From the passenger seat of the red Camaro convertible hurtling away from Southampton Road, Janet watched the scenery change from one-story houses to tobacco fields and apple orchards. She had come to Charlotte, North Carolina, to work on a farm, but she wasn't going to be pickingβshe and the three other women in the car were wearing high heels and see-through miniskirts, and they felt alone and afraid.
The thought of the violence to come terrified them. It was midday, and after about an hour on the road, the man behind the wheel, whom the women knew as Ricardo, a common fake name traffickers use, turned down a dirt path and stopped at a cluster of cheap cabins that had floors lined with mattresses.
These beat-down shacks were home for more than farm workers. In the main farm house nearby, the workersβmostly from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemalaβwere on their lunch break, eating chicken and rice. The four women climbed out of the Camaro and went over to sheds near the cabins, where the workers kept their tools. The cement floors inside had crumbled through, exposing big dirt holes. While the women laid down rags, the men, filthy and reeking of sweat after spending all morning in the fields, quickly finished eating and formed lines outside the sheds, with as many as 50 men waiting for a woman.
Ricardo stayed by the car, keeping lookout for police or anyone who might try to rob him and the women. Most of them, having gone a long time without sex, lasted only a few minutes with Janet. Some were so violent she was sure they would have seriously hurt or even killed her if it weren't for Ricardo, watching over the operation. She remembers seeing that happen once, to a woman who came without a driver or a pimp; she says the farm workers threw the body in a dump.
At the end of the day, as the sun was setting, the women handed all the money they'd collected to Ricardo, and they made the drive back to Charlotte. In the car, all Janet wanted to do was rest, but she knew she had to call her pimp, hundreds of miles away, and report how many customers she had had and how much money she made. As soon as she arrived in Charlotte, Janet knew there would be johns waiting for her at the brothel. The next day would be the same routine, and that thought made her hate herself.
