White Silk & I Belong to You

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I part ways with Amie and Jorges in Budapest. Amie tells me she’s staying several days in the old city, while we’re staying just two—the train presses on and we have a schedule to keep. And Jorges—I only saw him to wave goodbye as we disembarked. His secrets will stay with him, while I decide whether to confess this minor crime of lust to Jordan.

There is so much that is ancient in this place—buildings, bridges, neighborhoods and people so old and gnarled that my mind is filled with questions. I relish each tidbit of knowledge they offer me as though they’ll feed a soul hungry for substance. Sitting in The Church of Our Lady, I watch the women come and go—genuflect, sit, kneel, pray and light their candles. As they leave, I gaze smiling into their work-worn faces, and note the knotty hands clutching holy shawls. One young woman lights a candle. How beautiful she is as the light illuminates her face, beaming off her dark complexion in patterns both mystical and alluring. As she passes me, lithely tripping down the aisle, a bit of carnal hunger sweeps through my body; and though I’m enticed to follow her, I settle back in my seat instead—waiting, letting the cool come in around me, sensuously. It seems odd to feel erotic chills in this holy place. But then, who said God didn’t approve of s*x? It’s the only way to reproduce our species.

I’ll wait patiently until I have the story I need. My need to know, a feline curiosity keeps me pressing onward to find what’s obscure but very human about the places I explore. I seem to have a talent for gleaning what I need for my videos.

Prying inside foreign worlds as though I have a right to be there comes naturally. My smile opens doors for the cameras even when the locals are suspicious of my motives. There are times when I’m denied a story—and just because my curiosity won’t let the matter rest—I’ll go back on a late afternoon or in the evening, quietly and alone, without the crew and camera, when I can tiptoe into that other world and assuage my fascination for details as I speak with some wizened crone, or a youthful boy and his stark, weathered father, asking questions. Their answers come much easier when I can assure them that this is a private conversation. These interviews are for my personal knowledge only, my need to know. Though, this information will trickle obscurely into the final narrative of my travel video.

Two days in Budapest hardly seem enough. As the Orient Express steams out of the station, my brain is still engaged in the hundred ways I’d work the city if I had more time. But it’s all a useless waste. I have to think of Bucharest and Istanbul. My mind drives forward as does this train.

Now, without Amie and Jorges, I’ve lost my interest in the train’s circumscribed domain. The romance is wearing thin. Though I can hope for new companions, I’m restless. The feeling is unsettling. I should be happy for the break from work and take time to relax, but these few free days are not having that effect.

We travel into the wilds of Romania.

It’s night, the world pitch-black outside the car, and whirring by so rapidly, I’d be dizzy if I looked out. I sleep instead, seamlessly for nearly two hours, when I’m suddenly awakened by the train jerking to a stop. For several minutes I lose track of where I am, though I’m relieved that the motion and sounds that have been with me so many days have ceased at least for a few brief minutes, and left me without the constant stirring motion and the agitating sounds.

Falling back asleep, I’m in my dreams. There is shouting, commotion, someone running past my door. The train starts again, rumbling on into the night, while I shake in fear, thinking any second I’ll awaken outside this nightmare.

Yet, when my eyes flutter open, I see my door breached by the butt of a rifle. Instinctively, my panicked body pins itself to the wall, as though it could disappear inside the polished wood grain paneling.

I’m not so lucky. Seconds later, three hulking wild men burst through the opening, surrounding my bed so we’re packed like sardines in the tiny place. One holds a gun menacingly toward my head, while the other two lift me bodily from the bed with their thick fingers pressing into my arms like burrowing knives. Dragged away, we move to the back of the train, passing closed compartments where the tenants seem like lifeless statues peeking out the shades.

I try to scream, but the air gets caught in my throat, while a grimy hand, smelling of smoke and tar covers my mouth with a vigorous grip. Moments later, I’m stunned by darkness, feeling as though I’m deep inside an angry sea swimming away from the light, toward the endless black at the far end of my fears. When everything has disappeared, I know that I’ve been swallowed inside the mouth of a beast.

***

The rhythm of the train moving under me seems comforting as I awaken. I can see a beautiful grey/blue dawn through the small window just above my head, and for one meager instant believe that my nightmare was just a dream. That is, until I feel restraining bonds sinking like sharpened teeth into my ankles and wrists. There’s a leather gag in my mouth—Ah! Leather, I remember that moment with Jorges’ belt. But this is not the same—very different from that harrowing bit of erotic bliss. A ball of soft leather fits inside my mouth, and is so tightly tied behind my neck that my head begins to ache. My breath is sour, my saliva unsavory.

I’m lying on my back, prone, against an iron shelf within a tier of shelves attached to the side of the rail car. My ankles are fastened tightly to a bar at my feet, while my arms circle my head, the wrists tied together and attached to something unseen above my head. I can’t see what or who is above and below me, but beside me in another tier of shelves, another woman lies bound the same way I am. I know in an instant that it’s Amie. Like me, she is gagged with a leather piece that fits inside her mouth and around her head. I wonder how she got here—then realize that we’re no longer on the Orient Express.

I blink and blink again waiting for these images to disappear, only to discover that reality becomes more deeply entrenched the more my body and mind awaken. My heart begins to skip beyond itself. Panic strikes. The capture in my compartment was no dream!

I struggle with hysteria gripping my throat. Its mean claws clutch my gut. I quickly realize that the ropes holding me in bondage will not weaken. In fact, it seems they only strengthen the more I fight against them. I can feel the raw jute digging into my flesh.

Why? How? What is happening to me? Nothing makes sense. I try to scream, but no sound results. Yes. I’m gagged, but it’s more than that. I have no voice, no power, no strength left in me.

Amie is still asleep. How can she remain at rest through this terror, unless she’s been drugged, like I’ve been drugged? In and out of consciousness, I keep drifting and returning to the foul smelling rail car only to be reminded that I’m trapped inside this grim reality with no way out. This is no dream, no reverie or fantasy.

Tears collect in my feverish eyes, and burn so hotly that I can’t keep my lids open. So, I sleep again, knowing, praying that this is just a dream, a powerful one, but one that cannot keep me lost forever.