It has been six months since I saw the outside world. They have thought us how to dress, walk, eat and how to do everything else by their rules. I know they are washing our brains here, but no matter what they say I will always know how the free life was good. Seeing people and not be afraid to talk to them is all in the past, right now I'm scared of people and I cannot bear someone touching me, I just simply hate it. I don't make a scandal but the feeling of someone touching me is terrifying.
All I wanted right now was to be out of here. In this very moment I have a manner class, where we learn how to behave in public or just around the owner.
We must call the owner 'sir', to show respect and never look up, we must always give a sweet but 'polite' smile, meaning that we cannot show any teeth but the smile have to able to lift the cheeks slightly up but never showing teeth. It is so complicate, so many rules just to smile. Smile should be something fun, happy but this boring people with their shit rules can't accept that. But no matter what I think, I'll do it. In the first weeks here, I thought they were bluffing but they weren't. I didn't do a task as they wanted me to do, then I took a very bad beating with two days with zero food or water. The worst feeling ever. I'll do what I'm told to do because of survival. I just have to keep up with this more two years and a half, and then when someone buys me, I'll try to run away or something, I don't know where I would go but I'll find somewhere better than here. At least I'll try.
Things like this shouldn't happen in a 21-century society. Well, this is not a normal society; this is the underground world. Most man get involve with the mafia business for money but some people like me don't want to be here. However, once you are in, you are never out, and as I was born in it, I have no other way out. It is sad but it is the fact and reality, I'm stuck in this life and there is no way I can make it out, unless I die but it is something I don't want it so I have to bear with it.
As I was saying, this manner class is totally medieval, in a time where women where simply objects, belongings that were meant to stay pretty and quiet. The only difference is that right now we are the same as a value coin. We must stay pretty and obey the owner but when he shows us off to the world, in balls, dinner and parties we must be as shiny as possible, for everyone to see how unique every and each coin is. So yeah, we are coins and we must always be shiny and pretty for our owners.
Our movements have to be gentle and soft. I have to walk slow and our heads always up but when our owner is around, I have to look down. I may not speak, look or move unless he says so. For now, it is just theory , but I cannot imagine how frustrating it will be to practice this theory. Furthermore, I have to speak politely, no slangs or abbreviations and formality is in no discussion.
"You!", the director calls me. "come, it is your turn"
Yeah that is one thing I forgot to tell, they don't like how my waist looks like and they say I have to lose weight. I'm not overweight but it is not good enough, apparently. So now, they weight and measure me to see if it is going the way they want.
I walk to where the director is standing and she takes out a measuring tape and start to measure my hips, bust, waits and then the whole body. After that, she directs me to the scale. We wait a few seconds and the numbers show up: I lost some weight but as much as they would like to.
Height: 5'3 ft (162cm)
Weight: from 128 to 125 pounds
Waist: 26 inches
Bra size: 42C
Hips: 37"
"Shame on you miss. These measures are ridiculously embarrassing", she says while showing them to me. "I want you to weight lower than 119 pounds and we will work in getting you a smaller waist, something like 24 inches.", she adds and let me go. I guess the rest is normal.... I guess.
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The day goes by and It is finally the time for my favourite meal of a day: Dinner. I love dinner so much that I would not eat the rest of the meals to just eat dinner. Hanna and I sit next to each other and we wait for our foods to arrive and when it does, I feel the urge to smile showing all my teeth, but I'm stopped by the feeling of getting punish again. And I get back to the machine they expect me to be.
A woman arrives and give all the other girls have their plates and I'm the only one left with nothing but a glass of water and some vitamin pills. I thank the lady and I wanted to protest but, how can I? if I speak or in any way disrespect someone, which by their rules everything is disrespectful, I get punish and everything gets worst. It is better to fill myself with these pills and water than with nothing.
"Remember when I told you that you needed to lose weight?", I hear the director, she is now sitting beside me and saying how fat I am. "I want you to be looking like Barbie when the course is over and you will be looking like one, so that means no dinner or breakfast for you, just lunch and you will follow the rules of eating just half a portion and I'll be aware if you eat anything else that it didn't come from me", she says and her face is relaxed, as an angel. Her skin is light and perfect, her caramel beach wave hair is falling on her elbows and it goes down to her slim waist. She would be considered a perfect woman anywhere she goes.
"Yes mam", I answer back to her, but with my eyes glued to the floor.
"Good, and these", she points to the pills, "will help your body to get the vitamins that it needs. And your hair has to grow more, bellow your waist", she says and why my head bowed I nod, showing that she is right, even though I don't truly believe in that.
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It has been six months since the last time I ate a meal at dinner. I've lost some weight, I got bellow the mark the director has stablished. In the first three week I was hungry all the time but after that I just feel tired. I don't have energy to do anything. Hanna things they did this to me because if I was tired and weak, I wouldn't be able to do things they think are 'inappropriate'. And I truly believe she is right. I can barely use the stairs, in the end I have to stop to take a deep breath but then, I would be called weak and they would punish me, again. I can't even feel bad or get sick.
"I don't care, and neither will your owner if you get sick or feel bad. You need to stay as classy and formal as possible no matter what. Just as we are teaching you here. You will thank me in a few hears from now, when you are married and with beautiful children around you."
That is what the director would say. She should be on our side. She is a woman and she know how the modern world works, and yet she is going against us. She is worse than those who buy us.