Free The People Traders by Keith Hoare

movements and then I want you ready to perform that with me."
    She stared at him, appalled. "It's disgusting, what do you think I am?" she demanded.
    He leaned forward only inches from her face. "I know what you are, Karen," he shouted. "It's in the bloody photos spread on the table. It's in the actions you performed three or four times a week for a man twice your age. You're not a naive schoolgirl taken from her parents. Perhaps if you were I might have called your dad, after all, I've been paid and the person who'd arranged it all is dead, but you're not. You left your naiveté in that flat, along with your so-called 'it's disgusting' attitude when you allowed this man to take you in every position he could think of."
    Karen cut in. "But I was in love, he was my boyfriend and we were going to marry," she protested.
    Assam nodded his head up and down. "Yes, Karen, claim what you will, bury your head in the sand with the excuse he loved you, but even you weren't that stupid. You liked the excitement. You enjoyed the dominance of this man but more importantly, you liked sex. The superiority of doing what you were doing over the other girls at school. If you hadn't, you'd have screamed rape from the rooftop, but you didn't. So is there a need for us to sit and watch the video of you and him enjoying his type of sex, not as you say, yours?"
    She never replied, but shook her head before lowering it in shame. What could she say? He might be right, but still in her mind what she did was in the privacy of Grant's flat, not in public, and should have been their secret.
    Assam cut in again. "You're an attractive and sexually experienced young girl, Karen. The man who's coming for you will pay good money for a lap dancer of your age. Let me down and so help me, I'll cut you up so badly even a sewer rat wouldn't want you."
    Karen sat for a moment then gave a shrug. The man in front of her had won; she, by her own admission, was already a whore. How it had all gone wrong, she'd no idea, but the thought of him using a knife on her face terrified her. She needed to think, to get her life in perspective but this moment wasn't the time to deny him. "I've been a fool, haven't I?" she began. "I'd never been out with a man, just lads larking about before Grant. I didn't understand what he was having me do, at the time it seemed right, a laugh, but it wasn't and I can see that now. But I believed he loved me... and what I was doing was pleasing my man."
    Assam banged the table to shut her up. "Cut this hard-done-to story, Karen. Within two weeks you dance or I carve that face of yours."
    She shook her head. "I'll do it and I won't let you down. Besides, I've no intention of living a life disfigured just for the sake of not taking my clothes off. Like you say, I've done it often enough."
    Assam grinned. He'd trapped her perfectly and she'd fetch a lot of money. Without this evidence a girl like her would need beating into submission; however, strap marks on a body would be of no value to these buyers.
    "Do you mind if I go to bed now, I feel sick? Tomorrow I'll start practising if that's soon enough for you?" she asked.
    Assam stood and walked to the door. "Come on then. The television will be put in the hold, I'll be otherwise engaged so won't be seeing you again. That is, until you perform in front of me."
    Karen followed in silence, before climbing down the long ladder into the hold. Assam looked over the edge. "You'll find jeans and tops on your bed. Also, to go with what you're wearing now, are stockings and shoes. I want the lot, as in the video, Karen, and it'd better be good. Good enough for me to want to screw you. You'll be doing well if you can achieve that because, unlike you, I'm fussy who I screw. Goodnight, don't have nightmares." He laughed and slammed the hatch closed. She stood shivering in the gloom, and then suddenly felt sick. The next few minutes she retched over the toilet before returning to sit on the bed, ashamed of what