Page 33 of Taming Her Bears

I grasped her arms and her hands went around my wrists, tightening as she spoke. “They made us look. They said it was part of our training.” Her voice broke and her grip tightened.

I pressed closer to her on the bed, sharing her pain. I loosened her grip around my wrists and held her hands in mine. “Tell me what happened after we separated.”

She frowned and stared at her lap, then looked up with a cunning smile on her face. “Only if you’ll tell me what you were doing on a Coast Guard vessel. That’s not quite state trooper regulation.”

“I told you. I was looking for you.”

“Girlfriend, you had something going to pull that one off. ‘Fess up.”

“Okay. I’ll confess. I was falling in love.”

She looked surprised. “Well, about time. I wondered if you were ever going to get turned on by anybody. He must be a senior officer, for you to pull strings.”

“Two of them are.”

“Two of them? Now youdohave to tell me everything.”

I spent a lot of time with Rhoda over the next few days. The team had been put on shore leave, although they still had a mountain of official documenting to do that would have kept them grounded a good two weeks, anyway. This meant they spent their days between leisurely strolling around town and filling out forms on a computer.

What they weren’t allowed to do, though, was spend all their time on the boat. I made sure of this. We rented a two-bedroom suite in a hotel. There was a queen-sized bed in each room that we pushed together for one super-gigantic king size. They grumbled about not being able to feel the sway of the boat, but they really liked the sleeping arrangement. We spent long hours talking about our day and how easy it would be to just settle down and live in one spot. The last part was a fantasy, but while we were recovering, it was a pleasant one.

Rhoda began to tell me her story. As she did, I relayed it to the team. The girls had been bound by their hands and shackled together with ropes when they were transported over to the coast guard vessel. They were carried like gunny sacks, dropped to the floor of the deck. They were instructed to stand and watch as the lodge was torched. A man who they were to refer to only as “drill master” told them this was part of their training. He told them they had no hope. There was nothing left behind of who they were and where they came from.

Rhoda was placed in seamen’s quarters with two other girls. They each had a bunk, and there was a toilet and shower. Three times a day, the guards came and took them to the galley for a communal meal. Three hours a day, they went through training under the drill master.

The drill master was medium height, but very box-shouldered, with a thick double-chin and a scar near his left eye. “Oh, I killed him,” volunteered Lee, interrupting.

“Did you really?” I asked, pausing in my story. He was laying with his head in my lap, with Darkhorse on the other side, both looking up at me as expectantly as children.

“Yeah, he looked like a nasty sort and he was crew, so…” He shrugged.

I adored everything about Lee, from his short ponytail to his playful spirit, but what I loved most was his candidness. He was as artless as a child. I rested a hand on his head as I continued. “The drill master worked on breaking them down. The girls never knew what hour of the day the drill master would come in, or which girl he would choose first for training. He only took one at a time. He would pair her with one of the other girls, but never the same one twice. When he would come for one, he would put a shock collar around her neck and lead her out with a leash.”

A submerged rumble started in Josh’s chest and spread to the others. “If you’re going to turn into bears,” I warned. “I won’t finish telling you the story.”

Josh grumbled but battered a pillow, then plopped it close to my head so he could snuggle his brow next to mine. I gave him a kiss and continued.

The drill master had turned the ready room into a private theater. Two tables had been pushed together to make a stage, with the deck chairs gathered around it. Disco music played in the background.

The seat closest to the table was the captain’s plush armchair, pulled from his cabin. The drill master flopped down in the deep cushions and swung a leg over one arm while the crew members filled the deck chairs. Rhoda recounted her first training session. She and another girl she had not seen before were made to get up on the table. “Dance,” commanded the drill master, and Rhoda tried moving to the feverish beat. An electric shot jolted her, like the unexpected shock of touching a live circuit. “Dance better. Do man hump.”

She tried again. The drill master grunted and pointed to the other girl. “You. Take off her clothes. Dancing. Man hump.”

They did the bump and grind, the strange girl slowly pulling Rhoda’s sweater up over her head, revealing her black-lace bra. One of the viewers cheered, “Take it off!” The girl unsnapped it from behind, letting the fabric fall to the floor. The audience demanded the girls peel away each other’s clothes, item by item, while dancing provocatively to the music. When they had stripped, Rhoda was ordered, “Kiss her.” Rhoda kissed the other girl hesitantly on the lips.

The drill master leaped up on the table, grabbed Rhoda by the hair with one hand, and by the tit with the other, stretching them both as far as they would go. He squeezed the nipple. “Are you hot, yet? Are you hot?” He grabbed the other girl’s breasts. “Do these look hot?” He squeezed them until she cried out. “Be hot!” he warned the two menacingly. “Be hot!”

She kissed the girl again, this time, open-mouthed. “Finger her! Kiss her breasts.” Swaying to the rhythm, Rhoda sucked and kissed at the girl’s breasts, while her fingers slid inside the girl’s crotch, massaging her moistening clit. The girl moaned and threw her head back involuntarily to the cheers of her audience.

During their days on ship, the girls were electro-shocked, their breasts pinched, and their hair pulled, but no physical marks were ever left. They were forced to give blow jobs and to dance erotically on stage, but they weren’t fucked by the crew. The day before they docked at McCarthy’s lodge, one of the girls rebelled. While going down on a crew member, she bit his shaft so hard, it bled. He howled, grasping his wounded dick, leapt to his feet and kicked her. When the drill master saw what she had done, he ordered all the girls out on deck and dragged the poor child to the center.

“This is what happens to willful disobedience,” he announced, then wrapped his leather belt in his hand and punched her in the face. When she went down, one of the crew kicked her. Another joined in. They kept kicking her until there was nothing left but a mass of blood and tissue. They rolled her up in a blanket and threw her overboard.

There was a long silence in the room when I finished. All four of the boys were curled up so close, I couldn’t tell if they were trying to comfort me or if I was supposed to be comforting them. I wasn’t quite ready to get Rhoda’s suffering out of my head, though. “They were made to watch Amy’s rape, you know. I’m glad this will never come to trial. They never want to relive it.”

Josh made a sound somewhere between a dry chuckle and a growl. “With Denisovich and the girls safe, Russia will be distancing itself from any knowledge of wrong-doing as fast as it can. We may have dumped a nightmare on Canada’s lap, but we saved them from a nightmare more horrible than they can imagine.”

I murmured close to his ear. “Rhoda thinks Denisovich and his men deserved what they got. She’s very grateful.”

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