” “Pleaaaasssseeee.”“God fucking dammit, can we begin beating her yet al?!” I heard some mumbling and some arguing but he had moved a...ay from the door. They seemed on the fence about whether or not to beat me, but something was stopping them. I heard a cell phone go off in the middle of the argument. The call didn’t last long but I heard a click on the door. And it slowly opened. Jeff wheeled a table in with straps on it. “Bend over.” I did as he asked and bent over the table and. It.Matt continued, telling me about how he was frightened of this city, just like I was, when his family moved here."I was thirteen, just about to start the ninth grade," he said. "My dad got transferred, and we left a small town in Iowa to come here. Can you imagine? The tallest buildings I had ever seen in my life were grain silos, and now we were living amongst these concrete and steel giants."I smiled, picturing Matt as a gawky teenager, his brown eyes staring up at the city's. Ericka answer it. "Hello!" she greets the guest."Hiiii." says Maria. She's wearing a white dress with a small pink sweater, off one shoulder, and not zipped. The dress has a cute purple flower pattern, and is a comfortable fit that comes down to just above her knees."Oh my goodness, don't you look so gorgeous!" says Ericka, reaching her arms around Maria and giving her a big, welcoming, warm hug."Y-you must be Michael's mom." Maria says, slightly embarrassed."You can call me Ericka, Sweetie.. When I was done, I filed my long fingernails into feminine shapes. Without polish, they would not attract undue attention.I killed a few hours in the casino, playing quarter slots until most of the other players had scooped their remaining coins into their slot buckets and drifted away. Finally, at three o'clock in the morning, I went outside and loitered on the small rectangle of lawn between the port cochere and the sidewalk. When I was certain that there was nobody nearby, I dropped to my.