Page 8 of Release Me

She laughs, drawing the attention of everyone in the room and revealing the gap between her two front teeth as she places her hand on my leg. “You’re lucky you’re so pretty, Nadia, it makes it easy to forgive the fact that you’re full of shit.”

Red flags the size of the state I’ve never actually stepped foot in go up in my mind, and for the second time today, I want to slap myself. I’m not sure how I didn’t see it coming. After I clocked her, I should have expected it. All the signs were there. The fake rescue from Vince to start the conversation and garner trust. Buying me a drink to keep me talking. The sudden sense of familiarity followed by an unearned declaration of friendship.

She’s trying to recruit me.

God, how could I be so fucking stupid? I fell right into her trap even though I know it’s not uncommon for traffickers to send out women to bring them more girls to put to work.

“I don’t do that type of work.” The words spill out of my mouth and land between me and Desiree in a messy heap of shame and judgment. Her brows pull together into a tight, furrowed line of confusion and offense. She sits back, taking her hand off of my leg and giving me a nasty look that pulls the rest of my thoughts from my head without my permission. “That’s what’s happening here, right? You’re trying to recruit me to come and work for your boss?”

Everything I’ve said to her in the last few seconds has offended her, that much is clear by the way her features have yet to relax, but she seems especially insulted by the last part of my question.

“My boss?” She runs her tongue over her teeth and sets her drink down, pulling in a deep breath that, to my surprise, turns into a huff of laughter. “Girl, I don’t have a boss, and I’m not trying to recruit you. Though, now that I’m looking at you, I think you’d pull in a lot of money at Ludus.”

“Ludus?”

Desiree nods. Her smile is back, but there’s some hurt lingering around the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, it’s the club me and the girls work at.”

“Oh, like a strip club?” I ask, digging through the terms I learned in the Ancient Greek class I took during college to try to sort out the meaning of the word. From what I can remember, it’s the word Greek philosophers came up with the describe love in it’s most playful, casual form. It seems fitting for an establishment built on lust and a lack of commitment.

“No, Nadia, not a strip club.” She shakes her head like I’m hopeless. “Listen, you’re right, me and my girls do sex work, but we don’t have a boss or a pimp or whatever the hell else you want to call it, and Ludus makes that possible. It is a sex club, but no one is being forced to work there, and unlike most places, we’re the ones in charge. We get to decide who we see, when we work, and how much we charge. The rooms we work in are clean and there’s security on every door to make sure we’re safe. And, after we pay our yearly operating fee, all the money we make is ours.”

It sounds like some fairy tale brothel where everyone is an independent contractor with rights and power. Like a place someone like Beau would never want his girls to know exists because it would mean losing his entire roster.

“I thought you weren’t trying to recruit me.”

Heat flashes in Desiree’s eyes. “I’m not.”

“So why are you telling me all of this?”

“Honestly?” She lets out a long sigh. “Because the desperation I read on your face when I saw you talking to Vince didn’t go away when he did. He mentioned you were here for an interview, but you don’t look like you’re celebrating, so I’m assuming you didn’t get the job.”

“I didn’t.”

“That doesn’t surprise me since you’re kind of a bitch.” The bartender comes over, placing the bill on the counter. Desiree pulls her card out of the tiny purse slung over her shoulder and slaps it down on top of the sheet of paper without looking at the total.

“So now I’m desperate and a bitch.”

The bartender returns with her card, two receipts and a pen, and she adds a generous tip to the first copy before signing and leaving it on the lacquered wood surface.

“Yep, you’re a desperate bitch, and that resonated with me because once upon a time I was a desperate bitch too and then I found Ludus and everything changed,” she says, all of her attention on the back of the second receipt where she’s writing something. When she’s done, she folds the paper in half and holds it out to me. I hesitate, and she rolls her eyes. “It’s just my number, Nadia, I want you to take it.”

My hands don’t move even though my fingers twitch with the desire to take the lifeline being extended to me. I don’t want to go back to selling my body, but if I want to survive I might have to.

“Why?”

Desiree slides out of her seat and forces the paper into my curled up hand. “Because you’re a desperate bitch with no friends, no money and nothing to lose.”

5

NADIA

“So this is the kind of work you do.”

It’s been two weeks since Desiree left me with an insult I can’t shake off and a phone number I have yet to use, and I’m more than a little shocked to see her standing in front of me with nothing but the cash register I’m working and a belt full of her groceries between us.

Heat floods my cheeks even though there’s nothing close to judgment in her voice or in her eyes as she looks at me. In fact, she’s smiling like she’s happy to see me, to know I feel more comfortable running a check out lane at a bougie grocery store than sleeping with men for money. The truth is, I don’t know if I do feel more comfortable here, selling bottles of wine and jars of artisanal jams to New Haven’s elite. I’m starting to think I won’t ever feel comfortable anywhere.

“Desiree.” I grab her bag of avocados. “Nice to see you.”

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