Rapture

Chapter Fourteen

“You want me to do what?”

In reply, a L’Oréal box was thrown out of the shadows, and as the woman caught it, she thought…Yeah, wow, great start to the night. She was already tired, cranked off, and ready for it to be one a.m. with her shift over—and this “client” was some freak into hair color?

She was so done with this whore thing; she really was. She was sick of seedy, dark motel rooms, and ugly men with bright ideas—and don’t get her started on her “manager.”

“You want me to color my hair blond. For real.”

A fan of five hundred dollars appeared from out of the corner, the light falling from the ceiling fixture making the bills glow in the dim room. It sure seemed like Benjis from heaven, baby—especially considering the dumb-ass had already paid that to be allowed to come here to this downtown rent-by-the-hour with her.

“Okay, fine.” She walked over and snatched the bills. “Anything else?”

The deep voice was quiet. “I want you to blow it dry straight.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“No sex.”

“I don’t want you for that, no.”

A shiver started at her tramp stamp and chillied up her spine to the nape of her neck. But there was nothing to worry about. There were girls in the rooms on either side of them, and her boss man was out in the parking lot no more than twelve feet away. Plus she carried Mace.

What was he going to do to her.

Muttering under her breath, she went into the bathroom and flicked on the light. In the mirror, she looked like she was forty, with bags under her eyes and hair the consistency of corn husks. The good news was that she did need to touch up her roots—there was a road map straight down her side part, mucky brunette showing at the scalp. But not because she was pulling a Marilyn Monroe.

She’d liked being a redhead. And damn, if her hair was already brittle as hell, this wasn’t going to help—

Oh, look, it came with a conditioner. Sweet.

She laid out the squeeze bottle full of creamy shit, the tin tube of color, and the squat thing of postblond goo. Reading the directions took a little time, because she’d always sucked at the whole letter/word stuff, but this wasn’t rocket science.

Through the open doorway, she saw that the client had sat down in that far corner, his boots planted widely apart, his hands resting on his knees instead of at his groin. Not much showed of him, the light from above reaching up only so far on his legs. Better that way—made him more anonymous.

Funny, she hadn’t remembered these rooms being this dark.

Getting back to business, she punctured the top of the tube with the plastic cap, squeezed the stinky crap into the bottle with the pointy top, and then shook the mixture like she was giving someone a hand job. The plastic gloves were on the back of the directions, and she pushed her hands into them. Thank God they were big, because there was room at the top for her fake nails.

She hit the side part without a glitch, but tangles in the ends made it impossible to get the shit down the length. Getting a brush from her bag, she ripped through from root to split end until she could do the whole job; then made quick work of covering everything that came out of her skull.

The stuff smelled like air freshener and chemical glue, and had the consistency of cum.

Was that what turned this guy on?

Men were such pigs.

During processing time, as her scalp heated up and her nose itched, she texted people about the freak job she was on. No reason to talk to the client—he was still just sitting there, making like a statue.

Thirty-five minutes later she stepped into the shower with a bottle of shampoo that had been left on the counter. The stuff had been half-used by someone else, but there was enough to get things rinsing clean. The warm water felt good, and the conditioner smelled so much better than the bleach.

When she got out, her hair was the color of movie popcorn, all that golden yellow making her white-ass skin glow green. Putting her slut clothes back on didn’t help her image much.

Unhitching the hair dryer, she pivoted on her bare feet. “You ready for this?”

The man rose from the chair and came over, stepping into the light. He was good-looking enough, but for some reason, she wanted to give him the money back and leave. Fast.

“I’m going to take things from here,” he told her, snagging the dryer and brush from her.

The noise from the hot air roared in her ears as he began to slowly stroke the bristles through her hair. Steady. Sure. As if he’d done this before.

Freak.

When everything was dry and smooth, he clicked the Conair off and put it on the counter beside her.

Meeting her eyes in the mirror, the man just stared at her.

She cleared her throat. “I have to go—”

His face wasn’t right all of a sudden, the features seeming to change into….

She opened her mouth and dragged in her last breath to scream just as a blade lifted behind her head.

With a quick slash across her throat, the monster opened a different exhalation route for the air in her lungs, the release not making it high enough to become a cry for help.

Her final image was of a dead, animated corpse that was smiling in the midst of its rotting flesh.

“Party time,” a female voice said.