Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 78732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
The sooner I can get out of this mess, the better.
The woman who was so rude to me earlier and in the store is in the car with us, and I plan to corner her and demand answers the second I get a chance. She has to know where Alena is, and, at a minimum, I know she understands enough English to answer my questions.
Knowing now what I didn't know the other day when I watched the women enter this building, I know why none of them looked happy. Who would want to be here, part of a cattle call for men to pick and choose based solely on how they look for a wife? It's degrading and inhumane. I don't have a clue why anyone would put themselves through this.
The drive to the warehouse isn't long, and I breathe a sigh of relief that we're here instead of being taken someplace much farther away.
We file out of the vehicle and enter the building so quickly, that I don't even have a chance to look around and see if my car is still outside. Darkness sweeps over us as the door closes behind us, the dull thud of finality echoing down the hallway. We enter into a door to the right, and I recognize the place from yesterday. It's where Dima told me to wait after my job interview, if you can even call it that.
After only a handful of minutes in the room, another door on the far side opens and five chattering women walk inside.
It's the most animated I've ever seen any of them, and I can't help but smile when one woman waves her hand in front of her face. I can tell by the swoon in her grin and the universal sign that she's talking about a man.
"This," one of the girls says as she hands me a slinky dress. "Put on."
I look up into the always irritated eyes of the woman who I've been trying to catch alone.
"What's your problem?" I snap, standing to my full height, and still only reaching the bottom of her chin.
She shakes her head as if she's disappointed in me.
"You wear the dress for the man or we all get into trouble," she says. "It doesn't matter if you're American. You must follow the rules."
Once again she points, and I notice the sign hanging on the wall. And once again, the entire thing is in Russian.
"I don't read nor do I speak Russian," I growl. "What does it say?"
She inches closer, the upper right corner of her mouth twitching in aggravation. "It says if you go out there and take a man meant for one of us, I'll track you down and slit your fucking throat in your sleep. Now, put on the dress."
I swear I'll have a clothes-hanger-shaped bruise on my chest within the hour with how hard she shoves it into me.
I take the dress, wanting to cry as she walks away, but I straighten my spine and look around the room for the bathroom.
Several of the women who rode in the SUV with me earlier have already changed their clothes, and I see two others changing right in the middle of the room for all to see. I realize now isn't the time to get on someone else's bad side by insisting on privacy, so I strip down and change into the dress.
I can't recall a single other time in my life when I've faced such hostility. Even the masked gunman who pointed a gun in my face told me thank you after I opened the register and stepped back so he could take all the money last year. That woman hates the sight of me, and she made it very clear that she's afraid I'm going to take whatever offer of marriage she's suspecting to get.
The dress is scratchy, making my skin irritated, and the scent covering it tells me that it wasn't laundered since the last person wore it. My thought is proven correct when the women who came inside animated and excited start to undress and hang the dresses they were wearing on hangers and situate them on a rolling rack full of other clothes.
I cringe seeing the section of lingerie and count my blessing that the creep of a man out there waiting for the women to strut out with hopes that he'll pick them didn't request a little more skin.
But what the hell do I know? This could just be the flimsy dress portion of the night.
My hands are twitchy, my nerves frazzled, as another group of women leave the room, each of them transforming their faces into fake smiles a second before they exit through the far door.
It seems like half an hour that they're gone, and while that time is ticking by, the women I arrived with are standing in front of a wall of mirrors, dabbing makeup on their faces, fixing their hair, and doing their best to get their breasts to hold up in their dresses.