Hollow Dolls, The (27 page)

28

“There.” She heaved the suitcase on the bed. “Crap! Rescuing her
was easier.”

Melanie laid a hand on the suitcase and drummed her fingers.

Maybe it was just books.

“Do you really want to?” said Winnie.

“Why not?”

Winnie painted a smile. Melanie did too.

“Who do you like better?” said Winnie.

“They’re both hot.”

“Obviously Will wants
you
though.”

“He can have me then.

“Come on. Let’s have a drink and get ready.”

They sat at the table and drank scotch. Melanie chopped out four
two inch lines from Kim Li’s fat packet of coke. They snorted, showered,
changed, grabbed the packet, grabbed the scotch and within twenty minutes Will
and Nathaniel were doing rails off Melanie and Winnie’s naked white asses while
they giggled at each other across the beds. Will licked the bit of powder that
remained on Melanie’s bum cheek, pulled them apart and buried his face.

It was more of a smorg than a straight up appetizer-entree-dessert
kind of party. All the players in the room seemed pretty familiar. First, there’s
vanilla sex, which accounts for most folks. Then there’s power exchange—bondage,
discipline, submission and domination—aka, BDSM or kink. Whatever you want to
call it. Then there’s the
smorg
which was sort of a—no hurry have fun
make it last change partners when the music stops—type of party.

Will stood and Melanie got up right after. She was in front of him
standing a foot shorter, a hundred pounds lighter. She flopped him onto the bed
with ease.

“Hey! Where the hell did you learn to do that?”

She could tell he blushed a little in his brown-skinned cheeks. Melanie
flicked her tongue and teased him with her mouth until he was harder than hard
and got on top. Sliding delicious black beauty inside, Melanie looked across at
Winnie who was already on Nathaniel riding away. They watched each other.
Winnie’s head bobbed up and down like she was riding horseback.

“I love you,” said Winnie.

“I love you back.”

Their little games made the boys hotter. Winnie’s steed came first
and she dismounted, stepped over to Melanie and kissed her full on. As they
nom-nommed and fondled each other’s breasts, Will came something fierce and
that set Melanie off crying out with an orgasm while Winnie massaged her clit.

The boys were getting wasted on BC bud, drinking Molson Canadian
lager, and watching the HD TV when ‘Connie’ Conrad Baxter sauntered into the
suite. Winnie and Melanie got dressed and Conrad just gave a “M-m-mmm,
delicious,” as he walked past. Winnie gently grabbed his package as he neared
her and they both snickered.

Back in their own suite Winnie got to playing Xbox. After a while,
she tossed the controller aside and made a pouty face.

“I’m still restless,” she said.

She put her arms around Melanie from behind, slipped her hands in
her jeans pockets. Melanie reached behind and pressed her backside against
Winnie’s restlessness. They walked to the couch and crawled under the blankets.

~*~

Kim Li lacked the ability for deep bonding—a staple of life that
most humans couldn’t live without. In her eyes, down in the depths of the deep
brown an alien hovered. Perhaps that was who the men really wanted when they
watched her dance.

She whispered in Mandarin with her velvety voice to a man slightly
shorter, her knees bent to accommodate. Her elfish grin and salacious eyes were
automatic flirtations. It was a serious intent on her part. He was only her
cousin Huáng Li, but she had to give him a little something. It was only fair
after all she’d demanded of him. To the casual observer it would seem the woman
was in love with Huáng and that she was flirting with her man. Her gestures and
touches were a fairly common occurrence today in public.

Wait. One might observe more closely.

The seemingly natural sexual body language was actually a learned
behaviour; something Kim Li was able to turn off and on like a light switch
without feeling any residual emotional effect. Our observer wouldn’t know that
the sexy oriental girl was only mimicking behaviours of others she’d learned
over the years. For Huáng, her pouty lips worked best to arouse his...love.

If the observer were to worm through to Kim Li’s inner world and
watch closely, the expressions she wore would reveal their calculated nuances.
And in the sound of her voice, an otherwise undetectable thread of insincerity
would rise to the surface. But she was good. She’d never show her true self the
way she might have done as a young teen. Put it this way: gay men saw through
her pouty sex routine right away but loved her nonetheless. The men she danced
for were taken in love, in lust and wanting more.

If the observer of Kim Li were a psychotherapist, a diagnosis of several
personality disorders would come first, but sooner or later the deeper truth
about Kim Li’s psychopathic pathologies would reveal themselves. The kind of
darkness that would send a professional reeling.  As it was, she had never been
under observation by a professional of any kind. Her uncle would never allow
that. There were too many family secrets in the vault. Secrets that he was
directly involved in. Kim Li had no idea how closely her uncle was watching her
over the years.

Raised in a Chinese speaking environment and learning English at
private school she exuded an alien outsider air. It stood to reason that whites
saw defined her by the old stereotype pastiche—a Chinese immigrant trying to
assimilate into a culture she didn’t understand. That couldn’t be further from
the truth. For Kim Li, her language and slightly different mannerisms as a
foreigner were a perfect cover. A summary acceptance and dismissal by fans and
regular folks alike:

 Ok, she has an accent and doesn’t get me, but gawd she’s so hot.

Kim Li was the poor little rich girl whose social inadequacies
slipped through the cracks undetected when she was young and she’d fine-tuned
them into tools of her trade. After all, being emotionless had its perks. She
didn’t care much either way by this point how anyone perceived her emotions or
lack thereof. People were just something that existed for her use and amusement—in
that order. 

She’d adopted Vic’s credo,
If you can’t fuck it or get money
from it, piss on it!
  His wickedness was just a tease. His street hardness,
especially when it pushed up against her, was the payoff.

 As her number two toy, Kim Li had commandeered Huáng into her incensed
fan who’d do anything to appease. Huáng  had been in love ever since Kim Li’s
first ballet recital.

Huáng struggled. In his observation of himself he was a moral
degenerate for having fallen in love with a blood relative. Nevertheless he
always obeyed her unconditionally. Huáng was bewitched, enamoured and
glamoured—signed, sealed and delivered. Huáng had it bad. Kim Li could never
return even a single such feeling yet her body language, smiles and pouts
always convinced Huáng that his love was not unrequited.

He was an inch or two shorter than she. That last day in the
warehouse as they skimmed their uncles heroin, their heads touched together.
The straight black hair was so identical in every way, an observer would not be
able to tell which strands belonged to whom. They were naughty little heroin
mice on an adventure collecting China White heroin. Their Great-Uncle, Ben Li loved
his niece dearly and would never suspect her of any misconduct. He too had been
to the ballet recitals.

~*~

An extra large Supreme pizza with double cheese sat in the middle
of the table with the girls nomming and chatting about Melanie’s potential dad.

“You’re sure you’re not making it up?”

“Triple swear,” said Winnie. “He’s your dad and he’s like a super
hero guy in the Downtown Eastside. He looks out for the street girls in the neighborhood.
And
he looks like Santa.”

 Kim Li rapped on the door and stuck her head in. “Hi guys. Smells
good in here. They didn’t suspect a thing,” she said.

“Did they question you about the gang killings?”

“Not at all. It’s a done deal. The officials go through the
motions only they know what really happened.”

“Everyone’s got their version of reality,” said Melanie.

The three of them looked around the table, then continued munching.

“You know how we learn to control our breathing and heart rate in
training, right?” said Kim Li.

“M-hmm.”  Melanie sipped her water.

“Yeah, totally,” said Win. “Speaking of which...” She went into
the bedroom, closed the door and began to play flute.

“Listen Kim Li. Alejandra wants you and all of us to join her.
She’s involved in the Russian mob, child trafficking and drugs—big time.”

“What is this? All a big secret from Winnie?” said Kim Li.

“No, Alejandra has been after her too. She’s been dominating her
and drugging her. It’s messed Winnie up badly.

“I don’t get it.”

It’s complicated.”

“What about the bracelet?”

“It had a cam embedded in it. That’s how I found where they had
you held.”

“I got that from Vic. I don’t get any of this.”

“Vic Denton?” said Melanie.

“Uh-huh.”

I should call him
,  thought Kim Li. She was
distracted by Winnie’s flute music.

 “It’s Paganini Caprice No.24. I have it practically memorized,”
said Melanie.

They shared more stories. When Melanie told her about Vic, Kim Li
was cool and unaffected. She’d been seeing Vic for months yet the news didn’t
phase her. Melanie liked Kim Li more for that. If she’d asked the Man-Rabbit or
Nigreda to find her a killing partner, she couldn’t have dreamed a ‘Kim Li’ up.
 And here she was, like magic. Winnie came out of the bedroom with her pony
bouncing. She ran her hand across Melanie’s back as she walked by.

“I’m heading to Umbilicus.”

Kim Li brought Melanie into the bedroom and hoisted the heavy
suitcase up onto the bed opening it to reveal a kilo package patchwork of China
White heroin and bundled cash.

“This is my start-up money to take down my uncle’s slave trade.”

Melanie
put her fingers on the white packages.

“My cousin has a list of all the top people,” said Kim Li. She
picked up her gun. “Ruger Amphibious,” she said. “Super quiet. It’s standard
Navy Seal issue.”

She aimed at the light switch.

“Don’t!” said Melanie, afraid she’d actually do it.

Kim Li smiled and set the Ruger down on the cash.

“It’s not the drugs I’m after so much,” said Kim Li. “It’s the
girls.”

Melanie explained about about Phillip.

“Let’s partner up,” said Kim Li.

“Alejandra wants to join with you—with both of us,” said Melanie.

“I
am
my uncle’s operation,” said Kim Li. “I’m sole
inheritor of Li International. My uncle is pushing eighty. In truth, he’s
really my great-uncle. I’m just getting a jump start with this,”  she said,
closing the lid on the suitcase.

They went out to the kitchen. 

“Check out my audition vid,” said Melanie. She cued it.

“Nice,” said Kim Li, watching while they sat at the table.

“What about the Dragons. They’ll still be looking for us won’t
they?”  said Melanie.

“My uncle said they were taken care of. The Dragons had it rained
down on their whole crew. Every last one.”

Melanie was fingering the paper with Walter’s address that Winnie
had given her.

“What’s that for?”

“I just got some info about my father. I came here mainly to find
him and sort of got caught up in stuff. I’m pretty sure this is his address
downtown. You want to come?”

“Sure. And I want to return the favor,” said Kim Li.

She stroked Melanie’s arm and held it. “You cared for me. I want
to care for you,” she said.

They looked into each other’s eyes. Melanie realized something eerie
and beautiful about Kim Li that was similar to herself. Kim Li was child-like and
she was trying her best to act grown up. She has the same parts missing. Hollow
Doll? Like her and Win? She wondered. Perhaps now they were three.

“I do need something if you want to return the favor,” said Melanie.

“Sure, what can I do?”

“I need you to kill me.”

"How do you want it? Two to the chest, one to the head?"

“Seriously. Your cousin can hack into computers right?”

“Huáng?” said Kim Li. “I watched him write a message across the
Sony website once. He crossed out the ‘SON’ in their logo and added ‘PUSS’
beside the Y.”