Stacking in Rivertown Read Online Free Page B

say again.
    “Planning on going away?” He cups my breasts and works them over like a doctor feeling for lumps. “Still firm. Still good.”
    Ben reaches into his black bag and pulls out a blindfold, fixing it over my eyes. He knows how much I hate that.
    “Crouch again.” I crouch. Wait.
    “It’s your lucky day. I’m down a player right now. I could use you. Not every night. Weekends. What IDs you want?”
    “The usual,” I say. “Driver’s license. Social Security card. Maybe a birth certificate.”
    “That’s four weekends. Friday and Saturday, the biggest nights. You up to it?”
    I begin to shake. “I’d rather just buy them.”
    The limo slows, and Ben throws a blanket over me. The driver leaps out, opening the side door. Somebody steps in. Ben takes off the blanket.
    “So. What do you think?” he says. I feel hands on me. Ben’s big hand grabs my hair and turns my face toward the person.
    “Yes .” A man’s voice. “I think they’d like her.”
    “I think they’ll be more than satisfied,” Ben says. “Next Friday then?”
    “That will be fine.”
    The blanket goes over me again. The door opens, and the man steps out. The limo takes off, and we cruise around in silence. Ben slides the blanket off, caresses my cheek, and runs his hand along my back.
    “Sit up,” he says. He removes the blindfold.
    “Put on your clothes.” Ben watches out the window as the neighborhoods roll by. Then he hands me a card. “Arrive at this hotel at eight o’clock sharp Friday evening. The key for your room will be under the name Elizabeth Boone. Carry a bag as though you’re there for a night or two. I want that body of yours to sing when you cross the lobby. You’re naive, innocent. So turn their heads, Beth.”
    I stare at the card. “Nothing in the face, Ben. It’ll be too hard to explain to Jeremy.”
    He nods. “I still have your whip. I never got rid of it.” He smiles that awful smile of his again. “If you don’t show, we’ll be around to pick you up. I wouldn’t want that. I never liked hurting you, Beth.” He touches my cheek. The limo stops, the driver comes around, opening the door. I step out.
    That’s what I get for not being able to pull that trigger.

    Mandy turned a corner one day. We were at school in gym class, with us in our freaky gym outfits. And Mandy was laughing. She had the ball in her hands, getting ready to pitch it at me in dodgeball.
    But Mandy clutched her side, made a little cry, and stood still.
    The school nurse came to get her, leading her out, head down and still holding her side, with the nurse saying something about the period. All the girls tittered, but she turned on us with such a glare that we all shut up fast.
    Mandy got sicker.
    Sometimes it’s this way, the rumor went around, started by who knows who. When they first start up, when it comes so young.
    And I waited, but Mandy didn’t come back to school. She didn’t come over to dig crawdads and chase the snakes.
    Mandy died five days later. Appendicitis, the principal announced at the school, shaking his head. If only she’d seen a doctor, the teachers said.
    I got the idea that doctors had something to do with periods and somehow appendicitis came along with whatever a period was.
    Appendicitis, and it just busted right open, just burst inside her, they kept repeating, wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs.
    I suspected it was the dangers that got her.
    I wore white gloves at her funeral, though I was told it wasn’t right. But I knew Mandy loved white gloves. She used to talk about the white-gloved ladies who shopped on Dew Street. I didn’t go in for them myself. But we had a stash of money saved. We sold lemonade and crawdads, and sometimes frog legs. I had enough to buy the gloves.
    After that, the dangers got hold of me. They were everywhere. For some reason Snuff kept showing up wherever I went, with Gedders in tow. I got good at keeping an eye out and not walking alone. But I couldn’t