I’d lost it. Tears, sobbing, snot running down my face – Academy Award stuff. I dumped it all on him with the intent of getting out of my cage, but it wasn’t really an act. I genuinely felt all these emotions. The only part I’d lied about was hating him. I couldn’t hate him, impossible to hate a man who makes you feel so good.

He held me as I sobbed and slobbered on his chest. He wiped my face with a tissue and said the magic words.

“Okay, querida, you are free to come and go throughout the penthouse. Please refrain from leaving the apartment without me. I will escort you anywhere you wish, with the exception of Spanish Harlem.”

He had me there, so I put in his lap to deal with. “Faustino might kill me if he finds me. He’s probably got Arana tearing up the city looking for me.”

“Are you really that important to them? Does he know of your telepathy?”

“Oh God no! I’d have been dead years ago if I ever told anyone!”

“Hmm … that would be a problem. So why are you so valuable to him? I’m sure he has plenty other girls, what’s one more or less?”

“I’m not sure to be honest. He used me as a lie detector sometimes … um … visited me about twice a week … you know … a freebie. I never really understood it. But he definitely doesn’t want to let me go. He wouldn’t let me renew my visa. His way of keeping me under his thumb. He figured it gave him more power over me.”

“I have an attorney who can get your visa straightened out. No worries there, but you must take care to maintain a low profile for a while, till Faustino loses interest. Perhaps a new look would be a good idea. A new haircut, some highlights.”

“You don’t like my hair?” I whined.

“Esta bien hermosa querida, en cualquier estilo, cualquier color.” How flattering, I’m beautiful in any style or any color. But I’m still a whore, a bloodslave, and I’ll never be free.

“Thank you.” I smiled as he pet my jet black hair that would soon be another color.

“Get cleaned up and meet me in the hallway in a half hour. We’ll get you started tonight.”

And so my new life began. I was officially an employee with a real job working for Reguera Internacional S.A., a Panamanian registered Shipping Corporation.

* * * *

Chapter 11

Reguera Internacional S.A. was Enrique’s personal company, no stockholders, no partners, and technically Enrique’s name wasn’t even on the corporate registry anywhere as owner or officer. Well, it did have his name, but what’s a name? Panama allows their Sociedad Anonimas – Anonymous Societies – Corporations to function via prOxy officers. These S.A.’s also allow for ownership in the form of bearer shares. Whoever holds the physical bearer share document in their possession is the actual owner. It’s a privacy thing. Enrique was fanatical about privacy. That’s why I’m a bloodslave and not out roaming the streets as an escort anymore.

Enrique’s proxy officers managed all transactions, contracts, and banking, everything – at his direction, of course. It seemed to me they had total control of his business. When I asked him, he snapped.

“The last corporate proxy who crossed me was found dead on the beach, his body parts missing. The fish nibbled on him before he washed up on shore.”

Not smart to mess with Enrique. He scared me just listening to him talk about it. He commanded an intense ferocity when he became deadly serious.

Reguera Internacional S.A. was only one of several entities Enrique controlled through a convoluted set of secretive mechanisms and proxies. His puppet-master routine remained obscured from the public eye and governments. Enrique had mastered the corporate shell game. I became his Padewon learner, marveling at his corporate Jedi skills.

My part, initially, was unglamorous. Like a mailroom assistant starting at the bottom of the corporate ladder, my translation duties were tedious and time-consuming. The work robbed me of any illusions I held about my language proficiency. I had actually thought my English decent, and I’d been certain I had excellent Spanish. I was so wrong.

For conversation and general use language, no problem. My escort clients never complained about my vocabulary. Corporate contracts and emails were another story altogether. Memorandums of understanding, minutes of the meeting, powers of attorney, corporate resolutions, joint venture agreements, consulting contracts, fee agreements, all Greek to me. I had a Spanish-English dictionary that weighed five pounds, a Black’s Law dictionary, and several translation websites, and I needed every last one of them. Most people don’t realize the Spanish spoken in different areas of the world is vastly different. I worked on Spanish contracts from Panama, Spain, and Mexico City, and they each used their respective dialects and terminologies. I underwent a crash course in technical and legal Spanish and English by immersion.

I struggled through it to the best of my ability. I felt proud of my progress. I had fifty pages of joint venture with inventory lists done in a week. I was working my ass off.

He came into the office to check on me as I typed away diligently. “Why do blondes wear underwear?”

“Ahhh, because momma said so?”

“To keep their ankles warm.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. I think you made me dye my hair just so you could unload all these shitty blonde jokes.”

Yep, I’m a blonde now with a slightly shorter haircut.

“Oh hush, it looks good. You look so different now. You’re a new woman, no one would recognize you.”

“Yeah sure, I look like some Traquetos’ puta, like Natalia Paris!”

Natalia Paris, the most famous bleach blonde, big titty model in Colombia. Thousands of Colombian women aspire to become her: beautiful, blonde, voluptuous, the former girlfriend of an infamous Traqueto. For women without money or education, marrying a Traqueto is one of the only ways to escape the severe poverty.

I’d been forced to live and work with the Traquetos in Rubin’s cartel. But I never really wanted that life. There were tons of women who saw me on Rubin’s arm – or on his lap – who envied my relationship with him. Though forced to sell my body, I lived a relatively comfortable life compared to many Colombian women.

I’d avoided the “narco-babe” look, the bleach blonde, breast implant trend promoted by Natalia Paris. I had been perfectly happy with my black hair worn straight as a board. In his desire to change my appearance, Enrique transformed me into the very thing Traquetos desire most. All I needed to complete the package was breast implants. Breast augmentation is so popular in Colombia that Medellin is jokingly referred to as “Silicon Valley” due to the number of cosmetic surgery clinics. The Spanish television stations are loaded with novellas-soap operas about Traquetos and their women.

So there I was, the butt of every blonde joke ever written. I think he bought a book of blonde jokes, or he Googled it. He had new ones for me every night.

“Why shouldn’t blondes be given coffee breaks?”

I shook my head.

“They have to be retrained.”

“Oh God, that’s so cheesy.”

“Well, looking at some of these translations … I’m starting to wonder.”

“Tell me you’re not serious.”

He popped my delusion of competency when he sat down at my desk, a stack of papers in hand. “Let’s go over some of these.”

“Okay.” I smiled brightly, hoping he’d bite me and bend me over the desk right then and there. I can’t seem to get enough of the man.

“La máquina para quebrar, a crusher, is actually a ‘quebradora’. That’s one example of equipment that’s mislabeled.” He pointed out a list of machinery and equipment on the inventory sheet. “Then here with the boxes of metal screws, we don’t need total poundage of screws. What we need is a count of the boxes. The backhoe isn’t really ‘maquinaria’ the proper term is ‘retroexcavadora’.”

“Oh … Okay …”

He went on to show me about thirty other translations I had botched. Then he started on me about the document format: the margins, fonts, font sizes, and line spacing. Essentially I needed to rework about twenty pages of inventory. It would take another two nights at least.

How depressing. I sighed, slumped over. “It’s all wrong?”

“Well it just needs corrections … a lot of corrections.” He smirked at me. The bastard smirked.

“This would be so much easier if I could read your mind.”

“I prefer that you not. I do enjoy my privacy.” He smirked again.

“But I never have these types of problems when I can read someone’s thoughts. I always know exactly what they want.”

“Here, let’s put this down for tonight. You’re not accustomed to the pressures of a desk job. How about we take some time off? I know just the thing. Why don’t you put on that dark red dress? The one I like.”

“Oh, no more cage food? Sounds exciting.” He stared at me for a moment, like he wanted to say something. Instead he nodded silently and left me to get ready.

He took me to the Asiate Restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. I’ve never in my life been to a place that nice before, and a window seat. Felt like another person inhabited my body. Esperanza de Salvador would never sit in this restaurant with a wealthy, smiling gentleman at a window seat. It seemed too perfect to be real.

I had been spoiled in my bedroom at the penthouse. I had the same view, but from a different side of Central Park. Looking at the gorgeous night sky line, I wondered how horrible it would be to never see this view in the daylight. Poor Enrique.

He pampered me like a princess. He was so good to me. I’ve never been treated with so much care and respect, it’s intoxicating. Enrique ordered for me – a fabulous four course meal.

Looking at him as he smiled at me, I started to suspect I’d fallen in love with him. Did I love him? I’m not sure I know what love is.

I thought I loved my father, despite all his shortcomings. But then he sold me to a stranger full of promises. I certainly didn’t love him after he sold my virginity to Rubin. I never even saw my father again. I heard he moved out of Bogotá.