Sometime after dark Zoya came back up to help Vanna dress. When Vanna had pulled on the skimpy clothes, Zoya motioned her into the bathroom. Vanna had been avoiding the mirror since she’d caught that glimpse of herself, but putting on her makeup required her to look. The sunken-eyed, hollow-cheeked face that had stared back at her a month earlier was gone. Instead her reflection showed an attractive, fresh young woman. Her hair was longer now, and when Zoya pinned it up in a twist, Vanna almost smiled. Even her cheeks had a rosy glow.
Zoya herded Vanna down the steps to the living room, a large space with no furniture except two easy chairs, an end table, and thick green drapes covering the windows. Track lighting illuminated one end of the room; the rest of the room was in shadow. Almost like a stage. She was aware that a man was reclining in one of the easy chairs near the pool of light, but she couldn’t see who it was. Zoya stopped at the entrance to the room, and a brief conversation took place in Russian. It ended with the man’s voice calling out of the dark.
“Da.”
Zoya rotated a dial on the light switch, and the track lights brightened. Then she nodded at Vanna. “You go.”
Vanna flipped up her hands. “Where?”
Zoya pointed to the center of the room. “Stand. Turn around.”
“Why? What the fuck is going on?”
“Just do,” Zoya hissed.
Vanna shot her an irritated glance but moved to the middle of the room under the lights. She paused, unsure what to do next. She was aware that the man in the chair was watching her, and she realized with a start that this was the test. She was on a stage, of sorts. She raised her hand to shade her eyes.
A voice came out of the darkness. “Put hand down.”
She hesitated. The man had a thick Russian accent, but at least he was speaking English.
The voice deepened. “Now.”
Vanna dropped her hand. Who was this man?
“Turn around,” the voice said.
Vanna turned.
“Other way.”
She turned back.
“Put hands behind head. Look up.”
She tilted her head up, but the glare from the lights was too bright. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Open eyes and walk across room.”
She felt like a bug under a microscope. She flashed back to biology lab in high school. She and a geeky kid named Stewart were supposed to dissect a frog so they could examine the creature’s delicate muscles and joints under the microscope. She couldn’t do it. She told him she’d give him a BJ if he did it himself. He happily complied.
“Now back.”
Pulled back to the present, Vanna backtracked to the center of the room.
Another silence. Then, “You look better than last time I see you.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend.”
After what had happened to her over the past six months, she knew that was bullshit.
“You okay now?”
She didn’t answer.
“We clean you up.”
“Why?”
“I buy you.”
“You bought me?” Her voice spiked. She hadn’t imagined anything worse than being forced to be a whore. On the other hand, if he’d bought her maybe there was. But something told her she couldn’t show him she was afraid. She pretended to be pissed off. “What the fuck for?”
The man laughed; a rough, harsh laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. Terror bubbled in her throat, but she forced herself to keep up a front. This was America. “Lincoln freed the slaves, remember?”
The man’s laughter faded. “You no like? I take you back to apartment, drugs, fucking.”