Garden of Dreams by Melissa Siebert Read Free Book Online Page A

your interrogations to yourself.
Jaldi!
’
    The first floor was right over a machine and tool shop at street level, noisier than the floor above. Eli could hear the buzz of a saw, someone testing one for a customer most likely. Normal people doing normal things, just under his footsteps. He thought of banging on the floor and crying out, calling attention to himself, possibly being rescued. But if they didn’t hear him, Anand certainly would. So he kept following Anand down the corridor, a long row of rooms with doors closed or slightly ajar.
    Anand stopped suddenly and shoved open a lime-green door, banging it against the inside wall. It was a small room, bubblegum pink, mostly covered in torn-out magazine pages, photos of naked or barely dressed girls, women in all sorts of nasty poses, with every now and then a smiling or frowning Hindu god staring back at him. A three-quarter bed, unmade, was squished into one corner, and a dressing table and mirror into another. A skinny girl with curly black hair, in only her sapphire blue lace panties, sat at the dressing table, fiddling with her make-up. Eli stared at her pointy breasts in the mirror.
    ‘This is Lola,’ Anand said. ‘Not so much to look at, but see what you can do with her.’ He leaned against the doorway with his cigarette, to observe.
    The girl, covering her breasts with her arms, was about to speak, but Anand intercepted her. ‘Auntie-ji wants some photos of you girls. Stand the fuck up and take your arms off your boobies …’
    A whack to the head from Anand sent Eli flying forward, nearly tripping. ‘And you,
chutiya
, start shooting!’
    Eli looked at Anand with hatred, but then turned to the girl. She was standing now, still covering her breasts, hugging herself tightly. Anand was right, she wasn’t much to look at, a bit bony in fact, pale, and so much make-up on her face that he couldn’t really see it. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, like a heron in a swamp, and said something in Hindi to Anand.
    ‘Never mind,
chut
, who he is, just do what I say – drop the arms!’
    It was best to work fast, get this over with. Eli wished he had a bigger camera, to hide behind, not this small, flat one that nearly fit in the palm of his hand. But he held up the PowerShot and began clicking. Then moving around to get different angles.
    ‘Raise your head,’ he said to Lola, who had dropped her arms now. ‘Please —’
    ‘Oh, for fuckin’ heaven’s sake, Lola, you corpse,’ Anand said. ‘Move! Shake your arse, your feet, stick out your tongue, even!’
    Anand, by way of demonstration, was sticking out his tongue and gyrating like Mick Jagger.
    Lola didn’t imitate him, but tentatively struck a more seductive pose, hips angled, left foot forward, hands on her hips.
    ‘Is that enough?’ Eli asked, looking at Anand, and then to the girl.
    Anand wobbled his head, yes. ‘Come, yaar, this one’s finished.’
    Eli smiled meekly at Lola, who had quickly turned her back on them and gone to the bed to sort out some clothes. He could see her shoulder blades and ribs from behind.
    The next room was similar to Lola’s – orange, though, with the same plastering of trashy girlie-magazine photos. Here, a curvy, slightly plump girl with hennaed hair and tiered gold earrings, wearing a black bra and a pair of shiny silver trousers, reclined on the bed, reading a Bollywood magazine.
    ‘Danita’s a hot number!’ said Anand, and the girl looked up and smiled. ‘Most popular girl in the kotha this year!’
    Eli looked for a sign to tell how old she was; she was certainly stacked, so maybe older, who knew. She also had on too much make-up, with blackened eyes and red lips like a gash in her face. Were any of these girls actually pretty? Maybe the jerks who came here never looked at their faces.
    ‘Dance for us, Danita!’ Anand clapped his hands and smooched the air. ‘Give us some hoochie-coochie for the photo shoot!’
    ‘Does she even know why