Nikolai was the first to be taken, his sudden expression of horror mirroring perfectly the look on Barbara's face in the moment before he killed her. The premature relief at being safely out of the bitterly cold water replaced with shock as a black eel, if that's what it was, snared an ankle and dragged him backwards. More eels coiled about his limbs as he splashed into the water, and his terrified scream was cut short as another plunged into his open mouth. Perhaps I imagined it, but as the swarm of eels dragged him through the water and into the impenetrable darkness, I'm sure I saw a thick, black shape penetrating his momentarily exposed ass.
It seemed a fitting end for such a psychopath and rapist. Barbara would have approved. Had I not been frozen with fear, imagining a similar horrific fate for myself, I'm sure I would have rejoiced - secretly.
I had been the first in that river, the first to feel those slimy, sinuous creatures winding about me as I swam towards the light. The first to feel their sharp teeth catching and tearing at my clothes until there was nothing between my skin and their slithering caresses. The first to crawl out onto the safety of dry land, naked and shivering violently, while one by one the men joined me, cursing and raging.
Our clothes were gone. Our packs, and our shoes, and everything save our living flesh - and in Nikolai's case, that too. Only one other thing survived, clutched fiercely in Dmitry's hand, and that was the treasure map, the ancient parchment that had led us to this evil place.
*
I had been Dmitry's girlfriend for ten months, which was ten months too long. One night, tipsy and lighthearted after few drinks of celebration with my friends, I had allowed myself to be seduced by a handsome and passionate stranger, one thing leading to another. After all, it's difficult not to be curious about a semi-mythical, spacious multi-million-pound apartment overlooking the river.
Breathtaking indeed. Anyone south of the river with a telescope could have watched our lovemaking. He had a disappointingly small cock, but what Dmitry lacked in length and girth, he made up for with vigour and stamina - and at that initial encounter, at least, I enjoyed his dominant attitude, as well as the slightly exhibitionist nature of our activities.
The following morning it became rapidly clear, however, that I was unwary fly caught in a spider's web. That Dmitry's word was law, and my consent an irrelevance. He was the English-born son of a Russian mafia boss and I was his new possession, his 'English Rose', quite literally. My choice, put simply, was to submit to his rule, or else.
The curse of being beautiful is that you get noticed by the wrong people, and they expect you to be always beautiful. They are happy to give you whatever you need, just so long as what you need is for them. Over the months, I spent a fortune in beauty salons and a fortune on designer clothes, but I would have given it all up in an instant - were I not sure that my family would suffer for it. My mother. My father. My little sister, Sara, who was about to get married.
My life as sex slave and mafia girlfriend was not, after all, so bad. Not compared to some. This is a fucked up world. We don't all get to be free.
And the sex itself was okay. My cries of ecstasy may have been mostly feigned, but I'd be lying if I claimed to derive no pleasure from his use of me. If nothing else, it was a pleasant distraction from the hell of my life.
*
"Nikolai!" they shouted, a safe distance from the water's edge. Clearly none dared to swim to his rescue. "Nikolai!"
But no answer came, and bitter arguments broke out, the five Turks shouting in Turkish, Dmitry and the others in Russian, interspersed with English. "This place is cursed!" they cried. "We're trapped! We can't go back!" They pointed at the dark tunnel where the black water of the eel-infested stream emerged with deathly silence. If there was a matching exit, it was hidden beneath the calm surface of the pool.
It was an almost comical sight, nine naked men arguing and gesticulating, their hands waving occasionally to brush away the fireflies that were the source of light in the cave, and perhaps the heat too, for despite our nakedness it was comfortably warm. Thousands of the insects danced above our heads, some drifting down occasionally as if curious about the human interlopers.
A firefly landed on my arm and I brushed it away, though my skin tingled in its wake. And another, and another, until it seemed I was tingling all over, and not just on the outside.
The arguments around me trailed off as the nine men stared at each other in some embarrassment. Every one of them sported an erection, and very soon every one of those nine cocks was pointed at me. I could hardly blame them. My clit was throbbing with an intensity I hadn't experienced in months. My nipples were swollen and desperate to be touched, and it took all my self-restraint to keep my hands firmly by my sides.
Dmitry grabbed my arm with brutal strength and dragged me away from the others. "This way," he said. Until that moment, I hadn't noticed the marble-framed doorway in the shadows behind us.
*
Dmitry's physical inadequacy made him obsessed with artificial means of sexual empowerment. He tried so many different pills, and obscure folk medicines and magical nonsense from around the world, all of which meant we had a lot of sex, but his dissatisfaction was endless. He craved to be admired. To be a sex god. But even though he could order me to blow him even in the midst of a roomful of strangers, to prove his power and virility, he couldn't erase completely their subtle amusement at his shortcoming.
He had one obsession. A map, on parchment, with writing in some ancient language that he had had translated and that suggested a treasure not of gold and silver but of sexual divinity. The path it outlined was guarded by monsters with human features, and humans with monstrous features, and the whole thing was so utterly absurd that it had to be a joke.
But it wasn't a joke for Dmitry. A dozen experts studied it for clues, until one tentatively identified a valley in the mountains near İzmir. Dmitry took it as a certainty, and one week later we were there, camping high above the mortal world, seeking clues to a divinity.
I was the only woman in the party, there being four of Dmitry's men from London to help out, and five locals who spoke English reasonably and who knew the mountains well.
We searched for four days, and were on the verge of giving up when I discovered the cave. It wasn't really visible from outside - or rather it seemed like no more than a shallow hole that might be the den of some wild animal, but when I poked around inside, more out of boredom than curiosity, I perceived a much deeper, darker interior, the atmosphere within cool and damp against my skin. Eerily silent too, save for my own breathing, and, somewhere, a solitary drip.
*
The doorway led into a circular chamber with a domed ceiling, lit as before by a cloud of fireflies. There were no other exits, and no furniture or decorations of any sort, except for an unusually shaped table in the centre. Between the shape and silence of the place, it felt almost like a church. We spoke in whispers as we crowded around, studying the curves and depressions of the altar-like table.
It was obvious what it was. The contours were a perfect match for me, from neck to waist. With a nasty chuckle, Dmitry bent me over the altar, pushing down until the cold stone hugged every inch of my front. Like a key in a lock. I think I even felt the click as reality turned around me.
