Ordeal

by Linda Lovelace

  Even as I remember those moments, my heart pounds violently and I have trouble breathing. Often I’ve thought back to that day, and always I have this same reaction. But this day, this hour, this moment—it was the turning point of my life and I have relived it again and again.

  When I look back, I always ask myself whether there had been any indications, any clues, any warnings. None. There were no hints that I was about to cross over from day to night. I remember the details with awful clarity; I remember that room as if I had never left it, as if I were still there.

  And now, as always, I asked myself one question: would he really have shot me? Even today I think yes—yes, he would have killed me on the spot. And then I ask myself this: would I do the same thing if it were truly happening to me today? Would I go through it all again? No. No, today I would take the bullet.

  I go back to that moment and I plot out escape scenarios, things that might have been done and things I might have said. I might have taken off my clothes, walked out into the room and then raced for the door. I might have picked up an ashtray and thrown it through the window and screamed for help. I might have hidden behind one of the men.

  “Stop your crying before you go out there,” Chuck said. “Crying is very bad for business.”

  Naked I walked out into the room. Two of the men waiting for me were also naked. The other three were partially undressed.

  “Not bad,” one of the men said. “Chuck got us a nice young one this time.”

  One of the naked men came over to me, put his hands under my breasts, and started to jiggle them up and down.

  “Hey, lookie here,” he said, “they bounce.”

  I had no idea what was expected of me. There was nothing in my imagination that could equal what was actually happening to me. I had a sudden vision of the barmaid at the Vegas Inn, the one with three men at the same time, and tears started to roll down my cheeks.

  The man who had first greeted Chuck at the door now took him off to one side.

  “What is it with this one?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what’s going on here?” he said. “You always come up with these wild freaks and now this one doesn’t even want to do it.”

  “Don’t worry about Linda.” Chuck raised his voice. “Linda will be all right.”

  The man who had been touching my breasts now took my elbow and led me over to the nearest bed. I opened my eyes and I saw Chuck staring at me, his face full of hatred. The man who had led me over got on top of me and entered me with no preliminaries whatsoever. The second man who was naked came over and put his thing in my mouth, just like that, no words, no explanations. He was stiff and he guided himself into and out of my mouth. By now, a third man had taken off his shorts and was coming over to the bed. He reached down, took my hand, and put it on his thing.

  “Jerk me off, dear,” he said.

  “Don’t listen to him,” another voice said. “Let him jerk himself off. You just go on sucking.”

  “Okay,” a third voice said, “let’s switch now.”

  They were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I had the feeling that this was no more exciting for them than it was for me; they were robots with a robot. They would busy themselves for a while at one spot, then change positions. One of the other men was still talking to Chuck, still complaining that my attitude was not all that it might have been.

  The fifth man—he was about thirty-five with blond hair parted on the side—was not taking part. He stood near the other bed and most of the remarks were sent in his direction.

  “Hey, what’s the matter with Jim?” one of them said. “Jim can’t get it up.”

  “Oh, I don’t think Jim wants anything this crude,” another voice said. “I think we’re going to have to leave Jim alone with this broad.”

  “Yeah, old Jim’s in love.”

  The three of them were having a fine old time goofing on Jim. Jim remained quiet and his eyes seemed sad. For a while, I almost liked him, but then he joined the party, as did the fifth man. Chuck went over to the window beside the front door and remained there, looking out, standing guard.

  “Let’s make a sandwich,” one of the men said.

  My first thought was that we were going to stop and get something to eat. By this time I had lost all appetite. But that’s not what they had in mind. The man who had been calling for the sandwich lay on his back and the others put me on top of him. Then I felt another man climbing on my backside. I understood then that they were talking about a human sandwich. I had never experienced anal sex before and it really ripped me up. I began to whimper.

  “Oh, lookie here,” one of the men said. “We must have a new baby here.”

  The only one who seemed to realize that I wasn’t doing this by choice, that this was just something happening to me, was the man who had been talking to Chuck. But it didn’t matter to him. He was the top half of the sandwich.

  The three animals who had come on first cared about nothing but getting their jollies. I can no longer remember their faces. They never talked to me directly. They talked to each other over and around me, as though I was a piece of meat.

  Most of the time my eyes were tightly closed. They didn’t mind. They were so into getting their rocks off that they wouldn’t have cared if I was an inflatable plastic doll, a puppet. They picked me up and moved me here and there; they spread my legs this way and that; they shoved their things at me and into me.

  Three of the animals were constant and persistent, always coming at me, not even resting between times. The other two would back off from time to time. Two of the men got their biggest thrill by working themselves up to the point of coming and then shooting their sperm all over my body and rubbing it in.

  I had never been so frightened in my life. Every time I looked over at Chuck, his look scared me all over again. I was scared by what was happening to me at that moment and what might happen to me next. Even though it was all too clearly happening to me, I couldn’t understand why it was happening. I couldn’t believe that five human beings would do this to another human being.

  “Hey, let’s try to get in two at once,” one said.

  “Nah, that’s impossible,” another said.

  “Crowded, but not impossible.”

  And that’s what they tried next. I had no idea what they were talking about. But two of the men tried to pry their way ino me at the same time. I can’t tell you whether they succeeded.

  That’s when I went numb. A lot was still happening to my body but it stopped meaning anything to me. My breasts were being mauled and I stopped feeling that. It was as if my body belonged to someone else. A voice from a great distance was saying, “Stick this in your mouth, darling,” but that no longer concerned me—it seemed as though it was someone else’s mouth opening, someone else sucking, someone else swallowing.

  Finally they began to tire and to take occasional breaks. Maybe they were getting bored. After all, I had only so many hands and only so many openings and before too long, all possibilities were exhausted. Then Chuck came over to the bed and looked down at me.

  “You’re a fucking mess,” he said. “Go take a shower.”

  I picked myself up from the bed and went to the bathroom. I had never wanted a shower so much, and I had never scrubbed myself so hard. I scrubbed at my skin where they had come all over me. Then I scrubbed at the rest of me. I wished I could melt into the shower drain and disappear. At that moment I wouldn’t have minded dying.

  I was filled with hurt. And I kept turning to God. As far as I was concerned, it was His fault. He had put me here.

  All the time I was in the shower, I was talking to God. “Why, God, why? Please tell me why.” I had asked God to help me and He hadn’t helped at all. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say that. He did help me get through it. He did help me survive. So I guess He was helping me out after all. But it took me a long time to come to that belief.

  When I went into the room to
dress, the men were gone and Chuck was counting out the money on the bed. Each of the men had been charged $40.00, but Chuck had only $180. The one who had been complaining about my attitude had demanded a refund and Chuck had given him back half his money.

  I was still speechless and in shock. I had no idea that human beings did such things. I knew that a prostitute offered sex for money, but somehow I figured they would make love—that there would be kissing and caressing and some gentleness.

  I didn’t say a word to Chuck. I followed him out of the room and to the car. The minute we were in the car, with the doors closed, he turned to me and started yelling.

  “Sit up! Sit up straight when I’m talking to you!”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t you know how to do anything right?” he went on. “You were lying there like some vegetable, like some fucking turnip. You’re no good and you never will be. You don’t know what to do and you don’t know how to do it. What the fuck is it with you anyway? You better start getting your shit together, Linda.”

  I didn’t say a word, couldn’t say a word, had forgotten all words. I could still feel those hands all over me, pressing me, squeezing me, milking me.

  “Sit straight when I’m talking to you! Any common hooker off the street somewhere would’ve done better. You know the difference between you and a pro? A pro would’ve taken control. She would’ve been coming up with the weird ideas, the positions. The way you were, they hadda do all the fucking work.”

  No words. I went over exactly what had happened. The man I was living with had pulled a gun on me, had forced me to undress, had thrown me into a room with five strange males, had watched them rape me over and over, and now he was angry because I hadn’t been exciting enough for them. Good God!

  “Those guys’ll never come back to me again,” Chuck was saying. “Not after today. We can write them off. You know what I was trying to do today? I was trying to get a business started. Our business. That’s all. Just trying to get a business started. You know how you fucking get a business started? You show five guys a good time, that’s what you do. Then each of them goes out and tells two more people. Then you got ten, fifteen, guys. And they talk it up and then you got a little business going there. You know what these guys are going to tell their friends after today? Nothing, that’s what. You’re ruining my fucking business.”

  Still I said nothing.

  “You’re supposed to be freaky!” he said. “You’re supposed to enjoy it. You’re not supposed to be laying there like some kind of dead log. Shape up, cunt, I’m warning you. Next time better be different. Next time better be better.”

  Next time? Oh, God, what next time?

  five

  I didn’t have to wait long for the next time. The following day, Chuck introduced me to a visitor, an old friend who managed a truck-rental business, and my name became Tracy at this point.

  “This is Harry,” Chuck said. “I told Harry that you’d make him happy, that you’d do anything he wants to do. So I’m going to split for a while and leave you two kids alone.”

  Chuck walked out of the living room and an instant later I heard the front door slam. I was alone with my first paying customer, my first trick. Harry thumbed through his wallet and fished out two twenty-dollar bills.

  “Chuck said it was forty,” Harry said. “Is forty all right with you.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Your name is Tracy, right?” I nodded. “Yeah, well, I was sure glad to hear that Chuck was back in the business. Just like old times.”

  If I was seeing Harry under any other circumstances, he would’ve seemed nice enough. He was soft-spoken and that has always been an important quality with me. But at this moment he was not even on my mind that much; I was hardly thinking about him. I could think of only one thing— Chuck had finally left me alone. Well, not entirely alone. There was one matter to take care of first.

  I took off my jeans and blouse and laid them over a chair. Was I supposed to take off the rest or was he? I had no idea. I went over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it and waited for him to come over and do whatever he was going to do to me.

  “Tracy, would you mind a little friendly advice,” Harry said to me. “Chuck tells me you’re just starting out so you probably don’t know what you’re supposed to do yet. But the thing is, you should at least be friendly. In fact, you should fake like you really want it.”

  “Please don’t talk,” I said. “Just do what you want to.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  The way he said that, I knew that my attitude wasn’t right and that would undoubtedly get back to Chuck. I was scared and I was dry but Harry went right into me. It hurt at first and it didn’t get better. The expression on his face told me that he wasn’t enjoying it much more than I was. But he went on anyway, pumping away. I lay there lifeless, letting him do all the work. Before too much longer, I would learn to fake it, even to be aggressive, just like the other hookers, but right then I just wanted him to finish and get off me. The moment he was done, I rolled out from under him and went to get my clothes.

  “What’s this, a race?”

  He seemed to find everything I did very funny. But finally he stopped laughing, got up, got himself dressed and got himself out the front door. I counted to ten, then followed him. As I opened the door, I heard a small noise behind me. A hand on my shoulder. Chuck hadn’t left. He had been standing there in the hallway the whole time.

  “Going out?” he said. “Going out for a little walk?”

  “Chuck!” That was a small scream. “I was just going out to look for you.”

  “Well, cunt, you found me.”

  He grabbed my arm and yanked me back into the living room. Then he started punching my body over and over again until I collapsed on the floor. It was hurting so much that I couldn’t cry. That’s when he went into the kitchen to get a butcher knife.

  “You know something, cunt? I’ve decided not to waste a bullet on you. I’ve decided to cut up your fucking face instead. If you get out of line just one more time—one more time—I’m going to fuck up your face so bad that no one’ll ever look at you again.”

  “Don’t do that, Chuck.”

  “Oh, tell me why the fuck not,” he said, mocking me. “You’re useless. You’re no fucking good. No fucking good! You can’t even fuck good. You’re so ugly that all my customers will want their money back. You got scars all over your belly, your tits are pancakes, you’re no fucking good at all. I’d be doing the world a favor, just putting you out of your fucking misery.”

  “Please, please, Chuck.”

  From this point on, not a day went by that I didn’t hear more of that. Every day I either got raped, beaten, kicked, punched, smacked, choked, degraded, or yelled at. Sometimes, I got all of the above. Strangely enough, what bothered me most was the endless verbal abuse. He never let up: I was so dumb; I was so ugly; I was so fat; I was so thin; I was so flat-chested, and I was so lucky to have him taking care of me. The constant yelling took everything out of me.

  To buy a share of my nightmare the tricks paid from $25.00 to $150.00—depending. Depending on what the customer requested, depending on whether he was a regular or not, depending on Chuck’s mood. I had as much to do with the money as a teller at a bank; I got it from one man and passed it along to another man. That was the end of my contact with any money. These financial transactions would occur three times on an average day.

  Before long, as his business grew, Chuck was able to add to his staff. The first arrival was a young girl named Moonshine. Moonshine was strictly a volunteer. She had been making love with a married man who had been paying her rent. A second boyfriend started taking care of her telephone bill. There was someone else to pay the electric bill and a fourth man who gave her a rented car to use. Before long, Moonshine had many steady visitors and no bills to pay. She came to Chuck with the idea of expanding her horizons and perhaps even getting some take-home pay. There was nothin
g Moonshine wouldn’t do to further her career.

  At any rate, Moonshine was there to share the work load. Then came Debbie. And Melody. Now you might think that this would take some of the pressure off me. But there was more to it than that. You see, Chuck had his own system of distributing the tricks. If a customer was handsome or clean-cut or just young, Chuck would send him off with one of the other working girls. But if he was an eighty-year-old man on crutches, or a 350-pound mama’s boy, or a customer asking whether we supplied whips, then he’d turn to me: “This one’s for you, Linda.”

  There are so many things about Chuck Traynor that I’ll never understand. He would fix me up with creeps and degenerates; he would watch them rape me through a hole in the mirror; but he would bristle with jealousy if a young or good-looking man paid any attention to me.

  “You know something,” I told him once. “You’re jealous.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “No, I mean it. You are jealous. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you had some normal human feelings.”

  “Better not count on that, cunt.”

  I didn’t. And, in truth, I began to forget what normal people with normal feelings were like. One trick came in every week and asked for his “eleven-year-old friend.” And every week he would hand me a script that he had written and I would have to say the lines to him.

  Lines like: “Please don’t hurt me, sir, I’m only eleven years old.” Lines like: “Oooh, you’re so big and strong—please, sir, don’t take away my cherry.” Lines like—well, you get the idea.

  And then there was Greg. Greg was thirty-eight years old, a successful architect, and he hired two of us. Greg had a slightly different script. One of the girls—usually Melody—waited outside in the living room while I went into the bed with Greg. Melody would then come to the door and I would have to say, “Ooooh, golly, Greg—your mommy’s here.” And Melody would come storming over to the bed and strip the sheet away from us and say, “Gregory! What are you doing with this cheap girl? I think I’m going to have to spank you!” The following week Melody and I might switch roles with my playing the mother and her playing the cheap girl.