I looked at him beseechingly.
“You’re going home.”
Relief flooded through me. Home?
“To Tommy,” he clarified. He must’ve seen the look of hope on my face. I knew my expression dropped. Was home with him? I hated what he’d put me through so far but I hated myself, too, because my actions, my running away had probably made it easy for Earl to kidnap me.
As we headed for the front door I saw Juan Carlos again. He was in a robe, smoking a cigar. He walked up to us and nodded at Earl, “You hand her off to Ricky and his crew and stay. We don’t want the Ferrano boys to see you. Athena; your fiancé has been told if he ever gets tired of you to send you back to me.” He winked. I would’ve gulped but my throat was so dry that I’m sure I just stared at him blankly.
Earl walked me outside and put me in the back of an old cargo van. I sat on the dirty carpeted floor and a tall Mexican guy tied my hands and feet and put duct tape over my mouth.
“I’m sorry. Good luck,” Earl said softly to me and then shut the van doors.
This bad guy had a guilty conscience. I was grateful that he’d at least stopped that filthy pig from finishing with me but he’d been the one who helped bring me here. I trembled hard. Two guys sat in the back with me with gun holsters on them and there were two in the front. The only one I recognized was the slim black guy who’d done the first aid on Earl’s shoulder.
One of the guys answered a phone, spoke in Spanish, then looked back and said, “Change of plans. You been sold, bitch!” Then he said something else in Spanish and they all started laughing hysterically.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!
Was Earl lying or had someone double-crossed someone? Where was I going? What would happen to me? The van drove for what felt like a long time, maybe an hour, but I didn’t have any real concept of time, only the concept of horror. I felt like I was rapidly falling apart at the seams, stitch by stitch, and there may not be many stitches left.
Abruptly, the van screeched to a halt and the two in the front got out. The two in the back sat and kept their gazes focused on me. A long time seemed to pass when finally the back door opened and I was yanked out, dropped carelessly on the road, and then the men jumped back into the van and squealed away.
For at least a minute or two I just laid there in the dust, in the dark, totally freaking out, totally immobile because I was still bound and gagged. Then I saw headlights coming at me, heard brakes squeal, and heard multiple sets of feet running. I squinted at the high beams in my face.
Oh no, what next? Who had I gotten sold to?
I was scooped up into the air in strong arms. I knew that scent. It was leather, it was musk, a bit of sweat, some stale coffee, but it was Tommy. When it hit me, at that second it was the best scent I’d ever smelled in my life. My heart leapt forward with jubilation but then at the same instant I felt fear prickle like spikes through my scalp. How mad was he going to be at me for this?
Then I was in the back seat of a car and then I was on his lap and he was breathing hard, getting my hands untied, getting my feet untied, and then he got the tape off my mouth. It was dark and we weren’t alone in the car, which was now speeding away. There were three heads in the front bench seat and just us in the back.
I felt barely more than catatonic. I had my bottom lip in my mouth, reeling from the sting of the tape being pulled off. My feet and hands were numb from having been tied too long and too tight.
“Are you hurt?” he breathed, examining me in the near darkness of the car with just the tiny interior light on. I shook my head No but at the sight of his eyes, the concern on his face, the reality of where I was and what I was in the middle of, a giant sob tore out of me.
He pulled me tight against his chest and rocked back and forth, one hand on my head, the other flat against the center of my back. I put my arms around his torso and held tight, feeling him pull me tighter, feeling his mouth on my head. He said nothing but he kept rocking back and forth with me, kissing my head over and over, squeezing me reassuringly. He said nothing; I said nothing. I had a feeling that there would be plenty to say when we were alone.
A while later, I don’t know how much later, the car stopped and I jolted awake. I had fallen asleep against him, feeling like his scent and his arms were a warm blanket around me. He carried me, cradled in his arms in through a gate, and then up a walkway to a large light-colored house with all the outside lights on. Once inside, the interior’s light was blinding. I squinted and shielded my eyes and he said something softly to his brother who’d been in the car with us, shut the door and then he climbed a narrow staircase with me. A moment later he kicked a slightly ajar dark stained wooden door open and then swept his foot backwards once we were in to shut it. He turned around and locked a deadbolt and put me down on a bed. He was standing over me, looking down at me for a moment. His expression unreadable to me.
My dam burst and the tears fell like Niagara Falls. He flicked the light switch off, sat, grabbed me, pulled me up onto his lap and rocked me some more in the dark. He held me tight; almost too tight. After a few minutes or an hour, I wasn’t sure, he let go. He got up to his feet. I clambered up to my knees on the bed and threw my arms around him and held on tight, not wanting him to leave me alone, not wanting someone to swoop in and take me, not wanting his sweetness to change to anger. He kissed the top of my head and whispered, “I’m gonna run a bath. Just a minute, okay?” I let go of him and just sat on the edge of the bed.
There was an adjoining bathroom and I heard him turn the water on. He came back a moment later and reached for my hand. I stood up and followed him into the bathroom. I saw my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a tangled mess, my eyes were bloodshot, and my black and white checkered dress with the red collar and red belt was filthy and ruined. I had no shoes on my dirty feet. Tommy looked rough, too. He was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a white button up shirt but he was filthy dirty. He looked exhausted. His face was prickly and unshaven. He looked down at me and started to undo the zipper on the back of my dress. I let the material fall to my feet, got out of my underthings, and g
ot into the big antique-looking claw foot tub and wrapped my arms around my legs, putting my cheek on my knee.
He shed his clothing, including 2 guns plus a knife in a leg holster and piled it all on the floor beside the tub. He got in behind me and started to massage my shoulders. I started ugly-crying big time. He soaped my back up with a giant sudsy sponge and then passed the sponge to me and I resumed the rest of the soaping up in the front, still crying.
He reached around and tenderly cupped my chin, then tilted my chin up to pour a cup of water over my hair and then he started massaging my scalp, lathering my hair. He lathered it up with a strawberry-scented shampoo and it felt so good I thought I might just fall asleep. Then he rinsed my hair several times with the cup and then lathered himself up hair to toes, rinsed, leaned forward, pulled the plug out and let it drain. I went to get up but he pulled my back against his front and kissed my temple and kept me there while it drained. Then he leaned over and turned the taps back on to refill it with clean water. He reached over to a shelf beside the tub and poured some lavender scented foam bath in. He pulled me back against his chest and leaned back in the water against the back of the tub. By this time I had stopped with the tears but still had the shudders.
He let the tub fill and then we soaked for a while, not talking, I was just listening to the sizzle of the bubbles on our skin and the sound of crickets and frogs outside. I started to feel like I was sinking into sleep against him but then he nudged me to let him out. I leaned forward, “We’re both washed clean, okay?” he said. I looked back over my shoulder at him. By the look on his face I think he saw this as monumental, almost like a baptism, for both of us. I nodded slowly. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. My heart ached, thinking about him coming to get me, about him saving me.
I pulled the plug and watched the bubbles and water go down the drain while he dried himself off and then put a fluffy white towel around his waist.
“Hungry, thirsty?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He left the room and I got out, dried off, and then went to the sink. I found a box of new toothbrushes under the sink, along with toothpaste and mouthwash. The tears came back and I cried softly as I washed my mouth out. I wondered if I’d ever forget that horrible man’s taste for the rest of my life. Just thinking about it made bile rise and I started retching and then vomiting in the sink. I knew it was loud, so loud that if Tommy was in the bedroom still he’d be listening to this. It was like my stomach was trying to turn itself inside out.