The pressure builds and builds. My back arches again, my limbs go rigid, and I focus every ounce of my consciousness on that one tiny spot between my legs as it grows hotter and hotter, tighter and tighter. I am on the verge of coming, but I know that I won’t until his most important part is deep inside me, thrusting hard at the core of my being.
Fortunately, I do not have to wait long. At the last possible second before I fall over the precipice, he positions himself over me, teases the tip of his rock-hard cock against my dripping sex. He traces the outline of my entrance first, taking his time before he plunges inside. Every cell in my body clamps down in anticipation of what is to come. I suck in a deep breath through my nostrils, and bite down hard on the ball gag as I feel him thrust inside me.
Oh God, it is glorious.
The domino mask and its sandy-haired occupant lean against my left shoulder. He palms his hands on the smooth calfskin, balancing himself on strong, rippled arms as his lower body works hard to satisfy my burning need. He is a firm and steady plank suspended over my spread-eagled, submissive body, levering himself in and out, in and out, up and down, up and down, hard, hard, harder. I struggle against the restraints to raise my hips to meet his thrusts. He pushes me down in response, deepening the penetration even more. He will accept no aggression from me, however small. I can only submit. And I do.
I surrender myself to his dominance. He pounds into me hard as my body sinks back against the supple calfskin, the priceless leather cradling me like a babe in arms. My knees fall to the sides, giving him even more room to plumb my hidden depths. The tip of his cock thrums against my deepest recesses, and my body emits animal-like grunts and groans around the ball gag with every thrust. He is a hammer, I am a nail. He is the wind, I am the trees. He is a man, and I am a woman. At long last, a woman.
My clit reaches its point of no return, and explodes. My whole body bursts into a thousand tiny splinters. The world comes apart and disappears into darkness.
The truck lurched to a stop, and I awakened. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep. My belly and crotch thrummed with the orgasm that had taken hold of my body while I dozed. I remembered my dream in vivid detail, its images and sensation burned into my brain.
That leather-bound room and a naked Rostovich in a black feathered domino had been real, as real to me as cold rain. I had no idea what hidden parts of my unconscious were behind that dream sequence---I had no real experience with that sort of bondage, with that sort of exotic sex, with those props. I’d only read about them marginally in books, if at all. I knew they existed in concept, but they’d never been real for me, not until now. But that hallucination, dream, fantasy----whatever you wanted to call it---had made them real for me. They occupied my mind like favored childhood memories now, and I wanted to reach out and touch them, make them mine in this world.
This world. What awaited me in this world? God only knew.
The van cut its engine, and I felt the cab doors slam through the floorboards. There was a metallic rustling just outside, followed by the click of lock tumblers turning. At long last, the back hatch rolled up and dingy gray light penetrated the gloom. Wherever we were, it was nighttime, and what little light there was came only from the moon.
I could just make out the shadow outline of Hannah at the far corner of the truck as the rear hatch rose up. Two more dark shadows appeared and climbed into the van. They wore all black and thick knitted ski masks over their faces. Whether they were Rolf and Wilhelm or someone else, there was no way to know.
One of the shadow-men crossed to me, the other to Hannah. I saw the glint of a steel boxcutter blade in the darkness, the click as my captor adjusted its length. He sliced my hands and ankles free of the duct-tape restraints, but left me gagged, then dragged me to my feet. I felt something cold, hard and metallic pressed against my back. A gun, probably. “Walk,” the masked man ordered. He had a deep and heavily accented voice, but that accent wasn’t German. My captor was neither Rolf nor Wilhelm then, but someone else. I had no idea who--or what--he was.
I had trouble walking at first. My legs were stiff and plagued with pins-and-needles sensations after being immobile for so long, which angered my captor. The gun barrel dug deeper into my back, and I tried my best to quicken my pace. We finally made it to the edge of the truck bed, and against my better judgment I jumped down, afraid of what might happen if I balked. My legs buckled underneath me and I landed hard on my backside. My captor jumped down beside me and dragged me back to my feet by my collar, jammed the gun barrel into my back again---deeper this time, and I also heard him click off the safety---and pressed me forward.
I walked in the direction my captor seemed to want. The night was black as pitch, I could only see a few inches ahead of me in the feeble moonlight. I heard padding footsteps behind me and guessed they must belong to Hannah.
After several minutes of walking through the gloom, we came upon a long, low-slung building with a single bare bulb illuminating its only entrance. The single door was heavy black steel flecked with rust, and there were no signs, no windows, no indication whatsoever what type of building this might be. Not a warehouse, not an obvious industrial building, and certainly not any kind of retail establishment----no, not out here, in the middle of God only knew where. No, the place had the look of a fortress, build solidly and inconspicuously, to hide and protect its contents and occupants from the outside world.
The gun pressed still harder into my back. I expected to be shot at any moment. I would die out here in these dark woods, not knowing exactly where I was or why. I accepted this truth as self-evident, made peace with it as best I could. At least I wouldn’t die a virgin.
But my captor decided to let me live a bit longer---at least until I got to the other side of that black door. A firm hand clasped my shoulder, signaling me to stop, though the gun remained right where it had been, square in the middle of my spine. I obeyed, and planted my feet a few inches away from the door. I heard Hannah’s footsteps come to a stop just behind me, but I didn’t dare crane my neck to see if she was OK. As long as I didn’t hear her scream or a gunshot, I would just have to take it on faith that she was still upright and breathing.
My captor let go of my shoulder and reached past me to press a button next to the door. A moment later, an electronic lock buzzed, and the door opened slowly on hyrdraulics. My captor grunted and jabbed me with the gun barrel as a signal to enter.
The building was almost as dark and gloomy as the near-moonless night, but not quite. A single light burned in the far left corner of what appeared to be a single enormous room. My captor guided me towards it, and I obeyed, gingerly placing one foot ahead of the other. I silently wished I could be back in the truck. At least then I didn’t have a loaded gun shoved against my spine. One false move now and I’d end up paralyzed or dead.
I walked the length of almost half a football field before I could make out what was waiting for me by that single 40-watt bulb in the far corner. There was a single armchair there---black, like everything else in the building---and a single side table. A man sat in that single armchair, sipping a crystal goblet of wine. He wore a very expensive-looking black suit, a white oxford shirt open at the collar, and heavy silver cufflinks with lapis lazuli inlay and a matching heavy chain around his ample neck. As I got closer I knew the metal of said jewelry had to be platinum, and not silver. He also wore fine Italian loafers with geometric, angular vamps and a watch that probably cost more than most people’s entire annual incomes. Nothing but the best for this man, who could have been anywhere from his mid-fifties to mid-seventies. His bald head was polished to a heavy shine that produced a glowing reflection even in the dim light, and he had the strong jaw and angular cheekbones of a Slav.
I knew immediately who he was. We required no formal introduction; my reporter’s instincts told me before anyone else would have a chance.
Bluschencko.
He sipped his wine, then set the fine Baccarat glass down on the glas
s table beside him. “Ah yes, so this must be Nancy Delaney. And Hannah Greeley just behind. I have waited a long time to see these two lovely young women in the flesh. I knew from the first time I saw them that I wanted them both added to my permanent collection.”
I opened my mouth to speak, forgetting for a moment that I was still gagged. But my hands were free now, so I tugged the filthy rag off my head and tossed it aside. “Mr. Bluschencko, I presume?”
He smiled, revealing impossibly white and even teeth. Dentures, probably, or implants. “Why yes. How did you know?”
“I do my homework.”
“Of course you do, Miss Delaney. You are a schoolgirl, after all.” His Ukrainian accent was slight, yet distinct. He reminded me somewhat of an old-school James Bond movie villain. “Do you know why I have summoned you here today?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Funny, I thought a hotshot young reporter like yourself would have figured that out by now,” Bluschencko sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “But then again, you’re really not a hotshot reporter at all, are you? You’re just another cheap whore.”
“I disagree.”
He blinked. “Of course you do. Most of my girls disagree with me when I first bring them in. But they all soon learn their place.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re interested in me to begin with,” I retorted. “Or my roommate Hannah, either. Why don’t you just take us out and shoot us and be done with it?”
I hear Hannah gasp just behind me. Then she whimpered. I knew she had to be holding back sobs. I felt terrible for dragging her into this mess. Then again, you could also argue it was all her fault. I had to get to the truth. “What use are we to you? What do you want with us? And why? From what I know of you, you could have your pick of any woman on the planet. Why go after two average girls from Cleveland? How do you even know who we are?”
He picked up his wineglass and took several long sips, emptying it. “Ah. At last you show me your mettle, Ms. Delaney.” He set the wineglass back down and waved his hand back and forth in the air. A young woman wearing a skintight leather dress and over-the-knee boots appeared, took it from him, and disappeared back into the gloom. “I first caught notice of your friend Hannah at an art publications meeting six months ago. Or rather, one of my scouts did. That same scout followed you both for several weeks, and reported his findings back to me. I reviewed his information and felt that both of you would be welcome additions to my collection.”
“Your collection?”
“Ms. Delaney, I am first and foremost a businessman. But I am also a connoisseur of sorts. The success of my business lies in the high quality of my wares. So when I stumble upon high-quality specimens, I make it my business to get hold of them before anyone else does. In Hannah’s case I was a bit late to the party, of course. But not in yours. Except you and a former colleague of mine seem to have spoiled my goods at the last possible second. You will both pay for that mistake.”
“I assume you’re referring to Peter Rostovich.”
“Yes, of course. Your lover. Who else would I be referring to?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How would you know what Mr. Rostovich and I do in private?”
He laughed. “Young lady, I have ways of finding out anything I need to know, anytime, anywhere. I even know what you had to eat the day before yesterday.”
“Oh? Then why don’t you tell me?”
“A pizza margherita at your favorite local establishment, and room service at the Ritz-Carlton after your liaison. A club sandwich on rye with a side of skin-on fries, I believe? And a Moet mimosa? Am I right?”
A cold chill swept over me. Damn, he was good. “Yes, you are. I assume you also sent your goons to harass my mother.”
“I did. And I’m not finished with your mother. Or your father. I intend to use them both as insurance to get you to do what I want you to.”
I did not like the sound of that. Then again, he could have been bluffing---but I doubted it. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
“It’s not about what I want you to do, per se, Ms. Delaney. It’s what I will require you to do.” He folded his hands in his lap and looked me up and down, but didn’t explain what he meant. He seemed to be waiting for me to protest, or cry, or beg, or something. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I stared him down hard, waiting for him to reveal what it was he was trying to use to manipulate me. My sophomore-year journalism professor’s words rang in my head: The No. 1 rule of investigative reporting is just to shut up and let your subject talk to you, he’d said. Criminal psychopaths are egotistical and love to show off. Give them enough rope, they’ll always hang themselves.
He took the bait. “You’re going to join my international escort network. You and your little friend Hannah both. And you’re also going to help me sort out a little problem I’ve been having in Sevastopol. I believe your considerable beauty and talent will come in handy with a very good client I have there who has been rather hard for me to satisfy of late.”
“Escort network? You make it sound like a fleet of exotic cars or something.”
He chuckled. “I prefer to use innocuous terms. If I went around calling it what it really is, I would have a lot of trouble attracting the kind of clientele that generates an appropriate level of profit. There’s no money in cheap street whores turning tricks on the corner for workaday losers. But there is money in glamour. My clients have very specific tastes, and when I find something that I know will meet a certain client’s tastes, I make sure to do whatever I must to obtain it.”
Something. It. So I was getting referred to as an inanimate object again. I didn’t like it. I choked down bile as I plotted my next move.
I trotted out a technique I’d learned from that Professor Willis---that it’s often best to turn your subject’s own words against them during the interview. “You said earlier I’m a cheap whore, and yet you want to pawn me off on a picky client? Are you sure that’s a good idea? Wouldn’t that just complicate things with your client even more?”
Bluschencko frowned and didn’t respond for a moment or two. “At the end of the day, whores are just whores,” he said, seeming to choose his words carefully. “The only difference is the packaging.”
Hannah spoke for the first time. “Can you please just let us go?”
Bluschencko guffawed. “After all the trouble I’ve gone through to bring you both here, do you really think I’d let you go now?” He templed his fingers underneath his chin and gave us both a baleful look. “No, you’ll be coming with me, and doing as I say from now on. You might say that you’ve both become my property.”
“You can’t force us to do anything against our will,” I seethed. “This is America.”
His eyes burned into mine with barely contained rage. “You won’t be staying in America for long.”
The masked guard behind me hit me hard against the temple with his gun. Stars and galaxies exploded all around me. The room spun, black curtains crept into my field of vision, then everything went black.
TWELVE
I woke up in yet another dark cargo van. This one was smaller than the first, and somewhat cleaner. There was a slight glow from a battery-powered overhead light embedded in the ceiling. Hannah lay opposite me in a disheveled heap, unconscious. She had a large bluish-black knot on her left temple, and a dried trail of blood led from it down to the corner of her mouth. I tested my limbs and found them unbound, my mouth ungagged. I supposed my captors saw no point in restraining me while unconscious. I felt mostly all right, other than a dull, throbbing ache in my temple where I’d been pistol-whipped.
I seemed to have escaped a serious concussion or other injuries despite two severe blows to the head, but I wasn’t sure if Hannah had been so lucky. I tried to rouse her, to no avail. At least she was still warm and breathing.
I didn’t know where Bluschencko’s people were taking us, but I ventured they might try to cross the border
into Canada, then fly us out to wherever it was we were going from there. I couldn’t say exactly where our ultimate destination was, but I was betting on Sevastopol. That would fit in with what little I’d deduced about Bluschencko so far. And if I ended up there, I just might be able to do the research Peter had started me on in person. Then again, I thought if I ended up there, chances were equally good that Rostovich would come after me there, maybe even stage a rescue.
All right, so that last part was probably wishful thinking. But still, it seemed something like that would be Peter’s style. And I had to latch onto whatever hope I could find at this point.
I resigned myself to the fact that come what may, I had been kidnapped and would soon be spirited out of the country. I checked my pockets for identification, my cell phone, something---and of course came up empty-handed. Bluschencko wouldn’t be able to smuggle us out of the United States without ID---at least, not on a commercial flight. Of course, I was sure that a criminal mastermind like him probably had ways of getting around that. Phony documents, private planes, bribing government officials, sophisticated human smuggling operations. It all made sense given how I’d seen him operate thus far.
I rubbed my temples, trying to numb my splitting headache so I could think. Bluschancko was a human trafficker, I knew that much. It would appear that Hannah and I were being trafficked. Becoming a forced sex slave was a distinct possibility. I supposed there might be a few others, too---maybe I’d become a drug mule, a sweatshop worker, or sent to a sinister camp where they harvested organs for the black market. Maybe I was in store for all of those things, in that order---I’d read that sex-trafficking rings were always on the lookout for additional revenue streams to take advantage of once their slaves wore out their sex appeal. I was in a good position to find out if that was really true.
Domino (The Domino Trilogy) Page 25