Ultimate Experience

There were so many questions swirling around in my head, that I struggled to find the one to ask first. It was the cell phone of the Lady that have interrupted my tries to articulate any of them. She took it of her purse, looked at it--just briefly, then looked through the window, and then turned to me: "Your things have arrived!".

We both begun getting up, but she stopped me: "Sit! I will bring it". I dropped back to my chair, quite relieved learning that my legs do not have to walk. At that moment, I would not bet they would take me too far.

I didn't see much in the street--it has become dark while we sat there. The cones of light from the streetlamps have lit the parking lot here and there. I could see a silhouette moving between the parked cars, until it stopped next to one that had the lights on. I stared at the few points of light, as that was about all that I could see from the inside. It did not take much for the figure to move--back, from where it came. The door have opened, and the Lady walked back in.

Incredible wight have dropped off of me, seeing her approaching across the tables, carrying my bag in her hand. I stretched my hand towards her when she came closer, but she sat on her chair putting my bag next to it.

"We agreed on something." she pointed out. "You will know the truth, and get your things back, but you will not say a word about what have happened".

"Yeah, sure." I admitted, resisting to urge to knock the table off and simply grab what was mine. "But, I need to make sure it is all there".

"Does it mean that you promise?"

I looked at the Lady. "What was supposed to happen?", I asked finally.

"We agreed on something", she repeated, still patiently. "I will need your promise to keep this a secret."

"You said it will all make sense to me, but it does not." I said, "It all just feel strange as hell, really".

"The less you know, the less is there to keep to yourself, don't you think?", she asked in a soft, motherly tone of voice.

"I simply need to know what it was all about. What was supposed to happen?", I insisted.

She paused, sighed, looked at me, and then paused some more. "They provide several services, you see. A client can ask to be surprised in their own house in the middle of the night. Or, while jogging on a forest trail away from everyone. Some prefer a quick encounter in a van parked on a street..."

"Wait a minute," I yelled in whisper, again pointing my hand in a random direction, "In a van? That van!?".

She shrugged and nodded.

Then I remembered: When I got pulled in and the two idiots sit on me, they pressed a side of my face against the floor. A floor that was covered with what I just realized was a carpet! I looked at my hands instinctively in disgust, like they were dirty, like I was all dirty of that bloody thing they have thrown me into, and my whole body started to tremble uncontrollably.

"You mean they would have raped me? In that stinking car?" I asked, leaning forward with my eyes begging her to tell me, that I--somehow--got this all wrong. There were enough clues so far, but it struck me with the full force only now. Realizing, what the pairs of hands that held me earlier tonight, did the same and much worse to other women before. Realizing, what must have happened in the car I was forced into. The blood was pumping in my temples, it was so intense that I could hear it.

"What? No, no no." said replied, quite surprised. "That was a way to for the pickup and return afterwards. It is a part of the service, you see, it must be a realistic experience. When you order faked kidnapping, van and ski-masks is what you are going to get" she said.

"So where would they take me?", I asked after swallowing heavily. She did not respond. "What would have happened?", I got to prompt her again before she started speaking.

"Look, I think you can now image the matters that..." she tried to escape my questions once again. She stretched her hand towards my bag, that was standing on the floor next to her. It was apparent this was not where she wanted the discussion to go, but I was determined. I felt that I simply must know. The idea--the see full of ideas and endless possibilities--of what could have happened to me was unbearable. I needed to know.

"What have you paid for?" I hissed impatiently. "You said, you will tell the whole thing. So I am waiting!"

She looked around to be sure our conversations remains private, and she--eventually--went on: "This is their most expensive service. They call it 'The Cell'. It is a weekend spent at their place somewhere out of town--no one knows where that is. It is an underground cellar, that is mimicking a prison. A wired prison. The role to play there is the inmate. The three of them, they are the guards. There is a cell with no windows. You get a chain around your feet, bowl to eat from and a blanket to sleep under. But, you do not get much sleep there..."

"You don't get much sleep?", I interrupted her, separating the words from one another in confusion. Pretended confusion, as I simply refused to follow the chain of thoughts my brain took on. She looked up at me with the "oh, come on" look. But I just sat there, as if paralyzed, listening to her words, and my ever louder heartbeat.

"You pay to get there," she continued patiently, "to be used by them". She made an eye contact to see if I am with her, but I am not sure if I truly was.

"There are four walls, the three strangers, two nights, and only one of you". She looked up to me in a hope I would say something, but I sat there--speechless. It fell all so surreal and bizarre. It was the most fucked up thing I ever heard. As if being thrown in and out of a car full of--as I now learned--rapists would not be crazy enough for a single evening. I felt like I am hallucinating. The story was ridiculous, so ridiculous. Although, I could not resist the thought that anyone lying would surely come up with something that is easier to believe--less messed up, that is.

"Why? Why would you do that?", I could not prevent myself from asking.

"The cell is regarded as something very special. The 'ultimate experience', they call it. For the first time, I took me over a year to find the courage to ask for that--some never finds it. I was terrified what it will be like, and if I can make it."

"Wait a minute, you have been there before?" I exclaimed.

She nodded, then she went on. "When I got back from there, I have spent two days in bad, crying. Devastated, but not physically. I though how reckless I was to ever try any of that. I swore I will never make contact with them again, ever. I had to hide my bruises from friends and family, I have not left my house for over a week. But the thing has been coming back to me every time my mind have drifted away. I am used to have intercourse with their man, that was not the tough part--I am used to being used. But this had more: more pain, more shouting, more humiliation, definitively more sex--simply more of everything, as one would expect from an ultimate experience. What got me, though, was the hours spent shivering on a cold ground while trying to sleep, terrified that the doors will open any minute, and it will begin once again and again. I would swear I still felt the chain attached to my right ankle months after. But it did not take too long, and I texted them again. I asked for something less exhausting, less degrading--less brutal, really. And while I used to enjoy their services normally--beyond anything you can probably imagine--it simply did not felt the way it used to. I ended up annoyed and disappointed by them, repeatedly. Eventually I realized, that what I want is to get back to The Cell, because--no matter how demanding and painful it was--the feeling of complete helplessness and even degradation cannot be found elsewhere. After realizing that, it took me weeks to dare to ask for it again, even when I knew what I am up to. But I eventually did. And it was supposed to start tonight."

I was looking at her. Utterly perplexed. "I see." my lips mumbled quietly, and my head nodded a little. I pictured the few--endless--moments I have spent in that gross car, and replayed every detail in my head like a slow motion movie. It felt like the worst nightmare imaginable to me, but next to what she was talking about, it was a ferry tail.

"So, when would they find out that I am the wrong woman?", I asked trying to turn the page, to get away from this horrible pit of disgust she was talking about. If I though--earlier that evening--that I need to know more, I was over it now.

She lifted her eyes in surprise while she was sipping from her latte. There were a bit of the creamy foam on her upper lip. She liked it before she continued.

"Well, they would not realize that" said she, turning her eyes away. Not to anything in particular, simply away.

"What?"

"You see, what they provide has to be strictly anonymous. I do no know them, and they do not know me. There is no check-in desk in the Cell." she said. "And the experience must be involuntary and exactly like real, otherwise it makes no sense to do it. It is expected the victim--I mean, the customer--would say 'no', or come up with the weirdest of excuses. It is expected they would cry, kick and even bite--that is the role of the victim. They are there to deliver what they were paid for--purposefully DESPITE your protests. That is how it always is. Some women lie, some bargain, some threaten, but we all fight. When it comes, you are terrified to get what you wanted, so badly" she said, "but there must be no way out once it starts. The more you fight them, the more realistic things become. It gives you a rush that you cannot even imagine. You can try to prepare as thoroughly as you like, but it is worthless. Being there, subjected to your own fantasies that you cannot escape, that is a feeling like none other."

I felt a strange shivering sensation all around my body, like if my skin was shrinking on me, on the back of my neck, and forearms, everywhere. And I was--once again--no longer sure that what I was experiencing was reality.

I must have been quiet for some time, still trying to wrap my head around of what I have just heard. Then, she went on:

"Now, you know it all, and you certainly understand" said the Lady, while standing off the table and taking her coat from the hanger, "that I could have saved myself all this personal confession, if I simply let the van go...", she continued, sliding her hands into the sleeves one after another. "With you in it," she added and looked at me directly. Her words caused a spasm over my whole body that was a sturdy as a piece of wood, the whole world become even more distant, more blurry, and totally out of reach. And while I felt like slowly diving into a mud pit of helplessness and despair, she stood there looking at me.

"I would not get my money back either way," she continued, "they would not know or care who you are, and you would be back home by Sunday evening". She was now towering over me. But I was stuck to my chair unable to stand up, move or even speak. She waited, anticipating some response, but none come out of my mouth.

"I got you out, and you will not say a word of what have happened today. You never saw me, I never met you, and you certainly never ever heard of them. Trust me, it would be better that way." she said with a fake, caring smile, tilting her head to a side again. "For you!" she added, eventually.

The lady passed me the bag I was waiting for the entire evening. However, my hands was unable to grasp it. It have simply dropped in my lap and sat there. I watched her walking away from our table, away from me, and away from my life. It was becoming clear to me with every step she made, and the further she were, the more obvious it was. She put a bill on top of the bar in front of the waiter, glanced my way for the last time and then left the coffee. I was looking in the direction that she has disappeared from my sight. I was sitting there all stiff, until the door--with a sound of the little bell on the top--shut close.