Izabel
“You look better,” the blonde-haired woman says with a smirk as I’m escorted through the front door. “Probably smell better, too. How has your stay been so far?”
“I’d give it four stars, at least,” I say. “But I wasn’t too impressed with the lighting in my room. Might want to have maintenance check that out.”
A slim smile appears at her red lips, and it glows in her deep brown eyes.
With the backward tilt of her head, she orders the man to leave; I hear his footsteps echo behind me and then the door shutting softly. I feel the woman’s eyes on me as I take in my surroundings: the high ceilings and Spanish paintings, the young women moving every which way, tending to chores, always silent and willing and broken. Like I once was. I’ve seen this same image too often in my life, been to too many damn ‘mansions’ filled with monsters, and after this I hope I never have to do it again. No, I take that back—I’ll do it for as long as I have to if I get kill more of the bastards that put these girls here.
“Now, why don’t you tell me your real name, Lydia?”
That certainly gets my attention; I break away from the scenery; she looks smug standing there in the center of the room, dressed in a black silk dress and a mysterious smile; her legs stretch for miles, even if she wasn’t wearing five-inch stilettos.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.
She walks toward me slowly.
“Oh, come on,” she taunts, “a girl like you—fearless, bold, with that I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude—either you’re not who you’re pretending to be, or I really did strike gold when they brought you here.”
I shrug, and raise both brows. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know why I’d be pretending to be someone else—what does it matter who you are in this place?” I laugh a little, shaking my head. “Strike gold? I can’t even begin to understand what that’s supposed to mean.”
“One thing at a time,” she says; she stops in front of me, looks me over with the sweep of her painted eyes. “It’s just I’ve never seen any girl brought here that hasn’t cried and groveled for her freedom—everybody cries. Not only did you not cry or beg, even when you were about to have your throat slit, but you stand here in front of me now almost as if you own the place.”
I raise my chin, pushing my scarred neck into view. “If you haven’t noticed,” I say, “been there, done that already. As far as my attitude, well, I think once you’ve had your throat slit and lived to tell about it, and you’ve killed someone who tried to kill you, and you’ve been kidnapped, shot at, and touched by disgusting men, you’d probably not give much of a fuck, either.” I open my hands and shrug once more. “Believe what you want, I don’t care. And my name is Lydia. And there’s not much more about me worth telling, really.”
She smiles. “Oh, I doubt that. People like you, there’s always something to tell.”
“What do you want from me?” I ask bluntly.
“I’m not sure yet”—she circles me again, sizing me up—“If you’re a fraud: nothing. If you’re what I hope you are: everything.”
I look over at her, and she stops on my left; I can smell her perfume, and feel the heat from her body.
“What were you doing in Mexico?” she asks. “My men told me where they found you, and who you were with; how’d you end up with a coyote? White girl, English language, obviously far away from home. I’d say you escaped one of the compounds if I didn’t know better. That scar on your neck, your age; you don’t fit the profile of a girl soon-to-be sold. So, my only guess is that you weren’t trying to get out of Mexico.” She looks at me with expectation.
“I told you,” I improvise, “I killed someone. In Arizona. Cops were after me, and I headed straight for the border—I’ll die before I go to prison. The man driving the van saw me walking, asked if I wanted a ride. I asked where he was going. He said Mexico so I got in”—I gesture my hands—“And here I am. Never expected to end up in this place, but it is what it is. What’s a coyote? I’m guessing you’re not talking about the animal.”
The woman circles me a final time, and then stops at my left. “Follow me,” she says with the gesture of her hand; she never answers my question.
I follow her into another room with couches and chairs and tables. I count eight slave girls, younger than me, all tending to separate duties: two are cleaning; three are sitting on a lavish rug against the floor with books and tablets and pencils; one stands near a hallway, her hands folded on her pelvis, her head down, waiting to be given an order; one is sewing; and one follows us wherever we go.
“I thought these were just rumors,” I say.
“What? The girls?”
I nod. “So, Mexico really is as dangerous and…uncivilized as they say it is.”
She smiles as if she’s about to burst my little bubble.
“Oh, honey,” she begins, “you’ve been living with a blindfold over your eyes, like most of the U.S. population. Mexico and the United States are the same. In fact, the slave trade—hell, the gun and drug trade, too—is just as big in the States as it is here—bigger even. The only difference is that we aren’t as good at hiding it, I admit.” She points a finger at me. “But I can assure you, everything you see here, everything you think you know about this place, it all goes on behind closed doors and in rich men’s houses in every single state in that big piece of land you stole and came from.”
Exiting the room through a side door, the woman takes me outside onto a cobblestone patio surrounding an extravagant pool with sparkling purple and red water, lit up by colored underwater lights. She gestures at a chair, and I sit; the slave girl following us already knows what’s expected of her and she walks over to a wet bar and pours two drinks.
“I’m going to get right to it,” the woman begins; she sits elegantly with her long legs crossed, her back straight, resting against the chair. She reaches out and takes a small glass of whiskey from the girl’s hand. “I’m sick of doing this shit myself—”
“Can you at least tell me your name first?” I interrupt.
The woman pulls the glass away from her lips before taking a sip; I can tell she’s still struggling with whether she likes my defiant personality—she’s probably beaten, even killed, girls for much less. But the fact that I’m still alive is proof enough she has no intentions of killing me. She wants something. And I’m prepared to play along for as long as I have to, to make her believe she’s going to get it.
She smiles. “Cesara,” she answers, and puts her lips to the glass; her eyes follow mine with interest and intrigue.
I take the second glass of whiskey from the slave girl and do the same, making sure Cesara sees the same interest and intrigue in my eyes.
She sets her glass on a patio table.
“The man who runs this place,” she continues, and my ears perk up, and my heart pounds, “who owns it and a hundred other compounds in this state, is a cruel, heartless bastard. There’s one just like him in Arizona. White man. Pretends he hates Mexicans—and I guess he does—but like so many Americans, he’s a hypocrite. While he pushes his anti-immigrant agenda in Americas face, behind their backs he’s the one making sure the coyotes get across the border—both ways. Not just getting Mexicans into the United States, but American girls into Mexico, too. It’s a very lucrative business—the girls, the guns, the drug trade—he profits like so many others. And you wouldn’t believe how many compounds there are just like this one, or how many kingpins there are in the United States, like the one who pays me.” She switches legs, crossing the right over the left. “So, just so we’re clear, you’re in a cruel place, yes, but before you judge me, or my people based on stereotypes and devil politicians, you need to get in it your head that your people are just as bad as mine, and where you came from, just as fucking cruel.”
I nod, and take a sip. “I never thought about it that way,” I say, setting the glass down. “But, honestly, I never really thought about it at all.”
“That’s the problem with Americans—they don’t think. Not about anybody but themselves. Certainly not for themselves.”
“Not to be rude,” I say, with a little sarcasm, “but what does that have to do with—”
“I know, I know,” she cuts in. “I do that sometimes—get sidetracked. The truth is, I wanted to hit you in the mouth when you started with the Mexican rumors shit. I needed to get it off my chest; let you know you’re no better than me; your people are no better than mine are.”
She sighs. “Anyway, like I was saying, I’m tired of taking care of this place by myself. The governesses are useless—they only care about breaking the girls, and they think they own everything. They’re old, washed-up hags who like to stick their wrinkled fingers in women’s cunts. They’re sick as fuck—as sick as any of the ‘disgusting’ men, as you put it, there are here. But don’t mistake my loathing for having a heart, or anything like that”—she laughs lightly—“I was given this job because I like it. I beat those girls because they deserve it. And I kill them if I have to because that’s just how the world is, and we’re all better off dead, anyway.”
Wow…OK. Mad at the world much?
“So, by killing them, you think you’re doing them a favor,” I state unemotionally.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Then why didn’t you offer me the same courtesy?”
She smirks, and looks me over with those intrigued brown eyes again.
“Gold, remember?” she says. “You’re a fearless, cocky bitch, ready and willing to die, but only if it’s your time. And most of all, you’re not Mexican—I don’t work well with them. Mexican women are…what’s the word you used earlier?”—she pinches her mouth on one side and squints her eyes—“…uncivilized—hey, I can talk shit about my own people. But it’s true, they’re loud and reckless and I just don’t get along with them. I’d tell you to ask my sister, but I killed her.” She shrugs.
“So, you like me because I’m White?” I say. “I hate to tell you this, but White girls are no less savage.”
Cesara points at me. “True, but again, they’re just better at hiding it.”
“Maybe it’s just me,” I say, “but I’d rather be around people who don’t hide who they are, that way you know exactly what to expect.” The hidden meaning behind my comment is quite satisfying—too bad I’m the only one of us who knows it.
Cesara shrugs. “You’re probably right, but what can I say? I like what I like.”
“OK. So, you want me to work for you, someone you just met—under really messed up circumstances I should point out—and who you were going to have killed. Trusting me would seem reckless. And what exactly do you expect me to do? More importantly, what do I get out of it?”
She smirks. “That. Right there”—she points at me again—“is how I know you’re perfect for the job. You’re more concerned with what you’ll get, than with what the job entails. And what I can give you, I’m confident will keep you loyal to me.”
“And that would be?”
Cesara stands; her black dress, tied with a dangling silk belt around her slim waist, drops just above her knees.
“We’ll start with ten thousand a month,” she says, and then she paces the cobblestone patio. “After six months, depending on how well you do, we’ll negotiate a raise.”
I pinch my mouth on one side, contemplating. “Hmm. OK, I admit you have my attention.” Pfft! Ten thousand is pocket change compared to what I make.
Cesara smiles, walks past me, and I follow her back into the mansion; as always, the same slave girl stays close behind.
As if the other girls tending to things moments ago know Cesara wants their attention, without demanding it, all stop what they’re doing simultaneously and scurry to the center of the room the moment they hear her voice.
“These girls,” Cesara begins, “are the product. But not just any product; think of them as blood diamonds”—she glances back at me—“You’ve seen that movie, right?” She doesn’t give me time to answer before turning her attention back on the girls. “People die in the process of getting them here; the diamonds with the purest clarity are worth a lot of money.” She reaches out to one girl the most beautiful of the group, and brushes the back of her fingers across her cheek; the girl never raises her eyes. “Our job is to sort through those brought here by those disgusting men; pick and choose which of them go where, which of them, visually, will attract the wealthiest buyers. Then we send them to the governesses to be broken before they’re brought back to us to be trained.” She motions for me.
I walk up and stand next to her.
“A man will pay one million for this girl,” she says with admiration and dollar signs in her eyes. “She’s perfect. In every way”—she glances at my throat—“unblemished; not even a freckle anywhere on her body.” She releases the girl’s chin, turns fully to face me and says, “But beauty means nothing if she isn’t broken and trained properly—it’s our job to make sure that when she walks out on that bidding stage, she’s ready. If she stumbles, if she speaks or raises her eyes or slouches her shoulders or shows emotion, it could be your head.”
What happened to her use of ’our’ all of a sudden?
“My head?” I ask.
Cesara smiles, and nods. Then she walks around the girls, inspecting each of them as she speaks, hardly ever looking at me but speaking only to me.
“Of course, I’m not only recruiting you for your companionship,” she says.
“So, I take it there have been other…colleagues, who’ve worked in the position you intend to put me in? You need somebody to blame and punish if something doesn’t go right.”
“The world is dark place, Lydia. You have a choice; I can’t force you to do it.”
“But you’ll kill me if I don’t.”
“Yes. I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
I sigh dramatically, look upward at the chandelier dangling from the high ceiling above me, and I pretend to take this all into serious consideration, but she and I both know what my answer will be.
“All right,” I say. “But I want fifteen thousand a month to start.”
Cesara grins.
“Bargaining now? Maybe you shouldn’t push your luck too far?”
I glance at the million-dollar slave girl. “She slouches a little, if you look at her from this angle.” I point at her bare shoulder. “And if you’ll look closely, you’ll see a scar. Almost unnoticeable, but it’s there.”
Cesara comes closer and peers in at the spot. When she finally sees it, she straightens her back with a sigh.
“I really do like you, Lydia,” she says. “OK, fifteen it is.” The grin reappears at her lips. And I see something else in her face, in her eyes, something as faint and as devastating as the scar on the girl’s shoulder. Another obstacle I’ll need to overcome, perhaps? A test of my abilities? An unforeseen scenario? It’s all of these things, I know. I feel it in my gut. Can I do it? Can I do the things I know I will have to do, without feeling guilty?
I leave the room with Cesara, and my conscience with the slave girls.