Dont go to...

[gaggirl]

....Banks on a Firday Afternoon

Friday.

“Which bank?”

“Commonwealth Bank! Hey thanks for this, I’m sorry I just don’t have time. Fuck I’m LATEEEE” She roughly shoves her feet into the strappy heels and makes a run for her handbag. She’s a lot more dressed up in her snazzy red dress as compared to me with my flared light denim hipster jeans and tight pink t shirt and white platforms.

“No worries. Hey good luck!” I take her bank book from her kitchen counter and meet her at the door, expecting it when she barges past me.

“Thanks! I’ll call you! Don’t be late to the bank!” She is self employed and forgot the banks close on early on Fridays. She’s such a cheerleader! I close the door behind me and make my way to my car, start it, throwing the bag containing the book beside me casually.

Lucky bitch! I think to myself. The excitement of going on a first date! Then again, being married, I can be thankful I don’t have to suffer the usual dating agonies anymore, and I have sex pretty much on tap.

************************************************** *******

I park the car in the underground carpark. So dark and so quiet this time of day. All the other parked cars are all soulless. I hope out of the car and lean in to grab the bag from the other seat. It was not known to me at the time, but I look back and imagine they must have been there, or someone, watching and waiting. And I blush to think they would have probably seen a hint of hot pink lace at the low rise of my jeans as I bent over, and would have admired seeing me adjust my girls.

The car lights flicker as I make my way towards the internal stair well leading up the bank. As soon as I enter the bank I get this bad feeling, like something’s gonna happen.

I stand in the business queue, behind a chubby middle aged lady in a suit, and a tall solid man with a briefcase. Behind me is a row of windows above the row of slip counters. Along the far line of that wall is the double glazed set of doors leaving to the outside world, flanked by big plants. Suddenly the man with the briefcase flicks open his briefcase and I expect to see papers falling out, but there are no papers.

“EVERYBODY DOWN!!” I swivel my head from the briefcase to the glazed doors and already there is a gang of masked armed men storming through the room. In the corner of my eye one leaps over the chrome bars to the counter and aims it right at a female tellers head. Several screams and bangs follow, and its just all so quick, I have no time to think but I’m on the floor already, with my hands on the back of my head as instructed like everyone else around me, heart racing like crazy.

One of the men comes along with his gun and nudges is at me, Knowing that I'm hiding something under me. He kicks me, ramming the gun into my spine, then kicks bag out from under my arm with his boot.

I cant help but be impressed with how quickly the guys have the bank under ctonrol. The windows slammed up as soon that gun was aimed at the tellers head, but there was already a man inside the back of the bank with a gun at someone’s head , probably the manager. Two of them out in the foyer were let in and the two of them set to work out the back.

The man on crowd control moves walks up and down the line of bank patrons like an extremely tense slick cat. In a muffled voice he shouts “Keep your fucking heads DOWN. You all do as your told and noone gets hurt! NOW. Empty your pockets and put it all in front of you. Then put your head the fuck down back on the floor!!” A few of us are whimpering and crying. I don’t know what to feel I’m just in shock. Trembling, especially after having his boot nudge me before (yeah I was hoping to go for invisibility) I empty out my pockets of my mobile and my keys and a 20 note and throw it all in front of me. I peek a look at the guy with the gun with all us hostages, but he sees me and stroms over.

I really want to plough my face into the carpet but I’m a rabbit in shock Stunned with fear, I can only gape up at him, lips quivering. He puts the gun to my forehead which triggers a new level of hysteria amongst my fellow hostages.

“DID I TELL YOU TO LOOK AT ME?” I freeze solid when I hear his voice. I only shake my head, breaking down quietly, unable to move a muscle.
“n-no… please” I whisper almost inaudibly trough my crying.

“DID I NOT TELL EVERYONE TO EMPTY YOUR POCKETS, PUT YOUR SHIT ON THE FLOOR AND GET THE FUCK DOWN! He shouts. In response everyone finishes what they are doing and flings themselves on the floor. I stay on my knees with the barrel at my forehead, visibly traumatized.

The door in the divider bangs open and the shaken tellers are marched out to join us. I look up from the gun and into the mans eyes. Dark brown. Flashing. In control. Boring into mine. No sweat around them at all.

“Down” he demands. I do as I’m told. He removes the gun from me and helps the other man roughly haul the tellers into a bunch. When everyone is in place to his seeming satisfaction he barks again.

“Right everyone listen up carefully. You WILL do as your told if you DON’T you will come to a nasty ending. Have I made myself CLEAR??” everyone mutters and cries, I think, except for myself because now I’m a mess with the close call and am instead hugging the carpet.

“TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND THROW THEM IN ONE PILE!!”

Gasps and more dismayed cries.

“Oh god” I groan to myself.. I’m not invisible. But I’m not invincible. One more thing I don’t do right - he might kill me!!

[gaggirl]

I peel off my stuff and throw it in the pile. Everyone’s still clad in their underwear and taking nervous peeks at everyone else, though there are some who refuse to look anywhere but the floor, and one lady who refused to take anything off altogether and got hauled away and beaten about the head until she very quickly caved in and got “helped” her out of her clothing. I stuck out like a sore thumb with the hot pink. Most everyone else had on white or black, a couple of reds and babydoll pinks. But not bright hot pink like mine.

I lay there very still, well we all did, hearts still racing, shaking, nervously crying into the carpet while the men went about the bank cleaning it up. The cool air brushes over my skin as the men hurry past. It seems like its taken forever, but the bank finally feels as though its emptying, it gets much more silent. Everyone is calmer …..waiting.

In the distance sirens approach.

Some of the muffled whispers have an urgency about them. The tension in the bank begins to build again amongst us hostages. One of the women becomes hysterical. She thought her ordeal was over, but its really only just beginning.

This is one of the moment we will never forget as long as we live. All of us know exactly how she is feeling, and I cry silently in sympathy with her as much as I’m feeling sorry for myself. She got dragged off to another room where the door was slammed and her loudening noises mysteriously cut off. I felt like puking to wonder what happened to her. Someone did. A traumatized man retching somewhere to my left down the line of us little piggies.

Urgent whispering amongst two of the men..

“Hurry up sirens, you fucking lazy stupid idiot pigs where the fuck are you?” I angrily scream in my mind.

Hostage.. hostage… I couldn’t quite make out what they were whispering through the cacophony in my brain. Then all at once I realized what they were saying. “Hostage” Hostage!! Maybe that poor woman. God not me. Thank God not me.

“Get someone” he said to Crowd Control. And I knew it wasn’t going to be that lady, what ever happened to her.

[gaggirl]

He spins on his heel and walks up the line. Ever closer. I squeeze my eyes shut hoping that he picks someone else. Isn’t that terrible? The boot come to a stop in front of me, I hear the rubber on the carpet, and creak of the leather. I feel something metal pressing in the back of my neck.

“You.” He says calmly. “Get up” I cry out in dismay and kneel up in front of him, trembling in fea, covering my hot pink clad breasts with my crossed arms.

“No no no! Please! Not me! I’ve got kids!” I beg, eyes welling with fresh tears. Tears that make no difference to this man who coldly grabs a fist of hair and hauls me to my feet. Amidst my feeble protests he manhandles me so that my back is held up against his body, with the gun pushed up cruelly under my chin; and its now I can feel the heat of him, he’s cool calm and collected on the outside, but I sense his racing heart beats easily match mine, and I hate to feel how his sweat covers my semi naked back as he holds me against him.

“Anyone so much as moves this bitch gets it!! UNDERSTAND?” he shouts at everyone. One man with a shawl wrapped around his face covers us as he drags me backwards towards the inner sanctum of the bank. A man holds open the door for us. That gun is real I can feel it I tell myself silently. God they are going to kill me when this is all over! I become hysterical!

I start struggling a little in a vain attempt to prevent myself from being taken out of the bank. That’s one of the rules isn’t it? Don’t let them take you to the Second Place!

“Please don’t take me with you! I won’t tell them anyt-“

A hand clasps over my mouth and the last man out picks up my feet. Carried and then heavily thrown into the back of a black car, face down across the back seat my head connecting with a mans lap. He holds my head down to his jeans so I can’t breath. The two men carrying me pile in behind and the car suddenly lurches into action and exists the carpark. The sirens are now so close yet so far away. How can they be so friggin slow? Immediately after the car lurches onto the street my hands are wrenched behind my back to my loud cries and pleading. They are taped together in super fast time, and then my hair is wrenched back so that the first passenger slaps a generous amount of clear tape over my mouth.

“Mmmemmemm!!!!” I’m wriggling and squirming, feeling extremely exposed, and intensely traumatized when I think of how I’m probably going to die and never see my kids or my husband again! I give into that feeling, and cry until I fear I won’t be able to breath with the blocked nose. While I’m in my own private hell, as far as the guys are concerned, its party time. Initially they are high fiving each other, but they are still business like in their speech. The gruff man in the driver seat reminds everyone they aren’t out of the woods yet. It gives me hope it means that I still have a chance at getting free. It’s time to get smart and listen.

“Look at this hey” I angrily shake off their already wondering hands. The crowd controller guy has my ass on his lap. He slides one of his fingers under my hot pink French lace panties, and flicks it back. I muffle a scream, but my face is slammed down again, and a fist of hair holds me there, and metal at my temple. One of them growls: “Don’t even thinks of looking at ANY of us in the face or well kill you straight away, understood?”

I nod quickly. They sit me up straight. The clear tape means anyone peering in won’t know straight away that I’m gagged. I don’t look at the men but in a glance I cant tell heir masks are off and glasses are on.

They enjoy teasing me as I struggle in between them, it all just ads to their sense of fun. I keep my head down, blurred bloodshot eyes scanning the bottom of the car, looking at their feet, then up their legs, to sneaking looks outside, outside at all the freedom and sunshine I enjoyed until an hour or so ago. At that moment it felt as though it was another world away.

We pull up under a bridge where another car is idling.

“Remember don’t look up” he snaps.

The Crowd Controller pokes his gun into my side and pulls on my arm, ordering me out after him, and briskly marches me over to the rear of the waiting plain white car.

No! Can’t they let me go now? I wish I could talk to this person, to any of them. They don’t even look at me now, too many important things going on to bother with the hostage. But it’s my life hanging in the balance!! When we get to the car he slams me down forwards on it, my head pressed into it with his and the gun, while he inserts the key. When he eases the pressure and makes me stand straight I turn and try to catch his covered eyes, shaking my head, then I remembered myself! Too late! His eyes flash and his mouth goes hard in a cruel line, and backhands me so hard I fall across the edge of the car and bang the side of my leg on the to bar.


“MRmmrr MmmMMMMRMMM!” I wail under the tape in excruciating pain and panic, hardly noticing when he hurls up and into the boot and slams down the lid to envelope me in darkness.

Now it’s just me, an aching jaw, my throbbing swelling leg; and a few little circles of light that manage to penetrate the confines of the boot. I scream and scream...