story continues from part 10
Chapter 11
Thud...thud...thud...
Amber’s conjoined feet beat upwards at the roof of her confining box with as much force as she could muster. The problem was, however, that the shallow nature of her casket meant that building up any momentum was almost impossible, and the fact that the lid of her place of entombment was lagged with a thick layer of foam padding, only added to the muffling effect of her endeavours to make her incarceration known to the world.
Not that there was anyone out there to hear her, of course; at least no one that could be of any assistance. That was the pessimistic but also realistic assumption she was forced into. But what was the alternative? Lie there and simply do nothing? Give in and allow Hazel to ruin her life forever? The thought that she was about to enter an eternal existence of slavery and servitude, from which there was no way back, proved incentive enough to ensure that Amber persevered with her attempts at noise making, not only with her feet, but also by vocalising her frustrations with screams and desperate pleas for help. These, however, made no more impact on the outside world than her pathetic kicks, as the combination of the tights wedged behind her teeth, the tape sealing her lips and the leather of her claustrophobic hood, all conspired to deaden any outgoing sound that she tried to make.
But wait, wasn’t that the sound of footsteps in the distance? Or was it simply her wishfully thinking brain playing tricks on her? Lapsing into silence for a few seconds, Amber strained to listen for some optimistic sign that rescue was at hand. And sure enough, there it was again; the repetitive thump of someone climbing the metal stairs that led to the landing along which her particular cell was situated. It could simply be Hazel returning, of course, but there was something different about these footsteps that informed her that the owner of these shoes wasn’t her dreaded rival and captor. For instead of the clicking of high heeled boots, so familiar to her, these sounds were much softer and duller in tone.
Amber wasted no time in recommencing her commotion making activities in short bursts, interspersed with brief intervals of intense listening; hoping and praying as she did so that the sound would carry far enough for this person – whoever it might be – to realise the nature of the disturbance and come to her aid.
The footsteps continued to slowly – cautiously even – approach, until they seemed to emanate from just outside the cell in which Amber languished. Then, suddenly, they stopped. This was Amber’s cue to raise her decibel level to new heights. And remarkably, to her great joy, this tactic seemed to have brought about success, as the sound of the heavy reinforced steel door opening reached her ears. But who was this unexpected visitor? Who had managed to breach the high walls and padlocked gates, then broken into a building which Amber herself had been careful to ensure was safe and secure? And who, now that they were in this very room with her, was holding back; seemingly uncertain of whether to release this clearly frightened woman from her inescapable predicament? With a mixture of trepidation and anticipation, Amber’s tentative enquiry had to fight its way through the layered gag and the walls of her tomb.
“Who’s there?”
Hopefully, her question would be answered shortly...and with actions rather than words.
****
Steve stood for several seconds in the still of the evening, gazing up at the vast, imposing monument that rose before him and stretched away into the gloom to both left and right. All was in inky blackness; the sky an only marginally lighter shade of darkness than the stone walls. So where should he start looking for a way in? The small torch’s inadequate beam picked out what soon sharpened into a set of double doors as he cautiously made his way towards them. As he’d suspected, however, these were metal security doors, and were never going to allow him access without a set of keys.
Steve shivered in the frosty atmosphere. What should he do? The spandex outfit offered little protection against the elements, and being outside all night was simply not an option if he wanted to still be alive, or even frost-bite free, in the morning. For a few seconds, he contemplated calling the police, to let them sort this whole sorry mess out. But the screen of his phone revealed had there was no signal in the lee of the building, and moving back into the courtyard towards the gates informed him that the whole area seemed to be a dead zone when it came to contacting the outside world. He was, therefore, left with no other option than to carry on with his solo search for a way inside.
Using the torch’s frail beacon as his only aid, Steve struck out to his left and followed the windowless wall to the point where it turned a corner. From there, he could just make out another, similar structure diminishing into the murkiness of the night. Then, at a distance that he judged as being around fifty yards in front of him, another wall seemed to jut out at right angles. Having no other plan, he continued towards this pitch black obstruction, and after maybe twenty yards he encountered another door, but this proved to be as secure and resilient as the first. However, just past this, the dim light from the torch picked out what looked like five or six boarded up windows in a row; all at ground level and thus within easy reach. Upon closer inspection, the first two of these wooden-panelled barricades gave him no cause for optimism that they would yield to his efforts to force an entry; being solid and unbreakable to anyone without a crowbar or sledgehammer.
With hope fading, Steve moved on to the third concealed window, the dimensions of which, like all the others, were around six feet in length and probably four feet high. Unlike its counterparts, however, the bottom left-hand corner of the boarding revealed a small opening, where either this particular batten had been pulled away at some point, or there had been a flaw in the wood which had eventually come adrift through the effects of rain, wind and ice. Pulling as hard as he could, Steve soon loosened the slat still further, until, after a few seconds, the reluctant wood came away in his hand. With a gap of approximately six square inches to work in, it took him only a minute or two to tear the adjacent panels away until an opening large enough to climb through had been fashioned; the removal of the boards revealing that the glass pane had long since been removed.
Squeezing in head first, he soon emerged into a small room which, judging by the abandoned filing cabinets and desks, had once been part of the prison’s administration offices. Getting to his feet, he shone the torch down his body and brushed away the dust and grime from his skin-tight cat-suit. The light revealed the usual shimmer of spandex which he knew so well, and his hand skimming across his thigh momentarily reminded him of why he loved the sensual way this clinging stretch-textile caressed his skin.
But now was not the time to dwell on the image and feel of his favourite fabric, however tempting that reverie might be. His mission, he quickly reminded himself, was to find Lauren and get her away from this place... assuming, of course, that she was actually here. Swinging the torch around the office, he was relieved to find that the door which led out into the corridor beyond was standing open. Hopefully, this would give him access to all areas of the facility. But where should he start looking? The answer to this question was not hard to work out. For he knew Amber and Hazel well enough to realise that, if they’d hijacked a disused jail for their purposes, it would be highly unlikely that they wouldn’t use one of the cells for their intended aim of holding their kidnap victim in. And so, Steve made it his first priority to seek out a route to the area where those detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure would have spent the majority of their time whilst incarcerated here.
****
Hazel sat restlessly in the hotel bar, sipping on her first glass of wine. After driving back to Ipswich, she’d booked a room for the night at the Premier Inn close to Bourne Bridge. Now in the adjoining pub - the Oyster Reach - she sat in one corner contemplating her options, not realising for a second that this was the exact location in which Amber and the twins had sat only a few days ago when the former had outlined her plans for this whole kidnapping venture to her surprised cousins.
Hazel still wore her dark glasses, and had now tied her normally flowing, artificially blonde hair up into a bun on the top of her head. Once she’d procured her bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the counter, she’d found the quietest corner so as not to attract undue attention to herself. However, the fact that she’d sauntered into the bar dressed in her tightest black latex-wear, had turned a few heads amongst the bar’s other – mostly male - customers, with several giving her strange looks and double-takes as she crossed the floor. Hazel, however, had never compromised on her clothes, and she saw no reason to alter the habits of a lifetime now. After all, who was going to report someone to the police just because they dressed slightly differently?
After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, however, Hazel found herself getting edgy and fidgety. At first she assumed that it was the looks and behind-the-hand comments and sniggers that she was getting which were causing this state of unease. But it soon occurred to her that it wasn’t the pub’s clientele that were making her nervous. No, it was the fact that she’d left her four captives – the merchandise as she liked to think of them – alone and unattended for the night. She knew that there was zero chance of any of them escaping, but she was anxious to get on with the task in hand, not only of doing a deal to sell them on to her friends in the slave trade, but also of making Lauren - and indirectly Steve - suffer for their past misdemeanours.
Leaving her barely started bottle of wine on the table, Hazel departed the bar in the same way she’d made her entrance; slowly strolling across the floor with a barely concealed smile on her face, knowing that heads were turning to admire her skin-tight, latex clad figure as she did so.
The biting cold of the car park was in stark contrast to the warm, stuffy atmosphere of the bar, and Hazel found herself shivering as she hurried back to the spot where she’d left Amber’s car. Was this involuntary trembling a product merely of the wintry night-time? Or was there, perhaps, some deeper reason for this sudden convulsion to course through her? Try as she might, as Hazel started the engine and negotiated the vehicle back onto the road, she couldn’t quite get the feeling out of her head that something was wrong back at the old prison, and that her subconscious was aware of this and was acting as the catalyst that was calling her back so soon. She brushed these concerns aside instantly. The thought of stringing Lauren upside down, keeping her excruciatingly tightly bound and torturing her for days on end seemed to calm her nerves, and soon any doubts as to the nature of her change of heart had evaporated from her thinking.
****
Steve cautiously prowled the corridors of the dark, forbidding prison, stopping every few seconds to listen for any sign that he was not alone in this labyrinthine structure. Having satisfied himself that the office block held nothing of interest, he’d come to a gate with vertical bars of steel which blocked his path. Fortunately, however, this swung upon at his touch, as did several other security doors and barriers which he came upon. Had the prison authorities left these open after the facility’s closure? Or had someone else, possessing the necessary keys, been around and opened these for ease of access for their own purposes? These questions briefly occupied Steve’s thoughts, but the answers were of no real consequence, and he was simply grateful that these potential obstacles to his progress had been left the way they were.
After what seemed like hours of wending his way down featureless passageways, he arrived in what must once have been a communal area for the inmates of this penal colony. But it was the view overhead, as the inadequate torch beam investigated his surroundings, which caused him to stop and stare. For on both sides, flights of stairs led up to metal platforms, with the occasional walkway criss-crossing the vast cathedral-like space above, which seemed to go on into infinity. Traversing this void, nets could be seen, ghostly in the twilight. Were they gently swaying or was this an optical illusion caused by the searching beam of his torch? Whatever the case, the impression that this webbing gave was that of a predator waiting in its lair, ready to ensnare anyone or anything falling from above. Or perhaps biding its time, ready to drop and entrap any poor, unsuspecting soul that happened to trespass into the space beneath.
Steve stood and listened; hoping for some indication as to where, if Lauren really was locked away somewhere in this institution, she was being held. Aside from the scurrying of rats’ feet from the fringes, there was nothing.
Or maybe not. Suddenly, his ears pricked up as a slow rhythmic thumping sound briefly broke through the incessant scuffle of rodent paws. Then it stopped. Had he imagined it? No, after a brief pause, there it was again, too regular in its output to be of natural causes. Surely that was someone thumping their fists or feet against some immovable object. But where, exactly was it coming from? Another pause ensued, and Steve held his breath, waiting and hoping that the sound would come again. This hiatus continued for what must have been a full minute, and he was beginning to think that he’d imagined the whole thing, until it suddenly erupted again. And this time he managed to get a fix on roughly where the commotion emanated from. It seemed to be above him and away to the left.
Wasting no time, Steve let the torch beam guide him to the nearest flight of metal steps that would lead him in the direction that he perceived the noise to be coming from. Trying to go as fast as he could, yet mindful that Amber might still be lurking in the shadows, he climbed the stairs in as silent a manner as he was able. Once on the landing, he stopped again and listened. It took only a second or two for the sound to repeat this time, and it was now much louder than before. And its source seemed to be coming from the other side of the wall, only two or three doors down the walkway from where he now stood. Reaching the solid door from behind which the thumping seemed to originate, Steve placed his ear close to the metal and listened again. Thud...thud...thud. This was unquestionably the right place. But as well as the pounding sound, another, faint whisper could now also be perceived. And as a bondage enthusiast, Steve instantly recognised this as the sound of someone straining to make themselves heard through a gag of some description. And the voice was undoubtedly that of a female.
But Steve’s heart sank. For he knew his girlfriend’s muffled tones well enough from their bondage playtime together, and this most definitely wasn’t Lauren trying to make herself heard. But if not the target of his quest, then who could it be? Amber perhaps? That seemed the logical explanation.
Trying the door, Steve was amazed to find that it began to open. Arcing the beam of light around the small chamber, apart from a single window high on the wall he observed only one object in the otherwise empty space. And it was from this long, coffin-shaped contraption that both the thumping and stifled screaming arose, seemingly now with increased gusto. This suggested that his approach had been comprehended by the trapped woman within. Suddenly, the sound faded away in one of its now customary interludes, and it occurred to Steve that the internee was listening for any clue as to what was going on outside her place of claustrophobic confinement.
“Who’s there?”
That was undeniably the two word enquiry which, although severely muted, the inmate of this strange coffin had just uttered.
Kneeling by the metal box, Steve soon worked out how the casket had been secured, and began unscrewing the bolts that held the lid and base together. It took several minutes, but eventually he was able to lift the heavy slab away to reveal the contents of this unconventional storage facility. The sight that met his eyes was of no real surprise, as before him was revealed a woman in a drum-tight outfit of black latex which shone in the dim light of the torch beam. She was laying face down in the compact space, her limbs clearly shown to have been bound heavily with rope, duct tape and plastic cable-ties. The binding, it appeared, had been carried out both ruthlessly and with ultra-efficiency. Her neck was twisted around to face upwards, but her entire head appeared to be smothered in a form-fitting sheath of black leather, unbroken save for two small apertures in the vicinity of her nostrils. So tightly did the leather follow the contours of her face, that Steve could easily make out the indentations of her eye sockets through the unyielding fabric; it was as if they gazed up sightlessly at him, almost imploring release from a situation which she had no chance of otherwise getting out of. From the area around her mouth, a pitiful moan issued that was clearly designed to win sympathy from her would-be saviour. This, however, was clearly not Lauren. But the few strands of long blonde hair that sneaked out from under the hood at the back of her neck, suggested that it was indeed Amber that had been the victim of this foul-play, deception, double-crossing, or whatever was going on here.
“Where’s Lauren? What have you done with her?”
As soon as he’d identified himself, a long drawn out plea for mercy issued from the gagged woman, and her buttocks rose out of the casket, as if trying to extricate herself from the snug confines of her holding crate. Steve’s hand quickly pushed her back from whence she came.
“I said, where’s Lauren?”
This time a muffled, almost unintelligible message made its way through the leather. But even though the words came from what was clearly a well gagged mouth, Steve got the gist of what Amber was trying to say.
“Let me out of here and I’ll take you to her.”
Although she was hardly in a position to make demands, it was clear that the restrained former dominatrix was only going to give out the requested information if she got something in return.
For a second Steve toyed with the idea of granting her wish and relieving Amber of her bonds, to the point where his fingers had even grasped one of the cords around her wrists in readiness to begin the release programme. But then he paused. What if this was just a ploy to get herself released? How could he even be sure that this woman, well known for her deceit, knew where Lauren was being held? A change of tactics was needed.
Letting go of the rope, he instead turned his attention to the buckle around the restrained woman’s neck, which held the head sheath in place. With this and the lacing at the back of her head soon loosened, it was an easy enough task to slide the hood up over her face.
Amber’s hair spilled out in a tangled mass as the leather slipped away. Whilst Steve had been busy with the release process, she’d turned to lie face down, so that he could work at the laces with more ease. Now unmasked, however, she turned her head around to look up at her liberator. Expectantly, she raised her hands up towards the man she’d recently been trying to extort a considerable ransom from, as if demanding that he untie her. In this regard, however, she was to be disappointed. Instead, Steve repeated his question for a third time.
“Where’s Lauren?”
Once again, Amber tried to inform him that, if he set her free, she’d be willing to guide him to his sweetheart. Steve was just about to tell her that she’d got things in the wrong order, and that his willingness to remove her restraints would only come after she’d pinpointed Lauren’s whereabouts. But he never got the chance to make any such announcement. For another female voice now butted into the conversation. This one though, unlike the woman he was kneeling over, most definitely wasn’t in any way hindered in her vocal capacity. And the sound of this familiar voice, which originated from behind him, was both authoritative and menacing, which caused him to quickly jump to his feet and face the speaker.
“You should have released Amber while you had the opportunity. At least that way it would have been two against one, and you’d have had a fighting chance.”
Hazel took two steps closer and shone her torch directly into Steve’s eyes.
“You got the better of me once before, but now the tables are turned. Now it’s my turn to make you suffer!”
****
Jade woke with a pounding in her head and the feel of congealing blood gluing her left eyelid half shut. For a minute or more she had no recollection of where she was or what had happened. But as her senses began to return, the realisation that she couldn’t move her limbs, plus the fact that as she moved her head, tiny fragments of masonry and other debris trickled off her onto the floor on which she lay, brought the details of her struggle to remove the chain from its moorings flooding back.
And she’d succeeded... up to a point at least. For the metal leash no longer held her arms in that painfully stretched strappado posture. She was thus no longer tethered to the fabric of the building. Of course her hands were still shackled behind her back in bracelets of steel. Her legs, too, remained bound in several places with tightly wound and cinched ropes, which refused to loosen, no matter how strenuously she strained and writhed. And of course her mouth was still filled with the pair of rolled up tights, held in place by several layers of duct tape that had bonded to the skin of her face and refused to release its grip. But at least now she wasn’t rooted to the same spot. And she had to use this good fortune to her advantage while she could.
With the only source of illumination being the moon and starlight that filtered in through the small, grime-encrusted window above, all Jade could make out of her two fellow inmates were black silhouettes swaying slightly in the gloom. She knew that, without the keys to the handcuffs and the padlocks that secured their chains, she had no chance of releasing them from their shackles. And it was also obvious that, with her own limbs still out of commission, the best she could have done was to untie their leg bonds. But what would that achieve? Apart from the fact that she felt no compulsion to help Jasmine anyway after her sister’s earlier subterfuge, even releasing Lauren’s legs would be of no overall benefit if she was still anchored to the ceiling. No, Jade decided that - as Amber or Hazel could return at any moment - time was of the essence here, and that it would be better spent trying to get away and raising the alarm, rather than fumbling around in the dark attempting to release tightly secured knots for no real purpose. Whether she could find a passage out of the building - or even out of this particular cell - or not, she had no idea. But she figured that it was better to try and fail than do nothing at all.
Dragging her bound body in the direction of the exit, Jade used the wall to raise herself clumsily up onto her feet. Opening the door with bound hands was no easy feat, especially as it was manufactured from solid steel and therefore extremely heavy and cumbersome. For what must have been several minutes, she did everything within her power to get the weighty obstruction to budge, but without any joy. Finally, however, as despair was about to set in, she managed to jolt the obstinate hindrance just enough to allow her to push her foot into the created gap. Even now, widening that opening until it was large enough to fit her bound carcass through took another few minutes. But eventually, after much squeezing and contorting of her slender frame, she triumphed. Leaning against the wall outside, the door slowly closed on its own accord after her, and seconds later shut with an almighty slamming sound that, Jade was certain, would have alerted anyone in the building to the fact that something was afoot. As the sound faded, Jade held her breath and listened, expecting to hear the easily recognisable sound of high heels clicking swiftly in her direction. This sound failed to materialise, however, although, as she stood motionlessly listening, a disturbance of a different nature reached her ears. Jade stood there for maybe half a minute and received the impression that this was the sound of two people – one male, one female – having a heated argument which, judging by the occasional dull bump or crash, possibly included the use of physical force in order for the one to impose their will on the other. Looking closely in the direction from which this commotion seemed to stem, a very faint light could just be made out issuing from a doorway maybe fifty yards from where she stood.
Jade was in two minds as to what course of action to take. The mental map of this establishment, which she’d been building up ever since she’d been brought here, informed her that the way down to ground level involved passing by the cell from which this ruckus seemed to derive. But her instincts told her to steer clear of any human contact unless she knew the precise motives of the protagonists involved in this animated exchange. After all, as far as she knew, only Amber and Hazel were aware of the continued use of this place as a jail, so the assumption must be that the male voice had to be one of the potential buyers that she and her fellow captives were to be sold on to. But if she were to take a different route, would she get completely lost in the darkness? Possibly trip and fall down an unseen flight of stairs or something of that nature? Tossing an imaginary coin in her mind’s eye, Jade called heads for carrying on towards the sound of the uproar – which seemed to be getting more intense by the second – or tails to wander off down paths unknown. It was a tough call, but the fantasy coin landed head side upwards. At least this way she shouldn’t get lost and starve to death in some dark, damp corner of this hellhole. And besides that, if she was to be recaptured, then she’d simply have to take her punishment, which really couldn’t have been much worse than the fate already projected for her.
Hopping along a metal walkway in the dark with bound feet was not an easy accomplishment, and several times Jade almost stumbled and fell; each time managing to collapse onto the wall to her right, as on the other side the drop into the abyss below was severe, with the protective railing seemingly both low and possibly unstable. Each jump forward made a significant rattling sound on the floor, but if anyone heard this they took no notice; the pair of combatants seemingly still locked in some severe altercation.
Reaching the entrance to the cell where this contest was taking place, Jade peered inside the open doorway, afraid of revealing her presence, yet keen to know whether the ongoing conflict could, conceivably, yield an outcome which she and her fellow prisoners might in some way benefit from. On this latter point her hopes hadn’t high been particularly high. But as she gazed into a room relatively well lit by two randomly discarded torches, her spirits suddenly rose. Could salvation from this whole nightmare really be at hand?
****
Having dropped his own torch as he rose, Steve shielded his eyes from the intense beam cast by Hazel’s, which she deliberately aimed directly into his eyes.
“So, you thought you’d play the ‘Knight in Shining Armour’ and come to Lauren’s rescue, did you? Well I’ll take you to see her if you like... so that you can say goodbye for the last time. But first I need to get you into these.”
Despite the blinding light, Steve could see that Hazel was brandishing a pair of metal handcuffs, which both glistened in the light and jangled slightly as she held them up in front of her. She moved another step forwards, almost daring him to try something.
“Last time we met, you Tasered me and left me tied up for two days. But this time I think I’ll be the one doing the overpowering and tying... unless you’ve got some secret weapon hidden down those tights of yours.”
Hazel gave out a chilling, joyless laugh and momentarily seemed to relax. But this was merely a ploy to get Steve to drop his guard for a second or two it seemed, for almost immediately Hazel lunged forwards, letting her torch drop to the ground as she did so. For a brief second, as the beam of light flashed around the walls, Steve found himself disorientated, and in that time Hazel was upon him and had knocked him to the floor. Immediately she was on top of him, grabbing his arms and attempting to wrench them up behind his back, in order to apply the cuffs. Once he’d regained his composure to a degree, of course, Steve fought back against this surprise assault, endeavouring to push his fiercely aggressive opponent away. For what must have been several minutes, the two antagonists wrestled desperately together, their respective spandex and latex body-suits coming together and gliding over each other in a manner that would, under less stressful circumstances, have been considered sensually pleasing. In a blur of entangled tightly clad limbs and torsos, each gave their all to this physical combat, both knowing that this was a war they simply had to win. With Hazel having the upper hand from the off, however, and with a strength that belied her slender frame, Steve found it impossible to fend off this vicious attack from a woman possessed. And although he gave it his best shot, Hazel’s impetus seemed to be on the increase, and he felt his powers draining from him as his foe seemed to summon reserves of energy from somewhere that spoke of determination and a will to succeed at all costs.
His situation at that precise moment appeared hopeless, as Hazel’s dominance held sway and she readied the handcuffs for use, and Steve feared that he was about to succumb to whatever fate she had in store for him.
For not only did he fear for his own safety, but as her momentum increased by the second, the grim realisation came to him, that if Hazel was triumphant, he would have lost Lauren forever.
Story continued in part twelve
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