He hurt me.
It was the day after my twelfth birthday, and I stood by the yellow door, waiting for Miss Handler to bring my bags. She had told me earlier that I would be going to another house, and I would have new Handlers because of what Mr. Handler had done to me. It was then I realized there were other houses like ours where other brothers and sisters stayed, where we would be made to do…thingsfor our visitors.
I realized a lot of things that morning.
Mr. Handler was confusing. His name was Manuel, and he loved me more than he did before. That was what he told me when he forcefully touched me with the same hands he used to give me ice cream and candy only hours ago when I’d smiled so big and laughed with the other children as we ate the ice cream and littered the ground with candy wrappers.
I realized something else.
Kids like me were business. A business that wasn’t good,and that was why they never let us go outside, or open the windows or see what the sky truly looked like in real time.
When Miss Handler returned with my bag, she carried a blindfold, and any hopes I had of seeing the outside died along with everything else in my chest. She left to get something else and Mr. Handler showed up. I wanted to move away from him, but he looked so familiar, like my friend, the one who gave me extra food, though he didn’t give it to the others who asked. He couldn’t look me in the eye but still went down on both knees in front of me, his head down. “I’m sorry, amore mio. I shouldn’t have done that to you,” he said.
“Will I see you again?” was all I could say, and he raised his head in surprise, like he hadn’t been expecting me to talk to him.
“No. But I will find you,” he said, holding my small hand in his warm one. “I will take you out of this; for now, I can’t do much; I have to wait until you’re older. Listen. When you are fourteen, your new Handler will take you away. And you will be given to someone else, your—your job will be more intense than this—I wish I could have prepared you for it, but I fucked it up… I’m sorry.”
“When will you find me?”
He stroked my cheek, pressing his lips to my forehead. “My Zahra,” he whispered. “When you’re sixteen, I will come to you. Promise.”
I nodded.
“Wait for me, amore mio.”
Miss Handler pulled me away from Mr. Handler—Manuel. And I was taken to another house with different brothers and sisters.
When I turned fourteen, I was taken somewhere else, with some other kids who were also fourteen.
This place was terrible, and we were prepared for penetration. There weren’t many older men; some of them were young, and they smoked a lot.
The first time I was penetrated hurt so much that I cried and bled. Our madam only gave me two days to recover, and then, the next time, it still hurt but wasn’t as painful as the first.
In this place, I found out I had no mother or father.
I learned that I was a product of an underground operation for sperm and womb donors, where kids were being produced.
In this place, I lost all hope because I knew this was why I was born.
In this place, we were calledPlants.
Plants were submissive and sellable. We were never to speak unless spoken to; we were tools. We were never to ask questions. We were business assets, not people. We were body parts and skin, not humans. We were dolls of pleasure with hearts and veins. We were to give, never to receive. We were nothing and no one.
I stayed with the madam and I served until I was fifteen, and then I was sent somewhere else. Our madam said I had been bought for a massive amount of money and had a new private owner.
The first time I saw my private owner, he put a bullet through another man’s head.
I was kept in a small room in the big house, and almost every night, my new owner would come in and use me. He was always rough and sometimes slapped me when I wouldn’t comply. Sometimes he would force me to swallow a pill so that I would want him, too; I hated it. I hated how my body felt after he gave me the drug, and I hated that I would need him to make my body feel much better. I hated him so much. But I endured.
A year passed, and I turned sixteen.
The day after my birthday, I heard gunshots, men shouting, and things blowing up. I was so scared that I backed myself into the corner of the room.
My door burst open, and I jumped at how loud it was, burying my head into myself as I pulled my knees up to my chest.
The footsteps rushed toward me, and my body shivered in fear. But the footsteps slowed, and I could tell the person was kneeling before me.
“Amore mio?”
