Chapter 14

Connie

 

Ming escorted me into the hotel. There was no working elevator so we climbed two flights of creaking stairs. I had dumped the schoolgirl outfit in a trash can. I carried nothing but the clothes I had worn that morning and my purse.

The second floor was dimly lit, the carpet worn into frayed brown furrows. There were windows facing out onto a busy street but the glass was thick with grime and strung with cobwebs. The air stank of stale sweat and from behind the paper-thin walls I could hear the televisions and shouted arguments of other guests.

Ming stopped in front of room 203 and handed me the key.

“When you get inside, prepare yourself,” she said with a mischievous wink. “Most men who buy girls like you are in big hurry. They cannot wait to fuck and so do not enjoy the girl properly. It should not take long for it to be done. When you have earned your money, you can go.”

 

 

 

I dropped onto the bed and the mattress sagged beneath me. I wept fitfully.

I think most dreamy-eyed girls plan the night they lose their virginity and the day of their wedding. I had… and this wasn’t anything like the romantic misty fantasies I had imagined.

I cast a forlorn look around the room; it was small and dingy. The wallpaper was a throwback to the 70’s, faded and peeling at the corners, and the ceiling was watermarked and stained the color of parchment paper. The bed was a narrow iron-framed monstrosity, with patches of rust on the metalwork of the bedhead. I bounced my weight on the mattress and the whole bed shook and squeaked.

Behind a paint-peeling internal door, I could see the white porcelain bowl of a toilet. I didn’t get off the bed to investigate. Instead I began to unbutton my blouse with slow trembling dread. I folded it neatly and placed it on the bedside table beside a lamp that didn’t work.

Emotionally I was a broiling mess of crashing feelings. At the forefront of my thoughts was the impending dread of what was about to happen to me and how abhorrent the man who bought my body would be. Below that was a stabbing layer of guilt I felt at my subterfuge and deceit. I was a fundamentally honest person, and the lies I had been forced to tell Mitch dug like burrs in the fabric of my conscience. If he ever found out that I had deceived him in such a way… the fear of the consequences started a fresh spasm of shudders.

Below it all was a weightless kind of relief. I had auctioned my virginity for one-hundred-and-seventy-five-thousand dollars. It was a vast amount of money – much more than my grandmother needed to save her bookstore and ensure its survival for years and years to come. I realized the windfall would give me the opportunity to study without the need for part-time work to support myself.

But first I had to fuck a stranger.

I heard footsteps approaching the door and I felt myself flinch tense. They were heavy steps, a deliberate tread echoing hollowly in the hallway. I felt my breath catch in my throat. I was sitting on the bed in just my skirt and bra. I saw my breasts heave as I inhaled and waited.

The footsteps approached the door and then passed further along the hall. I shivered and relaxed.

Then suddenly the door exploded back upon its hinges and two dark scowling men in long trench-coast burst into the room. I started to scream but one of the men came to the bed and clamped his hand tight across my mouth. My eyes went wide in panic and horror. I saw a gun in the hand of the man who was standing inside the doorway. I started to kick my legs. The man who had hold of me was whispering urgently in my ear.

“Be still!” he hissed. “We are diplomatic staff. The hotel is about to be raided by the police. We must get you out of here!” He grabbed me by the shoulder and heaved me to my feet. Everything was a chaos of confusion and frantic noise. I felt myself being bundled towards the door of the room and then I saw the man with the gun snatch the cover off the bed and throw it over my head to hide me.

“Quick!” one of the men said. “Get down the stairs. There’s a car waiting for you. It will take you back to your embassy.”

I started to protest. I almost collapsed in frantic fear.

What about the man who had paid for me?

I hadn’t earned the money in my account until I gave him my virginity!

What if the police found me in that seedy bedroom and arrested me for prostitution?

Would I spend the rest of my life in a Moscow jail?

I was swept down the stairs by the two men, one of them at each of my elbows. I heard their pounding steps and frantic curses and I ran with my head bowed, hidden by the bedcover, cringing and terrified.

We reached the doors of the hotel and burst out onto the sidewalk. The bedcover was snatched from my head and I saw a dark car parked in the road with its engine revving and the back door open. The two men who had rescued me from the police raid were panting for breath.

“Get in the car!” one of the men said. “The police will be here at any minute.

I ran to the open door of the waiting vehicle. I couldn’t hear police sirens, but I doubted the Russian police would announce a raid in such a way. I flung myself into the back seat of the car and pulled the door shut. The car was already accelerating away into the dark Moscow night.

I scampered into the corner of the seat, cringing with the fear of a hunted, terrified animal.

What the hell would I do now?

 

 

 

Mitch

 

I stepped out of the shadows of the alleyway and watched the speeding car’s taillights glow red as it reached a corner, braked briefly, then accelerated away towards the American embassy.

“Do you think Connie suspects anything?”

“No,” Sergey Volostok had his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He stood beside me and sighed. “She has no idea.”

I grunted and drew a deep breath of bitterly cold night air. “How much did the auction cost me?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Sergey was mildly apologetic. “My man had competition from the son of the nightclub owner.”

I shrugged. The money didn’t matter.

Sergey was studying my face, trying to read my thoughts. It was a wasted effort. I honestly didn’t know exactly how I felt at that moment.

“Was she given the code word?”

“Yes. The Asian woman made sure of it.”

I nodded then turned to Sergey and held out my hand.

“Thank you, my friend,” I said with sincerity and emphasis. “You are a man that I and my government can trust. I will recommend the trade deal and the subsidy be approved by the President when I return to Washington. I hope that, someday, you and I will meet again.”

Sergey’s face stayed impassive but I saw a lift of relief in his eyes. Through his fixed features he nodded his head in the direction of where the car had sped away into the night. “And what about the girl? What will you do?”

I smiled thinly but didn’t answer.