The Traffickers

Excerept

As El Gato approached the bed, [Ana] saw something fall from his hand, then heard it make a soft bump as it hit the wooden floor. Ana suddenly curled up defensively in the fetal position. Then, when he grabbed her by the collar of her T-shirt, the two younger girls back-crawled off the mattress to a dark corner of the room.

"No . . ." Ana softly said, and whimpered in anticipation of what was about to come.

Breathing heavily, Juan Paulo Delgado hovered ominously over her. Ana smelled the alcohol on his breath, some beer probably and what had to be tequila. She could visualize his cold hard eyes in the dark even though she could not clearly see them. Then she heard him grunt-and saw his right arm in silhouette suddenly swing back, then forward, his palm finding her face. As she recoiled, her T-shirt ripped in his left hand.

"No mas! No mas, por favor!" she cried out, wishing that this all was just another nightmare. But she then felt the sting of his backhanded slap, and she understood with painful clarity that this was building to be the real thing. Again.

"You fucking bitches! Every one of you!" Delgado yelled in English, then swung again, this time striking her with a balled fist. He switched to Spanish:

"I helped you, made you family, and how do you repay me?"

Ana looked away from El Gato, trying to hold her small hands to her face as protection.

"You want to see your cousin?" he went on in Spanish, and hit her again.

"I take you to Rosario! I'm through with the both of you!"

Ana began to sob. She did not understand; for months now she had been doing the disgusting work for El Gato, selling her body to repay her passage debt-and now her room and board-to him. As had Rosario. And it was not Ana's fault that Rosario had had enough and finally run off. Though Ana knew that it was futile to try to make that point now.

El Gato again cursed her, and her cousin, then hit her again. The salty taste of sweat on Ana's lips now mingled with a metallic one-and she recognized the warm sticky fluid as her blood.

As El Gato yelled-there was a furiousness in his voice that she had never before heard, even during the other beatings-she silently prayed, Holy Mother of God, please make him stop.

But he began striking her repeatedly, the sickening thuds of his fist on her face triggering whimpers of sympathy-or fear, or both-from Alicia and Jorgina, who were clinging to each other in the corner of the bedroom.

Then she stopped sobbing, made an awful groan, and went limp.

And Ana Maria Del Carmen Lopez's prayer was answered; he stopped beating her.

Alicia and Jorgina, fearful El Gato would turn and unleash his fury on them, tried to silence their whimpering. They watched in the dimness as he walked back to the doorway, picked up what he'd dropped on the floor, then returned to Ana.

Copyright (c) 2009 by William E. Butterworth IV