‘No problem,’ Adriana replied, a thin porcelain smile on her lips, her tense hands keeping the bundle of toilet paper behind her as she closed the door.
One hurdle had been cleared, for it seemed that Roxana had not noticed what Adriana had had in her hand. There remained, however, the problem of getting out of the room without the teenager noticing. Panic began to strike her mind with its flurry of wing-chun fists. Thinking rapidly, she stared down at the bathroom door handle. If she yanked at it hard enough, she could break it and possibly lock Roxana in there. Or could she? Would that even work? Perhaps she could offer to give the girl a massage and do it so well that it would put her to sleep.
She unwrapped the toilet paper, took the watch and key in her hands and glanced at the numbers on the watch face. There were only twenty-seven minutes remaining.
Could she convince Roxana somehow to take a long bath? No, the teen wouldn’t fall for that, and she didn’t even like taking baths anyway. She was a fan of showers, but it was highly unlikely that Adriana could convince her to take a half hour shower. No, there had to be some way, some—
‘Storm! We’re coming in!’
Tippawan’s harsh voice jolted its menace through her ramble of panicked thoughts.
Oh no! What does he want? I’m not scheduled to dance until much later this evening!
With panic throbbing its jungle drumming through her temples and ears, Adriana stepped away from the door to allow Tippawan to enter. Not content with this gesture, he shoved her aside as he barged his way in, followed by Mr Wang. The bodyguard’s presence could only mean one thing.
‘Where the fuck is the child?’ Tippawan spat, bristling already with impatient rage. ‘Mr Ma wants to use her, and he wants to use her right fucking now!’
‘Sh-, she’s in the bathroom,’ Adriana stammered, wilting in the face of Tippawan’s naked aggression, and the silent yet potent ferocity that was simmering in Mr Wang’s eyes.
It was then that an icicle of sheer panic stabbed its freezing paralysis through her core – Adriana realised that in her open hand, in front of Tippawan and Mr Wang, she was holding the watch and the key. Her heart almost stopped, and her eyes bulged in their sockets.
‘Well get her out of the bathroom then, you stupid cow!’ Tippawan snapped, cocking his arm for a backhand blow.
He hasn’t seen the watch and key. He hasn’t noticed.
Adriana nodded and slowly retracted her arm behind her back, locking a defiant stare into Tippawan’s eyes as she did; she had to distract his eyes from the movement of her hands. He met her gaze with a look of furious anger and lunged forward to grip her face with rage-trembling fingers.
‘What the fuck are you doing?! Don’t you dare look me in the eye, you cockroach!’ he spat. ‘You’re asking for a slap, you bitch! Don’t you fucking dare look me in the eye, ever!’
Adriana breathed out a sigh of relief, despite the immediate trauma of having Tippawan threatening her and screaming in her face. Her diversion had worked; he hadn’t noticed the watch.
‘Just a minute,’ Mr Wang said in a calm but chilling tone as he stepped closer to her, staring intently into her eyes with an accusatory gaze. ‘What’s going on here? You had something in your hand.’
Oh no. Oh no…
Liquid ice coursed through her veins, while her face was flushed with the hot, incriminating blush of discovered deception.
‘I, um, I—’
‘What the fuck are you doing?!’ Tippawan roared, grabbing her wrists and ripping her arms out from behind her back.
Adriana’s hands were empty.
‘Are you trying to fuck with me?’ he snarled. ‘Is that what you’re trying to do?! I’ll make you regret the day you crawled out of your mother’s disease-ridden cunt, you shit-licking little cocksucker!’
Shaking uncontrollably, as tears burned their salt-sting in her eyes, Adriana revealed her other hand to Tippawan. It too was empty.
‘Why you—’
‘I’m sorry I kept you waiting, master,’ a gentle and almost barely audible voice announced.
Roxana stepped out of the bathroom and stood in her flimsy shift before Mr Wang and Tippawan, keeping her eyes downcast and twisting her toes on the tiled floor with childlike innocence. Another interruption then came in the form of a voice – inaudible, speaking only in a guttural grunting and rasping – crackling in Mr Wang’s earpiece. He replied briskly in Mandarin, and then stepped forward to grab Roxana by one of her stick-thin arms.
‘Mr Ma is upset,’ he said in a low, urgent tone of voice. ‘Hurry up whore, come with me. And Tippawan, you’re needed upstairs to deal with some clients right away. Discipline this animal later.’
‘Goodbye Adriana,’ Roxana murmured as Mr Wang pulled her out of the room.
Tippawan released Adriana’s face from his grasp, but he followed this action up with a vicious slap that left her cheek stinging with a sharply burning pain.
‘I’m coming right back, Storm,’ he hissed. ‘Whatever the fuck is going on here, I’m going to find out what it is. You’re fucked, you idioticslut. You’re truly fucked when I get back here, I promise you that.’ He grunted and shoved her forcefully onto the bed, and then spat onto the floor and pointed a rage-quivering finger at her. ‘You’re dead Storm, dead. Mark my fucking words: dead.’
He spun on his heels and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Adriana exhaled a sigh of temporary relief as she heard the key turn in the lock from the outside. She unclenched her buttocks – between which she had sandwiched the key and the watch – and the package of tissue paper came free. A swathe of guilt scythed through her; here she was, feeling relief at not having been caught with the watch and key, yet what had saved her from this was Roxana, who was
