Free All of Her Men by Lourdes Bernabe Page B

you're thinking about it too much. Relax. You’re not French royalty. We call you the Queen here ," he said pointing both his index fingers down.
"You are the Queen to us and we have been waiting for you for a very long time." He beamed excitedly.
"But why am I the Queen. What is it that I've done?" I pleaded.
"Why am I here? What do you want from me?" I continued.
"You're here to cultivate your lifestyle. I'm here to take what you do and turn it up a notch. Here, you will rise to the occasion. You, my Jolene, are one bad ass motherfuckin' gangster and in your world no one knows that. But down here, where the sick and sadistic come to meet, you my lady, are The Queen."
This would have been the appropriate time to let my jaw drop thus allowing my tongue to unravel down to the floor rendering me speechless. But that didn't happen. My jaw didn't drop to the floor. I froze in shock.
Not a muscle even flinched as my mind attempted to decipher whatever it was that he had just finished iterating. My thoughts skirted around so quickly I could barely grasp pieces here and there and form coherent lines of thought. They knew I was a killer...but a bad ass motherfuckin’ gangster? Why did he have to say it like that?
Then it hit me. If they knew what the things I did, then how long before someone said something to the rightful authorities? Almost instantly, I brushed that thought aside. If they were going to turn me in they would have done so already. No. I could tell this guy, whoever he was, loved what I did. He wasn’t afraid.
    "If I'm the Queen why am I still tied up down here?" I inquired.
"Well, we knew you’d never come willingly. Once you're here though, we figured you might change your mind. You're a vicious cold-blooded killer which is precisely why we want you. But as they say, better to be safe than sorry," he said.
"To be fair though, I should warn you. As vicious and as cold blooded as you are my queen...so am I. I’m Derek. Derek Jeter actually... kinda funny, I know. You can laugh about it now. But I’ll tell you, there’s nothing funny about what I do. There are similarities between us. Like you, I found that I have a gut-wrenching need to kill..." he continued.
He went on some more but it was all just a tad too much to take in all at once. I decided I needed a mental inventory for fear of losing all my marbles. I liked to kill. Check. He and presumably others knew this fact. Check. And...he's a killer too. Check. The others? Who were they? What did they all want?
    “Yeah. I know it’s a lot right now…”
    “Ya think?” I rudely snapped.
    He exhaled loudly. I could tell he was contemplating something in his head. He did say he was like me and even though he did say that he wouldn’t hurt me, this wasn’t exactly the type of scenario where you just took someone for their word.
    I was a killer after all and a ruthless one at that. Though I couldn’t speak for all those who were like me, I knew the instinct was there. That fucking relentless tug and pull. It never just let you be. And yet, as if I did have some miniscule instinct into this man’s psyche, I honestly could not bring myself to believe that this man was here to hurt me.
    Of course, I could never know for sure. Deciphering a seemingly normal person is difficult in and of itself. Trying to figure out someone like him or hell even someone like myself would prove increasingly difficult.
    I decided right then and there that I would trust him for the foreseeable future. This could only go in two directions. I could be right or I could be wrong. I wanted to get this show on the road for God’s sake.
    “Ok. I’ll go with what you’ve told me thus far. Can you untie me now? It’s not exactly comfortable,” I said as calmly as I could muster given my current state.
    “I would love to untie you, and I will. But first, there’s something you need to know. Me and you? We’re cut from the same cloth. If you try to take me out or if I end up