Blood Sacrifice by By Rick R. Reed

Author:By Rick R. Reed [By Rick R. Reed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: UntreedReads
Published: 2011-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

2004

A cockroach skitters across the floor and scurries under the baseboard. Elise wishes she were somewhere else, floating down a river maybe, anywhere but here. She imagines the slow, gurgling flow of emerald water, the gentle rocking of a raft beneath her, and the heat of a summer sun on her back. This is how she vanishes. At the end of the river, she notices the black cobwebs clinging to the ceiling and the fantasy winks out, like a neon light at closing.

She wants to pull back when the calloused hand touches her calf and gives it a squeeze. It’s like she’s woken from a dream.

“Hey, babe, thanks. That was great.” His voice comes to her from a distance, although he sits next to her, dressing, on the bed. She turns her head from the pillow, where she had closed her eyes, and looks at him. He is a middle-aged man, in his fifties, maybe, with a hairy pot belly, a hairy back, and a bald pate ringed with too-dark black hair. His face lacks a chin, the fact of which he tries to hide with the help of a goatee, also too-dark black. Had he said what his name was? Does it matter? He had wanted her to call him “Daddy.”

Elise doesn’t reply to his insincere thanks. She hoists herself up on one elbow and puffs her lower lip out, blowing air upward to clear the sweaty strands of hair from her face. She reaches out toward the wall and traces the crack’s progress.

“That was some hot time.” He laughs, unaware of her inattention. “You around on Howard Street a lot?”

She forces herself to meet his gaze. He’s grinning like a schoolboy after his first time, a mixture of pride, cruelty, and remorse all projected through the thin lips, and too-white Chiclet teeth. Elise tries to think of what makes this one different from the others she has taken on today. They all blur into one, and what does it matter, anyway?

“Hey.” The man touches her shoulder, and Elise recoils. Getting fucked is so much easier to bear than the gentle touch of a hand. She hates it when they touch her, or worse, try to kiss her. “I asked you a question.”

Elise sits up straighter, wishing for a cigarette, even though she doesn’t smoke. But it would add so much to the scene: the flame of the Zippo, the dismissive expelling of the smoke, the blue fog obscuring the trick’s face. Perhaps she should pick herself up a box of Marlboros for later. “Yeah, you can find me there just about any evening, looking for friends.” She gives her most winning, and fakest smile, and forces herself to jab him in the ribs. “Friends like you.”

The best kind of friend… She thinks of the three wadded-up twenties he has already left on the nightstand. She has lain with four other friends today.

She watches silently as he checks his pockets, making sure he has everything. He slides a pair of black framed glasses on his doughy, featureless face.

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