Ribbons (21 page)

Adam was afraid to open his mouth. This guy sounded seriously disturbed, and Adam didn’t want to make him mad.

His mouth opened anyway. “Who-hath-cut-a-channel-for-the-torrents-of-rain-and-a-path-for-the-thunderstorm.”

And it
did
make the man mad. “I know what you’re trying to do!” He pulled something from a pocket, and suddenly there was a knife hovering a few inches from Adam’s nose. “It’s not gonna work. I’m almost there.”

The man must have cut himself when he pulled out the knife because Adam saw blood starting to seep through his shirt down by his ribs. Adam clenched his jaw tight and then slowly lifted a finger to point to the man’s chest.

As the man looked down, more blood spread across his shirt. At first it just looked like a shapeless splotch, but then a red line crept up his body in a curving pattern. The line spiraled, crossed over itself, and split off in a different direction. The man’s eyes widened, and he dropped his music box to grab at his chest. He started to scream, but it was cut off.

And then Adam was staring at the wall of his clubhouse. The tremors were leaving his hand, and the world snapped back into place. The line he had started drawing now filled the wall, but the ink from the pen must have run dry because the last pattern was barely visible. The scream still echoed in his ears, and Adam wondered if maybe it had come from his own mouth.

29

The first bottle of wine had been almost empty when Christy arrived. Now Erica was finishing off the second. Christy had only refilled her glass once, and it was still half-full. It was late in the afternoon, which meant Erica was up pretty early. It also meant that she was having wine for breakfast. Christy wasn’t sure why. It didn’t seem to be cheering her up at all. And she certainly wasn’t drinking to forget.

“I miss her,” said Erica.

It wasn’t the first time she had said that since Christy had sat down with her. They were in Erica’s living room. Christy had only been there once before, but that was for a party, and it had been so crowded that she’d barely noticed the furniture. Now, with just the two of them, it looked like Erica had flipped through a furniture catalog until she found a living room she liked and just ordered everything on the page. It was nice and elegant, but it didn’t really feel like a home.

“It’s only been a couple days,” said Christy. At first she had tried to distract Erica with gossip, hoping to get her mind off the breakup. It had worked for a while, but now it seemed like they were back at square one. Erica obviously had something she needed to work through.

“It feels longer,” said Erica. “Especially with all that’s been going on.”

Christy took a sip from her glass.
Time to dig into it,
she supposed. “Did she say why?”

“I’m sure it’s partially the stress of trying to track down that psycho,” said Erica. “But mainly it’s me. I’m not what she wants anymore. Not what she needs.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“She pretty much said it to my face. And I was too high to do anything about it.”

Aha. So, this was depression mixed with
guilt
. Christy knew about the drugs—all the girls knew. It had been pretty obvious. But it hadn’t been a problem for months.

She remembered when Erica had first started at the Golden Delicious. It hadn’t seemed like she was going to be there long, which was what most of the girls told themselves when they started. That wasn’t a bad thing. But Erica hadn’t been looking for some quick money. She had been looking for the next step up, whatever that was. She had tried out porn for a while and even released a couple of videos, but she didn’t get along with the people she was working with. From what Christy had heard, Erica tended to go “off script” a lot and made people bleed when they weren’t supposed to. So that didn’t last too long.

Erica went out with people who had a lot of money, but she never stayed with anyone for long. Either she got bored or they got hurt. She had never considered any of those relationships serious, and it didn’t seem like she wanted to find somebody to take care of her. Not even Dani apparently.

Erica wasn’t actually that great at seduction. She
was
excellent at branding, and she had quickly made a name for herself. If you wanted to be tied up and whipped in Las Vegas, you went to Erica. Which was great for business at the Golden Delicious. Some guys saw her as a celebrity, and she seemed to enjoy the attention. She put a lot of effort into her costumes and routines. You always got a different flavor of Erica each time you visited.

The drugs were a problem, of course. They got her into a lot of parties, and she met some powerful people, but they also dragged her down. She never seemed to focus on any one project for very long. She wasn’t able to build anything, and she didn’t have anybody to keep her on track. Except for Uncle Quent.

“Oh,” said Christy. “I thought you quit.”

Erica couldn’t meet her eyes. “Quent was helping me.”

“Maybe I could help? Or Matt?”

“Matt? Didn’t we just spend the last hour making fun of him?”

“He’s not so bad,” said Christy. “You heard about the clubhouse out back?”

“Yeah,” said Erica. “I’m sure it’s strictly ‘no girls allowed.’”

“Well, we
do
have cooties,” said Christy.

Erica smiled a little at that. “True.” The smile didn’t last long and vanished altogether after her next sip of wine.

Christy leaned over and put her hand on Erica’s. “You should call her.”

“She told me not to.”

Christy gave her a knowing look. “Which means?”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.”

“You should try tonight.”

Erica stared into her wine for a few seconds.

“Fine,” she said. “Tell Matt I may not be in. Either I’ll be having make-up sex or I’ll be too depressed to work.”

“Okay,” said Christy. “But if things don’t work out, it might be good to be around other people. Plus, you could take out some frustration in the VIP room. And get paid for it.”

“Sure,” said Erica. She drained what was left in her glass.

Christy wasn’t convinced that Erica would follow through, but there wasn’t much else she could say without calling her an addict. Maybe a better friend would have done just that. The truth was, they weren’t that close.

Christy set down her glass and stood up. “I should head out. My shift is starting soon, and I promised Adam I’d pick up dinner.”

Erica stood up with her. “Well, thanks for stopping by.”

Christy started to say something but stopped when Erica reached out and hugged her. It felt strange, coming from her, but it also felt sincere.

“I should be a better friend,” said Erica. “I can be.”

“I know,” said Christy.

It was almost dark as she started driving back home. She could see the lights of the Strip in her rearview mirror. People had high expectations when they saw those lights. This was supposed to be the place where you could cut loose and be the person who you usually hid away from the rest of the world. It made it hard to live here, though. You got used to seeing those hidden people everywhere. Fantasy made flesh. It was like living in an amusement park. If you weren’t having a good time, people didn’t want to be around you.

Christy had lost herself in that fantasy for a while. She’d become an adult too soon. Instead of finishing high school, she’d learned about diapers and breast pumps. Her mom had helped out, but she also needed to work to support all three of them. Her anger and frustration with Christy had vanished the moment she held Adam in her arms. It had returned, however, when Christy started acting like a teenager again.

Christy hadn’t gone to her high school prom. Nobody had asked her, of course. She didn’t regret it. At the time, she hadn’t wanted to run the risk of seeing Dwayne. Dwayne, whose life hadn’t changed at all because he’d chosen not to let it change. She had tried to stay in touch with her high school friends, though. They invited her out after graduation even though she hadn’t been part of the ceremony. A girls’ night out. One of them knew the DJ at a club, and they got in without ID. It was awkward. Her friends didn’t know how to talk to her anymore. Christy wanted it to be like it was before she had gotten pregnant, but it wasn’t. They kept asking her about being a mother.

What’s it like to have a kid?

How much did it hurt to give birth?

Should you really be drinking that cosmo?

Luckily, it had been hard to talk much at the club anyway. Christy lost herself in the music and the bodies dancing up against each other. It felt good not to think. So, she didn’t think when the guy she was dancing with took her hand and led her out the door. There was a limo waiting outside, and it sounded like a good idea to go for a ride in it. Even sex had sounded like a good idea, until it was over.

It
felt
fine. It had been her first time since she had given birth, but that had been six months before. Instead of feeling utterly relaxed afterward, she felt anxious. She got dressed immediately, and the guy lying in the bed didn’t seem surprised at all. He leaned over the edge of the mattress to pick up his pants. Instead of putting them on, he fished his wallet out of a pocket. He thanked her, and handed her something. She thought it was money for a cab ride home. When she walked into the hotel lobby she saw it was a lot more. Five one-hundred-dollar bills.

He must’ve made a mistake. She started to head back to the elevator. He had been a nice enough guy. Quite a bit older than she was. Maybe he had just wanted sex, but that’s all she’d wanted, too. She stopped walking as the doors slid open. It wasn’t a mistake somebody would make. She let the doors slide close again. He had
paid
her. Her first reaction was to laugh. She ended up crying all the way home in the back of the cab.

Two years later, her mother had passed away. Acute heart failure. She was taken to the hospital on Wednesday. By Friday, Christy was living alone with Adam. Her mother left her everything she had, but they were renting, and the money had only lasted through the end of the year. And she still hadn’t called Dwayne. They had to move into a smaller place, and Christy found a job as a cocktail waitress at a casino. With tips, it was enough to live on.

When Adam had his first seizure, Christy had to take off so much time that she lost her job. She had put the hospital bill on a credit card. When he had his second seizure, her credit card had been declined. That’s when she had finally called Dwayne. Who was a complete ass. She tried to explain what was going on, but he had refused to listen. He went on about how he was with somebody else now and how he had debt of his own to worry about. She hung up on him when he accused
her
of taking Adam away from him.

Adam had been three and a half at the time, but he could tell that something was wrong. He brought her a Band-Aid after she’d hung up the phone because she was crying. It made her cry harder, which made him start crying. They held each other until the tears stopped. Adam was laughing again in half an hour.

Christy had hired a babysitter that same night. She’d gone out and come home with five one-hundred-dollar bills. That was six years ago.

Now, she wondered if she should be looking at other options. Dwayne was back in their lives. She didn’t know what had changed for him, but he seemed genuinely interested in how they were doing. He had offered to help out with the hospital bills several times, and last time she had let him. With Quent gone, now might be the right time to make a change. Matt seemed to be doing the best he could, but he was mixed up in something way over his head. He couldn’t control things the way Quent had been able to, and she didn’t want to put Adam in the middle of any fallout. Too bad. Matt seemed to get along naturally with Adam, where Dwayne had to work at it.

Her stomach growled. She might actually get a burger for herself tonight. Normally that wasn’t a good idea on a work night, but then again, neither was a growling stomach. She needed something to start soaking up the wine. She figured she should get an extra burger for Matt while she was at it. He was pretty bad about feeding himself. And she wanted him to be in a good mood if Erica did decide to come in.

30

Erica rolled the brass cylinder between her fingers. It felt heavier than it looked. The oil from her thumb left a faint fingerprint on the casing. She tipped it over and let the powder pour out. It was so fine that wisps of it lingered in the air as the rest tumbled down into the water. That was the last one. The box was empty. She pushed the lever and flushed away a thousand dollars’ worth of bliss and suffering.

She knew she had to do it before calling Dani. If not, she would probably end up getting high all night. Odds were that Dani wouldn’t even pick up the phone, but she might answer just long enough to tell Erica to go fuck herself. If that happened, she would end up emptying the box anyway. On the off chance that Dani stayed on the line long enough to have a conversation, Erica didn’t really know what she was going to say. She would start with
I’m sorry
, and then see where things went.

Talking with Christy had helped. Erica had always admired her. She never hid who she was, even when she was with a customer. Erica could never put that much of herself out there. She was still trying to figure out who she wanted to be. It was hard to settle on just one life. Erica was happy trying on a different face every day. The problem with not knowing who you were was that nobody else did, either.

She tossed the bullet casings in the trash and sat down in front of her laptop. Maybe she would just check in on her news feed before giving Dani a call. She was procrastinating, but that didn’t stop her from logging in. When she heard the knock at the door she felt a rush of guilt and embarrassment, like she had just been caught masturbating. It was probably Christy. Erica looked around for something she might have forgotten. After a quick glance, she didn’t see anything so she pulled out her phone. She could pretend that she was just about to give Dani a call.

She held the phone up in front of her as she opened the door. “Did you forget something? I was just about to—”

It wasn’t Christy.

The man in the hallway looked familiar, but Erica couldn’t quite put a name to the face. The wine might have something to do with that. She didn’t think he was a client. That was good. She never worked out of her apartment so if he was a client, that would make him a stalker, too. And she was in no condition to deal with a stalker. Maybe he was a lost delivery guy.

“Oh,” said Erica. “I didn’t order anything.”

“Good,” said the man.

He held something out to her. Was he selling something? She looked down in time to see a spark crackle between two bright metal studs.

She felt her body jerk on its own. Then darkness.

* * *

When she opened her eyes again, everything was blurry. As things started to come into focus, she realized she was on the floor. She must have passed out or something. Someone was standing over her. He looked concerned. He held something in his hand. When she recognized what it was, everything came rushing back to her. She wanted to move but all her muscles seized up. She managed to lift her hand off the ground, and she got her foot to move a few inches.

The man looked down at her and smiled. “Hi. I’m really sorry. It’s just that, with the news story, it’s hard to meet girls.”

That was where she had seen him—on TV at the Golden Delicious. The police were looking for him. She didn’t remember his first name, but his last name stuck out. Foster.

“N-guhhh,” said Erica. Things were starting to get blurry again.

“You and Candice were friends. I was friends with her, too.” He turned and closed the door with this free hand. “She mentioned you. Well, her phone did anyway.”

“B-bastard!”

Her eyes weren’t refocusing. Foster seemed to be drifting farther away, but she could feel him grab one of her arms.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be with her soon.”

She slipped back into darkness.

* * *

The floor felt impossibly soft. Her foot slid across satin. She wasn’t moving it, though. Four glowing white lights merged into two as her eyes strained to make sense of what she was looking at. They were recessed lights. She was in her bedroom, and she was lying in her own bed looking up at the ceiling. Then her other foot moved. She looked down at it and saw him there. He was tightening a black strap around her ankle. Her other ankle was already restrained.

“There you are,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind. I borrowed some of your things.”

Her body was sore, but it wasn’t clenched up anymore. Panic and adrenaline flooded her, and she tried to sit up. A tugging at her wrists held her firmly in place. They were restrained, too. Instead of black straps, her wrists were held by chrome handcuffs. Two pairs, lined with hot pink faux fur. They were hers. The opposite ends were locked to the headboard.

Foster looked strange. Then she realized why. He seemed a little embarrassed. “I found that
box
under your bed,” he said. “You know the one I mean. I just want you to know, I was real respectful of your private . . . things.”

He held something up in front of him. She knew what it was before the blade clicked into place. A box cutter.

“I am going to need to undress you, though,” he said.

Fuck that. Erica drew in a breath to scream and realized he had used something else from her collection. A ball gag. She screamed anyway. And thrashed and kicked.

“No,” he said. “Don’t struggle. I don’t want to accidentally cut you.”

She thrashed harder. The handcuffs bit into her wrists, and she tried to yank a knee up as he leaned over her.

He pulled back and sighed. “Fine.”

He put the knife down on her nightstand and pulled something out of his back pocket. It sparked and crackled.

Darkness.

* * *

This time she woke up to voices. She didn’t know what they were saying. One voice sounded like it could be a woman’s, but her ears must have been struggling to work as much as her eyes were. She slowly forced her eyes to open. Foster was the only one there, and it looked like he was talking to himself.

“I saw him on the trail. I don’t know who he was,” he said.

He was sitting in her makeup chair, staring down at a flat red box of some sort. It had white knobs on top and some sort of screen. He turned the knobs and seemed to be listening to something. It looked too big to be a radio, and it wasn’t making any sounds, anyway. He wasn’t paying attention to her, so she decided to lie still and give herself time to think.

Her next thought was,
I’m naked.

“I don’t know. What’s a Grigori?”

An Etch A Sketch. That’s what he was staring at. She couldn’t see what he was drawing, but he was concentrating very hard on it.

“No, he didn’t look like that. He was a boy. Not even a teenager yet. He said something about God armor, and strongholds, and rainstorms. It didn’t sound good.”

Erica tried to look around with just her eyes. She was naked, but he hadn’t done anything else to her. Yet. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor. She was still cuffed and strapped to the bed. He had used
her
cuffs. He hadn’t brought any with him. Why not? Wasn’t this his plan? He couldn’t have known she had handcuffs or leg straps. Or did he? Panic started to flood in. She didn’t want to freak out again. It wouldn’t do any good. There was something about the cuffs she knew she was forgetting. What was it?

“It doesn’t matter, right? This is the last one. Three daughters. Then I can be with you. Right?”

Three daughters? This guy was bug nuts insane. But she already knew that.

“Oh, she is?”

Foster sounded surprised. He turned to look at her and stood up. She saw what he had been drawing with the Etch A Sketch: a stick figure woman stood under a blocky tree. It was crude, but there might have been a bird perched up in the tree. The needle in the toy was still moving, but he wasn’t turning the knobs anymore. A line carved its way through the silvery-gray dust on its own. As she watched, the line grew blocky leaves and then a blocky flower. When she glanced back at Foster, he was reaching into his back pocket.

This time Foster placed the stun gun deliberately on her thigh, right over her skull tattoo.

“Sorry, we’re not ready yet.”

Darkness.

* * *

Something tickled. It felt like a bug crawling slowly across her stomach. She went to scratch it away, but her hand was stopped by a tiny rattle of chain links. This time she jerked her eyes open, already breathing hard around the ball filling up her mouth.

Foster was straddling her. He was fully clothed, but his sleeves were rolled up. He was bent over, staring at her belly. One hand was pressing down on her rib cage while the other dragged something across her skin. She almost screamed but then realized she wasn’t in pain. Instead of a knife, he held an orange felt-tip marker.

He looked up at her when she moved, but his hands never left her body. There was a strange smell in the room. Citrus of some sort.

“It’s called Orangealicious,” he said. “It smells more like tangelo to me.”

He was drawing on her. She couldn’t see what it was, but it looked like it started on her left foot. His body was covering the rest.

Her hands were starting to get numb. The faux fur helped prevent cuts, but the cuffs were still tight against her wrists. She lifted a finger and felt it bump along the length of chain back to the base of the cuff.

Foster went back to his drawing. “These pens always make me hungry. I brought a pudding cup. Vanilla. But I’m usually less hungry after.”

She wanted to say,
I get it. You’re creepy,
but that would definitely get her shocked again.

He moved his hand from her rib cage to her breast. He didn’t grope it, but simply lifted it up to make room for his pen. The line swirled around her breast, and then he moved his hand again so he could draw up toward her nipple.

“My hands are getting all glittery. Is that from your lotion?” His hand shook a little as the pen made a tiny circle. “Sorry. I talk a lot when I’m nervous.”

She moved her finger along the edge of the cuff and then down to the keyhole. The keys were in the box that Foster must have dug through to find the leg straps. She actually kept the handcuffs attached to her headboard all the time. She thought they looked cute. She had other restraints she could use if she was in the mood for something more authentic. The cuffs on her wrists were more for show. So were the keys, if you knew about the tiny lever just to the right of the keyhole.

Erica spoke slowly and deliberately, but the ball gag reduced it to a mumble.

Foster scooted up along her body, and his pen reached her collarbone. He was now straddling her stomach and leaning close to her face to keep an eye on what he was doing.

He paused and said, “I’m sorry. What?”

Erica mumbled again. She tried to make up for her lack of words by using her eyes. She looked from Foster to her right hand and then back at Foster.

“What was that?” He leaned in closer.

A popping sound snapped the air when her forehead connected with his nose. It reminded her of the sound a drumstick makes when it’s pulled off a raw chicken. He must have sucked in a breath as he flew backward because when he hit the ground he coughed and blood came bubbling out of his nose. She moved quickly and had one hand free before he even lifted his head. The next thing she did was pull that damn ball out of her mouth.

“I said this isn’t the first time I’ve been tied up, asshole!”

By the time she had her other hand free, Foster had rolled over and was up on his hands and knees. Instead of lunging at her, he coughed again, gagged, and then threw up a puddle of blood. That gave her time to get one leg free. Then he was up on his feet. He didn’t look too stable, though.

“Stop!” It came out nasally, like he had a bad cold. “You’re ruining it!”

He took a couple of shuffling steps toward the bed. He must have lost his pen when he went sprawling. Instead, he yanked the stun gun out of his pocket. As he came toward her, Erica threw herself back onto the bed to brace herself, then she whipped out with her free leg. It connected beautifully with his groin.

“I guess we’re both having a bad day,” she said.

The stun gun rattled when it hit the ground. It dropped much faster than Foster, who slowly sank to one knee. Erica rolled forward and clawed at the last strap. The pressure of the strap had caused her foot to fall asleep. Pins and needles fired up and down her skin as she finally loosened the strap and pulled her leg free. She lunged off the bed and immediately had to stagger back as her foot tried to wake itself up.

Foster was still kneeling. He was breathing hard, but instead of trying to stand, his other knee faltered and dropped to the floor. He looked broken and defeated. Erica reached down and grabbed the stun gun.

“My turn,” she said.

She waited a second for the feeling in her foot to return, then gripped the trigger and stepped toward him.