Free All That Matters by Yolanda Olson Page A

outside the barred windows so I didn’t know how I was going to get home if I couldn’t figure out where I was starting from.
    I remembered the headache pounding inside my skull, small bursts of bright white light, attacking me every hour, wondering what the hell had been done to me already.
    He led me blindfolded to a long wooden table, an iron collar around my neck, and clasped the long chain that had been attached to it to the wall behind me. I was only wearing panties, unsure of what happened to the rest of my clothing. He told me his name was Kerstan and that I would work off the family’s debt; the family that let me stay with them in Camogli.
    He told me that my name was Lieve and instructed me to forget any past I had, because my future was uncertain. He said that once I paid off the family’s debt, he would decide what to do with me.
    Like I said; I used to be Amity Crane. Now I’m Lieve, red light district whore extraordinaire, to be used at any male or females discretion until I can pay back a debt that was never mine to begin with. A debt that I know nothing about for a family that tricked me into thinking I had found a safe place to live.
    As I followed the old, bulgingly, disgusting man into the back room of the whorehouse, I wondered if this would be my last trick before freedom.
    I was wrong.
    Freedom was never meant to be mine.

One
    “ Goedemorgen dames ,” Kerstan said to us as he entered the room. Everyone promptly mumbled their good mornings except for me.
    Kerstan Janssen was an absolute sight to look at. Brown straight hair that fell behind his ears, sun-kissed flawless skin, almond shaped light green eyes, a very strong jaw, and a cleft in his chin. True to his heritage he was a tall man and true to his looks, he kept his body well-conditioned and toned.
    If this were another time and another place, I would definitely have make a go at Kerstan.
    I was sitting on an old spring mattress held up by springs and a bent metal bed frame, in panties only, chained to the wall behind me. That’s how we all were when we were in this room. I assumed he had some kind of dominance issues and that’s why we were held like this, but I never vocalized it to any of the others.
    As I looked around the room at the girls in the room with me who had also been sold to him to settle debt, I wondered how long they had been here. Kerstan had a magnificent collection of beautiful women from all over the world. Some were from Sweden, others from Germany, France, Nepal, Indonesia and I just so happened to be the stereotypical, token American girl. Almost traditiontially “American looking” I had light, long blonde hair, hazel blue eyes, a slender body with a little extra in all the right places, and a million dollar smile. That was me and I was his “best seller”.
    I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I never minded being almost naked in front of the other girls, but Kerstan wasn’t allowed that privilege from me. The only time he had seen me completely naked was when he “assessed” me after bring me back to Amsterdam.
    “Why if so many men see you naked and use you at their discretion, am I not allowed to see your breasts?” he once asked me.
    “Because you didn’t pay for the pleasure of my company,” I remember snapping back.
    Kerstan chuckled and shook his head, a grin on his face. It was an amusement to him that one of his “girls” was still as headstrong as I was. That was one of the few civilized conversations we ever had. Usually it was him telling me to get ready for my next “date.”
    But today, right now, he was looking at each of us harshly in turn and when his eyes landed on me, he shook his head slightly and sighed heavily.
    “I have to say that I am disappointed in you, dames . I want you all to see this. Then I will punish the one that cannot follow my simple rules,” he said pulling something out of his back pocket. I craned my neck to see; my eyebrows