Page 96 of The Big Fix

“No,” he said gravely. “It’s just, it’s my lot in life to make sure you think you are.”

“I’m not funny?” I said to Dante. “Me?”

The expression on his face told me no.

“Huh.”

When the last plate arrived and Dante stood with a bottle of wine in his hand, Owen’s breath caught.

“What?” I asked him.

Owen looked up at Dante with welling eyes. “My mother used to cook this for me.” There was moussaka, and keftethes, which were amazing-flavored meatballs, alongside herbed potatoes, plum-tomato sauce for dipping, and salad.

“She used to make it all for me too, and I’ve been cooking for hours, like she used to, so don’t think I just whipped this all up in the hour we’ve been talking.”

Owen got up, went around the table, and stepped into the arms Dante held out for him.

“That’s why he’s so pretty,” Dante teased Owen when he stepped back, talking to Jing and Arden. “It wasn’t his father, it was his mother, Sara. She was Greek, so very beautiful with that curly raven hair of hers that fell down her back. She had golden skin, which is why you don’t burn but tan here by the water, and man, could she sing.”

Owen was nodding.

“And much like Jared, Sara could not tell a joke. At all.”

Owen’s laughter as he listened to Dante was good to hear.

“She would start telling the joke and give you some of the punchline—not all of it, just enough to be confusing—and then go back to the beginning, and really,” he said, grimacing at Owen, “it was painful.”

Owen leaned back into Dante. “I didn’t know you knew her so well.”

“Oh yeah,” Dante assured him. “Sara and I were the only ones who could dance, so we always did. And we would cook and bake together… I would have given anything to save her, just like Jared. She was a gem, and I still miss her laugh.”

Owen was crying then, in the shelter of Dante’s arms, who rubbed his back and held on as, I was guessing, a wave of memories hit Owen hard. This had all been such a long time coming.

SIXTEEN

After dinner, we all sat in the living room, having coffee, when Owen looked over at Dante and Jing and Arden and said, “Let me tell you what I remember.” He took a breath. “At the airport, Mom kissed and hugged me a million times and told me she loved me more than anything. She told me to be a good boy for my grandparents. Then a very kind flight attendant led me onto the plane and to my seat, and then…I woke up in the back of a car. It was dark, and when I sat up, I was immediately ordered to lie back down. My parents had always encouraged me to ask questions, but when I started to speak, I was slapped hard, and after that, I was terrified. They set rules. If I didn’t ask questions, if I followed directions, I would eat. If I didn’t, if I tried to escape, tried to run in public, get help, I’d be beaten and starved. They put a small tattoo on me that meant I was a prostitute, but no one ever touched me except to hit me. I wasn’t raped like so many others. I was just moved around constantly and hit with fists, mostly, and whatever else was handy.”

We all listened, not taking our eyes off him.

“One night they took me to the casino on the first floor, then took an elevator down, and told me that after that night, I would have a new master. I remember not knowing what that meant.”

He glanced at me before leaning forward on the couch.

“There was a stage, and I was shoved out there, and when I looked up, there were hundreds of people looking down at me. And that was scary, really scary, but the worst part, for me, was that they took off my clothes and tied my hands behind my back so I couldn’t cover myself.”

Jing’s face scrunched up, and Arden crossed her arms tightly, as though to protect herself from the rest of the story. Dante’s face was impassive. He had his handler face on, the one he used to give his assets to keep them calm.

“What they were auctioning off, of course, was my virginity,” he explained, taking a breath. “It was the same for all the kids. Apparently, it was a quarterly event, and they promoted the hell out of it.”

“This is disgusting,” Jing said. “And I know it still happens, but…” She glanced at Owen. “Sorry, sorry… Go on.”

“I saw lots of kids, girls and boys, go through the same curtain I did, and heard yelling, which, as I found out when it was my turn, was bidding. After the auction, the kids would come back, and were taken down a hall to one of the bedrooms. Whoever bought each child would then go in and basically… I mean, it was a ‘buy it and try it’ situation. I still remember the screaming.”

Jing wiped her eyes roughly, turning her head away. Arden looked up at the ceiling, and Dante just listened.

“Most of the kids were like me, abducted and taken there. Others had been kidnapped, but ransom hadn’t been paid or something had gone wrong, and so that’s why they were there. The worst were the kids sold by their parents or relatives. I just… I can’t even imagine that.”

No one said a word.