by Casey Watson
I don’t know what I expected him to say – perhaps that someone in his family had been ill and had needed expensive medical treatment and that he’d had to send home more money than he had. So I was caught completely off guard when he said, ‘It was a drugs’ deal that went wrong.’
At first I thought he was joking – giving me a ludicrously unlikely explanation in an attempt to make light of a situation that embarrassed him – but his face remained completely serious as he continued, ‘If I don’t pay the money back, it will cause problems for my family. So that’s why I need you to make this sacrifice for love.’ And that’s when my heart began to race and the palms of my hands became damp with sweat.
For a few seconds, I just looked at him, my mind totally blank and uncomprehending, and then I shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. How can I help you? You know I want to, but it would take me a lifetime to earn that sort of money.’
‘I don’t expect you to earn it in your pathetic job in England.’ His sneer was cold and dismissive. ‘You will earn it here. I will find you a place to work – on the streets.’
Again a wave of relief washed over me and I laughed as I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Work on the streets doing what?’ And then I added hastily, ‘But don’t worry, Kas. I will help you. We’ll think of something, I promise.’
‘We don’t need to think of anything,’ he snapped, and the unmistakable sound of anger and dislike in his voice filled me with dread. ‘I have already thought of something, and that is why you are here.’
He took a step towards me and, instinctively, I cowered away from him.
‘What’s your problem?’ he shouted, leaning down so that his face was just a couple of inches away from mine. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? How dare you disrespect me in this way?’
It was as though the temper he’d only just been managing to control had finally erupted, and his face was contorted unrecognisably as he demanded, ‘How dare you answer me back? Do you not know that if you love someone, you have to make sacrifices for them? Are you so selfish that you can’t do this thing for me?’
I felt like an actor who’d walked on to the stage to speak my lines and realised I’d learned the wrong part in the wrong play, so that everything going on around me was completely incomprehensible. And then it suddenly struck me, almost like a physical blow, that the ‘work on the streets’ he was talking about was prostitution.
A wave of nausea washed over me, followed swiftly by embarrassment at the thought that I must have misunderstood. He doesn’t mean it, I told myself. Just keep calm. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life. But Kas was clearly in deadly earnest and as I rested my elbows on the kitchen table, holding my head in my hands with tears streaming down my face, I was afraid. The last man I’d ever been afraid of was my father, and as I looked at Kas, all the old feelings of dread and helpless vulnerability that I’d been so determined never to experience again threatened to overwhelm me once more.
Kas strode backwards and forwards in front of me, sometimes shouting, sometimes speaking in a quiet voice that was even more menacing and frightening than his anger. Then, suddenly, he leaned down towards me again and screamed, ‘Who do you think you are, woman? Do you think that after I’ve waited for you all these years I’m just going to let you go? Well, you’re wrong. I’m not letting you go. Do you understand? I will never let you go. You are mine now. Your life belongs to me, and you will never get away from me.’
And that’s when the thought struck me that perhaps he was actually crazy. No one who was sane could possibly say the things he was saying: men like Kas aren’t pimps – or drug dealers – and girls like me don’t work on the streets. The idea was absurd and, in any case, how could anyone actually make someone else do that? But, whether he was crazy or not, the fact remained that Kas was in a rage – apparently with me, although I didn’t understand why – and I was very frightened.
I kept telling myself he’d be all right again in the morning. We just had to get through the night and he’d have got over whatever had upset him. And if he hadn’t, I’d simply tell him, ‘I’m not going to do it. I thought you knew me. If you did, you’d know I would never do that in a million years. I’m sorry about the money you owe, but I can’t help you in that way.’ Then I’d make some excuse to cut short my visit and go home – to the ‘pathetic’ job I enjoyed, the family I loved and my ‘normal’ life.
I wrapped my arms across my chest and hugged myself tightly, trying to control the violent shaking of my body, and Kas pulled out a chair and sat down opposite me at the table. Thank God, I thought. He’s calming down at last. Now he’ll tell me what’s wrong and that he’s sorry. Whatever I do, I mustn’t antagonise him. Just think, Sophie. Think before you speak.
He began to talk in a quieter voice, telling me what had happened as though he was discussing an ordinary, everyday event. But I’d never taken drugs and I didn’t think I knew anyone who had, so to me it sounded as though he was describing a scene from a film.
‘I was smuggling cocaine to Holland,’ he said. ‘And when I realised the police were following me, I threw it out of the car. Now the dealer wants the money he lost.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s just the way it goes. The coke’s gone and Mario wants his cash. That’s why he wanted to see you the other day – to make sure you’d be able to earn the money for me.’
‘What? Oh my God!’ I stared at him, anxious for a moment that I was going to be sick, and then I pressed my forehead on to the cool surface of the table and tried to process the disconnected jumble of my thoughts.
‘So, as you can see, I have no alternative.’ Kas leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms in the air above his head and yawned. ‘There’s no other way for me to raise the money. I could use other girls, but I wouldn’t be able to trust them the way I know I can trust you. I know you’ll be loyal to me and that you would never do anything to disrespect me.’
‘We can work something out,’ I told him, lifting my head from the table and wiping my face with the back of my hand. ‘I’m sure that if we think about this together, we can …’
‘I know you won’t disrespect me,’ he said, looking past me and out of the window. ‘Because if you did, if you even thought about it, I would find out and there would be consequences.’
I knew people didn’t say things like that in real life, but however much I tried to tell myself it was all some elaborately cruel joke, I knew in my heart that he meant every word and that I’d made a huge and potentially fatal error when I’d allowed myself to break my golden rule and trust him. Already emotionally exhausted and bewildered, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to be at home, where my mother would put her arms around me and tell me ‘It’ll be all right, love’. Instead, though, I was alone in a foreign country with a man who professed to love me but who was asking me to do something no one in their right mind would ever ask anyone to do.
I began to plead with him: ‘Please. Please don’t make me do this! There must be some other way for you to repay the money. I can’t do what you’re suggesting. Please, Kas.’ I was still pleading with him when, without any warning, he reached out his hand and grabbed me by the hair, forcing my head backwards so that I was looking up into his face as he shouted, ‘It isn’t a suggestion, woman. How stupid are you? Don’t you understand? You’ve grown up in a world full of nice things, where you’ve never had to face the cold reality of many people’s lives.’ He sneered as he said the word ‘nice’, twisting his fingers in my hair so that it felt as though a million needles were digging into my scalp. ‘You have always lived in a world where the only thing you have to cry about is the fact that “Daddy doesn’t love me”.’ He mimicked the voice of a whining, spoilt child, and then his tone was cold again as he said, ‘You think that means you’ve had a hard life? You have no idea what a hard life is. You have no idea about the things some people have to do because, in their lives, there is no other way.’
‘I don’t think that,
’ I sobbed, a small spark of indignation burning inside me for a moment.
In all the time I’d known Kas – or thought I’d known him – I’d never seen the slightest indication that he could be violent, and somehow it was the abrupt and very emphatic change in his behaviour and his attitude towards me that made me most afraid of him. My mind simply couldn’t process or make any sense of all the new information it was being presented with. I kept thinking that if only we could talk things through logically, we’d be able to come up with a more realistic solution to Kas’s financial problems.
I was so confused that I wasn’t certain about anything anymore, except, perhaps, that Kas wasn’t really intending to make me do the things he was talking about. So, even if I hadn’t been as frightened of him as I had instantly become, I don’t think I’d have tried to run away and escape from him. All I needed, I told myself, was to find something to focus on that would anchor me once again to the real world I was used to and could understand.
I’d never even heard Kas swear before that day, so although I was shocked by the things he was saying, I was completely unprepared for what he said next. His tone was contemptuous when he asked me, ‘Do you think you’re the only woman who’s ever worked on the streets for me?’ Then his mood seemed to change and he stretched out a hand to touch the top of my bowed head almost affectionately before saying, ‘But you’re different. The other girls were all bitches. Do you know what a real whore is?’ Suddenly, he grasped my hair again, yanking my head back and upwards so that I was forced to look at him, and shouted, ‘Well, do you?’
I closed my eyes and tried to shake my head.
‘A whore is a woman who treats a man with disrespect by cheating on him when she’s going out with him. That’s a real whore!’ He sounded almost triumphant, and he smiled as he added, ‘But a woman who sells herself to make money is just being clever. Your pussy will be a goldmine.’
I began to sob, lifting my feet onto the chair in front of me and clutching my knees to my chest to try to stop my body shaking, and Kas exploded into uncontrolled rage. ‘If you give me that look again,’ he screamed, ‘if you disrespect me one more time, you’ll see what I will do! How dare you? How dare you do this to me?’ I dug my fingernails into my thighs and told myself, Stop, Sophie! You have to stop crying. Don’t let him see your fear. Your tears are making him angrier. And, as if he’d read my thoughts, he bellowed at me, ‘Stop it! How dare you cry? How dare you do this to me? Just look at yourself! You look terrible. Go to the bathroom and straighten your hair. Pull yourself together, woman, for God’s sake. Go! Go to the bathroom and see how bad you look.’
Still sobbing, I stood up, edged around the table and scuttled out of the kitchen, with the sound of Kas’s fury echoing after me as he called, ‘Don’t close the bathroom door. Leave it open.’ And already I wouldn’t even have dreamed of disobeying him.
In the bathroom, I looked in the mirror at my white, tear-stained face and the wild untidiness of my hair and it was as though I was looking at a stranger. I knew something profoundly significant had just happened, but as it didn’t fit anywhere on my own spectrum of reality, I couldn’t make any sense of it. And then I began to panic as the thought struck me that if I stayed in the bathroom too long, Kas might be angry with me.
I quickly tugged a brush through my hair, splashed water on to my face and crept back into the kitchen, where he was leaning against the sink. His voice was almost tender as he asked me, ‘You love your little brothers, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes, I do,’ I answered hastily, relieved to talk about something normal and praying that the thought of how much I would miss my family might make him decide to let me go home.
‘How old are the twins? Thirteen? Fourteen?’
‘They’re thirteen,’ I said, trying to speak in what I hoped was a ‘respectful’ tone of voice.
‘Hmm.’ He smiled at me and I felt an almost imperceptible glimmer of hope, which was shattered instantly when he said, ‘So you would be very sad if anything happened to them?’
It sounded like a question, although I knew without any doubt that it was a statement – or, more precisely, a threat.
‘Of course, I know where your family lives,’ Kas continued, twisting his body slightly to one side so that he could pick up a carving knife, which he turned slowly in his hand. ‘So, if you disrespect me again, I will have your precious little brothers taken from their home. It will happen as easily as that.’ He stepped forward and clicked his fingers in my face. ‘You have no idea what I can do. If you ever try to get away or do anything to disrespect me, I will have your little brothers taken, just like that.’
He snapped his fingers again and as the sound rang out like a shot from a gun, the room began to turn and I sank to my knees on the floor, screaming silently in my head, No! Oh my God, no! This can’t be happening. It isn’t real. What am I going to do?
Kas pulled me up roughly by my arm and pushed me towards the open door. I could sense his disgust as he spat out the words, ‘Get out of my sight! Go on! Go! Go to bed, and tomorrow I’ll take you to see where you’ll be working.’
That night I slept in a single bed in Kas’s bedroom, although, in fact, I barely slept at all. My mind was racing, and every time I began to slip into exhausted oblivion, my eyes snapped open and I’d try again to concentrate on thinking of some excuse that would convince Kas I had to go home. I attempted – without success – to comfort myself with the thought that, Tomorrow everything will be okay. When he wakes up, he’ll be all right again. I’ll explain to him that I don’t want to do it and he’ll understand. Everything will be fine.
In the morning I told him, ‘I’ve got to go home. I can’t just leave my family and my job. And I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. I don’t want to do it, but even if I did, I can’t because of the operation and the problems I’ve had …’
He’d shrugged his shoulders and made a dismissive ‘pfff’ sound when I’d mentioned my family, but suddenly he erupted into fury and shouted, ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, woman. You’re being a hypochondriac. You’ve had your operation. It’s over. There’s nothing medically wrong with you. You’re fine. You need to stop thinking about yourself and your imagined illnesses and think about all the people who are far worse off than you are.’
But on that first morning of the new life Kas had planned for me, all I could think about was finding some way to explain to him why I couldn’t stay in Italy and work to pay off his debt. I told him all the excuses that had sounded so reasonable in my head during the night, but he didn’t even listen. For four years, he’d been nice to me. Even when I’d told him on the phone that I’d met Erion and he was upset and said he didn’t want to hear about my new boyfriend, he hadn’t sounded angry. And then he’d said he was in love with me. So I still couldn’t believe that when he realised how distressed I really was, he wouldn’t change his mind and tell me he was sorry and of course I didn’t have to do the horrible things he’d talked about. What I hadn’t yet understood, however, was that Kas’s idea of what was normal and acceptable was quite different from the normality of most other people.
‘Please don’t make me do this,’ I begged him again. ‘I want to help you, but I really can’t do what you’re asking.’ And again he shouted, ‘Don’t you dare to disrespect me,’ slapping me so hard across the face that he sent me flying into a corner of the kitchen, where I cowered on the floor. ‘You will do whatever I tell you to do,’ he bellowed. ‘If you try to make contact with anyone without my permission, your family will suffer. Is that you want, woman? Are you so selfish that you’d let something bad happen to your precious little brothers just because you have to do something you don’t want to do?’
I shook my head mutely.
‘Do you think anyone will listen to you anyway?’ He took a step towards me as he spoke and I recoiled, covering my head with my hands and pressing my body against the wall. ‘Do you think anyone will care what happens to you? All you are
now is a piece of pussy on the street.’
The harsh crudeness of his words made me flinch and he laughed as he asked, ‘Do you know what Italians like most?’ It didn’t seem to be a question that required an answer, but he suddenly bent down towards me and shouted, ‘Do you?’
‘No, I don’t know,’ I whispered.
‘The three Ps,’ he said, smiling his humourless smile. ‘Pussy, pizza and pasta. So who’s going to give a fuck about what happens to you?’
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Copyright
This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.
HarperElement
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and HarperElement are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
First published by HarperElement 2013
FIRST EDITION
© Casey Watson 2013
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
