by Amy Law
Was that all? Really? Had she been in the mall just an hour and a half ago? She signaled to Ax, pointing to her wrist. He thought about it for a moment. He shrugged with his hands out, palms up. Why? What do you care?
She spoke quietly, but was pleased to hear confidence in her voice, “I need to stay sane. I need fixed points.” He cocked his head. She said, “So, please, just tell me the time. Please?”
He looked at his watch. Then he held up three fingers. “Three,” Tiffany said, and he held up one finger, turned his hand around with five fingers out. “Three fifteen?” He nodded once.
Tiffany relaxed a little as she smiled. “Thank you.”
He bowed with his head. She had the impression he was smiling, too. That’s good, she told herself. I’ve made a connection between us. The well-known story was where the captive falls for the captors. ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ wasn’t it?
Still, maybe she could make it work in reverse. Not very likely, but she remembered something else Daddy said from way back. “Always start with a plan. Even if it’s a lousy plan. Even if it’s the most absurd, no-hope plan in the history of plans. Observe what happens, then revise and adapt your plan to the changing circumstances.”
Tiffany would try.
The biker gestured again to the pizza and beer on the table. Tiff thought that a good sign. She paused for a moment, then looked up at him as she said, “Thank you.”
She wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek, but a kiss on the bandana didn’t seem like much of an idea. She stretched up and briefly touched her cheek on his shoulder, then she stood back with her hands clasped together.
Tiffany thought that he seemed awkward as he left the room, but she couldn’t be sure. She knew that she had to keep her spirits up, but she thought she also needed to guard herself against false or irrational optimism.
She needed to stay real about her situation.
Chapter 4
Tiffany took stock. Now she had the chance to view the room. It was painted off-white, a long way off white and not very recently. She was captive in a tiny room with a boarded up window, and three bikers outside.
On the bed was a clean comforter, new by the look of it. It looked and felt cheap, but new. Was that coincidence or more careful planning? She heard the clock tower in the distance strike five. That was something. At least she had a way to tell the time.
She had seen that there was a window in the bathroom, but it had been nailed shut. Anyway, they didn’t plan to let her use the bathroom without one of them watching.
Was that so she didn’t get out of the window, or in case she broke the mirror on the bathroom cabinet to make a weapon? Maybe they just wanted to have their jollies watching her on the john.
She thought about all the time and money she had spent on her kick-boxing classes. Thinking back, she thought of dragging her sister Jesska along to a few sessions. Jesska hated it, of course. She couldn’t stand anything with rules or discipline, apart from her percussion.
Tiff remembered back to Master Lam trying to teach Jesska how to hold a fist, how to stand and to turn the forearm to deliver weight and strengthen the arm for a blow.
“You’d never get time for any of this in a real fight,” Jess said. “You’d be on the floor before you got your stance.”
Master Lam’s dark eyes twinkled. He spoke slowly and softly, “Street fighters engage much closer than a martial artist, and you can use that against them.” he moved Jess, “They will come in fast with their arms high, and aim for your head and your neck. Do it now,” He told her, “Throw everything you’ve got at me.”
Jess’ face screwed up, the way it did when anyone told her what to do. Then her neck muscles tightened and her eyes blazed as she jumped at Master Lam. Her arms flailed fast at his head.
He caught her gently by the elbow and carried her softly to the mat. As he held her face down with one hand in the middle of her back, he said, “The speed that they rush at you adds to the force of your defence. As your opponent rushes in for an attack, a well-timed kick to the jaw or, even better, the forehead, or a punch on a vital target will stop them long enough for you to escape.”
Jess saw straight away that all of it would take a lot of learning and practice. She said, “That’s not going to win the fight.”
“You don’t win a street fight on points, Jess,” Master Lam looked at her like a kindly grandfather. “You win by avoiding it or escaping.”
Recalling Jess’ simmering frustration and the soft echo of the airy room made Tiffany’s chest shake. Where’s Jess now? She wondered.
She hoped she didn’t have to fight in the small, cramped space of this room. With almost no floor space, her practiced lunges wouldn’t be much use.
This was going to be some sort of a ransom deal. Daddy wouldn’t take that well. He was a man who reacted badly to being threatened. Tiffany learned that at an early age threats weren’t the way to get the best out of Daddy.
She had no appetite for the pizza, but figured she ought to eat. As she chewed the cold, rubbery cheese and dough, listening to the murmur of talk in the next room, she considered her situation from every angle she could find.
Tiffany saw very few options, save one, for herself. All she could see in her favor was the fact that she was a girl, and they were men.
If she could, she would make or take any opportunity to get intimate with any or all of them, preferably all of them. She would use it to get information, and to divide them.
It didn’t seem like much of a plan, but for all she racked her brain, she couldn’t think of another. The only alternative she could see was to be passive and take whatever came. She couldn’t see that as being a good prospect. It meant putting her trust in luck, and her luck didn’t look so great right now.
What would Daddy do? Well, fucking the bikers wouldn’t make the list of options, that was for sure. He would talk. There was no situation Daddy couldn’t talk his way through, but then, Daddy was a senior and a very experienced lawyer. Talking was how he got his business done, and he was a master at it.
Tiffany didn’t think she had a breath of her Daddy’s powers of persuasion. He would gather the parts of a story together and spin them, before presenting them to you in such a way that you’d feel smart because you got the conclusion before he told it to you.
It could be some time before you realized he had led you by the nose and walked you along so you arrived at his conclusion. He’d be able to do it with the bikers.
He would start by seeing it their way. He’d show how he understood their situation better than they did themselves. Point out some wrinkles that they hadn’t thought of, and then let them come around to seeing their options in a fresh light.
Whatever they’d thought they were going to do, whatever their plan was, they’d see that it was useless.
He’d have them figure out how the police would be drawing the net around them. He would help them see what their best chances were. In no time, he’d have them see that their situation was hopeless, and that only his help could rescue them.
He’d bring them around to see that he was their best asset, and that his knowledge, expertise, and advice would give them their best shot out of their predicament.
Daddy made you believe that whatever situation you were in, it would go better if you had him in charge. She wouldn’t be able to persuade the three big, rough bikers, that they needed her to take control of them.Tiffany didn’t know anywhere near enough about police tactics, about the law or about the psychology of the biker community.
From what little Tiffany knew about biker culture, she was sure they didn’t have any women telling them what to do. They were macho, alpha, and driven by testosterone.
The conclusion was obvious. She loathed it. Well, girl, how do you see your prospects in the life of a captive? Any other ways you might gain and establish some control? Whichever way she looked at it, it wasn’t a good choice. It remained the only choice she could find.
The idea
brought with it a reminder of Doctor Mastermann which Tiffany had trouble shaking off. A close-quarter kick to a vital zone had stopped him all right. He was known for his closet encounters, and Tiff got out of hers unscathed.
She hadn’t been able to reconcile how she felt about it, though. She was glad to have connected her foot to his very appropriate target area, and she’d welcome the chance to repeat the demonstration, but a part of her had wished she had waited about another five minutes. That scared her.
Soon, boots—it sounded like two pairs—clumped out of the outer room and, by the sound of it, left the apartment. The door slammed shut behind them. Tiffany waited. The only sound in the next room was an occasional shuffling of feet and the creak of a chair.
She was sure that there was only one biker. She had no way to know which one, but she knew which one she hoped it was. Either way, there was only the one plan, and she steeled herself to the idea of putting it into practice.
There wasn’t any point being stealthy. Tiffany crossed the room and knocked on the door. When the door opened, the biker she’d called ‘Jax’ stood, big in the doorframe, relaxed and loose-limbed, his bandana and shades on, his hoodie up. She was at least glad that it was he.
Working hard to keep her voice from shaking, Tiffany told him, “I need to take a shower.” She wasn’t demanding, firm, or whiny.
He looked at her. Was he suspicious, or was he just trying to decide?
He came into the room and pushed on her breastbone, moving her backwards in front of him. She almost sank when his skin touched hers. The crackle of her nerves from the contact threatened to confuse and dull her focus. He pushed her all the way back through the room, until her back was against the wall by the door to the bathroom.
He held her there, three fingertips on her chest, while he opened the door. She could lift her hand and lay it on his. What would he do? This was going to be even harder than she had thought.
No, she told herself. Don’t lose yourself now, girl. Stay in control.
He opened the bathroom door for her and stood, closing off any other exit. In the bathroom, she stood with her back against the far wall. She pulled her hair up and ran her fingers through it, letting it fall. She watched him the whole time as he watched her.
She started to lift her top, slowly. Not too slowly, not like a stripper, but slowly like a woman, exhausted after a grueling and hot day.
Her breasts were about to bounce free, and he turned to face the other way to give her privacy. That was a surprise, but Tiffany took it as being in her favor. She peeled off her clothes, opened the shower door, and stepped onto the basin.
As far as she could see through the shower door, he was still facing the other way. In case he did turn, she wanted his view to be more than just steam, so she kept the water cool. It really was a relief.
It was a release just to feel the water run, almost cold, over her skin. It rippled across her firm skin, over her pert breasts. Some of her tension and stress drained as the water cascaded over her stomach.
She lathered herself with the body wash carefully, thoroughly. Maybe he still wasn’t looking, she couldn’t tell, but he could hear. He could imagine.
He would surely have to peek, once or twice, if only for reasons of security. She took the opportunity to caress and massage herself all over. It helped her to feel better, and it was bound to stir his imagination.
She turned off the water and stood, let it fall from her while she took a moment to gather her thoughts. She opened the door of the shower cabinet and saw the thin white towel on the rail. It would barely cover her.
“Could you reach the towel for me?” she asked him.
He hesitated, half turning, then quickly looked away again.
“Oh, never mind,” she said, “I can reach it if I stretch across.”
As the cooler air made her shiver, she didn’t think she could go through with it. The biker really made her hot; she really was attracted to him. Maybe it was because of the obvious power he had over her, but Tiffany was sure it wasn’t only that.
She thought that she could do what she planned if she had no feelings at all for him. To use her feelings, to try and manipulate him with her body--she wasn’t sure that she could do that.
To misuse her true feelings, however small, seemed such a betrayal of herself. As she rubbed the towel vigorously over her body, she told herself, This could be a life or death choice, Tiff. Don’t fuck around.
Still trying to set herself to her course, she dried herself twice as much as she needed. She saw the biker shift his weight more than once. At one point, she allowed herself a soft, “Ah!” sound, and a moment later, still facing away, he cleared his throat.
With the towel wrapped tight around her, Tiffany scooped up her clothes. His back filled the doorway. As she moved behind him, he shifted his weight. His buttocks clenched. His ass was fine enough to make her stomach flutter and to send shivers down her thighs.
Softly, she said, “I can come out now.” He moved aside, still blocking the way to the other door, so she had to sidle along the wall. He put his hand on her breastbone. When his fingers touched her flesh, a great, muffled thud went off deep inside her. She was sure she felt a tremble in his fingertips. He held her there as he closed and locked the bathroom door and dropped the key in his pocket.
The towel slipped as she reached up to touch the back of his hand. The tops of her breasts were exposed, and the front of the towel threatened to fall open. He pressed harder against her chest, then shook her hand away and seized her chin, just as he had in the parking level. She pressed her hips towards him. She felt his body tense up.
His heat was enough to penetrate the thin towel. She could absolutely feel him in front of her stomach, a fraction of an inch away, through the soft fabric. She felt him swell.
“I’m powerless,” she said, “helpless.” She looked up at him, trying to read him through the shades. “I’m a captive, totally at your mercy. Can’t you spare me just a little comfort?”
He didn’t move. She bit the side of her lip and looked at him, imploring him, “Please?” and the tip of her tongue pressed on her lip, where she’d bit. She let her mouth open.
Her chest was tight and her voice thickened. “I won’t tell. Not anyone,” she breathed quietly.
He pulled the bandana aside and yanked her face to him. His tongue invaded her mouth. The coarse hair of his beard and mustache scraped her soft skin. His tongue explored her, filled and took her as the breath in his mouth drew her out.
Her hands felt small against the uncoiling ridge in the front of his jeans. Her fingers crept upward, above his belt, and found the soft cotton of his boxers. When he pulled her to him, her breasts crushed against his rough work shirt and the hard ripples of his chest muscles.
With the back of her head in his hand, his fingers wound into her wet hair, pulling. She pulled the waistband of his boxers, and grazed her fingers against his velvety skin and dark fur.
In the grip of his other hand, her ass clenched. The wet towel was held up now by his hand on her ass, and the pressure of their bodies at the front. As soon as he let go, there would be nothing to cover her. Her damp skin pressed into him, molded itself onto him as she slid her fingers down, into the front of his shorts.
He pulled her hair, hard, to yank her head back. His other hand reached up to put back the bandana. In the time it took, she saw the tense, animal rage in his taut mouth. The towel fell away and slipped to the floor.
Her skin glistened as it rose and fell with her breath. This was her plan. She was getting lost in playing her part, though. He pulled her down to kneel on the floor.