"What do you want?" John barked in his most ferocious voice. Hearing it i winced away and cringed against Benny's chair, wishing with all my heart to be anywhere but where i was. The woman laughed and something about her voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. You could hear the madness. "Oh Johnny, haven't you missed me baby?" She was a small woman and when she stood beside the seated hulk they were about the same height. To my astonishment John didn't grab her or even seem to want to look at her. He grimaced and looked away, his eyes finding Benny and then drifting down to me cowering beside him. He looked surprised to see me and squared his shoulders as though unwilling to let one of his whores see him bested by a woman. "No, Nina, I did not miss you. What the fuck do you want? I'm busy." She had followed his eyes and spotted me as well. To my horror instead of conversing with John she advanced on me with a terrible smile. "Oh, look, what do you have here, Benny? A pet? Let me rub her!" Benny's grip on my shoulder became an unbearable vice. A breathless gasp escaped me before i could stop myself and a couple of the tears swimming in my eyes escaped. And, yet i had no desire whatsoever to be free of that painful grip. Her long fingers stroked my cheek gently for a bare second before her hand hooked into a claw and her manicured talons ripped furrows in my skin. John knocked her away from me and exploded to his feet. Benny yanked me painfully up and over the arm of his chair. i huddled into a ball in his lap, drawing my legs up and making myself as small as possible. Tucking my face into his neck so i could still see somewhat i hid myself behind my long curtain of hair and went motionless, listening to John and the woman argue. The long and short of it was that she was there to choose two girls to work a show with her girls. The bargain was made and there was not a damn thing to be done about it. John grimaced and nodded to Benny before striding from the room to talk with Edward.
