* * * *
As I had been afraid, in the overall picture of my plight, Benjie Reyes hadn’t been completely honest with me. The casino contract–the dancing as a lead in an all-male Chippendales-style revue at the casino and the extra prostitution duties were as contracted. The promised money in the contract was never seen, though, and I was confined to the casino more as a prisoner than even I had been in Poipet. I will admit, of course, that the tips were great–but only because I delivered what men wanted and the tips came back directly to me. If there was more to do in Cebu City than there had been in Poipet, I never knew it. In the time I was there, I never got out of the casino and I always had bodyguards who were more guards than bodyguards.
I did leave the casino a couple of times, but that was only to be taken to a warehouse down near the docks to do medical checking on the Thai and Cambodians who had flown here with me from Poipet, plus some Koreans and Chinese who got added. They were being kept in a separate warehouse, not working at the hotel and casino or, as far as I could determine, being trained to do so.
On my last day in the Philippines, Reyes explained that to me.
“We have been building a shipment to be sent to the Middle East.”
“A shipment?” I asked.
“Yes. Asian workers. They love having Asians as servants in the Middle East. They are good workers and don’t require time off. They sell for good prices.”
“Sell? You’re going to sell them in the Middle East? They are going to be slaves?”
“Yes, of course,” Reyes said.
“I don’t want to be any part of this,” I said.
Reyes laughed. “You are most definitely part of this. You are flying out with them. You will be auctioned off too. As much as they like having Asian slaves in the Middle East, they love having handsome young Westerners like you.”
Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. This time I think I was falling off the edge, not running on it.