The Hostess

by L. P. Gibbs

  “What do you want with him?” she asked in a snooty manner, obviously considering herself to be above this lower class, rough-looking, uncouth young man who was invading her privacy. The ice in her vodka Martini would be melted if she stood there much longer, she thought. “He's at his office.”

  “And where is that?” Randall was beginning to lose patience.

  “I'm not telling you anything at all until I've spoken to my husband. I don't know who you are. You could be anyone,” she said, beginning to close the door in his face. Randall considered putting his foot in the way to stop her but decided it would only antagonise the woman more. “And if you don't go away, I shall call the police.” With that, the woman slammed the heavy door shut.

  Randall turned and walked back across the gravel to his car, started up and drove out of the courtyard and down the lane for about a quarter of a mile before executing a tight, three point turn. He drove back in the direction he had come from very slowly, stopped and reversed into the entrance of a field on his left with the gateway to the farm in full view. He opened the passenger side window, lit a cigarette and settled down to wait, his eyes never leaving the lane..

  Little did he know that at that very moment, Samantha was only four hundred and fifty yards away from where he patiently sat. She was sitting on the floor of a wooden, barn-like structure, handcuffed with a heavy chain attached to the sturdy cuffs. The chain was bolted to a large metal ring that was set into the concrete floor. She had been there since very early on the Wednesday morning.

  She had got out of Randall's car beside her home and waved him off as he left, watching the back of his car as he turned right at the traffic lights. She always watched him go in the hope that he would look in his mirror, see her standing there and reverse back along the road. He never did.

  Climbing the steps, she had just put her key in the door when strong arms wrapped around her, lifting her off her feet. She opened her mouth to scream but a thick, foul smelling cloth smothered her nose and mouth. Whatever the cloth was soaked in was having an immediate effect on her as she felt stifled, unable to breath, her eyes watering yet slowly closing. She felt her ability to struggle falling away and her eyes closed as she went totally limp, experiencing a sensation of being lifted bodily and carried down the steps. Samantha vaguely remembered falling, or being thrown on to a soft seat, probably that of a car. Nothing more after that.

  The next thing she recalled was opening her eyes to find herself shackled in this seated position. The barn or storeroom that she was in was gloomy as early morning daylight had just begun to show through the half open doors. Maurice was standing there, silhouetted in the light from the doors, feet apart several feet in front of her and was pulling a used condom from his semi-erect penis. He tossed it carelessly to one side on to some straw as he pulled his grey, striped trousers and boxer shorts up with his other hand. He noticed her slight movement out of the corner of his eye, turned and grinned wickedly at her shocked face with her bedraggled hair falling across it. Samantha saw her panties and shoes laying discarded on the floor six feet away and realised what must have happened. She was silently thankful that she had been unconscious throughout the entire ordeal and knew nothing of what had transpired.

  “I told you I would get remuneration for my outlay, didn't I?” he sneered as he buckled his belt. “But you still haven't paid in full, so I'm going to keep you here for a day or two longer and get the rest of what I'm owed.” Maurice walked towards the door but on reaching it, stopped and turned back to face her. “Oh, and by the way,” he continued, still smirking, “don't bother shouting or trying to scream. We are in the middle of a field, miles from anywhere so there is no-one to hear you scream, and if I do hear it you will, I promise, be very sorry indeed. Do you understand what I'm saying?” Samantha simply glared back at the odious little man. He laughed to himself as he saw her expression of hatred and went out through the huge, wooden double doors. She heard a padlock being snapped shut on to a hasp on the outside.

  Looking around at her surroundings, her prison, she saw that there was a small, square, dust covered window high up on one wall close to the roof, way beyond her reach. On experimenting, she found she could stand, but because of the heavy chain could only take four or five steps before being brought to a halt at the end of the thick chain. There were a couple of dozen or so straw bales piled high at one side and a couple of them had been split open so that the dry straw was scattered across the section of the floor where she had woken up. He had obviously done that on purpose in order to lay her upon it. Dejected, she sat back down on the straw, close to tears. She vowed that he would never see her crying, though.

  Some time that evening, she had lost all sense of time, she heard the doors being unlocked and Maurice pulled them open just enough to squeeze through the opening. He came in. stopped in front of her and threw a packaged sandwich and a plastic bottle of Evian mineral water at her feet. He also had a bucket in one hand which he placed on the ground near her feet.

  “You can use that for, …. well, ….you know,” he said, inclining his head towards the metal bucket. She braced herself for another sexual attack but it was not forthcoming. He sneered as he gazed down at her bare legs, then allowing his gaze to wander up her body before settling on her breasts. In her head, Samantha was screaming and wanted to rip his face to shreds with her nails. Given just half the chance she promised herself she would do exactly that.

  “You're in luck tonight,” Maurice said. “My wife and I have to go out for dinner with friends so you'll be left alone, but don't worry, I shall see you tomorrow evening when I get home from work.”

  Leaning forward, he checked the handcuffs which held her to the chain. Satisfied that they were not going to come loose, he walked out without another word, padlocking the doors behind him. She ripped open the plastic packaging and devoured the sandwich within a minute.

  The following day was Thursday and Samantha woke early from a fitful and disturbed sleep. The horrible brown rats in the barn had been scurrying back and forth across the floor nearly all night. Two or three of them actually approached her and sniffed tentatively at her bare toes. She flicked her feet at them and it had the desired effect of shooing them away. Rats didn't bother her too much. She had seen more than her fair share of them in the back-yard slums of Bentinck Street back home in Newcastle. How she wished she was still there now.

  Samantha unscrewed the cap on the bottle of mineral water and started to gulp it down, then remembered that she may have to wait until evening for any more. With that thought in mind, she reluctantly replaced the cap and rationed herself to a few precious sips every now and then.

  Despite the nagging pangs of hunger, she must have dozed off a bit later in the day as she was suddenly awoken by the sound of the padlock being noisily removed from the hasp on the door once again. The soft, pinkish glow of early evening filtered through as the doors opened just enough for the obese man to enter, but not enough for her to see the outside. He carried an old, dirty oil lamp, swinging it by it's rusting handle. It cast long, eerie shadows up the walls of the barn as it moved from side to side and she was able to see a large, bright red, ride-on lawnmower to one side with three large, green jerry-cans placed next to it. In the dim light she saw that there was also a range of large tools, pitchforks, rakes and long-handled spades hanging from a number of hooks on another wall. She knew from the length of the chain she was manacled to that she had no chance of reaching any of them. He knew it too.

  Standing over her, he carefully placed the lamp on the floor at the edge of the spilled straw. The light shining up from below him gave his overweight body an even more evil and threatening countenance. He had started to unbuckle his brass belt when she heard the faint, melodic sound of his mobile phone ringing from the depths of one of his jacket pockets. The ring tone was actually the William Tell Overture. The tune almost caused her to smile. Almost.

  “What is it now, woman?” he asked with irritation in h
is voice when wrenched the phone from his pocket and answered the call. From the way he spoke, she could tell it was obviously his wife. Samantha briefly considered calling out for help but was too frightened of the possible consequences she may have to endure and therefore wisely kept quiet. “What on earth for?” he was saying. “Just tell him I'm busy down at the barn seeing to these damned rats, …. Oh, for Christ's sake, …. Tell him I'm on my way back to the house then. I'll be five minutes.” He ended the call and stood staring down at the defenceless girl on the ground. This time he threw two pre-packed sandwiches to her and another bottle of water. Lifting the lamp, he peered into the bucket and seeing that it had not been used, turned back to stare at her again.

  “It's possible that I may be back in a little while,” he informed her, “but if not, I shall make up for it tomorrow.”

  After he had gone, the oppressive silence seemed to close in on her in the gathering darkness. There was now only a faint shaft of diminishing light from the little window in the wall close to the roof. When the light had completely gone, it was pitch-black inside the building again as he had taken the lamp with him. She greedily wolfed down one of the sandwiches despite it being ham and mustard. She normally hated mustard but was too hungry to think about it. A quarter of the bottle of water swiftly followed and she tucked the other unopened sandwich inside her now far from white blouse, out of reach of her furry nocturnal friends.

  Sunlight streaming on to her face through the single window awoke her the next morning. Samantha started to think about trying to make her escape. Maybe she could trick him into releasing her hands so that she could pleasure him? Would it work? What would it achieve, though? Probably nothing. She settled down to fearfully await the sound of the door being unlocked later that evening. She would take any advantage if any were presented to her.

  Alan Randall had smoked his last cigarette more than two hours ago and was silently cursing himself for not having the forethought to purchase another pack before parking up to keep surveillance on the farm. His mouth was dry and a bottle of water would not have gone amiss either. His bladder was fit to burst too and so he got out, stretched his arms skyward, opened his zip and relieved himself against a bush. As he stood there shaking himself, he saw over the top of the bush Maurice's metallic blue Skoda Octavia swing into the courtyard of the farmhouse and come to a halt, the locked front wheels sliding on the gravel. Randall watched as the man got out and let himself in to the house, allowing the door to slam shut behind him.

  Randall quickly sprinted across the lane and vaulted a three foot high wire fence on the opposite side. Following the hedge line, he came to another wooden fence that surrounded the big house and lay himself down in the tall grass in such a position that he could see the back door of the house and also Maurice's car at the front. If he drove away, Randall was certain he could run back to his own car quickly enough to follow the man at a reasonable distance.

  The glowing hands of Randall's fake Rolex watch showed seven forty when the back door suddenly opened. Maurice stepped, pulled on some muddy Wellington boots and turned to call back inside.

  “I'm just going down to the bottom field to put some more rat poison down in the barn,” he yelled. The woman made some sort of reply but it was unintelligible. He went alongside the house to a small, unlocked shed, went in and exited a few moments later carrying a lit oil-lamp, swinging it from side to side as he walked through the grass and along a faint track. Randall followed at a distance. He knew he could keep track of Maurice thanks to the light from the lamp he carried.

  After a five or six minute trek, Maurice stopped at the doors of a barn. He placed the lamp carefully on the ground and felt round in his jacket pocket for some keys which he used to open one of the doors before returning them to his pocket. The man went in, pulling it to behind him. Randall crept up to the slightly open door and peered through the opening. What he saw from the dismal light of the lamp that had now been placed on the ground made him see red. Without thinking or a moment's hesitation, he angrily yanked open the door and went through at a run, roaring with rage. Maurice was quick off the mark for his size and grabbed a pitchfork from the rack on the wall, turning to face this surprise attack. He thrust it forward in a deadly action which Randle easily swerved the sharp prongs. Letting it go past his left side, he lifted his fist from the floor like a piston, catching Maurice under the chin. He sprawled back, his arms flailing and unconscious before he had hit the ground. Unfortunately, in falling he had knocked over the lamp which instantly ignited the dry straw. The flames quickly began to spread to the other bales as Samantha called to him urgently.

  “Alan! Quick! The keys,” she shouted, thrusting her wrists forward for him to see the handcuffs that he had not noticed before. Randall had only seen the chain through the gap in the doors. Suddenly understanding, he fell to his knees and began to swiftly rummage through the unconscious man's pockets. He soon found what he was seeking and had the cuffs removed within seconds.

  The flames were by now licking the bare wooden walls of the old barn and had obviously taken a hold quickly. Thick smoke was gathering in the roof recess and gradually getting lower making it difficult to breathe. In the bright light of the fire, Randall spotted the jerry-cans close by and knew they had to get out of there quickly before the flames reached them. Full or empty, they would certainly explode. He grabbed Samantha's wrist roughly and almost dragged her out of the building before she really knew what was happening. They could now feel the extreme heat from the fire on their backs as they ran across the field, the skin on the soles of Samantha's bare feet getting scuffed and scratched on the dirt beneath them.

  “Alan,” she called, breathless. “What about him back there?”

  “Fuck him,” was the only response she got as he increased his pace, yanking her arm and pulling her along behind him. Randall managed to get his bearings and had a rough idea of which direction to take to get back to his car. He altered his course a little to the left and saw headlamps from a passing car in the lane. After brushing through the long, prickly grass, they had just reached the wire fence beside the lane when the entire barn exploded way behind them with an almighty bang, sending bright red and orange flames along with red hot sparks high into the night sky behind them. The jerry-cans had obviously ignited. Samantha turned to look but was dragged across the lane by Randall who literally pushed her into the passenger seat. Burning embers were starting to fall into the roadway. Randall got in, started the engine, dropped the gear lever in to 'Drive' and was speeding away towards the M20 motorway within seconds, leaving a bright orange glow on the distant horizon behind them.

  She reached over and squeezed his thigh as he drove, now at a more legal speed. He glanced at her and gave her a reassuring smile.

  “You look terrible,” he told her with a grin. “We'll go back to my place because judging by the smell that's coming from you, a shower is definitely in order. I don't think the little sink in your room would do the trick.”

  Samantha faced forward again, sighed and smiled.

  She was back with Alan and everything would be okay.

  * * * *

  COCAINE

  At three fifteen on a chilly morning in early November, Carla left Silk's and and instead of waiting for Samantha as usual, crossed over the road and waited on the corner of Archer Street. She looked anxiously along the road, searching for the man she had arranged to meet. Samantha came out of the club to go home and, seeing her friend standing there, went across to her.

  “What are you doing standing here?” she asked. It was cold and both girls were wearing their coats. There was a feel of snow in the air as the chilly wind was funnelled along Great Windmill Street.

  “Someone I met earlier downstairs in Silk's wants to take me on somewhere else, a party, I think,” she replied, hunching her shoulders to the cold night air and turning the collar of her black faux fur jacket up high. “He's paying well for the privilege too,” she continued with a knowin
g smile, her cheeks glowing despite the outside temperature. “I've already made eighty-five pounds from what he's spent inside the club and now he's willing to pay for extras, you know what I mean, don't you?” Samantha didn't like the idea of her friend going off somewhere unknown with some stranger she had only just met and voiced her concerns.

  “Be careful,” she said. “You don't really know anything about this bloke, do you? What's his name?”

  “It's Mark, but don't worry so much, Sam,” she answered with a shiver. “I've been with him once before a month ago, or something like that and he seems alright to me. I'm not silly, Samantha. He's not short of money either, it seems.” At that moment a black cab came to a halt opposite them and the window went down. A man in his thirties stuck his head through the opening.

  “Carla,” he called. “Get in, sweetheart.” She tottered across the narrow road in her high heeled shoes and got in, turning to wave as she did so. The taxi pulled away, black smoke belching from the exhaust. Samantha had her misgivings about the man. She turned as she heard the metal shutters coming down across the front windows of Silk's. Alan Randall was standing there with Lenny Harris as the latter engaged the locks and pocketed the keys. The two spoke for a few moments then Harris went down the side of the club into Ham Yard, presumably to get into his red Jaguar car which he always parked there. Harris had what he called 'an arrangement' with the local traffic wardens who patrolled Soho all night. Randall saw Samantha and ambled across to her, his hand in his trouser pocket and a smile on his face.

  “Want a lift home? Or shall we go for a drink at Mario's first?” he asked. Mario had an illegal drinking house in Frith Street.

  “It's too cold, Alan,” she retorted. “I just want to get under the duvet and snuggle up in my bed.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he replied with a grin. She gave him a nudge with her elbow then linked her arm through his. At that moment, Lenny Harris pulled his bright red Jaguar out into Great Windmill Street from Ham Yard. He saw the pair walking away up the hill together and shook his head, ash dropping from the cigar that was clamped firmly between his teeth. He brushed it to the floor from his trousers. 'Lucky bastard' he thought as he drove away.