One Way or Another(22)

The young women he showered with this attention were not used to such a high-flying lifestyle. They were ordinary, not necessarily small-town but certainly with provincial mentalities. He knew how to pick them out. Angie was perfect, but she had beaten him. Temporarily, of course. Now, he was “taking care of” Angie. He’d bring her to the house on the marshes, a treacherous land where you were safe to walk only if you knew the correct path. People had disappeared in those marshes, sucked deep in the glutinous brown mire, unable to extricate themselves as the swamp closed over their heads. When he was ready, Angie would no longer trouble him.

Restless, he got up and paced the room. He needed light, space. Air! He was choking, and suddenly for the first time since he was a boy, he felt a thrill of what he recognized as fear.

He picked up the phone and summoned his plane. He would leave at once for the yacht. He would take care of business, return the same day. There were advantages to being rich, after all.





17





ANGIE


I knew I was still on the yacht and that it was moored, not because I could see out but because all movement had stopped. I heard excited shouting, the harsh run of rope, the rattle of chain, then the stillness with just the sound of men’s voices, the cry of a curlew, the groan of the ship against the fenders as it heaved into place.

My hands were bound. There was a gag in my mouth. I did not know how long I had lain on this bed, and now the fact that it was a bed and not a bunk registered. I reached out my hands, bound at the wrists, rolled over a little so I could touch either side of me: cotton sheets, a soft blanket. I did not need to touch my body to know that I was naked. Had I been raped? I felt nothing, no pain, no trickle of blood, no headache. I felt almost normal. Except for one thing.

Lifting my bound hands I touched my face. Higher until I managed to touch my forehead. Back a little. Enough to know. They had cut off all my hair. My beautiful, long red hair. The only thing under my fingers was a faint, harsh stubble and a long line of stitches holding together my broken scalp.

Tears coursed down my cheeks, ran into my mouth. I was bald as any baby and I was crying for the hair that had been my only claim to beauty. It occurred to me, through my tears, that I might well be crying for my life too, because I was sure as hell about to lose it. I was trapped on Ghulbian’s boat. I knew it must be him.

The pillow was wet with my tears. I rolled my head to one side in an attempt to escape the cold dampness but now it was under my cheek and still the tears kept on flowing, adding to the soggy mess.

Tears. What good were they? What had tears ever done for mankind other than express grief? Could I really be lying here bound and gagged, a prisoner not knowing my fate, only that it was likely to end in my death, crying like any vain woman for my lost hair? Had it not grown in again when I’d had the cropped Audrey Hepburn look all those years ago? But that was by choice. This was abuse of a kind the perpetrator understood very well. Sadistic. That was the correct word for the man who had done this to me; Ahmet Ghulbian was a sadist.

Eyes closed under the bandage, I thought of Ghulbian telling me to go shopping, buy whatever I liked; after all, he’d said, a girl would need pretty things on a yacht trip. And oh how I had enjoyed that, starting from bare skin up with the prettiest, softest, sexiest little underthings that felt like a second skin on my own, and which also looked, I had to admit, sensational on the body I had toned at the gym at five every morning, five days a week.

The only shadow over my enjoyment had been the thought that I was going to have to show myself in these flimsy outfits to Ghulbian who, while not uninterested in sex, was a man who preferred to devour with his eyes. A voyeur mostly, which left a girl unsatisfied and wondering what she had done wrong that she could not stimulate him sufficiently to make him want to devour her with his mouth, to penetrate her, hard and fast the way I liked. With Ahmet—I cannot go on calling him by his last name, I know him too intimately for that—with Ahmet what you got in a fast few minutes was all you got. Then it was back to business: his phone, his iPad, his inner thoughts, which left a woman very much alone.

If only he had left me alone in the end. Simply sent me on my way with my small suitcase of new clothes, tottering a bit on my new Louboutins, a cheery goodbye and thanks it was lovely maybe we’ll see each other again …

But that was not to be. I remember opening my eyes when I’d felt Ahmet on top of my naked body. I felt his excitement as he pressed himself between my open legs. The next thing I’d felt was the edge of the knife against my throat. I glanced quickly down, saw the gleam of sharp steel, moaned out loud in fear, felt the blade press harder, nicking my skin, felt the thin stripe of blood that now lay over the small wound. He’d yelled out, pushing the knife deeper with one hand. I’d been too afraid even to scream as he raped me.

It was over. He climbed off me. I was still alive. I was still afraid I was going to die but with what had just happened, also fighting the horror, the pain, the man I had not really known, I silently wished I could die right now, this minute.

There were sounds. A door opening. Ahmet was now standing by the bed. He was talking to someone. A woman, who answered in a low voice. Neither of them addressed me and I lay like a frozen slab of meat in the very center of that luxurious bed, stained now with my blood and the excesses of gratified masculine sex.

I heard the woman’s footsteps coming toward me, heard the door close behind Ghulbian, did not dare open my eyes and look upon my fate. I felt her breath on my cheek. She was bent over me, staring directly into my face. Then the sudden vicious prick of a needle in my arm made me whimper. And I knew nothing more.