Slaver's Bait: The Taking of Cheryl, Book II

Chapter 3

Denise was kneeling within arms reach of the old man. He was drinking a glass of wine. She was embarrassed to be so naked and confined before this old man. He turned his head towards her and then reached out to caress her breast. His hands were rough and strong. He pinched the n****e delicately and uttered soothing words to her, smiling.

Tamara returned carrying a large platter of carved meat. Denise recognized the smell of lamb. Her stomach growled as she yearned for food. The old woman left and returned again quickly, this time with a bowl of yellow rice and a platter of roasted peppers and onions. She sat at the table, poured herself a glass of wine and waited. A few moments later the Turk entered the room and took his seat at the head of the table.

The trio ate in relative quiet. From time to time, the Turk glanced over at his naked, kneeling prisoner. Denise pleaded with her eyes to be allowed to eat. He ignored her and returned his attentions to his meal. After the sounds of the meal slowed and then stopped, Cheryl heard the voice of the old woman. She was apparently referring to Denise as the old man and Turk both looked at her at the same time. The old man answered the woman, chuckling. The Turk spoke a short, staccato sentence in the foreign tongue and then, after sliding his chair back from the table, got up and left the room. The old man followed him.

After Tamara cleared the table, she unleashed Denise from the table and led her into the kitchen. It was a large, stone tiled room, with a large oven and an old, black, gas fired oven and stove. A large butcher block island stood in the middle of the room. The ceiling was high and a row of hanging lights brightened the room.

Denise saw a large bowl of food sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. Tamara led her to it and, pressing on her shoulders, made her kneel in front of it. She removed the mask and gag and motioned for Denise to eat.

A wave of self pity overcame Denise. If she needed definitive proof of her lowly status, this was it. She would eat from the floor like an animal. The dispirited woman began to sob silently. She was hungry. She needed to eat. She knew that she would ultimately debase herself and bury her face in the bowl. But she couldn’t take that first movement to do so. She looked up at the old woman piteously, stifling the urge to plead and beg for humane treatment.

Recognizing Denise’s forlorn state, the woman knelt by her side. She stroked Denise’s hair and face, speaking softly to her. She picked up a piece of lamb from the bowl and introduced it into Denise’s mouth. Denise accepted it meekly. The well-seasoned, tender meat gave Denise comfort as she chewed it slowly. “Eat, eat,” the woman said kindly. Denise looked down at her proffered meal and swallowed. Spreading her legs wide, she leaned over and pressed her mouth into the bowl.

When Denise was finished eating, she waited patiently for the old woman to finish with the dishes. When she had finished, she came over and wiped Denise’s mouth and face clean. She gave her a tall glass of milk to drink and then took her to a small bathroom off of the kitchen to let her urinate. She then led Denise by her chain from the kitchen, across the expansive hallway at the foot of the main stairs and to a set of sliding doors. She slid them open and Denise saw the Turk and the old man seated in easy chairs. The old man was smoking a pipe. Turk was reading a book. The room was dim with only floor lamps near the chairs to spread light. Denise was led to the Turk’s chair where she was affixed to a ring. She was again forced to her knees.

The Turk and the old man paid no heed to Denise’s entrance. The old man seemed to be lost in some reverie. Turk did not look up from his book. The old lady went over to a stereo player located on top of a long bookcase along one wall and placed a CD in the player. The melodic strains of a classical piano sonata filled the room. Choosing an easy chair near the old man, Tamara sat and closed her eyes, smiling contentedly as she listened to the music.

The music was soothing to Denise. She did not know if it was Mozart, Schubert, Liszt or whomever, but the flowing sonorous notes took her away from her abject state. Thinking about the day’s events made her wonder whether this would be her daily routine. Would she be condemned to be silent and bound for however long she might be kept here? What would she be like after a few days of this or weeks, or even months? Could she maintain her sanity?

The Turk glanced over at his beautiful slave. He had never tolerated speech from any of the unfortunate young women who had found their way here. There would be no exception for this one. He was lucky, he knew, to have Tamara to care for her and to be so willing to keep to his rules. He knew that the woman was crazy, maybe psychotic. But she was strong and had a will of iron. She had her whip and she was not reluctant to use it.

Tamara was actually related to the Turk. She was Turk’s mother’s second cousin. They had come to America from the same village in Turkey many years ago. The old man, whose name was Agfa, also came from that village. While he had learned English and worked in a factory, she had remained home with their sole child, a beautiful and sweet girl named Fatima.

At that time, Turk had been a youth, ambitious, smart and wholly dedicated to making it in America. He had fallen in love with Tamara’s daughter. She was sixteen and he was 22, an appropriate age difference under their customs. He would have to wait until she finished school, for Tamara wanted her daughter educated before she married. The Turk often contemplated the anticipated idyll of married life with Fatima.

But one day, walking home from school in the dirty Northeast city in which they lived, she had been followed by some of the white boys from school. Fatima was lovely but her dark skin and slightly oriental appearance set her apart from the other girls. She did not go to their dances and did not hang out at the soda shops. She studied hard, got good grades and was resented by many.

The boys may not have initially intended what happened. Their original purpose was probably to waylay Fatima and humiliate and tease her. They pulled her into an alley, tugging at her skirt, calling her names. Fatima fought back, scratching one of the boys in the face. He got angry and punched her, knocking her to the ground. As she fell, her skirt rode up on her thighs, revealing her simple cotton panties. The boy who hit her noticed the door to a cellar in the alley open and he grabbed the girl and dragged her down the stairs. There all the boys raped her, one after the other, five of them in all.

Fatima limped home. The boys were prosecuted. Three were sent to the juvenile jail and two placed on probation. Although the boys had been punished, Fatima could not live with her shame and was found by her mother one morning hanging from the transom to her bedroom.

The mother was never the same. The father cursed the boys, America and God. The Turk swore revenge.

It took him five years, but one by one he had slain all five of the boys. During that time he became a denizen of the underworld, a hired killer and enforcer. He had also sworn vengeance on the society that had produced these five callous young men. He would wage war on the women of that society. At first he contented himself with cruel, violent rapes. But then he had come into contact with the world of female slavery and he knew that he had found his true engine of revenge. The women he kidnapped and delivered to lustful masters would be raped a hundred, two hundred times, more than he could ever do. He profited by it too by learning to select the most becoming and winsome women he could find and delivering them to wealthy men and women rich enough to maintain women in abject slavery without fear of legal interference.

But now, he had become a prisoner of his own emotions. He had felt the humanity of one of his victims, Cheryl, and now was cursed day and night with the memory of her. He looked at the naked prisoner at his feet and felt nothing but anger. He detested the feelings that Cheryl had awakened in him. Denise had become both the fulcrum of his anger and his means of assuaging it. He could make love to her with all the tenderness and passion that his memory of Cheryl evoked. Or he could ravage her with all of the cruelty and spite that he was capable of.

He watched Denise, her eyes closed as she let the soothing sounds of the delicate music wash over her. His blood began to boil.

Standing, he interrupted Denise’s reverie by pulling on her chain. He unlocked it from the chair and pulled her to her feet. Tamara and Agfa watched silently and knowingly as the Turk pulled the startled woman from the room. When Denise saw that she was being led to the cellar door, she believed that the man, whose name she still did not know, had decided to lock her into her cell for the night. She followed him docilely as he took her down the cold, hard stairs. She was surprised when they bypassed the door to her cell. Instead, he led her to another heavy steel encased door on the other side of the carpeted corridor.

The Turk unlocked the door and swung it open. He dragged Denise in by her chain, causing her to stumble as she crossed the threshold. When she looked up, her stomach sank. Before her was an array of fiendish devices that she knew could only serve a single purpose, the administration of cruel tortures.

The Turk had no taste tonight for the slow and painful tortures that the various racks, stocks and enclosures could provide. His fever could only be cooled by the immediate and direct application of pain to this woman who symbolized all that he hated, both in the world and in himself.

Denise started to whimper and tried to communicate a plea for pity. But her gag stifled all words. She went limp and sank to her knees. Her fear had no effect on the Turk other than to serve his pleasure. He would take pleasure in beating this woman, transferring his pain to her.

A long chain descended from the ceiling in the center of the room looped through an eyelet embedded there. Turk dragged Denise over to it and pushed her to the floor. Forcing her to her stomach, he released her arms from behind her back. He took one wrist and clipped it to one end of the chain. He pulled on the other end of the chain, forcing Denise first to her knees and then to her feet.

The frantic woman dug her heels into the cement floor and tried to waive her other arm out of the Turk’s reach. Her efforts were futile as the Turk easily captured it and joined it to its mate. He then pulled the chain tight until Denise’s toes barely touched the floor. Stepping over to the wall, he locked the chain into place.