Free Vodka Doesn't Freeze by Leah Giarratano Page B

Parramatta.
     
She and Mia were trying to figure out how to open the front door of the unit when it was opened suddenly, sending her sprawling backwards. There hadn't even been a sound to indicate the heavy door was about to open. She looked up to see Mr Sebastian smiling down at her, offering her his big hand. The smile didn't reach his eyes.
     
'You girls going somewhere, are you?' he asked, as Honey scrambled to her feet, ignoring his hand. Neither she nor Mia said a word.
     
'I'm going to need you today, Honey, Mia, so I don't want you going anywhere you could get lost. I'm hosting a dinner party tonight, and I'll be requiring your assistance.'
     
He walked past them into the kitchen, filling a glass with filtered water from the specially fitted tap on the granite benchtop. He spoke rapidly in another language to the hook-nosed man who'd entered the unit behind him, then turned back to the girls.
     
'Jamaal has some clothes for you to wear tonight. You can try them on now, please.'
     
Later that night Honey discovered the price of a warm place to sleep and food whenever she wanted it. Within a month or so she learned that being 'nice' to Mr Sebastian's friends also meant that she was given enough money to buy herself new clothes, jewellery and make-up. For the first month, although disgusted by the groping, fondling old men she was expected to kiss and cuddle, she'd thought that she could tolerate these weekly evenings for the exchange.
     
One night, however, a flabby white man, older than most of the others, had tried to push his penis into her bottom. She had run from him into the small bathroom that was attached to the bedroom they were in. Crying, she'd locked the door and hoped the man would get tired of waiting and leave.
     
Within ten minutes, she'd stopped crying and was plucking her eyebrows in the mirror when the door was kicked in. Mr Sebastian slammed the back of his hand across her mouth, splitting her lip and loosening her tooth. Jamaal picked her cowering body up from the floor and held out her arm. The thin man was smiling with stained teeth as he clenched his thumb and forefinger around her tiny bicep to restrict the blood flow. Flicking her arm a few times, Mr Sebastian then slid a thin needle into a vein in the crease inside her elbow. Both men stood back as she vomited into the bathtub, and then, her sobs subsiding, they led her back into the bedroom and left her with the old man on the bed. None of the men spoke or looked at one another.
     
Honey spent the rest of the night in a dream-like state, and had been seeking that sensation ever since.
     

13
I N THE PRE-DAWN GLOOM , M ERCY groped for her Ventolin, heart thumping, tasting bile. The sweat was drying on her skin, but her pillow was still damp. Another one. Another nightmare.
     
She felt for a cigarette and put down the asthma inhaler. She saw her hands tremble in the flare of the lighter. As she dragged in smoke she felt her heart slow. Stupid really; she knew nicotine was a stimulant, told her patients that every day, but she felt her nerves settle slightly nevertheless.
     
There was always so much blood; that was the problem. She'd have to find a way to do it without all the mess. Not for the first time, she pictured a huge gas chamber, herding them all in and letting them go to sleep in there.
     
She took a final shuddering drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out. She closed her eyes and settled back into the pillows, though she knew sleep would not come again tonight.
     

14
U NTIL IT WAS RIGHT behind her, Jill didn't notice the patrol truck that combed the sand every morning at Maroubra Beach. The unshaven driver motioned to her from his cabin to move over. She must have been running up and down the sands for more than an hour now; she realised that it was almost completely light.
     
Other features of the morning also began to register – she could hear seagulls fighting and playing, dive-bombing the waves. She saw some