Karina Halle - Dirty Angels

I ignored his remark and ignored that his eyes were still fixed on my breasts. I licked my lips quickly and said, “I was wondering if I could ask a favor.”

He raised his brows and gave me a sloppy grin, teeth gleaming with opportunity. “Well, well, well. What is it this time? Time off to take your dad to the hospital again? Something wrong with your mother?”

I dug my nails into the palm of my hand. “No. But it does involve my mother. It’s her birthday tomorrow and I would like to get her a gift. I was wondering if I could get an advance on my wages. Two hundred pesos.”

He laughed. “What are you buying for your mother for two hundred pesos? She’s blind, isn’t she?”

It took everything I had to keep it together. “It’s a Kobo. An e-reader. A used one. I can buy audiobooks for her on it. She doesn’t like Braille so much anymore with her arthritis.”

“Well aren’t you just the perfect daughter. You must be the apple of her eye.”

His choice of words wasn’t lost on me. “They’ve given so much to me over the years just to keep food on the table. It’s the least I can do in return.”

He stared at me for a few heavy moments before picking up his beer and having a long swig of it. “And what will you do for me in return?”

This was what I feared. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You can have my word that I’ll pay you back. Dock it out of my paycheck.”

He grinned, though there was only malice in his eyes. “Oh, you’ll pay me back. I know you will. I will take it from you before you have a chance. But I mean, what are you going to do for me to thank me for being such a wonderful and generous boss?”

I took in a deep breath. I didn’t have much choice but I still had a choice. “I don’t know. What did you have in mind? An extra shift?”

Bruno snorted and got out of his chair. He wasn’t a tall man, but I was only 5’2” and he still towered over me. His eyes became lazy with lust and a bit of spittle dripped out of the corner of his mouth. “Not an extra shift. Tell me, Luisa, why is it that every single woman here, except for the dyke, has been with me and you haven’t?”

It felt like a piece of dry toast was lodged in my throat. “Because you’re not my type.”

He raised his brow then nodded as if this whole thing was an elaborate joke. “I’m starting to think you don’t have a type, Luisa. That you just like to be a tease. I see you every day, walking around in that outfit, flashing those legs and ass, showing those tits. You’re fucking beautiful and you know it. But you don’t fuck.”

“This is the uniform you gave me.”

“And yet you wear it better than any of those other girls. The men all come here to look at you. They want you. And you’re such a stuck-up bitch that you can’t even pretend to be nice. If you did, you wouldn’t be here asking me for money. You’d be paying for everything with your tips. And your tits.”

“This was a mistake,” I said, feeling dizzy. I turned around, ready to leave. He reached out and grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into it.

“It is a mistake to leave,” he said, pulling me close to him. He smelled like beer and chili, and it made my stomach roll. “I promise to give you your money, you just have to give me something.” He read the fear on my face. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to see what others do not. I want to feel you.”

I didn’t know what to do. He dug his nails into mine and then he pushed me back. “Take off your shirt.”

I opened my mouth to say no. I had to say no. In the past he had grabbed my ass, rubbed his erection against me, had kissed me briefly on the mouth, and made an attempt to grope my breasts. But he’d never told me to take my shirt off. This was too much, and yet I thought, I felt, if I could just do it and go to some other place in my head, I would be okay. I wouldn’t be a whore. I would still be a virgin. I would still be pure and intact.

I could be all that and be a good daughter. I could ease the guilt of my mother staying at home, essentially alone, because my father was often a million miles away and didn’t know who she was.

So I pulled my low-cut T-shirt over my head and stood there before my boss, the fluorescent light flickering behind him and making everything look that much worse. I stared at him straight in the eyes while he leered at my thin cotton bra.

“Well,” I said. “Now you’re seeing what no one except for me and my parents and my doctor have seen. Is that all?”

He looked so dumbfounded that it was almost laughable. Granted, I knew I had a good body, but I worked hard at it by going for my 5K jogs every morning. But I wasn’t any different from any other girl. My breasts were still breasts.

Bruno managed to close his mouth. “Your bra. Take off your bra.”

I could tell this was non-negotiable.

You’re not here, you’re not here, you’re not here, I chanted to myself while I reached around my back and undid the clasp. I took it off, my breasts free, and held the bra in my hands.

He whistled. “I feel privileged.”

“Funny how I don’t feel the same.”

He gave me a sharp look. “You’re not done yet.”

I gulped while he walked up to me. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t be afraid. I didn’t want him to think he was winning. I looked straight at him while his greasy hands went to my breasts, cupping them. I sucked in my breath while he ran his thumbs over my nipples, and I felt relief that they were reluctant to harden. The last thing I needed him to think was that this was turning me on. The reality was that I wanted to vomit, and if it happened, I wanted it to be all over him, just so he’d know how disgusting I thought he was.

He leaned in close, and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me. But he whispered in my ear, “I should have asked for more.”

I suppressed a shudder, holding my breath while I waited for his next move. To my utter relief, he took his hands away and stepped back.

“You may make yourself decent again,” he said nonchalantly. “To be honest, I expected your breasts to be a little bit bigger. I guess the shirt makes it look like you have more than you have. Again, that would come in handy if you actually cared about tips.”

I knew my breasts were just big enough for my frame, but I didn’t dare say anything while he sat back down at his desk and started removing pesos from his wallet. I put on my bra and shirt in record speed and tried to remind myself that my loss of dignity was worth whatever happiness I could buy my mother.

He gave me the money, holding on to my hand for a little too long, before he said, “Don’t say I don’t do you any favors. But if you ever ask for one again, expect more involvement from your side. Nothing in life is free. You of all people should know this.”

I nodded, thanking him curtly and yanked the money out of his slimy grasp. As I turned and left his office, back into the heat, satellite TV and drunken cries of the bar, I made a vow that at the first chance to leave this place, the first promise of a better life, I would take it.

I didn’t even have to wait that long.

The next morning I woke up early and went for my jog around the neighborhood. The house I rented for me and my parents was just outside of the airport. All day long it was nothing but the unrelenting sun and the sound of airplanes. Dust coated everything¸ and I was convinced if anyone did a scan of my lungs they’d find a sandcastle in there. But it was cheap and cheap was all I could afford. Plus, we did have a lot of privacy which was great for when my father had one of his episodes, and the house was big enough so that there was a bedroom for each of us. That was more than we had when I was growing up.

I usually jogged just after dawn when the air was still relatively cool. After my shower I got breakfast ready and woke my parents. I was lucky that most mornings my father was still my father. He knew my name, he knew where we were, and he smoked his pipe with his left hand. It was during the day that he would falter. If I wasn’t home, like I hadn’t been yesterday, my mother had to deal with it all by herself. Her blindness wasn’t even a disability at that point since she knew quite well how to handle herself. I just knew how hard it was to have to control Papa, to calm him, to make him understand he was loved and with loved ones. One day I could afford a nurse to take care of him, but that day always seemed so far away.

That morning I made breakfast with my special fried potatoes and peppers with goat cheese that I only brought out on special occasions, and brought the breakfast with a gardenia in a vase to my mother. She wouldn’t see it, but the smell always lifted her spirits. When she and my father were both well fed and well caffeinated, I got in my car, a beat-up old Toyota with windows that didn’t roll up, went out into the town of San Jose del Cabo and bought the Kobo device I’d had my eye on at one of the local pawnshops.

The woman who normally worked there wasn’t on duty, but a young man was, and he tried to jack up the price at the last minute. I tried out what Camila had recommended—smiling more, acting flirty—and even though I felt a bit silly doing it, it actually worked. I got it for a lot less, leaving me enough cash left over to pay the library fees I owed and get a bottle of cheap sparkling wine for my mother.

“You shouldn’t have,” my mother said as I handed the e-reader over to her. Her mouth was set in a stern line, but I could tell from the way she was handling the device, like it was precious gold, that she already loved it more than she could say. She was a proud woman in every sense of the word, and if it wasn’t for the empty look in her pupils, you wouldn’t know she was blind. She always stood very tall, neck long, her dark hair pulled off her face with only a few strands of grey coming in at the corners.

“Well, Mama, it’s your birthday and I have,” I said, brushing back her hair. I looked over at my father who was watching us with a wry smile on his face, a few crumbs caught in his greying beard.

“You’re a good woman, Luisa,” Papa said. I gestured to his beard and he wiped the crumbs off. He continued, “But you shouldn’t be spending so much on your mother and I.”

“Are you jealous, Papa?” I asked wryly, getting up and pouring them both another cup of coffee. “I’m sure she will let you use it when she’s not.” He quickly put his warm hand over mine and looked at me with gentle eyes, the kind of look that made my heart bleed when I realized how close I was to losing this man.

“I always like it when you read to me,” he said. “I am happy with that. When you were younger you used to make up stories. Crazy little stories about trolls and goblins and princesses with swords. Do you remember that?”

I couldn’t recall any particular stories, but when I was younger and we didn’t have enough money for toys, I would make up stories instead. I always liked the darker ones, the scarier ones, the ones with the villains and the ugliest creatures—those were the most like real life. Fairytales and happily-ever-afters were for people in other countries.

I kissed him on his forehead. “I remember you telling me to stop telling them, that I was scaring you.”

Suddenly the Kobo started speaking and my mother jumped in her seat, letting out a nervous laugh. “Woo, this scared me.”

I went over to her, picked it up, and pressed pause. Though the Baja state was often behind in the times, the local library did have an e-reader program where you could borrow e-books and audiobooks for free. Now that my library fees were all settled, I had borrowed a range of crime thrillers for her to listen to.

I left the house later feeling relatively happy. I hated the fact that I had to go back to work and face Bruno again, but knowing that my parents were full from lunch, my mom was listening to her books for the first time, and my father seemed stronger than normal, it was enough to get me by. Sometimes, when I took the car onto the highway that led me to Cabo San Lucas and the sea air came through the open windows just right, it was enough to bring a smile to my face. In those moments I always lived outside of my reality, outside my head, and was just a child of the earth, an element like the sun and water.

When I finally got to work—traffic being especially heavy today—I was relieved to find the bar half-empty and Bruno nowhere in sight.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Camila at the till before I headed to the washroom to change from my sundress to the dreaded uniform.