The Prophet Murders (23 page)

As far as I could tell,
sa was in as bad a shape as me: he’d lost all control. I opened my mouth to ask for another coffee, but nothing came out. By brain was working, but my body failed to respond.

.

They were ignoring us now, talking only to each other.
sa’s rib cage. he said. The padded bra was removed, exposing Adem pulled his skirt down below his thighs. Under it, he wore a pair of colourful boxer shorts adorned with tiny butterflies. That’s what comes of men dressing up as women! A pair of boxer shorts under a skirt like that!

The mind’s a funny thing. Despite the danger of the situation, I was obsessing over wardrobe coordination.

Adem slipped his hand under his waistband, groping himself as he watched Fehmi and
sa. Once again, I struggled to get to my feet. I couldn’t. Fehmi noticed and turned to me.

“Boss, I know this one,” he said.

My blood froze. I couldn’t control my movements. In fact, I couldn’t move. My body was numb, paralysed and unable to respond to the messages sent by my brain. Fehmi was coming closer. I fought to widen my eyes, to smile. It didn’t work. Fehmi’s face blotted out everything. He grabbed my chin, turning my head from side to side as he examined my features.

“I swear I know this one,” he said.

I opened my mouth to speak. Not a sound came out. Fehmi decided an open mouth was just another orifice.

Time was either rushing by, or standing still. The next time I tried to open my eyes I was suffocating. I forced my lids slightly
apart. A body was pressing down on me. It was too close to identify a face. I had no idea who it was.

When I closed my eyes my imagination took over. A film reel was passing through my mind. I saw what each girl had gone through
as she was murdered. Each detail was vivid. There was only one difference: I was the girl.

The body plunging down the elevator shaft was mine. I was falling, falling for long seconds. I was falling. Then I saw my
broken body, at the bottom of the shaft, lying face-down on the oil-stained concrete floor. My body twitched, then was still.
A shoe had fallen off; I lay there with one foot bare.

I had no idea if I was alive or dead. I couldn’t feel my body. Whatever they had given me, it was sure doing the trick.

I could make out the occasional voice. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I couldn’t even identify
the language.

I was being ushered into a car with dark-tinted windows somewhere on the TEM motorway. I couldn’t see the chauffeur. I was
sitting in the back, next to Adem. It was a limousine of some kind, enormous. I stretched out on the roomy seat. They were
offering me drinks. I downed glass after glass of champagne. We drove along the dreary motorway, around the outskirts of Istanbul,
from the Asian shore to the European shore and back again, having wild sex. I was aroused by this part. Sexual desire seemed
to be reviving my body, the body over which I had no control.

Then the nightmare began: I was heaved into the sea. It was a moonless night. The lights on the opposite shore twinkled like
stars. But the water was pitch-black. I was naked. As I slowly sank towards the bottom, fish nibbled, the long tentacles of
jelly fish brushed against me. My skin crawled.

I had no idea what Adem and Fehmi were up to, but what was left of my mind kept repeating the same thing, over and over: they
will continue until they come. Yes, that was true. Men like that feel pleasure only up to the point when they climax. Then
comes a sense of regret, followed by self-loathing and hatred. Once all-consuming lust is gone, the pleasures of the subconscious
mind give way to the guilt complexes of the conscious mind. We are of course blamed for what they have been doing with us.
They are suddenly filled with loathing for the object of their pleasure. Some flee; others stay, and become sadistic.

In short, time was running out, fast. Once Fehmi and Adem had gratified themselves the ritualistic sadism of the prophet murders
would begin.

My imagination transported me to the inferno in which Ibrahim Ceren had burned to death. In a broken down building in the
narrow streets of Tarlaba
i, in a damp room smelling of mildew and a long-forgotten past, flames slowly encircled me. Then,
as now, I couldn’t budge. As the flames drew nearer, I could see them licking at my body, but couldn’t move. The flickering
tongues terrified me; the pain was excruciating. But I could do nothing.

I tried to open my eyes again. The weight was no longer pressing down on me. It seemed like there were hundreds of tiny lanterns
burning in the room. Or I was lying just below a starry sky. Right next to me was a body, breathing heavily. I was unable
to turn and look. But there was no mistaking the cries of pleasure.

Fehmi and Adem had turned away from us. They were making love to each other. The moans were coming from Adem. His make-up,
which had been poorly applied to begin with, was completely wrecked. He kept biting his lower lip, groaning each time he breathed
out. He grimaced in ecstasy, eyes nearly shut.

Behind Adem, who was crouching on his hands and knees, was Fehmi – literally screwing the boss. I couldn’t see his face, but
could tell from his voice that he spoke through clenched teeth. He hissed a string of curses and oaths. Personally, I’ve never
understood the attraction of so-called “talking dirty”.

I closed my eyes. Adem’s surprises were never-ending. Dolly Vuslat had told me he enjoyed getting screwed. While it was common
knowledge that some men requested such services from transvestites, it was rare for a real man to have it performed by another
man. What’s more, Adem had a thing for lady’s garments. And now he was bottoming for Fehmi. I tried to guess how long ago
they had reached this stage. It was beyond me.

The pain in my head was subsiding; the fog shrouding my thoughts was lifting. I began thinking rationally. However, I still
had no control over my body. The drug they’d slipped me was losing its effectiveness, but I was still under its influence.

Either time was passing slowly or Fehmi was the sort who takes hours to come. Adem was still moaning beside me.

They’d forgotten all about me and Isa Gürhan. Their attention was focused only on each other. Isa Gürhan lay not far off, completely naked. He was motionless.

No matter how long it took Fehmi and Adem to finish their business, finish it they would. I didn’t even want to think about
what would happen then.

My eyes returned to the dozens of lights overhead. Why were there so many lamps hanging from the ceiling?

I visualised scenes from the death of Jesus, the movie versions. On his back he carried a cross taller than himself, as he
trudged up a dusty hill. A crown of thorns rested on his head. Then they nailed him to the cross. Jesus made not a sound as
the blood gushed from his hands and feet.

Then Jesus was whipped. Exactly thirty-nine times. I think it was the number of years he’d been alive. Again, he made not
a peep, while others wept in silence.

The imagery was getting mixed up in my head, with Willem Dafoe intruding from another film.

The crack of lashes continued.

I have a powerful imagination. The whipping sounds were totally life-like.

Yes, totally life-like! I opened my eyes to see
sa Gürhan being whipped. His make-up running down in muddy rivulets, Adem was cracking the leather belt he gripped in one hand. They’d gagged Gürhan with a pair of pink lace panties to stop him from screaming. His eyes were wide with terror.

They’d tied him to two large, antique-looking metal rings fixed to the wall. I couldn’t guess what other purpose the rings served. Gürhan was covered with angry red welts where the lash had bit into his flesh. He was trembling.

Gürhan wasn’t the only one shaking. As he brandished the whip, Adem wept and quivered. As he cried, still more black mascara
ran down his face. He was a terrifying sight.

I was tied up. Hands and feet tightly bound, I lay on my back on the floor. A piece of thick adhesive tape covered my mouth.

Fehmi was stretched out in an armchair just to my right, smoking a cigarette.

“Sodomy! The greatest abomination of all!” he kept repeating. “You’ve sinned!”

He spoke in an hypnotic drone, emotionless, each syllable given the same emphasis.

“What made you do it? How did it happen? The prophets are without sin, aren’t they?”

I tried to move. But couldn’t. I remembered, from my high school gymnastics class, a move that involved leaping into a flying kick from a prone position. I never managed it then. Now, just when I needed it most, I was even less able to manage it.

"
sa died for the sins of mankind. For the sins of sinners. For “I the sins you too have committed. He died to pay for these
very sins.”

Fehmi’s voice was getting on my nerves. He had adopted the voice of those preachers on television who lecture on faith and
the true path. He used the same soulless, flat cadences. The ones widely believed to be a suggestion of the sublime, the lofty
mind.

“He will pay for your sins, too. He will pay for all our sins.”

Adem raised his arm slowly, as though having difficulty raising the leather strap. Gürhan shook with each cracking noise.
In sharp contrast to the prophet Jesus, whose determination to pay for the sins of mankind gave him a certain unshakeable
serenity, Gürhan was sobbing like there was no tomorrow. In any case, he had no beard.

“Pronounce the formula.”

Like an obedient child, Adem murmured “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the apostle of God.” He was choking on his tears,
but, as far as I could remember, managed a complete recital of the religious formula.

For a moment, I wondered if I hadn’t better recite it myself. I was beginning to think more clearly. But little good it would
do me, with my hands and feet bound and my mouth taped. Even if I had been able to move my body it would have made no difference.

The things I was made to watch and the side effects of the drugs they’d given me was making me nauseous. The adhesive tape
over my mouth held everything back.

I darted glances around the room, but each time Gürhan cried out my eyes returned to him.

Someone large. Perhaps the untimely return of the caretaker? If so, he would be sent reeling by what he saw here. If he had
any sense at all he wouldn’t come in, but would call for help immediately. But if he did come barging in . . . If he was a
true innocent, had no idea what his boss got up to, he would either leave here a rich man or share the fate, whatever it was,
of me and Gürhan.

One thing was for certain. I couldn’t bear for a minute longer the sounds of moaning, the sight of a leather strap lashing
bare skin, the feel of strange hands pinching and fondling my body. All I asked was that it end. Is there any thing worse
than knowing something is going to happen, but not knowing when? I shut my eyes tight. I wanted to lose consciousness, to
faint, even to die. Perhaps I wouldn’t survive the pain . . .

The huge shadow was motionless, not coming or going. Whoever it was, he seemed to have frozen in his tracks. Yes, the scene
in the living room was enough to freeze anyone’s blood, but I silently pleaded for him either to come in and face the consequences,
or to run off for help.

It was one of those times when a split-second seems like an eternity. All was happening in the slowest of slow motion.

There was no end. The frame remained frozen.