Chapter 1

May

The night I became a bloodslave started out like any other. I awoke to Conchita shaking my shoulder and yelling, “Levántate!” Get up. Not once or twice, but over and over again – right in my ear.

She ripped open the curtains, blinding me in brilliant sunset. I yelled back. “English! How many times do I have to tell you? We’re in America! Speak English.”

My bat-cave sanctuary of darkness ruined, I officially awoke for the evening. Conchita, my bubbly, obnoxious and neurotic roommate, got by on five hours of sleep a day. Not me, I gotta get my eight to ten. Don’t wanna see what I’m like if I don’t.

Conchita had been living in the Towers in Spanish Harlem since her arrival in New York five years ago. She spoke English like she stepped off the plane from Colombia yesterday.

The wonderfully shitty Towers a.k.a. the ghetto – New York’s pathetic excuse for subsidized housing. Like most residents here, I hate the place. I really hate the place.

Conchita chattered on, oblivious to the fact I wanted to sleep. “Levántate! Tiene que ser bonita! Alístate por tu pareja. Ella viene ahorita!” Yes, I had to get ready. Yes, my date would be here soon, but soon is a relative term.

I looked at the clock. “It’s only seven. She won’t be here till ten. I could’ve slept at least two more hours.”

Most of my dates are late anyways. Few people are respectfully punctual when meeting a Colombian prostitute. Ooops – escort. Prostitute is not the politically correct terminology, and it also happens to be illegal. Escort is much more PC, and fits nicely into the grey zone of New York state law.

That’s me, a twenty-two year old Colombian escort. My mother must have suspected what my life would be like. That’s the only reason I can think of why she named me Esperanza de Salvador. Hope for Salvation. There’s been little hope of that since the beginning of my illustrious career as an escort at the age of fourteen.

I have often thought I should change my name to something more fitting. ‘Damned for all eternity’ or ‘Swims in the lake of fire’. I’ll have to think on that some more, find a way to condense it so it rolls off the tongue better.

“Si, Ella estas aqui.” Yes, she’s here.

Conchita assured someone on the other end of my cell phone. She handed me my cell phone, buzzing with voicemail messages from the calls I’d missed. She acts like my damn secretary.

“Hello.”

“Hola Esperanza, how’s my little lie detector?” Faustino keeping tabs on me, as usual.

“Hope. My name is Hope. Stop calling me Esperanza.”

“Que paso Esperanza? Por qué no me contestas?” What’s up? Why aren’t you answering me?

“Hope, cabron! And I was asleep. That asshole you sent yesterday had me up all night long, and then he didn’t want to pay! I had to call Arana.”

“Okay Hope. I Hope you got my money ready. I’m coming over.”

“I have a date in a few minutes. You’ll have to wait till later.”

“Que bueno, I’ll expect a few more dollars.”

“Callate! I always pay you. I got two hundred, that’s all you get.”

“I’ll get more than that. I’ma get that ass. You better be wearing the perfume I bought you. And make sure you shower good.”

“Whatever.” I cut the call off. I get so sick of him.

He acts like he’s my damn boyfriend, boss and father all rolled into one. Faustino Vasquez, a.k.a ‘El Tiburon’, The Shark. He is my boss, he’s cartel. He prefers the term patron. I call him cabron.

Technically I don’t owe him anything. I’m pretty sure I paid my debt. But he’s got me cornered. Despite all my arguments and other forms of persuasion – blow jobs with a mouthful of ice – he won’t let me apply to renew my visa.

Asshole has me living on borrowed time with an expired visa. I read somewhere there are millions of Latinos in the US with the same problem. Faustino thinks it’s a good way to maintain his control – keeping me here illegally.

I know because I read his mind. No way he’d ever admit the truth. Getting the truth out of him is like pulling teeth. He calls me his “little lie detector” because he knows damn well people can’t lie to me. He doesn’t give a shit. He’ll stand there and lie to me anyways.

When I pressure him he gives me excuses. “You can renew your visa when I get the rest of my money.”

By my calculations I paid him twice over. He won’t listen to that. He keeps insisting I pay him four hundred a week. Faustino retains the right to interpret my debt/interest balance at his discretion.

Here’s a piece of advice to the world: never put yourself in the position of owing money to a Colombian cartel patron, he’ll end up owning your ass from here to eternity.

I laid in bed for a while, half-awake, lamenting over my fantastically shitty life. Conchita nagged in Spanish about every fifteen minutes. Who needs an alarm clock when you’ve got your very own Conchita?

As usual, she’s right, I needed to get my sorry ass moving. A bath would definitely improve my mood. I love a hot bath to relax and soak, forget all the problems with no solution. I had so hoped to be free by now. Debt free to Faustino and heading into college.

What I wouldn’t give to be a normal person with a normal job. To do that I need a college degree. As ridiculous as my ambition sounds, I’d like to major in languages. I have a talent with languages. I learned English right away, and I picked up a little Portuguese from some Brazilians I met in Bogota in 2005.

I sat in the bath fantasizing about a college degree. I’m not foolish enough to think the escort business is a long term career with opportunity for upward mobility. No matter how many wealthy executives I fuck, I’ll never work my way up the corporate ladder without a college degree.

I have long spurned the cartel business. Traquetos – cartel members – are in for life. Their life expectancy is not good. No retirement plan, no 401K, no pension, no social security, no medical, and a very high probability of a prison sentence prior to a violent, untimely death. No thanks. Besides, they don’t respect women. We are trophies, good for fun and popping out babies, but not so good for business. Colombian men haven’t really caught up with the feminist movement yet, not the Traquetos.

Lucky for me, I’m not technically ‘in’ the cartel, but try explaining that to Faustino. He tried to get me one of those tramp stamp tattoos right above the crack of my ass with a bunch of Cartel symbolic crap. I told him “Hell no!” and “NO fucking way!”

I guess I was a little overzealous in making my case to Faustino for staying in New York when I arrived four years ago. Although I’m not exactly sure why he doesn’t let me go, he seems unwilling to admit it even to himself. The only man who can lie to me is one who lies to himself. I’m not foolish enough to think he loves me, that’s not it. Lust? Sure, plenty of that, but he has just as much lust for Conchita, maybe even more. He and Arana show her preference regularly. I think it’s the lie detector thing.

I can pick a man’s brain quite thoroughly the more time I spend with him, or underneath him. Skin on skin contact heightens my telepathy. While he’s screwing me hard and fast, I’m sifting through his thoughts and memories. Seems like an even trade, knowledge for sex, the money’s almost a bonus – almost.

I’d have been dead years ago if the Cartel boys knew how many of their secrets I picked up. I suppose I know enough to blackmail somebody, but that’s not exactly a recipe for long life.

The bathwater turned cold and I’d started to prune up as I lay there daydreaming about college degrees, extracurricular time with my professors to catch some extra credit, and escaping all the ghetto cartel drama of the Towers. Time to get moving. I doused my body in scented oil. The women like it when I go the extra mile to be clean and perfumed. Men rarely seem to notice, at least not the men in my bed.

Checking myself out in the full length mirror, I look damn good. Sexy, yummy, I always have. I enjoy the sight of my naked svelte body. I have a year-round tan. I have to hide from the sun in the summer or I start looking like a morena – dark brown. My hair is long, sleek, black as black. I wear it layered, cut just past my shoulders. Cost a hundred and fifty for that cut. My eyes are so dark the difference between pupil and iris is barely noticeable. I have often thought of wearing contacts, brown or green, just to get a little color. My face still has soft, girlish curves with a cute, button nose. I’m not exactly bony, but my body isn’t really an hourglass. I’m too narrow in the hips. My breasts are small by most men’s standards, but I’m happy with them. Big tits are sooo over-rated. And I can get away without a bra most of the time, as long as my shirt isn’t see-through. I keep myself shaved clean, not one lick of hair between my legs. My dates prefer it. I’m not too tall, but not too short. Five foot seven seems just about right to me.

I actually like being naked. I prefer to spend my summer days off lounging around in the nude. Conchita got used to it after the first couple times I sauntered through the apartment in my birthday suit. She even sleeps with me in the bed we share, cuddled up on my naked back. We got frisky a couple times, but she’s not into girls, so it didn’t really go anywhere.

I prefer to be naked when I receive my in-call dates. ‘In-call’ is the escort industry term when the date arrives on your doorstep, ‘out-call’, we meet somewhere else. I’ve found that answering the door nude seems to improve my negotiations for getting the money up front.

I became accustomed to nudity at the ripe old age of fourteen. I guess that means I’m an exhibitionist, but really it’s Rubin’s fault. Rubin was my first pimp-boss-cartel patron back in Bogota. He purchased me from my father a couple months after my fourteenth birthday. Believe it or not, in Bogota Colombia, it is possible to buy and sell teenage girls, if you’re high enough up in one of the Cartels. Rubin bought me for two thousand dollars. I don’t think he got a very good bargain. My father was so angry with me he probably would’ve given me away for free.