Chapter 12: Girls for Rent

Nancy opened the front door after I knocked three times. She seemed surprised to see me.

"Is Lily here?" I asked.

"No, she isn't." She scratched her head. "Actually, I was wondering where she was myself. Do you know where she is?"

"I don't know." I paused for a minute, wondering what to say.

"Well, if you see Lily around," said Nancy, "tell her to come home straight away."

"I'll do that," I said.

I walked out from Nancy's front yard with a strange feeling. When she was talking to me earlier, Nancy's body language seemed to suggest to me that she thought I had something to do with the missing girls. Did she really think I was responsible? Maybe I was being too negative.

After coming out of Nancy's yard, I walked into Eddie's house. I entered through Eddie's bedroom window, not wanting to talk to Eddie's abusive father. When I thought about my first meeting with Eddie's father I couldn't help but think that he certainly didn't look like the kind of man who would beat up a kid. He seemed so weak.

Climbing the drainpipe was easy. I had climbed the pipe so many times before that it took barely a minute for me to get up into Eddie's bedroom.

Eddie was on his bed with his stomach faced down on the blankets. The laptop was opened near his face. He looked up at me briefly when he heard me climbing in but was too occupied by whatever was on the monitor to keep his eyes on me for very long.

"Have you seen Lily?" I asked.

"No, I haven't," said Eddie. "How come you ask?"

"I can't find her. She's not at home. I think Mark took her."

"But you don't know for sure."

"I'm pretty sure... sort of."

Eddie looked closely at his laptop. "Well, Mark's gonna be here in about ten minutes."

"What?" I was shocked.

"I spoke to him at school today. He says he's got more pornos for me."

"Should I leave?"

Just when I finished speaking I heard noises coming from the bedroom window. I took one step towards the window and listened. Someone was at the bottom, trying to climb up the drainpipe. The metal pipe was as noisy as a crumpling tin can.

"Man, Mark's come early!" said Eddie.

"I'd better leave," I said, walking towards the bedroom door.

"Get under the bed." Eddie pointed underneath his bed. "There's plenty of space down there."

There was indeed very much space between the bottom surface of Eddie's bed and the carpet, and this space was hidden by Eddie's large sleeping blankets. Eddie's blankets were so large that they spread all the way to the floor and covered the space under his bed in the same way curtains cover windows.

Ten seconds after I had crawled under Eddie's bed, I could hear Mark loudly jump into the bedroom from the window. It was as if Mark didn't care about any damage he could do to the floor.

Being underneath Eddie's bed was much more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. Since the space was sealed off with Eddie's blankets, I found the air warm and humid. It was hard to breathe.

"Here's your pornography," said Mark. "Fresh meat. You'll like it."

"How much I gotta pay?"

"This stuff's forty dollars. You don't have to pay straight away if you don't have the money. You can take the porn now and pay later."

"Thanks."

I could hear Eddie's lighter footsteps getting closer to the bed as he walked towards his laptop.

"You alright?" asked Mark. "You seem a little edgy."

"I don't know... I just... like... I..."

"What is it?"

"The pornos... I'm kind of... you know?" Eddie paused. His voice had changed. He now become very serious. "I like to look at the pornos, I really do, but I really want to have actual sex."

"Is that right?"

"I need someone," said Eddie. "I don't want to do it by myself at night. I really need someone."

"I know how you feel," said Mark. "Nearly all of our other customers say the same thing."

"They do?"

"That's why we have a special one-thousand-dollar deal."

"One-thousand-dollar deal?"

"How much porn have you bought from me, Eddie?"

"I don't know... a lot."

"You've bought about five-hundred dollars worth. If you keep buying more porn from me... if you buy up to one-thousand dollars worth of porn, I will let you rent a girl for free."

"No kidding?"

"You get her for one night."

"I can have sex with her?" There was no disguising the excitement in Eddie's voice.

"Yes," said Mark. "You can do anything you want with her. And don't worry: she'll know you're a virgin. She's been trained to handle little boys like you."

Eddie protested. "I'm not a little boy!"

"Of course not," said Mark. "Little boys don't look at porn. You're a man... a real man."

Eddie stayed silent. I was sick of Mark's obsession with real men. I mean, who would believe in imaginary men?

"You know," said Mark, "there aren't many real men in this world anymore. A lot of men now are pussies. They're afraid of women. They don't know how to dominate a woman. Do you know why they don't know?"

"No."

"It's because they haven't been taught properly," said Mark. "You know Keith, don't you?"

"Yeah, he lives next door." Eddie's voice quivered a little, maybe because he knew that I was underneath his bed, listening to Mark talk about me.

"Keith is the biggest pussy in the world," said Mark. "I've spoken to his friends. He's never had sex with a woman. Ever. He's too much of a softie, too much of a loser."

"Do you think I'm a loser?" asked Eddie.

"Nuh, not a bit. I'm tryin' to help you, Eddie. Why do you think I'm giving you porn? Why do you think I'm trying to get you to have sex with the bitches? I want you to be experienced. I want to teach you about women. I want you to be confident around women. If you follow my advice, you'll grow up to be very successful with women."