Sold
LAILA’S POV
“So you are selling me off again?” I asked my father after he walked into my room telling me that there was a man that wanted to see me.
“Just do as you are told and come with me,” he said with a tired expression on his face.
“I am not going out there, you will have to carry me out if you want me out there,” I said folding my arms and sitting back on my bed, he rushed to me and picked me up. He threw me over his shoulder and started going downstairs with me. I tried punching him on his back but I wasn’t strong enough to cause any kind of damage to him.
“He threw me to the floor and the man got up and started assessing me. The fact that he wasn’t asking why I was being treated this way was a red flag. A normal human being would ask why my father was forcing me to do something that I clearly didn’t want to do.
“I am sure you can see that she is everything that I said she was, so how much are you willing to pay for her?” My father asked, I can’t say that I was surprised that he was so greedy. All he cared about was money, and he didn’t care that this man that he was selling me to was even older than him. I was certain that he wouldn’t even be able to give me the ten children that he was speaking of.
“That will all depend on different factors, how well-behaved she is and if she is a virgin,” he said, and Father nodded proudly.
“She is still pure…right Laila?” he asked me, and I was in disbelief that he wanted me to win this horrible man over so that he could pay a high amount for my body.
“I am not going anywhere with him. It doesn’t matter how much money he gives you. As a matter of fact, the money he gives you is between him and you, and I have nothing to do with it. I don’t want anything to do with him” I said. The man got up and stormed over to me. He slapped me across the face and caused me to bite myself. I spit the blood out and looked him straight in the eye to show him that I wasn’t afraid of him.
“So ill-mannered, you speak when no one is speaking to you,” he said as he walked back to his seat.
“My father was speaking to..” Before I could finish what I wanted to say, my father pinched me
“Apologize to him for speaking like that. This will ruin our chances,” he said
“our chances of what? You mean your chances of making money off of him. I won’t let you sell me to this man. I am not worth a penny of his money, and you should at least tell him that.” I said, getting up and getting ready to walk out
“I am sorry for…” My father was about to apologize for my rudeness, but the man got up and stormed past me
“Please sir what about the money?” My father ran after him
This was the life that I had been forced to live ever since I turned eighteen. I was nineteen, but I had been sold to more men than I could count. Each time my father needed money, he would sell me and I often had to work off his debt. I don’t even know why I always returned home, instead of running away and starting my own life, but I guess I felt some kind of loyalty to my dad.
I knew that I didn’t owe him anything because of the way he had treated me, but nothing could ever change the fact that he was my father. If not for the fact that he was addicted to gambling I knew that he would not be acting like this, I wished there was a way that I could help him beat this addiction but I had tried everything and failed.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Laila?” he demanded as he stormed towards me
“I refuse to live my life like this anymore, Father. You keep throwing me from one man to the other, and I have had enough” I shouted, and he slapped
“You think you have a choice in this?” he asked me
”You think this is about what you want? This has nothing to do with what you want, you owe me this Laila” he said, and I had never heard my father talk like this.
“I owe you?” I asked him, and he nodded
“It is your fault that all this is happening to me, you are the one who killed your mother” he accused, and as soon as he mentioned my mother, my tears started streaming down my face
“But you never tell me anything about her when I ask. If you felt that I was responsible for her death, you should have told me this a long time ago,” I said
“If you had never been born, she would have never died,” he said
“If you had never slept with her she would have never died” I spat, and he slapped me once more and I heard a ringing in my ear.
“How dare you speak to me like that….you abomination,” he said bitterly
“Father…” I whispered
“you don’t even have the right to call me that. Why can’t you just do what you are told for once?” he asked me
”all you had to do was marry the man and give him as many children as he wants, but you are too useless to do that too, aren’t you?” he shouted
“I already told you that I am tired of this life. You can pay your debts yourself from now on” I said, and he grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the house. Was he about to make me sleep outside again all because he had a point to prove?
“Since you won’t let me make money and pay off the debt you will have to go and explain yourself to the man that I owe,” he said as he opened his car and threw me inside.
“I am not going anywhere with you,” I said as I rushed out of the car, and he ran back and threw me inside once more. He used his car key to lock me inside and ran to the driver’s side. He started the car and sped off.
“Father, why are you doing this?” I asked him
“I am doing this because I need to survive. They will kill me,” he said
“What have you gotten yourself into this time?” I asked him, and he sighed
”All I am going to tell you now is that you can’t reject this man. If you act the way you just acted with that other man, he will kill you. You are of no use to me dead” he said
“I am better off dead and with my mother than here with you” I spat
“What! You think your mother is better than me because of the choices I made. Well, at least I stayed with you, at least I didn’t abandon you right after you were born” he said, and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He had made me believe that my mother had died while giving birth to me, and now he was telling me that she had walked away from me.
“Why would she do that?” I asked him, and he shook his head
“That doesn’t matter. Now the only thing that matters is that I will finally be free of you. All you have to do is what you are told, and you will survive” he said as he pulled up in the biggest mansion that I had only seen in movies. My father had really messed with the wrong people this time because this looked like a very rich man’s house.
