Did I pick right? You tell me. I’m in a foreign country, second-in-charge of an entity turning over three billion dollars in assets a year, and fucking whores who can stir my cock even without drugs lacing my veins. Some will say I’m living the life. Others would fight for better. I say quit complaining and take what you’re given. Things aren’t the best they could be, but they could be a whole lot worse. I could be in the ground like my father, his entire existence ruined because his son couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
As Eight marches the whore with my spawn on her face to his car, I slump back into the two-seater couch I woke up on. This place fucking reeks of sex and blow. It’s a smell I usually crave, however, the havoc brewing in my gut is snuffing my body’s usually positive response to the lifestyle I was raised in.
This is life for me—drugs, whores, and guns. I was raised around them, craved them, and have been destroyed by them, yet, they’re the only things that make me feel alive, although not once have they caused my heart to patter in my ears.
Two
Sales Docket Number 12574
Bile burns the back of my throat when I ram my fingers down as far as they can go. I can’t believe I was so stupid not to check the food they slid through the slot this evening. I’m starving, and my body is showing signs of malnourishment, but still, I can’t believe I trusted these men. They sell women as sex slaves. As if that isn’t bad enough, this sanction doesn’t do one-and-done sales. They auction the same women over and over again, only stopping when they’re either killed by one of the brutes paying to spend an hour with them, or they die from starvation.
I’m teetering close to having both causes of death placed on my death certificate.
The men in this sanction pay top dollar for a woman to occupy their time for an hour. The thousands they hand over ensures their stipulations are the highest I’ve seen. They don’t just want beautiful, charismatic women with flawless bodies and tight vaginas, they also want them to be full of tenacity and to have the gall to get through the four or so men a night they’re expected to ‘entertain.’
When I was given to Vladimir Popov, founder of this sex-trafficking ring, I had the curves needed to entice top dollar, the wavy blonde locks men like to grip, and bright blue eyes that were full of life. But since I also have the shyness of a mouse, I’ve been overlooked more than the women I arrived here with.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining I’m not fetching top dollar. I’d rather starve to death than be brutalized by men who see women as nothing but commodities more than necessary, but I honestly don’t know how much longer I can live like this. The small portions of food they’ve been giving me the past ten weeks are now laced with hallucinatory drugs with the hope of sparking a personality out of me, and the once meaty parts of my body no longer exist.
I’m nothing but skin and bones.
That won’t stop these men, though. Some will beat me to rouse a response from me. Others will stroke themselves from a distance, happy for my nudity to get them off. Then there are the ones who won’t care if I never speak to them. They paid for me, so they’ll do whatever they want to me.
They’re the men who scare me the most.
Once I’m certain the food in my stomach has been expelled, I frailly climb the cracked bathroom sink to wash my vomit-smeared hands. As I stare at myself in the scum-coated mirror, I try to recall a time when I felt pretty and cherished. It was so long ago, the memories are fading from my head as quickly as the light is from my eyes. I barely recognize myself, so I doubt anyone who saw me previously would. I’m not out to impress anyone, so I guess it doesn’t really matter how I look, does it?
Ignoring my grumbling stomach, I step over the sloppy meat concoction I think was supposed to be shepherd’s pie before making my way to the main part of my ‘room.’ It’s more a prison cell than a bedroom, and the fact I have a mattress and attached bathroom doesn’t glam it up in the slightest. If anything, it makes it worse. Only the women Vladimir wants to ‘entertain’ his guests for the night get mattresses. The thought alone has me wanting to vomit again. I would if it would bring up anything but my stomach’s lining.
When I slump onto the bed, too tired to remain standing, my eyes stray to the goop I knocked over when I realized it tasted funkier than it should have. It looks like someone had an accident on the floor, and it pops a brilliant idea into my sluggish head.
* * *
“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” My teeth crunch together when Vladimir backhands my cheek for the second time. He must be super mad because he usually makes his goons do his punishments on his behalf. “You wasted both my time and my money this evening.” The urge to bend in two overwhelms me when he gets right up in my face. For a guy pushing seventy, he’s fit and healthy, but his insides are so hideously ugly, no number of good genes can save my stomach from heaving about his closeness. “And to think I was going to invite you to the feast after this round of guests.” He taunts me with food as he knows it hurts me more than his earlier threat about selling me twice this week. “Now, you won’t even get the scraps left on their plates.”
I deserve to be punished. I wasted food, but at least I put the sloppy meat of my ‘dinner’ to good use. I coated it from the apex of my thighs to the back of my knees. The man who paid three thousand dollars to spend an hour with me was less than impressed he didn’t get a woman close to the image Vladimir uses to sell me each week, and it had nothing to do with the fact I looked like I had pooped my pants.
He wanted the woman I was before I was shunted into this life, the one who exuded freedom even though she’s never truly been free. He wanted Kristina, a woman I no longer am, and will most likely never be again.
After delivering the rest of his scorn solely with his eyes, Vladimir releases my face from his clutch before stepping back. The chains holding me hostage from a U-bolt in the ceiling jangle on the protruding bones of my wrist in rhythm to his boots tapping across the concrete.
When I unearth the reason his punishment was reduced to two slaps tonight, they clank even more. A large brute of a man is standing in the doorway of my room. He has a fire hydrant hose in his hand and an abhorrent smirk on his face. Even if my ruse was real, it won’t be effective the instant he switches on the nozzle that’s dribble has more pressure than the shower in my bathroom.
Confident I’ve caught the gist of what’s happening, Vladimir smirks a smug grin. “Get her washed up now. I’m feeling generous enough tonight to share her with the men unable to bid…onceshe’s finished serving the ones stupid enough to pay for her.”
As my throat works hard to swallow, my eyes rocket to Vladimir in silent pleading. He’s dressed to the nines, which reveals his guests tonight are more aristocrats than the bottom-dwelling mobsters he usually caters for, but still, I’m worried. Vladimir only ever gives away his whores when he has no intention to sell them next week.
This isn’t an industry you leave alive. If I’m done being sold, I amdone.The lights once in my eyes will be permanently extinguished, never to be relit.
“Do you have something you want to say, little girl?” Vladimir asks when he spots my pleading stare, his tone mocking.
Pleas sit on the tip of my tongue, but no matter how hard I try to relinquish them, I can’t. I’d rather die silently than speak a ton of words I can’t take back.
“Ah, such fight,” Vladimir croons like he’s four decades younger than he is. “If only the men could see that via a video lens.”
After clicking his fingers two times, he exits the room. Not even two seconds later, I’m blasted with icy-cold water. The pain is horrific. It feels like my skin is being scraped off with a cheese grater. The sting ripping through my body has screams roaring up my throat and whizzing out of my nostrils with breathy gasps, but not a peep escapes my lips.
I won’t give these brutes the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I could. The only good thing about being hit with enough water to fill a lake is the ability to deny the salty blobs wanting to slide down my cheeks, but I won’t because I told myself I’d never cry in this room. I made a promise to remain strong no matter what, and although this shouldn’t count because it hurts more than I could ever explain, it does.
