Chapter 11 Busted, Broken?, Abused and Used
BUSTED
Lena initially could not believe what she had heard.
"You are arresting me, Lewis."
"Yep, for violating the Free American States under God confederation law against transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. The old United States Mann Act was enacted by the Free States in its original form to cover transportation of both adult and minor females and has been interpreted to cover women who transport themselves for immoral purposes. You will recall that you flew to Oregon, drove from Oregon to Wyoming, from Wyoming to Montana and then back to Wyoming intending to commit adultery in Oregon, Wyoming, Montana and Wyoming."
"You have got to be kidding."
"Miranda warnings are not required in the Free States as a result of a decision by the Free States Constitutional Convention not to adopt the Fifth Amendment of the old U.S. Constitution and the decision of the Free States Supreme Court not to incorporate Miranda v. Arizona into Free States law. Therefore, instead of advising you of your right to remain silent, I will tell you that your future is not what you thought it would be, but it will only get worse or end soon if you don't follow orders now and shut the fuck up.
"There, down the road, I can see the vans of the lynch mob driving here. I gather it is an alliance of religious extremists that want to stone you to death and Klansmen and Brown shirt types who merely want to gang rape you and drown you in the river.
"You will have to pardon me while I go down to my car and get more firearms. In the meantime, keep your head down just on the river side of the levee and don't dream of getting away on foot. There is zero chance of getting away and a very good chance of getting killed. Oh, and don't slip down into the river here either. The river is really deep at this point and has a strong current because of the levees and control structures in the Lower Mississippi.
Huddling behind the levee out of sight, Lena heard a sporadic gunfight for the next forty minutes. She wished she could have watched but followed orders.
As it happened, while the lynch mob had nine gunmen, the nine had little training. They shot a lot and hit nothing. Killer, a highly trained soldier and sniper, could have killed half of the mob if he'd wanted, but he instead focused on taking out the mob's car tires so they could not travel after them and shooting flags and hats to embarrass the Stoners and Brownshirts.
Eventually, Lena and Killer heard a loud horn sound from the river, and several of Killer's fellow confederation agents lowered a bridge to the shore, ran out with rifles and joined Killer in firing shots calculated to show the mob that they would all be dead if the central government agents began shooting to kill. Shortly after, one of the agents shouted through a bullhorn that if the mob tried to climb the levee, they would be promptly shot to shit. The mob members decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
Killer, the other agents and Lena were soon on the boat crossing the Father of Waters to Arkansas. Too late to arrest Lena himself, Sheriff Connor Tauro and his deputies arrived from their effort to find Lena in the resort in time to tell the lynch mob to forget about trying to drive north to the nearest bridge to try to catch up with Lena in Arkansas and to go back home after getting their tires fixed.
On the Arkansas shore, Max Klug and his wife Zoe were waiting in another black Dixieland Security SUV designed to carry prisoners. Lena was handcuffed and tossed in the back seat as the SUV started for Little Rock.
Killer waved bye. He took the boat back across the river to get the SUV he had left there.
It was a very long drive to Little Rock. Lena had so many things racing through her mind. The man she thought she loved had just arrested her. She had not gotten the data from Deputy Seele that she wanted to use to expose the sheriffs and help women illegally confined on sex boats. There was a chance she might be brutally killed and a likelihood that she would spend her next 20 years or more as a breeding sex slave on a boat on or near the Mississippi, Missouri, or the Gulf of Mexico.
Lena often had missed seeing her parents for Christmas but felt overwhelmed with the reality that she might not ever see them again.
In a self-punishing stream of consciousness, Lena went over and over in her mind everything she had done wrong and wondered if there was any way to kill herself if they put her on one of those strict bondage boats where the women were used as living sex toys. She wondered if the other boats were all that much better. She cursed herself a thousand times. How could she be so stupid? The brilliant Lena Fesch got turned into a sex slave because she trusted a man she thought loved her? Was not this the plot for thousands of stories about poor girls from Romania and Bulgaria who did not know any better because they had a fraction the knowledge and experience as Lena?
Just how could she be so stupid? What else could she have done? Was there some death wish she had or a secret wish to be free from freedom? Just what could she do to keep the rest of her life, however long that went, from being a sex worker version of a "Day in the Life of Ivan Desinovich."
Finally, she had to wonder whether, somewhere in her mind, she was suicidal or wanted to be a breeding sex slave. She was 35. Maybe her biological clock had hit her in a completely outrageous manner and forgotten to tell her rational mind about it? Maybe she had always wanted to be a breeding sex toy? No, that's ridiculous.
All of the above went around and around through Lena's mind, as well as thoughts about how lucky she'd been not to be imprisoned or killed before and what a stupid, insane, rash, self-destructive person she must be even if she had not admitted it.
But no, going back the other way, what else could she have done once she knew that there was a monstrous crime that had to be exposed? But no, had not her brain somehow made up a story to justify her desire to be a sex slave or to die a heroic martyr. Had her brain been taken over by some parasite that caused her to engage in self-destructive behavior. Yes, her mind was repeating itself, but what else was there to do in the back of the SUV, feeling scared, tired and confused.
It was some relief to Lena when, about an hour and a half into the drive, Max Klug created a distraction by beginning to lecture Lena on the Free States Constitution and other subjects regarding the Free States that had suddenly become very important to her future life.
"I don't know what Killer told you," Max Klug said, "but it became clear from dispatches three days ago that the wheels were turning for the sheriffs to have you arrested for committing adultery with three guys you met in a hotel in New Orleans. The stoners somehow learned of the warrants as they were being prepared and decided that the sheriffs would want to auction you off to a boat and deprive them of the satisfaction of raping and lynching you. Killer took off to do his best to get to you before the sheriffs and the vigilantes did.
"There's already a big debate going on. The stoners want you stoned to death. The sheriffs seem focused on getting their cut of auction money while keeping you quiet. Killer and I planned ahead to make sure we could arrest you if necessary, for committing a crime against the central government law; we call it confederate law. That way, the central government in Little Rock will decide what to do with you, although theoretically, after you finish your sentence under confederate law, the sheriffs could still seek to punish you for having sex with the three guys you met in New Orleans. I doubt they'll bother, though, given how old you'll be."
"I do not suppose it matters that I never touched any of the three guys they want to charge me with fucking?" Lena said.
"Not in the least. Those guys are professional perjurers. You would be sure to be convicted and sentenced to forty or sixty years of penal servitude, depending on whether they wanted to charge you with fucking all three guys. With time off for good behaviour, you'd be out in 20 or 30 years, although we don't really know as the country hasn't been around for so long. Conceivably, the sheriffs might just turn you over to the vigilantes if they think you've embarrassed them.
"Everything is still up in the air, though. I wouldn't plan on being home for Christmas before Christmas 2065 if that. In the meantime, Zoe and I have an idea for taking your mind off your troubles for a few minutes."
Klug drove off the road and pulled the SUV into the parking lot of an abandoned motel off what was once US 40 but had become FS 1. "Me and Zoe have been thinking that you must be awful tense back there, not knowing whether you'll even be alive another month and Zoe really wants to have you suck her clit while I do you doggy style. I'd ask you if you wanted to participate, but I don't really care."
"I guess I do not really mind, given all the circumstances," Lena said. "But are you not putting your wife in jeopardy of being convicted of sodomy and sent to a sex boat for 20 years."
"No," Klug said, "for two reasons. First, we aren't going to get caught. Second, Zoe, as your husband, lord, and master, I am hereby ordering you to take off your dress, bra and panties and to spread your legs in the back of this vehicle in order to enable Lena to get her head right behind your thighs. A woman can't get into trouble just for doing what her husband says she should.
 
                             
                         
                         
                         
                         
                         
                                 
                                 
                                 
                                