“Me too,” I admit.
“I turn eighteen in a month. No one's gonna look for me after that. No one'll ever know I've been kidnapped.”
I wish I could reassure her, but she's right. When we return to the van, the girl who loaned her shoes to Willow has puked outside and is curled up in the corner of the van, shaking. She seems unaware of our return.
We start driving again, and I crouch next to her, putting my hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Don't touch me,” she grates out before puking again. She doesn't bother lifting her head, and her face and hair get soaked.
One of the other girls speaks up. “She'll be fine once we get to the house and she gets some smack.”
“Smack?”
“Heroin,” another girl pipes up cheerfully. “I ain't as far gone as she is, but I need some too.”
“You two are gonna get the weirdos, you know that right?” the first girl says. She turns to me and Willow. “Whatever you guys do, stay away from the drugs. They do some messed up things to the girls when they're high.”
The oddly cheerful one speaks again. “It's better to be high than to remember what they do to me.”
16
THE BUILDING IS RUN down. Whoever owns this house has taken no pride in ownership. The wooden siding looks like it’ll give you a splinter if you touch it, and many windows are covered with cardboard and duct tape instead of glass. As we enter the barren, dimly lit place, I realize that I finally know what despair smells like. This. It's dirt-stained, and reeks of mildew and sweat.
The living room is filled with men. We girls are outnumbered by at least three to one. One of the men seems to be the ringleader—Nikolai, I assume. The name sounds Russian, but he appears to be Mexican. His dark hair is slicked back with copious amount of hair gel, and he's a good enough looking guy that I might have taken a second glance if I'd seen him any other place. He looks in disdain at the girl who has puked on herself, then tosses her into the bathroom, and orders her to clean up.
He stands us up against the wall and walks down the line, critically examining each girl. Our attention is fixed on him; he seems to command it without saying a thing. After several minutes, he launches into a brief motivational speech, or something of the degenerate like.
“I'm Niko. Your role here is simple. Do whatever he wants. You have two choices. Either you do it, or get beat and do it anyway.”
Great choices, I think to myself in dismay. How do I retain even a shred of my dignity in a situation like this? I'd always been taught to fight if I ever found myself in a rape situation, as if submitting was a worse choice than death. I know I will not escape this with my spirit intact, and the body can take only so much abuse before giving out. All I know is I must survive, whatever the cost, be it to my body or my soul.
On one of the water-stained coffee tables, Niko has laid out small bags of white powder, syringes, and spoons. The once-cheerful girl now has the shakes, and she eagerly kneels by the side of the couch for a hit. Once the drug takes effect, she grows limp and dreamy eyed. Niko nods to the men, and a forty-something white man comes forward, handing over money. He undresses her and lays her across the couch, then lowers his pants and rolls a condom onto himself.
I look away, for my sanity and for her dignity, as he begins having sex with her in front of everyone. She flops around like a glass-eyed ragdoll. Niko watches with a detached expression of clinical observation. My breath is coming out in short gasps and bile rises in my throat.
The other girl comes out of the bathroom, pale and weak, but beelines to the heroin. Ironically enough, she seems to regain a little bit of life after the injection.
Her eyes rest on me and she laughs. “Look at you now, Di. It's a long fall from the bottom, ain't it?”
What? Why is she acting like she knows me? I shrug inwardly, brushing off her nonsensical words. She's a crackhead. She probably thinks everyone is familiar.
A man comes forward, hands over money, then leads her out, presumably to another area of the house.
“These two will be up for anything, gentlemen, so pay up, then wait outside the room for your turn. Use a condom or not, it's your call.”
Some of the men shuffle forward, pay, and either head down to the other room or wait for the girl in this room.
Our driver walks up to Willow, takes her by the hand, and calls over his shoulder, “I got dibs on the spinner.” The men chuckle, and several walk up to pay, then follow behind. I get one last glimpse at her terrified expression, then I see no more. For as many men that are leaving, just as many are entering.
A man walks up to me and the other girl who is left, his eyes hungrily scanning our bodies.
“This one.” He pulls me forward, pays, then leads me into the hallway. Every nerve in my body is screaming for me to run, to fight, to flee, but when I glance behind me, there are more men following. My throat is tight and I swallow the urge to cry.
We climb a flight of ancient stairs, then enter a room two doors down. There looks to be a total of three doors, each with a padlock installed on the outside. The man tells me to undress. I can't even focus on the words he's saying to me, everything seems to blur together. The snippets I can focus on are obscene, derogatory, and explicit. At least I know what to expect.
The bed is covered in stained, threadbare sheets. Against the wall is a rumpled brown sofa, and a bedside table with a basket that holds condoms and a container of lube.
My hands shake as I unbutton and remove my blouse. When I slip out of my jeans, he murmurs something about an “apple bottom.” Once everything is off, he roughly touches my body, but wastes no time and leads me to the bed. Thankfully, he uses a condom, and after a few minutes of discomfort, he's done. Afterward, he heads into the bathroom.
I roll to my side. A sliver of my spirit has vanished forever, and my mind is numb. A lone tear slips from my eye, but I make no move to wipe it away. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. After all, it was just sex, but I feel a hollow place inside of me where my sense of pride and self-worth used to be.
When the next man comes in, he tries to talk to me, tries to connect with me, even as he plans to use me. I keep my responses to brief, one-word answers. In all honesty, I prefer for him to shut his mouth and get done with it. Why bother treating me like a person, when he's paying for the use of my body? Even as he's thrusting, he's talking to me. I've had enough of his attempts at banter and I finally attempt to shut them down.
“Do you know I'm here against my will? I'm being forced to do this.”
His smile falters a bit. “Don't say that, baby. You love this. Look at this body you got. It was made for pleasure. Let me give it to you.”
I snort out a humorless laugh, close my eyes, and turn my head to the side so I don't have to smell his beer-infused breath. He kisses my neck, and I jerk slightly in revolt.
He laughs and nuzzles against the side of my face. “You liked that, didn't you?”
I turn to face him. “You know what I'd like?”
His smile is immediate. “Tell me, baby. I can give it to you.”
“A damn cheeseburger.”
* * *
NEEDLESS TO SAY, I don't get my cheeseburger. I do my best to keep my sense of humor, because laughter has always been the key to reviving a weary soul. But when the sun is rising, and the tenth man has left the room I'm in, I feel only despair and desolation.
The door opens, and Niko walks in. In his hand is a brown paper bag. He tosses it to me, then leaves. Metal clinks as he fastens a padlock to my door. I open the bag, and find a bologna sandwich, which I devour immediately.
Afterward, I go into the bathroom, and turn the shower on to as hot as I can stand. I cry as I scrub myself under the scalding water until my skin is bright red. Memories of the night flash through my mind, and I wish I could burn them all away.
I feel used, and so utterly empty. As the night wore on, each man who came into my room became more and more drunk and high.
I can't help but feel slightly thankful that Adrian abused me all the ways he did, because at least I wasn't in overt pain about the various ways they chose to use my body.
I'm covered in a layer if filth I'll never be able to wash away. It's embedded into my pores, and I keep scrubbing and scratching at my skin in a frantic effort to feel clean. Finally, blood seeps out and drips onto the tub floor, spreading out into pinkish swirls that wash down the drain.
17
I RETURN TO THE room naked, since the bathroom is empty of towels. As I gather my clothes from the ground, I notice the girl who had puked in the van, passed out on the floor of the bedroom, as if someone had opened the door and merely shoved her inside. Her clothes are tossed in a pile on top of her.
After shaking my clothes out, I put them on, then step closer to look at her. I grimace as I take in her matted hair, soaked with vomit and other unrecognizable bodily excretions. Fluids are smeared on her face too, and I can see that the men used her badly, many without a condom. Blood mixed with semen and fecal matter is smeared on her thighs and buttocks. She has the beginnings of bruises on her arms and legs, and a shiner on her cheekbone.
I hook under her armpits and drag her little by little to the bathroom. Once I get the water to a comfortable temperature, I ease her in, then do my best to get her fully rinsed before scrubbing the filth from her body. As I wash away the evidence of her abuse, I uncover bite marks and scratches marring her pale skin. The hair is the worst part, and I wash her blonde strands over and over to get everything out. All I can think of is that this is somebody's daughter, someone's friend, someone's everything.
An hour later, she is cleaned up, clothed, and in bed. As I lie on the mattress, beside this girl who is a stranger, I wait for sleep to overtake my fatigued, sore body. I want my thoughts to turn off. I want to stop the moments of degradation and humiliation from playing over and over in my mind. I crave oblivion. My gaze wanders to my bedmate and, for a brief moment, I envy her peace, but then I remember what it cost her. Even though she may not remember, I will never forget.
I close my eyes and drift off, only to wake again. Sun pours through the flimsy window shade, beacons of dust dancing in its rays. I eventually stand, walk over, and look out between the bars that keep me trapped here. Nothing appears familiar. Straight ahead are barren fields, and to the right are thick forests and mountains. This land appears to have once been farmland, though it is no longer being cultivated. Nothing is visible for miles around, and I feel as small and invisible as a grain of salt in the ocean.
* * *
SUMMER'S STORY IS DIFFICULT to hear. She's been living this life for three years now, starting from the age of fourteen. Her upbringing was modest, straight-laced, and religious. She grew up as an only child in a loving home. But her parents wouldn't speak words of love, or give hugs, so she felt starved for that human contact.
“I was fourteen, he was eighteen. I thought I was in love with him, girl. I was so stupid.” She laughs and looks down. “He raped me, then pissed on me. I was so embarrassed by what happened that I didn't tell anyone for a month. By then, it was too late to collect evidence, so it was my word against his. My parents blamed me, said if I wasn't where I had been, or dressed how I was dressed, that it wouldn't have happened. But all I wanted was a hug from one of them and for them to tell me I was still lovable. Never got it.”
So she ran away from home shortly after and found ways to fill that void. In the city, she started having sex with men for money. She was told she was beautiful and sexy. The compliments and money made her feel valued.
“It was dangerous out there. I had no protection, and I got raped more times than I can count. Finally, I got myself a Daddy. He called himself Bentley. He took care of me, kept me fed. I had a place to stay, and he bought me nice things. I thought I was in love with him.”
Things were great for a couple years. Drugs played a big role, escalating from cigarettes, to weed, to ecstasy, to heroin, to meth. Summer quickly advanced to being called his bottom—the woman who reigned over the other women in the house. It was also her responsibility to train them. The life was good, up until a month ago, when he brought a twelve year old girl into the house.
“He called her Serenity. She was a beautiful child, blond hair, blue eyes—a swan—the kind of white girl men pay big money for, but when she giggled, I could tell that she was a child inside a woman's body. When I talked to her, she admitted that she was scared and wanted to go home, but she was in love with Bentley. I mean, yeah, there was a part of me that was jealous, but the part of me that was still human recognized a child who needed help.”
Summer took Serenity out, in the guise of getting her primed and ready to work. Instead, she took her to the police station and left her there.
“Bentley was furious, even though I insisted that she had run away from me at the mall. He beat me with metal hangers, then put me inside a freezing cold shower for hours. When he let me out, he had sold me to another pimp. And here I am.”
We've been in the same room for a week now. She spent most of the time ignoring me, but it was difficult for her to reconcile the reality of getting gang banged while strung out on heroin every night, with the fact that she'd wake up clean and wearing clothes. Yesterday, she thanked me when she woke up. Today she started talking.
Summer and I have made a tattered nest of trust and friendship, and for me, it's heartening to have human contact. And no, I don't consider the ten to twenty men a day, who pay to use my body how they please, as human. I won't even classify them as animal, because I can't recall evidence of this kind of behavior in the animal kingdom. The only term that applies is parasite.
Some nights we only get three hours of sleep, because we're always on call, day and night, and when the door opens, we have to be ready to work. Sometimes it's Niko on the other side, ready to get himself a piece of one of his girls. He can be the most difficult one to deal with, because he has this strange notion we want to have sex with him, and that he's doing us a favor simply by choosing us. He's offered me heroin multiple times already, because men love the girls who are high. They can do almost anything they want to them and the girls won't care.
One of the things I hate the most is the lineup, when a high paying customer comes in and Niko stands us side by side in the hallway so the man can inspect us with his eyes and hands. It's demeaning. Many of the girls primp and pose for him, because if they're selected, Niko advances them by giving them perks like towels, shampoo, conditioner—necessary things I've taken for granted my whole life. Our room doesn't even have blankets or pillows, just a sheet that doesn't stay put on the stained mattress.
I try to convince Summer to quit the heroin, even as I begin smoking cigarettes in order to take the edge off my hunger. Something's gotta give. If she could be sober for more than six hours at a time, I'm confident that we could devise an escape plan, but she refuses.
“I don't want memories of what they do, Tula. It's bad enough I see and feel the aftereffects the next day, but I'd rather not remember. Don't think that you being sober is going to save you from any of that.”
After two months in the brothel, I gain an understanding of what she means. One night, we're lined up in the hallway for a group of eight white guys. I maintain my usual uncaring stance, while the other girls primp. The men select me anyway. No biggie, I think. On my busiest day, I'm pretty sure I've serviced close to twenty men, but never been more than one man at a time.
I soon learn there is a reason they choose the one girl who looks sober. After setting up a video camera, they talk to me, ask me questions about myself. It's like they try to establish me as a human being before they completely demolish me.
Detailing what they do is not necessary. Suffice to say that when they are done and gone, five hours have passed, and I'm in worse condition than Summer ever was. The experience could be likened to throwing a fish into a tank of sharks, and what ensues is a feeding frenzy. One of my eyes is swollen so badly I c
an't see out of it. I can't walk to get to the bathroom, which I need to use badly; I've lost all sphincter control. I'm able to pull myself across the floor, and manage to get myself into the bathtub, where I turn on the shower to let the water wash over me.
Even though the water is hot, I'm shivering. My breathing is rapid and I'm so dizzy. I briefly register I'm probably going into shock, right before everything goes black.
* * *
THERE IS NO CERTAIN way to describe the way I feel when I wake up, but to say I'd rather be dead lacks depth of despondency. The oblivion of nonexistence is a strong pull. Summer holds me as my tears soak her shirt, and I feel slight comfort in knowing she truly understands. And now I understand her dependence on heroin. It's tempting, because the smack is almost always laying on the bedside table. I've seen Summer shoot up enough times to know how to do it. Yet I know the moment I give in, I'll be sentencing myself to this world, and I won't be able to return alive.
I'm not sure if I care, though. I'll never be able to forget what I've lived through, and it's not over. My existence has been reduced to that of a toilet—I'm being used as a means to relieve oneself, be it through violence, sexuality, or strange fetishes. My once dynamic soul feels as fragile and destructible as a spider’s web, held together only by tiny, silk threads.
Niko gives me a few days off to recuperate, only because men don't want to pay to have sex with a woman who looks like she was in the octagon with Anderson Silva. But when I'm put back to work, I start to cry uncontrollably whenever a man walks into my room. They complain, and Niko warns me that he'll be forced to sell me off, into a place where the conditions will be much worse.
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