The Kidnapping
Rosalyn
and Dante, two strangers, have a date that is part of an elaborate game which
ends with he as the predator and she as the prey.
He’s
been sitting at the bar for more than half an hour, watching the anxious woman
occasionally walk by the bar windows and look in nervously. He likes this part
of the job. He gets to sit here and slowly enjoy a stiff drink while knowing
and that her nerves are frazzled and soon will only get worse.
Of
course it’s a game. She has a card in her purse to remind herself what the
“escape word” is and the fact that none, absolutely none, of what seems to be
happening actually is. None of it, until they start fucking, that is. That’s
always very real, and it’s obviously the best part of the job.
She
finally pulls herself together, and with trepidation, enters the bar. You’d
call what she’s wearing business casual, but the worn out nature of her
appearance undermines it somewhat. She is clearly warring with herself over her
craving for someone new and exciting versus–from looking at her–at least two
decades of built-up adult stuffiness.
She
sits down, and the man, whose name is irrelevant, but who goes by Dante on
these “missions,” holds a lone finger to his mouth to keep the woman from
speaking, as she begins to open hers. Instead, he inclines his head to the
bartender, who brings her a drink, her favorite, as it turns out, and a small
envelope.
She
takes a reaffirming sip of the cocktail, the ice rattling as her hand shakes,
then opens the envelope. Inside are a note and a Polaroid of a young girl, a
teenager, tied to a chair. The girl’s eyes are huge over the gag in her mouth,
and she looks terrified.
The
woman, Rosalyn, who knew what she asked for this evening, but not how it would
be accomplished, is utterly shocked. She almost drops the photo before
disgustedly shoving it back into the envelope, the image gone from her eyes,
but still engrained in her mind. The note reads:
We
have your sister. Call this number to confirm that she is still alive. If you
cooperate fully, that is how she will remain.
Dante
slides a prepaid phone across the bar to her. She eyes him, the reality of what
she has become caught up in and the level of his involvement now clear. She
opens her lips, but he gives her a hard look and a quick shake of his head to
quiet her before she can find the words.
She
picks up the phone and dials. The voice message, even though it is from a
stranger pretending to be her sister, brings tears to her eyes. At the end of
the message, the recording says, “To continue your session, press one.”
Dante
watches closely as she brings the phone down into her hand and looks at it.
After a long pause, she pushes the 1 key and brings the phone back up to her
ear.
Dante
knows what instructions she is getting now: to take the key that he will give
her, to go up to the corresponding hotel room, and to do everything she is
told. That is, interestingly, he thinks, her fantasy after all. She looks like
she’s ready to jump out of her skin, but apparently this is exactly what she
wants.
And
I think we’ll leave our kidnapper and his blackmail victim alone for just a
moment now. My name is Victor, and arranging these little games is what I do. I
help put the spring in the step of people who are downtrodden or bored with the
tedium of their everyday lives. I realize that everyone wants an adventure, and
most adults would like that adventure served up with a side of sex, the kind of
recreational, exciting, crazy sex they feel like they can’t have in real life.
Honeymoon sex. Hotel room sex. Business
trip sex. That, packaged with a fantasy experience and a sense of
adventure, is what I sell.
What
my clients don’t know is that it all gets videotaped for my own personal
amusement. It’s a wonderful side benefit, considering all the work I do. This
is an excellent example of what I sell to
M. T. Stone, Megan Hershenson