by Nikki Sex
"What do you want it for?" Carmen asked.
Lois frowned. "Were you aware that Robert Ellis had dealings with the Mex Mafia?"
"Yes," Carmen said. "Most of the people I grew up with had dealings with them. It didn’t bother me knowing he was connected to La eMe, why should it? A gang environment was part of my world right from my earliest memories. I have a broader point of view now."
Lois began a long talk about the crimes that they suspected Robert Ellis to have committed, drug crimes, and others, and how the DEA wanted to catch him and put him away.
Huber watched and listened and figured that his partner was wasting her time. Why would a little criminal whore like Carmen Wilson care?
Lois then explained how it was up to good people to protect others from him, and how Ellis was connected to judicial elements that would subjugate the fabric of society. Lois knew that Carmen wanted to assist because it was 'the right thing to do.'
Huber noticed that the more Lois talked the more agitated Carmen became, standing up and pacing on their side of the table, the longest place to walk in the room. Kurt Nielsen stood up too, and while he didn’t pace with her, he was frowning, clearly disturbed by her behavior. Why?
Huber kept a wary eye on the woman. Was she going to flip-out or something?
Agent Lois Cohen turned toward where Carmen was pacing. "Don't you want to help us save and protect others?" she said.
No, like every other remorseless criminal, she doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone else, Jack Huber thought. Carmen Wilson is a slutty sicko protecting her boyfriend.
"I think she just wants to protect her boyfriend," Huber mumbled under his breath. He couldn’t believe it. Somehow what he was thinking had just suddenly slipped out.
Unfortunately for him, Carmen, pacing nearby, heard every muttered word.
To the complete astonishment of everyone, Carmen's agitated tension exploded and a scream tore out of her throat in a raw animal sound of rage.
Totally crazed, she flew across the room and landed on him, knocking him off his chair and to the ground.
Huber felt Carmen's hands firmly wrapped around his throat. Strong and well-trained, Huber held back. He didn't want to damage the fucking fruitcake, as much as he had good reason to. They needed that ledger. Locking his arms together in between hers, Huber twisted, weakening the hold she had on his throat.
The two of them struggled on the floor, and in the end Kurt Nielsen took her hands, prying the mad woman's fingers from his neck.
"Keep that crazy bitch away from me," Huber gasped, as Nielsen pulled her off of him. He felt a burning heat on his cheek. Touching it with the tip of his index finger, it came away with blood. The fucking psycho had scratched his face.
"Carmen, stop," Kurt growled authoritatively. "Stop right now!"
Talk about bat shit crazy!
The woman seemed incapable of hearing her new boyfriend. Jesus, Huber wondered, had she cracked completely? She was thrashing and screaming, "You bastard! You bastard! Bastard! Fucking bastard!" While these words were directed into the air around her, Huber figured she was still talking to him.
He looked over at Lois who was glaring at him.
Fuck, Huber thought. Me and my big mouth. Lois is seriously pissed off.
Huber watched as Nielsen secured the squirrely psycho, holding her back to his front, her right wrist in his left hand, her left wrist in his right in a straight-jacket maneuver. Once he had her captured he sat down, and then held her kicking, thrashing legs with his own, effectively pinning her.
"It's okay, Carmen," he kept repeating in a soothing, soft voice. "I've got you, now. I've got you. It's okay. Enough, Carmen. That's enough. I'm here, I've got you."
Carmen was utterly hysterical, sobbing and sobbing. Tears ravaged her face and her make-up ran down her cheeks, making her look strangely fractured - like a shattered China doll.
"Bastard," she continued to say, only with much less emphasis. "Bastard… bastard."
Terry Bleacher called a break and they were told to return in an hour. Huber followed Lois out, mentally preparing himself for a severe tongue lashing.
15. What Carmen Wants
Carmen shut her eyes. Please God, help me get through this, she prayed.
"Are you sure?" Kurt said, holding her firmly on his lap in Bleacher's office. "We can do this tomorrow, Carmen."
"I'm alright," she said, hoping that was indeed the case. "I don't think I could sleep tonight with this unfinished. I'm so sorry, Kurt, I just lost it. Someday I'll look back and laugh about how bat shit ballistic I went when I attacked that man. It is pretty funny really, even now."
Carmen stood up, keeping hold of his hand. Then she kissed it and let it go. "You were really great, Kurt. You certainly are getting to see me at my worst, aren't you?"
"I'm proud of you," he said and his words were heartfelt.
Nothing could have stiffened Carmen's backbone more than hearing such praise. Was there a better man in the whole world than Kurt Neilson? Carmen didn’t think so. Somehow she resolved that she would pay him back for his generous perfection.
"Thank you… okay, I've got this." She inhaled a deep breath and then exhaled. "Do you trust me?"
He smiled. "Of course I trust you," he said. "I probably would have done the exact same thing that you did, except that I didn't hear Huber's nasty little remark. I told you that I put that man up against a wall myself, didn't I? So you go, girl."
Carmen smiled, remembering Kurt's story of how Agent Jack Huber had made some disparaging comment about her the day Kurt had met him, and how Kurt's immediate reaction had been to strangle the guy just as she had. See? It just went to show that she and Kurt, despite their differing upbringings, did have things in common.
Lois Cohen waited at the door to the conference room, so when Carmen started to enter, Lois stopped her. "I have Jack Huber waiting outside. He doesn't need to be part of these proceedings."
"No, thank you," Carmen said. "Bring him back in, please."
Carmen sat down at the conference table, choosing to sit directly across from Jack Huber. She looked over at Lois Cohen. "Do you still want the ledger?"
"Yes."
"Good." Carmen sighed. She felt bone weary and utterly wired; a strange combination. "I have a price and it involves answers to my questions. First, let me say, Lois, that you are a nice person, and that is why I am uneasy dealing with you. The police have always treated me with contempt, and quite honestly, I find I'm more comfortable with that. So I am going to talk to Mr. Huber here. He has a truck load of contempt for me."
Huber solemnly looked at her with his wary brown eyes, and nodded.
"So my first question is for clarification," Carmen said. "I assume that the DEA managed to get a copy of the 24/7 recording that Robert Ellis took of me while I was in chained in his basement. Is that correct?"
"Yes," Huber said.
"You must have had remote access to his computer. I suppose a Federal judge gave you the warrant?"
"Yes."
"Unfortunately Robert didn't keep any of his criminal activities or money laundering operations on his computer. What date was it that you first saw a video of me?"
"March 17th."
Carmen frowned, trying to recall the time period. "What was the first thing you saw on it?"
"You, masturbating," Huber replied without a moment's hesitation. "The camera was recording at night under infra red."
Carmen was sooo way past embarrassment. Of course being absolutely furious helped. She frowned, going over the moment in her mind. "That was just over a month after I was kidnapped. Did you realize that I had been kidnapped, Agent Huber?"
Huber shrugged. "You sure looked like a willing participant to me."
Unsurprised, Carmen nodded. "Yes, I decided that must be the case. I've thought about this a lot, you know. A woman chained in Robert Ellis' basement. Is she there of her own accord? Is this some sort of fun sex game? Perhaps she is being paid for it.
Can we charge Robert Ellis for abduction and cruelty? Or will she, like countless numbers of other abused women, simply refuse to prosecute and back down?"
"Our job was to locate drug related crime," Huber said. "Ellis owning a sex slave was not part of our purview. On the transcript I counted two-hundred and twenty three times where you stated and I quote: 'Master, I am yours.' We didn’t consider that there was a crime being committed, much less that was there a valid case."
"De minimis non curat lex," she said, and when Huber raised his eyebrows, Carmen added, "It's Latin meaning that basically the law does not concern itself about very small matters. I can see that under the circumstances I was a very small matter. Do you have children, Mr. Huber?"
Huber frowned and his eyes narrowed at this whiplash change in direction, but he replied, "No."
"A niece? Or perhaps a younger sister?"
"I have a younger sister."
"I know you are familiar with my juvenile criminal record," Carmen said. "You must also know that I have committed no crime since I was seventeen years old, over five years ago."
"Other than stealing $3000 from Ellis," Huber said.
She shrugged. "You are aware that I put a restraining order on Robert Ellis?"
"Yes," he said, "and that the judge disallowed it."
"Before Robert," Carmen said as conversationally as possible, "I was in many ways sexually naïve, yet I knew my own mind. The very first time Robert hit me, I left him. That was when I went to the police and applied for the restraining order."
Carmen shifted restlessly in her chair, barely able to keep the spikes of panic these memories brought to her at bay. "Two days after that I was kidnapped by Robert's thugs."
Standing up, Carmen unbuckled the slim belt to her dress. "I want to show you something, Mr. Huber. You've seen me naked before, both you and Lois." With one swift movement she pulled the dress off. Luckily the Ritz-Hilton concierge had provided sensible underwear, black bra and panties – nothing sexy or out of the ordinary.
Carmen walked around the table and turned her back to Huber. "Do you see my scars, Mr. Huber?" she asked. "Can you count them? I certainly couldn't when I received them. I think I lost consciousness a few times from the pain. Go ahead, touch them."
Carmen waited, standing close with her back to him until Huber finally did so.
Taking a deep breath, Carmen put her dress back on. "I was bedridden and sick for about a month as far as I can tell. I honestly wondered if I was going to die. A few times there I figured that maybe that would have been for the best."
Huber's focused cop's eyes still met her gaze, yet there was a different sort of tension there. Did he seem slightly uncomfortable now? Carmen hoped so.
"You want to know my re-occurring fantasy back then, Huber?" she said with a brittle little laugh. Carmen felt her pulse beginning to pound because she was so angry. "How did Princess Leia do it? Seriously? I wanted to wrap that long leg chain I had around Robert Ellis' neck and strangle him, just like Princess Leia did with Jabba the Hutt. So many times I almost got up enough nerve. But I never had enough courage to try it."
Her legs were trembling, so she sat back down. "I was afraid of that damn whip, Huber. But mainly I was terrified that I might fail, and that Robert Ellis wouldn't die."
Carmen took a long drink of water. Her hand was shaking, but considering the volume of adrenaline flooding her system it wasn't too bad. "I still have trouble sleeping at night. I get nightmares regularly. To be fair, it has only been eight months. A few years from now with some PTSD counseling, who knows? Maybe my bad dreams will stop."
Carmen took a deep breath, cleared her throat and exhaled. "Tell me, Huber, how would you feel if your little sister suffered as I did?" Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, but Huber said nothing. "Forget your sister, what if you endured the bite of that whip? What would you do to avoid receiving that kind of beating again?"
Carmen stared at Huber with an unwavering gaze that was fueled by righteous rage. It was Lois Cohen's careless statements that had begun to really set her off. Telling Carmen to snitch on Robert Ellis because it was "the right thing to do," and "Don't you want to help us save and protect others?"
These DEA Agent's didn't deserve to speak to her that way.
Not when they hadn't bothered to "do the right thing" and save and protect her.
Huber showed no noticeable reaction to Carmen's intense stare, yet she sensed that he was no longer icy with contempt. She could see it in his eyes. There was a very subtle crack in his armor – it was small, but still there. Was he wondering if he had made a mistake? Was he sorry?
"I had a 'Sophie's Choice' kind of thing going on, Mr. Huber," Carmen said, finding it difficult to tamp down the hostility in her tone. "Knuckle under and play the game or suffer the consequences. I flatter myself that I've become a pretty good actress. Now perhaps you understand a little of what I did in order to survive. I lived for four months in that basement, while you and your fellow DEA agents complacently," she flung her hands in the air in a gesture of finale, not unlike the ringmaster at a circus, "watched the show."
No one spoke after this extensive tirade.
Oddly, Carmen felt marginally better after getting all that off her chest. She wondered if Agents Huber and Cohen may have a little trouble sleeping themselves after today. Would their conscience prick them? She certainly hoped so.
Huber's dark eyes met hers. "What do you want, Ms. Wilson?" he asked evenly.
Carmen's whole body tensed. "I want Robert Ellis dead."
16. Kurt's Home
Wow, Carmen thought as she walked through a huge room that had dark hardwood floors and a grand piano. Even Robert Ellis' wealth doesn't compare with this sort of luxury.
Kurt lived in the upper east side of Manhattan in a prewar duplex overlooking Central Park. He had been showing her around his home, and Carmen was a little shell shocked and starry eyed with awe.
It had eleven foot ceilings, four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a gourmet eat-in kitchen, a home theater, and a living room that overlooked Central Park. One of the largest bedrooms had been set up as a sexual playroom – but that was locked to keep the cleaning staff out so Kurt didn't show her that.
After the morning they had, checking out bondage apparatus seemed wayyy out of place. Kurt's home must have been worth millions – and that was just the furniture, carpets and original paintings.
Carmen's mind was going a mile a minute. Her lawyer had brokered a deal with the DEA Agents. Carmen wanted a copy of the recording of her time with Robert, including the transcript. The agents had balked on this as it was evidence, but she wouldn’t budge.
The video was a big part of her life that she would ultimately have to deal with. Carmen figured that it would save thousands of dollars in psychological counseling fees for a start. Anyway, if she didn’t deserve a copy, who did?
That really was her only proviso.
It was also a kind of blackmail on the DEA. How would the general public react if what happened to her came to light? That they had let her sexual slavery go, because drug crimes were somehow more important?
They had wanted to put her in Witness Protection, but she refused. Carmen couldn’t testify on the weight of a photocopy anyway. The DEA agents would be angry when they found it was only a copy of the ledger, and not the original, but too bad. Life was full of disappointments.
Carmen's lawyer was managing the exchange.
The rest was in the lap of the Gods.
The agents said that with her testimony and the ledger they could arrest Ellis and put him away for a long time. They still intended to change her mind about her refusal to testify, but that was pointless without the original ledger.
Would the Mex Mafia see that video of her stealing the ledger and come after her? Or had Robert erased the evidence? Carmen was pretty sure that is what he would have done, in order to protect himself.
Would the DEA use that ledger carelessly and end up getting her kille
d? No doubt they would exploit the details of his transactions to catch Ellis in the act. Then hopefully no one need ever know about the ledger, or the fact that Carmen had given it to them.
Meanwhile, were Robert's detectives still looking for her?
Carmen's mind spun with possibilities, and she still had to tell Kurt details of her abduction and the things she had done.
Yet Kurt didn't seem to care that she had been a sex slave. He did tell her that he had been fantasizing about beating Robert Ellis near to death with a whip. Kurt envisioned that the last thing the man would see and feel would be dirt, as Kurt shoveled it onto his face.
The savage aggression in Kurt's voice when he made these declarations had made her smile.
"I think that went well, Carmen," Kurt said, still holding her hand.
He took her to the living room, and sat on a huge white couch overlooking the trees in Central Park. Then he pulled her down onto his lap and pressed her head against his shoulder. Carmen was tense and utterly wired, still wondering if she was going to detonate.
They both sat there doing and saying nothing. After awhile Carmen began to relax somewhat, enjoying the soothing scent of him, and the feel of Kurt's big male body holding her. He made her feel safe.
"I'm glad you didn't die, sweetheart," he said quietly.
They continued to sit in silence for a long while.
"I've been on my own for so long, Kurt," Carmen said. "Just surviving. Reliant on myself, and not needing anyone, or even anything. I just wanted to complete my degree. That was my focus. When that was taken away from me… when everything was taken away, I was so lost."
Kurt's strong arms squeezed her sympathetically.
"Now I feel like a piece of driftwood in the ocean, Kurt, and you're the shore," she said. "I want to cling to the one bit of safety and stability I have ever known. Is that wrong? Is that love?" She stifled a sudden insane compulsion to laugh hysterically. "Am I losing my mind?"
Kurt's hand came up and he cradled her face. His rough fingertips soothed through her hair in a tender, affectionate way.