HEAVEN BACKWARDS

All signs pointed that anyone should stay at home that night and I should have listened.

I should have listened to those signs when I felt the cold winter wind disrespecting the existence of my leather pants and made contacts with my thighs.

I should have listened to those signs when I saw that there was not a single car on the road on a busy street.

I should have listened to those signs when Wanda called me at 1am asking me to join her on an assignment that night.

I probably should have listened, but I owed my life to her.

Before I met Wanda, I was forced in a life of prostitution for an entire year. I was taken from a college party. I was beaten, raped and even starved when they felt my body was no longer looking appealing. Although I was in captivity, I always held on to a shred of hope that I would be able to leave this hell.

Wanda was able to buy me out of this problem from Hershel. That was my captor. They called him Shells on the streets. Wanda gave me an offer to earn my own money on the side. Still in prostitution but without the violence and abuse from a pimp.

So when she called me that night and said that she wanted me to go on an assignment with her, I said yes without thinking twice about it. And that was why I was on Yonge Street waiting for Wanda to come along. The 5 minute she was supposed to take to get there went up to 15 minutes and I was about ready to call another Uber and get back home. She finally arrived in a black Jeep Cherokee. Different from the Mazda we usually drove in.

Funny enough, she was the one driving.

I got in the car and looked around. There was no one but us. I noticed a black duffel bag in the backseat. I asked, “Hey Wan! What happened to your brother or cousin? They got the night off?”

“I guess you can say that.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re meeting with a VIP customer who does not like all the extra testosterone.”

“Ah! So I come in as backup?”

“Yeah… And he might want to get a shot at both of us.”

“So I’m getting paid for this?”

“You are getting paid, Nevaeh and there won’t be a percentage taken from you. You’ll get the full pay this time.”

“You should call me for these assignments a little more often.”

She chuckled.

We continued driving making small talk. We took about 25 minutes from Toronto all the way to a Four Point Hotel in Oakville. She grabbed her purse and made her way out the car. I was surprised that she didn’t reach for the duffel bag and dropped her car keys in the cup holder. I got out and asked, “What’s with the duffel bag in the backseat?”

“Oh you saw that?”

“Yeah! Why are you leaving it in the car? Hell, why are you leaving the keys in the car?”

“Well, the car and the bag belong to the customer we’re going to meet.”

“I guess the room is ours.”

“You got it! Now let’s go upstairs, Nev.”

We put on our masks and walked in. We didn’t even stop at reception. They looked at us and it was almost as if they knew what we were doing. A lot of these hotels were in on the kind of business dealings we conducted.

We got in the elevator and made our way to the 7th floor. We didn’t talk. Small talk was downstairs, in the car. We were about to conduct business. We were in our zone. We had to, especially in this kind of business. Before I was with Wanda I learned to create a whole other personality for myself. This has helped with my sanity. A habit that I kept since. And Wanda was on the same page.

The quietness of the hotel became a comfortable thing. It used to be scary, not knowing who was going to be on the other end of the door I would knock on. But since I joined Wanda, I got this reassurance that my safety was taken care of. Except for this night. But she was not bothered by it and by seeing that, I knew my safety was handled.

We reached room 707 and Wanda knocked on the door. We waited. I looked at her and she looked back at me. She smiled at me. That was odd. She never did that before. Before I could ask her about it, the door opened. An older man in a suit greeted us.

We walked inside the room. It was more like a suite. There was a living room with a couch, a coffee table and chair. There was also a bedroom separated from the living room by sliding doors.

Wanda went to the couch and sat down. She started, “That’s a great room, pastor.”

He walked towards her and stopped only a few away, as he replied, “Just making sure I went along with our agreement.”

“Our agreement, pastor? In all the years I’ve known you, it’s the first time I’ve known you to be a man of your word.”

He smiled and then turned to me. He walked to me and just inches away. Without touching, he examined me, looking at my face, moving his head around. He said, “She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”

Wanda said, “Nevaeh is her name.”

The pastor took out a little black book from his jacket pocket and started flipping through it. He then said, “That’s an interesting name. Where is it originating from?”

I answered, “It’s Heaven backwards.”

Wanda got up and said, walking towards us, “You should be used to that, Pastor Williams. You’re as backwards as they come.”

He chuckled, putting the little black book back in his pocket, and said, “You’re funny, Dana.”

I looked at Wanda and asked, “Dana?”

She kept her eyes on the man as she answered me, “He’s using my real name.”

I asked, “How does he know it?”

Wanda answered, “The good pastor took my virginity at a time when he could have gone to jail for doing so. Come to find out, he’s been running the prostitution ring in the GTA. And because he’s not running us, he asked for the gifts downstairs. And also, he’s getting part of the 25% you kick in for every trick you you’ve pulled.”

This was different. We always used fake names when we were on jobs. As a matter of fact, we used fake names with each other. Our safety was that important. But this client was no ordinary clients. He had a knowledge on Wanda that I didn’t even have. This was weird. This was beginning to look like an episode of Jerry Springer.

I said, “We’ll need to talk later.”

She nodded at me. She took off her jacket and moved towards the bedroom. She looked back and motioned to the pastor, and said, “Are you going to stand there like an idiot or are we going to conclude this deal?”

He chuckled and said to me, “I’ll see you in a bit.”

He closed the sliding doors behind him.

I was confused by what we were doing here. We had never done anything like that. The men were not there and they were the safety we had. Wanda’s name was exposed and this job was obviously personal. We should have never taken anything like it.

For the first time since I started working with Wanda, I didn’t feel safe. For the first time, I was scared. For the first time, I was reminded of the days when I was being pimped out.

“Bitch! What the fu…”

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuh… AAAAAH!!!”

I jumped! That came from the bedroom. That was no foreplay. It was definitely Wanda and it sounded like trouble. I moved to the door and slightly opened it. I noticed that they were both on their backs on the bed, naked. I opened the doors fully and walked closer. The pastor was not moving. His eyes were wide open, and blood was coming out of his neck. I went to Wanda and she was breathing with difficulty. She had a knife stuck to her left side in her rib cage area. I tried to move it, but she screamed when I began pulling. The sheets were quickly turning red and my heart started beating faster. I asked, frantically, “What happened?”

“He was… He was onto… Me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had… To… Kill… Him…”

“You were planning on killing him this whole time?”

She chuckled, faintly.

“Why?”

With a smile still on her face, she said, “Re… venge.”

We couldn’t continue with this conversation here. We had to go or she was going to die. I pulled her up and she screamed. I jumped. I said, “I’m sorry, Wanda. We need to get out of here before someone complains about the noise.”

“I… Won’t… Make… It.”

What did she mean? I didn’t want to believe it. With tears in my eyes, I said, “We have to try, Wanda. I can’t leave you here.”

She shook her head no as tears ran down her face. I looked at the dead pastor and the woman who saved my life. I felt her hand tapping on my leg. I looked at it and she pointed and said, “Jacket… Jacket…”

I got off the bed and felt the blood all over my leather pants and my hands. The fear had escalated. It made me rush to the pastor’s jacket and rush back to Wanda. She said, “Book… Book…”

I picked it up. She took a deep breath and said, “He… Stole… You...”

With tears in my eyes, I asked, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Your… Pimp.”

Her hand began to go limp and her breathing began to go faint. With her last breath, she said, “Run.”

She was gone. My friend. My savior. She was gone. My heart was out of my chest.

I rushed out of the room. I put my mask on as I entered the elevator. I rushed out of the lobby and found my way outside. I looked around and then I saw the car we came in. I quickly made my way to it. I sat and realized I kept the black book with me. I threw it on the passenger seat and started driving. I moved quickly and fast. I found the highway and just drove.

The image of Wanda expiring in front of me stayed on my mind, the entire time that I drove. I knew that I would have to get used to it.

My pimp, she said? What did she mean?

Then, I realized that I didn’t recognize the road I was on. I looked for an exit sign and saw Wonderland Road. I took that exit and found a gas station to park at.

Wanda was dead and she told me to run after telling me that the pastor was my pimp. But she mentioned the book. I rushed to it and looked in it. He had the names of several women in different groups. The pages were labeled by dates and I recognized the date of my abduction and with that date, I saw Shell’s name with my name in the group of women under his name. It seemed like the pastor was the man who benefited from my abduction.

That dude killed my friend and I couldn’t go back home. I didn’t have clothes to change into. Then I remembered the duffle bag in the backseat.

I picked it up and opened it. That bag was filled with money. That was the gift she was planning on giving to that man.

That night, I was not able to get most of the answers to my questions. Instead, I made sure to clean myself up in the gas station bathroom. I threw away my phone and then found a motel where I could rest. In the morning, I made my way into Detroit to start my new life after buying new clothes.

A few months later, the news reported on the double murder that took place in Oakville. The pastor was publicly connected to the prostitution ring in the city. My friend was recognized as a victim of his. I had changed my name and cut out all my hair while starting a holistic business. I had escaped hell without trying.