THE INDUSTRY

BY THE ONE
wordzwizardz@hotmail.com

[ part 3 ]

NOTE: ‘The Industry’ is a series of 11 chapters. It will only make sense if you read them in order!

A New Friend

Nicole couldn’t get up. She wasn’t bound at all. She had simply lost all of her energy. She had collapsed in despair at the bars of her cell, sobbing, and still she lay there. No more tears fell from her eyes; she just stared into space, seemingly focused intently on the thickly carpeted cell floor.

The cells were enclosed on three sides with solid walls to give the illusion of privacy. Carbon steel bars made up the front walls. The cells were actually very nicely decorated. There were completely private bathrooms where the girls could relieve themselves, shower, and do everything else they could normally do at home. There was a full bunk bed and several plush chairs, so two girls could comfortably live in one cell.

Nicole noticed none of this. Her eyes looked, but she saw nothing. She was in a haze of despair, disbelief, and hopelessness. She just wanted to die.

“Um…hey…are you alright?” asked a timid voice.

“No.” she moaned, “I feel…hey! Where’d you come from?” She hadn’t realized anyone else was in the cell with her.

“I live here.”

“Who are you?” Nicole turned her face toward the girl.

“My name’s Amy,” she said. She was very pretty! She had a soft face and flowing blonde hair that fell almost halfway down her back. Her blue eyes were full of concern for Nicole. “What’s your name?”

“Nicole,” Nicole sniffed.

“Hi, Nicole,” Amy said softly. “You must be kind of shaken up, huh?”

The girl’s lighthearted, innocent attitude made Nicole smile despite herself. “Yeah,” she said, wiping fresh tears from her eyes.

“Aw, don’t cry. You’ll make me start!” Amy smiled sweetly. “Hey, I know how you feel. I was in your place two years ago, and…”

“Two years!?” Nicole cried, her voice cracking. She moaned and started sobbing again.

“Oh dear!” Amy cried, “Come on, calm down! Please!” She put her hand on Nicole’s shoulder. “Nikki! Calm down!”

Nicole froze as she heard Amy call her ‘Nikki.’ She was too emotionally drained to get angry; instead she just smiled. ‘Nikki.’ Hah! Nicole began to laugh hysterically. She rolled onto her back and just laughed.

Amy didn’t know what to do. This strange girl had gone from crying her eyes out to uncontrollable laughter in a few seconds. “Uh, are you okay?”

“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine.”

“Oh, you poor thing…” Amy knelt next to Nicole and pulled her against her shoulder. Nicole went limp, then returned her new friend’s embrace.

“Thanks, Amy,” she whispered. “Well…I guess I’d better learn how things work around here. Can you explain it to me?”

“Sure,” Amy said softly. She explained, “First of all, in here day and night are backwards. We sleep during the day so we’re awake during the night for business. At about nine o’clock at night the customers start coming. They walk down between the rows of cells and choose the girl they want. The guards take us from our cells and we are taken back into the Rooms. Some are for soft sex and have closets filled with lingerie and things like that. Others are for fetishes…we call it messed up dress-up…and are stocked with costumes, uniforms, and lots of latex. Finally, there are the bondage rooms. We fear those, and you should too. If you get sent to one of them, you’re in for pain and torture. Sometimes, girls come back from those rooms unconscious because they fainted from the pain. Once, a girl was whipped so hard that she couldn’t wear her corset for days. She had to be removed from the available list because she was in too much pain to service anybody. It took a week for the red marks on her body to go away. Anyway, once they finish with you, they call the guards and you get brought back to your cell. Your clipboard gets checked off, the customers will pay and leave, and you get the rest of the night off. That’s the only nice thing: you can only be chosen once per night. After you get back, your uniform gets unlocked and you can get a shower and put on clean clothes…well, clean lingerie.”

Nicole was finally getting some answers. “So what part of the day are you at now? There’s nobody here.”

“The last customer just left, so it must be getting close to five in the morning. We’ll be getting dinner and going to bed soon.”

“Did you get chosen?”

Amy gave a sigh of relief, “No, thank goodness! I hate this!”

Nicole thought a moment, then asked, “Amy, uh, how did you get here? Were you kidnapped?”

Amy laughed sadly. “No, I was tricked. You see, before I got here, I had a boyfriend. He was really nice, and my parents liked him too. But one night he and I got a little carried away and…well, I got pregnant. My parents were furious. They told me either the baby could go…or I could go. I couldn’t bring myself to have an abortion, and I didn’t want to put my little boy…his name was Charlie…up for adoption. So, they took him in and kicked me out. When I went to my boyfriend for help, he dumped me and sent me away. I guess he’s off banging other girls by now. With nothing but my clothes and five dollars to call my own, I lived on the streets for a long time. I tried to get to school every day, but it was hard since I had to devote so much time to finding shelter and food. Finally, Mr. Clarke found me and said he ran a shelter for homeless girls. He brought me here…or somewhere near here…then knocked me out with some kind of gas, and I woke up inside. That was two years ago. I was thirteen.”

They let silence settle between them, then Amy asked, “How about you? I mean, if you want to talk about it…”

“I was kidnapped. Just today, or maybe yesterday, I’m not really sure anymore. I was kidnapped from the art museum. My entire family was fifty yards away, but Clarke had stuck me with a needle and I couldn’t move or talk. It was so…so frustrating. They were so close!! If only I had been able to scream, I wouldn’t be here!”

Amy thought, then said, “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m kind of glad you’re here. You’re my first real friend in two years.”

Nicole was stunned. She hadn’t considered how lonely Amy must have been, alone in her cell.

“Do they ever let you go?” Nicole asked.

“Yeah, when your time is up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t I mention? When you turn twenty, you’re free. They drug you and take you to some random place in the city and leave you so you don’t ever actually see this building. I haven’t ever seen the outside.”

Nicole didn’t hear beyond her first sentence. Twenty. Twenty!? She was trapped here until she was twenty years old!? Her life and her dreams were suddenly all gone. All were killed in those few words. She wouldn’t finish high school, she wouldn’t go to college, and her parents would think she was dead! Her parents…

“Amy, where is your family now?”

“I don’t know. About a week before I was brought here, I went to the police for help to find a home. They tried to find my family, but records showed that they had taken Charlie and moved away. I’ll never know, and frankly I don’t care anymore. They’d never take me back in or give Charlie back to me. I have no one who cares about me anymore.”

“You have me.”

“What?”

“You have me. I’m here, aren’t I? I care about you. We’re the same age, so we’ll get out at the same time. We can start a new life together!”

Tears welled up in Amy’s eyes. “Really? You mean it?”

“Sure!” A glimmer of hope was building in Nicole. Just a glimmer, but still, she had hope.

It was obvious that Amy felt the same way. Both girls now had a chance for a future. Maybe not a spectacular one, but it was better than nothing…

“Oh Nicole…thank you!”

The girls embraced again.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” said a cynical voice from overhead, “Now cut the mushy shit. I’m trying to sleep.”

Nicole looked up. A dark-haired girl glowered at them from the top bunk, then turned over and said no more.

“Who’s that?” whispered Nicole.

“Her name’s Katrina.” Amy’s voice was sad. “And I haven’t seen her smile the whole time I’ve been here. She doesn’t like talking to me or being around me at all, so I might as well be alone. She sleeps all day and never says a word. She gets chosen a lot, but she doesn’t seem to care anymore. She’s nineteen, so she’ll be getting out any time now. I feel so bad for her since-“

“If she’s going to hear my life history, she’ll hear it from me,” Katrina snarled, “And not from some oversensitive blonde.” Amy hung her head under Katrina’s insults. Then, addressing Nicole, Katrina said, “If you want my story, climb up here.” She rolled back over.

Nicole was curious now. To Amy, she asked, “Um, do you mind if I…”

“No, no, go ahead,” Amy answered. “You need to hear what she has to say if you want to understand her.”

So Nicole climbed the ladder up the bunk beds to where Katrina lay. “Hey…did you want to tell me something?”

Katrina snorted, “No, but if you want to hear it, I’ll tell you.”

“Okay…”

“Well, I came here when I was fifteen. I was in the city to audition for a musical. That was going to be my career: a Broadway actress. But, while I was waiting for my turn to audition, I had to go to the bathroom. Such an innocent little thing, huh? On my way back to the waiting room, this guy – Mr. Clarke – stopped me in the hall and asked my name. We talked a little, but when I turned to leave he jabbed me with a needle. Within seconds I couldn’t move or scream. I was carried out the back door to a waiting car, drugged with knockout gas, and woke up here. Back then, they let us watch TV. On the news every day for weeks I saw reports of my own disappearance. My parents and the police were scouring the city for me, but of course I was never found. My parents eventually accepted that I was dead and left the city to go back home. Months later, I used a customer’s cell phone to call home, but strange people answered. They said my parents had moved away to Virginia and had not left an address or phone number. I told the people that if there was any way to contact them, tell them that I was alive and being held prisoner in a sex industry in Philadelphia. The people told me that it wasn’t nice to make prank phone calls, and hung up. They didn’t believe me.”

Nicole felt a lump rising in her throat. No wonder Katrina was so bitter. Her life had been turned into a nightmare, and she had had to watch her parents search for her!

“I’m so sorry,” Nicole comforted her.

“Oh stop! Don’t waste sympathy on me,” Katrina growled, “Worry about your little friend down there.” She gestured at Amy. “She’s the one who needs comforting.” With that, Katrina rolled over and buried her head under her pillow.

Sensing the conversation was over Nicole climbed back down. Amy was sitting on the edge of her bed.

“So what happens now?” Nicole asked.

“We should be going to eat soon,” Amy said, her stomach growling. As soon as she had said it, the double doors at the end of the hall opened and two guards with automatic rifles walked in. One inserted a key into a slot in the wall, then pushed a button. Every cell door clicked and slid open. The girls began to file out, and Nicole followed Amy.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the cafeteria.” Amy said.

The guards herded the girls through doors at the opposite end of the hall. It opened directly into another section of the converted warehouse , but this one was lined with tables instead of cells. Nicole sat down beside Amy and, following example, folded her hands in her lap and straightened her back. When all the girls were seated, the food was distributed. Each girl was given a plate piled with meat, vegetables, and even bread. Nicole was surprised; she had expected much less than this. Even so, she didn’t have much of an appetite, and she told Amy.

“Eat! It doesn’t matter if you’re hungry or not, eat! It’s the last chance you’ll get for about twelve hours,” Amy said through a full mouth. Nicole picked at her food. She felt sick from stress and worry but ate as much as she could. It really tasted pretty good. It was real food, and fresh, too!

After they had finished, a bell bonged once, and the girls all got up to leave. They shuffled back to their cells and the doors closed simultaneously when the guard removed his key from the slot in the wall. Nicole could say she felt a little better.