Page 88 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
“Six.”
He says it without a trace of regret or sadness. It’s just a fact of life. I think of my brother at six years old. I can only remember from pictures; I wasn’t even born then.
“And so . . . you had to . . .”
A.J. produces a low, chilling laugh. “No. Not me. I was worth much more than what the chicken hawks would pay. I wasn’t just a fresh little hole to fuck. I could fight. And for the house, taking hundreds of bets on a single fight is much more lucrative than a four-trick-a-day whore, no matter how many of them you have in your stable.”
The bitterness in his voice breaks my heart. I’m suddenly ashamed by my privileged, first-world upbringing, of all the times I complained about clothes or cars or boys. Until now, real life was as real to me as Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Real life was somewhere out there, beyond the safe confines of my pretty little bubble in Beverly Hills.
“So you started fighting for your keep.”
He n
ods. “Earlier than most, because I was big, and always angry anyway. I didn’t understand why I was so different, why I saw colors in sounds and no one else did. I felt like a freak. And because the more often I won, the easier Matushka was on my mother.”
Bella growls in her sleep, and turns over. She settles again, burrowing into the covers, still making a warning grumble deep in her throat.
“My mother was an addict. Heroin, crack, booze, whatever she could get her hands on. When I was ten, she overdosed. On Christmas morning. I didn’t tell Matushka for three days, until after my mother’s body had already begun to decompose.” He adds thoughtfully, “Only fresh corpses were commodities.”
I whisper, “Oh my God.”
“So I told everyone she was so sick she couldn’t get out of bed. Luckily that week, Matushka had brought in a pair of fourteen-year-old twins from the country. Farm girls. Their father couldn’t afford to feed them anymore, and Matushka paid well for rarities like twins. She could charge three times as much for twins as she could for a single whore. And all my mother’s regulars wanted a turn with the twins, as did everyone else; word had spread. Most of the other whores idled for the first few weeks after the twins arrived. So by the time my lie was discovered, it was too late. Matushka couldn’t make any money on my mother’s remains.”
He turns his face to my hair. His heart beats beneath my palm, banging against his breastbone like it’s trying to break free.
“I paid for that lie with a beating so severe I couldn’t get out of bed for ten days. But I had nowhere to go, so I took it without complaint. The other whores looked after me, nursed me, brought me food and water. Though I don’t think Matushka expected it, I survived. And when I was able to fight again, Matushka put me up against a boy three years older than me. His name was Pavel.”
A.J.’s voice cracks when he says the other boy’s name. I glance up at his face, and his eyes are closed. His brows are pulled together. He seems in terrible pain.
Haltingly, he whispers, “He was the first . . . the first one . . . I killed.”
My heart stops. I rear up on my elbow and stare down at him. When he opens his eyes, they glitter like he has a fever.
“I was so angry. About my mother, about my life. I just went wild on him. I was like an animal. And the sound of the crowd, urging me on, screaming louder and louder the bloodier it became, the colors of their voices, everything so black . . .”
He closes his eyes again, as if he can’t bear to look at me. “When he fell on the ground I stomped on his throat and broke his neck.”
He touches one of the crosses tattooed on his throat, a small one, the closest to his ear. Though he can’t see it, his fingers trace the outline perfectly, as if they’ve done it a thousand times before.
My horror is so crushing I can only breathe in shallow, panted breaths.
There are three crosses on his neck.
“Matushka took better care of me after that. She made a lot of money from that fight. So she moved me into a nicer room and gave me better food, and told me I had a purpose in life. I had value. I could fight, and win, and so I had value. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want to. Survival was the only thing that mattered. By the time I was thirteen I was six feet tall, and famous in certain circles. Medved, they called me. The bear.”
I think of Trina calling him a big ol’ huggy bear, and I feel sick.
“I fought almost every week. I rarely lost. When I was fourteen I was matched with a boy my own age. He was too small. I don’t know why they gave him to me, but I knew from the moment I saw him that he’d be number two. He’d be the next Pavel. By then I didn’t care about hurting the boys I fought. I only cared about hearing the crowd scream and getting my money.
“His name was Maksim. He had a face like a doll’s. Before the fight, I mean.”
A.J. traces the other small cross on his neck, the one closest to his Adam’s apple.
I’m shaking. Outwardly A.J. is calm, telling me this horror story in a tranquil, almost detached voice, but his eyes are filled with self-hatred and revulsion, and his face is very pale.
“After that fight, I was notorious. Matushka couldn’t find a local fighter to go up against me, so they started coming in from the city. I just kept growing and gaining weight, getting harder with every fight, and it was easy for me. I was good at it. I was a fourteen-year-old, six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-ten-pound soulless motherfucker who stole and fought and lived with whores, and I thought that would be my life.”
The rain is relentless, drumming against the roof, sliding down the windowpanes like silvery tears. Bella twitches in her sleep. I can’t get warm, even though I’m pressed against the hot bulk of A.J.’s body.
