The Dangerous Firecracker

I was pushed into a door and lost my balance. The place smelled weird. I waited on the ground for someone to pick me up, but no one did. So I hastily removed the blindfold from my eyes. I hate the dark. It creeps me out. As my eyes adjusted to the light, dangerous voices pierced my eardrums. I stood up and witnessed the most horrific sight of my life.

The place seemed like a warehouse, with dark iron walls reflecting the fluorescent lights hanging from the roof. Apart from the people, five huge trucks with "Happy Life" scribbled on their sides stood at the end of the room.

Everything about the room had an eerie feeling to it. I wondered if it was the lights and the walls or what was taking place here.

There were five lines consisting of teenage girls in black shirts and tight-fitting jeans that flawlessly flaunted their curves. Watching the bends and turns of their bodies, I wondered how I ended up here. At the end of the lines, stood men with healthy muscles and attractive face shapes. They all were in black too.

"They are called Stamp Men. And you will be called Firecracker, like the rest of us." A girl with silky hair and green eyes caught me up.

The Stamp Men were walking through the lines of girls, stamping their chests, sometimes kissing and smacking them too in the process.

Though only five Stamp Men were required, there were ten. The five among them were doing their job, with benefits, while the other five were in the corners, each with a girl, mercilessly shoving their penises into their vaginas. Two of the girls seemed to be enjoying it, whereas the other three of them were crying. Their shrieks and gasps, along with the Stamp Men's laughter, were the only noises in the room. They echoed through the walls, piercing my heart with fear again and again and again.

Two more entered through the iron door behind me and began scanning the variety of girls. There were Indians, like me, Russians and British girls with accents, Americans, even Chinese girls, Japanese girls, and Italians. I heard footsteps and saw a man approaching me. My heart was beating so fast that I was afraid it might jump out of its cage. I didn't want to be forced into the corner like the other girls being raped. I didn't want those men to violate my body. I prayed to the universe. Please help me. Please help me. Please help me.

The guy stopped next to me, and I saw he was scanning me and the girl who had told me what I was now as we waited in the line to get stamped. He was like the others. He had an attractive physique with the sharpest of jawlines. I looked at him and my attention was brought to his hand under his clothes. He was masturbating beside me. I looked away, gagging.

The guy extended his arm and took away the girl in front of me. I became immersed in the guilty pleasure that it wasn't me.

But how long before I, too, became someone's sex toy?

I felt sorry for the girl, who was also Indian. I had felt sisterly vibes from her.

Suddenly a hand slapped my butt, sending shivers up my body. Red with rage, I turned and slapped the guy who dared touch me out of reflex. I would fight till the end. I had decided.

The Stamp Man that had just entered had his hand pressed to his cheek, his face red with shame and his eyes wide with shock. Of course, no other Firecracker had slapped him before.

The shock soon turned into anger, and he scowled. He stepped towards me as if to beat me to death, but a pair of hands pushed against his chest to stop him.

Rover. The guy I loved. The guy I hated.

"You don't hit a Stamp Man when you are a Firecracker, Scarlet." He said. 

"I will hit a Stamp Man—or any other man—who tries to touch me without my consent," I replied, trying to come across as confident, but the fear that leaked out through my voice gave me away.

"Now, now, Scarlet, we don't need to do that when we can submit and enjoy it," he said, touching my neck and tracing his finger downward. I slapped his hand away.

He exhaled heavily as if exhausted.

Rover had blue eyes, framed by the long eyelashes that made me fall for him the first time I saw him. He had a beautiful body, the kind that would make any girl go "Wow!" But on top of that, he had an angelic face with a quicksilver tongue and a melodic voice that could convince you of the evilest things, molding your thoughts and making you desire to be with him, even if it meant being his slave.

I couldn't stop loving him then. I couldn't stop loathing him now.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my collar, the Stamp Man was trying to stamp me. Before I could protest, Rover took my hands and locked them behind my back. He clutched my arms as if he intended to burst an artery or two with his pressure. He had never hurt me this way before. I tried to push him, even flung my legs out in an attempt to kick, but the Stamp Man who had smacked me earlier held me hard by my waist, making my struggles and efforts to rebel futile.

I writhed and struggled, moving my body as wildly as I could, but the Stamp Man had already exposed my right boob, honking it violently before he stamped it with black ink. It now read, 'Sexy Firecracker.'

I shouted at the top of my lungs, wondering why the other girls weren't protesting. My sight was flooded with the tears that were welling in my eyes. And I shrieked.

The three of them swept me off the ground and threw me into the truck. There were nine girls already seated in it, and I fell on their legs.

Before I could react, Rover said, "Now you are one of them," and shut the doors, confining me in the dark.

Although I had nine more girls with me, none of them tried to soothe me or diminish my pain and fear as I sat there in that truck for what felt like a thousand years. I couldn't stop crying, and the sobs were making it more and more difficult for me to breathe in the dark. I would flinch away shivering whenever I touched a hand or a leg, my imagination haunting me, refusing to stop conjuring images in my mind. Throughout my eighteen years on this earth, I would imagine creatures and devils and ghosts in the dark, but today, in this truck, I couldn't stop imagining more men like the Stamp Men, grabbing at my parts without my permission.

Please, Universe, help me.

The truck, at last, came to a halt, and I raced to the door like a bird ready to fly. I didn't care if I knocked down a girl or two—or hurt them; all I cared about was reaching that door and getting out as quickly as possible.

As the door flew open, I jumped out without bothering to look down, and as I did, someone caught me, as if he knew I'd be the first one to jump at the sight of light. The hands set me down on the floor, though they didn't leave my arm, and I noticed it was Rover, smiling mercilessly at me. Of course, he knew.

"I knew you'd be dying to come out. Sorry about the dark, darling," he said, touching my cheeks, and I looked away. I wasn't his darling. Not anymore.

Other girls started to descend and walked silently away with the Stamp Men. They didn't make a single noise, just eyed me and Rover suspiciously. I couldn't believe it. The way he was holding me, the way I was struggling and shouting in his grip. Were they all dumb? Or were they all here by choice? If so, then was I the only one dragged forcibly to this place?

But then I saw the Indian girl with green eyes and silky hair who had told me where I was, who those men in black were, and who I had become. The girl who had been chosen instead of me to be raped by the Stamp Men. She was white with red eyes, a red nose, and puffed-up cheeks. It was evident that she, too, was crying, and my heart bled for her. If it hurt them as it did me, why weren't they saying anything? I couldn't help but wonder.

Before I knew it, Rover had begun dragging me away. I screamed. We were in a parking lot, and no one besides us was there. I screamed, hoping that somebody could hear me. But since Rover didn't try to cover my mouth or shush me, I concluded that no one was coming to help. I was all by myself.

We entered the elevator and arrived inside a hotel.

Good. 

I started screaming for help at the top of my lungs. There were men and women all around in the hotel, with a receptionist in her crisp, white shirt, yet no one even bothered to look at me.  

Were they all deaf? Was I inaudible?

Rover pushed me through the door and turned to wink at the receptionist, who blushed, puffing out her chest. It was then that I realized they weren't deaf, nor had I lost my voice. They were all Rover's people, his accomplices in this dirty work, his accomplices in the evil act of human trafficking.

Rover then dragged me out of the elevator, through a red-carpeted lobby, and into a room. It didn't matter how much I moved or struggled in his arms, he had caught me like a mouse in a trap. He pushed me onto the bed and left, locking the door behind him. I was scared out of my wits.

The room was way too beautiful, with serene white walls and delicate white curtains billowing in the wind through the window. There was a grand chandelier that created musical notes as its glass baubles touched each other in the wind. The sheets and the pillows were also dressed in white, with a white mattress beneath them. It was the softest bed I had ever touched.

On the nightstand, there was a note. I went to pick it up, wiping away my tears.

"Light up our customers' lives, Firecracker. You are doing a great job spreading happiness."

The words were scribbled on the paper. I felt so sick reading it. All those moments in my journey in that warehouse and truck that I had felt nauseated came rushing back to me, and I had to run to the bathroom to throw up.

As I retched out my fear and anxiety with last night's dinner—which now felt like a hundred years ago and was possibly the happiest dinner I'd ever have—I again prayed for the universe to save me.

As I stood up, I beheld the most beautiful and elegant bathroom I had ever seen. Not even the few movies I had watched had displayed such grandeur.

The bathtub was so huge that it could fit three girls like me, with eight showerheads at the other end of the room. Between the bathtub and showers sat the pot I had just thrown up into, next to which was a beautiful box basin. There was a cabinet above the basin, and when I opened it, numerous kinds of soaps and shampoos greeted me.

I closed the door to the bathroom, checking thrice to ensure it was properly locked, undressed, and sat in the bathtub, which was already filled with water, foam bubbles swimming at its top. The fragrance was so satisfying that I, at last, felt okay.

Firecracker. What kind of a stupid name was that? As if we were just some lifeless objects waiting to explode in the night sky for their amusement!

Wait. That was what we all were to Rover and his men. That was what I was now, just a female body with normal-sized parts, skinny legs, and minimal curves, waiting to be used as a sex toy, waiting for men to touch and grope in the night, waiting to be fucked.

I was already fucked.