Theta Waves Book 1 (Episodes 1-3) (13 page)

Enough for half a dozen godspit smears.

It was that last thought that sent a gasp from her lungs like a quiet exhale of surprised pleasure.

She waited as long as she could, perched on the edge of the plastic sheet, making sure Ezekiel was good and gone. By her reckoning, at least half an hour had passed, plenty of time for him to get out of the building. A niggle in the back of her mind nagged her about being trusted, of taking advantage of trust, but she squashed each thought ruthlessly. If he was foolish enough to leave a girl alone with four hundred dollars, then he deserved what he got. It wasn't as though she had to use the smears right away. All she had to do was buy them and hide them and then she could have one anytime she needed it. She didn't have to wait to see if he'd parcel out the ones from his stash or worse: decide not to give them to her at all.

She could be in control, get some harness put on this sense of freefall, reign in this motherfucken carriage so to speak. She was in the perfect place to score. In fact, she was in better shape here than she would be plying her trade on the streets. It would be insane not to use the opportunity.

She turned to the wall of mirrors and adjusted the black vinyl bedspread so that it was knotted between her breasts, then realized that the white sports bra ruined the effect. Far easier to score if she looked the part, so she stripped herself of the bedspread and peeled out of the bra. She left the thong on, for all the coverage it offered, and retied the bedspread around her breasts again. The material snaked behind her like a train that could be considered quite chic if she played her cards right. And she intended to play them well.

Clenching the bills, she let herself out of the room and made sure to leave it unlocked so she could get back in. A sense of excitement began to build in her chest, making her breath come in short spasms, the feeling of anticipation, of knowing that soon she would have her hands on enough smears to take her through an entire week.

She walked down the hallway, head down, with purposeful steps. If a girl wanted to look like she belonged, she didn't go gawking around as though she was a tourist. Halfway down the corridor, a man exited a room, pulling along a sloe-eyed teenage girl wearing a Cleopatra type costume. It was cleverly designed so that the manacles on her wrist were gold colored and painted to look like they were inlaid with lapis lazuli. Except for the fact that the girl had a decidedly vacant stare and rattled along behind her master of the moment, the costume could have been quite stunning. Theda was just beginning to think Sasha was some sort of genius when the man turned on his slave and backhanded her hard enough across the cheek that she stumbled backward and fell against the wall. She slid down it and crumpled into a pile.

Theda's first instinct was to run; this was no business of hers, but as she tried to inch past, the girl whimpered pitifully. Theda made the mistake of making eye contact.

"Please," the girl said, but Theda wasn't sure who she was pleading with.

The man loomed over the girl and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her to her feet. "You forget yourself, Salima," he growled and twisted the girl close to him, glaring down at her face as he pulled her head back. "A queen doesn't beg," he said. "Must I return you to the boutique?"

Theda tried to ease her way past, but the girl had begun to sob uncontrollably despite the orders to shut up, despite the vicious shaking the man had begun to deliver. Theda didn't know what the boutique was, but the word seemed to have stolen the last of the girl's buzz and sent her into a fit of wailing that only infuriated her master more. It must be one powerful motherfucker of a word.

"Excuse me?" Theda said and wished even as the words came from her mouth that she could bite her tongue. This was no way to get her fix. No way at all.

The man whirled on her, pulling the girl along in a renewed whimpering mess. He had pock marks on his nose large enough that the dirt within made them look like moles. Theda tried her best to disguise the shudder that moved up her spine. He looked like he would speak except for the rage that had captured his tongue.

Theda locked eyes with Salima's. They were black and wide and even in the light of the hallway, she couldn't tell where the girl's pupils ended and irises began. Cleopatra was a perfect persona for the girl. Theda bent over delicately, in a purposefully subtle bow toward the pile of dung that still gripped the girl by her hair.

"You purchased her from the boutique?"

She couldn't see him from her subjugated position, but she could tell by the tightness of his voice that his entire face had become a pinched up pile of muscle. "That's none of your business, bitch. Now move on."

She showed him her fist of money. "Is this enough to get me into the boutique?"

There was a pause and she dared peer up at the piece of shit. He'd relaxed his hold on the girl's hair just enough that the skin around her eyes returned to normal. "A girl like you doesn't need money to get in," he said, staring at her without blinking.

"How fortunate," she said, hoping that the small respite had made him forget his anger at the girl. It wasn't much, but it was all Theda had to offer. Salima had already stopped whimpering and was making barely audible little choking sounds that indicated she was gathering her wits back together. Theda offered her a brief look of apology and then turned to make her way down the rest of the hallway. She got nearly a dozen paces before the man called out to her.

"Hey spitter," he said and waited for her to turn around.

When she didn't, he chuckled loudly enough that Theda could make out the undercurrent of cruelty within it.

"Tell them I sent you," he called after her. "Maybe they'll turn you into an Anne Boleyn." At this he laughed straight out and Theda could hear the chain rattling again, Salima's sobs renewing.

That was about as much salvation as Theda had in her. She fled the rest of the hallway, her bare feet catching in the material of the bed spread as she stumbled into the yawning expanse of the common room. She took a few moments to catch her breath, and realized her cheeks were wet.

If she ever needed a God spit fix, it was now.

She sent harried looks about the room, trying not to take in any actual activities, trying only to assess the faces and postures of those within. Surely one of them had a smear for sale. Surely one of them could tell her where she could score a fist full of cash worth.

It was like trying to find the least of all evils, trying to lay her eyes on an obvious dealer. The haze of the room barely disguised the glazed looks of the spitters who were obviously just out of the peak of the bliss, coming down, in some cases landing hard. It was when they were the most vulnerable, Theda knew. It was the time when they would do anything for the promise of another fix. It was the time they felt the most shame and the most need in equal measures. Exactly how she felt right then.

Either no one in the room cared what was happening around them, or they had long become desensitized to it. For Theda, it was like a Virgin peek at hard-core pornography; it was a forensic look at a newborn.

The smell of pot permeated the room but couldn't disguise the stink of sex and blood. It confused itself with that of sweat until, stumbling through the crowds of patrons and spitters alike, Theda couldn't tell whether the haze came from the smoke or from the stink. It was tough to avert her gaze from the faces of the spitters as they performed whatever act they were bid; there was a desperation behind their eyes that Theda knew so well that her mouth watered.

Her gaze settled on a couple on the far side of the room. He looked to be thirty something and his companion, obviously a spitter, knelt in front of him as he stroked his member with such fierceness and determination that she couldn't pull her eyes away until a female voice came from beside, breaking the spell.

"Why do you suppose it's always in the eye?"

Theda turned. "What's that?" she asked, tearing her gaze away and onto the lithe redhead beside her. A sense of elegant poise quivered in every line of the woman's body.

"The eye. Why do you suppose they like to shoot into the eye?" The woman inclined her head toward the couple and Theda followed her gaze. Indeed, the girl on her knees was wiping semen from her left eyebrow and off her eyelashes.

Theda couldn't help chuckling softly. "And always the left one," she said to the redhead. Now that she really looked at her, Theda could see that despite the sense of elegance, the woman's makeup was heavy and artificial. Almost too perfect.

"You look familiar," the redhead said.

"Of course I do," Theda said, floundering for an explanation, any explanation even as she tried to deflect the woman's attention from her face by showing her the fist full of money. "I'm Anne Boleyn."

The woman wrapped her fingers under Theda's, closing her fist over the money. "The last Anne Boleyn lost her head over less godspit than that will buy," she said. "You don't look that stupid."

Theda swallowed, trying to rid her mouth of the waterfall leaking from her cheeks. She was close. So close. She could taste it, feel the tingle on her tongue. She had to get this done before Ezekiel came back, if he came back.

"I'm not that stupid. I know how much I can get. What I want to know is if you can get it for me?"

The woman smiled thinly, deepening the lines beside her mouth. "What if I told you the money wasn't enough?"

"I'd tell you I'll get it from outside and save myself a few hundred dollars."

The redhead chewed the inside of her cheek, revealing just how much of her lips were drawn on in cherry red pencil. "We both know you're not going to do that," she said.

So she'd been made. Maybe Sasha had even known when she came in with Ezekiel exactly who she was, maybe he'd seen her face on the promo. Maybe everyone in the room knew. Maybe the man in the hallway, the teenaged Cleopatra. She had to think fast.

"What you want?"

The redhead stuck her tongue in the corner of her mouth reflectively. "It just so happens I do have an opening for an Anne Boleyn."

Realization dawned. "You own the boutique."

The woman didn't so much as nod. "A few hours. That's all it takes."

Theda looked down at the bills in her fist. "I can pay. All of this for just one smear."

The redhead shook her head. "Where do you think you are? This isn't some seedy street corner in the East End."

"On a street corner, I'd be able to afford a dozen smears." Maybe that's what she would do; slip out onto the street. Find a dealer. Load up. It was still dark out, perhaps even enough that no one would notice her, recognize her.

"A dozen smears for a spitter like you might last six days tops." The redhead tossed her hair back over her shoulder. "You don't have to answer; I know I'm right. What would you do if I told you that the Anne Boleyn part pays a smear for every day for the rest of your life?"

Theda tried to tell herself that the tingle in the base of her neck, that stretched down to the bottom of her spine, was anticipation. She tried not to think about Ezekiel coming back and finding the room empty. "How long did you say?"

"A few hours." The redhead crossed her arms over her chest, cocking her head to the side. "It's a pretty good deal if I do say so myself."

Theda thought about the teenaged Cleopatra and understood finally. A few hours with a disgusting man, playing out his distorted fantasies, and ending up with enough smears to last your lifetime. If a girl played it right, if she ate well, stayed half healthy, she might be able to extend that life into years and years of pleasurable bliss.

It was more than the ruin of this new world could offer anyone.

She wanted to tell the boutique owner that she agreed, that it was a fair deal, but all she could do was nod her head in silence because her throat had thickened itself closed, choking off everything but the anticipation.

The Boutique took an entire wing of the building and was lit by natural light bulbs. The costumes didn't just droop from clothes hangers but were draped on wax figures of the famous person they were meant to represent. Alexander the great wore his linen armor as he sat astride Bucephalas. Bonnie and Clyde hung outside of their getaway car, grasping bags of money and semiautomatic rifles. Even literary characters were presented in the boutique: Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula and Mena, even Hamlet and Ophelia.

Anne Boleyn sat next to her portly husband, looking afraid and vulnerable. The black wig on that wax mannequin had been knocked askew and Theda moved to straighten it. She noticed the pearls around the figure's neck had begun to brown from age or maybe from the sweat of its previous wearers.

"I want a smear up front," Theda said to the redhead.

"Certainly."

"And I want some sort of contract. I want to know how you're going to deliver the godspit to me."

"You're getting ahead of yourself," the redhead said. "I've been in this business a long time. I know how to handle it. Shall we set you up with your first hit?"

It was almost too good to be true. "Right now?"

"A girl doesn't buy an expensive pair of shoes without first trying them on."

The redhead crooked her finger at Theda, leading her down an aisle of rock stars. At the end was a solid wood door that opened without a single creak. Inside, draped across loungers and fainting couches were a myriad of youth in the throes of euphoria. Theda's heart began to beat so fast she could hear it in her ears. She turned to the redhead.