Ulysses - Prologue (Pre-Release Draft)
Blondie - Nogales
The camera equipment looked expensive.
That was the first thing she noticed when the man invited her into Room 127, not the beep of the keycard lock or the smell of industrial cleaner barely masking decades of human misery, not the sagging mattress or the taped curtains blocking the parking lot sodium lights, but the professional quality of his gear. Canon digital camera body with the long lens that cost more than most people made in a month. Umbrella lighting stands arranged with geometric precision. A silver reflector leaning against the wall like a promise. Even a laptop open on the desk, its screen showing photo editing software she recognized from YouTube tutorials about influencer marketing and brand partnerships.
This is real. The contract is legitimate. I’m going to Los Angeles. Going to have followers. Going to matter.
She told herself this while her fingers worked at the hem of her oversized hoodie, pulse doing something quick and electric beneath her ribs.
“Go ahead and get comfortable,” he said, his hands moving across equipment with easy competence while his cologne filled the small space with synthetic ocean breeze that smelled nothing like the Caribbean coast she’d left behind. “We’ll start with some test shots. Build your portfolio. The agency wants to see range, you know? Versatility.”
She nodded like she understood, like she’d done this before, like the trembling in her hands came from excitement rather than the survival instincts that had kept her alive through Colombian orphanages and emergency shelters and the beds of men who whispered lies about protection while their hands taught lessons no child should learn.
Electric blue hair, vivid as Gatorade, artificial as hope, caught the lamplight as she pulled off the hoodie with assumed casualness that masked how her pulse kicked hard against her ribs. The sports bra and worn jeans underneath felt inadequate suddenly, too real and shabby compared to the influencer aesthetic she’d studied on Instagram during the journey north. The girls she scrolled past for hours looked effortless in their perfection, their lives curated into squares of enviable beauty that promised escape from everything she’d ever been.
That’s going to be me. Famous enough that my face means something. That I mean something.
She watched him adjust the lighting while she tried to remember the poses she’d practiced in bathroom mirrors at truck stops and staging houses. “Beautiful,” he said, and the word slid across her skin like the first lie she’d ever chosen to believe. “The blue hair is perfect. Very editorial. Very now.” He gestured toward the bed with easy authority.
“Let’s start there. Just sit naturally. We’ll do headshots first, then move into more dynamic poses.”
She sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, bare feet against carpet that had absorbed too many stories and smelled of industrial shampoo and bodily fluids and desperation. The camera clicked, sharp, mechanical, professional. Each shutter snap felt like proof that this was happening, that the promises hadn’t been lies this time, that years of exploitation might finally lead somewhere other than the next room and the next man and the next survival calculation.
“Gorgeous,” he murmured from behind the viewfinder, his voice carrying that warmth she learned to recognize from the streets of Colombia. But his equipment was real. His setup was professional. The editing software wasn’t fake.
Industry standard. This is how it works. I’ve seen the behind-the-scenes videos. This is normal.
“We need to do some prep work,” he said after maybe twenty shots, his tone shifting just enough her chest went tight and cold. “Professional standards for this level of shoot.” He gestured toward the bathroom. “Models need to be smooth. Industry requirement.”
The survival instincts she’d honed through years of reading danger in men’s eyes and choosing which lies to believe went sharp and bright in her consciousness like warning flares igniting in darkness.
Here we go. “Industry standards” means he wants me naked and compliant before we even start the real work. Mierda, I can shave myself, I’ve been doing it since I was fourteen. But if I push back, does the contract disappear? Does Los Angeles disappear? Does mattering disappear?
She followed him into the bathroom where fluorescent lights buzzed and his cologne mixed with tile cleaner into a scent that would stick in her memory like trauma’s calling card. He produced supplies with the confidence of someone who’d done this before, many times before, and her strategic mind tracked every detail while her mouth delivered the compliance he expected.
“Okay,” she said, voice honey-smooth and artificially agreeable. “Whatever you need.”
The process was exactly what she’d expected, invasive, unnecessary, designed to establish dominance through manufactured intimacy. His hands lingered longer than professional work required, fingers brushing against skin with pressure that wasn’t accidental. She stood still and mapped exit routes while performing the vulnerability he wanted to see, her mind working through the familiar arithmetic of survival.
This is supposed to be different here. American soil. American laws. Victim protection that actually protects instead of just processing us more efficiently. Where are those laws now? Where’s the protection? Same performance, same predatory hands, just better equipment and English-speaking exploitation instead of Spanish.
When he finished, she pulled her clothes back on with hands that wanted to shake but didn’t, because showing fear was tactical and she’d save it for later when it might be useful.
Back in the main room, the camera equipment looked different now, less like proof of legitimacy and more like documentation tools for exploitation she’d agreed to by walking through that door.
“On the bed,” he said, his tone carrying new authority that didn’t bother with the pretense of collaboration anymore.
“Let’s get those shots we discussed.”
She complied because compliance kept you alive when resistance just meant getting hurt before the inevitable happened anyway, arranging herself across the sagging mattress while internally critiquing his technique with the professional assessment of someone who’d been photographed more times than she could count.
His lighting is amateur hour. That reflector’s positioned wrong, he’s going to get shadows under my eyes that make me look hollow instead of editorial. And he keeps shooting from too high, making my proportions look compressed. If this is “industry standard,” the industry must be desperate. But I smile anyway, perform the fantasy he paid for, because maybe, maybe, he actually has connections that lead somewhere other than another motel room.
The camera clicked. Again. Again. Mechanical precision documenting her body from angles that felt increasingly wrong, increasingly invasive, increasingly divorced from any legitimate modeling work she’d convinced herself this represented.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, but his breathing had changed, deeper, slower, the rhythm of arousal barely masked by professional focus. “The vulnerability is perfect. Don’t hide it.”
More clicks. More angles. His free hand adjusting himself with movements he didn’t bother to conceal anymore.
She stared at the ceiling, water-stained acoustic tiles absorbing decades of similar moments, similar violations, similar girls who’d believed lies about opportunity and discovered too late that their bodies were always the actual product being sold. The same ceiling she’d stared at in Bogotá, in Caracas, in Guatemala City. Geography changed nothing about the transaction.
Just another Tuesday.
Except this Tuesday was happening in America, where laws supposedly protected trafficked girls instead of processing them with better equipment.
He set the camera down.
The click of it settling onto the desk felt impossibly loud in the silence. His belt buckle. The rasp of his zipper. His cologne intensifying as he moved closer, mixing with sweat and arousal into a sensory signature she’d smelled a hundred times before in a dozen different languages.
“You’re gonna be famous, baby,” he said, voice thick with anticipation while his shadow fell across her body. “Real famous. Gonna show the whole world what a little Colombian…”
Oh Jesus, this again? Why does every asshole with a camera think he can rape me?
The door slammed inward as a boot kicked it open, lock tearing free from cheap motel construction with violence that sent splinters across the carpet. The photographer’s words cut off mid-sentence, his body freezing in predatory position, belt hanging open and pants halfway undone while his face drained of color.
A man filled the doorway with presence that transcended physical dimensions, tall, broad-shouldered, wearing desert camouflage without insignia that suggested professional military rather than weekend warrior cosplay. A ballistic mask covered his face, a crack running down its center like a fault line. Dark sunglasses sealed off everything above it. His bearing carried violence held in check by nothing more than tactical patience.
“Time’s up, pendejo,” the man said, his voice carrying quiet authority that made the photographer’s predatory confidence evaporate like his cologne meeting desert wind.
The photographer scrambled for his pants with hands that shook so badly he couldn’t manage the zipper, abandoned his expensive camera equipment without a backward glance, fled past the military man who stood aside just enough to let him escape but not enough to suggest he cared whether the photographer made it to safety or stumbled into traffic. Running footsteps hammered against asphalt outside, desperate and panicked and rapidly fading into the Nogales night.
Then silence.
The man in camouflage turned his attention to her with the same assessment he’d used on the photographer, measuring, cataloging, evaluating. She tried to cover herself with hands that shook, her body still arranged in the poses the photographer had demanded.
He circled her slowly, boots making no sound against cheap carpet despite his size. His gaze traveled across her body with detachment that felt worse than the photographer’s arousal somehow, not seeing a person or even prey, just tactical assessment of resources and capability and usefulness. He stopped.
Reached up and removed the sunglasses. Set them on the dresser. Then the mask, unhurried, the cracked ballistic plate placed beside them with the same indifference he’d shown everything else in the room.
She’d learned to read men’s souls in their eyes since she was twelve years old. Every client, every handler, every predator carried something she could identify in thirty seconds, lust, violence, shame, need, ego. Something to manipulate.
Something to work with.
This man’s eyes held nothing. Not cold. Not cruel. Not empty in the way humans could be empty when they’d abandoned conscience. Just void, like staring into space where a soul should exist but didn’t, where humanity had been systematically excised and replaced with something that operated on entirely different principles.
Dios mío, I can’t read him. There’s nothing there, no lust, no anger, nothing to work with. He’s looking at me like I’m equipment. Every trick I know requires seeing what men want. He doesn’t want anything. Just... evaluates. Like I’m a rifle he’s considering for requisition.
She tried anyway, her body moving through familiar routines with increasing desperation.
She softened her expression, made herself smaller against the mattress, let her eyes go wide and wounded. “Please, I don’t understand what’s happening, I’m so scared…”
He circled. His boots made no sound. His expression didn’t change.
She shifted tactics, sitting up straighter, arranging the sheet across her lap with careful modesty. “Thank you for stopping him. I’ll do whatever you need. Anything. I’m so grateful you came when you did…”
He showed no interest. Didn’t acknowledge her words. Just continued his assessment like she was equipment displaying specifications he was noting for later reference.
She pulled the sheet tighter across her chest, met his empty eyes with defiant challenge. “You want me to fight? Is that it? Because I’ve fought before, I know how…” Nothing. He simply waited, patient as stone, for her to finish whatever performance she was attempting.
Mierda. Fine.
She let the sheet slip from her shoulders, arched slightly, deployed the body language that had convinced countless men to choose seduction over violence. Offered access with calculated vulnerability, the kind that made predators think they were getting cooperation instead of strategic surrender.
He looked at her the same way he’d looked at the photographer’s abandoned camera equipment, noting details, assessing capabilities, evaluating utility with complete dispassion.
Nothing works. Six years of reading men and becoming what they want before they can hurt me for failing to be it, and he doesn’t want anything. He just evaluates. All my survival skills are completely fucking useless.
“Just like this,” he said finally, not to comfort but to document. His voice carried the detached precision of someone issuing equipment specifications. “You don’t ever need to change. Not now. Not ever.”
Terror clawed up her throat because nothing she did mattered. For the first time in a long time, her street competence had met something it couldn’t manipulate, couldn’t predict, couldn’t survive through strategic deployment of calculated responses.
She was going to die because every tool she’d built to survive had been calibrated for men with needs.
He moved with predatory speed that bypassed human reaction time entirely, closing the distance before her nervous system could process the threat into a defensive response. His hand was gentle when it tilted her head aside, almost tender in the way professional butchers handle meat they’re preparing for optimal cuts. Then came the teeth. Not tearing violation like she’d braced for based on his predatory circling, but something surgical and precise, fangs sliding into her throat like hypodermic needles finding a vein on the first try. The pain was immediate but somehow distant, processed through shock that hadn’t finished cataloging the photographer’s interrupted assault before confronting this impossible new reality. Cold bloomed in her chest where warmth should live. Not the absence of heat but the presence of something actively freezing, displacing blood with ice water that spread through arteries and veins with inexorable patience. Her heartbeat stuttered, struggling against fluid dynamics that no longer supported circulation, fighting to maintain rhythm while the mechanics of life failed under systematic attack.
This is dying. This is what death feels like from the inside.
Her pulse slowed. The electrical signals that had coordinated her heartbeat for seventeen years losing coherence, fragmenting into chaotic noise that couldn’t sustain the complex timing required to keep blood moving through chambers that no longer remembered their purpose. The room dimmed around the edges, not darkness arriving but light retreating, photons giving up the fight against whatever was consuming her from the inside out. Sounds became muffled, distant, processed through consciousness that was losing its ability to translate sensory input into meaningful information.
I’m going to die in a fuckin’ motel room in Nogales. Naked. Exploited. Just another disposable girl who believed lies about becoming somebody.
Her heartbeat stuttered once more. Twice. Her heartbeat stopped. Not gradually fading but stopping completely, one final contraction followed by a void where sound should be, filling consciousness was fragmenting into pieces she couldn’t hold together anymore. The cold in her chest spread through her entire body with cold efficiency, claiming territory organ by organ until nothing remained that remembered what warmth felt like. The ceiling tiles blurred into abstract patterns, water stains dissolving into meaningless shapes. The cologne that had marked every stage of tonight’s exploitation faded to nothing as her olfactory processing shut down. The pressure of the mattress against her back became theoretical, sensation divorced from interpretation. Somewhere distant, filtered through dying nervous system, she sensed movement, hands positioning her body with clinical precision, arranging limbs with the same detachment he’d shown during evaluation. Her electric blue hair pulled across the pillow like staging. Evidence of feeding obscured by careful positioning. Tactical presentation of finished work.
They promised I was going to be famous.
Then footsteps in the doorway. Someone else arriving. Another witness. But consciousness was dissolving too fast for curiosity, fragmenting into darkness that felt like falling into void with no bottom and no promised landing. Just eternal descent through the nothing she’d become.