Trafficked The Diary of a Sex Slave

by Sibel Hodge

  I only know three things about my new circumstances: 1) I now have a false British passport – I saw it as he handed it to the guards at each border; 2) He will kill Liliana if I do not do as he says; 3) He is no better than the Rapist.

  It has taken three days to arrive in England. As we sped through villages and towns, I wondered how many other women like me were out there. The more miles we drove, the more a heavy pressure settled in my chest, as if squeezing the life out of me.

  He has already asserted his authority over me with rough sex and threats during the two nights we stayed in small motels on the journey. But I want him to trust me, so I pretend I am enthusiastic, even though I want to batter him until his brains explode. I have become a learned student in acting, and I will use this skill well.

  My new cell is in an apartment that is a massage parlour somewhere in London. This is not the picture I had in my head of the city when my father told me it was a great place to start a new life. It is in a shabby and busy street, and I think the men will be worse here than before. A big, rusting sign hangs outside, advertising P’s Massage Parlour for all the world to see. Every single person who walks or drives past this place can see it, yet no one does anything. They are trafficking girls under everyone’s noses, but we are invisible.

  My room has shaggy pink carpet and pink wallpaper with frayed edges. It stinks from years of neglect and proper cleaning. The double bed is sagging and worn and it squeaks with the slightest movement. There are no bars on the window, but I am four storeys up and would probably kill myself if I jumped. Maybe that would be a good thing.

  I have no bathroom in my cell. There is a shared bathroom that the girls must use, with mould around the edges and leaking taps that have left greenish-brown stains on the white surface. There is a cracked mirror on the wall and my reflection sums me up perfectly.

  Broken.

  Day 49

  I studied myself in the mirror and realized I have lost more weight. My hips bones and ribs stick out more, my eyes are sunken in my skull, and my stomach is concave. They give us food in small amounts, and if we want more we have to ask for it. I never ask. I do not want to eat, and I do not want to give them the satisfaction.

  None of the girls here talk about themselves like Sasha did. We are all nervous in case anything we say gets back to our captors. There could be one who is willing to pass on anything we say for the promise of better treatment.

  The days and nights are all the same again. The men come – drunk, dirty, smelly. Sometimes they are violent and they are thrown out, but nothing bad happens to them. They are filthy pigs, but I am the perfect whore.

  Paul is pleased with me. He said if I am good, I can visit the rich men he provides girls for. Anything is better than the men here.

  Liliana fills every waking thought, and she is with me permanently in my dreams. She is the only thing that gets me through this.

  Just before I was trafficked I made her a pretend telephone. We could not afford a real one, so I tied two plastic cups to the ends of a long piece of string. She would go in one room and put the cup to her ear to see if she could hear me talking, then make me do the same.

  I talk to her all the time in my head now, hoping somehow that she can telepathically hear me. Liliana is at the mercy of Natalia, Andrei, the Rapist, Paul, and many others I have never even met. Her life used to be in my hands. Now it is in theirs alone.

  Day 53

  Yesterday I was allowed outside. Not to shop or sightsee or visit a friend, like most people take for granted, but to visit a rich customer.

  Paul has an expensive apartment in London that he keeps for his big-payers, and he drove me there in his shiny, luxurious car. He calls this “The Millionaires’ Club.”

  He told me the man had booked me for the whole night. Tomorrow I must call Paul and he will pick me up.

  The apartment was like something in a magazine – modern with big windows and minimal furniture. It was spotlessly clean with sparkling chrome and glass, and the area of London looks expensive and well-cared for. The complete opposite of the massage parlour. It is on the fifteenth floor of the building, and I could look down to the huge river below. For a moment I wondered what it would feel like to run through the glass and dive into the water. Into oblivion.

  I had my bag with me and my “sexy” clothes inside. Paul told me I must look beautiful for this man, so I brushed my hair until it shone like ebony and you cannot tell that it is coming out by the handful. I applied my make-up to hide the dark circles under my eyes and my pale skin. My skin smelled of vanilla from the perfume Paul gave me to wear so this man will not smell the mould from the bathroom I shower in. From the way Paul talked, I knew this man was an important customer and I had to make a special effort.

  This was the first time I had been outside on my own since I was trafficked, and Paul let me know in no uncertain terms what will happen to Liliana if I did something stupid.

  When Paul left, I went into one of the bedrooms to get ready for this man. I was told he likes being tied up and whipped. Then he likes to act out a rape fantasy.

  He arrived in an expensive-looking suit. He has light brown hair and pale blue eyes. He is probably about forty-eight years old. He did not waste time ordering me to do this and that: Undress him while I am naked, except for knee-length leather boots. Tie him to the bed by his legs and arms. Whip him lightly and shout filthy things to him. Then, when he was ready, he ordered me to untie him.

  Next, it was my turn to be whipped. Only he enjoyed doing it harder. Not enough to rip my skin, but I have sore, red welts there now. He liked to handcuff my wrists and ankles to the bed and strangle me as he raped me. This went on throughout the night. Time and again.

  Today I cannot talk. There are bruises around my throat and marks on my body. At 8 a.m. the man got dressed, and as he did up his cufflinks he stared at me. He did not really see me; I am just a thing to him.

  ‘I like you,’ he said, nodding his approval. ‘Paul made a good choice. I’ll see you the same time next week.’ He handed me a one hundred pound tip.

  I cannot keep it, of course. I have to give it to Paul so he knows he can trust me. Paul was very pleased with me. He showed his pleasure by ripping my clothes off as soon as I got into my bedroom at the massage parlour. He had a huge, ugly grin on his face as he saw the bruises and marks across my white skin.

  ‘Oh, yeah, baby. He likes you. You’re going to make me a fortune,’ Paul said before throwing me on the bed and raping me.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and prayed for this nightmare to end.

  Day 54

  Yesterday was my initiation into “The Millionaires’ Club.” Paul told me the Strangler was so pleased with me, he was going to use me regularly at the apartment for the other rich men. Tonight Paul will take me to that place again, and I will spend hours making myself look pretty for them.

  Day 56

  Every night I have the same nightmare. I am trapped in a coffin, buried alive underground. I can actually smell the peat in the ground and feel the cold earth permeate my bones so I am shivering. There are insects crawling over my skin. Cockroaches and spiders. Then the rats come later and gnaw on my skin.

  When I bang on the wooden lid, trying to tell someone I am trapped, I hear my mother calling me.

  ‘Elena, where are you?’ she cries.

  And even though I am just below her, a few feet underground, she cannot hear me.

  My nails scrape against the sides of the coffin, and I kick it with my feet, but I cannot get out.

  After I wake up in a cold sweat, my skin itches uncontrollably and I cannot get back to sleep.

  Day 57

  I have a new customer who did not want to have sex with me. I do not know if this is some kind of loyalty test that Paul has conjured up so he knows he can trust me, or if it is something else.

  The man is called Jamie. He was my first customer tonight at the massage parlour, and I could tell he was nervous. He would hardly
look me in the eye. He reminds me of Stefan in some small way. Not the way he looks, but how he holds himself. It seems like there is something gentle about him.

  I asked him what he wanted and he did not seem to understand me.

  ‘What would you like me to do for you?’ I said to him.

  His eyebrows furrowed slightly, as if I was trying to trick him. ‘Look…er…I’ve never done this kind of thing before. I just want to talk,’ he said.

  ‘Talk?’ I repeated. I thought I had misheard him because this has never happened before.

  ‘Yes. And I want to hold you,’ he said.

  So we laid on the bed together and he held me in his arms, chest to chest, his chin resting on the top of my head. He told me how his wife died a year ago from a sudden brain haemorrhage. It has been hard for him, coping without her. He misses her in his arms at night, and I know how he feels, because he makes me think about Stefan again. He said he has been lonely, and he needs to get comfort from someone.

  So I stroked his back gently and let him talk about her, trying to give him all the comfort I could. It is much better than being raped.

  Day 59

  I spend a lot of time at Paul’s Millionaires’ Club apartment now.

  One of the men likes two girls at a time. One of them wants me to dress like a school girl. One of them likes me to wear a certain perfume. One of them likes me to whip him.

  Most of the rich men treat me better than the men in the massage parlour, and I am grateful for that. The only exception is the Strangler.

  Day 65

  Jamie came to see me again. This time he paid for three hours of my time, but he still did not want sex. It was the same as before, lying on the bed in each other’s arms as he talked about his wife.

  It made me think of Stefan when he told me they were childhood sweethearts. After going their separate ways to university, they lost touch with each other, but met up by chance a few years later and got married when they were twenty-five. Although they had no children, they had been trying for a baby for the last four years. One day she was there, the next she was gone. Her life disappeared in a puff of smoke. I can relate to that.

  I discovered he is thirty-five years old and has a cat called Whiskers.

  For the first time ever, a man has asked me why I do this job. I get the feeling he thinks this is my choice. Do people really think every prostitute turns to this life because they are nymphomaniacs? Because it is their number one career choice? Do they honestly think some women and girls aspire to be a sex slave whore like they aspire to be a pop star? I wish the world would wake up.

  I was aching to tell him the truth, but I did not dare. What if it is a trap? So I steered the conversation back to him as the minutes of the night slipped by.

  Day 82

  My life drags on, but now there is some kind of routine. Five days a week I am used by “The Millionaires’ Club”, and three times a week Jamie comes to see me.

  Jamie reads the paper to me, or stories, or poems. I like poems the best – there is something magical about them. Today I saw a picture of the Strangler in the paper, and asked Jamie to read the story about him. He is the Foreign Minister. Ironic, isn’t it? I sat there wondering what makes a man in that position do this. I used to think it was just poor countries that fed corruption and deceit, but now I think it has poisoned the veins of the whole world. I hide my surprise about this politician by asking Jamie to play one of the card games he has taught me. We played Rummy and Whist on the bed, and he is always very gracious when I beat him.

  Somehow, in the midst of all this, he has taught me to laugh again.

  We talk about a lot of things, but the only thing I do not tell him is how I got here and who I am. Somehow I feel an invisible bond with him – a closeness that I cannot explain. I look forward to his visits because he only seems to want female companionship. If I am honest, I feel something like excitement when I see him. He does not want to use and abuse me like the others, and he is the only man since I was taken who treats me like a real person. I would like to think I can trust him now, but I do not know for certain, so I still say nothing about being trafficked.

  Day 86

  When we were dating, Stefan came to visit with a bunch of wild flowers for me. Pinks and yellows and blues lit up my bare windowsill, and the smell was incredible. I arranged them neatly in a tin cup, and every time I walked past them I would take a sniff and admire their simple beauty. It was the first present he ever gave me, and whenever he could find pretty flowers after that he would always pick them for me.

  Today, when Jamie brought me a bunch of flowers and awkwardly presented them to me, I cried. All the pent up hurt, pain, and anger suddenly spewed out of me, and when I started, I could not stop. He gently held me in his arms, rocking me like my mother used to do when I was a child, as he made shushing sounds.

  I wondered why something as simple as a flower had triggered such emotion from me when I had been trying so hard to keep it all inside, and then I realized it was not the flowers at all. It was the gesture.

  That is when I knew I should trust this man, and so I finally opened up and told him everything that had happened to me. He was silent while I talked, but I knew from the look on his face he was horrified.

  He told me he assumed I was a willing participant who enjoyed sex – that I chose this profession. He thought I was earning most of the money the massage parlour charged, which is £50 for half an hour, so maybe I was attracted by the lure of good money. He thought that I did it because maybe I had a drug habit, or was unable to get a regular job for some reason. He thought I was in control of my life.

  He had so many false ideas about me and how I came to be here that when he realized, he cried right along with me.

  ‘I have a friend who is a policeman,’ he told me before his time was up. ‘I will speak to him as soon as I get home.’

  ‘You will have to be very careful about how you go about things,’ I pleaded with him. ‘They will kill my daughter if they find out I told anyone.’

  He hugged me tight. ‘Don’t worry, it will be discreet. I will get you out of here.’

  And I believed him.

  Day 87

  I finally have hope, and it is like someone has injected some magical substance into my veins that fills me with excitement. I am buzzing with happiness, and I cannot wait to see Jamie and discover how soon the police will take me out of here.

  I think back to the policemen in Italy and hope they are not the same here. I push those thoughts to the back of my mind and wait for Jamie to arrive.

  ****

  When Jamie came to see me today, he was awkward again. He told me he feels tremendous guilt for assuming things about me, but I do not care about that.

  I took his hand and rushed him to sit on the bed and tell me everything that happened with his friend.

  ‘He is a sergeant in one of the Criminal Investigation Departments in the Metropolitan Police. I told him everything you told me and he is passing it onto the Clubs and Vice Unit. He thinks it will only be a matter of days until they arrange a search warrant and raid the premises.’

  I clutched his arm. ‘But what about Liliana?’

  He took both my hands in his, gripping them tightly. ‘These people won’t know you had anything to do with this. My friend said the police will take all the girls here into custody when they arrive. You’ll be protected then, and after that, we can get the Moldovan Embassy to check on Liliana and keep her safe.’ He gave me a reassuring smile.

  Day 88

  The politician’s demands are the same, but I know it will soon be over so I can put up with him and all the other men.

  My main concern is Liliana. Will Paul and the others somehow find out I was involved in this and carry out retribution against her? I twist all the possible scenarios around in my brain on an endless loop.

  I do not think they will find out, but if I am arrested, how do I get to Liliana? I pray that the Embassy can make enquiries
and find out if she is still with Natalia in our village. I daydream about them whisking her away to safety. Until she is safe, I cannot speak out loud and tell the truth about what happened to me.

  I pace the floor when I am not working and wait for news from Jamie.

  *****

  When he arrived, he said he had made enquiries with the Embassy, and they would not look into Liliana’s whereabouts until they heard the story from me and verified it. I need to go to the Embassy and tell them everything personally. It seems ludicrous to me. I would go there if I could. No amount of persuasion by Jamie would make them change their minds. Until they have a relative of Liliana making an official complaint to them or a court order, they will do nothing, so I must wait for the police to take me to safety before I tell them.

  Our time together was short. Jamie only stayed half an hour because he does not want to be here when the police arrive.

  Day 89

  There was no search warrant, no teams of policemen. Only two officers arrived in uniform at eleven o’clock in the morning, when all the customers had gone.

  Paul was here when they came, and the police lined all the girls up in the reception area. They explained they had an anonymous tipoff that some of the girls were being kept here against their will, and asked all of us to confirm that we were here by our own choice.