“It’s okay. You can trust me, men like t**s. You show your t**s for them, please?”
Before she could manage to object, she felt the wildness in her gather, a naughty wildness. She remembered what her mother cautioned – about men and s*x and the terrible things men make you do. However, mother had no life, so she wasn’t right about everything. Quickly, without thinking, Daniela pulled her t-shirt up and over her head, and then looked back at the video camera, smiling broadly to start, and then quivering again. Her round, perfectly formed breasts were visible to the camera and to Nikolai and to whoever else saw the video. However, she didn’t care. A chaos of emotions followed, humiliation, desire, playfulness.
“A little more. Let them see a little more, Daniela.”
“No, no more!” she begged off, smiling and shamed. “Please.” She started to retreat but Nikolai went after her, guiding her back.
“It’s okay. You’re very lovely,” he said, while gently stroking her arm, “and they’ll love seeing what a pretty maid they have. They pay a lot of money to bring you to the United States; they need to know everything they are getting. Huh?”
“And they’ll expect s*x?”
“What if they did?” he asked the question, because he knew the answer. Pavel had told him. “What if your handsome master asked you for s*x? Could you deny him?”
“Well…I-I, well maybe not.” She looked down at the chair beside her, terrified of her own thoughts. “If that is what they need from me.”
“You give your employer s*x now, don’t you, Daniela?”
Her blush became bigger and deeper.
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“And, this doesn’t bother you?” He waited, then added, “Honestly?”
“No.” She blushed again.
“You’re not prudish, are you?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“So, you think then, you could take off the skirt for us. That’s all they need to see.”
That’s all there was to see.
There were tears stinging her eyes, and her lip trembled, but a rush of raw want supplanted everything. Alone. Hot. Sweating. Maybe she’d feel better taking off her clothes. They felt tight now, with the small skirt binding around her middle especially uncomfortable.
Suddenly, Nikolai was behind her, with warm hands holding her at the waist.
How this man had changed from the cold-hearted one at the start of the interview. He put his hands inside the waistband of her skirt, making her flush with excitement, then moved deeper with his fingers, at last drawing down the red skirt and plaid stockings in one simple move.
She stood stunned. Aghast. Chilled and flushed in the same instant.
“Please…” she tried to turn around in protest.
“You’re beautiful, Daniela, and you want them to see you, to admire you, to want you. Such nice breasts.” He slowly turned her back, while she, feeling almost drunk, numb and unconscious, stepped from the slippers, the skirt and stockings. “There now.” Nikolai swiped the clothes from the floor and stepped away, returning to the video camera.
“All you need to do is turn around, Daniela, and the interview will be over. Just turn around and let them see you. Just once and you’ll be done today.”
She turned – which was easier on her nerves than staring straight into the eye of the camera. She moved slowly, feeling foolishly off balance, and worried that she’d fall. Her heart thumped anxiously, her belly danced crazy with heat. She wanted to f**k now. f**k some man, any man. Even Laszlo, even Laszlo’s c**k would do, or Nikolai’s. His warm, fragrant body was so close, so available.
However, once facing the camera again, the whirring sound stopped.
Her work was over.
“Lots of men will see that?” Daniela inquired, after she had dressed to leave. She still wanted to f**k, but Nikolai was finished with her and there would be no s*x.
“Could be,” he said. “There’s a big website with all the pictures of the girls. The men choose the ones they like the best, then pay to see the videos. They have to be serious buyers to pay the price the webmaster asks. The men on the other end of the deal set them up, just to see the maids for hire.” He smiled again for her. “You’re the prettiest I’ve seen in weeks.”
“Am I?” she asked, finding her cheeks heat again. “You’re just being nice.”
“No, I’m not just being nice. Some girls have really ugly faces. They need to strip to attract any attention at all. But you, you have the whole package right there.” He pointed to her chest. “Right inside your skimpy clothes.”
She hadn’t thought her clothes were skimpy when she put them on that morning. Now dressed again, she felt fully covered, put back together and whole. Nude in front of the video camera, it seemed that her body, mind and soul were spilling out unchecked, pieces of her falling away. So stripped, vulnerable, open, alive, very alive. She felt alive now, almost in the mood to rejoice, although she had no idea why.
Perhaps there was some triumph in feeling so little shame.
Just two weeks after she posed for the video, the word came back that there were inquiries from several men.
“They want you,” Nikolai told her as they had coffee and pastries in a tiny café. Not smiling as much as he did the day of her interview, he was business-like, direct, speaking crisply. “You need to speak with Petrov, Janos Petrov. He will be the link to the US agency.” He handed her a sealed envelope. “You give him this and he’ll make the further arrangements.”
“How soon will I leave?”
“Soon, I think. A very rich man saw your tape…” he wouldn’t say more.
This conversation left her shivering. Could she really do this?
“Go, Daniela. Go now. The office is in the neighborhood. And treat him well, you hear me,” he said – a warning. “He can be a little rough, but you have to make him like you before he’ll give the okay. He’ll send you on to the examination.”
“The examination?”
“The physical. I told you. Remember, girl, think. Don’t let your head get filled with useless things. These arrangements are…well…delicate.”
Her head was filled with useless things, imaginings, fantasies of pretty American palaces, beaches with white sand and curling waves, cliff houses, like Malibu, and 90210 and a hundred more TV shows she saw in grainy versions, dubbed in her Slavic tongue. She imagined silly sitcoms with her employers, and falling in love with a handsome man, a surfer, a movie star or rock musician, perhaps a doctor, yes, a doctor would be wonderful, or a wealthy young business man, or a sports star… her thoughts careened on unchecked.
Daniela’s head came out of the clouds as soon as she was on the street again with Niklolai’s envelope in hand, walking toward Janos Petrov’s office somewhere in the square. In ten minutes she was there, three flights off the street, before the door and about to knock, thinking of everything that Nikolai told her…he can be a little rough…make him like you…treat him well…
She could treat him well, even a rough man like the butcher was satisfied with her. However, her excited fear got the better of her and she knocked too loudly; the sound could wake a dead man, which was far more than was necessary to rouse Janos Petrov.
She thought a secretary might answer her knock, but it was the man himself who opened the door and ushered her in.
“I am Daniela.”
She looked up. So tall! He towered over a foot above her like a giant, a large, gruff giant of a man.
“Come in. Sit down. These my papers?” he asked, snatching the envelope from her hand before she could offer it to him.
For five minutes, he was silent while pouring through the document, smoking a cigarette casually, letting the ash drop to the top of his dirty desktop.
He swiveled in his seat.
Daniela could see pictures of her, a couple nudes and others with her clothes on.
“I want to be a maid,” she felt the need to clarify her situation. “I’m not a whore.”
“A w***e, maybe not, but…” He took another drag on his cigarette. “Some nice man liked you enough to sponsor your immigration. Be grateful. This costs a lot, a lot. Stand up and let me see you.”
Daniela stood up.
“Turn.” He circled with his finger. “Now the clothes.”
“The clothes?”
“Take them off.”
“Not here.” She shook her head.
“Yes, here. You get nowhere out of this country without taking off your clothes.”
“I’m not a w***e,” she said again.
“Yes, yes, you said that. You’re going to be a gentleman’s maidservant. Cooking, cleaning, scrubbing like a wife, but not a wife. But still, for me, now, you take off your clothes.”
She waited, feeling defiant, but unsure. She’d taken her clothes off for the camera, why not now? Why balk now? This was just one more man.
“No girl goes anywhere outside this town unless I say so, Daniela Zito. You be whatever kind of maid or mistress when you get to the United States. But for me, you take off your clothes.”
Nikolai said he could be rough. Was this what he meant?
She weighed her choices…to come so far and stop now? That was impossible. Pavel would be angry with this Janos Petrov, but he’d tell her, he’d urge her to go through with it. She wished Pavel were with her now. Without him, it took a lot of inner courage to follow Petrov’s order, but she finally did.
First the sweater; with it gone her chest was bare.
“You don’t wear bras?”
“Not much.”
“You should. Nice t**s like yours, you don’t want them to sag. Men like them big and perky.”
“I’m going to be a maid, nothing more,” she reminded the man.
“That depends,” Petrov said. “Now the rest.”
The rest was easier now because she was angry. Truthfully, being naked in front of a man like this hardly mattered to her now. He was the butcher all over again. Angry but willing, she did what she was told. Her shoes and jeans were quickly discarded, leaving her naked and breathing hard.
“This will get me to America?” she asked when she was done.
“Yes, this is what gets you there. You be kind to me, I’m kind to you. p*****t. That’s all it is.”
The truth became crystal clear with no confusion now. She could already see the look of lust in the man’s eyes. With that, her p***y throbbed and her belly spasmed and her crotch began to moisten in anticipation. What a naughty crotch she had! The little tramp of a crotch didn’t care what kind of nasty beast wanted to fit inside her wet slit.
Again she thought of Laszlo; for Janos Petrov was another Laszlo.
Pulling from his chair, he ambled around the table and stood before her. One hand covered her breast, another grabbed her pubis and she lurched back against the hard corner of the desk.
“That’s it, little girl. This is what we want, an easy wet one. That’s what you are, isn’t it? Easy? Wet?”
Hating the way Petrov smiled she looked away.
He didn’t wait for her to answer him; instead, he pushed her on top of his desk and parted her legs wide. Then he reached in and grabbed both breasts, mauling them in his large hands, making her insides quiver and her body leak more hot juice.
She liked not seeing his prick erect before it went inside. All she wanted was to be filled full and satisfied, to come around that thick muscle so strongly that she proved to him her worth. This was what he wanted; she’d be as good at this as she was at scrubbing floors and dusting pretty vases.
Petrov pulled out dripping when he was done and slunk down in a chair behind him to catch his breath. A long silence followed during which Daniela moved gingerly from her spread out pose to her feet and, after wiping her crotch with a handkerchief, put on her clothes.
By then, Petrov was standing too.
“You see the doctor next. He’s down the hall. Give him what you gave me and you’ll be on your way to the United States by next week.”
After handing her the doctor’s card, he shooed her on with a wave of his hand.
The doctor didn’t want s*x. However, he wanted her naked and he wanted to feel her up. This was more disgusting than being f****d. Strange, cold hands in private places, thumping her breasts, poking her belly, exploring her s*x and even the hole below. Was it worth it to her to pass this test? she wondered half way through his groping inspection. By then, there was no escape, no retreat. She’d gone this far. What was on the other side of this long list of exploitive males who took liberally what they hadn’t earned? She had nothing but her fantasies, her hopes, and her dreams to keep her going.