In fact you've got your hands tied behind your back when somebody chooses to take a low road in to you, there is nothing you can do about it, and so you just live with it and move on.I'm sitting in the club watching all of the men watch the girls. Peelers thinly disguised as quasi-burlesque performers and I'm the only girl in the room who isn't onstage taking off her clothes, or waiting for a turn to do so.
~Robert Redford
This is great. Glad I flew all this way for this.
The club is a private gentleman's club. I don't even know what that means, except it probably involves under-the-table deals and escort services, or maybe that's being too generous at this point. Hookers and blow but there's a dress code. My drink is so strong my eyes are watering and my throat burns, or perhaps that's just a visceral reaction to Lochlan's facial expression right now. He hasn't taken his eyes off the girl closest to him. She looks the most like me. He looks hard, pained and disappointed. He looks so fucking angry and I know he worked his way through his first few drinks quickly to dull his reluctance to be here, or maybe to dull his rage.
I'm afraid to be drunk. I'm afraid to be out of control in this place, with these people. Our only saving grace is that Batman, Ben and Caleb all asked for coffee and then stood silently while attempts were made to talk them into something stronger, and finally another server was fetched and dispatched to brew a pot of good coffee. I'm wondering if even that is a good idea. What if they drug us? What if I wake up on the other side of the world with my passport held for safekeeping by an unnamed benefactor who tells me I will pay him back my travel expenses by selling my talents of the flesh and giving him every last penny?
What if I never see my kids again?
I deliberately spill my drink and make a huge fuss. I need to be sober. I am waved away while the mess is attended to, another drink placed on the table in front of me in seconds. Fuck it all. The men are talking, hardly paying attention to one another, watching the girls with the dead eyes while they attempt to renegotiate deals Caleb made while he was more evil, more vindictive and more depraved. I am told one of those deals involved me, and that's why I was requested as his plus-one at this party, which isn't a party at all. He was supposed to leave me here.
Merry fucking Christmas, or whatever they say in Russian. I was collateral and there was a margin call.
I had great faith in Batman being able to fix this, since the laws of planet earth say you can't give away what doesn't belong to you. Ben and Lochlan are here because neither one would stay behind (thank God). Batman only came because the deal involved me. Had it been Caleb's life on the line he would have let them kill him. Happily so.
Last I heard we were artists and we had a lovely collective in the mountains by the sea. How quickly things change. It's surreal standing in a dark smoky lounge with a locked and guarded door, fifteen hundred kilometers from home. Everywhere, men with guns. I check my watch which elicits a frown from the same man who did the tango with me last time I saw him. Or rather, he tried to teach me the tango. He is three hundred pounds and smells like roses, but he could crush any of us in seconds. He was uncharacteristically graceful.
And I called it. Almost two years ago, I said I wondered if Caleb had gotten backing from the Russians. Right here.
We were back on the plane at two a.m. No one wanted to sleep, no one wanted to stick around for breakfast either. Lochlan had one of my hands tightly in his, and Ben had the other. I could skip along three feet off the ground but it was neither the time nor the place, instead I just ran to keep up with how fast they walked across the tarmac.
Batman glowered at Caleb the whole way home. I didn't really understand the new vitriol until the plane was in the air and he pointed at Caleb and said now the Devil was going to understand precisely what it feels like to not be in control of one's own destiny. More than ever. I believe Batman bought back my life at a margin of 700 to 1, or some such inflated price over what was actually owed.
The Russians knew before we got there that the price on my head would be met, no matter what. Which either makes me a huge liability or very very very very special indeed.
Or maybe just quite a bit more happy to be home than you might realize. I drank everything I could find on the plane on the way home. When we landed I just remained in my seat, numb and worn out. Ben finally picked me up and carried me to the car. I don't think he understood how frightening this was for me. Maybe that's a good thing. I am still permitted to spend time with Caleb, but the rules are that it be here, within reach. This is one of the caveats that led him to move onto the property. Another one is no more deals.
You know, I wasn't going to write about what happened before Christmas when we flew to Tahoe, not to this extent anyhow, but I grow weary of people wondering why the tides shifted so abruptly with Caleb, and attempting to predict when they will shift back. If this is not proof that they won't be swinging back to the old ways, I don't know what is.
Fear, as it turns out, is one of the strongest motivators.
I should know.