Chapter Eight
I’m sitting on the softest of duvets flipping through the channels on the flat screen television. It’s been six days since Atticus Noble locked me in the room. I’ve not seen him since. Enough food for an entire day appears on a tray table by the door in the mornings. It’s obviously put there in the pre-dawn hours, and try as I might, I can’t catch him putting it there, if he’s the one leaving it.
I’ve spent most of my time watching television while wondering what the fuck is going on. When I’m not searching Netflix or sleeping, I stare out the window. It doesn’t take me long to realize that the glass is tinted. I can see out but no one can see in.
On the second day, after I realized he wasn’t coming back, I passed the time trying on clothes and jewelry. I’ll never need to shop again if he makes good on his offer. I don’t want to even venture a guess on how much he spent.
By the fourth day, I was bored with the clothing, stir crazy, and slightly paranoid. I called out for Atticus, for anyone. Something about being left alone in here is as unnerving as being left alone in the woods. At least there were animals there. At least I could move. Here it’s just… sameness.
I started doing calisthenics that afternoon, hoping the physical exercise would help with the anxiety that’s been building since day two of my incarceration. It hasn’t helped, though. I’m just getting more anxious and upset. I wonder where Atticus has gone, and why he’s left me in here. All my needs are met except the need for companionship. Another need is unmet, too. My solitude has given me plenty of time to reflect on his touch, on how it made me feel, and on his refusal to go further.
Today, self-pity and rage overtake me. I get off the bed, and after calling for an hour with no reply, I hurl myself onto the mattress and indulge in a bout of angry sobs. I’ve nearly cried myself out when I hear a noise and look up to see Atticus sliding the cell door open. It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for. I should be careful not to make him turn around and walk away. But I’m so angry that I’m off the bed, wiping tears of frustration from my eyes as I stomp toward him.
“Six days!” I say. “Six fucking days! That’s how long I’ve been in this goddamned room.”
“I know.” He shuts the door behind him. “But you put yourself here. Not me.”
“Oh, no.” I’m in his face, not caring at this point what consequences I’ll face. “Don’t give me that sanctimonious bullshit about how morally wrong I was to sell my freedom, especially not from a man who bought it. So, fuck you!”
“Are you finished?” he asks.
When I don’t answer, he heads out the door. “Come with me.”
Now what? I wonder as I find myself following him again. But this time it’s just across the hall to the other closed door I’d noticed the day he locked me in the room. When he opens it, I’m seized by a feeling of nostalgia. It’s a massive computer room unlike anything I’ve ever seen. A narrow closet holds a huge server, and a table along one wall is lined with monitors. Shelves underneath the table hold computer towers. A fan circulates the air around them.
“Wow,” I say.
“You’ve never seen a computer room?”
I frown. “Of course I have. Elliot has a computer room. Just not one like this.”
“Elliot.” Atticus sits down in a chair. “Your friend Elliot? The one who brokered your situation?”
There’s a bitter edge to the way he says friend, and an ironic edge to the way he says situation.
“Yes, my friend Elliot. You don’t think women and men can be friends?”
“No. But I think some women should be careful about the friends they choose.”
“Elliot’s not just a friend.” I say. “He’s my best friend. And as far as my situation goes, I can handle myself.”
He smirks and turns to the bank of monitors. “I suppose your best friend told you how he set up the deal to auction you off?”
I shrug. “I know it’s how he found you and the other bidders online.” I feel a bit silly for not knowing more details, but I’m not the computer geek Elliot is, and I never really asked for a full explanation because I figured it would be boring. “I concentrated on myself as a product,” I continue, ignoring how his jaw tenses when I say this. “I left the details to Elliot. He’s a genius with this stuff.”
“He wasn’t worried that you might get in trouble for prostitution?”
“Elliot said there are hidden places on the Internet where people could do business without being tracked.”
“He’s right, but there’s more to it than that.” He turns to me. “Maeve, did Elliot ever use the terms Dark Net or Dark Web around you?”
“Not that I recall.”
“How about Deep Web?”
I shake my head.
Atticus Noble sighs and gestures to a second chair, indicating for me to take a seat. When I do, he begins to type on first one keyboard and then the other as the screens around us begin to fill with websites I never knew existed—websites that shouldn’t exist. One is filled with photos of car crash victims. Another advocates the rise of a new Holocaust. Another argues the superiority of the white race and offers a collection of racist comments beneath pictures of historic lynching photos. Still others cater to rape fetishes with videos of what look to be actual, recorded crimes. In yet another, a man with a mask over his head is giving a tutorial on how to build a bomb. I look away.
“God…”
“These websites would be banned on the Internet most people surf,” Atticus explains. “On that Internet, authorities could track down the IP address of these sites, find who created them, and have them removed and—in some cases—have the creators or even the visitors prosecuted. But what you’re looking at here can’t be created or found without Tor.”
“Tor?”
“It stands for The Onion Router,” he explains. “It’s the browser used by those accessing the Dark Web. Now, when you use a regular browser like Safari or Chrome to access a website, you’re asking a website to send its information to your IP address. Tor is different. It not only encrypts your information, but then channels your request for information through different computers spread throughout the world. On the Dark Web, you’re invisible. You can get or give information without anyone knowing who or where you are.”
It’s fascinating, but what does it have to do with me? When I ask him, Atticus goes quiet. One by one, all the screens around me go dark except for one. He pulls up a website called Slave Market. The banner depicts crudely Photoshopped collared women in submissive postures or delivering fellatio. There are two buttons underneath labeled Proven and Virgin. He clicks on the one that says virgin.
Pictures pop up, pictures of women of all different nationalities. Some are smiling. Some look scared. Some are obviously underage. I feel sick. He scrolls down and I feel even sicker when I see my photo among them with the word SOLD stamped across the front.
“Look at the date, Maeve.”
The script on the screen is small. I have to squint, but there it is. Sale Date: May 1, 2017. That was a full week before the auction. Seller is listed as DarkArt87. I feel a chill. Arthur is Elliot’s middle name, and he’s always resented that it wasn’t his first. He’s a fan of Arthurian legend, and once told me that in middle school, he tried to get what few friends he had to call him ‘Arthur’ or ‘Art,’ but it never caught on. He was born in 1987.
“What’s going on?” I ask. But I think I already know what he’s about to tell me. I know, and I don’t want to hear it. But I also know I need to hear it.
“Your friend didn’t auction you away, Maeve. He sold you. To me.”
“No,” I say. He’s wrong. He must be wrong. I get to my feet. “There was an auction. Eight men…”
He rises from his chair. His deep voice is gentle but firm. “No, Maeve. I was the only one. Didn’t you think it was odd that you never saw the bidders?”
“Elliot said they wanted to remain anonymous,” I explain. “They wanted to remain anonymous from each other.”
“No,” he says.
I try a different explanation. “I had eight exams,” I say. “Eight—all to confirm my virginity!”
“What does that prove?” he asks. “What does an exam cost? One hundred, two hundred dollars? I assume you signed a HIPAA release to allow him to share the information. But it was all a sham to perpetuate the illusion of eight interested men.” He pauses. “Tell me, Maeve. Did it make you feel powerful, knowing these men wanted you so much?”
A flood of shame washes through me. It did. Looking back on it, I became addicted to the idea of all these men hopping through hoops. Elliot told me they pitched in to pay for the auction venue as part of privilege of bidding on me.
“I approved everything,” I say with a hollow voice. “He showed me forms, releases… it was my idea…”
“Maybe originally,” Atticus says. “Until your friend realized how easily he could cut you out by playing to your need for control. You thought he was helping you come up with a foolproof plan, while he was playing you for a fool.” He shakes his head. “The most ironic part? Even the numbers flashing on the screen at the auction were a sham. I didn’t pay $750,000 for you. I paid for you in Bitcoins, about two hundred of them. Bitcoin is an underground currency. Like the Dark Web, it can’t be traced. But it can be spent on everything your ‘friend’ needs to live comfortably for a very, very long time. Most of these women you see here? They were abducted and sold. Elliot had to be smarter. Everything he did up to point of the sale was all part of an elaborate charade designed to make you go willingly with your abductor.”
Memories of things Elliot said and did now pop up like red flags I should have seen. Hours spent in the computer room that he kept locked. His insistence that I never, ever enter while he was working. How his doubt over my plan turned to enthusiastic support almost overnight. How he’d suggest things in his off-handed way he knew I’d run with, like professional photographs and videos designed to market myself. How he monitored my exercise and diet. How he talked me into the painful electrolysis I endured on my pubic area, legs, and underarms. How he told me having these men wanting me was the very definition of empowerment. How he told me daily how rich I’d become and demurred when I told him we’d use the money together.
I struggle to collect myself as I glance up at my picture with the word SOLD slapped over it. The picture blurs as tears fill my eyes. I’ve been used, but not just by Elliot.
“You could have told me,” I hiss, turning my anger at the only other person in this charade. “But instead, you bought me.”
“I did,” he admits. “To save you.”
“To save me?” I ask. “How? By drugging me and then dumping me in the middle of the woods? By… by… touching me? By beating me?”
“Everything that’s been done for you was done for a reason. The spanking, the touching? You had to be taught who was in control, because you need to listen to me. Putting you in the woods? You were never in any danger, but I needed to see if you had the determination to do what needed to be done.”
“And what’s that?” I ask.
“To fight,” he says. “There’s something else you don’t know, Maeve.” His handsome face is serious in the glow of the computer screen. “Women sold on this Dark Web site? It’s not intended for them to return to society. They’re sold as… expendable commodities. If most of these women aren’t dead yet, they eventually will be. Elliot wanted assurances from me that you wouldn’t be coming back. As far as he knows, I’m a filthy rich, misogynistic underworld figure looking for the sickest of sick thrills. His one flaw is that he’s not as smart as he thinks. He never knew my identity. I made sure of that. But I found his.”
I look from him to the screen and back again. I think of Elliot, of my goofy, nerdy friend whose idea of socialization is multi-player game play. Elliot is quirky and weird, but he would never do this to me. My Elliot—the man who holds the umbrella for me in the rain, and who is such a fixture in my life that people have mistaken us for a couple? He may have his moments, but he’d never hurt me. He couldn’t have done this to me! Even with the circumstantial evidence, I go from shock and dismay into angry denial.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “This is bullshit. This is just more of the mindfuck game that started when you dumped me in the woods.”
“You’re wrong, Maeve. I told you why I put you in the woods.”
“It’s a lie!” I scream this in his face. I’m shaking. “It has to be…”
I turn away, the sick feeling coming back. “Why are you doing this?” I ask, whirling on him. “It’s cruel!”
I half expect him to grab me and drag me back to the cell room. But he doesn’t.
“I know it’s hard to believe. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to believe it either. There’s nothing worse than betrayal.”
“Elliot didn’t betray me.”
“Really?” He arches a brow. “Then how did I know that you’d know how to read a map? I know because Elliot told me. He was worried that you’d escape…”
“No.”
“It was one of his fears. That you’d come back…”
“No. Shut up.”
“He told me you used to hike, that you knew how to read a map, and that if I took you somewhere remote to make sure you didn’t have access to one…”
“Liar.”
“I asked him about your phobias. I told him I liked my women scared when I took them… terrified…”
“Stop!” I put my hands over my ears, but I can still hear him.
“Clowns and cockroaches. That’s what he said you were afraid of. He thought that was funny.”
“That doesn’t prove anything!” The words come out in a sob.
“He told me you sleep with a teddy bear.”
“What?”
“Mr. Bingley. It didn’t have a name. You’ve had it since you were six, and it never had a name. But the two of you were watching Pride & Prejudice one night and you named it then.”
I feel vulnerable, exposed, played. I know he’s telling me the truth. I think I knew when he showed me the website, but this final bit of information—something only Elliot would know—is the final straw. My best friend and this man played me. I have no place to direct my rage but at him. I launch myself at him, but he’s ready. He holds me as I pummel him with my fists. When I try to bite him, he turns me around, crosses my arms over my chest and restrains me from behind.
I call him every name in the book, hurl every insult I can at him until my voice is hoarse and the only sound in the room is my desperate gasping.
“Are you finished?” he asks. “If you are, I’ll let you go and we can talk. I just did you a favor, letting you vent. If you do it again, I’m going to spank your bare ass. Got it?”
I close my eyes. I want to tell him to go fuck himself. But I don’t. Instead, I nod. He lets me go and I walk a few feet away before turning back to him.
“If this is true, why didn’t you just call the authorities?” I ask.
“Because I am the authority. Just like there’s a shadow web, there’s a shadow faction of the armed forces that’s committed to bringing these people down. I’m part of that faction. You aren’t the first woman we’ve saved, but you’re the first one with a seller who we believe can lead us deeper into slave traders on the dark web. Elliot Simms is angling to be a player in that world. We think he’s made real world contacts with the organizers behind Slave Market. That’s why we left him free. We’re watching him, and waiting.”
“For what?”
“For him to lead us to something bigger.” He reaches out and uses his thumb to rub a drying tear off my cheek. “Will you help us, Maeve? Will you help us bring him down?”
“You’re giving me a choice?” I ask.
His gray eyes lock onto mine. “How smart are you, Maeve? Ask yourself what choices you actually have?”
He’s giving me credit for having a brain, for realizing that I only have two choices here, to stay under his protection and make Elliot pay, or be released and spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I know now that my friend isn’t my friend. He’s a monster. And I’m a fool.
“How could I have been so stupid?” I ask. “But maybe this is what I get for agreeing to be a slave.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Maybe so, but it’s not always the wrong choice. In the hands of the right man, it can be the best decision you’ll ever make. There are men out there who are masters of women, but not in the way Elliot ever intended. What he did was an insult to any man who knows what true mastery is all about.”
A shiver runs through my body. I don’t know what he means by this, but I have a feeling that before all is said and done, I’m going to find out.