Catching a Fallen Starr

by Adriana Law

  Rule # Three) Keep a girl broke so she can’t leave

  I try to run many times. I see a chance and take I; running fast and as far as I can get. But Ricin or one of the other men always catch me. This time I get no further than the driveway. Ricin slams me to the ground and pins me there. He whispers in my ear that he has to punish me now, to set an example to the others that “you never run”. Not from “family”.

  A “pimp circle” is where pimps employ help from other pimps to correct a serious “problem”. As punishment, a girl is put in the center of a circle and surrounded by pimps that: degrade her, taunt her, and mock her until they see they have successfully broken her spirit.

  They spit.

  You are unwanted.

  You are a sorry excuse for a human being.

  No one cares that you are gone.

  Bitch.

  Whore.

  Cunt.

  Tart.

  Slut.

  Trash.

  They tell the girl that no one loves her. That no one cares. No one misses her. The pimps brainwash her into seeing things their way. And when the insults don’t work the pimp will use starvation as a means of breaking her. If that doesn’t work, he will beat her with chains, belts, cords...whatever he can get his hands on. If a spirit is strong and endures all of the above, then he will confine her in isolation.

  Ricin is too possessive to allow other pimps anywhere near “his” girls.

  As a punishment for my running… he is smart enough to go right for the throat by employing what bothers me the most: What the other girls I share the house with think of me.

  They stand around me.

  Mattie.

  Summer.

  Shelly.

  Others.

  Every girl here has been exactly where I am. Holding my ground. I stand rooted in the center of the circle as my gaze slides from each girl. “Family.”

  It’s night. A black sky hangs heavy overhead. Smothering. There is nowhere to run. The silver Spiders headlights illuminate the tightening circle of girls. They are all dressed in ordinary clothes: t-shirt and jeans, clothing we would never wear while doing “tricks”.

  Ricin masculine voice comes from beyond the outer perimeter of the circle. “Starr thinks she’s better than the rest of you. Look at her. So perfect. She thinks I like her more. Thinks I’ll go easy on her.”

  Each girl’s face is blank. Unreadable. I can’t tell if they are buying into it, or considering us all standing up against him. Seven against one. That’s good odds. I open my mouth to tell them this when Shelly snorts, saying, “I don’t think she’s as pretty as she thinks she is. Spoiled is what she is.”

  I want to respond, but Ricin has forbidden it.

  I have to stand still and take my punishment like a good, obedient girl.

  They will not take away what little dignity I have left.

  Another girl shouts, “Don’t you realize what you would be out from under his protection?”

  “A nasty slut without a family is what she would be. He is good to you. You’re ungrateful!”

  I know. It’s ironic: prostitutes calling someone a slut.

  “Yea, you’re an ungrateful, bitch!”

  “Without him, you’d be just another shit stain on the sidewalk!”

  They move in closer. I tense. My body is caving in on itself.

  I’ve become good at pretending.

  I am done pretending. I am so over it. I think about the people I am supposedly protecting. I think about whether or not Ricin will kill them. Do I care? No one has come looking for me. My parents are a mess. First there is my mother, a woman that I don’t think I can remember a time when it wasn’t all about her: my disappointments, my pain, my failed marriage she would whine never once noticing the little girl feeling lost and afraid that life as she knew it—a shitty mediocre life at best—was ending. Years with my father and I never could make him love me enough to stay.

  It was my entire fault, of course; it always was.

  My father’s disappointment in me is easy to explain though since obviously, he’d always wanted a boy. I convinced myself of this lie. It made sense, giving a reason for his lack of interest: he wanted someone to teach how to throw a football, someone he could take to baseball games and boy scouts, someone he could camp out with, someone he could share his love for astrology.

  Sure. I could pretend to like all these things, pretend to be excited over my grandfather’s pocket knife being passed down from my grandfather to my father to his…If I were only a boy…then, my father could relate.

  Imagine my shock when my father conceived a child with his young, pretty wife. Another girl. Imagine that. Another girl he seemed to relate to just fine. They took routine trips to the planetarium. He attended her dance recitals even though I knew my father hated girly-girl stuff, or maybe just me. Dickwad!

  “You think you’re better than the rest of us?” Shelly bends and gathers dry dirt from the ground. She slings it at me. Her face consumed with anger. “I say you’re not a member of the family!”

  “Yea,” Summer agrees. “We don’t want you here!”

  My eyes go directly to Mattie. Tears blur my vision. If she joins in, it will break me. She stands stiff, saying nothing.

  “You’re no longer family,” another shouts. “Don’t look us in the eyes whore!” And then they rush me. Hands grab and hold my arms. I struggle against them. “You’re a worm,” Summers growls, shoving handfuls of dirt into my mouth. “Eat dirt. Maggot.”

  I choke on the dryness of the dirt.

  I gag.

  Ricin is suddenly there, ordering, “Keep her still. The bitch deserves everything she’s getting. It’ll teach her to not be so mouthy and ungrateful.” He punches me in the stomach and breath is expelled from my lungs. My eyes land on Mattie and her hand holding my arm. It hurts. It hurts. What they’re doing to me hurts! Mostly their actions, not his. His I expect.

  Ricin punches my gut and I cry out, doubling over when they let go.

  I sink to the ground and curl up.

  I can’t stop the tears. Not anymore. I can’t stop shaking. “I give up,” my voice comes out broken. Then a yell, “I GIVE UP!! YOU HEAR ME RICIN CARTER? I GIVE UP!” If he wants my eyes to remain cast toward the fucking ground, then that is where my eyes will stay. If he wants me silent, then I will keep my damn mouth shut. If he wants me to obey, I will obey. “No more attitude. I swear.” My voice lowers to quiet mumbles into the dirt near my face. “I give up. You win. I am yours.”

  Ricin extends a hand down to me.

  He helps me get to my feet and lightly kisses the top of my head.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lot Lizard

  Lot lizard. That’s the street term for a prostitute that works a truck stop. I’m not here working tonight. I’ve moved up. I am here to spend time with my “family” by choice. They’re all I have. And it beats staying at the house alone when I’m not trickin'.

  I recognize Sawyer Bentley’s jeep the second it pulls up out front. If I were alone, I might even be brave enough to approach it and ask him to take me with him. But I promised to be good. I’m working on it. So, I stay back with the other girls and secretly watch Sawyer without the others knowing.

  The driver window comes down, and I see him for the first time since the mall.

  Sawyer motions Summer over.

  Just like she’s been taught Summer works him.

  Her ass cheeks peek out of the bottom of her mini skirt; it’s that short. Her tank top is fake leather with a zipper that lowers showing impressive cleavage for a girl who is only fourteen. Holding onto the window of his Jeep Summer laughs at something Sawyer says, before innocently looking down at the concrete, the toe of a boot scraping at the pavement.

  Ricin finally bought her the boots she wanted.

  Sawyer is slightly slouched in the driver’s seat in a lazy-no-rush sort of way wearing a navy ball cap. I guess the cap is to shade his face. It’s not working. A fo
rearm is resting on the rolled down window. He leans far enough out to appear mildly intrigued, but not desperate.

  His familiar chuckle reaches my ears and stirs a rage inside of me that is hard to get ahead of. It’s not going to do any good to storm out there and demand Sawyer Bentley explains what the hell he is doing in my territory. What I can’t figure out is why he needs to pay for sex, so I’m suspicious.

  Watchful.

  I don’t see him being into runaway fourteen-year-olds.

  His older brother would beat his ass if he knew he was down here. I should tell Sterling. Rat Sawyer out. “Nah.” I shake my head expelling all thoughts of him screwing Summer. Not Sawyer. There has to be another reason.

  Sawyer gives Summer a flirtatious grin and just like that I swing the other way, thinking maybe I am wrong. Plenty of “pigs” benefit from our services. They won’t admit it. But they enjoy playing both sides. Getting blowed on the nights they’re not cuffing us and tossing our asses behind bars.

  It’s none of your business what he does, Starr. Look away. Look away. I can’t!

  Summer runs around to the passenger side and gets in.

  I cover my mouth with a hand feeling as if I may puke. Suddenly, the night air feels exceptionally chilling.

  “You okay,” Mattie ask me.

  “Just a little nauseous.”

  “Yea, you don’t look so good.” She reaches for the door and pulls me through it. “Let’s go inside and grab a coke.”

  “I think I just officially lost all faith in men,” I tell Mattie, glancing over a shoulder, watching Sawyer’s Jeep pulls out onto the main road headed south. His taillights blink twice before disappearing altogether.

  Dropping down into one of the nasty booths I slide off my shoes and lift my feet under the table, resting them on the opposite seat. Mattie settles in across from me with a nuked hotdog in hand. “Those things will kill you,” I tell her, sipping from my soda bottle.

  “I can think of a dozen worse ways to go, and just so you know…I’ve had far worse things shoved in my mouth.” She lifts the onion covered dog out of the paper thingy that looks like a coffee filter and pushes half of it into her mouth. Mattie always has had an appetite. Me. I don’t eat. She says one word around the mouth full, “Talk.”

  “About?” I stretch out. “How life is grand, or how our job is fulfilling?”

  She snorts around another bite. “Why you couldn’t take your eyes off the Jeep.” She wipes the mustard off her chin with a napkin. “And how shortly after the dude drove off with Summer, you looked like you were going to spew all this serious built up shit. He a friend of yours?”

  I tear the label off my soda. “Just someone I used to know.”

  “He’s seriously hot. Is he an old boyfriend?”

  Something strange and ugly surfaces. “Sawyer Bentley is not hot. Cute maybe. But definitely not hot.”

  “I would do him in a heartbeat,” Mattie says, shrugging a shoulder. She crumbles her napkin into a ball, tossing it in the now empty filter and pushing it aside. “In fact, Summer is probably doing him right now.” Mattie’s face suddenly splits into a smile. “Nausea suddenly back, huh? Why didn’t you just stop her from going with him?”

  “Look, it’s not my place and…did I tell you he’s a cop?”

  “A pig? Oh Jesus, if he’s a pig then you need to stay away from him. Let Summer have him! Maybe he’ll lock her up for a night or two so we won’t have to listen to her constant rambling.” Mattie groans and leans back on her side of the booth. “A stinking cop. Starr you need to run from that shit.”

  “Is that Ricin talking, or you?” I ask Mattie.

  Ricin brainwashes all his girls into thinking “pigs” are the enemy. He programs us with well-plotted escapes and made-up stories to give the cops in case we ever do get arrested. Cops help his case by always arresting the girls and not the pimp. Some of us spend two or more nights at a time behind bars during which…our Pimp never suffers any consequences. If cops want to help us, they will aim for the top, at the one who beats us so violently we’ll never feel safe enough to risk freedom.

  “Promise me, when he comes back with Summer…if he comes back…that you will stay out of sight and forget about him. I don’t give a shit what he was to you in your past. Cops are never good.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I mumble. “Stay out of sight. You think I want him to see me?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve got that look again. That twitch in your eyes like you might try to run.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?”

  “If Sawyer comes back I promise to stay away from him. He is bad.” I hold up my fingers making a cross. “Evil. Out to hurt me, not help me. I get it.”

  “Make jokes. I’m serious. Ricin IS not going to like you looking at this guy much less talking to him.” Mattie scoots out of the booth and pauses by my side; her green eyes full of genuine concern. “Convince me, because I don’t think you mean it.”

  My eyes flash up at her. “I have no plans of ever running again. If that’s what you’re worried about. I am officially cured of that ailment.”

  She shakes her head. “Sometimes you’re too headstrong for your own good.”

  “No, Mattie. I am a submissive slut.”

  “Don’t knock a life that’s been good to us. As far as pimps go…he’s not that bad. Ricin does do a lot for us.”

  “In between beating us.”

  “You wouldn’t have half the shit you have if it weren't for him. You would still be eating peanut butter from a jar.”

  I keep my word and don’t approach Sawyer’s Jeep whenever he drops Summer back off. BUT later, whenever Mattie goes to the restroom I ask Summer a few questions. Not knowing is going to drive me insane. I have to know.

  “The guy you were just with…what did he want?”

  “Nothing,” Summer nervously replies.

  “Nothing?” I eye her closely. She’s behaving weird; looking down at the zipper of her leather top pulling the zipper up an inch, then down an inch. Up. Down. Up. Down. If she’s not careful her boobs are going to pop out. “I don’t believe you,” I tell her. “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing really. We drove down the road a bit and parked.”

  “And then?” I ask. My stomach flutters. I keep badgering her even though it’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk about it. Mattie will be back out any second. “What did he have you do?”

  “He wanted a blowjob, that’s all. It was quick,” she tells me. “It felt wrong charging the dude full price.”

  “Ugh. Gross.” Her admission feels like a sucker punch to the gut. I bury my face in my hands and stumble over to the brick wall and lean against it. “I hate him,” I mutter into my hands while slightly shaking my head. “He turned me down but goes after…after…a fourteen year old!”

  “Are you crying?” Summer pulls my hands away from my face. I wipe my cheek, surprised to find tears. She asks, “Did I do something wrong?”

  I shake my head. “I just get so disappointed in people sometimes.” She slides an arm around my shoulders. It shocks me. So unlike Summer. I decide to be honest. “I know him, the guy you were with. I guess…even though I’ve given him a lot of shit…I thought Sawyer was better than that. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with you. It would have bothered me even if he were with Mattie.”

  Summer removes the arm. Starts with the zipper again. Zip. Zip. Up. Down.

  After a few minutes I tell her, “C’mon, let’s go see what’s taking Mattie so long.” I push off from the wall and hold the door open.

  Summer doesn’t budge. She stares at the concrete, chewing on a fingernail. I let the door go and walk back over to her, asking, “What is it?”

  “I lied. About the guy.”

  “What do you mean you lied?”

  “He didn’t ask me to do anything. He asked a lot of weird questions. But he didn’t ask for anything.”

  “What kind of qu
estions?”

  “Are you going to tell Ricin?” she cries. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t tell the guy anything.”

  “What questions did he ask, Summer? Tell me what he said!”

  Summer’s eyes widen. She swallows hard. “He asked if I was from ‘round here. He said I’m too young, and he wanted to see my driver’s license.”

  “Typical cop move,” I tell her. “If you can’t produce a license, then he knows your pimp took it. Which means you’re not just friendly, you’re selling for someone.”

  “Are you serious?” she whines. “I got a bad vibe from him straightaway, like maybe he’s an uncover cop. Ricin is going to be so fucking mad! You say you know the guy…fix it, Starr! You gotta fix it so I don’t get in trouble.” She rubs her hands over her upper arms.

  I’m curious. “Did he tell you he’s a cop?”

  “No. He….”

  “He what?”

  She digs into the pocket of her mini-skirt and shows me a wad of bills.

  “He gave me this,” she says. “For nothing.”

  “For nothing?”

  “Are you a parrot? Fucking yea. FOR NOTHIN’. I tried to at least suck his dick, but he wouldn’t let me. Kept scolding me like I’m a child.”

  YOU ARE A CHILD! “He didn’t mention me?”

  “OMG is he one of your regulars?”

  “No,” I say with emphasis. “He didn’t ask for anything in return?”

  She sighs, getting annoyed with my questions, but then her expression says she remembers something. “Oh. Yea.” Her hand goes to her neck feeling the empty space there. “He wanted to buy the necklace Ricin gave me.”

  My heart rate accelerates.

  My own fingers itch to have that comfort back, my comfort: the feel of the chain as it runs over my fingers whenever I lift it only to set it free to dangle against my skin. The smooth edges of the amber stone between my fingertips. I had a stuffed tiger when I was young that I would do the same to: I rubbed his fur clean off leaving bald patches. The counselor at the elementary school told my mother—who was worried over the fact that I refused to give the tiger up—that it was the way I dealt with stress: releasing the anxiety by the constant rubbing. I was so caught up in the emotions of seeing Sawyer that I hadn’t noticed the necklace was no longer around her neck.