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CHAPTER 5 : A QUESTION OF ATTRIBUTION
They take me from my cell. When I was at IWB, I was embarrassed to call the room, “my cell”. There’s no embarrassment now because this is not playing. I really am a prisoner.
We enter another similar room. It’s just next to mine in a long corridor; just another featureless white square cell; empty, except for a mat on the floor.
The guard motions me to kneel on the mat. There’s no point in resisting, so I kneel. He leaves. Silence.
Then there is the voice: Soft; firm; feminine; self-assured; confident; business-like. “Stand …”
I stand – actually, kneeling was getting uncomfortable – but the disembodied voice is unsettling. It seems to come from far away. It comes to me from nowhere: no loudspeaker: no sign of anyone speaking personally.
“Turn around …”
I turn.
“Kneel ….”
I kneel again.
“Tell me about yourself ….”
“No thank you.”
“My advice is that you should answer promptly and honestly.”
“Why should I? Who are you? I demand that you let me go immediately!”
This sounds thin and unrealistic even to my ears. I can hear the amusement in the softly accented voice: “You will be here as long as I wish - and you should answer the questions.”
I remember my CIA interrogation by Connie almost with regret. At least on that occasion, there was a real person to react to. This time, I could be talking to a machine. The idea makes me feel cold. The whole room is beginning to feel cold and damp. I start to shiver.
“Tell me about yourself, Vyera.”
“I’m not Vay – what you said. I’m Jennifer McEwan. Please call me by my right name. My name is Jennifer Karin McEwan.”
I’m panicking. I can hear it in my own voice. Perhaps they have the wrong person. Of course they have the wrong person! Perhaps if I can convince them that I’m Jenny McEwan they will send me home?
“Tell me about yourself. As long ago as you can remember.”
This seems to be an opportunity to persuade them. I start to speak. It feels comforting to hear myself speaking of familiar things into the white, cold, empty, unfamiliar, room. I say more than I intend to. I talk about Ely, Cambridge, parents, university, friends, my job. I talk about Joe …..
I’m desperate to show that I’m Jenny McEwan. I am doing it to show them that I am not this “Vyera”.
The voice asks about my brothers and sisters:
How many? How old? Do I see them? Do I hear from them? Do I like them? Do I love them? Would I like children one day?
The voice asks about Joe: How do I manage when he is away? How often is he away? Do I miss him? Do I have friends? Are they boy friends? Are they girl friends? Are they just friends?
The questioning goes on and on and I’m getting more and more uncomfortable. I’m cold, I’m disconcerted by what I’m being asked, I’m very sore from kneeling and I’m desperate to relieve myself.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I have to pee. Can I go? Please?”
“Of course,” says the voice.
“But I … but there is no ….” I cast my eyes desperately round the cell and notice a floor drain. I know what this means; the same games that they played with me when I first went to Inward Bound. It feels every bit as humiliating as the first time I had to do this. I walk over to the drain and just let go. I seem to pee for ages and ages and the longer it goes on the more my face burns with shame.
“Kneel”, says the voice.
I kneel again. My thighs feel damp, splashed with my own urine.
“Thank you, Vyera.”
“I am not Vyera, I’m Jenny!”
“You are Vyera”, replies the voice. The voice is soft, reasonable, unswerving, patient, implacable. The voice insists on what will be and I have nothing to resist with. Nothing to hold on to. “Your name is Vyera ….”
Deep in my memory, there is a little girl, just three years old. She is hiding under her parents bed, pulling a blanket over herself and laying very still, undiscovered by her brothers who are searching for her. I fly back across the years to my old home. The little girl runs up the stairs. She slips inside the bedroom and under the bed. She covers herself with a quilt and lays quiet, still. One restless move and the Voice might hear her, might see her, might prize her out of hiding …..
“Your future,” the voice gently, insistently, implacably tells me, “is Vyera ….”
“Well, what do you think? Will she do?”
Anatoly leans over Sveta’s shoulder as the both watch Jenny’s image on the computer screen.
Sveta turns the microphone off, and spends a few moments more studying the image of a young naked woman on the computer screen.
“Well, Tolya, she is a nice kid. I think she might do well as a nanny. Her answers corresponded to your background information and she is … has a nice personality as far as I can tell at the moment. I like her. Her tattoo is nice …. but that’s not the point. The point is, is she the right person to be our nanny? The right nanny to help Alana?”
“So what do you think, Sveta? ”
“I think she has absolutely no technical knowledge or family experience to draw on, so she would be useless in the period just after Alana’s baby is born except to help with the routine housework. After that …. I just do not know. Maybe. Maybe not.”
This is clearly not the answer Anatoly was hoping for but Sveta is not going to be over optimistic or unrealistic just to make him feel better.
“Tolya, go get her trained and let’s see how she gets on. By the way, she is going to needs a regular shaving if she is going to stay as smooth as she is now. Maybe … maybe we ought to have her hair lasered? It looks as if her natural hair colour was brown, so that will make the hair removal particularly effective and that will mean she has a lot less maintenance to do. More time for her to concentrate on her work. Maybe start on her legs and work gradually up.”(1)
Sveta chuckles, turns to Anatoly and winks.
“Let’s just watch and see how long it takes her to realise that we are going absolutely all the way up. Perhaps she will try all the more to please her trainers, to see if she can stop the inevitable!”
Now Anatoly chuckles in return. If he ends up selling the girl, at least he will have had some fun with her.
“Take me back to bed Anatoly. After that I need a good fucking!”
Buried in that exchange, the teasing remarks of one lover to another and the conversation which went before, there is a lot of history. Sveta is very anxious for Alana. The precious child she wanted, the child that made her like other people, part of a real family, the child preceded by so much pain and unhappiness. When Alana was safely delivered, Sveta knew that the little girl would be her only child. Sveta knew she was not strong enough to face any more suffering to do with children, any more miscarried babies. Sveta has secreted a knot of iron in her soul to protect her from a ghost which occasionally still taps her on the shoulder, the ghost which walks when she is in the company of other small children even now.
Anatoly likes children. He would have liked more little ones of their very own he but understands exactly why this is a task beyond the strength of his outwardly tough and decisive wife. How he would like to see her healed from past hurts! They say a trouble shared is a trouble halved but Sveta has never shared and Anatoly has wisely let her be, waiting patiently for Sveta to tell him the story of a very particular past unhappiness, in her own time. He had thought of becoming an active benefactor for orphaned children but that would only inflame yet other painful memories for his wife.
Instead, he has indulged his sexual appetites to create his own extended family. It explains why he takes a very personal interest in the welfare of his slaves far beyond what their commercial value might lead you to expect. He always tries to arrange matters so the new life the slave goes to, is in some significant way better than their old existence. It is also an enterprise which does not open Sveta’s wounds in fact quite the reverse: she finds her dominant urges slaked in a very satisfactory way.
This new girl … she is so sparky and attractive and kind! From what he has learned about her, she should be just the person to help Alana and might even be what Sveta needs …He hopes so.
A TRIP TO THE DOCTOR’S
A guard comes for me and I am returned to the white room. My cell. It is definitely a cell. There was some food waiting for me: bread, fruit and tea (in a plastic mug) and that’s all. The food makes me feel better. Perhaps my answers to The Voice have been satisfactory? Perhaps they are just checking the answers before they can let me go? It must be an hour or so after I have finished my meal when the cell door opens. Release! There is a woman standing outside. She is older than me. Perhaps Prof’s age? She has dark hair combed back from her face and tied (as far as i can see) in a pale blue scrunchy.(2)
For some reason I step back away from her. She smiles and enters the cell.
“Please”, she says and holds out her hand. “Can you come with me now? You have had a long journey and we must see you are fit and well.”
So I am going to be released! They are checking me over to see I have come to no harm.
Protecting themselves against any legal action I might bring if they had been careless? The woman is dressed a bit like Celia was at Inward Bound. This woman wears pale yellow scrubs beneath a white coat and white medical clogs. I smile in return and happily follow her.
Father down the corridor we reach another room. The door stands open. It’s a doctor’s surgery or something very like it. She smiles and motions me to sit down,
“May I have something to wear?” I ask.
“Wear?” She replies, her tone of voice suggests she is mildly surprised by my question “But we have seen all there is to see!”
“Yes, I know but I would feel better to be dressed. I do have clothes.”
“Hmm, presently,” she replies and then gets down to business.
“I have to examine you, to make sure you are quite well. Please – over here.”
She takes me to some digital scale and weighs me and then measures my height. She takes my blood pressure and makes some skin fold thickness measurements. Well, I have never had that done at the Doctors!
“I have to take a sample: Please.”
She offers me a pan to pee into. It’s a little demeaning but I comply, anxious to provide no excuse for them to delay sending me home.
A lot more follows. She checks my vision, my teeth, my throat, my tonsils and my ears. The doctor - as I assume she must be – has me lay down on a medical couch - and takes my blood pressure, listens to my heart, feels my pulse, feels my tummy and checks my reflexes. She takes blood from my arm. She is nothing if not thorough.
“We are almost finished. Please – spread your legs.”
“Look surely, I mean if you are just checking me over, do you really … “
“It would be better if you can cooperate,” she replies but I notice her voice has taken on a hard edge. I want to argue but I let it pass. I just acquiesce. She proceeds to eaxamine my vagina and then I realize: this will show that I have not been violated in any way. I suppose they have to?
“One last observation,” she says. “On your knees now …”
I sigh. Well if this is the last. Really the last?
I get onto all fours. I feel her press gently on my back and I push my bum out towards her. I feel the inevitable cold slippery feeling of lubricant being spread over my anus followed by her finger inserting itself into my rectum. She probes and stretches and withdraws.
The lubricant is wiped away and her smiling face confronts me.
“Thank you. I have finished. Come with me …”
I follow her out of the medical room and back to the cell. I expect to find my clothes, perhaps coffee and forms to sign. I will sign anything, just let me get home!
The door of the cell opens outwards into the corridor. She places her hand on my bum and encourages me back into the cell – which is just as bare as when I left it! I turn quickly around: “Look I have made it quite clear that I am not … that I am Mrs Jennifer McEwan … “
But by the time I have turned and got into the middle of my speech, the doctor has almost closed the door! She peeps around the side, smiles and shuts the door.
It thuds closed. It’s a very solid thud and I can hear a latch engage. I have been locked inside once more. Alone. Well, perhaps there is paperwork to complete, before they let me go?
THE IMPORTANCE OF POLITENESS
How long have I been here? After ‘The Voice’ had finished with me, and after I was taken back to the cell by the doctor, I have just been left here. I am worrying what Joe and my parents and everyone at work must be thinking. I have not been able to return the call to Joe. The call which was interrupted when I dropped my mobile. What will he be thinking? What will they all think?
How long am I going to be kept here? Perhaps the things I said to ‘The Voice” (as I call it) are still being carefully checked. Checking that what I said was true. Then they will know that I am not Vyera. That I don’t know anything. And then I can be let go? After they have finished with their paperwork?
I look around the cell where I am kept. It is like a deep white hole. The ceiling is gently curved and too high to reach. The lights are recessed and covered with frosted glass or something and there is wire embedded into it, so even if I could get to it, I could not break it. There is no window and only opening in the white walls is the door. The walls themselves are brick which has been painted. It’s cold to the touch and it makes me feel as if I must be deep underground. I am getting to feel more and more claustrophobic in here. There is a squatting toilet – like the one in my room at Inward Bound – and for taps for water. One hot and one cold. They do not work all the time, though. Then there is a bed. Not really a bed: just a raised platform with a thin mattress covered with grey plastic. The floor is the same sparkly blue plastic there was in the room where I woke up. The door is a very solid looking prison door with a peep hole. It is so quiet. Every so often the door opens (outwards into the corridor, so there is nowhere for me to hide) and there are two guards standing outside. They never speak. One of them waves me across to the opposite wall, pointing a sort of gun. It is like the weapon the girl in London pointed at me, when I was taken. Kidnapped. The other guard carries in a small flimsy plastic bucket with bread, fruit and water. He leaves the new one on the floor and retrieves the old one. He points to the right of the door, to show me where I am supposed to leave it when I have finished. And that is all that happens. Day after day. Actually, there is absolutely no way to know how much time has really passed. I have tried to follow how long I have been here using the lights-on/lights-off as an indication of the passing of days but are they turning the lights on and off each full day? Sometimes the lights seem to be on for a long time and sometimes the ‘days’ go quickly. Sometimes they feed me before I am ready and on other ‘days’ I am kept waiting for food and water until I am ravenously hungry or very thirsty.
All the time I am getting more and more frightened. What if they forget me? Forget to feed me? Let me alone to starve to death? But the nurse kissed me when she left me. Surely she would not kiss me if they were just going to kill me?
Without any warning, the two guards are back. They come right into the cell. One of them covers me with his weapon. The other one straps a broad leather belt around my waist, takes each wrist and handcuffs each behind my back onto the leather belt. I am now completely helpless. He snaps a thick leather lead to the front of the belt and pulls me out of the cell. His colleague, the guard with the weapon follows behind me. Are they going to let me go now? Is this all over?
They take me to another of the white rooms. I should be glad of the change of scene, but I’m not. I can’t imagine that anything is going to get easier. And even though I have had nothing to do, I feel so tired and sleepy all the time.
The room is cold. I’m still naked. They released my arms from the waist belt and I have been secured once more, sitting up in a heavy chair. Thick leather straps across my arms, legs, wrists and chest, hold me in place. I can see the heavy metal buckles that keep them closed but I can no more reach them than fly out of here. I’m facing straight ahead looking at a plain, heavy, wooden table.
The minutes drag by. It may be longer. I don’t trust my judgment of time any more unless I count my breaths. 15 maybe 20 breaths - that’s a minute. As long as I stay awake. But sometimes I don’t even realise that I’ve been asleep.
A man and … the girl both enter the room. It’s the same girl who asked me for help in London! My jaw drops. I stare at her. She smiles back at me: a broad, confident, happy smile. She might almost be saying ‘see I knew we would meet again’. He sits opposite and she sits behind his shoulder. They sit comfortably; I sit restrained. He begins to speak, but I can’t understand what he says; it sounds like Russian but that’s only a guess. The sounds of the words reminds me of the words Ylena used at Inward Bound and when the girl starts to speak in English, translating what the man says, I suppose - her accent sounds like Ylena’s accent.
“Tell me your name …”
“Just wait a minute. I want to talk to the girl there, behind you.” The events in London start to flow back into my mind, first a trickle, then a flood. Anger builds in me. I start to shout at the girl, writhing and squirming against my restraints. “You asked me for help! You said you were ill. I was going to do all I could to help you. What a lie! You lied to me so you could get me here. You took advantage of me. I was prepared to do anything I could for you and you took me for a sucker. How dare you!” I am opening my mouth to continue my tirade when the girl speaks on a mobile phone and at once a guard enters the room with a bucket. He throws the contents over me. It’s icy cold. It takes my breath away. I cough and splutter and by the time I have recovered he is back, this time to pour a second bucket of the same icy water over my head. I sit there dripping, gasping, shivering.
“You must understand first of all, that we will not tolerate that sort of tone, language and behaviour. Your name”, says the girl. “You were going to tell us your name.”
“Jenny”, I sob.
“Pardon? …”
“Jennifer Karin McEwan, and I will not respond to “Vera”, whoever she may be.” I don’t know where I found the courage to say that after what has just happened. I scare myself a little by it and I’m proud of myself a little too, even though my voice is unsteady with sobs.
The man doesn’t rise to the jibe, but merely says “ Vyera. Your name is Vyera” and then continues, “Tell me about Inward Bound …”
“What?”
He looks tired. Disappointed perhaps. Not angry. Just tired. “Please do not waste any more time …”
“Do you mean I can go after I have told you?” I know what the answer will be. I don’t know why I ask. I just do not want to sit here passively, answering his questions.
The man just looks at me as the girl translates my answer back again. He doesn’t say anything.
“Why don’t you just answer their ad and find out?”
“Because I need you to tell me ….”
I look at him and wonder what to do. Well, why not play their game for the present? I stare straight at him. “Again? I’m tired of being interrogated about Inward Bound.” I chose the word “interrogated” deliberately. The man folds his hands together across his stomach and looks down. He’s feigning lack of interest and I wonder how much he already knows about what happened to me at Inward Bound?
“Interrogated? Meaning what?”
“Meaning questioned.” I am shivering violently now. It’s hard to get the words out. “Under duress. Without reference to my rights. Surely you understand? Interrogated. By the CIA. Arrested and interrogated.”
“By the CIA? About Inward Bound? …..”
I nod. “That’s who they said they were. That’s what they said they were interested in.”
The man glances down at some papers and wrinkles his face as he looks back up at me. I notice that both he and the girl have curly cords from an ear piece, disappearing beneath their collars. I do not suppose they are wearing i-Pods.
Every so often their questions and translations pause, as if they are receiving instructions from someone else, someone not present. It’s like I’m speaking to robots. The creepiness of it makes me start to shudder again – that, and the cool of the room and because I am wet through from the cold water.
The man begins again. “So tell me about Inward Bound ……”
It’s my turn to look tired. “It’s all in their ad. You can find the ad in Second Skin.” I nod at the straps that are keeping me locked in my seat. “You might enjoy it. Get some ideas.”
“You spent a long time there. You know more about it than that.”
“What’s to tell? Oh, yes. It’s fun! More fun than here. The trainers are nice.”
There’s a pause after the girl translates. It seems to be an alien concept to them “Nice? ….”
“Yes, they make it fun. They’re tough but they make it fun as well as tough. It’s like its name-sake.”
“What?”
“Outward Bound. It’s this British organisation which does adventure training. A bit like Army Training but without being in the Army. You’d know about that.” I’m guessing of course and he knows it.
“I know The Outward Bound Trust.” (3)
“Well, that’s it really, except Inward Bound is for sexual submissives to explore themselves.”
“And? ….”
“And nothing else.”
There’s another long pause. I imagine them getting more instructions through their curly wires.
The questions tumble on, covering the same ground again, then the same ground from a different angle. Then the questions stop. The two of them depart. Someone else comes, unstraps me, secures my arms behind my back once more and takes me back to my cell. There is some food for me in a bowl, and water. By the time I have finished, my skin has dried but I am still cold. Then the lights go out.
Suddenly the lights are on again. I wake up but feel as though it should be the middle of the night, not daytime again? They take me back to the interrogation room. I’m strapped into the chair once more. There are two new people to question me. Two men this time. They don’t explain themselves.
“Inward Bound. You weren’t just there for the experience, were you? You spent time researching the methods used by Inward Bound. Didn’t you?”
“I’m studying for my doctorate in psychology. This is my research area. How do you know?”
He ignores the question and responds with one of his own. “Pure or Applied?”
“Pure or applied what?”
The men are brought coffee. How good it smells! The Interrogator sips his slowly and suddenly the room seems even colder, as if I am sat under a waterfall of cold air. I start to shiver. He continues to sip slowly. The coffee steams and I start to realise how thirsty I am.
Perhaps if I get to the point, they will give me a drink. I could ask the Translator. His English is good. There is hardly any pause between my finishing speaking and him starting to translate. Never a pause in the Russian or whatever it is he is speaking. And the same when he is translating for the Interrogator. The Interrogator starts and the Translator starts right after. Neither of them pause. Whichever way the conversation goes. Questions into English or answers into Russian, or whatever their language is.
The Interrogator goes on. “Your research was? …”
“How people changed during their stay. Me. And the others.”
“Changed what? Outlook? Personality? Desires?”
“All of those. I wanted to know how the Inward Bound course affected the people who went on it. My research idea was that the course merely uncovers what was there before.”
“It surely adds to what was there? ….” Somehow the interrogation is mutating into a conversation. I’m happy to follow the flow of the discussion. There is nothing I know about Inward Bound that I would want to keep secret from other people.
“No. I don’t think so. It’s not how it seemed. The people remained as they were; just more confident about themselves. More sure. Maybe more committed to something that they enjoy.” I notice at this point that the Interrogator is slowly leaning forward to catch my words and I begin to wonder whether he really needs the Translator. But if he doesn’t, what is the Translator doing here? “Look; it’s no more than you would get if you went on a long holiday climbing or walking. You don’t expect a personality change after that, but you might find that for some people, walking or climbing becomes their main recreation; for others, they might find it is just not for them. Perhaps an occasional day out, but it never becomes their main hobby.”
“Yet that doesn’t happen at Inward Bound, does it? People leaving.”
“Yes it does. Of course. Some people leave early. I think.” Actually I don’t know. There weren’t any on the course that I did. I shouldn’t guess. I should just stick to the things I know. Tell them what I know. Don’t tell them things that I don’t know. Stick to what I know. Don’t guess. Don’t make things up.
“Many?…”
“Actually I don’t know. There were none on my course. Er, I guess it’s because the Inward Bound team carefully vet applications.”
“Are they very selective?”
“That’s how it felt to me. I think they try to give places to people who will enjoy themselves.”
“How are they selective?”
“Well, if you make an internet contact, you start by completeing an on-line form. Someone from Inward Bound will contact you afterwards and arrange a personal face to face interview. After that they send you a follow up email so you can confirm you want to join a course and make a booking. You have to sign papers to say you have given informed consent to the things which might happen to you and what your limits are. I suppose if the experience was really not going to be “up your street’ it would have become pretty clear by that time and the IWB advisor might recommend that you were not quite ready yet. I suppose.”
“But that’s not why you decided to go?” He sees how I respond to his remark. “Why did you decide to go? …”
“I didn’t. My research supervisor suggested it.”
He pauses again. I can tell that he wonders if there is more to it than that. “So none of this was your idea? You had no experience at all? …”
Tell them the truth or be ‘economical with the truth’? What shall I do? I don’t care if they know. I’m not ashamed of what I am, or who I am or what I enjoy. “No, well it was something I thought might be exciting.”
“Exciting to be enslaved?” The Interrogator is looking at the way that I am strapped into my chair.
“No. Inward Bound is about fantasy. Sure, sometimes a bit of the fantasy flavour spills into every day life, but that’s it.”
“Not for some people …”
“No, but it is for me.”
“And for your husband?”
The conversation is moving into areas where I don’t want to go. At first I say nothing. He waits. We both wait. He doesn’t break the silence. I do.
“He’s not very comfortable with it.”
“Disappointed? …”
“Well, maybe. Who knows what the future will bring? Marriage is more than a sexual adventure.”
“But you decided to pay a lot of money to fulfil your fantasies … ”
“No. I told you. My research supervisor suggested it as an interesting research model. The fees were paid from a research fund.”
So for hours, we criss-cross this particular ground. They get served coffee. I go thirsty. They eat lunch. I get nothing. Suddenly it’s over again and I’m taken back to my cell. Once again, there is food for me but only a little water. The food is very tasty and I have no difficulty eating it but I’m left feeling very thirsty and the feeling builds even after the lights go out. My thirst makes sleep difficult. There is no water coming out of the taps in the cell and I lay near the door, hoping that any draft coming under it will somehow help me feel better. I begin to doze. Then the lights are back on and they come for me once more
It’s the man and the girl again. The first two. At least I think they were the first two. I think
“The CIA. Yes, there is a lot here to interest the CIA.” The man looks at his papers and looks up sharply at me. Even through the translation I can plainly understand the sarcasm in his voice. And he’s right of course. But that’s not my fault. Stick to what I know. “There’s more to it than this, isn’t there? What else were they interested in?” he says.
“Well ….. I …. Well, they really wanted to know about someone they thought I had met, someone I was supposed to know.”
“Someone in particular?”
“My Prof had a picture on her desk. They wanted to know if I knew someone in the picture.”
“Who? …”
“I don’t know: the picture was taken at a conference Prof had been to in Moscow. The picture was showed some of the people there.”
This is dangerous, I think. Is that what this is about? The picture was taken in Moscow. These seem to be Russians. Stick to what I know and be careful about how I tell them?
“Why didn’t they just phone and ask? Why didn’t they ask your Professor?”
“How should I know? They arrested me in the middle of the night and took me away.”
He nods, seeming to approve of their methods. It sounds like his style; disorientation, suddenness, unexplained action. He just wants to press on with the questioning though. That seems to be his approach, keep the rhythm going, no real pressure just a natural rhythm to question and answers. I’m not sure if I could stop in time if he asked me something I didn’t want to answer. “Where? …”
“I don’t know – an interrogation centre.”
“And they just asked questions? …”
“More than that.”
“I see. What?”
“They tortured me.”
“Tortured you? Over a photograph?” He seems very sceptical. Not sympathetic; just surprised that they should find it necessary. “How? …”
Why should I care if he knows? He could do the same to me and I could do nothing to prevent it. “It was sexual. Beatings. Whippings. They made me ride something called a ‘pony’. Astride it. Under my crotch.”
There’s a short exchange in their native language between the girl and the man, as if they’re trying to work out a translation for the word “pony”. Perhaps there is translation going on after all.
“and they said they would sell me into real slavery if I did not tell the truth.” I blurt this out. Is that what I think is happening? Do my answers simply confirm the decisions they have made about what they will eventually to with me? I wish I had not said that, but my thirst and the repeated episodes of disturbed sleep are making it almost impossible to be careful in what I say.
All this time the expression on the man’s face shows he doesn’t believe a word of it. He’s deciding that my answers are all some sort of fantasy intended to confuse him; to throw him off the scent. He pauses. And then it’s over again. Back to my cell. No food this time, but oh Joy! There is water. The lights go out. Once more I am left in inky blackness. (4)
Almost as soon as my eyes close, the lights go on once again. They come for me. I am back in the interrogation room. Strapped in the chair. It’s very cold now.
I shiver more and more. The chair holds me firm and I get even colder and more uncomfortable and fidgety.
Is this the last man or the other one? I’m so confused, it could be either of them. I just can’t remember. He takes off on a new line of questioning. “What did they do to you at IWB?”
“Training.”
Training?”
“Well, I learned to clean house very well and to anticipate what the trainers wanted of me and to follow instructions carefully.”
“Carefully?”
“Yes: more carefully than I had at the beginning.”
“So what did they do to you?”
“Er,” I feel awkward explaining. Even though I am strapped naked and completely exposed before him. Describing the things I had to undergo as a result of my own decision to go to Inward Bound is embarrassing. He has found another private area in my mind. I do not really want to tell them. If I tell them I have to admit I was careless. Headstrong. Silly. No: I really I don’t want to tell them. Perhaps it matters. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
“Go on …..”
I cannot stop myself: “They shaved my head and I was pierced and tattooed and …”
“Chipped?”
“Well yes, how did you know?”
“We just know …. And what else?”
“I was beaten. I, I had sex with some of the other girls.” I am squirming as I say this. He can see I’m distressed. He seems unconcerned.
“The beatings would involve Ylena Zhukova?”
“Yes, but how …”
He cuts me off. “I know her work. Not her; only her name.” It is the first time he has ventured an opinion or said anything that is more than a question. The Translator looks around at him, almost surprised.
“And you enjoyed all this treatment?”
“Yes.” A simple admission. Actually not as hard as I might have imagined, but I look down, away from his eyes.
“Vyera: your fan-“
It’s my turn to cut him off. “My name is Jenny.”
I expect him to contradict me immediately but he seems to consider this for a moment. “Jenny? What does Jenny mean?”
I’m completely thrown by this question. I had never thought of my name having a meaning before. I blunder on: “Just Jenny, it means me. It’s my name.”
He looks unimpressed, as if my answer isn’t good enough. He shakes his head and speaks. The Translator takes up the conversation: “Vyera means faith and truth. You are 836-906-368 and you are Vyera. (5) My advice is to live up to your name: to tell the truth and have faith that you are now in the right hands.”
I am shocked that he knows my Slave Registration Number, the one on my chip, the one on my bar code tattoo. But if they have found my chip they will have read my number. Before I recover myself he slides a photograph from his papers and turns it to face me.
“Do you know this man?” The rhythm of questions and answers returns.
He slides the photograph towards me; it’s a man I have never seen. He is walking out of a building. It looks like a restaurant. He is in his late forties. Slim. Erect. Fit. Tanned. Beautiful suit and tie ….. I shake my head.
“No” is all I say.
And her?
A photograph of a woman now. She is in a shop. It could be John Lewis (6) or something like that. She is striking. Again, in her forties. Dark hair, combed back from her face. It’s a tough face. Attractive, but tough. Once again, she is beautifully dressed. Nothing ostentatious, just very well thought out. Clearly, a successful woman. You can see it in the confident way she carries herself, even in a photograph. Perhaps a lawyer or accountant?
“No”
And him?
This photograph shows a younger man. Very slight tummy. Thirties. Sandy hair, thinning on top. I am about to say ‘No’ when I pause. I look carefully. He is familiar. I crease my brow, trying to remember. The Interrogator notices. He is looking at me closely when I look up at him.
“I’m sorry: I don’t know, but I have seen him somewhere before ….”
“And her?”
It’s Charlotte from Inward Bound! It’s like seeing an old friend. I relax. I smile. I look quickly up and at last I can give the man something he wants; “It’s Charlotte. She works at Inward Bound.”
“We know. And him?”
It’s the sandy haired man again ……
“Yes: I recognise him now. I saw him once or twice at Inward Bound, but I do not know who he is.”
“Aha. And her?”
He slides a photo of a strikingly beautiful black girl towards me. She has a shaven head and a small gold septum ring. Despite the treatment she gave me, I can’t help breaking out into a wide smile; “It’s Connie!”
“Yes,” says the man, “Connie. How do you know her?”
“She was the CIA person interrogated me.”
“She tortured you?”
“Yes. She tortured me.”
“But you smile at her picture.”
Yes! Because Connie was hot, I think, because in spite of being scared I was thrilled. Because it all came right in the end. Because I recognised someone that was familiar and came from my life before here. Because of a dozen reasons.
The man doesn’t feel the need to press his point. The present interview ends and they take me back to my cell. This time there is food – a little and water. I eat and drink as much as I can but that’s not much. Overcome with fatigue, I lay down on the concrete floor and fall immediately fast asleep.
In the blink of an eye, the lights are on once more and they are taking me to the interrogation room. I can hardly keep awake now. Hardly stand. They strap me in the chair and I fall instantly fast asleep.
I am brutally awoken by a deluge of icy cold water which has been poured over me. I feel it cascade over my head and down my back. I can feel it puddling at my feet. I would like to let it just drain off me and go back to sleep, but it’s too cold and I am gasping and spluttering from the shock. I regain wakefulness, but oh so painfully. The room feels so cold and I start to shiver.
When I open my eyes, I see that a man and a girl have come in. The first ones. Or are they? Does it matter? The man begins. He slides yet another photograph towards me. “Do you know this man?”
“No.” That’s true at least. I don’t know who he is. It’s the man in the photograph from Angela’s office but I don’t know who he is.
“But you know something of him. Don’t you?”
It’s like he can see inside me. “Yes. It’s the man that the CIA were asking me about. Do you know who he is?”
The man seems to have come to some conclusion or other. There’s just something about him that seems to sag as he sits back in his chair. His face moves from light into darkness. He delivers a stream of whatever language he is speaking. Not the short staccato sentences of his questions. The girl listens and starts to translate even before he has finished speaking. “Yes, and now you will also come to learn who he is. This man has searched for you. He has found you. You are now his property. You seem to like numbers 836-906-368, now you appear in our asset register as KÀÍ 101109 PX. Let me spell the new number out to you: Kah Aah Enh 101109 aiR Zheh. Both numbers mark you out as Vyera. Slave. That is what you are. Vyera - your fantasies are now over. You are now a real slave. Permanently. Enjoy!”
I struggle to absorb what he is saying. He gets to his feet evidently deciding that our conversation has finished. I’m struggling against the straps that hold me in the chair. I’m frightened and take refuge in defiance. “Excuse me but my name is Jenny McEwan.”
He glances at me impatiently and turns to the girl. There is another staccato spitting of foreign words. “Now listen to me. Listen to me,” she says, her tones failing to carry the menace of his own. “You have been sold and then you have been bought. That is all there is to it.”
For some reason I am more angry than frightened. The fatigue begins to drain from me, chased out by anger. “What? I can’t be sold. I can’t be bought!”
The man gives a dry laugh. “Of course you can! Everything is for sale nowadays. Think how many you know who could have sold you. You said yourself that the CIA threatened to sell you. Perhaps Inward Bound might wish to have your data for themselves and make sure the source does not blab their little secrets to anyone who will listen? Your Professor distrusts you. Perhaps she wishes to take your data and report it on her own account?”
That part is believable but that doesn’t mean she would do this. It’s absurd.
“Your husband is not comfortable with your fantasies.”
“No!” I scream back at him trying to wrench myself free of the straps holding me to the chair. “No!”
“You said so. The fantasies you privately indulged behind his back. Perhaps he is tired of you. Maybe he has given you up to the lifestyle you really wish to lead. It gives him enough to clear his debts and start a new life with someone more ….” There’s a pause as he seems to search for the right word. “Someone more compatible. More predictable. Someone safer. After all, as he rises through his company, can you really expect him to want to be seen with you? A girl with a shaven head and a ring through her nose and a tattoo on her back? Not a partner. Not a wife. A slave.”
This onslaught plays on each and every one of my fears: I am left gasping, floundering by the time he finishes. I have no words to reply. It all seems so logical. So reasonable. So certain.
“Neena,” the man turns to the girl. Now he is speaking in plain English. “Give 836-906-368 something to remind her what she is and who she is!”
“A pleasure!” replies the girl - Neena as I now know her to be. She leaves the room.
The man stays, watching me. A smug smile on his face. Neena returns with a small trolley: she wheels it over to me.
It’s covered with a white cloth, obscuring what’s underneath. She takes a power cord and plugs it into a wall socket. I start to squirm and writhe in the chair. I am having nightmare fantasies about what’s beneath the cloth. She plucks the cloth away and there’s a tattooing hand-piece and a damp sponge in a bowl and some transfer paper.
Nina says, “Vyera, I am going to write on your wrist. If you do not cooperate I shall have the design lasered off and replaced, perhaps on the side of your bald head. Would you like that?”
No words come. I can only shake my head. I have even stopped shivering.
“Good,” she replies, and begins.
She sponges my right wrist. The man looks on. She puts a bendy plastic stencil tightly over my wrist, to guide the tattoo needle. The man smiles, satisfied. She begins to draw the tattoo outline: a black cross inside a black circular ring.
The tattoo needle bites and stings but I just sit passively and watch; I’m too tired, even to flinch.
“This stands for “Owned Slave” she carefully explains. Underneath she writes in Cyrillic carefully pronouncing each letter. “Veh … Yeh … aiR … Aah” as she writes  … E … P … A.
She fills in the black out line with red.
“Do you know why I have drawn in red?”
“No.’
“Red tattoos are the most difficult inks to remove – it makes it all so much more permanent.
“There, she says. No we can all see plainly: there need be no more doubts over your … your attribution. Your name, your status and your ownership are now explicit, at last. You are Bepa and she is an owned slave!”
During Jenny’s interrogation, Anatoly and Sveta review the recordings and occasionally partake in real time, asking their questions through Valentine and Neena, Igor and Pyotr. Now the process has come to an end, Sveta leans back to look at Anatoly.
“Well, Tolya! Was she worth it?”
“How do you mean?”
“All the planning. Sending the jet. All the expenses of the Away Team?”
Sveta continues as Anatoly begins to form his reply: “ ….. It seems to me that this girl is not close to Freddie Clegg and his inner circle. I think we are dealing with a somewhat vulnerable young lady who has been extensively manipulated by your Professor Dawney. Is she lesbian, by the way?”
“Yes, I’m sure she is. Maybe bi-curious occasionally,” he snorts – curious is not a word he’d normally use for Angela’s views of anything, “but with her, it’s mainly girls.”
“Tolya, I’ll tell you what has happened here …..”
“What?”
“Dawney fancied Vyera. Vyera was working in Dawney’s department and Dawney moved in on her. Then Vyera’s relationship with Dawney cools. I expect Dawney would want to be the dominant partner and take rather more than she gives. Later Vyera falls in love and gets married because she is really hetero. Dawney picks her moment and tries to drive a wedge between Vyera and her husband by developing Vyera’s submissive desires and hoping in due course to get her back. I’m impressed. Dawney should have worked for us but that’s not enough to make me like her.”
“Dawney?”
“Yes, Dawney. She is a bitch. She needs to be taught a lesson.”
“And?”
“Well – you had Vyera’s research data copied?”
“Yes; I sent one of the team round and we took her laptop. All the data was there and the work Vyera had done before we acquired her. We have the address of her computer at the university and a surveillance programme was installed on that machine, too. There is nothing she has done in the last eighteen months that we do not know about”
“Well that’s something at least.”
“So … what now?” … and it seems to Anatoly as if he is holding his breath.
Sveta makes her decision.
“I think … I think we ought to keep her. I liked her at first and I think I like her even more now. In the right place she should be fine when she has been properly and thoroughly trained. Let’s get that done.”
Anatoly smiles. He agrees with Sveta: on balance, it had been worth it. He had not got everything he had hoped for, but he has got plenty. And Sveta has said she wants to keep the girl! Ah, relief – accompanied by a hope for the future? Perhaps. Perhaps.
“Sveta?”
“Tolya! “
“Let’s go to bed. You need a good fucking.”
“So do you – and maybe quite a lot more!”
During the night, Sveta awakes. She cannot forget of the image of Vyera forced into the chair before Neena and Valentine, lonely, frightened, punished by being soaked with cold water and all because she protested about who she really was. The image provokes an uncomfortable memory of an unpleasant meeting with a desperate and sick woman: the meeting with Popova.
Sveta does not wish to behave in the way she did. Is that what she is doing now? But there had been other abductees … why should this one be any different? Sveta cannot think of a reason why and yet Vyera does seem to be different, for some elusive and ill-understood reason.
© Phil Lane & Freddie Clegg 2011
Footnotes.
(1) It’s a thing to keep long hair tidy
(2) Sveta is correct: Laser hair removal works best on people with dark hair and pale skin.
(3) The Outward Bound Trust
(4) The CIA Headquarters are in Langley, Virginia
(5) 836-906-368 is Jenny’s number on the International Register of Slaves and Submissives and was kindly donated to us by Tanos, the administrator of the Register. You can find it it on-line. Jenny received her number in our earlier story, Thesis.
(6) John Lewis is a famous department store in Oxford Street, London and elsewhere in the UK. It has a name for the quality and style of its merchandise.
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