RIDING THE WRITERS' WAVE

April Sunday and all forum members:

Not only am I still writing, I’m 39K into 5-15k story. There is no way I can trim that much. I am forced to admit that I’m novelist and not disciplined enough to write short stories. This one is more therapeutic than anything else. There is no other way to describe a long XGC rated piece.

It started with research for a multi-POV, testosterone filled novella I plan to write in October. After reading Selling Olga by Louisa Waugh and riding in the Rosarito to Ensenada bicycle ride, I was taken aback by the proliferation of Virgens and other chain strip clubs in the Rosarito area. The New York Times article, The Girl Nextdoor and San Diego Union articles further piqued my interest. I theorized Mexican Drug Cartels set these clubs up as training ground brothels for trafficked women and girls.

Then my research went flat. Almost all literature on human trafficking focused on Eastern Europe. If any forum members have anything for me to read about trafficking in Baja California, I’d be grateful.

My current story takes Carol, an American former mistress to an Armenian mobster, through a common trafficking route backwards: Tirana, Bulgaria, Belgrade and Odessa. As a plot contrivance, I put her in Ankara. There she is in a better brothel. Unfortunately, this goes counter to the purpose of this piece and all my Ankara section may be cut. A liked this scene, so I thought I’d share it here. Excuse it’s rough fdraft state:

Scene: The Bedouin, Ankara, Turkey.

Carol’s naked body stirred over fine linen sheets. An odor caught her attention. She sniffed her right arm and inhaled scents of roses and jasmine. She looked up and marveled at billowing white mesh forming a canopy over her. A warm wind pushed in from her right. The walls of her room reacted to each ebb and flow. She rolled over, pushed aside some mesh and stared. Large colored sheets stretched from floor to ceiling to ceilings center. Red, brown, orange and green triangles of cloth formed a tent of color inside her room. Only the doors, the window and the solid floor betrayed the illusion.

Carol lifted a pitcher of water with crushed rose petals and mint leaves from a nightstand, poured herself a glass of water and drank. She spotted another door to the back of the room, opened it and stepped inside a modest bathroom equipped with a clawed foot bathtub, sink and modern toilet.

After relieving herself, she entered her bedroom. Her foggy head convinced her it was all a dream, and a dream demands sleep. She pushed aside an opening in the canopy, climbed over the side of the bed and lay down face first.

Evening embraced her, and she dreamt of washing waves and course sails. Hunger gripped her stomach. She smelled warm bread and opened her eyes to a third image of billowing cloth. The canopy sways and walls undulations seemed familiar, but two legs shrouded in colorful scarves intrigued her.

“The sun and I welcome you, my sister.”

“And you are?”

“Jasmine,” she smiled.

Jasmine helped Carol sit up. She poured her a glass of rose water. As Carol drank, Jasmine pulled up a chair, sat and reached over to a nightstand.

“You slept for over a day,” Jasmine said. “You must be hungry.”

Jasmine presented Carol a plate of warm pita bread and a bowl of washed dates and figs. Carol munched at a piece of pita wondering which was brighter: the morning sun peeking through tent flaps exposing a balcony or Jasmines white teeth set against her dark gold skin and raven hair. A smile escaped from Carol’s lips revealing a gap in her teeth. Jasmine’s reaction snapped Carol’s smile shut.

“We will see Dr. Wasef after we shop for your new clothes,” Jasmine asserted.

“We’re going shopping?”

“Yes. Father said he rushed you here without allowing you a chance to retrieve your belongings,” Jasmine explained. “He wishes me to buy you some clothes. A gift to compensate you for your loss.”

“Yeah, right,” Carol quipped, “how much debt will that add?”

“So you speak English?”

“Yes”

“Then you should know what the word ‘gift’ means.”

Carol let out a loud breath in preparation for a lengthy and difficult discourse of the effect of perspective of, let’s say a trafficked sex-slave, and the meaning of once familiar words. Jasmine interrupted.

“I know you have been through difficult times, sister. It is time to regard them as a nightmare and embrace a bright new day.”

“Where is my uniform?” Carol tried a new tact. “I can’t go shopping like this.”

“True,” Jasmine agreed, “please stand.”

Carol grabbed a fig before setting her meal on the bed. Jasmine measured Carol from ankle to neck with hand widths. Carol fidgeted when Jasmine measured her ass and outright complained while Jasmine cupped her breasts.

“Stand still, sister!” Jasmine admonished. “You want a good fit, don’t you?”

“You’re getting a little personal,” Carol warned. “Why can’t I wear my uniform?”

“Sail grime penetrated everything,” Jasmine said. “Your garments were so very filthy, we had to throw them into the fire.”

“Yet I am clean,” Carol boasted.

“We washed you in rose water,” Jasmine informed re-measuring Carol’s waist. “And rinsed your hair with lavender. You would have ruined your sheets had we not. Just now, I ran a sponge over you and dried you off with that towel.”

Carol looked at a chair by the wall. A large sea sponge rested atop a white bathsheet.

“I fear I woke you, my sister,” Jasmine apologized. “We thought you would sleep all week.”

Jasmine walked to the foot of the bed. A pile of scarves lay on top of a carved cedar chest. Jasmine examined scarf after scarf. Carol walked over to the balcony. The sounds of children’s laughter drew her closer. She peeked out. She saw a large courtyard divided into three sections: A patio, animal pens and dirt yard where several children played. A young boy looked up regarding her naked body. Carol ducked behind a wall cloth.

Jasmine’s laughter brought Carol to the foot of the bed. Jasmine held up a scarf bearing a green and brown leaf pattern with brown borders.

“This should suit you.” Jasmine held the scarf up to Carol’s neck.

“I’m going to wear this?”

“This and its mate.” Jasmine pulled a similar scarf out of the pile. “Wait here and I’ll be back.”

“Where would I go?”

“Perhaps another bath would do you well.”

Carol drew a bath. She examined several stoppered bottles of scented oils, but chose only the rose-scented one. She retrieved her plate of pita and bowl of fruit and enjoyed a luxurious breakfast bath.

She toweled of and explored her room. Jasmine returned. Two scarves, enhanced by a linen lining, formed a new summer dress. Jasmine held it up to Carol.

“See, my sister,” Jasmine exclaimed, “it is a good color for you.”

Jasmine, in the meantime, changed her harem outfit for a tight fitting white skirt, muted orange silk blouse, white waist coat and an orange patterned scarf. She watched Caroll don her dress and inspected.

“That won’t do,” Jasmine pronounced, “your nipples protrude even through the linen.”

Jasmine hunted through Carol’s pile of scarves settling on periwinkle patterned thin voile. She pulled down the top of Carol’s dress over her protests and bound her breasts. Carol reapplied her dress.

“Almost there,” Jasmine declared. She found a brown scarf and tied it around Carol’s waist.

Carol strode to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. After the first glimpse, she smiled and indulged in a couple of model turns.

“You can return in your new clothes,” Jasmine yelled from the bedroom door.

Carol strode out stopping uncomfortably close to Jasmine.

“Barefoot?” She accused. “You want me to go out barefoot.”

Jasmine smile, kicked off her white Adidas sneakers, picked them up in her left hand and presented them.

“You can wear these, sister, until we buy some for you.”

Carol grabbed the shoes and sat on her cedar chest.

“Great,” she mocked, “more expense to work off. And why do you keep calling me sister? Do all prostitutes here call each other sister?”

For the first time in their encounter, Jasmine’s smile diminished. A moment of shock overwhelmed her as she searched for a response.

“My father said, ‘There is much she does not know, and much she will never learn. It will take a wise woman to tell the difference.’ I can not tell if helping you was intended to test my wisdom or my patience.”

“Are you going beat me for testing your patience?”

“Beat you?” Jasmine appeared dumbfounded. Carol changed tact.

“There is much I know,” Carol asserted. “Despite my, um, station, I am a college educated woman.”

Jasmine’s smile returned. She pulled a chair opposite Carol, sat and leaned forward.

“Tell me this college educated woman,” she began, “When husband and wife travel alone in the desert, why must they travel as brother and sister?”

“Huh?” Carol’s faced twisted in astonished confusion.

Jasmine straightened. With measured voicing, she stated:

“When a husband and wife travel alone in the desert, they must travel as brother and sister. For the most part, the wife will be raped just the same, but… A husband must be killed before his wife is raped. A brother can be paid off afterwards.”

“Where did you get that?”

“It is the difference between education and wisdom.”

Carol thought for a moment. She heard this somewhere before but could not placed it.

“You said, ‘For the most part …’ What did you mean?”

“An good question, my sister.” Jasmine leaned in again. “This part is not often written. A wife knows the ways of love. No-one will think less of her should she use her knowledge to soften the heart of her assailant so he might replace the support now deprived her from the recent death of her husband.”

“Okay?”

“If a sister is maiden, shame is cast on the assailant. He will lash out and beat her for his misfortune. Is she is not a maid, her promiscuity cheapens his conquest. He beats her for his loss.”

“Why doesn’t she just tell him that she is really married?”

“Who would believe such a lying slut who is trying to get her brother killed?”

Carol laughed at the inescapable logic of the trap. Jasmine joined in her laughter. Carol attempted to find a loop-hole or exit. Her face reflected each twist and turn of the maze. At each dead end, she renewed her laughter. Jasmine’s smile beamed back encouraging Carol’s acceptance of womanly wisdom.

“So let me get this straight,” Carol concluded. “To prove her love, a woman must lie, endure rapes and beatings while her man reaps a profit.”

“Yes,” Jasmine ejected between laughs, “and saves his life.”

“Sounds more like a pimp and his whore than a husband and wife.”

Jasmine’s laughter ceased.

“The question is, ‘Why are they in the desert alone?’”

“Do you know?”

“It is written,” Jasmine intoned pedantically, “Isaac and Rebecca traveled in the desert when famine was in their land. One should only risk traveling in the desert alone out of desperation and isolation, without out support of a strong family, a strong tent.”

Sadness wept Carol’s face. Jasmine winced before forcing a smile.

“Come on, sister,” Jasmine prompted. “Let’s shop!”

A wry smile dominated Carol’s countenance. “And leave the protection of this tent?” She extended her arms and completed a twirl.

“Oh, sister! We’ll be safe!”