by Julia Bell
I have been thinking about this door. I wonder how long it would take to open it. There are at least two bolts and several locks. And what’s on the other side of it? Even in the bedrooms where we take the clients, the windows are boarded over and disguised by heavy velvet curtains so it’s not possible to look out. If I stay here I will die, or get sick, or both. This is not like in Italy, where at least if you were hungry Antonio would buy you food. This is not a classy place.
I bury my face in the fabric of the cheap sofa. I feel a weight round my neck like I am being tied to a rock and drowned, pulled deeper and deeper down into the depths where there is no light.
The door below slams with a heavy crash that makes the floor shake. There are voices and footsteps outside. I curl up on the sofa and close my eyes. I hope it’s not another client. But then there are raised voices talking in Turkish, one of them sounds excited, like he’s trying to explain something to his friends. One of them says the word ‘English’ and something about a paper. Then suddenly they all laugh and stamp on the floor with their heels and I hear the word for girl and virgin and some whoops and screams. I grit my teeth. I know if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t be here. I hope they will not be hard on her; the first time it always hurts. I remember that. But it’s my door that opens and in comes a young, skinny guy. He’s got a mop of thick, curly hair that almost looks African and pink, plump lips like a cherub. I haven’t seen him before. I watch him through my eyelashes as he walks towards me. He’s a lot younger than the others, perhaps somebody’s son, somebody’s cousin. Maybe sixteen or something, the hairs on his chin haven’t even grown properly.
‘Hey.’ He touches me on the shoulder. ‘Wake up,’ he says in English.
I pretend to be really dozy. ‘Oh!’ I sit up, stretch and yawn, all the time watching him to see how he reacts. He looks bewildered and embarrassed, faintly horrified, and he’s staring at the floor. ‘What’s happening?’
He drags his foot across the carpet, his face burning pink. ‘I – I – Er. Uh-hur . . .’ He clears his throat so many times I wonder if there is something wrong with him.
‘Did they send you in here?’ I whisper.
He nods. I can hear the men outside laughing and whooping.
‘To be with me?’
He bites his lip and nods again.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Sit down over here.’
He looks up shyly, like he’s ashamed. ‘I don’t want to—’ ‘Nor me.’
He sits down cautiously.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Fazil. What’s yours?’
‘Natasha.’
‘It – it’s my cousin. He works here. You’re kind of like my . . . birthday present.’ He hasn’t got a strong Turkish accent, he sounds more English, like Hope.
‘Happy birthday, Fazil.’
‘Thanks.’ He flicks his hair nervously off his face. ‘Look, can you like, pretend or something? Or tell them I was really good?’
‘OK.’
He looks relieved. ‘Thanks.’
I shrug.
‘I’m not gay, you know.’
‘OK.’
‘Just in case you thought I was.’
‘I don’t think anything,’ I say.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’
Everybody is sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. Always sorry. Sorry for what? Sorry for spoiling my life? Or sorry they’re stupid? Or sorry they can’t help wanting sex? There’s no point in saying sorry unless you know what for.
‘So why are you hanging out with your cousin? If you don’t want to be here?’ I change the subject.
He shrugs and looks a bit miserable. He tells me that his cousin, Babalan, is part of an important family around here. ‘He wanted someone to help him out with stuff. So he asked me.’ He balls his hand into a fist. ‘My dad makes out like its some great honour, the family sticking together. He doesn’t see that he’s like a total psycho.’
The men outside bang on the door. They want to know if he’s finished yet.
‘Tell them you’re coming,’ I hiss. ‘Try to sound out of breath.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do it!’
‘I’m coming!’ he shouts. When the men outside roar with approval and shout advice and encouragement through the wall he goes bright red, stands up and backs away from me.
He knocks on the door and tells the guys he’s finished. Two of them come in, making signs for sex with their arms.
‘Good was it?’
‘I wouldn’t mind a piece of that myself!’
I guess one of them, the fat guy, is Babalan. His friend, the sleazy rat with all his gold jewellery and hip-hop clothes and jeans tucked into heavy Timberland boots, is called Latif.
I smile like I’m enjoying their joke. Like I’m happy and jovial, like the boy is the best lover in the world. The men touch me and grab at me as they’re laughing, so I feel like a chicken caught by a fox, trapped and flustered, being played with first, before the fox moves in for the kill.
15
Hope
Oksana. That’s what she says her real name is. She says she comes from Russia, but she still won’t tell me exactly what’s going on. At least she’s not still angry with me – just distant and vague again. I know they want us here for sex, but I thought prostitutes wanted to do it, and were grown up and wore loads of make-up and sexy clothes. Thinking about it all makes me feel like I’m falling off the edge of a high cliff.
‘It’s not so bad for you,’ I say, turning on my side to look at her back. ‘At least you are old enough.’
‘Eh? Old enough?’ She turns round.
‘I’m only fifteen. It isn’t even legal for me to have sex.’
Oksana laughs. ‘How old do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know.’ I look at her for a second. Her face already has hard lines round the eyes. I reckon she’s in her late twenties, maybe even thirty. The closer I look at her, the older she seems. ‘Twenty-three?’ I try.
She snorts. ‘I’m fifteen.’
For a moment I don’t believe her. It’s just another one of her lies, like telling me she was getting married to Zergei. ‘Right.’
‘They get me passports that say I am eighteen,’ she says. ‘When I left home I was fourteen.’
I stare at her. I want to tell her I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem enough. This whole situation is so messed up.
‘How—’ But before I can finish my question there’s a noise outside, the sharp sound of bolts and locks. Fat Burger Man comes in with his friend, a shorter, fitter man with gold rings on his fingers and chains round his neck.
Fat Burger Man throws two Matalan bags on to Oksana’s bed. ‘You try.’
No one moves. Gold Jewellery Man stands by the door and looks at the sleeping Estonians, his nose curling like there’s a bad smell.
‘Now.’ Fat Burger Man prods Oksana.
She sits up and stares at him, her arms folded. But she is small and puny next to his puffy frame. He picks a bag and shakes it over the floor. Bras, knickers, thongs, nightdresses and camisoles slide out in a slippery pile. They look cheap. Bright reds and tacky electric pinks.
‘You try,’ he says again, pulling Oksana roughly by the arm. She shakes him off and bends down to sift through the pile. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want him to come near me so I pick up a baby-blue nightdress with fake fluff around the bottom, that’s made out of scratchy see-through netting. The kind of thing Mum would say was trashy. I try not to think about her, it only makes my eyes throb with tears. The note I left will have kept her calm initially, but by now I know she will be worried out of her mind and it’s my stupid fault. I hope Dad’s with her. He can’t say that she’s making a drama out of a crisis any more. The police must be looking for me by now. Someone must have seen something, all those nosy women in the shop.
The Estonians groan and complain when Fat Burger Man pulls the covers off them.
‘You are
always sleeping!’ he says, except he pronounces it so it sounds like ‘slipping’. He slaps them round their faces, hard.
Lulu gets out of bed. She walks like her legs are soft and her arms flop about at her sides. She looks really stoned. She huffs and mutters something to Ekaterina. They think the underwear is lame too, I can tell.
We all stand there for a moment looking at each other. I wonder what would happen if I said no.
‘On! On!’ He shoves Oksana in the back.
She grunts and roughly takes her jacket off. ‘OK, OK.’ When she takes off her top I can see her arms and chest are covered with yellowing bruises, her ribs stick out and she’s hardly got any boobs at all; suddenly she looks even younger than fifteen. She tosses her hair out of its bobble and tries on one of the pink bras. But it’s way too big and the straps keep slipping down. She throws it back on the pile and shouts at him.
‘This stuff is no good! Too big!’
He throws the second bag at her.
‘ON!’
I step out of my jeans. I wish that I could wash. I am sticky and dirty. I try to keep my head down, use my arms strategically to hide myself as I pull my T-shirt off. The nightdress is like a huge see-through tent; it comes down below my knees, and the armholes sag over my shoulders. I feel ridiculous.
Fat Burger Man comes over, parts my arms with his hand.
He looks me up and down and nods. Then he puts his hand down my back and yanks off the tag. My skin prickles.
‘Nice tits,’ he says. Inside, I want to die with shame.
Oksana is wearing a bright red all-in-one body with suspenders that flap around her skinny legs. It fits better than the bra, but it’s still too big on her slight frame.
Lulu and Ekaterina are wearing G-strings with black nightdresses over them.
Kaz and Amanda always wear G-strings. They wear them with hipsters so the string shows over the top of their jeans.
‘Fashion innit?’ Kaz said once, admiring herself in the mirror, the way the string sat over the hollow at the base of her spine. Thinking about her now, grinning at her own reflection, I feel suddenly ashamed.
‘Much big and much cheap,’ Lulu says, wagging a finger at Fat Burger Man, who shrugs. He grabs her face with his hand, squeezing her chin with his fingers and thumb. He drags her to the mirror and makes her look in it.
‘Face!’ he says. ‘Your face!’ He grabs a lipstick and puts some on her lips in a wonky line.
Lulu pulls away from him and sneers. But while she fumbles in her bag for her make-up I can see that her hands are trembling.
‘Now we go.’
‘I can’t go out like this!’ I say, and then hear, the second I’ve said it, how pointless and prim I sound.
Fat Burger Man talks to his friend. Then they both stare at me and laugh.
‘It’s OK,’ Oksana hisses at me. ‘They don’t want you. Not yet anyway.’
For a moment I wonder what I’ve done wrong and the thought that maybe I’m not pretty enough hovers in the corner of my mind. Then I’m scared that I even care.
‘Where are they taking you?’
Oksana shrugs. ‘To work.’
Gold Jewellery Man opens the door and ushers them out with extravagant arm gestures.
Fat Burger Man stares at me.
‘Tsok-tsok. Tsok. Little English chicken,’ he says, closing the door behind him.
The moment the door is locked I put my clothes on again. My cheeks burn with shame. I know now they only wanted me to get changed so they could look. As I wash my hands in the sink, my skin itches all over. I have to get out of here.
I wonder what time it is. And this thought turns into an obsession. I have to know what time it is. I go through all the stuff in the room looking for a clock, a watch.
It’s like I can’t remember what my life was like before and that makes me feel even more panicky and scared. Suddenly, all there is in the world is this room, this life, and everything that has gone on before it is just a blurry dream.
Eventually, I find the cracked face of a digital watch by Lu’s bed. 13:21. Lunchtime. Lunchtime . . . Wednesday, no it must be Thursday. I’m sure I’ve been gone for at least two whole days. I find a scrap of newspaper and write it down. School starts back next week. I wonder what Kaz and Amanda are doing. If they know I’m missing yet. I lie back on the bed, clutching the watch, and sleep fitfully all afternoon.
I’m groggy and sleepy. 03:56 according to the cheap screen on Lulu’s watch. I wonder where Oksana has been all this long time. I don’t know how much longer I can cope, being in this room on my own But then the stairs creak and there is the sound of voices outside.
Fat Burger Man comes in first carrying a huge TV; behind him, Oksana and Lulu and Gold Jewellery Man and someone I haven’t seen before: a boy with a thin fuzz of hair on his lip. He slouches against the wall with his hands in his pockets staring at me.
Oksana looks pale and exhausted. She flops on the bed next to me and closes her eyes.
‘What happened?’
‘Ngh.’ She waves a hand at me. ‘Talking later.’
Lulu is bitching at Fat Burger Man, in Turkish I think. He shouts back at her and puts the TV on a bedside cabinet.
‘Where did they take you?’
‘Downstairs,’ Oksana mumbles into the bed.
Gold Jewellery Man has got a DVD player and there’s a lot of frowning and quick talking as he tries to figure out with Fat Burger Man how they’re going to plug it in.
‘What’s going on?’
Oksana sits up and stares at me. ‘I don’t know!’ she shouts. ‘Stop talking to me!’
‘I’m sorry, I was only—’
‘You are sorry!’ She’s getting a bit hysterical now. ‘We are all sorry! Everybody is sorry!’ She points around the room.
‘I’m sor – it’s OK.’ I don’t want her to get upset, not right now, not while they’re here. ‘Shhhh.’
But she doesn’t shut up. She keeps screaming, ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ Her voice is hoarse and dry and she screams and screams until Gold Jewellery Man stops what he’s doing and slaps her. He twists her arm behind her back until she shouts and he pushes her head first on to the bed. Then he stops and goes back to what he was doing, just like nothing happened. Oksana lies still, her face buried in the pillow, and for a moment I worry that he might have killed her, but then I can see her back moving gently up and down.
I get that sickly feeling again like I got in the car. Like I’ve gone down in a lift too quick, like the world around me is made of water, like I’m trapped inside a bad dream. I sit on the bed and chew my fingernails and wish the boy in the corner would stop staring at us like we’re animals in the zoo.
Finally they get a picture on the screen. Fat Burger Man turns the TV around so we can all see it. He pulls Oksana’s hair to make her sit up.
‘Now you watch.’ He points with a flourish to the screen. The menu for Showgirls comes up. At first I think it must be porn, but when the credits roll I can see it’s a proper movie with Gina Gershon in it.
‘Come on, baby.’ He sits heavily on the bed and puts his arm round Oksana. ‘I look after you.’ She tenses, but she doesn’t say anything.
He fast-forwards the film so I don’t really get a sense of the story, except that it’s about Las Vegas strippers and topless dancers.
Then he pauses on a scene of women dancing on a huge glittering stage with explosions and fake volcanoes and loud music.
‘See?’ he says, pointing as the women go through a really hyper and athletic topless dance routine. ‘Like that! That is how you dance!’
He rewinds to the start of the scene, making the women dance backwards, so Gina Gershon’s character goes back inside her volcano instead of coming out of it. I wonder how she doesn’t get burned with all the fireworks going on around her.
‘You do it!’ Fat Burger Man points at Lulu. ‘You copy.’
She curls her lip and gives him a disbelieving glare.
&
nbsp; He stands up and plays the scene again. He claps his hands. ‘Come on!’
Oksana stands up, slowly, like an old lady with stiff joints. She winces as she moves her hips. I stand next to her and stretch my arms. I feel like I’m trying to copy one of Mum’s exercise DVDs.
Lulu whimpers when he comes near her, but he grabs her by the neck of her T-shirt and pulls her in front of the TV screen. ‘Dance!’
‘Have they got a club or something?’
‘No.’ Oksana furrows her brow in concentration. ‘Private dancing.’
Private dancing. I can’t do that. Not like on the video anyway. Besides, I don’t want to learn how to walk like a crab and thrust my crotch at a man, especially not in front of Fat Burger Man and Mad Staring Boy.
Lulu sways around making vague gestures at the screen. The routine is finished by the time we get even one move right. He rewinds the scene.
‘Again.’ He claps his hands. This time we manage a few arm movements.
‘In the morning you will show me.’ He pats Lulu on the bum. ‘Too fat,’ he says as he walks past, even though I can see that this is not true.
As they leave the room, Mad Staring Boy says something to Fat Burger Man, which makes him laugh. He claps the boy on the back hard, making him stumble and hang his head.
After they’ve gone we watch the film. It’s not very good, but the bright sparkly settings and clean peachy skin of the characters make our room seem even more disgusting.
Oksana stares at the screen without moving. I don’t even think she’s really watching it. Lulu lights a cigarette and curls her knees up to her chest.
‘You’re not fat,’ I say.
She looks at me and smiles and her face softens – she doesn’t look so scary and hard.
I say thank you, but I don’t know why.
