Free Slave Girl by Sarah Forsyth Page A

whatever business they were doing. He grabbed me by the shoulder with one hand and grabbed Sally’s arm with the other. He pushed her in front and then half-dragged me behind him as we set off up the same staircase. He didn’t say a word to me.
    Upstairs, Sally opened the door of a dirty, smelly bedroom. There were two single beds in it, both unmade and covered in stains. The room itself looked like a mass brawl had broken out in it: half the fittings were completely smashed. Reece pushed me inside with Sally but didn’t enter himself. Instead, I heard him turning the key in the lock on the outside. And it was then, in that horrible little room in that rundown hotel, that Sally told me what was going on.
    ‘You’re going to be put to work in the Red Light District. John’s a pimp. He runs a lot of girls, both here and in Amsterdam. He brings them in from all over Britain. Some he sells to other pimps, some he keeps for himself.
    ‘They’re pretty rough, most of them. They’ve all been on the game before and know what the score is. You’re different: he wanted a girl like you – an innocent girl, a girl who’s never been a prostitute – because he’ll earn a huge amount of money from you. He may pimp you himself or he may sell you to one of his contacts: they’re mostly Yugoslavian and – though you may not think so now – you’ll count yourself lucky if John hangs on to you.’
    She paused, looking at me, waiting for me to say something, I suppose. I opened my mouth and the words stumbled out.
    ‘But I can’t be a prostitute. I can’t do it; I can’t ! I don’t know what to do. Why can’t he get someone else? Why did he have to pick on me?’
    Sally looked at me, staring straight into my eyes. Just for an instant I saw something there – a spark of sympathy, pity perhaps, maybe even recognition. Then it was gone. She took my hand and spoke slowly to me.
    ‘You will do it, because you have to. You have no say in this. John has got your passport – I gave it to him in the car. You’re his now to do with as he wants. Just like he does with the others; just like he does with me. If you refuse, he’ll kill you – believe me, you wouldn’t be the first prostitute to disappear here. If you don’t earn enough money, he’ll beat you. If you try to run away, he’ll kill you. Those are the rules.
    ‘I’ll show you what to do. It’s hard at first, but there are things which can make it easier. But you’ve got to understand what I’m telling you: you are going to be a prostitute. You will start work tomorrow. You have no choice. So if I were you, I’d get some sleep before he comes back again.’
    She moved away from me and lay down on one of the beds. She was obviously going to take her own advice. I sat there in the silence of that lonely room desperately trying to make sense of what she had said. I was a nursery nurse, not a prostitute: how could this be happening? Surely there had been some kind of mistake? Maybe they’d got me mixed up with another girl?
    But deep down I knew. There was no mix-up; the only mistakes had been mine – for answering that advert, for not listening to Mum, for not turning round in Schiphol airport when all my instincts were trying to warn me. Tonight was my last night as a normal, decent person. Tomorrow I was going to be made to have sex for money. And somehow it was all my fault. I thought back to what Dad had done to me and the abuse I’d endured in the children’s home. I thought about Steve, and the abortion; I thought about Chris and the break-up and losing our little home – our safe, neat little home – in Gateshead. I thought about Mum and my brother and my sister. I even thought about my dad’s girlfriend and her poor little kids. It was my fault that everything had gone wrong in my life. And I was sure that I’d never see any of them again.
    I walked over to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. I knew it would be, but that didn’t stop me