The People Traders (8 page)

Karen looked sheepish. "It was the following Tuesday, I'd a study afternoon off. He'd picked me up from school and because the sun was shining, instead of going to the flat, we drove out to Duran Woods. Anyway, he stopped the car in the picnic area and we went for a walk in the woods. He seemed to know where he was going and I was happy he'd got over the photo argument and still wanted me to be with me. In a clearing there was this fallen tree and he sat down, I sat on his knee. We began kissing, then he pulled his camera from his pocket, telling me he'd been thinking and this was where he wanted his special photo to be taken. I was stunned he was suggesting I took my clothes off in public and refused, telling him somebody would come and catch me naked, but he insisted it'd only take less than two minutes and there was nobody about. He kept at me, threatening this time he really would walk away if I was that prudish. I didn't want him to leave me, so eventually I relented and quickly removed my clothes. Then he kept making me pose in different positions until he found the one he wanted. It was taking ages and I was terrified someone would come. I was sure he'd messed about and delayed taking the photo on purpose, perhaps hoping someone would come, catch me naked, and I'd be really embarrassed then? After this I'd had enough and told him if he didn't treat me better, we were finished. He held me tight and apologised, said he'd problems in his life and we'd talk about it on the Saturday. He even talked about getting engaged."

"So what happened after that?" Assam asked.

By now Karen had no fight left in her. Every time she tried to make out the love affair was romantic, which she knew deep down towards the end it wasn't, the more Assam shattered her illusions. In some ways it felt better to tell somebody, anybody. The affair had been taking its toll, one moment studying for exams, the next coping with the ever increasing demands of Grant, so she decided to tell Assam just what had been going on.

"After the photos and two weeks before I was abducted, Grant had become more demanding; every time we got to the flat all he'd want to do was make love. I thought we'd sorted out our problems and I was really looking forward to taking him to meet my mum and dad. We'd agreed to get married but his unusual persistence in wanting to make love all the time was getting too much, what with exams and everything else in my life, so I began to refuse his advances. It wasn't that I didn't want him, I did, but I couldn't cope. He was getting more and more annoyed with my refusals and started to become very rough with me. My visions of love, of being swept off my feet and carried to the bedroom on my wedding night, were falling apart. Everything was becoming sordid and ugly. One time he even suggested we did it in the lift, but I wouldn't. He was often so rough I was afraid he'd rip my school clothes, so once I changed at school into my jeans. He went mad, telling me never to do it again."

She fell silent, hoping it was enough, but Assam wanted to push it in her face.

"Not a nice man, this Grant, was he? In fact I'd go as far as to say he's made a bloody fool of you."

She said nothing. In reality she'd known it all along, but it was like being grown up making love to an older man. She felt superior to other girls who could only dream or giggle about sex; she'd never dared to tell them the real truth.

"I suppose," she muttered.

Assam lit another cigarette and took a long draw before talking. "I've some more bad news for you, Karen."

She looked at him, tears coming into her eyes, not really able to take much more.

He smiled to himself, Assam wanted her like this. He wanted her so low that she'd agree to anything, so he hit her hard with his words.

"By now, your parents will have the copies of everything in front of you, unfortunately so will the papers. They will also have a copy of this video," he said, at the same time pushing it towards her. "It's you and him playing about on his bed. I don't suppose you would like to see it? So it would seem this Frank Whittle was out to get you. His plan, not only to have you abducted, but to ensure your parents felt disgust with their little girl's sexual escapades while they were at work. However, Frank also wanted you to experience life; be sexually aware, even, might I say, experienced, very experienced."

Karen stared at the photos, tears trickling down her cheeks. Grant had promised they'd all been destroyed, she'd even seen him delete the photos on the computer. All the time he'd tricked her and these were the proof of their wild relationship. His constant talk of marriage meaningless, all he'd done was to destroy her life, her reputation.

"So do you still want to go home?" Assam asked with a hint of malice.

She remained staring at the table. "What to? My life's finished, I couldn't look my mum and dad in the face, let alone my friends," she whispered.

Assam stood and walked round to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. "Welcome to your new life, Karen," he said softly. "Now I'd like you to watch a video."

She looked up at him, fear on her face. "Not of me?" she stuttered.

"No, not this time. I might let you see it one day but this is a video of your future, so watch and learn."

The television flickered into life and Karen watched in silence. It was a club type of environment; the girls wore very little and danced seductively around a pole. As a man entered, one girl would break away, talk to him for a few minutes, and then they'd leave and go through a small door. The next part showed a girl dancing in front of a man, removing her clothes slowly and, when naked, first sitting on his knee allowing the man to kiss her, before she moved astride him, simulating intercourse and allowing him more fondling, before moving away as the music stopped. Assam, by the time it ended, had returned to his chair and lit a cigarette.

"It's as simple as that, Karen. I want you to watch that video every night, practise the movements and then I want you ready to perform that with me."

She stared at him, appalled. "It's disgusting, what do you think I am?" she demanded.

He leaned forward only inches from her face. "I know what you are, Karen," he shouted. "It's in the bloody photos spread on the table. It's in the actions you performed three or four times a week for a man twice your age. You're not a naive schoolgirl taken from her parents. Perhaps if you were I might have called your dad, after all, I've been paid and the person who'd arranged it all is dead, but you're not. You left your naiveté in that flat, along with your so-called 'it's disgusting' attitude when you allowed this man to take you in every position he could think of."

Karen cut in. "But I was in love, he was my boyfriend and we were going to marry," she protested.

Assam nodded his head up and down. "Yes, Karen, claim what you will, bury your head in the sand with the excuse he loved you, but even you weren't that stupid. You liked the excitement. You enjoyed the dominance of this man but more importantly, you liked sex. The superiority of doing what you were doing over the other girls at school. If you hadn't, you'd have screamed rape from the rooftop, but you didn't. So is there a need for us to sit and watch the video of you and him enjoying his type of sex, not as you say, yours?"

She never replied, but shook her head before lowering it in shame. What could she say? He might be right, but still in her mind what she did was in the privacy of Grant's flat, not in public, and should have been their secret.

Assam cut in again. "You're an attractive and sexually experienced young girl, Karen. The man who's coming for you will pay good money for a lap dancer of your age. Let me down and so help me, I'll cut you up so badly even a sewer rat wouldn't want you."

Karen sat for a moment then gave a shrug. The man in front of her had won; she, by her own admission, was already a whore. How it had all gone wrong, she'd no idea, but the thought of him using a knife on her face terrified her. She needed to think, to get her life in perspective but this moment wasn't the time to deny him. "I've been a fool, haven't I?" she began. "I'd never been out with a man, just lads larking about before Grant. I didn't understand what he was having me do, at the time it seemed right, a laugh, but it wasn't and I can see that now. But I believed he loved me... and what I was doing was pleasing my man."

Assam banged the table to shut her up. "Cut this hard-done-to story, Karen. Within two weeks you dance or I carve that face of yours."

She shook her head. "I'll do it and I won't let you down. Besides, I've no intention of living a life disfigured just for the sake of not taking my clothes off. Like you say, I've done it often enough."

Assam grinned. He'd trapped her perfectly and she'd fetch a lot of money. Without this evidence a girl like her would need beating into submission; however, strap marks on a body would be of no value to these buyers.

"Do you mind if I go to bed now, I feel sick? Tomorrow I'll start practising if that's soon enough for you?" she asked.

Assam stood and walked to the door. "Come on then. The television will be put in the hold, I'll be otherwise engaged so won't be seeing you again. That is, until you perform in front of me."

Karen followed in silence, before climbing down the long ladder into the hold. Assam looked over the edge. "You'll find jeans and tops on your bed. Also, to go with what you're wearing now, are stockings and shoes. I want the lot, as in the video, Karen, and it'd better be good. Good enough for me to want to screw you. You'll be doing well if you can achieve that because, unlike you, I'm fussy who I screw. Goodnight, don't have nightmares." He laughed and slammed the hatch closed. She stood shivering in the gloom, and then suddenly felt sick. The next few minutes she retched over the toilet before returning to sit on the bed, ashamed of what she'd done. It had always been her secret. Now, with her family knowing, the papers probably splashing it across the front pages, what for her, began as love, a willingness to please her man, would be seen as some sordid sex act between a young girl and a married man. That she couldn't take, she wanted to crawl under a stone and die.

CHAPTER 6

While Karen worked in the kitchen she heard the crew talking about two other girls who were on the ship, but she'd seen no sign of them. Once Barry, who'd she seen on the first day in the kitchen, was sitting having his breakfast, when cook slipped out to go to the toilet. She'd taken that opportunity to ask Barry if he'd come and talk to her in the hold some time; he'd promised he would, but he'd never turned up. Karen was disappointed, she'd hoped he'd at least come and talk to her.

It had been days since her meeting with Assam. Garrett had taken it on to escort her back to the hold from the kitchen, after allowing her to take a shower each night. She'd sit for hours alone, depression setting in at the hopelessness of her situation. The practising had been simple; the other girls, in Karen's view, were pathetic. Soon she had the routine perfected and it gave her the confidence to be able to face Assam without fear. As for him threatening to screw her when she'd finished, even that she wasn't bothered about, confident anything Assam demanded of her she'd be able to cope with, just so long as he didn't disfigure her. After Garrett slammed the hatch shut and she'd lain down on the bed as usual, Karen sensed someone else was in the hold with her.

She sat up alert. "Who's there?" she called.

Barry appeared from behind a crate. "Shush, keep the noise down, someone might hear," he said quietly.

Karen smiled, relief written all over her face. "Thanks for coming. You won't get into trouble, will you?"

He shrugged. "No, I can get in this hold from the other one through a watertight door. It's empty so it's not locked and the watertight door can only be opened from the other side. Anyway, I've pulled it closed just off the catches. They'll never know I've been here. So what do you want?"

She looked him in the eyes, tears forming slowly. "I just want to go home. Will you help me?"

He shrugged. "What can I do?" he asked.

"You could call the police, if not them, your family and ask them to call for you, anything, so long as the police know I'm still alive and where I am. It's not a lot to ask."

He walked over to the bed and sat down at her side. "I could I suppose, but it's a hell of a risk. If Assam knew, he'd kill me."

She took his hand, gripping it hard. "Nobody would know, Barry. Ask them to tell Customs that the ship's full of drugs. They could then just do a general search and find me. Please, Barry, say you'll do it."

She waited, holding her breath for his response.

"I'll think about it, Karen, but I've a couple of hours to kill, how about us talking for a while?"

"What do you want to talk about?" she asked.

He kept hold of her hand, not letting her pull away. "There's a rumour that you're some girl. It seems you do posing in the nude and other things."

She snatched her hand away and glared at him. "I don't do anything of the sort. I'm seventeen for God's sake. A schoolgirl!"

Barry looked at her. "That maybe, Karen, but you're also a very attractive schoolgirl and I bet you've had a string of boyfriends."

Karen shrugged. "I did have a boyfriend but we've split up. Anyway are you going to help or not?"

He grinned. "More to the point, Karen, what are you going to do for me? After all, you want freedom, I want a woman."

She tried to look indignant. "You've got it all wrong, Barry. I've never posed nude or even made love and I've no intention of doing either," she lied.