Trafficking 101: Or How My Training Continued

This is a picture of me at 17, at my older sisters high school graduation. My education was different.

When I was 17 RJ and I were out drinking and he told me he had met a madam. He said she was really nice and I would like her. He’d made dinner plans with her for later in the week.

Then he said, “We’re never going to get rich like this.”

Huh? I thought he made good money doing hair. He had a nice apartment on Russian Hill and a new Sirocco; he looked like he was rich to me.

He said, “you’ve been giving it away your whole life.”
Well that was true, it was a like a joke he would tell in the salon if someone was interested in me, “buy her something to eat and she will go out with you.” He was right, I would.
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He explained, “It’s better if you do this now because if you get caught it will just be a slap on the wrist, since you’re still under age. I want you to work for this madam and steal her book, so we can start our own house.”

I thought we were going to be hairdressers, but I was in too deep now. It’s not like I hadn’t met pimps before, they are everywhere in the Tenderloin and downtown. He took me to the Hot Tubs on Van Ness that night. I remember making out and the color of the neon and weird dim light in the room with tub. At the end he left and I walked home alone. I was thankful to be back in the Tenderloin, find some drugs, get back to my little room.

We met Sharon the madam at a now defunct Italian restaurant on Polk Street. I thought it was fancy. Probably wasn’t, but it was a place I had walked by often and smelled with a growling stomach. She was a tall red headed woman whose sweet clean smell preceded her. She was pink and fluffy and supremely feminine, with a high cutie voice that was off putting at first, but went with her whole sexual pet energy. Sharon, RJ, and I sat at the table and they spoke about nothing. I kept waiting for the interview, or the question, some question. She didn’t really pay any attention to me and I thought she was just interested in RJ. I used my best table manners, but thought I had made some error since no one addressed me or discussed what I thought we had come to discuss. After dinner Sharon said goodbye and left. RJ gave me a quick kiss and said “It’s fine, you did good, see you tomorrow.” Then he took a cab home, I imagined.

RJ gave me Sharon’s address a few days later and told me to wear pantyhose. Sharon’s one bedroom apartment was across the street from Sally Stanford’s old place, and this somehow gave this some legitimacy, grandiosity. Really it was just a small one bedroom apartment in a large apartment building where people coming and going wouldn’t draw too much notice. The apartment had a tiny kitchen in the corner, but the bedroom was almost as large as the living room. Her apartment was like her, neat and completely feminine. She lived here. I was a bit shocked that she slept in the bed were her girls worked, but it was all very matter of fact.

The Long Game

Of course I remember my first trick, and my body is marked by every single one. Each one left an imprint on me, even if I was in some other room in my mind. At the time I thought this was something I could just live through. It’s not like I didn’t know it was wrong on some moral ground, but which one? My life had already been a string of shitty things; at least going through this shitty thing seemed to have some purpose this time. I could do some good for RJ, the only one I loved, and the only one who loved me. I was and am a master of disassociation. 
These days, for brief moments, I am present enough to feel the ground move as I shift, and yes it is unnerving as it sounds. Back then, it was just adaptive behavior and I checked out. My first day I was there all day, I felt nothing. Sharon bemusedly handed me a douche at the end of the day and told me to take a bath. I knew I had won her over and we were going to be friends. Compared to the other girls I seemed so normal and hardworking, but just really well practiced at tuning out and surviving. For the first time in my life I had a pocket full of money.

Sharon and I did become friends and she trusted me more and more. Sometimes we would go out to North Beach to have dinner and shoot pool. She would point out the pimps to me and tell me where and how they worked. The pimps would nod and smile, no one approached her. They stared and smiled, but only one dare approach me to slip me his number as I came out of the bathroom. They respected her and I felt safe.

After about three months she started to tell me more. She said that I could only stay working for her for about 7 or 8 months. By then I would have run through her guys and she would sell me to another pimp, like RJ had sold me to her. I hadn’t known he sold me to her till then, but I was glad he got something. His approval was all that mattered.

She said I would maybe get another 6 months in the city and then it was a law of diminishing returns, and I would only have worth being traded to someone out of state. She did not make any of this sound glamorous and I felt grateful to her. She never said anything against RJ but I could tell she was not impressed.

We continued to become closer and Sharon would send me out to regulars and special clients. This would range from sweet old lonely widowers to strange men with strange habits. One I had to convince I was a virgin, one wanted me to pee on him. One of the strangest was the father and son that visited the whore house together. Odd bonding activity. Most were just 20 minutes or less of frenzy; the shame in their eyes was the only thing left at the end.

Sharon started to leave me at her place alone. She would go away for a weekend and I would answer the phone, and work the radio. She left her safe open with thousands of dollars and her telephone book inside. I remember thinking of copying it like RJ asked, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to be a whore or run a whore house. This was as good as it was going to get for me. I knew and know women who walked the streets, that was much harder. Sharon made no bones about what it took and it didn’t look fun. Plus, Sharon was good to me, honest and straightforward. I didn’t want to steal from her. I took two numbers of regulars who always asked for me and that was it. Writing them in code in the back of a journal, I thought they were safe, but that journal was later stolen.

Sometimes she sent me with other girls to bachelor parties. This was the case with the final trick I turned for her with a bunch of rich, handsome young men at the Fairmont Hotel. The party had been going on for hours. The girl I was with I had only worked with once before. The night was winding up and the other girl was counting the money.

Five of the guys were trying to talk us into going to Tahoe with them for the weekend. Then the other girl said that $100 dollars was missing from our pile and was very upset. I could tell the guys were protecting someone and trying to make a big joke about it. I just wanted to leave. I didn’t trust these kind of men at all, whose stalwart whiteness and class meant they got to treat people however they wanted. I said come on let’s go, but she called Sharon. Sharon talked to the guys but still they held out. She didn’t want us to leave until we got the money but I left. I was scared and tired and done with the whole mess. The girl left as well, back to Sharon’s to give her the money.

A few nights later RJ and I were in Tomasso’s Restaurant in North Beach when he told me he had got a call from Sharon. He was really pissed that I had walked away from the work since he got a cut of Sharon’s cut of my earnings. We were drunk and bleary eyed, but I remember how hard he bit me. He grabbed a hold of my jawbone with his teeth like a pit bull and would not let go. I struggled but he dug in until I surrendered and was reduced to sobs. Our waitress at the time still works there and even years later she still recognizes me every time I go to dinner there.

RJ was pissed. Angry that I had walked away from that money and angrier still that I had destroyed Sharon’s trust in me before I got the book. He didn’t know then I had had access already; I never told him either. I guess I did just now.

I told no one about working for Sharon at the time and only one person a few years later. I was ashamed to let anyone know. Any lack of love from him was my fault, and if I could only work harder I would get his full acceptance. The memories here are buried deep and the sensations even deeper. I never lost my ability to tune out and “go pro.” RJ depended on it more than once as the years went on. That, and my ability to keep secrets. ​​

Map of human trafficking in California from Heat Watch.org.

​Visit the site and find out how you can help.

One way is to watch your language. Below is from their site

The language used to describe exploitation has perpetuated the myth that human trafficking is a victimless crime.

• Terms like “prostitute” or “whore” give a false impression that victims choose to be exploited. Traffickers profit from these labels, which take blame and action away from the exploiter and place it on the victim.
• Children are not prostitutes, they are sexually exploited minors.
• The men who have sex with these minors are not ‘Johns’, they are child rapists.
• People who sell other people for profit are not bosses, pimps or businessmen, they are exploiters and traffickers.
• Challenging how we label victims and exploiters will help change how society views this crime.

National Human Trafficking Hotline 2017 California State Report

Thank you for reading and may you find peace.

Christine