The shed was dark and damp, its sound was one of sniffling tears and whimpering and a stunned silence on another level.
Theresa could smell an array of ghastly smells around her. First, there was the smell of stale sweat emanating from many bodies crammed into a small space with little air circulating. She could smell the faeces, the urine that had had to be expressed no matter how embarrassed they were at the situation. The stink was unbelievably high.
A young 9 or 10 year old boy was cuddling into her. She was offering what comfort she could to this youngster, destined for she knew not what, but could make a guess. Someone’s son, someone’s brother and grandchild, were taken from a far off country to meet the appetites of the underbelly of society. This underbelly often manifested in the upper echelons of society.
She couldn’t bear to think of it. As she looked around, she saw so many faces. Women mostly, coming to this country, the UK, thinking that they would be better off. They would earn enough to send back to their families in the old country. When they had paid out their original travel stake, they didn’t think for a moment that they would be treated like cattle and herded about, with little food or water, if any.
She wondered if this was any better than the way the Nazis had treated the Jews. She thought not. What a mistake she had made. This wouldn’t help anyone, least of all her, prostituting yourself in whatever way. The men who were running the show were obviously some kind of Eastern bloc mafia. They were hard. They had no time for women. Life was cheap, and they would kill you as soon as look at you. It was easier to play small, as inconspicuous as possible, in the hope that you could get by without attracting attention.
Theresa was a good-looking woman of about 21, and already they had ear marked her for higher things. She would have it all, they laughingly reassured her. The young boy was heading for some kind of Porn ring who wanted to use him for their photographic purposes, or so they told him. This, or something worse. They jeered and goaded. They were all their prisoners to do with what they would. That had become abundantly clear after the money was handed over, and they were shoved into the transit vans. She couldn’t contemplate what might happen to Michaela. She just couldn’t go there in her mind. This young boy, this dear, dear boy, looking up at her with eyes so brown, so deep.
What had they ever done in their lifetimes to warrant treatment like this? Was it paying back for something in the history of their country, and yet, all her family had been really hard workers. They worked hard and earned a good living, and yet, when they saw the West and all it stood for on TV, they realised the Western people were the ‘haves’ and they were the ‘have nots’.
They had mostly all got a TV now. Her family had been one of the last, but now they could see what was happening around the world. They saw how it was in the UK, USA and parts of Europe. These countries had it all - Coca Cola, make up, and clothes of all kinds. There was glamour, a celebrity image that they had never seen. People in the West were rich with so many things. Cars and huge houses. She had been seduced by it all. They made out that it was easy to attain this status. All you needed to be was good looking, have a good figure, big breasts and you could be rich. It seemed simple, so why not try? Why not pay for a chance?
She could hear the rain outside. She reckoned they had been in the suburbs of Paris for 2 days. They had been given a little food and water. It would seem that today was a big day. They were to be selected, sold off to the highest bidder. Their bodies, a commodity, to be used for the satisfaction of the good, the bad and the ugly. Theresa reckoned there were about 30 of them to be sold in total - like lambs to the slaughter.
The gates of their cells were being drawn back, a grating sound against the concrete. The young boy clung ever closer to her, however, they were all told to stand up and she had to push him away from her as she struggled to get to her feet.
She was 5’9, tall, slim, with a good figure, strong features and a cascade of dark brown hair.
The men came in and, last but not least, an older man, wearing many gold rings and a coat over his shoulders with a velvet collar. He was very stylish and very rich. He was called De Montfort. He came up alongside each and every one, looking them over, the way you look over a horse in the paddock. He paused in front of Theresa and turned and nodded to their guards. She had obviously been selected as someone who would work for him.
Theresa was relieved. A man as old as he was would probably want her as a cleaner or a maid for his household. She watched as Michaela and another little boy were led away by big brutes of men. Michaela kept turning and looking back at her. “You are on your own little one”. She felt her breaking heart send this message out to the boy and he faintly smiled.
De Montfort sat in his car and issued orders over the telephone to have the woman taken to his small flat in the city. They were to have her cleaned up, fed and dressed with some new clothes and be ready for his arrival the following day. He was relishing the thought of having this woman as his personal slave.
They would do some role-play and really get his pecker up. He had found that a difficulty of late as he got older. Nothing a few pills couldn’t sort out, and he would use her and use her. She would know that she had been shagged. That was for sure. He felt himself stir as he thought about her. “Still life in the old dog yet” he smiled to himself.
Sebastian was sure that his father had not sampled the trafficked goods for a long time, so he was surprised when he saw his car parked at the transit point. He could see various bodies being taken away and he noticed the woman being taken by his father’s bodyguard into another car. He assumed that they would be headed for his father’s ‘pied a terre’ in town. He smiled to himself. He wondered how, after all those years, his dear Mother never suspected a thing. Maybe she did, he mused. Maybe it made her life a lot easier, as he suspected, there hadn’t been a lot of love lost between them for many a year.
He tapped on the window of his father’s car. He greeted his father with a sneering smile. His father jumped in fairly quickly. “Well, how are your efforts going with the Marianna woman? Have you sorted our little problem yet”?
“Not quite yet”, he said. “However, I am nearly there. They are on their way back to Paris, and we will finish things off there”. Sebastian knew this to be an outright lie. But it didn’t really matter much. His father wouldn’t be the one to sort it. It would be him, and when the Boss asked what was happening, it would be his neck on the line. There had however been no calls from Rome for a day or two, so they he couldn’t be overly concerned. How wrong could he be?