Do you know how sheep get lost?
One nibble at a time.
That's exactly how it happened to me. My name's Janie. I was 24 at the time. I got myself into debt with my credit cards. It was my fault, I'll admit it. I wasn't careful. Before I knew it, I was in over my head.
It's the same, sad song plenty of others have sung in this crazy country. What was different in my case was the change in bankruptcy laws that took effect the year before, in 2028. No more bankruptcies for individuals, the government said. Only for corporations.
With the privatization of prisons, and the re-establishment of debtor's prisons at around that time, it sure looked like I'd run out of choices. I was sure some filthy, scummy prison had to be in my future. I had visions of sharing a cell with some musclebound dyke who would sit on my face every night as she fucked my asshole with her chubby fingers. Not my idea of a good time (though if it's yours, don't worry - I won't judge).
When you're afraid you've got no more choices, and a stranger appears out of the blue to offer you one, what do you do? You take it.
My savior, it seemed, was Mrs. Lockhart. My overworked legal-services lawyer introduced her a few days before I was scheduled to go to trial.
Mrs. Lockhart was all business. She looked like some high-priced corporate lawyer in her tailored gray suit. She was tall, blond-haired and gorgeous. What really stood out about her, though, was her high-heeled designer shoes. I would have called them "fuck me" pumps.
Turns out, it wasn't Mrs. Lockhart who was about to get fucked -- big time. But, how could I have known that?
Mrs. Lockhart told me she was working for a pilot program, an alternative to traditional incarceration. Her company, a government contractor, was looking for females in their twenties and early thirties to volunteer for a new kind of pre-trial intervention program. Young women like me could work off their debt by hiring themselves out as domestic servants to rich people.
No prison. Wow. I'd be willing to push a vacuum cleaner for a couple years to avoid that.
I'm interested, I said. Tell me more.
Just come with me to the information session, said Mrs. Lockhart. She laid a form on the table. Just sign here, it's a standard release. I signed without reading the small print.
Big mistake.
Next thing I knew, I was sitting in a van with tinted windows, along with four other women about my own age. Mrs. Lockhart was in the front seat, along with the driver. They were separated from us by a think, plastic partition like they have in taxicabs. It was only then that I noticed the doors had no handles on the inside.
Not good.
We drove for a couple hours, way out into the country. We pulled up at a gate in a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The driver flashed some kind of pass at a bar-code reader. The gate slid open automatically, then closed behind us.
Really not good.
We pulled up at a low, cinderblock building with very small windows, way up high. We got out. Another bar-code reader, another automatic door closing behind us.
Next thing I knew, our little group of five had been ushered into a small auditorium, joining about a dozen other women, all in their twenties or early thirties. Unlike the plain, run-down exterior of the building, this room was all rich-looking wood paneling and very comfortable seats.
Mrs. Lockhart walked up on stage in her fuck-you pumps. She pulled out some kind of remote, pushed a button, and a screen rose up from the floor behind her with a soft, whirring sound.
"Welcome, ladies," she said, showing brilliant white teeth behind her tight-lipped smile. It might as well have been a Mary Kay sales meeting. "You are at a corporate retreat center owned by my employer, the Halliburton Corporation. As you may know, we are a government contractor. In 2026, through a series of mergers and acquisitions, we became the largest contractor operating prisons for the government."
Mrs. Lockhart pushed a button on her remote. The lights dimmed and our seats automatically reclined like we were in some amusement-park ride. A video lit the screen.