Cover Story
by Andrea Laurita
"It was like I was throwing up my soul, and from then on I wasn't even worth being a human."
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Money and Fear Drive an Underground Form of Slavery
Like nearly all prostitutes, Davies was sexually abused as a child. At 13 years of age, Davies attempted suicide for the first time. At the age of 15, she met Gregory Hightower, a church-going, Bible-carrying 16 year old. By the time she was 16 years old, Davies had two sexually transmitted diseases and had dropped out of high school because she was pregnant with Hightower's baby.
A childhood friend introduced Hightower to pimping girls. With his insecure girlfriend being eight months pregnant, and girls on the street easily pursued with lies of security, fortune and love, Hightower had discovered a jackpot of easy cash.
When Davies gave birth to Latasha, the financial demands upon the small family increased. Hightower pimped Natalie, a 14-year-old girl, who believed herself to be the object of his affection. With the money Natalie earned, he bought himself a new car.
When Tasha was 3 months old, Hightower convinced Davies to move out of her mother's house in order to collect welfare. She and the baby went to a shelter in downtown Seattle; Hightower stayed at his grandmother's house. Davies had to wait 30 days before she could collect any welfare. Tasha's diaper and formula supply dwindled to nothing.
Hightower persuaded Davies to work a few dates. "He would say, 'don't you love your baby enough to do this?'" she said. He gave Davies careful instructions. "I walked up the avenue. A Chinese man pulled over so I got in the car and he was like 'Sex? Sex! Twenty-five dollar, 25 dollar.' And I was like 'okay.' So we drove somewhere and did it in the bushes on the side of the road."
Davies had the man drop her off at the laundry mat where Hightower waited. "I started to throw up," she said. "It was like I was throwing up my soul, and from then on I wasn't even worth being a human."
With the exchange of sex for money, Davies became one of the 400,000 U.S. teens who are lured into prostitution annually, according to the Deptartment of Justice. With the $25 Davies earned, she bought baby formula, diapers, and a McDonalds meal for herself and Hightower.
Soon, the welfare checks afforded the family an apartment where they settled with Natalie. Davies thought about suicide often.
Hightower repeatedly told Davies she was a failure as a mother because 14-year-old Natalie provided the family income. "At this point, I don't have no job skills," Davies said. "I remember going back out; I was going to try again."
"After the first date, you have to turn yourself completely off or you'd never stop crying. Me--I was this little tiny pea way deep down inside of me. Nobody could touch me. They could do what they wanted with my body, but they could not get to me. It became routine, just give me my money, put it in my hand, do it."
Prostitutes are susceptible to contracting diseases, unwanted pregnancies, being raped and robbed several times a day. "Each time I open a car door, I'm okay to die." Davies said.
As quickly as the two women brought the money to Hightower, he spent it. He kept the entire income, buying whatever luxuries he desired for himself and making sure the women and Tasha had only necessities. "We gladly gave him the money," Davies said. "When I put a smile on his face and knew that he was going to treat me good for a little while, and that he thought that I was somebody special--that feeling just outweighed everything else."
Hightower and Davies started smoking crack regularly. They moved into an apartment in Seattle where the neighbor was involved in an escort service. Davies was not of legal age to be an escort; the neighbor arranged dates for her.
Davies preferred working as an escort to the T-shirt and jeans of the street. Each client paid at least $150, and the accommodations were more discrete and comfortable. "I figured, well, we can make money, we can do our drugs and Greg can have the things he wants," Davies said.
Hightower and Davies conceived again and in 1989, Gregory was born.
Hightower's habit of charming desperate, troubled teens consumed him. He hung out at carnivals or in malls and met runaways to bring home. "I'd get a little benefit out of it because then I didn't have to work as much," Davies said.
Davies awoke one day and realized that she had smoked crack every day for the past year. "I called a regular trick that I knew and asked him to take me and the kids to Portland," she said. "I got my kids with our two little plastic bags and he brought us down here." She stayed at Raphael House, a local family shelter.
She called Hightower and learned that he was brutally beating the other girls until Davies returned. One of the girls had been hospitalized because he had damaged her spleen. "I thought, 'Oh no, I left Greg, he is gonna be so freakin' mad,'" Davies said. Fearful, she told him where she was living. "We met up one time and he said that he missed the kids and I needed to let him see them," she said. "And he treated me really well. We talked about how he had changed."
Hightower moved the girls down to Portland. During their first night in the apartment, he pulled the telephone cord from the wall and battered two of the prostitutes with the phone. "Going back to Greg was worse than death," Davies said. "And here I had gone back to him."
The next three years were full of drugs and alcohol, working customer's homes, 82nd Avenue and apartment complexes in Multnomah County and Gresham. During the day, the girls would work as a band of thieves, stealing from stores and returning the goods for profit. At night, they sold their bodies.
"The pimps' only purpose is to manipulate and make money for himself," Vice Officer Molly Daul said, she worked closely with Davies' case. "The girl is just a commodity, not a person."
On February 4, 1998, less than three weeks after the birth of Davies' third child, police arrested Hightower, Davies and Heather, Hightower's top girl. The police charged Davies with prostitution and several counts of promoting and compelling prostitution. In July, she was sentenced to 23 months in prison.
After six months at a county jail, she and Heather transferred to prison. "On the first day, we got to sit in the yard and we started laughing at how wonderful it was," she said. "We weren't going to get beat today, we didn't have to turn tricks today."
Because of good behavior, her prison time was reduced to 18 and a half months. But promoting prostitution in the state of Oregon is a sex crime, which makes Davies a labeled sexual offender, a mark that is permanently on her record. The state revoked her parental rights and gave full custody of her children to Hightower's mother.
Her sentence ended August 17, 2000, but the challenge of functioning in mainstream society felt daunting. "How do you live when you're 31 years old and don't know diddily-squat except for the street, except for smoking crack, except for getting along with the pimps and the prostitutes?" she said.
Her parole ended on February 4, 2004 and her son, 14-year-old Gregory moved in with her. She continues to learn how to function in society, she still walks with her eyes to the ground and she doesn't relate to heterosexual men.
Officer Daul has worked with juvenile prostitutes for six years. "We have small success stories," she said. "They're not attorneys or doctors, but they're not on the streets anymore."
Davies has spent the past four years attending classes at Portland Community College. On March 20, she got her Associates degree. She hopes to someday use her experience to counsel young, at-risk girls.
Hightower is scheduled to walk out of prison in August of 2007. "I used to worry that I would go back to him; I don't worry about that anymore," Davies said. "I worry about what damage he'll do to other girls because I know that he's going to go back."
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