Blood Money

“Kidneyvakkam.”

Jasper and I look at each other in confusion as soon as this strange word leaves Ruby’s lips.

“Gesundheit.” He responds, raising his eyebrows at her. Ruby ignores him and instead launches into whatever poorly introduced scheme she’s got cooking in her mind this time.

“There’s this place in India, this refugee camp,” she starts, “And they nickname it fuckin’ Kidneyvakkam because—can you guess why?”

No, Ruby, please tell us.

“It’s fuckin’ Red Market central,” She tells us with wide eyes, “The women walk around in fuckin’ midriff shirts just waiting to get their kidneys taken out, can you believe that? Everybody’s got fuckin’ scars on their abdomens ‘n shit, it’s unbelievable!”

“What are you saying?” Jasper sighs, urging her to get straight to the point.

“We gotta go there, Jas!” Ruby exclaims, “We’d be making billions!”

I watch between the two of them as they bicker. It’s almost amusing.

“We’re making enough money here,” he eyes her, “It’s not safe for us to uproot all of this and move to across the goddamn globe.”

“That’s why,” Ruby leans in closer, “After we make our rounds in India, we should base our business in Iran. This shit is legal there.”

There’s something about the conniving look on her face that unnerves me.

“No,” Jasper defies her sternly, “No, we’re not going anywhere. Do you know how risky that is?”

“Then what’s the point, Jasper?” Ruby exasperates, “What the fuck are we doing all this for if we’re not making as much as we possibly can?”

“We’re making enough,” he tells her austerely, “and that’s all that matters. Don’t push it.”

Ruby glares at him as he stands up and faces the both of us with a flash of his infamous black cloak.

“I’m going to rest.”

His disease has been eating him alive lately, barely supplying him with enough energy to participate in the organ extraction, but we both know this time he’s just using it as an excuse to opt out of a conversation he doesn’t want to be in. When his footsteps disappear up the stairs, Ruby turns to me.

“Fuck him,” she huffs, “I already started putting our money into banks over there, anyway. In India and Iran, I mean.”

I should’ve expected as much. Ruby isn’t the type of person to wait for permission.

“We need to hire some fuckin’ money launderers or something, man,” she shakes her head, “People are getting suspicious…He is right,” she admits, referring to Jasper, “We’re making a shit ton here…so much that I don’t even fuckin’ know what to do with it, but we’d at least be safer over there where we won’t get caught.”

With one blink of her eyes, I witness her turn into someone else.

“I mean,” she sighs sweetly, gazing at me from those fantasy baby blues, and I swear to God, I’m hallucinating, “don’t you ever just want to…get away?”

Yes, Lily, yes. With you. Anywhere. Let’s go.

“I guess that’s why part of me is bringing this up, you know, sugar?”

I nod “yes” as her melodious voice addresses me. Her hair is chestnut brown, eyes blue, porcelain skin. She’s not Ruby. She has me hypnotized. I’m in love with her.

“I mean,” she shrugs, “There isn’t anything wrong with that, is there? We’re not bad people.”

Of course not.

“Did you know that when the Hindu pilgrims in India get their heads shaved as part of a religious ceremony, they sell their hair?” She gazes up at me with dewy eyes, “They used to burn it. Now they make a profit out of it. They’re just keeping up with the times. That’s all we’re doing, isn’t it?”

We’re gravitating towards each other. She feels it, too.

“This blood money has me in a chokehold, baby doll.”

Before I know it, her magnetic lips pull me into her and I’m locked into her vector field. Our mouths are moving in synchronization and I let my eyes flutter closed for once; a saving grace when I haven’t allowed myself to sleep for the past two days in fear that my extreme concussion might render me unconscious forever.

I reach up to caress her gorgeous, silky hair, when I realize she doesn’t have any. I jolt away, remembering that my imaginary Lily of the Valley isn’t real. Only Ruby exists. My stomach sinks as I gaze into her eyes, expecting to see my beloved blue, but only darkness stares back.

Just like that, it’s over. This intimacy we’ve shared together might as well have never happened, because as soon as I regrettably pull away from her sweet, intoxicating lips, she’s staring off into space. I know she’s going to snap out of it any second. I can only hope that her short term memory will skip past her mind just this once—Please, God, just this once—but it doesn’t. Because when she blinks out of her stupor, she furrows her brows and looks at me like I have two heads.

Valerie.

“Pourquoi tu me regardes comme ça?”