Willow

“Just breathe,” I whisper, staring in the mirror at my reflection.

I didn’t recognise the person looking back at me. The woman in the mirror is broken, and all the makeup in the world couldn’t hide the truth.

Thick mascara coated my lashes, which I was told would make my caramel eyes pop. Bright red lip stain coated my lips, an attempt to make them look much fuller than they are. The thick foundation covered the bruise on my left cheek because, Goddess forbid, someone should see that.

My blonde hair had been tied back in some fancy updo to show off my face, to draw attention to my slender neck and my decent-sized breasts, because that’s what the men like to see. They liked knowing what they were buying to ensure nothing was wrong with their goods.

The woman in charge of my makeup places her cold hands on my shoulders. I turn, letting her check to ensure that everything is okay. Her green eyes are just as sad as mine; regardless, she smiles. “Perfect.”

How could anyone call this perfect? I try to speak, but her eyes widen, a warning to keep my mouth shut.

She squats down, smoothing out the red dress that clung to my frame, another desperate attempt to draw all attention to me.

I look at her shaking hands. I don’t even know her name, just her number: twenty-one. She was older than me, maybe in her forties; it was hard to tell. She was someone who never found a way out, but I will, even if it kills me.

Twenty-one had moved on from being auctioned for the night and was now one of the boss’s playthings. Her job was to make us look presentable and to hide any sign of abuse.

“Shit,” she tuts. Fiddling with the chains around my ankles. “You are bleeding again.”

I look down at my bare feet; it wasn’t much blood, but enough to piss off the boss and the manager.

“Sit,” Twenty-one tells me. “This is going to hurt!”

She pulls out a needle and thread and holds the needle over a candle flame. Grabbing my leg, she tries to push the chains further up and gets annoyed when they don’t move more than an inch. Pinching my skin, she stabs me with the needle, quickly weaving my skin together.

“Just be grateful it is on the inside,” she sighs.

“But it doesn’t hide the burns, does it?”

Twenty-one glances at me and barely shakes her head. She quickly cleans up the blood and tells me to stand. She adjusted my dress again until it clung to me in all the right places.

I hated it, but that was what they wanted; it was always what they wanted. I lost my rights when I agreed to come here. But if I had known how bad it was, I would never have done it; I would have found another way.

“Two six three, you’re next,” The manager shouts at me. “There are a lot of men here tonight. And they all have deep pockets. Don’t fuck it up!”

I wasn’t the one who fucked it up last time. The asshole was the one who tried to kill me, not the other way around.

I decided not to respond to the manager. She doesn’t care anyway. She is here for the same reason as the others: a high-wage packet, but the likelihood of her seeing it was less than zero.

The manager grips my elbow, pushing me towards the stage. A dark glare is shot in my direction. I knew that if I didn’t walk out there this time, I would probably never walk again, that’s if they didn’t kill me.

Coming here was not an easy choice. It was and still is my biggest regret. But I had to do it; I had to save my family. I had to do everything I could to keep them alive.

“Two six three!”

I carefully climb the three steps as a shiver takes hold of my spine. My eyes drift to my feet to avoid tripping over the chains around my ankles. Looking back, I see the girl behind me is already crying.

She was barely eighteen, and from what I could gather, her parents sold her to these bastards. I wondered if the parents knew what the boss and his team did to us. I wondered if they truly cared or if they knew that we would spend a life of being abused and raped. And that was if we were lucky.