Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
The woman behind the reception desk looked up when we entered. She smiled at my companion with the ease of long familiarity, and then she looked at me with the same professional appraisal I had already received on the street. I noticed, because I was already looking for it, that she too wore a collar. The receptionist’s appeared slightly wider than my companion’s, and made of a different shade of leather, but unmistakably the same category of thing.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“This is Ilsa,” said the woman who had brought me here. I realized I didn’t know her name. “We’ll use room three.”
“Of course, Giovanna,” said the receptionist, and her eyes moved back to me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
Room three lay down a short hallway, past two closed doors. It was small and very clean with white walls. It held a low-backed chair upholstered in black leather, a black leather-covered coffee table, and nothing else of note. Giovanna—I had her name now—came in behind me and closed the door. The click of the latch seemed louder than it should have.
“So,” I said, turning to face her. “How does this work? Do I fill out a form, or—”
“Take your clothes off, please,” Giovanna said.
The pleasantness of her tone seemed at first like the most alarming thing about it. She said it the way you say, please take a seat… the way you say, can I get you something to drink? As though the request were entirely ordinary. As though the only reasonable response was compliance.
“I’m sorry?” My voice had gone very flat.
“Your clothes.” She gestured, a small and unhurried movement. “All of them, please. I need to assess your figure properly before we proceed.”
CHAPTER 6
Ilsa
“Absolutely not,” I told Giovanna. I took a step toward the door. “I don’t know what kind of agency this is, but—”
“Ilsa.” My name in her mouth stopped me. “You came here because you wanted to. You know that.”
“I came here because you invited me.”
“You came here,” she said gently, “because you saw my collar.”
The silence in the room seemed absolute.
She watched me patiently. I knew somehow that she had had this conversation before, and that she knew precisely how it would end. The many different endings my imagination offered, though, all made my stomach churn.
I thought about saying something sharp, academic, and hopefully sufficient. The words in my head, though, arranged themselves into a configuration that didn’t quite function. My hand was on the door handle.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
“You can try,” she said, still gently.
She crossed to the door and opened it. The corridor from which we had just come now held a very large man in a dark suit. My lips parted, and then I swallowed hard as I watched him come through the door. He didn’t seem big in the way of the Viking warriors in the carvings; he was simply large in the ordinary way of men who are very tall, broad-shouldered, and quiet-faced.
He made me think of the Chinese man I had seen paddling the girl in my bizarre vision. He moved to stand between me and the door he had entered through—the one I had been about to use to make my escape. He had a matter-of-fact expression on his face that suggested he had done this as many times as Giovanna had.
“I don’t want to do this unpleasantly,” Giovanna said. “That’s genuinely true. But we are going to do it.”
“Do what?” My voice had gone to a place I didn’t entirely recognize, something thin and badly controlled. “What is this? Who are you people?”
“Questions are useless.” She nodded to the man, and he moved behind me and took hold of my wrists, not roughly but with an absolute certainty of grip that made struggling feel immediately pointless, though I struggled anyway. He held me with both arms drawn back and my chest forced slightly forward.
Then, to my horror, I watched Giovanna crouch in front of me in the same unhurried way she had handled all the previous terrifying things she had done.
“What… wh—”
She started to unbutton my jeans.
A desperate sound emerged from my throat as I looked down at her and she looked at the area below my waist, slowly but with obvious skill undoing the fastening.
“No,” I whispered. “Please… stop?” I said. “Stop, please… you need to tell me—”
She had the button open. She raised her eyes to look at me, and the blood rushed to my cheeks in a wave of scalding heat. I could see in Giovanna’s gaze that I could do absolutely nothing to stop whatever would happen here. I had no idea what that would be, except that I knew for certain it would be terribly, terribly embarrassing.
“Questions are useless,” she repeated.
Giovanna returned her attention to what she was doing with my lower body. I let out a humiliating little whimper as she lowered my fly, then started to draw my jeans down.