pressure.
Emiko moans a protest. The pressure lets up for a moment, but then Kannika says, "You call yourselves men? Fuck her! Look how she jerks. Look at her arms and legs when you push! Make her do her heechy-keechy dance."
And then the pressure comes back and the men are holding her down more tightly, and she can't get up and the cold thing presses again against her ass, penetrates her, spreads her wide, splits her open, fills her and she is crying out.
Kannika laughs. "That's right windup; earn your keep. You can get up when you make me come."
And then Emiko is licking again, slobbering and lapping like a dog, desperate, as the champagne bottle penetrates her again, as it withdraws and shoves deep into her, burning.
The men all laugh. "Look at how she moves!"
Tears jewel in her eyes. Kannika encourages her to greater effort and the falcon if there is any falcon in Emiko at all, if it ever existed, is a dead thing, dangling. Not meant to live or fly or escape. Meant to do nothing but submit. Emiko learns her place once again.
All night long, Kannika teaches the merits of obedience and Emiko begs to obey and stop the pain and violation, begs to serve, to do anything at all, anything at all to let the windup live just a little longer and Kannika laughs and laughs.
* * *
By the time Kannika is done with her, it is late. Emiko sits against a wall, exhausted and broken. Her mascara has run. Inside, she is dead. Better to be dead than a windup, she thinks. She watches dully as a man starts to mop the club. At the other end of the bar, Raleigh drinks his whiskey and laughs.
The man with the mop slowly approaches. Emiko wonders if he will try to mop her away with the rest of the filth. If he will take her out and throw her into one of the trash piles, leave her for the Dung Lord's collection. She can simply lie there, and let them mulch her. . . thrown away as Gendo-sama should have discarded her. She is trash. Emiko understands this now. The man pushes his rag mop around her.
"Why don't you throw me away?" she croaks. The man looks at her uncertainly, then turns his eyes to his work. Keeps mopping. She says it again. "Answer me!" she shouts. "Why don't you throw me away?" Her words echo in the open room.
Raleigh glances up and frowns. She realizes that she has been speaking in Japanese. She says it again in Thai. "Throw me away, why not? I'm trash, too. Throw me away!" The mopping man flinches and draws back, smiling uncertainly.
Raleigh approaches. Kneels down beside her. "Emiko. Get up. You're frightening my cleaning guy."
Emiko makes a face. "I don't care."
"Sure you do." He nods toward the door, to the private room where the men are still reclining, drinking and talking after their abuse of her. "I've got a bonus for you. Those guys tip well."
Emiko looks up at him. "They tip Kannika, too?"
Raleigh studies her. "It's not your business."
"They tip her triple? Give me 50 baht?"
His eyes narrow. "Don't."
"Or what? Or you throw Emiko into a methane composter? Dump me with the white shirts?"
"Don't push me. You don't want to piss me off." He stands up. "Come get your money when you're done feeling sorry for yourself."
Emiko watches dully as he stalks back to his barstool, gets himself a drink. He glances back at her, makes a comment to Daeng, who smiles dutifully and pours water with ice. Raleigh waves the water at her. Sets it on top of a purple sheaf of baht. He goes back to his drinking, seeming to ignore her staring.
What happens to windup girls who are broken? She never knew a windup girl who died. Sometimes an old patron did. But the windup girl lived. Her girlfriends lived. They lasted longer. Something she never asked Mizumi-sensei. Emiko hobbles to the bar, stumbles. Leans against it. Drinks the ice. Raleigh shoves the money over.
She finishes the ice water. Swallows the cubes. Feels their cold seeping into her core. "Have you asked, yet?"
"About what?" He's playing solitaire on the bar.
"Going north."
He glances up at her, then flips another set of cards. He's quiet for a second. "That's tough work. Not something you set up in a day."
"Have you asked?"
He glances at her. "Yeah. I asked. And no one's going anywhere while the white shirts are pissed