Chapter 13
Ayla
Despite the hot shower, I’m still shaking an hour later.
I knew there was a chance I’d have nothing more to do after the scene.
Raul is an astute businessman. He normally doesn’t schedule paid video scenes on nights that it may take away from in-person clients. Why pick when he can get paid for both?
I don’t know why I think back to the time I was mugged outside of a movie theater when I was sixteen. Getting a knife pointed at me until I handed over the change from my movie ticket is nothing even close to the things I’ve experienced since.
I didn’t want to be seen as a victim. I wanted to be strong, commended for not crying until my dad picked me up.
I was strong then, calling the cops right after the robber took off into the darkness.
I gave them my statement, providing as many details as I could without so much as a quiver in my chin.
I wasn’t a victim. I told myself over and over, even as I cried into my pillow, unable to fall asleep.
Even though it happened miles from my house, I no longer felt safe in my own home.
I was certain the guy stood in the shadows and watched as I spoke with the cops, vowing to get back at me.
No one ever climbed through my window to hurt me for speaking out, but they also never caught him either.
I don’t know when my mentality shifted. I don’t know when I started seeing myself as a victim.
I think it happened right around the time Raul showed me a picture of my sister walking into her first class of the year.
It didn’t take them long to figure out who I was and what connections I had to the outside world.
They took my car from the dorm parking lot.
They couldn’t draw any more suspicion if they wanted my lies to ring true to Alani.
It wouldn’t exactly work if they found an abandoned vehicle a hundred yards from the building.
I know now that I’m a victim, just as much as I know the man that made me one today was also one.
I sympathize with him, but at the same time, I can’t help but despise him too.
Doing what he did to save his own hide is understandable.
I’ve done it countless times in the last couple of months.
I shouldn’t hold him to a higher standard than I have myself, but I can’t help it.
Pointing the finger and issuing blame are the only things that calm my nerves.
Actually considering and accepting that tonight felt different with him can’t be allowed to seep inside of me.
It wasn’t different. He isn’t different.
He hurt me, threatened me, wrapped his hand around my throat without being prompted.
He is just as much a monster as every man that came before him.
I stare at a spot on the wall, wishing I could just close off my mind. It would be much easier to deal with than the realization that I’m losing my fucking mind.
I’ve never been the type to enjoy violence or aggressive sex, and I know that not liking it now doesn’t negate the fact that he made me orgasm.
I know he knows he did. I’m not here living out some deep, dark fucking fantasies.
I know I’ve had no choice, and that orgasm was forced from me just like everything else has been.
I couldn’t have stopped it any more than I can walk out the front door of this house and make it back to Texas safely.
Alani keeps me here. My little sister and the threat of harm heading in her direction keeps me here. I can’t even formulate a lie about having any sort of power because the last of it was ripped from my body tonight.
I twist my fingers together, trying to stop the trembling in them, but it doesn’t help. I ache from head to toe from the tremors I’ve had since I was untied from the bed and ordered back to my room.
I left before the man did, and I have no clue what happened to him after.
It’s very possible that he’s already dead, but I can’t bring myself to stand at the window, in fear of watching one of Raul’s men kick his lifeless body into a shallow grave.
I don’t want to know. I just pray I never see him again.
He confuses my body and fucks with my head too much.
I climb off my bed, knowing I’m taking a real risk as I cross the room and stick my head out of the open doorway.
The hallway is empty, but that doesn’t mean the coast is clear.
The men who work here keep regular patrols, and someone is always awake making sure we aren’t getting any wild ideas about trying to escape.
I’ve already had my shower but I don’t feel clean. The stain of shame is a constant on my skin, but tonight it’s ten times worse for some reason.
I tiptoe across the hall, staring at the curtainless shower and communal bar of soap sitting on the edge.
I’d eat the entire fucking bar if I thought it would make me feel clean from the inside out, but I know it won’t.
I’ll live with the disgrace until Raul decides I’m no longer worth keeping alive.
I swallow as I step into the tub, praying he makes that decision soon.
The water is cold, racing down my back toward the drain, but I relish the bite of pain it brings, refusing to take a step back until it warms some. I deserve the bites on my skin.
I don’t know if it’s a lack of stimulation.
There’s no television here, no books to read, no electronic devices to mindlessly shuffle through to fill the time.
But I can’t stop thinking about what happened.
My first month here, I hyper focused on everything, reliving it over and over until it made me so sick I couldn’t even eat the paltry excuse for food they sent up each day.
I learned over time that I wasn’t punishing anyone but myself and dying wasn’t an option.
I’d already been threatened with what that would mean for Alani.
I became a pro at experiencing shit and then promptly shoving it down so deep the memories seemed more like something I’d previously seen on television rather than something I experienced myself.
I can already tell that this last event will be impossible to shove down. I don’t know if it’s because of him or if that dark place I keep all these traumas is finally full and overflowing.
I scratch at my skin, making sure to rub the scabs threatening to form at my wrists. I want the pain because remembering the pleasure he forced me to feel will only make me sick.
His apology echoes, unwanted in my head, over and over, but even clamping my palms over my ears doesn’t stanch the words.
He seemed genuine, but it doesn’t matter.
He can’t matter to me. Feeling sorry for anyone else will only breed trouble for me. I can’t allow anyone else’s pain and experience to alter my own path. I can’t compromise my sister.
I turn the handle, stopping the flow of water before stepping out of the shower, nearly gagging as I touch the damp towel hanging off to the side.
I don’t know if they make us all use the same things as a way to assert power or if they’re just thoughtless in how they treat us, but I can’t imagine much worse than using a damp towel after getting clean.
I swipe at my skin, my nose pointed to the ceiling with disgust, before hanging it back up and walking back across the hall to my room. My bed isn’t as welcoming as I’ve felt about it times before, but I climb under the threadbare sheet anyway.
Sleep never comes. I spend the early morning hours staring across the room, reliving my entire life.
I try to stick to my earliest memories, of the day my parents smiled at me when I walked into the hospital room to see my sister for the first time.
I think of holding her in my arms, my mother’s soft warning about being careful with her head.
I remember my vow to love and protect her, to be the best big sister in the world.
I attempt to lock on to that promise, but the unspeakable things that have happened to me start to take over.
I see the grinning faces of deviants, hear the maniacal laughter of criminals as they get pleasure from hurting me.
I feel Pirro’s hot, sticky breath on my skin, the memories so real it makes me sit up in bed.
That’s how the girl finds me when she carries a plate of food in my direction.
I’ve never seen her before, but it isn’t the terrified look in her eyes that makes me gasp for air. She’s wearing a ripped and stained Lindell Lemur shirt.
I try to meet her eyes, but she refuses to look in my direction.
I know to take the sight of the shirt as the threat it’s intended to be. It’s one more reminder about how easy it is to snatch someone right out from others’ noses. It tells me just how likely it is that Alani could be next.
I can’t ask how she is or what happened to her. We’d both get punished if either of us spoke. She pulls away when I try to squeeze her hand. She is no more interested in a reassurance than I am. We both know it’s a promise neither of us have the capacity to keep.
I can tell by looking at her, in the briefest second that we lock eyes, that she isn’t new to this experience. She doesn’t beg for help as she places the plate on the bed in front of me. She looks as hopeless as I feel and that comes with time in this world.
All the people here serve some kind of purpose.
The house operates with mostly prisoner labor, with the exception of the men tasked with keeping us in line.
Why pay someone to prepare meals when you can just snatch someone off the streets and have them do it for free, and in exchange, they get to live?
The roles are rotated. Last week, this girl could’ve easily been earning her keep, so to speak, on her back just like I’ve been forced to. Next week, she could be working the laundry service before returning to a spot in front of the camera.
I pray every time I see Raul that I’m going to be getting a new assignment.
I relished the days that I worked in the kitchen, but the nights were worse.
The servants who aren’t earning money are kept in tight quarters, practically living on top of each other.
How fucked up is it that I’ve come to value the limited semi-private space I’m allowed for being one of the ones who gets assaulted on a regular basis?
I watch her back as she leaves the room, the four eighty-seven on the back of her neck a clue as to how long they’ve had her.
The man I’ve interacted with recently was tattooed as five hundred twelve, so she’s been here longer than him, but possibly not by much.
There were six other women who I traveled with after getting abducted.
I don’t know how often they make the rounds snatching people up, but I’ve heard from whispers that this is the only house they’re operating in Mexico.
They could easily take turns dropping people off across several locations.
Just as she turns down the hall, Pirro replaces her in the doorway.
I can’t help the way I swallow in fear. Of all the people here, he’s the most violent, the one most prone to hurting people just for the hell of it.
His behavior is so erratic he could be calm and collected one minute and the next, he’s shoving a knife through someone’s heart, his pulse never changing as he does it.
He smiles when he notices my reaction. He wants people to be afraid of him. It’s what he lives for.
“Raul left on another business trip.”
His words are more than just informative. He’s issuing a warning. He’s at his worst when Raul is gone. The boss is the only one capable of keeping him in check, and I think, deep down, he hates the man for it.
“There’s already been another request for you. The man who paid for you to fuck that guy wants more.”
I hate the way he licks his lips as his eyes skate down my body.
“He liked the power you pretended to have.”
So he isn’t talking about the guy from tonight, because it was very fucking clear I have no power in that situation.
“You have another scene tomorrow, which is a fucking shame. I want nothing more than to mark up your fucking skin today.”
He doesn’t look at all disappointed, despite his words.
He inches forward until his thighs are bumping the edge of the bed. My pulse races, my heart threatening to pound right out of my chest as he bends closer.
“It just means I have to wait to make you bleed until after the scene is over and paid for.”
I swallow against the threat of vomit as he dips his face, his hot, scratchy tongue licking up the side of my face.
He turns around, leaving the room with only his threat and the wetness on my cheek behind.
It’s a testament of how terrifying it is to be here that all I can feel is grateful that I didn’t get in trouble for taking a second shower.