I was totally unprepared for the harsh reality of the transaction that passed between my Father and Rubin. In my father’s perception, his anger had justified everything. He saved me from the floral farms, paid off all his debts, and provided me a reasonably comfortable lifestyle through Rubin. But Rubin lied. He had no intention of dating me, let alone marrying me. I was his latest acquisition, earning my living in his household. One of several girls he owned. My father didn’t care enough about Rubin’s intentions to listen to my protests. I tried to tell him Rubin was lying, he simply wouldn’t hear it.

Life with Rubin was nothing like it should have been. And Faustino proved the same with his constant demands for payment on a never-ending bill. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had men running my life, siphoning off my body, my money, my time and affections, and constantly lying to me. I made up my mind to confront Enrique. I wanted it all, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. No more lies.

I twiddled away three hours like a good little bloodslave, drinking lots of water and Ensure along with vitamin water and my dose of Suboxone to calm me down. It seemed like my antsy cravings for Enrique – his bite – were getting worse. I couldn’t sit still and I’d begun to sweat with nervous tension. It felt like I’d drunk a whole pot of coffee. I was wired, but my head hurt, my stomach felt nauseous and I started sweating as I paced the room back and forth.

He popped in the door a little after seven and I wanted to claw his eyes out – after he bit me of course.

“Good evening, Hope.”

He greeted me as I latched onto him. I pulled my hair to the side to accommodate his bite. After getting what I needed and coming all over myself, I stopped humping on his leg and stepped away from his embrace. He was magnetic. I had to fight to keep from going to him, rubbing up on him back and forth like a damn cat.

After I caught my breath, I pegged him with the look. “We need to talk.”

“Before you begin, I ask you to refrain from calling me a liar and desist calling yourself a whore. Neither of these derogatory names is correct and I find it offensive.”

“Fair enough. Do you agree to tell me everything without any bullshit?”

“If I can’t answer your question with one hundred percent honesty, I will let you know. Ask away.”

“If you haven’t had a bloodslave in so many years, why is there a lock on the outside of this door? It was that way when you first put me in here.”

“When I had this penthouse refurbished a few years back I put special locks on several rooms. I believe in being prepared for any situation. I have always lived with rooms like this. It’s something my master taught me many years ago.”

“And where is your master now?”

“I’m not prepared to discuss that. He is gone and you’ll never have to concern yourself with him.”

“Okay, and what about Lia? How did she end up here with you? And what is your actual relationship with her?”

“That’s a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it all?”

“Yes, all of it.”

“Let’s get comfortable.” I followed him over to the couch and sat next to him.

“It was approximately twenty years ago ... the last time I had a bloodslave actually. That’s when I met Lia Nguyen. She must have been twenty-something. Her tale is similar to yours in some ways.”

“Cha, whatever. I am nothing like her. She’s certifiable.” Whatever happened to Lia, it messed her up bad.

“She was born into extreme poverty in Vietnam. Her father, an American GI from the war, was never in her life, except briefly right around the time I met her. She had it rough, probably just as rough as you did. Perhaps worse. She was a child prostitute from the age of eleven, her and several of her half-sisters.”

“Being a half-breed, she wasn’t exactly the favored child. Being of mixed race, fairer of skin with less severe cheek bones and eye slant, she was more attractive, but instantly recognizable. The Vietnamese have no real love for the children of the GI’s.”

“By the age of fourteen she was physically mature enough to be considered a woman. Her mother was so dirt poor, and a heroin addict to boot, she really had no control over the household. Men came and went, paid for services. Some stayed for a while, most didn’t.”

As he spoke I found myself edging closer, putting my hands on his thigh or shoulder. I wanted to be in his lap. I had to constantly check myself from crawling on top of him. He had my body enraptured. He just smiled knowingly.

“Lia fought with some of the men who attempted to control the flow of money and business in the house. She was beaten severely. Eventually she learned to defend herself, most often with a weapon. They were a family of prostitutes. A man could pick from their mother or any one of four sisters ranging in age from eleven on up. Lia’s brother Tri Nguyen was born in 1985, the first boy in the family.”

“As Lia grew into adulthood, she became very fond of infant Tri. She took on a role of surrogate mother. Her own mother continued her descent into addiction and died in 1988 of an overdose.”

“Lia and her sisters survived okay for a couple years. She looked out for Tri as if he was her own son, but raising a child was difficult in that environment. Tri dashed into the middle of a fight with one of Lia’s sister’s clients. The man was drunk and belligerent, and didn’t want to pay after he’d already sampled the goods. In the midst of the fight, Tri jumped on the guy kicking and screaming. The man fell on him by accident. The police hauled the man to jail to sleep off his drunk, but Tri caught the worst of it with a broken arm.”

“Tri healed quickly, but Lia had made her decision to take him and go. She worked double shifts at a strip club and did some work on her back to save up enough money for the trip to America. In the spring of 1991 she arrived in New York with Tri. After paying for their visas and travel expenses, she was broke.”

“She went to work immediately in China Town, doing what she knew best. That’s how I met her. I paid her fifty dollars for a couple of good bites.”

“We hit it off instantly. She related her sad story, talked of her desire to find her father. I met Tri, who acted like her son. She had plans for college. She wanted to make something of herself.” He looked at me, his eyes seeing deep into my soul. He was well aware of the effect he had on me.

A sick feeling settled into my gut. Lia’s life was a mirror image of mine. Different, but the same. And yet she was such a dark twisted woman. I began to fear what Enrique might reveal.

“At the time, I needed tax deductions for one of my corporations, so I arranged for Lia’s scholarship, a full ride. I was being generous, the Good Samaritan. I even hired a detective to find her father.”

He spoke of the very thing I wanted most, to get my education, to become something better, something more than a prostitute. It hurt to listen.

“As luck would have it, he didn’t live very far away. He had a small cabin in the woods at the Eastern edge of the Appalachians.”

“I’d been visiting Lia regularly, keeping tabs on her, making sure she stayed in school and out of trouble. We spent plenty of time together. We were falling in love.”

“Her father, Raymond Shuman, had been an Army Ranger stationed in Saigon. He’d survived numerous forays into the bush country, one of their elite. Like so many men in his situation, he’d become a monster, a killing machine who collected trophies of flesh. When the military breeds a creature like that, they don’t teach him how to turn off the machine. Most of them today are on heavy psyche meds with debilitating injuries to show for their service. They encountered a hostile environment here in the US when they returned. People called them “baby killers” and treated them with outright disdain. Being a veteran of Vietnam was a stain on your resume. They were not honored for their service to their country.”

“Raymond was an extremely bitter man, paranoid the US government was out to get him, take away all his rights and freedoms. A card carrying member of the NRA, he was armed at all times. For him, Vietnam had never really ended. He returned to the bush country in his nightly dreams, and he had flashbacks, what they call PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. A loud noise or sudden movement could trigger a vivid memory.”

“I know all this because I read his psychiatric treatment file. The man was a dangerous unpredictable son-of-a-bitch, and definitely bigoted towards Asians, especially Vietnamese. I never should’ve arranged their meeting. But I learned these things later.

“He met Lia the first time at a coffee shop a few blocks from her apartment. They didn’t have much to say. She talked of life in Vietnam post war, which held his interest. Theirs was a tentative connection, just enough to agree to meet again.”

“Raymond cancelled their next meeting, but eventually, with Lia calling him weekly, he agreed to meet again. They had dinner together at a McDonalds near her college. She was excited for Ray to meet the people that meant the most to her, Tri, and of course, me.”

“As I’m sure you guessed, she was a bloodslave. It’s near impossible to have an intimate relationship otherwise. She was quite fond of me back then. She wanted me to meet her father, especially since I paid to find him.”

“We sat outside in the evening air by the playground and talked while Tri played with the other kids. The problem started when an Asian family sat down at a table nearby. Ray froze, watching their every move as they settled in. Their children ran off to join Tri. They weren’t Vietnamese, but that didn’t stop Tri, he chattered away at them in his native tongue. Ray had this wild look in his eyes. Watching that family had triggered a flashback.”

“The kids were arguing. They couldn’t understand Tri. One boy had a black plastic toy pistol, one of those realistic looking ones. Tri grabbed it and wouldn’t give it back.”

“They chased Tri as he ran to Lia, toy in hand. The other two kids swarmed around the table, a storm of shouts and accusations. Struggling with some vision of events long past, Ray couldn’t handle the noise. He jumped up out of his seat screaming ‘shut those fucking Gooks up!’”