In Paradise Ch. 03

"Hello Paradise Fisheries." I kindly chimed into the receiver of the wireless phone. It is the store I work in, mainly office work and cashing. As I heard the young man complain I rested my hand in my head watching the seconds tick by on the clock not too far away from me on the wall above the craw-fish tanks.

"Tick-tock," I muttered. "Almost 5 o'clock."

"What!" he exclaimed. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Quite frankly, no sir I'm not," I said as I rolled my eyes. I'm pretty sure the sudden injection of gumption was due to the fact that we were talking over the phone and not face to face.

"I want to know your name!" he almost screamed. "I'm a customer at your establishment and I'm highly dissatisfied, and not to mention this customer service."

"Well sir," I replied. "You should have thought about that before you started screaming at me through the phone and maybe I would have been able to solve your problems."

"What your name!?" he barked.

"Allyn Roemer," I said as I began to spell it slowly and condescendingly as if he was retarded. It was just to further piss him off. "A.L.L.Y.N R.O.E.M.E.R," I continued.

He had tried to stop me halfway through with the repetition of 'I get it' but I still pressed onward.

"Its 3 minutes to 5 and I'm sorry to inform you sir but we are now closed," I said with a smile, ending with just a hint of sarcasm. "Bah-bye!"

"You are definitely going to get fired now," said Rinishka. She was a short little black ball of chocolate, at least that's what I liked to call her. Her skin was the color of deep chocolate and she was quite rotund. However that never took away from the delicate features of her face. She was one of those girls who could pull of a good bit amount of weight, not that she was entirely fat, just a big short girl. In other words, like I had said she was a little black ball of chocolate. "Good job," she smiled.

"Yeah, that man will come in as irate as ever on Monday, call me out, and hopefully I can get out of this place." I said.

"Why can't you just quite again?" she asked.

"I owe the bastard money and he won't let me earn it any other way," I lied. Antonio Vasquez and I graduated from the same high school together. I wasn't the Valedictorian or anything but I was rather smart. I would have gotten a scholarship to go to school if I hadn't been misinformed of the deadline. This, I might add, "mysteriously" had been as a result of Antonio's uncle who is one of the counselors at Saint Abbey's College. He had told me the deadline was two weeks after the actual deadline, so when I had come thinking I was a week early I was actually an entire week late. They had to decline my application because it wouldn't have been fair to the other students. I could almost cry back then. I wasn't dirt poor but my parents couldn't afford to send me to some fifty thousand dollar per semester school in America or England somewhere so I had to stay home at the University of The Bahamas. Moreover, the fees were about 5,000 dollars which included books and other essentials but I hadn't been able to scrape up even nearly a grand. My family would have sacrificed a few bills to send me to college, they knew I was worth it but I wouldn't let them. Instead, I borrowed the money from Antonio, the boy I knew from since we were kids. He was rich; most of my friends were actually. But despite popular belief, not all rich people look down on lower society. That is of course neglecting the fact that they may smile in your face and do it behind your back. I always held my own, and the fact that I never asked them for anything probably granted me their respect.

"Are you serious?" asked Antonio. He sounded worried for my well being, and how I had been fooled by his fictitious smile. He took a hand to my back and tried to console me.

"Yeah," I answered. "I guess I'll wait a year or so and try to start my freshman year then I guess," I concluded.

"No," said Antonio. "Waiting a year is like suicide."

"But I can get a job and buy a car, move out, and be able to support myself a little bit."

"Or..."

"Or what?" I asked him.

"Or you can borrow the money from me," he said cheerfully. "Wait, scratch that I'll lend you the money because God knows you're not going to ask for it." As I began to protest he put his finger to my lip ever so gently. He held me at the back and brought me close to him as his hands slid down further and he reluctantly stopped at the nape of my back.

"And you can pay me back," he said. "It is not a gift or charity as you like to refer to it." Back then I wasn't able to put a definition behind what I saw in his eyes, but the word is apparent to me now. It was lust.

"You can work with me part time for a year at one of my father's businesses." He had started off. "God knows I'd like some company" he smiled. "Or"

"Or?" I prodded.

"You can sell me your body." At the thought I tried to pull away from him but he quickly grabbed a wrist.

"I'm only joking Allyn, it's a joke. Like ha ha." He smiled again, but this time it was a bit awkward and slightly regretful. "You can even choose which business if you remember them well." He added. I looked at my wrist and back at him as he reluctantly loosened his grasps. I fixed my clothes and answered him.

"Well let me think about it at least, ask my parents what they think about the change in plan," I said. I couldn't meet his gaze and he knew it. I reached as far as his lower lip, avoiding his large hazel and emerald dusted eyes. Those were the same eyes that got him all the ladies in high school. The same eyes that stole the hearts of many girls at St Abbey's. Some charm they held over many female and some male folk a like that made the green beast rear their ugly heads, at me. Thank God high school days are over. "Good bye Antonio."

In the end I took the offer to work for his father, but a few of my closest friends who I told the story to had told me that there was something more to it than the comment being just a joke. They said I'm as naive as a retarded hamster, and that I never saw how he looked at me with hooded gazes.

"The wicked things he probably dreamed of doing to you Allyn" Cassandra had started. "I could see it in his eyes." She continued. She took a bite of her burger, the one that never looked like the display picture they show you while I played with my chicken nuggets. We sat in an empty fast food restaurant a couple blocks away from school.

"Plus there are the stories the girls he's dated tell," she said with a full mouth. She swallowed, "From them I could tell he is a perfect sadist."

"Selling him my body is not really a request that you would think came from a sadist," I said as I hit a nugget with a French fry.

"Hey. You don't damage goods until AFTER you've paid for it," she retorted as she pointed at me with another French fry before she stuffed it into her mouth.

Cassandra was like the color of heated caramel with a giant black puff on top. Her nose flared on its own, however, if you were to piss her off and it could expand for about a mile. We've teased her about it on several occasions.

I'd never mentioned it to Rinishka, mostly because I never knew how she'd react to it. Her family the Wisdoms was rather odd and liked me very much. I hadn't needed them to go all out on the guy. He never touched me wrongly and he was still my childhood friend overall. The only thing that worried me was Cassandra's perception of the situation. However, in the words of Homey on the television show In Living Color, "Allyn don't play that." I could almost laugh as I remember the antics of that show if it wasn't for this incessant depression over my current state of affairs.

"Look Antonio's back." said Rinishka. I looked outside to see him pull into the parking lot in a company vehicle. Rinishka looked at me through the corner of her eye as she saw me hurriedly pack my things to leave. She thought I hadn't noticed but I have on several occasions. She probably asked herself many times why do I constantly run from him at the end of the day when he's finished company errands, avoid him on the rare occasion that he has to stay to work, or never take him up on a ride home as opposed to catching the bus. She probably figured that I'd tell her in my own time and waited patiently, also becoming the "unbeknownst" to me informer of his arrival. But I knew.

"Now that he's here you don't mind if I," I started.

"Yea I don't mind," she said. "I'll close up, you go run and catch the bus," she said with a hint of sarcasm. She knew it wasn't the reason I always left before closing. In fact I usually don't leave until 4 o'clock or 4:30. But I don't take lunch so the boss can't really get entirely mad. Oh wait, aren't I trying to get fired? I should try that sometime. Anyway, Rinishka knew it wasn't the reason however she feigned ignorance and I live another day without contact with Antonio.

As I zipped passed him on the farthest side of the parking lot, I could feel his eyes weighing me down and begging me to stay put. I faltered for a moment and made the mistake of looking his way. He looked as if he were in suspended animation as he stepped down from the truck. I could almost feel his regret as he watched me climb onto a bus and was out of sight.

The sudden sound of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 soon filled the space where I sat. I dug in my bag hurriedly as if my life depended on it.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Guess what," said a familiar voice. It was Gabrielle, another one of my friends from high school. "I have tickets to Aura," she sang.

"How'd you-?"

"I know this guy. So we going?"

"Umm yea but-"

"Okay, Saturday at 10" she said hurriedly "minutes Allyn bye!"

The line went dead as I sat their staring at the phone, hoping I'd be able to borrow the car tomorrow night or somehow, Gabrielle would mystically appear and carry me half way across the island. I sighed as I got ready to meet the end of my ride.