Used and Abused by the Mob

Chapter 2 – Vlad

Chapter 2 – Vlad

I’d been young, much too young to be sent to a gulag in the district for stealing food. I’d taken a loaf of bread; it sounds like something out of Dickens, but it’s true. I remember how my mouth watered when I grabbed it. Just before the militiaman hit me with his stick.

I was small, my legs probably no bigger around than the stick he hit me with. I don’t know how old I was when it happened. I still don’t know how old I am, I don’t know what month or day I was born. One day I just was, living in a sewer in Moscow.

It had been hard on the endless train ride east. I had been young and small; easy prey. The gulags don’t officially exist anymore. It’s an old Russian joke; the authorities pretend the gulags don’t exist and the prisoners pretend they aren’t in one.

My job was to cut timber in the endless Siberian forests. The first day I was so small I couldn’t even lift the ax; all I could do was drag it through the snow. At night …well, I try not to remember the nights. None of the men from my hut are still alive, anyway.

By the time I had survived to serve my time, much to the surprise of the authorities, I had no problem lifting an ax, or even a man. All those years of working in the forests six days a week, and surviving, had made me strong. In my body and my mind.

One year I met a man, Aron, a Jewish intellectual. I didn’t care that he was Jewish, I didn’t even know what a Jew was. All I knew was that Aron needed someone to protect him in exchange for something I needed. He was smart, he knew things, and I needed to know things, too. He taught me and I protected him.

I was hungry for knowledge. Aron taught me to read and my numbers. He even taught me English.

I was in the Bratva, the Russian mafia. That’s not quite right; “mafia” is an Italian word. But, like the mafia, we were organized, and we took what we wanted. We were just organized in a Russian way.

To prove who one was, our biographies were tattooed on our bodies in symbols we could all read. By the time I saw Moscow again I had plenty of markings, and by the time I arrived in America, I had even more.

I was a Thief. That was the top of the Bratva. I was still young and lacking in humanity. I was heartless. Whatever it is inside a man that gives them humanity had died in me. Or maybe I’d been born without it.

I’d killed in the camps, the new name for the gulag. Usually because the other man had something I wanted. Sometimes because I had something wanted by another and I protected it. Either way, I was alive, and others weren’t.

We’d been put to work building a new smaller camp a few kilometers away, it was the middle of a Russian winter. The camp would be for women. It was in the women’s camp that I met Vera, and she taught me how to be a successful lover and pimp.

The owner of the original waste hauling business had owed us money. He had problems, that man. He liked to gamble, and he liked women. Not problems in themselves if you know what you’re doing. He didn’t know what he was doing and now I own his business.

I needed that small contract with the city. We had plenty of business, but the contract made us legitimate, and it was in the same county as our bookstore. We could launder money from gambling and from the girls. More importantly, I could give myself, and some handpicked men, ‘no show, no work’ jobs which would provide them with W2’s and income to declare.

I had plans, but in order to get the contract, I had to control the new contracting guy: Doug something. I’d heard he wasn’t the brightest, but the mayor trusted him in a place where everyone was on the take. Doug something was in a useful position.

‘What a dump,’ I thought as I climbed the two steps leading to the banging trailer door. It was clear Doug was the mayor’s contracting chump. His assistant looked like one of the girls working for me, except for all the perfume she used. It smelled like something a woman would spray on to cover something else.

She made a point of moving so she was facing me while I sat on a rickety folding chair, waiting for the chump to arrive. Her tiny skirt, stretched hard across her thighs, was so short a hint of her panties showed. Her belly was probably flat, but she was short, and her t**s were huge, making it hard to tell. She was pretty enough to work for me, not that it mattered what she looked like.

“Can I get you anything while you wait?” she smiled and looked down at her skirt, as if inviting me to look, too.

“You can sit just like that while we talk,” I smiled back at her. I’ve been told I’m handsome and have mean eyes.

“Why would you like me to sit like this?” She challenged me and spread her legs just a little more. Maybe she was trying to make me uncomfortable. If that’s what she was doing, it wouldn’t work.

“Because I can see your pussy.”

She quickly looked down, as if checking to see if I was telling the truth, before looking back up with a slight blush on her face.

“No, you can’t.” She was smiling again.

“I will because you’re going to move those cute panties out of the way, aren’t you?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you want me to see your cunt, it makes you hot. So, what are you waiting for?” I challenged her.

Looking at the door, she quickly pulled her panties to the side showing me her pink and excited looking p***y. I had just enough time to note the lack of pubic hair and how she was throbbing wet before the crappy aluminum door rattled and began to open. We were both laughing when Doug walked in.

“What’s the joke?” he asked.

“Something Vlad said just struck me funny,” Mary Beth stood to pour coffee for us and to show me her nice round ass.

I followed Doug to his desk. It was hard to believe this man had any real power given how crappy his office was. It was full of old, unmatched and castoff office furniture. I’d never seen a city office as poorly equipped as this one.

We talked pleasantly for a while, Doug explained what the city was looking for in the contract and I commented on the picture displayed on his desk. At first I thought it was the picture of a model that came with the frame. Then I remembered where I’d seen that face before.

“That’s my wife.” How did a chump like this manage to attract a wife who looked like that? I told him I thought she was very pretty and that he was a lucky man, the usual courtesy horseshit before the meeting ended.

I decided I’d do almost anything to land this contract, and I would do anything to land his wife.

His assistant was leaning against the side of the trailer smoking a cigarette. “Too bad you wasted your time with Doug. We could have had some fun.”

“How did I waste my time,” I stood close to her, invading her space. She didn’t give an inch.

“The mayor won’t let him move it. Abraham’s been good to him if you know what I mean.”

“Get in my car so I can f**k you.” She just looked at me, her eyes wide and blinked slowly.

“You don’t waste any time, do you?”

Without a word I turned and started toward my car. I heard her high heels clacking on the parking lot behind me. “Hey, don’t you want to know my name?”

I held the door to the large backseat for her to crawl in first. “Would it matter?”