The Milk b***h Trilogy

Chapter Four-1

Chapter Four

Gina awoke in her soft bed in her beautiful, safe and wonderfully comforting bedroom. She wore her favourite solitary sleepwear, a giant Baltimore Orioles t-shirt. How long had she been asleep?

She stretched luxuriously then winced. Her muscles cramped in odd places, her stomach ached and her wrists were sore. Apprehensively she examined her abdomen – no bruises there, thank God! – and then her wrists. Her wrists were marked. Telltale streaks and blotches of purple circled them. They hurt when she flexed her hands. Suddenly she was overcome with anxiety. It was not a dream!

It was forever before she could rise from bed. Her mind was as opaque as the smooth cream of the ceiling at which she stared. At first. Then it began to swirl. Everything whirled around her and she lay in the middle, helpless.

Coffee. Maybe coffee would help. Ridiculous, she thought with hopeless irony. Nothing would help. She pushed herself up and out of her deep nest and wandered through the apartment, touching this and that without seeing anything.

Voicemail was blinking at her and she picked up the phone thoughtlessly and dialled. The service said seven messages. Quickly she forwarded through them until she heard her sister, Marie’s, dramatic voice. “Hi Gina. I hope everything’s great with you. I sent you an email but I just couldn’t wait to tell you. I met the most gorgeous and wonderful man. He’s some sort of international businessman. His name’s Robert. I sent you a picture. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

Gina took her coffee cup into her office and downloaded email. Days of them. Again she was hit with a wave of anxiety. How long was she gone?

She clicked on the message from her sister, scrolled down to the picture and stopped, stunned. Marie was smiling broadly, her head resting intimately on the shoulder of an eerily smiling … Reza.

Gina’s mental state instantly shattered into thousands of sharp, painful shards. Her life had disintegrated to something incomprehensible. Now her family was in danger and it was all her fault. If she could only take it all back. If she had never tried to find Ward – or, even better, had never seen him in the first place – this would never have happened.

A faint sliver of calm parted the turmoil. She was a strong strategist. Maybe if she didn’t panic further she could solve the problem. Options immediately tumbled through her head.

She contemplated calling the police, no, the FBI. Her mind gnawed at the idea. Could the authorities really do anything? These men had a slick operation. Would her sister simply vanish before Gina could get help? Or worse, might the men kill them both? She had a friend – actually an old lover – at the FBI. A discreet phone call couldn’t hurt. She fervently hoped it couldn’t.

Thank God. He was in and very happy to hear from her. “Hi honey. I’ve prayed this moment would come. When can I see you?”

“Cut the crap, Brent. This is serious.”

His tone immediately changed. “Tell me.”

“I don’t want to give too many details cause,” her voice quavered, “well, frankly I’m terrified. I think I’ve gotten involved with a white slave ring. One of them is …” She started to say “dating” but it sounded too ridiculous. “… with my sister.”

His voice was a little sceptical, as if he thought it just might be a joke. “You’re kidding. Where’s your sister? And where are you?”

“We’re both at our homes.”

“Are either of you hurt?”

“Well no, not really.”

His voice was even more sceptical. “Gina, are you sure about this? Who’s the guy with your sister?”

“His name’s Reza something. Middle Eastern.”

His voice was incredulous. “Reza? Handsome guy? Goes by Robert in the US? He’s an Iranian expatriate, the grandson of the old Shah’s best friend – an international playboy. He probably has a billion dollars of the Shah’s money hidden around the world.”

Gina’s voice became urgent and frustrated. “Brent, you know me. I wouldn’t bullshit about this sort of thing. I was kidnapped and they let me go and then I find out one of the kidnappers, this guy Reza, has been spending time with my sister.”

“Okay! Okay! Try to calm down! This is way outside my jurisdiction. But there’s a guy here who can help. I’ll get you in to see him. When can you come down?”

“How about now?”

Taking action made her feel a little better. She showered, dressed and was on her way out the door when a thought froze her. What if Marie was in danger right now? She had to stop Ward from hurting her.

Phillipe had given her Ward’s phone number. Was it here? Her favourite purse sat on her desk on the exact spot it always did. Frantically she dug into it. She pulled out her day planner and, with shock, found the slip of paper inserted between the pages of … yes, it was today’s date.

As she picked up the phone, her eyes swept the apartment with a chilling sense of vulnerability. It was all so perfectly in place. Her eyes dropped to her t-shirt. How did they know the tiny details of her life? Were they still watching her?

A frightening thought plunged into her mind. If they were watching, they would know she was going to the FBI. Once again, she was overcome with helplessness. “Why would they? They have my sister! And what choice do I have!” were her last thoughts before she heard Ward’s voice.

Gina wanted to scream. Instead she burst into tears. “Please don’t … hurt … my sister,” she pleaded, each word choked with misery. “I’ll do anything.”

His voice was quiet and merciless. “Yes. You will. We’ll discuss it at lunch.”

The J. Edgar Hoover Building was ugly and drab, both outside and in – like a massive collection of square sandstone picture frames, she’d always thought. Brent met her at Security at one of the side entrances generally used only by employees. He clipped on a badge after the guard manually patted her down and waved a metal detector over her, then led her to a bank of elevators. “We’re meeting him in his office. People are protective of their territories here, so I’m going to leave you there.”

On the third floor, Brent knocked on a partially open door and swung it open. A long-faced, rather nondescript man with glasses sat behind a big desk surrounded by a jumble of cheap metal office furniture. He rose to great them with hand extended. Brent said, “John, meet Gina.” Then, “I’ll leave you two alone.” He exited, pulling the door closed.

John smiled at her. The smile was a little supercilious. Maybe that was just his personality. She shrugged mentally. A bureaucrat. “Brent has told me a little about your … problem. Let’s talk about it.”

A little relief was beginning to seep in. At least he seemed to be taking her seriously. Gina casually looked around the office.

Then John said, “I know about Reza’s operation.” Her head jerked toward him and, at last, real relief swept over her. She had not expected to hear those words.

But her short-lived equanimity disappeared at his next words, “The FBI can’t do anything about it. He’s connected up to the highest levels and personally has diplomatic immunity. On his mother’s side. She’s Saudi. Plus, the operation is very efficient and exceptionally well camouflaged. The Bureau has never gotten anything incriminating on him.”

Once again, Gina felt utterly helpless. She knew that tone. They weren’t going to help her. She wanted to cry. She blurted out into his stolid face, “Can’t you at least protect my sister?” Was it pity she saw in his eyes?

Her eyes spun around the room like a gyroscope, trying to find something to give her stability. Something caught her attention. In a back corner, between two tall filing cabinets, sat a squat, cubical wooden crate, its front open. Her heart clenched with now all-too familiar terror.

She turned toward John, praying he did not see the fear in her face, and said as cordially as possible: “You know, I really think I’ve made a mistake.” She quickly rose to her feet. “Thank you so much for seeing me. Please forgive me for wasting your time.”

With that, she turned and almost ran out of the office and the building. As she moved through the quiet halls, his words hit her like a slap in the face. He had just told her he was one of them or at least and, perhaps more hideous, used their services.

Ward’s house was in an industrial area of Maryland about forty-five minutes south of the city. She followed his directions along a rural road past several industrial parks. Finally she came to a large secured gate in front of a mass of trees. She pressed the intercom and a British voice asked her name. The gate swung slowly open. She followed a road edged by short boxwood hedges and tall cast-iron Victorian gaslights through the trees. Suddenly the house – a fantastic old Victorian mansion with many porches, several turrets and masses of trim – appeared in front of her in the middle of a green lawn that rolled past willows to the banks of the Potomac River.

The scene was exquisite yet it barely registered. Her every motion occurred only by rote. She now lived in a haze of fear. Ward opened the door and she found herself in his house. She didn’t remember how and she was barely aware of her surroundings. He held her wrists together behind her back during the walk to the long formal dining room.

At lunch, the reality of her subjugation to him permeated every cell of her body and mind and clouded the air around her. The elegant butler served a main course of some sort of grilled white fish she was sure was excellent but barely tasted. Again she begged him not to hurt her sister.

He told her, “Marie will enjoy her relationship with Reza.” She felt a jolt when she heard her sister’s name, but of course he knew it. He smiled coldly. “Robert. He will give her experiences only available with a great deal of money and he will make wonderful love to her.”

He smiled again and she shivered at that horrible smile. “Reza is a very experienced and talented lover. At some point you’ll discover that for yourself.”

Gina recoiled from the idea of having s*x with the white slaver who punched her in the stomach. Yet she was helpless to keep her sister away from him. He could be with Marie right now. Her mind shied away from the image.

“If – when I am certain of your … devotion, Reza will be forced to tenderly leave her.” His calm eyes again managed to grab and hold hers. In an excruciating surge of realization, she knew she could not escape him. “Although I would regret the loss, you do have the option of trading her servitude for yours.”

The words burst from her mouth with a stream of tears. “I would never never never,” she shook her head frantically, “do that!”

He shrugged. “Your choice.”

His voice was so calm, so pleasant. “You’re fortunate to have such an attractive family. Such a lovely sister,” he paused for a moment and looked directly at her, “and your cousins in Boston.” Her gaze fixed on his with abject terror. “Do large breasts run in your family?”

She began to stammer. “Hh-how do I know he won’t hurt her?” Her breathing was laboured, almost hysterical, “Or sell her … or anyone else?”

“Because I told you so,” he said. “I have no need to lie to you.” His words twisted her psyche as effectively as a cruelly domineering parent. “You will learn that I am only here to give you what you want, what you need.

“You’ve always known you are a slave, a ‘submissive’, someone whose fundamental nature is to submit to the will of another. You’ve just never found the means to make it possible.”

Some devious impulse inside her wanted his voice to be warm but it was precise and unyielding. “When I first saw you in the restaurant I knew you had exceptional potential. As your Owner I will take responsibility for you and see you develop fully. I will discover and fulfil your needs. I share the Marquis de Sade’s philosophy; you must have every experience in order to be complete and I will see that you do. I will train you so you’re capable of everything.”

He sounded so rational, so logical. Was this how psychopaths manipulated their victims?

Gina was bewildered … and ashamed. Somewhere deep inside she believed him – worse, wanted to believe him. But every other part of her rejected him. No! He was a horrible person who did horrible and frightening things. He had her sister and had threatened the rest of her family.

The butler brought a silver coffeepot. He served only Ward. Ward rose from the table, put his arm around her neck and lifted her to her feet. Again he pulled her hands together behind her so her back arched against him and her breasts were forced forward. His movements were brutal but somehow erotic and, with heart wrenching dismay, she felt her body respond.

Ward tied her hands with pliable white cord. He showed her the tie in the big antique mirror over the sideboard. Her hands were wrapped at the wrist then separated several inches by a meticulous coil resembling a hangman’s noose. The remnants of the shackled bruises felt tender and sore when the ropes pressed against them. Her lips trembled at the memory … and at her uncertain future.

He told her to stand with her back to the wall opposite his chair with her pelvis tilted forward and her knees spread. He unbuttoned her blouse and squeezed her brassiere over her big round breasts, leaving it still clasped tight in her armpits. He pulled her skirt up to her waist and dropped her panties to her knees. Then he returned to his chair.

The position was humiliating. With everything else she’d been through, Gina didn’t know why the awkward spread of her knees between her hanging panties and the inelegant and constricting position of her bra upset her, but they did. They were simple things, not nearly as extreme as other things men did to her, but still disturbing and, yes that was it, degrading. She wanted to scream and weep simultaneously. She was filled up with helplessness. Her life was no longer in her control.

She also found standing this way remarkably difficult, particularly in her four inch Manolos. Her thighs and knees soon stiffened and her ankles were killing her. She did not know how long she could stay still.

Yet her p***y was wet. She didn’t understand and hated herself for her own body’s betrayal.

The butler set a small dark chocolate bombe in front of Ward and a small gold wrapped box beside the plate. Ward’s eyes played over Gina’s face and body while he sipped coffee and ate chocolate. “Magnificent breasts,” was his only comment and it sounded dreadfully ominous to her.

When he finished he photographed her, shooting close to her body from intimate, embarrassing angles.

He put down the camera and opened the gold box. Again he moved in intimate proximity to her. She felt the warmth of his body. He held his open hand against her bare breast and, shamefully, her n****e hardened.

At first she was confused by the beautiful small gold and black objects hidden in his palm. Were they earrings? Then she realized the onyx teardrops hanging from the bronze circlets were actually screw mechanisms.

“I’m giving you some special n****e clamps. I want you to wear them in public under your clothes. Sometimes when you go out I’m going to tell you not to wear a bra, just the clamps.” For a moment she was appalled, envisioning her huge breasts bouncing around unbound and worse with the clamps showing beneath her blouse. She wanted to complain but didn’t.

He untied her hands and gave her one clamp. “Screw the clamp wide open. Now put the circle over your n****e and pull your n****e through. Do it.”

Her hands awkwardly moved to her breasts. Her n****e was too fat to go through easily, its progress hampered further by tiny serrations in the interior of the circle that aggressively grabbed the tissue. She tried pushing the clamp over the n****e, then pulling the n****e through the clamp, then both at once. Her n****e was fast becoming sore and abraded.

She became so frustrated that tears started in her eyes. She looked up and, as was now usual, he watched with dispassionate control.

Finally she managed to work one n****e into the bronze circle. The circlet fitted flat around the n****e’s point, the teardrop suspended below, against her breast.

“Now tighten the screw.” The circle constricted around her n****e and the tiny ridges bit into her flesh. She gave an involuntary cry of pain.

“Good. Is the clamp tight enough to stay on?”

“I think so.”

“Now put on the other.”

Ward led her to the mirror. Although the clamps did lie fairly flat against her breasts she was certain a close observer could see the teardrops’ distortion beneath her blouse. She hoped her breasts’ huge proportion would prevent overly close inspection as it normally did in the politically correct environments she inhabited.

Still they were beautifully made and obviously quite expensive. For a second she regretted that Washington proper could not appreciate the fine jewellery and their flattery to her equally fine breasts. She pushed the thought from her mind.

Then something stranger and more heinous occurred to her. She had the impulse to screw them tighter. Should she tell Ward? As surreptitiously as she could, she glanced over at him from under her lashes and knew she didn’t have a choice.

“Do it,” was his response. She cautiously turned the screws. To her surprise they tightened further without extreme discomfort.

He watched. “Do it again.”

Now it hurt. She knew he could see the pain in her face. He saw everything.

“That’s right,” he told her. “I want you to tighten them till they hurt whenever you need to. You can take them on and off as you like but I want you to wear them each day for one entire trip out in public.”

Again Gina felt Ward’s physical presence close beside her. She looked into his face, bemused. “This isn’t so bad,” crossed her mind. “I can handle this.”

Ward looked back at her, calm and dominant. “By the way, because you had the good sense to leave the FBI, your friend, Stephanie, has only been raped, not sold.”

She looked at him with complete incomprehension. Stephanie was her running partner and one of her closest friends. How could Ward know about her? Then fear and shock hit her as his words penetrated her consciousness. “sss-what?”

“Check your voicemail.”

She had turned off her mobile when she entered the FBI building and then been too distracted to turn it back on. Now there were five messages, all from Doug, Stephanie’s husband, all saying basically the same thing. “Gina, Stephanie’s okay but she’s been raped. We’re at Columbia Women’s Hospital. I know it would help Stephanie if you were here. Please call as soon as you get this.”

Gina immediately dialled. “Doug! What happened? You said she’s okay?”

“Gina! Thank God! Stephanie really needs you here. Yes, she was incredibly lucky. Other than the rape – which was, of course, horrible – she wasn’t hurt.

“You know that alley between 19th and 20th she cuts through to get coffee? It happened around 11 this morning.” Shortly after she left the FBI, Gina realized with disbelief.

“Stephanie was about half way through the alley and a man in a ski mask jumped out of a basement staircase and put a knife to her throat. Another man was holding the door open. They took her into a furnace room in one of the office buildings. They told her they wouldn’t hurt her if she cooperated but would kill her if she didn’t.

“First they made her kneel. One man held the knife under her throat and …” he had difficulty getting out the words, “touched her body while he forced her to have oral s*x with the other.” His voice shrilled. “Gina, if she’d fallen or anything she could have slit her throat! Then they switched. Then one held her down with the knife at her throat. The other raped her. And they switched again.” She heard his voice break. “And Gina, she didn’t think it would ever end. They kept taking turns. When the second one finished, they did everything again.”

Gina was sobbing. “How did she get away?”

“They just left – left her lying on the floor in the dirt. But the most frightening thing is that one of them kept telling her how much he …” Doug’s voice was rough with shame, “… liked her. She said he talked revoltingly to her, like she was his lover. When they left he said he couldn’t wait to ‘make love’ – those were his exact words – to her again. We’re terrified but the police think it was random.”

Guilt and fear cut through Gina. She knew it wasn’t random. Could they possibly do it again? She knew she would do anything – anything! – to prevent it.

Doug continued. “She wanted to call the police but her mobile didn’t work in the basement. So she had to crawl out and up the stairs. She looked so awful that someone passing called 911.” Now Doug was crying.

Gina knew the answer but asked anyway. “Did the police find any clues?”

“Nothing. There was nothing distinguishing about either of them. They wore masks and gloves.” His voice broke again. “And they used condoms. All in all, the police think she was very lucky.”

“Doug, I’m about 45 minutes away. Please tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

When she hung up she looked at Ward. She felt tiny and cowed. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Ward’s expression was stern and authoritative. “I’m afraid I did. Your trip to the FBI left me no choice. Reza wanted to make an example of you. He wanted to eliminate …” He used the word in an odd manner and Gina wondered exactly what it meant. “… you and your sister also.”

He took her chin in his fingers and forced her to look into his eyes. “Understand, I arranged an alternative.”

His words sent her mind tottering precariously. It was him! He set up the rape!

“I told them you were too valuable to destroy,” he smiled in a way too complex for her to fully grasp but she knew there was s*x in it, “and that I own you. I gave them my word you would quickly learn how you are required to behave and I – understand, I – made sure they didn’t maim or kill your friend.”

He paused and dug his fingers into the tender points at the corners of her mouth. She screamed through her locked jaw. “She could easily not be so lucky.” ‘Next time’ was implicit … except that his eyes spoke vividly. There would be no next time.

She dropped her eyes. She was devastated. It was all her fault. She wanted to drop to her knees but couldn’t bring herself to make the gesture. She looked into his eyes again and choked out the words. “Thank you.” Then her voice broke and she sobbed uncontrollably. “I’m so sorry.”

Ward stood quietly and watched her. After a minute or two, she rubbed the tears from under her eyes and asked timidly, “Can I go to the hospital?”

“Go,” he said. “Wear the clamps.”

She looked at him in amazement, then hung her head.