Arc IV
Chapter XXXVI
Bullseye
"It's just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me."
Haruki Murakami ― After the Quake
The heatwave was reaching its peak, like every year, forcing everyone to stay indoors for as long as possible. Z'unkahrah was like that; an inhabited desert exhibiting signs of civilization on the surface but underneath the streets, the earth would still cry for water. The aristocracy of the city, comfortably enjoying the proximity of the Palace, would not suffocate so easily during the unbearable days of dense heat and thick, warm air. Yet those that weren't so lucky, the ones pushed into the background and doomed to spend their lifetimes in the outskirts of the city, were bound to melt a little every day, waiting for the monsoons to come.
Those whose precarious houses were surrounding the brothel - the Palace for the oppressed ones - knew the respite was only meant to be brief: one week of rain, and the soothing winds coming from the northern region of the continent, like a mathematical break interrupting the normalcy of a virulent, inclement summer.
But for now it was time for vegetation to offer a brownish hue; too dry and withered to provide shelter from the impossible heat decimating the most impoverished corners of the city and forcing everyone to stay inside their houses. Not even the garrisons would dare to come out from their headquarters to patrol the city streets – no matter how strong or professional they were, those soldiers had little to do wandering those empty sidewalks during such consuming hours of intense heat.
Alexandra sighed as she looked out the window; the view from the only casement in Rosario's room was truly breathtaking, even during such days. A canopy of battered, brownish-green stretched itself towards the center of the city, relentless and magnificent, stopping only to allow its shape to meet the horizon, colors melting into the savage, orange shades of the sunset – and past the point of the furious, hellish sky above them, the majesty of the Palace cupolas daring to touch the other canopy; the black and grey blanket of clouds already rolling towards the city, the ones that would bring the rain and the wind they all were waiting for.
"One more day to go. Maybe two," the old Peruvian woman brought her back to reality, but only momentarily.
The doctor and the manager of the House of Pleasure exchanged muted glances that were saying far more than what proper words and syllables could ever pronounce. The brothel was deserted, and even if the heatwave lashing the city was reason enough for that phenomenon to take place, they both knew there was another reason why the audience had dwindled so brusquely: the brutal attack that Rosario had endured.
People were less than partial to violence when it happened in those places reserved only for their pleasure.
The average patron wasn't partial to violence when it happened to those ones admired and respected by the community; the untouchable ones. Seeing them fall at the hands of another common citizen felt like a jab to the chin every time, altering the very framework of society.
The Outworlder system of uneven social statuses and questionable laws had cast them away, pushing them too far from the safe embrace of wealth and stability. Displaced now into a poorer zone, the neglected people living in the outskirts of Z'unkahrah had chosen to erect pagan altars to fake gods and goddesses such as Rosario herself; a simple woman whose only purpose in life was to provide them with a glimpse of pleasure. Something so simple, so basal, yet so hindered by the oppression of inequality.
"I want every girl outside during the festivities. Last year was a mess."
Now, with her second attempt, the manager had positively stolen the doctor from her private world of quiet introspection. The younger woman stood up and walked to the bed where the manager was resting her broken ankle: the heated atmosphere was not helping her recover but Rosario's indefatigable spirit had been enough to push the old woman in the right direction.
"The girls mentioned you wanted an open bar out in the street this year, and even when I find that idea innovative and appealing, I have to remind you that we don't have a permit to sell alcohol outside the brothel," Alexandra said, showing her concerns regarding the organization of the upcoming carnival.
The manager smiled tenderly, a soft gesture showing the younger woman that all those years piled up upon her shoulders had not been in vain.
"The garrisons will be patrolling the area tomorrow night during the festivities. With booze outside, and with our girls entertaining everyone… I don't think they'll have a problem with that, dear."
The carnival was an annual celebration hosted by the House of Pleasure. The ancient Earthrealm ritual would not only give them the opportunity to feel closer to a sense of home they had lost a long time ago but it was also a breather for the tired citizens. Cheaper drinks and the entire staff of Rosario's girls were the catch for hundreds of neighbors to come over and spend the night dancing, chatting and having a good time. Rosario herself had imposed the date every year; she had made a tradition out of a pagan party. At first the date had been set so it would always coincide with the summer solstice but as years went by, Rosario considered the chance of delaying the celebrations until the beginning of the monsoon season and so the Outworld carnival was born: the festivities announcing the ceasing of the suffocating heat and acting like a high-spirited premonition about the imminent rain.
Coming back to the public eye during the carnival was, by far, Rosario's biggest display of power in front of those who had dared to attack her. It was a proclamation of her superiority and resilience, proving everyone that she still was the true monarch for the oppressed ones and showing everyone that she could not be intimidated so easily, that there was no use in threatening her; that beyond the dangers of every political or commercial dispute they still had reasons to celebrate.
"I heard word from the younger girls that garrisons 53-S, 53-F, 53-M and 53-D had already been assigned for the night," the doctor let out softly, trying to mask his garrison among the others and the manager nodded in silence, a simple sign of complicity letting Alex know that the message had been received.
"What do you want to do tomorrow night?" Rosario asked, the naturality of her words colliding against the doctor's evident state of confusion.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want to work like the rest of the girls during the festivities, or would you rather stay by my side, and make yourself visible as my second-in-command?"
The doctor paced around the room in silence, visibly trying to absorb Rosario's words in order to determine which one of the possible scenarios would be best for her now that Black was going to be there, observing her every move.
"I'd rather work," Alex let out after a while, "I don't think I'm ready for the attention."
It was true – if there was one thing that she had been dying to do ever since coming to the House of Pleasure, that one thing had been to seize every possible chance to disappear from everyone's eyes. The position that Rosario was trying to force upon her carried more than power and the symbolism of a population in desperate need of false idols. It carried exposition, danger and a lethargic, slow detachment from the last bastions of a receding human condition: it didn't matter if behind closed doors they were still regular women; in their eyes, they were grandiloquent and almighty, and that notion was as frightening as it was nauseating for the conflicted doctor.
"Are you sure?" Rosario insisted, arching her eyebrows as an attempt to make her see that, once again, silence was still more powerful than words.
Black had spent his nights alone in the larder during the days prior to the carnival. By Rosario's insistent requests, the Earthrealm cowboy mercenary had focused his efforts in running a third inventory to positively cross-check his results with the official ones. The doctor had seen little of him during those nights, having chosen to remain all alone inside her room, waiting for the man to provide her with the conclusive results they needed. But even if the words they had exchanged during those nights had been scarce at best, the woman knew Black had not spent all his nocturnal hours inside the brothel. The part of her that still cared about him had been trying to reach him every night, checking up on him, making sure he was not being distracted or ushered by the girl's flirtatious ways, making sure he was alright, or if maybe he needed a drink, or perhaps something to eat; a break, even, if he was feeling too tired to go on. An empty larder had welcomed her each night, during the low, dark hours of obsidian black and complete silence.
Every time she had tried to reach for him he had already been long gone by then.
No good-bye. No see you tomorrow.
The name she had provided him with had clearly ignited his curiosity. He had mentioned something about the need to investigate each one of the possible ramifications of that name, already too invested in the game she had forced him to play. But his final numbers confirmed that twenty-four bottles of Earthrealm strawberry wine, a fine and rare delicatessen in Outworld, were missing from the larder. Someone had been stealing from them and, according to Black's projections and speculations; the situation had been going on for a very long time now.
She had witnessed his eyes, succumbing to the deepest of introspections, his unfocused sight making her whole body invisible for him; his mind too busy, already jumping to conclusions. She begged him to stop, trying to make him see that if it was, indeed, one of Rosario's girls the one behind the missing bottles, it would be best for them – for everyone – if he would just let them handle things as domestically as possible.
She had watched him leave without saying goodnight, too preoccupied to even show the slightest signs of care or affection towards her. She had lowered her head in silent desperation, already knowing that he would not stop until every loose end had been tied into the secretive net of threats and dangers known as the Rebel-Seekers initiative.
She had feared. Those cold and distant eyes of his had provided her with a tremor she had thought lost to time and oblivion. And yet, she had feared.
For him.
For her.
For everyone she knew and loved.
And most of all, she had feared for El-A.
Alexandra sat on Rosario's bed with eyes full of concern. There was no point in hiding the truth from the old, Peruvian manager of the House of Pleasure, her inquisitive nature was surely going to help her see things as they truly were sooner or later.
"Erron's final inventory has confirmed it," she said, "twenty-four bottles of strawberry wine are missing from the larder."
Rosario scratched her chin then used her elbows to sit up straight in her bed. She couldn't say she was surprised by Black's discovery – but the feeling of disappointment was hurting for her all the same.
"I'll talk to the girls, but I don't think they are going to tell me anything." Alex let out softly, knowing all too well that she had become a clear figure of authority now for the rest of the girls and authority had little to do with notions such as trust and confidence.
"Ever since Erron started to work here, the younger girls have been behaving rather erratically. I think they knew, all along, that he was capable of exposing them – but I fear they will only cover for each other should we try to force them to speak." The doctor trapped a cigar between her thin lips and lit it up; the dense cloud of smoke engulfing her face in a renewed sense of darkness was not enough to hide her concern. "I'm really worried about El-A. Rumor has it that she's been seeing someone."
"Let her," Rosario sentenced, and her unusually stern voice startled the doctor. "You are neither imprisoned, nor kidnapped. Every single girl can leave as soon as they arrive – in such cases, their deliverers won't get a single coin out of them… but they all have a right to choose: I don't judge those who'd rather stay here than go back to their families; they all have their reasons and every single reason should be reason enough. Those who choose to stay because they have become a burden for their loved ones… those who choose to stay because there's no other life waiting for them outside these walls… or those who choose to stay as an act of obedience or loyalty towards their lovers, their parents… I don't judge them. Never have, never will."
"But…"
"No one is obliged to stay here." Rosario's tone was final, definitive.
"Rumors get worse – they say she's dating the same boy who gave her up in the first place."
"Even if that's the case, let her. Do not judge her." The older woman reached out and brushed her knuckles against Alex's nearest forearm. "I understand your concern: when that boy gave her up last year, he did so because he had no money. Maybe, just maybe, she's been stealing bottles to help him because the quota from her work here is not enough for him anymore. Sometimes the heart has reasons that the mind cannot quite understand, my dear, you should know this better than anyone. We'll talk to her if necessary, but she won't be judged by anyone working with me. Least of all, you."
She could have fooled the girls; she could have fooled Black and even herself into thinking that she enjoyed having power over him, that she enjoyed watching him struggle, that she was amused by his desperate need of affection, forcing him to dance the dramatically changing rhythms of her turbulent heart – but she could never fool Rosario.
"I remember…" the old woman said, "I remember the look on your face; one of such unparalleled sadness and bitterness when we found out that his wife had been murdered."
Of all places Rosario could have chosen to take her, that one, in particular, was still the most hurtful and tormenting one. What she had felt that day, that nauseating combination of contradictory emotions getting the best of her and making her feel as if the ground beneath her feet had just been cracked open. Ever since learning that the emperor had found him guilty of abusing his power, and ever since finding out about his sentence in the maximum security pavilion of the prison, the news regarding the tragic murder of his wife had been the only solid, real piece of information the doctor had heard about the gunslinger. They had murdered his wife while he was in jail – the only thing she could think about back then was the empathic bond of helplessness between them. She couldn't say anything to make him feel better, and his inexistent liberty had prevented the man from actually doing something, anything, to protect his wife.
But when the initial anguish subsided, when the commotion brought by the remnants of a violence she knew too well to ignore had positively allowed her some time to think more clearly, the revelation of that man as a married man made her scream and curse him, from the top of her lungs, feeling deceived and vulnerable once again.
A man of religion, nostalgia… a soldier, a lover. A husband. And now a widower.
She tried to hate him; she tried to convince herself that she had been nothing but a little amusement for the nearly bicentennial man. She had been in denial for far too long, getting lost in pointless comparisons and hateful conclusions: Erron Black had nothing to do with the man she had loved back in Earthrealm – except for those coffee-colored eyes of his, the quiet kingdom of an intriguing familiarity, something she would never confess, something she had tried to keep to herself during the brief time they had shared in the cabin. But when the memory of Nathan turned sepia inside her mind and when those cold, brown eyes became the only bridges left for her to remember the shape of her love, when his advances became too much for her to handle, when her emotions made her weak and exposed… it was already too late.
She had always known – there was no point in falling in love with a man who could not age. So she busied herself with his never-aging body. She hid her soul under the cover of medical concerns and clinical questions that, she knew, he could never answer.
When she discovered that there was more to him than the dangerous life of a heartless mercenary; when she saw the kid, the nurse, the baby he never held in his arms, the past he could never recover, she contented herself with knowing that every sweet, hidden aspect of his personality would always be accompanied by a cruder, more frightening part. Every threat, every sexist comment, every single one of the demonstrations of his chauvinist ways would tell her that she was doing fine, that she was right: falling for a man like that was pointless. But when the illusion faltered, when the fires of the night exposed him as a man willing to rescue her from the dominating grasp of gratuitous violence – that night, he rejected her.
He had abandoned her.
The day she heard his wife had been murdered, she found herself standing on top of that burning mountain all alone again. He had made the choice for her; he had stolen her every possibility. He had condemned her to a new beginning she didn't want to have. He had never been hers, and now he would never be, not even in dreams, not even in wild speculations and fantasies inside her lonely, battered mind. He was somebody else's – had been somebody else's all along and the little, pathetic spectacle of her days with him was now a poorly constructed tale of her numbed, anesthetized emotions. She hated him then, deeply; resented him for not telling her he belonged to someone else – someone other than the ghosts inside his box of memories.
Her wild speculations kept her up many nights after that day: how could he omit such a crucial part of his life? Maybe he didn't care about his wife, or maybe he cared too much. She was furious at him for hiding his true marital status from her but at the same time, she felt the urgent need to hold him in her arms and tell him everything would be fine and that same uncomfortable, unsettling ambivalence of estranged emotions was still holding her captive today and she knew it - even Rosario seemed to know it as well.
The doctor removed her hand and tried to stand up, but the older woman grabbed her by her wrist and forced her to sit down again: "I remember each one of the terrible things you said about him back then," the manager of the House of Pleasure went on, her tone less and less amicable by the second. "Yet you let him stay with you; you offered him a job… you don't like when the younger girls flirt with him."
Alexandra flinched under Rosario's strong grip.
"I think you like having him near. Like a teenager, that doesn't know how to act around her crush…" the older woman said, "but this is no crush, Dakota. I don't know what's the real story between the two of you and I sure as hell don't want to know a thing about it – but I'm not stupid, girl. I'm old enough to know better than to trust his version of the story: you are not the daughter of a long lost friend of his; there was only one friend in Black's life and that man only had a son."
The unexpected thought of Aalem filled her eyes with nostalgic tears but the doctor held back the river – she knew her friend like the back of her own hand: Rosario was not angry at her; her words were neither reproachful nor hurtful - she wanted her to open her eyes and finally break free from his enchantment.
"Black doesn't look at you the way he used to look at that boy," Rosario let out softly, as she reminisced Erron's turbulent past like it was only yesterday; his fragile whispers inside her mind bringing back the memories of each one of their private encounters filled with his troubled confessions. "I understand why his bond with the kid was special: he had had an affair with the mother, and for the longest time, he thought that the kid was his." Rosario's eyes softened as she let go from Alexandra's wrist. "Just don't judge El-A, like I don't judge you."
The doctor smirked and offered her friend a bittersweet smile: "You just sounded pretty judgmental to me."
"You're special to him, and it shows," The older woman said as she shrugged innocently before stealing the doctor's cigar from between her lips. "The night when that pig attacked you… I saw him cry for you as he held you in his arms with such love and tenderness… I didn't know he had it in him, really," Rosario confessed before releasing a small puff of smoke. "I guess, in a way, what I'm trying to say is that you're not just another notch in his belt; you know what I'm talking about. It might have started that way – don't tell me, I don't want to hear," Rosario held her hands up defensively, a cheerful smile accompanying the gesture, "but now you're not just another woman for him. And he's not just another man for you."
Alexandra retrieved the cigar from Rosario's hands and put it out in silence. The last, meandering curves of smoke dying slowly in the dirty ashtray.
"I made you the manager of this place during my recovery, but you know I'm not invalid. I could have stayed seated behind the bar while you ran the place under my supervision. You're the doctor here, dear: you knew my condition was never that critical and still you chose to confine me to this bed, and you stopped sleeping with others." The old woman arched her eyebrows again, her voice certain, unequivocal. "And while you tell me over and over again that you don't want to be the new manager of this place, the truth is that now you are the manager. Ever since Black found you that night, you chose not to sleep with anyone and that confirms the fact that you have already moved positions. So let me ask you again: are you sure you want to work tomorrow night?"
The doctor stood up quietly and nodded her head: she wasn't ready to expose herself so freely during the upcoming festivities, even if that meant going back to the unbearable reality of dirty sheets and frivolous, meaningless flirting.
"Let the girls live their lives beyond these walls," Rosario told the doctor as the younger woman reached for the door. "Time goes by so fast… Not all of them are like you or me; not all of them can just grow old and become managers. It only takes one manager for this place to work."
"I know."
"And we can agree then, that even if their so-called boyfriends are little pieces of shit that don't deserve their love in the slightest, at least they are better than the never-ending queue of assholes waiting to visit their beds night after night."
"Are they, now?" The doctor asked mockingly, her hand already caressing the doorknob. "I know there comes a point when they just have to leave because, like our number one rule states, we don't do charity. Maybe it's a good thing that some of them are bonding, meeting people, even leaving us; if that's what they truly want. But even you can't deny that it can be dangerous."
Rosario's cold stare inspected Alexandra's quiet expression.
"And having the Rebel-Seekers' biggest enemy working here every night isn't?"
Defeated, the doctor left Rosario's room with a bittersweet aftertaste in her mouth. She made her way across the deserted corridor; the doors to each one of the rooms upstairs were open as an attempt to let the air in. While many of the girls were napping alone in their beds, their bodies languid and covered in sweat, a small group had gathered downstairs, near the bar. They were already busy with the dresses they would wear during the festivities, making sure every garment was clean and ready to use.
The doctor busied herself with her old, dark blue dress. It was a rather simple dress, pretty much like a long tank top that stretched itself all the way down around her ankles. It still looked good on her, even at 39, favoring the shape of her shoulders and neck and distracting the attention from her not so ample cleavage. She tried it on and stood in front of the mirror, admiring the last flashes of her receding youth still pulsating inside her then the woman looked around her shoulder to make sure that the many old and whitened scars on her exposed back were still there, taunting her even after all those years. She sighed inaudibly as she ruled out the chance of covering them with a jacket – she was who she was; she felt no need to hide from others the truths she herself had accepted.
When she went back to her room, she found Rosario sitting on her bed. Alexandra killed the distance separating them and sat down, right next to her friend. In a matter of seconds, the doctor produced a little wooden box from her bedside table: two necklaces were there, waiting for Rosario to choose – a simple yet unevenly shaped navy blue stone surrounded by a thin, golden chain and a black stripe of lace adorned by a single pearl in the middle. Rosario picked the blue stone and allowed the chain to snake around the doctor's slender neck. Then she smiled, satisfied with her choice.
"You may think that I know nothing, and you're probably right, my dear. But I do see things – and lately, the sight I've seen the most is you, struggling with the fact that you want him near."
The doctor rolled her eyes, already anticipating that Rosario was far from finished.
"You decided to hire him; you even created a position for him without consulting me. The fact that he has never come to tell me that he works here now confirms my suspicions that he is willing to do everything in his power to be near you. He knows, dear – the second he mentions his work here, in front of me, I'm going to fire him because, friendships aside, he knows that I know that having an official guard working at a place like this is always problematic."
Alexandra furrowed her brow yet she knew Rosario had a point – she had overstepped her duties as the temporary manager of the brothel by bringing someone like Black in.
"I have always found it odd," the older woman said as she stood up and watched the doctor change into something more comfortable for the night – a simple, long black t-shirt barely covering her thighs. "A woman like you in a place like this… young, beautiful, smart, a doctor. I never asked you why, I know life has a terrible sense of humor." The younger woman climbed into bed in silence, her eyes fixed on Rosario's pensive expression. "Don't fall for Black. He's not a bad man, he's just a professional. He is what he is – even worse: he is what he's chosen to be. Flirt with him, even fuck him if you want to – but just don't fall for him. He waits for no one, my own experience doing the talking here. He can't wait for anyone. You'll grow old and grey but he's still going to be as young and as strong as he is now." Rosario offered a half-smile and tapped the doctor's nearest ankle.
"It's best to let him go before it hurts." There was a brief moment of silence after those words; a well-deserved pause for the old manager. "I assume, since a girl like you ended up in a place like this, that life has already hurt you enough. Don't give it reasons to hurt you even more."
The doctor looked out the window in silence. There was certainty in her friend's words, a certainty she had tried to keep contained inside of her all along.
"The night when he found you and he stayed with you… I thought he was not going to pay for the room. That's when I realized he cares – I wounded him where it hurts the most: his wallet, and he paid anyway." The manager slapped Alexandra's leg with cheerful familiarity, the unexpected sting traveled across the younger woman's skin, forcing her vacant eyes back into their conversation. "But don't play with his patience either - the girls told me how you've been treating the man: you're playing with fire, dear, and I can't protect you from everything, you must be wiser than that."
Alexandra flicked out her tongue childishly, yet deep down she knew Rosario had a point. Black's patience was not meant to be tested: she had learned the lesson the hard way, back in the cabin, the night when he fired his gun at her. The whitened lines on her shoulder were still reminding her of that fact, now perceived through the thin veil of time yet vivid and clear among her memories nonetheless.
Still this colder, more distant and calculative version of herself was all she had left to offer. She could still remember the ire in his eyes the night he had tried to end her for no apparent reason – but most of all, she still remembered the pain he had caused her that other night, the evening of fires and goodbyes, when she had finally made up her mind, accepting him as the only version of something very close to love left for her to hold on to only to find his irrevocable rejection. That small death she had had to endure was reason enough for her to ask him about his dead wife as soon as she could gather the strength to hurt him with her careless words; that small death she had had to endure had been reason enough for her to dare to ask him if he had killed his own wife, knowing that such a bitter accusation could only cause him more pain.
One small death, to compensate for her own small death; the one he had inflicted upon her with his silence and his rejection.
"He's a good friend to me, always has been. Loved him deeply. I never told him though, always knew it wasn't worth the pain. But it doesn't mean I don't have my fair share of things to say to him – this, what happened to me, was his fault. It cannot be ignored." Rosario's expression mutated from a soft, evocative demeanor to a hardened, lip-tight grimace. The doctor knew that sooner or later Black would have to answer for Rosario's current condition.
"Careful, old lady; maybe you'll be the one playing with fire this time," Alexandra's words were not well received by the older woman.
"I need to be careful? I made you manager because I got hurt because of Black and your first decision as a manager is to hire him, without even consulting me?"
The doctor raised both hands in a defensive stance, but Rosario did not give her a chance to speak.
"You have always disregarded my offer to become manager once I'm gone. You like the responsibility, but you run from power. You don't want the exposition, I get that, but I need someone to take my place and there's no one better than you. But ever since Black came our way I don't understand what you're doing anymore. You seem to be enjoying this new power, but we all know you're not. You enjoy this position because it makes you feel superior, because you enjoy rubbing this leverage all over his face. But it's irrelevant, it's pointless. What are you even planning to accomplish by doing this? You want to hurt him? What could cause more pain to a man that cares for you than to watch you sleep with other men when he clearly wants you for himself? But like I said before, ever since you two got reacquainted you haven't slept with anyone – but you're not sleeping with him either."
"You don't know that."
"Bullshit," Rosario yelled, seeing right through the doctor's poorly concealed secrecy. "This reunion is making you unstable. Now you say you are willing to work during the festivities knowing Black's going to be there."
"He won't cause a scene, I assure you," Alexandra tried to sound confident but her voice, weakened, was stating otherwise.
"Oh, so a man as temperamental as Black won't cause any trouble when he sees you headed upstairs with a client because you say so. I wasn't born yesterday, girl. I'm not buying that."
Exasperated and tired, Alexandra tried to sound as definitive as her diminished self-confidence would allow her to be: "If you know he's going to be a problem for us if I choose to work tomorrow night; and if you also know that I don't want the exposition, then why did you make me choose in the first place? I hate to break it to you, but there's never been an actual choice for me." Her frustration was making her see red all around. Inside the belly of an unwanted life that had swallowed her whole, the doctor realized how hard it was to try and talk about the mercenary with somebody who was absolutely clueless about the true nature of the bond uniting them. Rosario didn't know a single thing of their time together, nor was Alexandra willing to open up and let her friend know about everything she and Black had endured together – if anything, and exactly like she had done from the very beginning, protecting of her real identity was still number one priority for the troubled woman. Yet Rosario's support, her friendship and her motherly guidance throughout her years in the brothel were solid pillars questioning the doctor. Such substantial pillars were still wondering where her loyalty really lay – the moments she had spent with Black had been but a few, and they had been torturous and intricate, but Rosario had been by her side for nearly a decade.
Yet the older woman didn't even know the doctor's real name and Black was still there, gravitating menacingly in the outskirts of her sanity, and making her consider her own feelings and emotions once again.
The manager shook her head in silence – the doctor had made a perfectly valid point.
"I didn't judge you when the Population Census came and you chose to stay," Rosario whispered, more conciliatorily now. "A girl like you had nothing to do in a place like this – I'm not even talking about the House of Pleasure anymore; I'm talking about this fucking world. You don't belong here; everyone can see that. When the Census came, I told you I could take you there – I have contacts, people who could have ensured your safe way back home and you knew it, I never hid it from you." With eyes clouded by the reminiscence of those things she still could not understand, Rosario went on: "But you did not want to leave, you wanted to stay. That was your choice, and everything that happened after that was the result of that choice."
The older woman reached for the door. With closed eyes and a heavy heart, her back turned to the doctor.
"I think you chose to stay because you wanted to see him walking out of that prison; you wanted to see him again." A bittersweet half-smile was adorning the Peruvian woman's visage: "It's like when a relative or a friend gets sick: the decease advances, you know what's going to happen. So you prepare for that moment; you anticipate the loss you're about to suffer. But when the doctor comes out of the room, looks you in the eye and tells you that they're gone all the barricades that you have built disappear and you just don't know what to do."
Rosario's hand was pressed firmly against the doorknob, yet the crestfallen manager looked over her shoulder before leaving the room: "I think you spent ten years building up barricades… But the second that man looked you in the eye, they disappeared." With that, Rosario left the doctor's room.
It didn't take long for the old woman to notice that something was happening downstairs. The muffled cries and the quiet whispers coming from the bar guided her aching bones through the corridor and down the stairs. She cursed herself for having left her walking stick back in her own room; her fragile ankles were struggling with every step along the steep way. She paused, minutely, allowing a moment for her trembling hands to steady her balance on the railing. The shadows pooling around the entrance of the brothel and growing darker by the second were subtly letting her know that whatever was happening down at the bar, it surely had an audience.
All her girls were there – all of them, except for the doctor. From the ones living for the drama to those other ones, the most reserved ones; so whatever spectacle was waiting for her it surely was interesting enough to have gathered the attention of such a wide-ranged public.
She approached the timid crowd with curious eyes.
Wordlessly, Rosario demanded an explanation from them.
"Something's up between Black and El-A," L'amia, or the honey-eyed one, according to the gunslinger, whispered.
Resolute, the manager ordered the girls to go back to their respective rooms and decided to approach the scene herself. Rosario limped her way to the bar; her mind running wild with countless speculations: of all her girls, El-A was the most flirtatious one and even if Black was a patient man, even the most patient man had his limits. Maybe she had pushed too hard, maybe he was trying to teach her a lesson.
Or perhaps…
She braced herself and hoped for the best, even when she knew the best was simply too optimistic of a reasoning, even for her taste. The best was definitely too far-fetched from what she was going to find. The second she saw them, she understood why none of the girls had dared approach them, why they had been so silent and discreet, trying their best to remain as nothing but members of a muted crowd, too horrified to act, too terrified of stepping in and actually do something.
Black had her neck pinned to the wall. It had only taken him a strong push from his elbow to reduce El-A's all possible movements to zero. His other hand, the one with enough leisure and grace to prove the girl that in case she was still in need of further confirmation, he was not bluffing, was holding his peacemaker with such poise and elegance it was hard for Rosario's heart not to falter.
"Strike two, Black."
The manager's voice, like thunder roaring in the night, made the man lose his grip on the defenseless girl. El-A rubbed her throat with shaky hands but remained there, her back still glued to the wall, her legs too shaken to walk away from such a nightmarish situation. "Strike one was when you caused this," Rosario yelled as she showed the gunslinger her wounded ankle. "Strike three and you're out."
He turned around slowly. Symptoms of anger were written all over his nearly bicentennial face.
"I assume you already know that twenty-four bottles of wine have gone missing, Ros," he said before turning his back on Rosario again. Black grabbed El-A by one of her forearms and forced the girl against the counter; his peacemaker was resting on the back of her skull now.
"Let her go, Black," Rosario yelled, her eyes contaminated by the frightening sight of that vicious man threatening the life of one of her younger girls in such a despotic fashion.
"Strawberry wine is too expensive, Ros, and you know it. You can make a small fortune by selling just one bottle in the black market. Imagine the number if you somehow manage to sell two dozen bottles," he roared. He was sweating, she noticed; his face had surreptitiously reddened and he was breathing loudly, panting as if his lungs were starving for air. "Money buys weapons, Ros. Need I say more?"
"Black, let her go. You're chasing ghosts," the doctor pleaded as she approached the scene with eyes full of disbelief.
"Am I now, really?"
When Fá, the third component of El-A's group, knocked on her door and begged the woman to get downstairs as soon as possible, her instinct told her that something was wrong with Rosario and so, the doctor had run to the bar thinking about the manager's old and tired bones but instead, she was met by his protruding eyes, and an ancient wilderness inside his expression, summoning images from her own past with him, like fragments of her memory screaming to be remembered.
She saw him, escorting her to the Palace. Saw his body cornering her against a wall in a dark alley. Saw his gun and his blood; her own fingers coated in the crimson lines streaming down his abdomen.
Saw his peacemaker; and his mouth moving around and mumbling something about saving her from the humiliation of a public execution, back in that dark, small cell in the prison.
Saw the expressionless look in his eyes when she turned around to confirm her suspicions: he had fired his gun at her. He had aimed, and he had finally pulled the trigger.
But she also saw the honesty in his words when they went back to her house. How he had fallen asleep that night, even when she had hurt him. He had trusted her back then, succumbing to slumber in her presence.
She saw the unlocked door, that evening when he helped her escape from prison. He had cared for her back then.
Saw the way he tended to the wound he himself had inflicted upon her shoulder, the way he had tried to kiss her; her hand slapping the man hard across his face as if trying to shake him off his trance.
His darkest colors were always followed by lighter, richer tones. Only now she couldn't tell El-A to wait for such marvelous hues to appear. The doctor was certain: she had been the common element in all those situations; there was no evidence indicating Alexandra that the girl's cries could summon his brighter side.
"You gave me a name, you said that man was recruiting youngsters. She looks young enough to me, and those bottles that went missing… it can't be a coincidence."
"I told you I would talk to the girls myself, Black," the doctor retorted as she stretched one of her arms to reach for his shoulder. The cowboy flinched under her touch but let go of the girl.
"One of my contacts in the black market told me they received a dozen bottles of strawberry wine last night. I found six bottles in her room – the other half-dozen bottles are still unaccounted for," he explained.
Rosario held the trembling girl in her arms and whispered: "Did you steal the wine, El-A?" Her tone was amicable and full of comprehension.
The girl nodded, ashamed.
"Azul needed the money."
Alexandra covered her face with her hands: she had been right all along, El-A's boyfriend was far from done. After a brief moment, the doctor grabbed Black by one of his arms and forced him out of the brothel. Now that they were finally alone, it was best for the man to hear the truth from her.
"Azul," she began, "El-A's boyfriend… his father is the recruiter."
"You knew this?"
"I knew her boyfriend was the son of Ala-m Eré. But I could have never imagined she would be the one behind the missing wine. I didn't even know those bottles were missing until you started to work here."
Black tried to speak but the ire engulfing him was making it impossible for his words to reach the outside.
"This was a terrible idea, forget about our deal. Just go, Erron."
Infuriated, the man grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her vehemently: "The Rebel-Seekers are not a threat anymore, they are disbanded! But we can't let them…"
"Then why do you fight?" She yelled, interrupting him.
"For the people they hurt."
"For your wife, Black," Alexandra fought back, "you fight because they took something from you."
"They took something from you too, they took something from us," he screamed, enraged, from the top of his lungs.
Aalem.
Determined not to let the memory of the boy shatter her into a million pieces, the doctor pushed the man, freeing herself from his grip. The virulence of those cold eyes of him was truly frightening, yet the woman braced herself for the worst: she had already lost Harry and Aalem because of this dispute; she couldn't allow them to hurt El-A too.
"This is why I was so scared of you back then… but I'm not afraid anymore," she said.
"You should be. The fact that I want you to see past my name doesn't mean you can forget who I am."
"I know who you are; you're a mercenary. You only care about your own business, your own people, your own interests. Look at them now, Black: your wife, Aalem… they are all dead."
His hands curled into tight fists at the sides of his shaking body.
"I won't let you hurt her, Erron. I can't, she's one of us," she whispered. "And there's no way you're coming back after this." The woman placed her hands on his broad chest, waiting to see those brighter colors emanating from him but they were nowhere to be found. "Go home and get some sleep," the doctor managed to say after a while in complete silence. "You've been working day and night for some time now, sleep deprivation is…"
He cut her off; bothered by the fact that even then, the woman was unable to see him past her clinical point of view.
"The night when they killed Aalem I told you that you and I were not so different… but you had yet to see it back then." His eyes found hers, his rancor and his anger were still there, encysted deep inside of him. "Do you see it now? You are the one that only cares about your own business, your own people, your own interests." He turned around and walked away, afraid to know that, this time, she hadn't been able to calm him down like she had always done in the past.
This time, she had failed to summon his brighter tones.
Author's note:
Happy birthday to Debris! This fic is one year old today. Well, officially, if we consider January 16th 2016 (the original publishing date) as the starting point for this story. Actually this fic was born about six months prior to that day, and those were months spent in the dark. Months filled by research, drafting, outlining the plot and gathering courage to actually post the damn thing and come back to the world of fanfiction after many, many years of not being around.
I want to thank everyone directly or indirectly involved in the life of this work of fiction. Friends, editors, consultants, readers, reviewers, literally everyone… This is a story that I needed to tell, and it's a story I still need to tell and I think that's something quite important. Nowadays I see a lot of kids who want to tell stories but I often read messages like "I'll keep updating if I get enough reviews" or "Tell me what you want to read in the comments and I'll see how I can make it work into the story in upcoming chapters!" – kids, just don't. Take it from a thirty-something, and it's not that I believe age really means anything, but if you have a story to tell, tell it. It doesn't matter if no one is reviewing, I can assure you, there's always someone reading and even if there's nobody out there reading (which is extremely unlikely), if you need to get that story out of your system, get it out of your system! (The second case is trickier than the first one, though, and it sort of feeds the idea that in order to be "popular" you need to entertain somebody else's ideas…)
I don't know why I decided to ramble on about these things… guess my point is that writing a story, no matter how complex or simple, is a torturous endeavor, but it doesn't mean it can't be fun or rewarding in the long run. And last but not least, especially for the younger audiences, don't let your readers take control of your story – don't succumb to others' demands story-wise: if they have a fully formed idea of how the story should go, maybe they should write their own.
I suppose the longevity of a story talks about many different things: a writer's conviction, a thirst making them want to see their narratives play out from beginning to end. A commitment of ideas, the fidelity of an audience – no matter how big or small – An investment of time and emotions; from the writer and from the readers. For that, I'm immensely grateful.
Thank you all so much for reading this far! The next couple of chapters should be right around the corner because I have those ones fully outlined by now but after that we're going to have a brief hiatus because I'll be moving to a new house in February so I don't think there'll be any time for me to write until the whole moving thing is complete – and even after that I have a side-project for Overwatch that I need to finish.
Cheers!
Elle.
Looksforthelight: When he talks about his doctor in Business he talks about Alex, not Annie. And what I loved about that reference is that it was vague enough for people to speculate wildly about it. You know, right after I posted that chapter someone on Tumblr asked me if that meant this story was not going to have a happy ending, and now you're saying the opposite – mission accomplished!
I'll copy/paste what I told them back then:
"Alexandra was born in 1987, right now in Debris she's 39 years of age but Business takes place many years into the future (in 2077 to be exact) - Alexandra would be 90 years old. Maybe she's already dead in Business, considering everything she had to go through and the years she spent in Outworld; or maybe Erron chose to let her go somewhere down the line because, unlike him, she does age and, according to Business, Erron still lives in Outworld but maybe she is in Earthrealm now… There are many possibilities, really, so I'll let you guys choose freely."
Thanks for reading both stories, dear!
RaeCamille: I'm glad you said "back to normal" like that because things are far from being normal between those two. Now can you really blame those girls for trying to flirt with our handsome cowboy (and succeeding)? – Like you predicted, they were involved in the missing bottles affair, at least one of them was. Thanks for reading, my friend.
ErronFan: He said 'friend' like he said 'hey' – remember? You're right, he needs to be more careful with his words but a part of me enjoys seeing him so overwhelmed by this whole situation… There are many things he needs to work out; his impulsive mouth is still one of them. Thank you!
Westcoast Witchdoctor: Erron is a different man now, but her fluctuating emotions are getting the best of him. And even when he is an adaptable person, like he himself likes to say, her lack of consistency is definitely going to play a big part in his own emotions. This chapter has sparked a fire inside of him, a rage that goes beyond the whole Rebel-Seekers plot. I guess he knows she's become the source of his fury, but I don't think he knows what to do about it. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!
Guest: There was a very specific part of your review that I found alarming, when you said: "Real people don't talk like poems" – I don't think it's even necessary for me to point this out, but just in case, these are not real people. I'm also active in a much younger and newer fandom, the Overwatch fandom, and last week was… well, alarming as well considering many people felt the urgent need to threat one of the writers because the narrative was not in favor of their shipping choices. I can understand the investment, and I understand that for any work of fiction to work out it's mandatory for the characters to be relatable and/or realistic – but that doesn't make them real people. I can't emphasize this enough. There's a certain pattern of plausibility in Erron Black's persona but there's nothing real about a mercenary cowboy who can't age because he has magic running through his veins. That kind of statement can't be tossed around so freely, no matter how appealing it might seem. So, one more time, these characters may be reliable, may be realistic but they are not real.
On the other hand, there are always going to be choices made by the authors. Specific changes and alterations to these characters and situational plots as they see fit in order to help the narrative. I need Erron and Alexandra to be these people now so they can be something else in the future, simple as that. That's what realistic characters do – they change, they take several steps backwards, they evolve and in this case in particular, not only they've been through hell, like you pointed out, but there's also the time factor that's crucial for their development: it's been a decade. Not a week, not a month, not even a year – an entire decade.
Last but not least, and even when every piece of constructive criticism is valid and taken into account, there are some very specific aspects of this story that I cannot negotiate now that the fic has become this long – pace, rhythm and flow. All those elements have been set a long time ago, changing them now would be undermining for a story that has been going on for a whole year now. There will always be very specific chapters and scenes demanding a different tone – like chapters 16 and 35, for example, or chapters demanding a different structure, like chapters 22 and 32. I always like to try different styles for my stories – there's an underlying author's style unifying their entire body of work, but each tale needs to be told differently. Business, for example, is much more direct than this story. Yugen is, by far, the most descriptive piece of fanfiction I've ever written. The writing on the wall is gloomy, and could have never been told through abstractions. This fic has a very powerful psychological element and many images and concepts come to play every chapter; it's romantic, but it's not lovely; it's oneiric, but it's not ethereal. Choices, choices, choices…
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, reading and reviewing.