Chapter 306: Mallory IV—The End of Us Both

The appointment had been disgustingly easy to set up; they had briefly interviewed him, presumably to ascertain whether or not he was an undercover policeman. When they were satisfied that he was not, he was given a portfolio of photographs to peruse, all of them seemed like the head shot resumes of models. Which girl would he like to “photograph” he was asked. Mallory hid the recoil in his gut. And then his heart shivered when he found her, he pressed his finger onto the glossy black and white photograph. He kept it there as he turned to portfolio to the woman interviewing him, she smiled.

“That one,” Mallory said.

“She’s popular,” the woman replied. She had blonde hair rolled into a bun, a cigarette in her slim fingers. “And expensive.”

“How expensive?”

“More so than any of the others,” she inhaled and exhaled a ring of smoke.

Mallory swallowed. This woman was decadent to say the least, she epitomized the Whore of Babylon. She would be torn limb from limb by the Great Beast. She would be left devastated and naked; he took only a small comfort from those words. Women like this were always betrayed, were always destroyed.

The woman tapped out her cigarette and stood up. “Your first time photographing our models, it’s a discount. Are you an artist or a photographer?”

“Artist,” Mallory said. That was what the filthy beast who had sent him here told him to say. Remember, you’re an artist.

The woman smiled. “Excellent, we always give our first time artists a discount, as a courtesy. Are you sketching or painting? There’s a two hour difference in that.”

Mallory nodded. “Sketching.”

“Are you sure?” the woman asked as she leaned forward on the desk. “It’s much more value if you’re painting.”

You will be destroyed. Mallory smiled and held out his hands. “I haven’t brought any oils, just pencils.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “It’s as your taste is,” she replied. “Now go outside, take this ticket,” she scrawled something on an orange slip of paper, “give this to the man outside and you’re sitting will be arranged. It’s eight hundred dollars.”

“Eight hundred!” Mallory exclaimed.

She nodded. “Like I said, she is the most popular model, we wouldn’t want to bring her value down by overuse, and not everyone can afford her, Sir.”

Mallory took out his wallet. You will be destroyed you Whore of Babylon.

Lush crimson and cream velvets decorated the room, the bed, and the windows. The décor, Mallory thought, would more than likely be labeled as Peppermint Stick or some nonsense like that. He didn’t sit on the bed, he wouldn’t touch that, he instead chose a wooden chair with a red and white swirled cushion.

He waited ten minutes; they had told him it would be fifteen. His legs kept trembling; he could smell the lust in this room, the degradation and exploitation. It unnerved him so much that he went to the bathroom and even when he splashed water on his face, he refused to look at his reflection. In a brothel Christmas Night. Unclean and yet, somehow, considering his status, amusing.

When he left the bathroom the bedroom was still empty. He could smell something, however, a light floral scent almost like crushed flowers. He thought briefly and inexplicably of stories of the martyred saints and how they never decomposed after death, they only smelled of flowers. But this scent, being a synthetic whore’s scent, was not to be confused with the saints.

He looked around, frowning, and then he noticed the large mound underneath the bedcovers. Tightening in his throat and chest, he pressed his hands together and pressed his fingertips underneath his chin as he approached the bed. The mound was not so big; he could see it pulsing with breath. Wanting to close his eyes, but not, he reached for the top of the coverlet and he pulled it back, slowly.

Her pretty face shown first, raven black, bobbed hair framing her cheeks that lightly blushed, her eyes were closed, her sharp chin led to her tiny throat which had a huge red, velvet Christmas bow tied around it. Her skin, so pale, ivory in way women once died to possess. She matched this peppermint room, and he pulled the coverlet down further to her waist and he stopped there, dropped the coverlet. She wore a silk, crimson dress, something light, and something easily removable.

“Sit up Chloe,” he said.

Chloe’s eyes opened striking him through with green, they widened, huge eyes, far too big for her tiny face. Her pretty nose wrinkled and she sat up, narrowing her eyes in a way that shone identical to an expression he knew Cecile to have. “I r’mimber you, you were there whin the dawg got hit. Couldn’t shake me off yer brain aye? Father.”

Mallory fell to his knees by the bed and he grabbed her tiny little hand in his own. If Nicodemus was correct, God rest his soul, than this child was only close to thirteen if not slightly older. “Chloe listen to me, I’m a friend, and I’m here to…”

The girl struck like lightning, she grabbed his cheek with her free hand and stopped his mouth with a kiss, wet, warm, probing, violating, unholy… Mallory felt his heart freeze in horror and he only thought of the impossibility of this situation, as if he were being assaulted by a kitten. She pulled her lips away and pressed her fingers over his lips, kissed his cheek, kissed the lobe of his ear… Lord his heart, Lord his skin, Lord he felt it all over, unholy, unclean.

“The room is bugged,” Chloe whispered into his ear. “Don’t be tellin’ me things like that Father. You’ll be kilt. If you’re gonna say somethin’ say it in m’ear.”

Mallory’s heart beat faster, and sweat began to trickle under his arms. “You mean,” he whispered to her, “They’re filming this?”

Chloe cupped his face in her hands and she nuzzled him. Mallory felt too much fear now, terrified about the near future to take any pleasure in this. “No, not filming, Father, they jes have it bugged, they listening fer things like you jes tole me. If’n y’tell me they’ll be in here and I dunno whair you’ll end up.”

“I can get you out of here,” he whispered. “I can rescue you.”

“Mmmmm you like that honey? You wan’ MORE?” Chloe moaned loudly, scaring Mallory half out of his mind. He almost cried out in horror until he realized that the girl was playing up for the microphones. “Ah’ll give ya more!”

She nodded to him, ordering a cue. Mallory felt his throat strangle as he gasped. “Yes… y-yes I want more.” He wondered if they would mistake the fear in his voice for the throes of love.

“Oh yer a fast finisher!” Chloe squeaked and she stood up and whispered, “Yell somethin’.”

“Um YES!” Mallory cried out feeling exposed and dirty. Oh God you know I am not doing a thing but trying to save a soul!

Chloe smiled, too much lipstick on her little mouth, it reminded him of Japanese dancing girls. She motioned for him to sit next to her, and Mallory’s knees trembled so much that he eagerly obeyed. He squeezed his hands together in his lap, the girl smelled of too much perfume.

“You should leave now,” Chloe whispered. “It’s better fer ya if ya do.”

“Do I have to?”

Chloe shrugged. “Ya pait fer a whole hour? You kin stay, I can keep ya comp’ny.” Her hand slid over his thigh and rubbed into his groin, Mallory felt a fiery anger in him and he slapped it away. The girl scowled and rubbed it.

“Please, let me take you from here,” he whispered, leaning into her ear.

“What’s it to you? Where would I go?”

“You’ll be taken care of.”

Chloe smiled and she fell to her back on the bed, looking at him from under her black lashes. “I git a real artist who come in ever month. He skitches me with color pencils on this notepad, he likes m’eyes, there so pritty he says. He takes his sketches, an he takes em to this anny-mation comp’ny they make these cartoons, japineeze cartoons, they’re like action movie cartoons for adults. And he turns the pitchers of me into Sakura Cherry.”

Pulse slowing, heart slowing, body stiffening… everything stiffening, her voice grated on his ears, the accent horrid but he suspected it was exaggerated, a child’s only way to antagonize adults. He felt liquid inside, he couldn’t tear himself away from her eyes, the green of which seemed to have dilated and expanded, latching onto him and sucking him to her. “What’s Sakura Cherry?” he whispered, and he crawled forward onto the bed until he lay next to her.

Chloe rolled onto her side and not breaking eye contact with him, she ran a finger over his forehead. “She’s me. It’s a cartoon, really, a cartoon, a Jipannimation, and Sakura Cherry she’s a lil girl who fights crime, she has guns and a secrit hideaway an’ ever’thin. Sometimes he brings in videos so I kin see m’self in cartoon. I like it.”

“Does he love you?” Mallory asked. Why can’t I move? Why am I just laying here? Why am I gazing at her eyes, there’s something wrong with them, is Nicodemus right? Is there something spiritually wrong with this child? Her mind must be gone, she has to cope, she has to deny and shut herself away from reality.

“He sez it all th’time but I think he jes likes my pitcher and the way I riward him.”

“How do you reward him?” he asked. Of course I know! Of course I know! I am inviting this abhorrence into my brain, she won’t release me, release! Chloe smiled and she kissed him again, this time he didn’t react with surprise or horror, he allowed her. Like a kitten tongue, lips, on his cheeks to his throat and her hand over his chest. “Cecile…ah!”

“Cecilia?” Chloe asked as her fingers went to his fly. Mallory felt the spell broken at the sound of that name. He felt ashamed knowing how horrified Cecile would be at the thought of him here, in this place. Cecile probably did not even know a place like this could exist. “Is that yer sweetheart? Th’girl you kin’t have Father? It’s a pritty name, Cecilia, I wish I had a pritty name like that. Th’A makes names so much more pritty, but I kin’t call m’self Chloe-A. Don’t work.”

Mallory sat up and nudged her away from his body. The Devil had possessed them both, and had tempted them both but Cecile’s name had broken the temptation for both of them. It had saved them from sin. He blessed Cecile inwardly and at the same time wondered if the pure, the chaste Saint Cecilia in heaven had heard her name and put a stop to this. He would have to pray to her when he left this monstrous place.

“Do I look like her?” Chloe whispered. Her eyes were wide with childish excitement. How could she not be scared and angry, jumping at the opportunity to leave?

Mallory touched her cheek, her eyes did not seem so big now, and the green no longer seemed so overpowering. “You do,” he replied. He kissed her forehead, a chaste kiss. “Please let me take you from here.” Children love toys, and pretty things. Mallory had wanted to give it to her once he had her out of this place. Perhaps he could tempt her with it. He reached into the pocket of his coat which lay on the coverlet, and he pulled it out. Chloe’s eyes lit up and she giggled and snatched it from him.

“Pritty!” she gasped. He had bought a shining, emerald crucifix hung on a string of Austrian glass green rosary beads. She immediately put it over her head and she was such a frail thing that she looped it twice around her neck. “Thanks.”

“Now come with me!” he whispered. “I can get you out please!”

Chloe smiled, and this time he could see sadness brimming in her expression. One tear fell and landed with a light patter on the bed. “Go now, or ah’ll be th’end of us both.”