Chapter 2

The next day Melissa told Russell she wanted to go out shopping and get her hair cut. She pulled fifteen hundred out of an envelope pinned to the top of a dresser drawer, hidden from Russell who had "borrowed" over eight hundred from her stash below her underwear in the top drawer. She left on foot and took a bus to a nearby shopping center where private individuals sold their cars. She had to take several aspirin the night before to get to sleep. She popped another couple now as the burning in her womb returned. Russell said he was going out to check on some more potential rich clients, that soon he thought they could be taking in a couple thousand a day, fifteen hundred for her. In another great acting job, she through her arms around his neck and said "yes, find me more rich men to fuck." She also knew that Russell could be off to see another girlfriend, having found a foreign lipstick container and underwear in his car. This she in part welcomed because it kept him off of her so much, but it also meant she was even more expendable.

Melissa bought a late eighty's Toyota for $1,100 with 190,000 miles; it ran well and the owner seemed honest. She bought a top, fluffed her hair, and drove home, parking around the block. If Russell wasn't there, she'd pack now and leave. She was gathering a bag of clothes when she heard the door, stuffed it in the back of the closet, and went out to meet him.

"Hey Babe, show me what you bought." Melissa pulled the short black tie-in-the-middle shrug out of the bag. "Let's see it on you. By itself." She pulled the tee shirt over her head and replaced it with the see-through shrug. "You are in the right business." He wrapped his hands around her skinny waist until his fingers almost met. "I got some great news. I showed the video we took of you to this very rich guy - one thousand for two hours in a fancy hotel tonight. We're on our way." She feigned excitement, accepting his kisses and gropes. "Oh, and I ran into Saul again, the tall gray-haired guy you've turned down a couple of times and he said to please ask you again."

Her breath caught in her throat. "What about all the rich guys?" she asked, not wanting to appear too agreeable.

"He's gotten us some good clients though. Might be a smart thing."

"All right. Whatever."

"I'll set him up for tomorrow evening."

Ten o'clock that night they pulled up to the side of a massive hotel in West LA near the airport. The last thing Melissa wanted was to be worked over by another strange man, but she couldn't let on to anything tonight. She was stark naked under a thin navy blue nylon rain coat that reached to mid-thigh, held closed by two buttons and a belt. Nevermind that it hadn't rained in a week. A pair of dress sandals for her feet and lots of make-up - deep eye shadow and bright red lipstick. The man she was to meet was in a suite on the eighteenth floor. She kept her hands in her pockets to keep the hem from flipping up to her bare crotch. The top was open in a vee to the first button, showing just the start of her cleavage. Bell boys eyed her as she walked by, but she kept her head up and walked on. On the elevator, a well-dressed middle-aged couple spoke little, eyeing her often. As they separated on the same floor walking around a corner Melissa heard the woman say, "Some escort service hooker no doubt."

She knocked on room 1816, smiling at the coincidence of legal age and her age. A handsome man in his forties opened the door and motioned her in. They shook hands. "Let's get this part out of the way," he said and handed her ten hundreds which she put into her coat pocket. He led her to the middle of the suite's living room. "Can I take your coat."

He hung her coat up and returned to look her over. "Very nice. Better in person." He walked around her. "I have two hours with you. I want to take my time and enjoy every inch of you, look at you, touch you. I'll ask you to pose in all different positions and I'll take a few pictures. When I ask you to, get you lipstick all over my cock, suck me off and swallow everything. If you do, I'll tip you well and we'll do this again, if you like."

Melissa had taken a double dose of pain killers to get through this job, but she was still relieved to not have anyone pounding into her very sore insides. The man touched her gently. So afraid of getting roughed up again, it took a half hour to start to relax. He stroked her slowly, speaking with great appreciation of his privilege to touch her. She posed standing, sitting, reclining, occasionally provocatively, but he appeared to be after something more subtle. When his fingers moved to her clitoris, she flinched. "Sorry," she said. He backed off. "Sorry," she repeated. Then, "I got hurt last night." As soon as she said it, she got a sick feeling that she shouldn't have.

"Did you tell the man who arranges for you?" Melissa didn't answer. "I see." He brushed her hair back from her face. "I don't have to touch you there. You in a tough spot?" Melissa shrugged. Tears tugged at her eyes. "I won't force myself on you."

For the next half-hour, Melissa applied all of her skills to pleasuring a man with her mouth. She licked, kissed and deep throated him, backing off to prolong his pleasure until his cock's tip swelled double and she worked her hardest to swallow the gobs of cum spewing down her throat. He pulled her up next to him on the bed and held her in a soft embrace unlike any other client, maybe unlike anyone.

He paid her an extra five hundred dollars which she hid in a coat pocket separate from the other money. When he turned around earlier in the evening to change the camera lens, Melissa grabbed a business card from a stack on the table. Back in the car, she gave Russell the thousand and he handed her five hundred back. "You always give me more than half," she complained.

"Not for the big stakes. You should feel lucky. Did he tip you?"

She lied. When they got back to their apartment, he held her down and searched her until he found the tip money. "That's money from before." He open-hand slapped her face.

"Lie to me again and I'll make you the star of a snuff film." She kept her mouth shut and thought of her car.

Russell stayed home. He jumped Melinda in the shower, fucking her slippery body against the shower wall; she grit her teeth against the pain, though it wasn't as bad as the day before. She told him she wanted to go out and get her nails done, maybe a facial, but he said to wait a day or two — just stay home with him.

Russell had set-up a nine o'clock "date" with the two men who mauled her just two nights ago. She couldn't go through with it again. Melinda wondered what Russell had planned, or if he cared how far the men went.

The sun shone bright through the gauze curtains. Russell flipped through channels holding Melinda tight across her shoulders. Less than four hours until he'd deliver her to two men that had tortured her only two nights before. "Do you think we could take a vacation next week? Go somewhere just the two of us?" she asked.

"Hmm? Yeah sure."

"Don't you want to take me to some tropical beach and see me in all kinds of barely there swimsuits?"

He looked her over, Melissa wearing only cut-off denim shorts and a sheer tube top, returned his gaze to the TV, and said, "You're a real piece of work."

"What does that mean?"

"You're a slut."

"Even when it's for you?" He didn't answer. "It just seems that we don't have much fun anymore. We need a vacation, that's all."

"Sure. You work hard this week, I'll take you somewhere next week."

His offer was pathetic, but she only wanted a small opening. She gave him a big kiss complete with a broad smile, waited a minute, then asked, "Take me shopping, or even just walking around. I'm going stir crazy."

"All right. I'll take you to the mall for a couple hours."

"Thank you. I'll get my purse and change tops."

"Why don't you just go like that?"

"Because I'm your slut, not the world's slut." Melissa shot into her room, pulled-out the bottom drawer to her dresser untaping the envelope of cash she'd managed to hide from Russell and hid it in an inner pocket of her pants. The key to her car she laid flat under a make-up pad. She pulled off her top, opened the closet, and buttoned on an expensive dressy black blouse about half-way up. If she couldn't pack a bag, at least she would wear something expensive for the escape.

"Wear the little pink one, I like you in that." She jumped around to find Russell standing behind her. "Why you so spooked?"

"I'm just excitied. You don't like this top?"

"Do you want to go or not?" She removed her blouse, dropped it on the floor, and slipped the spaghetti strings of the crop top over her shoulders, and fastened the one button at the base of her ribs. The cheap powder-pink polyester barely made it over her erect nipples. "You'll be easy to keep track of in that. All I have to do is see where all the men are staring."

"I'll be with you."

He led her hand-in-hand through the mall. She feigned interest in shoes. In a store with a male clerk Russell told her to try on a pair for the pleasure of watching the boy, barely older than Melissa, become visibly overheated watching the near naked girl bend over, the tiny pink top dropping off her breasts, and straighten in front of him, his eyes popping up from her chest.

How was she going to get free? They drank a soda. Broused a lingerie store. They only had a half-hour left. Maybe he'd let her go to the bathroom on her own. No, he needed to use it also. They walked down the hall to the bathrooms. "Wait outside the door if you finish first," he directed.

"Men are always faster than women," she replied. She entered the women's room, waited 15 seconds, and looked outside as a woman left. He was in the men's room. Melissa burst out and hurried down the hall, removing her high heels. At the end of the hall she looked back. The men's door started to open. She jumped out of view and ran. She would have a minute or two before he would check-up on her. She ran into a Mervyn's, knowing that it exited to the outside as well. Everyone noticed her. She slowed a little to make less of a spectacle, but everyone could tell Russell where the young blonde in the little pink top ran by.

Outside in the sun. She'd have to take back streets and hope that his confusion would give her enough time. Guys honked and whistled out their windows. Her breasts bounced wildly in the flimsy top, sometimes popping out. "Hey want a ride?" She waved them off or ignored them. None of them were offering to help, she knew that for sure. She had to make a mile and a half without getting found by Russell or grabbed by strangers.

The residential streets were easier. She hadn't exercised since she left high school, her breath coming in hot and dry, but she couldn't take any rest now. No sign of Russell's black Camaro. One hand with her shoes and one clutching her purse. She ran through a sprinkler for a dousing of cool. The man next door was hand watering. He openly stared at the shiny damp teen as she approached. When she was close he raised the spray, soaking her. "Fuck!" was all she said, looking up to see the grin on the old man's face. How she wanted to somehow embarrass him, but there was no time.

The pink halter clung like saran wrap over her breasts as they bounced with her steps. "Hey there, I'll be glad to take you where you want to go," a twenty-something white guy shouted out from his van. "No thanks," Melissa called out. He followed behind for a half-block, then pulled along side again, glancing at her frequently. "Your feet are going to blister, hop in." She didn't answer. He kept alongside, then pulled ahead about fifty feet. She saw the back curtain part slightly - someone else was in the back. Between the long run and the stalking van, Melissa's heart thudded vicious in her chest. A hundred feet up, the van stopped. The side door was unlatched and cracked open. Her car was twenty feet behind the van. She fumbled in her purse for the key, letting the compact fall to the street. Her hands shook. The door sprung open and she tossed her shoes and purse inside, the contents clattering onto the floor. Two men hopped out of the side door of the van. "Hey, let us help you," one of the men called out as they approached her car. The engine screamed into play. One man tried her door, but she had already locked it. "Go away!" As she started to back away from the car in front of her, the van backed up, blocking her in. She turned the wheel hard, backing into a garage driveway bordered by two six-foot wood fences. The other man stood in front of her car. "We just want to talk." The van pulled forward and into the street, then started back to completely hem her in. "I'm leaving." Melissa's car lunged forward, the guy diving on her hood and rolling off as she pulled hard to the left onto the sidewalk, her right back fender clipping the edge of the van. She bumped forty feet over concrete and grass parkway to the next driveway and bounded out into the street.

The van followed. Melissa took off fast, but didn't want to be stopped by police if she could just get away. What could she prove anyway? Out on the busy boulevard, the van pulled in three cars back. Since she couldn't leave with a bag of clothes and personal needs, she knew her first stop would be some kind of store, but all that was secondary now to losing her pursuers. That was close. If she wouldn't have bolted when she did they'd have had her boxed in. All they would have needed to do was break a side windshield and pull her into the van. If no one would have noticed ... Melissa was trembling all over. She brushed one tear away. How would she lose them? At the last minute she pulled onto the 405 heading towards Hollywood and theValley.

They were still behind her a few cars back, she thought; there was more than one van. Traffic was starting to slow at the beginning of the home commute. She cut into every space she could to put more distance between them. For twenty minutes she kept moving, but then began the stop and go, some lanes moving while some were dead. She looked to her right to see a sunglasses face staring down. He was in a van. Melissa's lane moved and the van put on a blinker, then forced its way behind her, right behind her. She swirved to the right into the vacated space as a car behind had to break to miss her. She pushed one lane over again and dashed down an offramp. They couldn't get over to follow. She sped onto unfamiliar city streets.

She drove fifteen minutes down the large streets, none of the dozen vans seemed to be following her. A man on a motorcycle stared down at her for an entire signal. There was a thrift store on the right and she parked behind it. She had to get into a different outfit; five-foot five, one hundred and nine pounds of mostly bare skin — legs exposed to the top of her thighs, belly from a hand-width below her navel to well into her side ribs, shoulder and neck dropping to a single button clasped at the base of her sternum exposing at least a third of her tits at all times, and only one strap for her entire back. The baby pink top had dried-out most of the way, but her nipples still showed firm. Clothes that could only be interpreted as someone wanting to be seen, to lure for sex. Three deep breaths to calm herself. She strapped her high heels over raw feet, brushed her hair, and limped in.

Everyone stared. Only a couple of elderly women looked away. Three Mexican girls about her age bantered wide-eyed in Spanish, the word for whore used often. The sixty-year old male clerk never removed his gaze. Melissa pulled out a couple of tee shirts, a baggy sweatshirt, and rifled through the jeans for her size. "Hey, what's up?" A latter day surfer in his early twenties with long dirty hair was standing about two feet away.

"Enough," she answered, pulling out two pairs to try on.

"Want a party? I got some real good stuff."

"I don't think so."

"Need something?"

"No thanks." She slipped into the dressing room, kept the jeans that fit the best and a tee shirt on, and bolted straight for the cashier. "I'd like to get these two that I have on and these extra two shirts. The shorts and top are what I wore in."

"I noticed," said the clerk. She slipped a twenty out of the pocket of her shorts as discretely as she could, but the clerk could tell there was a lot more. "Payday, huh? Time to get out of your work clothes?"

Melissa found a dress-for-less store and bought some sandals, underwear, a short black skirt, and two dressy tops - one draping very low in front. She kept a few twenties in each front pocket and the majority of her cash locked in the trunk in her shorts. Next came a drug store for make-up and cleaning supplies. Walking back to her car, she was amazed at all the white vans. Of course some were older or a different brand than her pursuers, but she couldn't really say which ones were exactly the same. More importantly, none seemed to be following her.

Nighttime. Take-out from a supermarket and a half-gallon of soda would do for dinner. She took her dinner to a cheap motel near the Hollywood Freeway. The only single-bed room left was the back corner by the freeway for forty-two dollars. Famished, she ate most of the chop suey and drank 7-up until the bubbles made her burp. She'd made it away from Russell. Two men would have to torture some other poor girl now. Tomorrow she'd look for somewhere to live and figure out what to do. Still too wired to sleep, she went to the office area to buy an LA Times and start the search for apartments. She also found a San Fernando Valley paper. She stood by the paper stand flipping to apartments in the flood light - dozens of them. One paper under her arm and the other folded open, she ambled back to her room, stopping to read another add under strong light. She slid her key into the electronic lock, the light blinking green, and popped the door open. An arm wrapped around her neck collapsing her throat, shoving her into the room. Papers flopped to the floor as she pulled at the muscled arm. He spun her around to receive a fist from another man slamming into her stomach. Her arms dropped and the fist again buried deep in her gut. She went limp. Her attackers pinned her on the floor, stuffed a sock in her mouth, and synched a wide cargo strap around her mouth and head until no air could go in or out. Lights came on, curtains checked, door locked, and TV turned to wrestling. A gasping inhale through her nose brought her conscious to find her arms lashed to the bed frame. She looked up at four men. They yanked her jeans and underpants off and tied her legs wide open. One leaned close. "What happened to your little pink top, huh? Fall all the way off? Almost got away didn't yuh? The next off ramp wasn't very far though." The man from the van. "We're gonna fuck you good."

He took a knife out, cut her shirt from the neck to the bottom seam, sliced the arms, and threw the pieces on the floor. A soft whistle. "Damn." "Sexy little cunt."

"And we got all the time we want."

Each man rammed harder than the last, twisting her nipples, sucking her neck, slapping her thighs, and jabbing her sides. They bounced on the girl with all their weight until their cocks swelled against the tight little vagina and exploded gobs of semen into her womb. The second guy shook the two-thirds full 7-up and jammed the neck into her pussy, the carbonation stinging like ants as it washed out the last man. They got such a kick out of watching her jump at the flush that man three had to do it as well. The fourth guy donned a "tickler" condom and hammered into the girl for nearly a half-hour while two of the guys watched a football game. The other man wrapped his hands around Melissa's neck and said tell him when to strangle her. His dick felt like a barbed stick ripping her insides. "Now," the last rapist said as he shoved his long cock as deep as it would go. The other man squeezed her throat closed, releasing when her eyes began to roll.

Melissa woke with the four men hovering. One took a fist of hair and lowered to her ear. "You listen real good. We're gonna let you live to be fucked again. Get a good night's sleep and leave in the morning like nothing happened. You call the cops and one day you'll never know what hit ya. Because you won't get us before one of us gets you." They untied one arm, removed the mouth strap but not the sock, and left.

She hurt terrible. For most of an hour she dry sobbed. It took a half-hour to undue the knot holding her other arm. Her stomach muscles were mush - she couldn't sit up. Slowly she forced her way up with her arms and undid the leg bindings. She shook with chills and pulled the covers over herself. Waking terrified in the pre-dawn she crawled to the TV and shut it off, then locked the door, and crawled into the shower, sitting on the floor while the warm water drenched her.

Finally warm, she shut the water off, wrapped herself in the scrawny towel, and managed to stand. In the mirror she traced the damage - several rough hickies, red-raw breasts, a large stomach bruise, and several small ones down her sides and legs. Her vagina burned. Her throat felt like hands were still locked around it. The sickening thought came to her that Russell would be glad for what just happened to her as punishment. Melissa crawled under the covers, too tired to think.

She woke up to the maid banging the door open the three inches to the security chain. "Sorry." 11:20. Checkout at noon. She didn't want to move. I'll just pay for another day, she thought. Then the horror that they knew where she was jolted her. She had to leave - find another room to recover.

Moving was excruciating. She had to get dressed, but she hadn't brought anything into the room except a few toiletries she had just bought. Her underwear and top were shredded. She pulled her jeans on, finding that they had stolen the few hundred she had put in the pockets. The car keys lay under newspaper on the floor. Holding the little towel over her breasts, she went outside to her car. All that was left was the pink top, the cut-offs with about $1,500 in the hidden pocket, and a sweatshirt. She grabbed the latter and slammed the car door. A man came out of the room two doors down, stopping in his tracks to stare, a mix of disgust and desire. "Don't you dare come near!" Melissa bolted back in her room, locked the door, and pulled on the sweatshirt. It was all she could do to get it over her head and down. She gathered her toiletries and newspaper and left the hotel.

Melissa drove a half-hour north into the valley before looking for a motel. When she found one, she drove past it and wandered through neighborhoods making sure she wasn't followed before returning. The woman behind the desk stared at the hickies on her neck. "If you have any visitors, we'll throw you out." Melissa looked over her shoulder before entering her room. She left most of the cash hidden in the car and hid her keys in the room. After another shower, she went to bed wet.

Melissa woke in the dark, viciously thirsty and weak with hunger. She drank two cups of water and edged the curtain back. Not early evening, too quiet. A few cars on the highway. No clock in the room to inform her. She could see a Denny's about a hundred yards away. "We'll let you live to be fucked again," she remembered the prediction from last night. She wasn't going to go out in the middle of the night.

TV depressed her with the stupid comedies and stories of the lucky. She lay awake huddled in the flimsy covers, tired of crying, aching for safety. She was completely on her own now and her body couldn't stand being taken by another group of men. The option of showing-up at her mother's door was quickly dismissed. Somehow she had to get a place that was safe, preferably alone or with a woman who didn't have men over, men that sure enough would pursue her. She could pose as a college freshman. There was enough money for a first and last of something very cheap. After that she'd see about work. This was some fucking bad dream she'd wake-up from sometime, she told herself.

Her hunger being worse than the ache from the punches, she got up long before check-out, showered again and drove the block to Denny's. In her sweatshirt and jeans, the looks she got were more of a question; people wondered who this weary looking girl was. She drank three cups of coffee and ate half of an omelot. "You okay?" the middle-aged woman at the register asked. Melissa shrugged, felt tears welling, and left.

She bought a paper and read it in her car, parked in a well-used supermarket parking lot. She realized that June wasn't a good month to pose as a regular student, but she thought of the summer school excuse, having just finished high school. Most she weeded out by price, location, or sharing with others. She found a converted garage studio behind a house for $700 a month, first and last plus $300 cleaning. Knowing she was $200 short, she called and set-up an appointment anyway. Melissa bought a blouse and dress slacks. It was slow and painful to change clothes in the dressing room. She put on make-up to cover hickies and bruises.

The owner was a fifty-five year old divorced nurse with a married son who didn't ask Melissa for references. The only rules were no noise that could be heard outside after ten and no smoking. The woman let her run $300 shy for a week, leaving Melissa $94. The small studio room contained a single bed, chest, armoir, small bathroom and cabinet, kitchen sink, microwave and two burner stove. She bought sheets, a towel, and a blanket, at a second hand store. A few toiletry necessities and she was under $50. And hungry. She avoided eye contact. At a super market she bought a bag of salad, loaf of bread, and jar of peanut butter.

She gagged down the dry sticky sandwich and stuffed her mouth with a handful of greens. Looking around her barren room brought out two tears. She wiped them away, made the bed, and got in it, still dressed.

For five days, Melissa rested her sore, beat-up body. She drove to a mall everyday so as not to alarm her landlady, though she only saw her to wave once. Twenty dollars of gas and the same for food left her with less than ten. Her cunt was still raw and her belly hurt if she straightened. The bruises had yellowed. In two days she would owe $300 and three weeks later $700 and she had nothing. No regular job could keep her afloat and she was in no condition to sell her body. She was also terrified of propositioning men on her own; if the first man didn't beat her up, or worse, the third or fourth man would. She found the card in her wallet from what seemed a year ago and called Darin.

"How did you get my number?"

"I took a card that you left on the table."

"I don't want you ever to call me."

"Please, I need help. I don't know who else..." Melissa choked up.

"Where are you?"

"In the Valley, in a room I can't afford after today."

"They said you ran away for more money."

"They beat me up and he was going to let them do it again."

"Can you meet me at seven? Give me your number and I'll call you right back."

"Let me look at you," Darin said. Melissa lay back on the king-size bed of the motel room and let a man she barely knew open her blouse and pull up her skirt. "Jesus."

She told Darin of the gang rapes and beatings. He listened with only occasional shakes of his head, handing her fresh tissues as needed. She recognized the look of desire in his eyes, but he didn't move on her. Not that she could have stopped him; she didn't have the strength to even yell for help. When she finished her story, he sat beside her, and put his arm around her. "Here's four hundred to get you through for now. Meet me back here three days from now at the same time. Until then, be very careful. Don't try to turn any tricks. It's obvious how vulnerable you are right now. Men that like to hurt girls will pick you out in a second and stalk you. You're in no shape to pleasure me now. Go out the way you came and hide out for a couple days."

Three days later, wearing less than three ounces of a used lycra stripper dress she found second hand, Melissa got on her knees in front of Darin and sucked him fast and deep until his swollen cock shot a mouthful of cum into her otherwise empty stomach. Melissa barely made it to the shopping center next door where she was parked before vomiting the salty white load. He paid her three hundred, as he would three days later, the remainder from her advance, before resuming the five hundred dollar payments.

The third time she came to him, in a different motel, Melissa was naked under her coat, as requested. Darin backed her onto the bed and pushed his way in. She was still sore and his condom burned, but she held her breath and urged him on. She needed him, or at least his money. And he knew it. At least he didn't want to beat her up.

Five hundred twice a week with no one to split it with. She paid the rent, bought clothes. The water pump went out on her car requiring nearly a weeks pay. The mechanic looked her up and down and probably overcharged, Melissa suspected, maybe hoping to exceed her finances and gain other types of payment, but she let it go and handed him the cash.