21 Sins

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

Lot 21

“And Lot 21 goes to you, Sydney,” Tuck Stevens closes the ledger having divvied up the week’s assignments between Sydney Wingate, Astrid Kimball and himself. He picks up a manila folder and flips through the sheets as he sits back and sighs. “Might as well get your feet wet.”

Sydney fumes, all 110 pounds on her slight frame. She doesn’t look frail at all, however. Her brunette hair is fixed in a short, slim pageboy—an easy style for a woman who has little time to spend on frivolous female affectations. She takes pains to project an efficient and persuasive image, wearing glasses rather than contacts, just to be taken more seriously. And her clothes are sedate and tailored, befitting her position in the judge advocate’s office.

Regardless of her attempts to present a professional persona, however, she exudes a cool, confident femininity with every breath. She is lush, built like a goddess, with gleaming emerald eyes and a deep, sexy voice. At the moment, however, all femininity and professionalism are pushed aside. “I don’t want to ‘get my feet wet’, Tuck. You knew when you hired me that I wanted no part of these cases.”

“Yes, and times change,” he intones plainly. Tuck is one of the good ol’ boys, easygoing, casual in his dress and manner, but when it comes to decisions, once made, they are written in stone. This one is no different and Sydney feels that in her bones. “You can’t do a decent job and skirt this issue any longer. Ignoring it will not make it go away, I don’t care how it offends your sensibilities.” He looks her directly in the eye, not wavering an inch.

“Okay,” she quietly relinquishes.

He stares at her still, then smiles, then nods his head and looks back down at the file in front of him.

“Lot 21…”

“Doesn’t she have name?”

“A name?” As if the idea has never crossed his mind. “I suppose.” He pours through the document, trying to please the irritated Ms. Wingate. “Yes, here,” he spots what he was looking for. “Melinda.”

“Melinda what?”

“You want a last name, too?” He looks befuddled.

“It would be nice,” she does her best to contain her anger.

Tuck shrugs. “They don’t have last names, Syd. They don’t really have first names, just numbers. Hers is 21. But since she was with Samuel Janes last, call her Melinda Janes, if you like. That good enough?”

She purses her lips, annoyed. “No, not really, but I suppose I can’t expect more.”

“She’s a voluntary commitment,” he continues in the face of her glaring green eyes. “And your intervention need only be a formality. She’s applied for permanent status. You review her file, give her the basic interview, the exam and rubberstamp the request. There’s no need to ruffle anyone’s feathers over these cases. You can’t stomach the idea? Well, I got news for you, these girls like what they are doing—even the ones that come from within the system—like the pros in Nevada like it. Don’t make a case of it, Sydney. It’s not worth the grief. The system is not going to change anytime soon.” His bushy eyebrows narrow as he makes his point.

“Maybe I want to make a case of it. Maybe I want to be sure that she hasn’t been coerced by anyone. I’ll take your file, and do the job. I’ll do a thorough job, just as I do everything else. Okay with you?”

“Sure. Whatever.” He shakes his head as he hands his colleague the file on Lot 21.

“Any deadline on this?’’

“Not that I know of.” He looks at Astrid to agree. The woman is the older, harried, blowsy version of the younger Sydney. Her dark hair is piled atop her head, slightly askew where she tucks her pencil when not in use. Although her make-up is a little heavy for a woman approaching sixty, she maintains a comely professional appearance. Thirty years ago, she turned many a head and had men beating down her door. A raw and knowing sensuality oozes from her slightly over-weight body, making her comfortable to be around. Now she garners a degree of respect that she’s rightfully earned.

“No deadline,” she confirms, though she raises her eyebrows meaningfully. “But Sydney, don’t make a big deal of this. The girl’s made her decision, and I think it was a pretty independent one. Her guardian wasn’t the usual kind; they had a special relationship from what I can gather. Kind of sad, actually. Together for five, six years, three in an official agreement, and he had cancer—one of those quick virulent cases. He’d just turned forty, young, good looking. But,” Astrid sighs sadly, “he decided on the quick way out, crashed his car into a culvert. The girl’s heartbroken—seems the blush never wore off. Given the circumstances, I think it’s best to have her placed as soon as possible.”

Sydney views the woman thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right. But then, given these circumstances, there’s reason to exercise some caution before we rubberstamp the rest of her life.”

“Perhaps.” Obviously, like Tuck, the woman thinks Sydney is taking the process far too seriously. “I understand she even has a new guardian waiting in the wings, and the transfer could be pretty painless.”

“That’s good. I’ll keep it in mind.” Sydney employs her best clipped but civil retort, and with file in hand, excuses herself and leaves the room.

***

The transfer sector of the Detention Building has always made her queasy. Her stomach begins to churn, her heart races. Sometimes her head feels as if it’s about to explode as she walks its corridors. The practices taking place behind the dank stone exterior are spoken of in convenient euphemisms that easily rattle off the tongue, without disturbing one’s ethics. Those who work within speak in code to keep the reality of what takes place inoffensive.

When she spends her time counseling wayward teenagers and juvenile runaways, she justifies her presence in the system, considering herself a positive force—a counterbalance for the harsh alternatives. Her work takes place on the ‘other’ side of the building, far from the transfer sector, far from the evil that runs concurrent to the task of reformation. Nearly every one of her cases sent the troubled girls back to their families and a society willing to give them a second chance—not always an easy task when the process would just as easily make them grist for the mill that continually requires fresh recruits. She’s grateful that not one of her charges has been permanently detained. But then, she has been dealing with the mildest forms of aberrant behavior. Why bother with the hardcores? They are only destined to disappoint.

“You’ve been assigned to Room 75. Lot 21 will be delivered there when you’re ready.” The secretary is an efficient woman, fast on her way to becoming a lifer—an institutionalized bureaucrat with a heart of stone and a facial expression that suggests her size 45 underwear are much too tight. She moves like a great machine, deliberately, ponderously. In ten years, she’s turned looking down her nose through her coke bottle glasses into a fine art.

“I believe her name is Melinda,” Sydney corrects her.

“Lots don’t have names. And we don’t need do-gooders here. Give her the once- over and send her on.”

“Excuse me, I don’t recall your name?”

“Ms. Goudy.”

“Ms. Goudy, I have been retained to give counsel to Melinda Janes—Lot 21 as you call her. She is a person, not a thing, and I expect that you and your staff will remember that while she is in this facility. She may well walk out this door a free woman, entitled to the respect that you’d accord anyone. It would be premature to assume that I will simply ‘send her on’.”

“Oh, you are the naïve one,” Ms. Goudy scowls.

Sydney ignores the comment. “Room 75 down this hall?”

“It is.”

“Then have Melinda brought to me right away.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

Sydney’s body quickly expels a burst of energy, as if she could shake the creepy feelings away and feel like a normal human being in this freaky setting.

At the far end of the corridor, she opens the door on Room 75 and stares dazedly at the pale green windowless room with the great mahogany desk in its center. No. This won’t do, she immediately decides. But there’s no time to change now. The girl is already coming down the hall. Sydney scoots inside, takes her seat and attempts to look casual and inviting inside an atmosphere of oppressive gloom. Maybe she should have brought a flower for the desk to soften the mood, she absurdly thinks just before she hears the knock on the door.

“Come in.”

The door opens and a matronly guard leads the naked girl into the room. Her subject wears a chain around her neck, which is attached to the leash tightly held in the woman’s firm fist. “Lot 21, ma’am,” she says. “Just ring me when you’re finished. There’s a guardian who wants to view her this afternoon, but I need your permission.”

“I’m sorry, you don’t have my permission,” Sydney answers flatly. “I haven’t even begun my interview. The guardian will have to wait.”

The woman looks at Sydney queerly. “All right. I’ll tell him that.”

“Thank you.”

The woman doesn’t budge, as if she’s waiting for more instructions.

“You can leave now.” Sydney gives her the order she’s waiting for. “But please bring her a dress to wear when you return.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the woman nods, drops the leash, turns on her heel and exits the room.

Sydney tries to disguise the shudder that passes through her. Remain calm, she tells herself with clear resolve. She might be more nervous than the lovely creature before her who now awaits her command.

The girl is not what Sydney expects—a wasted, vanquished specter of a girl. Instead, she notes with alarming clarity a young woman of some substance. Outwardly, she is quite attractive, with frosted ash brown hair, which is now a tangle of long curls. Her skin is fair, her lips full and pouty, and her firm, naked body gently contoured, almost sculpted, her muscles defined. Either she’s labored hard or works out in a gym. Most difficult for Sydney to understand are her eyes, imbued with sensuous sadness that’s hard to miss. And yet, just briefly, she sees them flash with a stunning spark of brilliance, intelligence, knowingness. They are deeply penetrating like those of a haunted child, a wounded animal, a tormented genius.

“I should have a chair brought in,” Sydney sighs worriedly, as she gives the room another once over, realizing that there is only a low stool for the girl to sit on.

The naked girl looks at her puzzled. Then without being told, she moves to the side of the room and sits on the stool, with delicate ease placing her bottom cheeks on the small wooden seat, opening her thighs shamelessly and clasping her hands behind her back. The chain droops at her neck, the leash dangling down her back. She sits with her back straight, her breasts pushed proudly forward and her head held high, but her eyes diverted downward in a gesture of humility. She leaves little to the imagination in such a pose, exposing her pubic area and all the womanly treasures between her legs. Obviously, she was well trained. How many hours did it take to perfect this posture, Sydney wonders.

The girl’s left ankle is banded with steel—the current practice for women in her position. Her lot tag and identification charm dangle from a ring embedded in the band. There is also the insignia of her indentured status tattooed high between her shoulder blades according to code. Sydney sees no other distinguishing marks, but she will be required to inspect her further—something she dreads. Inspections are meant to be personal and demeaning. Does she have the guts for that kind of intimate exam?

Guardians routinely mark their girls to exhibit their ownership, using tattooed initials and insignias, or brands to indicate their right to use these girls as slaves. Officially, they are indentured servants—nothing more. But the prevailing custom fanned by the winds of savage human craving has turned them into chattel, stripping them of any right to self-determination as long as their sentences are in force. Maybe this makes sense for the ones convicted of crimes. But voluntary committals, like this one, defy logic—at least in Sydney’s judgment. There must be reasons, extenuating circumstances, a pattern of abuse the girl is following to a reasonable, if not rightful, end.

Sydney studies the girl, becoming more nervous and irritated with each click of the big school clock on the far right wall.

“I think we’ll need a chair,” she finally decides. She rises from her chair, exits the room, and spends the next few minutes combing the adjacent rooms to find an appropriate chair. The best she can do is a small wooden one with no arms and a straight ladder-back.

“There, sit,” she says as she places it in front of the desk.

The girl’s strong thigh muscles allow her to gracefully rise from the stool without assistance. She then sits in the offered chair. For the first time since her arrival, she looks slightly uncomfortable with the unusual circumstances.

“Your hands in your lap,” Sydney says, seeing how the girl attempts the same humble pose with her hands behind her back—finding that task more difficult in a standard chair. Following the Sydney’s direct order, she’s reluctant but she does obey, and yet, she looks no more comfortable with her hands resting on her thighs.

“You’re not at ease, are you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You’re used to sitting on stools?”

“And on the floor.”

“But your life has changed in the last month, and you’ll find a lot of things are different. There will be many things to get used to.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’d like you to call me Sydney.”

The girl face contorts; her befuddlement is obvious.

“I’m here to help you, Melinda… your name is Melinda?”

“Once.”

“What did Mr. Janes call you?”

“When?”

“When he wanted to address you?”

The girl looks even more confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to answer.”

Sydney clears her throat and tries again. “How about just before he died.”

“He called me ‘beautiful girl’ a lot then.”

Sydney smiles at the revelation. “But no other, more common name?”

“No. I don’t recall.”

“How about before?”

“I don’t recall when he called me anything specific.” She’s obviously struggling hard with her memory, trying with little success and still confused by Sydney’s questions.

“Not even early on, before you became his…” Sydney stumbles here, unable to spill out the truth… “before he became your guardian.”

“I suppose he called me Mel, Melli, like everyone else did then.”

“But your name is Melinda?”

“It was then. But it’s not part of my agreement now.”

“Agreement?”

“The papers I signed.”

“Oh, yes, there were papers… but I don’t have those. Maybe they are in your permanent file.”

“Maybe.” The girl has no idea.

Sydney studies her thoughtfully. It will be a long interview at this slow speed. It’s not the girl; it’s her own mind unaccustomed to this foreign way of thinking. She has defiantly refused to honor the recently sanctioned custom of indentured servitude. But she’ll have to honor it now whether she likes it or not. She’s forced to think carefully through any question for fear of stumbling on her words, or looking stupid because she knows so little about this girl’s unusual life. Much, much more difficult than she expected.

“You have reached a critical juncture in your life, Melinda,” she begins again. “I understand that Mr. Janes’ death was very difficult for you.”

“I was in love him, yes.”

She nods compassionately. “So, I’m not going to rapidly place you in any new situation. You need time to grieve and time to repair. It would be unwise in my opinion to jump immediately into another…” she falters for words again, “arrangement like the one you had with Mr. Janes.”

“He wanted me to continue as I am,” the girl says.

“He told you that?”

“Yes.”

“And is that what you want?”

“I’ve been made this way.”

“But you have choices.” Sydney feels her frustration rise. “You’re a voluntary committal. It would be irresponsible of me not to lay out those choices before you, so you can make an intelligent decision about your future.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl responds—mechanically and automatically.

And Sydney feels placated. “I think you’ll understand more later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tomorrow we’ll talk again. You’ll be wearing a dress and sitting in that chair. I’ll be Sydney. You’ll be Melinda. Equals. You understand that? And you won’t be wearing that chain.”

“If that’s what you need, ma’am.”

“It’s not what I need!” she can’t stop her bottled-up anger from blurting out. “It’s what you need.”

The girl stares silently, hauntingly, too baffled to reply in any way, but finally saying, “Yes, ma’am,” because that is what she knows how to do.

***

“The only way to get through to her is show her!” Sydney announces to Astrid and Tuck, as they sit in causal conference in the employee lounge. “The reason these girls don’t leave the system is because of their conditioning. Well, I’m not going to let her conditioning effect the outcome here. Melinda will get a taste of liberty and equality, and I know what she’ll choose. She’s smart as a tack. You can see it in her eyes…”

“You’re making this personal, Syd,” Tuck interjects before she can continue.

“Yes, I am. I think it needs to be personal. If someone doesn’t get personal with these girls, we might as well condemn them all before we even start. Their lives are written and they are not going to change.”

“You think that changing them is better than letting them live as they are? That’s a value judgment.”

“Oh, don’t you argue ethics with me, Tuck Stevens! We all know that the courts and the criminal justice system made a deplorable left turn when the outside service contracts were created. Maybe, at the time, it seemed like a good way to handle over- crowded jails, but it’s turned into slavery. There is no other name for it. And the supposed “voluntary” commitments are nothing more than men preying on innocent girls like Melinda, twisting their minds into agreeing to their absurd arrangements, making them think there are no alternatives. Once a girl starts, she’s stuck for life with no way out… especially when those of us who might help them out ignore the facts.”

“There are a many that make it out, Sydney.”

“Oh, don’t say that. You’ve seen the statistics—what they become when they are finally free. Straight prison is much better for them… at least there are the common rules of decency in force there that prevent the rape and s****l abuse, and the… conditioning.”

“This is just one girl you’ve talked to, Sydney,” Astrid reminds her, as she looks over top of her reading glasses perched halfway down her pointy nose. “Voluntaries are sometimes the worst, because they want it. They do want it—whether it’s conscious or subconscious—it appeals to something in their basic character. So, there’s their choice; albeit one that was made early on, it was still their choice then. We’re not responsible for what’s happened since. Don’t make this girl’s reformation your responsibility, because, hon, it’s not going to happen.”

“Maybe not. But not because I didn’t try.”

“You’re a regular Joan of Arc,” Tuck muses.

“Well, then, let’s just say she mine now. I own her until I’m ready to let her go. Okay with you?”

“I’m not standing in your way,” Tuck laughs and wipes his hands. “After all, I assigned you the case.”

“Good.” Her eyes flash brilliantly; her nose flares. Excitement wells in her with the possibility of proving the system wrong, these two wrong, and making something more of the girl who needs her now.