The Gateway to Sin

Ali nodded. He looked to Travis with something of a sad face. "So there you have it. By the time she is done dealing with the police, even if she is not charged with anything, her boy disappears. Or ruthless men come looking for her. Probably both."

"Lemme go get him," Vanessa said, taking a deep breath to steel her resolve. "Just gimme a little time and I'll get him out. Then you can go to the cops and do whatever. The cops will probably catch me and put Chester in some sort of... I don't know what, but at least he won't be with Rudy's guys and he won't be hurt."

Ali nodded. "How many are there?"

"Just two."

Ali looked to Travis. He didn't say anything.

"Oh, hey, waitaminute," Travis mumbled.

"Boy, listen to me. You see the trouble she is in. You had the courage to stand up for her when these men threatened to harm her."

Travis and Vanessa looked at one another. "Look, I never wanted to kill anyone," she said. "If it was that simple I could've found a way to take a gun and just shoot them all and run, but—"

"Is that your plan now?" Travis asked. "Where'd you learn to shoot that, anyway?"

"I grew up in Arizona."

"Oh," Travis said. That answered that, apparently.

"And yeah, if I have to go it alone, I'm probably gonna have to shoot them. I'm not some helpless damsel in distress. I just didn't have any options before."

"You are not," Ali agreed, "but you don't need to stand alone, either. Young man. Think. If we call the police, we doom her boy. You will give your statement to the police and probably be up very late, but eventually you will go home and sleep in your warm and safe bed, and you will wonder what happens to her and to her boy. Do you want that?"

Travis glanced at Vanessa. "You have some sort of plan?"

"I'll come up with something one way or the other," she nodded, "but if I'm not alone I've got a lot more in the way of options besides just shooting people, yeah."

Travis couldn't believe he was even discussing this. He wondered what his parents would say about this, and how many questions they would have... and, suddenly, he wondered why he cared so much about that. "No," he answered. "No, I don't. What about you?"

Ali shrugged and gestured to the two bodies. "I have to take care of this mess if we are not going to call the cops. I suspect no one will miss these men, will they?" he asked Vanessa.

"Nobody's gonna file a missing persons report, if that's what you mean. These people don't call the cops, no matter what."

"So you're just gonna hide them?" Travis asked.

"I have options," Ali shrugged. "This is a very convenient store."

* * *

"I was afraid of this," Vanessa sighed. "There's probably a bunch of people in there right now. We'll have to watch and wait." Her eyes darted this way and that as she drove past the large house. Every available parking space on both sides of the street was taken up.

Travis sat in the passenger seat of the black Mercedes hoping nobody would recognize him. It was dark, late and raining, but he was nervous just the same. He felt like he had good reason, after all; he was in the stolen car of a dead man being driven by a prostitute, with at least two guns and quite possibly hidden drugs, too.

"How many people live there?" Travis asked.

Vanessa let out a grunt. "I wouldn't call it living. I'm there, about three other girls are there, Rudy lived there and so does Adam, but Giovanni and Joey crash there so often you wouldn't know they've got their own places. Well. Past tense, in Joey's case, anyway. One of Rudy's girls actually thinks she's his girlfriend and lives there by choice. Then there's me and Illyana... she came over from Russia, and Rudy keeps all her papers in a safe. Just like mine. She'd probably get deported without 'em. There are a couple other girls that he keeps on a looser leash, but he threatens them when he feels like it, too. He was talking to one of 'em on the phone in the store."

She drove further down the street. The neighborhood was entirely residential, with narrow streets and many tall trees. "I'm hoping we can just chill here for awhile without being seen and wait until some of them leave. That place is Grand Central Station most nights. Probably some johns in there right now."

"They bring guys over? I would've thought that'd be dangerous. Like a good way to get everyone busted."

"It's not like there's a book of pimps' regulations. Rudy's little gang does all sorts of shit they shouldn't. They don't bring lots of johns over; just the ones they know are low-risk and high dollar. Some of these guys want to make sure their families never find out. Some of 'em just have freaky tendencies. Walk around here long enough, you might very well find a couple girls working in these cars.

"Oh, here, this is a good spot," she said. "We can see down the hill to the street outside the house." Vanessa went through the stop, start and shuffle of turning around and parallel parking as Travis watched.

"You have a plan?"

"Thinkin' about it. Depends on how much it'll thin out down there. The fewer people there are when we go in, the better. Hopefully I just need you to distract people."

"I'm not afraid to fight."

"No, but the deeper you get into this, the worse I'm gonna feel. I don't want a hero, I want an assist. Okay?"

Silence fell in the car until Vanessa spoke once more. "I don't know whether to thank you first or apologize," she admitted. "I'm sure this is pretty fucked up for you."

"It isn't for you?"

She tilted her head to concede the point. "My life has been fucked-up crazy for the last few years, yeah, but this is a whole new level of crazy. I just want it to stop. This'll sound cliché, but I'm really not like this."

"What are you really like?"

"What are you really like?" she countered. "All I know about you is you can fight, you stick up for women when men are slapping them around and you buy porn."

"I don't—!" he started, then stopped himself. Travis let out a deep breath. "God, I'm almost twenty-one and that was the first porn I've ever bought. I'm not a pervert."

"I wouldn't judge you if you were," Vanessa snorted.

He stared at the dashboard. "I did football and wrestling in high school, but that was mostly to make Dad happy," he shrugged. "Been taking kung fu for the last three years, which my Dad hates 'cause it isn't 'American' enough for him. I went to Catholic all-boys schools. I still live at home. I'm going to college partly on my Dad's dime, so I follow all of his rules, and I hate myself for all of it."

"Hey, college is expensive," she shrugged. "Can't fault anyone for sucking it up and dealing with parental bullshit for a few extra years if it pays your way. Wish I could've done that. I'd give almost anything to go back to school. Anyway... how bad can he be if you turned out so good? I mean, parents always make kids do stuff they don't want to do, right?"

"Dad lives in a 'Leave It to Beaver' fantasy world and figures our problem is that we haven't invaded enough Arab countries. He's one of those dudes who only reads the lines in the Bible that back up his bullshit and ignores the rest."

"Fuck."

"Yeah. My dad's that guy."

Vanessa let out a long breath. "Okay, so he's an asshole," she conceded, "but you seem to have turned out okay."

"Thanks," Travis shrugged.

"No, I mean it, I'm really... I know how crazy this is. Believe me. I'm really grateful."

"So that's the answer you were looking for."

"Not really. Now I just know about your dad. What're you really like?"

Travis blinked. She had a point. "I'm... I dunno, I'm dull, I guess? My dating life is kind of crap because I feel like I don't know how to act with girls. Hell, I wouldn't know what to say to you now if we weren't both staring at twenty to life," he grimaced. Vanessa smirked. "I don't like booze. I don't smoke. I don't do any drugs. I volunteer at an animal shelter. No girlfriend. Virgin. That's me. Super boring."

He mistook the grin playing at her lips for amusement, and figured the little sparkle that appeared in her eyes was something that was always there. "There's nothing wrong with any of that," she said. "I could stand to be around more guys who didn't get wasted and were nice to animals."

"What, you don't like bad boys?" Travis frowned. "You're a hot girl in your twenties, right? Early twenties? Doesn't that mean you should only be attracted to assholes who treat you terribly?"

She sat back in the driver's seat. "Some of us learn faster than others," she grumbled. "I'm the first to admit I'm a party girl, but I always know when to quit and go home. When I had a home to go to, anyway. I'm not some battered woman caught up in a cycle of abuse, okay? I've literally had no place else to go lately and like I've said, it's not like they don't have leverage on me."

"I'm sorry," mumbled her companion. "I didn't mean it like that."

"No, I know. I get what you meant. I'm just sayin'. I know I'm a little crazy sometimes, but I'm not like batshit broken psycho girl or anything. I just got stuck in a trap. Believe me, if I can make a clean break here, my first priority is to find a way to go back to school."

"So is that what you're really like?" Travis asked again. "How'd you end up in this mess if you know better?"

Vanessa rolled her eyes, clearly at herself more than anything else. "Oh, I screwed up a bunch. I'm not sayin' otherwise. But I was in college once, too. Started dating a guy. Thought he was cool. Found out what an asshole he was when we went to Mexico together and he used me as a drug mule without asking me. I'd have dumped his ass right there if I'd known he was into that. But there I was, caught with a shitload of coke in my bag at the airport. My ex-boyfriend figured out the score before I did and started copping pleas. The prosecutor figured he could still get an extra check mark in his conviction column and fuck what anyone's confessions said or how credible his witnesses were, right? My public defender was good, but she wasn't fuckin' Superwoman. I got eighteen months and figured I was lucky.

"My family basically freaked out and disowned me. I couldn't get a job. I figured I needed a clean slate, so I took what I could scrounge up and came out here, but it was 2009 and I couldn't land even fuckin' Wal-Mart or McDonald's, and well..." she shrugged. "I like sex. I like sex a lot. I don't see anything wrong with what I do, really. When I was just operating on my own I could decide to turn guys down if something seemed wrong or if they grossed me out. It wasn't like I couldn't defend myself if one of 'em tried something violent. You learn things in prison, y'know?

"Last year, along came Rudy. I was tired of handling everything on my own. He was slick enough to go easy at first, but one thing led to another and as soon as I trusted him a little too much, bam. He's got all my papers, he's got Chester and he's probably smart enough to find me even if I did run on him. And he'd have to look, too, otherwise his other girls might run, too."

"But with him gone?" Travis asked.

"I don't think Giovanni or Adam are all that clever," she shrugged again. "Besides, once it gets obvious that Rudy isn't coming home, there'll be sharks circling around the guys soon enough. I want to get Illyana out if we can. The rest will know when to bail on their own. I just need to cut all the strings at once and then figure out how to start over again."

Travis stared down the street towards the house. "You worried about Chester?"

"Not really," Vanessa shook her head. "I mean yeah, but he's probably asleep. It's not like he knows what's goin' on around him." She tapped her forehead. "You go through the kind of crap I have, you learn to compartmentalize and prioritize, and not to borrow trouble."

"Wish I could do that. All I can think about right now is prison. Or worse."

"Yeah," she conceded with a somewhat shaky breath. "Yeah, there's that. I'm thinking about all that, too." The two fell silent for a moment and Vanessa ran her hands through her hair. "The waiting is making me crazy. I need to do something."

"Me, too," Travis agreed without really thinking about it.

"Get in the back seat," Vanessa said.

Travis blinked. "What?"

"Just get in the back seat. Trust me."

He considered several things that she might have in mind, but discarded all of them as unlikely. He didn't really know what she was planning. But he had trusted her this far, though, and at this point figured he had nothing to lose. Travis went along with her instructions.

Vanessa came around on the other side, and gestured for him to move in closer. "Sit in the middle," she said.

"What're you doing?" Travis asked, obeying without thinking about it.

"I'm calling it something life-affirming," she said, closing the door behind her before she crawled over Travis and planted a firm, hungry kiss on his mouth. She tasted faintly of strawberries. He hesitated, then kissed back, then realized he was getting carried away with himself. Or maybe she was. Maybe both.

"Vanessa," he grunted, loving the way she felt against him and wishing he could just go with it, "you don't have to do this."

"Yes and no." She kissed him again. Vanessa unzipped his hoodie, spreading it open to run her hands over his abs and chest. Her grin told him she liked what she felt. "I know nobody's forcing me. I know you don't expect anything. But we're both wound up and we've got the time."

Vanessa tugged him forward a bit and then straddled him, pinning him to the seat with her knees slipping down beside his hips. Her short skirt made it very easy to move. Travis glanced down to see how the folds of its fabric pushed up to reveal the black lace barely covering her sex, which pressed up against the hardening flesh between his legs. He was at once grateful and chagrinned to be wearing sweats tonight. When his eyes came back up to hers, she bit her lip in a naughty grin that told him she saw exactly where he was looking.

"You like that?" she breathed, grinding against him.

"Yeah," he whispered hoarsely, then swallowed and repeated, "yeah, I do." Travis slid a bit lower, pushing his legs up against the front seats to offer Vanessa more room and more support.

"Don't be nervous, Travis," she told him, stroking the side of his face. Her fingers turned to lightly brush her nails down his neck. Her hair dangled intimately across the side of his face. "I know it's your first time. Just relax and enjoy it, even if you don't last long. We're both all wound up. It's okay. You can touch me. Don't be shy."

She drew him into another kiss. He became more cooperative, enjoying the feeling of her tongue against his and the invitation in her breath. Travis had never gotten beyond first base before. Vanessa left no ambiguity about how far she wanted to go, sweeping away so many of Travis's usual worries when it came to situations like this... not that he'd ever been in these circumstances.

His hands slid slowly up her legs, coming to a rest upon her hips, underneath her skirt. There wasn't much fabric at all to those panties. His fingers found the strings and small loops tying them together. His touch slipped out again, going over the skirt this time to slide along her sides. Vanessa let out soft little moans of appreciation at his touch. Her lips parted from his, but remained very close as she murmured, "You've got nice hands."

"You've got nice legs," he countered. "Nice everything."

"You haven't even seen nearly everything yet," she grinned. "But I'm happy to show you."

"This wasn't exactly how I expected my first time to be."

"I'd love to make it more comfortable for both of us," Vanessa apologized softly, "but this is what we've got."

"It's not just the car."

"I know," she nodded. "Things could go really badly tonight. I can't tell you..." she sniffed and shook her head, then forced herself to grin. "You don't want to go to jail or die a virgin, do you?"

"Hell, no," he answered. "Not when I could be with you."

Vanessa's smile widened. She shrugged off her top to reveal a thin lacy black bra. She couldn't get enough of the mesmerized expression on his face as she playfully leaned back, grinding her crotch into his once more while she gave him a view of the rest of her body. Her fingers came to the center of her bra, deftly releasing the clasp.

The offer in her eyes and her smile was too much to resist. Travis's hands slid up her flat belly to her chest, where they gently spread apart the cups of her bra to reveal her firm, small breasts. Her breath caught as his fingers brushed under them, then slowly crept up to encircle and softly pinch her erect nipples. Vanessa sighed in approval and worked her hips down harder onto him.

"You're beautiful," Travis told her.

"I feel like it with you."

He continued exploring her by touch. His hands roamed over her, stroking her chest, her collarbones and her neck. She writhed under his touch, moaning now and again and alternating between closing her eyes to enjoy herself and looking at him with a naughty invitation.

"I could let you do that all night," Vanessa purred, "if we had all night. But we don't." She bit the side of her lip again and looked down meaningfully at their most compelling area of contact.

His hands slipped low, down to her legs and then up under her skirt once more. She watched his face expectantly as he slipped the knots at her hips loose, then obligingly lifted her hips up to let him slide the panties free. He couldn't help but look down. Travis thrilled to the sight of her well-groomed landing strip.

"Your turn, baby," she urged him. Travis's thumbs hooked under his sweats, but then he paused and looked at her. She read his mind and shrugged. "Tubes are tied and I've always used condoms. I know I'm clean. If you're really a virgin...?"

Still rocky with adrenaline from their first meeting at the Quik Stop and facing uncertain fates, they silently agreed to a little indiscretion. Travis's sweats slipped away, putting an even broader smile on Vanessa's face as she watched the big reveal.

Wet lips slid against the length of Travis's cock in an intimate kiss. She purred again. "I like you more and more, Travis," she said.

She drew close to him once more, kissing his mouth as she continued to tease and taunt his dick. When his arms came around her waist, she said, "Don't rush it, baby. Savor it." Then she swayed her hips around until she was directly above his cock and slowly, relentlessly sank down on it, enveloping his flesh with hers. Their mouths parted and they shared the same breath as she took him inside her.

Sitting on his hips now, Vanessa remained still and held him close to revel in the full feeling within her. Travis couldn't believe how good she felt, and hardly wanted her to move at first, but then she gyrated her hips just a little to remind him that moving felt even better.

They kissed again, trembling with pleasure, and then Vanessa couldn't resist anymore. She rose and fell on his cock, impaling herself and grunting with desire as she did it again and again, gradually increasing the rhythm. Travis more than helped her along, pushing up into her needful sex with his own.

"So good," Vanessa shuddered. "Oh so good."

Travis silenced her with a kiss, which she accepted hungrily though it slowed their tempo. They devoured one another's lips and tongue until the pleasures at their center became to great to ignore anymore, and then gave themselves over to lustful fucking that eventually fell back into a sensuous grind and passionate kiss once more.

The cycle repeated again and again, building with pleasure each time. Finally, Vanessa let out a loud groan. She couldn't remember ever feeling so comfortable with anyone, or so turned on. Everyone she had been with in the last couple of years had been a customer, and everyone before that had turned out to be a disappointment. Travis was none of that. He brought down every wall without even trying. "Oh God you're gonna make me come," she said, partly in surprise and partly in joy.