Bought and Sold Page 9
‘But the man had an axe,’ I told him, angry now as well as hurt by his reaction. ‘I thought you would be relieved that I hadn’t come to any harm.’
Jak’s first punch literally lifted me off the ground and sent me flying across the room. I was still lying on the floor, dazed and shocked, when he twisted his fingers in my hair, dragged me to my feet and banged my head repeatedly against the wall. Then he thrust his fingers between my teeth and lifted me off the floor, scraping his nails along the roof of my mouth as he did so. It felt as though every part of the inside of my mouth was swelling up, blocking my throat and making me choke. The pain was excruciating and I had the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I had never seen him in such a furious rage. While I was gasping for breath, he kept on punching me, and each blow sent my head crashing back against the wall. When he finally let go of me, darkness rushed in and I crumpled on to the floor at his feet.
I think I must have lost consciousness for a moment, because the next thing I remember is hearing Jak shouting into the phone, ‘Help! You have to help me. I think I might have killed her.’ When I opened my eyes again, Jak and the Albanian owner of the hotel were looking down at me.
I had learned quite a bit of Albanian from Jak by that time, although the barely controlled panic in both men’s voices would have been recognisable in any language. The hotel owner kept swearing and saying angrily, ‘You stupid idiot! What have you done to her?’ I think he was the one who slid his arm underneath me to lift my head and shoulders off the floor and then put two broad, rough-skinned fingers into my mouth until they were touching the back of my throat. For a moment the pain was so intense I thought I was going to pass out. Then my whole body convulsed and, for the second time that evening, I threw up.
Jak made me stay in bed for the next couple of days – although, in fact, I didn’t need any persuasion. The inside of my mouth was so swollen and sore I could barely swallow, and I had a relentless headache that was, almost literally, blinding. When Jak sat beside me, trying to feed me soup, he apologised over and over again for what he had done. ‘Sometimes I can’t control my anger,’ he said. ‘You know that my family has always lived in poverty: that’s where the rage comes from. I get angry when I think that my parents have nothing. And sometimes I take it out on you. But it won’t happen again, I promise.’
Apart from some bruising around my mouth, I had almost no visible marks anywhere on my body as a result of Jak’s assault. I didn’t realise it until much later, but that wasn’t accidental. Although he was often physically violent with me after that day, he never did actually lose control, despite often appearing to do so, and he was always very careful not to cut or bruise any part of me that would be seen by someone else.
This time, like every subsequent time he attacked me, he managed to convince me that it would never happen again. And this time, like every subsequent time he attacked me, I believed him. I think part of the reason why I allowed myself to be persuaded that he really was full of remorse was because I had seen him panic when he thought he had really hurt me. I mistook his reaction for concern about me, rather than realising that the only person he was ever concerned for was himself. It was a very long time before I accepted the fact that what upset Jak – and the hotel owner – so much that day when he thought he had killed me was the prospect of having to dispose of my body without anyone finding out what he had done.
I had been in Athens with Jak for about six months by that time. I don’t think my teachers back in England, or the policeman who had picked me up for shoplifting, would have recognised the emaciated, timid girl with a trance-like expression and dark rings under her eyes as the same mouthy, stubborn teenager they’d had to deal with less than a year earlier. The only strong emotion I ever really felt now was fear, and even that seemed to fade almost as quickly as it came.
Without being consciously aware that it had happened, I had accepted the fact that I no longer controlled any aspect of my life. In a way, that made things less complicated, because if there wasn’t anything I could do to change the course of events, there was no point trying – and trying would have involved the use of physical and mental energy I simply didn’t have.
What I did need to concentrate on was learning how to separate my mind from my body. I knew instinctively that it was the only way I would manage to survive being regularly assaulted by men whose depraved sexual appetites made them unable to empathise with me or even see me as another human being.
In time, the thought of dying became less frightening too: it doesn’t seem like such a big deal when you’re living a life that couldn’t possibly get any worse. At least, that’s what I thought then. But I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for how bad my life was about to become.
Chapter 7
When I was in England, I used to dread getting my period. It always lasted for at least a week and was really painful. Even in Greece it was so bad that Jak used to give me the time off. I looked forward to those few days every month when we would do things together that normal couples do – except that when we went out shopping, it was only Jak that would be buying clothes and often gold for himself. He had a lot of money to spend, because I earned well over 1,000 euros almost every day for the rest of the month, plus tips, which I used to give him too. There was no question of trying to hide anything from him, because he checked my phone and went through my bag regularly.
I believed Jak when he told me he had been brought up in poverty, so although I was earning the money by doing something I desperately didn’t want to do, I was happy when he bought himself expensive clothes. He would often say to me, ‘One day, we’re going to eat the best meat. One day, we’ll be rich.’ And I would feel pleased that he was pleased. It makes me very sad when I think about that now.
On the days when I had my period we would also go to cafés and eat in fast-food restaurants. I only ever held money in my hand for as long as it took me to walk out of a client’s house or hotel room and give it to Jak. Consequently, he paid for everything, which I interpreted as a sign that he really did love me. (You can see signs of anything anywhere if you look hard enough for them.) After I had been in Greece for a while, my periods got a lot better, but I didn’t tell Jak. I pretended they were as bad as they had always been. In fact, I would sometimes exaggerate how much they hurt and how long they lasted, just so I didn’t lose those precious days off.
After the day when I ran away from the man with the axe and Jak punched me and sent me flying across the room, he was often violent towards me. Surprisingly, perhaps, I did sometimes try to stand up to him. Occasionally when he shouted at me, I would shout back and we’d have a loud, angry argument. I wasn’t being brave; I think I did it because I couldn’t bring myself to accept that we weren’t ‘in a relationship’. If I’d had to admit that, there wouldn’t have been one single thing to make my life worth living.
If Jak got into a rage with me when we were out, he would sometimes just walk away and leave me stranded in the street. I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t get a taxi, and there were times when I would have to walk a long way to find whatever hotel we were staying in. I suppose the strangest thing of all is the fact that I always did go back to the hotel. But Jak and Leon often warned me about what would happen if I ever went to the police, and because I had no reason not to believe them, running away simply didn’t seem to be an option. I suppose it was like any other relationship with a violent partner – based partly on fear, partly on the belief that every time they hit you it’s actually your fault. Logically, it doesn’t make any sense not to leave someone the first time they raise their hand to you, or to stay with a man who’s making you do the things I was doing. I really did think I was to blame every time Jak was angry and, absurd as it sounds, I did still love him.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that none of Jak’s reactions was a genuine, spur-of-the-moment response. His anger, tears of regret or self-pity, praise and affection were all equally contrived. He
wasn’t emotionally volatile, as he always claimed to be; he was cold, calculating and very clever. Everything he said and did was part of the process of deliberately distorting my sense of reality and brainwashing me. Even before I went to Athens, when I was getting into trouble and truanting from school, I didn’t really know who I was or who I wanted to be. After just a few months with Jak, the answer seemed to be ‘nobody’.
Jak controlled not just the money, but also every aspect of my life. While we were out buying expensive clothes for him, he would occasionally buy a cheap outfit for me. He never got me short skirts or revealing tops, or anything else you might imagine a prostitute would wear; he always bought clothes that made me look young. Every day, he would lay out what he wanted me to wear and sometimes he would tell me to do my hair in pigtails. I think he often sold me as a little girl – an even younger little girl than I actually was. Some of the men had their own ideas about what schoolgirls should be wearing, and I would put on the clothes they brought for me, things like school uniforms with very short skirts, stockings and high heels.
One man, called Thanos, was absolutely obsessed by porn – just the ‘normal’ stuff fortunately, not anything really horrible. He would book me every week for four or five hours, always in a hotel room, and take pictures of me wearing leather outfits or weird knickers with zips or, more often, of me naked in all sorts of pornographic poses. He was very polite, but it was obvious the first time he spoke to me that there was something peculiar about him. He was like an incredibly fussy film director. He would give me precise instructions about how to lie and how to position my arms and legs, then he’d adjust everything repeatedly, making me move an inch this way or that way until he was happy with every last detail and finally ready to take his photograph.
Sometimes he would tie me up, take his photographs and then have sex with me. Being photographed was humiliating enough, especially for someone as shy as I was. The sex was far worse: it would go on for hours and it always hurt so much I would be crying while he was doing it. I would try to make sure he could see I was crying, because I wanted him to know he was hurting me, but he didn’t give a crap; he didn’t care about me at all. It was horrible. What sort of person gets a kick out of doing something to someone who’s clearly distressed and in pain? It makes me so angry, even now. I came across a lot of men who were like Thanos in one way or another. I still can’t understand how they function in the normal world when there’s so obviously something seriously wrong with them.
One night, after we had been in Athens for about six months, Jak said, ‘I’m going home tomorrow.’ I never knew what would annoy him and set him off, so although I felt like jumping up and hugging him, I kept my excitement under control as I asked, ‘What do you mean? Are we going back to the coast, to your parents’ house?’
‘I am going home, yes,’ he said. ‘But you have to stay here.’
It was like being punched. During the last six months, I had lost everything except Jak; and now I was going to lose him too. I didn’t even think to argue or to say that I didn’t want to continue working as a prostitute. My immediate concerns were about practical issues. Who would drop me off at clients’ houses and hotels if Jak wasn’t there to do it? Who would wait for me somewhere nearby in case I needed help? Would I be expected to take care of everything on my own? Who would look after the money?
What I actually asked was, ‘How long will you be gone? What will happen to me?’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Jak said. ‘Elek will look after you.’
I cried when Jak left the hotel the next morning. ‘I’ll be back,’ he assured me. ‘Until I am, I’ll keep in touch by phone. And remember what I told you about the money: you give half of everything you earn to Elek and once a week you send the other to me by Western Union. For fuck’s sake, stop snivelling for a minute and listen to me. Do you understand what I’m telling you? It’s really important.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ I said, although really I didn’t, because I believed he was going to save the money I would be sending him for our future together.
Some teenage girls are level headed, sensible, confident and emotionally well balanced; others are naïve, gullible, easily frightened and emotionally needy. Girls in the second of those two broad categories are the ones who become victims of sex traffickers and internet grooming, and who get themselves into the sort of colossal mess I was in. They’re the ones who can be bullied and coerced into doing things that will scar them for the rest of their lives. They’re the ones who can be persuaded that almost anything and everything is their fault, and that they’re ‘not good enough’ in all sorts of important ways. Whereas the truth is that people who buy and sell other human beings are clever, manipulative, self-serving, totally devoid of any normal feelings, and have no compassion for the ‘commodities’ they trade in. People like Jak don’t do anything random: they’re running a business, and that’s what informs every single decision they make.
Everyone’s view of the world and of what happens to them and to other people is based on their own experiences. Partly because of my childhood experiences, I still want to believe that Jak loved me – even just a little bit, at some time. If I accept that he didn’t, I have to consider the possibility that I’m not lovable, and that maybe that’s why my father didn’t care about me, and why sometimes when I was a child it seemed that my mother didn’t either. The logical part of my brain tells me that my parents behaved the way they did for reasons that had nothing to do with me and that they had complicated emotional issues of their own, perhaps because of things that happened to them in their childhood. But even though I know all that, I still find myself wondering sometimes when I’m feeling really low if it’s the whole truth.
Jak was very good at making me believe that what happened to me was my fault. The fact is, though, that he chose me quite deliberately as his victim because I was very young and because he could tell that I was naïve, vulnerable and emotionally a bit screwed up. Human traffickers don’t prey on people who are confident, whose life experiences have been more positive than negative and who are likely to fight back.
When Jak left me that morning in the horrible, cockroach-infested hotel room, I was distraught. I was still lying on the bed crying when the phone in the room rang. When I answered it, the Albanian hotel owner said, ‘Get yourself ready and be downstairs in the bar in 15 minutes.’
I didn’t get a chance to ask him, ‘Get ready for what?’ I had no idea what was going to happen next; I was like a little dog waiting for its master to tell it what to do. Fifteen minutes later, I had washed my tear-stained face, put on some make-up and was downstairs, sitting at one of the tables in the bar. The hotel owner was already there, drinking whisky, and he called across the room to ask me if I wanted a drink.
‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Elek will be here soon. Why don’t you have a drink while you’re waiting for him?’ he persisted. And because I didn’t want to offend or annoy him, I relented and asked for some water. ‘Not water!’ He sounded scornful. ‘Have a proper drink.’
‘No thanks, I don’t really like alcohol,’ I said. ‘Water will be fine.’ But he was already pouring whisky into a glass, which he put down on the table in front of me, saying almost aggressively, ‘Come on, try this.’
‘I said I wanted water.’ I tried to sound confident so that he wouldn’t know I was suddenly feeling anxious. ‘Just because my boyfriend has gone doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.’
‘Drink it!’ The hotel owner slammed his fist down on the table with such force that a crack appeared on its surface.
After I had drunk the whole glass of whisky in one mouthful, a warm glow seemed to spread through my body. The man laughed and asked if I wanted another one, and this time when I said no, he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Okay, later then. Later, you and me will have a drink together.’
When Elek arrived at the hotel, he came into the bar, sat down beside me and said,
‘The escorting work is dying down. We’re going to have to go to the next level.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, anxiety rippling like waves through my body. ‘What next level?’
Elek always spoke to me in either English or Greek, but as I didn’t know the word ‘bordello’ in either language, I didn’t understand when he told me that that’s where I would be working. When I asked him what it was, he said, ‘It’s like … It’s inside sex.’
‘Inside what?’ I felt sick. Surely there couldn’t be any perverted sexual acts I didn’t already know about. I was almost relieved when Elek said, ‘Working in a bordello is like working inside a house. I’ll pick you up tonight. This work is very tiring, so to begin with you’ll be in one of the less busy places.’ Even then, I don’t think I really understood that a ‘bordello’ was a brothel.
After Elek left, I went upstairs to my room and waited. He phoned me several times during the afternoon and then came back for me on his motorbike in the early evening and drove to the centre of Athens. The small stone house he stopped outside was almost identical to all the other houses in the long narrow street, most of which had coloured lamps hanging next to their metal front doors.
I had never been inside a brothel before, and the ones I’d seen in films were nothing like the cold, damp room I was taken into, which was lit by disco lights and stank of sweat and stale alcohol. Elek introduced me to the brothel owner, a huge, grubby-looking woman who reminded me of Agatha Trunchbull in the film Matilda. Then he gave me a small box with ‘250 Condoms’ written on the side of it and said, ‘You’ll need these.’ I began to panic. Why would I need so many? How long was Elek going to leave me there? Doing the escorting work, I usually had around 8 clients a day, and I was still trying to divide 250 by 8 when Elek handed me some clothes and told me to go and put them on.