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

and his life. At the time, it never crossed my mind to doubt whether the things he told me were true – I believed them without question, just as I believed everything he said. But looking back on it now, I don’t think he ever told the truth about anything.
    He said he was 17 when he started smuggling – first, people from Albania to Italy, then guns, and then drugs from Holland, until he realised there was less risk involved in simply dealing drugs within Italy itself. He claimed to be the biggest drug dealer in the area, and told me, ‘I almost always work on my own. Other people are stupid and get you into trouble, so it’s better to rely only on myself. That way I know I’ll be safe.’ He stroked my hair as he added, ‘But you, my little mouse, I know that you will never let medown. I know I can trust you. You won’t get me into trouble, will you?’ And as I shook my head and whispered ‘No’, I felt a small, bizarre thrill of pleasure at the thought that perhaps, despite everything, he really did love me.
    Sometimes, when he threatened me and told me what he’d do if I disrespected him, I’d say to myself, He’s just angry because I made a mistake. But he won’t do that. He loves me. And each time he hit me and shouted, ‘What’s the matter with you, woman? I don’t know what your problem is. What I’m asking you to do is just normal. Why are you so stupid?’, I’d cry and hate myself for always making mistakes and getting everything wrong. Because I knew that Kas’s anger with me was justified and he was right: I was far too stupid to deserve to be loved by anyone.

Chapter 7
    I hadn’t been in Italy very long before Kas had changed everything about me, until there didn’t seem to be anything left of Sophie – at least, nothing I recognised and could connect with – and I’d sometimes stand in front of the bathroom mirror and not be able to see my reflection at all.
    Although I did everything Kas told me to do, it seemed that, however hard I tried to get things right, I always did something wrong. And as even the smallest, apparently most insignificant mistake would send him into a rage, I was always frightened. Most of the time, I walked around like a zombie, with my mind almost completely empty, because I quickly learned that if I didn’t think, I didn’t feel so much, and then I was less aware of the profound senseof misery that otherwise stayed with me every minute of every day and every night.
    I never spoke unless Kas spoke to me, and when he asked me simple questions that I couldn’t answer – usually because I was too anxious to be able to focus my thoughts – I told myself he was right and I was becoming more stupid with every day that passed. Before long, I could barely think or act independently, although that didn’t really matter because all I needed to do was work on the streets every night, force down as much as I could of whatever food Kas banged down on the table in front of me, and then sleep until it was time to get up and start the whole thing all over again.
    On the rare occasions when I went out in public with Kas, I had to wear a tracksuit and a cap pulled down over my eyes so that no one would recognise me and so that I wasn’t able to look directly at other people. Above all, I wasn’t allowed to look at men. According to Kas, one of the two friends of his who I’d met at the café during my first weekend in Italy had said afterwards that I kept looking at him in a suggestive way. ‘I didn’t . I swear I didn’t,’ I told Kas. But he hit me and shouted at me anyway, until I began to wonder if perhaps I was wrong.
    After that first weekend, I slept alone in a single bed in Kas’s bedroom. Sometimes, he’d wake me up and make me lie with him on the sofa in the living room while he stroked my hair and called me his