Page 20 of Spiders in the Grove

“He tried to get me in a bathroom once,” Cesara says. “So, whenever he’s expected to be at one of our auctions, I always take a man with me everywhere I go.”

“If he tried anything with me,” I threaten, channeling Izel, “I’d cut it off, and shove it down his throat.”

Joaquin and Cesara look at one another from each of my sides—it feels like I said something wrong.

Joaquin shakes his head in a punishing fashion.

“You will never attack, or insult, a buyer,” he warns. “Not even in self-defense. They are what keeps us in business; kill one, and others will start to wonder if they’ll be next.”

“Our buyers are not saints,” Cesara puts in, and I turn to see her. “They’re as fucked up as you or me or Joaquin—look what we’re involved in, what you’re involved in—and the same rules that apply out there in the world, don’t exist in here. Simply put: the buyers are more important than you, or me, or Joaquin—kill one, or run one off, and you’ll end up in a shallow grave”—her eyes wander past me to find Joaquin’s—“isn’t that right, Joaquin?”

I look over at him again. He reaches for his wine glass and brings it to his pinched mouth; and after taking a sip that seems more like a distraction, he stares off at nothing with a hard look in his eyes. “Yes,” he answers, begrudgingly. “The jefe is a brutal man, and none of us are immune to his…punishments.”

I get the feeling he had wanted to use another word, something far more offensive than jefe.

Knowing better than to probe further on this particular subject, I focus on trying to still my raging heartbeat; I swallow, and gladly change the subject back. “And the other two buyers?”

Joaquin loosens up in an instant, probably glad he doesn’t have to think about his ‘jefe’, whom he obviously hates, a second longer.

“Iosif Veselov,” Cesara says. “One of the richest men in Russia; he practically owns the sex slave industry there; buys men and women from all over the world. He’s a lot like your friend, Robert Randolph: impeccably rude; thinks he’s the most important man to ever walk the face of the earth; and has absolutely no tolerance for imperfection. But Iosif is worse—not only will be never kiss your hand, Lydia, but if you speak to him without being spoken to first, he’ll beat you in front of everyone.”

“But I’m no fucking slave,” I say, angry at just the thought of him running loose.

“You don’t have to be,” Joaquin says. “Even in Russia, women know never to speak to him; he’s never seen the inside of a jail cell because no police officer would ever dare arrest him, certainly not for something as minor as hitting a waitress because she greeted him at his table.”

“Everybody knows his face,” Cesara says. “And if they don’t, they learn it quickly.”

I want this man dead almost more than Vonnegut. Maybe he is Vonnegut—that would be perfect; killing two birds, and all that. Oh well; if they’re not the same, at least I’ll have something to look forward to after Vonnegut is dead.

“And the third buyer,” Cesara says, relaxing against the couch; her body language suggests this man isn’t as brutal as the last. “Well, she and I have…a past.”

She? Ahh, I get it, Cesara; no need to elaborate—but I want you to anyway.

“Her name is Callista,” Cesara says. “Worth fifty million. She’s rich and beautiful, and she loves buying men strictly to serve her every need. Not much you need to worry about her.”

I’m not sure I believe her—maybe the smirk that followed has something to do with it.

“Oh, now don’t lie to her, Cesara,” Joaquin says playfully, and I turn my attention to him. “Callista loved Cesara once—I think she still loves her. If you want to call what they had, love.”

I pretend to be irritated at this ‘enraging’ and ‘unacceptable’ news—another woman and Cesara? I’ll kill a bitch! Of course, I couldn’t care less, but I can’t let her know that.

I turn to Cesara, lines of anger deepening around my eyes, the inside of my mouth pinched between my teeth. “And you expect me to treat this…buyer…with respect? That will be hard to do when wanting to kill her is the only thing on my mind.”

Cesara smiles, and she leans toward me; I can feel the warmth of her mouth nearing mine, and then the moistness of her tongue. I kiss her hard, almost forgetting that with her I’m supposed to be the submissive one. But with Joaquin in the room? I’m not sure what she expects of me in a situation like this. And I don’t want to be in a situation like this! Shit…I don’t know what to do!

“As I said,” she whispers onto my mouth and I can still taste myself on her, “you won’t have to worry about Callista. She’s weak—nothing like you.”

“Then why did Joaquin call you a liar?” I tug on her bottom lip with my teeth.

The heat of Joaquin’s body pressing against me from behind crowds me; one hand moves along my hip, the other brushes my hair away from my neck. “Callista doesn’t do anything herself; she has others do it for her,” he says, his breath on my neck.

When Joaquin’s hand slips between my legs, it triggers the plan to get out of this, that I never even knew I had. I turn on Joaquin like a captive lion turning on its trainer; my elbow spears his face, and he falls back against the sofa with me on top of him, my legs straddling his waist; my hands around his throat, my thumbs pressing against his windpipe; my face twisted with rage: teeth bared, eyes swirling with all the crazy I can summon.

“Lydia!” Cesara’s voice is like a whip; her hands grip my arms from behind, trying to pull me off of him. “Stop it! Stop it now! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I grip Joaquin’s throat tighter, and bear down into his strained face, but alas, he’s much bigger, much stronger than me, and I can feel the tables turning quickly.

Two seconds later, I’m flying across the short distance, and I hit the floor on my back with a thud!

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