Trafficked: The Terrifying True Story of a British Girl Forced into the Sex Trade Read Free Page A

going out shopping together and then having coffee at one of our favourite coffee shops while we examined the latest fashion magazines. My mother always dressed beautifully and as a child I’d loved watching her getting ready to go out. I wanted to look just like her, which is partly why I spent most of my earnings on good clothes and always paid special – almost obsessive – attention to my hair and make-up. The other reason, however, was that my father’s constant criticism of me when I was growing up had left me feeling inadequate – not pretty enough, not clever enough, not good enough in any way – so I thought that at least if I was neat, tidy and ‘well turned out’, I’d know I’d done my best.
    Every weekend, Serena and I went out to nice bars and a club – it soon became a routine that only sickness or a majornatural disaster would have made us deviate from. But I wasn’t interested in meeting boys and having relationships – I had a deep distrust of men and was convinced that, on one level or another, they were all like my father. I just loved the dressing up, the dancing and the music, as well as the feeling that I was just like all the other young people who were out in the city centre having a good time. I was enjoying my life. But I suppose all good things have to come to an end, and when Serena took a job overseas for a couple of months, I more or less stopped going out at the weekends.
    I’d been feeling increasingly unwell for quite a while and eventually I had to go into hospital for some tests to try to find out what was causing the severe stomach pains I kept getting. I’d made a good friend at work called John, and after Serena left we grew closer and he came to visit me in hospital. ‘When they’ve found out what’s wrong and you’re better, we’ll go away on holiday together,’ he told me. ‘I’ll look after you. Just give me the chance to take care of you and make you happy.’
    What he was offering me was what I’d always wanted and had only ever had from my mother: someone to take care of me and to care about me. John was three years older than me and he seemed to want to look after me, which I think is what I needed at the time. My parents’ divorce had been miserable, and it was really nice to feel that, in the future, I’d have someone like John to rely on. He wasn’t confrontational or threatening in any way and he took charge of my life and made me feel safe, so I allowed himto break through the protective barrier I’d built around myself and, before long, I moved into a flat with him.
    I think I knew from the start that I didn’t really love John, although I tried to convince myself I did, because I really wanted to. In reality, though, he was just a very good friend and someone I felt comfortable being with. For a while, everything seemed fine and then, gradually, he stopped wanting to do anything other than go to work, watch football on the television and go out with his mates, which meant I ended up sitting on my own, night after night, just waiting for him. I desperately wanted to be happy, but it seems that, sometimes, the more you want something, the more the opposite tends to happen. I wasn’t even 20 years old and it was beginning to feel as though my life was slipping away. And then, just when it seemed as though things were about as miserable as they could be, Serena came back from working abroad and everything changed for the better.
    One night, when Serena and I were in the club we always went to, she leaned towards me and, shouting to be heard above the loud, throbbing beat of the music, said, ‘He’s watching you.’ She nodded her head almost imperceptibly in the direction of a group of uniformly dark-haired guys who were standing talking and laughing together at the side of the dance floor.
    â€˜Who? Who’s watching me?’ I shouted