by Sky Winters
The experience with the man was still running though her head as she stepped down the stairs of the Chambers Street station. As she walked into the station and its dirty stone walls and ceilings and harsh lighting, she noticed that something was off. No one else was there. Not even an MTA employee in the booth. Not wanting to miss the train, she swiped her card through the reader and stepped through the turnstile.
She reached the platform and the story was the same. No one was there. The low rumbling of a departing train vibrated through her body. Nervous, Nora reached for her hearing aid and turned the small, ridged knob.
“— an uptown, three train, approaching the station. Please step back from the yellow line,” said the pre-recorded announcement from the loudspeaker in its stilted, chipper voice.
“Hey, miss.”
Nora turned on her heels, shocked. Now there was someone, a homeless man in a tattered parka and dirty workpants, his face smeared with grime. Nora was shocked; either she hadn’t noticed the man when she arrived at the platform, or—
“Got anything you could spare?” he said in a ragged voice, shaking one of the ubiquitous blue-and-white coffee cups every vendor used in New York.
Nora reached into her purse. She knew that she couldn’t give change to every homeless person, but the Midwest courtesy had yet to be completely driven from her. Withdrawing a quarter, she approached the man and dropped it in his cup. It landed with a hollow thud against the bottom.
“Why, thank you, ma’am, God bless,” he said.
“Sure,” said Nora, noticing that the man was looking her over with hard, inspecting eyes.
He then pulled the collar of his parka up, and spoke into it. “We’ve got a positive,” he said. But now his voice was different. Clear and professional.
Then, with inhuman speed, he withdrew a small, silver item from his parka pocket and jabbed it into Nora’s hand. Shocked, she pulled her hand back and held it close.
“What did you do to me?” she asked, her voice frantic.
But then her vision began to blur; her limbs felt weak and wobbly.
Two pairs of heavy, firm hands grabbed her arms before the darkness swimming in from the borders of her vision consumed her completely.
Chapter 3
When Nora came to, the first thing she noticed was that she was restrained. Her wrists and ankles were clad in manacles of wrought-iron, and as her head began to clear, she noticed that the chains were extremely old. She pulled and yanked at them, but they were hooked into some kind of fastening in the wall behind her. She tried to scream, but her mouth was covered with cool, tight fabric.
Along the wall to her right and left were maybe two dozen other young women, all bound in chains, their mouths covered like hers with something that looked like a leather bandana, like an Old West bandit would wear, but bondage-style. The girls all searched the room with panic-stricken eyes, all, like Nora, trying to determine where exactly they were, and why. They all looked as if they had come out of their stupor at about the same time as Nora.
She was in a long, open room with high ceilings and wooden walls of dark oak. Farther down the room she saw racks of women’s underwear; lingerie, bra and panty sets, and leather kink-wear. Across the room were rows of vanity mirrors in front of chairs of soft-looking leather. The room was two-parts dungeon and one-part fashion show backstage.
Where the hell am I? A drip of nervous sweat darted down her forehead. Nora made eye contact with the girls to her immediate left and right, but bound the way they were, all they could do was share terrified expressions.
Nora then heard a loud thunk from the end of the room on her right. The massive, wooden door opened with a sharp, quick creak, and five men poured in, all clad in slim black-and-white suits, sunglasses, and short, cropped hair. They looked like Secret Service agents, but with one minor difference: Their skin was bone white.
The girls turned their heads to the men. Nora did the same, anxiety forming into a tight hot knot in her stomach. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen now.
The men looked over the women as though surveying merchandise. Then one turned to the other, nodded, and the five men split apart, each heading to different girls along the wall. But not Nora.
Nora looked at the man nearest to her, who went to the girl two spaces to Nora’s left. He regarded the woman, then kneeled and flicked off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of shimmering yellow eyes. He took the chin of the fearful, squirming girl into his hand in a gentle scoop and looked into her eyes, his own eyes wide and fixed. He stayed like this for a moment, mouthing something that Nora couldn’t hear. Then, the girl slackened, her body calm.
The man waited a few more seconds to confirm that whatever he had done worked, then reached behind her, unhooked her chains from the wall, and led her to one of the makeup chairs on the other side of the room. The girl went with him without protest, her steps smooth, but unnatural, her face still and calm as a doll’s. She took her place in the chair, her beautiful face illuminated by the bright bulbs of the vanity mirror. The four other girls the remaining men went to all did the same. It was then that Nora noticed that there were as many chairs as there were girls, and that whatever the men had done to the first girls would likely be done to her soon.
The men, after making sure their girls were still in their seats, then went to another set of girls and repeated the process. Again, Nora wasn’t one of them, though the girls to her immediate right and left were. She watched the process repeat itself: the men kneeled, looked deep into the girls’ eyes, said something in a low murmur, then led the now-docile girls to their chairs. Again, the girls were watched for a moment, then the men went off to a new set.
This time, Nora was one of them.
The suited man squatted in front of her, and looked into her eyes. His face was as slim and angled as his suit, and at this distance, his brilliant yellow eyes looked like tiny blazing suns, and Nora could’ve sworn that she saw the colors swirl and roil. He locked eyes with her in this fashion for several heartbeats and spoke.
“You’re going to get up and go over to that chair. You’re going to sit down and wait until we tell you what to do next.”
Then he reached behind her, undid the lock that connected the chains to the wall and then waited.
Judging by the way the other girls complied, Nora assumed that she would’ve felt some strange sort of compulsion to get up. But she felt nothing.
The eyes of the man narrowed in suspicion. “I said, you’re going to get up and go over to that chair. You’re going to sit down and wait until we tell you what to do next.”
Nora then realized that whatever he was trying to do, whatever sort of hypnosis he was trying, wasn’t taking hold. But unless she wanted to arouse suspicion, she knew that she needed to act like it did. So, she stood, making her face appear blank and compliant, walked past the man, and sank into the soft, cool leather of the chair in front of the mirror.
Nora wanted to turn and look around, to see if she could figure out where she was, and to try to figure out what was in store for her, but she knew that such behavior would be noticed. So instead, she regarded herself in the mirror.
Nora’s eyes were big, which was a source of insecurity for her; she always felt that they gave her a constant look of surprise. The irises were the watery green of a freshly-dewed Longford dale. Her nose was small and pointed a bit upward, and her lips were a deep red with a full shape and the subtle turns of cursive handwriting. Her hair, which was the color of a polished copper pot, was tied in a thick French braid, which she now had draped across her left shoulder. Her coat was missing, and today she was wearing a knitted, oatmeal-colored cardigan over a fitted V-neck t-shirt, and a pair of unassuming blue jeans. She was always told by friends and family that she dressed too plain, too drab, and that her slight, lissome frame seemed to always be lost in the folds of heavy fabric that she typically wore. But this was how she liked it. Her hearing always made her feel like she was disconn
ected from the world at large, and so she liked to dress the part, like someone who wouldn’t be noticed.
Keeping her head still, she looked to her right and left as best she could. As far as she could tell, all of the girls were in their seats.
Then the doors opened again, and a frenzy of feminine chatter filled the room. The pin-point clicking of high heels echoed through the open space. Nora allowed herself to turn just an inch to her right, to see what she could, which was a gaggle of coifed and made-up women in simple, form-fitting clothes; fashionable, but practical. Once the group reached the center of the row of girls, they looked the line up and down, made some counting-off gestures, and split off, one girl to each captive.
The one who came to Nora was tall, slim, and had a severe Slavic face of jutting cheekbones, ice-blue eyes narrowed to a laser point, and platinum-blond hair tied back into a tight ponytail. She looked Nora up and down, mouthing words to herself and making mental notes. Then she turned to the vanity, opened some drawers, and withdrew some items.
Makeup? Nora looked at the small cases lined along the edge of the vanity. What’s going on here?
The woman looked the items up and down one last time and went to work. She started by undoing Nora’s thick, simple braid and pinning it up above her head. Then, she applied the makeup in quick, precise movements—a little blush here, some eyeliner there, a little smokiness there. Nora stayed as still as death during the process, giving no indication that she wasn’t under the hypnotic spell that the rest of the girls were in. The woman was in front of the mirror, and Nora couldn’t see what kind of look she was giving her.
After a few minutes, she was done with the makeup, and set to work on Nora’s hair.
That was fast. Nora allowed a light-hearted thought to well up through the pool of anxiety in her stomach. I wouldn’t mind taking some notes from her; it would save a little time in my morning routine.
The woman went at Nora’s hair with stabbing motions, sticking pins here and tying braids there. Her face was lowered in concentration, and Nora could see that, like the men in the suits, her eyes were that same brilliant burnt orange.
“What you got over there, divchyna?” said Nora’s girl in a voice tinged in a Slavic accent to the makeup girl next to her, her own eyes not leaving Nora’s hair for a second.
“Another cow from one of those shitholes in the middle.”
I take offense to that, thought Nora, still not armored against the “flyover state” jokes.
“This one here is pretty; doesn’t look like she is from here.”
There was a pause while, Nora presumed, the other makeup girl gave Nora a look-over.
“Tak, yes, I see what you mean. Beautiful skin. And I am wondering if that hair is a natural color.”
“I think so,” said Nora’s girl. “I can spot a shitty red dye-job from a mile off.”
“Fair skin, red hair. I bet we get a nice little bag of coins for her.”
Bag of coins? What is she talking about? Where am I?
After a few minutes, the work was done, and the girl stepped back and around Nora, standing behind her in the chair to get a look from a few feet away. Nora could finally see what she had done. Her eyes had a slight wisp of smokiness, which set off their brilliant green; her fair skin was brushed with just enough blush to give her the appearance of being in a state of coquettish surprise, and her red hair was done up in twin braids that were twisted up and behind her head in an intricate pattern that reminded Nora of some kind of rolled and curled pastry. The look seemed to Nora like an innocent peasant girl with the smoky, sexy eyes of a girl in the city. Definitely not Nora’s style, but she liked how attractive she felt. She had always considered herself to be plain and unremarkable, but now she felt a little different about how she looked.
“You done over there? I think I am done with mine,” said Nora’s girl, looking her own work over in approval.
“Ohhh, very nice,” said the other girl, impressed. “Innocent but a little slutty. But the good kind of slutty,” she added after a beat.
“I am good at my job. What can I say?”
“Okay, I think it’s time to get these little chickies all dressed up and ready to go.”
Wait, what? Nora was still nervous, still scared, but also completely confused.
“Everyone to your feet!” shouted one of the women from a position toward the front of the room.
The girls complied, all standing in unison, their chains clinking and clanging together. Nora stood, too, though she was worried that the lag in her motions would be noticed by someone.
A moment passed, all of them standing stone-still and silent. Then Nora could hear the unfastening of chains farther down in the row. She gave silent thanks that these heavy metal things would soon be off her aching limbs. Sure enough, one of the suited men was moving down the line, undoing the chains with a quick turn of a key.
When the suited man got to Nora, he repeated the process, and the chains fell from Nora’s wrists and ankles, landing on the ground with a metallic thunk. She wanted badly to rub the now-free skin, but she could see that none of the girls were reacting to their chains being removed, so she didn’t either.
After a few more minutes, the man finished removing the chains from the line of girls.
“Now, undress!”
Chapter 4
What? Are they serious?
Nora realized that they were. The girls to her right and left complied without a single bit of protest, first stepping out of their shoes, then shimmying out of their jeans and skirts, followed by whatever tops they were wearing, until they stood in nothing but their underwear.
Though her internal sense of modesty screamed objections, Nora knew that she had no choice but to do the same, and now, if she didn’t want to get spotted. She kicked off her black Toms flats, slid out of her nondescript slim-cut jeans with quick wiggles of her hips, took off her cardigan, then pulled the men’s Hanes V-neck off and over her head. She spent a moment looking in the mirror at her slim frame clad in nothing but a black bra and sky blue boy shorts, feeling that she was too slight, that her breasts were too small, that her arms and legs were too stick-like. These were the same self-criticisms that she subjected herself to whenever she stood in front of the mirror, even in a context like this.
“And the rest!”
Nora felt a wave of hot anxiety wash over her. As she unfastened her bra and stepped out of her underwear, she was glad for the blush on her face. It would cover up the real blushing she could feel spreading across her cheeks.
As she stood completely unclothed in front of the mirror, she fought the strong urge to cross her arm in front of her breasts and put her hand over her sex, so that, at the very least, her small pink nipples and red tuft of public hair could be obscured. But she knew better, and stood as still as she could, her arms against the sides of her hips.
Another series of steps could be heard from down the line. It was a quick rapping of a few sets of feet, then stopping, then moving, and then stopping once more. As the noises grew closer, Nora could see that it was a tight cluster of women, two of the makeup girls with one woman, someone new, in between the two. Even from this far away, Nora understood that the taller woman was in an authority position. She stood with poise and grace, and the other girls surrounded and moved around her like little planets, their wide eyes scouring the taller woman’s face for her reaction to whatever she was judging.
The little procession moved then stopped, moved then stopped, until they were at the girl to the right of Nora. The girl was a slight, delicate thing, with eyes wide and innocent like Nora’s, and a body of comparable tone; though her breasts were even smaller than Nora’s, and her hips were narrow, like a boy’s.
“Christ, look at this girl,” said the tall woman in a rich voice, her words heavy with Slavic intonation. “Tiny tits, blond hair, eyes like scared deer; the Ukrainians will gobble her up like cow with steak necklace thrown into shark tank.”
A
moment passed, and Nora could see that the woman was scanning the girl’s body with the keen, inspecting eyes of a salesman judging the value of merchandise.
“Put her in skimpy little red set; show off muscle tone. And tell her to up the coy routine; suits her.”
And with that, the girls raised the girl to her feet, pointed to the section of the room with the racks of clothing, and the seated girl walked with deliberate, obliging steps in that direction.
The woman then moved over to Nora, and began the same process of looking over her body, inch by inch. Now that the woman was closer, Nora could see the features of the woman’s face. She appeared to be in her late forties. Her eyes were a limpid pale blue, her nose was pointed and had a strange texture to it, almost like it were sculpted out of clay. Her mouth was a thin line painted into a glossy red, and her hair was a blond color of such vibrancy that it was like turning a corner and being blasted with a summer sun heretofore hidden behind buildings. She was dressed in slim black pants and a black, button-up dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, which exposed a tattoo of a rose that traveled up along the length of her right forearm.
Nora felt herself withering under the glare of the woman, the effort of trying to appear hypnotized beginning to wear on her. She felt a drop of sweat form near her ear before moving down her neck in erratic angles. Nora hoped the woman didn’t notice.
“My, what a pretty one, this girl,” the woman said, her features cold. “Winsome little face, slim body, but still with breasts. And that hair. Oh, and look at that little ass of hers.”
A moment passed.
“I turn to you, girls. Alla, what you think we dress this little tart up in?”
One of the blonde makeup girls at the woman’s flank stepped forward, her face nervous. “Well, Miss Serko, I think, for her, something simple,” said Alla, in an American accent, “to show off her body. Red thong, and maybe a, I think, see-through bra.”