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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147
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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Fyn Alexander
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