The unknown taunted me. I had no idea what he intended.

We went inside the hotel room, greeted by a sumptuous den area with a couch, chairs, and a large television. My feet carried me to the tastefully decorated bedroom, where I imagined it would happen. I opened my purse and set out several condoms on the night stand.

This was it.

I stood there for a moment, taking in the heavy drapery that hid the outside world from the little scenario we would do. The heater kicked on, its hum loud enough to muffle a scream. I inhaled and the underlying scent of Pine Sol and lemons came to me, reminding me a little of the dance studio, and right there in the midst of the ugliness, I felt comforted.

I felt a small measure of peace.

But it deflated quickly as a sense of dawning horror crept up to me, as if on little cat feet, reminding me that after all these years of clawing my way out of Ratcliffe, I’d become a whore like my mama. Right then, I pleaded with myself to not give in like she did, to not grow hard and bitter and angry.

She’d seen no way out, but I did. I did. And this was it.

I had no other recourse. This was the bottom line.

My eyes ghosted over to the metal door of the room, the deadbolt thrown already, the Do Not Disturb sign out on the outside door. The Man had wasted no time.

I sighed and rolled my shoulders as if getting ready for a performance.

This would not be rape. It wouldn’t. I am no victim. It was a choice.

He was just an obstacle to be vanquished. My endgame of getting us out of Ratcliffe, of getting us safe was just over the horizon, and all I had to do right now was this thing, just as if I were dancing.

I closed my eyes and pictured me dancing as Joan of Arc, of mesmerizing the audience with my clean lines and elegant feet. And like her, I would be resilient in the face of sacrifice, I would preserve through the burning, and I would not give in to fear.

I would go willingly into the darkness.

Cool hands settled on my shoulder, turning me around, slowly, slowly as the room rotated. I leveled my eyes at his necktie, noting how expensive it looked, how beautifully the pattern accentuated the blue of his eyes.

Showtime.

I gathered together, fortified myself for what lay ahead. “Would you like to see me dance?” I asked, my quivering voice perhaps mistaken for shyness.

He nodded, moving to the bed, propping himself up on the headboard with pillows.

I removed my stilettos, and danced my audition piece, using the space I had to express the emotion, the sadness, and yes, the acceptance. The room winked out of my mind and became a spot-lit stage. A hushed audience waited just past the orchestra pit, waiting with baited breath to see me do a pas de chat or a grand jeté. I couldn’t disappoint them.

I pretended he wasn’t there, dancing for myself and for Sarah.

And then later, after time had passed, he grew weary of my grace. He became tired of my jumps and glides and pirouettes. He was not impressed with my ballet hands, how they arched and stretched. So, I went to him and did more, much more. I did it absently, vacantly, and without thought. I did it with my eyes squeezed tight.

As we moved on that bed, time seemed suspended, oddly so, like the music inside a ballerina’s box as it winds down. The seconds slid by with excruciating slowness, and I ticked them down in my head, counting over and over until I got lost and forgot where I was. I pictured what we did as two unknown people, not me and The Man. I imagined I was a lonely dandelion stalk drifting and floating away on the wind, looking for a place to take root and grow.

It was surprisingly easy to separate myself from our actions, to pretend it wasn’t me, giving myself to someone I didn’t know. Perhaps it was because I’d watched many terrible things during my childhood. Perhaps it was because I’d do whatever it took to come out of this whole.

He was demanding in his requests, and it almost pulled me from my control, but I held on, directive in mind. I did as he asked, participating with complete compliance. I pushed all the sweet things from my head and became someone I did not know.

I become one with The Man.

Yes, I grieved deep inside. How could I not?

Later, I would huddle in my room and cry. Later, I would hunker down over my toilet and lose the contents of my stomach for what I’d become. But not now. Now, I would be his.

After he finished, I pulled away to the other side of the bed, my body exhausted.

I refuse to recount the how’s and the where’s of the thing that occurred. Details do not matter. It happened. It was not forced; it was not strange. I willingly gave myself to a man—lied to him, too—for money. I checked him off my list. And he wouldn’t be the last because one man does not pay twenty thousand dollars to have a virgin. I still had debt to work off.

The Man said he wanted to see me again, and I told him yes as my head replayed what had happened here. Yes, I could do it again.

What else could I say? He was providing a way for Sarah to live. There is nothing more to add.

He left me in bed and went to shower. I did not want to think about if he had a wife at home or children. I couldn’t. I did not want to think about the other people involved in my sins.

Some may think me ruined, but I am not. Because no matter what I’d done, I was still Dovey, the dreamy girl who only wanted to dance. I’m still the good girl who didn’t sell drugs; the girl that foolishly gave her virginity to the boy who ultimately destroyed her.

That was me. Not this thing. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

I lay with my arms wrapped around myself, picking through my head, cycling through the movie of my life, searching for meaning in what I had done. I found little. Except that perhaps I had become my own Joan of Arc.