Excerpt, Chapter One

“Once in, never out.” The Johnny Carson look-alike with a cigarette the size of a small brown stump dangling on his lip looking like it was about to pop out and hit me in the eye is giving me the once and the twice over. I am now officially merchandise and it doesn’t feel good at all.

I try not to fidget as I stand in what looks like someone’s apartment, in a living room where the furniture is still new and unused. Except this isn’t anyone’s home. It’s a bordello on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and it’s similar to hundreds of other make-believe apartments neatly tucked away across the city where women sell themselves to businessmen every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and where neighbors never suspect anything of this sort is happening.

My heart is going thumpety, thump, thump. It’s almost lodged in my throat. My palms are clammy, and I wonder if I’m going to make it through the interview. I tentatively lift my eyes up from where they’re glued to his brown penny loafers and dare look at him. He’s wearing a preppy sweater vest under a white shirt with khaki pants. Geez, who knew pimps looked like someone’s dad?

I was raped, lost my job as administrative assistant because the firm I worked for moved to Connecticut, and my floundering new business as a fashion designer was suddenly in the toilet. So much for going at it on your own. I am standing here in four-inch stilettos with a short pink dress I wore to a friend’s wedding. My belly is only slightly swollen and doesn’t betray my missed period and confirmed pregnancy. When I asked my ex-boyfriend for help by explaining I’d been raped he didn’t believe me. After living with him for five years I’d left him only a couple of months earlier renting a one-bedroom apartment a couple of blocks away from our place. He was still upset that I’d left and even more upset that his “little girl”— as he liked referring to me—had sex with another man.

And so, he wasn’t listening or caring or just wanted revenge when I tried to explain how it happened. My movie date wrestled my keys away from me as I tried opening the front door to the building I just moved into, shoved me into the elevator like I was his prisoner, and once it stopped on my floor, he ushered me out demanding I tell him which one of the many keys to use, threatening to slice my face. Once inside, he dragged me by the hair and pushed me up against the wall. I tried to fight him off, but with one fist he knocked me off my feet, and onto to the floor. My head bounced off the wall and suddenly the thought that I might die rushed into my mind. Before I could scream, he was on top of me and I couldn’t breathe. I’d read somewhere that if you do nothing, don’t fight back, you won’t die. My mind was racing with a hundred thoughts and all of them were about surviving this moment. And so, I didn’t fight back and in I don’t know how many minutes it was over. I felt powerless as I lay there, half dressed, broken and in pain. I glanced at his face which was void of expression except for a sinister smirk, and watched as he pulled up his pants, which he hadn’t taken off, buckled his belt and left.

The term “date-raped” had yet to be invented in the world of mergers and acquisitions, fast money and neon-lit Studio 54 of 1980s New York. What kind of girl gets raped, unless I really wanted it? That had been my ex’s take on it and there was no way he was going to help me with the $200 I needed to get an abortion. As uncomfortable as it felt to stand in front of Johnny Carson’s double, it’s even more frightening to think about having the baby. Would I be just like my mother? No way was I going to risk that.

His words began to bounce back and forth in my mind: “Once in, never out.” Not for me, I chanted quietly. Not for me. Not for me. I’ll get out. Not for me.

“How old are you anyway? I don’t sell kids.”

“Old enough,” I retorted in an out of body kind of half hallucinatory state. This could not really be happening to me. I was practically a virgin. I knew the names and the dates of the guys I had slept with. I could count them on one hand. I mentally renamed myself the virgin whore.

“Take your clothes off. Let me see what you look like.” Warren’s voice was huskier now and I didn’t like how this was going at all. My eyes immediately darted to my older sister’s face and sensing my fear she flashed him a cold look shaking her head.

It felt protective and I was grateful. In that moment, I forgot I had gone to her to borrow the $200 my ex had denied me. Instead she talked me into coming here so I could, in her words “earn the money”.

Getting raped, finding out I was pregnant and then discovering my older sister knew people like this was more than I could handle. I didn’t understand the betrayal until many years later because for maybe twenty years I was in a state of shock.

I’ll never really know why she decided to sell me to a pimp and in all the many years since I’ve never asked her. Perhaps it was her way of getting even with the infant my mother saddled her with when she was only just 14-years-old. Or, maybe it’s because the bad blood that has existed between my mother and myself had been passed on to her where, like thick black tar, it’s sealed off every pore of my skin.

I am painfully reminded of being alone in the world as I hear the Johnny Carson look-alike speak and feel his eyes on me. I would spend the rest of my life trying to cleanse myself of the stain her actions and this moment placed on my body and on my soul.

It was the beginning of a long dark and hellish journey and if I could slip back into time, I would march right back to that day, to that moment, and bolt for the door leaving them in their make-believe world of sex-for-pay in a fake apartment.

I am lulled back by his insisting tone.

“You have a beautiful sister, Gigi, why deny me the pleasure of seeing the goods?”

Whatever small part of me which held out hope that someone, anyone — my ex-boyfriend, my mother, my sisters, a stranger on a white horse, would somehow rescue me, have faded.

Author’s Note

This is an excerpt of my memoir, The Billionaire’s Woman. I wrote it in 1997 to try to begin the healing process. In the beginning I approached several literary agents and publishers—all of whom offered me a contract if I changed the names. However, almost immediately, these offers would be withdrawn. One agent told me she had gone to a “party” in Los Angeles and met Riklis. All the literary people who reneged were given gifts. In one case I learned it was a cruise on the Riklis/Arison owned-Carnival Cruise Lines. In another, a large amount of money had exchanged hands.

It took about two years before I discovered all my movements were still being monitored. In 1993, Riklis placed a former Department of Justice prosecutor to keep tabs on me (with the help of private investigators). The former prosecutor recently retired, but someone else has taken his place.

I eventually published the book myself to great reviews. I’ve received over 1,000 emails from social media followers who have praised me for my work. Women from all parts of the world tell me it has helped them. One wrote, “Your book saved the lives of three of my friends.”

Riklis continues to use his various “reputation defender” businesses to malign my work and keep me silent by posting bad reviews. Moreover, I’ve had three attempts on my life and receive death threats on a regular basis.

This said: I am working on a sequel to the book titled, Cinderella Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.