Trafficked: The Terrifying True Story of a British Girl Forced into the Sex Trade by Sophie Hayes Page A

dropped me off at the bottom of the hill and I walked up the road to Kas’s flat, I was so tired I could hardly think. Kas was waiting for me and when he’d counted the money I handed to him, he said, ‘Three hundred and fifty Euros is okay for the first night, but after tonight such a small amount won’t be acceptable. Monday to Wednesday, you need to be earning at least six to eight hundred Euros; a thousand or more on Thursdays to Sundays. Now go to bed. You look terrible.’ Then he threw the money on to the table beside the sofa and turned up the volume on the television.
    I think I’d been with 10 men that night, which, to me, seemed like a very high number indeed. But although I was disgusted by what I’d done, I think I’d almost hoped that Kas might praise me for having earned as much as I had. In fact, though, his criticism didn’t really matter, because by that time my mind had shut down so completely that I don’t think I was capable of feeling anything at all.
    In the bathroom, I pulled off the ridiculous knee-high boots, the shapeless black mini-skirt and the horrible top and stood under the shower, feeling the water cascade down on my head and watching it swirl around my feet before disappearing into the drains beneath the city. I still hadn’t moved when Kas came into the bathroom and as he stood watching me silently, I felt a sudden surge of emotion and begged him, ‘Please. Please , Kas, don’t make me do it again. I can’t.’ I was exhausted and I didn’t care if heshouted at me or even hit me. But I hadn’t anticipated the intensity of his rage.
    Without any warning, he flew across the room, grabbed me by the throat and started banging my head against the tiled wall of the shower. I was gasping for breath, taking in great gulps of water, while Kas was screaming at me, ‘Who do you think you are? You do not question what I tell you to do. How dare you question me? Have you failed to listen to a single word I’ve said to you? Do you not understand that it isn’t your place to tell me what you can and can’t do? You will do what I tell you to do. This is the way it will be from now on. You don’t even have to think for yourself: you simply have to do what you’re told.’
    I was choking; it felt as though my lungs were filling up with water, and when he loosened his grip for a moment, I began to gasp as I tried to catch my breath. I was still spluttering when he grabbed my throat again, slamming my head back against the wall and shouting, ‘You fucking try and do anything and then you’ll see what I’ll do to you. If you try to go anywhere or tell anyone, I’ll kill you.’
    When he finally dragged me out from underneath the shower, my lungs felt as though they were bursting and there was a tight band of pain across my forehead. But as soon as I could breathe enough to be able to speak, I whispered, ‘I’m frightened. I don’t want to be out on the streets. If I have to do it, can’t I do it in a house?’
    â€˜Are you fucking stupid?’ he yelled, punching the side of my head with his fist so that I would have slipped andfallen if he hadn’t already twisted his fingers into my wet hair. ‘Is there anything in your head except sawdust? Do you think someone wants to hurt you? Why? Why would they bother? All they want to do is fuck you.’
    After that first night, I worked seven nights a week, from eight in the evening until five or six in the morning. I would have, on average, about 25 customers every night – the minimum was 18 and the most, one night, was 34 – and it wasn’t long before my spirit was crushed. I was so weary that nothing seemed to matter and I didn’t care whether I was alive or dead.
    Sometimes when I got back to the flat in the early hours of the morning, Kas was angry, and sometimes he talked to me almost normally about himself