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The walkways on either side of the canal were choked with people. I had expected to find almost exclusively men along the strip, but that wasn't the case. Sure, there were a lot of men everywhere, many of them staring with hungry eyes into the windows where naked or half-naked women stood on display. But there were also families and groups of women meandering along, chatting and pointing and sometimes laughing.
It looked like a popular tourist destination in any European city. The fact that legal prostitution was happening in most of the buildings didn't seem to faze the tourists. Then again, I figured my Puritan upbringing had a lot to do with my viewing sex as something that should never be talked about, no matter how integral to human nature it is. Maybe these tourists took a more enlightened view of sex than the people I'd grown up with back in small-town America.
I looked up at the old church and marveled at the proximity of the ancient, holy building to the sex workers just across the way. Trying to calm the butterflies in my stomach, I urged myself forward, going farther into Amsterdam's red-light district for the first time in my life. Along the strip, red and blue lights shined above windows. The red lights outnumbered the blue ones four to one.
I knew from my research that the blue lights signified trans sex workers. The infamous red lights indicated that the sex workers underneath were females. Since it was illegal for prostitutes to be on the street, most of the buildings in the district had tall windows along the ground floor with curtains on the inside. The night was in full swing. It was nearly 10 o'clock, so almost all the curtains were open, giving passersby a glimpse of goods for sale.
Swallowing heavily, I stuck a hand into my front pants pocket and felt the thin stack of euros there. There was 150 euros, but I was hoping not to spend it all. I'd heard that the rate for 20 minutes of intercourse was anywhere between 50 and 100 euros, but that peak times, like weekend nights, were accompanied by peak prices.
And some prostitutes were known to charge much more than the normal rate if they thought their client was drunk or stoned, as many of them were. I had ducked into a pub on my way over from the hotel, downing two pints quickly to give myself some courage. I was determined to go through with this. I had been fantasizing about it for a long time, ever since my boss announced we'd be having a work conference in Amsterdam.
Unlike many of my friends, I'd only been intimate with one woman, my wife. We'd been married for 15 years, and I couldn't help but wonder what I was missing out on. I told myself that buying a prostitute was a way to get it out of my system. After all, wasn't it better than possibly having an affair with some woman? This was transactional sex. There was no emotion to it. That was better than cheating emotionally, wasn't it? I thought so.
Or at least, I told myself I did. A woman in her late 30s with fishnet stockings beckoned to me from her window, but I didn't like the look of her face. I turned away, hoping I hadn't hurt her feelings, and glanced into the next window. The woman was younger, with blonde hair and thin legs. I wanted a girl with a little more meat on their bones. I continued on like this for what seemed like a long time.
finding something wrong with each woman I saw. Many of them pointed to me, telling me to come over, but they did that to nearly every man who walked by, and even some of the women. I crossed the canal and started walking along the other side, looking into windows at women I hadn't yet seen. Again, I found something wrong with each of them. Some reason I didn't want to go through with it. Strangely, thoughts of my wife were absent.
As I came upon a window with a closed curtain, a young brunette woman appeared, pushing the curtain aside. Her dark hair fell in tousled waves down her shoulders and onto the slope of her breasts, which were ample and pushed up with a leather corset. She wore a thong, black high heels, understated makeup, and a knowing smirk. I stopped, staring into her large green eyes. She stepped up to the window and turned a knob, opening it.
"You want sex?" she asked with a heavy Dutch accent. I found myself nodding, overwhelmed by her beauty. She pointed down the sidewalk to a door in the middle of the building. "Upstairs, room 11. I will meet you there. It's 100 euros for 20 minutes." "Ah," I stammered, "and that includes everything?" She shook her head and opened her mouth.
But then a pained look came across her face and she brought a hand to her stomach. I thought for a moment she was going to be sick, but she gathered herself and said, Not everything. Just sacks. No anal. You want it or not? Yes. Okay. Go. Room 11. Have the money ready. She shut the window and closed the curtain again.
I had seen that many of the windows led directly to a small room with a narrow bed, a sink, and a couple of hooks for hanging clothes. But this one was different. I hadn't expected to go upstairs to a room, but the woman's beauty overcame any trepidation, and I opened the door she'd indicated. Inside, at the bottom of a narrow stairwell, stood a long-haired, broad-shouldered man. He looked me up and down but said nothing.
I figured he was security in case any of the women got into trouble. I trudged up the stairs and found room 11. As I approached, the door opened. Since I was expecting the young woman, I was surprised to see a bald man step out, tucking his shirt into his pants. His appearance gave me a further start. Even in the dark hallway, I could see that he looked odd. His eyes were too far apart and a little lopsided.
His head came to an odd point at the top, and his nostrils seemed to point in opposite directions. As we passed in the hallway, I saw his left ear twitch, like a horse's. Pausing in the hall, I turned to watch him go, and I could have sworn that by the time he reached the top of the staircase, the strange point to his head had flattened out a little. Perhaps feeling my eyes on him, he stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. His face was different now.
The eyes were closer together and no longer lopsided. His nostrils faced downward, but I barely had a moment to process this before he smiled at me. Instead of the off-white of teeth, his smile revealed a glistening blackness. Then, what looked like a spindly insect leg protruded from his mouth and gripped his upper lip, as if he had a bug in his mouth that was trying to get out.
Another leg did something similar at his bottom lip, and a third at the left corner of his mouth. I felt a sudden urge to run far away from this man. Something grabbed me, and I jumped, turning to see the young woman standing in the hallway next to room 11. "Money," she said, holding a handout. She pressed her other hand to her stomach. I turned back the other way, seeing only the back of the man's bald head as he made his way down the stairs. "Who's that?" I asked.
"Did you? Do you want sex or not, American?" the woman said. "I'm clean. Everyone uses condom." I continued looking after the man, even though he was surely out on the street by now. The young woman suddenly grabbed my right hand and pressed it to her breast, pulling my attention back to her. "Come on," she said in a low, soft tone. "Let's go inside." The feel of her warm and soft skin got me back on course, and we went into the room together.
I gave her the 100 euros and two minutes later, I was completely naked on a narrow bed in the closet-sized room. The young woman put a condom on me and shortly after that, she was on top of me, grinding her hips, her bare breasts swinging in my face. As I climaxed, I felt a sharp pain that started in my crotch and then spread quickly through my body, but it was short-lived and the endorphins released in my body served to mask it.
As I looked up into the young woman's face, I saw fear there. She quickly got off of me and stepped over to the small sink with the mirror above it, pressing a hand to her stomach. "What?" I asked. "What's wrong?" "Nothing," she said. "You are finished, yes? Please leave." As I got up from the bed and removed the condom, I noticed there was a large gash in it. Fluid leaked out onto the floor before I got into a trash can.
"Uhhh," I said, thinking I should tell her. "Please go," she said, raising her voice. "Go now." She sunk down to the floor, wrapping both hands around her stomach. "What did you do to me?" "Me?" I said. "Nothing. Iā¦ Just go." I pulled my clothes on and rushed out of the room, past the security guy at the bottom, and out into the red light district. As I made my way back to the hotel, I saw the bald man from room 11 coming out of another
This time, he didn't smile at me as we passed, but for some reason I didn't understand. I smiled at him. As I stepped into my dark hotel room 15 minutes later, my wife called out from the bed, her voice sleepy. "How was your late dinner with the boss?" "It was good," I said. "Go back to sleep. I'm gonna take a shower and then join you," she said. I heard her turn over in the bed as I slipped into the bathroom.
In the shower, I could think of nothing but sex. I relived the experience with the gorgeous prostitute several times over as I washed the sex stench off of me. But the strange pain I'd felt at the end didn't seem real. By the time I stepped out of the shower, I had convinced myself I had imagined it. The same went for the odd interaction with the bald man. I'd been a little tipsy, and it had been dark in the hallway. I had imagined the whole thing.
but not the sex. I hadn't imagined that. I crawled into bed naked and woke my wife up. It took some convincing, but she finally gave in, and we made love before passing out. The sound of odd sirens penetrated my sleep. Screams echoed in my mind, and as I came to wakefulness, I felt sure the screams had been a part of some strange dream I couldn't quite remember. But the sirens were real, and it seemed there were tons of them from all over the city.
With the curtains shut, it was dark in the room, but the clock read 6:36 AM. I got out of bed and opened the curtains, looking down onto the city street as an ambulance streaked past below. I turned back around and looked at the lump of covers that obscured my wife. I had a sudden urge to have her again, which was uncommon for me.
It usually took a good 24 hours for me to be ready to go again, especially after going twice in such a short period. As I moved back to the bed, I saw the covers shift, making me think she was waking up. "Babe?" I asked. "You awake?" Just before I was about to slip back into bed, the covers moved again, only this time from a different spot. The movement seemed strange to me.
That's when I saw the thing. It was a black bug about the size of a large cockroach. It looked like a spider at a glance, but with more legs, double the eyes, and two nasty-looking heads. It scurried out from under the covers on my side of the bed, where I'd left them tossed aside. Then another one emerged. I took a step back, repulsed by the strange insects. Then I thought of my wife. "Babe?" I said. There was still no answer.
Outside, the sirens continued. Reaching forward, I grabbed the covers and whipped them off, revealing what remained of my wife. With a violent motion, hundreds of the insects scurried out of my wife's torn open abdomen. It looked like the things had been feeding on her. Her eyes were gone and her mouth was open in a silent scream, but her tongue had been chewed away. I screamed and backed away from the scurrying insects until my back hit the window. Then a terrible pain erupted in my crotch.
Instinctively, I reached down and grabbed my anatomy, but I pulled my hands away again when I felt how swollen and deformed it was. I screamed again. I did so because I felt them inside me, and I knew they were about to come ripping out. The combination of alcohol and weed swirling around in my head does much to calm my anxiety. I thought that finally getting out of my comfort zone would help me face my fears, but the opposite has happened.
I've been in Amsterdam for three days already, and my anxiety has gotten steadily worse. The only time I feel even close to normal is when I'm buzzed, but even then, when I inevitably sober up, I feel even worse. It certainly didn't help that I was robbed at knife point the first night I was here. It was probably my fault. I wandered from my Airbnb to a local pub off the beaten tourist path, and got good and drunk by myself.
I tried to chat up a couple of Dutch girls who only laughed at me and said they spoke no English. But later, as I left, I heard them speaking English to a couple of British guys who had approached them. Anyway, I guess someone saw how much I was stumbling as I left the pub because he followed me, only I didn't know I was being followed at the time. I only realized it later. On a narrow deserted street, the guy snuck up on me, shoved me to the ground, and pulled a knife out
I recognized him from the bar. He told me in English to give him my wallet. Before I had a chance to pull it out, my bladder released and I soaked my pants. But the guy didn't notice this. Not right away. He kept saying he would cut me open if I didn't give him my wallet. So when I finally pulled it out and gave it to him, it was soaked in pee. Disgusted, he ripped the euros out and threw the pee-soaked wallet into my face.
Too ashamed to go to the police. I simply made my way back to my Airbnb, stripped my wet clothes off, and passed out. I almost got on a plane back to the States the next day, but I could only imagine what my girlfriend, ex-girlfriend actually, would think when she heard I cut my trip short. It would prove her right. It would prove I was a chicken shit. So I stayed.
Now, with my head abuzz, I'm determined to go to the Red Light District to buy myself a prostitute. I'm not completely stupid. I only had a little cash in my wallet when the guy mugged me. I spent some money the next day on a pocket knife, even though it's illegal to carry a knife in some parts of Amsterdam. Now, as I walk down toward the Red Light District, I pat the knife in my pocket occasionally. My wallet is back at the Airbnb because it smells like pee.
but I've got some cash in my pocket, folded neatly next to the knife. Not that I really need the weapon right now. There are people everywhere. They're mostly tourists, judging by the way they peer at everything with curiosity and awe. I check out the goods, looking through the windows at the half-naked women until I find one I like. My choice has nothing to do with how much the prostitute looks like my ex. At least, that's what I tell myself.
Hmm.
When I was outside on the sidewalk and the sex worker was inside, I couldn't tell how tall she was because the floor of her little display room was below the sidewalk. I don't realize this until I see her. She's a good six inches taller than me, which I don't like at all. I'm a short, skinny guy, but there are plenty of women shorter than me. I don't like taller women. She steps over and shuts the door. Then she puts a hand out.
150 euros, she says, looking down into my face. 150? I say. No, sorry, I don't want to do this anymore. I reach for the door, but the woman puts her back to it, leaning against it. You have to pay for wasting my time. 100 euros. Wasting your time? I say, my bladder feeling suddenly full as the confrontation makes me uneasy. You pay me 100 euros, or I call security and say you hit me.
As she speaks, she points to a button on the wall next to the small bed. It has a Dutch word above it, but below it, in red letters, is the English word "emergency". Remembering the guy sitting by the front door, I reach into my pocket, deciding to give her the money just so I can get out of here without any trouble. But while I'm reaching for the money, my fingers brush against the pocket knife. I have a sudden flash of the two Dutch girls laughing at me in the bar.
followed by the disgusted look on the mugger's face as he threw my wet wallet at me. But the thing that changes my mind, the thing that makes me grip the knife instead of the money, is the memory of my girlfriend yelling at me, calling me a beta male cuck and a shitty lay. The resemblance is truly amazing. The prostitute could be my ex's sister. Suddenly forgetting about my twisted stomach and full bladder, I pull the knife out, letting loose some of the anger I've been carrying.
I flip the blade open and point it at the sex worker. "Let me out of here, you bitch!" The woman's eyes go wide as she looks down at the blade. Then a smile cracks across her face and she starts laughing. She's laughing at me. She's cackling because she thinks I won't use the knife. She thinks I'm too much of a pussy to stand up for myself. And she's right. I notice how badly my hand is shaking. Like I'm fucking vibrating.
The prostitute slaps my hand away and then grabs me by the neck with one hand while reaching into my pants pocket with the other. A wave of fury rises in me, and I jerk the knife toward her side. I feel the blade hit her skin, but I haven't put enough power behind the action, so only the tip pierces her flesh. She winces and steps away with my euros in one hand. She looks down at the tiny wound on her left side. A small dollop of blood wells up.
She turns her gaze to me and says something in Dutch I can't understand. Then she moves toward me, balling one hand into a fist. Her face, a mask of rage. I try to dodge the first punch, but I'm not fast enough. And she hits me in the jaw. The pain sends a brilliant white light into my head, and I swing out blindly with the knife.
I feel the blade drag across her skin, but when I see the damage I've done, I'm surprised to find it's only a shallow cut just under her collarbone and between the straps of her lacy bra. Seemingly unaware of the cut, she continues her attack, punching me again, this time in the side of the neck. As I dodge back in the tiny room, I see the emergency button. In a fraction of a second, I realize that this woman is confident she can beat me. That's the reason she hasn't gone for the button.
Me, a man with a knife, isn't enough to strike fear into this woman's heart. But it fucking should be. I can hear my knuckles crack as I grip the knife with furious intensity. The woman moves in, punching me in the nose. I take it, reaching up to grab her hair, and then I slam the knife into the side of her throat. This time, it goes halfway in.
but the woman doesn't seem to notice. She pummels me, hitting me in the face repeatedly, even as blood pours out from the wound. She hits me in the throat, and I suddenly can't breathe. With a clarity like nothing I've ever experienced before, I realize I might die. And the only thing I want to do before I leave the world is kill this woman. Fighting off the panic of not being able to breathe, I swing the blade at her face. It slices through her cheek, and I feel the metal scrape across her teeth.
Now, as I pull the blade out, she stops fighting. She has panic in her eyes. She turns toward the emergency button, but I still have hold of her hair, so I yank her back and stab her again in the side of the neck. Still, she fights to get to the button, so I stab her again, and again. She finally collapses to the floor, but she's still fighting, so I keep stabbing her. I look down at the woman, whose face is now a bloody mess.
Blood gurgles out of her mouth and runs down her cheek. One eye is a complete ruin, and the other stares blankly at the ceiling. I leave the knife sticking out of her upper chest. Realizing how tired I am, I lie down on the floor next to her, breathing heavily, killing his hard work. It suddenly occurs to me how funny this is. If I had gone through with the sex, we might be lying just like this, side by side on the bed, both of us breathing heavily for a very different reason.
Laughter escapes my throat at this thought. Even though it hurts to laugh, I can't help but continue, cackling like a madman and squeezing my eyes shut. I thought sex with a strange woman would make me feel more like a man. Turns out, all I needed to do was kill a woman to feel the sense of power I've been missing my whole life. I sense movement from next to me and open my eyes to see the woman, somehow still alive, kneeling next to me.
"No," I say, reaching my hands up to deflect the knife in her right hand, the knife that's coming directly toward my left eye. But I'm too slow. I arrive at the meeting place five minutes early. Eager and a little frightened, I've never known a woman like Evie before. And as I wait in the brick-lined alleyway on a damp Amsterdam night, I remember the feel of her skin against mine. I recall her smell.
and how her delicate veins appeared greenish-blue under her pale and unmarred skin, even in the red light that illuminated the small room. I smile as I remember how she said, "You're cold," in her Bulgarian accent. "I run cold," I said, making her giggle as I removed her bra. With other prostitutes, I'd always thought of those rooms as sex rooms,
But with Evie, over the four times I'd paid to be with her, I'd come to think of hers as the love room. After all, I do love her. I came to the conclusion as we sat in a sweaty tangle near the end of our first hour together. The other three times I visited her only solidified the notion. So when she told me, in breathy whispers, about how she had been forced into prostitution, I had to hide my smile.
Over the years, I've developed a sense for these things. So I had chosen her because of how she looked through the red-tinged window and what her barely clothed appearance had stirred inside me. But before that first hour was even over, I had a feeling that she would ask me to save her. It seemed like prostitutes were always asking me to save them. Maybe because I happily paid what they asked, even if it was high above market value. Maybe they could sense the size of my bank account
I've come to understand that some women have a nose for that kind of thing, similar to my nose for women like Evie as a mist falls. I hunch into my long black coat, turning up the collar and pulling my beanie a little tighter on my head. The streets flanking the alley are silent in this part of the old city. I'm far away from the tourist trade and the area is asleep. The industrial businesses and warehouses on either side are absent of any life and movement.
I feel a certain connection to them. It has been a long time since I felt any sustained life within myself. That's why I spend so much of my time in brothels, chasing that feeling, that warmth. As I glance around, waiting for Evie to show up, I notice the heavy metal doors on either side of me. A smarter man might realize that this is a great place for an ambush.
The low hum of a car engine comes to my ears moments before the vehicle turns into the alley, headlights making me squint. I stand expectantly, one hand up to shield my eyes as the low European car comes to a slow stop six feet away. I can't see the interior because of the light. "Evi?" I ask, putting a fearful crack in my voice. The driver's side door opens, and a large man steps out.
One of the metal warehouse doors opens behind me, and I hear the quick scuffs of boots on grit. I say nothing as the men come up to me, one in front and two behind. I simply let my face go blank, no longer playing the part of the forlorn lover. It doesn't matter now anyway. I'm surprised to see that the driver has a pistol. It's one reason I prefer to operate in Europe. In America, everyone has guns, and they all think they're John Wick.
What? The money.
"What money?" I say, and I suppress a smile as a curtain of confusion falls across the driver's face. "The money Evie told you to bring for getting her out of country, back to America. Evie?" I say. Now I'm just enjoying myself. The driver turns back toward the car, glancing at some unseen figure inside. A moment later, Evie gets out. She looks different in clothes, although no less beautiful.
"Don't fuck with us," she says to me. "You said you would bring the money. You promised." I shrug. "You said you loved me. You promised." The driver curses, in Bulgarian, and rushes toward me, swinging the pistol. I feel a crunch as his powerful blow lands on my temple. The brick-alley floor rushes up to meet me. I don't lose consciousness, but they don't know that. They work fast, with the efficient movements of men who've done this before.
They search my pockets first, talking in Bulgarian to each other when they find little of value. Then they zip-tie my wrists behind my back, bind my ankles, and then heave me into the trunk of the car. 30 minutes later, they're pulling me out of the trunk and carrying me into a barn in the countryside outside Amsterdam. I open my eyes and struggle feebly just before they dump me in the middle of the floor. There are three cameras set up on tripods around the space. The wood plank floor is covered in straw.
Nearby, sharp looking tools hang on a pegboard wall. One of my captors turns on a bright overhead light. Everyone is here. Evie, the driver, and the two helpers, who look like they might be related to the driver. Hell, maybe they're all related. One big happy family. You're going to tell us the number for your bank card. Whether you tell us now or after we've chopped off some of your toes depends only on you. I gulp loudly.
The driver says, not bothering to hide his smile. "Yes, I've picked well with Evie. Like I said,
I've developed a sense for women like her. A pleasant pressure comes from my canines as they grow in anticipation. "How about this?" I say, yanking my legs and arms apart, snapping the zip ties. All four of them stare at me in shock as I get to my feet. "How about I kill you all and drink your blood?" The driver moves first, reaching into his coat pocket for the gun.
I move quickly, grabbing the gun out of his hand and snapping his wrist in the process. Then I press the barrel into his stomach and pull the trigger. The two other men are coming for me. I spin around and move to meet the nearest one, jamming the barrel into the guy's mouth, busting his lips and shattering all his front teeth. But I don't fire the gun. I don't want to kill him. Not yet. As he stumbles away, I toss the gun aside and move to meet the third man, who has grabbed a machete from the wall.
He swings it at me as I kick him in the chest. He goes flying back, smashing through the old wood of an animal stall. But he managed to slice my leg open as I kicked him. "Damn it!" I say, looking down at the wound. "That hurts!" A gunshot rings out, and I feel a hammer blow to my back. I stumble forward, then straighten and turn around to see Evie holding the gun I threw down. She's shaking, her eyes going from defiant to scared as I fix my gaze on her face.
"That fucking hurts." I say calmly, stepping toward her. She fires again, putting another hole in my chest. I won't let her fire a third time. I dart forward and slap the gun out of her grip. I use my other hand to rip her throat open.
I get my face up to the wound, wrapping her in a loving embrace as the blood pulses out. It splatters my face before I can get my mouth to it, but when I do, I feel the warmth flowing through me, healing my wounds and temporarily satiating the hunger I've lived with for nearly 300 years. Before I'm done drinking my fill, the man whose teeth I knocked out gets up and comes at me. I whip one hand out without taking my face from Evie's neck.
I feel the powerful hit, but I'm not exactly sure how much damage I've done until I let Evie's bloodless body drop to the floor in turn. The man's jaw hangs off, barely attached at one side. His tongue lolls out of the bloody wound, but his eyes are closed. He's clearly unconscious. The driver has made his way across the barn to the door, gripping his stomach with one arm as he whimpers and cries. The one I kicked is only now just getting up.
I'm pretty full, but I can't let all that good blood go to waste. I crack my knuckles and get to work. Screams make up the soundtrack to my endeavor, and such beautiful music it is.