“That’s life,” she says, suddenly in a pensive mood. “You never know what’s around the corner. And when you’re new to this, you have no idea how to handle things. A lot of stuff I figured out in hindsight. I missed out on opportunities and did a lot of foolish things. That’s how I learned. Little by little, I started to get good at it. I never talked to my family again or heard from that man. So things worked out well. After having that experience with him, my body didn’t respond to anything else. Romance didn’t do anything for me. I tried it, and it led to nothing. It dawned on me I wasn’t cut for it because a part of me was crushed and numb. I made peace with it and moved on. And then I met you...” she says, her voice trailing off.
She moves her gaze to me.
“How can I be of any good to you, Senna?”
She shrugs.
“I wish I knew. You just are better than anything I’ve ever had.”
“You don’t even know my whole story,” I say, rolling onto my side and stretching my arm out to grab a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand.
Unhurriedly, I place it between my lips and light it.
She studies me as I take a long drag and slowly blow the smoke out. I set the lighter on the nightstand and pull an ashtray next to me.
“That’s because you never told me,” she says.
I let out another stream of smoke before I speak.
“The first man who sucked my dick wasn’t a John. It was our legal guardian,” I say.
Her eyes flick wide with surprise.
I slowly nod, detached and empty of emotions.
“Yeah... He was a remote cousin of my mom. He made his guardianship contingent upon my acceptance of the situation and, of course, my silence. I granted him both. I didn’t want to lose Sara or to be forced to live in a group home. I was seventeen. I did what I thought was best for Sara and me.”
I pause and stretch a bitter smile.
“At least he didn’t want to fuck me,” I say, attempting a bit of dark humor while tapping my cigarette above the ashtray. “He had a wife and small kids. A military guy. They moved to Europe as soon as I was eighteen.”
I move my gaze away and stare blankly at the ceiling, slowly shaking my head while recollecting those times.
“I didn’t feel a thing. And for the most part, I tried not to think about it,” I say, bringing my gaze back to her.
Her eyes are trained on me. Soft and glazed with tears.
“I just let it roll over me as if it was nothing,” I mutter. “I still liked girls and fucked them but never fell for them. I couldn’t feel a thing for the people I had sex with. I knew that part of me was broken. I let it be and never dwelled. It was what it was. At the time, life had other ways to keep my mind away from things, and I didn’t date or have a girlfriend.”
A few moments of silence pass.
“What about the woman in that clip?”
A soft smile tickles my lips.
“She was hot and very much into me. The problem was she was into a lot of other guys, so we parted ways. After that, I knew I couldn’t find much of anything on the streets, so I gave up thinking about it.”
Sunk in thought, she ponders.
“The men from Jill’s... Why were they after you?”
“One of the deals had turned bad. They threatened me and said they’d get to Sara if I didn’t meet them, so I did.”
I exhale smoke, flicking my cigarette against the lip of the ashtray.
“A stupid story. Some chick I got hired for became obsessed with me. She told her husband that she had fallen for me and left him. He got pissed and sent his goons to collect me. You know the rest.”
We lock eyes.