Chapter 23

“We have to call Sherriff Spaeth and report this.”

“You don’t have the right, and it’s not your place,” Pamela said to Colt seconds after they left Lindsay, still a disheveled mess, in their office/bedroom along with Jim, Kenzie, and Scarlett. Once hearing Lindsay’s account of what she had to endure from Sammy in recent times, Colt asked Pamela to step out to the hallway so they could talk in private.

“Sammy beat the hell out of that poor girl and came damn near close to choking her to death. She’s got bumps and bruises all over her body.” Colt’s knuckles coiled and bleached. “He needs to be reported and brought to justice.”

“I agree, Sammy does, and I’d be for it under any other circumstance, but if you report him, the police will do their investigation and they’ll wind up arresting Lindsay, too, for prostitution. I don’t want her to get into trouble.”

Colt glared at Pamela without blinking. “You want us to get into trouble ourselves? I don’t. Ever hear of aiding and abetting a criminal? That’s what we’re doing as long as Lindsay stays with us. We know she committed a crime, too, and it’s our civic duty to report it. Failure to report a crime is a fel–”

“Oh, shut up with your legal jargon!” Pamela shoved at his chest with both hands. “For fuck’s sake, Colt, Lindsay is not a criminal! And if you report her, or even Sammy, and she gets into any sort of trouble over it, even a tiny bit, I swear to God, I will never forgive you. Sherriff Spaeth would salivate at the idea at throwing one of our girls in jail. He’d probably destroy the key.”

“He’d also salivate over the chance of having our business license revoked and shutting the house down forever and putting you and I in jail.” Colt pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know if we have one slip-up, he’d do it. I don’t want to take that chance.”

“If anyone reports anything to Sherriff Spaeth, or any other lawman, either here or in Utah, it’ll be Lindsay. Not you. This is her decision. Not yours, not mine, but hers.”

“I know you care about the girl, Pamela, and want to protect her, but she knows the law, and she broke it.” Colt’s breath rushed out in a groan. “That is pretty simple, cut and dry. Why on earth should she not pay the penalty? When Lindsay was hired last year, we laid down the ground rules for working here, as we do for all turnouts, and she was warned about doing anything illegal, about our strict, zero-tolerance policy. She signed a legal contract.”

“Colt, again, I swear to you, if you –”

“I’m not interested in specifically bringing Lindsay down and having her sent to prison,” he interjected. “My sole focus here is Sammy. He needs to pay the price.”

“Not at her expense.” Wrinkle lines assembled on Pamela’s forehead. “You might as well report half the house then for turning tricks illegally because you know full well it happens. Scarlett, Mariko, Nicolette, Elisabeth, Sahara, Riley, Stacy, Julie. Hell, report me, too, because I used to turn them when I was a senior in high school.”

“Pamela, I –”

“I’m warning you, Colt: don’t you dare. It’s not your place.” She jabbed a menacing finger into his chest repeatedly. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

His brown eyes as cold as ice, Colt took a single, slow, deep breath, and nodded. “Whatever, fine. We’ll have it your way.” His nose twitched. “But if we get into trouble over this, too, and lose our brothel license, or worse, I’ll never forgive you.”

----

“So, let’s be honest here and stop sugarcoating this so-called profession and tell it like it is.” Suzi Singleton, a retired sex worker and current Pastoral Associate for Evangelization at Glory to God Catholic Church, located in Flagstone, sat across from Lindsay later that evening in the brothel’s recreation room. Pamela called the church two hours prior and specifically asked for Miss Singleton to stop by and have a confidential, one-on-one discussion with Lindsay while she decided what, if anything, would be the next step in dealing with Sammy. With an extensive background in the sex industry, Suzi made regular visits to Happy Ending Ranch and was always willing to lend an ear and/or offer spiritual advice to any working girl who needed it.

“I’ve had many clients, Lindsay, confess that the things they’ve asked me to do they’d never ask their wife to do because they respected her, or because she was the mother of their children,” Suzi said. “Some of the things I experienced as a prostitute included being urinated and defecated on and asked to do the same. I had clients with all kinds of fetishes – foot fetishes, bondage, spankings, men wearing women’s clothing, anal fetishes, domination while I was submissive and vice-versa, and role-plays.

“Many times, they asked me to be a little girl or play out the worst of fantasies. Men have grabbed and pulled my breasts until I cried. When I told them that they were hurting me, I was the one who didn’t know what I was talking about. I’ve been put in every sexual position possible and pounded until I thought I was ripped in two. I’ve had my hair pulled, been spit on, had my jaw dislocated, and choked.” The forty-nine-year-old cringed and made a face. “It’s a glamorous life, huh? All fun and games?

“I’ve experienced all of that because that is what those men paid for. Then there were the clients who came in on a Friday or Saturday night with their buddies and they all wanted a piece of me. So, either I saw one right after the other or they would all come into the room together, at the same time, and take turns in front of each other.

“The drunken and stoned clients wanted to party with me and if they couldn’t get off, it was somehow my fault, and the trouble would begin. Have you ever tried to reason with someone under the influence? In my experience, there’s nothing scarier than a man who’s intoxicated and then becomes angry. I’ve had clients who claim to be judges, to be lawyers, police. I even had a teacher who taught me in grade school come see me. Some of my friends’ dads were clients. I’ve been robbed at gunpoint, called a slut, threatened with death, given blowjobs until I puked, and bitten until I bled.

“This is not a moral or religious issue. This is an issue of exploitation and violence against women. You’re so young, Lindsay, so pretty. You have your whole life ahead of you. You don’t need to be doing this. You need to get out and find a new path in life, a new calling, while you still can.

“Did you know that psychopaths will first use prostitutes to experiment on before they move into society? That’s because prostitutes will not report them and are viewed as disposable people. The man you were with ... Sammy? The one who abused and mistreated you? I know him. I partied with him in the past, a long time ago. To me, even back then, Sammy had the tendencies of a psychopath. I never liked him, certainly never trusted him.

“I want more for the women in this industry. I want men to know that it is not okay to use and abuse another human being for their own gratification. But the sad truth is, prostitution will never, and I mean never, be looked at as a legitimate job. I don’t care what anyone tells you.

“Even if it was legalized in every aspect, imagine, Lindsay: an alternate universe where you were never a prostitute, never once considered it. In the future, your son comes home to tell you about the new girl he’s dating, and then you learn her profession is a prostitute. Do you think prostitution will ever be looked at as a stand-up job? Or your daughter comes to you and says, I have decided to become a prostitute, and you as a parent tell her, wow, honey, I’m sooooo proud of you. Seriously...

“I am so fed up with this pro-legalization side who claims to like what they do and that it’s empowering, or they get to make their own hours, or whatever their arguments are. There are several like that at this brothel – Pamela, Kenzie, and Nicolette, among others. First of all, I’d like to ask them if they’ve ever been exposed to any kind of abuse before entering the sex trade. If so, did they receive any kind of therapy for what happened? Did they come from a loving, two-parent home where personal values were instilled and were they encouraged to become someone? Did they end up in the wrong crowd?

“At one point I would’ve been for legalization because this was my normal. It was what I needed to do to survive. I was once your age, Lindsay. I was once you. If I would’ve admitted out loud that this was wrong and I deserved better, the shame and the guilt would’ve eaten me alive, therefore not allowing me to do what I needed to do.

“Now let’s talk about the empowering part. I’d never made large amounts of money so fast and in such a short time, and yes, I hated men abusing me, but the more money I made, the more I could justify why I was doing this.

“When men chose me in the brothel – I worked at this very same one thirty years ago, with Colt’s father in charge – it made me feel wanted and beautiful in the moment, but eventually I realized that they only picked me because I was fresh meat and they wanted to see how much they could get away with, or if I’d do things cheaper than the other girls. I also realized it wasn’t that I was more beautiful, or more attractive, but rather a hole for them to use.

“Over time, I felt dirty, and my mind started to change. I no longer trusted any man because more than half of my clients were married, and I really believed all men were pigs and abusive. I started to hate myself, too, but loved and needed the money, and felt I needed to keep doing this. Does that sound familiar? I’m sure you’ve heard almost all the longtime regulars here, if not all of them, say they continue to do this solely because they need the money.

“Back in the day, all the girls around me were getting high, and the clients offered me drugs, too, so even if you weren’t doing drugs before entering, you begin to. That’s already happened to you, you said, yes? Sammy introduced you to weed, to alcohol, and you’re not even twenty-one yet. That is wrong on so many levels.

“I started doing stronger drugs because I wanted to feel happy like the others instead of miserable. I wanted to stop thinking or, God forbid, I had a horrible client, and had to put on a smile for the next. So, it just made sense to numb myself. Drugs also gave me this boldness and openness to do more because I was so stoned, I just didn’t care.

“I have heard so many girls over the decades say they’re only going to do this so they can pay for school which they never finish. Or if they do, they still stay in the industry or say it’s only gonna be for a short while longer to make some extra money, but it’s never enough.

“I lost who I once was and became replaced by this new me who was provocative. I became desensitized to everything sexual and all the things men wanted from me became my normal when in fact it was degrading. I became angry and tough; I lost any innocence I had, which wasn’t much to begin with. Sex became my job, and I couldn’t separate real life from the fantasy life I was portraying at this brothel, at other brothels, and on the street.

“How do you separate your personal relationship? How do you go to work and become this toy and then go home and make love to your man? You don’t. Any sex I’ve had with my two ex-husbands, and any subsequent boyfriends, I acted the same way with them as I did with clients, and soon I lost me. Nowadays, I don’t date. I’m celibate. Even though I’m incredibly lonely, and there is this massive void in my life, I don’t plan on ever dating again.

“There has been so much damage done to not just my physical body, but my spirit and soul. Being a prostitute, for lack of a better term, broke me. Things have become lost forever and deep wounds have become ingrained in who I am. It took a lot of support and help to leave, and stay gone, and get better in all those areas. That’s where the church came in and, honestly, the church saved my life.

“I didn’t even realize how much damage had been done until I left and became sober. Then I was left to deal with the shame and mistrust and try to find that happy-go-lucky girl I once was. Sadly, she’s gone. She doesn’t exist anymore. So, I’ve had to learn all over again how to be me.

“Unfortunately, my story isn’t unique. I’ve heard this story hundreds of times. This is happening not only in third-world countries, but in our own backyard. It is time to stand up for our women and children and protect them before they fall prey to this dark world. This, Lindsay, is the dirty truth. I spent fifteen years in this so-called sex trade, and I can tell you, I went through hell. You need to get out while you still can – again, you’re young and have your whole life ahead of you – and you need to reconcile with your family. You’ve been through enough hell already with Sammy, but there is still time to escape before you become so lost in this nasty, seedy world, that you can’t – like a Pamela, a Kenzie, Nicolette, Scarlett, Mariko, and so on. Don’t sign your life and body over to an exploitative system that will chew you up and spit you out.”

Silence then fell between them, heavy, eerie, and chilling all at once, as Suzi’s words, her personal story, consumed Lindsay. Suzi watched Lindsay intently, but behind the mortification another emotion brewed. Guilt? Confusion? Trepidation? Suzi couldn’t put her finger on it, but whatever it was, it wasn’t positive. Had she gotten through to Lindsay? Was her argument convincing enough?

“How am I supposed to get out?”

“Easy. Leave,” Suzi said evenly. With no emotion, she just put it out there. Plain and simple. “Go home to your family with an open mind, an open heart, and tell them you need them, you need their help. Your parents may be disappointed in you, and they may be angry, but you said they’re religious and have a strong faith, and I believe they would welcome you back under the right circumstances.”

“And if they don’t?” I can’t go back to Citronelle.

Ever.

“You could stay at the church. Several prostitutes have come to me – they’ve come to the church – over the years to find refuge, to put their life back together. I’m all about helping the women in this industry because, obviously, I was once in it myself. So is Pastor Harris; he’s the one who reached out sixteen years ago and gave me a hand when I needed it most. Stay at the church as long as you need to. You’d always have a home with us.” She leaned back on the sofa and tilted her head. “Are you going to pursue any legal action against Sammy? Mike, you said that’s his real name? Are you going to file a police report? I suggest you do it in Salt Lake City instead of here.”

“I don’t know.” Swallowing the fear that leaped into her throat, Lindsay cringed. “Pamela and Colt said if I do, there’s a good chance I get arrested myself because so much money was exchanged between me and Mike, and it’s all easily accessible because of the bank records. I don’t ... I can’t go to jail.” She closed her eyes and shifted about on the recliner. “But I don’t want another girl to get mixed up with Mike, too, and suffer the same fate I did – or worse.” She covered her eyes and suppressed a cry. “I ... I don’t know what to do!”

“The ultimate catch-twenty-two for any prostitute who operates illegally, under the table. I know the feeling. Trust me, I do.” Suzi spoke quietly, calmly, despite the fact she desperately hoped Lindsay would do the right thing. Sammy was a monster and needed to be stopped before he hurt anyone else. “Afraid to report a john because you’d also be incriminating yourself at the same time. Keep in mind, though, that you’d only be charged with a misdemeanor and may get off, but Sammy would be hit with a felony, and he’d be knee-deep in trouble.

“Also remember, whatever we discuss tonight is off the record – it’s one hundred percent confidential, between us. I’m not going to run down the street after leaving here and recount our conversation word for word to the sheriff. I’m here to help you, Lindsay, in whatever way I can.”

“I know. And thank you.”

What was so wrong about staying at the brothel for a few months, maybe until the end of the year, and building up a nest egg? I’m not going to fall into this trap she keeps talking about and never find my way out. While Lindsay understood Suzi’s story and didn’t believe she embellished any of it, it was still Suzi’s story and not necessarily her own. I can walk away any time I want as nothing, no one, would force me to stay here. It’d be my decision.

But would she walk away? Lindsay was interested in righting the wrongs from a year ago and pursuing a bona fide relationship with Pamela. I should’ve never left the brothel and been more open, shown more interest, in hooking up with Colt too. After all, he and Pamela were a package deal, right? I like that Colt was so sweet to me this afternoon and said I could stay at the house as long as I wanted.

Plus, Lindsay didn’t believe that Pamela continued to work here, as Suzi claimed, because she was “trapped” too. Pamela is still here after all this time because she loves her job and she’s the freaking boss. In Lindsay’s mind, Pamela would always be at the brothel in some capacity or another. She owns it, along with Colt, and it’s their moneymaker. Those two were joined at the hip, always had been, always will be, and couldn’t function without the other. They’ve been each other’s shadow for thirteen years, twenty-four hours a day, and the only way Pamela ever leaves the brothel is if they decide to sell it.