Manka laughed bitterly. “Yes, that’s what the new girls always say. But there isn’t. You see that door at the end of the room?” She pointed to a large steel door that looked way too secure for a mere basement. “If you somehow managed to get through that door, on the other side are big, strong, armed guards. You don’t want to call their attention. If they don’t shoot you, they’ll rape you and then toss you right back in here.”
There were no other exits.
“How did you end up here?” If Julie didn’t keep a semi-normal conversation flowing, she was going to lose her mind. She already felt as if bits and pieces of it were breaking off and floating away from her.
“I met what I thought was a nice American man over the internet. He was supposed to become my husband and give me a new life in America. But instead, I was brought here. My passport and identification were taken and... no husband. They said if I managed to escape I would get deported or go in prison because I was a criminal here illegally, and prostitution is a crime. As if I would choose that. Let them lock me up. I’m sure it would be better.”
“Your English is very good,” Julie said.
“Thank you. I practiced a long time for my American husband.”
Julie was about to ask why Manka was the only other person down here with her, when the question was answered by a coughing fit. Manka drank from a glass of water next to her bunk until it subsided.
“Whatever they’re giving me isn’t working. I’m not getting better. I’m going to die down here.”
“You’re not going to die down here,” Julie said. But as she said it, she had serious doubts. If what Manka said was true, short of some FBI sting stopping this and rescuing them, they were all probably going to die down here. It was a thought she tried very hard not to dwell on.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and a large group of women—about thirty in all—filed into the room, all wearing nice black lingerie of various styles.
“Who is this new girl?” a blonde with a strong French accent asked. She immediately started stripping off a long black silk nightgown, uncaring of her nudity. She tossed the garment in a basket beside the bed.
“I’m Julie,” she said, trying not to stare at the French girl.
“Américaine? How odd. Who did she piss off? They never bring américaine girls. They aren’t exotic enough for these pieces of shit.”
“Were you a mail-order bride, too?” Julie asked.
Manka made an offended sound—clearly not appreciating being referenced that way—and the blonde let out a derisive snort.
“Mais, non! I was to have a modeling contract. They said it was lingerie and asked if I would be okay with that. I said, oui. This was not what I had in mind. Je suis Josette. But you may call me, Josie.”
“She does that all the time, mixing French in with her English,” Manka said.
“Excusez-moi, Manka. I didn’t have a perfect mari waiting on me.” Josie turned abruptly and went to the shower in the middle of the room, and turned on one of the shower heads.
“I didn’t either,” Manka reminded her.
Josie rattled off something quite long and derisive-sounding in French and stepped under the spray. Julie looked away.
A Latina girl sat on the bed next to Julie’s. She laughed. “You better get used to public nudity, honey. Everybody’s gonna see it. Paying clients. Guards. Your fellow whores. That’s right. You’re no better than us now, blanca.”
Dmitri must have been looking to get women from all around the world, like some perverse international doll collection. Julie was the American doll. Boring to other Americans, but necessary to complete the set.
“I’m Carmen,” she said, finally. “Welcome to hell.”
“Julie.” Her name sounded stranger and more distant each time it fell from her lips.
“You must be the sweet one on the menu. How many men you fucked? No wait... let me guess... rich bitch living on Daddy’s credit cards. Frat boy boyfriend in college... big brothers to your sorority. Experimented with a few girls to be edgy. How warm am I?”
Finally, the tears came. Whatever dam had been holding them back burst, and she didn’t care if Carmen or any of the others saw her cry.
“Oh shit, we’ve got a weeper. Well, isn’t that special? You better toughen the fuck up, girl, or you’re never going to survive this. Close your eyes and pretend it’s your boyfriend. These men are all into boring shit in the bedroom anyway. Lucky for us.”
Julie must have betrayed something with her facial expression because Carmen’s eyes went wide. “You have had a boyfriend, right, blanca?”
Julie couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Girlfriend?”
No response.
“Okay, but you’ve at least had sex. What are you? Twenty, twenty-one?”
“Twenty-two. And no,” Julie said.
“Shit, girl. Did they steal you out of a convent?” Carmen got very serious and concerned all of a sudden. “Listen to me. You can’t let them know. If they find out you’ve never been with anyone, they’ll make this a thousand times worse for you. These entitled dickheads will fight to see who gets to deflower you, and they’ll make it a big public show. They did that shit to Umiko when she first got here. She was barely seventeen and had been... sheltered.”
The Japanese girl stood at the edge of their conversation, a darkness falling over her expression.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Julie said, at a loss at what else to say. These girls were acting so casual it was unsettling. She wanted to buy into whatever sense of normalcy they’d created to survive but she couldn’t yet. She didn’t want this to be the new normal. It couldn’t be.
Umiko shrugged.
Carmen quickly changed the subject. “Umiko is our little mermaid.”
The Japanese girl managed a small laugh. “My name means child of the sea. They like to tease me about it.”
When Umiko had gone off to shower, Julie turned back to Carmen. “They’ll find out if I bleed,” she said, unable to believe she was speaking as if she accepted all this as her new reality. She knew she had to be in some kind of shock. Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It couldn’t be. None of this was really happening. It was all a bad dream. She’d wake up.
Carmen interrupted her internal monologue. “But then it’ll be too late. It won’t matter. Just try to keep the client from finding out then dump the sheets down the laundry chute.”
“Won’t they find it when they do laundry?” Julie asked.
Carmen rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, like these assholes do laundry. We do the laundry. It’s practically the only other time we get out of this dungeon, to do the domestic shit, but don’t think that’s an escape opportunity. There will be guns on you the whole time. Besides, if they saw it, there would be no way to know who it came from. Maybe a client got rough. Maybe a girl is on her period. These hijos de su puta madre are squeamish about periods. They won’t ask, and they won’t care.”
“Okay.” Julie noticed some dark sinister stains on the ground. “What’s that?”
“You don’t want to know,” Carmen said. But after a pause she told her anyway. “When I talk about survival here, I mean that. If you make too much trouble, they will fucking kill you. A lot of times when it happens, they just drag someone out of the room and nobody sees them again. We’re not completely sure they die. Maybe some get sold to someone else. But I’ve seen them kill a couple of girls here in cold blood. That’s what those stains are. And I was part of the clean-up crew on that one.” She pointed.