Paradise

III

Sadness is looking in her ice colored eyes and knowing exactly who made them cold.

Parker breathed loudly into the cold Maryville air as his knuckles hit the oak door. A tall, burly man whos eyes were the exact shade of Paradise's answers the door. "What do you want?" Raymond's voice was deep, but, obviously, Parker didn't know that. Parker could only read lips. "Is Paradise here?" Parker asks, his voice just as deep. "Now, what does a nice looking boy like yourself want to do with my daughter?" Raymond asks, raising a black eyebrow.
"I met her today, I'm new to town. I wanted to ask if we could hang out?" he asked, giving his best smile.

Raymond looked into the brown eyes that reminded his very own daughter of hot chocolate and warm mahogany fires that burn a little too bright and smiled. An evil, corrupt smile. An angry drunken junkie liar smile. And right now, Raymond is exhibiting all four of those toxic traits.

"It's friday, right?" Raymond asks, scratching the back of his neck. Parker nods, confused. "Well, she's in trouble right now, for being quite the disrespectful little girl. But tomorrow is a new day. Give me fifty bucks and you can have an hour of her time, twenty five for each additional hour." Raymond smirks and Parker grins, pulling out his wallet and giving  Raymond two hundred dollar bills. Seven hours paid for.

Parker's seven hours of Paradise.

"Come pick the girl up at noon, She better be back at seven PM, or it'll be an extra twenty." "deal" Parker nods, smiling widely. He just bought his Paradise.

Raymond Green had sold his only daughter to men before. If he was in need of quick cash, or an immediate fix. Because Raymond was an angry drunken junkie liar, and a horrible father. But he wasn't all bad. He bought her clothes, kept a roof over her head, and fed her, occasionally. And he cared about his daughter, but in a sence of how a dealer cared about his customers. He wouldn't wish poor Paradise dead, of course. If she were dead, he'd have to find a new way to procure revanue.

Parker was ecstatic. He had purchased the time of the girl who was an ellaborate ruse of large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears.  The girl who was only Angry red slashes on her wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face. And dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful. The girl who's words were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.

He had bought the Icey blue eyes that reminded him of frozen lakes and clear skies.

He had undoubtedly purchaced seven hours of Paradise.

And, then, he didn't feel so alone.