Chapter 12 - Can't Buy Me Love

The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.

“Pleasure doing business, Mal,” Juan said, yawning as he moved the folded up newspaper with the thick envelope inside to his side of the table. Kinda dumbass way to hand over the deposit if you asked me, but it wasn’t like the cops were gonna bust me was it?

Him maybe, but he was so low profile even Greg didn’t know about him. Johan had introduced me to him, ‘n Juan and I, we’d had a couple of long chats before he was comfortable doing business with me. He was real discreet, his girls were all class, and he had his own niche. The lower end of the age range for this business, and his clientele paid for that. Paid big, I’d picked that up from the odd comment he let slide. That, and I’d picked up a few girls from him. Tiffany Ko was way at the high end of Juan’s bell curve.

Checking out Tiffany Ko’s social media, ‘n she was a hot young class act. Those TikTok clips I’d watched, she had some real good dance moves. That flexibility? Yeah, that’d help her adapt to Juan’s clientele’s expectations. And yeah, the parents had paid the deposit without any hesitation. Greg’d done a good spiel and by the time I got there, they’d been sold on me, and it was all over bar the ritual weeping and wailing by her mom and the gnashing of teeth by her dad. Quick call to Juan after I walked out, setting it up for this morning, and we’d been all roses.

“Hard night, Juan?” I couldn’t help grinning as I sipped on my coffee.

Strong, real strong and bitter, coz this dive was the sorta coffee shop that sold their coffee in old mugs, real black, real strong, and as bitter as my sense of humor these days. The shot of low fat milk I’d added barely changed the color. He had a few scratches on his face.

Guess Tiffany Ko hadn’t been opened up for business too easily.

“Hard morning, Mal.” He sighed as he sipped outta his frigging mug. That crap he was drinking had to be half frigging cream, ‘n he’d added a dozen sachets of sugar. He took another sip of that frigging awful stuff. You really couldn’t call that shit he was drinking coffee. Flavored syrup, maybe.

“Opened her up for business today, but it was a lot of work prepping her yesterday. Worth it though. Whaddaya think?”

He flipped his phone around, showed me another image of her. “Cute, huh?” He said it proudly, like she was his granddaughter or something.

“Yeah,” I said, knowing that she was. Already been through all her social media. “She is.” What I was really thinking, well, fuck, not worth repeating again, but I did feel sorry for the poor little bitch. Those johns, they’d work her hard.

“Sometimes I kinda think I’m getting too soft for this business, Mal. I actually felt sorry for the poor little bitch. Makes it real hard to break them in and put them to work when you start feeling sorry for them.”

“Jeez, dude, hope you got over it,” I said, kinda almost sarcastically, seeing him a bit differently.

Never figured Juan had a compassionate bone in his body. Never seen him like this before. Well, we hadn’t met that many times, maybe a coupla dozen or so, but I’d always thought he was a real hard-ass. He hadn’t been that interested in hooking up and doing business, but I’d kinda worked on him and he’d seen the light. Eventually, ‘n now we had it down to a routine. Win-win, ‘n he wasn’t a bad guy in his own way.

Took good care of his girls after they’d been broken in. Didn’t work them too hard, ‘n from all accounts, coz I did talk to the girls I got back, none of his clients were real perverts. Apart from liking young girls, that was, ‘n he did go younger than Johan.

He shrugged. “Yeah, well,” he said, and then he grinned. “Those guys that lifted her from that bar did the heavy lifting. Dealt with them before and they know not to damage them so she’s in good shape for you, Mal.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Juan. Appreciate it. I like to get them back in good shape. Keeps the heat down, helps the parents pretend to themselves that it wasn’t so bad.”

“Yeah,” he said heavily, kinda staring down into his coffee. “You know, Mal, this is a business for me. Being doing this for thirty years now, never been a problem, ‘n I’ve always enjoyed breaking in the hot little hoe’s ‘n putting them to work. Sure enjoyed it last night once I got started on her, but now, thinking about it now, I just dunno, reminds me too much of my granddaughters ... maybe I should retire or something. Not like I can’t afford to.”

“Fuck, Juan,” I said, not that I was concerned, although Juan was one of the dudes who was real easy to work with. Never tried to stiff me. Always contacted me now if he had a girl I might want. Wasn’t too rough with them either. His girls always came back in good shape. His clients were all older guys who took it easy. They wanted a young one. They wanted a good hot fuck, but they didn’t want anything weird. Just young, classy, and hot with maybe a little leather.

Juan really didn’t work them too hard, even the popular ones, but he still sold the ones I didn’t reserve on, like all the others. He only took compassion so far. Kinda like guys that ran racing horses. They looked after ‘em real well, but they still went off to the pet food factory when their working life ended. Kinda morbid when you think about it, ‘n I preferred not to think about that kinda shit at all if I could help it coz the simile was a bit too close to reality.

“Who’d take over from you?

Juan shrugged. “Mike, probably. He’s got a head on his shoulders and he enjoys the work. He sure enjoyed working on this one, I let him do a lotta the work with her yesterday, she was pretty fucked up after those guys gangbanged her.” He grinned suddenly. “Unless you wanna move sideways, Mal? You’ve got a head on your shoulders and you’re ruthless enough to take over.”

“I am?” Jeez, I was stunned there for a second or two. Never thought of myself as ruthless before. Stunned enough that I actually thought about it.

“You are.” He wasn’t smiling. He was serious. “Word gets around, kid. There’s a lotta respect for you out there. The guys all think this whole setup is working really well.”

“It’d kinda conflict with what I do, Juan, and Greg wouldn’t want to work with me if I played both sides of the game, ‘n the other guys might not be so happy either. Best just leave it the way it is.”

I grinned. “It’s not like I have competition for what I do, is it?”

“Point,” Juan nodded, sipping on that god awful syrup again.

“Juan,” I said slowly. “Think about it, dude. Your head’s telling you to get out, but when your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses. You’d miss this shit, Juan. You know you would, ‘n you’d miss breaking them in, ‘n you’d miss running them. If you really feel sorry for them, just give all of them to me when you’re done with them. You won’t lose anything much on it, ‘n you’ll be doing some good returning them. I’ll cover your ass with Greg.”

“Maybe,” he said, just as slowly, ‘n then he smiled. “Maybe I will at that, Mal. I’ll let you know.”

“You do that, Juan,” I said. “Maybe god’ll give you a little credit towards your sins.”

He eyes me, serious, ‘n he nodded slowly. “I need a bit of credit at that,” ‘n then he smiled. “You’re right, Mal. I’d miss breaking ‘em in. Guess I better get back. Tiffany’s pretty heavily booked and she still needs a bit of encouragement to get to work. Johns are loving her though, cute little thing like her, she’s exactly what they want. Anyhow, good seeing ‘ya again, chiquita. Until next time.” He picked up “his” newspaper and stood.

“Yeah, look after yourself, Juan. Stay outta trouble. I’ll call you in eight weeks or so.”

“Likewise.” He nodded, half raised one hand in a casual wave, ‘n he was gone.

Nondescript old Hispanic guy in an expensive suit, and you took a look at him, you’d never figure him for a guy that broke in young girls, trained them to work as whores, and then sold their services as an up-market pimp. Looked more like one of the guys that worked for my dad.

Strange fuckin’ world we lived in.

Nothing else to do for the day so I wandered up to the counter ‘n got myself a Danish. Finish my coffee, then spend a couple of hours at the range popping some targets, go home, work out in the gym, jump in the sauna for an hour, take a nice long shower, and kick back ‘n relax. Maybe pop downstairs later and walk down to that takeout on the corner and pick up some teriyaki or something for dinner. Or just make some noodle soup myself. Kinda nice to have a free afternoon and evening ‘n I could daydream of Akiko. She was interested, I could tell, but would she?

I was really looking forward to that lunch date tomorrow, and nothing but nothing was gonna make me miss that.

Skimming through my emails that evening, after that three hour workout in the gym, deleting all the junk mail and spam, I hesitated. I recognized the sender, I was sure of it. “Can’t buy me love.”

Spam? Dating site? Porn?

Clicked to open, and it was a link. From Johan, along with a message. “Check your txts. Your userid’s MalK1.”

I did, and it was some long string. Password, ‘n I remembered him mentioning he was on the Dark Web now. I hesitated for a second, and then I slipped in my thumb drive, rebooted off my Tails OS, and opened my Tor browser over my VPN connection. Gotta be careful when you go on the Dark Web, and yeah, I always was.

That’s where some of the guys I needed to contact now and then hung out. That’s where the market info was. That’s where Johan’s website was. Of course it was. Where else?

Used the link that Johan had sent me, and it took me right into his website. Asian Fantasies for You, of course that was the name, and yeah, that userid and password combo worked just fine when I logged in, and yeah, there was Fumiko, highlighted on the home page, “Introducing our Newest Client Service Specialist here at Asian Fantasies, Miss Tokyo, here for your pleasure,” with a link straight to her personal page on the site.

Following the link, and there she was, a beautiful image of her in that park opposite her school, in her uniform, a short bio, rates, and fuck me! Those rates! I’d never checked Johan’s rates before, I’d had an idea, but yeah, if she pulled ten tricks a day, that would pay Johan’s apartment lease and all the associated costs for the month. An all nighter with her would do it in a night. The rest of the month would be almost pure profit, coz Johan sure as fuck wasn’t paying more than three of four of his girls, and Fumiko was just another one of those couple of dozen odd girls he and his team ran. Pure profit, because only one or two worked for him because they wanted to.

The rest were like Fumiko Suematsu was, now that she was open for business. Sex slaves. They didn’t get paid at all.

Those girls Johan and his team ran usually operated out of three or four apartments, I never quite knew how many, doing in-house servicing as well as out-service calls, and looking at those rates, I had a good idea of what he was making. I knew what I was making, but those rates made my income look like chump change, even with all his overheads. The payoff he got from me for those girls, I guess that was an end-of-market-life bonus. A few days extra income for him, that’s all it was. No wonder he didn’t quibble much. Those girls really were walking cash registers, and there was that moment when I thought, fuck, maybe Juan had a point and I was in the wrong business, but then I put that thought away.

Sick sick sick, and I was never going there.

Whatever. I browsed through the rest of that site, and yeah, there was Chantana, and there were the four other girls of his that I had on my list as well as Fumiko, and a dozen more that weren’t. I’d seen two or three of them, but there were two or three I hadn’t known about, and every single one of them was Asian. Asian teenage girl, and hot. Well, guess that was his niche in the industry wasn’t it?

Those girls, they were all the sort of merchandise guys like Johan’s clients paid the big bucks for. Kinda wondered where he sourced them all from. I’d have to figure out a way to run the faces by Greg and ask him to check them out, see if they were in the system anywhere. See if anyone’d be willing to pay to get those others back because I was pretty sure Johan didn’t source all of his stable locally. He bought as well as sold. They all did.

Professional looking website too. Really professional. Like one of those modeling agencies or something, except ... way and the fuck more graphic, but artistic with the graphic and I didn’t think Johan was a photographer.

Clicking back to Fumiko, I took another look at her page, and yeah, there was a menu, and I clicked on the gallery. Slideshow of images of Fumiko in her high school uniform, in lingerie, on a bed, on furniture, naked, posing, in action, and Jesus, open for business for a coupla days, and he’d got it all together like this. Talk about fucking professional.

And yeah, Johan’s clients got to see everything. Some of those images were pretty explicit, and the comments and feedback? She’d been there for a couple of days now, and like Johan had said she would, she was already getting rave reviews. Half a dozen of them now. I glanced through them, and yeah, kind of grossly explicit, but also what I’d have expected from guys like Johan’s clients.

Articulate. Descriptive. Those guys were movers and shakers, and they were paying to use the merchandise Johan hired out for use. That menu? Jeez, that next thumbnail looked like a movie clip, and the header grabbed me right away. “Can’t Buy Me Love.” That, and that image of Fumiko Suematsu in her high school uniform looking angelic. That’d sure grab Johan’s clients too.

They’d sure wanna buy Fumiko’s love.

From the comments, the perverts already were.

From what they were saying, they were in fucking heaven.

Yeah, I clicked on the movie icon, and there was a sub-menu. Jesus, Johan was recording this as episodes. “Introducing Fumiko,” followed by half a dozen more. Bringing Fumiko Onto The Team. Fumiko’s First Lesson. Fumiko Meets Her Management Team. Fumiko’s Career Counseling Session. Sushi with Fumiko. Fumiko’s Advanced Training. Fumiko Plays Team Tag. Fumiko’s Graduation. Fumiko’s First Day. Fumiko’s First Coaching Session...

Jesus. Was he doing this for all his girls?

I looped back and checked the site, and no, he wasn’t.

Guess Fumiko Suematsu was the lucky girl who got to be the pilot.

Yeah, well, Fumiko was into her third evening working for Johan. She’d have well and truly figured out her new career path by now too, poor girl. Well, not really a girl. She was fourteen, older than a lot of Johan’s other girls, and she was old enough to know what it was all about, but still, hell of a fucking way to lose it, and a hell of a fucking first job. Not exactly working behind the counter in a Mickey Dee’s, or stocking clothes in Gap, or doing the bagging weekends at a Costco or Walmart was it?

Did I even want to watch?

Had to think about that, but I left myself logged in while I walked over to the kitchen and made myself a coffee. This was an insight into Johan’s operation the way his clients saw it, but did I want to see it from their perspective? I finished making that coffee and I knew one thing by the time I had.

I wanted to see more of Fumiko Suematsu.

*** Introducing Fumiko***

Leaving the kitchen, I connected my laptop to my LCD on the wall, parked my ass on the couch, put my feet up, took a sip of my coffee, black and bitter, and hit play. That still of Fumiko Sumatsu vanished, the screen went dark, and some sorta bucolic Jane Austen scenery popped up a moment later. A park. Trees and grass, the musical sound of girls laughing and calling to each other, soft music, that kinda crap. No cocker spaniels with big floppy ears, but it was that kind of shot.

This was real professional looking. A real movie, not a home video filmed using some mobile like you usually saw on Pornhub, and I’d seen a few on Pornhub. Some of the girls on my list ended up there or on some of the other pornsites now and then, and once they were up, they weren’t vanishing off the Internet, ever. Those clips spread around fast and they were up there for eternity.