THE EVENING JOHN DEVLIN'S life changed forever, it started out just like any other. Having debauched a young nymph from the provinces, no more than fourteen at most, he was now satiated. The mama-san had taken the young girl away only minutes before to sew her back up. Not that he cared whether she bled or not but he did value his merchandise. Later, she could be sold many times as a virgin if the mama-san's needles found enough purchase. Eventually, the girl would join the others on the assembly line of sex objects he had produced and then discarded as their value depreciated. It was an assembly line where productivity needed to be high for the turnover over in bodies was great. If pregnancy or disease didn't account for his girls, some gullible geriatrics of the foreign variety, after sampling the merchandise, would offer enticements of marriage with a trip overseas thrown in. Hoary Australians, for the most part, seemed to form the vanguard of this desperate brigade.
Not that John ever gave much thought to the fifteen girls that worked for him, sixteen now. He never paid them, of course. They had a roof over their heads, received money from their customers and paid him the set commission, which left them with very little if anything for themselves once he had deducted their overheads. “And God help any girl that tries to hold back!” he would often repeat. The silly bitches rarely took any precautions although he supplied them all with condoms.
Altruistic, he was not, mercenary he certainly was. Unlike most prostitutes in the Western World, it seemed to him that these girls actually enjoyed sex no matter who was laying them. Condoms would, they roundly protested, spoil the enjoyment for their clients. Did they ever think beyond their navel, he wondered. Still, he welcomed their ingenuousness for how else could he lure them in the first place? One time, he had even recruited a girl by telling her she was going to work in his nonexistent shirt factory. Even while he was entering her, she was still looking around for the sewing machines. However, he had discovered that in her case, the mama-san's needles were not required because she had been breached many times before.
John Devlin’s life to that point had been a deplorable one by anyone's standards but his own. As the name suggested he was an Irishman by birth although his American accent disguised the fact. He had lived in Ireland, for barely a decade before his parents had immigrated to the United States. Joseph Devlin, his foster father, had a proclivity for turning a penny dishonestly. It hadn't been too long, therefore, before the Devlins became part of the nouveau riche of which there were many in Boston, Massachusetts. Joseph Devlin had been a master in chicanery, anything from fencing stolen goods to outright larceny. If the environment has anything to do with the construction of the criminal mind, the foundations were well laid in John’s case.
John's chance to break free of his foster parents, his weak foster mother and his overbearing foster father came ironically enough at the expense of Joseph Devlin, himself, who uncharacteristically left his chequebook lying around one day. John, then in his early twenties, had no compunction about writing out a cheque for the sum of five thousand dollars and adding his father's signature, one that he had practised often. Quickly cashing the money, he fled abroad.
First, a steamer to the southern latitudes where he got off at its first port of call, Fremantle, the main seaport for Western Australia. He fell in with two gold prospectors and tried his luck with them in the barren wastes of the state's vast interior. Emerging nearly penniless, he travelled overland by rail to Brisbane on the east coast of Australia. Menial work in Queensland followed; he was trained for nothing else, and he quickly became disenchanted. In search of fresh adventure, he then crewed aboard a trading vessel plying the South Seas around the Pacific islands north of Australia. John had done this for eight months before deciding to try his luck in Papua New Guinea. As luck would have it, he panned enough gold along the Fly River to set him up. Carried into Port Moresby on a litter following a bout of Malaria, he no sooner recovered than he purchased a small but profitable trading post within the harbour area which he operated for two years. Then, he made passage to the Phillippines, disembarking in Manila where it did not take him long to invest in a brothel in Mabini, the red-light district of the inner city. A brothel, he soon discovered, suited his temperament perfectly. Not only was prostitution a very profitable business to be in, but also it provided him with women, or to be more exact, girls of a very young age. He saw to it that each girl was broken-in personally, and when he had satisfied his own appetites, he would put them to work.
This idyllic existence had gone on for nearly twenty years during which time, he had branched out into other questionable activities such as gun-running. There were factions all over these islands and he had no scruples about selling guns to any fool that had the money. For that matter, he had no scruples full stop.
This particular evening, as he lay back on his bed in happy contentment, for the young girl had been tight and it had given him considerable enjoyment loosening her up, he felt languid. He could barely remember how many women he had spoilt or the pleasure of those defilements. After a time, just like eating too much cheesecake, his senses had become cloyed. Still, the girl he had recently penetrated had been extra juicy and his flagging interest had been restored. Yes, he would make full use of her body in the weeks ahead.
Lying there in his torpid state, in the half-light from the feeble light of the lamp atop a table in one corner, something on the ceiling above caught his eye. At first, he thought that the dancing scintilla of light was caused by a reflection from something and he looked around for its source. Then something odd struck him. It was only when he moved his head that the light moved. Rubbing his hand across his brow the light went and returned when he took his hand away. Incredible as it seemed, the beam of light playing on the ceiling appeared to be emanating from him but he knew that was impossible. Lying back on the pillow, he experimented some more but the phenomenon continued and he was perplexed. Was it something he had drunk?
The thought prompted him to lean over and sniff the half-empty glass of gin lying on the small bamboo table next to the bed. It seemed all right, he concluded. When he lay back again, he was startled to find that the blob of light on the ceiling was increasing in size even as he looked. Fear then replaced curiosity as the light began to have a density to it and the colour started to change from yellow to white. Circular at first, the expanding orb started to distort as it took on the characteristics of a cloud. John Devlin was terrified now and closed his eyes tightly to keep the image out. Then he opened them and shut them and opened them again. The swirling vapour before his face was no illusion and he shut his eyes again and kept them shut.
Through his closed lids, he sensed that there was something malevolent waiting for him, and he became aware of the tightness in his chest as he held his breath. He heard it just once but it made his flesh crawl.
“Beware the man that bears the mark by which he is known.”
It took John Devlin many minutes to find the courage to open his eyes again, and when he did, the room was empty. The fear that had coursed through John's veins was replaced by outrage. “Fucking girls!” he berated aloud. What had they put in his drink, he wondered as he lifted the half-empty glass of gin beside him to his nose to smell it again.
“Whores! Nothing but whores!” he shouted aloud. He vowed he'd find the little cunt and when he did, she'd be sorry.
“Baby!” he bellowed insistently. “Baby! Get your fucking arse in here!”
The object of his anger, a Filipino girl of fifteen, appeared apprehensively in the doorway. Grabbing her by the neck, he beat her about the head as he screamed at her, “Play games with me, will you. Well, two can play at that!” he yelled forcing the remains of the gin down the girl's throat. “Now, let's see how you like it!” he gleefully declared like a schoolyard bully that had gained another victory.