Heroine: California Dreamin' (34 page)

I locked the huge iron grid gate behind me when I saw the white van again as it drove up the long parkway. Terrified I hardly managed to plug the key into the security lock and flee back into the park. The van turned to the right just before the property and I heard its engine noises disappear into the distance. The car probably belonged to one of the people in that neighborhood and therefore I’ve been seeing it here more frequently. Nevertheless I found myself incapable to leave the house. I spent the rest of the day at the windows in the second floor constantly on the lookout for a white mini-bus. But I couldn’t spot it.

Until the next morning. The van stood right opposite of the driveway. I didn’t trust my eyes. Then the van set slowly into motion. I knew that I had to call police. With the phone already in my hand I re-considered: what should I tell them? It dawned on me that I had tricked myself once more. I was not registered in Cologne. My personal ID still showed Geneva as my first place of residence. And in Germany it is mandatory to get registered when you arrive at a new address.

What should I tell the officers when they asked what I was doing in that house?
‘I feel threatened by Igor V.’ ‘Aha, and where do you know him from? And why are you registered in Geneva? Oh really, the professor allowed you to live here. Well, where is he, your professor? In Hamburg? Then let’s give him a call.’
Erich would not pick up the phone. He was located in a tunnel fifty meters below the surface. Surrounded by tons of metal.

The dialog with the cops continued in my head.
‘Ah, you can’t reach him? Do you know what we believe? You’ve been working for this Igor. And now you screwed up and want us to protect you from your own pimp? Right?’
I vehemently put the phone down. Stay calm! I looked outside. The street in front of the gate was empty. Was it all in my imagination?

In the afternoon a black all-terrain car was parked at the rear side of the premises. My heart pounded all the way up to my neck. Only when it got dark the car disappeared slowly. The same game the next morning when I saw the white van, in the afternoon the black car. Somebody was watching me.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. Embarrassment or not - only one person could help now. Jan. I kept on calling the research institute in Hamburg for hours. Only to get the same answer over and over again.
‘Unfortunately we can’t reach your contact. Please try again later.’

In the evening the off-road vehicle drove off. I decided quickly. My travel bag was packed fast. And I left a note for Erich.

“I’ve gone to Stuttgart. Please don’t expect me to return any time soon. I will be gone for a while. It is urgent. I love you. Julie.”

Until midnight I didn’t dare to leave the dark surroundings. Then I pulled the gate carefully tight shut behind me and then ran with my sneakers down the parkway as fast as I could in the direction of the next underground train station.

A large limousine suddenly appeared like from nowhere before me, two men jumped out, tackled me to the ground and wrapped a blanket around my head. I felt ropes pulled tight around my hands and feet. I scrambled and yelled though I knew that nobody could hear me.

The streets were empty and residents couldn’t hear me - they lived behind high walls and sound proof windows fifty or more yards away from the parkway. I landed on the floor of the car that started to move instantly. My unknown kidnappers planted their feet on my head and legs. I could not be seen from the outside.

The ride started to slow down after less than half an hour drive during which I counted my heartbeats as they were racing and hurt in my chest. A bump in the road painfully hit my head against the floor. Then some squeaking noise, the motor was turned off. The car doors opened apparently inaudibly because I was lifted out of the car without hearing anything. Nobody had said a word so far which only added to my angst.

Then I was put upright into vertical position. The shackles were dropped and the blanket was removed from my head. First the bright light blinded me. I looked around timidly and squinted my eyes. I stood in a window-less room surrounded by several men. I counted five of them. Igor’s magic number as Tanja once told me. It took me a bit longer until I could recognize everything again. I was opposite of a desk. In front of it stood Igor with his arms crossed. He had aged. His bald head had a fresh scar on one side. The corners of his mouth were drawn down even more contemptuously that when we had met first. My pimp had problems with his stomach.

“Welcome at home. We really missed you,” Igor addressed me calmly.

“Thank you. Your pronunciation has improved since we saw one another last”, I replied coolly. He nodded.

“Yes, I practiced. You’ve kept us waiting for quite a while, sweetie. Your bitchy behavior cost me a lot of money. Well, you’ll work that off, did you hear me?” I nodded obediently. I belonged to him and I would do what he wanted me to do.

“Great. Achim pass me her purse. Did you work as a pro all this time? Your purse certainly suggests that.” The other four men laughed. He poured the contents onto the desk. Then he took my beautiful cell phone with the paillettes.

“Please don’t”, I said. “Please only take the Sim card.” Igor looked up briefly and nodded. He opened the device and removed the card which he subsequently squashed between his fingers. I understood that he had just destroyed my last contact to the outside world. Then he put everything back into the purse and put it behind the desk.

“Ruud, did you body-search her for anything else? Knives, pepper spray and anything else that whores carry around with them?” The heavy guy beside me declined and I thought to have heard some Dutch accent.

“Take off your clothes.” Igor’s hard voice made me shiver.  Without hesitation but also without particular urgency I slipped off my shoes, pulled down my pants and took off my sweatshirt. After all I knew what I was expected to do. On the inside I had calmed down. Now I was where I belonged. I had worked towards this fate with all intentions. Now I had to cope with it. And I had my experiences.

It was quiet in the room when I got rid of my bra and then my panties. I didn’t even hear any breathing. Igor grinned.

“Well, did I promise you too much?” The other men agreed enthusiastically. They were assured that they could earn a lot of money with me. I was actually a bit proud of that.

“Who wants to body-search her? Igor asked the round of men. Of course everybody wanted. Gerd won the jackpot.

“Open your mouth”, he commanded brutally. I obeyed.

“Nothing, she’s clean
”, he reported after a while. I stood upright again and saw that all of them had this suggestive grin on their faces. A sign that they were ready to start.

“I need to pay my men otherwise they will be mad at me and go on strike”, Igor said without any sign of emotion. “You know what you have to do, don’t you?” I nodded calmly.

“May I have something to drink before we start, please?” I looked up to Igor submissively.

He looked at me for a while in silence. Then he nodded.

“I am not a monster. Ruud, go get the cognac. Then things will ‘glide’ much better, you’ll see.” He grinned again. But there was no humor in his facial expression. Ruud passed me the bottle and I took a big swig. My stomach was empty, the brandy burnt like fire and I gagged. Then I forced myself to take another swig. Until I noticed that I became drunk.

“That’s enough. Lift her up.”
Then I had to serve all men in the room. And I took a liking in it.

“
That’s enough for today. We need you alive. And beside that we’ll have a party on Saturday where you’ll be the highlight. It’s your specialty, isn’t it?!” Igor closed the party. I was too drunk and too wound up to understand what he was referring to.

“Take her away”, growled Igor. Several hands grabbed me and dragged me into a room one floor up. Or perhaps two floors. My clothes landed with me on the ground. Behind me a door was closed and a key was turned in the lock. I was stretched out beside a bed and managed to crawl into it. I fell asleep almost instantly. Before sleep came over me I was aware that I was content. The inner emptiness had disappeared. It was good so.

The excitement waned until the next morning but it hadn’t disappeared totally. I woke up in a respective state of condition. But my head hurt tremendously, I was thirsty and noticed that I was totally hung-over.

Only now I was capable to look at my room or better yet my prison cell. Within the four walls there was nothing more than a bed, a dresser, table and chair and they together used up almost the entire space. The front door was made of steel and had no door handle on the inside. The door could only be opened from the corridor. The once high window had been brick-walled except for a small gap. I could hear the noise of the streets from the outside. A wooden door led to another room. I opened it and turned the light on.

It was a bathroom with a small shower, a toilet and a sink that filled out the room. At least there were some towels. I rinsed my mouth with water directly from the faucet. Then I went back to my cell. Did they really want to imprison me here for the rest of my life? It was clear to me that I had to work for Igor. I had fucked up his business. How long it would take me to pay off my debt I didn’t know. But it couldn’t be that they would keep me in this hole forever? I felt how desperation took a hold of me.

My clothes were still spread out on the floor. I looked down on my body and saw that residues from the previous night were still stuck to my inner thighs and legs. I vaguely remember what had happened that night. Again I felt excitement coming over me. I pulled myself together, took a shower and cleansed myself from top to bottom. Then I got dressed and waited.

No new clothes to change into, no contact to anybody, no daylight. It was horrible. I was hungry. Did they want me to die in here? Panic crept up my spine. I called out and banged against the door but there was no immediate answer. Many long hours passed by. I fell asleep again.

I woke up in the middle of the night. Something was different in the room. Then I felt some movement behind me. The door to the bathroom opened. Panic stricken I retreated and pulled the knees up to my chest. In the door stood Robert. He stepped towards me and touched my legs.

“Julie, sweetheart. Don’t you recognize me anymore? We had such a good time together, didn’t we?” Breathlessly I agreed with him and nodded. Something in my head told me that I had gone crazy but that feeling disappeared again. Robert was alive and that was most important. He just lied on top of me and we made love. I was not alone anymore.

Outside doors banged, heavy steps passed by and then silence again. Those noises had awakened me.

Robert had disappeared. My brain told me that he couldn’t have been in the room – because he was dead! But my body insisted that he had been with me during the night. My pulse was racing.

When I heard noises again on the corridor I banged on the door and yelled:

“Hallo, do you want to starve me to death? Please, give me something to eat.” Outside I heard a man’s voice cursing and then silence again. Ten minutes later the door opened. Igor just grinned at me. A grin without sympathy. Like from a skull. However, the view of him somewhat calmed me down. After all he was familiar to me.

“You are up early?!”

“What time is it?” My expensive wrist watch had disappeared with all my other jewelry.

“Eleven.”

“May I have something to eat, please?!” He grinned even more and held out a shopping bag to me.

“We’ll take care of you. Listen, when you’re done Lisa will come and visit you. She will ‘beautify’ you a little bit. We’ll have a visitor today.” I understood. My first trick.

“My I have my suitcase? I have no clothes here to change into.”

“But of course. Achim, bring up her suitcase”, he yelled through the open door.

“Now, we’ve talked enough. Get ready and put on something nice. Today Ruud will go back to your villa once more. Should he bring something back for you?” I looked at him with my mouth open. Then I remembered that they had found my house keys in my purse. I felt getting sick. I shook my head. The shock sat deeply. I couldn’t even warn Erich.

“By the way, thank you very much that you spared us to cancel your stay at Erich.” They must have found my note in the kitchen. Did they actually know everything about me? Oh gee, I hope they didn’t find the papers I had brought along from the USA. Together with my other luggage they were stored in the attic. Why was I so careless?

“Please tell me how you’ve found me?” I inquired. He looked for a while like he had to think about it.

“Well, you were so kind and signed a new phone contract in Switzerland. Even with the right company. We have somebody in there who had helped us. Ever since you came to Cologne we knew where we could find you. I’m convinced that you were leading us to you intentionally. After all you know what you owe me.” His gaze had something threatening.

“Yes, I imagine. How much did you actually lose?” Jan had enlightened me then that they were after me because they had actually plans for me. To sell me or something of that kind. And I was also quite certain now that I had subconsciously provoked my current kidnapping myself. Again Igor took a long pause.

“Two hundred thousand. You understand that? You’ll have to work for that and compensate me! But now enough with this talk.” He first threw my suitcase back into the room and then closed the door. When I opened the case I saw that everything had obviously been ransacked and all my clothes were now in disarray. I cried a little bit and then hung up the dress that I had brought onto the only clothes hanger on the bathroom door.

About an hour later I heard again steps outside. The door opened and Ruud and Achim entered the room followed by a slim or better yet scrawny woman who I estimated to be about mid forty. She was very likely pretty some time back but her brown skin was dried out and wrinkly. Too much sun tanning I thought to myself. Her blond hair was definitely bleached. In her hand she carried a make-up case.

“Good morning, sweetie-pie. I am Lisa. I will freshen you up a bit so you look good when you get into the sales room. But you know about it as Igor had assured me.”

“Don’t blabber so much”, growled Achim. “You know that you are supposed to keep your mouth shut. No information or you’ll bear the consequences.” Lisa took that as if she didn’t care.

“Now, first of all get undressed and then we see what we need to do.” The two men stayed in the room. I didn’t care. There will be probably even more people looking on in the future. Lisa was all enthusiastic.

“All we need here is a bit of powder. Perhaps the nipples a bit lighter. But that might be due to the shitty lighting here. Only your hairdo needs some proper work.” Sometimes later she was done and proudly admired her work.

“Now, let your jeans right here. They will not fit your appearance. You know who’s coming?” I shook my head. No, I didn’t know.

“Lisa, shut the hell up”, Achim cursed. I found him more and more unpleasant. Meanwhile I kind of remembered that I had seen him once before but I couldn’t pinpoint where.

“Okay, what else do you have to put on?” Lisa asked.

I pointed to the suitcase and the dress at the door.

“Nothing else?” I declined. Lisa took the dress and was obviously upset.

“That is totally wrinkled. I need to iron that first.” She put it over her arm and pushed through the two bullies. I remained back with them alone. They grinned suggestively because I was still naked. I decided to not let it bother me and pulled some fresh underwear from my suitcase. When Lisa came back I hugged her joyously. The dress looked like new. Actually, it was new.

For a while I was alone in the room again. Then I noticed Igor’s heavy steps approaching the door. Together with his two heroic helpers who probably tagged along to intimidate women Igor came to pick me up. I stumbled in the corridor because I got stuck in the carpet with my high heels. Igor caught my arm and led me down the stairs to an elevator door. We drove up to the fourth floor.

Now that floor looked much differently from the floor I was ‘parked’ in. There were many doors made of wood while my floor featured only the one single room. Obviously I was incarcerated in one of the side tracts. We walked up some additional steps and entered the attic. Used to the dimmed lights before, now bright daylight caught my eyes.

Soon I noticed that a studio had been set up under the huge skylights. Nice light furniture, a couch and behind it video cameras and lighting. It looked really comfortable.

“
Oh Lord
”, I thought with grim.
“Here we go with a porno. Then I can send Daniel and his babe a copy, perhaps she going to like it.”