Call Girl

Ariana woke up naked and extremely groggy. Her brain felt like it was somewhere else and she almost couldn’t feel her body, like she was numb. That was, until she moved. Sharp pains shot straight through her entire being, originating from between her legs and before she could even really think about it, she was sure of what happened. Tears streaked down her cheeks as fragments of memories of the night before filled her head.

The two men, the heroin… how they wouldn’t let her leave. They took turns raping her as she screamed and cried for them to stop. That only caused them to gag her with some sort of cloth. And every time she spit it out, she got a backhand in the face from one of them. When she really started fighting back, one of them pinned her down while the other one shot her up with a dose of the drug they so willingly filled their own bodies with – heroin.

Ariana cried even more as every little detail hit her harder than the last. She pulled herself from the bed, biting her lip to keep the pain from crippling her completely.

From what she could tell, it was now early morning. There was faint light was coming through the window. She knew she was out a long time. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed there with her, torturing her after she passed out. All she knew was they weren’t there anymore. No traces of them left whatsoever. They just left her discarded, torn dress on the floor next to her panties.

She left the hotel room as soon as she was dressed. She didn’t want to spend any more time there. She cried all the way home, feeling a depression deep inside of her. She let this happen to herself. It was her choice to do this job. It was her choice to continue after practically being raped by her father’s lawyer. She knew there were worse people than him out there and she was unfortunate enough to encounter two of them the previous night. It was all her fault. She had no one else to blame.

She knew she couldn’t go to the police – she was a prostitute for Christ’s sake. Her job was just as illegal as the drugs they possessed and the act of rape she endured. Any person would say with a job like hers, she deserved it. And maybe she did. She was playing with fire getting into this career path. And last night she got burned, badly. Her decisions led to this, so maybe on some level she got what she deserved.

Ariana was grateful her father and Robin were still out when she got home. She didn’t need any inquiring questions or looks of pity. And she sure as hell didn’t want to explain what happened or why she was in that kind of situation in the first place.

She limped to the bathroom, the pain increasing throughout her midsection and it made her want to cry even harder. She peeled her dress and panties slowly off of her body and looked at herself in the mirror. Her entire left cheek was black and blue and she had dried blood on her chin from the cut on her lip. She didn’t even want to assess the damage of her lower regions, so she just pulled herself into the shower and turned on the stream. As she washed herself, the blood seeped from between her legs, tinting the water a light shade of red. She didn’t even hold her tears back. She was sure the men did a number on her, so badly that she may even need some sort of stitches, but she couldn’t just go to the hospital. They would ask questions – too many that she couldn’t answer.

When she finally pulled herself out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and went to her room. As she lay in bed, the pain only got worse. She cried for a while, feeling the lowest of low. She hated herself. She drove away the one guy who tolerated her and now she was truly alone. She didn’t want this. She never wanted this life for herself. And Harry was right. What was Robin going to think when she found out about what she’d been doing for the past year? She was a disappointment. She was just a whore.

Something inside of her snapped after what happened the previous night. Something disconnected and she didn’t know how much more she could handle. Or how much more she was willing to take.

Pulling herself out of the bed, she got on her knees, grabbing her small safe from under the bed. Once it was open, she took out the bottle of Vicodin she took from her mother. Suddenly, all she could think about was how grateful she was to have stolen them from her. Now she could just be free of everything and everyone.

She undid the lid and emptied a few in her hands, popping them into her mouth. That would be enough to make the pain go away. But it wouldn’t stay away. It would only come back stronger and it would only continue for the rest of her life with the way she was living. She turned up the bottle, dumping the contents onto the bed, staring at the pills. There had to have been at least twenty pills there. Enough was enough.

Ariana pulled herself up, wrapping the towel around herself again and made her way to the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with cold tap water before walking back to the bedroom. She got back down on her knees in front of the mattress, looking at the pills once again. She felt a twinge of pain in her body as tears welled in her eyes. The agonizing pain shot straight to her heart and she knew she couldn’t do it anymore. She knew she didn’t want to.

One-by-one, she swallowed each and every pill that lay in front of her, swallowing them down with the glass of water. She crawled back into the bed and closed her eyes, waiting.

Soon it would all be over.

…

“ARI! ARI! Ariana! WAKE UP!” She heard in the distance.

She was aware it was Robin. And she was aware her body was being shaken, but she couldn’t feel it. And she couldn’t pull herself out of the darkness. So she didn’t.

…

“ARIANA! You’ve got to wake up! Wake up, Ariana! Please, God! Wake up!” She heard again. Harry, her beautiful Harry.

“Just wake her up, Harry! Wake her up!” She heard Robin screaming.

“Ari, come on. Come on,” Harry said as she felt him lightly smacking her face to bring her back to consciousness.

And she so badly wanted to see his face. She needed to see it one last time. It was so beautiful. She couldn’t leave without seeing it. Not when she had a chance of it being the last thing she saw before she left for good.

“Ari, come on, love,” Harry said, continuing to tap on her face.

Her eyes fluttered open and she tried to focus, she really did. But she couldn’t, so she closed them again.

“Ari, no! Ari, wake up. Come on, babe. I know you can do it, please,” Harry begged.

And with his plea, she tried again. She blinked her eyes a few times. And the more she blinked, the better her vision got, but her eyelids were so heavy.

“Good girl, good girl. Stay with me, please,” Harry pleaded. And she saw his scared, yet smiling face as he look down at her.

“So tired,” she croaked out.

“Don’t go to sleep. You can’t go to sleep. Ari, what did you take? Did you take these pills, Ariana? How many did you take?” Harry came at her with a barrage of questions. Her mind couldn’t focus, it couldn’t wrap around it.

Her eyelashes felt like there were weights tied to the ends of them because all she wanted to do was close them. She just wanted to close them and be done with it.

“ARIANA! Stay with me!” Harry yelled at her.

Feeling as if out of nowhere, Ariana was suddenly thrust under a cold stream of water. She screamed and flailed like a fish out of water wanting to be anywhere but in this icy hell.

“Ariana, you’re okay. You’re okay,” Harry said, grabbing onto her arms. She was just screaming and flailing and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“Ari, please,” she heard Robin weeping.

“Get a towel, Robin. Get a towel,” Harry told her.

Ariana’s eyes were open now. And with everything in her, she wanted to attack. She wanted to scream at the people that ripped her away from whatever peace she was in.

Harry grabbed her wet body out of the bathtub and pulled her against his chest as Robin handed him a towel. He wrapped it around Ariana’s shivering naked body as the anger built up inside of her.

“Stop. Stop,” she said weakly.

“What?” Harry asked, looking down at her.

“Just stop,” she cried.

“Stop what?” Harry asked softly.

“Just leave me. Just leave me,” she cried desperately.

“I’m not leaving you, Ari. The paramedics are on their way,” Harry told her.

“Leave me alone,” she wept into Harry’s shoulder.

“Ari…” Robin choked out.

“Just leave me alone,” she snapped, smacking her fists weakly against Harry’s chest.

“Ari, stop it!” Robin yelled.

“Just leave me! LEAVE ME ALONE!” She screamed louder through her tears.

“Ari, please. Shh,” Harry said, pulling her back to him, holding her arms so she couldn’t hit him anymore.

“Go away. Just go away,” she sobbed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Harry cooed in her ear.

Once he finally let go of her arms, she pulled them back and pushed him as hard as she could in the chest.

“Stop!” She cried, pushing out of his arms.

“Ari, please,” Harry said quietly, looking at her incredulously.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Harry,” she snapped viciously.

“Ari—” He choked out as she curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor and sobbed.

Moments later, the paramedics arrived to take her away, letting her slip back into her dream world, exactly where she wanted to be.

Notes