Trafficked The Diary of a Sex Slave (2 page)

I rested my head against the window, staring out at the endless road ahead for what felt like half a day. Some of the other girls had started to wake up by now and it was the first time we got to look into each other’s eyes. I know my own desperation and dread must have been mirrored in theirs, and I could smell the fear on their bodies. I wanted to ask them who they were. Who had they trusted that got them in this situation? What was their story? But none of us spoke. To speak meant it was real.

Andrei’s friend pulled the van over at the side of the road and gave us all more water laced with drugs, forcing us to drink it. I did not want to drink it, but what choice did I have? I knew when I woke up things would be worse.

Soon after the liquid entered my system I felt sleep threatening to overtake me again. I closed my eyes and imagined myself with Liliana, my arms around her fragile body and my lips resting on top of her head. I could almost smell her shampoo.

Her face was the last thing I saw before I sunk into darkness.

****

The next time I woke up it felt like I was trapped in some kind of box. I could not turn around; the space was too small, like a coffin, and dark. My throat felt dry and scratchy, and my muscles were stiff. I tried to swallow, but I had no moisture in my mouth. My head pounded with the worst headache I had ever experienced, and I felt nauseous, my stomach bubbling away. I had not eaten for a long time so I had no food to bring up. Instead, I felt acid bile in my throat. I sucked my tongue to stimulate some saliva so I could swallow, and this seemed to help. I could hear the hum of traffic speeding past, horns occasionally blaring out, and the steady bump, bump, bump of the road.

I slept and woke many times during the drive. Thoughts of what happened to the other girls drifted into my head. Had they been killed? Would I be killed? Were the other girls the lucky ones who managed to escape somehow?

I had no concept of time, but it felt like days until I was shaken from sleep by the Rapist. He opened the lid to my coffin, which was hidden in the floor of a van, and yanked me out by my arm. My whole body was stiff, and trying to make it work took some effort. I stumbled as he dragged me out of the van into the dark night. We were parked outside a big house in a residential area.

I could smell his bad breath as he gripped my arm and pulled me around the back of the house. The Rapist opened the back door and pushed me into a kitchen where a big man with a beard who was watching TV nodded and said hello to the Rapist. The lights burned my eyes at first until they adjusted to the brightness, but I could see the bearded man grin leeringly at me.

‘Here is the new girl,’ the Rapist said to a woman wearing a short black dress, high heels, and red lipstick who was playing cards with the bearded man. She was not much older than me; maybe twenty-five. She slowly took a puff on her cigarette and studied me carefully.

‘Very pretty.’ She stubbed out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and walked towards me as the Rapist still gripped my arm. ‘Do you know how to use a condom?’ she asked, as casually as if she were asking about the weather.

My stomach lurched as I imagined what was to come.

The Rapist twisted my arm behind my back, yanking it upwards. ‘Answer her.’

I yelped and nodded at the woman.

‘Good.’ She smiled with satisfaction then grabbed my chin in her hands and turned my face this way and that to get a better look at me. ‘She is an excellent find. The men will love her,’ she said to the Rapist.

‘I do not want to sleep with any men,’ I whispered. ‘
Please,
I’ll do anything else you want. I will cook or clean or–’

The Rapist tugged on my arm again so hard I thought my shoulder would pop out of its socket. ‘You will do as we say. We own you now. I think it is time I taught you a lesson.’

He dragged me out of the kitchen by my hair, and through a living room where there were several women wearing hardly any clothes. The only thing I noticed as they stared at me stumbling past was their eyes looked dead.

I screamed as he pulled me up some stairs towards the top of the house. He pushed open a doorway with a lock on the outside, and into a bedroom. He punched me in the stomach and I doubled over as the wind disappeared from my lungs.

He let out a cackling laugh, and I could smell his dirty breath in the air. He banged my head into the metal bedpost and I fell to the floor, struggling to breathe. And then everything happened so fast it is hard to remember which order it happened.

He pulled my hair, slapped me, kicked me, punched me, pinched me. I tried to bring my arms up to my head to protect myself by curling into a ball, but then he was on top of me. He grabbed my arms and held them above my head with one hand as he ripped off my skirt and knickers with the other. Then he forced my legs apart with his knee and he was inside me.

In my head I screamed, “No, no, no,” over and over again, but nothing came out of my mouth. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to think of something else, but the pain everywhere kept me from concentrating.

‘You’re a fucking whore, and you will do what I tell you,’ he shouted in my ear.

I could hear myself whimpering but it sounded like it was coming from someone else far off in the distance; like I was disconnected from my body.

After a final thrust, he lifted his heavy body off mine and zipped up his trousers. I finally got my wish and curled in a foetal position on the floor to try and stop the pain. I could not hold back the tears anymore. They streamed down my face, stinging the grazes, but I did not care anymore if he saw my weakness.

With a kick to my back he towered over me and laughed. ‘Do you get it now?’ he said. ‘If you do not want that to happen to your daughter, you will do everything we say.’ Then he spat in my face, left the room, and locked the door behind him.

This is now my life.

Day 7

I could not bring myself to write anything for the last few days. Everywhere hurts, even my hands. I have cried so much that I do not think I have any water left in my body.

I have never believed in God but I find myself praying. I am not sure who to, but I feel like I have to. If there is a God, how could He let this happen? I do not believe there is any kind of higher being who can help me now. My prayers are not to any kind of God, they are silent messages to keep me strong.

Thoughts of Liliana and my mother fill my mind. I wish I could talk to them and tell them I miss them so much there is an ache squeezing my heart. I want to hear their voices and hold them tight. I want to wake up from this nightmare and be safe in their arms.

I think of my father and my husband Stefan, too. They have been dead several years, and for once, I am glad. It would rip them apart to know what has happened to me.

I was lucky in one way, growing up, because my father was a skilled man. If anything broke down he could usually fix it himself. He seemed to have a natural gift of understanding how things worked, and people from the surrounding villages would always call on him to repair things. Because of this, we were better off than a lot of our neighbours, and when he died, he left my mother some small savings. Things have still not been easy for us, but it helped until the money ran out and I needed desperately to get a job.

My father taught me English when I was young. I do not know where he got the books from, but somehow he could find anything he wanted – he was a very resourceful man. He knew the only way to better myself was to learn English and seek new opportunities in another country. He wanted me to do something special with my life – it was his dream to see it happen.

And maybe it would have happened if he and Stefan had not both been killed in a car accident the day I found out I was pregnant with Liliana.

I cannot change the past, and now I have no control over the future, either. It is ironic that I finally made it to another country, but it will not be to better myself.

Day 8

The woman I met with the red lipstick has been quite kind to me. Her name is Angelina and she runs this brothel. She is the girlfriend of the leader of this Italian gang who bought me. I have learned I am in Milan, but I doubt I will ever see anything of this city. I have been locked in my room since I arrived. Having seen the other girls with the dead eyes in the lounge, I think it is yet another form of punishment for me to stay in here.

Lying on the double bed, aching, I have had the chance to study my bedroom in great detail. There is nothing else for me to do that will keep my mind active, other than write in my diary.

My room is clean and bright, painted in a pale yellow with cream curtains that are frayed slightly at the edges and have a smudged stain at the top. I have a small toilet, sink, and shower in an en suite bathroom, for which I am grateful. Somehow, it makes it seem a little less like a prison cell. The second tile on the floor as you enter the bathroom has a chip on it in the shape of a star. The ceiling has an old cobweb in the far corner, dangling in the breeze. I can gaze out of the window and, through the bars, I see the cloudless blue sky, sunshine, and tops of the houses. I can hear the sounds of a busy city echoing around me – people going about their life as if everything in the world is normal.

Angelina brings me food and water, which is very basic and bland: bread, pasta, cereal, cucumbers. I long for the sweet biscuits I used to have for breakfast, and tasty meat goulash my mother makes. I can almost smell it as I wonder what is happening at home.

Every night the Rapist comes and forces himself on me. He said it is good practice for me. He is trying to break me in and make me a willing slave. He does not want to beat me anymore because he wants me to look pretty, but he told me he will if he has to. When my bruises have gone they will expect me to sleep with the men who come here. From 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. every night I must do what these men want. If I am good and cause no problems, he said nothing will happen to Liliana and my mother.

Angelina thinks I should be grateful her boyfriend bought me. There are much worse places for a girl to end up, she told me, and described shabby brothels and dirty saunas in town who buy girls.

‘They are seedier than here,’ she said. ‘They are filthy places, and the men are often drunk and they stink. They go there after working in factories or on farms and do not bother to wash beforehand. At least here the men are clean and have more manners.’ She waved her hand around the room. ‘This is one of the nicest brothels in Milan. And when you are not working you can use the lounge and kitchen space, but you cannot leave the house. There are guards here at all times. If you are good, you can stay here. If not,’ she shrugged her shoulders, as if the choice in the matter really was mine alone, ‘you will go to those other places.’

Maybe I should be grateful that I am here and not in one of the places she described, but I cannot summon that emotion from anywhere within.

She gave me lacy underwear, thongs, French knickers, bras, crotchless knickers, stockings and suspenders. I must wear only underwear when the men come to choose the girls.

I cannot look at these items. I do not want them on my body. I do not want this.

Day 9

I have never hated anyone in my life, but I hate Natalia, and I hate the Rapist. I hate the way he forces himself on me. I hate the pain he causes my insides. I hate his chilling blue eyes and his stale breath. I hate the sex.

My bruises are fading now and can be covered with make-up. Angelina has told me that tonight I must work. She told me she can give me drugs to relax me if I want. I do not know whether that is a good or bad thing. Part of me wants to be out of it; not to know what is really happening to my body, but I think that once they control you with drugs you will never get away, even if you want to.

She brushed my waist-length black hair until it was silky and told me how to wear it. She showed me how to do my make-up so I look “sexy.” She picked out which underwear to put on.

My stomach is in knots. I cannot eat anything as the minutes of the day tick by. All I can think about is what will happen to me. What will these men expect? How many will there be? Will they give me a disease? How much pain will it cause? Will they beat me? How can I get through this and still be a fully functioning person?

My mind will be raped as well as my body. I am no longer me anymore but a skeleton of the woman I was.

But I must do it for Liliana and my mother. I must act the part. I will become an Oscar winning actress, because one day I will get out of here. I do not know how long it will take, but I cannot allow myself to believe that I will never get away, because if I do believe that, then I may as well kill myself now.

I could do it easily. I could break the mirror on the dressing table and slit my wrists or my throat. I could take a knife from the kitchen and do it. I could save up all the drugs they offer me and take them all at once. I have thought about it, of course I have, but what if they take revenge on my family? I could not be responsible for that.

So I need to believe there is hope for me, even if it is just a tiny strand in the midst of all this pain. Without hope I will not survive this.