Chapter Twelve “Just Like You Do for Me”
Twelve
“Just Like You Do for Me”
It was around that time that Tony Figueroa, my boyfriend from middle school, stormed back into my life.
I was in my Royal Palm Beach apartment one afternoon when I heard a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” I asked, and when he answered, I’d have known that voice anywhere.
It had been three years since I’d seen last Tony, before Mom shipped me off to Growing Together, and he’d filled out a bit.
His black hair was shorter, and now that he was into rap—Tupac, Biggie, Ja Rule—he dressed in oversized T-shirts and baggy shorts that hung off his ass. But he still had those big brown eyes.
“Damn, girl, you finally answered,” he said, wrapping me in a hug.
“I’ve been trying to track you down for months.
” Not wanting Michael to find us together, I suggested we go out for a drink.
We spent hours talking, easily picking up where we’d so abruptly left off.
It’d been a tough couple of years, I told him, but now I had a good job working for a rich guy in Palm Beach.
I was intentionally unclear about my duties.
Tony listened, then told me about his own struggles.
Neither of us seemed to be in a great place, but it felt good to be sitting across from someone who’d known me for so long.
When Tony dropped me off that night, I gave him one chaste kiss, but I had a feeling I’d see him again soon.
For months I hadn’t known how to talk to Michael about Epstein and what I did for him, so I said nothing.
For some reason, I felt different with Tony.
I knew he wouldn’t judge me. As we began spending more time together, I filled in the gaps.
Tony wasn’t thrilled to hear what my “job” entailed, of course, but he didn’t blame me for the fucked-up situation.
Life had always been hard in Loxahatchee—for him and for me.
Weren’t we all just trying to get by? Little by little, just as we had in middle school, Tony and I evolved from being friends to being lovers.
When Michael found out that Tony and I were back together, he was crushed.
I made that worse because I didn’t tell him it was over.
Instead, he learned the truth when he walked in on Tony and me one night—not my finest hour.
Tony and I weren’t in the middle of anything passionate, but still Michael sensed what was up.
We had a huge fight—yelling and screaming at each other—and then he left.
A few days later, Michael came to retrieve his stuff, and I felt so bad that I let him take all the animals but two: my Chow Chow, Mary-Jane, and a cat named Cougar. Not long after that, Tony moved in.
When I think back on this period, I’m not proud of myself.
Even though the adult me knows that the child me was battling just to survive, I wince at how passive I had become.
Just like when I was held captive by Eppinger, I was turning more and more to Xanax and other drugs, which were prescribed for me by doctors Maxwell sent me to.
Sometimes, when I was really struggling, I took as many as eight Xanax a day.
Even then I knew that a girl with more options (and fewer demons) would not be doing what I did for Epstein and Maxwell.
And yet I was afraid to break free. Even on days when Epstein was out of town and I had more control over my time, I anesthetized myself by partying hard—drinking, smoking marijuana, and sometimes dropping acid.
Epstein strung me along with the promise that he would introduce me to real massage therapists, who he’d pay to let me apprentice alongside them as they worked on his body.
In one instance, when the only massage therapist available on a given day was male, I was actually coached by a talented expert.
I remember this man’s showing me how prolonged pressure in a single spot could unknot even the most stubbornly clenched muscle.
“Be patient,” this masseur said. “Don’t be afraid to slow down and focus.
” I devoured his advice and tried to apply it to my own life.
“Maybe if I’m patient, things will get better,” I thought, grateful to be learning.
Except for that single session, however, every other masseuse that Epstein hired to educate me was female, and you can imagine how that went.
I remember being in the middle of a session, working beside a woman who seemed to be legit, when Epstein suddenly turned to the woman and commanded: “Take off your clothes.” When she obediently complied, I realized the whole “lesson” had been a sham: one of Epstein’s sick fantasies, brought to life.
Epstein had sex with both of us that day, and when I finally got home, I desperately wanted—no, needed—to get stoned.
For months now, I’d been doing my damnedest to justify what I was allowing to happen to me—“If I can only endure it, this could lead somewhere good!” Now, I increasingly needed to be numb to get through the day.
My need to feel nothing only grew stronger when Epstein and Maxwell began lending me out to their friends.
The first time, Epstein made it sound as if he were launching me on an exciting new phase of my “massage training.” My new “clients,” as Epstein described them, were a man and his pregnant wife.
Both needed massages, Epstein said. They were staying at The Breakers, an exclusive Palm Beach hotel not far from El Brillo Way, and Epstein had specific instructions for how I was to treat them.
“Be gentle with her,” he said. “Make her comfortable. But save most of your energy for him.” When Epstein said this, I looked up.
Did he mean what I thought he meant? “Give him whatever he wants,” Epstein confirmed.
“Just like you do for me.” Epstein said he was sending me as an emissary, so how I behaved would reflect on him.
It was important that I uphold his reputation.
That night I took a taxi to The Breakers.
The man—I’ll call him Billionaire Number One—and his wife were staying in an apartment in the residential section of the vast property.
When I arrived, they promptly showed me to the master bedroom, where I would work on the woman first. As a joke, Maxwell had warned me that I could induce premature labor if I massaged the woman’s ankles “in the wrong way.” I believed her and, not knowing any better, was petrified that I might hurt the baby.
As the billionaire’s wife undressed, I realized I’d never seen a pregnant woman naked before.
Her midsection was swollen, as if she’d swallowed a basketball, and her belly button protruded slightly.
I had no massage table with me, so we went to the bed, where I arranged a nest of pillows to bolster her as I rubbed her with the oils I’d brought.
I knew nothing about prenatal massage, but I did my best, avoiding her ankles altogether.
After about forty-five minutes, the woman said she was going to go to sleep and asked me to turn off the light.
I did so and exited quietly, much as I did each night with Epstein.
The apartment was dark when I emerged, and I had to tiptoe around a bit before I found Billionaire Number One in a sitting-room area, taking off his clothes.
There was a throw rug on the floor, and he lay down on it naked, facing up.
I asked him to turn over, hoping against hope that a massage was all this stranger was expecting.
Working on the floor was more difficult than on a table or a bed, but I was intent on doing a good job.
Nearly four hours after I’d arrived at the apartment, I was still kneading the man’s muscles when he looked up, groaned, and asked me, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable working in the nude?
” I was disappointed, but not surprised.
We had sex on the floor, and afterward, he tipped me a hundred dollars.
As I left that night, I felt that familiar scooped-out, empty feeling.
But I must’ve been getting used to it because as I sat in the back of a taxi, headed home, the main thing I was thinking about was Epstein: “He’ll be happy that I did what he asked. ”
The next morning, my phone rang. I was to come to El Brillo Way for lunch.
When I arrived, I headed to the pool, where Epstein sat on a chaise longue, surrounded by paperwork.
“How did it go?” he asked, as if having sex with a stranger were a final exam, or a root canal, or some other everyday activity.
I told him I’d done everything that anyone required of me and that his friends seemed satisfied.
He grinned then, popped a red grape in his mouth, and walked back to his office. I had pleased him. And I was dismissed.
—
I need a breather. I bet you do too. So I now interrupt our grim chronology to take you to a place that Robbie and the kids and I have gone many times when we needed a fun family outing: Fremantle Prison.
You may wonder what could possibly be fun about a prison, but remember, I have two boys and a girl who’s as tough as any boy.
My kids know that their country of origin started off as a penal colony when the British, responding to overcrowded prisons in England, began sending convicts to Western Australia in 1850.
Alex, Tyler, and Ellie are fascinated by the idea that these earliest arrivals were forced first to build the very walls that would imprison them and later to construct several cellblocks, a gatehouse, and a labyrinth of tunnels too.
My kids love it when our tour guide asks for a volunteer to be cuffed to the flogging post, where misbehaving prisoners got lashed with a cat-o’-nine-tails, or when visitors are offered the chance to be locked (just for ten seconds) in a pitch-black isolation cell.