Unwritten Laws of the Sex Trade

Street justice always comes to collect on its debts

I’m willing to bet that nearly everyone has been a victim of injustice in one form or another. Sometimes these injustices can be personal and extreme.

Abuse, sexual assault, violence — just to name a few.

I’m here to tell you that street justice never forgets a debt and always makes sure it gets paid. All you have to do is be mentally prepared for when it does.

I was never a bad person who did bad things but I certainly made some questionable choices in who I hung out with as a young person. I won’t sugar coat it — they were prostitutes and pimps, and even though I never dabbled in their industry I consciously chose to hang out in that circle.

As a high schooler, I had a best friend who dropped out of eleventh grade in favor of the more lucrative life of prostitution.

Jewel had been my best friend from as far back as elementary school. We grew up playing sports together, our parents knew each other, and we were best friends for many years.

I wasn’t the type of friend to pass judgment on her life choices and abandon the friendship so I still hung out with her from time to time, knowing full well what she had chosen to do with her life.

But spending time with Jewel meant spending time in her circle, which included other prostitutes and their pimps.

Some of the girls, including myself, were minors but we all obtained fake IDs so we could hang out in nightclubs. I was the youngest at seventeen.

The sub-culture of prostitution and pimping was dark but mesmerizing. Everyone dressed like a million bucks, they all had money, and most of them were willing to spend it on me. Although I had no desire to become involved in the industry, I quickly saw the allure in it.

Little did I know at the time, it was called “grooming” and that’s what they were doing to me. They were attempting to draw me into the lifestyle by flashing it in front of my eyes.

I was too ignorant to see it at the time so I just had fun and enjoyed my nights out with Jewel and her crowd, until one night when it all came crashing down.

I was no longer allowed to just be along for the ride. It was time to pay up.

I remember it all as clear as day. Some of us girls were loitering on the street corner outside a club one night. We were almost ready to call it a night and I was about to go home when a car pulled up beside us.

One of the men who was part of our crowd got out, I thought he was coming to join us in conversation. Instead, he was coming straight for me and before I knew what was happening, he grabbed a fist full of my hair and dragged me toward the car, shoving me into the back seat.

Jewel wasn’t with us that night and the other girls didn’t even react to me being dragged off. I don’t recall hearing any of them asking what the hell was going on.

Of course, they knew.

Inside the car were three dark men, only one of which I knew. Before I could say or ask anything, he swiftly punched me square in the face and my lights went out. I remained conscious but my lights were completely out. All I could see were fireflies dancing around in my vision.

That wasn’t the only punch I received in that back seat while the car drove to a destination unknown. I was coherent enough to realize we had hit the highway and at that moment I thought my life was going to end.

I foreshadowed my entire fate during that long drive, imagining I was about to be dumped into a ditch on the side of the highway and left to die — or try to save myself.

They didn’t dump me anywhere. Instead, the three men drove me to another city, three hours from home, checked me into a hotel room, and that’s where I stayed for a long time.

Only one of my abductors stayed in the room with me for what felt like an eternity. I never saw the other two men again. The one who stayed never hurt me again. Instead, he made sure I was well fed and entertained with TV, but I was never allowed to leave the room.

I didn’t fight the situation, I just behaved and did my time quietly in that room.

Occasionally, a Lebanese man would drop by to visit. He seemed a lot friendlier than my captor but he still didn’t do anything to save me. I remember wondering how he could think this was all okay. Surely he could see my bashed up face. Why wasn’t he doing anything to help me?

The purpose of his visits became clear one day when he showed up and told me I was coming with him now. Apparently, I had been traded. I was a commodity, a debt that needed to be paid between the two men.

I went with him quietly hoping to avoid any more beatings.

The Lebanese man turned out to be very nice, in spite of who he was. I knew he was also a pimp and knew that eventually, he would put me to work for him. But in the meantime, he treated me with kindness.

I visited his mother’s house for homemade Lebanese dinners on more than one occasion. The food was incredibly delicious and she was very pleasant. I assumed she had no idea what was actually going on so I kept my mouth shut.

The only displeasure I experienced with the Lebanese man was sex. He wasn’t forceful about it but I instinctively knew I should comply. I was only trying to save myself so I let him have his way with me.

Soon, the day came when I was required again, to pay some invisible debt. His niceness didn’t come for free.

He sat me down and went over the rules of the street I would be standing on that night. He told me how much all my services were worth, dressed me up in a hooker-nice outfit, and dropped me off on a dark corner in a strange city.

My mind reeled at warp speed once I was standing there, alone and free for the first time in weeks. Rather than thinking of the horrendous acts I’d have to perform with strange men who might approach, I was thinking this was my one opportunity to escape.

At the same time, I couldn’t let go of the thought that the Lebanese man would likely set me up to see if I would try getting away. Surely he would send a car around as a decoy to see if I’d beg the stranger inside it to help me.

The first car stopped and I decided to take a chance at saving my life. I got in with the stranger, spewed my story, and he was dumbfounded. The poor guy was just trying to get laid and ended up with a kidnapping victim in his passenger seat.

I cannot begin to imagine what must have run through that man’s mind but I suspect that rather than become an accomplice to my abduction, he thought better of it and chose to become my hero.

I will never, ever forget the kindness and bravery of the stranger who took it upon himself to save my life that night. He went way above and beyond the call of human duty and I will be forever grateful.

He drove three whole hours back to my own city, stopped at a gas station to buy food and drink, dropped me at a hotel and paid for a night so I could sleep. I didn’t want to be dropped at home because I was still afraid that this was a setup and I didn’t want anyone to know where I lived.

At one point, while I was in that hotel room someone knocked on the door. I laid in bed, paralyzed with fear. Was it the kind stranger or was it the pimp?

To this day I’ll never know who knocked or why, and I never saw the kind stranger again, nor did I get his name.

Two and a half decades after this twisted little segment of my life, I am an average, everyday, happy woman who has led a very normal life. I have a family, a career, and a clean soul.

I never allowed those incidents from my past to affect me after they occurred. Instead, I just carried on, chalking it up to being a stupid girl who put herself in the middle of stupid situations.

Although I never tried seeking justice against my captors, in the end it turned out I didn’t have to.

One evening I turned on the news and heard a name I knew.

It was the name of the man who had abducted me twenty-three years earlier. I zeroed in on the TV screen with laser-sharp focus. Nothing could prepare me for the news I was about to hear.

My assailant was found beaten to death inside his own garage.

As I sat there motionless, a high-speed freight train went barreling through my mind and derailed. My own thoughts at that moment rattled me to my core because they were ugly.

The only thing my mind could conjure up was, “Karma is a bitch and you got what you deserved, mother fucker.”

I shuddered at the thought that I was okay with hearing another human being was beaten to death. I was completely fine with knowing he was dead and I hated myself a little for being okay with it.

As if that news wasn’t freakish enough, a couple of years later I was rocked with more news about the Lebanese man.

Through pure coincidence, I ended up working with and befriending a young lady in her twenties. She had the same surname as the Lebanese man so I casually asked if she was related to him.

Indeed she was related — he was her father. She then went on to tell me that his life had been cut short some years earlier as a result of his unsavory lifestyle.

When she asked how I knew him I just told her that I’d met him many years ago and he seemed like a nice guy. She already knew what kind of man he was, who was I to rub salt in her wound?

I imagine there are plenty of women who have similar or even worse stories in their pasts. Many of us choose to sweep them under the rug and move on with life, confident that we’ll never have to face the ugly details again.

By choosing to not let my abduction define me, I was able to lead what I consider a normal and fulfilled life. But ignoring it meant that justice could never truly be served.

Until it was — twenty-three years later when karma chose to serve it for me.