Member-only story
Lost Heaven
It was my job, nothing more.
The last time I saw you, the skirt of your dress was torn — tan skin peeking through a jagged rip of scarlet. I didn’t register as you screamed my name, instead closing my eyes and lighting up a cigarette. By the time the car pulled away, I exhaled a plume of smoke into the September night’s air.
It was usually easy to forget the girls, all their faces blending together into a composite, so I didn’t know what made you so special. Coiled black hair, the faint scent of a citrus perfume, lips as soft as the petals of a newly bloomed flower — these were details I collected for the pages of my mind. But I expected to forget, in time. I was just the one who gathered young women like you up for the darker reaches of this world you called home. I would probably be able to put a down payment on a new car for the price you had fetched. It was simpler that way, to think of you in terms of dollar signs rather than facets of a woman I could have loved in another life.
Two weeks had passed, and I still woke from nightmares of you begging me to save you. The cold sweat you induced made me even more aware of the wrongness of the guilt I felt.
Yet the next call came, as they often did, and I answered. The profile came up: caramel-colored hair, dark eyes, a nose that would have made Cleopatra envious. Of course I accepted. I sent a flirtatious greeting. She responded in a coy way. It was my job, nothing more.
But on date night — show time — I looked in the mirror and all I saw were your accusing eyes.
Shutting the door was no escape.
