The Bathhouse: Part 8

He hauls me onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Like he’d done after our naughty cab ride, carrying me up the stairs. It had seemed so daring and exciting then.

Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 7

Created by author with Midjourney

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The ship rocks and sways over cresting waves. I see Vlad on the deck, facing away from me toward the blue horizon, shirt billowing in the wind. He adjusts his stance effortlessly with the ship’s movements. The picture of a seasoned seaman. I approach him unsteadily. With every step, my body bounces absurdly and my feet leave the deck. Long enough to make me wonder if they will return or I will be carried away.

I place a hand on his arm, his skin hot through his cotton shirt.

“Where are we going, Vlad?” I ask.

His hand covers mine and he turns toward me with a playful smirk on his lips - that are not his lips. They are Dan’s. Dan’s smirk, Dan’s dancing eyes, Dan’s bushy beard.

“Dan! I’m sorry, that was the weirdest thing -”

“We’re not going anywhere, love. We’re already there.”

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My eyes crack open to lights flitting by in Morse Code, faint as though seen underwater at a great depth. My body is jiggling bonelessly, head lolling side to side. Am I on a boat? I try to sit up, but am unable to. My first thought is sleep paralysis, but there is no shadowy figure looming over me as there usually is during those episodes. The vessel bearing me takes a sharp right and I slide to the opposite wall. I don’t hear any other objects sliding with me so I must be alone in the container. A finger of panic pushes through my grogginess. Why can’t I move? What’s happening?

With an effort, I try recollecting the most recent events. The fragments of memory are slippery. Meeting Vlad on the street. Going to the coffee shop. Our kiss. The cab. His apartment. With an obscene mixture of shame and pleasure, I recall the orgasm he suckled from my breasts. And then what? I fell asleep? The last thing I can remember is the tender way he laid me on the bed. Would he have drugged me?

Fuck.

He must have.

FUCK.

I curse my stupidity. How could I have trusted a man who records naked people getting massages without their knowledge and sells the recordings on the black market? And to go to his apartment with him? That’s…unhinged. At this point, I deserve whatever I have coming.

And, of course, I can’t expect Dan to rescue me. He has no idea where I am. I don’t know where I am.

The vehicle turns left and I slide back across the floor. At least some things are coming together. I’m in a van. It’s nighttime. I’m blindfolded, but it’s not thick enough to block out the streetlights still flashing by. My wrists and ankles are bound. Without knowing how long I’ve been out, we could be anywhere. At one time, I might have found this situation terribly erotic, but it doesn’t feel that way now.

The van lurches to a stop.

The front door slams and there are footsteps outside. My stomach roils in trepidation. Am I to be thrown over a bridge? Gang-raped in an alley? Sold into sex slavery? Maybe that last one wouldn’t be so bad, if i had a nice master…

No! Shut up. What am I thinking? This is absurd.

The rear door of the van swings open and someone grabs my feet and pulls.

What’s going on?! I try to demand. But what comes out is -

“Nggnghhhn!”

Great, I can’t talk either. My probing tongue is met by the smooth surface of what could only be a ball gag. I realize my jaw is aching from biting into it.

“Morning, gorgeous.”

It sounds like Vlad, but strange. Muffled.

“Hngghgg.”

“How was the ride? I know you like it rough.”

“Ngghnn!”

A chuckle.

“We’re almost there.”

He hauls me onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Like he’d done after our naughty cab ride, carrying me up the stairs. It had seemed so daring and exciting then.

Rain is falling lightly. It mists my hood and shooshes gently on the pavement. Vlad carries me up a flight of stairs and there is a sound of large doors being opened.

“Sir,” another voice says.

Vlad steps through the doorway, his footsteps echoing as though we have entered a grand ballroom. My head swings with each step. Still no muscle control to speak of. Vlad carries me across the ballroom and we enter a closer space - a hallway. Then we take a right and another man greets my bearer.

“Sir.”

A door clicks shut behind us and I am lowered onto a chair. I slump forward uselessly. My wrists are uncuffed briefly before being fastened to the arms of the chair and my ankles are given the same treatment. Finally, my hood is tugged off.

The low light is warm, giving my eyes time to adjust. When they do, I can see that the room is clean and minimalist, with wooden shelves on the wall and an oak desk crouching in front of me. Seated on the other side of the desk is a woman in a leather mask. She wears an immaculate charcoal suit, complete with silver cufflinks - the initials BT. Were it not for the mask and the black leather gloves I would have thought we were at a business meeting.

A stone block engraved with the word “Processing” sits on the corner of the desk, facing me.