Page 25 of Fear and Desire

Over and over, Dan had tried to talk to Pearson about BDSM. The man had steadfastly refused to have any conversation about the topic, calling it ‘deviance.’ ‘Oh, but not you, Dan. You’re okay. It’s just those weird freaks out there, you know?’

Dan was going to have to lay it out bluntly in front of everyone and hopetheyunderstood the difference.

“‘Breaking’ means that he wants me to rape and punish her until she no longer fights back.”

“Don’t you have sex with and punish women in those weird clubs you go to?”

Dan tried not to flinch at the reminder that his private life had become very public. “As I have said before, sir, the sex and the punishments at the clubs areconsensual. The submissives agree to them ahead of time. They receive pleasure from what dominants do. The women at the Farm are not submissive. They’re just afraid.”

Pearson opened his mouth to say more, but Dan had had enough. “I’ll be happy to discuss this with youagain, another time. We need to keep moving.”

Pearson looked like he wanted to argue, but closed his mouth and nodded.

The topic turned to details of the auction and the hundreds of carefully coordinated moments they needed to plan.

Eventually, Dan looked at his watch. Time was running short. “Sir,” he said to Lawson, “I need to get back, but we need to talk about how and when to remove the women at the scene.”

“Pearson, you’ve got this all worked out, right?”

The man stood up. “Yup, all taken care of.”

Dan looked at him quizzically. “May I ask what the plan is, sir?”

“After the auction is done and the buyers have incriminated themselves, we’ll do the raid and round up the women. We’ll transport them in a van to the nearby Air Force Base—it’s about twenty-five miles. They have an unused unit in their hospital that they’re going to open up for us. We’ll get medical in there to examine them, do a rape kit and all that, and once they are medically cleared, law enforcement will come in to take their first statements. I expect they’ll be there a few days to answer all our questions, and of course, they’ll be kept in their rooms to avoid tainting testimonies. We’ll hold off notifying the families until we’re done questioning them for the same reason. Then we’ll release them after their families get here.”

Dan stared at him.

“You have a question?” Pearson asked as he sat down.

“Yes. I thought we decided not to put them through the auction?”

“We can get better evidence for convictions if we have the buyers on video actually doing the buying.”

Dan turned to the group of mostly men. “Any trauma victim experts here?” There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Why the fuck not?” He wheeled around to Pearson.

“You’re out of line,” Pearson snarled.

“And you can’t tell your ass from your elbow!”

Pearson turned an interesting shade of purple, but Dan ignored him and turned to Lawson.

“Sir, I’m really close to walking out and not going back. I’m sick to death of these women being treated only as a means to the end of arresting DeLeo. Their wellbeing appears to be really low on the list of priorities around here. From the beginning, I argued over and over that it was unconscionable to keep them captive once we discovered where they were being held. My concerns were repeatedly dismissed in the name of a ‘greater good’. The decision was made to keep them, butonlyuntil all the bad guys were in one place and were rounded up. Because of that decision, there are five women who’ve been bought and removed from our protection. The remaining twelve women believe that one of them has died, and they are barely holding on to sanity at the thought that they will all be sold and kept as sex slaves for the rest of their lives. The only reason Agent Contaldo and I agreed to keep going was that if you won’t let them go, then we are theleastof all evils for them. And as much as we’ve tried to make conditions better, the fact remains that we’ve had to do some really awful things to keep DeLeo from becoming suspicious.” Like beating the feet of the woman he loved, just this morning.

He turned back to Pearson, his voice betraying his anger. “And now you’ve unilaterally decided to let the auction actually happen? Do you haveanyidea what it will be like for them to be put naked on a stage and have strangers bid for the rights to own their bodies? Let me enlighten you. It’s something they’ll wake up with nightmares about foryears. Some of them will never recover. Some will eventually commit suicide. And if that’s not enough reason, it also mixes civilians in with the bad guys, and makes hostage-taking a real possibility.”

Pearson finally found his voice, and he opened his mouth to reply.

“Gentlemen!” Lawson’s voice cut through the tension. Pearson closed his mouth and shot a look of hatred at Dan.

“Dan, what do you recommend?” The Assistant Director’s voice had a reasonable tone.

Dan stared at Pearson in a silent challenge as he ticked off his demands on his fingers.

“First, the auction only happens as a last resortifsomething goes wrong. The plan is to have the raidbeforethe bidding starts. It’syourjob to figure out how to prosecute the buyers if they’re arrested before the auction.Sir. Two. You will have one female agent present for every woman, and she will stay with her from the moment the raid happens until they get to the hospital. Three. As soon as they’re out of the building and safe, you will give them hospital scrubs to put on. They need to have something to wear that makes them feel safe, and I suspect you didn’t think of that, or at most planned to wrap them in sheets. Fourth, they’ll gotogetherto the hospital, where they willstaytogether. They are a unified group that has gone to great lengths to help each other while captured, and each of them will need the support of the others. It wouldn’t surprise me if they all wanted to stay in the same room together, so find a place that has enough beds. Fifth. Onlyfemalemedical personnel will examine them, and only as much as they are comfortable. You will havefemaletrauma experts available. If they agree to a rape kit, fine, but you won’t find much because I make them take showers every day, and I’m very strict about using condoms each and every time.”

“You let them shower off evidence?” Pearson jumped up from his chair and snarled.

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