'We guarantee full satisfaction', she said with a smile. She was teasing him, just playing around. She'd gotten so good at this specific game and oh so fast. She didn't mind. It had always been...inside her, something calling to her, so she just danced the tune.
'Oh do you really? And if I'm not satisfied?' the man – she could tell – wasn't too good at the game, but he was trying to be. All sleek and come-on-strong. Cherry saw right through him.
'If you're not,' she replied, leaning into his lap, 'it means I've been a bad girl and deserve to be punished.'
She bit her lower lip, all sexy and innocent. The innocent little girl look was another something she was good at. She'd realized, early on, how much she enjoyed the game. It had never gotten on top of her.
Until tonight.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Cherry felt a big, strong hand wrapping itself around her neck. She didn't try to break his hold, not at first, that would spoil the fun. She just did her best to breathe under the pressure, eyes feeling with warmth.
Not tears, she refused to think of herself as a crier.
But his grip didn't loosen. The room was really quiet, the only noise they heard was a soft wheezing. She was slipping, she was tripping up. This wasn't a joke, it wasn't a game, he was holding her too tight.
Manic, panicked thoughts. No. Let go.
Breathe, Cherry, breathe. Just be normal and he'll let go. He's playing it hard, trying to see how far you go. OhmygodIcan'tbreathe.
OH MY GOD.
She begins clawing at the big hand around her neck, pushing, digging into her skin, leaving a bruise. But his grip only tightens.
'You like that?' he whispers into her ear.
No, this can't be it. This is not how she loses the game. Not now. She's got so much left to do.
I rush toward the back room, stumbling down a step and grabbing at the wall to steady myself. It was her, I just know it was. The girl in my dream. The girl my mother warned me about.
Ha ha. Funny, only it's not. I've spent ages looking for her. Seriously, do you ever stop to think how many hookers there are out there by the name Cherry?
Astonishing, no Strawberry (no berries of any kind, for that matter), no Plums, but an incredible number of cherries. Not that I knew she was a hooker, not at first. I just knew I was looking for a Cherry, she could've been anything, anyone, anywhere.
I don't know, I nearly gave up back there. In fact, it was my giving up bash. Party of one, as always, and I was downing my third double scotch. So, does that make it my sixth?
Hey, who's counting?
And then she hit me. I saw her, clear as day, so clear it was that this was the woman I was looking for that I thought I'd passed out. You know, that I was in some sort of wayward dream. Don't ask me how I knew, I just did.
Maybe it was the hair, red as a cherry, like my mother's. Maybe it was the eyes, but really, I think it was the way she spoke. I didn't hear what she said, but she was teasing some guy. A client, I suppose. And she had this incredibly sexy voice, and I just knew it was her. You know, I knew the voice I was supposed to hear for the rest of my life.
And then just like that, they were gone. Out of the bar and heading up in the elevator. I ran after them, I didn't want to seem like some weirdo, but at that point I didn't care, I just wanted her.
I got to the third floor just in time to see them enter the room next to last.
I put my ear to the door and there is no sound coming through, nothing.
Odd.
And then, a lamp is knocked to the ground, the light bulb smashing, shattering into millions of different pieces, changing both of our lives.
I kick in the door.
She nestled closer to him and at first, I thought they were fucking. But then I saw her eyes, bulged out of her head, pleading to no one in particular, because she couldn't quite turn to see my face. I think the noise of the door startled her. Not that there was much to startle, by that point.
It hit me hard in the stomach, the image before me, the idea that this scumbag was getting off on this. I wish I could tell you I came up with some snappy remark that made him drop the girl and fight me like a man. But he was not a man.
He was a coward.
He kept his fist around the girl's thin neck, pushing harder. That's definitely going to leave a mark...
Funny what stupid thoughts go through your head in a crisis, isn't it? I realized, then and there, that he was going to kill her, that this wasn't some do-it-for-kicks kind of thing, he was actually intent on killing.
I don't even know what happened, I just know I elbowed him in the face hard enough to break his nose. That put an end to things, at least temporarily, he dropped the girl who fell to the ground, miserably pale, gasping for breath.
Cherry watches the man, through fogged-in eyes, as his fists fly and he kicks savagely, until there's no more to kick. He's screaming, at the top of his lungs and she's scared to death that someone will find them, she can see someone coming and arresting him. Because he saved her. And she can't bear the idea so she begs him to be quiet.
It's the first word she says to him and the word is 'shush'.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' he says the words slowly, collapsing beside her and they listen, for a few seconds, but nobody's coming. It's just them.
And that's how it's going to be, from now on.
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