Etched in Stone

[Honey (DELETED 9612)]

0.

The nights are cool. The days are cool. I can feel fall in the air. Another year gone by. I shouldn't keep track. I know keeping track only makes it worse. I just can't help but count down the days until I escape or I die. Big tells me every girl meets the same end, eventually. Girls grow up. Women age. And then we're murdered. That's what it is. Murder.

I used to think that someone would save me, but the hopes have died in the way that other girls have died. Swift. Bloody. All too unfair. People choose not to ask questions. Maybe it’s for the better. Curiosity could get someone killed. I just thought that someone would notice me, really notice me, and I'd be saved, but this city is like the last city. The cops are involved. They're crooked. Some of them come to the dens. They take younger women and never bring them back. I saw them beat a girl bloody with their pistols and their belts.

I don't want to die here. That's all I can say. It's all I can think about. I never thought I'd be a victim of human trafficking. It's real. I'm real. Someone, get me out of here.

[Honey (DELETED 9612)]

1.

Today, we go to a casino. That's all I know. Big brought me a dress, something to fit over my shrinking frame, and Small brought me shoes. Mama scrubbed me with a soft-bristle brush, as if she were cleaning dishes rather than another human being. Every special occasion goes the same way. Buckets of cold, soapy water get thrown over my shivering form and then Mama scrubs me down. Big and Small watch. They snicker at me as I shiver violently.

His name is Harold, and he's coming in from out of town. He's an American, an owner of a chain of successful hotels. Harold. Just Harold. We don't give last names. In the realm of escorts and prostitutes, no one has a last name. I'll arrive at the casino at a quarter to three, and we'll enjoy the high-stakes lifestyle. Mama says Harold pays a pretty penny for pretty women, whatever that means. He's a millionaire, possibly a billionaire, and he dabbles in drugs and rolls in prostitutes. He could have freed twenty-three women, but he chose to buy my time. What a terrible man.

Mama says to smile and giggle at his jokes. She says if I do this right, I can get many new things. She lies to me. If she isn’t lying, I still have no use for such possessions. I’m an object myself. I want to be as ugly as possible. I want to disgust men. I disappoint myself.

[Honey (DELETED 9612)]

2.

He smelled like fish and cigarettes -- I wanted to vomit. I tried to keep as far away as possible. He kept wrapping his arm around my waist and offering me a puff of his cigarette, but I shook my head. All afternoon and all evening, I shook my head. I smiled. I giggled. I did what Mama told me to. When I wanted to break away, Big made sure he made his presence known. He stood at the exits like a bouncer. I knew what he meant. He didn’t have to say anything for me to understand. He wanted me to see him. He wanted to remind me he was armed and dangerous. Harold seemed so unaware.

Harold never paid for anything more than my company, which I was thankful for. At the end of the night, when he tried something funny, Big came and took me away. He grabbed my upper arm so tight and half-dragged me down the hallway of the hotel. When we got back to the crack den, he threw me into the basement. I heard him telling Mama that Harold tried to take advantage of the me. Mama sent Small to rough up the American. They only looked after me because it benefitted them.

[Honey (DELETED 9612)]

3.

Today, we wear no clothes. We lounge around like drugged little animals, but our bodies are flimsy and we are helpless; we are compliant. I don't care about escaping, because I forgot how to scream. There's only this collection of words and where we exist. There's only this crack den. There's only the way Big licks his lips. There's only the way Small adjusts his belt. And Mama. Yes, Mama. There's only the way she hobbles from room to room.

Smoke fills the air, like mushroom clouds slowly blossoming from the tip of Mama’s imported cigarettes. They're French, she says, only French. When girls are bad, she presses those cherry-red tips to their delicate skin. The smell of burning flesh is overwhelming. And they cry. They scream. And she scowls. I've never been burnt before, but I've watched Mama burn someone. I've smelled burning flesh.

Mama says we only need discipline. We just need a firm hand. She said we're lucky, that we get it easy. No one sees her feet except for Big and Small. No one. I can imagine though. Sometimes, when it's just Mama and me, she tells me of how she almost lost her feet to gangrene. These people are not friends. They are not family. Sometimes, when they show me compassion, I forget. Daisy says I'm sick in the head. Maybe I am.

[Honey (DELETED 9612)]

4.

I don't know when my homesickness went away, but I no longer hold onto such hopes. I think this place, Harper Rock, marks the end of the line. One by one, the girls disappear. They come. They go. They vanish. Daisy doesn't want to be one of those girls. I don't want to be one of those girls. Mama says it'd be a shame if we didn't come home. Big loss. She'd replace us quickly enough, with another Russian and another Japanese mutt. They'll be pretty and obedient. They'll be naive. Freedom isn't free, Mama will say. And she'll work the girls into the ground.

I can't lose Daisy. As we huddled for warmth, as we stripped off our clothes in the heat, I decided that. She teaches me things. She helps me write. She is my older sister. She is the only family I have now. My mother and child are from my old life. No one looks for me anymore. No one looks for that woman. Everyone wants Honey. Only Honey.

If something were to happen. If Daisy were to vanish. They say the city is overrun with vampires. She might. We all might. Disappear. Is it true? Are we all just food for things higher on the food chain? We already are, aren't we? We've always been food. Devoured. We feed starving men. I'm so tired of being the food. I want to disappear. Big says the only way I'll disappear is if he loads my dead body into the trunk of the infamous Cavalier and dumps me somewhere.

Daisy says we'll get out of here, someday. She says we'll run away, we'll go where Mama and Big and Small can never find us. We'll be free. I think about that, sometimes. Then I think about her missing fingers, the ones they chopped off the last time she tasted freedom. I don't want to lose appendages over possibilities. Maybe I'm a worthless coward. Daisy tells me I only need a taste of what it would be like to be free. I wonder.