ELISE
On shaky legs, I enter the quiet, unlit hotel room and pause to give my eyes time to adjust.
I’m dressed in conformity with Doc’s checklist: stiletto pumps, black stockings, and a form-hugging dress. It has a full-length zipper on the back, as per Doc’s specs, and a plunging neckline in the front for deep cleavage. My hair is done up. I’m wearing earrings, mascara, and cherry-red lipstick.
In the thirty years of my life, I’ve never dressed like this. Nor have I ever wished to. Outdoors, I’m a jeans, sweater, and sneakers kind of girl. Indoors, be it at home or in the workshop, my uniform is a tee and yoga pants.
But Doc wanted me looking “extra sexy” today. It’s a special occasion, he told me over the phone last night. The first day of our unforgettable adventure together.Adventure…Ha! In truth, it’s the first day of my serfdom, my limited engagement as his plaything. To make that horrible prospect even worse, it’ll eat up the thirty days of leave I’ve saved over the last year for a trek in the Himalayas.
Cursing under my breath, I peer into the darkness around me. I’m assuming Doc is already in the room. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes me wait in the dark. I shudder at the thought of what that immoral, worthless but oh-so-full-of-himself gangster has in store for me.
The last conversation I had with Gilles in the visiting room did little to reassure me in that regard. He kept apologizing with teary eyes and repeating that Doc had promised not to be “unduly rough,” whatever that means. And that his underlings wouldn’t dream of touching me.
Why wouldn’t anyone trust their word, right?
Indeed, it would be nuts to suspect my compulsive gambler of a brother of lying, a man who just served six years for extortion, drug dealing, armed violence, and money laundering, right? Oh yeah, only a crazy woman would be wary of the promises made by those men!
Seconds pass.
The streetlamp outside and the hazy moon in the sky glint through the glass, helping my eyes adapt to the minimal lighting. I’m now able to recognize the shapes of the furniture and even smaller objects. In the darkest corner of the room, I make out an armchair. Doc is lounging in it, formally dressed, one leg draped over the other.
He says nothing. Unable to discern his features or his expression, I try to rationalize my predicament. Granted, he’s a brute and a criminal, but he isn’t ugly. Far from it. I was emailed a wide selection of his pictures. In most of them he wore trendy, black-rimmed glasses, a neat goatee, and a flattering haircut. Tall, lean and well-dressed, you could mistake him for a Gucci model. If I didn’t know what he did for a living, I would’ve never guessed.
Doc shifts his position slightly, and I realize that he’s more muscular in real life than in the pictures. He must’ve seriously worked out behind bars with so much time to spare. I still can’t see his face, only his silhouette. And the firm jawline. He’s shaved off his beard and the hair on his head.
Will his pleasant physique make it more bearable for me? How depraved exactly is he? What will he ask of me?
I shudder and hug myself.This is wrong, terribly wrong.
Maybe it isn’t too late. I can still turn around and walk out of this room. Maybe there’s a tiny chance he won’t stop me.
Except, it’s a delusion. An invisible but unbreakable chain ties me to this pretentious lowlife. The only comfort is the knowledge that it will dissolve after a month. Thirty days of debasement, and then I’m free. On day thirty-one, I jump on a bus, then a train and then a plane, and I travel to the other end of the world to pick up the pieces.
Come on, Elise, you can do this!
I must do this. As much as I hate Gilles right now, he’s still my brother. How can I live my life knowing I didn’t save him when I had a chance?
Doc stands up and steps closer to the window. He’s taller than he appeared in the photos.
Wait, what happened to his face?!
Horrific burn marks cover his forehead, cheeks, nose, mouth, jaw… Hardly a patch of skin is left smooth. Unsightly raised scars worm all over his face, disfiguring him. They’re mottled, partly depigmented and partly red brown. They make him look like an alien monster, a lizardman sent here from a hostile world to torment and kill me.
Gilles never mentioned this!
Was it an accident? Did he get disfigured recently after he was released?But, hold on a second…His eyes are supposed to be brown. The lizardman’s are blue. Or, should I say,isblue, because only his left eye survived whatever had happened to him. It now watches me closely, sharp and unblinking.
His facial muscles contract producing an expression that may have been a smile, or a smirk, if his scars didn’t make it impossible to know for sure.
I stare at him. “Who are you?”
“If you’re wondering whether I’m Doc, as in Farid Aifa, the ex-con your brother sold you to in order to settle his poker debt, then the answer is no.”
“I figured as much,” I say through gritted teeth. “Again, who are you?”
If he tells me now that Doc resold me to him, like some rag doll, then I’m out of this room before he can blink. I’m a good runner, and I’ll scream loud enough to be heard throughout the hotel. If he catches me before I reach the lobby or get help, then he’ll end up with a stiletto heel in his ugly face. In his left eye, to be exact.
It’s one thing to spend a month with a handsome gangster that my brother vouched for. But I never signed up for sleeping with a beast! Gilles knows nothing about this, I’m sure. Flawed and weakhearted as he is, he wouldn’t have done this to me.
