Kyle kept the gun on her when he opened the back of the trailer. The loading ramp was missing so she stepped out onto cinder blocks and collected what he’d brought her—takeout crap from McDonald’s, demijohns of water to clean herself up with. He kept the gun pointed at her when she emptied the slop bucket, heated water on the camping stove, undressed, got in the washtub. This routine was, Lara thought, more humiliating than having to fuck the men.
There was something wrong with the men. What sort of person uses another’s body and it’s just a transaction? How is that human? How is this called pleasure? And their transaction was never with her. It was with the stupid boy who drove the van and took the cash. They used her, all the time acting like she wasn’t there. Most of the time, she wasn’t. She separated herself from her body and then they could do whatever they wanted. Until she learned how, it didn’t matter that she said, I do not do this because I want to. They didn’t hear. I am a prisoner. They didn’t care. She wasn’t even a thing to them. A thing you are careful with, it shouldn’t break. When they did to her what they did, they erased her. Which made her wonder, Who are they fucking if it isn’t me?
Fucking the men was at least something to do. At least there was a mattress. In the trailer, hardly room to stretch out on the floor. Compared to the trailer, she thought a Russian prison cell would be deluxe. In the trailer, she didn’t let her mind go away. She was afraid if it left, it would never come back. Was it possible to be both in despair and bored out of your mind? It was. What to do? Pacing in the confined space—if you could call it that, moving back and forward, running in place, turning in tight circles till she was dizzy enough to fall. On the floor, arms wrapped around herself, rocking her body where everything ached. Always holding onto her self.
When this ends, she thought—because it had to end. This cannot be the rest of my life, she thought. This is silly boy, not big gangster. I will escape and I will still be Lara Figurski. I will still be me.
Look, she thought. I am free to make a choice. She could keep out the cold, leave the plastic sheets and over there, the horse blanket tacked over the slit windows. Or she could take the blanket down to let in fresh air and the light. Take it down, tack it up. Her decision. The blanket still smelled of horses. Sometimes the smell was a comfort. Sometimes so strong, horse sweat and her own body, the slop bucket, the smell of the men. It sickened, choked her. The windows so narrow, she tried—but couldn’t—squeeze through. And out there, desert as far as she could see. Where would she run to? And the stupid boy wasn’t all that stupid. He had taken her shoes.
All day, she thought, I am only walking. A cramped circle, over and over—what was that? A poem she once read? The son-of-a-bitch left her bottles of vodka which she didn’t drink and stacks of magazines she didn’t read, written on behalf of advertisers for women who were morons. Variety, she asked for, Hollywood Reporter. Can I keep radio here? He looked at her like she was, well, what for the time being she was. The Chinese guy slipped her scientific offprints which she didn’t understand—too much math—but he also slipped her a pencil. She used the flipside of the paper to work on a screenplay. Chinese mobster falls for Russian pole dancer. No, if we’re talking Hollywood, better Russian mobster and Chinese pole dancer. Concentrate. Write your script. But how can a human being do this to another human being? How can a person treat another this way? What she looked like now, how she smelled…How was it possible, what sort of man could it be who would pay good US dollars to have her? It didn’t help to wonder, to have these thoughts. Plan for your future, she told herself, and you will have one. Think of anything except where you are now. How about casting? Liev Schreiber or Tim Roth for the Russian, better yet, if you can, De Niro. Lucy Liu for the dancer? Lea Salonga? Alexandra Chun? Maybe didn’t matter. If you had male box office, enough that woman look good.
The Chinese guy liked to talk but even with him, she understood he was merely using her to practice his English. He could make mistakes in front of a whore and not be ashamed.
“You are scientist!” She wanted him to tell her more.
“You are Russian spy!” he said.
“No.” She made it very clear to him who she was.
Whatever happens to me, she thought, whatever I must do, you cannot take away from me who I am.
I have never been helpless, she thought, not a day in my life. And this guy, yeah, he has gun, but he is not Boro. This guy, he’s upizdysh, sukin sin, also a fool. So one morning, when he opened the door, she threw the contents of the bucket at him. He hollered, his clothing and best of all his face spattered. Her vomit, her urine, her shit. She ran for the truck and should have known. No keys in the ignition.
“I could kill you,” he said. “I should kill you.” He had the gun. He locked her back inside. “Don’t think this means a day off.”
She watched from a narrow window as he stripped, wiped his face with his boxers, tossed the filthy clothes on the ground. He got in the truck naked except for those silly shoes that flashed those lights on and off, off and on.