Scarlet and Pale

Author’s Note: This is just a fictional account based on “Internet horror stories” and a desire to have a what-if plan in place, especially for those who don’t have a lot of experience with a darker side of life. Please be warned that it gets a little graphic, but in a classy way (as if any of this can be classy). However, human trafficking and sex trafficking are global epidemics. Please refer to the following web sites and others like them for more information:

• https://love146.org/action/report/
• http://time.com/3525640/sex-trafficking-victim-prostitution-hotel/
• http://humantraffickingmovie.com/how-can-i-recognize-victims-of-human-trafficking.html
• http://www.onlinedatingsafetytips.com/SexTrafficking.cfm

Wendee looked at the card from the Red Monkey Salon in her hands. She flipped it over and over. She did some typing into the search engine on her computer; Bing displayed several sites with contact numbers. The nausea rose in her throat.

She loved that place. She’d started over five years ago when Bryant her boyfriend insisted she get waxed instead of shaving because shaving “took too long, too often.” She tried getting waxed, and he was right — it saved time, didn’t have to be done as frequently, and forced her to take some me-time regularly.

She smiled weakly and started to breathe deeply — her patronage lasted longer than the relationship . Since they did nails and facials and other things too, she’d often splurged to have a facial or get a pedicure spa treatment. It was a bright, airy, open place that didn’t give her the feeling of being crushed by the walls; even the waxing rooms were open and bright.

But she got queasy. They started having men in and out of the shop; they’d walk in from an unknown entry point and walk out the front with a bag; they didn’t even have uniforms. The women and men working at the salon changed rapidly; she especially missed little May who was a whiz with hot rocks. And there were little girls getting pedicures; the girls were so young and seemed too dazed and confused for how a spa experience should make you feel.

Over the last months, the waxings got weird. No, not weird — downright uncomfortable. About three or four visits ago, the waxing lady who spoke no English and never gave her name brushed over her love pad, as Bryant called it, that flesh above the only bone in the bikini line. It was only once, and it didn’t last that long. Surely, it was a mistake.

But then two visits ago, the woman did the love pad thing once, accidentally brushed the lip with her hand, and then put Wendee’s foot in her crotch. Wendee shuddered as she remembered moving her own foot outside the other woman’s thigh.

Wendee traced the monkey’s outline, a thin gold filigree along the red animal’s torso. She sighed and shook. She’d been in bad situations before, but they’d always been easy. She’d say no and walk away. But language and culture mixed in made this reel and rattle in her head. She didn’t want to look like she hated foreigners, and she definitely didn’t want to be closed minded about how sexuality was handled in other places.

This last visit — it was enough. It was more than enough. Wendee shook. She was still new to the area and struggling to fit in, even after five years. She didn’t have any family, and she didn’t really have any close friends. She’d gone to the salon on a whim.

There were more new people. The guy who did the facial was acting really weird; he’d thrown a towel over Wendee’s skirt. The Englishless woman brushed her own breasts against Wendee’s hands as Wendee had sat in the chair toward the end of her facial.

Wendee could remember a part of her mind screaming, begging, pleading to run, run, run. Never look back. Outwardly, she followed the woman back to the waxing area. This time the woman put Wendee’s foot between her breasts, and Wendee jerked away. There were more love pad brushes. Wendee’s foot again was placed at the woman’s crotch. The woman poked …

Wendee cried again. She didn’t really know how to say what had happened. She wasn’t even comfortable talking to a doctor. But she was afraid. She remembered the little girls, and then the giddy, carefree brainless high school kids. She knew the college kids were on break, but the summer would be ending soon.

She walked out of that shop. She knew she couldn’t go back. She was afraid for all the information they probably had from her credit card and her social-media heavy cell phone. She was afraid of all the Internet horror stories of drug running, sex trafficking, drug busts gone bad, people disappearing mysteriously without a trace.

She stroked the business card absent-mindedly. She couldn’t go to the police; she knew the ugly humor men liked, menage a tois, taking two lesbians in the dark. But she wasn’t that way. And she loved foreigners and she loved people and she loved business…

She looked at the link and looked at the business card. She clicked the link for an anonymous site to report crime. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t be taken seriously. She was pretty sure that if anyone found out she’d never have friends or be able to go home again. The immigrants and the lesbians would be at her door burning her in effigy.

She typed and sighed. She clicked the Submit button, grabbed Bryant’s old lighter, and burned the business card for the Red Monkey Salon, offering a prayer to the salon gods to protect the innocent.