Chapter 1:
Who she was.
Her name was Bella, and she sometimes thought she could smell her death,
blowing in from the cemetery that lay south of her building in East New York.
Sometimes she even hoped for it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and
dark. On these occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the grave would
be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. She thought, maybe, she
might find some sort of peace that had been missing all her life.
Mike owned her building, like he owned the girls who occupied it. Three
stories tall, four rooms to a floor. They lived two in a room, two bathrooms per
floor, two kitchens in the building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of
them selling her body each night at his command. In return for the money they
brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. He gave them drugs, and
the drugs gave them escape.
Bella was not supposed to be here. She reflected on that often, and if she'd
ever believed in a God, she'd have cursed him now. Fickle, twisted fate had
delivered her into Mike's arms. Promises of salvation, undercurrents of doubt,
desire, desperation. The cold prick of a needle.
She tried not to think about it.
Mike held the plastic bag filled with heroin above her now, like a treat
for a dog. Little better than a dog she was, really, down on her knees, eyes wet
with tears ready to spill over. Angry, vengeful Mike, so filled with hate. Hate for
his parents, who'd given him his gorgeous mulatto features and then abandoned
him on the street. Hate for his ex-wife, who'd left him immediately upon
discovering the nature of his business, but still found fit to take half of what it had
earned him. Hate for the girls he had made his slaves, and who had made him
rich. Hate for the very money they handed over to him every night.
Mike didn't know of his own hate, but it burned in him so brightly it
scarred his features. Twisted, cruel lips. Pinched brow. Bella might have
understood this hate, seen reflected in it her own self-loathing, but Bella spent
most of her time thinking about the heroin now. She had no sympathy for
Mike, or his girls, no sympathy for herself. Lucid existence was the time
between sleep and drug, drug and sex, sex and sleep. Short bursts of clarity, ever
more painful, amid an otherwise blurred, waking dream.
"Beg for it, Bella," Darren snarled, and Bella's mouth formed words of
penitence against her will, pleading through tears without even realizing she'd
meant to do it. She begged apology for some imagined slight, some invented twist
in her voice that had caused this punishment.
"Mike, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for what I said!" But what had she said? She'd
only asked for her daily ration of the drug, in the same manner she had for the
past four months. If Mike had detected any real change of inflection, it hadn't
been intended. But here she was, on the floor, begging and pleading for
something she didn't even want. Begging and pleading and dreaming of death.
Born Marie Isabella Swan. Bella would have gladly held it up as
evidence before God that, whatever mistakes she had made in her life, never
appreciating her parents was not one of them.
For her first fourteen years, she was Marie, and no one was allowed to call
her otherwise. Maturity had lent a different outlook, and she had begun to see the
name as a sign of what was becoming a fierce individuality. She would never like
it, perhaps, but she was most definitely not an Marie.
She'd left her father at the age of sixteen, her mother long in the grave.
Alcohol, and the overwhelming desire to fill the void Bella's mother had left, had
brought rage and lust into him when before he'd felt only apathy for the girl. He'd
never touched her, either in punishment or in passion, but the tension and the
fighting, starting around her twelfth birthday, had over the course of years grown
unbearable. At times Bella found herself wishing he would simply rape her, so she
could have him arrested. She wondered if that was a healthy line of thought, and
decided it likely was not.
She took with her very little when she finally left. She had very little to
take. Trinkets, clothes, shoes … these things meant nothing to her, as during life
her mother could never be bothered to pass down any of the traditional, societal
definitions of womanhood. Could never be bothered with her daughter at all,
really, nor with her husband. Bella had learned by herself about womanhood, in
back alleys and cheap motels, years after her mother had died. Her education
handed down by what men told her to be, what they told her to do. Promises of
love, drops of blood on the sheets.
When that didn't work, when she realized she could be more than this, it
came as an epiphany. A rare glimpse of sunlight in an otherwise dark life. She'd
left her father, apoplectic with desire and dismay and alcohol-fuelled rage. She'd
left behind their hole of an apartment. She could do better on her own.
And she had, for a time.
Pool was easy, the angles naturally making sense to her. Slipping into a bar
even easier. New York City cops had far better things to worry about. Bouncers
knew it, owners knew it, and a patron was a patron. Particularly short, pretty
brunettes with good legs and a cute face. The type of girl who could entice an entire
crowd of rowdy young men to stick around for more drinks, dropping dollar after
dollar into pool tournaments that, invariably, they lost.
She didn't go home with these men, though many had asked, and in the
end this factored into her undoing. Descent and rebirth, and descent and rebirth
again. These men could not understand her, or why she spurned them. She'd
leave them with a knowing smile, standing dismayed in the street. Sometimes she
kissed them lightly, thanked them for their interest, but always with that
mischievous gleam in her eyes, that sardonic grin on her face. The look that
proved that, regardless of pretty words, she took vicious pleasure in walking
away.
It was power, and Bella revelled in it. The ability to make men throw their
money, their bodies, their hearts at her. Lots of men. Lots of bars. She walked
away from every one … walked away grinning her savage grin. For eight months
Bella lived, celibate as a nun, feeding on the hearts of men.
Eventually they tired of it. Patrons began complaining. Bouncers began
carding. Bets around the pool table, even when Bella could manage to enter the
bar in the first place, dried up. People had heard of her. Bella was forced to give up
the pool earnings, and her tiny studio apartment with the mattress on the floor,
the only piece of furniture she owned.
One bar remained, the only one at which she'd allowed herself to develop
friends. The owner, Eric. The bouncer, Ben. She didn't play her game here. She
didn't taunt the men, break their hearts. It was here she went when she wanted a
glass of beer and a conversation. It was here she turned now, desperate for
somewhere to stay. Ben offered the use of his apartment. Bella didn't decline the
offer.
Her relationship with Ben was entirely platonic. This surprised her;
surprised both of them. Bella was attractive, young, charming. Ben was in his
mid-twenties, with a powerful build and a handsome face. Bella would have
broken her celibacy for him, if he'd asked. Sometimes she wished he would. Ben
never did, and Bella came to realize that he could not. He knew her age. He knew
her past. It would have felt like taking advantage of her, regardless of her own
willingness.
After nearly eighteen months of living with Bella, Ben had been forced to
turn her out. He was in a new relationship with a young woman named Angela, a
blind girl he had met with her seeing-eye dog at a jazz club, and this new
girlfriend worried about him sharing a studio apartment with a teenage runaway.
Eventually Angela warmed to Bella, and would likely have accepted her as a
roommate in a new, larger apartment, but by then it was too late. By then Mike,
and the needle, had hold of Bella. For better or for worse, it would change her life
forever.
"Please, Mike …" Bella whimpered.
Mike, towering above her, the bag still in his hand, the sneer on his face
half grin, half expression of disgust. She could see this excited him, plain as day.
To her own surprise, she found that she couldn't blame him for it. Bella knew the
aphrodisiac of power. Hadn't she played with it for years before, outside of those
dimly lit bars that lined the city streets?
"You were a bad girl," Mike growled. Bella repeated his words, agreed
with him, petulant, her breath hitching. But now the tears were drying. She
thought she knew how best to resolve this. Was her lower limp trembling just a
bit more than necessary? Were her eyes just a bit bigger?
"I was a bad girl," Bella said again, and arched her back, drawing out the
words like warm honey on her tongue.
Pain flashed across her face, sudden, explosive, unexpected. Bella recoiled
from the blow. Mike's expert delivery rarely left marks, but it hurt no less than
any other slap.
"Don't play that shit with me, girl."
Bella looked up at him, sniffling. The slap had brought fresh tears to her
eyes, and she blinked them away.
"Say you're sorry, and mean it." Mike looked down at her like a dark
king, and Bella realized that this had been just another in a long series of lessons.
Mike was in control. Mike was the boss. Mike was God, dispensing pleasure
and pain at his whim.
"I'm sorry, Mike." Bella meant it. No tears, now. No hysterics. Just rapid
breathing, clenched teeth. The need was a tight ball in her stomach. She tried not
to look at the heroin. She tried to look at the windows, the clock on the desk,
anything else. Again and again her eyes returned to the bag.
"Take it and get out." Mike tossed the bag into a corner, and turned to
his ledgers. Bella scrambled after it on all fours, like the dog Mike had trained
her to be. By the time she was out the door, shouting some hurried, half-meant
words of appreciation after her, Mike had forgotten entirely about her.
Her roommate's name was Jessica. The girl had been in the business for
fourteen months, a fact that repulsed Bella whenever she gave it even a moment's
thought. Jessica was a sweet, honest, quiet girl. She had become wrapped up with
the wrong people. These people had led her to heroin, and heroin had led her to
Mike. Mike had led her to the clients, of which there were many. Jessica was
an absolute premium, the Rolls Royce of Mike's line of whores. Even after
fourteen months, she was still the youngest girl in his service; only twelve. Her
work earned more in a weekend than most earned in a month.
Bella believed she didn't think about this, but looking at the bags under
Jessica's eyes on a Sunday morning when the little girl returned, tired and often
bruised, to shoot up and go to sleep, was like a physical force hammering on her.
They'd shared a sister-like relationship at first, but Bella had been forced to
establish some distance after a nightmarish group-job they'd been ordered to
perform. This had happened occasionally since, and perhaps the most horrifying
thing about the events was the way in which Bella had become inured to them.
She and Jessica were popular, as individuals and as a group. Bella, with her
large eyes, upturned nose, and small breasts, could pass for much younger than
she really was. She received the clients who wanted to fuck a twelve-year-old, but
who still retained some sort of conscience, some semblance of a soul. Jessica's
clients, as far as Bella could gather, had no soul at all.
Sweet lips, big blue eyes, long blonde hair tucked back in a ponytail, Jessica
was swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, watching Bella. Her client had
backed out tonight, but as he'd pre-paid, Mike had treated Jessica to a night off.
She had absolutely nothing to do and this, compared to her normal nights, was
bliss.
Bella cooked the heroin, pulled down her pants, and pushed away her
underwear, exposing the joint between thigh and pelvis. She still shot up here, a
remnant of the days when she'd hoped to escape, the days when she was still
concerned about needle tracks. She had no qualms about exposing herself in
front of Jessica. How could she? Jessica, in turn, registered no expression of
disturbance or concern as Bella slid the needle into her skin, pressed the plunger,
set the syringe on the dresser.
The effect of the fix was near-instantaneous, as always. First the burst of
pleasure, warm and pulsing like an orgasm. Vision blurred, muscles relaxing,
Bella seemed to float off into a cloud of euphoria. She lay back on the bed, hands
crossed behind her head, and heard Jessica speak as if from the end of a long
tunnel.
"I saw the baggie in the trash. Did you steal Renee's shit again?"
Stupid bitch leaves it out, what does she expect? Bella thought. She didn't
need to answer Jessica. The question was rhetorical.
"You're going to hurt yourself." The concern in Jessica's voice was lovely in
its innocence. Bella drew in a shuddery breath, happy to let the drugs do their
work. Caring was pain. Apathy was bliss.
"No one gonna miss me when I'm gone," she told Jessica, still looking up at
the ceiling.
"I'll miss you."
Bella smiled. Of course Jessica would miss her … until the drugs and the
pain and the sheer horror of their life took her, too. Assuming Jessica outlived her
in the first place.
Bella dozed.
Tell me what you thought…
Chantenique
Xxx
R&R!