Time had ceased to have meaning for Renee and Fran. Only Manuel's comings and goings marked changes in their routine that they could recognize as time.
Each time it was the same. Before the shot, the Mexican would fuck them brutally.
Renee swallowed, feeling her saliva gulped down her throat moving like a large, fuzzy tennis ball. Now, she didn't know how she could live without heroin, without the needle.
Hopefully she watched the door, craning her head. She was so accustomed to the straps that she didn't try to move her bound hand and foot anymore. It was automatic to work around them.
God! It had been a long time since Manuel had come. Her lips were dry, but Renee felt the perspiration dotting her face and body. Once, earlier, Manuel had been late. Renee thought then she was going to die. But now it was worse, much worse.
"Manuel! Manuel!" Fran was writhing on her own bed, sobbing the Mexican's name as her anguish rose. At first the two women talked. They seldom spoke to each other anymore.
What was there to say, Renee wondered bitterly. Either they were in pink clouds at the beginning of a trip, or they were in agony. Friendship had become unimportant to her, to both of them.
Renee almost cried with joy when the door opened and Manuel came into the room.
Moving without fuss, he unfastened Fran and then came over and took the straps off Renee. "You both can go now," he said grandly.
Fran and Renee both stood, naked and trembling, afraid to believe their ears.
"Go on," Manuel smiled at them. "Little ones, run home to mother."
Staring at each other, Fran and Renee both started sobbing at once. Tears of joy, sorrow, and of frustration. At last the nightmare had come to an end.
Grabbing Fran's hand blindly with hers, Renee started backing toward the door, afraid to thrust the pimp long enough to turn her back. It was a trick, she thought, and steeled herself for the shock of finding the door locked.
But the latch clicked firmly when she turned the handle. Peering outside in the corridor, Renee saw no one.
"Come on, Fran," she cried happily, "we're going home!"
"Haven't you forgotten something?"
Manuel took the hypodermic needle out of his pocket and held it up to the light. "A good-bye kiss, maybe."
Renee felt her resolve slipping away. "Come on, Fran," she urged. But the older woman just stood and shivered, her eyes frozen to that clear cylinder of liquid the Mexican was holding.
"Fran?"
The blonde woman shook Renee's hand free and began to edge back toward Manuel. Her eyes were glued on the jolt that he held in his hand.
Renee tried to resist. To break the spell. She knew that she had to leave Fran. She had to leave that room and run down the hall to the street and freedom.
"You know," Manuel was saying casually, "the people outside, they will not be so good about providing for you. I mean," a pained expression crossed his face, "take my friend, Mr. Heroin. You think anyone out there will give him to you? No!" Manuel emphatically shook his head.
"No," he whispered. "Out there they put you in a leetle room with bars. And they make you go, how you say, cold turkey."
When Renee shivered this time, it was with fear. Not to have a shot? She'd die. She couldn't do it! Longingly she stared at the door. But she knew that already it was too late.
Manuel's voice droned on and on and she fidgeted, first on one foot and then the other. She was starting to hurt. Her stomach was cramped and the muscles were being drawn out of her flesh like cold wires.
"Please!" Fran ran forward a few short steps and wrapped her arms around Manuel's legs. "Please!" the blonde girl cried. Tears flowed from her eyes, wetting her cheeks, dripping down on her breasts.
"Un momento, senorita." Manuel chastised her for interrupting him.
Ploddingly he droned on, watching Renee furtively. She wanted to plead, to beg. She would have done almost anything for that needle. She couldn't go out the door, anymore. If only he wasn't waiting for her to beg, expecting it.
She stood and stared at the bright square of light at the window while she died ten times over – waiting, just lasting to the moment she could endure no longer.
"Please, Renee," Fran sobbed. "Ask him."
Wordlessly, Renee held out her arm.
"I tell you, leetle one, today I have only enough for one of you. That one who pleases me the most, she shall have it."
"Please you… How?" Renee measured the words out.
Manuel snickered. "You know how you must please me, don't you, chica?" And he patted Fran's head. "Don't you, leetle one?"
Fran whimpered and started undressing Manuel. Renee watched for a moment, and then the last vestige of her resolve was gone and she hurried forward to help the blonde girl strip their keeper.