A Warrior's Return (2 page)

I stood up and hugged her trying to wipe
away the sudden self-realization on Tina’s face, “Of course he
would Tina! You have a lot to offer!”

That was one way of putting it nicely
anyway.

“Now where is this god of a man located?” I
asked.

Tina’s eyes rose to mine and completely
serious she responded with, “Oh you won’t miss him Evangelina. He
stands out like a wolf among a pack of whining coyotes!”

I looked at her surprised by the moment of
seriousness that came so rarely to her by nature. Giving her one
last glance I let go of her and stepped through the curtains and
made my way towards the stage, as I went, I let the mask of
perceived sensuality settle over me and govern the motions of my
body.

It was easy, once I’d done it enough times.
The audience would see everything that they longed for and desired.
My alluring movements would make them think that the desire was
mutual on my part for them and they would go crazy with yearning
for me.

In reality it was a job, an act I did to
survive. It gave me no pleasure and in fact it took away a little
more of me every time I did it, but it was the way that it had to
be. There was no changing it. It just was.

I stepped onto the stage amidst the cheers
of the gathered throng of lusty club patrons and flashing lights. I
paid the crowd of cheering onlookers no real attention; as long as
I heard their roars in the background I must be doing everything
right.

Most of them didn’t have much money and what
they did have they spent on alcohol and the lust of watching girls
like me perform, in a vain effort to escape the reality of their
miserable lives of indebted poverty.

They would’ve sold an organ for a night with
me, but I wasn’t interested. I didn’t sell myself cheaply. They had
to have real money in order to use my body. I had learned the value
of keeping myself as a limited higher end commodity.

So many of the girls got hooked on drugs and
had no choice, but to take any offer that came their way, in order
to feed their habit. I had tried drugs, but I found the release
they offered not to my liking and I couldn’t afford them anyway. I
would have my release when I was dead, but until then I had a
purpose, to make money and survive. Death could come soon enough,
as it was.

There were many ways to die in my business;
an unhappy client, a client that got too carried away, a random
mugging with a knife slipped between my ribs simply for the clothes
that I wore, and then there was the perennial favorite of some
mentally unstable kook, with a childish fantasy of paying his
mother back for locking him in the closet as a child, who’d cut me
up into a million pieces. Stuff like that happened every day.

Death was easy to find in the world I lived
in. Life was harder to come by. Introspectively I noted, as I moved
fluidly across the stage in whatever sway of movement would incite
my crowd of onlookers the best, that I definitely needed to focus
on eating a little more. It was almost as bad to be too thin in my
profession, as it was to be too fat.

It was just hard to focus on taking the time
to eat though. I simply forgot about doing it sometimes, but I was
going to have to fix that, if I wanted to keep my appeal and the
demand for me high. I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to
look for Tina’s man.

It wasn’t good to pass up a candidate, who
might turn out to be a high paying client. I really opened my eyes
for the first time during my performance; as it is possible to have
your eyes open, but not really see anything, if you keep your mind
from focusing.

Most of the time there wasn’t anything worth
focusing on. I began to scan the crowd for the stranger without
seeming to do so, as I moved in the dance. I almost came to a stop
when my eyes found him, but my experience saved me and I continued
on in the dance, without too noticeable of a pause I hoped.

Every movement of the dance felt unnatural
and unpracticed to me now, even though I’d done the act a thousand
times before. I could feel his gaze on me now and I wondered how I
could have not sensed it from the moment I stepped foot on the
stage.

His presence was so strong that it felt like
a cloak had wrapped around me and was choking me with its tight
grip. I felt naked, which was crazy because most of the time I
essentially was naked. Why should it be any different? But it
was!

The strength of his gaze felt like he was
peeling away the layers of my skin and seeing into my deepest inner
self. It was awful and I wanted to leave the stage, but I forced
myself to gut it out. Curiosity compelled me to glance at him
again.

He just sat there at a table off to the side
of the room watching me. Intimidating was too small a word to
describe him. He was a gringo. They were many of them in Columbia
now; ever since the great nation to the north had fallen, they had
migrated down here looking to survive, as everyone else was in an
uncertain world.

I’d seen big men before, but he was big and
something more besides. I’d only seen black men with the muscle
structure and frame size that this man had. But it wasn’t just the
size and strength of the man that was imposing. There was an easy
confidence in the way he lounged in his chair with his legs spread
out.

It was, as if he was a big cat lounging
idly, as he watched for prey. Ready at any moment to spring into
action and crush his helpless victim. My greatest fear watching him
watch me was that I was his next victim.

I ended a little earlier than usual, which I
never did. I couldn’t take it any longer!

I had to get off the stage!

I rushed off into the darkness of the
hallway and pressed my back up against the wall trying to catch my
breath, even as my heart pounded in my chest.

“Are you all right Evangelina?” Asked one of
the other girls waiting to go out.

I nodded hurriedly and motioned her on, but
no, I was not all right.

I felt like I was about to feel the teeth of
a lion sink into me at any moment and rip me apart. I realized then
that I had left behind the few dollars thrown up onto the
stage.

There was no way I was going back out there!
I had to get out of here fast!

I ran into the dressing room and hurriedly
got dressed and within moments I was running out the back of the
dance hall into the dingy dark alley that ran behind it. I quickly
hurried down it trying to stay out of the mud and piles of
refuse.

Looking back once I thought I saw movement.
I was being followed!

Panic spurred me on and within seconds I
made the main street although it was little better in appearance
than the back alley had been. I started hurrying down it looking
back constantly.

I didn’t even see the car that came to a
screeching halt beside me, until it stopped. Recognizing the car I
hurried on, but the car door opened ahead of me blocking my path. A
hired gun in a black suit got out quickly. His face showed no
readable emotion. It was like that old saying, out of the frying
pan and into the fire.

“Victor wants you.” The hired beef said in a
monotone voice.

With what little bravado I had left I shot
back, “Yeah well, tell Victor he can keep looking! I told him the
last time, was the last time!”

I made to go around him, but he caught my
arm and pulled me back. I kicked him hard in the shin and was
rewarded with a backhanded slap that almost took my head off.

Knocked half dizzy, I stood tottering on my
feet, as he opened the back door of the sedan. He shoved me into
the car so hard that my head hit off the other passenger side
door.

I sat up in the seat slowly, a frisson of
fear going through me. I tasted the blood at the corner of my
mouth, as the realization set in that tonight might be my last.

The car pulled up at a house in the wealthy
section of town. The house was one of those modern ones that was
all glass and sharp angles. I didn’t care for it or the slimy
little maggot it housed.

I was yanked out of the car and practically
dragged up the walkway to the front door. We made our way past more
guards inside and then I was thrust into a room I took to be the
study. Victor, a slim tall weasel of a man, rose from his black
leather chair behind the room’s only desk.

Normally with a man of his slight build I
could handle my own against, but Victor was different. Victor had
the strength mentally unstable people often have, because he was
unstable. He in fact was completely insane and capable of doing
anything.

I knew fear as he approached me. I never
knew how my sessions with him would go, but they never went well.
It was more a question of how bad it would be.

“Goodness Evangelina what’s this?” He asked
drawing his finger along the crack in my swollen lip.

He glanced pointedly at his hired gun.

“She didn’t want to come.” Her captor said
simply in way of his defense.

With the eerie light of craziness in his
eyes Victor asked me, “Is that true my dear?”

“Yes.” I muttered out knowing it didn’t
matter what I said, so it might as well be the truth.

His hand snaked out and slapped the other
side of my face hard. A swelling welt rose quickly along my
cheekbone.

“The truth won’t get you anywhere here
Evangelina.”

I stood stone-faced, as he ripped my blouse
open and then promptly shoved me over backward. My head cracked off
the hardwood floor and stunned me.

My breath escaped me, as he sunk a fist into
my stomach. He straddled me on the floor and in a flurry of
movement started flailing away at my head and chest.

Almost beaten senseless I felt him inside of
me. Through the fog in my brain I could hear him grunting like a
pig on top of me, as the guards still in the room laughed.

I felt his long stringy fingers at my
throat, as they began to tighten. I struggled to breath and I felt
myself start to black out.

Light pierced into my eyes painfully and I
lifted my eyelids further to see Victor getting to his feet, as he
pulled his pants back up. It felt like it had been hours, but
knowing Victor it had probably been less than a minute.

He slipped back his greasy hair with one
hand and smiled charmingly down at me, almost appearing sane for a
moment.

“I’m afraid I have to run along now my dear.
I have a dinner appointment to keep.”

And then with dramatic effect he added,
“With your loving father no less!”

Laughing hard he pulled his wallet out and
dropped several bills down upon me. I felt the currency land on my
stomach, as if it was a lead weight.

“If you think I paid you too much.” He
leaned down and socked a fist hard to my right eye, knowing that
the resulting bruise would put me out of action on the stage for
over a week or more.

“Now you don’t. Do drag yourself out of here
before I return!”

He straightened back up and left with his
guards following close behind him. One of them stopped briefly and
picked a bill off of me. He gave me a wink before continuing after
his master.

I lay there for a long time and then slowly
I began to move. I turned onto my stomach and groaned.

Slowly I began crawling toward the study
bathroom. I reached the sink and began to pull myself upward,
leaving bloodstains on the pristine white marble countertop in the
process. I got to my feet leaning heavily on the countertop and
then unwillingly I lifted my head and looked at myself out of the
one eye I could still see out of.

No emotion could express how I felt other
than completely hopeless. I should just end it. I could at least
tick Victor off, by bleeding out all over his expensive carpet, in
my final death throws.

“No!”

My fist shot out and smacked into the mirror
sending cracks out across it.

Rafael would be getting worried. I needed to
get cleaned up and get home. That was what I had to do!

I turned the water on and got a towel wet. I
started to wash some smeared blood off of my arm. I rubbed hard and
then harder, but I couldn’t get the stain off of me!

I rubbed so hard that I made my skin
bleed.

My body jerked on a sob and I grabbed my
bloody face with my hands, as I sank back down to the floor sobbing
painfully.

I’d never be clean!

Ever!

It may not have been cold, temperature wise
outside, but I was cold. The slight rain didn’t help any. It was
over a mile from Victor’s house to where I lived.

Even though there was light enough to walk
by and find my way, I kept walking into things on my blindside. I
must have looked completely pathetic, as even the late-night
muggers left me alone. Their thought must’ve been, ‘what else was
there left to be taken other than my worthless life’.

Finally I reached the rundown apartment
complex where I lived. It was actually better than most in the
city, as with my occupation I could afford a little better,
although for how long I didn’t know.

I could feel the weight of Victor’s money in
my pocket. Oh how I hated money!

You needed it to live, but you had to die to
get it.

I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and
made my way down the completely dark hall by memory, until I
reached my door. I found the key hidden in a slit in the wall,
where the drywall had been torn away. Fumbling with the key I
unlocked the door and stepped inside, quickly locking the door
behind me.

I let my forehead rest against the door for
a moment. It wasn’t much, but it was at least something. To have a
locked door between me and the world, for at least a little while,
was as much security as I could ever hope for.

I made my way around the kitchen table to
the doorway of the second room and listened. I heard Rafael’s
breathing and I relaxed a little. I made my way back to the
kitchen, when I sensed a familiar feeling.