by Peg Brantley
I sense him walking around me, examining me, evaluating me. He’s not trying to hide his movements, he’s simply quiet as he makes the circle.
“Remove your clothes.”
There’s a roaring in my ears. I stop breathing.
“You heard me.”
Suddenly the fog lifts. I see two ways I can play this. I can be completely humiliated, which would show he’s on his way to breaking me, or I can strip and stand proud. Stay true to who I am and not let him get a win. Any kind of win.
I strip.
Music is pumped through speakers I hadn’t noticed before. It’s strong and suggestive. Before he orders me to dance, I will my limbs to move fluidly, with energy and purpose… and pride.
He cannot see my soul if all he’s doing is looking at my body. My body is not me. I feel safer now than I’ve felt in days.
Screw you.
The children coming into her courtroom weren’t seen as victims by law enforcement, she said. “They’re seen as consenting participants.”
—Selling Atlanta’s Children: What has and hasn’t changed, by Jane O. Hansen,
Special to CNN
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JAYLA
Karen/Debbie isn’t speaking to me. She’s not speaking to anyone. The tiny white girl, who I’d later found out was from Lakewood, just west of Denver, was sold at auction because she was a virgin. She came back to our group even more broken than she’d left us. No telling what happened to her on her first night out. Maybe she’ll talk and maybe she won’t. We all keep secrets.
I’d been a virgin too. But I’m the wrong color from the wrong part of town, so no one even suspected. Even if anyone had known, there would’ve been no auction for me. At least that’s my guess.
Now, tonight, I need to figure out a plan. To get through. To make sure Jayla survives. I’ve come to love Cherie, my alter-ego, because she can take the hits. The degradation. The shit. Jayla, on the other hand, demands more protection than I ever could have imagined during my life back in Denver.
I smooth on the skintight clothing that covers next to nothing and check my makeup. I’m honest about the way I look. No sex-goddess here. But I’ve learned that for the most part, a girl can look like crap and it won’t matter. Daddy, however, will do a check as I leave the motel. If I don’t meet his standards I’ll meet his fist. Not something I enjoy.
“Cherie,” he says as I walk out. “Step over here a minute.”
I follow him into a shadowed spot on the sidewalk outside of the motel and wait for him to talk.
“That was a good catch you made about the new bitch being a virgin.”
“Thank you.” I can’t help adding, “You doubled your money.”
Daddy laughed. “More like tripled it.”
I hesitate but I have to ask. “So was her first time easier?” Easier than mine, I wonder?
“What the fuck do I care?”
I stand silent.
“But I gave you a break by letting you babysit the virgin. So tonight you gotta make it up. I expect double from you, Cherie.” He reaches out to tilt my chin up. “You know what happens if you don’t meet my expectations, right?” He presses his fingers into my jaw.
“Yeah,” I force the word out.
“Then do it.” He releases the painful grip.
Double? I’m not stupid, Daddy. If I get you double tonight, that’ll become your expected. But I’ll get you sufficiently more. Enough more to make you think I worked extra hard, but not enough to make you think I can do it every night.
As I force my feet to move across the parking lot in the direction of the arena, I can see the silhouettes of three other girls walking ahead of me. Where do they call home? Colorado, like me? Or somewhere more exotic. The Philippines? New York City?
Do they have Watchers?
About a month after Daddy put me on the street, one of the newer girls tried to run away. Two men brought her to Daddy and dumped her at his feet while a couple of us looked on. Daddy paid the men with dope and when they left he killed her in front of us. Slowly. Even though she was half-dead already.
“I have Watchers on every block you work, in every city you work. If you think you can leave me, you can’t. If you try, this is what happens.” Her damaged face and broken body is never far from my thoughts.
I’d also heard of other pimps recognizing a girl and either taking her for themselves or gaining favor by returning her to her trafficker.
Sometimes I think traffickers lay traps just so they can inflict pain.
Five blocks from the sports arena, a clean, new model car pulls up in front of me. Seven months ago I would have plowed right on past him, intent on my destination and oblivious. Now, I stop. Look at him. Wonder briefly about whether or not he has a wife. Kids. People who look up to him.
“Wanna party?” he asks.
“We can talk about it,” I say as I look him over. First, I try to see if there’s any sign of him being undercover. He’s pretty out of shape for a cop. Next, is he going to get off by trying to kill me? There’s nothing about him that shouts psycho-abuser, but I’ve learned those signs can be subtle. “What are you looking for?”
“Just an hour or so of romance.”
Shit. First of all, there is no romance, and second of all, an hour? In whose fantasy?
“It’ll cost you a hundred.” That’s at the high end for someone like me on the street, but I need extra cash tonight.
“No problem.” A red flag shoots up. He’s not even going to try and negotiate? Off of a top price? I look around trying to spot Daddy’s Watchers.
“Sorry,” I say. “I forgot I have a date.”
“A hundred and fifty.”
That could go a long way toward my extra cash for Daddy. I’m tempted. “What’s your definition of romance?”
He looks at me like I’m from Mars. “Definition?”
“Yeah. If we get together, what exactly are you looking for?”
Is he blushing?
“You are blowing the whole idea of romance. Do you want my money or not?”
The combination of his blushing and a hundred and fifty dollars takes care of my concern. “Sure. Let’s party.”
I get into his car and discreetly check out the interior. Completely clean. No Binky’s or any other sign of children. I can’t stand the idea of johns with kids. This might not be so bad.
My hotel is two blocks away. He turns into a parking space and I believe I’ve hit my jackpot for the night. Two more dates and I can quit, make Daddy happy, and get the sleep of normal people. More or less.
Daddy moved me to a different room after Karen/Debbie experienced her first sale. Not out of any sense of compassion for Karen. Just commerce. No way a guy was gonna wind up satisfied with a weepy girl in the room.
I open the door (Daddy had disengaged the automatic locking mechanism) and walk into the room.
And I wait.
It’s not like I’m suspicious, even though I am. It’s more like I don’t know this john and how he operates. A bruised and swollen eye a few months ago taught me to watch and listen. Let the customer tell me what he’s looking for.
“You clean?”
I hate this question. Do I get to ask johns if they have an STD? Shit.
“Yeah, I’m clean.” And you? I ask silently.
“As of when?”
“Last time I was checked.” Which of course has never happened. Daddy has earned back whatever he paid for me ten times over. Probably more. He couldn’t care less about what happens to one of his older girls—which I’ve become in the span of six months.
“Well get over here then.” He unzips his pants and drops them to his knees and his dirty underwear follows.
The ignorant fool didn’t even consider that the john before him might have given me something.
I refrain from asking him about the romance part.
[Denver is a convenient hub for the comings and goings of kids indentured to magazine sales
crews or migrant farm workers in bondage to debt…]The surprise is the backyard nature of it all. The Colorado Project revealed that trafficking is thriving statewide—in Denver, Lakewood, Aurora, Colorado Springs and rural Colorado—and is as likely to involve a white middle-schooler at odds with her parents as it is an undocumented worker fearing deportation.
—Moving in the Right Direction, by Leslie Petrovski, January 30, 2014
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mex sat at an outdoor table at Tamayo, a restaurant in Larimer Square, about seven blocks from The Ritz-Carlton in downtown Denver. He slowly sipped a three-year old Patron and nibbled at a plate of chicken tinga tacos. Earlier he’d told Cade and Darius he needed space, and he figured they could use a break from him as well.
He focused on the throngs of young people who walked past him on the sidewalk, a lot of them with their heads bent as they chose electronics over people occupying their space. A digital interaction that didn’t require eye contact.
Every culture and economic status was represented on this Denver street corner. While the cultures were evident in Aspen Falls, he missed the diversity of economies. The sheer energy and optimism that can come from people who don’t have much to lose. Who have more faith than fear.
Who didn’t know how vulnerable they were.
Alexis. Jayla. Those names never left his thoughts. He needed to do right by them. While he could identify with the anguish their parents felt, it was the girls themselves who filled his daily mind map. It was his awareness of what they were facing every day—every night—they were apart from their families that sawed into his heart. He wanted to find them yesterday, sweep in with sword flaying and cape flying.
But the real world sucked.
He took another sip of tequila.
Mex watched as a man in his twenties began gesticulating to a girl who was fifteen at the most. He grabbed her arm and she tried to twist away but he was too strong. Mex left his table and jogged toward the pair.
Forcing through with his shoulder Mex butted the young man away from the girl, breaking the threatening hold and powering the instigator to the ground. A small crowd gathered, unsure of who the bad guy was, the old guy or the young one. A woman put her arms around the girl.
Mex yanked the man’s wrists together and hauled him to his feet.
“What the fuck are you doing, man? Get your hands off me!”
Mex squared their faces. “What the fuck are you trying to do to that girl?”
“She’s my sister!”
“Your sister?”
“She lied about where she was going today.”
Mex relaxed his grip but didn’t let go. He looked at the young girl in the woman’s embrace. “Is he telling the truth?”
When the girl nodded he could see the physical resemblance between brother and sister. He released his hold. “I’m sorry. I misread the interaction. I was only trying to protect her.”
“Screw you.” The young man brushed himself off as if Mex had left him filthy.
The woman who had moved to protect the girl stepped forward, inserting herself into the brother’s space. “You should thank this man. If someone had been trying to take your sister and do her harm, what would have happened to her? You would have lost her. He was the only one here to step in.”
The young man stared at the woman, obviously digesting her words. Finally he reached out, grabbed his sister’s arm, and gave Mex a quick nod before heading down the sidewalk, his sister walking slightly behind him, head bowed.
Mex wondered how many siblings sold their siblings? It had to happen. He hoped it wasn’t happening with those two.
After the crowd dispersed, the woman approached Mex. “That was brave of you. Thank you.”
“I saw you hug the girl. You got involved as well.”
“I don’t see as I had a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
The woman made a sad face. “Not always.”
Mex found his manners and reached out his hand. “I’m Mex Anderson.”
She did a double-take, hesitated, then put hers into his. “My name is Rachel. Rachel Hanson.”
Mex motioned toward his table at Tamayo where the wait staff and customers were standing, looking in his direction. “Would you join me? I’m enjoying some tequila and tacos.”
Rachel looked into his face and seemed to arrive at a decision. “Sure. I’d like that.”
The victim enters into the sex industry where [s]he experiences constant violence and severe trauma. Victims undergo a process of being recruited, groomed, abused, controlled, and being turned out by violent pimps. The result of this step is a “trauma bond” between victim and pimp or trafficker that can be equated to Stockholm Syndrome.
— Pimp-Prostitute Relationship, by Anna Engel, November 2012
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Settled, an order of a pepito steak wrap in front of her at the outdoor table, Rachel looked up at Mex. “I recognize you from the news the other day. You’re the guy trying to find the missing rich girl.”
“Yeah, her and another one.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow.
“Not so rich. Not so high profile. Just as important.” Mex evaluated the woman in front of him. No makeup. Plain clothes. It was like she was trying to disappear. But she couldn’t quite keep her eyes from challenging her surroundings.
Mex knew she had a story and he had a hunch she might be able to add something to his dedicated band of rescuers. He also knew she wasn’t likely to confide in him. “Do you mind if I ask someone to join us?”
Rachel’s face relaxed. She almost smiled. “No, not at all.”
After another Patron and a glass of chardonnay for Rachel, Cade finally approached the table and placed her bag over a chair. “Hi. I came as soon as I could.” She looked at Rachel and held out her hand. “Cade LeBlanc.”
“You’re his partner,” Rachel said, shaking Cade’s hand.
“On our better days,” Cade answered.
“Rachel Hanson.”
Mex described the event that occurred earlier and how he and Rachel got involved. He didn’t embellish. He didn’t get emotional. But he did paint a picture.
Mex nudged his Patron away from him. He looked first at Rachel and then at Cade.
Cade took a bite of Mex’s taco while Rachel sat back in her seat, color fading from her face, almost like she knew what was coming.
“Ms. Hanson,” Mex said, “I’ve been reading people for almost longer than I can remember. My ability to decipher motivation, to appraise a situation, has almost always been to my advantage.” Except for one momentous occasion, he thought. He reached for the glass and sipped his drink. “Can you tell us why you were so willing to become involved in an altercation that could’ve turned violent?”
Rachel licked her lips and whispered, “The girl looked as if she needed help.”
Mex settled deeper into his chair and closed his eyes.
Cade focused on the young woman, then watched as Mex emotionally pulled away from the conversation. She understood this was now her show. Cade had also seen the same haunted presence Rachel was exhibiting in people she’d removed from cults.
“Do you have enough to eat?” Cade asked nodding toward her plate. “Would you like something else?”
“No, I’m fine.” The young woman shifted in her seat and swallowed. Cade noticed Rachel’s Adidas-clad foot pumping under the table.
Cade signaled the waiter and asked for a zin and another order of chicken tinga tacos. She waited quietly, giving Rachel a chance to find her center and relax.
Placing her hand next to Rachel’s, close but not touching, Cade said, “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, your reaction would have been spot on. You had no idea that the forceful-sounding young man was her brother trying to keep her safe.”
Rachel nodded. Her hand twitched.
“You’ve had experience with this.” It was a statement, not a question. Cade covered the anxious hand with
hers. She knew she couldn’t force anything from this young woman, or everything she might share would be lost.
Rachel nodded again. She gave a slight cough. “It’s been a long time since I’ve stood in the moment. That place of control. Or rather, lack of control. My reaction was instinctive.”
Her voice got stronger with each sentence. She made eye contact with Cade and pulled her hand away. “I was forced into prostitution when I was fourteen. I lived the life until I was twenty-three. Nine years. Nine years in a prison without bars.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Cade asked.
“Not today. Not after what just happened.”
When the food and wine were delivered, Cade thanked the server and waited for him to leave. “What do you do now?”
Rachel forced a laugh. “I’m an advocate. I’m on call with all of the local law enforcement agencies, shelters, churches, GOs and NGOs. You name the agency or organization or group, if someone comes in who’s been trafficked, I’m on the resource list.”
Cade was impressed. Government organizations and non-government organizations didn’t always share their help lists. “You must know your stuff.”
“I don’t know about that. I only know that the victim assistance positions are filled by women who can pass a background check. It doesn’t mean they aren’t helpful, but the girls who come into the system have a hard time relating to a college educated woman who’s been able to direct her own life, make her own choices. That’s where I come in.”
“You’re a bridge.”
Rachel’s face brightened with the tiniest of smiles. “Yeah. I guess that’s exactly what I am.”
“Are you aware we’re trying to find a couple of girls who’ve gone missing?”
“I saw the news interview.”
“When we bring these girls in—and we will—would you be willing to work with them? Get personal? I’m not talking about an advocate. I’m talking about a sister.” Cade leaned forward and took Rachel’s hand. “I’m talking about being there with us from the beginning.”