Henry's Gift
My stomach knotted and my hands started to tremble. I felt like a 17-year old boy who is just about to accomplish the ultimate conquest, having thought about nothing else throughout his teenage years. Before I could think, my hand shot up and I waved at the man, who waved back to me.
‘Trevor?’ he extended his hand as he approached my table and I nodded, extending my own hand in return, with a complete unnecessary ‘Terry?’ He smiled and nodded back. His handshake was mellow and cold, making my skin crawl.
‘So, are we ready,’ he eyed my half finished drink, ‘or shall we have one for the road?’
I had already had two drinks, which were two too many at this time of the day and despite trying not to appear too eager, I knew that must have been the impression that I gave. ‘I’m ready.’
I threw a couple of banknotes onto the table next to the glass and we walked out as old buddies. ‘Over there,’ said Terry pointing to the corner, which led to the parking lot of the pub in the back.
‘Excited?’ he asked as we sat in the car and I just shrugged. I could not find the words to express my true emotions. Excitement, yes. However, it was mixed with fear, discomfort, and downright terror. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat, choking me.
I was immensely grateful when Terry reached over to the radio and turned it on. Small talk was not what I wanted to go through right now. As we pulled off, I stole a glance at the man driving the car. He looked every bit of what he sounded like on the phone. A dodgy and fidgety character, whose sort I never had to deal with in my line of work. He was dressed in an obviously expensive leather jacket, beige pants and a sweater that held more colors than Henry’s palette, the combination clashing with any sense of style. His watery blue eyes were bulging out of his head, reminding me of a frog. His skin was pockmarked and the entire appearance of his face was unkempt and very unattractive.
He drove too fast, coming to a screeching halt each time the traffic lights turned red; the music was too loud and I tried my best to keep an eye on the surroundings, however, after a few turns, I lost all sense of orientation. Stepney was not the part of town that I ever remembered visiting, anyway.
Terry leaned towards the radio again and turned it down to a barely audible level. ‘A couple of more turns and we’ll be there,’ he said and looked at me. The knot in my stomach just got tighter. His cold eyes seemed to pierce inside my skull. ‘You’ll like Evie, she’s great!’
I nodded. ‘So I heard,’ was all that I could muster.
Terry pulled a cell phone out of is jacket and with one eye on the road, the other one on the phone, he dialed the number, put the phone to his ear and waited for a few seconds intently. ‘Yeah, Perrin,’ he said and listened for a moment. ‘Yeah, we’re almost there, mate.’ He listened again. ‘Alright, in one minute, okay?’
He slapped the phone closed and fumbled to put it back inside the jacket pocket. ‘We’re always very careful that customers and employees do not bump into each other, you see.’ I nodded. ‘We’re keeping it very discreet.’ I closed my eyes for a second, there was no comment that I could think of. If you only knew, shot through my mind.
‘The person that you’ll be watching,’ he said and got my undivided attention. ‘He won’t see you. It’s the way we all want it, right?’ Like a bobbing doll, I simply nodded again.
Finally, Terry pulled into a small, inconspicuous parking lot behind a huge gray building. We got out and walked over to the rusty door in the corner of the building, Terry entering first. He popped his head inside and after a couple of seconds waved his hand at me to follow. I entered and was faced by a long corridor with whitewashed walls, four or five sets of blue colored doors on both sides. He ushered me through the first door on the right and closed it behind us.
I found myself standing in a small, lightless room with one entire wall consisting of a window looking into the adjacent larger room behind it. ‘That’s one-way mirror,’ explained Terry. ‘They won’t be able to see you.’ The light from the other room somewhat illuminated the space shared by Terry and I.
A plain chair stood on my side of the mirror and on the floor in front of it, there were five monitors, all turned off at the time. ‘This is so you can get a close look at everything.’ Terry continued with his explanation. ‘The room has cameras and microphones. You will be able to see and hear everything. Evie knows where and how to stand to give you the best view.’
He pointed to a chair, and I plopped down, while he leaned towards the monitors and turned them on one by one. Two of them were now displaying the bed, one from the side view, the other from the front; the third monitor was pointed to a wooden pony in the corner; the next one at the chair that was standing on the other side of the mirror right in front of me, and the last monitor displayed the space just above the second bed next to a wooden pony, looking more like an exam table, complete with stirrups.
As all the monitors were on, Terry took a step back and looked at them all at once. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he twitched, making me jump slightly. ‘If you want, we can bring in a girl who could be your companion while you’re watching. You can have a free reign.’ I shook my head no. ‘Or a boy, for that matter.’ There was no sign of mockery in his voice or his face. ‘No, thank you, I’ll be fine.’
He shrugged and walked over to the cabinet that stood behind the door, which I did not even notice until just that moment. He opened it and a small light inside revealed a mini bar. He poured a drink into an expensive looking crystal glass and brought it over to me. ‘Cheers,’ he said and tried to push it in my hand.
‘No, thank you, I’ve had enough,’ I said. His eyebrows shot up and he smiled. ‘Just in case,’ he said and set the glass on top of one of the monitors. ‘If you change your mind.’ I looked inside the other room anxiously.
‘They will be here in one minute. By the way, nobody will enter this room. You can be completely at ease. Not that anything bad will happen, but SHOULD anything happen,’ he was talking to me as if I was a child, ‘we ring a bell, which means that within twenty seconds someone will enter the room, which should leave you enough time for,….well, you know.’
Yes I knew, I was most certainly not a child. Yet again, I simply nodded. The entire atmosphere was a huge turn on in itself.
‘If you have a mobile, it won’t work in here. If you need anything, there is a buzzer by the door. Just press it and someone will be in to see about you.’ As an afterthought, he stabbed his finger in the direction of the mini bar: ‘Music if you feel like it.’
With that, he winked at me, shot one last glance at the room beyond the mirror and walked out. I was left sitting on a chair, staring into the empty space beyond, for the hundredth time wondering what did I get myself into.
A few seconds after Terry left, the door in the other room creaked open and a tall man in a black and green Chinese kimono entered. My eyes popped wide open at the realization that I didn’t know who the man was. I was relieved beyond words. All through my ride in Terry’s car I was terrified that Henry was going to be the one in the other room. He was just the kind of person who would not mind a little performance. I could not take that. I would have simply walked out.
The man was barefoot, wobbling more than striding towards the chair that was directly in front of me on the opposite side of the mirror. As I looked at his feet, it was the first time I realized that the floor was concrete, with no rug or runners to make it warmer or softer. He sat down looking in my direction, absently running one of his hands through the hair. He coughed. Ran his hand under the chin, as if checking for the beard stubble, which was not there. Seconds seemed to turn into minutes and I was edgier with every passing moment.
Finally the door in the other room opened again and my heart sank. The person walking in wasn’t the girl that I thought was Evie. She was tall, true. But this bird’s hair was raven black and cut in a bob. She wore – very predictably – black leather pants with a matching vest, complete with a high-heeled black boots. Even from afar, her make-up looked too brutal to be attractive or sexy. She pushed the door shut and as it hit the frame, the man in the chair jerked a bit, but did not turn. I could see his eyes focusing on the mirror, looking at her. She took slow, deliberate steps across the room, pausing for a moment each time one of the high heels hit the floor.
As she reached the man, she stood behind him and one of her hands ran through his short hair, ruffling it, destroying the carefully combed blackness with a touch of gray. The man must have been in his mid 40s. Her fingers touched him and he closed his eyes as if soaking in all that her touch delivered.
Without looking at him at all, her hand left his hair and she walked towards the mirror, and I realized that ever since she had entered the room her gaze was directed straight at me. I shifted uncomfortably, even though I was aware that she could not see me.
She approached the mirror, pausing in front of it. Her hand now smoothed her hair and I recognized the beautiful, long, red-capped fingers. It was Evie! She looked so different. The wig, the bizarre make up of brutal black eyeliner and blood red lipstick, even a mole just above the upper lip, which must have been drawn. Her vest was cut very low, revealing the shape of small breasts, which were not big enough to make a cleavage. On the inner part of the right breast was a slightly faded black tattoo. It looked like a crane in flight. The sign of long life and prosperity!
As if feeling my eyes pausing on the tattoo, her fingers slid off the wig, making their way down her chest, pausing on the image of a bird, gently rubbing it. It was as if those fingers were rubbing my cock. I could feel myself stiffening, believing that I might not be able to get through this entire session, or whatever one might want to call it. Now however, I could see the attractiveness I spotted on the train, mentally peeling away the layers of an ugly disguise. I felt very happy that I was accidentally awarded the look of the real thing, which she obviously tried to keep hidden from the man in a chair. And other customers, no doubt. I did not want to think of all the men she worked with. I did not want to think of them as customers. I was oddly enchanted with this girl, who appeared like a delicate bird herself.
Despite the grayness that tainted my view of the room, I started doubting that this was a one-way mirror and not a proper window. Her gaze seemed to relentlessly hold my own, making the experience quite unnerving. Finally, she smiled and I could see a set of small pearly white teeth, just like I would envision, had I tried to imagine what she looked like smiling. The smile did not reach her eyes. She puckered her blood red lips and blew me a kiss, and then her eyes finally left the spot where she believed my face was and without turning her head, her stare found the man in the chair.
‘Hello, darling!’ she said and the man noticed her looking at him. He shifted and smiled. Her voice was deep and dusky, not at all what I would have expected from Evie on the train. However, it seemed perfect for the Evie that was now standing in front of me.
She turned around and faced the man; her small bum and long, slim legs were accentuated by the tightness of the pants she wore. Her figure now blocked my view of the man and I looked at the monitor, which revealed the chair, seeing the man smiling openly. She slowly walked over to him, paused in front of the chair and then sat in his lap, facing him, each leg on one side, almost enveloping it, as if riding a horse.
‘Have you been a good boy?’ she asked softly and took his face in her hands. She closed her eyes and slowly lowered her face towards his, her lips gently touching his forehead. He kept his eyes on hers as long as he could see them; when her lips touched him, his eyes closed, too. They looked like a pair of gentle lovers.
She placed her hands onto his wrists and slowly slipped them up his arms, over the shoulders, tickling his neck for a second, then cupping his face again, her lips now gently pressing against his. ‘Have you?’ she asked and pressed another kiss, this time on his right cheek. ‘Been a good boy, I mean?’ Next kiss gently landed on the left cheek. The man did not say a word. He only grinned and his eyebrows shot up, giving him an appearance of a man caught in the act, trying to brush off the guilt.
She leaned back some, as if trying to take in as much of a man while sitting in his lap. Her right hand left his face and ran up to the hair on the top of the head, her fingers grabbing a handful of it, pushing his head back with the grip obviously becoming tighter and tighter.
‘No?’ she asked as if he answered audibly. The man awkwardly shook his head no, still grinning. ‘I thought as much,’ she said and stood up, still holding onto his hair. She stepped to his right side and now pulled on the hair, tilting his head all the way back as if trying to snap his neck.