Lauren in Mexico

Lauren slouched back on her deck-chair. Staring lazily through her sunglassses at the sea – the Caribbean - she allowed a broad smile to creep across her mouth.

She had done it. She had actually done it! She had escaped to Mexico for the rest of the summer and there was nothing, nothing her parents could, practically-speaking, do about it. Her mother had admitted as much, tearfully, when Lauren had called her, earlier that day, to triumphantly explain where she was and to say that she wasn't going to be returning for three weeks.

For sure, the plane tickets and the hotels had cost her most of the modest sum she had inherited after the death of her aunt earlier that year. She couldn't really afford this sort of holiday. And, of course, she was on her own. For none of Lauren's friends could match her boldness or impulsiveness. Most, were, as Lauren recalled, with some contempt, terrified of getting into trouble. They were worried about being some kind of accessory to Lauren "running away from home". The cowards, Lauren thought!

Yet, if Lauren was honest with herself, the prospect of being only 18 years old and spending three weeks alone in a distant land was a bit daunting, if not terrifying.

But, hey, it was surely worth it to get away from her parents for a few weeks. To get away from their narrow-minded preaching about the importance of getting work experience ... from endless mathematics and Spanish tutoring. And, really, how many other high school girls from the Home Counties have the sort of adventure that Lauren was now embarking upon?

Tomorrow, she would maybe go on a boat trip around the bay and investigate getting some sailing lessons. Meanwhile, she would soon head back to the beach-side hotel where she had checked in only last night, get changed, then head out find somewhere cheap to eat in town. Then maybe check out the local night life, make some new friends...

Suddenly, in the midst of this reverie, she felt an unexpected impact on her stomach. Surprised, she opened her eyes to see a beachball rolling off her recliner and a couple of Mexican men stumbling towards her from the direction of the sea, arms outstretched in apology.

"Senorita! Lo siento... Sorry! Sorry about the ball!" exhaled the taller, older of the pair as he came right up to the foot of her recliner.

"De nada" mouthed Lauren, and scooped up the ball and lobbed it to the Mexican in one movement. The man caught it and gave Lauren a toothy smile.

"Very nice, young lady. Nice control! You are American, yes?"

"American? No I'm from England."

"Ah, yes! You are here on holiday with your family, or your friends?"

"No..." Lauren replied, with a sudden sense of embarrassment. "I'm travelling on my own".

"Ah, OK..." said the man. Lauren observed him look her body up and down: her long, supple limbs, youthful skin, lustrous, if somewhat messy blonde hair, her neat. She thought: he's probably re-assessing my age, thinking that I must be older than he originally thought.

"...Hey", he continued, "You are good with the ball, no? You should come and play with me and my friend Ricardo."

"OK. I'll play you!" said Lauren, after a momentary pause, and a little thrill of excitement that she was already making some friends. The two men seemed harmless enough. Muscular but a little goofy-looking (like, in her opinion, a lot of the locals here), their features a little coarse. They were probably from the lower class, although Lauren couldn't feel confident that she understood the niceties of Mexican society yet. In any event, Lauren had notions that she would befriend all sorts of characters in the course of her adventure, from humble domestic servants to ambassadors and spies... well maybe.

The man introduced himself as "Juan" as he confidently extended an arm for Lauren to lift herself up. Lauren accepted it, and introduced herself to Juan, and then walked straight over to Ricardo, Juan's shorter, slightly chubby friend, and shook hands with him. He smiled politely, but said little.

The three of them played several rounds of beach volleyball – or at least bouncing the ball over the net Juan and Ricardo had set up - the men taking it in turns to play her one-on-one. They profusely praised nearly every move Lauren made, which Lauren found a little patronising, but not unbearably so. They were being friendly after all. They were both clearly aware of her fine figure, as well, but Lauren felt assured that the attention they paid with their eyes stopped short of gawping.

The late afternoon sun was still fierce, and after an hour or so, Lauren began to tire. "Why don't you come into town for dinner with Ricardo and me?" said Juan, as they packed up the net. Lauren demurred; she had to head back up to hotel to change out of her swimsuit. But it transpired out that her hotel was near to a great restaurant that the men knew, so she agreed to meet them there in an hour.

* * *

A few hours later, Lauren found herself in a club on the edge of town.

This place was a revelation. Pounding beats, enormous energy, snappily-dressed skinny youths going crazy for the music. There was nowhere this cool in Lauren's hometown - nowhere this cool in London, even. Lauren danced on her own at one corner of the dance floor, with various boys taking their turn to show off their moves, at a respectful distance of a few feet. As a blonde, foreign girl in a Mexican port town, she was getting a lot of attention. Lauren, for her part thought she fancied some of the boys and hoped that one would come up strike up a conversation with her (and hopefully in English, since her Spanish was terrible).

Lauren, was, in fact, for all her rebelliousness, and despite her attractiveness, still a virgin. She believed that she was a cut above the local lads of Bedfordshire. She had been out with several, but they were all too drippy, or too ordinary to consider going all the way with. What she really wanted was a man who would take control. Someone who wouldn't meekly ask if he could take off her bra...

In fact, the ideas that filled Lauren's mind as she fingered herself in bed at night involved her being commanded – being forced – to have sex by cruel brutes... of rape, in fact. But that was, as Lauren well understood, just fantasy. Obviously, she would probably find, and lose it to, a long-term boyfriend at university: she imagined he would be a kindly and intelligent man.

Juan and Ricardo had taken her to the club after a long dinner at the restaurant during which she had expounded on her hatred of England, of English weather, of her parent's conservatism, and so on. Juan and Ricardo had nodded sincerely throughout. Juan, for his part, explained that he and Ricardo worked "in security". Both were on a week off. He said he was humbled to have had the opportunity of conversing with someone so "intelligent and beautiful". ("Another loser!" smiled Lauren to herself as she waived away the compliments with the palm of her hand.) Ricardo, meanwhile, took some arty pictures of the group on his impressive-looking camera.

Now Juan and Ricardo – both older (perhaps in their 30s?) than the average clientele of the club - were standing in against the wall near the toilets, quietly observing the proceedings. Juan, meanwhile, seemed to recognise quite a number of the boys in the club, who he clasped hands with or back-slapped as they made their way to and from the toilets.

Occasionally, Juan would huddle together with a youth in a corner for a few seconds before turning back around and rejoining Ricardo. It then dawned on Lauren that he might be selling drugs. "Cool!" she thought. "This is my chance to score some dope on my second night in Mexico."

Lauren bounced up to Juan. "Hey – what have you got?"

Juan smiled. "You mean... drugs?"

"Yes. Whattcha selling?"

"Cocaine. You want some? It will help you get that boy over there you like." Juan pointed out one of the kids Lauren had been dancing beside. "Give you confidence!" Lauren's face fell and she felt he cheeks turn red.

"OK, yes. How much?"

Juan said he would let her have a line for free. "Come with me and I'll show you somewhere you can do it."

Juan then led her out to small, deserted patio at the back of the club. Lauren confessed that she had never taken coke before. Juan showed her how to cut out a line on the plastic table, and to roll up a banknote to snort the stuff.

Lauren, excited, confidently sniffed up a line. As she did so, she felt a flash of light. She looked up, Ricardo had come out and taken a picture of her face as she snorted. "Hey! I don't want people to know I've been taking illegal drugs!" she laughed.

"I'll send you peeture." shouted Ricardo cheesily. "A leetil reminder of your visit to Mehico!"

When Lauren returned to the club, she could feel the effects of the coke. She felt amazing, and confidently took centre stage on the dancefloor and aggressively threw her limbs around. However, the man who had caught her eye no longer seemed all that attractive: he was a boyish-looking, lanky mestizo. She was out of his league. No-one here was good enough. Oh well, another day!

At around 1.30am, Lauren told Juan and Ricardo that she was heading back to the hotel. Juan told her that she could buy from him, for a very reasonable price, a wholebagof cocaine, to keep her stocked up for the rest of her travels around Mexico. Lauren boldly agreed, and they went back out to the patio to compete the transaction. As money and the 'merchandise' changed hands, Juan put his arm on her shoulder and suddenly adopted a stern, serious attitude:

"Listen, Lauren. The police in this state are very harsh on cocaine takers. They often search visitor's hotel rooms and will arrest anyone with such drugs." Lauren looked worried.

"However," Juan continued, "they will never, ever search inside... how do you say... a suitcase. Therefore, you must place this cocaine inside your suitcase as soon as you get back to your hotel room. Put it there at the bottom underneath your clothes. Then you will be very safe. Don't just leave it in a cupboard, or your handbag."

Lauren was a little freaked out by this advice. She didn't imagine, before Juan had said this, that she could be in any risk of serious trouble just by carrying some drugs for her own use, unless she was stupid enough to try and smuggle them back to the UK, which she had no intention of doing. However, it was too late to back out of the purchase now without looking like a fool. Besides, it seemed like a very good price for what was quite a large bag of cocaine (maybe 100 or 200g?).

Ricardo called for a taxi, and they both wished her well on her travels. They said that they were back on duty the next day. Lauren thanked them for being so welcoming and gave each man a (chaste) peck on their cheek. She scribbled down her email address and asked a grinning Ricardo (who she suspected had developed a crush on her over the course of the evening) to send her his pictures. Before she stepped into the cab, she thanked Juan for his "special deal" on the powder, which Juan acknowledged with a bow.

When Lauren got back to her hotel room, however, she remembered Juan's advice. She found an internal compartment of the suitcase that was large enough to accommodate the bag of coke, and then re-stuffed some of her clothes into the case.

She then collapsed onto her bed for a well earned night's sleep.

* * *

Lauren was awoke in her room after only a couple of hours sleep by a succession of loud banging noises. She was vaguely aware of the sound of shouting in Spanish. As she opened her eyes clock beside her bed read "06:02". "Huh?" she thought.

As she began to rise to get out of bed to find out what the racket was, she was confused to watch the door collapse down into her hotel room with an enormous crunch and a cloud of plaster dust as it was ripped from its hinges. Half a second later, amidst the grey dust four uniformed men with enormous guns burst into her room. It was the police! The intruders dashed into the room in a heartbeat. As the burly, aggressive men lifted their visors, Lauren saw - with confusion - that two of the men were none other than Juan and Ricardo!

She let out a scream as she was grabbed up by her arms by one of the other men and dragged out of bed in her nightie.

"What's going on!?" she demanded.

The men ignored her. Juan pointed to her suitcase and barked orders to the others. One of the men brutally ripped open the suitcase and started ransacking its contents.

"Hey! Stop that!" shouted a terrified Lauren as she struggled futilely with the officers holding her, who was proceeding to cuff her hands behind her back.

They were going to find the drugs! Fuck! Juan and Ricardo had set her up. Why had this happened? Why had she bought the cocaine? Lauren's sleepy mind was stumbling over itself, trying to make sense of events, to link cause and effect....

"Ayy!" muttered the policeman searching her suitcase as he drew out the bag of coke from the secret compartment.

"You are in very big trouble, young woman" said Juan to her in English as she stared dumbly at the bag. The officer gripping her gave her body a sharp shake as if to emphasise the point.

She then saw Ricardo start taking multiple flash pictures of the cocaine bag and the suitcase it had come out of – using the same camera he had with him yesterday!

Lauren didn't know what to say to extricate herself from the situation. "Please, I'm only 18. I didn't mean any harm!" was all she could think to say.

"I'm afraid that won't be good enough" said Juan sternly.

* * *

Lauren was now in the hot police station building, after been driven, in handcuffs, for what seemed like several miles. She was made to stand in front of the desk for what seemed like an age, whilst interminable forms were filled in by police bureaucrats to record her arrest. With her hands cuffed behind her back she felt helpless.

The prospect of being put on jail and going to jail in this far away land – for how long? - was almost incomprehensibly terrifying. Lauren tried to think, in vain, how she could explain away the cocaine in her bag. Juan – the lying bastard – had tricked her into buying it – but presumably this was legal in Mexico. She had paid for the drugs, and she herself had put them in her bag. She could see no way out...

Ricardo and Juan were now slouched on her side of the desk, openly ogling her body, winking to each other and making brief comments in Spanish that she did not understand. This was unpleasant, and seemed vaguely ominous to poor Lauren. However, she felt that she was not in a great position to complain about it right now.

She remained silent as the forms were completed. Then Ricardo and Juan rose and the officer at the desk motioned for her to follow them out of the room.

"Don't I get to speak to a lawyer? Can I phone my parents?" Lauren pleaded, racking her brain to discover the right thing to do in this situation.

"No" said Juan, beckoning for Lauren to follow him into a side room. "Not yet. Not until formal charges are brought against you."

Lauren traipsed behind Juan into the windowless room. Ricardo, along with another burly ape of a policeman, followed and slammed shut the heavy door.

Lauren was told to sit down on a chair. Juan pulled up another chair opposite her, a foot away and sat down. He motioned to the ape-man, who in turn motioned for her to raise her arms so she could be uncuffed. He held her arms firmly as he unlocked and removed the cuffs.

Ricardo, meanwhile fiddled with an ancient tape-recorder, before turning his attention to a projector. He turned this on.

An blown-up image of Lauren shorting a line of coke appeared on the bare wall in front of her. There was a look of concentration on the face of the girl in the picture as the 100 peso note jutted into the nostril of her button-like nose, directed down at the white powder. Tangled strands of her messy blonde hair dangled down over her cheeks.

"Look" said Juan sternly.

Lauren seemed mesmerised by the image. After a moment, Ricardo clicked a button, and the imaged changed to the photo taken by the policeman, during the raid of her hotel room, of the bag of cocaine being lifted out of her suitcase. Ricardo pulled up a chair and sat down alongside Juan.

"What do you have to say to this, Lauren Parker?" asked Juan.

"You tricked me!" exclaimed Lauren, with desperation in her voice.

Juan snorted cruelly. "That is completely legal in Mexico, Miss Parker. This is how we catch criminals." Juan emphasised the last word, almost drawling in his Mexican accent. He lent back in his chair.

"You will be charged with possessing illegal narcotics with intent to smuggle these over both state lines and the international border" Juan announced. "The penalty for the former offence is a minimum of 7 years. For the latter it is 12 years. I should let you know, Miss Parker, that drug smuggling – even inside Mexico – is treated very seriously indeed. There is much hatred for those involved in the narcotics trade in this state. Last week, for instance, three men and a child, 9 years old, were killed in a shooting between two drugs gangs here in Velacruz."

Lauren fixed her stare ahead and began to feel her cheeks turning red. Her heart was sinking...

"We have evidence," Juan continued "that you took cocaine last night. And that you paid money to buy200gof the drug – a very large amount, no Ricardo?"

"Very large" Ricardo replied, nodding. His stare was fixed at Lauren's chest.

"We have evidence, further" said Juan "that you hid the drug in your travel suitcase, and that you plan to travel, according to your tickets, to Mexico City in 3 days' time, and that you were intending to return to the United Kingdom in 3 weeks."

(Lauren's heart sank further at the phrase "you were intending to return...")

"The clear logic... the clear inference of this evidence is that you intended to smuggle the cocaine, One, over state lines, and Two, back to England."

"I never intended to take the cocaine back to England!" Lauren blurted out.

Juan's face lit up. "Ah! So you admit that you intended to take the cocaine over state lines! And also, by in-ference, that you did buy the cocaine. Ricardo: is the machine recording this?"

Ricardo nodded.

Lauren was now filled with dread. She bit her lip, worried that she would do something to make the situation even worse.

"We now have more than enough evidence to charge you" said Juan. "First, however, you will be searched. Please stand up, Miss Parker."

Lauren uneasily rose from her chair and stood before the two men. Juan and Ricardo looked levelly at her torso

"Strip." said Juan calmly. Lauren was shocked, her understanding of the situation again thrown into confusion. She had imagined that she would be taken to another room and searched by a female police officer.

Upset and still terrified of putting another foot wrong, she said, in a wobbly voice: "Uhm... I thought ... don't I get searched by a woman?"

"Ha ha. No." said Juan, cruelly. "In Mexico, if you commit a crime, you do not get to choose who you are searched by. And Lauren," Juan added, as if giving her advice "if you struggle or are violent, Pedro here," (Juan pointed to the ape-man officer, standing a few feet behind Lauren's chair) "will hit you with his baton. Hard."

"Si!" She heard Pedro laugh, in a deep baritone voice, from behind.

"Do you understand, Miss Parker?" Juan asked. She nodded slowly.

Lauren was almost in a trance of terror. Added to her fear, she now also felt– as she faced the inevitability of stripping down in front of these three men – a terrible pang of sexual excitement. Was her masochist side about to come to the fore? She tried to push her fantasies of ravishment well out of her mind.