"What did Chris teach me?…well he taught me nearly everything I knew."

I am about to celebrate my seventeenth birthday in one week, and it has been approximately four months since Chris brought me to live with Brenda's girls. I'm not the youngest, but I am the least skilled. Chris is the only man I have ever kissed, my first boyfriend. At this point, I have pardoned him…for everything; and with all the customary naivety of a teenage girl. After months of being told over and over again, it had finally sunk into me:

"I did this for you." Chris embraces me, and then gives me a once over. He smoothes down my wavy hair and hands me a water bottle.

"I love you." I declare, watching him walk away, hoping he'll turn around and assure me the same. He simply nods and turns his head around slightly to wink at me before turning the corner.

It's my big day. My first day…on the job.

All the girls are proud of me. They say I've learned so well…so…quickly.

A redhead talks to me while I wait for Brenda to show up and take me to the hotel. She says this night, is going to make Brenda about a thousand at least. There are about four or five classes of women and girls under her watch. And I, being a…you know what…am held at highest value.

After tonight, my price goes down significantly.

Or so the battered looking red-head says.

"Elle, what'r they calling ya nowadays?" She inquires, lighting a cigarette from her pack and offering me one. I turn her down, shutting my mouth hurriedly and breathing through my nose to keep from coughing. I haven't started my habit as of that moment, but by the end of the month, I will have picked it up. Every girl here has a nickname; I'm not exactly familiar with mine yet.

"Um, nothing official yet. Brenda should tell me sooner or later."

She nods, smiling a smoker's smile at me. She's a veteran I can tell, she has a medium-sized scar decorating her chest a ways above her left breast. It is just visible, peaking out from her halter. Someone did that to her. The way it curves and indents in her skin, it's like someone had marked his territory there. Her eyes are sullen and I see there are stories upon stories to be told just by staring into them. She reminds me of my mother, but then again, every worn, defeated woman I meet does.

"Just be careful." She warns, noticing my staring at her battle scars. Because that's what we do after all. Every time we go out, we're risking our lives. At the end of the day we are war torn and emotionally damaged. But no fight is won without tribulation.

"I don't know how us younger ones end up here…" I whisper. "I-I mean, I don't belong here. I should be…studying or something. Going to a school football game, maybe. I'm sixteen." I confess.

"Then leave. If you really feel that way honey." She tells me pitifully.

"I can't. Trust me…" I look around, feeling watched. I lower my voice significantly. "I would run if I could."

"You can." She reassures.

"No." I shake my head. "It's really not simple. Chris wants me to be happy…to have things. To go places, see the world! He said I can't do any of it if I don't have a job. And he's right."

She smirks knowingly. "Your man huh?" She looks me in the eye. "Do you honestly think this is all you're good enough to do? Me, I'm not educated, I grew up in a group home, lived under abusive foster parents…this is all that's left for me. You? You're a trip, sweetheart. You've got brains, charisma…you could be anything you wanna be. You're too good for this, that's for sure. Don't ever let some idiot MAN tell you somethin' different." She puts out her cig, stamping on it.

I stew on this, nearly crying. "I can't go home. I haven't got any-"

She hushes me, diving into her purse instantly, and pulls out probably all her earnings for the night. She counts it, "Three hundred…fifteen…here you go kid." She hands me the money folded. I shake my head furiously.

"Oh no, please keep your money-"

"I insist."

"Won't you be in trouble?" I ask.

She laughs. "With all the business out here? I'll have made all of it back and more in three or four hours."

She offers it to me again, and I hesitate once more before finally accepting her generosity.

"How can I make it up to you?" I sob, wiping under my eyelid, trying to fix my liner.

"Live on the right side of the road." She says simply, nodding goodbye as a car pulls up and a handsome business man beckons her over from behind his tinted windows.

-

Instead of waiting out my fate, I turn back and sprint back to the building where the girls sleep. I hide the money in the waistband of my skirt and layer my top over it in concealment. As fast as I can go in heels, I make my way to the room at the end of the hall to grab my things. I try the knob, and find to my intense frustration, that it is locked.

"Shit!" I rattle it again.

"Baby is that you?" says a groggy voice from inside.

I freeze. I didn't think anyone would be in my sleeping quarters.

"Uh…" I hear the door unlock as I back away.

The door swings open, it's a woman. Another one of the girls. I sigh with relief.

"Oh damn, I'm s-sorry, I guess I confused the rooms. I was taking a nap in here…"

I shove past her into my room, the girl is clearly drunk and I have no time to stand around. I grab up my bag, and begin throwing things into it. Déjà vu engulfs me as I see myself in the same frantic routine four months earlier in my mother's house. Packing wildly, not having a clue where I'm going.

Just as I prepare to remove my heels in exchange for my beloved sneakers I have hidden under a floorboard from Chris- speak of the devil.

Someone begins pounding on the door. I look up to see drunken girl grasping the knob, and opening the door to reveal a very flabbergasted Chris.

"Melina! Get the fuck out. Your room is the next one." He orders drunken girl.

She rolls her eyes before stumbling out in her stupor.

"I'm gonna ask you once." He slams the door behind her, locking it. "Why didn't you wait for Brenda?"

I'm a terrible liar. "…I had to pee."

"Oh I'm fucking sure! That's why you're in here, with your shit in a bag-" He pauses to laugh spitefully. "You're even pathetic enough to have Melina be your lookout?!"

"Actually…" I stop when it hits me. "Wait. You can remember some bimbo's name, but you can't ever remember mine?"

"Who. Gives. A. Shit?"

I close my eyes, shaking my head with a sigh. "You know what? Fuck y-"

My head turns swiftly to the side, a sharp stinging pain blankets one side of my face, I can feel the heat from my blood boiling under my skin. My head spins, I'm delirious for a second.

"There's more where that came from if you don't get your shit together, grow the FUCK up, and go get in the black BMW that's waiting in the front."

Without thinking, barely comprehending how hard he's hit me, I comply. Covering my mouth to hide my sobs, I scurry towards the door, not noticing when a twenty dollar bill falls from my waistline.

He notices. "Woah woah woah. Stop right there."

I freeze, not yet knowing what I have done.

He bends down, picks up the twenty and stares at it, as if some abominable thing, come to demean his power over me.

"Come here and tell me what this is." He orders.

I fold my arms humbly, inching towards him with as much fear as humility. Praying no more hidden money slips from under my skirt. He approaches even closer, we are nose to nose.

"Where did you get this?" He murmurs maliciously.

"I-I" I can't speak. His hands grasp my arms and he lets the money fall. His grasp trails down to my wrists and he shoves me towards the wall, slamming me against it. I feel the thumping pain in my head as it hits the wall, I yelp. I feel his warm breath against my neck. Then I inhale, smelling the marijuana on him. He's high. I write this whole thing off because of it.

"I really fuckin hope you didn't earn this cash." He reaches down and under my shirt, pulling out the rest of the money. He stuffs it in his pocket.

"W-what if I did?" I toy with the thought of it.

He chuckles. "Then I would have to take back what's mine."

"Me?"

"Exactly. You're mine." He gropes me, grabbing at my chest and pulling at my hair as he presses his mouth to mine sloppily. I have yet to think anything of it. I am a fool-headed, love-sick, teenager.

'He's high' I tell myself, 'He really doesn't know what he did before. He didn't mean to hurt me. He wouldn't do that intentionally. Ever.'

-

"It didn't lead to anything. He made me leave with Brenda." I rose from my seat and opened the medical bag on the counter. It was time to give John his medication.

"I wanted to sleep with him that night. But he…let go of me and told me that he couldn't… because I was already paid for." I exhale; it was still painful to relive.

John didn't speak for a long time; I had to check if he was still awake. He was, but was merely contemplating everything I had told him.

"This woman Brenda…" He exhales deeply, removing his air mask to speak. "This was her birth name?"

I paused. "Yeah. Brenda Meeks. I got to know her really well."

John asked me for a piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote, and then folded the paper. I was preoccupied with mixing the proper meds for him. I turned with his tray of medicine, food and water; to see him holding the precisely folded paper out to me.

"Should I read it?" I asked, setting the tray down a moment.

"It's for Detective Hoffman." He informed. "I would like you to deliver this to him."

I hesitated in taking it from him. Once I did, I wouldn't be able to turn him down.

"Mark and I…we…we stopped speaking." I confessed to a nonchalant John.

"It's something I would like you to help me with. Do you accept?" He pressed.

I didn't stop to think. "Of course." I took the paper from his hand and without reading it, shifted it to the other hand and continued holding onto him.

"Don't ever think I wouldn't do anything for you." I assured him. I saw his demeanor lighten, and his grip on my hand felt less relaxed. Losing my equanimity, I leaned swiftly down, and embraced him. "I owe you everything." I sighed into his ear, nestling my head against his shoulder.

-

When John slept, I slept too. But this night, I could barely begin to close my eyes. John's given me an opportunity to see Mark again. I couldn't fathom why if he already knows about the falling out we've had; and why not Amanda?

I rolled over in bed, took a deep breath and swallowed my pride with great force. In the morning, I would pay Mark Hoffman a long awaited, unexpected and undeserved visit.