Chapter 1

New York City was in one of its cantankerous moods. There was a cold late winter rain falling hard against the hotel window, and the room's heater fought a valiant but losing battle to keep the rain's relentless cold from penetrating the room. There is just something about the City being at sea level and between two great rivers that brings out the worst in the rains.

The rain swirled in circles around the tall buildings which stood at attention above the narrow streets. As if a rational being, the rain sought the corners and hiding places of the City's homeless. The poorer people of the street tried as they could to huddle under protective cardboard sheets while the few, less unfortunate found sheets of plastic under which to hide. Being homeless in New York City, as in every large city, was brutal on a warm summer day, but when the Big Apple wallowed in an attitude, it was pure hell.

The relentless traffic and sirens that were the symphony of the great city could be heard through the noise of the rain. The horns of taxies and cars competed with the screech of brakes of the never-ending flow of trucks and busses to be heard over the solid noise of life. The flutter of pigeons and their fellow wildlife hid just below the patter of the rain and joined the rhythm of being.

These sounds blended together to say, "Hear me! I am the Voice of the City. I was here before there was a country, and I'll be here after it is gone. I am New York, the City. I am the entity known as Manhattan. Listen to the life that is. Breathe my life. Share my strength. Become part of my soul. I am New York, the City. I am the living soul known as Manhattan. Give to me a part of your being, and you will become a part of eternity. I am New York, the City. I am the being known as Manhattan. Hear me now! Hear me well. Hear me, my children, for I am the sum knowledge of countless generations of the world's lost and oppressed. I am Manhattan. I am New York, the City."

Sasha shook off the feel of the City invading her thoughts. She looked about the bathroom as she washed her hands and adjusted the sheer red teddy that she had been forced to display for the CEO of the large German electrical firm that had just bought her company. She adjusted her waist long blond hair so that it covered the sleek lines of her neck and one modest but well-defined breast on one side but left the other side virtually exposed.

She could feel her milky white skin shiver as the cold reached into her to remove her inner store of warmth. The cold was exaggerated by the fear she felt for the man in the other room. She fought with herself to suppress that fear. As she looked at herself in the new mirror recessed into the bathroom's tiles, she kept telling herself she could do this. It was only sex. It would be OK. She could do this.

The hotel had a charming mix of old fashion bedroom and living room with sparkling new bath fixtures and light gray walls. The walls were offset with dark gray linens that matched the window dressings and bed coverings of the rest of the suit.

The off-white walls of the other rooms seemed to close in on her as she forced herself to leave the relative security of the bathroom. She focused on the deep walnut of the windows, doorframes, and baseboards. She wanted to think of anything but what she was about to do. The living room was a large room with a formal dining room set, a dark gray couch and matching chair. The new carpet wrapped around Sasha's bare feet as she left the bathroom.

Setting on the gray couch was a short overweight bald man with a cigarette held between the two center fingers of his right hand. His bare chest drooped over his white boxer shorts as he blew a cloud of blue smoke into the room. His face was sprouting a two-day growth of beard and there was an unpleasant smell coming from his unwashed body. She sighed as she remembered how she had gotten into the mess she was in now.

The economy was in bad enough shape to create serious financial problems for her old line manufacturing company. The German company had been able to pick up her company for less than 50% of it's book value, and starting breaking it up and selling off the pieces. Massive layoffs were the results. Sasha had had ten years with the company and had worked her way into middle management with only an associate's degree from a local community college. She had proven that hard work and common sense was worth more than the MBA that the job description called for.

She proved it, that is, until the new German company started to micromanage the only profitable division of the old company. The formal structure of the Germans did not allow for women to be in positions of authority. So when they found that she did not fit the job description, they found a way around the anti-discrimination laws of New York State.

Sasha was called into the office, and was offered a choice. She could become an executive assistant to the new American Division president for 50% of her former pay, or she could be unemployed. The decision had to be made in 24 hours. She checked with other managers who had lost their jobs, and found out there were no good prospects for jobs at her level. She decided to take the assistant's job until she could find something else.

What she found out was that the Germans did not want her there at all. They gave her every trash job in the company, and constantly found fault with her work. They literally set her up to be fired so they would not have to pay unemployment and severance benefits.

Frustrated, she finally confronted the US affiliate's president and was offered a startling proposal. Many of the new company's top management were to make trips to the States in order to examine US operations. If she were to act as tour guide and "entertainment escort" for the visiting bigwigs, she would be allowed to keep her job and receive under the table tax-free bonuses that could add up to her old salary.

Sasha was stunned. She was alone with no money in New York City, and couldn't depend on her family to take her back. When she left the farm and the arranged marriage to the local minister, her family had cut all ties. She had no contact with them since she was eighteen. At twenty-eight years of age, she was totally alone and lost. That the proposition was illegal made no difference. She did not believe she had any way to fight the system, so she gave in.

Her first assignment was the CEO of the company, and he was now waiting for her on the couch. She was really quite scared of this man. When she had entered the room, the man asked her to remove her coat and talk. She did, and the conversation started out pleasantly enough. He had offered her wine and she had accepted. The conversation finally came around the man's family history.

His father had been an SS officer who was hung at Nuremberg. He hated Americans because of his father's death. He became more agitated as he told her about the humiliation his family went through. He became so upset with Sasha when she defended her country's right to try human butchers at Nuremberg that he grabbed the front of her clothes and ripped off the delicate shirt and bra that had cost her a week's pay. He had given her the teddy to replace the torn clothes with an insincere apology, but Sasha truly feared for her life if he learned of her mother's Jewish background.

The hotel room had DVD players in the living room and bedroom. Each unit showed a different porno movie set for continuous play. The movie in the living room showed a young woman on her knees before a large man providing him oral satisfaction.

"Come, my dear," he demanded in a heavy accent. "I am sorry about your clothes, but sometimes when I think of what you Jews did to my father, I lose control. See that? This is what I want you to do for me. I want it NOW!"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Wagner," she meekly replied. 'Oh God, ' she thought. 'How did he know I'm Jewish?' As thoughts of living with New York's street people filled her mind, she lowered herself to her knees and reached for his shorts.

"Wait," he said. "I want you to kiss me first. I want to feel your body. You should wear red all the time. What do you Americans call it? A whore's color? Yes, that is what you will become. You will be my American Jew whore."

Sasha moved to his lap and placed an arm around him. When her lips met his, he pushed his tongue into her mouth. She immediately tasted the foulness of his breath and mouth. The taste of stale beer and cigarettes was overpowering. She fought the revulsion she felt and tried not to get sick. A blowjob had to be better than tasting his foul mouth. She tried to move back to her knees, but he stopped her.

"I know American women are all sluts, and that you whores like to use your mouths for sex, but you are not through here yet."

The young woman tried to push the presence of the man's rotten taste from her mind and move her consciousness to some other better place, but the rankness would not allow her mind to leave. She suffered on as she tried to return the man's affections.

Suddenly the man stopped kissing her and pushed her to her feet. With no warning, he grasped the front of her teddy, and tore it off her body. Now totally nude, she screamed in fear. He suddenly stood and grabbed her by her long blond hair. As he pulled her into the bedroom, he grew more belligerent.

"If you want to keep your job, you had better improve your performance. I am not impressed. I can get better service out of some black whore in Times Square. I was told you are the best. I was told wrong! I want you to look at this. If you do not improve, this could happen to you."

"You can't treat me like this. It's against the law!"

The German laughed. "I can treat you any way I like. You are nothing. I could lift my little finger and you would be gone off the face of the earth. Even if I were to die here, you would die with me. I plan on taking my treasures to the afterlife with me, and when you walked through the hotel door, you became mine. Now, see your fate if you do not please me."

The bedroom TV showed a young naked woman tied to a standing x bracket. Her hands were tied to the x with what looked like duct tape. Her feet looked as if they were affixed to the x with large spikes. She was screaming in pain and begging for mercy. A large man with a black hood over his face placed the sharp end of another spike to the palm of her left hand.

The girl screamed, "No! Please, no! My God, please have mercy!"

The man looked at her and said in a South African accent, "You Jew bitch! I do not listen to scum like you."

"But I'm not Jewish!" screamed the girl.

"All American women are Jew's, Jew lovers, or Niger lovers. Tramps like you must be eliminated, but I want you to please me first."

"Please, what ever you want. I will do anything for you. Please no more."

"I know you will do what I want. You will die."

With that he hit the spike with a large mallet, and drove it through her hand. Another two or three blows, and the spike was secured into the wooden X. The girl screamed again and passed out. Without comment, the hooded man threw a bucket of water on the girl, and she started to cough, sputter, and regain consciences.

The poor girl was crying and pleading for the man to leave her alone, but he lifted another spike and drove it into her right hand. She passed out again, but the man left the room as her head rolled to the side.

The scene faded into blackness and the German turned off the DVD with the remote that was on the bedside night table. "You must do better than you are doing, or you will be sorry. Look over there." At the back of the room was an X cross just like the one in the video.

Sasha drew a deep breath as fear rushed through her body. "Are you saying that if I don't please you, you will do that to me?"

The German reached into the nightstand drawer and removed a spike similar to the one used in the movie. "Let's just say that more than your job depends on your performance this weekend." As he ran the point of the spike between her breasts, he said, "Now, let's try this again. Kiss me."

Sasha shuddered, took another deep breath, and reached for the head of her company. This time she pored all of her energy into the kiss and attacked his mouth with her tongue. She ran her fingers through the round crown of hair that surrounded his balding head, and crushed her well-formed breasts to the man's hairy chest.

"Much better," said the man as he pulled her so that his mouth could taste her breasts. The German tenderly sucked her nipple into his mouth and sucked in as much of her breast as he could. Suddenly his jaws clenched shut as his teeth broke the tinder skin of her tit. Sasha screamed and pulled back, but that made matters worse as his teeth tore the soft skin and hung onto her nipple.

The German hit her across the face and she fell off the bed. "You may want to see the rest of the video. Look!" He grasped her hair and pulled her back on the bed. He then picked up the remote and restarted the disk.

The girl was starting to regain awareness when the South African man came back into the room wearing nothing but the hood. In his hands was a tray carrying a lit candle, a bowl of ice, more spikes, a gold 2-pound sledgehammer, a dildo of enormous size and several knives of various sizes.

"Yes, you slut, you are going to die, but first, I am going to have some fun with you."

The man in the hood lifted the hammer from the tray by the hammerhead. He ran the handle from one hand up her arm, across her chest, and to the other hand. "I like hammers," the man taunted. "Do you like hammers?"

The girl tried again. "Please let me please you. I'll do anything. I'll do anything you want. Do you want to fuck me? I can be very loving if you want."

The man spit in her face. "I would not dirty myself in your filthy Jew cunt." He looked at her and then grasped the handle of the hammer and hit her wrist with all his might. A sickening crack filled the room as the girl's wrist was turned to mush. She turned white, but did not pass out. The tears of pain and fear ran down her checks as she realized she would not get out of the room alive.

"Please, no more. Please just kill me. Don't do this to me."

"Au, I will kill you, but not before you please me. Look at how excited I am." The man's erection looked so hard that it must have been painful.

He started stroking himself with one hand as he lay down the hammer and picked up the candle. With the back of the hand holding the candle he stroked the girl's nipples as he continued to stroke himself. The combination of cold air and attention her nipples were getting caused them to harden and stand out.

He looked at the girl and said, "Good!" Without another word, he turned his hand around and placed the nipple in the flame of the candle. The girl arched as much as she could to try to move from the flame. "What? You don't like the fire? Let me cool you off." The man then placed ice on the charred remains of her nipple.

At this last insult, the girl went into shock. She quite screaming and went into a trance line state. She looked at the man as if he were not there. The hooded head of the man turned to her face and he laughed. "You will not escape me so easily."

From the tray, the man removed a small thin double-edged knife. He placed the knife's tip below her throat and lightly cut a straight line to just above her pubic hair. The girl stayed in the trance as the man gently placed the tip of the knife under the skin and started to peal the skin from the flesh below it. He then lifted a pair of heavy pliers to the loose skin and brutally pulled the skin from her chest.