Ashkai

Chapter 1 – When You Don’t Have a Choice

Stella

I didn’t make this choice. Society didn’t give me a choice.

I’m not the one who’s dirty. It’s this world that’s dirty.

No matter how many times I repeat these words to myself, I’m disgusted. I feel nauseous. It’s the cigar smell mixed with hands roaming over my body.

What will happen when the old man in the suit I’m sitting on finishes celebrating their « little victory » with the other revolting politicians? When he wants to be alone with me, when he wants more?

I’m going to break down. That’s what’s going to happen.

No, I won’t break down.

I take a deep breath. All my life, I’ve controlled my body.

I can do this. I can do this.

If I could leap onto the stage to dance with a broken ankle, I can spread my legs under an old pig. If I could go on pointe with a torn-off toenail, I can hold back from vomiting when he shoves his tongue in my mouth.

And all with a smile.

I shake my chestnut curls with honey highlights as I turn my head and give what’s supposed to be an inviting grin to the one groping me. But I look away, preferring not to see him. I fix my gaze on the emerald-green, velvet-covered wall behind the couch.

I have no choice. I have no other option left. My credit cards are blocked, and I racked up a perilous debt with a loan shark who lost patience and handed me over to these people. He claims it’s to help me. « Easy money, » he said. But he simply delivered prey to a gang, maybe even a cartel, apparently.

A kid came to see me at my night job, at a respectable bar near San Diego’s marina. He was a young Latino with a Mexican accent, covered in bandanas, gold chains, and scars, with a barely concealed weapon under his baggy clothes. By coming to one of my three workplaces, they probably wanted to show me that they knew everything about me.

San Diego is a pleasant city to live in, a paradise of beaches, old architecture, and parks dried out by the heat. It was the first time I felt in danger there.

I did everything to hide my anxiety and accepted the « job » the boy offered me. But I’m afraid that tonight won’t be enough to pay off the interest. Afraid they’ll ask for more and worse. They say that once you set foot in that world, you’re branded with a hot iron, and you can never escape.

Yet despite the initial pressure, the kid who brought me to the luxury hotel where I was supposed to « work » wasn’t mean. When he saw that I was like a hunted animal, he told me in his Mexican accent and uncertain English, « You no scared, okay? My boss just want pretty girls, okay? You go home after, okay? »

I calmed down a little bit when I understood that he was only asking me to play hostess in my ultra-short evening dress. We were on an upscale, modern street in San Diego’s East Village. The setting sun lit up the street with golden rays. The wide avenue flanked by skyscrapers, trendy cafes, and luxury shops was crossed by an endless stream of sports cars. From time to time, a black-and-white police SUV patrolled. That reassured me. But I only really relaxed when another woman joined us. She was more of a young girl, not even twenty, with skinny legs under her short black dress, a neck too thin to support her round, doll-like head, and long blond hair worn like straw. She jumped on the boy’s neck. He introduced her to me as « his girlfriend, okay? » The young girl’s enthusiastic smile restored my confidence.

As we walked through the marble-tiled lobby, she told me her name was Salma. Her boyfriend’s name is Miguel. She claimed he was part of the new Jalisco cartel, that they were the ones who helped her darling cross the border, that he was a big shot even though he was young, that he still took care of her… She believes he’s going to buy her a house with a garden and a poodle, like when she was little. Salma is chatty but has scabs on her arms that she tried to hide with foundation. She immediately inspired in me a mixture of pity and fond annoyance.

I come back to the present when a coarse laugh echoes in my ear. Someone lewdly pinches the inside of my thigh, in a place far too close to my intimacy. I instinctively push away the hand with protruding blue veins and wrinkled skin dotted with sunspots. I’m having a little trouble believing that little Salma, the other « hostesses, » and I won’t be put through the wringer when the politician types finish their meeting.

I lose interest in what they’re saying. It sounds like business. The atmosphere suits it: jazz music, cigars, whiskey, velvet-covered armchairs, a wooden table adorned with moldings, vintage copper lamps. Maybe it’s just a typical after-work setting for rich people.

Or maybe not…

I need to relax. I could get drunk or ask Salma for a pill. I saw the young girl take something before entering. Now, she’s laughing with angelic naturalness to charm a tanned and muscular fifty-something, probably Mexican too. He doesn’t look like the others; this one is rougher. Little Salma serves him eagerly as if he were someone important.

I calm my nerves with a small sip of champagne. Tart, a bit green, and yet delicately bubbly—a substance that leaves a mixed impression. It’s not the first time I’ve drunk it. Before, when my family was still lucky, we drank champagne for celebrations. It probably wasn’t real, though. This one is different.

It must be expensive.

More expensive than me?

How much did that shitty loan shark sell my ass for?

Suddenly, a surge of pure hatred rises in my throat like acid reflux. I’ve rarely felt hatred in my life. Anger, stupid and impulsive, yes. Resentment in the face of failure and another’s success, of course, but hate, real hate? I don’t know it. Even the man I’m sitting on, who grabs my waist, I don’t hate him. But they disgust me so much, his tobacco smell and him.

The man lets out a coarse laugh and shouts across the room, « Hey, Gonzales! Your little one is docile, but she takes up a lot of space, doesn’t she? »

He’s addressing the sinister-looking man Salma is busy with. But the one called Gonzales doesn’t laugh. The muscular, tanned man with the menacing face signals to another woman, older than Salma and more voluptuous, to come over. She obediently settles on his lap.

He points to the door, addressing Salma, « Get out of here. You’re embarrassing me in front of my partners. »

Salma’s shocked face turns my stomach. The kick he gives her revolts me. Reflexively, I shift forward as if I were about to stand up to comfort her. Hands on my chest catch me and knead me as if I were an inflatable doll. I feel a breath in my ear. « He’s not talking about you, pretty one. You’re very classy. You and I are going to get along well. »

I’ve always controlled myself: during auditions where I was insulted, in front of crazy choreographers who demanded the impossible, always. I controlled my mind as well as my body. When I make a decision, I stick to it. But I refuse to let a man push away a young girl with a kick as if she were a dog.

I stand up to my full height and glare at the man who hit Salma. The pig behind me doesn’t even concern me anymore. I only see the kind of Mexican boss who lays down the law here. He gets up and approaches me. The stocky fifty-something is two heads shorter than me, as I’m perched on my stripper heels.

Instinctively, I hold the gaze of the man I’m humiliating by my mere presence. I know I’m making a monumental mistake.

The man slaps me hard. I’m stunned for a long time. It’s not so much the stinging than the throbbing pain that overwhelms me. I know how to handle pain. No, I’m just not used to being hit. I’ve never been hit before.

« Later, I’ll teach you how to look at me properly, you dirty whore. »

He doesn’t give me a second more of his attention. He turns to one of the men in ill-fitting suits waiting by the door, his weapon clearly visible in his waistband.

« Go get me that idiot, Miguel. I’m going to teach him how to choose whores. »

Something in his cold tone makes me tremble for this kid I barely know.

Salma had mentioned the word « cartel. » It was so hard to believe as we walked through the marble corridors of this classy hotel. How could it be possible, here in San Diego? One of the safest cities in California, one of the safest cities in the country?

Safe for a family living far from trouble. But for a prostitute who owes twenty thousand dollars to a loan shark, how can life be safe, no matter the city or country?

I had everything going for me. A modest but loving family, average intelligence. I should have studied when my father was still around to pay for it. Should have stayed close to him instead of chasing my impossible dream of becoming a prima ballerina. I returned broke, empty-handed, alone, without a husband or real friends to support me, because I’ve never loved anyone other than my unreachable dream from the start. A good-for-nothing, unable to take care of my mother when she fell ill in turn, barely able to buy kibble for her old dog.

I should have…

I need to find a way out. I turn back to the slimy and obviously rich man I was assigned to. I look with disgust at his smooth face with jowls sagging with age, and blue eyes tinged with a glimmer of… fear. This man is afraid. Yet seeing that I’m looking for protection, he licks his lips. I remain disgusted by this mouth wet with eager drool.

He says, « Come on, Gonzales, don’t be mean to her. It’s clear she’s new. Leave her to me, I’ll teach her to respect you gently. Everyone knows you’ll soon run the city. »

I need money. I need protection. It’s nothing, prostituting yourself, if you can save your skin and pay for your mother’s hospital bills. I can do it. I answer this man in a trembling voice, « Thank you, I’ll be careful. »

Time stretches on. I remain standing. I don’t dare sit back on my « protector’s » lap because the gangster hasn’t given his approval. Most of all, I don’t dare run away. I’m not really capable of acting.

In truth, I’m in shock.

Silently, I pray. I pray that my father can’t see me from wherever he is. I pray for these kids I’ve gotten into trouble, for myself, for my mother with metastasized cancer, for her dog that I left alone with only half a bowl of kibble.

As Miguel finally enters, so out of place, so ridiculous in his wannabe gangster outfit straight out of a rap video, all the hatred I should feel toward him fades away. This small-time neighborhood dealer, a bit stupid, suddenly seems like my responsibility, even if he pimps out his girlfriend and delivered me to thugs. Maybe he wanted to help us both? When you’ve grown up on the streets, you probably don’t have the same frame of reference for what’s beautiful, just, and good.

And when I see the look this man, feared by everyone here, gives him, I have the reflex to want to place myself in front of the boy.

My sudden movement sets everything off. A blow catches me mid-action. I fly to the side and hit the armrest of a chair. The impact is violent. Anyone else would have been injured, but I’m used to falling, and I know how to handle pain.

But I’m still dazed. As I come to my senses, I hear the sounds of blows. I look up to see the kid being beaten by the strong, merciless fifty-something.

« Miguel! »

Salma leaps like a tigress. She’s caught mid-air, struck in the stomach, and sent flying toward me. I grab her from behind and hold her with all my might as she struggles, watching her Prince Charming get beaten up.

The boy doesn’t try to defend himself, only to absorb the blows as best he can. He gradually buckles, arms around his neck and head, bending to protect his vital parts, kneeling when the hits rain down too hard, sprawling when a kick sends his kneecap flying, curling up into a fetal position on the thick, dark carpet.

Did he even cry out?

Please, let someone save him, anyone, please!

Suddenly, I feel a supernatural aura in the room. The hair on my arms stands on end as a shiver runs through me, somewhere between terror and fascination.

My subconscious screams that a man is coming to save me, and his presence resonates within me.

….