by Jack Norman
Igor hurled Nina into his room and he put his foot heavily behind her as she half-stumbled, half-crawled. Then he went to the wardrobe and grabbed a galvanised wire coat hanger and yanked it out of shape, twisting the wires together with three quick turns of his wrist. He grasped Nina and pushed her face down over the end of the bed, and he used the twisted wire hanger to beat her bare arse and thighs, immediately raising streaks of blood where the wire had cruelly bitten. She screamed in astonished anguish, scarcely able to comprehend the pain, but he beat her without mercy until her arse and upper thighs were a bloodied mess. Only then did he toss the coat hanger aside. However, there was no respite, for he thrust his fingers roughly up her anus, all four fingers, right up to the knuckle. She screeched, feeling sure that he meant to force his whole fist inside her. Instead, Igor buggered her with his cock, ramming it in and out of her as she lay whimpering in agony. Nina was thinking through a blue haze of pain. She knew that her body had been cut firstly by the flailing studded leather straps of the harness and then by the horrific wire hanger, and she had little doubt that her anus was now torn and bleeding too. She had made a desperate gamble, and now began to think it had all backfired, for Igor seemed intent on killing her. However, she had also counted on the john arriving on time. Igor surely wouldn’t want to have her screaming and yelling while a paying customer was in the flat? Her planning seemed to have worked in that respect at least, for when the doorbell sounded Igor stopped, panting heavily, and he withdrew his cock from her anus without even shooting his load inside her. “Fucking bitch,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ll finish this off later.”
The pimp waited for a minute or so, recovering some composure and straightening his unkempt hair and clothing. He then went to leave the room. As the door opened, Nina turned her head and cast a desperate look over to the table. She caught sight of Zelda, who was naked except for the black leather harness that now framed her flesh and encircled her bulging tits, and she was standing with the john. “Nina is ill,” Nina heard Igor tell the customer as the door closed. “Zelda will look after you even better.” Then she heard the key turn in the lock of the door. Igor had locked her into his room, presumably to prevent any opportunity for the punter to see her bloodied body. Crucially for Nina, though, Igor’s gun was still there on the table beside the door. This had been her single great gamble. For four days she had regretted not daring to take the gun and use it on that first fateful night, and she had decided to recover her mistake. However, to do that, Nina had deliberately incurred an horrendous beating. At the end of all that, if Igor had hidden the gun, or if he had taken it with him, then her desperate and painful sacrifice would have been in vain, and perhaps all would have been lost, even her very life. As it was, the pistol was there! Now she had to make the most of the opportunity.
Even though barely conscious, Nina painfully rose to her feet and staggered over to the table. She picked up the gun and was surprised by its weight in her hand. It was the first time she had ever held a gun. For all she knew it could have been a harmless replica. She supposed there would be a safety catch of some sort, but nothing was apparent. Returning to the bed, she lay down, huddled in a foetal position, the gun clutched to her belly. It was some minutes before she felt able to examine the pistol. The brown butt of the Russian weapon was stamped ‘1971’. These old ex-Soviet army handguns were readily-available in Easter Europe, and usually in the wrong hands, but Nina hadn’t the vaguest idea how to use it. There was a tab on the left side of black metal slide; this, she decided, must be the safety mechanism, but it seemed to have three possible positions; she decided she would opt for the middle setting when the time came.
Nina went to the bathroom. Igor had taken the master bedroom, and unlike the others, his adjoining bathroom had a bath tub as well as a shower. She ran the water, placing the gun carefully on the lid of the toilet seat, within reaching distance from the bath. It was difficult to know how long it would be before Igor returned, and she had to be ready for him. The customer being entertained by Zelda would be done in less than an hour. Only Igor knew the codes for the security locks, so he had to return to let the harness-fixated punter out of the flat. There was little time. She just had to deal with the pain somehow. Lying on the bed wasn’t an option; she was afraid she might just fall asleep in her exhausted condition. Nina knew that she had to remain awake and alert somehow. She filled the bath tub with luke-warm water. Her arse and thighs seemed to be afire, and a relentless pain throbbed inside her anus too, seeming as if it was consuming her from both outside and within. She gingerly lowered her bottom into the water, pausing, half in and half out. Nina winced as the water washed over the cuts. Then she eventually ventured to sit and lie back, letting the warm water wash over her and soothe her abused flesh. The water was soon tinted a delicate shade of pink by her blood. As she lay there, Nina reached her arm out to again check that the gun was within easy reach. The butt of the pistol was reassuringly solid and weighty in her hand.
III
Nina was listening with her ear pressed against the locked door of Igor’s room for about 20 minutes after taking the bath. She had wrapped a towel around her and simply waited. The hand gun was hidden in the bathroom, under the soil pipe of the lavatory basin. Eventually, she heard the external door open and shut with a loud slam. Nina had learned that this was one way that a pimp told a whore when a customer’s time was up. Her heart was thumping loud enough to hear, and she wondered whether to go and get the gun. There was some movement on the other side of the door. After a couple more minutes, Zelda was speaking, and then the customer, and then Vadim Kasharin answered. Vadim Kasharin! She hadn’t expected that. She heard the external door open and shut again, and presumed that the customer had left. Then she heard Igor’s voice. “We’ll see to the bitch now.”
Nina ran to the bed and threw herself upon it. The lock clicked and she looked up as both Kasharin and Igor came into the room. Kasharin didn’t greet her. He merely strolled across to the bed and tore the towel from her body. She turned, huddled over in a foetal position, cringing away. Kasharin inhaled sharply when he saw the state of her back.
“Fuck, man, you’ve made a real mess of her. She won’t be able to work for days.”
“I had to teach the cunt a lesson.”
Nina felt Kasharin’s cool fingers on her back, tracing over the cuts where the metal studs of the harness straps had bit into her. Then she flinched when he touched her arse and thighs, which were a mass of lacerations and fiery purple red stripes where the wire coat hanger had flogged her. “This will probably scar her for life,” Kasharin said.
“Yeah, well, her arse will be living testimony of what happens to whores who dare to mess with me. I’ll show you something else...” He paused and reached into his pocket, taking out a small paper bag. “This will give her something to think about.”
Nina hadn’t even considered that she would be permanently scarred by the beating. It wasn’t so much the actual scars that immediately bothered her, although that was bad enough. She was horrified by the very thought that the evidence of her humiliation and degradation would remain with her, a constant reminder, etched into her flesh.
“A pepper? What the fuck are you going to do with that?”
Nina turned and saw that Igor had taken a large red chilli pepper from the paper bag. He was holding it up in front of Kasharin’s eyes with an evil smile on his face. “This is a good way to keep order with women. Hold her arse cheeks apart.”
“She’s taken enough already.”
“Zelda!” Igor called out, ignoring Kasharin’s words. “Come here, I’ve got a job for you. It is good that you see this.”
Zelda, now wearing a black bra and t-back, walked diffidently into the room. “Yes, Igor?”
“I want you to take this lovely hot pepper and stuff it up Nina’s arse. Can you do that?”
“Yes, of course.” Zelda said without hesitation.
Then Igor’s rough hands roughly prized
Nina’s tortured buttocks apart. She screeched and squirmed. A slender finger pushed into her anus, seeming to pry her open, and the pepper was being pressed against her. She felt its stinging heat on the tender puckered purse of her anus almost immediately. Then though, the chilli was forced inside her, and steady warmth quickly grew into raging fiery torment. Nina screeched and wailed, her arse thrashing from side to side. The pain was something she had never hitherto imagined. Almost without thinking, she found herself running round the room, desperate for some place to escape the agony in her arse. The furnace inside her grew to an inferno until she felt sure that it would burn through her intestines. “My God!” Zelda breathed in awe, watching Nina’s agonised contortions. Trying to get some composure, despite the agony, Nina dashed to the bathroom. She sat on the lavatory pan and desperately struggled to dislodge the pepper.
Igor was doubled over with mirth. “Man, that was funny,” Igor gurgled.
“You’re a sick fuck,” Kasharin said.
After some minutes, Nina emerged from the bathroom, her face pale and streaked with tears. She was still naked. Igor grinned widely as he turned to look at her but the smile disappeared abruptly from his face. Nina was holding the pistol and it was pointed directly at his groin. “What the fuck?” he said, starting towards her.
When she fired the gun it was almost as if things were happening in slow motion. The recoil surprised her, jarring her wrist, and Igor seemed to scream before the loud report of the gunshot echoed round the room. Then he crumpled to the floor, clutching his groin. Nina calmly pointed the gun at Vadim Kasharin.
“No, please, Nina,” Kasharin pleaded, his eyes wild. Then he dashed for the door, just as bullet slammed into the wall near his head. He didn’t stop. He ran for his life, out of the external door and down the stairs.
“Fuck,” Zelda said in terror, backing away and glancing down at the spreading pool of blood seeping from Igor as he lay huddled on the floor.
“I’m getting out of here,” Nina said. “Do you want to come?”
Zelda looked at her, seemingly unable to speak, but she shook her head wildly, still backing away from Nina. Nina nodded and she left the room, every step bringing fresh pain. She went to her own room and quickly pulled on the grey leisure pants and baggy tee-shirt, and then found a pair of shoes. With that, Nina Virtsin walked through the open door of the apartment and dragged her tortured body down five flights of stairs, pausing for a rest a couple of times, despite her desperation to get away from there. A couple of doors opened slightly, and unseen eyes peeked out, then the doors quickly shut again. Only when she was about to emerge onto the street did Nina hide the gun, stashing it in the waistband of her pants. She walked as far as she could from the area (although only a couple of blocks away, in reality) before tossing the gun into a rubbish bin. Then she only managed to stagger hundred more yards or so before collapsing in the gutter.
IV
As her head cleared, Nina gradually became aware of the vague smell of almonds and ethanol. She heard a woman’s voice urging her to drink some water. For a few moments she thought it was Anna, Igor’s other whore. Then, though, the woman said, “My name is Margot. Can you hear me?”
Nina opened her eyes and saw a woman clad in green and white, standing over her, offering a beaker of water with a drinking straw. She seemed to be on a narrow platform, a trolley, and it was higher than a normal bed. Her mouth was dry and her tongue seemed to be swollen. However, she raised her head from the hard pillow and took a sip of water through the straw. Beside the nurse, another woman stood, clad in a brown leather jacket with a shawl-like scarf wrapped round her neck.
“Do you know where you are?” the nurse asked.
Nina gave a small shake of her head and lay back on the pillow.
“You are in hospital. Can you tell me your name?”
“I am Nina Virtsen,” she said, turning her head slightly to look at the nurse. “How did I get here?”
The woman, Margot, leaned froward and said gently, “You’re safe in this hospital. I’m from an organisation that maintains 14 beds here for medical and psychological rehabilitation of trafficked women. We have many friends in the red light areas. Someone alerted us about your condition and we picked you up and brought you here. You were very badly beaten.”
Nina nodded. She knew from the hazy feeling of well-being that she was heavily sedated, but her soreness of her wounded back seemed to bleed through the pain-killing drugs.
“We counted twenty-five lacerations on your back. Do you know what kind of instrument caused it?” the nurse asked.
“It was wire. A wire coat hanger.”
“Wire! My God!” the young nurse breathed.
“Pimps often use wire coat hangers to flog women,” Margot said.
“Should we call the police?”
“No police,” Nina raised her head from the pillow in alarm. It was the most movement she could manage.
“No, no police,” Margot said firmly. “The police can’t be relied upon. She’d probably end up worse off than before.”
Nina nodded and then she let her head fall back onto the pillow again. At that time, she was mainly concerned that the police would be seeking her as a murder suspect, although she had no intention of telling Margot that. Nina’s main hope was that Vadim Kasharin wouldn’t dare to contact the police. It seemed entirely possible from the little she knew of these gangsters that they would simply dispose of Igor’s body, make it disappear, just as they made countless girls disappear. She fervently hoped so. Even in her befuddled state, Nina knew that, if the police were involved, then the girl Zelda would almost certainly give evidence to support the people who enslaved her.
“I had two friends with me. Anna and Renata... They were abducted too.”
“When?”
“About a week ago.”
Margot shook her head indicate hopelessness, but she drew a notebook from the pocket of her leather jacket. “Can you give me their full names, Nina? And their addresses.... I’ll do what I can, and at least notify their families about what’s happened to them.”
Chapter Five
Salko’s Investigation
I
Georgy Nikitin burst into Borzov’s office without knocking. “We have news of Anna, Boss! One of her friends managed to get away from the kidnappers and she’s been picked up by voluntary workers.”
“Voluntary workers?”
“It’s called La Luna – a non-Governmental organisation working to prevent trafficking in women.”
“My office is contacted by an organisation to prevent trafficking? How ironic, Georgy!”
Nikitin smiled grimly. “This girl somehow got separated from the others. She apparently has some information to help us on our way, though.”
“The police?”
“No. This particular anti-trafficking organisation has little time for the police, apparently.” Georgy fell silent for a while as he watched Borzov mulling over the situation. Eventually, he said, “We can’t call the police either. I’ve asked to speak with the girl who gave the information. Her name is Nina Virtsen. Does that mean anything to you?”
“No,” Viktor said, shaking his head. “I would know my daughter’s friends? Interview this girl and see what she knows.”
In less than two hours, Nikitin and Salko had visited Nina at the hospital and emptied her of information. She told them about the party, about Raisa Poda, Vadim Kasharin... Weak and befuddled by medication as she was, they were satisfied that Nina had told them all she knew.
II
Lev Salko stood behind a row of cars and discreetly watched as the stylishly dressed blonde woman made her way across the busy university car park. She was walking along an avenue of parked cars directly adjacent to Salko, and he walked in the adjacent rank, easily keeping pace with her but avoiding displaying any apparent interest in her. Then though, as she paused to delve in her bag, presumably for her car keys, Salko slipped between the vehicles and walked up to her.
“Good morning.”
She glanced up, closing her bag, car keys in hand. “Good morning.”
“Mrs Poda?”
“Yes?” She smiled. He saw that she was reasonably attractive, perhaps in her early thirties, and she wore fashionable clothes.
“Mrs Raisa Poda?” Salko sounded like an officious police officer.
“Do I know you?”
“Vadim sent me.”
“He wants to make another arrangement? I don’t wish to talk about it here.”
Salko smiled thinly and stepped closer to her, so closely that he could smell the light fragrance of her perfume. He slipped his left arm inside hers, and reaching across with his right hand to press a gun in her ribs. “I think we shall soon get to know each other very well, Mrs Poda,” he said. “Look friendly and don’t make a fuss or I won’t hesitate to shoot. Please believe me. Now, walk to your car.”
Raisa Latynina’ car, parked a few feet away, was a shiny black E Class Mercedes Coupe, low and sleek. Salko guided her to the passenger side, reaching to take the key fob from her hand and pressing the unlocking button. “A nice car,” he said as the indicator lights flashed. “Expensive on the salary of a Russian university lecturer.”
Raisa Poda made no reply. She was frightened. He could feel her shaking in his grasp. Salko was experienced at judging these things, and he instinctively knew that she was no hard-bitten gangsters’ woman. He had met enough of those. Such women were often tougher than the men. Not this one, though. She was in a daze of abject terror. Nevertheless, he took the bag from her - it was possible that even a respectable woman in Kiev could be carrying a mace spray, or even a gun. Salko opened the passenger door and thrust her into the low seat, and then slammed the door shut again. Hurrying round the front of the car, he took care to let her see his gun, pressed flat against his own chest now. She remained rigid, like a frightened rabbit, as he climbed into the driver’s seat and tossed her bag over his shoulder. He then engaged the central locking system, effectively imprisoning her in her own car.