The Border: Part One (4 page)

***

“Screw you,” Katie hissed, before cutting the call and shoving her phone into her pocket. Sighing, she took a moment to compose herself, before making her way across the parking lot and peering at the intercom next to the door.

She took a deep breath.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself, before looking up at the side of the office building. There was a camera above, which she assumed was watching her every move.

Another deep breath.

Finally, she hit a button on the intercom.

“Hello?” she said, trying to sound confident and self-assured.

She waited, and a moment later she had to step back as a barrage of distorted, static-filled noise hissed out of the intercom’s speaker. A few seconds later, the noise stopped.

“Um…” She leaned closer and hit the button again. “Hi. I don’t know if you can hear me, but my name is Katie Hopkins. I’m here for the interview.” She paused. “Um… About the modeling gig? We spoke by email.”

Letting go of the button, she waited again.

Suddenly there was another blast of noise, so loud this time that she almost put her fingers in her ears. Taking another step back, she glanced over her shoulder, looking across the dark street, and considered just turning and going home. Sure, she needed the money, but if -

Hearing a buzzing sound, she looked toward the door. She reached out and pulled the handle, and sure enough the whole thing swung open, and a moment later the buzzing sound stopped.

“You want me to come inside?” she asked, looking at the intercom. She waited for a reply, before glancing up at the camera again. She’d spent all day hoping that Mel would come through and get her a job at the bar, so that she wouldn’t have to resort to
this
, but now she had no other choice. Fighting the urge to turn and run, she slipped into the cold, over-lit lobby and let the door swung shut behind her.

She waited.

Silence.

“Hello?” she called out.

No reply.

Stepping forward, she reached the bottom of a small set of steps and made her way up to a small waiting room with two elevators on one side and a couple of old leather sofas on the other. She wandered over to a small table between the sofas and picked up a magazine from the pile. Flicking through the pages for a moment, she realized it was a film magazine from a decade earlier. Looking around, she tried to calm the growing sense of unease in the pit of her stomach, but she was starting to think that maybe Stacy had been right when, earlier in the evening, she’d suggested that the whole “interview” was actually some kind of set-up.

A moment later, she heard a door opening and then closing in the distance, and then footsteps approaching along a nearby corridor. She dropped the magazine and turned, just in time to see a middle-aged man step into view with a clipboard in his hands.

“Are you Kelly?” he asked.

“Katie.”

“Sorry, Katie.” He looked down at the clipboard for a moment, before glancing back at her. “Yeah, Katie. You’re here about the modeling job?”

She nodded.

“Cool. My office is this way.”

Turning, he began to head back the way he’d come.

“Well…” Pausing, Katie finally realized she had to make a decision. She glanced at the door, before starting to hurry after the guy, figuring that she could always turn back at a later point. He was walking fast and didn’t seem to have glanced back to check she was following, so she simply kept pace with him until he reached an open door and stepped into a small, nondescript office that contained only a desk, a camera on a tripod, and a battered-looking wooden chair, along with a plastic palm tree in a pot in the corner. It looked like the kind of office someone had set up at short notice.

“Take a seat, uh… Katie,” the guy said, pointing at the chair as he made his way behind his desk and set his clipboard down. “And shut the door, yeah?”

Doing as she was told, she set her bag next to the chair before sitting.

“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” the guy asked, sitting behind his desk and not even looking at her as he rifled through some papers.

She shook her head.

Finally, he glanced at her.

“I mean… No,” she said, trying to smile even though nerves were eating at her belly. “No trouble.”

“Sorry about the buzzer on the door,” he continued, sounding a little bored as he looked back down at the papers. “Damn thing’s needed fixing for months.”

She forced another smile, but she was already feeling extremely uncomfortable. Sitting with her knees together and her hands in her lap, she watched as the guy jotted something down on a piece of paper, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was busy with something else and could barely even find the time to see her.

“You got some ID there?” he asked finally.

“Oh, yeah…” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her driving license and placed it on the desk for him.

“Yep.” He glanced at the license for a moment, before looking down at his papers. “So you’re twenty-two, huh?”

“Um, yes.”

“That’s cool. And, uh, how long have you wanted to get into this line of work, Katie?”

“Just… I heard about it, and the money sounded good.”

“That’s what I like,” he replied. “Honesty.”

“Everyone needs money,” she admitted.

“And you know it’s modeling?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know…” He paused, before looking at her again. “You understand what that usually means in this context, don’t you? There’s the type of modeling you get into by going to meet someone at a big fashion house, and there’s the kind of modeling you get into by answering an online ad and meeting a guy late at night in an office like this.”

She paused. “I… Yeah. I guess.”

“Huh.” He stared at her for a moment. “You’re not flaky, are you?”

“Flaky?”

“Indecisive. Unreliable.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Definitely not.”

“That’s good. ‘Cause the one thing I hate is people who are flaky. If you’re gonna do something, do it. If not, don’t. Just make a goddamn decision, that’s all I ask. I hate having my time wasted.” He continued to stare at her. “Can you stand up for me, Katie?”

She opened her mouth to reply, before simply getting to her feet.

“Turn around.”

She did as she was told.

“How tall are you?” he asked.

“Five foot six.”

“That’s what I thought.” He made a note. “Weight?”

“Um… About a hundred and thirty pounds.”

“Yep.” Another note. “Glad to see you’re not a stick insect.”

“I can lose some if you want.”

“No. God, no.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

“Good,” he replied, making yet another note before looking at her again. “Take your clothes off.”

“I… How far?”

“All the way.”

“All the way?”

“All the way.” He looked down at his papers again and made a few more notes, before glancing at her. “Yay or nay?”

She paused, before nodding and starting to unbutton her shirt. Her fingers were trembling and, with each button, she considered stopping and leaving, but she kept reminding herself how good it would feel if she could actually start making even half the money promised by the advert. Finally, she slipped out of her shirt and dropped it onto the floor, before pausing and then starting to unfasten her jeans.

“Camera’s on, yeah?” the guy said after a moment, still making notes on his paperwork. “Sorry, I was supposed to mention that at the start. You’re okay with that, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” She stepped out of her jeans.

“Best that way for everyone,” he continued. “I always think it’s good to keep a record of what goes on, especially in a sensitive situation.” He glanced at her again. “Everything off, please.”

She swallowed hard, before unhooking her bra and dropping it to the floor. Reaching down, she took hold of her panties and tried to stay calm. There was still a part of her that wanted to turn and run, but she just kept thinking about the money. Finally, slowly, and with a growing sense of nausea, she slipped the last of her underwear down. Feeling slightly short of breath, she stood and waited for the man to look at her again.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, he leaned back in his chair and stared at her, before frowning.

“Socks?”

“What?” She looked down and saw that she was still wearing her socks. “Oh.” Getting out of them quickly, she forced herself to keep her arms at her side as she waited for the man to do or say something.

“Cool,” he muttered finally. “I think we can work with you, Katie. The advert mentioned the money, so I assume you’re happy with that amount?”

She nodded.

“It’s not that far from midnight,” he continued. “Have you got anything planned between now and six in the morning?”

“Between…” She paused. “Um, no. But… I mean…” She glanced at the door on the far wall. “I don’t really… I mean, I read the ad, but I’m still not sure…”

“You seem like a smart girl.”

“I guess. I mean, I hope so.”

“The kind of girl who can pick something up as she goes along?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll show you,” he muttered, getting to his feet and heading over to the far door. After fumbling with the key for a moment, he got the door unlocked and pulled it open to reveal a set of stairs leading down to the basement, with a flickering red and orange light dancing across the stairwell’s otherwise dark wall. There was music, too, a kind of repetitive, thumping rhythm reaching up from below.

“What’s that?” Katie asked anxiously.

“That’s where you’ll be working,” he replied, still holding the door open. “There’s not really any point, uh, talking about it too much. You’ll be safe and you’ll finish at six on the dot, and if you do well there’ll be regular paying gigs for you. Obviously the ad had to be a little vague, so it’s not so much modeling as…” He paused for a moment, as if he was struggling to work out how to phrase the next part, before letting the door swing shut and heading back over to his desk. “Are you a discrete and smart girl, Katie?”

“I… Yeah.”

“Can you handle yourself?”

“I… Yes, I think so.”

“Are you capable of entering a new situation, without having it explained to you, and working out the right thing to do?”

She nodded.

“And do you want to get ahead in this world? Do you want to make enough money that you don’t have to scrabble about in the dirt like so many other people?”

She nodded again.

“You don’t want to still be in this dusty little town in five years’ time, do you? Desperately trying to find another meaningless job?”

She shook her head.

Picking up one of the pieces of paper from his desk, he slid it toward her.

“This is a good gig. It’s very well paid, and it has a future, at least in the medium-term. Most people work here for a couple of years at most, and do you know what they do after that?”

She shook her head.

“They take the money they’ve earned, which is a substantial amount, and they get the hell out of this shitty little town. They go far, far away, so far that they barely even remember where they came from. All it takes is a little emotional maturity, and the ability to…” He paused again. “The ability to put your head down, do what’s necessary, and then get the hell with your life. Can you do that, Katie? Can you sacrifice something today, in order to secure a better tomorrow?”

She nodded.

“Then you’ll need to sign a confidentiality agreement,” he added, taking a pen and holding it out for her. “This part’s really important, Katie. My clients value discretion above all else.”

Stepping forward, she looked down at the piece of paper and saw that it was a contract. “What’s…” She read the first few lines. “What’s The Border?”

“It’s the name of the place down there.”

“So it’s like… a club?”

“Sure. It’s like a club.”

“And I… I mean…”

“I can’t tell you what to expect,” he replied. “I can’t walk you through it, Katie. That’s why I need to know you can roll with the punches. Well, not punches, there are strictly no punches, but you get the idea. I need people who can take the initiative and make quick decisions when they’re put on the spot. Does that sound like you?”

She paused, staring at the pen.

“It’s a grand a night,” he reminded her, “cash in hand, and that doesn’t include tips.”

“I’ll get tips?”

“Good-looking girl like you? Definitely.”

Slowly, with a trembling hand, she took the pen.

“You’re making the right choice,” the man told her, watching as she signed the contract. “My name’s Simon, by the way. Sorry, I don’t think I introduced myself properly when we met.”

“Hi Simon,” she said, trying to stay calm as she set the pen down. “So do I…” Turning, she looked down at her clothes, which were still in a pile on the floor.