Christmas in a Brothel

   It's Christmas Eve and I lay in bed, curled up under a pile of blankets and my head resting on a fluffy pillow. I close my eyes and begin to drift into a shallow sleep, the place where, on previous Christmas Eves years ago, my head would be filled with dreams of twinkling Christmas lights and beautifully wrapped gifts.

   But not tonight. Tonight, gruesome images startle me and I jerk awake quickly. I calm my breathing and my heart rate slows, but my mind continues to race with unstoppable force. The images flash in my mind's eye and sorrow fills my heart.

   An eight-year-old girl is crumpled in a corner, broken and bloodied, but her heart is too hardened against the world to care. A young teenager struts across a Las Vegas street to meet a customer and slides into the cab, uncertain of where it's taking her, of where she'll end up at the end of the night, of whom she is leaving with. A 20something young woman lays on a table, the tears silently falling from her eyes as a doctor removes the child growing inside her womb, her fourth abortion, because her pimp considers these precious children a hindrance to his business. 

   And then my own tears fall and I squeeze my eyes shut, guarding myself against the harsh thoughts that assault me. 

   I pray and I cry and I fall asleep soundly within the comfort and safety of my home. 

*     *     *     *     *

    Throughout the Christmas Day festivities with my family, the images reappear at times and I cringe, but they disappear as quickly as they come and I do my best to ignore them. I talk with my relatives, laugh with my cousins, and eat my grandparents' amazing food, almost successfully evading thoughts of children being sold and women my age servicing dozens of men a night. 

   Tonight, I sit on my aunt's couch, surrounded by my cousins and their children and dogs and four different types of desserts. And I think again of those images that swirled in my head on Christmas Eve and my heart is heavy because I suddenly realize that Christmas has come and gone. 

   What about them? 

   My heart lurches and I wonder what Christmas is like for a girl being sold every night. Is it just another night? Does she know it's Christmas? Does she know what Christmas means? Is she filled with sadness that she cannot be with her family on this day? Or maybe anger that her captor keeps her well within his tight grip? 

   And then I feel sick as heat washes over my body, and I wonder who comes to a brothel with money burning in his pocket on Christmas Day? I imagine the state of mind he must be in to do so. I imagine his family and wonder if they know. I ache for the wife he may have, for the children that may be anxiously awaiting his return. I wonder what drove him to that pay-by-the-hour motel that he so often frequents and, yes, even for him, my heart aches.

   I know that each and every day is an unimaginable nightmare in the lives of these about whom I dream. I don't overlook every other day of the year for these for whom my heart breaks. But Christmas is a special time of the year; a time when magic seems to fill the air alongside the bell chimes and Christmas carols, when love and kindness abound more than ever before, when the human race as a whole is reminded of the reason for life and we are more gracious and forgiving and loving than usual. Christmas has always seemed a bit mystical to me and I cannot imagine not feeling that way when the snow begins to fall. 

   But for them, oh, how much different it must be . . .

   Christmas. In a brothel in Cambodia. In a pay-by-the-hour motel in L.A. In an abandoned apartment in Ohio. Christmas. As an object of pleasure. As a non-person. As a slave.  

   Tonight, my prayers rise to the cloudy sky for these whom I describe. Tonight, my heart lies with theirs.