Vanessa knelt down next to the dresser. She rolled up a bill and pulled her hair back behind her ears. She bent over and snorted half a line up one nostril. She switched the bill to her other nostril and zoomed the other half. She stood up, squeezed her nose, blinked her eyes, and opened her mouth wide, closed it, and opened it again. She gave her head a little shake and looked at me with her eyes watering. “Whooo. You go.” I pulled a new bill out of my wallet, rolled it, and knelt down. There were two small lines chopped out. I snorted one in each nostril. My right nostril high-fived my left and they happily breathed in tandem as I stood up.
I told Vanessa, “You’re connections are great.” She looked at me like I’d spoken Chinese to her. I rephrased, “The coke is good.” She nodded as I turned toward the bathroom. “Ja, it is good. What you expect? I give you shit for present?” Vanessa laughed and hopped on my back with her arms around my neck. I carried her to the sink and filled two glasses of water. I lifted one and Vanessa reached down to grab it. She drank hers as I picked up mine to drink. “Here, baby. I done. Now you carry me to bed.” I took her glass as I drank then put them both down on the counter. I gave her a piggyback ride to bed.
I flopped her down and rolled onto the bed next to her. We laid side by side. I propped my head up with my arm under a pillow while Vanessa laid flat, her robe open slightly revealing her cleavage. We were silent for a few minutes before Vanessa spoke. “How you make so much money?” I had forgotten I had told her I made eight million dollars and that she thought I was a millionaire. Or maybe she didn’t think I was and was probing for the truth. I didn’t know what to say and I regretted playing the game I did the previous night. On the other hand, maybe the prospect of being with a millionaire was what was driving her into such playful moods. Maybe it was the coke. But then again she was electric from the get-go. I didn’t know and stopped trying to figure it out.
I confessed. I said, “I’m not a millionaire. I felt supercharged from the shrooms and coke and I just blurted out that I’d made millions of dollars.” I laughed before continuing. “I don’t know why I said it. I was just so fucking happy.” Vanessa furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. “What is ‘supercharge’?” I replied, “It means I was full of energy. Honestly, I was out of my mind when I said it.” I wanted to tell her I was delusional, but I doubted she knew the word. It would have added to the confusion. Vanessa's brow remained furrowed and she gave me an accusatory look. “You lie to me?” I sighed and buried my face in the pillow. I groaned and left it there. Vanessa thwacked me on the back of my head and said, “Hey, I ask you question! Why you lie to me?” I lifted my head and looked at her. I didn’t know how to explain to her that I wasn’t lying, that I had been tripping.
I asked her, “You know magic mushrooms?” She answered, “Yes. I no like.” I said, “Well, I like, but they can make fantasy seem like reality. Do you understand?” She shook her head no, but she asked, “You were crazy on drugs?” I lit up and shouted, “Yes!” She shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. “You are stupid. I no like being fool.” I nodded my head. I didn’t blame her one bit. I meant no harm, but I didn’t know what I was saying when I said it. We had developed a different level of intimacy since that time, though. I could tell she felt betrayed. “I’m sorry, Vanessa. I didn’t mean to fool you. I was having fun, but you’re right, it was stupid.”
Vanessa looked up at the ceiling and sighed. She shook her head. She propped herself up on her elbows and her robe came open. She peered at me, studied my face, and sighed. “How I trust you if you lie?” Good question. I looked at her intently and said, “You don’t trust me if I lie. I’m telling you the truth, though. I didn’t mean it as a lie when I said it and then I was just having fun playing. I forgot about it until you just asked me how I made so much money. Then I told you the truth, that I didn’t make millions of dollars.”
Vanessa lied back down and folded her hands over her stomach. She was looking up at the ceiling. She tilted her head back and forth, pursed her lips and then smiled widely, pursed them again, and then smiled again. I didn’t know how to interpret what she was doing. I didn’t know what to say, either, so I just laid next to her, waiting.
Vanessa remained silent for several minutes. She fidgeted with her fingernails, sighed occasionally, and kept playing with her facial expressions. I had no idea what was going through her mind. She propped herself up again and said, “Okay. I believe you. You are fool, you know?” She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I thought to myself, “Yeah, I am a fool. This fucking sucks. I should have lied.” I didn’t believe that, though. In a way, I came back down into myself through the process. I waved at Icarus still flying toward the sun and said, “You’ll get there, buddy. I’ll follow you later. I’ll hang with Daedalus for now until I get my wings back under me.”
Well, there was still plenty of coke so I figured I’d do a line. I was still high from all the blow, but that interaction dampened my mood. An artificial sweetener seemed in order. I climbed out of bed and knelt next to the dresser. I chopped the yayo and formed a couple big lines. I snorted half of one into a nostril and switched the bill to finish the other half.
Vanessa came out of the bathroom. I felt much better. I looked up at her as she approached and smiled. “I’m sorry.” She smiled a little and put her hands on my head. She pulled my head close to her, up against her lower stomach. I heard her sigh and then she said, “I am sorry, too. I was mean. You are not fool. You play a game and I make big deal. It is not big deal.” She knelt next to me and cupped my face in her hands. She leaned in and gave me a kiss. She pulled back, stuck her tongue out at me, and said, “Meep!” I asked her if she wanted to do a line and she shook her head no. “I am high, baby!” She opened her mouth into a grin and stood up. “Come to bed with me.”
We laid next to each other and Vanessa said, “It is strange. Well, you are strange, but this is strange, too.” I asked her what she meant. Vanessa seemed to struggle for words. “You are strange client. You are nice and fun. You treat me well and make me feel like I no work. You let me do what I want to do.” She popped up on her elbow to look down at me as I laid with head on a pillow. “It is not normal to do what I want, to listen to Romanian music, to SMS friends. Why you let me do these things?” I was puzzled. I said, “I don’t know. Why wouldn’t I let you do what you want to do?” Vanessa’s mouth opened wide into a perplexed grin, her eyes laughed to the ceiling, and she slapped my chest with her hand. I yelped, “Ow!” Vanessa giggled as she looked down at me. “I no know what to think. You are strange!”
I considered what she was saying. “So, how do other clients treat you?” Vanessa hemmed and hawed, but I was insistent. She climbed on top of me and folded her arms across my chest. She rested her chin on her forearms. “Why do you ask this question?” I said, “Well, you make it sound like you have very different experiences with other clients. You said it is bad, but I don’t know how it is bad. I’m intrigued and fascinated by your life.” She grunted in disgust. “My life is not fascinating.” I asked her to tell me why. She sighed and flopped onto her back next to me. Her robe opened and both breasts were exposed. I became momentarily distracted, but I consciously forced my eyes to her face. I propped myself up on my elbow so I could look her in the eyes.
“Please, Vanessa, I want to know.” She closed her robe and sighed again. “Okay, I will tell you, but only because you are not like other men. You are like child, silly and funny.” Ow! She must have seen the look on my face because she quickly said, “No, no, no.” She clicked her tongue and seemed to struggle for words. “You are, how do you say, like child.” She threw up her hands and spewed out a slew of Romanian words. Her passionate frustration was fucking sexy. I loved hearing her speak Romanian. I took a guess at what she meant and said, “Naïve?” She responded no, but then said, “Well, yes, but that not it.” I tried again. “Innocent?” Her eyes widened and she yelped, “Yes! Yes, that is the word. You are an innocent. You are kind and thoughtful.”
I asked Vanessa if it was unusual for her to have “innocent” clients. She guffawed. “Duh! Yes!” I was taken aback not by her response but by the way she responded. My stomach turned as I imagined her with mean-spirited men. “You seem like an innocent as well. You are so full of life. I would not have guessed that you were with a lot of creeps.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s my job to be happy with men.” I asked her if she was pretending to be happy with me. She eyed me with a probing seriousness before shaking her head. “You really are naïve.” Wow. That shocked me. She quickly smiled and popped up to me, “No, no, no. I am teasing you. Ha! You really think I am the great actress, don’t you?” She smiled coyly and licked her lips. “Baby, I can make you do anything I want. That is why you love me, no?” She giggled and fell back against the bed.
Holy fuck. I wasn’t sure if it was the blow, Vanessa, or the combination of the two, but my mind was reeling. “Vanessa, be serious.” I looked up and thought to myself, “Why would I say that?!” I shook my head and then looked down at her. I laughed and said, “No, don’t be serious. Fuck, you’re blowing my mind.”
I got up and went to the bathroom to piss. When I returned she was sitting in the bed cross-legged. Her head was down and she was picking at her left thumb with the thumb and index finger of her right hand. Without looking up she said, “I will tell you.” She looked despondent. I sat gently on the edge of the bed. “I will tell you story of how I become escort.” I sat down next to her, pulling both legs up on the bed. She pulled her legs up as well and turned to face me.
“My older sister, Maria, she is medical student. I want be like her, go to medical school and become doctor. My papa no afford it. He and mama think, ‘Oh, be a secretary; you no need school.’ My older sister, she is smart one. I not smart like her, but I smart. I think I be doctor, too.” Vanessa sighed before continuing. “Before I eighteen my cousin visit me. She with boyfriend from Amsterdam. She say, ‘Oh, you make so much money in Amsterdam. It is easy. You can be waitress and make more money than doctor in Romania. Come to Amsterdam, make money for school.’”
Vanessa became animated, “I was excited! I dream about working in Amsterdam, having money, and Dutch boyfriend like my cousin. She very beautiful, more beautiful than me. My papa, though, say ‘No. My daughters stay in Romania. No.’ I no care what papa say. I love him, yes, very much, but I cry and cry when my cousin leave. I think I never go to Amsterdam, never go to school, never become doctor.”
Vanessa asked if I could get her a glass of water. I went to the bathroom and filled a glass. I returned and gave it to her. She drank and handed the glass to me. I put it on the end table as she continued. “Before my birthday of eighteen my cousin and boyfriend come to take me. I sneak away in night and think I will have big birthday celebration in Amsterdam! We drove and drove and drove,” Vanessa dragged out the words while gesturing and making exhausted facial expressions, “and when we get to Amsterdam my cousin take me to big high rise in suburb. She smile at me and use cell phone. She talk in Dutch on phone. I speak no Dutch so I no know what she say. She smiling so I think is for party.”
I was riveted, as fascinated by her telling of the story as I was by the story itself. Vanessa continued, her voice rising and falling at different points in the story, her facial expressions shifting just as quickly, “My cousin off phone and tell me wait outside for man take me to apartment. I ask her I have own apartment? She say ‘Yes!’ and laugh.” I noticed her English was becoming worse as she told the story, but I said nothing because I didn’t want to interrupt her. “I go out car and wait. My cousin say, ‘We go groceries and come back.’ I say okay, but I nervous. Two man come out, big men, Romanian men. They say ‘Come with us,’ and take me in building. We on elevator and walk to apartment. They open door and take me to room. Ten women inside room, some naked. I say, ‘Hey, wait,’ and man smack me across mouth. I cry and he push me into room. A woman laugh at me. I cry and cry. Then man take me into 'nother room. He tell me many men coming for sex. I scream, ‘No!’ and kick him. He smack me and smack me and punch and kick me. He beat shit out me and say, ‘You no fuck now but you fuck soon.’ I bloody. He break rib when kick me.”
Vanessa took my hand and placed it on her rib cage on the left side of her body, not far from her breast. I could feel the bone had a lumpiness to it. I was in shock. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but listen. “For two weeks I drugged. All kind of drug. Heroin, LSD. They beat me up over and over again. After month, I am broken. Fat, ugly man comes and he and other men fuck me and fuck me and fuck me while I am drugged. Next night is same. They shoot heroin in me and rape me. I am broken and I no care anymore. They tell me ‘go suck dick’ and I suck dick. They say ‘He fuck you in ass’ and I let fuck me in ass.”
Vanessa paused as I sat silently, stunned. Her story was overwhelming. Her voice was filled with emotion, but whatever scars were within her weren’t evident even as she spoke. The pain must have been buried deep. She continued, “Six months like this. I think six months but I no know. Finally I get break and purchase by ‘nother man, better man. He say I have good look and take care of me, no punching, no kicking. He want girls attractive cause more money. He buy nice clothes and take me spa. Still, I fuck stupid, fat, ugly men and mean Moroccan. Moroccan, they are worst. Nasty, smell bad, and violent, but my new man have men who hurt me beat up. This man, Lubja, he tell me if I pay him then I free and work on own or go home. I get no money for sex, only he get money. I no believe he let go, but … he let go. Now I am, what you say, ‘free agent.’ But I am broken. I never same as before. I no go home cause I ashamed.”
I said to Vanessa, “What about the escort service you work for now? The one I called last night?” She looked confused but then seemed to understand. “I contract. I contract other agencies, too. They take half. That why I tell you call my phone cause I keep all money!” For the first time since she started telling me her story she smiled. She even laughed a little. “How long have you been on your own?” I asked. “I don’t know. Maybe nine month.” I thought about this. If she had come from Romania when she was eighteen and the timeline of her story was true … hmmm.
I asked Vanessa, “Are you really only nineteen?” She smiled wryly. “What you think?” I didn’t know what to think. My head was spinning. I didn’t know if her story was true, but she had been very serious and it seemed entirely plausible. I wondered if I was in danger from the Romanian mob, financially speaking—I’d given my credit card number to an escort service and a cab driver who sold me cocaine! But her story came back to me and I remembered how she slumped now and then as she told it, how sad her voice sounded at times, and how her English broke. My own heart sank and I reached over to hold her hand. She opened it and looked up at me. She said, “You are good man. I am broken.”
I could have cried. I wanted to help her and, in a way, I was. I was paying her 1000 Euros and, if she was to be believed, it was all for her to keep. I said to Vanessa, "You are a strong woman to survive all of that." She said, "No, I am not strong." I said, "You are stronger than you think. What do you want right now?” She looked at me, puzzled. I got up and took the glasses to the bathroom to fill them with water. I brought them back and gave her one. She drank, gulped it all down. I held out the other one and she nodded yes and took it. This time she took just one drink and handed it back to me. I took a drink and set the glass down. I looked at her. She wasn’t crying but her eyes were misty. “Why you ask me that? Why you want know that?” If she hadn’t been so sad I think she would have been angry, angry at me for prodding her to recall a nightmare. I was glad she told me her story because I saw she was not an invincible goddess but a human being as vulnerable as any other.
Her beauty was different now and I understood how come she had seemed so soulful for such a young woman. She had gone through a hell I couldn’t fathom. To survive such horror she had to be strong, resilient. I thought, "The real heroes in this world are either invisible or vilified as immoral." I felt impotent to do anything about the suffering from her past. I asked her if she wanted music and she said no. I pulled myself up next to her, put my arm around her shoulders, and she laid her head against mine. She put her left hand on my thigh which was covered by my robe. We sat there like that for a few minutes. When Vanessa moved my leg felt numb from being in such an awkward position. She got up, wiped her eyes, and walked to the bathroom. When she came back she wasn’t wearing her robe. She crawled onto the bed and as I opened my mouth to say something she put her finger to my lips.
She had a condom in her other hand. She told me to lay back and I did. She parted my robe and she began stroking my thighs with her fingers. She didn’t look at me, though, not at my face, not in the eyes. She moved her caress between my legs and slowly, gently slid her hand back and forth. I was becoming aroused, but more like I would with a lover, with a woman I had known for years and loved deeply. She tore open the wrapper, threw it to the ground, and slowly rolled the condom on me. She straddled me and I felt her wetness as she lowered herself onto me. Her head was down and her hair covered her face and breasts as she slowly and rhythmically moved. In time she increased her pace and as she did she looked up at me. Her eyes were piercing, filled with powerful emotion. I felt the passion of her presence. I sat up and took her in my arms. She kissed me, a deep, graceful kiss. We remained in that position, our lips intertwined, as she gyrated in circles and I hipped in tune with her movements. We breathed in and out of each other’s mouths until I was breathing harder and harder. I fell back when I came and she fell with me. She kissed my chin and pulled herself up to my lips causing me to slide out of her. Her hair shrouded my face and though it was dark I could see her eyes gleaming.
“Do I make you happy?” she asked. I didn’t say anything. I looked into her eyes and lifted my head so I could kiss her lips. She sat up and rolled off of me and out of bed. She turned back to look at me and said, holding her hand in front of her lips, “I have to pee.” Then she giggled and scampered away. I laid my head back and shook it side to side and said, “Wow.” I removed the rubber and got out of bed to throw it away. I pulled down the covers and slid into bed under them.
When Vanessa came back in the room she seemed relaxed and happy with a casually confident smile. If her story was true, she’d earned every bit of confidence she had. If her story wasn’t true then I really was with one of the greatest actresses in the world. I chose to believe she was telling the truth and decided I wouldn’t question whether she was ever again. Perhaps I was overly trusting, but I didn't think so. It would have done more harm to me to disbelieve. Why would she tell me such a horror story if it wasn’t true? Most men would reel in horror and believe, as she did, that she was “broken” or, as some men might say, “damaged goods.” I felt nothing of the sort. My respect for her had grown and I wondered if I was really worthy of being with her. She was a survivor, after all, and as such I believed she deserved a special kind of respect reserved for those who have suffered immensely in life. She deserved nothing but happiness the rest of her days as far as I was concerned.
Vanessa slid next to me under the covers, stroking the hair on my chest and looking at me. She leaned over and kissed me. “Your thoughts are deep now,” she said as she pulled away. “You think too much. I am okay, okay?” I pulled her on top of me and kissed her. She rolled over to lie next to me again. She said, “We sleep now, okay?” I said yes and started to get up to turn off the lights. Vanessa pulled me back down. “No. Leave light on, okay?” My heart went out to her and I said okay. I held her close to me and stroked her hair as she breathed softly into my chest. I closed my eyes, let go of worry, and fell asleep.
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