Feedback Request - first draft

If everything happens for a reason, then what the hell could be the reason for this? I ask myself staring back at eight fully armed cops decked out in full tactical gear as they yelled at me, guns drawn, to both not move and raise my hands to the air.

My mind instantly takes me back to the beginning of the day when I was still in bed at my place. It was a quaint little one-bedroom in desperate need of being fixed up, but it was just me there and I had nothing but time to work on it. I had planned to skip posting and taking any calls. I wanted to spend the day painting the walls in the bedroom and kitchen. It was only shortly after I did my first shot of heroin for the day and began painting in my bedroom that a couple of people I know showed up to see if I had any boi (heroin) I could sell them. Dan was always good to me and his girl of the day was sick from with-drawls.

I had enough to help her with some to spare for my next fix, but I knew that it wasn’t enough to get me through the day now. I had already gotten my phone in hand and dialed B’s number to set up the deal before she’d even gotten her shot done. He answered on the second ring and agreed to bring a bag by on his way to Super 8.

It took him no time to show up in my front yard ready to deal. I remember being surprised that he found my place since he’d only been here once before and it was tucked back off the road and easy to miss. I went out to his car and sat in the passenger seat to get my sack. I handed him $100 and he handed me a tiny, little bag with a gram of boi in it. I could tell by the size and feel of it that it was dead on its weight. I was about to make my escape when the day’s events changed course and instead became how I ended up at Super 8 during the biggest prostitution sting the local authorities had arranged this year.

“I need you to help me answer this phone,” B said with no emotion on his face. “It’s been ringing off the hook.”

He tossed a phone into my lap without even waiting for a response.

“I’ve still got people inside,” I said weakly pointing back towards my place.

“Can they bring you to the Super?” B asked. “You gonna help me with that phone today?”

I had never done this before for him, but I had a phone of my own and I knew what he meant. I don’t remember if I even nodded in agreement or just never said no. I just got out of his car and walked back inside with a feeling of fear and nausea creeping over me.

___________________________________________________

The first call I got was too quick. I had been hoping I could just answer a few calls. Set up a few dates without actually having to see anyone. If I hadn’t needed the money I would have pushed back the time and made him wait. He seemed fairly simple on the phone. Over text, he seemed a little too direct with the questions, but I just brushed them off. I went downstairs and met the guy. Brought him back up to the room once I confirmed he was alone. I always try to be as safe as possible.

Once we made it back up to the room, I closed the door behind us and flipped the security lock on the door. My first clue should have been when he unflipped it. I had been absentmindedly making small talk and had only just become aware that I was showtime. I was uneasy with him after he unlocked the security lock. I didn’t take the money from him, instead, I let him set it on the nightstand. I sat down on the bed and kept talking. I was running my fingertips across my breasts with one hand and barely touching my bikini bottoms with the other when I was interrupted.

Who knows how much time passed during my flashback recollection of the day’s prior events? By the time I am snapped back into the reality of the here and now, I’m already in handcuffs and being marched out of the motel room wearing the skimpiest bikini I own. I’m hypersensitive to the eyes on me from all angles and possibly in danger of drowning from all the tears that were bursting from my burning eyes. It’s no wonder I couldn’t seem to remember if I had even asked them if I could put my clothes back on before they escorted me out of the room.

By the time we arrived at the jail, my head was swimming with all the ways I had imagined this playing out. At that point, I wasn’t even certain I was being arrested. After all, they had not charged me with anything yet. They did find drugs of some kind in the drawer of the motel room and in my purse, I’d had a little bag of weed with my pipe, but they had yet to officially charge me or read me my rights. I was holding out hope that I could somehow talk my way out of being arrested.

A cop took me to a room containing only a table with chairs on both sides and handed me an orange jumpsuit before he removed the handcuffs and left the room closing the door behind him. Against my better judgment, I pull the orange jumpsuit on over my bikini. I don’t think I knew which felt worse, being practically naked or wearing one of the jail jumpsuits again. As I sat in the chair farthest from the door wondering what they were going to want me to tell them, I tried to remember the name of the only girl I’d seen in B’s motel rooms before. I could barely even remember what she looked like and her name was a complete blank, but they had found a purse in the room that wasn’t mine and I recalled B had mentioned it was hers when I had first arrived at the motel. It was her phone that B had asked me to answer for him. He’d said she was out of town for a few days and that he just needed me to stall so he could go pick up a different girl to fill in for the few days.

This wasn’t the first time he and I had talked about me working for him. When I had first met him he asked me to come and work for him, but I had graciously declined and explained that I was already set up with established regulars and had no need for his “protection”. The topic was dropped and not brought up again until today. He had told me all he needed was for me to stall for an hour or two so he could go get another girl to fill in while the other was out of town. After he left, it was less than 10 minutes before I had to answer B’s phone.

I don’t know how long I had been sitting in this room when the door finally opened and in walked two men both dressed casually. One was a short, chubby man holding a stack of papers and the other was a tall, muscular man with a blank face that I could not read at all; but both men had badges, so I knew they were cops. I didn’t even get a chance to open my mouth before the short, chubby cop held up the papers and said, “You are being charged with one count of prostitution, one count of paraphernalia, possession of marijuana, and possession of a controlled substance. Do you understand these charges and why you are being charged with them?”

“No, I don’t. How can you charge me with a substance you found in a motel room that isn’t even in my name? You didn’t find it on me or even in my things. I thought possession was nine-tenths or something like that and that controlled substance was not in my possession.” I blurted out. Fear and panic were rising inside of me. All delusions of the possibility of escaping arrest were being destroyed.

“Whose name was the room in?” The tall cop asked, not missing a beat.

“I have no idea!” I replied truly clueless. “Can’t y’all find that out pretty easily?”

“She already asked for her attorney,” the chubby cop stated, “she’s not gonna tell us anything.”

I was surprised by his statement. I didn’t really remember asking for an attorney, but figured I might have forgotten a lot of recent events given all that’s been happening. I had no problems telling them whatever they might want to know. My only issue is the lack of valuable information. I decided to just hear them out and cooperate.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I have nothing to hide,” I blurted out.

I thought to myself, honesty is the best policy. Maybe they’ll take pity on me if I’m just honest with them. It’s not like I know enough to matter.

“How many girls does your pimp have working for him?” the short cop started in without hesitation.

“I don’t have a pimp. He’s my heroin dealer. This was the first and last time I was ever going to be answering his phone.” I told him looking him right in the eye. “I’ve only ever seen him with one girl, and I was under the impression she was his girlfriend. I don’t know her name. Hell, I don’t even know his name. I call him B. I doubt that’s his name.”

Frowning slightly the tall cop asked, “Who’s name is the room you were in under?”

I didn’t like how this was going so far. Definitely not how I’d imagined. “I don’t know.”

“Alright. Get up. We aren’t going to waste our time with lies,” the short cop said as he started toward the door. “You can go to a cell and see if it jogs your memory.”

Fear and panic rose inside me quickly. I felt like I was choking on it. I racked my brain to try and think of something to tell them, but I knew nothing. What was worse was they didn’t believe me. I didn’t stand. Instead, I looked at the tall cop, who seemed nicer, and said, “I’m not lying.”

Both cops just stood there looking at me with blank stares on their faces. I didn’t know what to say to them. I could tell I didn’t have long to think of something. Without much thought, I said, “The only involvement I had with B as a pimp was telling him how to make his ads prettier. He cut me a deal on some boi for telling him how I made the titles on my posts pop out with hearts, stars, and squigglys.”

Neither cop spoke. They both just blinked and stared. I was starting to feel very uncomfortable when the short cop said, “Okay. Excuse us for just a few minutes.”

Time crept by. I was sweating inside the orange jumpsuit. My mind raced as I tried to recall some piece of information that they might find useful, but I had nothing. Even the statement I had told them right before they left me alone wasn’t true. I thought of it though from the time B asked me how I made my post’s titles look like that. I remembered I told him it was just HTML code. He looked at me crazy and never mentioned it again. I wish I’d been brave enough to tell him I’d show him how if he gave me a deal. The shit I got from him was high-dollar as hell.

When the cops returned, the short one was holding papers and had a smile on his face which made my skin crawl. He began telling me, “In addition to the other four charges, we are also going to charge you with one count of second-degree human trafficking.”

My jaw dropped. I was sure I’d heard him wrong. “How?” I thought not realizing the word actually came out of my mouth as well.

The short cop's eyes never left my face and he began to recite the definition smiling ear to ear, “A person commits the crime of human trafficking in the second degree if a person knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture or engagement for the purpose of sexual servitude or labor servitude. Or if. a person knowingly recruits, entices, solicits, induces, harbors, transports, holds, restrains, provides, maintains, subjects, or obtains by any means another person for the purpose of labor servitude or sexual servitude.”

“You must be kidding. You know there was no human trafficking going on.” I yelled at the short, smiling cop. My voice seemed to come out louder than I’d intended it to.

Tears were welling up in my eyes making it hard to see the paperwork he handed me. It was a comically thick stack with all five charges. I stood up silently wishing I’d never tried to talk my way out of this. I must be the only person in the world to lie their way into a human trafficking charge I thought to myself.

The tall cop walked me to the women’s pod in the small city jail and up to one of the cells. I didn’t say a word to him or even look at him as I went in and sat on the concrete cot.

As he went to exit he looked back at me and said, “If you want help or to get out of this life think about going to The Wellness Home. They help women in positions similar to yours. I heard about them at a human trafficking awareness conference and they seemed like a good place that could help women in your shoes.”