The Lustful Gateway (4)

"I was afraid of this," Vanessa sighed. "There's probably a bunch of people in there right now. We'll have to watch and wait." Her eyes darted this way and that as she drove past the large house. Every available parking space on both sides of the street was taken up.

Travis sat in the passenger seat of the black Mercedes hoping nobody would recognize him. It was dark, late and raining, but he was nervous just the same. He felt like he had good reason, after all; he was in the stolen car of a dead man being driven by a prostitute, with at least two guns and quite possibly hidden drugs, too.

"How many people live there?" Travis asked.

Vanessa let out a grunt. "I wouldn't call it living. I'm there, about three other girls are there, Rudy lived there and so does Adam, but Giovanni and Joey crash there so often you wouldn't know they've got their own places. Well. Past tense, in Joey's case, anyway. One of Rudy's girls actually thinks she's his girlfriend and lives there by choice. Then there's me and Illyana... she came over from Russia, and Rudy keeps all her papers in a safe. Just like mine. She'd probably get deported without 'em. There are a couple other girls that he keeps on a looser leash, but he threatens them when he feels like it, too. He was talking to one of 'em on the phone in the store."

She drove further down the street. The neighborhood was entirely residential, with narrow streets and many tall trees. "I'm hoping we can just chill here for awhile without being seen and wait until some of them leave. That place is Grand Central Station most nights. Probably some johns in there right now."

"They bring guys over? I would've thought that'd be dangerous. Like a good way to get everyone busted."

"It's not like there's a book of pimps' regulations. Rudy's little gang does all sorts of shit they shouldn't. They don't bring lots of johns over; just the ones they know are low-risk and high dollar. Some of these guys want to make sure their families never find out. Some of 'em just have freaky tendencies. Walk around here long enough, you might very well find a couple girls working in these cars.

"Oh, here, this is a good spot," she said. "We can see down the hill to the street outside the house." Vanessa went through the stop, start and shuffle of turning around and parallel parking as Travis watched.

"You have a plan?"

"Thinkin' about it. Depends on how much it'll thin out down there. The fewer people there are when we go in, the better. Hopefully I just need you to distract people."

"I'm not afraid to fight."

"No, but the deeper you get into this, the worse I'm gonna feel. I don't want a hero, I want an assist. Okay?"

Silence fell in the car until Vanessa spoke once more. "I don't know whether to thank you first or apologize," she admitted. "I'm sure this is pretty fucked up for you."

"It isn't for you?"

She tilted her head to concede the point. "My life has been fucked-up crazy for the last few years, yeah, but this is a whole new level of crazy. I just want it to stop. This'll sound cliché, but I'm really not like this."

"What are you really like?"

"What are you really like?" she countered. "All I know about you is you can fight, you stick up for women when men are slapping them around and you buy porn."

"I don't—!" he started, then stopped himself. Travis let out a deep breath. "God, I'm almost twenty-one and that was the first porn I've ever bought. I'm not a pervert."

"I wouldn't judge you if you were," Vanessa snorted.

He stared at the dashboard. "I did football and wrestling in high school, but that was mostly to make Dad happy," he shrugged. "Been taking kung fu for the last three years, which my Dad hates 'cause it isn't 'American' enough for him. I went to Catholic all-boys schools. I still live at home. I'm going to college partly on my Dad's dime, so I follow all of his rules, and I hate myself for all of it."

"Hey, college is expensive," she shrugged. "Can't fault anyone for sucking it up and dealing with parental bullshit for a few extra years if it pays your way. Wish I could've done that. I'd give almost anything to go back to school. Anyway... how bad can he be if you turned out so good? I mean, parents always make kids do stuff they don't want to do, right?"

"Dad lives in a 'Leave It to Beaver' fantasy world and figures our problem is that we haven't invaded enough Arab countries. He's one of those dudes who only reads the lines in the Bible that back up his bullshit and ignores the rest."

"Fuck."

"Yeah. My dad's that guy."

Vanessa let out a long breath. "Okay, so he's an asshole," she conceded, "but you seem to have turned out okay."

"Thanks," Travis shrugged.

"No, I mean it, I'm really... I know how crazy this is. Believe me. I'm really grateful."

"So that's the answer you were looking for."

"Not really. Now I just know about your dad. What're you really like?"

Travis blinked. She had a point. "I'm... I dunno, I'm dull, I guess? My dating life is kind of crap because I feel like I don't know how to act with girls. Hell, I wouldn't know what to say to you now if we weren't both staring at twenty to life," he grimaced. Vanessa smirked. "I don't like booze. I don't smoke. I don't do any drugs. I volunteer at an animal shelter. No girlfriend. Virgin. That's me. Super boring."

He mistook the grin playing at her lips for amusement, and figured the little sparkle that appeared in her eyes was something that was always there. "There's nothing wrong with any of that," she said. "I could stand to be around more guys who didn't get wasted and were nice to animals."

"What, you don't like bad boys?" Travis frowned. "You're a hot girl in your twenties, right? Early twenties? Doesn't that mean you should only be attracted to assholes who treat you terribly?"

She sat back in the driver's seat. "Some of us learn faster than others," she grumbled. "I'm the first to admit I'm a party girl, but I always know when to quit and go home. When I had a home to go to, anyway. I'm not some battered woman caught up in a cycle of abuse, okay? I've literally had no place else to go lately and like I've said, it's not like they don't have leverage on me."

"I'm sorry," mumbled her companion. "I didn't mean it like that."

"No, I know. I get what you meant. I'm just sayin'. I know I'm a little crazy sometimes, but I'm not like batshit broken psycho girl or anything. I just got stuck in a trap. Believe me, if I can make a clean break here, my first priority is to find a way to go back to school."

"So is that what you're really like?" Travis asked again. "How'd you end up in this mess if you know better?"