“Cocksucking son of a bitch!” she shouts. “Who does he think he is?”
Jane’s eyes widen, hysteria rising in her throat—a crazed laugh released that her hand mutes.
“Shh,” she whispers, grabbing my arm, “he’ll hear you.”
I nudge Runner back inside the Body, inwardly warning her to cut it out.
What? she says, giving him the middle finger. He is a cocksucking son of a bitch!
Ella checks the open door. “You need to leave, Jane. Get away from here. From him.” She speaks quietly, suddenly panicked.
“I’ve been telling her that for years,” Sylvie adds.
“Leave? Are you for real? Look what happened to Annabelle’s brother when she left.” Jane scoffs. “Do you know she came back the day after he was knocked down? She’s so terrified something will happen to her and Amy that she begged Navid to take her back.”
“Are you for real?” Ella asks.
“Ask her yourself.”
“We have to leave, Jane. All of us. We don’t have a choice,” Ella says.
Jane sighs, knocks back her drink. Seemingly exasperated.
“What if we go to the police?” Ella whispers.
“What, you think they’d help? We can’t trust the police. Most of them are in here taking payoffs. They have no interest in helping whores like us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ella sneers, hiding her rising fear.
Jane steps down from her barstool, locks eyes, and leans in.
“You think you’re different? Special?” She pokes Ella’s chest, trails her finger all the way up, and takes hold of her gold key necklace, pulling firmly. “See this?”
“What about it?” Ella says.
“It can be taken away anytime. Don’t get too cocky, or too comfortable. You saw what he did to Annabelle.”
I realize now that the key necklaces are a way for Navid to control the Electra Girls, a certain kind of branding, gifts to groom. Put one foot wrong and you’re out. Or worse still, your brother’s knocked down by a hit-and-run. I watch Ella’s throat swallow, her necklace mirroring Jane’s, her position of top dog both intimidating and tragic.
“I just meant I can leave anytime,” Ella speaks softly.
Jane lets go of the necklace and jabs Ella’s chest again. “You think so? And what about your kid sister?”
Ella looks up, suddenly crestfallen.
“You know how I know about her?” she says. “Navid told me. Said he saw a photo of her on your phone. How pretty she was in her pink polka dots.”
“My phone? What the fuck’s he doing going through my phone?”
“He has access to whatever he wants,” Jane interrupts, then turns a sly smile in my direction. “Ask Shaun.”
“But she’s only thirteen,” Ella spits.
I suddenly remember Daniel’s words: Does Navid know that Ella has a younger sister?
A swollen rattle finds my chest.
“Jane!” Shaun shouts. “Navid wants you out back.”
“I’m coming with you,” Sylvie says.
Jane slings her handbag across her shoulder, leaving the bowl of bloodied water as a reminder, a poke at our naiveté. She wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“Be careful,” she says, “and don’t trust anyone. Including me.”
Flash.
“Don’t trust anyone,” the pale girl says, a can of Coke half-drunk and resting in her palm. I am fourteen years old. She is three years older. I note the pudge of her soft belly behind her black Lycra miniskirt as she sways back and forth. A tight-fitting T-shirt several washes away from clean. Rumors say she and her friend turn tricks for twenty quid. Thirty if you want them both.
Flash.
“I don’t trust no one. Never have,” she says, checking over my shoulder. “Smoke?”
“No thanks,” I say.
“What, don’t your mummy let you?”
“My mummy’s dead,” I say. This shuts her up.
Flash.
Another girl from the neighborhood walks toward us. Tiny steps. Quick. Skittish. Eyes fried, hands wringing.
“Jez’s looking for you,” she says, “he’s at the liquor store, with a john.”
The pale girl throws down the red can, adjusts the strap of her handbag, and pulls it across her chest like a bandolier. Like she’s going into battle. Her armor: snide Louis Vuitton.
“You coming, or what?” she says.
I shake my head no. “Gotta help my dad clean the house.”
The pale girl jumps down from the swing.
“Whatever.” She shrugs and walks off, pulling her knickers out from her ass.
“Later,” she calls back, winking.
Flash.
I wondered what they’d buy with the thirty quid. Makeup? More cigarettes? I seem to remember Jez and his lone gold tooth waiting for girls in a blacked-out Beemer. Offers of free vodka, a ride, or a kiss if they were lucky. A night out if he felt like telling them he was their boyfriend. He could sniff out the vulnerable ones a mile off. Feral, wide-eyed girls searching for some scrap of attention that was missing at home. I didn’t understand why the girls did it. Why did they let Jez use them like that? And then I remembered my own longing, all swollen and fat. Settling for scraps. The birds resting on the potting shed my only real source of comfort.
There’s always someone suffering just the way you are.
My mind suddenly wanders, momentarily, to my night with Robin. How nice it had felt. The memory a stark contrast to those of my lonely teenage years.
Why don’t we call her, Runner suggests, just to say hi?
I can’t right now, I say. Maybe some other time. I’ve too much on my mind.
But—
Not now, Runner, I say.
Runner throws me a look, disappointed it seems.
Maybe when I’m less stressed, I offer. And anyway, Robin wouldn’t want me to call until I can commit—until I’m ready.
Fair point, she agrees.
Flash.
And now we’re outside. Tick-tock. Shaun, Ella, and I. In the cold. Shaun walking ahead as usual. I picture Navid’s fists crashing into Jane’s head. A growl from his deeply unpleasant mouth. Jane crouches. Another swipe, his orange paws unable to stop, smothering her with his stripy mass. Roars of hate as she attempts no escape, her need for him far too great. The ominous necklace with its key held tenderly to her chest.
Ella blows into her hands, then wraps her arms around her body like a straitjacket, patting her back for warmth. November’s tail end whipping our ears and cheeks.
Suddenly she stops. A pulse on the side of her neck pounding as she waits for Shaun to gain distance from us. She pulls me in close, her breathing raspy and quick.
“What?” I say, the Electra’s neon sign casting a vermilion glow.
She looks me dead in the eye.
“We have to take the bastard down,” she whispers, firmly holding my collar. “We don’t have a choice. Get close to Shaun again; he knows everything about Navid. Do whatever it takes. Use him.”
I take in her words. My Reason, I realize, suddenly making logical but terrifying sense.
27
Daniel Rosenstein
“You can break it off anytime you want,” I say. “From my understanding you and Shaun haven’t been getting along for a couple weeks now.”
“Ella doesn’t think so, she thinks we should use him. She wants me to get close to him again, find out as much as I can about Navid so we can go to the police, take him down—if we have enough evidence, we can do that. She has a plan.”
“Ella’s wrong.”
She looks up, falling silent. Vexed that I’ve challenged their friendship. Again. I make a note of the splitting that’s occurring between Ella and me. Her best friend, her shrink. Who will win? I wonder.
“Is it time?” she asks.
I check the clock.
“Couple of minutes,” I say.
“I have to take Grace to the dentis
t.”
“How come?”
“Ella’s busy. And their mum’s still out of town.”
She taps her foot, stretches her neck from side to side. I note she is tired. Crusted sleep she hasn’t bothered to wipe away. Her listless eyes eventually landing on the oil painting above my head.
Her dismissiveness concerns me. A refusal to engage with the likely danger of their plan something she’s barely acknowledged today. This isn’t some silly game, I want to shout, some TV drama where the bad guys get a good kicking.
She stares at the painting, bored and beautiful. Crosses her arms over her chest.
What or who is she withholding from me? And why?
“Sometimes,” she says, picking a zit on her chin, “this fucking therapy really sucks.”
28
Alexa Wú
“You can’t break it off with him,” she insists as she weaves a braid into Grace’s hair. “Daniel’s wrong. Shaun knows things. Things that will help us.”
“I don’t know, Ella, the thought of sleeping with him and—”
“Just imagine it’s someone else. Close your eyes.”
Grace covers her ears.
“I can’t,” I whisper, “I’ll still know it’s him.”
Runner reaches in her purse for a cigarette. Pretend it’s Robin instead, she says, stirred.
Time reveals things. Bad things. Like rotting fruit, curdled milk—a boyfriend who gorges on porn and believes stripping and sex work are choices made by women. “After all, if you’ve got a body like that, why wouldn’t you?” he had said, pretending to wipe down the bar, ogling Amy and Annabelle, who’d returned the day after her brother was run over. “I mean, check these girls out—the way they earn cash, pfft, they put city boys to shame!”
“It’s exploitation,” I shouted, “modern slavery.”
“Sex sells, baby.” He had shrugged.
Time lets you know a person. It’s a vandal.
Ella looks up at me, working Grace’s bangs.
“You have to help me, otherwise”—she points down at Grace’s crown—“we’re fucked.”
Grace turns to face Ella; turns back to face me.
“All done,” Ella sings, dropping the hairbrush on the bed. “Now go do something. Anything! Leave me alone.”
Grace breaks from her crossed legs and grabs her phone. Scrolls and double-taps.
“See you later, Alexa.” She smiles, leaving.
“Bye, Grace.” I smile back.
Ella flops down on the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
She clears her throat and I sense she’s gearing up for something. Like a racehorse with a sprint to win awaiting the sharp shot of a gun.
“There’s this house,” she begins, “in London Fields.”
I wait.
“Some of the Electra Girls live there. Navid’s been bringing in girls from overseas. He’s been filming them. Shaun too.”
“Porn?”
Ella nods. “Cassie’s brother, Tao, he’s bringing them here illegally. Girls from China, Laos, and Vietnam. Girls from poor families who sell them on for work.”
I gasp. “Holy shit.”
I’d heard about this kind of thing: modern-day slavery—millions of human beings trafficked each year, usually women and girls. I’d read about it, seen it on the news, sex trafficking among the world’s fastest-growing criminal industries.
“Has Shaun said anything?” Ella asks.
“He mentioned some time back Navid wanting to make more use of the girls.”
“We need to do something to stop it. Find enough proof so Navid gets arrested. We’ll gather evidence that shows the girls are being exploited, lured by false promises and sold. Some of these girls are underage. We have to do this, Alexa, otherwise—”
“Otherwise? For fuck’s sake, Ella, I cannot believe it. I told you not to do this. I told you not to work there. Now you’ve put us all in danger, including Grace. Just because you wanted to make some extra cash. You live like there’s no fuckin’ tomorrow and yesterday never happened!” I scream.
She looks behind her as if Grace’s footsteps may have left an imprint. “I know,” she says with meaning, “you’re right. But we can make a difference, help the girls. Protect Grace. Please, Alexa, I need you.”
Silence.
“You can be so fuckin’ selfish,” I say, not letting up.
The expression on Ella’s face is low-spirited and heartbreaking.
Oh god, what a situation to be in. What are we going to do? the Flock question, suddenly alert to my mood.
I’m quickly grateful to have photography in my life, knowing it’s kept me straight. Focused. Sane-ish. Like Ella, I could have taken risks, compromised myself, acted covertly to quell my pain. I could have lied, deceived, turned violent against those who didn’t do what I asked of them. But unlike Ella, I’ve done my level best not to knock on dangerous doors thinking my sexuality could serve my greed.
Breathe, Oneiroi suggests, you’re getting yourself all worked up.
Shoulders trembling, I try to stop myself from judging Ella, and fail. I turn away. The real reason I’m so angry is because I feel powerless and ignored, her refusal to listen and think beyond herself seemingly a trial. What I really want to do is shake her back to regular life. The hope that she might inhabit her body differently—no longer craving permission, looking to others (particularly men)—and find a solid place in the world.
Ella grabs the hairbrush off the bed, plucks at one of its plastic bristles.
“There’s something else you should know,” she says, her leg twitching like a captive hare. “Some of the girls in the house, they’re even younger than Grace. Probably nine or ten.”
I suddenly picture Poi-Poi. Her blue shorts with the lace trim. Her bare legs pimpled with cold—I’m not stupid, and don’t call me Britney. I feel my head spin. A metal taste released and spreading in my mouth. I should have known this was coming, I think; I’m the stupid one.
Evening. I float through Ella’s neighborhood in a stunned calm. My armpits drenched, head insistent that it reorganize itself to focus and accept our dire situation. I kick the tire of a car, half expecting an alarm to shriek. Nothing. Ella’s words rattling around my skull: But we can make a difference . . . Please, Alexa, I need you.
This is really happening, I tell myself, crossing the street toward a swinging gate, a choke of hedges where a single blackbird is resting. I pause, leaving enough distance so as not to startle the hushed bird.
“Do you have my mother’s soul with you today?” I ask.
The common blackbird stares. Its slim marigold beak and matching ringed eye unmoved.
“Because if you do,” I say, “let her know I’ll be fine. The Flock and I will be careful. I promise.”
A mellow song suddenly beguiles the silenced street. The blackbird’s tune faultless and falling gently on my ears, arousing calm. A bewitching wing raised as he balances—an exhibitionist—on the tiniest of twigs.
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries,
and very frankly give them fruit for their songs—
As a child I was not entirely comfortable with being seen. To be seen meant I had to engage with others and sometimes do things that I did not want to do. It meant people would have expectations of me, expectations I couldn’t meet or didn’t want to meet. A squirm of galling self-consciousness wriggling around inside me when mistakes were made, or when wrong words were spoken. Sometimes it meant I was considered amusing or desirable, and was touched inappropriately, and this, I think, was the worst way possible of being seen. Occasionally I’d try to make myself invisible, slinking off in the background and making quiet my voice, the truth of who I was and how I felt safely masked and protected by all the personalities I’d hidden inside.
Flash.
“Let’s play hide-and-seek,” my mother says, taking my hand a little too firmly.
“I’ll go first,” she insists, a
slight mania in her eyes.
Upstairs, I hear my father slam a door. We both flinch.
My mother smiles. “Count to twenty, then come find me,” she whispers.
Flash.
I cover my eyes.
“. . . eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Coming!” I shout.
Behind the dining room curtains, the coat rack; beneath the kitchen table; on the outside porch; behind the sofa—
“Found you!” I call.
My mother kisses my cheek. “Clever girl,” she says, eyes fixed on the door.
“Now it’s your turn,” she says, “but this time you have to hide a little longer. Look, I’ve got Chicken Licken here for you to read. And here’s Nelly. Now go hide. But you can’t come out until I find you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agree. Unease yanking on my tummy.
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
When my mother returned, I’d fallen asleep at the bottom of my wardrobe. I watched her attempt to hide the violet bulge on her cheek. Her lip cracked and bleeding.
“There you are,” she said, attempting to smile. “You clever girl.”
Flash.
I think it takes a long time to be truly seen in the presence of others. I imagine it’s one of the reasons why I turned the focus outward, my camera acting as a distraction to view anything other than me as I became an observer. I was someone who was invisible yet who saw everything. There was safety in not being seen back then, but I now realize it came at a cost, because if you are someone without a voice or someone who isn’t seen, you are also easy prey.
29
Daniel Rosenstein
I wait my turn for the rowing machine, a patch of cooled sweat blooming on my chest like a target, my heart pumping like a rhythmic ashiko drum. All around me, hot bodies are working hard to build muscle, stretch, strengthen, and strain—their faces alive with determination. I note that my energy feels good tonight. A grateful pain surging through my arms and legs from the weights I’ve pressed, the miles I’ve run, muscles slowly cooling down as I stand, waiting.
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