Dear Soulmate
Ever since I was a little girl, I've imagined my Prince Charming. I dreamed of what our life would be like together. But too much has happened over the course of my life that I'm sure that I won't survive long enough to see our face and even if I do, I'm too tarnished for you now
I still think of you, often. You are so beautiful in my mind. You are strong and confident yet gentle and tender. Your compassion and your heart is, quite possibly, the one component that would be able to soften the hardness that has consumed me... if I were to embrace it. But, my darling, in all the years my heart - my soul - has known you and loved you, I know you deserve more than what I now am... and I couldn't let you settle for me
To be alive and be this empty, to be so cold is lonely and leaves me struggling to understand the purpose... why I'm still here, with no hope of knowing joy, happiness, and love. I know I can't last like this much longer...
and my love, although I have never seen you with my eyes, I have seen you with my heart almost all my life.
We've danced, we've laughed, we've done so much together - in my dreams
As I write this, I'm not sure... but if you do exist, I am sure I will never have the chance to know you.
Perhaps, someday, long after I die, this diary will find its way to you, and then you will have known me too
With love,
Your other half
Kidnapped
On one hand, I'm extremely glad you're dead... I don't have to run from you anymore. I don't have to constantly look over my shoulder wondering if you've found me or if you're going to take me again. But on the other hand, I'm very angry that you're dead. I think you got off way too easy. My kids and I still have to deal with all the pain and trauma you caused... and so do our loved ones as they deal with us and our issues
you frequently made comments or gestures that didn't make sense to me, almost as if you were making a pass or an inappropriate joke. However, that just didn't make sense given the nature of our relationship, so I figure I must have just interpreted it wrong. I've been known to be naive or too literal anyway. I realize now that those were red flags I should have paid attention to. Honestly, though, at the time I had no idea that you were simply grooming me and setting me up right from the start
I got up to leave, but you backed me up against the wall as if you were going to kiss me or touch me. I said don't. You didn't. You just stood over me, about an inch away from my face. I could feel your breath on me as you stared coldly into my eyes. I was really scared, john, and you knew it
You insisted and once again had that same ice-cold demeanor about you that scared me enough not to move. A few minutes passed by as you played AC/DC and then with a very rushed "thank you very much, good night" I hurried out of the car and into my house. I didn't realize how unsafe I had felt until I was safe inside... and it didn't make any sense to me
Within just a few weeks you had all my money - thousands of dollars - and you had decided I would be your wife. You had laid out a black dress and had for me black roses, you said it was much like my funeral, I was marrying the devil, after-all
I think the only thing I was happy about was the fact that your penis was broken. You never could make it work, and for that I was thankful. But that didn't stop you... You would rape me with anything within your reach... knives, wood, sharp plastic... you would hurt me until I passed out. But for me, I was thankful you didn't get the satisfaction of doing it yourself. Instead, I had the satisfaction of knowing that your manhood was perpetually and eternally frustrated... no matter how bad you hurt me
I think your favorite thing to do was to make me think I was crazy. You would assign chores for the day, like putting away the folded clothes that were in a pile on the bed. It's a chore I've done for you numerous times before and you've taught me, by way of countless beatings, how you like your drawers organized: black socks with black, white with white, etc. I know to repot to you once I'm finished and move on to the next item on my very long list.
About 35-40 minutes later, you would come storming in, grab me by my hair and drag me down the hall into the bedroom. Pointing at the clothes, you'd yell "I told you to put the clothes away!
"I did!" I would cry. But there on the bed, neatly stacked were the pile of clothes. I was SURE I just put those away... but I couldn't argue with the fact that they were, in fact, right in front of my eyes. You beat me badly and left me to complete my chore. You were so smug.
Damaged, confused, and bleeding, I again put the clothes away, double checked that I really did do it, and went back to you to report for my next chore. You stormed in 35 minutes later dragging me be my hair back to the bedroom again, screaming so loud the windows were shaking "I TOLD you to put the clothes away! What is the MATTER with you?!?! You wanna get beat??" Do you remember john...? I said nothing. I saw the pile of clothes neatly stacked on the bed as if they had never been touched. You had me so confused
An hour after we got to the 'office', the police called telling me to come home. You sent me to the house alone. When I got there, no one was there. Just one cop. He would not tell me where my kids were. He didn't offer me safety. He didn't ask about my visible injuries. He only asked me if I was in any danger.
That was my change right there, john. I blew it. That was my chance. I was so scared of you. You had be convinced that you could fine me ANYWHERE. You had me believing that because you had been in and out of the prison system all across the country for more than half your life, that you were owed favors and that half of them were from the "good guys".
The cop again asked me if I was in danger, I froze. I'm not allowed to answer this question, so I said "I don't know." He gave me his card and said if I figured it out, to give him a call. Then he left me. That was it. You started blowing up my phone demanding to know where I was and for me to get back
You bailed yourself out... you bailed me out. I begged them not to release me to you, but well, they did.
I thought life was hell in the months up to this point... but as it turned out, these next few months gave hell a whole new meaning. You regularly behaved as though you believed you were actually the devil and the marks I still carry on my body hold those memories. You branded me as your property with your name and date and some other information, which I have had removed and covered up. The beatings were a cakewalk compared to the torture you were now putting me through... it is the things you did to me during these months that I have still not been able to speak of or even write down.
Honestly, john, it really hurts me so much that you have done things to me that I can't even say out loud... not even if I'm by myself. I can say that to you now, because there's nothing you can do to me anymore. I can be vulnerable and I can have a soft heart and I can feel my feelings because you can't hurt me with it.
Finally, that torture was over and you were put away.
For a few month, I was a zombie. I didn't know what to do... you had controlled my every move, I didn't know how think for myself. I was still scared that if I made a wrong move, somehow you'd know and I would be punished. For the first little while, I even came to see you in jail out of sheer terror that you had people hunting me
I spent the better part of 8 years running from you - it became my priority, my career. Staying steps ahead of you was what I was best at, knowing where you were before you knew where I was... I mastered my skill-set. When I found out all those years later that you finally died, I went into shock. I celebrated for one night. That was it.
I spent the next two years lost and confused. I didn't know how to live free. You had dominated an entire decade. In one way or another, my life revolved around you. Now... it was over. My skill-set was no longer needed. I had nothing to run from
For several years after your death, I found myself stuck in a world I didn't know how to get out of because that's all I knew... that what YOU trained me for.
I didn't know how to be a Person. [...] You took away my personhood and turned me into a possession, nothing more than a product to be used, sold or purchased, or thrown away. You programmed me in a way that cannot be undone - much like an abused dog will forever cower at a sudden movement, I too will always instinctually think 'product' first, 'person' second
I don't know why you are the way you are, john. I don't know if something happen to you in your childhood... or if there is a mis-fire in your brain. People ask me all the time why you did what you did. I think that is the stupidest question in the world. I have no idea why
And I Became
You should also know that I've been raped before, more than once, more than twice. So when you came over and began to touch me and take off my clothes, the fact that I was frozen also was not my consent. It was fear. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't say no because I was paralyzed by fear - fear from past trauma, fear from present trauma happening at the very moment.
This situation was brand new. I had no concept for what was happening. On the surface, it appeared that I was there by my own free will and was participating consensually (in illegal and unethical behavior, by the way). But truthfully, I felt deceived. I was not given full disclosure as to what might happen upon my arrival. I realize this makes me naive. Fine. That doesn't excuse what happened, which is non-consensual sex - otherwise known as rape.
I realize that from your perspective, it wasn't rape. You paid a $200 agency fee plus an additional $500 to have sex with Ruby. You got what you paid for. You had no idea that I didn't know what I was doing or why I was there or that I didn't want to be there. I don't know what kind of guy you are, or if any of that information would have made a difference to you.
But here's what happened after I left. I went home and stayed in my shower for THREE days. I didn't eat. I didn't leave the shower for three days. I drank water from the faucet if I was thirty. I was so ashamed with what had happened and what I had done... I kept trying to wash it off. When the water ran cold I turned it off until the water got hot again. I cried until I ran out of tears and when they came back, I cried some more.
I somehow had just become a prostitute
Can you imagine, john, your sister or your daughter in this situation? In a bad situation in life, she makes a bad decision and ends up here. What would you tell her? What would you want for her at this point?
Would you hold her and tell her it's over and that it's going to be ok? Or would you tell her that she's stuck with that label and she better get used to being a hooker? Unfortunately, I didn't have anyone to hold me or tell me it was going to be ok. All I had was you telling me to take my money and leave, as you lit a cigarette when you were finished with me. I suppose you were one of the luckier ones... since you got me at the beginning of my career, when I was fresh. How were you to know you would be the first of thousands that I would be sold to? Since you, I've hosted 11 years worth of men like you. My question is would you want that for your sister or daughter or your wife?
If you were less concerned with having sex with a strange girl who really wasn't named Ruby and you were more concerned with being a person, you might have noticed that I was nervous. You may have picked up on the fact that I didn't know what you were talking about. You may have paused long enough to talk to me as a fellow human being and as a result, our encounter could have ended with an honorable exchange. You could have had the opportunity to empower me rather than exploit me
The Royal Treatment
I had been drugged against my will before... but never like this. The drugs I had been given before were to make me sleepy and groggy. You handed me whole new situation - I had never been so high!
Can I just ask you... what makes you think it's okay to get someone high without their consent? You put so much cocaine inside me that before long, I wasn't able to make any kind of judgement about anything.
All I know is that three days later I came down.
I was with you for three whole days. I don't remember any of it. I assume you had me all my pimp to say I was done, otherwise he would have been looking for me. You bought me clothes (I know this because I was wearing them). I know we went to the Red Light Swingers Club because there was a stamp on my hand. What the hell happened there? Among the articles of clothes you bought e was an extremely large dildo... no wonder I was hurting and very sore. I do remember you had your driver drive me home, so thank you for that. You paid me well. But let me say that no amount of money is worth what you did to me.
I have no idea how many people I was with during that time. I don't know where we went or anything that I did. None of what happened is ok. I was raped. Raped by you and anyone else who you gave access to me. You used me and violated me by incapacitating my mind and my ability to choose.
What I am trying to say is that I am not a toy. No person is a toy. Even if you buy a person or pay for a person, it does not give you the right to do with them whatever you feel like doing. Their human rights are not suddenly null and void simply because you purchased them for sex. I don't care if you ARE royalty.
More than that, what does that say about you and anyone else who participated in those three days? Why do you have to drug a girl in order to have a good time with her? Is there no sober girl willing to enjoy your company?
I don't mean any disrespect, Your Highness, but I encourage you to deal with whatever issue that is inside your heart that you don't feel that you're worth genuine companionship with a woman
What's worse, john, is that you started an addiction to cocaine for me. I was so high for those three days you didn't want me to crash hard, so you have me enough to come down gradually. That was enough to start my habit.
Today, right now, I do take responsibility for all my drug and alcohol use over the course of my life... and I also take full credit for getting clean. But you are responsible for introducing it into my body. You are responsible for drugging me against my will. I never asked for cocaine or even thought of doing it before you. My experience with you taught me something: that it was easier to 'prostitute' when I was high than when I was sober.
Before you, I thought there might still be a way out of this mess I was in. After you, I found myself in a vicious circle; the drugs just so I could deal with being a hooker and pay my pimp, using my pimp so I could stay hidden and safe from the guy who was trying to kill me, hooking enough to make extra cash for the drugs... round and round I go
The Men in Blue
When you raided the house, took my children and called me to come home, I was hoping you would take me too. When you asked me i fi was in danger, I was scared. I was hoping you'd simply know that I was. Didn't you look at my face. Aren't you trained to observe? But you didn't notice the bruises and welts or you just didn't care. So, instead, I fearfully answer "I don't know" and you left me to "figure it out". My encounter with you only reiterated the message that my trafficker had been telling me: that the 'good guys' really were on his side. Were you?
Do you have any idea the baseline standard you set in that moment? I can't come to you for help. You're either not qualified to notice the obvious or you are too judgmental to care. I was technically the wife of a very bad man who was doing very terrible things to the children you just rescued. Thank you, by the way. But what makes you think your job was done?
When I was arrested side-by-side with my trafficker, as if I were partnered with him in some way, I was further victimized and everything that my trafficker had told me about the system just came true. Law enforcement can't be trusted. Government services can't be trusted. Three days had passed between the raid and the arrest of which the entire time he beat me senseless to ensure I couldn't talk. He convinced me that if I said one single work about anything to anyone or disobeyed him in any way, he would kill me and my children would grow up motherless. Since he took us hostage, he had followed through with every threat he'd ever made with the one exception of death (although he did play Russian roulette with a gun to my head, so there's that). Unfortunately, I trusted him to keep his word, now, more than I trusted you to keep yours
Let me ask you something, Officer, I know you saw me often, but did you ever actually see me? I'm wondering if you realized I'm a human, a person, a woman. Aren't you a cop? Isn't it your JOB to take care of people...not to exploit them? You didn't even see me, let alone treat me like a person. I was invisible to you. That bothers me
Are you aware that you just purchased a human being? YOU just determined my total worth. How does that feel, Officer?
How many times did you trespass on my human property? Do you know I cried while I moaned with 'pleasure'?
So anyway, you left... I stayed there, laying on the message table, covered in your sweat and oil, sometimes crying, sometimes just in quiet shock. I felt raped. I never said no. I never stopped it. But after being sold for sex for so many years, after all the damage that had been done in all that time. After having my will and self-worth beat out of me... saying no was no longer an option for me. I wasn't allowed to stand up for myself...because I didn't know what that even meant anymore. I had no value to stand up for. All I knew in this moment was that I had been hurt and I was powerless to stop it... Aren't you a cop?
This is the heart of a prostitute. She can't step up, she can't get out. The only thing she's good at is selling her body for sex. The only thing she's WORTH doing is selling her body for sex. Yet every single time she does, she feels raped, tarnished, violated, used and discarded. That encounter with you, john, confirmed for me that there was no getting out for me. I tried... and failed.
That is why we NEED men in blue... except you violated that need.
One day work was unusually quiet. It was mid-morning and we all felt the uneasiness in the air, when the front desk got a call. We were going to be raided and they were about 3 minutes out. That kind of information only comes from the inside. That's when I knew everything that was about to happen was worthless and no one was in any real jeopardy. All hopes of justice were AGAIN banished
I'm writing to every law enforcement officer or politician who participated in our sexual services and looked the other way knowing that they were participating in our trafficked lives. I'm calling out all the men in blue whose job it is to protect and serve but instead enslave. I'm questioning the moral value of those who feel that rape-for-profit is justified as long as it has the title 'prostitution' and feel entitled to treat those women as nothing more than a human toy. Let me ask you, when you go home at night, do you set your badge down and say 'job well down'
Creepy Guy
It was clear from the start you wanted the 'girlfriend experience'. I hated that. I preferred the one and done - you know, the in-and-out in five minutes or less guys. Those were much easier for me to handle... physically... emotionally. But you guys and you 'girlfriend experience'... the touching, the talking, the holding, the cuddling and snuggling, the kissing. You wanted intimacy. I don't have any intimacy to give you. This is a business deal...
I don't share about my personal life because you're a stranger to me. Then you say, 'but I'm a good guy. I'm not like the rest of them.' Then I lie and say 'I know, I can see that. But still... it's a safety thing." Then you say 'but I've shared with you all about me... you can trust me. Pleeeaaaaase... I really like you and I care about you. I'm different. I want to know you.' Blah, blah...
I need to point out that you are focused on your need to be needed, not my need for privacy. There was no caring about me in this conversation. You wanted intimacy. You paid me to provide you with intimacy. You extorted intimacy. I just want to be clear about what was happening here
So after you beg me to share details about my life, I 'give in' and tell you a pre-conceived lie that I have on hand for these kinds of situations. You're fascinated by it. Finally, with about five minutes remaining, you get your happy ending and are on your way.
I'm exhausted. I feel like you are a predator and I've just done battle for the past hour trying to keep you at bay
Crossing the Line
You didn't know how many pills I had to pop in order to just bring myself to you that night or how many bottles I drank afterwards to erase the memory of what we did.
So, I'm in this bind... all I want is to be done, but in order to be done, you need to do this thing. I knew you'd get your way, john. So, I begin to disappear...
While I move into position, and you get excited, I get my "turned on" character ready. In my head, though, I drift away. It starts. I am barely aware I'm even in the room. I can't hear you, I can't hear myself, I've completely disconnected from everything. I keep drifting further and further and further away. Nothing but peace fills my mind
This is really very serious, john. I was so traumatized that i worked myself into amnesia. Not only is this scary, it's dangerous. What if I had gotten into my car to drive home? What If I had just started walking around the city?
You would be devastated if you found out that your mother was a hooker.
You would feel dirty and betrayed if you knew that your wife or girlfriend had been a prostitute prior to knowing you.
You would feel like a failure if you learned your daughter was a sex slave.
Now think of the last girl you purchased... or think of me. I'm someone's mother. I will be someone's wife. I'm also someone's daughter
Price of Loneliness
For the first time in a very long time, with me, you felt visible again. You felt seen.
Now, suddenly, I was listening. Until that moment, I hadn't seen you. You were just another 'john'. Just another hour wasted in my life. Just a couple easy fresh hundred in my back pocket, which for me meant one more day I could stay safe. But you felt seen and I wondered why, with me - a prostitute - of all people, you would
You said that touching your wife was like touching ice. I bluntly told you I was faking everything with you... every single time. I wasn't actually trying to hurt your feelings, but I was trying to jolt you into the reality of our relationship: it always had been and will continue to be business-only. You didn't care. It felt real to you... and even if I was faking, at least I cared enough to fake it.
john, your obvious loneliness was the only thing that kept me from cutting you off sooner. Your loneliness is what makes me think of you ever now and then ever today. Not that I ever want to see you again... ever. But I wonder, how lonely does a man have to be to completely depersonalize another human being?
Every session you had with me, you needed to have your needs filled so badly that it never once occurred to you that you PURCHASED me, that you reduced my total personal value to a few hundred bucks... you never considered how inhumane that was. Your loneliness was so severe it made you blind
To all the 'johns' who used romance as a lure to lower my guard, making me believe I was in love and worse, that I was actually loved in return. My desperation to be chosen was used as a weapon against me, I was vulnerable in the worst way [...]
What I want to say to all of you, as you each play your part in this thing called trafficking, is are you aware, or do you even care, the damage you do to a person when you put a price tag on their forehead? Every time you sell someone at any fee, that's a price tag and we live with that. It does something to a person.
It's like taking a twenty dollar bill and consistently selling over and over for only twenty cents. How does the twenty dollars know it's worth twenty dollars anymore when people keep buying for only twenty cents
Prince Charming
You had been working me from the start. I told you on day one that I was a survivor; your tentacles began to wrap around me, but I failed to notice...love struck. I proudly had two years under my belt, but only two years... I was whole enough to see red flags, too raw still to guard against attacks. You preyed on my vulnerabilities, you groomed me like all the pros. You abused me in the most subtle ways. You isolated me from all my family and friends. I stopped all my hobbies. My whole world revolved around your next text and, if I was lucky, your phone call.
Being your wife became the reason I had survived my life of trafficking. If I wasn't your wife, then why was I alive?
You created that... and you knew I wouldn't leave. I didn't. The abuse got worse. Emotional and mental games got so intense that I resorted to self harm. I wanted to die.
How can you do that to a person? Knowing what I had been through? What is the matter with you? You kept blaming me, telling me it was all in my head, that I was creating problems. You told me things were my fault. You made me feel like I was crazy. But I wasn't crazy, john, you created this whole mess
DEAR JOHN, THE DIARY OF A PROSTITUTE: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31860000-dear-john-the-diary-of-a-prostitute
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