Be Brave (31 page)

for Angel to understand. Head still down, Angel shuffled closer. Dudek pointed at

the chair next to him, and Angel walked around the railing and sat down. This was

too easy. The man"s hand immediately found Angel"s thighs under the table and slid

between them, squeezing his crotch. The fingers dug painfully into his balls, and he

winced, releasing a sharp breath. Dudek laughed. “Want some food, kid?”

Angel nodded, still avoiding eye contact as if he had never done anything like

this before and was apprehensive.

“I"ll take you to my place. You can eat there. Do you want to earn some

money?”

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145

“Oui, monsieur.” Angel shifted uncomfortably. The man"s hand on his crotch

made him feel sick.

Another man joined them briefly, speaking to Dudek in what Angel assumed

to be Polish.

When he left, Dudek put his arm around Angel"s shoulders and steered him

very firmly across the street to the Lexus. “What"s your name?”

“Ange.” He translated Angel to the French. No point in changing his name to

something else completely then forgetting to answer to it.

“Get in, Ange.”

Inside the beautifully clean, leather-upholstered car, Dudek shoved Angel onto

his knees on the floor. Dudek opened his fly and pulled out his dick.
Shit
! He"d

hoped the man would at least wait until he got him into the house. Maybe there he

could have managed to avoid sex with him somehow. But now he had no choice.

“Drive,” Dudek told the man in the front.

Grabbing him by a handful of his hair, Dudek forced Angel"s face down into his

groin. “Suck my cock, and do a good job.”

Be brave. Do it for Daddy.

Closing his eyes tight, Angel took the man"s cock into his mouth, holding his

breath to avoid smelling it. But he couldn"t avoid the sour, unwashed taste. All the

things he loved about Daddy made him retch about this man. He was disgusting.

Angel sucked hard, trying to get it over with quickly. Sperm flooded his mouth,

strangely cool and tasteless. Angel swallowed, and Dudek pushed his face away and

fastened his trousers.

While Angel was still trying to prevent himself from gagging, the car stopped

outside the house on rue Chappelle. Again Dudek kept his arm tightly around

Angel"s shoulders in case he tried to run, steering him up the steps and into the

house. The man had a new slave—or so he thought—and he wasn"t going to let him

go.

Intense apprehension tightened his stomach muscles as Angel entered the

house. Trying to keep his breathing steady so he wouldn"t empty his stomach onto

the floor, he stood in the hall watching as the door was bolted behind him and the

alarm set. He was in there now, trapped.
Daddy, please be here. Please be okay.

“Come with me.” Dudek walked into an office in the back of the house beside

the kitchen. Angel followed, taking in as much information as he could, scanning his

environment as Daddy had taught him to do. The house was grubby. Dirt from

shoes had gathered along the edges of the floor in the hall. Paint, once white, was

gray and peeling. An odor of blocked drains and dirty, used condoms hung in the

air.

In the scruffy office, with its worn, old furniture, Dudek looked at him. “Okay,

kid?”

“Oui, monsieur.” The foulness of the man"s cock lingered in his mouth.

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Fyn Alexander

Dudek sat behind a crowded desk and began making calls. Angel stood by the

open door, listening intently. He couldn"t understand what the man was saying, but

he could hear men"s voices in the room down the hall. They seemed to be playing

cards or some other game, because there were moments of silence followed by

raucous calling and laughter, then silence again. Water was running in the kitchen.

The sound of heavy feet on the uncarpeted stairs was constant. He had to start

searching the house. Angel looked back at Dudek and saw the man watching him.

Dudek put the phone down and came around the desk.

Angel nodded at the kitchen. “You said I could eat.”

A hand shot out, slapping him hard across the ear. As much from surprise as

pain, Angel cried out. Dudek grabbed him and, for a minute or more, beat him with

his open hands, slapping him across the head and shoulders until he sank to his

knees with his arms over his head, trying to protect himself. The beating stopped as

abruptly as it had begun. Dudek grabbed him by the arms, pulling him to his feet,

and slammed him into the wall, pinning him there with his hands on Angel"s

shoulders. When he smiled, his thin lips drew back from teeth that must have been

fixed by an expensive Western European dentist. They looked too big for his thin

face. “Do as you"re told, and I won"t have to hurt you again.”

“Yes, sir.” Angel"s French was better than Dudek"s, so the man likely never

detected his accent.

“I"m your boss now. I own you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You service me and sometimes the customers, and maybe one day I"ll give you

a gun and you can guard the girls like the men in the other room.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He pushed Angel out into the hall. “Go into the kitchen and get some food.”

A sharp, thin pain squealed through Angel"s head. He rubbed his ears as he

walked into the kitchen, where two young women, both slender and pretty, cooked

and chatted to each other in a language Angel didn"t understand. They wore thin,

silky robes with nothing underneath. One of them smiled at the other in response to

something she said, and for a moment they were just young girls cooking together

and not slaves held against their will. Looking closer, Angel saw the bruises on

their arms, and the auburn-haired girl had a horrible deep purple bruise on her

neck. Briefly they looked at him and then ignored him.

Outside the kitchen door was another door under the stairwell, which must go

down to the cellar. The hallway to the front door was long, and two more doors led

off it. To his left was Dudek"s office, its door now closed. Angel wandered along to

the first room. The door was open, and it was empty. He carried on to the front

room, which looked out onto the street. The door was slightly ajar. This was where

the men were playing cards. They spoke French, and one of them spoke it with a

heavy English accent.
Denbigh. Shit! He’s still here.

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Angel ran on tiptoe back to the kitchen. The girls had prepared plates of food

and put them on a tray. One of them handed him a plate, which he took. Then she

opened the cellar door. He was about to follow them down when Dudek came out of

his office again. Angel met his eyes briefly. He kept his chin pressed into his chest,

partly to look afraid and partly because he was afraid.

“You"ll sleep in the cellar with the girls unless I want you with me. Eat and

then go upstairs to the front bedroom. I"ll be up soon. Don"t keep me waiting.”

“Yes, sir.”

The cellar steps were narrow and dark. Angel negotiated them carefully,

following the girls around a corner. What he found shocked and disgusted him.

Small, dirty windows near the ceiling allowed a little light in. Aside from that, there

was only one fluorescent strip light overhead, which gave the girls a strange pallor.

There were at least eight girls sitting quietly. They looked up at him, only slightly

surprised to see a boy. One of them spoke to him, but he had no idea what she said.

Another repeated it in French. “Are you new? Did you just get here?”

He nodded, and they went back to their food.

Rows of bunks were closely packed together. A few chairs and a table around

which the girls sat took up most of the space. The smell was worse than upstairs,

though the girls looked clean and were trying to make the best of themselves by the

looks of the toiletries scattered about. A small vase with some flowers stood in the

middle of the table in an attempt to brighten the horror of their prison cell. A small

bundle on one of the lower bunks moved a little. Angel"s eyesight had adjusted

quickly to the lowered light, as it always did, and he made out a sleeping child, her

blonde hair tumbled over her small shoulders.

He’s here somewhere.

With a quick look at the girls, who paid no attention to him, Angel left his

plate on the table untouched and walked quietly out of the makeshift bedroom.

Another door stood closed just down the smelly, dim passage. With his hand on the

door handle, he paused. Either Daddy was in there or he wasn"t, and if he was, he

could easily be dead.

Center yourself. Breathe. That’s what Daddy says.

The door opened with a creak. Angel stepped inside. It was a boiler room, and

there was no window at all. In the darkness, Angel allowed his eyes to adjust. When

he could see a little, he began to scan the room. A water heater wrapped in

fiberglass insulation took up about a quarter of the space. A filthy sink was

attached to the wall next to it. Against the far wall, a figure lay stretched out, and

by the length and size of it, it had to be Daddy. Again Angel drew a calming breath

and proceeded toward him. Something above brushed his head, and Angel looked

up. It was a light bulb with a string hanging beside it. One tug on the string and the

room settled about him with a dim light. The figure on the floor moved when the

light came on.

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A few steps and he knelt down and stroked the bruised, swollen, barely

recognizable face and ran his hand over Daddy"s side. Daddy had never had any

body fat to lose, but he"d lost muscle and looked much thinner. His body was a mass

of bruises and contusions as if he had been beaten repeatedly. The room was chilly,

and the concrete floor was damp as well as cold. Daddy felt very cold to the touch.

His parched lips opened, and the word
Ekaterina
came from a dry throat and

another word Angel didn"t understand. “Daddy, it"s me, Angel,” he whispered.

He took out the scalpel, shot out the blade, and began to saw at the thick

electrical tape that was bound repeatedly around Daddy"s ankles, layer upon layer

of it.

“Angel?” His voice was hoarse and cracked. Yet despite the dryness of his

throat, his incredulity was plain. “Boy?”

“I"m here, Daddy.” Angel crawled toward his face. “I"m almost done with your

ankles. It"s a good job you keep your scalpels so sharp. There"s at least eight layers

of tape.” He finished the job and began to pull the tape.

“No,” Daddy moaned. His skin was coming away with the tape, it had been on

so long. Angel left it in place and began on his wrists. The tape would need to be

soaked off.

“Angel, get me water.”

Angel looked about and saw a cracked cup on the floor. He filled it at the filthy

sink and held it to Daddy"s mouth while he drank quickly, gulping and spluttering.

Then again Angel began to saw at the tape until Daddy"s wrists were free. Instead

of bringing his arms around to the front, Daddy remained in position as if he

couldn"t move them. “I"m so stiff it will take me a minute.”

“You can do it, Daddy. Be brave.”

He began to work on the tape holding Daddy"s knees together, sawing at it

until his arm ached. At last it was done and Angel pulled the cell phone from his

pocket. He opened it and called Mattie while he looked around for Daddy"s clothes.

They sat in a heap on the floor, but there was no sign of his black leather shoes. He

picked up the clothes and brought them to where Daddy was still struggling to move

his arms and sit up. “Mattie,” Angel whispered. “He"s in the basement. You know,

the cellar. Yes, he"s alive but he"s a mess. He can hardly move he"s so beat-up. The

windows and doors are all alarmed like I said.”

“Boy! Ange!” Dudek"s voice carried down the stairs. Angel snapped the phone

shut and handed it to Daddy. “Try to get your clothes on. Your shoes aren"t here. I"m

going back upstairs so Dudek isn"t suspicious. The little girl is asleep in the next

room.”

“Boy!”

Angel ran up the stairs. “Sorry. I lay down and almost fell asleep.”

“Upstairs.”

Dudek pushed him upstairs ahead of him and into a bedroom at the front of

the house. The bed was unmade, and the room smelled of sex. A used condom had

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149

been thrown on the floor by the last occupant, spilling its contents. Dudek pulled a

tube of K-Y from his pocket and tossed it onto the bed. He began to remove his

clothes. Angel watched, not knowing what to do and afraid to make a move without

orders. He needed to form a plan, but his mind was blank. Daddy was alive but