to do violated her beliefs on basically all levels.
“I can get you the money,” said Bee.
Tanya knew what that meant. “You are not going to steal for me,” she told Bee firmly.
“It’s my husband’s money. It isn’t technically stealing.”
“You know damn well he won’t see it that way, and it’s still a sin.”
Bee bit her lip; checkmate. “It doesn’t matter,” she decided. “Tanya, this is worse than stealing. It’s selling your soul.”
“All you have to do is drive me home, okay?”
“ No! Listen to me, Tanya— don’t think about the money. Durk makes a lot of money. I’m sure he wouldn’t even notice.”
“Well then take that money and get a lawyer so you can divorce his abusive ass.”
Bee stiffened. “We’ve been talking to our pastor. There hasn’t been an incident in weeks.”
“I’m just saying, you have options–”
“I don’t,” Bee snapped.
Tanya knew it was Bee’s business at the end of the day, but she had to say something. How could Bee still defend the man who put her in the hospital for overcooking chicken wings? Bee was out here living like it was 1942.
Hell, like it was 1842.
Tanya said in a gentler voice, “You can stay with me ‘til you get on your feet. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“It’s been getting better, Tanya. A lot better.”
From her place in the passenger’s seat Tanya could see the inside of her best friend’s wrists. It did not look like it was getting better.
“You want me to shoot him?” she offered helpfully.
Bee sighed. “I can’t believe you talked me into doing this. You’re sellin’ your body. It’s a sin, not to mention dangerous. We’re not even supposed to be on this side of town like that.”
Bee had a point, but all her logic didn’t change the fact that Tanya needed a thousand dollars by tomorrow— or at least half of that. She could negotiate with half. Probably.
Anyway, what was worse? Selling her soul for one night, or losing Amari forever?
“Let’s not fight about it,” Tanya said quickly. “Just come pick me up at midnight like we agreed.”
Bee caught her hand and squeezed it. Her large eyes shone with concern and caring. She was shaking, just like Tanya. “Be careful my sister,” she whispered.
“I will. What you scared for? You know me!” Tanya’s fake laugh didn’t fool either of them. Well, here it was. She took a deep breath and opened the car door. She stepped out in the gravel lot, slinging her little purse over her shoulder. Shoulders back. Look confident. Look like you don’t care…like it’s nothing to you. What am I doing? What am I doing? Think about the money. Think about a thousand dollars. Think about Amari, lost and cold somewhere. Crying for me. What if he’s dead? What if I’m doing this for nothing?
She faltered, but when Tanya decided on something she was not the type to quit. She walked straight into the place and asked the young white bartender for a man named Mister Eugene. As soon as she spoke those magic words and the world behind her disappeared.
After staring at her for a full ten seconds in gaping silence the boy went to get Mister Eugene. The owner of the Turnkey came out a minute later, wiping his hands on a dirty towel. Mister Eugene looked mean as a snake, and he was. Tanya knew he took a cut off any business that passed inside his walls. They had never met before, but he seemed familiar to Tanya. That type of man was always the same; skin color didn’t matter.
Mister Eugene looked Tanya up and down. His lips were fat and fishlike. “What do you want here?”
“My name is Tee,” said Tanya, her voice bending all over the place. “I’m here to work.”
“To work,” he repeated.
“J-Just until midnight,” she said, clenching her trembling hand around the strap of her bag.
“Sure,” he said. “Midnight.” Scratching his belly and still staring at her like he wanted to laser-beam her dress off with his eyes, Mister Eugene grunted, “You’re early, so you get the throne. Right here. Best spot in the house.”
“Okay.”
“Remember the house gets…forty percent.”
“ Forty ?”
“Remember that. Don’t think of cheatin’ me, or it’ll be your hide.” The man fished in his apron for a key, which he handed to Tanya. It was slick with something– better not imagine what.
“You get room three,” he said. “No drugs, but you can smoke.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t hear a thank you.”
“Thank you,” Tanya forced out.
Mister Eugene finally smiled. It was the ugliest smile Tanya had ever seen in her life. “If you do well you can come back next Friday,” he said.
“Okay,” replied Tanya through a very dry throat. Tonight, money came before pride.
She took a seat at the bar, relieved when Mister Eugene thumped back through the kitchen doors. She hated to think what they were cooking up back there. The smell of cigarettes out where she was sitting was only a little bit better.
About three dozen people were crowded into the Turnkey and more were on the way. The night was still young as the summer. On the right Friday, a body might be packed in here shoulder-to-shoulder, wall to wall.
There were men with goatees and mohawks, men with mullets and long, stringy beards. Some wore biker vests, others hunched in workman flannels, and some had on construction jeans and boots and filthy T-shirts, every one of them drinking, and drinking hard.
People shuffled in and out of the swinging lattice doors, a mix of men and women. The men were starting to take notice of her already. Tanya pretended not to notice they were taking notice. She knew she had to smile and beckon somebody over. But she didn’t want to smile. She wanted to sink through the floor. She was going to faint. Between her legs hurt and she hadn’t even opened them yet.
“Miss, you want a drink?”
The bartender was just a couple years younger than Tanya and he had a kind face.
She cupped her ear. “What?”
“What will you be havin?” the kid gulped. “First drink is free for workin’ girls.”
“I want a whiskey with hot water and lemon, please,” she whispered.
He stared at her. “Is you sick?”
“Can you make it or not?”
“Sure, I’s can make it.” He looked like the kid from that Ratatouille movie she had seen with Amari the other day.
“Here you go,” said the bartender, setting the drink before her.
“You put cloves in the lemon?”
“My granny likes it that way.”
“Thanks.” Why did I think this was a good idea?
“You’re some pretty for a— you’re some pretty,” the kid blundered in a burst of bravery. “If I had my money right, you wouldn’t have to sit there.”
Tanya was about to reply when a large man shoved his bulk into the seat next to hers. He smelled rank, like sweat and cigarettes. Tanya tried to put Amari’s face in her mind. She tried to be strong, for Amari.
“You lookin’ to get fucked tonight?” the monster breathed in her ear. “I can make it worth your while.”
Tanya shut her eyes and prayed she would remember nothing in the morning.
By the time Saverin got to the Turnkey, getting drunk had become his top priority. But the minute he walked up the gravel parking lot a passel of his cousins forestalled him.
“Woah there, it’s Bailey.”
“Saverin!”
“That can’t be Saverin.”
“It’s him— see his face?”
Saverin returned the niceties even as his heart wished them all at the bottom of a mine. They stared openly at the bubbly, destroyed flesh on the left side of his head.
One of the more senior McCalls elbowed forward. “Saverin. How are you holding up?”
“Dandy,” said Saverin. Everyone was looking at him like a bomb about to go off.
“Sorry about it, Saverin.”
“Bad stuff, Saverin.”
“Takin’ it easy, Saverin?”
“The good book says,” the older cousin rumbled, “That there’s a time for everything. A time to laugh, a time to weep–”
Saverin jerked his thumb towards the Turnkey. “What’s going down tonight?” he interrupted. “Good spot?” Would they let me take a room? Would they mind scrubbing my brains off the walls?
“Music is good. Eugene’s got a girl working,” a more helpful cousin replied.
Interesting. He hadn’t considered having a woman tonight, but perhaps…
“She pretty?” Saverin grunted.
They all looked at each other, then snickered at some inside joke. “Not my type,” growled the older McCall, who hadn’t laughed at all. “Eugene should know better, but there’s bound to be some creatures that would sink low enough for such.”
Saverin put up his brows at the man’s tone. “That bad, is she?”
“See for yourself.” The McCall cleared his throat. “I understand your cousins, Roman, Rebel, have their preferences, but I myself…”
Someone put a beer in Saverin’s hand. He opened it. What the fuck was the man jawing about? Nevermind; maybe he didn’t want a woman. Eugene sometimes got a pretty one, but clearly not tonight. Saverin remembered an ugly story about a high school girl from the Back Hills that worked here one night, and a week later one of her customers shot her dead, claiming she’d given him HIV. This was a shitty place. Nobody in the upper ranks of the clan ever came here.
“Any Green Trees lurkin’?” Saverin rasped. Maybe he could still have some fun. The Green Trees and Snatch Hills had killed his brother. They would pay for it. All of them.
The older McCall passed an uneasy look to the others, then turned back to Saverin and said gravely, “Don’t pick no fights here tonight.”
Saverin said, “Or what?”
“Or I’ll have to stop you,” the man said.
What’s this fucker’s name again? Elian? Elijah?
“Is that a fact?” Saverin said in a way that made everyone else go quiet.
But the older cousin had the pig-headed streak of the McCalls. “Remember we called a truce, Bailey. I know the Green Trees and the Snatches are responsible for what happened to your brother, but I have to make sure the law’s upheld according to Roman’s wishes.”
Roman’s wishes. It’s Roman, Roman, everything.
“That halfbreed ain’t no cousin of mine,” Saverin sneered. “And you can tell him I said it.”
Everybody gaped at him.
“Those are fighting words,” sputtered his cousin.
Saverin crushed the now-empty beer can and tossed it in the bed of his truck.“You boys sliding?”he demanded of the others. Cue a chorus of awkward replies.
“Naw, we’ll be here a minute.”
“Shoot straight, Saverin.”
“Good to see you, Saverin.”
The older cousin eyed him narrowly. No doubt the man would give Roman a play-by-play. Let him.
Sounds of reckless carousing danced out into the night from the doors of the Turnkey. Demolition awaited. Without another word Saverin turned and left his cousins, the demon in his heart chanting for blood.
His name was Poncey. He was old as hell and he talked like she was a slave girl he just found at the auction. Right now he was chatting up with his friends at the pool table, probably bragging about what he was about to do to her. She had a minute left before he came back and took their business upstairs. Of course, she could always walk away. Run. Never return.
She felt dirty and humiliated and the man hadn’t even touched her yet. How did girls do this shit every day? Her hand shook as she raised another whiskey-lemon to her lips. Fuck this, fuck this shit for real. Maybe she could get a little more drunk…No, she needed to leave. Now. She needed to get away from this place. But if she left, she knew she’d never see her son again.
I don’t want to do this…I don’t want to do this…I should have just gone to the strip club. Why did I let Gwen make me think this was gonna be a come-up? That girl is never right about anything!
“Miss, you okay?” The bartender asked.
“I’m fine.”
The kid leaned over the bar. He seemed nice.“S-seemed like you was fixin’ to cry, is all.”
“You might need your eyes checked, baby.”
The boy went bright red though she didn’t mean anything by it. She called everybody baby.
I should have just robbed somebody like him and called it a day.
At that moment a shadow darkened the bar. Tanya shut her eyes…but the smell that washed over her wasn’t Poncey’s. It was cedar and tobacco and hay, something deep and male that made her eyes flutter open.
“I’ll have two whiskeys,” the giant man said, leaning over the bar on one arm. His voice sounded damaged and rough. “Neat.”
“Yes sir.”
“You see any Green Trees here?” the man asked.
“W-we don’t want trouble here, Mister Bailey,” the kid replied nervously, eyes darting back towards the kitchens. “Eugene told me to tell you that. He said he saw you in the parking lot with those other McCalls, and he said if y’all was to come in here tryin’ to poke the hornets’ nest that I was to do everything in my power to s-stop you.”
“And how would you stop me?” Came the amused reply.
The boy gulped.
“Hurry up with the whiskey, son.”
The boy stepped to it, and “Mister Bailey” turned to Tanya.
Damn, what’s wrong with his face?
“You sick?” He asked her.
“What?”
He nudged her whiskey-lemon-clove mixture with a finger. The steam moved with it.
“It’s just what I like.”
The other side is fine. I wonder what happened. He smells nice.
“It’s a good night for hot whiskey, I suppose.”
“A good night for a lot of things,” said Tanya.
Saverin didn’t know what to think.
The girl was fresh as a violet, her skin dark as stained mahogany wood, and her eyes spellbindingly enormous. No matter his own prejudice, the girl was gorgeous, not to mention she was shaped like a damned coke bottle...
The Turnkey used to be strictly for whites. But these days folks were loosening up across the mountain. Not Saverin, though. The McCalls might be running wild with these women, but Saverin held to the old ways.
Right?
I’d be better off with a blonde.
“ Go back to your side, chocolate.” His attraction to her was disturbing. What was happening here?
“I’m not your chocolate, redneck.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Fuck you.” Her husky voice sent a tremor up his neck. A tattoo on her right breast read Amari in cursive letters . She looked ready to throw the drink in his face.
“You know this place don’t cater to your kind.”
“They let me in,” she argued.
“I guess they did.” Saverin leaned on the bar, turning his whiskey glass around. Why not…What is there to lose?
“You got a boyfriend?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I might have had to whup his ass, that’s what.”
Her lips pursed with anger.
“Who’s with her, Sparks?” Saverin asked the bartender.
“Fella in the red bandana,” came the high-pitched answer.
“Don’t talk like I’m not sittin’ right here,” the girl said, but he ignored her.
Saverin discovered the gentleman in question — none other than Poncey Jones. There was a story about Poncey and his wife. Not a good story.
The man locked eyes with Saverin. His mouth opened in protest as he saw what was happening. But did he want smoke over it? Not with Saverin Bailey. He turned away, grumbling.
Saverin turned his attention back on the girl he now had all to himself. “How about a drink, darlin’?”
The girl moved to grab her purse but Saverin was faster, wrapping his hand around the strap.
“You’re here by yourself, chocolate?”
“Don’t call me chocolate!”
He released her bag, and in the next moment her gaze fell on his watch. Sometimes people missed it. The Patek Phillipe had been in his family for thirty years and at first glance it looked its age and nothing more.
“Is Bailey…your last name?” She asked in a very different tone of voice. She set her glass back down on the counter, clack! She had slim, delicate fingers. Natural beauty. Delicate, feminine…but strong.
Saverin turned to Sparks. “You ever heard of a lime daiquiri?”
The little squirt curled up his nose in offense. “We only serve drinks in English, sir.”
“You got the stuff to make it right behind you.”
“It’s got lime in it?” The boy said hesitantly.
Saverin walked the boy through it, and at the end a pale green icy drink crossed the bar, darker mint leaves suspended in sweet juicy slush. She wiped the rim with the tip of her ring finger before taking a sip herself. The delicate feminine gesture set his heart racing queerly.
“It’s nice,” she said, sipping. “Okay…That’s real good.”
“Not too much rum, is it?”
“No…”
The Turnkey doors opened. Saverin looked out the corner of his eye, but it was just a biker and his girl. Calm down.
His blood still pumped hot for a real fight. Part of him hoped a Snatch Hill would come in and he could have a fight. But another part of him wanted to go upstairs and fuck this girl until he couldn’t stand.
The last girl he had was his ex, Hildy. A blue-eyed blonde who loved horses and baking and Jesus but absolutely hated sex.
Hildy made such a display of herself at Sam’s funeral that what Saverin had long suspected became obvious to everyone who witnessed. And if it wasn’t obvious then, it was certainly clear when in the middle of the wake she bawled at Saverin, face flushed from the wine she had been quaffing,“It was supposed to be you…”
The rumor mill went crazy over that. Some darkly speculated he’d even killed off Sam out of jealousy.
But that was in the past…
“You good?” The girl asked, putting a hand on his arm.
Oh, christ.
“Sorry,” he said.
Yeah. He was feeling something—a hot and sizzling little spark he wanted to chase into a dark corner upstairs.
“It ain’t polite, what I’m thinking.”
She started drinking down the daiquiri even faster. He found her eyes captivating. Like two dark pools in the deep forest, glittering quartz at the bottom. Her skin was so dark, like rich velvet, glowing red in the dirty light above them. Her hair was dense, no two of them tight little curls alike. She had a heart- shaped face with a button nose that wrinkled every time she took a sip from her glass. Her eyes were huge, the lashes short but curled. Those lips…Huge. Soft. Sexy. Wrapped around his dick.
These days more women were joining the world’s oldest profession.
She just didn’t seem like the type…Why was she really here? Did it matter? He wanted her.
Saverin put his hand on her knee.She stiffened and he wondered if he had misjudged, but then she put her hand on top of his and squeezed. Saverin rubbed her deep brown skin with his thumb.
Her eyes traveled over his face, resting on the destroyed side. He knew she could see the network of scar tissue and ruined flesh that several expensive surgeries had tried to hide. He’d been lucky to keep most of his vision. Saverin had never been vain about his looks, but in that moment he wished he had not lost them.
“Did it hurt?” Was all she asked.
Yep. “No,” he said. “Want to go somewhere more private?”
She nodded.
A word to the bartender, and Saverin and his “date” were going upstairs, her small hand tucked into his.
“Which door?” He grunted. He’d come here once a long time ago.
“Three,” she said. She pulled out the key.
“Hold on,” he said, and pulled her in for a kiss.
Her lips were soft and she tasted of that strawberry candy with the gooey center. He shoved up against the doorframe, sucking her juicy lips into his mouth while his hands felt up her heavy, soft titties. All he wanted was to bury himself inside her; he’d pay anything.
Downstairs someone put Blue Moon of Kentucky into the jukebox.
“Damn,” she moaned.
“What?”
“You smell good.”
So did she, Saverin thought, dragging down the strap of her dress. The girl smelled like a strawberry field. Or maybe…grass. Wine. Berries. It was actually heaven. “Red dress, red heels, red panties…God-damn,” he muttered.
“How you seein’ all that in the dark? Oh!” She gasped. Saverin had slipped his fingers under her thong to stroke her pussy.
Yes.
“Open that door,” he said.
She turned and pushed the key into the lock with shaking hands. Nevermind, fuck the door. He teased his thumb inside her and pulled her back gently against his chest.
“You like that?”
They were in the hallway where anybody could see…She melted all over his palm. “Please..”
Lust, Saverin thought. Living lust. I’m alive…Damn she’s fucking stacked. That’s right, bounce on it…You’ll get the whole cock real soon. You can take all of him, right sugar? Not gonna back out on the first inch…Make it go away, make everything disappear for me but this…
Only when her thighs clamped together and she bit on her lip to stop moaning out loud did he remove one arm from her waist and slide his fingers out of her grippy pussy in one slushy motion. She fell back against the door, breathing hard and trying to push down her tight dress. Saverin’s lust-addled brain told him that before it went any further they needed to talk business.
Tanya gulped in air, her head spinning, her breasts heavy and tight. This is crazy. She wasn’t supposed to feel anything but shame. But here she was, letting this man play her like a fiddle. Every part of her wanted him to keep going but she knew it had to stop. They had to discuss money first— and maybe he knew that, since he was the one who had stepped away while she lost control under the spell of his kissing like she wasn’t here just to take his money and go.
The man grabbed his dick through his jeans, staring down at her with bottle green eyes, the left one shining brighter than the right in the deep shadows of scar tissue.