The phone rings at my desk at noon. “So, you want her until Friday, but what about the weekend?” says comb-over. “I’ll need a bigger wad tomorrow, in that case. It’s Thursday today, you dig?”
“How did you get this number?”
“You must think I’m a bloody nincompoop. So, what’s your deal?”
“How much for the weekend?”
“A grand.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“And how much for Magda, you know, outright?”
“Fifteen grand.”
“It was ten grand before.”
“You don’t qualify for the discount.”
“Call me back,” I say. “In an hour. I need to think.”
I hang up the phone and put my head on my desk.
It’s not the money. I have the money. I have over forty grand saved up for the condo I didn’t have to buy. And hell, I could probably get her for ten, if I haggle. Maybe that’s what I should do. I’ll just haggle for ten, and then comb-over will be out of my hair and I can think about this properly. I’m out a grand this week already, so it’s not like the price isn’t fair. What’s a few grand for a person’s freedom? If I buy Magda then I can do what I like. I can get her a key made, and we can just move on with our lives.
I practice my lines until comb-over calls back. I deliver them quickly, in a tough-girl voice: “I’ll give you ten for her, not a penny more, and then you gotta leave us alone.”
“Make it twelve and you’ve got a deal.”
“Fine, twelve,” I say. “How and where do you want it?”
“Same time, same place. Stand there with a briefcase full of cash and a phone in your ear. When my girl comes and picks up the receiver next to yours, you put the briefcase down by her feet. She’ll pick it up straight away, then you say goodbye into the phone and fuck off.”
“Done.”
“Nice doing business with you, Chris,” comb-over coos. “You’re a filthy dyke, but I like you.”
I’m still shivering when I get home. She must see the look on my face, because she turns off the tube and comes right over. The bank asked some pretty awkward questions, but I explained that I owed my parents some cash. It was a convoluted story, but the young thing behind the till handed it over.
“It’s gonna be all right now,” I say, putting a hand on her shoulder. She points to the laptop. I write that I’m buying her from the bad man. I click Translate. She shakes her head, types:
— Again?
I guess the translation isn’t going through right, so I try another wording. She seems to get me this time, because she puts her arms around me and buries her face in my neck. I start to shiver more violently and she grips me tightly. Then she pulls away and kisses me on the mouth, but I can hardly feel it. My lips are dry and there’s a fever of blood in my ears. She takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. I sit down on the edge of the bed. Magda kneels on the floor. She lifts my left foot, slipping off my shoe. I lie back on the bed. She pulls off my sock and runs a finger along the sole of my foot. I quiver. Then she starts massaging my ankle. Her hands run up and down my legs, under my trousers. She stops and I look up in time to see her pull off her T-shirt. Her body is thicker than I’d imagined, but perfect. By the time she unbuttons my fly, I have no will to resist her. All I can do is let go.
I wake up happy, Magda breathing deeply beside me. I kiss her forehead and slip out of bed without waking her. My laptop under one arm, briefcase of cash in my hand, I’m actually whistling as I board the train. Whistling! The drop is easy. I start shivering when I get to the pay phone, but then I revisit last night, and that settles it. I set the briefcase down next to the redhead. She picks it up, and I say goodbye to the dial tone and hang up the phone. I don’t bother doing the U-turn today.
Comb-over rings at noon. “This is just a courtesy call,” he says. “She’s yours. Enjoy the merchandise.”
“Don’t call here ever again,” I say, relishing the hard shape of the words. I hang up first this time.
After the call, I swing by Darrin’s desk. “You’ve been quiet since the presentation, Chris,” he says. “Thought you’d be ass-pompous with success. Everything all right?”
“Little under the weather,” I say. “Keep shivering. Think I’ve caught a fever-flu. Mind if I duck out early?”
“Knock yourself out. We can live without you today.”
“Thanks, man,” I say, pulling a listless face. “Appreciate it.”
“No sweat. Just be in shape by Monday, all right?”
“You bet.”
I get to the station in time for the 1:43. The pay phone kiosk is empty. A kid walks by and checks all the change slots with his finger.
On the train, I think about Magda. Maybe I should take her shopping for some new clothes. We could go to the grocery store too. I’ve never asked her what she likes to eat, just cooked her what I had in the fridge. What if she hates fish?
I reach the condo by 2:30. I call the elevator, but I can’t wait, so I take the stairs. I think of what to type into the laptop.
You’re free, I’ll type. I’ve set you free! What do you want to do now?
I unlock the door, already picturing her on the sofa, an oversized T-shirt cinched high on her thighs. What will we do tonight?
But she’s not there. I look for a note, but there’s no sign of one.
I should have known better.
Part IV
Flatland Flatline
Tom
by Andrew Pyper
Queen West
She moved to Toronto from one of the smaller cities a couple hours west along the 401, a place with a borrowed, European name that embarrassed her, so that now when people ask where she’s from she shrinks it in her mind until it’s only a country crossroads, a pair of stop signs with white crosses in the ditch to tally the fatal car accidents, and answers, “It’s so tiny. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
The only thing she’s ever done for money is serve men drinks in bars. Just men, because the bars have always been strip bars. “It’s easier,” she explains whenever it is suggested she wait tables in a proper restaurant instead. By easier she means there are rules in strip bars she has come to depend on. The men keep their eyes on the dancers, their hands to themselves, and tip foolishly well. No description of the chef’s special features, no flirty walk through the wine list recommendations. No female, diamond-necklaced customers giving her looks meant to remind her that what she is doing now is all she is. Will ever be.
She is twenty-six years old.
In moving to the city, she’d planned on doing something else. She wasn’t sure what. They shot a lot of movies in Toronto. Could there be a job for her on set? Wardrobe? Makeup? Fetching the director’s cappuccino? Whenever she walked by a movie shoot on her way to work, most of the people seemed to be standing around drinking coffee, or mumbling into walkie-talkies, or stifling yawns against the backs of their hands. That was moviemaking? She could do that.
But what was she doing? What employment was she walking to as she passed these boring yet still somehow glamorous location shoots? She was on her way to serve men drinks in a strip bar.
Her five nights a week at For Your Eyes Only is temporary. A cash grab to pay for the time required to settle in, make some connections. Soon she’ll quit. Soon, her real Toronto life will begin. This is what she told herself, and what she mostly believed.