by Callie Hart
My eyes feel dry; I don’t think I’ve blinked since the footage started playing. Ryan holds one hand up to the girl—a plea for help if ever I’ve seen one. The stance of the girl, the way she’s holding her own hands to her chest, makes me think she’s going to run from him. But she doesn’t. She surprises me and takes a step forward. More dark shapes appear on the screen—Raphael and his friends. I watch the girl getting grabbed. I watch those fuckers dragging Ryan back into the alleyway. And then there’s nothing.
“She was going to help him.” I hear myself say the words, but they don’t really register. Not until I find myself saying them again. “She was going to help him.” I take a deep breath. “So now we need to help her.”
ALEXIS
Ramona is a tall, slender woman with the traces of what might once have been a hair lip. If it was, her surgeon was very talented. Raphael hands me over to her with a clipped and considerably angry burst of Spanish, and then I’m whisked away. The woman has to be in her late twenties, though the tired look in her eyes gives her the appearance of someone much older.
“What you done to piss him off?” she asks, though she doesn’t really sound like she’s interested. A good job, really, since I have no intention of making small talk with her. The sugary sweet smell I caught outside is even thicker inside the house. We walk down a long, narrow corridor, and Ramona stops at the end, opening a door on the right. Inside, a confusion of pastel tulle awaits—dresses upon dresses, hanging on rack after rack. An entire room full of forgotten prom dreams.
“What size are you, girl?” Ramona asks. She smacks some gum. I don’t answer. She rolls her eyes and storms into the room, yanking a yellow dress off the closest rack and thrusting it out at me. I can see the label—size six. My size. I take it from her, because I sense she’ll only go get Raphael if I don’t and I do not want that.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“Five years,” she replies. “Five loooong, boring-ass years. Come with me.”
She takes me upstairs and down another long, corridor, right to the end again. She opens the door to the room that must be directly over the prom room. Most worryingly, she opens it with a key. “Go on. Inside.”
Inside, I go.
“Get washed up. I’ll be back in an hour to do your hair and shit. Don’t go trying to jump from the fuckin’ window or nothin’. Had a girl do that one time and her damn legs exploded.” With that very cheerful parting word of warning, Ramona closes the door, locking it behind her.
I am alone.
Despite what I was just told, the first thing I do is dump the hideous dress on the bed, and run to the window, checking to see if it’s open. My jaw nearly hits the floor when I find that it is. Why the hell would they leave the windows open if they were planning on kidnapping people and holding them hostage?
Because you’re in the middle of nowhere, a small voice in the back of my head reminds me. And how would you get down, anyway? That’s a big drop. A really big drop. It could be my eyes playing tricks on me, but I think I can actually see a patch of rust-colored dirt directly under the window. Do people’s legs actually explode when they hit the ground after a fall? I have no idea, but my stomach is balking at the prospect of giving it a shot. There’s no handily placed downpipe to shimmy down like in the movies. Nothing to gain any purchase on at all. Fuck.
I give up the jumping from the window idea, and decide on searching for another means of escape. The room is markedly bare, though. There’s a double bed, freshly made by the looks of things. A dresser against the far wall, though when I open the drawers, they’re all empty. A sink complete with dripping tap stands in the corner—the kind the Victorians used to put in every bedroom back before the introduction of the en-suite bathroom. My heart leaps in my chest when I see the mirror mounted on the wall above it. I could smash it and use one of the shards as a weapon. But I’m not even halfway across the room when I realize the mirror isn’t actually a mirror at all. Instead, it’s a highly polished piece of metal, screwed tightly into the wall. I try to prize the screws out, but I only succeed in making my fingers bleed. The nails don’t budge an inch.
A weak desperation sets in after that. I stalk the perimeter of the room, eyes scanning for something I may have missed. Something, anything, I can use to get the hell out of here. There isn’t anything. Once that really hits home, I curl myself into a ball in the corner of the room and I cry. I cry so hard I make myself sick, my stomach muscles trembling from the second round of purging. I’m rinsing out my mouth, my legs trembling underneath me like two frail stalks of corn, when the door opens and Ramona walks in. She doesn’t seem impressed that I’m not decked out in the yellow dress yet.
“Fuck’s sake,” she hisses. I move away from her so that my back’s pressed up against the wall, but she doesn’t seem to care. This whole thing feels a little rote on her part. With quick, rough hands, she takes hold of my soiled T-shirt and forcefully removes it from my body. I’m too stunned to struggle. She unbuttons my jeans next, and drags them down. My legs get a good hard slap when I refuse to lift my feet at first. I relent after the third strike, miserably raising them one at a time so she can bully my dirty, wadded-up jeans free from my body.
She leaves me in my underwear while she fills the sink with water. I’m made to remove those too when she’s done, though—if you don’t do it, I will. I cover my breasts with my hands, awkwardly trying to make myself smaller as Ramona uses a clean, white face cloth to scrub at my body. The water’s warm, but it might as well be freezing cold. Every time she touches me, I nearly jump out of my skin. My humiliation is complete when she thrusts the cloth between my legs, forcing my hand out of the way.
“You want to make him unhappy?” she snaps. Him being Raphael, no doubt. I do not want to make him unhappy—the bastard is unhinged—but I don’t particularly like the way my lady parts are being prepped for some unknown event, either. Ramona tuts as she plucks with her fingers at my pubic hair. I’m not a particularly hairy person, but she seems revolted by what I’ve got going on downstairs.
“This needs to go,” she informs me. “You look like a fucking virgin with that fuzz going on.”
I’m hit with a sudden memory—the mystery biker’s words to me as he gripped hold of my wrist. Tell them you’re a virgin. Whatever happens, make sure Hector knows that. Even the firm look he gave me as he walked away was reaffirming what he’d said to me. I haven’t even considered what it might mean for my situation right now, but he seemed so insistent. And he hated Raphael; I could see that in his eyes, too. I open my mouth and tell Ramona what he told me to say, choking on the words. “I am a virgin.”
Ramona rockets to her feet, taking a step back. “What?” She looks like I’ve just slapped her.
I contort my arms around my body again, trying and failing to cover too many parts of myself. “I’m a virgin. I’ve never been with anyone before,” I say in a small voice. This is a flagrant lie. I lost my virginity when I was eighteen to the first guy I ever loved, Joshua. We’d been dating for two years through the final years of high school. We’d finally committed ourselves to each other the week before he left for college in Oklahoma. We’d known it was over but we still loved each other. It was a final, gentle moment, one last gift that was shared between us before we said goodbye. Since then I’ve only had one sexual partner, Matt, but we’ve hardly been shy about what we’ve wanted from each other.
Ramona casts a doubtful eye over me. She doesn’t believe me. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Ain’t no white college girls virgins at twenty-one,” she tells me, as though she’s an authority on the matter.
“My family’s religious. I’m religious. No sex before marriage.” My cheeks burn like charred ember when I go to Church these days—there’s never been a woman so wanton sitting in the pews of St. Augustus Catholic Church. When I’m feeling particular penitent, I’ll go to confession and take my Hail Marys on the chin, along with the partially
visible scandal that marks Father Richmond’s face.
Ramona stares at me some more. I’m probably blushing—I’ve never been manhandled like a piece of meat before. Hopefully the woman’s taking my rosy glow as embarrassment over my confession to her. “You never been touched by a boy? Ever?” she asks.
I shake my head.
Ramona tosses the face cloth back into the sink with a wet splash, tutting under her breath. “Put the dress on anyway. I’ll be back in a moment.” She leaves me, naked and shivering, wondering if I’ve done the right thing or if I’ve just made things infinitely worse for myself. I have no clean underwear, so I climb into the pale yellow dress without any. The thing is a frou-frou monstrosity, all ruffles and pleats. There’s even a satin bow that ties just under the bust line. I tie it, all the while wondering if the strand of ribbon is long enough to hang myself with if it comes down to it. I wasn’t joking back in the van; I would rather die than be violated by a bunch of strange men.
Twenty minutes pass. I sit on the edge of the bed, counting my heartbeats. It’s strange that the treacherous organ in my ribcage insists on skipping along so steadily, when it seems as though the intensity of my fear should have stopped it dead by now. I hear voices after a while—loud ones—and then the thunder of boot steps out in the corridor. The door rattles as the key is fumbled, inserted, twisted, opened, and then Hector, Raphael and Ramona storm one by one into the room. Raphael’s face is twisted into a rictus of rage. Hector simply looks like he’s being inconvenienced.
“Lie back on the bed,” he says.
I lock my ankles together, my arms clamped firmly around my body. “No.”
Hector laughs, looking at Raphael. “You always bring the spirited ones back, huh?”
“She’s not a fucking virgin, Hector. No way. She’s lying.”
“And why would she do that?” he asks softly. “I’m presuming you didn’t tell her of our business here?”
The creases in Raphael’s face deepen. “No,” he admits.
“Then the girl is probably a virgin.” He turns back to me, walks over to the bed, and places a hand on top of my head. I cower from his touch, which seems to displease him. He grabs hold of my chin in one hand, lifting my face so I’m looking up at him. “Lie back on the bed, sweet girl, or I’m going to make you. And I don’t want to have to do that, because I don’t want to hurt you, you see. Do as you’re told and I’ll be quick. I promise.”
My tears return, blurring out the world. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t want to see their faces as I slowly lie back down onto the bed. Hector throws back the skirts of the yellow dress, and I bite back a cry of shame. His hands are cold. They push my legs apart, and then his strong, thick fingers are investigating, parting the folds of my flesh, demanding entry.
I start to sob. I should have thought of this. Centuries ago, they used to confirm a maiden’s virtue before she could be sold off to a husband. And now Hector is going to find out I’ve lied to him, and I’m going to pay the price. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I cry out as Hector’s finger probes deeper inside me. It hurts. The horror of my situation has my whole body clenched tight, locked up and rigid, which makes what Hector is doing to me pinch and burn even more.
I hold my breath, my fingernails cutting into the skin of my palms as I wait for it to be over. For him to call me liar. For more pain to arrive. I’m praying for Matt to come in here and save me, but he won’t. He can’t. No one can.
“She’s telling the truth,” Hector announces. What? I can’t…it takes a moment to register what he’s saying. He believes me? He withdraws his finger from inside me, and even that stings. Lifting his hand, he takes his index finger and slowly slides it into his mouth. “She’s sweet, too. She has a sweet pussy.”
My stomach roils, making dark threats. If I had absolutely anything left inside me, I would throw it up all over the bed.
Hector gives Raphael a conciliatory slap on the shoulder. “You know the rules, my friend. Virgins belong to me. Maybe next time you should fuck them before you bring them home, huh? That way there would be no doubt.” Raphael’s lips are pulled back into an ugly sneer.
“Hector, she is mine! I—” Hector snaps his right hand out, backhanding Raphael across the cheek. It probably didn’t hurt all that much, but the action silences Raphael in an instant.
“I don’t repeat myself for anybody, Raphi. You know that. Please, remember yourself.” Raphael clenches his jaw. He nods once, staring the older man directly in the eye. Hector ignores him; he faces Ramona, maintaining a cool, effortless calm. “Get some pictures taken. Post them immediately. Make sure she gets sent to one of the cartels. I don’t want her opening her mouth about the judge to any of our other clients. Highest bidder wins out. I want her gone within twenty-four hours.” He storms out of the room, wafting a sickly sweet cloud behind him as he goes. I close my legs slowly, pushing down the layers of the dress, crying silently.
I’m to be sold. Like a piece of meat, an object, nameless and unimportant, I am going to be sold.
ALEXIS
Ramona disappears and comes back a while later with a small point-and-shoot digital camera. I’m less than compliant when she tells me she wants to take photos of me. I start kicking and screaming, and she counters my refusal with two heavy set women, who hurry into the room and pin me down on the bed while she forces something—a pill—down my throat.
The two women keep me pinned to the bed, grunting as I try and wrestle free of them, until Ramona’s happy that whatever she’s given me will be taking effect soon. They leave, then, and Ramona smirks as I try launching to my feet, only to find that my arms and legs are made out of rubber. I hit the ground hard, but it doesn’t seem to matter. In actual fact, nothing really matters anymore.
She makes me pose in my yellow dress, dead eyes staring straight down the lens, and then she makes me strip. She tells me how I’m to stand or sit, how I’m to hold myself, and she snaps off picture after picture of me, the flash burning another flare of color into my retinas each time. When she tells me to sit on a wooden chair and open my legs for her, I come to my senses long enough to refuse, and she slaps me around the face.
“You’d better just do it, white girl. You don’t want to make this hard on yourself,” she says to me, her voice softening. It’s as though Ramona is both the good cop and the bad in this scenario, which makes it hard to know how to react to her—I never know which side of her I’m dealing with at any one time. She gets her way in the end. I open my legs and close my eyes, and the flash doesn’t bother me this time. I think maybe she’ll tell me she wants to take the shot again, eyes open this time, but she doesn’t. Maybe the people who will be viewing these pictures like when a girl’s shame is evident, along with the most private parts of her body. Maybe that’s what excites them.
“Don’t worry,” Ramona says, as she hovers in the doorway, half in, half out, her job done. “You’ll be out of here really soon. The men who are gonna bid on you, they take good care of their possessions. If you’re good to them, do as your told, you won’t want for anything. It’s a better fucking life than you would have had here with Raphael.”
She says this as though she might know from personal experience what a life with Raphael might be like. I have no choice but to put the yellow dress back on. Ramona leaves me alone in the bare room, my clothes, the clothes I wore in another life still quietly stinking of vomit in the corner, and me curled up in the middle of the bed, too empty and too nothing to even cry anymore.
I eventually fall asleep. I don’t dream, which is a small blessing. It’s dark when I’m woken up—by a silhouette standing in the doorway. Raphael. “You fucking lying whore,” he spits.
I sit bolt upright on the bed, my head spinning. The drugs from earlier have mercifully worn off, but now I feel sick. Adrenalin washes through me in a powerful tide that jumpstarts my heart, sending it into overdrive. Where is Hector? Ramona? Without them here, I don’t feel safe. Not that I’m sa
fe with them here, but at least they would protect their goods, as it were. “You’ve been touched before. I know it. I can fucking smell it on you,” Raphael snarls.
He takes one step into the room, and I push back on the bed, my hands and feet scrambling for purchase against the sheets. “I’ll scream,” I whisper. My voice cracks—so much fear, so much adrenalin—and I think perhaps he might not have heard me. “I’ll scream,” I say again, this time louder, more confident. Raphael snorts.
“Scream all you like. It won’t get you anywhere. You’ve been bought and paid for now, bitch. And from what I know of your new owner, you’re gonna wish you’d never been born. Get ready. They’re already coming for you.”
Ramona’s warning—be good and your new owner will be good to you—was apparently a waste of breath. If Raphael thinks whoever’s bought me is a bad person, then I am totally fucked. “Come with me,” he commands. I get to my feet, my head spinning from lack of food and panic, and follow after him as he leads me back down the stairs. In the corridor, he stops abruptly, turning on me. My head smashes against the wall as he pins me by the throat with one powerful hand. “You should know, Sophia Letitia Marne, that I have a very long memory. And I hate being fucked around, especially by whores. I don’t like not getting what I want. You got a sister, huh? Any family? I am going to find your family, Sophia, and I’m gonna make them pay for your little lie. You hear me? And then, when I’ve fucked and killed your mother and all of your sisters, I’m going to send you pictures. And you’ll know that their deaths were because of you.” He spits in my face, then—a huge, wet ball of saliva and phlegm that hits me on the mouth and cheek. “Just wait and see if I don’t,” he whispers.
A door next to us opens, sending a rectangle of orange light spearing through the darkness, and Hector appears in the doorway, hands on his hips. “Thank you, Raphael. That will be all,” he says. My legs almost collapse out from underneath me when it doesn’t look like Raphael is going to let me go. But he does. He squeezes my neck one last time, fingers crushing my esophagus, and then pushes away from me, growling under his breath. He charges down the corridor and then out the front door, slamming it hard behind him.