It was dark and hot as I lay in bed at a Roman hotel room trying to get to sleep. At a ‘Festival of Italy’ dinner for our tour group a few hours earlier, I had stuffed myself with food and drink. As a result, upon returning to the hotel for the night, I went to bed with indigestion and a buzz.

I was almost asleep when I thought I heard a noise. I listened more closely but heard only the old air conditioner trying its best to keep the room cool. Every now and then it would pop or snap as it labored in its heavy chore. Maybe that’s what I’d heard, or maybe just my imagination.

There it was again. I did hear a noise. It was a kind of scratching sound somewhere around the door. I held my breath and listened; but again, all I heard was the air conditioner.

Then I heard a click. It definitely came from the door. As I turned over to reach for the night stand light, the room lights switched on momentarily blinding me. When my tired eyes adjusted, I found myself looking at a gun pointed at me by a large, bearded man. As I sat up in my bed, he came closer to me.

He was fat and over six feet tall wearing a dark blue jacket and blue jeans. Smiling he put his forefinger to his lips in the sign for silence. I sat still. All I moved were my eyes.

There were three men in my room. Beside the fat man with the gun, there were two smaller but stocky men with beards. The one by the door kept cracking it open and looking out. He was about five feet seven wearing a black leather jacket, dark brown pants, and a black ski stocking cap on his head. His eyes were never still. They moved nervously around the room and flicked from face to face.

The third man, in a black turtleneck and jeans, stood with a knife in his hand at the side of my bed looking at me licking his lips. He was stocky with slicked back black, hair. You had to really look to see what it was that made him off-beat. It was his eyes. They were glassy and empty.

The one at the door, Stocking Cap, whispered something and the larger man, Fat Man, smiled again while taking his finger from his lips and softly said something. When I didn’t respond, he stopped smiling. He cocked the gun and repeated himself more emphatically, scowling and stepping closer. I straightened against the headboard and said, “I don’t speak Italian. Do you speak English?”

“English? No! American,” Fat Man stated, menacingly.

“You speak American? Okay. What are you doing in my room?” The smaller man, Turtleneck, moved towards me and struck me in the jaw with his fist saying something to me in a hushed tone while waving his knife in my face.

“Look, I don’t understand you. What do you want?” He hit me again. I tried to move away, but he grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up to his sneering, sweaty face. He said something I didn’t comprehend, and then he pushed me away so hard I fell off the other side of the bed. Fat Man moved to where I had fallen still pointing his gun at me. “American?” he said again.

I nodded my head.

“Ah, American,” and he began to jabber to the other two. He slapped me across the face with his pistol. I raised my hand to the sharp pain on my ear and felt a sticky wetness, blood. He pointed his gun at my suitcase and then towards me and said something. When I didn’t respond, Turtleneck reached across the bed, grabbed my tee shirt, and yanked me back on the bed. The shirt ripped in the process. He leaned over and pricked my throat with the tip of his knife. I felt the blood stream down my neck as I winced away from him.

My head hurt like hell, my throat was dry and I could hardly swallow. The room slowly spun around in circles. Fat Man said something, and Turtleneck went over to the suitcase and opened it. He mumbled as he pawed through the contents. Then he yanked out a pair of jeans and a shirt and threw them at me saying something I couldn’t understand, but I took as an order to get dressed.

I pulled on my jeans and shirt while Stocking Cap opened the door once again and furtively looked out. He said something to the other two. Fat Man tossed my tennis shoes to me. Turtleneck made more motions with his knife. I put on my shoes, and thanked God that my wife, Jane, wasn’t due join me in Rome for another day.

Now Turtleneck motioned for me to stand, and he shoved me to the door sticking the point of the knife ever so lightly in the small of my back. Stocking Cap again opened the door slowly and stepped outside. I felt the jab of the knife in my back urging me out. When all of us were in the hall, Turtleneck softly closed the door and indicated I should move forward.

I knew I was safest in the hotel, and if they ever got me out of it I’d probably end up dead somewhere. How could I escape? I glanced at my watch I’d forgotten to take off when I went to bed. It was three in the morning and too early for anyone to be up, or at least I assumed it was. But maybe some of the hotel staff would be at the front desk. I’d make my move there, although I didn’t know what it would be.

We walked down the hall towards the elevators. Hopefully they would take me down the elevator because it exited in the lobby and the chances of meeting someone there were pretty good. However, we passed the elevator and went to a door at the far end of my hall with a picture of a stickman walking down a flight of steps. We started going down them, but I wasn’t worried. I knew they also came out in the lobby, and I’d still have a chance at escape.

We went down the carpeted steps, with Stocking Cap to my left, Turtleneck on my right and now Fat Man behind with his gun at my back. I thought about pushing Turtleneck down the steps and turning and hitting Stocking Cap in the groin. No, that might not work. The stocky Turtleneck didn’t appear easy to push, and Fat Man would probably shoot me. I decided to wait for a better opportunity.

On the first landing, Stocking Cap opened a door labeled ‘Servizio’. Good! There must be housekeepers, laundry personnel, custodians or some sort of employee there. I was out of luck. The room was completely deserted. Stacks of sheets, towels, toilet paper and soap were all I saw as we hurried through the room to a door on the far side.

Stocking Cap carefully opened it and peeked out; and motioned for us to move outside. I felt the gun press harder into my back. I didn’t want to move. If they got me outside, I knew they would kill me. Turtleneck hissed at me and poked me again with his knife.

I’d had it. This was it. As I turned to face Turtleneck, Fat Man hit me on the head with the pistol. I fell to my knees, stunned. I felt the men take my arms and lift and heave me into a dark opening. I felt other hands pulling me in and shoving my legs into the musty confines of a black enclosure.

Someone yanked me into a sitting position, and tied my hands behind me. Then somebody got in alongside me, doors closed and we started to move. As my head began to clear, I saw I was in a car. Stocking Cap was driving, Turtleneck was on my right and Fat Man was on my left. Someone else was in the front seat beside Stocking Cap. He deliberately crushed out the butt of his cigarette in the front ashtray and turned around and said in English, “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

I couldn’t see him clearly, but his slightly lisping accented voice had an erie kind of sound. “What do you want with me?”

“Oh, really nothing. It’s our compatriots who want you. Not you per se, just any American will do, I was told. We just picked you by chance. We saw your bus arrive at the hotel, and one of the porters said the group was all American tourists. Then we bribed the front desk for a room number of an American tourist staying alone.”

“You see, we’re just to deliver you to the coast and put you on a boat. I suppose our friends want you for some kind of propaganda purpose, but we really don’t care. Our instructions are to deliver you alive. However, you don’t have to be in the best of health, just alive.”

‘Just alive’ stuck in my mind and terrified me, but I decided not question that so I said, “What do you mean your friends? Where am I going?”

“I told you to a boat on the coast. Did you forget you were in Italy? The coast is close, a hundred seventy to two hundred kilometers from here. Not like your big country.”

“I thought the Mediterranean was closer than that.”

“Who said anything about the Mediterranean? I’m talking about the Adriatic.”

“Why are you taking me to the Adriatic?”

“You Americans, you’re so much into yourselves that you’re totally unaware of anything else. Aren’t you even aware of the war in Kosovo? You needn’t answer. I know you either aren’t or don’t care. Americans are all alike. Did you perhaps see the anti-NATO signs throughout the city?”

Oh shit! I’m being kidnapped by the Serbs. I remembered seeing graffiti scrawled on buildings as we toured the area. The only places that didn’t have some sort of scribbling adorning the walls were historic sites. I can’t read or speak Italian, but I could recognize the words NATO and Clinton with big Xs through them -- everywhere throughout Rome. They were even within one block of our hotel on the shutters of a closed produce store.

Obviously there were a lot of people who didn’t like what was happening in Kosovo and blamed NATO and the U.S. for it. I’d seen hostility in some faces at bus stops or street corners as we toured. Not a lot, but the stares were enough to make me feel uncomfortable. That’s why I decided to stay with the group even when it came to the optional dinners.

Now where was I? I was wedged between Fat Man and Turtleneck with hardly enough room to breathe. I was scared. Scared more than I’ve ever been scared in my life. I felt the naked fear and certain knowledge that they planned some grotesque and horrible torture before they turned me over to their ‘friends’.

I tried an appeal. “Hell, don’t you know I’m just a nobody. Sure, I’m an American. But I’m retired and I don’t work for a big company who could pay ransom. I never worked for the government so I don’t know any secrets. Only a government computer knows I exist; and it only cares that I’ve paid my taxes. Other than that, my government doesn’t even know me.”

“Oh, your government will know you after our friends are finished with you. Our friends wanted someone just like you. A nobody as you say. A nobody that no one will rescue, a nobody that no company will pay ransom for, a plain American nobody.

But we digress. As I said, our friends only want a live body. To pass the time as we drive to Pescara, we’ve planned a little entertainment for ourselves. Although I don’t think that you will care much for it.” The man in the front seat then said something and the other three laughed. He produced his cigarette case, selected one, and slid the case back in the breast pocket of his coat as he settled back in the comfort of the front seat.

The car stank. I don’t know if it was because of its occupants, who had quite strong body odor, or something else, maybe the cigarette -- maybe my fear. It was dark in the car, and I could see we were leaving Rome. We shot through the early morning deserted streets like a speeding missile. My hands tied tight behind me were beginning to turn numb. My head throbbed, and again I thanked God that Jane wasn’t with me.

We drove for about an hour before we pulled over by the side of the road. It was dawn, and I could make out the occupants in the car except for the passenger who hadn’t turned around again after he finished talking to me.

As the car ground to a stop on the gravel shoulder, the passenger said something. Fat Man grabbed my left leg and Turtleneck grabbed my right and forced them apart. Then the passenger turned around and faced me. His face was smooth and thin, almost pasty in complexion. It was the face of a freaked-out drug addict with gold eyelashes, gold eye shadow, and pale pink lipstick. He had short blond hair. I don’t know why, but I thought of Goldilocks.

“Don’t you think I’m pretty?” he said in his accented lispy voice.

“You’re different,” I said.

“Different how? Different, Pretty? Or different from you?”

“Different. I haven’t seen too many men with gold eyelashes and eye shadow.”

“Men? I’m hardly a man. Have you ever heard of a hermaphrodite?”

“A hermapo what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A hermaphrodite is a combination of diverse elements. It only rarely occurs in humans. What it means is I have both male and female sexual reproductive organs. In short, I have the best of both worlds,” and it grabbed for my crotch.

I squirmed and wiggled away as much as I could. But with Fat Man on one side and Turtleneck on the other I couldn’t move very far. Goldilocks reached over the back of the front seat and flicked open his switchblade and pointed it at my zipper. His eyes wide and staring. Turtleneck moved his hand up my right thigh and was trying to grab me while continuously wetting his lips. I was stuck. I couldn’t move and hands were groping at me now. Goldilocks yanked down my zipper, and grabbed for my manhood while Turtleneck tried to touch my testicles. “Don’t, don’t, please don’t,” I screamed.

He smiled and slowly brought the knife down towards my penis. In a high and horrible falsetto voice he said, “I think I’ll cut it off.”

I gave a mighty heave towards Fat Man kicking at Turtleneck with both feet. The car door popped open and I fell out with a thump on top of Fat Man. Light blinded me, and I couldn’t move. Turtleneck threw himself on top of me, and the three of us rolled around on the ground. My arms were pinned. It was all I could do to breathe. I was all tangled up with Fat Man and Turtleneck on top of me yelling in my ear.

“Joe, Joe, wake up! Wake up, you’re dreaming.”

“Huh? What? Where am I?

“Right here in our room. Where do you think?”

“Huh? Here? Where?”

“Rome, Dear. Where else? Wake up you’re having a nightmare.” Jane was on the bed reaching over the edge trying to untangle me from the covers. She was laughing as she yanked at the sheets.

“I told you not to eat and drink so much tonight at the Festival. But no. ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do,’ you said. Now you’re paying for it. Get off the floor. You’re okay.”

I was on the floor blinking my eyes in the light. I wasn’t tied up; I was tangled in bedcovers. I wasn’t in the Italian countryside with a bunch of madmen; I was in a Roman hotel room with my wife. I wasn’t alone on a trip waiting for Jane to arrive. I was with Jane, and she was laughing at me. Thank God!

“Boy! What a nightmare,” I said.