December 3rd
Chapter 3 — The Clients
Kateryna didn’t cry when they took her food away. There was no point.
She sat on the edge of her bunk, hands resting on her knees, while the others filed out towards the small kitchen where the smell of potatoes wafted from. No one said anything. Hunger was a private shame here.
“Bad review,” grunted Mace. He’d delivered the verdict earlier with all the ceremony of a parking ticket. “Client says you were cold and detached. You’ve been fined thirty quid.”
The fine would be deducted, like everything else, from the so-called debt she owed — the price of her transport from Ukraine, her ‘board and lodgings’, and the fake papers they said she was lucky to have. Fines were also levied if the girls refused to do something a punter requested. For the first few weeks, Kateryna had resisted demands to perform what she considered ‘unnatural acts’, until she realised her debt had increased. It was an amount they’d never let her repay. Not in this lifetime.
Kateryna had nodded once and gone back to cleaning her fingernails. She didn’t need to defend herself. They didn’t care.
Now, hours later, her stomach curled in on itself like an animal left in the cold. The meals were awful but tonight any food would have been a feast. The fine just added insult — a quiet reminder that she didn’t even own the right to be hungry.
She had eight more appointments to get through and, ironically, the first one required her to be cold, detached and disengaged.
‘Statue Guy’ met her in Room Four, a stark white space with mirrors and harsh lighting with classical music playing on loop.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, reverently. “Don’t blink. You’re marble.”
He took ages. At one point he wept softly and kissed her ankle.
When she finally twitched, he hissed like she’d stabbed him.
“I said don’t move.”
When her stomach grumbled, he stormed out without leaving a tip. Not that she got to keep tips — those belonged to Mace.
Santa was next. He lumbered into Room Five dressed in a stained red velvet suit and polished boots. His false beard stank of whisky and breath mints. He’d just put in a shift at a children’s Christmas party.
“Ho ho ho,” he chuckled, undoing his trousers. “I’ve a present for a girl on the naughty list.”
Kateryna forced a smile despite wanting nothing to do with his North Pole.
He left a crumpled ten-pound note and told her she had made it onto the nice list. Mace pocketed the tip.
The evening dragged on, tiredness and hunger gnawing away at her.
After her last appointment, she sat on the bed, arms wrapped around herself. Her stomach was cramping now.
There was a knock at the door and Mace entered.
“You’ve another client. Room Nine.”
Her heart sank and she blinked at him. “But I’m done for the day.”
When he shrugged and said nothing, she said, “Who?”
“You know him. The neck guy.”
Her throat tightened. The bruises hadn’t fully faded, and even swallowing tea still hurt.
She stood slowly, head light. No food. No strength. But still standing. But behind her eyes, a plan burned quietly.
Soon, she’d make them pay.
