5 Dangerous Times and I

After riding down the street for ten minutes I see a Chinese bakery where paper lanterns hung in front of the windows. I secured my bike to a pole in front of the bakery. The doors open and out steps a young girl nibbles on a cake while the young man holding her small hand smiles proudly. I can smell the fresh pastries although the door opened and closed very quickly.

"Stella, can I have a taste?" The girl looked up at the man and offered, without hesitation, the bitten pastry in her hand. The man carefully sunk his teeth in, taking just enough so that he does not take too much of the cream inside the bread. He laughed like Santa Claus and the little girl giggles. "Let's hurry and go home to mommy. She would love the things you get her."

The tall man bent down to adjust the girl's sun hat. I stood at the pole, trapped by the moving scene that had just unraveled before my eyes. I quickly wrote down what just happened so I can use the moment as a reference for my personal project. I could not help but to remember all the good days when my parents were still happy just like Stella's family.

These days I noticed that it is getting harder and harder to maintain a family than it is to start one. I am glad my parents were happily married until my mother suddenly fell ill and passed. My father has a girlfriend but whenever I meet them I can see he still misses Mother. He misses her face, her cooking, her laugh and everything in between.

"Vivian, what are you doing here?" I look up to see which unfamiliar voice called out my name. There is a man around my age holding a piece of paper in his hands. He looked well groomed but I cannot remember whether he was a client or an acquaintance. The man lifts the paper again. "Do you remember this?"

I squint to see a very familiar piece that I created months ago. I painted the epic warrior character myself and the client paid me quite a lot for the single drawing. I assume that he has come again to ask for another commission. "It's a coincidence seeing you here! Did you like the painting?"

Suddenly, two hands clamp down on my waist which made me jump. I can feel the person breathing heavily as he forcefully dragged me away from the bakery. I tried to scream before we get off the main road but he tied a scarf around my mouth so tightly that I cannot move my jaw. He is a smart bastard, putting his hands on my waist to keep me in place and pretending to put on a scarf.

I tried to breathe slowly to avoid suffocating but if I wanted to touch his weak spot I would need to use great force. Using great force would also make me breathe heavily which is not safe when a scarf is squeezing my head into itself. Still, I looked to the side to take a glimpse of the attacker. His face, he was the client I met for the piece the other man held!

The man grinned at his accomplice, throwing him a thumbs up. His attention then returned to me but my mind started to slip away. I need to breathe! "Everything that is a coincidence is often not a coincidence. I know your little secret. Don't you dare thing you can hide yourself from me after taking so much of my money."

What is happening? I just wanted to but some bread but now I am being kidnapped by two men. Once they decided we are far enough from the busy road they loosened the scarf. I coughed until my breathing rate returned to normal. A little longer and I would have passed out from lack of oxygen and the buildup of carbon dioxide. I felt dizzy.

The man in a suit followed his partner down an alleyway. If I remember correctly, this route does not lead to the place I last saw him. The man grins darkly. "The house you went to last time was not mine. It used to belong to my girlfriend but she left it after seeing us together. Now, I am free from her and you can be mine. Of course, I must share with my bro."

"Nah, this girl isn't my type but a threesome isn't too bad. It has been a while since your girlfriend ditched you. How will you make her stay with us?" The man in front turned his head to look back at us. I tried not to wrinkle my nose in disgust but his smirk made my skin crawl. The smoke in the air turned my stomach upside down and the men were starting to truly frighten me.

I slowly reach into my pockets but the one in the suit noticed. He yanked my hand out of both pockets and gave my wrists to his friend. I squirm as I feel his hands dig around my pocket. Just a few more centimetres and he would be groping my thighs. "Stop it! It's just that my hands are cold, I wasn't trying to do anything."

"I believe you," He whispers into my ear but he still pulled out the contents of my pocket. He shook my phone in one hand and studied the sharpened pencil in the other. His eyes gleamed as he held up the drawing tool. "You could have been thinking of speed dialing someone to raise their suspicion and this pencil is also a problem. You could have stabbed me with this bad boy."

"We do not like bad girls." The younger man says wickedly. He stops in front of a hotel, produced a card from his pocket and unlocked the main door. He drags me into the red lobby that my client described during a session for discussing the warrior character.

I experienced an epiphany at that moment. The setting of the story is in this hotel. The protagonist is the warrior who in this case is the man behind me. I vaguely remember there was a powerful princess the warrior wanted to make his wife but I am in no way a princess. I am not powerful either but the man did say he knows my powers. Could he be bluffing?

I need to stay on their good side if I want to survive long enough. These two definitely need counseling if they think kidnapping a woman would instantly turn her into their object. I would never expect one of my clients would come back to hurt me. Was he mad that he offered me three hundred for that single piece?

"I laid low even though I wanted to see you everyday using the excuse of being your customer. At first I saw you as just a cool artist but you are ethereal." He pauses to push me into an elevator. His friend pressed the button going to the twenty third floor. This building is that tall? "Now that I finally have you, I am excited."

"Why are you excited?" I grit my teeth when his hands tighten around my waist. I could not contain my fear and I know he felt my trembling. The friend looks away as he pushes me up against the hand bars of the elevator. In one day I met two sociopaths, I am lucky! "You are hurting me."

"Good," He loosened his hold on me but still pushes me against the wall. The numbers were going up too slowly! "That is more like it. Women like you should be more fragile but still be powerful. Submissive to me and ruthless to others. You are a pretty thing, Viv."

I wanted to scream but wasting my breath in this metal box is futile. No one would hear me and even if someone did, they'd rather not get involved. Why would two men live together in a hotel that is located in the middle of a dangerous zone? "Can you loosen your hold? I can barely feel my hands anymore."

The elevator dings to tell us we reached the twenty third floor. Once again I am being pushed around until we reach their room. The younger man opened the door. "We prepared our home for you. Make yourself comfortable and do not try getting of of here. What is in your tote bag?"

I finally remembered the client's name! I also met this friend of his but only once so it took a while to remember them. "Christopher? Isaac? Nothing is in my bag, really. Just a drawing tablet, a sketchbook and a pack of pencils. The necessary things for my job, you know?"

I look around the hotel room that looked like a regular apartment home. Most of the furniture and appliances were white and the living room looks normal enough. The thing that bothered me the most was that one door is opened so that I can see a wall full of my pictures and other women's pictures. This place is dangerous!

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