Chapter 275 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“Of course. By now you should know that I wouldn’t ask you to take on a job without being sure of the client,” her boss pointed out.

“Sure. I still need to rest though. When is this party holding? And where?” Brandy asked as she got off the bed.

“Well, he said it’s tonight. He will send a car for you girls by 8 PM.”

“No. I’d rather he gives us an address and we find our way there than he sends a car to pick us up. That is too risky and you know it,” Brandy protested as she went to stand in front of the mirror to check out her appearance.

“He is paying a lot of money, Brandy. And you know that the rich customers are ALWAYS right. I think the client is very wealthy and he has trust issues. So he doesn’t want you knowing the venue,” her boss said reasonably.

Although Brandy was not convinced, she knew better than to argue with him, “Fine. I will be there. But know that I’m taking seventy percent of this money. It’s either that or I’m not in,” Brandy bargained.

“Seventy percent? Come on! How do you go from receiving forty percent to seventy?” He complained.

“Okay, I need to rest. Get someone else,” Brandy said dismissively.

“Okay, I will give you forty-five percent,” he rushed to stop her before she could hang up.

“I’m not kidding, Joey. It’s either seventy or nothing.”

“Fifty percent?” He asked, wondering why she was being so unnecessarily greedy.

“Get someone else to do the job.”

“Come on, Brandy.”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it? You said he doubled the pay because he wanted me. I get to keep the extra money. Why is that a problem?” Brandy asked reasonably.

“Fine, what about you keep sixty percent and I take forty?” He pleaded greedily.

“Fine. You can keep thirty-five percent. That’s how high I can go. If you have a problem with it, get someone else.”

“Fine. I will send you the money. Make sure you are here before the time,” he ordered before hanging up the call.

Brandy smiled to herself, pleased with her bargaining skills as she pulled out the last drawer on the dressing table and took out a notebook and a pen. She jotted down the amount of money she was expecting for this job and summed it up with the rest of her savings. She needed to save up enough money for her studio sessions. She wasn’t planning on continuing in this line of job forever, especially not now that Candace was working hard to become a lawyer. She also needed to do something worthwhile with her life so she wouldn’t be a source of embarrassment to either her sister or her nephew.

Once she closed the notebook, she returned it into the drawer and her eyes fell on the jewelry box that Matt had gifted her. He had returned to see her the next day after sending off Candace and Jamal, and he had brought her the gift. She was meant to wear the earrings and necklace whenever she was going out, as it would not only enable them to track her at all times but would also record whatever was happening around her.

Thus far she had been very reluctant to wear it to the club since she didn’t want to violate the club’s laws, but seeing as she was going to work for someone she didn’t know at an undisclosed location, she thought it wise to use the jewelry tonight, so she took out the jewelry box before closing the drawer.

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“My parents didn’t have a problem with me having a boyfriend. It was Jamie who didn’t let any guy come close to me.”

“Jamie? Do you mean Sonia’s half-brother? The one who always treated you like you didn’t exist? How so?” Alicia asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

“That is the crazy thing,” Celsie said with a sigh, as she started recounting all she had told Benne regarding how she and Sonia had discovered Jamie’s obsession with her.

“Hold on! You mean he threatened and beat up any guy who showed any interest in you even though he completely ignored you whenever he saw you?” Alicia asked in disbelief.

“Crazy, isn’t it? How each of these guys had stayed away from me thinking he was my boyfriend. I would never have known had I not confronted the last guy,” Celsie said with a shake of her head.

“But why? Why would he do that? And how did he find out about all these guys? It’s not like he was your classmate or something,” Alicia asked in confusion.

Sonia decided to respond this time, “I still can’t understand why he never said anything and had to do all of that. So we can’t tell why, other than the only logical reason that he was crazy and was obsessed without her. We tried to figure out how he could have known about all these guys that approached Celsie, and we discovered that he set up a camera in my room,” Sonia said with a shake of her head, as though she still couldn’t believe that Jamie had done that.

“What? A camera in your bedroom?” Alicia asked in horror, while Bryan listened with utter disbelief.

Both Sonia and Celsie nodded. Sonia turned to look at Celsie, “I’m sorry,” she murmured, not sure she could ever forget the look of shock and horror on Celsie’s face that day when they saw the pictures and videos which Jamie had compiled.

“You mean he had pictures of you? He set up a camera in your bedroom?” Alicia asked, still trying to get past the surprise. Although it had creeped her out earlier when she read about it in the articles on Twitter, hearing it directly from both ladies was even more horrible.

“Yes. We searched his bedroom and saw several nude pictures and videos he had of Celsie in his system. Not all the pictures were taken from my bedroom. Some of them were taken without Celsie’s knowledge while she was going about her normal daily activities. I always wondered why he refused to move out of the house after he started college. But I guess he didn’t want to leave because of Celsie,” Sonia explained.

Alicia shuddered involuntarily, “So what did you girls do? Who did you report to?”

Celsie’s eyes glazed over, and she had a distant look in her eyes as she gazed at Alicia who could tell that she wasn’t looking at her, “Nobody. I was scared and ashamed, and couldn’t bring myself to speak with anybody. Instead, I started hiding from him,” Celsie said in a distant voice that sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away inside her. It was like she was trying to separate herself from what was being discussed, and this made Benne’s brows pull together.

“I would stay locked up in my bedroom unless I had to go to school. I stayed away from Sonia’s house and every other place that I might run into him.”

Alicia’s heart broke as she watched Celsie, and she could tell that talking about this wasn’t easy for Celsie. She wanted to call for a break, but Celsie continued. She told them all that she had told Benne concerning how Jamie had abducted her on the night of her prom.

Bryan handed Sonia a hankie when tears kept dropping from Sonia’s eyes, and Alicia reached for her hankie to also wipe her tears as they listened to Celsie’s narration.

The information Celsie was sharing now was not in the papers since she had not told anyone about it other than Benne. All they knew was that she had been abducted but they didn’t know the exact details of how it had happened.

“I killed Jamie,” Celsie said after a while as she tried to refocus her gaze on Alicia, “I didn’t mean to kill him, but I was glad he died,” She confessed as her hands began to tremble.

“Are you saying that because you think he deserved to die for doing that to you?” Alicia asked Celsie knowingly since she did not doubt that she too would murder the motherfucker in cold-blood if he came an inch near her with his madness.

“I don’t know how I would have lived sanely knowing that he was alive after all of that,” Celsie said in all honesty.

“What did he do to you, Celsie?” Alicia asked as she tried to put herself together, while Sonia took Celsie’s trembling hands, wanting her to focus on her so that she would remember that she wasn’t alone.

Tears fell from Celsie’s eyes as she turned to meet Sonia’s teary gaze while her mind traveled back to the events that took place eight years ago.

Although she was still feeling drowsy, seventeen years old Celsie opened her eyes slowly and then shut them because of the sudden onslaught of light in the room. The first thing she realized as she came to consciousness was that there was something inside her mouth, and her lips were sealed. And then she shivered involuntarily because of how cold the room was. She stiffened when it occurred to her that not only was the room cold, but she was also lying there naked without her clothes. She tried to move her arms but soon realized that she couldn’t move either her arms or her legs. They were tied. She realized that she was lying on a bed.

Where was this place? What was happening to her? Celsie wondered, and then her heart skipped a beat, and she panicked when she remembered what had happened. Jamie! He had come to her house. She remained on the bed with her eyes closed as she tried to calm herself while also listening for any sound to know if someone was in the room with her. Where was this place? She wondered without moving any part of her body so that she wouldn’t alert anyone in the room that she had regained consciousness.

What could she do? Fight? She could neither fight nor scream for help. Not when he had sealed her lips and tied her arms. She was at a disadvantage already because she didn’t even know where this place was.

She slowly opened her eyes again this time as she tried to take in her environment. The place looked like an apartment that was under reconstruction. The paint was peeling from the walls, but the ceiling still looked new.

“I see you are awake,” Jamie greeted from behind her, his head hovering over her, and immediately Celsie twisted her neck so that she could look at him with her eyes which were wild with fear.

She made a sound in her throat as though she was trying to say something but Jamie only smiled at her as he moved closer to the bed, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to say anything,” he said as he reached out to comb his fingers through her hair.

“Did you know that your hair is what first caught my eyes the first time I saw you?” Jamie asked with a creepy smile that made her skin crawl as she tried to move away from his touch.

“Your hair is too long. It hides your beauty,” Jamie said with disapproval as he brushed her hair away from her face, and his fingers grazed her face in the process making her cringe.

“We should get rid of some of it. Only then will you look perfect,” Jamie said as he walked away from her and then returned a moment later with a pair of scissors.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. I wouldn’t have brought you here in this manner but it seemed like you were avoiding me so I had to come to get you when I couldn’t bear it anymore,” Jamie said with a sigh as he grabbed some of her hair and cut them off using the scissors. Celsie closed her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks when she felt her hair fall to the ground.

“Your body is responding to my touch,” he said with excitement in his tone when he saw her hardened nipples, and Celsie’s eyes widened as she quickly shook her head, trying to let him know that it was because she was freezing.

She tried to roll away when he reached for her boobs, but her movement was limited because she was tied so he grabbed her boobs effortlessly and smiled as he teased her nipples, while she made pleading sounds as she squirmed.

“You are enjoying it, aren’t you?” He asked, misinterpreting her plea to stop as a go-ahead.

Celsie shut her eyes tightly as she tried to endure the violation of her body, and the humiliation she was being faced with. Her whole body shook with shudders each time she felt his hands on her.

“You mean he did all of that to you?” Alicia asked in a shaky voice, cutting off Celsie’s narrative.

“He did so every day. Sometimes he would just stand there and jerk off while leering at me. He said that was what he did with the pictures he had of me. He said watching the real thing was even better,” Celsie said, and they could all hear the tremor in her voice as she spoke with tears running down her cheeks. She had to be one hell of an actress to be able to sound so convincing.

By now Sonia was crying profusely as she listened to Celsie who was sharing her tale as emotionlessly as she could manage even though her body was trembling in reaction to the memories. She wished she could stop Celsie from going on with the story, but she also knew that Celsie had to get it all out, and if this was the method Celsie chose to use, then she could only offer her support.

Benne who was standing behind the camera was seething with barely controlled anger. He hated that Celsie was being made to share such a personal and humiliating experience to the entire world because of a silly stunt that Anita had pulled. He wanted to walk away and stop listening, but he couldn’t because he knew that his presence there meant a lot to Celsie.

In Celsie’s apartment, Celsie’s father held her mother as she sobbed helplessly, “My baby went through all of that and I had no idea. How did she manage to bottle all of that up this whole time? How did she ever keep it to herself?”

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