Chapter 6

Mitch

 

We rounded the corner and walked towards the end of the street where I could see a cluster of milling people amidst strobes of rainbow-colored light. Sergey and I walked with Connie between us, and we shivered with the cold. The road was wet and slick, splashed with a yellow glow from the street lamps. Overhead the stars were just pale pricks in a black moonless sky.

“This is a well-known nightclub,” Sergey looked like the kind of man who had never visited such a place. He didn’t exactly have the build nor grace for dancing. “Many young people come here and it also caters to western tourists,” he explained as we drew closer. The clusters of people took individual form as we neared; there were lots of young women in short glittering dresses, their faces masked with layers of makeup, tottering precariously on the ice-slick sidewalk in high heels. Many of them were smoking, waiting in roped-off lines that led to a closed door guarded by bouncers. The security men wore crew-cuts and were dressed in black leather jackets and jeans. They were rugged, muscle-bound thugs with dead gray eyes and anvil jaws.

The beat of thumping music was like a living pulse, humming on the air and increasing every time the door was opened to accept more patrons. I glanced sideways at Sergey.

“We’re going in here?” I asked.

“Da,” he said with a shrug. “You wanted to see the city.”

I shook my head. “The real city,” I said. “This looks like a place for foreigners and kids with rich parents.” I cast a look around. The block of buildings was gray and bleak, but on the opposite side of the road I saw a high-rise building and another crowd of dark figures on the sidewalk. There was a green neon sign above the glass doors that gave entry into the high-rise, and at ground level, on one side of the building, ran a narrow alleyway where another neon sign blazed. It was red.

I pointed. “What’s that building?”

Sergey looked pained. “That is a hotel,” he said, pointing to the green sign above the door.

“And what’s that?” I asked, pointing to the red neon sign in the alleyway.

“It’s a nightclub called ‘Underground’,” he said mournfully.

“Let’s go there,” I said.

Sergey looked suddenly alarmed. He seized my arm and drew me away from Connie.

“That is very bad place,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Russian mafia. They own the hotel and the nightclub. There will be unsavory people,” he wrinkled his nose to make sure I understood his meaning. “It is not a fit place to take the young girl.”

As he had been trying to dissuade me, his voice had become louder.

Connie was staring at us, her arms folded, shivering. Her temper flashed. “I’m not a young girl,” she interrupted, thrusting out her jaw with determination and defiance.

Sergey flinched like he had been slapped in the face. I stared into his dark eyes.

“Do you know these Russian mafia types?” I asked.

“Da, of course,” he said. “That is why I know it is not a secure place, yes?”

I smiled and started for the curb. “If you know them, Sergey… and if you really have the political power I suspect you have, then we should be perfectly safe.”

We waited for a break in traffic and crossed the road. Sergey was frowning, his big bear face darkened by an unhappy scowl. Connie was brooding, perhaps stung by Sergey’s inference that she was too young to frequent such an establishment.

I was smugly satisfied.

I had no doubt that the restaurant had been crawling with listening devices, and I suspected the night club he had wanted to take us to had been similarly prepared – maybe with security cameras, or sprinkled with Russian intelligence operatives disguised as dancers. My insistence had caught him off-balance.

Mafia or not, the ‘Underground’ would be a place where this Russian and I could – at last – talk openly.

 

 

The group of figures who gathered at the entrance to the place were insolent grim-faced youths. Sergey approached the doorway and spoke to them in barking Russian. One of the men looked past his shoulder and ran a curious eye over Connie and me.

There was a brief commotion, followed by another strident outburst from Sergey before the group of young men finally parted and the door to the nightclub was swung open. Sergey turned and gestured us inside.

The ‘Underground’ was a dark seedy hole that had once been the hotel’s basement. The air smelled of stale alcohol, pungent cigarette smoke and sweat. The stained carpet was sticky underfoot, and the lighting was low and gloomy. Across one wall of the nightclub was a bar counter and a mirrored backdrop. Red lights hung suspended from the ceiling beams, tendrils of thick smoke writhing in their glow.

The main room was filled with closely packed men and women, milling about a small circular stage that stood before a tattered red curtain. The men were middle-aged and oily and the girls were young and pale, wearing short dresses.

Sergey cleared a path to the bar, pushing through the crowds like a bulldozer for Connie and I to follow in his wake. The people parted sullenly and then pressed back close around us, scowling and muttering darkly at our intrusion.

“The man who owns this place owns also the hotel above,” Sergey explained. He was sweating in the cloying airless room. “He is mafia. He and his son control this whole side of the street.”

He turned away and caught the eye of a man behind the bar. He ordered drinks. I felt Connie pressing close against me and I glanced at her. Her face was very pale and her eyes enormous. She looked like a small frightened animal lost in the woods. I smiled at her reassuringly.

“We won’t be here long,” I promised her.

She nodded bravely. A man walked by, carrying a bottle of vodka. He brushed up against Connie as he passed and then cackled lecherously. I saw her shudder and cringe.

I put my arm on Sergey’s shoulder to get his attention and he turned.

“We need to find somewhere to talk,” I said. “Now.”

Sergey frowned but he could read the insistence in my expression. He nodded. “There is a back office,” he said. We will go there.”

I jerked my head to indicate Connie. “She must be safe.”

“Da,” Sergey said gravely. He leaned across the counter and spoke to the man who was pouring drinks. The man pointed towards a darkened corner of the nightclub and Sergey nodded.

“The owner’s son,” he explained. “He is standing in that corner. He will watch over the girl while we go into the back office to have our talking.”

I took Connie possessively by the arm and pulled her to me. I could feel the firm press of her breasts against my chest and the hollow concave of her lower pelvis as our bodies were pushed together by the crowds.

“I need to talk privately with Sergey,” I explained. “I have to leave you for a few minutes. The owner’s son will watch you and keep you safe. Okay?”

Connie’s eyes were filled with the loyal innocence of an adoring puppy. Her lips were pressed together, her features fixed, but I could feel her trembling. She gave a hesitant little nod of her head.

We edged our way back into the thronging crowd and the people swirled away and then closed back around us, pressing close with smoldering gloating contempt on their faces.

We walked slowly, deliberately. My expression was fixed and stony, sensing that any show of weakness or concern would trigger danger. As we pushed through the masses I wondered absently how many people in the room carried weapons.

Most of them, if not all of them, was my guess…

We went up three steps and came face-to-face with a man in his twenties. He was sickly pale, his flesh like wax, his jawline bloated and blurred by indulgence or disease.

He was leaning back against a wooden railing with the buttons of his silk shirt undone to the navel, revealing the soft clammy flesh of his chest. There were women standing on either side of him. The girls were very young, wearing tight skirts. They smiled the forced grins of wanton whores and their eyes were infinitely weary.

“This is Nikolai,” Sergey introduced the young man. He will watch over Connie while we meet with his father.”

Sergey leaned close to the young man and spoke earnestly and urgently into his ear. The youth’s expression never altered, but something dark and reptilian slithered behind his eyes. His gaze shifted from me and crawled over Connie, lingering flat and snake-like.

When Sergey had finished speaking, the young man grunted and nodded his head. Sergey took me by the arm. I fixed Connie with one last look of reassurance, and followed the Russian down a long dark passage.

 

 

There was a huge man standing guard by a door. He had a shaved, scarred head and he was holding a pistol in his hand, his arm hanging loose beside his body. Sergey spoke to the man and then pounded his fist on the wall. I heard a muffled call from within a room and then Sergey pushed the door open and I followed him into a dingy smoke-filled office.

A middle-aged man was sitting behind a desk that was strewn with money. He had a cigar clamped in one corner of his mouth. His face was bleak, his eyes almost hidden within folds of gray, pallid flesh. He was unshaven, his shirt stained with splashes of spilled alcohol and his fingers tarnished yellow by nicotine. He glanced up at Sergey and nodded cautiously. Sergey ignored the man. He turned on his heel and wheeled to face me in the middle of the office floor.

“Now,” the Russian growled. “We talk.”

“Yes,” I said. We stood toe-to-toe, both of us projecting our will upon the other, both of us understanding the need to dominate. In the background, muffled and muted by the walls, I could hear the sudden thumping sound of dance music.

“You say the concession for grain we demand is too much,” Sergey’s voice was raw and unrestrained. “This is rubbish, and you know it.” He jabbed a finger at me. “You have already made the same deals we are asking for with other countries, yet you make us pay more.”

“Yes,” I acknowledged, unapologetic and bristling with defiance. “Because your government keeps reneging on every agreement we have ever formalized. We’re dealing with your government from an adversarial perspective because there is not enough trust.”

The Russian faltered and then grumbled, seeing the truth of what I had said. I went on.

“Until we know we are dealing with people we can trust, we will never agree to your terms.” My eyes flashed, locking onto Sergey’s.

The Russian went quiet for long tense seconds.

“So, how can we build this trust?” he gruffed at last.

I shrugged. I didn’t have the answer. “Somehow we need a gesture of good will and friendship,” I said vaguely. “Only then can all other matters relating to the deal be swiftly overcome.”

 

 

 

Connie

 

Fuck!

I watched Mitch stride away down a long dark corridor and a chill of panicked fear washed over me. When at last he disappeared through a doorway and into another room, I think I actually groaned in despair.

I was alone in this seedy crowded bar, surrounded by hostile lecherous eyes and I wanted to curl up and cry.

The guy I had been left with said something to me in a voice that was thick with lust and slurred by alcohol. I didn’t understand the words, but I didn’t need to. His meaning was clear.

I snarled at him, and he laughed.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw my way through the press of bodies and make for the door. I wanted to escape outside into the cool night air… but I didn’t dare even try. Unprotected, I wouldn’t have made it ten feet.

For a split-second an unbidden image flashed into my mind – a vision of me pinned down on the sticky floor of the nightclub with my dress forced up around my waist and my legs spread while a spectating crowd of roaring men cheered on my attackers.

I forced the obscene picture from my mind and concentrated on the beat of music that had suddenly begun playing. It was a Russian rock song; sounding disjointed and loose compared to western rock, but with a constant numbing bass beat.

The thug I had been left with flicked his gaze over my body and his eyes felt like crawling insects as they lingered on the shape of my breasts and then slid casually downwards.

At the same time he reached out for one of the young girls who stood close by. She came to him obediently, her eyes glazed and vacant.  One of his hands, fat and pale as a slug, slithered beneath the hem of the girl’s skirt and began rubbing her pussy. She pliantly shuffled her feet apart to give him better access, then stood rigid as a mannequin while his fingers became busy. The thug looked at me and licked his lips.

I turned away and saw a well-dressed middle-aged woman come through the curtain and step up onto the small stage. She had oriental features, and was wearing a long silken dress. She had her hands high in the air like a preacher before a worshipping flock.

The music softened to become background sound and the woman’s piercing voice reached out across the nightclub.

“Greetings everyone,” she smiled broadly. “We have some wonderful goods on display tonight – some really beautiful merchandise for you to bid on. Have you all arranged your finances?”

There was a roar of excitement from the assembled crowd. The oriental woman clapped her hands and after a short pause another person appeared through the curtain and stepped onto the stage beside her. It was a young girl – maybe eighteen or nineteen. She had dirty blonde hair that cascaded in curls down her back, and she was wearing a short black skirt and a flimsy white lace top. The girl’s face had been carefully made up. She propped one hand on her hip and smiled into the faces of the appreciative crowd.

The oriental woman circled the girl, walking around the stage and working the crowd into a frenzy. They clapped and whistled until at last the woman sensed the mood and the moment. She thrust her hands back into the air and the crowd became hushed.

“This is Annika,” she said, her voice almost a shriek. “She is from the Ukraine – a beautiful young girl who wants to sell her most prized possession.”

“Virgin! Virgin! Virgin!” the crowd began to chant.

The oriental woman smiled. “Yes! She is a virgin, and very beautiful.”

“Let us see her wares, Ming!” someone from the crowd called out and the cry was instantly taken up by at least fifty others.

The oriental woman looked slyly across the faces in the crowd. “You want to see what you’re buying?” her voice had lowered and became oily and obscene.

The crowd roared and stomped their feet.

The oriental woman named Ming turned to the young woman and slowly began to undress her. She did it with showmanship and skill, tantalizing her audience with brief glimpses of milky white flesh as she loosened the girl’s clothes like a skilled strip-tease artist. At last she drew aside the girl’s lace blouse and the crowd gave a collective sigh of appreciation.

The girl had large full breasts, the skin of her chest slightly tanned and freckled, but the flesh of her breasts was untouched by the sun, milky white and smooth. They hung with the weight of their size, and her nipples were big and dark and hardened by her own arousal.

Ming went behind the girl and pulled back her shoulders, displaying the blonde’s body and turning her in a slow circle for all to see.

I watched the unfolding scene with horror and a perverse voyeuristic fascination that made me ashamed, yet acutely aroused. The slimy thug who stood beside me grunted. He had one hand to his mouth, suckling at the juices of the girl he had been fingering. His eyes flashed back to slither hotly over my body.

“You can make big money,” he said in broken English.

I flinched. “What?”

The man waved his hand at the girl on the stage. “She will sell for maybe forty, maybe fifty thousand,” he made a face of contempt. “But western women are the great prize,” he smiled lecherously and dribble spilled from his slack purple lips. “I saw one girl from France sell for two-hundred thousand,” he said. “And she was not as pretty as you.”

I’m sure I went white as marble; I could feel the blood rushing from my face and as the giddy horror of the suggestion hit me, I felt the floor beneath me teeter so that I thought I might faint. I clutched at the rail to support myself. The thug narrowed his eyes in cunning appraisal.

“Are you a virgin?” he asked bluntly.

“Fuck off!” I hissed.

The man shrugged, and his face became bland as though he couldn’t care less. But I saw that he was sweating now and behind the flat disinterested expression there was keen fascination. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his jowls as if trying to guess my sexual status the way a man might calculate whether a horse was a thoroughbred racer… or a nag.

He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, then blew a puff of smoke at the ceiling.

In the background I could hear men’s voices coming from the floor of the nightclub. They were crying out their offers – bidding for the prize of the blonde girl’s virginity.

The thug paid no attention. His eyes were fixed on my face, scrutinizing me. I felt hot under the blow-torch of his lecherous gaze but was unable to look away, mesmerized by the horror and with a macabre fascination.

The thug snatched the cigarette from between his lips and inspected it with stained yellow fingers. The sweat on his hands had soaked through the rice paper. He crushed it under his heel.

“Here,” he said with a grunt. He wrote a number down on the back of a matchbook and thrust it into my hand. “If you decide you want much money, call me and I will arrange.”

I crushed the matchbook in the tight fist of my hand.

But I didn’t throw it away…

I turned, trembling with outrage and shivering shame back towards the crowd. An overweight man in a rumpled gray suit was on the stage pumping his fist in the air and accepting the adulation of the audience. I guessed he had won the bidding. The blonde girl bent to snatch up her top and disappeared behind the curtain.

There was a lull through the nightclub for almost a full minute before the oriental woman clapped her hands once more. The noise of it in the stuffy airless room sounded like multiple gunshots. When the sea of faces turned towards her she smiled and tugged at the curtain.

Another girl appeared. She was tall and slim with a doll-like face and black hair that had been piled atop her head, emphasizing her long slender neck. She looked about my age. The girl wore a sheer high-collared blouse that was so see-through, the shape of her breasts and the little round buds of her nipples were clear for all to see.

The crowd sighed and seemed to sway gently towards the stage.

“This is Martinka,” the oriental woman announced, and then drew the girl forward to the edge of the stage. The young woman’s eyes were droopy, her smile fixed and distant. She was wearing a ripped denim skirt and high-heels. She tottered for balance.

The girl was very pretty, I realized, with the face and figure of a catwalk model. I let go of the rail and leaned closer. The oriental woman was speaking but I could barely hear her over the hiss and surge of the audience.

“Is she a virgin, Ming?”

“Of course!” the oriental woman propped her hands on her hips and turned her face into a parody of offense. “We auction only the finest, pure goods.” She waggled her finger at the man in the crowd. “You know that very well, mister!”

There was a ripple of laughter from around the room, and the man she was pointing at reddened. One of his friends slapped him on the back good-naturedly.

“Show us what we’re buying!” came another cry from the darkness.

Ming nudged the girl’s shoulder and with slow drugged movements the young woman reached up under her short skirt and slowly pulled down her panties. She stepped out of the knickers and threw them into the crowd. There was scramble that became a scuffle. The girl ignored the fracas and lifted the hem of her skirt like a curtain to reveal the shaved smooth lips of her pussy.

With her skirt bunched tight around her waist, the girl clasped her hands behind her back. The movement pushed her perfect breasts against the gossamer of her blouse. Then she tilted one hip at an enchanting angle and lifted her chin. The crowd gasped.

The oriental woman obviously sensed the bidding would be high and her smile was wicked with triumph.

“Imagine one amazing night with this beauty from Kiev,” Ming whipped up their excitement. “Imagine taking her virginity and her cries of pleasure as she opens her legs and welcomes your hard cock inside her tight hole…”

The crowd swayed like they were hypnotized. Ming went on, lowering her voice, teasing.

“It will be a night for you to remember your whole life,” she painted erotic pictures in their minds, “but it doesn’t just have to be a quick fuck,” she shook her head. “A girl this beautiful must be enjoyed and savored before you deflower her.”

She touched the tip of her finger to the girl’s lower lip and then with slow and evocative deliberation, she eased her finger into the girl’s mouth, sliding it slowly in and out. The young woman’s eyes were closed and she was swaying gently on her feet.

Ming smiled lecherously. “Aah, her pretty mouth is so soft and moist,” she cooed in a lover’s voice.

Mayhem erupted across the floor of the nightclub. The men flung their hands in the air, shouting their bids over the top of each other. Ming acknowledged each new bid with thrusts of her hand until the price for the dark-haired girl’s virginity reached sixty-two thousand dollars.

I was reeling in shock, and still simmering with indignation at the thug’s abhorrent suggestion that I should auction my own body to some depraved degenerate.

But…

Slithering in the recesses of my mind, like some dark serpent, was the sudden understanding that beyond my own humiliation and degradation was the opportunity to solve my grandmother’s financial worries in a single night of anonymous sex.

“Sixty-five thousand!” a voice next to me cried out, and I spun, wrenched from my own inner reflection, to see the young Russian thug an arm in the air.

He was staring at the girl on the stage and his eyes blazed with a fanatical hungry gleam.

“Sold!” Ming declared triumphantly, sealing the girl’s fate.

The thug’s face was slick with sweaty lust and he smelled like boiled cabbage. He ran one hand through the oily tangle of his hair and went down the stairs to claim his prize. As he brushed past me, he screwed his slack lips into a hideous smile.

“Remember, American chick. Call me if you want to sell your pussy,” his breath was rancid. “It will make much money. Make you rich and happy.”

 

 

Mitch emerged from the dark gloom of the corridor and it took all of my restraint not to run to him and fling my arms around his neck. His face as he strode towards me was set like stone. He was alone. He frowned when he heard the noise and saw the crowd clustered around the small stage but he said nothing. Instead he took me by the elbow and used the frenzy as a diversion. We pushed against the surging tide of the crowd and broke out through the front doors of the nightclub into the sweet, fresh frigid air.

I sagged with relief, shaken by the ordeal and by the witches’ brew of emotions that had been stirred within me.

Mitch ran his eyes over me, frowning, as though to check a fragile vase for cracks or chips.

“You okay?”

I nodded. My hands were trembling.

Mitch grunted. His eyes were black as coal, his mouth drawn into a thin hard line. “Call the embassy driver and tell him where we are,” he said. “I want a car here in three minutes.”