I did everything I could to distance myself from what was happening to my body.

Eventually, it wasn’t so bad. I guess. If I didn’t pay attention, I wouldn’t remember faces. Wouldn’t remember men slapping me in the face and yelling for me to put up more of a struggle. I almost forgot that my ankle was chained to a beam in the wall and that I was a prisoner. I lived inside my head.

And I don’t let myself think about the men. They are nothing to me.

If they like fighters, I don’t give them a reason to be rough. The new Regan won’t fight. Won’t even pay attention.

Sometimes, though, they are tougher to tune out. Like now.

The man grabs my hair and drags me to my knees, yelling obscenities in my face. He slaps me across the mouth, and I taste blood.

I want to claw his eyes out, but he’d like that too much. He wants me to fight. I am always at a disadvantage when it comes to these men. If I fought, I’d end up with my cheek pressed to the wall as they raped me harder than before. Fighting is never the answer.

Usually.

The man leans in, his face ugly and lined from too much time in the sun. His brows are thick, and he smells sweaty. “You,” he says in halting English. “Eat my dick.”

“Didn’t they tell you?” I say. “I bite.” And I click my teeth. I’d bitten two men before they got the idea and started warning clients. “Your loss.”

The man gives me an ugly grin and reaches behind him. He pulls a gun out, cocks the hammer, and holds it to my temple.

My breath hisses out of my lungs in terror.

He’s not supposed to have a gun in here. He’s not supposed to have a gun, and I’m not supposed to get damaged by the customers. Of course, it’s a bit too late for anyone to argue.

“You scared now?” he asks. “Eat my dick. No bite. I paid good money.” And he pushes the gun against my temple, harder. His hand twists in my hair and drags my face downward.

I still want to live. The tears I hate pool in my eyes and stream down my cheeks. “Please don’t kill me.”

His smile grows broader, and he directs my face toward his condom-sheathed dick again.

I don’t fight.

AFTER HE IS GONE, I vomit the contents of my stomach into my piss-bucket and curl up on my mattress, staring at the wall and crying. I always cry after they leave. It’s my release. I try to think of zombie movies—I never got past D earlier—but my mind is in shock at the moment. The gun flashes through my mind, and I swallow hard, thinking of the click of the hammer.

Swallowing reminds me of his taste, the mix of sweat and latex that seems burned in the back of my mind, and I lunge for my bucket again.

Someone comes to the door a few minutes after I finish puking for a second time. A knock and then the door cracks open. “Regan?”

It is one of the workers here. Alma. She’s nice to me. I sit upright, pushing my hair out of my face. “Hi.”

She looks around anxiously, then smooths her gray maid’s uniform. She wears it every day, and it, along with her nervous demeanor, tells me that she only works here in a cleaning capacity. “Senhor Gomes sent me. He says you will see a very special friend of his after you clean up.”

“Oh goody,” I say in a flat voice. I know what that means. It’s the man that I see even in my nightmares.

I don’t know his name, but I first saw him in Russia. I’d been at the brothel for a few weeks and was still working on tuning out my “clients” when I’d met Mr. Freeze.

Mr. Freeze was different.

At first, I was excited to see him when he came in the room. He looked American and, better yet, spoke with a nasally accent I attributed to New England. If he was American, he was here to save me, right? The fact that he was pale, ice-blonde, and remote-seeming didn’t bug me. Nor did the fact that he was wearing such an expensive suit and was followed by a rather frightening bodyguard with a massive form and hooded eyes. I didn’t care who he was hanging around with as long as he got me out of here.

He’d entered my room, a flicker of interest in his eyes as he regarded me from my place huddled in the corner. “Stand up so I can look at you.”

My heart had sunk all over again. Those weren’t the words of a man who was here to save me.

So I’d ignored him. Scared or not, I wasn’t performing tricks for any man.

It had been a mistake. The bruiser had immediately charged forward, grabbing me by my hair and hauling me to my feet. I’d screamed, but no one came running to see what was wrong. No one cared what happened to me when Freeze had me.

I soon learned that no one approached Mr. Freeze. Everyone was terrified of him.

He dragged on plastic surgical gloves and then proceeded to examine me like a racehorse. As his bodyguard held me upright, his hand moved down my legs, checked my thighs, my pussy, my ribs, and my breasts. And then he made me open my mouth. To my surprise, he pulled out a flashlight and examined my teeth.

“Are these your real teeth?” he asked me. “Do you brush twice a day? And shower?”

“Fuck off.”

He slapped my face and grabbed my chin, careless of the blood dribbling from my split lip. “Answer me.”

I didn’t answer. I tried to bite him instead.

He slapped me again, and this time it left me reeling. “Answer me. Do they shave you or have you had laser treatments?” He lifted my arm and examined my armpit, then bent to study my pubic hair again. “Natural blonde. That’s good.”

It was like I wasn’t a real person to him. I was a doll he was checking out to purchase. Or a car. “You want to kick my tires before you take my ass around the block?”

He pulled back and gave me a look so cold that I knew immediately that I’d made a mistake. Now I was dead.

It had been a good run…for a while, anyhow.

But Freeze only looked at his bodyguard and nodded, and the man released me. I sank to the floor and wrapped my arms around my body, waiting for the inevitable rape.

It didn’t come. Freeze and his guard talked for a long minute in Russian, the words sounding strange in his mouth, though I noticed that no one dared to correct his pronunciation. Then the bodyguard left, and Mr. Freeze stared at me with those cold eyes, watching me.

The Russian housemother came into the room a few minutes later with the bodyguard, and she was clearly nervous.

“This one,” Mr. Freeze said in English. “I like her. I will take her.”

“Fuck you,” I spat from my corner of the room. He wasn’t here to save me at all. He was here to fucking groom me. What an asshole.

“Very well,” the housemother said. “You know her price.”

“It is a rather high price for one that bites,” he said in a chilling voice. “She nearly took off my finger.”

The housemother stopped in place, and then she shot me a killing look. I was going to be punished, I knew it.

"You know how I like my girls,” he told her. They’re still speaking in English, which means he wants me to hear this. “Clean and broken. This one is not clean, nor is she broken.”

“We will keep her clean.”

“And?” He waited.

“I know where we can send her,” the housemother said quickly. “Give Senhor Gomes a month and he will have her gentle as a kitten.”

“A month,” he agreed. “Until then, I want you to have her brush her teeth three times a day. Vitamin supplements with her food. Bathe her daily and make sure someone shaves her twice a week. No hitting her in the face. Condoms for every client. And no drugs. Not even if she asks for them.”

The housemother nodded.

Mr. Freeze got back to his feet and left the room. “I will return to check on her.”

I figured out after that night that Freeze had a blonde fetish of some kind and he liked me. Lucky, lucky me.

He returned once more while I was in Russia, checking my teeth and body and tsking when I tried to bite the fingers he put in my mouth.