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I open it and rummage through. Gum, hair clips, tissues, lip gloss, and an old, cheap cell phone. It is flat, so I can’t access it. I pull out a slip of paper. It is her boarding pass. One-way economy airfare to New York from Oklahoma, arriving yesterday at 4am. She took the red eye; no wonder she was exhausted.
I grab her wallet. Looking through it, I notice she doesn’t have much. Only about $200 in cash, which would last her less than a week here in the city, a bank card, and a driver's license
I look at her ID. Annie Peterson. You can’t get more American than that. She looks to have just turned 21 and is from a small town in Oklahoma, which explains her sweet, southern accent. A quick search online, and I see her residential address is a trailer park just outside of the main town.
My boys leave, and I call Carter and ask him to run an ID check to get more information on her. Then I take her wallet and the rest of her handbag down to my room. It is close to 2pm now, so I am startled when I open the bedroom door and see her back on the bed, asleep. I stop midstride and look around the room, noticing her food tray is once again untouched and nothing else has been moved. I place her handbag on the dresser and quietly walk over to the bed.
Standing over her, I look over her sleeping body. She must have had a shower because her hair is damp and now braided in two perfect plaits running down her back. The need to grab them is near stifling. My eyes wander her face, and my heart stops as I see a bruise on her cheekbone around her eye.
“What the fuck?” I whisper to myself as my fingers reach out and softly caress the discoloration, feeling the lump underneath. My eyes drift down her body, checking for anything else amiss, and I clench my teeth, as the white shirt she is wearing, my shirt, has ridden up and is around her waist. Her perfect ass and curves are on full display, along with some black cotton briefs. But I have little time to enjoy the view as my eyes get stuck on her hip, where a massive black bruise has formed. It looks painful, and I wish I knew what the hell had happened.
Glancing around the room again, I don’t see any clues as to what may have caused this. Everything looks just as I left it. I quietly step away from her and back out the door, heading down to see Maria. I need her to leave pain relief for her and some arnica cream. She is going to be sore when she wakes up, and then we will have a little talk.
8
Annie
I sit on the edge of the king-sized bed, swallowing the bile that has risen in my throat as I stare at the pain medication on the bedside table with disgust. I hate drugs. In the end, my mother was addicted to them. They were prescriptions, but when someone becomes reliant on medications like that, it doesn’t matter if they are legal or illegal, the effects are the same. They are not the people they first were. They change. They become sicker, both physically and mentally. They become withdrawn whilst also cunning in their quest for the next hit.
For Mom, the pain relief medication from her cancer diagnosis kept her in a permanent state of near-comatose for the better part of her final months. As a young woman, working three jobs to keep us afloat, worrying about how Mom was doing, I have spent the last year of my life permanently on edge, walking on eggshells each time I went home, wondering if the next day was going to be her last. Wondering if she would die from a drug overdose before the cancer got her. I didn’t like that version of my mother. I didn’t like that version of a human.
He must have been here. The man. I still don’t know his name, but now I’ll be thinking of him as my wolfman. When I fell asleep earlier, I dreamt that I was Little Red Riding Hood, and he was The Big Bad Wolf. Except, he wasn’t bad at all. He saved me, brought me to his home, took care of me and kept me warm. Kept me happy. It seems fitting, considering real life isn’t so far off from that dream.
Where does he sleep if I am now in his bed? My cheeks heat at the thought of being in his space like this. I keep telling myself it doesn’t mean anything, but I haven’t been in another man's bed before.
My one and only awkward sexual encounter happened when I was seventeen, with a boy who stayed in the trailer park for only a month. His name was Jimmy, and he came from Kansas. He and his dad were passing through and kept to themselves, but we got chatting the first week he arrived and became fast friends.
One night, we were out looking at the stars and he kissed me. It was my first kiss and every romantic notion I had of what it was like to be kissed immediately flew out the window. It was sloppy, and he tasted like an ashtray and cheap whiskey. I’m not sure how it happened, but within five minutes, his hands were down my pants, touching me where no hand had ever touched me before—including my own. Before I understood what was going on, I was bare on the bottom half, and he was putting on a condom. It was consensual; he didn’t force himself on me or anything. But I was so incredibly naive. It was all over pretty fast, and I can’t say that I understand what all the fuss is about. If that is what sex is like, then I am happy to remain single.
I didn’t have time in my life for boys or romantic dates leading up to that experience. I left high school and went straight to work to be the breadwinner for Mom and I. I waitressed at the local diner at night, babysat kids in the afternoons, and cleaned for our neighbors in the trailer park on the weekends. In my free time, I looked after Mom. That was it. There was no time for relationships, hobbies, or even college. That path was never an option for a girl like me, anyway.
I sigh and roll my neck. I slept all day and night again, and now as the bright sunlight of a new morning hits my face, the throbbing pain of my bathroom injuries seep in. Aside from a dull headache and a sore hip, I feel pretty good otherwise.
Ignoring the medication, I take the arnica cream into the bathroom with me. While my face is feeling and looking better, my hip is still hurting, covered by a swirl of purple and black.
Just like yesterday, I take a shower, although this time it is cooler and I don’t wash my hair, keeping my braids intact. Drying myself quickly, I step back into the bedroom to see all my clothes. My things from the hotel and my handbag. Everything is freshly washed and pressed, sitting on the dresser. There is also a fresh breakfast tray full of fruit and bread again.
I smell him then. I haven’t seen him since the first morning when he quizzed me, but I know he came. His scent is all around the room.
Changing quickly into my jeans and a simple white t-shirt, I grab the fresh bowl of fruit and make fast work of it. I pause as I look at the bread but decide against it. After I put everything back on the tray, I am sitting on the bed, when the door opens and a small head pokes through.
A little boy, with brown hair and a cheeky glint in his eye peers around the large timber door. Our gazes meet, both of us wide-eyed, startled to be seeing a new stranger. He looks like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and it makes me smile. Before I can get myself to speak, he backs away and closes the door.
Odd. He obviously isn’t meant to be here.
Intrigued about who this cute little boy is, I jump off the bed and slowly open the door, poking my head out. Having been in this room for days now, I am keen to explore. Wolfman didn’t say that I couldn’t, and I bet the rest of the house is huge. I look up the long hallway in time to see him dart into a room down at the end, so with no other sign of life in the place, and no idea what else I am supposed to do, I slowly walk in that direction.
His door is open, and I see him sitting in his room on the carpeted floor, Lego blocks sprawled all around him. He looks up, but doesn’t say anything, before looking back at his Legos and continuing with his build. From the completed formations around his room, clearly this is a talent of his that he enjoys. Right now, it looks like he is building a spacecraft. Continuing to approach him slowly, I am unsure if I am allowed to be here. Not wanting to scare him, I keep my distance but sit down on the floor with him. He is a cute boy, no older than 8 or 9 and I wonder why he isn’t in school.
“Can I play too?” I ask, but he ignores me, so I reach down and grab a few pieces of Lego. He doesn’t object, so I grab a few more and start building. Building blocks is not my strength, I realize, as I try to follow along with what he’s doing, but I enjoy being in a different room with a new face. So while he creates something that looks like it needs to be displayed in a museum, I get busy trying to build a simple square house instead, which looks more like a bad bundle of bricks.
We are both silent in our concentration, but I take in the rest of his bedroom. It is a large room with a bathroom off the side, not dissimilar to where I am sleeping. With the bright blue décor and selection of toys, it is most certainly a little boy’s room. One wall is covered in floating shelves, each one full of different Lego models; some spaceships, others are cars, and even a castle, which I think might be something from a movie.
Watching him, I can see a resemblance to the man who brought me here, so it could be his son. Does that mean he is married? Am I sleeping in a married couple’s bed? I didn’t see any female products in the bathroom, but maybe she isn’t here right now…
I feel sick thinking about it, realizing that I may have been romanticizing about a married man.
The little boy remains silent, so I begin to talk. I talk about everything and nothing. His eyes flick to me and he nods at times, but no sounds come from his mouth. Because I babysat a lot back home, I know it takes some kids a long time to open up to strangers. And since I don’t want to make him uncomfortable, I just continue on. Not asking him questions, not requiring him to talk in return.
