Chapter 20: The Transformation

The villa in Pattaya was far more luxurious than the walk up room I had grown used to. Tasteful decor, white walls, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, the scent of lemongrass and incense and salt heavy in the air. But I moved through it like a naked ghost, serving Uncle Eight’s every whim, his private little sex slave. Each morning, I woke before him, my hollow eyes tracing the same crack in the ceiling as I prepared his coffee – strong, no sugar, just how he liked it – kneeling to polish his shoes with a cloth until they mirrored the sky, massaging his feet with coconut oil while he scrolled through news on his phone, thumbs digging into his arches as he sighed in pleasure. Drugs coursed through my veins as a rotating cast of business partners and triad soldiers used my body constantly.

At night, I would crawl onto the bed to suck him soft and slow, my tongue tracing the vein underneath. I rode him with my ass high, budding breasts bouncing, taking him deep, my asshole clenching not from desire but habit – this is how you survive. I memorized the way his skin smelled: salt and tobacco, the sound of his breath hitching when I swallowed, the taste of his precum bitter on my tongue. It wasn’t love. It was arithmetic: his pleasure was my survival.

Then one night, after a glass of wine, deep ruby, velvety smooth, he toasted me “To my health, and to my new life.” I sipped cautiously, noting the odd sweetness beneath the fruit – too sweet, like cough syrup. I smiled, nestling into his chest, the Ecstasy from earlier making my limbs loose and floaty. Almost happy, I thought, traitorously. Almost safe. Then the world tilted. The lights of the villa blurred into smears, the ocean’s roar became a distant thudding, and my tongue felt thick and clumsy in my mouth. I tried to sit up – something’s wrong – but my arms were lead, my head lolling against his shoulder as he helped me lie down. “Have a good rest, Maxine” he murmured, his voice sounding far away, muffled as if underwater. “I’ll take good care of you.” Darkness swallowed me whole, the last thing I felt was his hand sliding up my thigh, fingers brushing the cage’s edge, and the sickening realization: This isn’t rest. This is them taking what they want while I can’t say no. Then nothing. Just the velvet dark, and the distant, echoing clack-clack-clack of mahjong tiles in a Hong Kong parlor that felt like another life.

I woke up to a throbbing that felt like someone had taken a hammer to every inch of my flesh and then set it alight. My breasts—two swollen, tight sacs of silicone—pressed hard against the bandages, each pulse sending a sharp, burning flare straight to my nipples. My ass, once just a boyish curve from endless squats, now felt like a dense, aching mound that throbbed in time with my heartbeat, the fat they’d sucked from my waist and shoved into my cheeks making every shift a fresh wave of pain. My face was a mask of puffiness; I could barely feel the shape of my own jaw, the new double eyelids pulling tight like rubber bands, the nose straightened to a point that scraped the inside of my nostrils with every breath.

My wrists and ankles were bound to the frame of the bed with soft, white straps that bit into my skin just enough to remind me I couldn’t move. The mattress beneath me was a cloud of memory foam, so plush it felt like I was floating on a sea of cotton, each sigh I took making the foam sigh back, cradling my bruised body in a weird, almost comforting hug. Thick gauze wrapped me from neck to toe, layers upon layers like a mummy preparing for a tomb, the edges scratching where they met the raw skin of my throat and the tender swell of my chest. My lips were cracked, dry as old biscuits, and my voice came out a hoarse rasp when I tried to speak.