Deep Woods

by Newbury, Helena

  My computer beeped and I reluctantly opened my eyes. A message edged in red had popped up on my screen: Bob Tanner, the head of the call center, wanted to see me. Shit!

  His office was on the opposite side of the main floor, a space the size of a football field. They’d packed almost a thousand of us into the room in long rows of desks, our elbows almost touching as we worked our computers. Only a few heads lifted as I passed. They make it deliberately difficult to make friends: we’re assigned a different desk each day, to discourage wasting time on fraternizing.

  I knocked and waited, my heart thumping. I’d never been called to Tanner’s office before. What had I done? I’d worked my ass off, I’d hit every quota, I’d only ever been late from lunch once and that was because Angela had gotten her period a day early and I’d run out to get her tampons—

  Mr. Tanner called me in. He was slumped in an office chair and on the computer screen in front of him were hundreds of tiny windows. As I got closer, I saw that each one was live video of a call center operator. A waist-up image shot from the cameras in our monitors: I’d noticed the little black pinholes but I’d never really thought about the fact we were being filmed. Why did they even need video: to make sure we weren’t eating at our desks?

  Mr. Tanner picked up a pen from his desk and started tapping it against his other hand. His thinning brown hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat, despite the air conditioning. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’ve got to move you.”

  “Move me?”

  “To San Francisco.”

  It took a second for that to sink in. “What? Why?! Did I do something wrong?”

  He shook his head and shrugged as if it was no big deal. “Excess capacity here. Not enough in San Fran. You already know the ropes, you can slot right in.”

  I stared at him, incredulous. “But….” I didn’t know where to start. But I don’t want to work in San Francisco. But I don’t know anyone there. But you can’t just move me like I’m cattle.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t justify your position here,” he told me. “You can have the job in San Fran, otherwise today is your last shift.”

  My jaw dropped. But then, before I could plead with him, he hit me with the sweetener. “The company’s willing to pay you five thousand dollars relocation costs. We’ll even drive you down to San Fran and pay for a hotel for the first week.”

  That stopped me dead. If I said no, I was out of work. I was only just making ends meet as it was. My pay from the call center only just covered the interest on my med school debts, with just enough left for my room in the shared apartment and groceries. If I said yes, that five thousand dollars would really help to get my head back above water.

  My boss kept tapping the pen, faster, now. I noticed he was sweating more, his forehead glistening. “What’s it going to be, Bethany?”

  It should have been a hard decision but it really wasn’t. I couldn’t afford to lose my job and I couldn’t turn down the money. And of course, he knew that.

  I nodded.

  * * *

  Three hours later, I was in the back of a black Mercedes, heading out of the city. My possessions were in a small suitcase and a box in the trunk. Because I’d left in the middle of a shift, there’d been no time to say goodbye: a quick hug from Angela and Rachel between calls. A scribbled note to the women I shared the apartment with, telling them not to worry and that I had a new job. The five thousand dollars, less what I’d left to cover the last few weeks of rent, was in a thick brown envelope in my purse.

  I’d never felt so insignificant. I was a tiny, anonymous cog, to be moved however the company saw fit.

  I watched the city flash past the window for the first few miles, sipping from a bottle of water the limo driver had given me. I could feel myself slumping. My shift had started at eight that morning and I’d done four hours of it before everything had gone crazy. My head nodded and the leather seat became marshmallow-soft beneath me, taking me down to a warm, dark place. Before we’d even reached the city limits, I was asleep.

  And I dreamed.

  4

  Bethany

  I FELT HIM FIRST, each heavy footstep shaking the ground. Then the outdoor scent of him: the smell of trees lush and thick around you, the sharp hit of freshly-split wood and just a subtle curl of woodsmoke. I filled my lungs, getting drunk on it: I wanted to breathe nothing but his smell. Finally, I heard him, his breathing getting closer and closer until I knew he was right in front of me, his pecs just shy of brushing my breasts as he inhaled.

  I opened my eyes.

  A rich golden sun was beating down on us from an unbroken blue sky, the heat soaking into my bones and making my skin tingle and come alive after so long indoors. I blinked up at his silhouette for a second and then my eyes adjusted. That gorgeous, brooding face came closer as he leaned down towards me. I stared into cornflower-blue eyes as his hands found my shoulders, palms smoothing over the bare skin and the thin straps of my sundress. Then down over my arms, down to my hands, his big fingers lacing with my slender ones and gently squeezing. Then his hands moved around behind me and—

  I yelped as he grabbed my ass in both hands and hoisted me into the air. My legs swung up and suddenly I was against him, breathless, the hard ridges of his abs stroking against my groin, my thighs spread either side of his torso. My legs kicked for a second and then I got them hooked around him, my bare heels pressed up against the sun-warmed denim that covered his ass. I grabbed onto his shoulders and went a little heady at the sheer size of him, walking my fingers out along the solid muscle, wanting to feel all of him.

  I’m not delicate or fragile or small...but in his arms, I felt all those things.

  He held me there as if I weighed nothing and just gazed at me like he’d never get tired of looking. Those blue eyes narrowed and heated, and his hands squeezed my ass.

  I melted.

  He leaned down. I took a shuddering breath, my heartbeat racing. A lock of his golden hair fell forward, stroking my dark curls. I closed my eyes.

  The rough scrape of his beard. Then the first warm brush of his full lower lip against my own—

  I opened my eyes, confused because surely they were already open. And instead of getting lighter, it got darker. I was in a dark, moving room and there was soft leather beneath me. What?!

  For several seconds, I sat there confused and frustrated, my heart still pounding. Then my cheeks went hot with embarrassment. The car. I was in the car. I looked at the back of the limo driver’s head. Please don’t let me have moaned in my sleep.

  We were still moving but the sky was black outside. How long was I asleep for?! We must be nearly in San Francisco. But when I looked out of the window, it was just a featureless highway. A streetlight flashed past and I winced at the sudden brightness, my head throbbing. I felt like I had a hangover.

  Then I looked out of the windshield and froze. We were turning off the highway and ahead of us, the world just...stopped. The lights that marked houses and roads went from long strings to isolated little clusters and then to nothing at all. Just infinite, cold blackness. The sea. That must be the sea. But wouldn’t there at least be a boat with its lights on, out there in the blackness? “What is that?” I mumbled to the driver.

  “The woods.” he said.

  The woods? But it stretched all the way to the horizon. There weren’t areas of wilderness that big anymore, were there? At least not anywhere close to San Francisco. “Where are we?” I asked.

  I waited, but he didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t hear. A moment later, we turned again, skirting the edge of the blackness. I waited politely until he’d made the turn and then spoke up again, louder, this time. “Where are we, please?”

  His shoulders rose just a little. He’d heard, but he still didn’t answer. I went cold inside.

  Tall metal gates opened silently in front of us. A long, winding driveway. Manicured hedges and, just visible behind them, fences topped with razor wire. There were security g
uards, too, serious-looking guys all dressed in black. I leaned forward between the seats. “Where the hell are we?” I demanded, my voice ragged.

  We rounded a corner and pulled up. “We’re here,” he told me.

  I stared. It was a mansion, three stories high and built of snow-white stone. Huge pillars flanked the doors and golden light spilled from ornate windows. There were flower beds and gardens. A sign pointed to a golf course.

  The driver opened my door and I stumbled out. My head still felt woolly and thick and confusion held my fear back. It must be a mistake. A screw up at the limo company. They were meant to take me to the San Francisco call center and they took me here. Maybe this was some other place the company owned. A luxury spa or something. “I think I’m in the wrong place,” I said.

  The driver shook his head and nodded me towards the house. “I’ll take care of your bags.”

  The fear started to build again. I walked up the steps and through the huge wooden doors...and stopped.

  I was in a double-height hall big enough for a softball game, with a marble floor and a chandelier the size of a small car overhead. A grand piano stood in one corner and a massive, ornate staircase led to the upper floors. The place had been set up for a party: there was a bar in one corner where a barman was mixing drinks and a long table was loaded with platters of bread, cheese, and meat. Men in suits—ten or more—stood around talking and drinking. They were a mixture of ages, twenties all the way to sixties, but most were towards the older end and all had that easy confidence that comes with money. A fancy poker club, maybe, or one of those members’ clubs for people who’ve been to Harvard or Yale. But what the hell was I doing there?

  As they noticed me, the conversations died away. They began to move closer, spreading out to surround me. I thought of wolves, stalking a deer. I turned to the nearest man, a guy in his fifties with a round, moon-like face and black hair that had thinned on top. “I’m sorry, I’m in the wrong place,” I told him.

  “No, sweetie.” His voice was fatherly and just a little patronizing. “You’re in the right place.” Everywhere I looked, men were grinning. I felt like I was back in high school with a kick me sign taped to my back. Tell me what’s going on!

  There was a creak from above. All of us looked up to see a man descending the stairs, the antique wood complaining with each unhurried step. The chandelier blocked our view of him but the men must have known who it was because the entire room fell silent.

  His feet came into view first: polished black loafers twice the size of my feet. Then thick legs under expensive suit pants. A bulky torso, massively strong but running to fat. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his open shirt collar revealed dark tattoos across his upper chest. A flabby neck like a bull’s. And then, at last, we saw his face and—

  My stomach flipped over. There was something horribly wrong with his face. It was as if the bones had been broken and the surgeons hadn’t been able to put them back together quite right, the result just off enough to be terrifying. But worse than the face were the eyes. He looked at me with absolute hatred. As if I was responsible for everything wrong in his life. As if all women were.

  He walked over to me, the men parting to let him through. “Bethany,” he said with great satisfaction. He had a heavy, Eastern European accent. Russian? “Even better than your videos.”

  What videos?! I was starting to panic breathe. He reached out and nudged a lock of my hair with one of his sausage-like fingers and I flinched. “What is this place?” I asked, my voice quavering.

  A newcomer walked towards us. A tall, thin man in his sixties, bald, with just a little gray hair above his ears. “It’s a club, Miss Meier. A very exclusive club. One that my family has run for a very long time.” He was American, his voice as rich and refined as vintage bourbon. “These men are members.” He looked at the tattooed man. “Mr. Ralavich is our newest member.” He said it warmly but I saw the way his lip curled, the way he looked disparagingly at the Russian’s suit. Ralavich had money but no class.

  I took a step backward, shaking my head. “I don’t—Why am I here?”

  Ralavich grinned. “Because I bought you.”

  The words bounced off my brain, refusing to go in. When I did process them, it seemed like a joke. It had to be a joke. “B—”

  “Bought,” confirmed Ralavich, enjoying my reaction. “I own you, now.”

  The other men were leaning forward expectantly, eager to see what happened next. Like tourists at the zoo, waiting for the lion to be fed.

  “This is all a mistake,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’m going to a call center! In San Francisco!”

  They all laughed. And just as the laughter died away, a noise split the air from upstairs. A woman’s scream. It was followed by the crack of a violent slap, and then whimpering.

  Oh Jesus Christ. Raw fear pushed away the last of the fogginess in my brain. For the first time, I saw everything clearly.

  When people thought of kidnapping, they imagined women grabbed off the street and pulled into a van. What these men had created was much more insidious.

  I thought of my boss at the call center, watching all those little video windows of the call center workers. Almost all of us were young women. We all lived in cheap, shared apartments, moving jobs frequently, with no time to make connections. The call center was even set up to discourage making friends. We were women no one would miss.

  I imagined the videos of us flowing over the internet to some website, where members of the club could browse workers: watching us, listening to our voices before making their selection. And then my boss would make the offer he’d made me and the woman would be taken here. I felt ill. How many times had this already happened, since I’d been working there? There were close to a thousand workers. One a month could be disappearing, their jobs instantly filled, and no one would ever question it.

  And...God, this was probably happening in the San Francisco call center, too: they were telling those women they were being sent to Seattle. And in how many other call centers, and warehouses, and other places with high turnovers of staff? All legitimate businesses whose bosses were paid a fat bribe each month to let the club skim off a few women.

  I thought of the bottle of water in the limo. Drugged, to make sure I slept for the journey. I don’t even know what state I’m in!

  “I take it you’re satisfied?” the owner of the club asked Ralavich.

  Ralavich grunted. He turned to a man I hadn’t noticed before: he had the same suit and tattoos as Ralavich but looked to be in better shape: a bodyguard, perhaps. “Get the others ready for transport. We’ll leave tomorrow.” Ralavich turned back to me. “Tonight, I’m going to enjoy this one.”

  He grabbed my hand, his fingers clammy and flabby, nothing like Cal’s warm grip. He jerked on my arm with terrifying strength, pulling me towards the stairs. The other men were nodding approvingly and some even slapped his back. My stomach churned. They were waiting to hear my screams.

  Upstairs, he pushed me into a bedroom and stood there gazing at me, his face flushed red with excitement. “Where are you taking me?” I asked. “You said others, there are others?” I thought that if I kept him talking, maybe I could escape.

  “Back to Russia. The other nine, to brothels. American women are our most popular.”

  It all slotted together in my head, now: the tattoos, the bodyguard, the way the other men feared him. Ralavich was Russian Mafia.

  He leaned forward and cupped my chin. I shrank from his grasp. “But you, Bethany,” he continued. “You, I keep for myself.”

  Me? Why me? There’s nothing special about me!

  He pointed to an ivory dress on the bed. “Put that on. And make-up. Shoes.” His English was fracturing as his excitement increased. “Be quick. I have to smoke.” He went into the hall and slammed the door, trapping me inside.

  I pictured him watching me as I worked in the call center, fantasizing about this night for weeks or months. I looked at the clothes o
n the bed and my nausea rose. He wanted to dress me like a doll, have everything just right before he—This is not happening. This cannot be happening. I dug in my purse for my phone. It had been taken while I slept. Shit!

  I didn’t want to give him an excuse to hurt me so I changed into the dress, my hands shaking. It was made up of lots of thin, gauzy layers and looked expensive. It had a square, low cut neckline, an ankle-length hem and splits up the sides of the skirt. There were fancy white heels, too, and a panties and bra set made of silk and lace.

  As I pulled on the clothes, I looked frantically around the room for a way out. The window looked like it opened but below it was a paved driveway and we were on the third floor: I’d never survive the fall. I was taking huge panicked gulps of air, now, imagining what would happen when Ralavich came back in. There was something wrong with this man. I could feel the hatred oozing out of him, and he wanted to take it all out on me. I thought of him raping me every night...and then, when he got bored of me, I’d join the others in one of his brothels. My legs went shaky with fear. Think of something! Think!

  “Are you ready?” asked Ralavich from outside the door.

  “Just doing my make-up!” I checked the bathroom. The door had a lock but he’d just break it down. Think!

  “Hurry up!” ordered Ralavich.

  “One second!” I was hysterical, now. The room began to swim behind hot tears. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Just a year ago, I’d been following my dream. Then one day changed everything. Suddenly, I was out of medical school, my future gone. Then came the call center and the daily screaming in my ear. And now….

  I’d been wrong, in the car. I wasn’t a cog in a corporate machine. I was an asset, a thing to be bought and sold.

  I hiccoughed and sobbed, my chest heaving. I might as well give up. Maybe he won’t hurt me as much if I don’t fight. The tears began to run down my cheeks.