Focus (7 page)

T
he man had left
, and I was all alone. My mind wouldn’t accept what was happening, though. I still was thinking that there was some mistake. Asher was going to be in this room at any moment, and we would all leave together. I would make sure that Marisa got the help that she would need, because I knew that she would be suffering some post-traumatic stress from this for sure.

And Asher and I would be back together.

That was what I was thinking as I laid there in the dark, the blindfold still on my eyes. Asher was going to be in that room at any moment. I soon would be freed.

He was going to be there for me. I knew this.

I was just going to have to be patient.

In the meantime, I was dreaming. Dreaming about being with Asher again. About his body making mine feel the way that it always did. I was dreaming about his soft skin against mine. I was hearing his deep voice in my ears, telling me how much he loved me. I was fantasizing about us being together for real. About us marrying and having children and just making love every single day of our lives.

I could feel his touch on my skin. It felt warm. “Asher,” I said. “I love you. I knew that you couldn’t stay away from me. I want to be with you always. I hope that you know that.”

“I do,” he said. “I love you too. I want you to be my wife. I know that there will be challenges, but we’ll overcome them. You and me together. Be my wife, CJ. Please be my wife.”

This was the conversation that I was imagining in my head. I felt his manhood entering me slowly, and I imagined his kiss. I fantasized about him kissing my forehead gently, and his tongue exploring all over my body.

My mind wasn’t even contemplating that all of this wasn’t going to come true. There was somewhere in my subconscious that knew the truth. That the reality of my situation was dire, and that I might never see Asher again. That I had already been sold to some man who was going to mistreat me, and I would never see Scarlett again either. I would never get the chance to see my little brother at the cemetery, and I would never again see my mother or my sister. I had no chance to make things right with them, because I would be amongst the disappeared. Nobody would ever know what happened to me, because I was going to be held captive and made a sex slave.

That was my reality. My conscious mind refused to believe this, though. My conscious mind was still focused on the fantasy of my happily ever after with Asher.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the reality intruded on the fantasy.

I
don’t know
how long I was in that room before the man
came back in. “Little one,” he said. “Meet your new master.”

“My new husband?” I asked. “Asher? Is that you?”

“No,” another man said. “I do not know who Asher is. My name is Robert, and you’re going to come with me.”

At that, I was finally freed from the bed. “Where’s Asher?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” this other man said. “You’re going to come with me.”

“No,” I said. “I can’t go with you. Asher is coming. He’s coming for me. I can’t go with you.”

“Little one,” the man who kidnapped me said. “We talked about this. I’m so sorry, but I found this man before Asher came. If only Asher would have gotten here fifteen minutes earlier, everything would have been different. But I had already made arrangements with Mr. Smithson here. I know that he’s not the same to you as Mr. Sloane, but he will treat you with respect, I guarantee you.”

“No,” I said, suddenly filled with panic and dread. “You have to leave me here. I won’t go with this man. I don’t know him. Asher was here, and he was coming for me. You can’t make me go with this man.”

I heard the two men talking, and then they both left.

I didn’t quite know what to think about that. Perhaps they changed their minds? I felt naïve even thinking that this could be the case, though.

I soon found out what was going to happen. I was injected with a drug, and, in a few minutes, I lost all my sense of anxiety and fear. I was completely calm. I had the same feeling that I did when I first woke up in that other place – that everything was a dream. Not a good dream, but not necessarily a bad dream, either. It just seemed like a twilight netherworld, where nothing was real.

“Okay, now, CJ,” I heard the new guy, Robert, say. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” I said. There was a part of me that was screaming, but that part was muted. Or buried.

And my handcuffs were unhooked from the bed. I got up, and the new guy put his arm around me. “Don’t worry, CJ, I won’t hurt you. I’m going to set you up in a nice place where you can meet lots of new men and women. I’m going to make sure that you have good meals and a place to stay. And the way that you’re feeling right now, is the way that you will always feel, because I’ll make sure that you have plenty of morphine or ecstasy or anything that you need. You’re going to have fun, CJ. You’re going to love where you’re going.”

Love where I was going
. Intellectually, I understood. This man wasn’t going to buy me for his own personal interest, but, rather, apparently wanted me to be a working girl in an underground bordello. Or maybe work as an escort. I couldn’t be sure.

Emotionally, I didn’t have any feelings about this turn of events, one way or another. My feelings were completely numb.

All that I knew was that I was soon in the back of a limo with this man, and we were heading to God-knew-where to do God-knew-what. And I had no feelings about this, only thoughts.

And these thoughts were truly hideous.

I
frantically flew
to my office so that I could do some cyberhacking into the accounts of Yuri Kazakov. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a tough thing to do. For me, it would be second nature. When I was young, I could, and did, hack into any database that I was ordered to. Large banks, large corporations, even governmental entities. Mainly we dealt with large banks, but I had the ability to hack into almost any computer, anywhere in the world.

Granted, that was years and years ago, and things had changed since then. But I had kept my skills, because I believed that there would one day come a time when I would really need them, if only to foil those who would deign to do some corporate espionage on my company. I couldn’t afford for that to happen, so I always kept on the latest techniques that cybercriminals used. That was the best way to know how to combat them.

The skills that I had learned as a defensive mechanism would come in handy here. Yuri, however, no doubt had a difficult security profile, so getting into his account would not be as easy as I would have liked. This might take days, although I hoped that it wouldn’t.

CJ’s life depended upon it.

Nikolai and Marisa didn’t come into the computer room. Nikolai was standing guard, just in case somebody caught on to what I was doing and decided to come in and stop me. And Marisa was in Nikolai’s care. Nikolai was surprisingly good with Marisa, who was evidently traumatized by what had happened, as anybody would be. I knew that Marisa would have to be taken to the hospital soon, if only to be checked out, but that would have to come after I did what I had to do. This project was paramount, and time was of the essence. To say the very least.

I sat down, and got right down to business.

T
he limo
finally stopped in front of a club, and I was led out of the limo by this guy, Robert. We entered the club, and I saw, right away, that it was a gentlemen’s club. Which was like a strip club, but slightly higher class. It was dark and smoky, but there were also neon lights and girls dancing everywhere.

“What is it that you want me to do?” I said, as Robert ushered me through the club into a back room. “I don’t know how to dance.”

He smiled. “Of course you know how to dance. Everybody knows how to dance. I don’t expect you to be able do the splits in the air like these other girls, although that will come with time. But, for tonight, I just would like for you to watch. I have a girl here, who will be like your mentor. Think of her as an older sister, one who really wants you to succeed.”

At that, a tall redhead, who was gorgeous, yet fully clothed, came up to me. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Andrea. My stripper name is Ginger, of course,” she said, motioning to her hair. “Ginger hair, Ginger name.” She smiled. “I guess that you’re Robert’s new girl?”

I looked around, and found that Robert had disappeared. I turned to Ginger. “I need to talk to you,” I said. “Can we go someplace private?”

“Sure,” she said. “I have a dressing room.”

We went back to her room, and she lit up a joint. “Would you like some?” she asked between puffs.

“No,” I said. “Thank you. I would, but I’m pretty sure that I was shot up with some morphine before I ever came to this place. I don’t think that those two drugs would mix.”

She nodded her head. “I thought you seemed a little too calm. I figured either you were forcibly brought here, and drugged up, or you were taken off the streets and wanted to work here for the money. Because you don’t seem to be very nervous, which is unusual for somebody like yourself.”

She took another hit of her joint. “So, tell me about yourself,” she said.

“I’m a photographer,” I said. “And the events that led me to this place are still…a little hazy. I guess because I’ve been injected with this drug, and I’ve been high the entire time. Although there was a point where I was starting to feel things again. Fear, disgust, hatred, those sorts of emotions. But, mainly, I’ve had pretty muted feelings and this entire thing seems like a dream.”

She nodded her head. “Sounds familiar. That’s the number one way the reluctant girls are kept here. They’re given drugs, and become addicted. Robert supplies them with the drugs, so they stay here willingly.”

“You mean that I’m not the only one who was brought here against her will?”

“No, of course not. Listen, this is a high-class place. Lap dances start at about $1,000. It’s important that the girls who work here aren’t your typical girl off the street. I’m working on my PhD. Most of the other girls have at least a Bachelor’s Degree, some have even higher education. Now, how do you suppose Robert finds girls like that? Some, like myself, have always done this willingly, because the pay is so good and you really don’t have to work a ton of hours. Plus, I’ve gotten amazing contacts from this place from men who have offered me jobs for when I graduate, along with everything else you could imagine. Jewelry, trips around the world, you name it. There are really great perks to work here.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “So, you said that there were girls who came here willingly. What about the other girls?”

She shrugged her shoulders, and took another hit of her joint. “Robert buys them. At first, he gives them drugs to numb their emotions about what they’re doing, just like he did with you. Then, when the girls become hooked, they stay, because he’s their dealer. He makes sure that nobody else will deal to them, so they have to stay with him to get their fix. They have no choice.”

“How does he make sure that nobody else will deal to them?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “If anybody ever gets caught dealing to one of his girls, he takes care of them. And he takes care of them in a particularly gruesome way. One time, there was a girl who worked here, and she became addicted to cocaine. She decided to leave Robert. She found another guy to deal cocaine to her, and Robert found out. As he always does. And, well, this guy was burned alive in his car.” She took another hit. “After that happened, the word got out, so everybody knows that if a girl belongs to Robert, she has to get her drugs from Robert.”

I nodded my head. “What about the girls who don’t become addicted? They can just walk away from this place, can’t they? There’s nothing keeping them here, is there?”

Andrea shook her head. “CJ. Robert paid good money for you. Don’t you think that he’s going to protect his investment? If you leave, then the hope is that you will willingly come back, because you need the drugs that Robert supplies. But if you don’t….”

“If I don’t, what?”

“He won’t kill you. He’ll kill your family. He’ll kill anyone you care about. And then he’ll make sure not to kill you, because he knows that your being alive, when everyone you love is dead, is a fate worse than death.”

I blinked my eyes. I suddenly knew that there was no way out for me.

I should have felt panic at that point, but I didn’t. This drug was powerful, alright. The panic, fear and dread were in there, somewhere, buried and completely covered up.

On the surface was a dull ache.

“Is there any way out of this?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. “Listen, it’s not that bad. You only have to work here for about three years before Robert will allow you out of his service. In that time, you’ll meet some of the most powerful and wealthy men on the planet. They’ll buy you diamonds, take you to Europe and Australia, wine you and dine you. I’ve been allowed to be an escort for a month at a time, and, trust me, I’ve never had more fun in my life.”

“Escort?” I said. “I thought this was a strip club?”

“It is. But it’s an escort service as well. You see, we get to meet the men who come in here when we give them a lap dance. The real money is made when these men want our services in a more private manner. We charge $5,000 a night, and if the man wants us for more, he can get a discount. For instance, when I went on that month-long trip to Europe, my fee was $500,000. Robert keeps half of that. So, I not only got an all-expense paid trip to Europe, but I made $250,000 take home pay that month. All under the table, of course.”

I suddenly could see why she was so happy to be employed there.

But that didn’t matter. I wanted to get the hell out of there. My emotions might have been muted, but my thoughts were clear. I had no desire to whore myself out for any amount of money. I didn’t care how many trips to Europe I was offered, or how many perfect diamonds were gifted to me. Making $250,000 for a month of fun didn’t interest me in the least.

I only wanted to get out of there, and I wanted to be back with Asher. I couldn’t quite understand what had happened. Asher was there, yet I was left behind. He took Marisa, though. Why did he take her and not me? That was confusing, to say the least.

Andrea was studying me carefully. “I can see that you’re reluctant. You’re just like a lot of the girls who are brought here forcibly, like you have been. You probably never imagined that you would end up as a sex worker. You probably had a boyfriend you love, and a good family. You went to college and thought that you would end up as a photographer, in your case. Other girls who have been brought here thought that they would end up as a teacher, or a Broadway actress, or an investment banker, or a therapist. They thought that they would end up doing anything but trading sex for money. You’re no different. Am I right?”

“Of course you’re right,” I said. “I’m not that girl. I’ve never been that girl. Nobody has ever been able to buy me.” Even as I said that, though, I knew that it wasn’t entirely true. After all, Asher kind of bought me. He wasn’t paying me for sex, though – that was more than willing. He was paying me for the ruse, so that was a bit different in my mind.

But I loved Asher. That was really the major difference. I wouldn’t love any of these slimy men who would be out there in that club, looking for a hooker to take on an around-the-world jaunt. The very thought of being with somebody that I wasn’t even attracted to turned my stomach.

She sighed, and took out a bag of white powder. “It’s almost show-time. I hope you don’t mind if I do some lines.”

I grimaced, but shook my head. “No. I’m not judgmental about that sort of thing. Live and let live.”

She snorted a line and turned back to me. “Okay, CJ, here’s the thing. You’re stuck here. You can’t leave until Robert says that you can. So, you might as well enjoy yourself. Look at it this way – you’re going to make more money here than you ever made as a photographer. Of course, not every girl is going to do as well as I have. I’m pretty much the top seller here. I know how to work these men so that they give me what I want.”

“I don’t think that I’m going to do well here, then, because the very thought of being with any one of those skeevy men out there makes me want to throw up. I don’t think that I’m going to be able to hide my contempt for them. I would imagine that there probably isn’t going to be a guy who is going to want to take me out of the country if he knows that I can’t stand the sight of him.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I would say that you need to lose that attitude, but, then again, that attitude will make you extremely attractive to a lot of these men here. For some of the guys, playing hard-to-get is an aphrodisiac. I never play hard-to-get myself, because I generally gravitate towards the men who really want to be with me. But I’m quite sure that you’ll be just as popular as me, especially if you show your contempt.” She giggled. “Some men will buy you from Robert just to piss you off. They want a woman that they have to force. They get off on that. It’s a power trip for them.”

I bit my lip. I was hoping, naively, that if I didn’t play along with this whole thing that Robert would let me go. He would see that I wasn’t bringing in money for him, and he would just let me go home.

Apparently, that wasn’t going to work. Besides, from what Andrea was saying, it didn’t really matter how much of an attitude I would be giving these men. I was trapped. Unless I wanted to be responsible for the death of Scarlett, my mother and sister, and Asher, I had to play along.

How was I going to do this? I was going to have to get dressed up in the skimpiest of bikinis and go out there and do lap dances. And, from the looks of the women around the club, I was also going to have to get completely naked out there.

I couldn’t do this. I was ashamed, but, also, completely repulsed.

Andrea brought me my “costume,” which consisted of a tiny top, a g-string, and high-heeled shoes. “You’re going to be following me around tonight,” she said, as she changed into her own costume. Her body was magnificent and perfect, and I felt inferior to her. “I’ll introduce you to some of the regulars, which will get you comfortable, and, hopefully, you can get your first john tonight. You just have to break the ice with these men. You’ll find that they’re totally cool. I predict you’re going to relax.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do this,” I said. I was still feeling slightly buzzed, but, unfortunately, the effects of the earlier morphine injection were wearing off, and the horror of what was about to happen was becoming apparent.

I started to cry, and Andrea shook her head. “Okay, here’s how it’s going to go,” she said. “You’re going to have to take something before you go out there. Because you have to get out there. If you don’t, there will be hell to pay. It’s not pretty.” She lowered her voice. “Robert will beat you so bad that you won’t be able to work for several weeks, because you’ll be completely bruised. When the bruises finally heal, you’ll be back, but you will have learned your lesson. Trust me, the girls who try to fight back are the ones who end up in the hospital. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

I continued to shake my head, and Andrea handed me a pill. It was a little pink pill, and it had a little butterfly engraved on it. “What is this?”

“Ecstasy,” she said. “Trust me, you need to take this. You’ll have a lot of fun once you take this. Please trust me.”

“I don’t want to take that,” I said. “I don’t do hard drugs like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you not hear a word that I just said? You’re getting out there. You’re getting out there, and you’re going to be wearing this g-string and this top. And, at some point, you’re going to be naked. Men are going be pawing at you all night. You’re probably going to be required to go home with one of them. Most girls are required to do this as a type of initiation. If you don’t, you will be beaten.” She took a deep breath. She obviously was losing patience with me. “Now. Either you take this pill, and you enjoy yourself, or you go out there sober, and you’re going to be experiencing all of that humiliation without anything to numb your feelings. But, either way, you’re going out there.”

I fought back the tears, but continued to shake my head. It was fruitless, really. It didn’t matter how I thought about this. Andrea was right. I had no choice. “Humiliation? You said that you loved it.”

She sighed. “I do. But I’m not you. I’m somebody who loves sex, and has never had a problem with giving it away freely. So, getting paid to do something that I love is really the best of both worlds. But you…you obviously are going to feel humiliated by what you’re going to be required to do.” Her voice and expression softened. “Listen, I get where you’re coming from. I really do. I’ve mentored enough girls to understand how you feel. They have all learned to love this job, but, when they came in, they were just like you. I gave them Ecstasy, they went out there and did their thing, came home with a boatload of cash, and started to enjoy themselves. I predict that the same will happen with you.”

With tears in my eyes, I finally held out my hand. “Okay, give me that pill,” I said. I felt completely defeated.

But at least, as Andrea said, I wasn’t going to have to go out there sober. If I did that, I would imagine that I wouldn’t be able to recover.