I find the least wrinkled and smelly dress in the pile on the bedroom floor and pull it over my head. Then I head out towards my day.
— — —
“What happened?” Chloe is working with me today. We’re back on the street corner.
I shrug. I don’t want to talk about it. It made me realize that there might be no escape from this world that I’m in. What did I do to deserve this? Where did I go wrong? I have lain awake many nights tracing my path. What I could have done differently. What I should have done differently.
I realize, finally, this morning at this moment, that I have been trafficked. I remember a television show, one of those crime shows where the good guys solve a crime and let the audience follow them along. It was about this missing girl, and the investigators followed all the leads. Eventually, they found her down near the Mexico border at some little town in Texas. She had been walking along the street one night looking for her drug dealer, and somebody picked her up. They sold her to someone else, and soon her life became a nightmare of being sold for sex. That’s what’s happening to me.
Only I wasn’t looking for my drug dealer. I was looking for a way to get into college.
And now here I am. Sold. I don’t even know which city I’m in. This city doesn’t have any distinguishable landmarks. No big bridges or skyscrapers. Just endless rows of falling apart houses and buildings.
“Come on,” Chloe says. “Tell me what happened. Did Tommy chop you?”
Chop. That’s the word the girls use for beat. I’ve heard it before in conversation.
There’s a wind today. I wish I had a coat to pull around me. Or a shawl. Anything. There are goose bumps on my arms. A car crawls by and two men wolf-whistle at us from inside, then they drive on.
“He only does that if you don’t follow the rules,” she says. “Don’t make Tommy mad, Heather. Please.”
I look over at her, finally meeting her eyes. She’s so young. I’m so young. Aren’t these supposed to be the best years of our lives?
“How do they find us?” I ask.
“Who?”
I nod as another car drives by.
“The men? Tommy runs ads. You know, in those online sites, like FindForSale.com.”
“My mom sold a couch on there once,” I say.
This time it’s Chloe who shrugs. “I guess you can buy anything nowadays.”
I see two men meet across the street. One pulls a baggie out of his pocket and hands it to the other, who gives him a wad of cash. Right in broad daylight. Where are the cops?
I never see cops.
“So why are we here on the street?” I ask. “If he runs ads?”
“Sometimes he likes to find fresh clients,” Chloe says. “If business is slow.”
As if on cue, a car stops. It’s a businessman. He’s wearing a suit and has kind eyes. And he’s clean. Maybe he’s less scary than some of the men I’ve been with already. Maybe.
I glance across the street where one of Tommy’s thugs is leaning against the wall of the boarded-up pharmacy. Watching.
“I’ll take this one,” I say, because the next guy could be worse. And there’s always a next guy. But then I have a flash of guilt over leaving Chloe for that “next guy.”
I look over at her, and suddenly I’m afraid for her.
“Or do you want him?”
“No, you go,” she says. She pulls a joint out of her bag and lights it. “I’ve got this to keep me busy.”
I walk up to his car.
“Hop in,” he says.
I tell him the hotel and room number. Along the way I see a sign with a smiling woman wearing a black graduation hat. “Turn Your Life Around at Community College,” it says. Mrs. Peterson wanted me to go to community college.
When we get to the hotel, I see two of Tommy’s men in the parking lot. So I open the car door and get out with this man.
I’m starving. I can’t remember the last time I ate. As we walk into the room together, things spin, and for a moment I think I’m going to faint. I fall onto the bed, and he thinks I’m there for him.
He doesn’t ask about my bruises. “Aren’t you a pretty thing?” he says, grinning and taking his suit coat off.
I close my eyes and pray that it’s over quickly.
— — —
I first wanted to be a doctor when I was three. Mom bought me a preschool-sized doctor’s kit, which was under the tree for me when I woke up on Christmas morning. I was so excited! It had a stethoscope and a white lab coat. She had my name embroidered on the front pocket. There was a black doctor’s case, like you see in the old movies, and when I opened it there were fake syringes for shots and a stethoscope. There were also bandages, which I found out later my mom had added in.
I loved it and played with it all of the time. My stuffed animals all had turns being “sick” and coming to the doctor so I could fix them up. Daddy was thrilled.
“You’re just like your great-grandma Heather,” he said proudly. His eyes always twinkled when he talked about her.
When I got a little bit older, my parents bought me the Barbie doll doctor and all the cool stuff that comes with it. Brit and I played with those sets for hours.
Daddy called me Dr. Heather Thomas on a regular basis.
“Dr. Heather Thomas, you are being paged. You’re going to be late for school if you don’t hurry,” he would say on Monday mornings, when he drove me to school on his way to work.
“Dr. Heather Thomas, dinner is getting cold,” he’d yell up the stairs when I was too busy playing to come when they called the first time.
I loved it. I loved that my parents supported my passion for medicine. I loved the time and energy they spent making me feel special—like I could conquer the world. We were so happy then.
Before Daddy died.
None of the men ask about my bruises. Or my black eye. One did trace his finger gently around it and say “Fell down the stairs, huh? That happens to my wife a lot.”
When I return to the house, Tommy grabs my chin. I flinch away from his grasp, but he holds it tight and looks closely at my eye. He just shakes his head.
Then he walks away.
I haven’t eaten since sometime yesterday. I can’t even remember.
Reg is in the kitchen smoking. She hands me her joint and without thinking, I take a hit of it. I’m so shaky I can’t stand, so I sit down in one of the chairs. Reg riffles through the pantry and pulls out a few granola bars. She tosses me one. I try to catch it but it lands on the floor. I bend over to get it and drop her joint, which lands on top of my bare foot and burns a spot before I can grab it.
I sit up and hand it back to her, ignoring the new injury. Then I tear away the wrapper of the granola bar, devouring it as quickly as I can.
“How’s your pain?” Reg asks in a rare moment of compassion.
“Um…” For a moment I’m not sure what pain she’s talking about. Then she points at her own eye, indicating my shiner.
“It hurts,” I say.
She hands me her joint again. I take another drag, because let’s face it, it works.
“I can’t believe none of the men asked about my bruises,” I say.
“Your face isn’t what they’re looking at,” she says.
I scowl at that, which hurts my face more. “But you would think…I mean…that one of them at least would report me as being beaten.”
“Tommy don’t usually chop his girls,” she says. “You need to stay outta his cash.”
Tommy comes back into the kitchen. “Nobody is reporting you to anybody,” he says. He must have overhead what I said. “You’re trash, Heather. A coke whore. The police ain’t going to care.”
He looks at Reg for support. She pulls out a kitchen chair and sits, taking a long toke of her joint. “He’s right. They’ll beat you worse,” Reg says. “They don’t care how or why you end up in jail. They’re just going to lock you up and let you rot. A girl I know wound up in the slammer for possession of d
rugs. They beat her nearly senseless trying to get the name of her dealer.”
“The cops aren’t safe,” Tommy says. “Not for people like you.” He walks over to where I’m sitting and strokes the side of my cheek with his index finger. “You’re my girl, Heather. I’m not going to let anybody hurt you.” He twirls a strand of my hair between his fingers. I try not to pull away. I remember how he felt next to me that night he made love to me. He was different then. Softer.
I close my eyes and feel the drugs from Reg’s joint lifting me up. The pain is going away.
“You love me, don’t you?” Tommy says softly.
I nod. His hand is near my cheek, holding my hair, and I feel its warmth. My eyes are still closed, and for a moment I let myself believe that I’m safe.
Then Reg accidentally knocks her water bottle off the table and it lands with a bang on the cold, peeling linoleum. I jump. Tommy withdraws his hand and leans over to pick the bottle up. He sets it on the table and leaves us alone in the kitchen.
I decide then and there that if I want to escape, I’ll need to get off of the drugs. I need a clear head. Between the pain in my face and the horror of my days (or nights?), I can’t imagine going without them. But they cloud my judgment, so I decide that I will. I have to. If I’m going to get out of here, it’s going to have to be of my own accord.
And so I get up and walk back towards the bedroom and undress. I climb under the blanket wearing only my underwear and a thin t-shirt. I’m so tired. And one final night, I let the drugs carry me off and away from the pain.
Tomorrow will be a new day.
— — —
I wake up the next morning with cramps. At first, it doesn’t register with me, because I have grown so used to feeling awful. I always hurt “down there”, and my stomach never feels good. Maybe it’s the food. Maybe it’s the fear. Or the drugs. I don’t know. But when I go to the bathroom, I realize I’ve started my period.
A wave of relief washes over me. Now I can get the day off. The week off. I can crawl back into bed, hide under the covers, and sleep. Nobody will want to have sex with me now.
I look under the cabinet and find a box of pads. I grab one and put it on, then wash up and brush my teeth. I’m feeling a glimmer of hope.
I open the bathroom door, and Tommy is standing down the hall, arms crossed, having a conversation with one of his thugs, Sal. The thug is standing by the door, jangling his car keys. Tommy sees me looking at him.
“What’s up?” he says.
“I can’t work today.”
Sal laughs.
Tommy cracks a smile. “And why not?”
I hesitate. I don’t really want to announce it to a room full of guys.
“I…” I’m hoping Tommy will come closer so I can whisper it to him. But he remains where he is, so I have no choice. “I got my period today,” I say quietly.
Sal starts to laugh, then turns to Thug Two and they leave the house, taking Serena with them. Tommy just smiles and tells me to go get dressed.
I stand there for a moment, unsure of what has just happened. Another cramp hits me, and I wonder if anybody has ibuprofen.
Reg comes out of our room, dressed for work.
“Do you have ibuprofen?” I ask.
She laughs. “In my dreams! Do you think they buy us that stuff?”
The cramps are getting bad, and I put my arms across my stomach.
“Cramps?” Reg says.
“Yes.”
She shrugs and brushes past me. Chloe comes out of her room, having overheard us. “We don’t get painkillers,” she says.
I can’t believe this. They all have illegal drugs that probably cost a fortune, but nobody has a bottle of ibuprofen?
“You need to get dressed,” says Chloe. “Take an Oxy.”
“I can’t work today,” I say. “I started my period.”
Chloe frowns at me, as if she doesn’t understand. “That don’t matter,” she says. “You still gotta work.”
“But I can’t. I’m having my period. You know…blood.” This conversation seems unreal. Doesn’t anybody get it? “No guy is going to pay for—”
But Chloe cuts me off. “There are other ways to please a man,” she says quietly. “Figure it out. Tommy ain’t going to give you no day off.”
She gives me a small, encouraging smile, then heads off to the kitchen.
Seriously?
I always get a headache on the first day of my period, and I can feel one starting. It’s throbbing behind my left temple. My stomach is cramping. And I feel just terrible.
Plus I am shaking. Withdrawal from the drugs, no doubt. Or maybe I’m just weak. I need more food.
“Heather? You about ready?” It’s Tommy’s voice coming from the kitchen. This is really happening. They really expect me to go do this.
I’m still sitting on my bed in my t-shirt when Tommy comes into the room. He grabs a dress out of the closet and throws it at me. It’s one of Reg’s, but I’m not going to tell him that. “Get dressed,” he says. He stands there, arms crossed, and watches while I peel off the t-shirt and pull on the dress. I don’t bother with a bra. Then he tosses me a pair of heels out of the closet.
As he’s leading me by the wrist to the car, I realize I’ve forgotten my baggie of pills. What if the pain gets too bad, and I need them? I remember that Chloe said to take an Oxy. Is that what those are? Maybe today isn’t the best day to give up the drugs. Panic starts to set in.
“I can’t,” I say.
Tommy opens the back door of the car, and he pushes me in next to Chloe.
My mind is still spinning when we are suddenly at the hotel. There’s a man waiting outside the door because we are a few minutes late.
He hands Tommy a $100-dollar bill, and Tommy pushes me towards him. And suddenly I’m inside the hotel room.
My heart is pounding, my head is pounding, my hands are shaking, and my stomach is cramping.
“I can’t do this,” I say to the stranger. “I’m sick.”
“Sick?” the man says. He’s dressed for work. Suit, tie, dress slacks. A businessman on his way into the office. Or on his lunch hour. He has a shiny gold ring on his wedding finger. “That doesn’t matter. I have a good immune system.”
“I mean…I got my period. I can’t—”
“Shhhhh,” he says, gently pushing me towards the bed. “It’s okay. There are plenty of other ways to please me, and I’m sure you’re good at all of them.”
And that day, I find out what he means.
— — —
I grew up watching the old Disney movies. The princess was always in a predicament. Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White. All of them needed saving, and their prince would come along and save them.
But then Mrs. Hudson told Brit and I that we shouldn’t ever wait for a man to come and save us. We needed to be able to save ourselves.
So she made us watch A League of Their Own, about women who wanted to play professional baseball and started a team. And Erin Brockovich, (even though it was rated R) where a woman takes on a legal case against a big company and wins. Then, thankfully, Disney got a clue and started making movies like Mulan and my favorite, Frozen, where the women save themselves and each other and sometimes an entire country. And we read the Hunger Games. So I’m well-equipped to realize that we women are capable of saving ourselves.
Except apparently I’m not.
Tommy’s words ring in my ears. “You are pathetic, Heather. That’s why you're here. You couldn’t cope. You’re not strong. This is all you’re good for.”
So maybe I do need a prince charming to come and save me.
I think of the movie Pretty Woman, where a prostitute meets a charming man and he falls in love with her. Maybe that will happen to me. Maybe, somehow, somebody will save me.
Staying off drugs is harder than I thought it would be. First I’m sick and shaking and nauseated. Then I get cranky. Reg says it could be worse. I guess it could. It’s not like I
used them constantly. And I realize how much they were blocking my mind from what is happening to my body.
To distract myself, I spend the week looking for Prince Charming, but he never comes. So towards the end of that week I share my dreams with Chloe, who has only seen the early Disney movies. I can’t believe you can grow up in America and not see Mulan or Frozen. I mean, was she hiding under a rock?
“You have to look out for yourself,” Chloe says.
We’re sitting in my bedroom. Reg, who is always high, and always grouchy, is lolling on her bed. Serena is there with us. It’s a rare night when we are all at the house at the same time.
I have been here over a month, but the girls are just now telling me all the rules. Maybe because I’m just now ready to listen.
“The loose cash is kept in coffee containers under the kitchen sink,” Chloe says. “Never touch them. Always ask Tommy. He will sometimes give you some to buy cigarettes or pads with. But never, ever take it. And never, ever, ever buy anything for yourself. He hates that.” She wags her finger for emphasis. I nod.
“The food is whatever you can find in the kitchen. You haven’t been here for long, but sometimes we run out. You just have to cope. Tommy always brings us more.”
Reg smirks. “If you can call it food,” she says, her voice gravelly.
Serena chimes in. I think I've only heard her speak a few times.
“He will sometimes give you drugs,” she says. Her red hair is frizzy and framing her face in unorganized curls tonight. “Hang on to them if you can. You can sometimes sell them for cash for feminine products.”
“Or condoms,” Reg says and laughs.
She’s making fun of me. She was right when she said the men won’t wear them. I’ve never had one who would.
“What about…the pill?” I ask. This is something that has been scaring me. “I mean, can’t we get pregnant?” Serena drops her head and starts picking at her nails.
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