The Dominator (23 page)

“You don’t speak? I know you must be afraid. You have nothing to fear, provided you don’t give me any trouble. I have had a room prepared for you. We will speak later. Either your fiancé will come for you or we will talk again about, ah, options.” He stepped to me and tipped my chin up and then touched my face. I winced. Tears were threatening but I held them back.

“So beautiful.” he said, “I don’t know if I’d sell you or maybe keep you for myself.” His hand trailed down to a breast and he cupped it.

I felt bile rise up in my throat and remained stiff.

He sighed and let go.

“Flora!” he shouted.

A different older woman in a standard black and white maid’s uniform came in. She motioned for me to follow. She took me to a little bedroom in the basement of the house. It was an unfinished basement and it was dingy and dirty, unlike the main floor of the house. When she opened the bedroom door and led me in, I felt sick at the sight. It was decorated like a little girl’s room, strangely, with a pink single canopy bed, rocking chair filled with dolls and stuffed animals, and it had a tiny bathroom adjoined with toilet, sink, and shower. She said nothing to me, just led me in and closed the door and locked it. I noticed a mounted camera pointed at the bed in the corner where the wall met the ceiling.

I sat on the bed, feeling numb. I sat for a while and then went into the bathroom and saw that there was a camera in this room, too. Oh man, how could I use the bathroom with a camera pointed at me? The bathroom had baby shampoo, child’s Disney character toothpaste and soap. It was weird.

I walked back to the bedroom, deciding to hold it as long as I had to. It didn’t last long before I had no choice but to go. At least I’d been wearing dress so I could try to keep myself covered. I tried not to look at the camera. I tried not to think about what this room might be for but I knew. I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat.

I looked down at my dress. This was one of my favorite dresses. It was black and white checkered with a red collar and belt and now it was filthy and there was a rip at the hem. Funny that I was upset about a dress right now. Maybe that’s all I could let myself focus on. If I focused on what was really going on here I might not be able to handle it.

What felt like several hours later the door opened and Flora had a tray that she left on the floor. She backed out of the room. I sat on the bed and ate a little bit of rice, beans, and fish and drank the bottled water she’d left. There were two other bottles there for me so I supposed that might be it until tomorrow.  I wasn’t wearing a watch and this room had no windows. I guessed it was nighttime by now but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t hungry but didn’t know what was in store for me so ate as much as I could manage so I could keep my strength. I decided to try to sleep.

I prayed and prayed hard asking God to deliver me from the nightmare that was my life. I prayed that He would also keep the ones I cared about safe.

Later, much later, I didn’t know how long I’d been here, I started to hope that Tommy would rescue me. Better the evil you know than the evil you don’t. Even if I had to be his wife, even if I had to be his sex slave, it was back home and if I played my cards right maybe I could maybe have somewhat of a normal life some of the time. Maybe I could see my friends sometimes. Maybe I could figure out how to keep him sweet or at least not piss him off. But it was probably too late for that. He’d known me for just a little while and I’d pissed him off repeatedly. He’d find someone else to marry. He’d just leave me here and move on with his life. Juan Carlos had said Ferranos didn’t usually bargain. This was probably hopeless.

Tommy

Two days later…

Negotiations were done and if I’d really meant the things I’d agreed to I’d be feeling like I’d been fucked up the ass right now.  Of course there had been a lot of back and forth as I had to make it look genuine. Now all was done and I had to wait for Castillo’s men to come back to the table to tell us if Juan Carlos would accept our latest counteroffer, which was so close to his last offer that he couldn’t possibly refuse it.

We’d tried to make our negotiations sound more like a reason to move forward due to mutually beneficial business ventures that could benefit both sides much more than it being about getting my girl back.

I was like a caged predator on the edge and if it weren’t for Dare, I’d have lost my shit by now. He dealt with our translator who dealt with the Castillo translator and they showed me a live feed of her in a kid’s bedroom on the bed looking at the ceiling with a lost and distraught look on her face. The feed was open so I kept checking it on my phone. I was assured she hadn’t been touched.

I speak a bit of Spanish, enough, but I just don’t have the fucking patience right now, not when I want to rip anyone associated with Castillo apart. There were ten of us in the room and countless outside all with guns and I want blood. I want it to fucking rain blood on this shithole. And as soon as I get her out of here, there will be a storm coming. Why the hell were we even involved in this business down here? Pop and I needed to have a talk about this.

Tia

I bolted awake. I wasn’t alone. The bedroom lights were still on as they had been the whole time I’d been here. A man was standing over me. It was the Mexican man with the ponytail who’d been driving the car that took me. I didn’t know how long I’d been here. There were no windows and the lights were always on. I think it’d been two or three days judging by how many times food had been brought in. Too much time alone with my thoughts, with my fears, with my regrets. All that’d happened was that a few times that Flora lady brought food and water. She didn’t talk to me, just came and left.

I don’t think I could ever survive a lengthy stay in solitary confinement. Being locked in this room with nothing to do was awful. But I’d tolerated it as best as I could because I didn’t know what would happen once I left this room.

“On your knees,” he growled at me.

I stared at him, frozen. He grabbed my hair and pulled me off the bed with it until I was on my knees on the floor.

“Ferrano says no one fucks you or the deal’s off but he didn’t say you couldn’t suck me off.” He unzipped his jeans.
Oh fuck no.

Before I knew it he was forcing his thing into my mouth, hanging onto a handful of material at the back of my dress. I started to choke and sputter and then he slapped me across the head and when he hit he hit so hard I saw a kaleidoscope of colors. He pushed his dick into my mouth again and I just gagged and then tears were streaming out of my eyes. It was disgusting, he stank like old cheese and sweat and tasted nasty and I couldn’t stop gagging. He didn’t care; he just kept pumping in over and over around my gagging.

“Bite me, Puta, I’ll knock your teeth out!” he grunted this and then I heard a scuffle behind him and then hollering and then his grip loosened on me and I heard a bang, a gunshot.  He fell beside me. Earl had shot him in the back of the head. Earl had a look of ferocity on his face. He helped me up and put me on the bed and then disappeared into the washroom. I stared at the man on the floor in the puddle of almost black blood and his vacant eyes. His penis was still hanging out of his pants. Earl came back with a wet cloth and started wiping my face.

“That should never have happened, honey, I’m sorry,” he said, then walked me to the bathroom and turned the tap on. I splashed water on my face and scooped a handful of water and spit it out and then repeated it two or three times. The taste in my mouth was vile, beyond vile. I couldn’t stop shaking.

I looked at him with a hurt and betrayed look on my face. This guy had been assigned by Tommy to keep me safe. It was a joke, of course, because I hadn’t been safe since I’d been given to Tommy but this whole thing had just been so ugly and so so confusing. From the other morning when Tommy had been tender with me to the incident with his sister and seeing her babies in the car, to running, calling my father, Tommy finding me and being so angry, and then all of this. I wanted…I didn’t know what I wanted. I felt like I was on the verge of a complete breakdown.

“Let’s go,” Earl said.

I looked at him beseechingly.

“You’re going home.”

Relief flooded through me. Home?

“To Tommy,” he clarified. He must’ve seen the look of hope on my face. I knew my expression dropped. Was home with him? I hated what he’d put me through so far but I hated myself, too, because my actions, my running away had probably made it easy for Earl to kidnap me.

As we headed for the front door I saw Juan Carlos again. He was in a robe, smoking a cigar. He walked up to us and nodded at Earl, “You hand her off to Ricky and his crew and stay. We don’t want the Ferrano boys to see you. Athena; your fiancé has been told if he ever gets tired of you to send you back to me.” He winked. I would’ve gulped but my throat was so dry that I’m sure I just stared at him blankly.

Earl walked me outside and put me in the back of an old cargo van. I sat on the dirty carpeted floor and a tall Mexican guy tied my hands and feet and put duct tape over my mouth.

“I’m sorry. Good luck,” Earl said softly to me and then shut the van doors.

This bad guy had a guilty conscience. I was grateful that he’d at least stopped that filthy pig from finishing with me but he’d been the one who helped bring me here. I trembled hard. Two guys sat in the back with me with gun holsters on them and there were two in the front. The only one I recognized was the slim black guy who’d done the first aid on Earl’s shoulder.

One of the guys answered a phone, spoke in Spanish, then looked back and said, “Change of plans. You been sold, bitch!” Then he said something else in Spanish and they all started laughing hysterically.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!

Was Earl lying or had someone double-crossed someone? Where was I going? What would happen to me? The van drove for what felt like a long time, maybe an hour, but I didn’t have any real concept of time, only the concept of horror. I felt like I was rapidly falling apart at the seams, stitch by stitch, and there may not be many stitches left.

Abruptly, the van screeched to a halt and the two in the front got out.  The two in the back sat and kept their gazes focused on me. A long time seemed to pass when finally the back door opened and I was yanked out, dropped carelessly on the road, and then the men jumped back into the van and squealed away.

For at least a minute or two I just laid there in the dust, in the dark, totally freaking out, totally immobile because I was still bound and gagged. Then I saw headlights coming at me, heard brakes squeal, and heard multiple sets of feet running. I squinted at the high beams in my face.

Oh no, what next? Who had I gotten sold to?

I was scooped up into the air in strong arms. I knew that scent. It was leather, it was musk, a bit of sweat, some stale coffee, but it was Tommy. When it hit me, at that second it was the best scent I’d ever smelled in my life. My heart leapt forward with jubilation but then at the same instant I felt fear prickle like spikes through my scalp. How mad was he going to be at me for this?

Then I was in the back seat of a car and then I was on his lap and he was breathing hard, getting my hands untied, getting my feet untied, and then he got the tape off my mouth. It was dark and we weren’t alone in the car, which was now speeding away. There were three heads in the front bench seat and just us in the back.

I felt barely more than catatonic. I had my bottom lip in my mouth, reeling from the sting of the tape being pulled off. My feet and hands were numb from having been tied too long and too tight.

“Are you hurt?” he breathed, examining me in the near darkness of the car with just the tiny interior light on. I shook my head No but at the sight of his eyes, the concern on his face, the reality of where I was and what I was in the middle of, a giant sob tore out of me.

He pulled me tight against his chest and rocked back and forth, one hand on my head, the other flat against the center of my back. I put my arms around his torso and held tight, feeling him pull me tighter, feeling his mouth on my head. He said nothing but he kept rocking back and forth with me, kissing my head over and over, squeezing me reassuringly. He said nothing; I said nothing. I had a feeling that there would be plenty to say when we were alone. 

A while later, I don’t know how much later, the car stopped and I jolted awake. I had fallen asleep against him, feeling like his scent and his arms were a warm blanket around me. He carried me, cradled in his arms in through a gate, and then up a walkway to a large light-colored house with all the outside lights on. Once inside, the interior’s light was blinding. I squinted and shielded my eyes and he said something softly to his brother who’d been in the car with us, shut the door and then he climbed a narrow staircase with me. A moment later he kicked a slightly ajar dark stained wooden door open and then swept his foot backwards once we were in to shut it.  He turned around and locked a deadbolt and put me down on a bed.  He was standing over me, looking down at me for a moment. His expression unreadable to me.

My dam burst and the tears fell like Niagara Falls. He flicked the light switch off, sat, grabbed me, pulled me up onto his lap and rocked me some more in the dark. He held me tight; almost too tight.  After a few minutes or an hour, I wasn’t sure, he let go. He got up to his feet. I clambered up to my knees on the bed and threw my arms around him and held on tight, not wanting him to leave me alone, not wanting someone to swoop in and take me, not wanting his sweetness to change to anger. He kissed the top of my head and whispered, “I’m gonna run a bath. Just a minute, okay?” I let go of him and just sat on the edge of the bed.