“Listen to me, Athena,” she says, leaning forward. “I love you like the sister I never had, and I’m closer to you than probably any person on earth. I don’t say that just because I’ve seen you naked more times than I care to remember. But this has got to stop. I don’t know what’s been going on with you the last few days, but snap out of it.”
I stand up. “Thank you so much for your opinion, Sugar, but I think it’s time you left.”
She doesn’t budge. “Don’t pull that Sugar crap with me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She stands up and glares at me. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. This Southern Belle/Sugar thing you do when you try to hide what you’re really feeling. You forget I’ve known you way too long. I see right through you.”
She’s right, of course. I know she is, but it just hurts. It hurts that Isaiah’s not going to want anything to do with me once he knows the truth. I just have to make sure he never finds out.
“I’m tired,” I say. “I think I’m going to go to bed.”
“When it all turns south — and it will —” She walks to the door. “I guess I’ll be here to help you pick up the pieces. But keep in mind, I won’t be here forever.”
I crawl into bed, but I’m not able to sleep. I keep trying to remember if it was really Isaiah I heard while I was out. Was it real or my imagination? Parts of that time seem so vivid to me, almost as if I can reach out and touch them. But others are fuzzy, and I can’t separate fiction from reality. I finally give up and fall into a restless sleep.
A loud, steady pounding on my door wakes me the next morning. I groan and look at my alarm clock. Eight-thirty. Much too early to be awake considering it had been after four by the time I was finally able to fall asleep last night.
This morning. Whatever.
The pounding continues.
“Just a minute,” I yell. I jerk my robe on, punching my arms through the holes, and belt it around my waist. Another pounding knock. “I said I’m coming!”
I don’t bother to look out my peep hole. It has to be Vicki and I’m going to kill her. I fling the door open. “What?”
Mike stands there, hand raised to knock again, and looking like the devil himself. “About time.”
I belt the robe around my waist tighter. Why the fuck is he here?
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know it was you.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Sorry, Sir,” I correct myself.
He nods, and I move aside so he can enter my apartment. I can’t imagine what would bring him here. I can count on one hand the times he’s stopped by in the last few years.
“Can I get you something?” I ask.
He ignores me, walking instead around my couch, looking closely at my bookshelves and running a finger along the books. His finger drops to my collection of movies. “Don’t happen to have Pretty Woman here, do you?”
“No, Sir,” I say, still irritated and tired and not thinking straight at all. “Never much cared for fantasy.”
He gives a low laugh that sends warning signs through my body. “Still a bit cheeky, are we?”
“Just honest.” I hope I’m not pushing his buttons. It’s just so early and I’m sore, and if I could just sleep a little bit longer. . .
My head jerks up to look into his eyes. Mike wouldn’t come by just to chit-chat. He has a purpose for being here. I vaguely remember the person I thought was Isaiah bringing me home. What if Mike meant to kill me that day and now he’s here to finish the job?
Fear seeps into my spine and trickles down. I can’t find the words to ask him. After our last meeting, I’m not sure I’ll ever ask him anything again.
Mike, of course, knows this. “Ask me,” he says, his eyes dark and dangerous.
I straighten my shoulders, blow a strand of hair out of my face, and refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much he scares me.
“What can I do for you, Sir?” I ask, my deadpan tone matching his.
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he continues his walk past my bookcases and moves around to the front of my couch. “Sit down.”
Because he’s a power freak and will never sit down while I’m standing. I don’t even think about disobeying. I walk over and sit down.
It’s not until he very slowly and very deliberately draws every bit of tension possible from the moment that he sits down himself.
That has to be a good sign, I tell myself. He can’t kill me if he’s sitting down, can he? Unless he has a gun. I squint. Does he have a gun?
I cross my legs and kick my foot up and down, bouncing an imaginary strappy sandal. He won’t get the best of me this time. I’ll sit here for as long as it takes him to get to his point. Longer, if I need to. I start counting in my head: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. . .I’m up to ten Mississippi before he breaks the silence.
“I had an interesting conversation with Isaiah Martin last night.”
My foot stops bouncing.
Isaiah.
I shouldn’t care. Thinking about Isaiah, much less talking with Mike about Isaiah, has brought me nothing but trouble. One of these days I’ll learn.
Just, you know, not quite yet.
“Oh?” I ask, hoping I’m instilling enough I-Could-Care-Less attitude in that one syllable.
But as much as I try for I don’t care in my tone, my mind works franticly. Why had he met with Isaiah? What did they talk about? Why had he felt the need to come to my room to tell me about it? I look back at his eyes. Still dark and dangerous.
Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.
“How’s Isaiah doing?” The question flies out of my mouth, not caring at all how my head feels.
Victory surges in his eyes and I curse my mouth for not listening and myself for not having more self control.
His response, when it comes, is very thought out, very deliberate. “I wasn’t surprised you didn’t tell your childhood friend exactly what you are.”
It hits me then, why he’s here. I’m not going to have to worry about telling Isaiah I’m a prostitute. Mike has already done so and came by to gloat over.
But Mike isn’t finished yet.
“Isaiah has the potential to be a man of influence in the community,” he continued, “And it would be a good idea for me to be on his good side.I asked myself, what could I do? What could I offer to ingratiate such a man? What could he want?”
Why he came by my apartment is now clear. What he’d decided last night that he could offer Isaiah hurt more than what he’d done to me days before. I can only hope my guess is incorrect.
He shrugs. “I offered him you.”
With those simple words, it’s like he’s doused me in ice water. My body is frozen and I want to cry. But I’ll be damned if I do so in front of Mike.
Oh, no. Not Isaiah. Please, God. Please, anyone but Isaiah.
I think of Mike offering my body to Isaiah. Like I’m something to be bought or sold or given away.
And at that moment I realize the truth of what I am, of what I’ve become. I am a commodity to be bought or sold or given away. Mike can give me to Isaiah or use me, because that is the right I’ve given him. I vow to take it all back. No matter what it costs me, no longer how long it takes, I’m taking it all back.
Before I unintentionally expose my new revelation to Mike, I drop my eyes in pretend submission. Close them and force my body to stop its inner trembling.
“Ask me what he said.” His tone of voice leaves me no choice but to obey.
“What did he say?” I ask, all the while looking at my carpet. Out of here, I promise myself, I’ll find a way out of here.
“Look at me.” Amusement fills his eyes when I look up. His mouth twists into a horrific smile. One I remember all too well. “He said no.” Before relief can sweep over me, he adds, “He asked to use the piano in Playmakers instead.”
An evil laugh fills the confines of my room, and the walls feel smaller than ever before. “You must be the worst kind of whore there is,” he says. “To be desired less than a piano.”