“He raped you?” I ask this in English.
“No. Not…not really. He told me he would only give me the food unless I agreed to let him have sex with me. I had not eaten in days. I was so hungry…”
She trails off, and I feel wetness seeping through the thin fabric of my wife-beater tank top. It’s a non-reg piece of gear, and I was busted several times for wearing it. She’s crying into my shirt.
Crying for her lost childhood.
“Shitty choice,” I say in English.
She doesn’t answer, and I just hold her. Let her cry for a long, long time. Eventually she stands up and goes to the bathroom, readies herself. I look away. Watching her get ready has turned into a ritual. I watch her put on the uniform, the makeup, the blank face, the hard eyes, the seductive smile. I hate it. She becomes Sabah, and Rania, the kind, vulnerable girl I know is gone.
“Don’t go,” I say.
She stares down at me, all Sabah now. “I must. Abdul is coming.”
I’m confused. I thought he came during the afternoon. It’s nearly dark outside now.
She sees my confusion. “He sent word. He is coming now, not tomorrow.”
I’m never sure how she arranges her appointments. It’s clear she has a client list that comes to her. She doesn’t work the streets. She has a number of regular johns who visit her, and they seem to always just show up, but she knows when to expect them. She doesn’t have a phone that I’ve seen, or a computer, or anything. But still she knows. It’s a mystery to me.
“He hurts you,” I say.
“He can. He is powerful.” She shrugs, seeming fearless. I see the fear lurking behind her eyes, though.
She leaves then, and my gut churns. My instincts are telling me something bad is about to happen.
I prepare myself for pain.
I prepare myself to kill.
ELEVEN
RANIA
Terror hounds my every heartbeat as I wait for Abdul. He will hurt me again. Make me do something awful. I sit on the mattress and wait. I will not welcome him. Will not pretend or play games with him. He is a monster, and all I can do is try to survive him.
He comes. As he swaggers through the door belly first, his hard beady pig eyes rake over me, going first to my br**sts.
“What, no kiss for your lover?” he asks, laughing as if he has told an uproarious joke.
I do not answer. Just wait, staring at him. He licks his lips, then draws off his belt with the gun holster, pulls the gun out of the leather and holds it at his side. His demeanor changes, and I know it has begun.
“On your knees, whore.”
I move to my knees, facing him, hands resting on my thighs.
“Take your clothes off. All of them.”
I strip, and then kneel naked in front of him. My legs shake, and my skin is clammy, cold, and sweating all at once. My heart is a mad drum in my chest, and I could vomit, if I did not know it would anger Abdul. This is about survival, I remind myself. Not about pride.
“On your knees, whore.”
“I am,” I say, not arguing, but calmly pointing out facts.
“No! Like a dog. Like the bitch dog you are. Face away from me.”
I swallow hard and move to comply, shaking so badly I can barely move. I have done many vile things as a prostitute. I have faced fear. I have been beaten, threatened, injured. Forced abortions. Raped.
But this, what Abdul is doing to me…this is different. Little causes me true terror anymore. But now, my knees digging through the thin mattress into the hard ground, elbows and arms barely able to support my weight for the trembling, now I know terror as never before.
I know he will push me to a certain place, and then I will refuse, and he will kill me. And then it will be over.
I hear him behind him. I hear the signal, the jangling belt, and my mouth goes dry. I hang my head, arch my shoulders and my back, preparing for his brutal entrance. Instead, he slaps my backside so hard I cannot help but yelp in pain.
Again and again, he slaps my backside, until I scramble away.
“Get on your knees, whore!” he screams. “I’m not done with you.”
I force myself back into position, fighting tears of pain. And now he slaps the other side of my bottom, again and again, until my backside is stinging, burning as if on fire.
He laughs. “Look at you, whore. Your little ass is red. You are ready.” He caresses my backside, absurdly gentle after his abuse. “I am going to f**k you in the ass, whore. You are going to like it. Do you understand?”
I feel the cold metal barrel of his pistol against the back of my head. I cannot move. I know this is it. That is my one hard line. I would not let any man do that to me. I have been beaten for it before, but I have always refused. And I will refuse now.
It takes several tries to swallow enough saliva that I can speak. “No.” It is a small, fierce whisper.
“What did you say?” Abdul’s voice is low and deadly.
“I said no.” My voice is louder now. I am ready for death. “You will not do that. I will let you do whatever else you want. I will let you f**k me. I will suck you off. I will not fight you. But you will not touch me there.”
I am still on my hands and knees, I realize, and I move to turn and face him. He is too quick. He grabs my hair by the root and jerks it, hard. I scream. He jabs the top of my head with the butt of his pistol, brutally hard. I see stars, and a knife of pain shoots through my head. Something hot and wet trickles down my scalp and across my forehead.
“Let go!” I scream. I am committed to fighting him now.
He jerks my hair again, and I am lifted off the ground. His knee gouges into my spine, and I am left breathless. His pistol butt jabs into my side, my kidney, and now I cannot even stay upright for the blinding agony, cannot even breathe to cry.
He forces me down to all fours, his hand still fisted in my hair. His knees shove my legs apart, and now I feel his manhood at the crease of my backside. Panic flares through me, spurring me to writhe and flop against his grip, shrieking, screaming. I kick backward, and my bare foot meets soft flesh. He roars and his grip on my hair loosens, but not enough to let me get free. He jabs his fist into my kidney again, and the pain stills me against my will. Something hard and hot pokes at my backside, but does not penetrate, stuttering and stabbing, nearly ripping the delicate flesh there. I am screaming as best I can despite the pain stealing my breath, fighting. Fighting.
I wish, fleetingly, that Hunter could save me, but he cannot.
Then Abdul is gone, and he is yelling, roaring. I flop to my back, and through the haze of tears see Abdul backing away, clutching his hand. I scramble backward away from Abdul, see something wet and red sluicing between his fingers. Sticky hot blood drenches my back and my hair. There are pink things on the ground at his feet. Fingers, dismembered. Abdul is screaming. His pants are around his ankles, and he is struggling to get free of them so he can move to fight.