Chapter Ten A Very Important Man #3
It’s taken me a long time to understand that Epstein and Maxwell solidified their power over me by offering me a new sort of family.
Epstein was the patriarch, Maxwell the matriarch, and these roles were not merely implied.
Maxwell liked to call the girls who regularly serviced Epstein her “children.” She and Epstein once took me to a boat show in Palm Beach and spent the afternoon introducing me as their daughter, just for kicks.
As bizarre as that sounds, it felt kind of good to me.
Less good, given my history, was that Epstein sometimes insisted that I call him “Daddy” during sex.
While I was hardly equipped to judge, it often seemed to me that Epstein and Maxwell behaved like actual parents.
The first time we ate a meal together, for example, they were appalled by my table manners.
So Maxwell taught me how to hold a knife and fork, just so, and to fold my napkin in my lap, the way civilized people do.
Soon, she’d be telling me how to do my makeup, how to dress, and where to get my hair cut (the celebrity stylist Frédéric Fekkai groomed many of the girls in Epstein’s world, including me).
Even then, part of me knew she was having her dentists whiten my teeth, or sending me to a waxer to remove my body hair, to please Epstein.
But the role Maxwell played in my life sometimes felt like more than that.
One day in the fall of 2000, we heard “Yellow,” Coldplay’s new love song, on the car radio.
I loved it and couldn’t get the tune out of my head.
A day later, Maxwell presented me with the CD as a gift.
She also gave me my first cell phone. Of course, it served her to have me on a short tether, for her and Epstein’s use.
But the gift also felt vaguely protective.
I was no expert on mothers, but in those early days, I sometimes imagined Maxwell as mine.
—
After a few days in Manhattan, and many sessions in The Dungeon, we headed for Little Saint James, which was as beautiful as Epstein had said it would be.
Surrounded by crystalline turquoise water, the island had three private beaches and had been enhanced with two swimming pools, a helipad, and its own desalination system.
In addition to a massive blue-roofed main residence, there were guest cottages painted in cheerful Caribbean colors: light yellow, minty green, coral pink.
There was a sundial as big as a horse paddock and a dock where a thirty-five-foot Donzi powerboat bobbed under a thatched roof.
Epstein bragged that the boat had cost him $60,000.
Down by the beach, Epstein had built several gazebos for massages and whatever else he required.
Were it not for what went on there, the place would have been paradise.
On that first Caribbean trip, when I wasn’t servicing Epstein, I discovered the rhythms of island life.
Because there were no A-list guests to entertain, as there would be on subsequent trips, I spent hours on a floating trampoline, just a short swim from the dock, where I marveled at the colorful fish that swam underneath.
The group of us also went scuba diving off Epstein’s powerboat.
At one point, I swam into a smack of jellyfish and was stung all over my body.
My skin was on fire. Maxwell asked our boat captain for vinegar, which was supposed to help with the pain, but none could be found.
“Lay down on the deck,” Maxwell said. When I was flat on my back, she pulled her bikini bottoms to one side and urinated all over me.
I know it sounds gross, but it worked: my agony subsided.
On another day, I discovered that Maxwell and I both loved collecting treasures on the beach.
“Pirates used to dock here,” she told me, as we walked together, scanning the sand for sea glass and driftwood. I wanted to believe she was fond of me.
Epstein continued to cast himself as my mentor.
Sometimes we’d sit in his steam shower for hours as he held forth on topics I’d never heard of before: game theory, say, or evolutionary biology, financial derivatives, or the mathematical underpinnings of human language.
He also gave me books to read. Many of them were sexual in nature, such as Nabokov’s Lolita and Anne Desclos’s Story of O, but his insistence that I read them still felt like a vote of confidence.
Frequently, Epstein told me something I needed to hear: that I was smart and full of potential.
At night, Epstein, Maxwell, Tayler, Kellen, and I would gather in front of an enormous TV in the island’s main house, sharing bowls of popcorn, watching movies and TV shows.
Epstein particularly liked Sex and the City, which made him laugh.
But cozy evenings like this could turn sexual in an instant.
A dark, distant expression would move across Epstein’s face, and I’d see it in his eyes: he had to “get off” right then.
When that occurred when I was with Epstein and Maxwell, Maxwell would then instruct me to take off my shirt and do whatever else Epstein wanted.
In those moments, it was more difficult for me to avoid the truth: that to them, I was nothing but a tool to be used for their pleasure.
Today, I can see how this, too, was an echo from my childhood. I hated the sexual duties that Epstein and Maxwell required of me, but I bargained with myself, just as I had when my father abused me: “Just get the icky part over with so the good parts of life can go on.”
Over the years, I’ve wondered a lot about what made Epstein seem to favor me.
As the world has learned from countless others who survived his abuse, Epstein often preferred girls with little to no sexual experience.
Many victims have described how he seemed to enjoy watching inexperienced girls suffer the discomfort of being introduced to sex by him, an older stranger.
Because I’d been sexually abused before meeting him, I could never give him that satisfaction.
I’ve come to believe, though, that I provided something else Epstein needed—something I’d learned from my previous abusers.
I knew how to read a room—or Epstein’s face—and to adapt accordingly, becoming what was required in the moment.
I could fade into the woodwork, invisible, or I could feign delight.
Unlike some of Epstein’s other repeat victims, who got jealous or tried to assert a relationship with him, I was detached and never made demands.
Long before I’d met Epstein, I’d been trained to accept whatever affection, if any, I could get. Epstein liked that.
While I have no evidence to prove it, I think it’s also possible that in me, an abused child, Epstein saw a bit of himself.
Only once did I question him about his experiences growing up.
I knew him well enough not to directly ask: Were you ever abused as a kid?
Instead, I carefully inquired whether he’d had a happy upbringing.
Sensing where I was heading, I think, he cut me off almost before I finished my question, making clear that was a topic I should never raise again.
Years later, when he was asked under oath if he had been sexually abused as a minor, he would refuse to answer, asserting his constitutional right not to incriminate himself.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve always believed that during his own childhood, he’d experienced some kind of molestation.
If that is true, it doesn’t lessen the awfulness of Epstein’s crimes.
But it may help explain them. I know that Epstein was emotionally broken, devoid of any ability to form deep connections to others.
But whether he was born that way or was abused in a manner that eroded his capacity for empathy, no one will probably ever know.