Traffyck by Michael Beres

When she tried to mount her bicycle, she heard running feet behind and felt an arm locked about her neck. She screamed once before a hand covered her mouth.
    Two of them, in rubber masks, shoved her bicycle aside and dragged her to the back of the van. She kicked out, hit a leg, felt the grip on her arms and mouth tighten. When they pushed her up toward the open back of the van she kicked both legs forward trying to slide beneath the van. But the two overpowered her and threw her into the van where she screamed once more before a hand was on her mouth again and the door slammed shut.
    Perhaps she would die quickly, not the way Viktor died. She worked her mouth open around a finger, bit down, but had to let go when her arm was forced up behind.
    The two handled her roughly as they gagged and blindfolded her. When she slapped out, she was slapped back and both her arms were pinned behind her. When she kicked, they straddled her legs.
    “A she wolf!” said one of the men.
    “No marks!” said the other.
    They forced her onto the floor on her back. What felt like leather cuffs were put on her wrists, her arms extended and tied to what must have been opposite walls of the van. They did the same with her ankles. Finally, they let go and she was helpless, spread-eagled on her back on the floor of the van. It was carpeted. She could smell the carpet, like the smell of a new car.
    The cuffs on her wrists and ankles were too tight to pull out of, too strong to break. The two men moved outside the van and whispered. But there was also a woman’s whisper. “It won’t fit in back.” A man answering, “Put the fucking seat down!” Car doors slamming. Then a man opening the front door of the van saying, “Never send Eve to do Adam’s work! Give me the gloves.” The man outside again. Doors slamming. A car driving off. Then the final closing door on the van popping her ears before the van drove off somewhere. Perhaps to hell.
    They drove only a few minutes. During the drive, while the leather cuffs pulled at her wrists and ankles, she recalled working at a massage parlor, the customers arriving anxiously, thinking they would get more than a touch and a feel. Two or three girls for one man to keep him in line. The proprietress having guaranteed the man a “release,” as advertised in the brochure. And now here she was, tied up, blindfolded, and helpless the way many of those men would have liked her, their glazed-over eyes revealing how insane they might become if they could be alone with her.
    When the van stopped, both men came into the back with her. One took off her riding helmet and sweatband. Their feet nicked her arms and legs as they stepped over her. One placed a foot on her stomach. The other giggled.
    Then it was quiet, so quiet she could hear them moving on the carpet and breathing. The skin of her arms and legs tingled, and her muscles tightened in anticipation of pain. Her stomach cramped, sucking inward as if she could suck herself into her stomach and disappear.
    “How would you like to be a little girl?” whispered a man to her right.
    “Yes, Natasha,” said the other from between her legs. “Little girls are taught to watch for traffic.” He spoke in Ukrainian, but used the English word traffic .
    Fingers touched lightly between her legs on the surface of her shorts. She pulled at the restraints and screamed mutely into the gag. The touch at her crotch withdrew.
    “You think you know what we want, Natasha?” asked the man to the right, his face close, his breath smelling like stale bread. “You do not. We simply want discussion.”
    A hand slid beneath her head, lifted her head gently from the floor of the van as the man to her right came closer. She could feel his arm and shoulder. He cradled her, kneeling over her, the gentleness more horrifying than if he would have slapped her.
    The man continued, his breath warm in her ear. “This concerns your husband’s death, Mariya. We require you to admit it