I tried to grow. I really did. But nothing could stop me from worrying about Slayton, feeling like I left part of my soul in hell.
Month three and four, I had hope. More than I had in a long while. My dad was working at a hardware store. He was at the dinner table every night. Watched the news. He was normal. At the beginning of the fifth month, I felt the turbulence in the air.
I’d lose track of him for a day here or there. Then one day, his boss called and said his final paycheck was at the store. I figured out my dad had been fired three weeks before. Leaving me to question what the hell he was up to when I thought he was at work.
Still afraid of him, I didn’t approach him alone. Those who were counseling him were with me. It was a horrid night. Before it was over, he was in restraints, doped by them. He looked me right in the eye before he drifted to sleep and told me, “I’ll never forgive you for this.” And I believed him.
I was counseled to build my own life. They told me Father Donnelly had set up an allowance for me. They wanted me to pick a home, a car, and a school to go to. None of it would be in my name until my father was stable or far from my life. They knew just like I did that even though I was almost nineteen, I still saw him through the eyes of a child and would give in to his need for fast cash and give him what the church had given me.
Two weeks later, my dad was home, and we were pretending everything was normal. I didn’t tell him about the to-do list I’d been given to build a new life. I was scared if he knew for sure I was going to be okay—alone, but okay—that he’d vanish, slipping back to the way he so desperately wanted to be.
I barely slept. I was sure he’d disappear one night. My fears came true almost as quickly as I felt them. I woke to find his bed empty, what little he had as far as possessions were gone. Panic set it.
He did have the hindsight to leave me a note.
You fought a good battle. Your grandmother would be proud. But this is me. It always will be. I can’t handle the walls closing in on me here. The fight keeps me alive. You don’t have to believe me, but I do love you. You were the only thing right that I ever did. Stay with these people. Start over. Make your grandmother proud.
Anger and rage slammed into me. I’d never hated him more, or been hurt by him this badly. I turned our place upside down looking for what tipped him over the edge. Then I went into town; talked to the people he worked with. He’d been betting again. He owed money. Not to the thugs like we’d outrun on a prayer, but it was still bad. He told his shark he’d have his money in two days, he’d wire it from the city as soon as he met up with old friends.
It was then that cold fear finally overrode my anger. I knew if anyone saw him in the city they’d kill him. Slayton would be the first one in line. I took the cash I’d been saving and was on a bus within the next hour. The ride was far from sobering, it tilled up emotions I thought I had left alone. Every single thought settled on Slayton—on the idea that I wasn’t ready to grow from us. I wasn’t ready to let his world rip us apart just because they felt like it. At the same time, I wasn’t ready to become a liability.
I told myself to leave it to fate. I would look for my father on my own, fight this on my own. If Slayton figured out I was there and approached, so be it. If I hit a dead end and needed help, I’d swallow my pride, and fear, all of my emotions to find him and ask for it.
The first gulp of air once I stepped off the bus churned the ball of foreboding anguish in my gut. I’d listened closely enough to Slayton talking to others when we were together to know where my dad hung out. Slayton had driven me by there, but never stopped.
After the third bar, I finally got somewhere. The girl behind the bar told me she’d seen my dad go up the back stairs an hour before. I tried to wait on him downstairs. With each minute that crept by, I grew less patient, and it had nothing to do with the asshole who kept groping me, pushing drinks on me.
There was no telling what bets my dad was making, or promises he could not keep. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to stop it all, but I had to do something.
At the top the stairs, two men stopped me. “Someone I know is in there,” I argued trying to seem more confident than I was. They laughed at me.
“You want in,” one said, his eyes trailed down me. “I gotta check you for a wire.”
His tone alone told me that was a bad idea. I eyed the door, fought with what I knew was right and wrong, what I was afraid to do and what I had to do and then said. “Fine.”
They both laughed darkly.
The next thing I knew, my face was pressed against the door and my legs were spread wide. I grunted, but he only pushed my face harder as his hand cupped each of my breasts, pulling at my nipples. I fought hard when his hand went down to my waist. The asshole ripped my jeans down. His grimy hand slid over my crotch then plunged inside. “Can never be too sure,” he growled next to my ear as I heard him reach to undo his belt.
I screamed, but any sound of that was lost in the thumping music downstairs. By some miracle, the door I was pressed into opened and I fell into the arms of another guy. He was older; strong, but not ripped. Dressed in a suit. His dark eyes peered down at me in the same sick familiar way all my father’s friends had looked at me.
The guy behind me had let me go. I struggled to pull my jeans back on and keep my guard up all at once. It was then I saw the room I was trying to get into. I smelled the blood. My eyes dropped to the floor, and I fell apart. My dad was dead. I didn’t have to question it. The shot was point blank in the center of his head.
And I’d walked into the hands of his demons.
FIFTEEN
Shock wouldn’t let me process how fucked I was. It wouldn’t let me show the justifiable emotion a girl should have if she found her father murdered. It may have saved my life for all I knew. “I—I’m in the wrong room.”
The guy who caught me glared at the asshole who was trying to rape me a second before. “What the fuck? You got some whore against the door you’re paid to guard?”
“Just fucking with her,” he said adjusting himself in his pants.
I stepped back not caring it was into him. I wanted far from the room. Far from the truth of my dad’s death. I didn’t hear everything they said; their voices sounded like they were miles away. But I knew they were not letting me go.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said in an absent tone as I swayed, seconds from fainting.
“Fuck me,” the guy who caught me said. “She’s drugged. Zee’s crew marked her.”
I stumbled back unable to balance the grief, adrenaline and fear at once.
“This is your last fuck up,” the guy who caught me said to the asshole. He gripped my arm and pulled me through the room. When I tripped over my fathers’ body, I almost hurled. The man held me tighter. “Don’t worry sweetheart, you’ll pass out soon enough. They’ll never let you feel pain without reward as long as you live.”
I swayed my head in denial and started to fight until I realized he was taking me to another door, one I was sure went outside, I could feel the cool air coming from the door. He moved double time down the stairs with me then pulled me down a back alley. A van was pulling away, but he brought his fingers to his lips and let out a whistle that was so loud it had me ducking.
The van backed up then the passenger door opened. I knew the guy who got out. He was the jerk that kept trying to buy me drinks at the bar before, putting his hands all over me and telling me I was high class.
“Forget one, fucker?” The guy holding me said when he saw recognition in the other.
“Thought it was a lost cause,” he said as he sauntered up to me.
Panic had me nearly swooning again, and it only became worse when he reached to put his hand on my face and turned it side to side, looking into my eyes. “Must have just had a sip.”
“Sip or not, she stumbled into my business. I’ve done told you once, keep your shit out of mine.”
“Fuck off,” the guy said as he claimed me a
nd marched me forward.
When he opened the door to the van, I knew I was doomed. It was full of girls—four others—none of them were really awake. Knowing I wasn’t willing, the guy pushed me in with him then closed the door. He held me on his lap as he nodded for the driver to drive. “What were you doing in there?” he asked himself like I was a doll as he ran his hands over my jeans and under my hoodie across my t-shirt.
I didn’t answer him; I let shock settle in as I eyed the door and watched the streets go by. I was going to make a run for it. I didn’t care how bad the fall hurt, if a car hit me when I jumped—I was out of there.
He must have read my mind, that or had done his job for so long he could see the hiccups coming. He pressed his finger into my mouth. At first, I thought it was just some sick fetish, but then I tasted the pill dissolving on my tongue.
“There. Better now,” he said as I struggled. It was a short-lived fight, my limbs went numb, everything did. Darkness came for me.
***
I couldn’t decide what hurt worse, my arms or my head. What I knew without a doubt is that my eyelids weighed a thousand tons each. I couldn’t lift them. I let myself fall back into oblivion for a while. Then the pain became too hard to ignore.
Then...I wished I’d never opened my eyes.
It was horrifying figuring out I was nude, and my arms were pinned over my head in cuffs. I wasn’t the only one. The girls from the van were all there too. None of them were awake. I would’ve acted like I was still out cold if I hadn’t seen the guy who’d taken me approaching, but it was too late.
He knelt down in front of me. I was pretty sure he had a friend at his side, but I couldn’t really make him out. “You always have to give the high dollar ones more, their will sobers them,” he said like he was teaching a class. “Hurt?” he asked me as his hand moved down the side of my head. I whimpered because it did. “I got you,” he said in a soft tone.
I wasn’t positive, but I thought I felt a prick in the fold of my arm. What I was sure of was the pain I was fighting, the only thing I could focus on was starting to fade away. My mind was slipping back to when I felt blissfully disengaged.
I was sure it was Slayton’s hands rushing over my nipples, pulling each one then cupping them in his palm. When I felt my thighs parted and a firm touch grasping my body, a voice deep inside told me to wake up, to focus. But the sensations I was feeling took over. Every touch was richer, exotic even.
Something was rubbing my clit, and it felt so good, like I was right back where I should be, at Slayton’s side. I couldn’t stop myself. I moved, I groaned.
“That’s it,” I heard a voice I didn’t know encourage. “No pain, sweet girl.” The ministrations went on as the high lifted me further into an out of control world. Seconds later, I felt my body convulse around the touch that was prodding me. The voice in my head, the one I was barely clinging to, wouldn’t let my emotions have a vote. It wouldn’t let me feel satisfaction; it wouldn’t let me feel shame or fear. It kept me right at its side, next to the nothingness that had stolen my pain and my will to fight.
“What are you doing?” I heard the guy scold another.
“She fucking wants it,” the other said in a lust-stricken voice.
“Fuck off.”
“What’s your problem, man?”
“This girl has no tracks, no bruises and is tight as fuck. Even without that shit going in her favor, those eyes and clear skin would have her in the high commodity bracket. Kept your cock away from her. We can sell this one high and tight.”
“Fuck you.”
They may have fought, I’m not sure, but when the scuffle was over the one in charge said. “Fuck that one if you want. Leave her alone. I’ll fucking shoot your dick off if you don’t.”
When I focused again, when I felt someone touching, pushing inside I fought. When my eyes opened I figured I had to have passed out and just awoken again—I was in a different place. My feet were in stirrups, but I still fought. My hands were cuffed. As I pulled on them, I felt another prick in my arm. Surrender came faster than I care to admit. Even though my eyes closed, I tried to stay vigilant.
I was in some kind of clinic; it smelled the same as all the times I’d gone to the doctor growing up. Even the feel of the paper under me was the same.
“And this is your ticket out of the doghouse,” the one who I hoped was a doctor said as he examined me.
“She’s clean,” the guy who stole me said.
“Maybe so, but Zee needs his high dollar whores to be willing. Submissive. Not this shit. That fight in her is going to land her with a slit throat.”
I prayed they didn’t see the blush of fear wash down me.
“I’ve been giving her downers,” the guy said.
“No one is looking for her?” the doc asked.
“It’s been five days, not a single missing report posted.”
“Well,” the doc said as I heard him pull his gloves off, “she’s as clean, healthy, and strong as they come. The shot I gave her will last six months. She already had preventive care in place.” He paused. “Someone will look for a girl like this.” He sighed. “Sell her fast and high, then run.”
“Plan to.”
I couldn’t stop the whimper I let out. The sick asshole pet me like I was a scared puppy. That was the last thing I remembered before I woke in a train cart. It wasn’t a boxcar, but a nice room with a bed and couches lining the way.
I slowly sat up, eyeing the girl across the room who was putting her makeup on. I thought for a second that I was dreaming. My hands were free, and I had clothes on—not many, but I had dignity. My head didn’t hurt but it was fuzzy. Pulling bits and pieces back into focus. I’d let my mind go back as far as getting in the van, but nothing before then—I couldn’t let the dark memory behind that door send me into shock again.
Piece by piece, I drew enough together to know it had been days, maybe longer, that I was imprisoned. I could only recall a few conversations in detail, but there were fragments of other times. Getting in and out of cars, being fed. Puking. Hose downs. Touches. Me fighting.
The girl had noticed I was up and she came over to me. Once at my side, her hand began at my bare foot and slid up my calf. I stared at her blankly as her hand rose and rose, right up until I felt her fingertips slide between the lips of my crotch.
“Good,” she said drawing her hand back. “You’re over your fits.”
I swallowed feeling how dry my throat was.
She leaned in close. “You’re not all the way down. You want a hit now. Want to level out here?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. I’d never even taken a hit of a cigarette.
She sat down in a motherly way next me. “You’ve put up a good fight. It’s time for acceptance.” She leaned in closer. “Don’t waste this chance that face of yours has given you.”
Then I puked all over her.
SIXTEEN
Tuesday, the name of the girl watching me, had no shame. I guessed she must have been in her mid-thirties, but she was at that stage in life where she was ageless. Still beautiful and fit, but not twenty anymore.
She drug us both into the shower to wash me down then herself, cursing me the entire time. When she got out, she turned the water to cold and left me there. I didn’t bother to chase her. I was too busy trying to sober up. The only hair on my body was on my head. I’d never felt my legs so smooth much less my crotch. Knowing someone had groomed me had me wondering what else they’d done that I wasn’t remembering. Which made me puke again.
I don’t know how long I was in there, just that when she pulled me out I was shivering so hard it hurt. She sat me down in front of the sink and went to work on me like I was a doll blow-drying my hair. My jet-black hair. They’d changed that, too. It was so much lighter before, almost caramel.
Tuesday leaned down once it was dry, cheek to cheek we stared at my reflection. “Your eyes pop more when you have it this dark.”
She ope
ned her palm showing me two white pills. I refused them. With a sigh, she leaned on the sink in front of me. “Listen. I don’t know your story. I don’t want to know it. It’s not any sadder than any other girl that’s landed here.”
She eyed me slowly. “Some thug took you, thought that pretty face of yours would help his rep. He could say he found and snagged ass that wouldn’t give his clients every STD in the book.” She leaned a little forward. “That’s a win for you. And if you think I’m lying, I’d be glad to take you where the girls that were picked up with you are. See how you like being raped at least four times a day, usually more. See if you like the high they give you to keep you wet, not fighting.”
I went to puke again; she lifted the trash can to me.
“You’re at a crossroads. I had three days to teach you what takes girls months to learn.”
Holding my trashcan like a shield, I looked up at her.
“Everyone holds on to their spirit, their will...they all have to lose it to survive,” she said, then paused making sure I understood what she said. “I only have three hours now. Tonight you’re either bought into a life where you sleep on satin and are paraded as a jewel...or you won’t be. You’ll end up back with your friends from the bar...make it a half year before some fuck accidently OD’s you, or kills you trying to abort a baby that made it past their bullshit preventive care.”
Nothing could’ve stopped the tears spilling from my eyes. She held her palm out. “Take these. You’ll be aware but will care little.” She tensed her brow. “You have to be every man’s desire tonight. Perform. If you want to do it sober, fine by me. Either way, they’re coming for you.”
I didn’t take the pills at first. I sat there deep inside myself praying for a way out as she styled my hair, and made up my face. I barely recognized myself when she was done. When she told me to follow her, to get dressed, she left the pills on the counter. Right then I didn’t have the nerve to walk out of that room much less perform...for survival. I took the pills and swallowed them whole.