I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t believe her. The cold, hard fact was, her words made a certain kind of sense. Her version answered all my questions about why they’re being so nice to me. Fuse was just spreading breadcrumbs. It was my fault for being stupid enough to eat them up.
Her voice pulled me out of my internal thoughts. And she delivered one final word of warning, “You should leave while you still can,” she said softly. “I’d hate for you to get stuck like the rest of us.”
When she walked out, I immediately threw up in the sink for what seemed like forever. I checked my jean pockets, and the meds were still in my back pockets. And the phone was still in my front pocket. I just needed to pull my mess together before going to meet the man I now knew to be my enemy.
The handsome bastard was using his fake version of kindness and caring to manipulate me when I was at my most vulnerable. Grooming. That’s what they called it. No wonder he’d been willing to pay money or do favors that embarrassed his club to get me. Nobody spent that kind of time and effort without expecting something in return. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t actually had the money and had worked out some kind of trade instead. Maybe that had been their plan all along.
And come to think of it, Fuse had never once said he would let me go. I thought that I’d hated him before but now I hated him with the fire of a thousand suns.
I walked out of the restroom, determined not to fall into their carefully set trap, the one baited with all the specific things I needed in this moment. Fuse was using all my vulnerabilitiesto create a trap that would turn me into a club girl for however many years they found me useful.
I wasn’t going to sit quietly and wait to find out what he planned to do with me. I was going to make him tell me. I walked back into the bar with my shoulders squared and my stomach in knots, the anger sitting so tight in my chest it made it hard to breathe.
Fuse was already at the table where we’d eaten earlier. He’d gotten fresh drinks while I was gone. A fresh cherry drink for me and a beer for him. Before, I would have thought the fresh drink was considerate, thoughtful even. Now, I saw it for what it was, an investment. Why pay for sex workers when you can have club girls for practically free?
I pulled the chair out and sat down without touching the drink. Every gesture he’d made since bringing me here snapped into focus around this idea of turning me into a club girl.
“I wasn’t sure how long you’d be,” he stated calmly. “I figured you might want a drink.”
I nodded but didn’t reach for it. The club girl’s voice still echoed in my head, slowly peeling away the illusion that Fuse was a nice guy. He was just a more manipulative Viper. Viper was brutally honest about being exploitive. Fuse wasn’t even that. They were both one percenters. Men who made up the rules as they went along. Then expected everyone they came into contact with to follow them. His messed up rules allowed him to stand in a crowd and bid on another human being without even feeling guilty.
What I hated most was this manipulative bastard made me hope that I could have a better life, knowing all along what he had in store for me. Fuse’s mind games were crueler than anything Viper did to me.
Lifting my chin, I told him, “I have something to say, and I want you to hear me out.”
“Alright. You sound extra angry right now,” he replied warily.
“I’ve been extra angry this whole time, I just found the courage to speak up for myself.”
“Okay, darlin’, say what you gotta say.”
“I don’t appreciate being trafficked,” I bit out. Buying and selling women is wrong on so many different levels.” I continued, the anger in my churning gut getting the better of me. “How can you not see that?”
If I had expected him to get defensive, I would have been very much mistaken. Instead, he agreed with me.
“You’re right,” he stated with quiet dignity. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”
His agreement threw me for a loop because I honestly wasn’t expecting that. I’d expected him to make excuses, try to justify his actions or remind me that what was done was done and he owned me now. I didn’t expect him to sound earnest and regretful. Somehow that only made it all worse.
“If you knew it was wrong,” I asked, my voice shaking despite my best effort to keep it under control, “then why did you bid on me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then he answered my question.
“I couldn’t stand there and watch you go with them,” he said finally. “The clubs who hung until the end of the bidding cycle were the worst of the worst. They pimp women out until they’re nothing but a hollowed-out shell of their fuckin’ former self. I didn’t want that for you. You’re too young and innocent.”
I swallowed hard, forcing myself not to look away. “What do you mean?”
He cleared his throat and tried his best to explain without coming right out with the grimy details. “You don’t wanna knowwhat they would have done to you,” he responded, his voice quieter now. “Those men are depraved beyond belief.”
A bitter sound escaped me before I could stop it. “I just spent days imagining what they would do to me if they got the chance. It was some pretty dark shit if I’m being honest.”
His expression became distant and unreadable.
“You’re safer here, with us.” he said with the kind of finality that told me he thought he’d said enough.
Unfortunately, it was what he didn’t say that made my stomach churn all over again. He’d said I was safer here. There was no mention of me being free in any true sense of the word, just safer.
Safer.
