Hunter's hand lifts slowly. I want to flinch away, but I do not, and I cannot figure out why. I should. I should be afraid of Hunter, for he is a man, same as Abdul. But...Hunter is nothing like Abdul. This is as clear to me as the difference between a sunny day and a thunderstorm.
Hunter's fingers brush my cheek, and I realize he thinks that is where I have been struck. He realizes my cheeks are unblemished, and his face shows his confusion. He says something, asking where I am hurt, probably. I shake my head, my only possible answer. He touches my chin, then, tilting my face up and away, to one side and then the other.
He gently nudges me backward, examining the rest of me. I cannot help but clutch my arms over my br**sts in an instinctive move to protect myself.
Hunters' eyes narrow, move down to my br**sts. I look down as well and see that my right breast is reddened where Abdul hit me. Hunter's eyes change, and I am frightened of him suddenly. He looks ready to kill. Hate emanates from him. He reaches out his hand to touch me, and I flinch away, cross my arms tighter. The contact is too much and I wince, drop my arms away, and cradle myself gently. I want to take my shirt off, but I dare not. Not with Hunter here. I do not trust my own desires.
He drops his hand, but the anger does not dissipate from his eyes. He says something, a short phrase, his intonation making it sound like a question. I shrug and turn away, facing the corner.
I need this shirt off. My breast stings. I peel my shirt off, and the muggy air feels cool on the hot, stinging flesh of my chest. I feel Hunter's eyes on my back, feel him still standing there. I hear him grunt, a shuffling hop of a footstep. I crane my neck over my shoulder to see him fighting for balance, standing on one leg, palm on the wall but not enough to keep him upright. His good leg is trembling, and I can see he is about to collapse.
I curse, then turn, clutching my shirt to my chest, wincing at the pain, and snug my shoulder under his. His weight on me is enormous, a huge, overbearing burden, and I can tell he is not even leaning on me. I straighten my legs, hear him hiss as this motion bumps his shoulder, which is injured as well. He does not move away. He just stands there, using me as a crutch, regaining his balance. His arm hangs down around mine, his fingers trailing on my hip. I try to ignore the touch, the tingle of it, the not-filthy, not-unwelcome feeling of it. He finally clutches my shoulder with his hand, hops toward the bed, and I move with him, slowly and gradually. He pauses above the bed of blankets, as if trying to figure out how he can lower himself down without hurting himself.
He lowers himself on one leg, an awkward maneuver, his wounded leg extended in front of himself. He reaches a near-sitting position, then sighs gently and lets himself fall, grunting as he lands. The bandage around his thigh seeps red.
He pretends not to notice. I shrug back into my shirt, and his eyes follow me, take in my body greedily before he turns away. I do not know what to feel about his gaze on me. I should be angry at him for ogling me. I am not. But then, I am a prostitute, and I should be used male eyes on me, and I am. But somehow Hunter is different.
He shouldn't be an exception, but he is.
I want him to look at me, and this makes me angry at myself.
I re-bandage his leg, trying not to touch him.
I ready myself for my next client, and Hunter's eyes grow dark with anger, with something else that I dare not identify.
SIX
HUNTER
I have nothing to do but think. Nothing but memory and pain.
Derek is dead. It just hit me. I was too involved in the pain and in the mystery of Rania, but now, alone while she "works," all I have to do is feel the pain. Derek is dead.
God. He was my best friend. My only real friend. My brother. I've killed for him. We've stood over each other's bleeding bodies.
He's gone, but the pain won't let me cry. I can't. I don't know how anymore. After my parents died I wept, alone in a bathroom. I haven't since. Not for anything.
I won't cry for Derek, either. He wouldn't want me to. He'd tell me to get drunk in his memory. Bang a hot chick for him. Of course, none of that will happen now.
The reality of my situation is hitting me. I'm wounded, surrounded by insurgents. There's no sign of my unit. They might eventually come back for me, or at least to find my body. Until then, I'm stuck here. Reliant on this girl, this slip of a thing, this prostitute.
Rania. Her name is music. Her eyes are veiled pools of expression. She hides behind anger, behind toughness. It's all an act. I see the pain. See the fear. See the need. She's lonely. She hates what she does.
I think I confuse her as much as she does me.
She's back, cleaning herself up. It's a familiar pattern now. She returns from the building next door, a half-destroyed mosque, I think it's called. The irony of a prostitute operating in a bombed-out church isn't lost on me. She goes into the bathroom, cleans herself, then sits with me, and we exchange language lessons. I'm picking up Arabic faster than she is English, I think. It's only been a couple of days, but I can understand a few words here and there, say a few of my own. I want to be fluent, so I can talk to her. So I can understand what she says. We both have a tendency to say what we're thinking as if the other can understand us. I told her about Derek earlier. How we met, how we've been friends our whole lives. How much I miss him. How he saved my life, and ended up dying for it. She heard the pain in my voice and let me talk, even if she didn't know what I was saying. It was cathartic, in a way. Like a confession, if I was Catholic. I can say the truest things in my heart without having to worry about feeling vulnerable. She can't tell anyone. Can't judge me. Can't level expectations at me.
Why do I feel so rotten when she goes out that door? Why do I care what she does? I've known plenty of sluts, men and women. People who sleep with anything that moves, anything with tits and a twat, anything with a c**k and balls. In a way, that's worse. What Rania does, she does out of necessity. Those slutty people, it's totally different. They have no self-respect, no modesty, no morals. They f**k for the sake of f**king, as if it means nothing. Derek was like that. Total man-whore. Except he was honest about it. He plied them with drinks and took them home and f**ked them, and that was it, and they both knew it going in.
Rania...the look in her eyes in the moment before she walks out the door, it's resignation. Disgust. Loathing. It's there, and then gone, hidden behind the careful façade of applied seductiveness. In private, with me, she's another person. Quiet, reserved. She hates getting close to me, hates touching me or being touched. As if she's afraid of what will happen if I touch her.
I think she expects me to try to sleep with her. To try to use her like...well, like a whore.