The Trafficked

42

‘Come, sit on my lap.’ The Colonel patted his leg. The Colonel and Terry were sitting on the balcony at Lolita’s. They sat by the metal railings, looking down. The place had been done out in a builders’-yard style, there was a lot of sheet metal and iron cladding.

It wasn’t the Colonel’s usual seat, but he liked to surprise himself now and again and see his world as a punter might see it-from all angles.

Brandon pushed the child forward and then left to check on things. Maya walked slowly towards the Colonel. He pulled her onto his lap.

It was early but Lolita’s was busy. There were several tour parties of young men in. All eighty-six GROs were out, winding their ways around poles, dancing in couples. The girls smiled at Maya. She stared back. Maya wondered how the girls could like wearing what they did: yellow thong bikinis and black high-heeled boots. All the women Maya knew would be very uncomfortable dressed like that. They would never show their stomachs and their legs.

‘You look like your mother.’

It was her first time out of the Bordello in two weeks. She hadn’t seen Rosie since the day the big Kano had beaten her. The other women said she was dead and that the big Kano had taken her body and thrown it away.

When the big Kano came to get her she thought he was going to kill her. But then he made her wash and brush her teeth. He gave her a clean T-shirt and some shorts to put on and brought her here. Maya looked at the man whose lap she was sitting on; she didn’t like the look of him at all.

‘Yes, you are just like your mother,’ said the Colonel. ‘I took her cherry too, it was on a Wednesday.’ He laughed at the child’s bewildered face and rocked so hard on his chair that Maya nearly fell from his lap. ‘You are right, Terry…’ He stopped and leaned forward; his face was sweating and his eyes yellowed. ‘…they are a whole fucking generation of baby whores.’

On the main circular stage downstairs, ten girls dressed in schoolgirl outfits trooped out to perform a choreographed dance routine. They swung their hair and lifted their miniskirts to reveal frilly thongs. Ten minutes and three routines later they came off the stage to whoops and hoots from the men. The place was charged tonight, throbbing with testosterone and youth. The young men banged their fists on the table and wanted to see more. So did the Colonel. His head snapped from side to side as he leaned over the railings and watched the goings-on. His eyes shone as he laughed like a lunatic and called out from the balcony. Trouble was brewing-sporadic fights were breaking out everywhere. Their youthful energy made the Colonel mad. Young men demanded more action. They were content in the first few days with just being whorists, and then they wanted to go that extra mile. They wanted to be entertained. Tonight Fields Avenue was packed with them.

Brandon came to join them. One look at the Colonel told him they were in for trouble. It made Brandon very uncomfortable when his boss was in this mood. Brandon glanced at Terry. Terry didn’t respond and kept working on his laptop. Anyway, he had seen it all before. The Colonel needed him-it was Terry’s name on the property documents and on the licences. Brandon had a lot to learn. Unless it benefited Terry in some way, Terry was not quick to help him. Why should he? It was every man for himself in this world. But Terry was uncomfortable with Maya jigging about on the Colonel’s lap. Terry didn’t care what people did behind closed doors, he didn’t mind that most of the girls dancing around him were under sixteen, but at least they could pass for older. The child on the Colonel’s lap was a baby. Someone in the club wouldn’t like that, he was sure.

On the lower floor the men were having drinking competitions. One of the tables was getting carried away with some of the GROs.

‘Fuck her. Go on…fuck her…’ screamed the Colonel from his lofty position as he watched the scene below becoming lewd-two of the men were holding a girl’s leg open whilst a third was simulating sex. The girls looked at him and giggled nervously. Boundaries might be crossed that could not be uncrossed. No sex in the club. No lewd acts in the club. Those were the rules, but the Colonel had made them and he could break them.

‘We need some more fucking action in this place, Terry.’

Terry didn’t answer, just tapped away at his keyboard.

The Colonel turned to Brandon. ‘Make them fight.’

Even Terry looked up from his laptop at the Colonel to make sure he’d heard right. But the Colonel wasn’t looking at Terry; his bulging red-rimmed eyes were fixed on Brandon. He repeated his demand.

‘Make them fight.’

He had blobs of spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth and he was spraying as he spoke. There was no placating him now. They had left it too late. They’d have to roll with it now-no choice. Terry would have to have a word with Brandon later, tell him how to work the Colonel better next time-otherwise it would go badly for them all. An out-of-control speed freak was not what they needed to front their rise to power.

Fight? Brandon didn’t know what the Colonel was talking about, but Terry did. The Colonel wanted a boxing match. He wanted the girls to fight. Terry remembered the boxing matches of old. They had nearly brought about the end to the club scene-they were a step too far. The priests in the refuge had organised pickets and some of the girls had been foolish enough to join them. In the end, inevitably, the ringleader had their throats slit and the pickets stopped, but so did the fights, and it had been bad for business as people stayed away until the fuss died down. It had been fifteen years since Terry had seen the last boxing match here. Now the men had to content themselves with watching girls fire corks out of their pussies at each other, or write Lolita’s whilst holding a pen inside their vaginas. But now, courtesy of the Colonel, they were in for a savage retro treat.

‘Clear some space. Tell the manager to get the boxing ring out of storage. It’s time we gave these guys a show. It’ll be like the old days when the Americans were here. We need an Amazonian contest. We need proper entertainment again.’

Within half an hour a boxing ring was assembled on the multi-coloured stage.

The Colonel called the mamasan over and told her to fetch Comfort and Peanut. It was an unequal contest-Comfort was by far the stronger. Peanut, puny but wily, was still in shock from having been left under Jed’s dead body for an hour before being rescued. But, just looking at her pissed the Colonel off, and he had a soft spot for Comfort-an uneven fight would give a better result. Peanut would be battered to within an inch of her life, the men would be fired up for the night ahead, and the Colonel had plenty of girls waiting. That was the good thing about the young men: they could go through a few different girls a night, they weren’t there to make conversation. The old ones wanted a companion for twenty-four hours. Even with help from the Viagra sellers outside, they still wanted to talk about it first.

Fight, fight!

The Colonel banged his fist on the table and sprayed beer over Terry, who quickly closed his laptop. The Colonel moved Maya nearer to the railings so that they could get a better view.

The men downstairs took up the Colonel’s cry. Fight, fight. The ring was made ready and the betting began. The girls paraded out in their shiny boxing shorts. Peanut was in red, Comfort in blue. The shorts were too big for Peanut’s skinny legs and had to be rolled at the waist to stop them coming to her knees. The men screamed their bets as the girls struck their poses. Brandon held up their puny arms with the weight of the massive boxing glove attached. The men in the club whooped and clapped and bayed for the fight to begin.

The Colonel was brought a large hand-bell. He leaned over the balcony and roared at Brandon that the time had come. Brandon climbed into the ring to announce that all betting had ceased. A noisy hush descended. The men sat sweating and excited. The Colonel, Maya on his hip, the bell in his hand, raised it and it sounded. Brandon stepped up to the ring. His presence was enough to start the girl’s feet moving. Their skinny legs in shiny boxers’ shorts started shuffling. They reached out and tentatively touched one another with the boxing gloves that sat almost comically on the ends of their puny arms.

A chorus of catcalls went out. ‘You can do better than that. Fucking hit her.’

Comfort swung a left hook and caught Peanut on the side of the head. Peanut staggered backwards, lost her balance briefly and Comfort lunged forward again. She caught Peanut full in the face with a second punch. The cheers went up. Peanut staggered to the corner. Her eyes were watering; blood filled her nostrils and then ran in two straight streams down to her mouth. She tried to wipe it away with the big glove but only succeeded in smearing it across her face. She looked around her in a panic-trying to find a way out of the ring. The wall that was Brandon’s chest stopped her. She turned back to the ring. Comfort was waiting. She was shaking with adrenalin and excitement. She knew she could come out of this the winner if she kept at Peanut. She was sad it was Peanut: they weren’t friends but they knew one another, had seen one another every day, seven days a week, twelve hours a day, for the last year. But they both knew they had no choice. Peanut came forward gingerly. She made no attempt to put her guard up.

‘You can hit me-go on,’ Comfort whispered.

But Peanut was not seeing straight. She didn’t know where she was or what she was doing there.

The men began stamping and screaming.

Peanut closed her eyes, swung her arm out and missed. Comfort punched back as hard as she could. Peanut was hit square in the face. She fell backwards against the ropes and landed near Brandon’s feet. Peanut managed to climb up Comfort’s legs and clung there. Comfort tried to push her off. Peanut clung tight. The men stood up, crowded around the ring and applauded as Comfort started kicking out at Peanut. She kicked Peanut’s head just as she had kicked the green coconuts when she was a child and the anger and the frustration got too much.

The men chanted: Kill her, kill her.

Brandon pulled Comfort off and raised her gloved hand.

‘And the winner is…Comfort.’

Peanut lay in an undignified pile, trails of blood across the floor behind her. There was blood over Comfort’s legs where Peanut had clung to them. It dripped from her shiny blue shorts. The crowd applauded.

As Brandon held up her arm in victory the rest of her body slumped. She was hysterical, laughing, crying. The men cheered. The ring was hastily dismantled. Peanut was carried away. A cleaner came out with a bucket. The men turned back to their beers, a little sheepishly now. The dancers came back out-girls in plastic yellow bikinis gyrated expressionlessly around the dance floor whilst the cleaner mopped up Peanut’s blood.

The Colonel was elated. He sat back heavily in his seat and rocked it back and forth on its back legs. He felt his lungs open, expand, big, full of air. He drew his shoulders back and snorted from flared nostrils. His body glistened with sweat. He looked at Maya. For a moment his eyes softened. He looked at Terry. He knew what Terry’s eyes said-they said wait-she is not ready. But the Colonel did not want to wait. Fuck and fight-he could have both tonight.