The Education of a Very Young Madam (7 page)

I drove all the way to Buffalo by myself, and I still remember how long and dull that trip was. I thought I was never going to make it. When I finally did, I found Natasha at the dealer's house. I wasn't sure how she was going to react to me just showing up, but she acted happy to see me. I asked her to come back with me, and she agreed, just like that.

I still remember how much fun we had driving back together. While the trip up there seemed to take forever, the way back just flew by. We talked about normal stuff, like music, clothes, and boys. We talked about how great it was to be together again and all the places we wanted to go. We talked about how much we loved being free, how much better it was than being stuck in a youth center. When our favorite songs came on the radio, we rolled down the windows and sang out loud together, just like we had done while we hid in the woods after running away. It was like old times, if you can have old times at the age of fifteen or sixteen. But really a lot had changed since then. Still, we never talked about the ugly side of our lives since leaving the youth center, the people who'd wanted to take—and had taken—advantage of us, the drugs that were taking over Natasha, how scary it all was sometimes. We just didn't, but I wished we had.

Our reunion was great, but it was short-lived. It wasn't long before Natasha left us again. She went back to her boyfriend in Buffalo, without saying a word to any of us this time.

Kayla and I stayed with Wesley for a while after Natasha left, but things were never the same. Even though he didn't say it, we both knew we weren't the ones he really cared about, although he didn't kick us out. Strangely, Kayla and Wesley actually got closer after that, and I began to feel like a third wheel. A few years later, Wesley ended up marrying Kayla, and they moved to the country together. It's like a real-life
Pretty Woman
story. I guess for some people that kind of fairy tale can come true after all, but I just knew it wasn't going to happen that way for me. I was nearly sixteen then, Natasha was gone, and it was time for me to get a life of my own.

CHAPTER 5

On My Own

When it came time for me to leave Wesley's house, I moved in with my first real boyfriend (meaning the guy I finally lost my virginity with), Jackson. He lived in Rhode Island but came to Boston to work a lot, which is how I met him. He ran girls, just like Dante and Julio, so he knew everyone that I knew. He'd come around and pay attention to me when everyone else was chatting up Natasha and Kayla. Back then, that was all it took for me to fall for him.

Independence didn't come easy to me, and Jackson wasn't a good way to start things off. He was really fucked up. When he beat me, he'd say things like "If you love someone, that's how you show her. A guy who doesn't do this obviously doesn't care at all.'

Jackson was a lot bigger than me and strong. He worked out all the time and had the compactly muscled physique of a boxer, which is no wonder since he loved to hit things. I remember one time when he beat me for hours and hours without stopping while I just watched the seconds tick by on the wall clock. It got to the point where whenever we were in a car together, I would keep my hand on the door handle and imagine jumping out and making a run for it. I would wonder if staying with him was worse than falling out of a moving car. And if I made it, would I find a cop or someone to help me before he could come after me? I never did it because I never thought I would make it. He just seemed so much more powerful than anyone else, I didn't think anyone could possibly have saved me from him. The sickest part was that I really believed he loved me and that I needed him. I couldn't leave him because he was all I had.

I was at Jackson's house in Rhode Island when his brother got caught crossing the border into Canada with two underage girls. The cops picked his brother up, and either someone tipped them off or they could just tell something wasn't right because they began an investigation into his background. That led them to Jackson, which led them to me.

When the police found out who I was, they sent me back to the youth center in Maine, which was when I saw Natasha for the last time. I hadn't been back very long when Natasha came in escorted by a couple of staff. She looked completely broken, pale and sad, with her beautiful long blond hair all tangled and dirty like a rat's nest. When I saw her, I yelled out to her, "Natasha!" She turned and looked at me with dead eyes. She didn't answer, but I don't know if that was because she was too out of it or because the staff was ushering her past without stopping. Maybe it was because she just didn't want to. I hope that wasn't the reason.

They took Natasha straight to the monitored ward, where they check on people every ten to fifteen minutes to make sure they don't commit suicide. She must have been in really bad shape to end up there. When I first saw her, I let myself imagine that life was going to be better after that. She'd get out of the monitored ward eventually, we would pick up where we'd left off, and I wouldn't be alone anymore. But I never even got a chance to talk to her. She ran away as soon as she could. I cried all night when I found out that she was gone.

Even then, I think I still had some hope that things would work out for Natasha and me someday down the road, that she would come back when she was ready and that we'd hang out again like we always did. Now I realize that there was no going back for her at that point. This was the live she'd chosen for herself, and I think she knew what she was getting into, looking back, I can see that Natasha was always drawn to that life like a moth to flame: the way she was fascinated by Julio in the beginning, the way she wanted to become a prostitute and pushed Dante to let her, the way she used to stare at working girls on the street, even the ones that most ofus choose not to look at. It seems like it was her destiny. Or maybe it's just the life she thought she deserved; I may be the only person who believes she didn't.

Natasha did her best to protect me. She always found a place for us to stay. If someone wanted to take advantage of me, she'd offer up herself instead. And before she took off, she made sure I was somewhere safe. Wesley may not have been the ideal caretaker, but he probably never would have kicked me out, and he wasn't dangerous. I don't think it was an accident that Natasha set up that situation before taking off on her own. I easily could have become a prostitute too, with some pimp feeding me drugs and telling me what to do, or out on the street fending for myself. But I didn't, and I know how lucky I am. Believe me, I know. And I have Natasha to thank for getting me through my most vulnerable years relatively intact.

I think Natasha's dead now. If not from the drugs, then from something else just as bad. I found out a few years later that Julio, as well as one of his girls, had died of AIDS, and I'm almost certain that Natasha slept with him at least once. I also heard that Natasha was working in a really bad place that was full of dirty junkies. Any number of things could have finally put an end to Natasha, but whatever it was, I'm afraid it was painful and ugly. A lot of people probably wouldn't think so, but I know she deserved a whole lot better than what she got.

It wasn't long after Natasha ran away from the youth center that I did the same. I had always hated living in those places, but after having tasted freedom for so long, my last stint was unbearable. The place was basically like kid jail. Because I had previously run away, I couldn't stay in the big, dormitory-style house I'd stayed in before. Instead, they put me in another building where I had to spend most of my time in a cubicle-size room with a lock on the door and nothing in it but a narrow bed. There was no need for anything else, since I wasn't allowed to have any stuff. All the kids wore green uniforms, except for the ones, like me, who had tried to escape; we wore orange ones to make us easier to spot. Even the time we were allowed out of our rooms was strictly controlled. There was a TV, but we had to watch what the staff chose for us. We could play cards or write letters, but that got boring quickly. Besides, who was I going to write letters to? I remember spending hours at a time in my room, just pacing back and forth to get some exercise. I probably looked like a caged animal. I know I felt like one.

Now part of me wishes I had stayed rather than gone back to Jackson, which is what I did. But the way I thought about things back then, being at that youth center was the worst thing that could have happened to me. I had lost my best friend, and Jackson was the only person who even cared that I existed. It was inevitable that I would escape as soon as I got the chance.

That was my last time at that or any youth center. I managed to keep a low enough profile until I turned eighteen that I was never sent back again. Actually, what happened was that I got better at lying, so when I did get picked up for something, usually for fighting or underage drinking or reckless driving or too many parking tickets, the cops couldn't connect me to that place in Maine because I wouldn't tell them my real name or where I came from. I have Julio to thank for helping me develop those skills. I was scared the first couple of times the cops picked me up, but pretty soon I realized how easy it was to deal with them. I even came up with my own Rolodex of fake names to make it more fun. I often called myself Angel, which I thought was funny because I knew I wasn't one, or Roxanne after the Police song. For my last name, I'd choose one of the few Korean words I still remembered. One of my favorites was Halmuni, which means "grandmother." Angel Grandmother. The cops could usually tell I was bullshitting them, but they didn't care. I was never picked up for anything big enough for them to give a shit. I'd always picture some Korean cop getting ahold of my arrest report and having a good laugh when he read it. That trick worked for me for years. It would probably still work except that now I actively try
not
to get arrested.

To make my own money while I was living with Jackson (because there was no way he was going to give me much to spend) I danced at strip clubs in and around Boston. At one of the nicer spots, I met Andre. He was so smooth, I couldn't help but notice him as soon as he walked in the place. He drove a white Cadillac and always wore nice clothes, mostly custom-made suits that hung just right off his six-foot-one frame, with matching gators in every color. He was always draped in huge, expensive diamonds and either a mink coat or a fox bomber jacket when it was cold. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with dark eyes, dark skin, and dark hair, which made him stand out among all the losers who frequented the place. But he also stood out because he seemed mature, like he had his shit together. He was in his early thirties, and he knew how to talk to women. Most of the guys who came into the club made me feel like I was working hard for my money. They were drunk, rude idiots, for the most part, but not Andre. When he came around, all the girls were happy to shower him with lots of attention.

One day I was dancing near where he was sitting when I overheard him pick up on one of my co-workers. My ears perked up when I heard him rattle off the digits of his phone number, and I repeated them over and over in my head until I could find a time to sneak off and write them down. I didn't really plan to call him, but I just knew that I wanted his number for some reason.

From then on, not only was Andre on my radar screen but I was on his. He came in often enough to notice that I regularly had black eyes and bruises. You can't hide much when you're stripping, but sometimes I'd keep my sunglasses on while I danced. I was hoping that the guys, if they thought about it at all, would assume that they were just a cool prop or that I had a hangover, but they were really a dead giveaway that I was hiding something. Andre always knew what was going on. He pulled me aside one day, looked through the lenses into my eyes, and said, "You don't need that." He didn't say what he was referring to, but I knew. Back then no one was telling me things like that.

Jackson was the kind of guy who was always mad at the world, and he liked to take it out on me. To be fair, he had some good reasons to be upset. Not long before I met him, the love of his life, Rachel, had been abducted, taken to a warehouse, hung on a rope, and sodomized with various objects before being murdered and left to rot. Her naked, decomposing body wasn't found until some time after the fact. The police didn't know who did it then, and the whole thing had left Jackson a little crazy in the head. I don't know if he had been a nice guy before that happened or not—my guess is that he had always been an asshole—but I do know that it haunted him.

Later I found out that the guy who murdered Rachel was actually Joel Rifkin, one of the country's most notorious serial killers. I was in a holding cell in New York—long after I'd left Jackson— when they caught him. (I was there because I had been picked up during a routine bust of the Asian "massage parlor" I was running.) I was sitting on the floor of central booking playing spades with some other girls when I looked up at the television set, which was tuned to the local news. They were showing this video of the police chasing a truck on the interstate. The police had tried to pull this guy over for not having a license plate, but he didn't know that was all they wanted, so he tried to run. The chase ended with him

running into a pole, after which they found the body of a dead prostitute in the bed of his truck.

I was laughing at the stupidity of this guy when they flashed a picture of his face. It was Joel Rifkin, and I recognized him instantly. He'd come into one of the clubs 1 had worked at several times. I'd even danced for him myself once or twice. He was the kind of guy who was often looking for girls for hire, and that was the scary part. I knew for a fact that he had kept company with working girls lots of times and nothing bad had happened to them. Most of the time he acted like any other customer, so no one had any idea that we should be afraid of him. Sometimes people just snap without warning, I guess, but that made the whole thing even harder to wrap my head around. When I saw his face, I just kept repeating out loud, over and over again to no one in particular, "I know that guy. I know that guy." I think I must have been in shock. My whole body went cold, and I vowed never to watch the news again. To this day, I never have.