Page 89 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
“And then came Sayori.”
He pauses for a long time, struggling, it seems, for words. Or maybe he’s trying not to cry. I can’t tell; his throat works like he’s holding back great, unspoken emotion, but his eyes have gone blank, staring at the ceiling. I think he’s lost inside himself, inside whatever terrible memory he’s about to reveal.
“She was old for a whore. Usually the girls would overdose, die of disease or botched abortions, or be killed by a john by the time they got to be her age, but there were a few who survived into middle age. She was originally from Tokyo, the daughter of a rich businessman and a former geisha, raised to be a dancer. She was spoiled. Stubborn.” His voice falls. “And beautiful. Right up until she took her last breath, she was beautiful.”
Thunder booms in the sky. Startled, I jump. I realize I’m holding my breath.
“She came to Russia when she was still young, followed a man she’d fallen in love with. Turned out he was married. Turned out he didn’t want anything to do with her when he found out she was pregnant. Her father cut her off when she left Japan to find her lover, so she had no one to turn to. And desperation makes whores of us all, one way or another. She took up with some lowlife who eventually convinced her to have an abortion and start selling herself to support them both. That was the beginning of the end. The lowlife abandoned her to another, worse piece of scum, who sold her to a collector who had a fetish for Asian girls. When she got too old for his taste—she was thirty by then—he sold her to someone else, who eventually sold her to someone else, until she wound up on Matushka’s doorstep. When we met, she was forty-four.”
When he stays silent too long, I prompt, “And you were fifteen.”
“She was kind,” he whispers. “After my mother died, I didn’t know any kindness. Sayori was the one who taught me how to read, how to appreciate music, how to make origami.” His voice turns reverent. “Like you, she had the voice of an angel.”
Ghosts, he’d said. When I look at you all I see are ghosts. I try to gather my courage, because I already know how this story will end.
“Why did she take such a special interest in you, do you think?”
“I was the only man she ever knew who never fucked her or fucked her over. That’s what she said. She was like a second mother to me, for a while.” His voice quivers. “So when she got sick . . . I couldn’t say no . . .”
My body breaks out in gooseflesh. My heart pounding, I stare at his face.
Abruptly he rolls onto his side, turning me so I roll with him. He winds his arms around me, pulls his knees up behind mine, and bows his head, so his forehead rests on the back of my neck. His body trembles. His breathing is shallow and erratic.
“When the time was near, she was too weak to help herself. She was wasted away. I think it was cancer, though she never told me. She knew what happened to whores who died in Matushka’s house, and she didn’t want that to happen to her. I told her I’d take care of her, that I’d get her out of there or make it so Matushka didn’t find out until it was too late, but she said no. She said she’d only stayed so long because of me, and she didn’t want me to get into trouble. So the problem, as she saw it, wasn’t so much how to die, but how to leave a corpse too damaged for even the twisted tastes of one of Matushka?
??s special clients.”
I want to put my hands over my ears now. I want to get out of this bed and run far, far away and hide. I thought I knew where he was going with this story only moments before, but now I’m gripped by a terrifying certainty that what I’m about to hear will be stuck in my head on repeat forever.
A.J.’s trembles turn to jerking shakes. His teeth chatter as if he’s caught a death chill. All the little hairs on my body stand on end.
“I used a pillow,” he says, his voice breaking over every few words. “I waited until early in the morning, so everyone was asleep. She kissed me good-bye first, told me I was the best friend she’d ever had. Then I . . . then I . . .”
He can’t go on. He’s shaking so badly he shakes me with him. The two of us make the sheets twitch, the mattress shudder. At our feet, Bella lifts her head and barks.
Then the words spew from A.J. in a broken, breathless rush, like he’s vomiting poison out of his soul.
“When it was over I woke all the other girls and got them out of the house except Matushka she always slept so soundly so she didn’t hear us leaving she didn’t hear me sloshing petrol all over the floor she didn’t hear the match I struck or the sound the petrol made when it caught fire the whoosh and the sizzle and the pop she only woke up when she smelled the smoke and by then it was too late by then the whole house was on fire and when she came out of the house in her nightgown into the street she was on fire too and her face was melting and all her hair had burned off and the smell oh god the smell—”
He bursts into full, body-wracking sobs.
After a moment, Bella begins to howl.
It sounds exactly like the noise inside my head.
Chloe’s still here.
How can she still be here?
How can she be so calm?
She’ll go soon. This calm can’t last. She’s just in shock.
Right?
It’s been at least an hour since I told her. In that time she’s held me, kissed me, wiped my eyes, made me tea, put on music, lit all the candles, fed the dog, and crawled back into bed with me. Right now she’s fitted against my side with her head on my shoulder and her leg thrown over mine. She hasn’t asked me any more questions. In fact, she’s not speaking at all.
It’s probably better this way. I don’t know if I can stand to hear what she thinks of me.
