When you go off the Game, memories of your sex work days fade quickly. Or are entirely erased. But leaving doesn’t mean you don’t hear stories, and the stories I hear come mostly from Madie, Chastain, and Jessica, all three of them in Manchester. Usually their stories are funny or pathetic, about men at their oddest and worst. Sometimes the two overlap. Madie has a regular who has a nose fetish, stroking and kissing. Whatever.
Recently, though, things took a twist. A bad one. This is a second-hand story, so take it as that, though if there’s one person I trust, it’s Chastain.
Chastain and her friend Mary are both of Pakistani descent, and both are on the Game for extra cash. Their parents, who moved from Lahore to Liverpool as kids, don’t know a thing about what they do in their spare time. The girls are both in their twenties and answer to no one. They’re more English than I am, and I came from Devon. Their clients are also English, mostly white men (with families) eager for some action on the side. Fair enough, at least from my perspective.
The lunatic who did the murders was replaced by thousands of angry young men determined to rage against Muslims, or anyone they thought was Muslim.
Then, out of nowhere, a lunatic stabbed girls to death in Southport, on the coast about fifty miles from Pool. The murders were ugly enough on their own. No one needed to take what happened any further. Madmen are all around us.
But then the story went viral. Misinformed viral. The bloke that did the deed was described as a Muslim migrant. In these days and times, you can guess what happened after that. But it was worse than your worst guess. The lunatic who did the murders was replaced by thousands of angry young men determined to rage against Muslims, or anyone they thought was Muslim. “Enough is Enough” went the slogan, and the movement. People with dark skin were randomly beaten up, mauled, left for dead. It was the worst kind of vigilante horror show, like one I imagined I might see in Texas or some town in the American South. I worked Las Vegas for two years, so I know something about racial hatred. But this was happening at home, in my multicultural England that made a point of mostly steering away from the ugly American legacy.
When “friends” of Chastain and Mary became more cognizant of their background, both had the windows of their flats smashed. An anonymous post about Chastain and her Muslim boyfriend — a lie — went as viral as the other lies and Chastain’s brother, Nasim, who works in IT at home, was pulled from his house and beaten to a pulp. He’s still recovering from a broken arm and leg. Chastain got death threats, routed to her from clients.
Hate has gone viral, and with complicity — the police who knew of Mary’s side hustle did nothing to protect her. She deserved the scorn. Her Lahore legacy and her presence on the Game made it ok to leave her exposed. Disgusting anywhere, but especially in England, once lords and master of colonies whose religions they claimed to accept. In the England of the twenty-first century, I felt like crying or hating back the haters.
Chastain and Mary both filed police reports but were ignored. Nasim was interviewed in hospital, but so far he’s been told the culprits can’t be found. Local authorities are sorry for his pain. All hail Liverpool. All hail Merseyside, home of The Beatles. Can’t buy me love, but hate is free.
Chastain’s brother, Nasim, who works in IT at home, was pulled from his house and beaten to a pulp. He’s still recovering from a broken arm and leg.
Chastain and Mary have been in hiding for weeks. Two clients texted apologies, Chastain told me. But they also said Muslims had gone too far with the killings. Fake news sticks. It’s a lesson social media crooners refuse to learn. Because not learning it serves nasty ends.
England is now as fucked as anyplace else in migrant-loathing Europe. I’m ashamed.
I doubt Chastain or Mary will get back on the Game. Clients now seem like a menace, bombs ready to blow. No pun intended since we have crossed a line, and I doubt we will ever be able to cross backward into the before.
Hatred, of women and Muslims, has become a male vocation. Victims like Chastain and Mary are there for the taking. Never mind Nasim, who could have died.
Jolly old England is gone for good.
– Editor’s note: On July 29, 2024, a youth born in Cardiff, Wales, entered a Southport, England, dance studio and began a stabbing spree that left three girls dead and ten other people injured. News of the mass killing spread swiftly on social media, where the boy, the son of Rwandan parents, was falsely portrayed as a Muslim asylum-seeker. The incident set off a wave of race riots throughout England targeting Muslims and those believed to be Muslims.
So far, hundreds have been arrested and dozens charged, with British officials promising swift trials for the accused. The motives of the assailant, Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, have not yet been determined. He has been charged with murder and attempted murder.
