Categories > Original > Mystery > The Allure of Virginity
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.”
“Are you sure?”
“Women come to me all the time,” said Mark. “It’s because I know how to treat women. I am a real man.”
Someone’s mobile phone started ringing suddenly. It must have been Mark’s because Eddie didn’t have a mobile phone.
“Yeah…alright…is that right?” Mark’s telephone voice seemed much louder than his conversational voice. “Okay, I’ll be there soon.”
I could hear Mark flipping his phone closed.
“I’ve got to get back,” said Mark. “Here’s my card. It’s got my address on it. Pay a visit some time and I’ll let you see a catalogue filled with girls. You can choose which one you wanna have your first fuck with.”
I cringed and squirmed when I heard the f-word. Mark was eager to get out of the house. I could hear him banging against the window and then clanking against the drainpipe as he climbed down.
I got out from under Eddie’s bed and was a little surprised at how dark his room had become. The afternoon sun was almost setting. I walked to the window and peeked out, noticing Mark as he walked towards his Lexus in the driveway.
“Is it true?” Eddie asked me from behind. “You’ve never had sex with a girl?”
I turned around and looked at Eddie. I felt like I had disappointed the little boy. I felt like he expected me to be more than I really was. I exhaled deeply, looked down at the carpet, and thought about what I should say.
“It’s not that I don’t want to…” I paused. “I just don’t have time to be around females. There are more important things.”
“It’s okay,” said Eddie. “I don’t think you’re a loser or anything.”
“That’s good,” I said, “because I’m not.”
Eddie turned towards his laptop and started loading up the new pornographic CDs he received from Mark. Having had enough of Eddie, I decided to leave.
As I climbed down the drainpipe from Eddie’s bedroom, I kept thinking about Mark’s words. I hated it when he tried to put me down. His words hurt me more than I initially thought they would. If I knew beforehand he’d say those things about me, I would have covered my ears.
When I came back home I walked straight to the stairwell, eager to get to my room and do something passive--like sleep for a few hours. My dad, however, was in the dining room, and he told me he wanted to talk to me. I figured he wanted to know whether I found another job or not.
Dad spoke. “Keith, Son…I…”
“What is it?”
“Keith, come to the kitchen with me. Your mum and I want to talk to you about something.”
I slowly followed my dad into the kitchen. Something about the tone of his voice scared me.
Mum was on the kitchen table. When I came in, she looked and stared at me. I stared back at her, expecting her to avert her eyes, something that often happened when I stared back at people. But my mother’s eyes kept looking into mine. Before a word was even uttered, I knew something bad was up.
“Nancy came over,” said Dad. “She told us about Lily. Have you seen Lily?”
“I saw her at school today at lunch. I haven’t seen her since then.”
Dad took a step closer to me. He was a little over two meters away. “Nancy told me about what you’ve done to Lily.”
“What do you mean?”
“She saw you. You were…” Dad looked up to the ceiling briefly. “You were hugging her…and kissing her, too.”
I felt my face burning with embarrassment.
“If you’re the one who kidnapped Lily,” said my dad, “then please, for the family’s sake, for Almighty God’s sake, and for your own sake, tell us where she is and we’ll try our hardest to help you.”
I felt like my only option was to tell him I was guilty. That would solve everything. But that wasn’t the truth. And I didn’t want people to think I did something that I certainly didn’t do.
“I didn’t do it, Dad, but I think I know who did.”
Dad closed his eyes briefly, obviously disappointed that I didn’t confess. When he opened his eyes again, his voice seemed less pleasant when he spoke.
“What about the pornography on your computer?” asked Dad.
I looked at Mum. She had her face buried in the palm of both her hands. It was like she didn’t want to see me. I felt angry at my dad, but knew better than to lash out at him, so I kept quiet.
Dad spoke. “Well, do you have something to say?”
“I didn’t do anything. It was Mark.”
Mum spoke. “Mark seems like such a nice boy.”
I tried to stay as polite as I could. “Mum, do you think I’m nice?”
Dad looked at me. “You have pornography on your computer and you smell little girls’ underwear! How can you call yourself ‘nice’?”
“Mark has lots of pornography.”
“Why would he?” said my mum, “He seems comfortable with women his age. He’s got many girlfriends. He comes from a very good family. He’s doing very well for himself.”
I faced my mother and squinted my eyes, trying to burn her just by looking at her.
“Mark sounds like a model Christian citizen,” said Dad. “I’ve seen him around. He has a Lexus. That boy doesn’t waste his time. He’s not the type of person who would be interested in pornographic material. That’s just not his type.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t take my parents stares and condemnation. I couldn’t sit there as they looked down upon me and told me I was worthless. I could walk out of the kitchen, walk out of the house, but that would be rude, so I kept silent because that was the only way the conversation could end.
Dad spoke. “Do you have anything to say, Son?”
Mum walked up to my dad. “That’s enough.” She turned towards me. “You can go up to your room now. Come down for dinner in half an hour. We’ll talk about this later.”
I kept my face blank and emotionless. I turned around and walked upstairs to my room.
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.”
“Are you sure?”
“Women come to me all the time,” said Mark. “It’s because I know how to treat women. I am a real man.”
Someone’s mobile phone started ringing suddenly. It must have been Mark’s because Eddie didn’t have a mobile phone.
“Yeah…alright…is that right?” Mark’s telephone voice seemed much louder than his conversational voice. “Okay, I’ll be there soon.”
I could hear Mark flipping his phone closed.
“I’ve got to get back,” said Mark. “Here’s my card. It’s got my address on it. Pay a visit some time and I’ll let you see a catalogue filled with girls. You can choose which one you wanna have your first fuck with.”
I cringed and squirmed when I heard the f-word. Mark was eager to get out of the house. I could hear him banging against the window and then clanking against the drainpipe as he climbed down.
I got out from under Eddie’s bed and was a little surprised at how dark his room had become. The afternoon sun was almost setting. I walked to the window and peeked out, noticing Mark as he walked towards his Lexus in the driveway.
“Is it true?” Eddie asked me from behind. “You’ve never had sex with a girl?”
I turned around and looked at Eddie. I felt like I had disappointed the little boy. I felt like he expected me to be more than I really was. I exhaled deeply, looked down at the carpet, and thought about what I should say.
“It’s not that I don’t want to…” I paused. “I just don’t have time to be around females. There are more important things.”
“It’s okay,” said Eddie. “I don’t think you’re a loser or anything.”
“That’s good,” I said, “because I’m not.”
Eddie turned towards his laptop and started loading up the new pornographic CDs he received from Mark. Having had enough of Eddie, I decided to leave.
As I climbed down the drainpipe from Eddie’s bedroom, I kept thinking about Mark’s words. I hated it when he tried to put me down. His words hurt me more than I initially thought they would. If I knew beforehand he’d say those things about me, I would have covered my ears.
When I came back home I walked straight to the stairwell, eager to get to my room and do something passive--like sleep for a few hours. My dad, however, was in the dining room, and he told me he wanted to talk to me. I figured he wanted to know whether I found another job or not.
Dad spoke. “Keith, Son…I…”
“What is it?”
“Keith, come to the kitchen with me. Your mum and I want to talk to you about something.”
I slowly followed my dad into the kitchen. Something about the tone of his voice scared me.
Mum was on the kitchen table. When I came in, she looked and stared at me. I stared back at her, expecting her to avert her eyes, something that often happened when I stared back at people. But my mother’s eyes kept looking into mine. Before a word was even uttered, I knew something bad was up.
“Nancy came over,” said Dad. “She told us about Lily. Have you seen Lily?”
“I saw her at school today at lunch. I haven’t seen her since then.”
Dad took a step closer to me. He was a little over two meters away. “Nancy told me about what you’ve done to Lily.”
“What do you mean?”
“She saw you. You were…” Dad looked up to the ceiling briefly. “You were hugging her…and kissing her, too.”
I felt my face burning with embarrassment.
“If you’re the one who kidnapped Lily,” said my dad, “then please, for the family’s sake, for Almighty God’s sake, and for your own sake, tell us where she is and we’ll try our hardest to help you.”
I felt like my only option was to tell him I was guilty. That would solve everything. But that wasn’t the truth. And I didn’t want people to think I did something that I certainly didn’t do.
“I didn’t do it, Dad, but I think I know who did.”
Dad closed his eyes briefly, obviously disappointed that I didn’t confess. When he opened his eyes again, his voice seemed less pleasant when he spoke.
“What about the pornography on your computer?” asked Dad.
I looked at Mum. She had her face buried in the palm of both her hands. It was like she didn’t want to see me. I felt angry at my dad, but knew better than to lash out at him, so I kept quiet.
Dad spoke. “Well, do you have something to say?”
“I didn’t do anything. It was Mark.”
Mum spoke. “Mark seems like such a nice boy.”
I tried to stay as polite as I could. “Mum, do you think I’m nice?”
Dad looked at me. “You have pornography on your computer and you smell little girls’ underwear! How can you call yourself ‘nice’?”
“Mark has lots of pornography.”
“Why would he?” said my mum, “He seems comfortable with women his age. He’s got many girlfriends. He comes from a very good family. He’s doing very well for himself.”
I faced my mother and squinted my eyes, trying to burn her just by looking at her.
“Mark sounds like a model Christian citizen,” said Dad. “I’ve seen him around. He has a Lexus. That boy doesn’t waste his time. He’s not the type of person who would be interested in pornographic material. That’s just not his type.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t take my parents stares and condemnation. I couldn’t sit there as they looked down upon me and told me I was worthless. I could walk out of the kitchen, walk out of the house, but that would be rude, so I kept silent because that was the only way the conversation could end.
Dad spoke. “Do you have anything to say, Son?”
Mum walked up to my dad. “That’s enough.” She turned towards me. “You can go up to your room now. Come down for dinner in half an hour. We’ll talk about this later.”
I kept my face blank and emotionless. I turned around and walked upstairs to my room.
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