Page 14 of Creeping Beautiful

“Fuck!” Another gorilla attacks, his face right up against the bars where I’m sitting, his arms reaching in to grab at my shirt. He yanks it tight until the fabric is almost choking me around my neck.

Then he opens his mouth, baring long, inhuman canines, and vocalizes some mixture of a scream and a roar.

Gerald leans an outstretched arm past me and an airhorn blares in my ears.

The gorilla drops off, temporarily stunned, my ears ringing as Philip drives forward with some speed.

I glance over my shoulder, expecting them to trail after us and attack again, but they turn back to the girl in the cage.

“Fuck!” I say again.

“It’s all very exciting, isn’t it?”

“I guess.” Then I take one last look over my shoulder as I adjust my shirt, pulling it away from my neck. “Why do you do this? What’s the point? I mean, can’t you just sell them on a stage somewhere?”

Gerald huffs. “Like a racehorse? Like something ordinary? These girls are not ordinary, Adam. We are not ordinary. We want everyone to know what they’re getting when they come to a sale like this.”

“Animals?”

“Some of them. But these girls deserve this much drama. They are worth it.”

“I’m not sure the one who just lost a chunk of her hair would agree with you.”

“She will look back on this night with awe. One day her life will be predictable and boring and she will remember the night she was chosen and paid for. She will remember the way her heart beat fast. She will remember the pain of getting her hair ripped out by a massive, full-grown silverback gorilla. She will remember her fear and she will long for it.”

I find that hard to believe, but I don’t say so.

“Really, it just makes the men feel good.”

Which is just… sick. But I’ve said enough tonight. My disapproval has been communicated and logged. No need to make a scene. My position in the Company is high and absolute, but only to a point.

If they ever figured out how that whole Santa Barbara incident came to be… well. I would no longer have this position and influence and that kind of defeats the point, doesn’t it?

So I shut up about the girls.

“They see one.” Gerald is still on topic though. “Connect with her. Feel sorry for her. Want to alleviate her fear and save her. It’s a special moment for both parties.”

I look through the bars of the truck and bite my tongue.

We drive through the next lock, then cross a bridge and enter a swamp. The first cage holds a girl—younger than the other two, and perched precariously at the top of the cage. Her bare feet are planted on two shallow ledges on either side of the cage walls so that her legs are spread open.

When I look down I see why.

Gators. Lots of them. And a slot in the bottom of her cage that allows some—the smaller ones—to slither inside the cage with her.

This girl is not screaming. She’s panting. Mad, ragged, breaths that come very near to being hyperventilation.

Philip shines a spotlight on her cage to give me a better look. There are at least five gators inside the cage with her. Some of them are leaping up with snapping jaws.

The girl’s legs are spread so wide because her feet need to prop her up on each of the small ledges. And for a moment I wonder just how long she can last up there. What would happen if she fell? Would someone come get her? Would some hidden attendant jump out and fight off the gators?

Maybe. But honestly, I just don’t think it works that way.

Her face is bright red and sweaty, her white dress dirty.

She glances at us. But just quickly, just for a moment. And then her eyes go back to the gators.

“This is Maria. Twelve years old. Very pretty, very sweet girl. She’s a pleaser. Just look how she concentrates on her situation. So focused. So intent on staying alive. You’d really like her, I think.”