Chapter 15

Connie

 

The driver of the getaway car was a woman. She slowed to a halt on a street corner. In the distance, the lights haloed by fog, I could see the gates of the American embassy. The woman reached across to the front passenger seat and then turned so that she was facing me.

She had classical Slavic features; the high cheekbones, hair swept severely back from her face, her skin pale in the ghostly night and her eyes dark as coal.

“You cannot enter your embassy wearing just a bra,” she said.

I stared back at her with big traumatized eyes. My thoughts were stilted and chittering. I was still swept up in the confusion and chaos. I sat huddled in a dark corner with my arms wrapped around me, my hair hanging tangled across my face.

She handed me her coat. It was a dark full-length garment like the trench coats the men who had burst into the hotel room had been wearing. It smelled faintly of cheap perfume. I pulled the coat over my shoulders and wrapped it tight about me.

“Thank you.”

She drove sedately to the gates and I rummaged in my purse to show the guard my credentials. The car drove away into the night and I skulked into the embassy compound like a fugitive thief on the run from the law.

When I reached my room, I sank down on the bed and let the waves of emotion crash over me. I was shaking in wild uncontrollable spasms. Humiliation, despair and misery lashed me like the howling force of a storm. I curled up into a ball with my knees pressed to my chest, and cried until I had no more tears to shed.

What do I do now?

I had endured the depravity and humiliation of being displayed and sold to a man, and I had been paid a vast sum of money in advance to give up my virginity. Now I had the money, but had not paid my debt.

And tomorrow I was flying back to Washington!

I thought back over the graphic, lurid events of the night and a fresh wave of shivers and spasms seized me.

They won’t just forget the money.

Jesus, Connie. This is the fucking Russian mafia you sold yourself to. They’re not just going to throw a quarter of a million dollars your way and not expect the payment you promised.

Would the mafia think I had deliberately fled the hotel – reneged on their deal and stolen the money?

Fuck!

If they think that, they’ll hunt me down. Borders won’t stop them. They’ll come to America and they’ll find me. Maybe they can trace me through my account details… or Mitch. They could find me through him. He’s an important man, and if they find him… they find me.

I felt myself on the edge of hysteria. The fear that hung over me was an entirely new dread.

Would the Russian mafia kill me to exact their revenge, and to use my murder as a warning to every other girl who stood on that stage and offered her virginity?

For an ice-cold moment I thought about going to Mitch and confessing. I could explain the circumstances and the events that led up to the auction. I could throw myself on his mercy and appeal for his protection. He had connections all the way up the hierarchy of the Russian government. He could explain, Maybe he could arrange to return the money to the man who had bid for me. Mitch was a fixer – he could make this go away. I was sure he could.

But…

How would I deal with the shame of that confession?

I was in love with Mitch and if I told him what I had done…?

I teetered like a drunkard into the bathroom and threw myself under a scalding hot shower. The water was like the agonized sting of a thousand needles. When I emerged from the bathroom my flesh was bright red, but I felt a little more settled. My nerves were still jangling, but in the back of my mind had formed another alternative plan.

When I reached Washington I would call Nikolai, the Russian thug. I didn’t have the matchbook he had given me anymore, but I knew his number was still in the memory of my cell phone. I would call the Russian and explain what had happened. Through him I could arrange to return the money to the man in the crowd who had bid for my virginity.

It was going to be all right. In a week from now, the whole sordid indecent event would just be a dark memory, and I could get on with my life.

It would be all right.

I just had to hold my composure for a few more days.

 

 

 

Mitch

 

When I returned to the embassy, it was past midnight. I should have been tired, but instead I was alert and processing a stream of unsettling thoughts and disconcerting questions.

I inspected the gatehouse log and saw that Connie had returned thirty minutes earlier. The guard stood at attention. I gave him a nod and strode through the snow to the front doors of the main building.

The Ambassador’s office was dark. I didn’t turn on the lights. Instead I went to the big desk and flicked on a small lamp. The glow cast a halo over the tabletop but left the rest of the large office in deep shadow. I dropped down into the expensive leather chair and the weariness came settling upon me at last.

As my mind unwound I felt a stir of emotions that were unfamiliar to me. My thoughts turned inward and reflective.

I’m an insular man; throughout the years since the death of my wife I had stood alone and blazed a trail of business success and political power. I had believed that women held no real attraction to me… but now I realized – with a sudden profound flash of insight – that it wasn’t true.

Of course women attracted me… just not the kind of women that had orbited in the same circles of my influence.

Every woman I encountered was either attached to the diplomatic staff, or she was part of the elite Washington social circle that frequented glittering functions and smiled with gay superficial politeness to the idle chatter that was the stuff of such gatherings. The women I encountered were all seeking social status on the coattails of the most influential men they could latch their claws into… and the shallowness of the women that sought such standing left me cold and disinterested.

And then suddenly there was Connie.

I had seen her too, as just a young ambitious girl who was determined to climb through the ranks of the diplomatic corps. Admittedly, she was committed and dedicated to her work – not trading on her physical attributes.

But that also made her an ineligible subject for any desire I might feel… because I could never compromise the immorality of sleeping with someone on my personal staff. It was a line I refused to cross for I knew the complications of a sexual and emotional relationship in such a situation made the working environment hellishly difficult.

But at least Connie was a real woman; not one of the phony army of wives and mistresses that populated the halls of power.

And within her beauty and the undeniable sexual attraction of her, was both a danger and a threat.

I let my mind linger on my secret stolen memories of Connie; those moments when masculine instinct had overridden my objectivity.

I had seen the swell of her breasts beneath the sheer fabric of her blouse and the tantalizing shadow of the lace that contained them. And I had admired the narrow nip of her waist and then the flare of her hips when she had come into my office one morning wearing a tight tailored suit. And I had watched her secretly as she had worked at her desk, marveling in the youthful beauty of her, the dazzling wonder of her eyes and the soft tempting lure of her lips when she smiled.

With shame at the perversity and treachery of my own body, I felt myself unable to contain the rise of raw desire. I felt myself harden, as my imagination seized upon the things I knew and carried them away on the wings of erotic fantasies.

I pictured her naked on my bed, her hair awry, her body lightly tanned.

She was naïve and had been left frustrated by fumbling boys, and now she was desperate for the secret understanding acquired by men as they matured. She lifted her arms to me as I came to her, naked, and her legs fell open in wanton invitation. I covered her body with mine and we began to move on the mattress, her breath panting and filled with new wonder and my own made ragged and thick with lust.

 

 

It was a long time before I could loosen the grip of those dangerous fantasies and flee back to the reality and safety of the Ambassador’s office.

I sighed and reached for the lamp switch.

I had resolved nothing.

All I knew was that I desired Connie Wyatt. Because now – after her attempts to sell her virginity – my impersonal professional impressions of her had been torn away, revealing a young sexual woman.

And God, how I wanted her!