AJAX

Ajax was popularly known for his wickedness and perversions towards women. He had a mean, loveless mother growing up, who took to alcohol, and that made his father abandon her, leaving Ajax behind. Ajax was full of hatred and bitterness with a lot of vengefulness from a tender age. He suffered under the care of the countless men that came to keep his mother warm and also buy her drinks. Some drank in the house with her, and when they got drunk, they tossed Ajax around. His mother never came to his rescue. She was often too drunk and wasted to do anything. He even had to fend for himself before he could eat. Her food was whiskey, her water was whiskey. He hated her.

At age 21, he had formed a crime ring terrorizing the neighborhood. Young women especially suffered in his hands and that of his friends. He and his gang stole, engaged in armed robbery and then, began to sell liquor.

He matured in cruelty and grew in business. The men under his payroll carried out their boss' orders, putting down competition from any liquor seller around in the most violent manner. They raped girls who worked for them or who they took a liking to but turned them down, beating people on the streets just to show dominance. It was such a small village and the law wasn't so strong. Heck! they were equally afraid of Ajax.

* * *

Years passed.

Ajax walked into one of his establishments, a brothel, and called on the woman he had put in charge.

"Candy!", he screamed.

On hearing his voice, all the girls around ran helter-skelter, hiding from their boss. None of them wanted Ajax to lay his wicked, mean gaze on them.

Candy came rushing down having just finished with a customer. Straightening her hair and dress, she still looked good but it could be seen in her eyes, how tired she was. There were dark circles under her eyes because of working into the hours of the night just to meet up with Ajax's demand on a weekly basis.

Those dark circles ruined the outlook of her brown, beautiful eyes. She had auburn hair outlining her very oval face. Candy was in her late twenties but looked like she was twenty, despite all the work she had to do. She was 5ft tall and very curvy with a voluptuous bust, one of the reasons Ajax made her run this brothel for him. She was attractive.

He also made her do things to him that she detested, but what could she do? She had nowhere to go, being an orphan and uneducated. She had no other living family member that she could run to. She had no option. This was her life and fate, at least, she was getting food to eat and earning a little money which she kept saved up somewhere with a little hope at the back of her mind that she'd leave here someday.

"Mr. Ajax, sorry I answered late. I just finished with a client", Candy told him as she approached where he was standing.

Pulling her roughly to one of the rooms downstairs, he asked; "Are the four rooms upstairs occupied?"

"Yes, they are. Also, Penny is working in the other room downstairs. Mr. Ajax, I wanted to talk to you about something. I know you liked that bottle of wine that went missing and I know that's why food has been scarce for us. I want to ask for forgiveness on behalf of all the girls here. The girls are getting so weak due to not feeding well sir. Your boys have recently been taking all we get from the clients. Have pity on us, Mr. Ajax". Candy was bold to even have said this to him.

SMACK!

A hard, loud slap across her face.

"Shut your whore mouth and get to work. On your knees bitch".

Before her knees got to the ground, a tear fell down her cheek but Ajax was totally oblivious to that. If he saw her tears, he didn't care one bit. He only cared about his pleasure and closed his eyes, awaiting the action.

Ajax was into several wrong things. He consulted the dark side of magic and paid tribute to them every fortnight. The witch he visited told him about the things happening in his business that he wasn't aware of. That was how he knew about the wine. It wasn't like he had counted the bottles of wine at the bar in the brothel, no, he didn't have time for that.

On a particular day, something happened that left the girls' mouths open in shock and wonder.

One of the policemen who often visited the brothel visited on that evening and after he had finished his business with one of the newest girls, he had asked her how she was faring, telling her that she looked thinner than she did when he visited the previous week.

The foolish girl opened her mouth and began to complain about how they were being treated in the brothel, how they were eating properly, and how sometimes, the boys beat them up. The story had touched the man and he stepped out for about an hour, came back with a loaf of bread hidden in his jacket, told the boys guarding the place that he wanted another round from the same girl that had just serviced him-that was his preference after all. As long as he paid, it was of no concern to the boys.

He closed the door to the room the girl occupied and brought out the bread. He even gave her money more than the usual price her service cost. She gobbled up the bread like someone who hadn't seen food in days and yes, that was the case. After she finished eating, rushing to wipe her mouth and checking for any crumbs that must've fallen that could give her away and earn her a beating, she tied the money and kept it hidden inside a hole in the wooden floor.

The man left full of pity for her. He regretted that he couldn't do anything to help or rescue her. Everyone knew how Ajax was.

The next day, Ajax came very early while they were sweeping and cleaning up the place. He asked for the girl that saw a policeman the previous night. Everyone around wondered how he knew someone was visited by a policeman yesterday...

[oh! maybe his boys told him that the policeman had come, left, and returned again], some of the girls had this thought running through their minds.

But what happened next shocked them all to their bones. Most shivered as fear and confusion ran through their marrows.

When the girl came downstairs to answer Ajax, as she reached where he was waiting for her... he pulled out a sit from the bar beside him and told her to sit down. He had a smile on his face that confused her further.

[why was she being summoned? absolutely no one knew what had happened between her and the policeman yesterday, not even his boys. So, what was happening here?]

"First of all, you will go and bring that money you hid in the floor of that room...", Ajax began.

Her eyes went wide, so wide they could've popped out of their sockets. She began to tremble. She couldn't control the fear that was upon her. She knew she was dead already.

"Secondly, you will follow my boys out of this place for I no longer require your services. There's a girl outside to replace you". He said all these with a sinister smile on his face. His lips held a smile but his eyes were as angry as ever.

"Thirdly...", he got up from the chair he sat on opposite her, and... SMACK! BLOW! KICK! WHACK!

Blood came out of her mouth and her nose. She wheezed... air had left her lungs. Her ribs... two must've broken, the pain exploded throughout her body. Her mouth went numb immediately, she had lost a tooth already. It was on the floor inside the blood that had come out earlier. She just laid there, not moving, with her eyes open and glazed over. The pain she felt was out of this world.

She shouldn't have said anything to anyone. She shouldn't have collected that bread and the money. She wouldn't be here, going through this... the starvation was better than this. She'd have chosen hunger for days over this beating.

All the girls stood watching what was happening. Absolutely no one could come to her rescue, otherwise, they'd face the same fate.

Ajax beckoned to his boys; "Get her out of here. Get rid of her". He looked around the place as if sending an 'anyone that talks or receives gifts from anyone, gets this too' message to them.

He brought out a black handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the bloodstains on his hands with it.

"HOW DID HE KNOW?!", the girls asked themselves when he had walked out of the brothel. They didn't even know that their friend had received some money and bread from her client. The boys guarding the brothel didn't even know themselves. But, their boss that wasn't even in the premises, knew everything that had happened behind closed doors.

[what were they dealing with here?], they all wondered in their minds.