Chapter One
While I was sitting with my father in a chic and luxurious restaurant, in front of the most delicious appetizers, my father said with hesitation:
"Julie, I forgot an important file, I'll be right back."
I nodded my head and watched him walk through the door. I was perplexed as to the reason for our presence here; what kind of transactions could my father possibly be concluding in such a place?
After a while, a tall, Black man of strong build, dressed in a black suit and black glasses, arrived. He looked like a guard—I guessed it from the earpiece and the wire hanging from it—and he said:
"Hello Miss Julie, your father is waiting for you downstairs."
I said to him without understanding:
"What? Is there another floor downstairs?"
He replied:
"Yes, let's go, come with me."
I stood up, full of doubt; I had seen my father leave, and now this man was telling me he was downstairs! Had I not noticed him when he entered?
He led me to the basement of the restaurant via stairs, then by an elevator that went even lower, and there was a hallway ending in a door with a secret code. There, I realized that all of this was not normal; it certainly could not be a restaurant. I stopped dead and said:
"I don't want to go see my father now, tell him I feel unwell and that I must go back up."
The guard gripped my arm, saying:
"But your father requested that you come down to see him."
I told him, trying to remain firm before him:
"But I don't feel well, I'm going back up now."
The guard seized me from behind, lifted me up, and forced me through that door while I screamed like a madwoman:
"Let me go, you bastard! What are you doing? Are you crazy?"
All my screams met only silence. I saw myself a prisoner in his arms, unable to escape him. He carried me with his iron grip while walking through a very long corridor, which stretched out as if it would never end, its walls covered in dark velvety wood, from which hung dimmed crystal chandeliers diffusing a pale golden light. Along both sides, there were enormous doors that did not bear numbers, but mysterious golden symbols.
At the end of the corridor, there were stairs leading upwards. He climbed them and we arrived at the most imposing door of all. It differed from the others by its luxury and prestige. The door opened to reveal an unparalleled office; its space was vast, centered by a black marble desk, and behind it, an immense glass wall that did not look outside, but served as an aquarium containing small sharks swimming coldly.
Despite my desperate attempts to escape, the guard's grip was like iron chains. He threw me inside this luxurious office; I stumbled and fell to my knees on the carpet, which was of a provocative softness.
The enormous leather armchair swiveled slowly. My father was not there... but there was a man who radiated influence, holding a costly cigar between his fingers, his eyes examining me coldly like someone inspecting a work of art he had just purchased at an auction.
He rose slowly from his seat, of an imposing height and an incredible broad build that made his white shirt appear strained as if it were going to tear at his massive shoulders. His black hair, carefully slicked back, emphasized the features of his face of a terrifying beauty; a wide and chiseled jaw, a straight nose, and eyes as black as two pieces of burning coal, piercing the soul with a ruthless coldness. He embodied strength in its purest form, a cruel beauty that did not make the heart beat with love, but made it tremble with terror. It seemed to me, as he stood there, that the room shrank by his presence. His steps were calm and measured, and with every step he took toward me, I felt the air pressure increase around my chest. But I was too strong to be afraid of him, so I said to him:
"Where is my father? And who are you? And why did your stupid guard force me in here?"
He stopped directly in front of me, and his disproportionate height forced me to tilt my head completely back to be able to see his face. He placed his hand in the pocket of his luxurious fabric trousers, while he stretched out the other hand to brush my chin with the tip of his finger, looking at me with that possessive gaze that examines rare merchandise.
"So... it's you, Julie,"
he said in a heavy, deep voice, a voice that made the walls of my terrified heart vibrate.
"Your father did not lie when he described you as a jewel... but he didn't tell me you were so small and so weak."
I was in shock. Why was my father saying these kinds of things about me to this stranger? I said to him, looking into those deep eyes:
"Listen to me, I want to get out of here now! Tell your bastard guard to let me go immediately. Do you know what this is called? It's kidnapping, and it's punished by law."
He burst into a powerful laugh that made the walls of the office resonate and said:
"Oh, little Julie, you don't know that your father sold you to me."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing, no, it's impossible! Even if I know that my father doesn't love me like other fathers love their children, he certainly doesn't hate me enough to do this to me. I replied to him in denial:
"My father would never do that to me, I trust him! You want to lock me up here, but he knows I'm here and he will call the police."
I saw him smile his frightening smile; he turned toward his desk, took a small remote control, and turned on the television where my father appeared, sitting in this same office with this man, saying:
"My daughter's name is Julie, she is 18 years old, she is a white girl, tall and slender, she has long brown hair and green eyes. Her beauty is indescribable, and what will catch your attention is that she is still a virgin and pure, no one has ever touched her before. Take her, she is yours, and thus I will pay my debts to you, Mr. Robert."
The television screen went black and the image of my father, who was selling me and negotiating my price as if I were merchandise, disappeared. The whole world collapsed at that moment, and I remained standing by a miracle. He said in his raspy voice:
"You are my merchandise now, Julie, and tomorrow you will be sold to an important client. I am sure many clients will scramble to have you."
I was in another world, my body was incapable of the slightest reaction, as if it no longer belonged to me, and in truth, it didn't. Then he slowly raised his hand and signaled the guard to leave. The guard took me by the hand to lead me out; I walked with him as if I were under hypnosis. This could not be real; I must certainly still be sleeping in my room and this was only a nightmare.
We went down the stairs and walked again through that long corridor. There was a totally different life beneath this restaurant. We stopped in front of one of the doors; he opened it and made me enter. The room was totally dark at first, until the guard turned on a small flashlight to find the switch. The darkness dissipated to give way to a cold white light that revealed a velvet cell; a luxurious room but without windows, with soundproof walls, and a large bed in the center covered in black silk.
The guard closed the door behind him with force, and I heard the sound of the electronic lock engage: "Tick." That sound was the official announcement of the end of my previous life.
I collapsed to the floor; I could no longer feel my legs. My father's words in the video echoed in my ears like deafening screams: "Take her, she is yours... I will pay my debts." How could my own flesh and blood transform me into a currency to pay the price of a gambling game or suspicious transactions? Had all those years of emotional coldness been a preparation for this moment? Had he planned to sell me at the first opportunity? I drowned in many thoughts, going as far as telling myself that perhaps he had only fathered me to trade in my body. I remembered how he always asked me if I had a boyfriend or not; I had always found his questions strange, especially since he wasn't interested in anything—not my studies, nor my health—he only wanted to know if I was seeing someone.
My mind began to burn with these ideas until I arrived at the thought that perhaps I wasn't even his daughter; my brain could not conceive that such a bad father exists.
I stayed there, thrown on the floor for hours; I waited for the moment when I would wake up, but in vain. I slapped myself violently.
"Julie, wake up! This isn't a dream!"
I got up and started feeling the walls, looking for an exit, a flaw, any sharp object. But the room was designed with terrifying professionalism; no sharp angles, no breakable handles, even the chandelier was too high.
There was a large television screen hanging and a wardrobe filled with shiny, expensive dresses, and they were all my size; even the shoes were my size. Yes, this place had been designed specifically for me for a long time.
There was an immense mirror on the wall; I stood before it to see my shattered reflection. There was a table with all sorts of luxury perfumes and makeup that I had never seen in my life. It was a royal suite where everything was placed with care.
I headed toward that cursed door to pound with all my strength; I screamed with all my voice:
"Get me out of here, you animals! Let me go! Let me go!"
After minutes of continuous screaming, I realized that what I was doing was useless, so I stopped and went back to look at myself in the mirror. I saw a girl wearing simple jeans and a pink t-shirt that her father had bought her only a few days ago, and I repeated to myself internally:
"Julie, you will not be merchandise!"
I seized the small stool that was next to the vanity and struck that mirror so that it would break and its shards would fly across the room, then with the same stool, I smashed that giant screen and overturned that table filled with perfumes and beauty products. I transformed that calm and orderly room into a fierce battlefield. A different security guard from the first one entered; he shouted in my face:
"Stop, you bitch!"
I hit him in the head with the stool, but he was like a monster, insensitive; he approached me quickly and dealt me a powerful punch to the face that threw me to the ground