Chapter 2 #7
“Esteban! Finally here to pay your debts!” he boomed in English with a heavy accent, spreading his arms wide, sweat stains visible beneath his armpits.
I frowned, trying to process his words. Debts?
“Master, I told you I would settle what I owe,” Esteban said with a smile a smile I didn’t recognize, one that made my skin crawl.
“I doubt your little bag is big enough for that,” the man behind the desk chuckled, then winked at me in a way that turned my stomach.
Esteban released my hand suddenly, laughing as he stepped toward the desk, leaving me alone in the middle of the room.
“No, Master! Of course not,” he said, still laughing.
“The bag is mine. I brought something else for you.” He raised his arm and pointed at me, "let me introduce you to Sienna Master, she's sixteen years old, pure Italian with a temperament to match, and above all, she's still as pure as the first day!
" " he exclaimed, and my breath caught in my throat as an icy chill began to grip my limbs.
I felt as if the finger he was pointing at me was actually a gun and he had riddled me with bullets.
"Esteban? " I gasped, wanting to take a step toward him, but my legs wouldn't respond.
I was completely frozen in place. Why...
what was he saying? "She's worth much more than fifty thousand dollars, Master!
I assure you!" He continued, ignoring me, turning his back on me as if I no longer existed, as if I were nothing.
The Master slowly rose from his seat and began to approach me, his eyes now fixed on me, sliding down my body before he nodded.
"A virgin, you say?" he asked in a dark voice, and Esteban quickly confirmed it, while I suddenly felt like vomiting.
"Esteban," I repeated, finally managing to raise my hand to touch him, so that he would remember I was here, so that he would remember who I was, so that he would.
.. but the Master's hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling me toward him, and I bumped into his rounded belly as he lowered his face toward mine and the smell of rot seeped into my nostrils.
"Krasivyye glaza" (beautiful eyes), he said in a language I didn't understand, and I grimaced, trying to pull away. No! What the hell was this?!
"It's okay, Esteban, your debt is paid. Go," said the Master in English, smiling at me as the fear that gripped me took my breath away.
"Thank you, Master," said Esteban, turning toward the door, his back to me, my bag containing all of my sister's and my valuables on his back.
He walked away... abandoning me? "Esteban!
" I called out to him, but he didn't even look at me.
"Esteban! Don't leave me, Esteban!" I shouted, struggling against the Master's grip, but it was no use.
He didn't let go. He smiled even more when he saw my terror, "Esteban!
Esteban! Don't leave me here, Esteban! I beg you, Esteban!
" He left the room and before the door closed, he looked at me.
"Sorry, Sienna, nothing personal, okay?" he smiled as I continued to struggle and call out to him, begging him with tears streaming down my cheeks.
"No! Let me go! Let me go! Esteban! Selina!
Selina!" I wanted my sister, the one who had always protected me, the one who had always looked after me after our parents died, the one who had always forgiven me.
The Master turned me toward him, grabbing my arms to hold me in place.
"Come on, sweetheart, don't get so worked up.
You'll see that it's not so bad being here," he said as I trembled in his hands, shaking with sobs, petrified with fear.
"It's been a long time since we've seen such freshness.
Larr, go get the Mother," he continued, signaling to the bodyguard who had let us in, Esteban and me.
But Esteban was gone. He had abandoned me. He had... sold me?
"Let's not waste any time, shall we, Stella?
Get on your knees so I can begin your education," he said, pressing his big hands against my frail arms, trying to bend me to his will.
Stella? Why was he calling me that? I shook my head as another wave of nausea washed over me.
I screamed and struggled, again and again, trying to hit him, to bite him, but he was so much stronger, so much bigger.
He was a man and I was a girl, just a child.
"No! No!" I spat in his face and froze when he raised his hand.
I had been slapped only once in my life, by Selina, when I stole her bright yellow car to go to a party a year ago.
I had crashed it and almost flipped it. It was the only time I had ever been hit, and I deserved it.
I was ready for her to slap me for hours if she had to, as long as she was close to me again.
I waited for the blow to fall, I waited to feel the pain, but nothing came, "I have a golden rule, Stella," he whispered against my forehead, making me tremble, "I never hit women. Why hurt my stars like that? There are much more painful and effective ways to make you fade away."
The door opened again and the hope that Esteban had returned made me sob, but it wasn't him, it was a woman, an elderly woman despite her efforts at cosmetic surgery and her choice of clothing.
She wore leather clothing and high heels, her dyed red hair tied up in a high ponytail on top of her head.
"Khozyain, ty menya zval?" (Master, did you call me?) she said in a light voice, her hands on her hips, her gaze shifting from me to the man who was holding me prisoner.
"Katy, eto nash novyy sotrudnik. YA pozvolyu tebe yeye obuchit', ya khochu, chtoby ona stoyala na kolenyakh i byla gotova dobrovol'no udovletvorit' menya cherez tri dnya" (Katy, this is our new recruit.
I'll let you train her. I want her on her knees and ready to satisfy me willingly in three days," said the man, pushing me toward the woman and I fell to my knees at her feet.
I didn't understand what they were saying.
I didn't understand what was happening. I was scared.
I wanted to go home. I had to save my sister.
"Please, let me go," I sobbed, lifting my head, she was a woman; surely she would understand me, wouldn't she?
She leaned over and gently cupped my jaw between her slender fingers.
"Vy dali yemu imya, Khozyain?" (Did you give her a name, Master?) she asked in what sounded to me like Russian.
"Stella," said the man, sitting down behind his desk before lighting a cigarette, repeating the same name he had called me.
"This is your mother, Stella. Be good and obey her.
The better you behave, the less you will suffer," he added before lowering his eyes back to the papers on his desk, ignoring us completely.
"Let's go," said the woman, letting go of me before signaling to the two men behind her.
They suddenly grabbed me by the arms and dragged me after the woman into the hallway despite my protests.
"No! Let me go! Please, no! I don't want to!
I don't want to! Selina!" I felt like my throat was going to tear apart from screaming so much, but they couldn't hear me.
She couldn't hear me. Esteban couldn't hear me. Selina couldn't hear me.
The couples in the hallway glanced at me but did nothing more, as if they were used to it, as if I were just another one of them.
We went down the stairs and arrived in a basement, a basement where it was so cold that my breath was visible as I screamed, cried, and begged.
The woman unlocked a door and opened it, and the men threw me inside.
By the time I got up, the cell door was already locked, leaving me in complete darkness.
There was no light, no air, nothing. I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face.
I banged on the door again and again. "Please," I sobbed. "Please, I have to save my sister." I banged again and again, I cried again and again, I begged again and again, but no one answered, no one came, no one.
Darkness and cold were my only companions during the days that followed.
The loneliness drove me mad, sometimes I begged to be let out, other times I talked to myself, trying to reassure myself.
Nine days and nights I slept on the floor, the cold seeping into my bones, nine days without water or food, only the bare minimum to keep me from dying with my diabetes, nine days Selina had spent with that monster.
Nine days was how long it took for me to kneel before the Master, for him to rape me and turn me into a prostitute.
"Clean her up and get her ready, she has to hit the road quickly," said Katy, Mother, from the bedroom door. The last time I had seen her was two days ago, when she had come to fetch me from my cell to take me to the Master after nine days.
Everything was blurry. I remembered the cold, the hunger, and above all, the thirst. I remembered my sobs and cries, which had turned into moans and then silence.
I remembered dreams where Selina stroked my hair, where my mother's scent and my father's laughter lulled me to sleep.
I remembered the sudden awakenings with the Mother's voice, which wouldn't let me sleep, torturing me.
I remembered the same question she asked me every day.
"Who are you?", over and over again, until I answered what she wanted to hear, until I gave up, until I submitted.
Until I became Stella, a prostitute and slave at only sixteen years old.