White Silk & I Belong to You Read online

  Two days in Budapest hardly seem enough. As the Orient Express steams out of the station, my brain is still engaged in the hundred ways I’d work the city if I had more time. But it’s all a useless waste. I have to think of Bucharest and Istanbul. My mind drives forward as does this train.

  Now, without Amie and Jorges, I’ve lost my interest in the train’s circumscribed domain. The romance is wearing thin. Though I can hope for new companions, I’m restless. The feeling is unsettling. I should be happy for the break from work and take time to relax, but these few free days are not having that effect.

  We travel into the wilds of Romania.

  It’s night, the world pitch-black outside the car, and whirring by so rapidly, I’d be dizzy if I looked out. I sleep instead, seamlessly for nearly two hours, when I’m suddenly awakened by the train jerking to a stop. For several minutes I lose track of where I am, though I’m relieved that the motion and sounds that have been with me so many days have ceased at least for a few brief minutes, and left me without the constant stirring motion and the agitating sounds.

  Falling back asleep, I’m in my dreams. There is shouting, commotion, someone running past my door. The train starts again, rumbling on into the night, while I shake in fear, thinking any second I’ll awaken outside this nightmare.

  Yet, when my eyes flutter open, I see my door breached by the butt of a rifle. Instinctively, my panicked body pins itself to the wall, as though it could disappear inside the polished wood grain paneling.

  I’m not so lucky. Seconds later, three hulking wild men burst through the opening, surrounding my bed so we’re packed like sardines in the tiny place. One holds a gun menacingly toward my head, while the other two lift me bodily from the bed with their thick fingers pressing into my arms like burrowing knives. Dragged away, we move to the back of the train, passing closed compartments where the tenants seem like lifeless statues peeking out the shades.

  I try to scream, but the air gets caught in my throat, while a grimy hand, smelling of smoke and tar covers my mouth with a vigorous grip. Moments later, I’m stunned by darkness, feeling as though I’m deep inside an angry sea swimming away from the light, toward the endless black at the far end of my fears. When everything has disappeared, I know that I’ve been swallowed inside the mouth of a beast.

  ***

  The rhythm of the train moving under me seems comforting as I awaken. I can see a beautiful grey/blue dawn through the small window just above my head, and for one meager instant believe that my nightmare was just a dream. That is, until I feel restraining bonds sinking like sharpened teeth into my ankles and wrists. There’s a leather gag in my mouth—Ah! Leather, I remember that moment with Jorges’ belt. But this is not the same—very different from that harrowing bit of erotic bliss. A ball of soft leather fits inside my mouth, and is so tightly tied behind my neck that my head begins to ache. My breath is sour, my saliva unsavory.

  I’m lying on my back, prone, against an iron shelf within a tier of shelves attached to the side of the rail car. My ankles are fastened tightly to a bar at my feet, while my arms circle my head, the wrists tied together and attached to something unseen above my head. I can’t see what or who is above and below me, but beside me in another tier of shelves, another woman lies bound the same way I am. I know in an instant that it’s Amie. Like me, she is gagged with a leather piece that fits inside her mouth and around her head. I wonder how she got here—then realize that we’re no longer on the Orient Express.

  I blink and blink again waiting for these images to disappear, only to discover that reality becomes more deeply entrenched the more my body and mind awaken. My heart begins to skip beyond itself. Panic strikes. The capture in my compartment was no dream!

  I struggle with hysteria gripping my throat. Its mean claws clutch my gut. I quickly realize that the ropes holding me in bondage will not weaken. In fact, it seems they only strengthen the more I fight against them. I can feel the raw jute digging into my flesh.

  Why? How? What is happening to me? Nothing makes sense. I try to scream, but no sound results. Yes. I’m gagged, but it’s more than that. I have no voice, no power, no strength left in me.

  Amie is still asleep. How can she remain at rest through this terror, unless she’s been drugged, like I’ve been drugged? In and out of consciousness, I keep drifting and returning to the foul smelling rail car only to be reminded that I’m trapped inside this grim reality with no way out. This is no dream, no reverie or fantasy.

  Tears collect in my feverish eyes, and burn so hotly that I can’t keep my lids open. So, I sleep again, knowing, praying that this is just a dream, a powerful one, but one that cannot keep me lost forever.

  Chapter Three

  I awaken, feeling someone undoing the knots at my wrists. I remember now where I am and the prospect of freedom makes my heart rejoice—even though I sense that any freedom is an elusive deal. My eyes open on Amie again, where she lies prone on her metal pallet. Awake now, she’s as scared as I am, staring at me as though I have answers to the questions battling in her brain.

  Although I must have slept for hours, when I’m pulled off the pallet, I’m aching and tired.

  “Take off your clothes.” A voice behind me barks the command in awkward English.

  I turn, seeing two soldiers in rough, mud-colored military clothing. Their wide belts hold guns and clubs, which by themselves speak with awesome authority. Even so, I don’t act on the order until the most brutal looking of the two speaks again. “Your clothes, on the floor, or they’ll be ripped from you, Mademoiselle Monroe.”

  He knows my name!

  Are these men in heavy black beards and combat boots, with their puffed up chests and sadistic scowls, the ones who stole me from my compartment on the Orient Express? Or, was it too dark and I too confused to remember anything. There is a thick scar across the cheek of the taller one that looks familiar. He scowls at me, expecting me to obey his order. I know I have no choice.

  Quaking nervously, I reach for the buttons of my silk pajamas. They could have easily removed these themselves in the hours since my capture, but considering the way they stare at me, I suspect they find my disrobing entertaining.

  I drop the silk shirt to the floor, exposing my breasts for their fascinated eyes while my pale skin beads with sweat in the stuffy and confining car. My flesh trembles, and my nipples—as though this were turning me on—decide to knot into inviting purple knobs. The soldiers’ lurid grins make me wonder what they’ll do next.

  The scarred one nods at my pajama bottoms; so I move on to push them over my hips and let them fall to the floor. Even in fear, my body rages. Instincts far beyond me seem to have taken over my sanity. Surely, they will rape me—and not eloquently, the way Jorges did. Their guns, their clubs and their angry faces make me think of brutal horrors I’ve never known, but can imagine. I pray, constantly, as I expose my groin with its pale red glistening pubic hair and the plump labia at the gateway to the sexual me. My inner labia hang low between these outer lips, teasingly.

  “Here, put this on,” the man behind the scowling one tosses me something white and silky.

  Confused, it takes me some seconds to realize that he wants my body in the scant slip. Once I have the dress figured out, I ease it over my head, letting the spaghetti straps rest on my shoulders while the soft fabric slides down my body, catching on the dampness of my skin. I pull the dress down, feeling its thick and sensuous material cling lovingly to my breasts, my waist, hips and thighs. While I’m completely covered—presumably presentable in normal society—my strident nipples poke through the white, glaringly; and the slit at my left leg suggestively threatens to expose my pussy when I walk.

  “And these,” the same man hands me a pair of white, high-heeled sandals, which surprisingly fit my feet like gloves would fit the hand. “Very good,” he says as he sees how the shoes raise my stature, accentuate my ass, and draw the eye to the curve of my back and the line of my long body. If it weren’t for
the gag and my rat of snarled blonde tangles, I’d look as though I’m ready for a trendy New York party.

  Finished with me, the two men turn to Amie, who has been pulled to her trembling feet. She bares herself as ordered, though much more reluctantly than I did. When she balks, snarling at our captors, the scarred man slaps her face for stalling. Then, once she’s naked, the other man spanks her ass six times with a broad wooden paddle.

  “Do that again, you’ll get more of this.”

  Amie shrieks behind her leather gag, but finally settles as a red satin dress is tossed over her head. Hers is styled differently than mine is—shorter and more tightly fit, conforming to the contours of her body like a second skin. Given red heels to match the dress, she looks as whorish—perhaps even more whorish and alluring than I do in my new clothes.

  Having finished their task, the two soldiers march us from our crude bedroom to a forward railcar, which looks much like an office or interrogation room—obviously we’re no longer on the Orient Express. We’re in the middle of nowhere, on another train, barreling frantically toward an unknown and ominous destination.

  I’m thinking the worst, although my fears have momentarily subsided since we weren’t immediately raped. My mind could fast forward to so many scenarios of doom—but I’m strangely willing to let those visions fall away and let reality take its course. I’m never like this, never this passive, never this at ease in a crisis—which this surely is. But there is an overriding feeling of destiny attached to his unreal happening, which brings me some peace. For all my fear, I’m not as restless as I was even a day ago—if it was a day ago when I was last safely in my compartment. I feel so disconnected from my present as time loses meaning in the middle of this monstrous disaster.

  Amie and I are directed to sit in brown wood chairs before an olive green Army desk. The two soldiers who stripped and clothed us for a party stand behind us like personal guards.

  While waiting, I catch my breath, then look at Amie. It’s difficult to tell her mood, but I suspect that she’s not finished being defiant.

  What good is it to defy them? I think to myself. I’m beginning to worry that she’ll do something stupid and we’ll both get hurt. These men are no strangers to danger, nor would they hesitate to hold a gun to our heads. They are so confident of our submissiveness that they leave us unbound. I feel Amie about to bolt for the door, though at least for the moment she waits as motionless as I do.

  Seconds pass, a minute or two, and the railcar door behind the desk opens and three men enter. Two remind me of the men who captured, confined and dressed us. They are attired in the same beige/green military fatigues, with their pants tucked inside their thick brown boots. One is scruffy and nervous with his dark hair shaggy as it sticks out from underneath his cap. As his black eyes suspiciously inspect the room, I feel myself wishing I could hide. The second man is of the same dark complexion, black hair, black eyes and beard. But he is handsome with his beard neatly clipped, his hair short and his demeanor fierce but calm. He reminds me of a less charming Jorges. Amie’s gaze goes to him immediately. It looks odd seeing a gagged woman in a red satin dress sitting in a train car staring, almost invitingly, at this man in uniform.

  I would find the picture an interesting study—like something I’d report in my travel documentaries; but as the third man enters, it takes all my attention to understand what I’m seeing. He swaggers in, a broad-chested blond-haired soldier with the ruddy face of a Texas cowboy and a startling allure in his bright blue eyes. While he wears the same clothes as his companions, his boots are polished ebony, and the sleeves of his military fatigues are rolled neatly above the elbow revealing suntanned skin and sun-bleached hair on his forearms. His hands seem mighty—as though they could crush a god; although at the moment, he calmly appraises us with no more venom in his eyes than would appear in those of a child. He is out of place in this scene and my fantasies of this foreign arena—which, regardless of my initial calm resolve, have gone on ahead in my subconscious mind, creating endless horrors. I look at him in complete amazement. I doubt he sees my expression, unless he sees beyond the gag and the way it distorts the shape of my mouth.

  “Ladies…” He stands before us, addressing Amie and me as mildly as he would address a suburban garden club. Again, I’m dazed. Such severity of dress and such mild manners.

  I can see that Amie’s eyes are on him now, as wonderingly as mine are.

  “I’m Colonel Broc. This is Captain Tahli,” he refers to the well-clipped soldier, “and Sergeant Timon,” he mentions the scruffier one. “I’m here to explain your current position—no doubt you are frightened by the last few hours.” He looks grim. “I’m actually sorry that your detention was so uncomfortable, but it couldn’t be helped in our limited circumstances.” The Colonel clears his throat while pacing causally before us like John Wayne, not some Middle Eastern terrorist, which I’m sure he is. I continue to stare at his forearms, having decided that I’ve never seen anything quite as alluringly sexual as his powerful muscles and the air of command that they lend to his already masculine appearance. I never thought myself prey to cowboys and soldiers—but this scene is teaching me a good deal about the outer limits of my arousal.

  “You are now prisoners of a terrorist military organization—it doesn’t matter the country or political affiliation. In fact, the less you know about us, and our motives, the safer it is for you. Don’t ask questions.” As if we could with our mouths gagged! “You will be pressed into service for this militia, trained to serve our needs as prostitutes and professional sex slaves.” My body jolts with a powerful wave of raw excitement that, like everything else in this absurd moment, seems ludicrous. “As far as your lives prior to this incarceration—they have ceased. You are no more. The train—the Orient Express on which you were traveling—was boarded in a military action. You were kidnapped in a way that suggested you were killed before you were removed from the train. Although this may cause your next of kin in the United States some grief, it is just as well—since the likelihood of your returning to your former lives is nonexistent. To anyone who knows you, you are dead.”

  He stops speaking, letting us adjust to his message, even though there is little way anyone could adjust to such news.

  Then he almost smiles. “On the brighter side,” he continues, “you will not be hurt, and your lives will not be wasted. In fact, I think you’ll be surprised to find your work stimulating in its own way.

  “You will be worked hard. A lot will be demanded of you physically, especially to start. But if you obey your superiors—which would be any man wearing this uniform—you will not be mistreated.” The Colonel turns to the scruffy soldier, “Remove their gags.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The fellow’s hands were swift and warm—quite a contrast to my cold body.

  “There. That feel better?” the Colonel asks.

  “You fuckin’ ass!” Amie is almost off her chair, but Timon pushes her back down and holds her by the shoulders. Amie revolts, struggling. “You think I’ll turn into your prostitute, I’d rather die!”

  Broc’s eyes fire with purpose, but he remains calm. “Well then, maybe you’ll get your chance to die. In the meantime…” he levels her with that startling blue, “if you don’t shut up, the gag goes back inside your mouth.”

  I guess she wants her mouth free more than she wants to lambaste the man. Her jaw clamps tightly and she grits her teeth—though the anger remains in her eyes.

  “Let me assure you ladies, you were handpicked. This was not a random act. Normally, we do not conscript more than one Western whore at a time, but the two of you, in this part of the world at the same time was our good fortune.”

  He lifts two closed files from the desk. “Dossiers. One on each of you.” He sits with a hip on the edge of the desk and peers down at us both. “We are terrorists, yes—high-tech intelligent terrorists and we’ve done our homework. As soon as you booked passage on the Orient Express, you were thor
oughly investigated—as were other recent travelers of your age. No, we do not always hit the Orient Express for slaves. We’re much more diverse than that. We’re careful and never caught. The authorities in the West hardly know of our existence. Since our work is highly unusual, we make such a small ripple in their intelligence on this region, that any signs of us are generally ignored. We are a shadow lurking behind other terrorist organizations, with a purpose so unique that no one truly comprehends our plans.

  “And what is that purpose?” I ask—as though I’m doing an interview—the fact that I would open my mouth shocks me almost more than it shocks Colonel Broc.

  “No questions, Miss Monroe,” he replies tersely.

  “Sorry.”

  “The fact is, both of you will make suitable whores. Even if you’ve never been paid for sex in the past, from what we’ve gleaned of your lives, the basics come natural to you as if you were born sluts.”

  Amie’s angry heart beats next to me with such passion that it begins to affect me.

  “You scowl so, Amie Cortez,” Broc says to my turbulent sister in the red. “Your dossier makes great erotic reading.” He takes the file and thumbs thoughtfully through the contents for a minute. “Born in Queens, New York to an immigrant father. Your mother died when you were seven. You fended for yourself, starting to sleep around when you were thirteen.” He looks up to see Amie’s surprised face, then rambles on. “When you were seventeen, you hitched-hiked West and were eventually picked up by a motorcycle gang who passed you between them like a hash pipe. You opened your thighs at liberty, living on the lam with them for nearly three years. Then in Dallas, three years ago, you were arrested for indecent exposure—lewd dancing in a local nightclub. And in Vegas six months later you were picked up for vagrancy … Do I read on?”