“Before you go to the bathroom, it’s always a good idea to check and make sure no one else is using it,” Sandy said. “If the chains get tangled up in the dark, it’s hell getting them loose again.”
“You have chains, too?” Latisha asked.
“No,” Sadie said. “We stay down here in the dark because we wanna be here, right?”
“Right,” Sandy agreed. “In reality we’re all off on some fancy cruise ship, and these are deck chairs.”
They both laughed then, as though they were sharing some hysterically funny joke.
Not laughing, Latisha located the toilet and used it. When she flushed it, the toilet made a funny sound, like there was some kind of machinery involved. But there was no sink, nowhere to wash her hands afterward, no soap and water, no towel. After filling the cup and returning to her mattress, she learned that a scratchy woolen army blanket, that metal cup, and the plastic container of food were the sum total of her possessions. There was no pillow for her head, no comb or brush, no eating implements, and no toothbrush, either.
She started to ask about that, but then she stifled it. She had seen movies and TV shows about what went on in prisons. Given enough desperation, a comb or a toothbrush or an ordinary kitchen fork could be turned into a lethal weapon.
Time passed. The other girls had fallen silent. Maybe they’d both fallen asleep. Maybe Latisha had, too. But then a door opened and an electric light flashed on, burning so brightly that Latisha had to cover her eyes. Once she could see again, she realized that the only light fixture was a bare bulb hanging from a frayed brown cord in the middle of the room. There were four mattresses positioned foot to foot in the room with a narrow earthen pathway running between them. Latisha’s eyes adjusted to the sudden light in time to see two sets of grimy bare feet disappear beneath khaki-colored army blankets just like hers.
“What’s happening?” she whispered. “What’s going on?” No one answered. Sadie and Sandy had gone completely silent.
She looked around the room, trying to get her bearings. At one end was a concrete slab where the toilet was located. At the other end was an old-fashioned chest-style freezer. Behind that was a plank stairway that seemed to lead upstairs.
She watched as a pair of work-boot-clad legs slowly descended the stairs. When the hulking figure of a man finally came into view, she immediately recognized his face. He was the john who had approached her in New Orleans; the same guy who’d lured her into his vehicle and then drugged her somehow. Sitting up, Latisha glanced questioningly at the two occupied mattresses, hoping for a clue about what was going on, but all she saw was the outline of two figures, lying still as death under the blankets. There would be no help for her from that quarter, nor any answers, either.
The man heading toward her was white, most likely in his fifties or sixties, heavyset, with wavy graying hair. He gave her a wolfish grin that showed off a set of crooked, yellowish teeth.
“Time to give the new girl a try,” he said, leaning down with a key at the ready to unlock the clamp around Latisha’s ankle. “Time to see whether or not you were worth hauling all the way home from New Orleans.”
As soon as the clamp let loose, Latisha scrambled away from him on the mattress, kicking as she went, but she wasn’t nearly fast enough. Grabbing her naked thigh with a bruising, iron grip, he dragged her back to him.
“So that’s how it’s gonna be, is it?” he said with a chuckle. “I can see that I’ve got myself a fighter on my hands. Well, good enough. Come on, girl, let’s us go upstairs and have ourselves some fun.”
Latisha was still struggling to get away when he slapped her with a tooth-jarring blow that left her seeing stars and rendered her momentarily unconscious. When she came to, she was being carried upstairs. Latisha was no lightweight. She weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds, and yet he carried her on his shoulder as though she were no trouble at all.
Upstairs he lugged her through a ramshackle room where holes in the peeling linoleum revealed the bare wooden planking of the underlying floor. The walls were made of rough plaster. At one end of the room was an old-fashioned electric stove, an antique-looking fridge, and a small kitchen table. At the other end was an iron-framed double bed—one with another bare mattress and no bedding.
In this room, as in the one downstairs, the only light came from a single bare bulb dangling on a tan cord. There were windows in the walls, but they were covered by thick curtains made up of what looked like black plastic garbage bags. They were positioned in such a way that it was impossible to catch a glimpse of what was outside.
The man carried Latisha into a bathroom, lifted her off his shoulder, and then stood her upright in the middle of the room. “Everything you need is right here,” he said. “You get yourself all spiffed up now, and then we’ll see what you’ve got.”
Going out and closing the door, he left her standing there alone. A moment later she heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.
She looked around. There was a rust-stained lavatory, a creaky toilet, and an old-fashioned claw-foot tub. Next to the tub sat a wooden stool loaded with body soap, shampoo, and a thin bath towel, along with a brush and a comb. Latisha didn’t want to do what he said, but there wasn’t really any choice. Besides, she felt utterly filthy, so she ran water into the tub and then climbed in. Despite the circumstances she was able to lean back in the hot water, close her eyes, and relax. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. After shampooing her filthy hair, she climbed back out and used the towel to dry off.
Standing in front of the mirror over the sink, she was shocked to see how much her face had swollen from that one terrible blow. The comb and hairbrush he’d provided for her use had never been intended for hair like hers, and she finally had to give up trying to sort out the tangles. Behind the pockmarked mirror of the medicine chest, she located a tube of toothpaste and a single toothbrush—a used toothbrush to be sure, but it was better than no toothbrush at all.
Finally she was done, and she tapped on the door to let him know she was ready, although she wasn’t, not really. When she was working the streets, Latisha had dealt with some rough customers from time to time, but nothing had prepared her for the Boss. What he dished out was far worse than anything she’d ever experienced.
It seemed as though the torment lasted for hours. The more he hurt her, the better he liked it. When he finally had his fill, he grabbed her upper arm and propelled her back downstairs, turning on the overhead light as he did so. He threw her onto her mattress and then reached for the chain. She was too exhausted to fight anymore or try to get away. While he fastened the clamp around her leg, she looked at the others. Sandy and Sadie still lay unmoving and silent under their respective blankets.
The light went off. The door slammed shut. There was the sound of a bolt of some kind being latched. Heavy footsteps pounded across the plank flooring upstairs before another door slammed shut, followed a few minutes later by the sound of a vehicle starting up.
“He’s gone now,” Sandy said. “He probably won’t be back for a day or two.”
“Are you okay?” Sadie asked.
Latisha was not okay. She was anything but okay, but she didn’t want to admit it. “I’ll live,” she said. “But you were wrong. This isn’t hell. Upstairs is.”