Nobody's Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre - The Music Stops... Part 2

 One night we were in his room, and rain was pouring down outside. Tony put The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” on his stereo, and we ended up having sex. I was probably fourteen. I’d find out later that it had been his first time.

The music seemed to stop when she was approached by a woman at her Mar-a-Lago job, where she happened to be standing in for another employee in the Massage area... Her short time with a peer friend, Tony, had ended and, as most people know, this was to lead to Jenna's life with Epstein and his consort. Jenna was asked the right questions--did she work here? Did she do massages? Maxwell asked all the right questions. And then proposed that she meet a man who needed massages and Maxwell said she would teach her...

It wasn't surprising that Maxwell took her to a private home--a magnificent home--which started her fear, her confusion... And when she was taken almost immediately into a room where a naked man lay, she grew petrified. Maxwell knew just what to do. She took her arm and explained that she would begin teaching her right from the beginning. They moved to his feet. Maxwell took the right leg; Jenna was to follow exactly what she would do... And they began...

At some point, Epstein began asking about her past "experience" and then used that to manipulate how he related to her. Unfortunately, the combination of fear of men together with a fear received in her early life, that she had no choice but to obey, Jenna soon became a favorite to Epstein. She traveled everywhere with them. She was told she would be on-call 24/7 and no excuses would be accepted... Jenna then was given a tour of the home and "began work" immediately...

While there are always fear, Jenna could not help but be excited with all the clothes that were purchased for her, even jewelry... And, she was always pulled into the many party-type events where there were older rich and sometimes famous men there. She recognized several. She learned though that those who attended were selected for their own privilege and wealth. They came from everywhere, even higher education institutions, politics, and, of course, anybody who was rich enough to be in the same social arena... Jenna normally stayed with Epstein and his consort and they became a known threesome who traveled together... 

Until it was time for the next step. Jenna began to be trafficked to other men, wherever they asked her to be. No details are to be provided here. Men AND women can realize what was happening... Until a prime minister got rough and she was rushed to a hospital... But it passed... Then began a discussion of what might come next when she was back "home."

Jenna was an intelligent girl, obviously acquainted with the world where men use children for their own purposes. 

As I became a regular at Epstein’s house, it was difficult to avoid the demeaning nature of this transactional relationship. Epstein took delight in explaining to me, for example, that he had painted his house pink because “I love pink. Pink is for pussy!” But so many of my connections to men had been humiliating that I think I saw this one as a challenge; maybe for once, I thought, I could make it work for me. This only makes sense, of course, when you consider how little I’d grown up hoping for. As Epstein used me to satisfy his perverse appetites, I rationalized that perhaps he might also help me to better myself. If he and Maxwell made good on their promise to get me trained as a masseuse, perhaps that would set me on a path to freedom and prosperity. I told myself it was worth the gamble. But then, probably two weeks after I’d met them, Epstein upped the ante. I was upstairs, cleaning up after another “massage,” when Epstein told me to come to his office. “How about you quit your job at Mar-a-Lago,” he said, “and work for me full time?” Unsure what to say, I admitted I was worn out from pulling double shifts each day—the first at the spa, the second at El Brillo Way. Epstein nodded. He wanted to make things easier on me, he said. But he had a few conditions. As his employee, I would be at his beck and call, day and night. No exceptions. When he said, “Jump!” my response would have to be, “How high?” And another thing: I could no longer live in my parents’ trailer. Seeing me come and go at all hours might make them suspicious, he said, and he didn’t want that. He held out a wad of cash—probably $2,500. “Use this,” he said, “to rent yourself an apartment.” I was stunned. I’d never held that much money in my hand before. I thanked him, even as a twinge of worry crept into my head. By this point, I had seen dozens of girls coming and going from his house. Many came once and never returned. If he got rid of them so quickly, would Epstein eventually throw me away too? It felt foolish to rely on him for my livelihood. Epstein must’ve sensed my qualms, though, because he walked around his desk, picked up a grainy photograph, and handed it to me. The image had been taken from some distance, but it was unmistakably my little brother. Skydy was walking away from the camera; I could see his backpack, and the outline of the side of his face. I felt a stab of fear. Why did Epstein have a photo of the person I loved most in the world? “We know where your brother goes to school,” Epstein said. He let that sink in for a moment, then got to the point: “You must never tell a soul what goes on in this house.” He was smiling, but his threat was clear: should I ever be tempted to betray him and go to the authorities, he would hurt Skydy. I stared at him. He stared back. “And I own the Palm Beach Police Department,” he said, “so they won’t do anything about it.”

~~~

It’s taken me a long time to understand that Epstein and Maxwell solidified their power over me by offering me a new sort of family. Epstein was the patriarch, Maxwell the matriarch, and these roles were not merely implied. Maxwell liked to call the girls who regularly serviced Epstein her “children.” She and Epstein once took me to a boat show in Palm Beach and spent the afternoon introducing me as their daughter, just for kicks. As bizarre as that sounds, it felt kind of good to me. Less good, given my history, was that Epstein sometimes insisted that I call him “Daddy” during sex. While I was hardly equipped to judge, it often seemed to me that Epstein and Maxwell behaved like actual parents. The first time we ate a meal together, for example, they were appalled by my table manners. So Maxwell taught me how to hold a knife and fork, just so, and to fold my napkin in my lap, the way civilized people do. Soon, she’d be telling me how to do my makeup, how to dress, and where to get my hair cut (the celebrity stylist Frédéric Fekkai groomed many of the girls in Epstein’s world, including me). Even then, part of me knew she was having her dentists whiten my teeth, or sending me to a waxer to remove my body hair, to please Epstein. But the role Maxwell played in my life sometimes felt like more than that. One day in the fall

 of 2000, we heard “Yellow,” Coldplay’s new love song, on the car radio. I loved it and couldn’t get the tune out of my head. A day later, Maxwell presented me with the CD as a gift. She also gave me my first cell phone. Of course, it served her to have me on a short tether, for her and Epstein’s use. But the gift also felt vaguely protective. I was no expert on mothers, but in those early days, I sometimes imagined Maxwell as mine. —

As Jenna got deeper and deeper, she began to realize and think about how many girls came a few times and then left, never to be seen again... So that, later, when discussions began about planning for the future,

But what they asked me to do for them still shocked me. I knew I had to stall somehow... 

Jenna willingly discussed their plans, but, she brought up the promised training to become a certified masseuse and begged time to have than occur before any future plans were firm. Fortunately, that was agreeable and Maxwell found the, supposed, best place to be taught... It was in Thailand...

Arrangements were quickly made by Maxwell, as usual, and soon Jenna was traveling alone to a strange country, on her own, for the first time in over two years. There was a feeling of freedom, underneath, her very much being afraid...

But she was soon taking classes, meeting those who were at or near her age, and even having friends. One in particular would spend time with her, going places that she wouldn't have gone alone... And one day, he mentioned that his friend was in town--would she want to meet him...

Unexpectedly, the story take a sharp turn, Jenna saw a man surrounded by others. She was intrigued, wondering who he was. And then, he looked up at her, as if he could feel her eyes upon him. They stood staring at each other--as they say, everything disappeared but the two of them... Love at first sight... Robbie wanted to be married at the Soi Suthep Temple... 

At one point, I asked Robbie if he believed in God. “God is like the wind,” he said, explaining how reading about paganism had taught him to see God in nature. “Can you see the wind? No. But you can feel it when it brushes your cheek.” Did I believe in God? I couldn’t answer that. I’d always been comforted by the idea of reincarnation because it promised that my piss-poor excuse for a life was not the only one I was going to get. But God? I wasn’t sure. Hadn’t Forrest, one of my earliest abusers, invoked God to manipulate me—just as the counselors at Growing Together had done? In my experience, God had been wielded by others to get what they wanted. Still, meeting Robbie at the very moment I needed him most seemed the best evidence I’d ever had of the existence of something divine. Lying in the sand on that pristine island, exchanging stories about our lives and our beliefs... 

Soon the relationship had developed and they were serious about each other... Robbie asked him to marry him...She was ecstatic, because they had discussed the past with each other and Jenna was relieved that he still cared for her... Phone calls to parents were done. And then, Robbie told Jenna that she needed to end the connection with Epstein... She was afraid--what if he sent somebody to bring her back?! But she dialed the number and was somewhat relieved Epstein answered?

A few tense moments passed before Epstein picked up. “Hello?” he said, and his voice—that smug Brooklyn growl—sounded impatient. “I fell in love and got married, Jeffrey,” I blurted out. “I’m never coming back.” There was the briefest pause. “Have a great life,” he said. Then a click—Epstein had hung up on me...

To Be Continued...

NOBODY'S GIRL - A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice - Published Posthumously by Virginia Roberts Giuffre - Including Playlist - Part 1

My hope is that this book can aim some light at the darkness and force it to crawl back into its cave.

Picture a girl sitting alone on a curb, her face stained with tears. She is fifteen, but so skinny that she appears even younger. She could be pretty, with her blue eyes and long blond hair, but her freckled face is swollen, her throat is bruised, and in her mouth is a taste she will never forget: gunmetal. Bleeding from places she didn’t know she could bleed, this girl has been hurt before, but not like this. A gust of wind makes the palm trees above her shudder. She wipes her bloody lip. What would it be like, she wonders, to matter? Then she sees the stretch limousine. As it glides toward her, black and shiny, the girl catches a glimpse of the driver behind the wheel. Her mind flashes on the limo in Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, the one that Cruella de Vil drives around London, looking for puppies to skin. How many times has she watched that movie? But this isn’t a scene from a cartoon. That’s kids’ stuff, and the girl hasn’t felt like a kid in years. This is real life in Miami, Florida. And the girl is me. Busting out of the juvenile detention facility in Palm Beach County forty-eight hours earlier, I’d been so full of hope. I knew from experience that I needed to ditch my juvie uniform—a navy polo and khakis—or the cops would pick me up right away. So my first stop had been a Marshalls discount store, where I quickly changed into a new T-shirt and jeans and made a show of returning my prison-issue garb, neatly hung on a hanger, to a rack. Then I exited the store without paying and headed straight for Delray Beach. I’ve always been good at talking to strangers. On the sand, I met a stoner dude—way older than me, but with a mellow energy. He was smoking a joint, which he offered to share as we looked out at the Atlantic. When I told him I planned to sleep outside that night, he said I could crash on his couch. I worried that he wanted sex, but I was wrong. When we got to his place, we just smoked some more pot and then he found me a clean towel so I could take a shower. “Please be gone by the morning,” he said before he went to bed. “I go to work early. And please don’t fuck up my house. Do the right thing.” Not all men are monsters. The next morning before dawn, I did the right thing, pulling the front door shut with a quiet click. Then I headed for the train station, where I took most of the money I had—a twenty-dollar bill I’d panhandled from a gas-station attendant—out of my ponytail scrunchie, where I’d hidden it, and bought a one-way ticket to Miami. An hour and a half later, I arrived at the Miami-Dade station, fifty miles south of Palm Beach. I’d run away dozens of times before, but I’d never made it this far. From the station, I headed east on foot, figuring I was about an hour’s walk from the ocean. Right away, I saw the pink and orange glow of a Dunkin’ Donuts up ahead. Back home in Loxahatchee, I’d often begged for change outside the local Dunkin’, so the sight of its logo—a cheerful steaming coffee cup—felt like a good omen. I went inside and bought two of my favorite chocolate-topped donuts. With food in my stomach for the first time in days, I walked out feeling confident. I had no place to go, but I’d figure it out, somehow. I must have been walking for about twenty minutes when a white van pulled over just ahead of me. “Need a lift?” the driver asked, sounding friendly. “I’m going your way.” Maybe it was the sugar high, but my guard was down. Besides, it was hot and humid, and the dark-haired driver looked like a skinny shrimp—bigger than me, but not by much. I got in and buckled up. The driver glanced at me, then back at the road. He was probably in his late thirties and dressed as if he worked construction. “I need to make one quick stop,” he said. He owed someone money, he said, and needed to pay them back. That’s cool, I replied, in a voice I hoped sounded tough. The van turned west, away from the water, then parked in front of a seedy-looking motel. “Come upstairs with me,” the construction worker said. “It’ll only take a sec.” I followed him up, then through a door into a dingy, worn-out room. He was on me immediately, and I knew right away I had underestimated his strength. He overpowered me and held me down on the bed, one hand around my neck. Then he pulled a gun and put its muzzle into my mouth. He raped me from the front first, then from the back. The only lubrication was the saliva he spit into his palm. He choked me until I lost consciousness, then let me breathe, then choked me again. I imagined myself dead, dumped in a ditch. And then a miracle: the man’s cell phone rang, and he released me so he could answer it. “Stay here,” my attacker told me. “Try to leave, and I’ll find you and kill you.” Then he turned back to his phone and stepped outside. I suspected he was going to kill me either way. So I waited until I couldn’t hear his voice anymore. Then I ran. That’s how I became this tearstained girl sitting on a curb in an empty beach parking lot. It is dusk when I see the limousine slow to a stop in front of me. The tinted rear passenger window hums as it opens, revealing the pasty face of a stranger in his sixties. He is heavyset, balding. I watch his eyes as they roam over my swollen, bruised face and battered body. “Oh, you poor baby,” the old man says. His concern sounds genuine. Peering into the car, I see a pretty girl in a short red dress sitting next to him. She smiles at me. The old man wears black slacks and a collared shirt. The men in my family tend toward blue jeans or coveralls. I hope this stranger is different from them in other ways too. “Come in here so we can take care of you,” the old man says, as the girl nods encouragement. I think of my attacker driving around in his white van, his gun in his lap, searching for the girl who got away. I stand up, wobbly. The limo door opens, and the old man slides over to make room for me. The old man tells the limo driver where to go, then introduces himself. His name is Ron Eppinger, and he runs a modeling agency called Perfect 10, he says. He gestures toward Yana, the girl next to him, who is from the Czech Republic. Would I like to become a model like her? He asks me how old I am, and at first I say sixteen because it sounds better to me, less vulnerable. Eppinger shakes his head; he isn’t buying it. So I tell him the truth, that I’m fifteen, which seems to please him. “As long as you never lie to me again, I will take you in,” he says. “What does that mean?” I think, but don’t ask out loud. Then Eppinger’s fleshy face turns sad. He had a daughter once, he says. Susan Marie. She died when she was fifteen, when the driver of a truck she was riding in fell asleep and crashed into a utility pole in Pompano Beach. Eppinger has never gotten over it, he tells me, and for a moment, I feel sorry for him. That’s when he reaches for me and strokes my hair. “If you want,” Eppinger says, “I can be your new daddy.” How quickly he does that, twisting the father-daughter bond into something sickening. But I already know that trick, and I want to believe it doesn’t work on me anymore. I don’t trust parents—especially fathers. I don’t need a daddy, old or new. I just want a break from fending for myself. When you grow up female, danger is everywhere. I’ve known that for as long as I can remember. Just hours ago, the construction worker in the white van showed me a darker shade of evil. I know I can’t go home again. There’s no safety there. My whole body aches, inside and out. I have no good options. The old man, the model, and I order takeout from an oceanfront stand. As we eat—I scarf mine down like an animal—we listen to the waves. Then Eppinger says he wants to take me shopping. We go to a nearby GapKids, and he steers me toward short shorts that don’t cover my backside and tops that are way too small. From the look on the saleswoman’s face, it’s easy to tell what she’s thinking: This isn’t what most grandfathers buy their granddaughters. Next, we go to a lingerie store where Eppinger seems to be a regular. He picks out G-strings and other lacy things that I’ve only seen grown women wear in the movies. He holds them up to my newly developed body, leering. Finally, he tells the chauffeur to take us home. Inside his huge apartment in Key Biscayne, with its sweeping views of Miami across the Rickenbacker Causeway, Eppinger introduces me with a wave of his hand to five other girls, most of them wearing underwear or nothing at all. Only a few speak English. Then, he takes me to a back room—his room. There is a circular bed and a mirrored ceiling. I ask where I can sleep. “With me,” he says. Part of me feels a familiar dread. Is it too late to get away? But another, bigger part remembers how life was in rehab and in foster care and, worst of all, on the run. Maybe this is the way all men behave? I am tired. I want to feel nothing. The old man calls me “Baby.” I am the youngest girl there, so the nickname sort of fits. I want to become someone new so badly that I accept it. “Baby” is now who I am. — It’s breakfast time, and my kids—ages eleven, fourteen, and fifteen—are tearing around the house, almost late for school. At the sunny end of our kitchen island, I sip a perfect cup of coffee, cherishing the chaos. My husband, Robbie, hands out the lunches he’s packed: three healthy snacks and one oversized sandwich. (Robbie’s family is from Sicily, and his Italian subs are hard to beat.) My job is to confirm that everyone has their homework, their permission slips, their gi uniforms for their after-school martial-arts classes. As Robbie herds them toward the car, I hug my daughter and two sons tight, ignoring how they wriggle to get free. “Hurry up!” Robbie yells. “That bell is about to ring!” Then, impulsively, I decide I want to come too. Though still in my pajamas, I jump in the front passenger seat as Robbie opens our electric security gate, and I marvel that this is my life. Later, I’ll take a Pilates class and make coq au vin for dinner, giving Robbie (our family’s primary chef) a well-deserved night off. But first I must return to the job of examining what came before. It’s no fun, this task I’ve assigned myself, but it is necessary. Would it be easier to spend my waking hours walking on the beach with Juno, my French bulldog, or taking my daughter, Ellie, shopping for earrings, or getting ready to overdecorate our house for Christmas? (My husband complains every year, but I can’t help but go overboard on Christmas.) Yes, it would be easier. And I do all those things too. But it’s finally time, I’ve decided, to put all the puzzle pieces of my life together. I couldn’t do that as a child, which is part of the story. Children don’t have the luxury of that kind of reflection. Especially if they are in bad situations as I was, they must focus all their energies on simply trying to survive. In the present, my life is organized around two things: my devotion to my husband and children and my determination to hold my abusers accountable. Part of me would prefer to start in the here and now, describing the gratitude I feel as I arrange Santa Claus figurines, say, or shiny strands of tinsel. But my past demands an audience. It has been hidden for too long. So how did I end up in Miami, penniless, battered, and alone, at the age of fifteen? There are so many answers to that question, but if you’d asked me in 1998, unpacking them all would have hurt too much. Instead, I would have offered the shortest explanation. “I ran away,” I would have said. “I ran away from Growing Together.”

She began as a loving and happy child who her mother daily spent time with her...until she didn't... She had been good in school, had friends...until she didn't... You see, that was about the time that her father had noticed how she'd grown older... Old enough to begin visiting her in her bedroom at night... Her mother pulled away from her, Jenna not knowing why, but missing her terribly, because she had become afraid... She had learned that he'd be back...

Perhaps when her husband started brining his friend around to get to know his daughter--maybe trade daughters... That was when her mother decided that Jenna was unmanageable and sent her away... to a place that, maybe was ever worse than at home... In any event, Jenna was soon out of there, on the streets, running...

When he’d belt out the chorus, in which a young girl demands again and again, “Don’t call me daughter,” I’d chime in at the top of my lungs.

When an older man in a long limousine saw her on the street, and ordered his driver to pull up beside her... For a short while, she was fed, warm, and in a nice room... until he, too, wanted more...

What happened next would be funny if it weren’t so appalling. Forrest stood up and grabbed me by my shoulders, then pushed me to my knees, where he’d forced me to be so many times before. This time, though, he was clothed. “You need to ask God for forgiveness,” he said, sort of bellowing, “for what you did with your dad and me.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. As horrible as I felt about myself, some part of me knew that what had happened with Dad and his friend wasn’t all my fault. But standing over me now, Forrest just kept on, half-yelling, half-preaching. Suddenly, I knew what hate tasted like. It was bile in my mouth, bitter, and I had an appetite for it. I hated Forrest. I hated my parents. I hated every living being in Loxahatchee.

~

In some published accounts about this period in my life, I’ve been inaccurately described as an eager participant in Eppinger’s world. In her book Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown writes that after I heard from Eppinger’s other girls about the expensive clothes and jewelry that their clients gave them, I “began to think that this lifestyle wasn’t only exciting; it was an acceptable way to earn a living.” That’s bunk. I wasn’t excited. I was a defeated, hopeless child. I knew what was happening wasn’t right. Soon, after Eppinger began trafficking me to his friends, I knew how it felt to be a puppy picked from a litter, just hoping its new owner wasn’t the whipping kind. I was merely trying to survive. The only bright spot in this dark chapter came when Eppinger, sensing that law enforcement was onto him, sent me away...

Jenna was on the move again since after Forrest's tirade, her mother told her to leave again... Running, on the streets, until she hooked up with a fellow student she'd been friends with, who offered to let her stay with him--a locked room with his mother. Still, it was better than any other place where she was able to be free, to talk, to know somebody was listening, and to choose what she wanted to do... They'd spend hours listening to music...

More than that, though, who am I kidding? I had no place else to go, no one else to turn to. Setting aside all the indignities I’d suffered at the hands of my parents and others, the consequences of my own choices were becoming evident, even to sixteen-year-old me. I was a high school dropout. I had a boyfriend I lived with but didn’t want a future with. I was damaged in more ways than I even knew, and I was a long way from getting the help I needed to repair myself. I had little money and few prospects for making any. “Well, I’ve been down so long / Oh, it can’t be longer still,” Jewel sang into my earphones around this time. “I’ve been down for so long / That the end must be drawing near.” I thought I had nowhere to go but up. What happened next, then, seemed like a gift. In the summer of 2000, my father—then a maintenance man at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach—got me a job there as a $9-an-hour locker-room attendant.

To be Continued...