A cab slowed down and came towards her. She’d missed dinner and was already late for the reception. When she got there, she’d be the only person in pearls, an evening dress and black rubber rainboots. Victoria didn’t care. She’d be the equal of any woman present, and the superior of any man. And if anybody said anything she didn’t wish to hear, she’d see that they lived to regret it. She could do that, she knew now. She had the power.
Saturday Afternoon
Mistress Christine’s car, a little orange Mini, rolled to a halt at the kerb outside Trevor’s place. Apart from a furniture van that stood parked next door, it was the only vehicle in sight that Saturday afternoon.
She climbed out from behind the wheel with a little difficulty: she wasn’t a big woman in height, but she was very plump and almost round in her body shape. She cast a few glances at the suburban cul-de-sac around her, as if not certain that she’d come to the right address. Then she saw Trevor watching her from his front window and walked briskly up the garden path. He was at the door before she needed to ring the bell and showed her through to the front lounge, for coffee and a few minutes’ chat before they proceeded upstairs.
“Nice quiet street you live in,” she remarked, casting a glance out of the window as she lowered the cup from her lips.
Trevor nodded. “Most people go out for the day and won’t be back till tonight.”
“Does that include Ruth?”
Ruth was Trevor’s wife. Mistress Christine had never met her, and Trevor had gone to some trouble to see that she didn’t learn of Mistress Christine’s existence. Again, he nodded.
“I thought we’d go up to the spare room,” he said.
“Wherever you think best, dear. And there’s no chance of anyone else arriving?”
“Not that I’d need to answer the door to. I don’t even expect anyone to come knocking. This whole neighbourhood’s dead on Saturday afternoon.”
Mistress Christine seemed reassured, but she took another glance through the window. “Nothing going on out there, is there? I was just wondering who’s moving.”
“You mean the furniture van? I don’t know. Next door’s been empty for a while, but I haven’t heard of anyone moving in.”
She set her cup down on the coffee table. “Show me this spare room.”
The spare room was at the front of the house, with a Venetian blind hung at the window, pulled halfway shut. It was made up as a single bedroom, with a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a small portable TV and a single bed with a white counterpane and a brass frame. “That’s all right,” Mistress Christine said, surveying the bed. “Here, give me my bags.”
She’d brought two bags; from one, a cloth duffle bag with a shoulder strap, she unpacked a small selection of equipment. One article after another she took out and tossed down on to the counterpane: a long, thin-tailed riding-crop; a tawse of rough leather; a paddle of smooth black plastic, with a sieve-like pattern of holes in the flat; one pair of metal handcuffs, then another identical pair; finally a bundle of cords, consisting of two pieces each about four feet long. Trevor’s heart beat faster: the cuffs were for his wrists, the cords for his ankles, the whip, the tawse and the paddle for his bare back.
“No gag?” he said.
“Not today. Once I’ve got you tied down, I’m going to interrogate you.”
“I might scream.”
“If you do, who will there be to hear you?”
Trevor gave a pleasurable shudder. In point of fact, he’d visited Mistress Christine’s own ‘playroom’ more than once, and knew that it was none too lavishly equipped. She was rather an amateurish Mistress, not long in the business: the kind of person who becomes a kink specialist as a result of chance encounters rather than personal interest. She’d got into it through assisting another, older woman, who called herself Mistress April, and they still shared premises and gear. As well as being more experienced, Mistress April was much more cut out for her role: small, thin, cold-eyed and hard-voiced, she bore a streak of genuine cruelty, and an equally genuine contempt for the men who required her services. Trevor had only met her once or twice, and had swiftly decided not to get better acquainted. Probably she’d put the idea of conducting an ‘interrogation’ into Mistress Christine’s head. Probably she’d claimed the use of their gag (they only had one, a rubber ball gag) and was stuffing it into some poor bastard’s mouth right at that minute, as a preliminary to doing something unspeakable to his genitals. Still, probably he was enjoying it.
Mistress Christine had hung her duffle bag up behind the bedroom door and began to undress. She took off her jacket, pulled a roll-neck sweater up and away and unzipped her skirt, to be left standing in black underwear; a basque and frilly lace pants. Plump and well-endowed with it, she filled her costume to overflowing. Her hair was blonde and reached down past broad shoulders; a heavy chain of gold marked the boundary between chins and throat. She sat down on the bed and took up her other bag. It was a carrier bag from some wine shop, and contained a pair of black leather riding boots. They were good leather and well-polished, but showed signs of wear: horse-riding was Mistress Christine’s hobby.
“Well!” she said to Trevor, putting a sudden snap into her voice. “Get your clothes off, boy!”
Trevor’s heartbeat accelerated as he began to obey. Standing in the middle of the room, he fumbled with his shirt buttons, kicked off his shoes and lifted one foot, then the other, to pull away his socks. Mistress Christine meanwhile, put on a pair of white tennis socks which she’d unearthed from one boot. She wore no stockings, and bare feet enter riding boots reluctantly, and have to be dragged out of them. She watched Trevor as he stripped. “Hurry up, hurry up! Get those pants off... Why, what’s THAT?”
She broke into a theatrical guffaw of a laugh. Trevor had pulled down his trousers, and then his shorts, and he was already sporting an erection. The stiff pink protuberance wagged from his crotch as he bent down to get rid of his trousers and shorts. “Don’t you dare touch it! Stand at the window till I’m ready to deal with you! Go on!” she exclaimed as he hesitated to obey. “Stand facing it. Stand straight up, arms by your sides. Keep your chin up and look straight ahead.”
Trevor obeyed with a thrill of mingled excitement and terror at the idea of being compelled to make an exhibition of himself, though in point of fact he’d have been more or less invisible had any passer-by happened to look up at that particular bedroom window. And there weren’t even any passers-by. The only signs of life in the street below were Mistress Christine’s Mini and the furniture van. Through the half-closed slats of the blind, Trevor could see the van. It bore the name MARRIOTT REMOVALS and a phone number.
Satisfied with his obedience, Mistress Christine turned her attention to the riding boots. Trevor listened to her grunts of exertion, and the complaining groans of the leather as she pulled them on to her plump calves. He’d have liked to watch, really: fat and not too dominant, she was nicely cast for his taste in fantasies.
Suddenly something registered in the lower reaches of his peripheral vision, some movement in the street. Forgetting orders, he looked downwards and saw that somebody had got out of the furniture van. Between the slats, Trevor saw that it was a man in dark blue overalls and a woollen hat, and that he was coming to his, Trevor’s, garden gate. A shiver of alarm ran through him, even as the doorbell rang loudly from downstairs.
Startled, Mistress Christine looked up from her boots. “It’s a mistake,” Trevor said, turning hastily. “If we ignore them they’ll go away.”
But the man at the door didn’t go away. The bell rang again, and again, and then the chimes were reinforced by loud thumps of a fist, banging against the wood, making a noise that could have been heard from anywhere in the house. “Who the hell is it?” hissed Mistress Christine.
“It’s those removal men from next door. I don’t know what the fucking hell they
want here,” Trevor hissed back.
“Whatever it is, they know there’s someone in. They must have seen me arrive. You’ll have to go and speak to them. Go on!”
The doorbell rang and rang, and the banging grew louder. Trevor stood in indecision, mixed with fury: bailiffs arrived to perform an eviction couldn’t have made more of a row. He looked again at Mistress Christine, and something in her expression told him that she was halfway decided to put her clothes on and leave if it didn’t stop soon. He began to reach for his trousers, but then changed his mind and pulled a dressing-gown off the back of the door. Wrapping it about himself, he left the bedroom and hurried down the stairs.
He’d say that he’d been in the bath. And he’d get the number of Marriott Removals and make a complaint. They had no right to knock at anyone’s door like that.
Such sounds as his bare feet made on the stair carpet were quite drowned out by the combination of chimes and thumps. The noise continued right up to the moment Trevor threw the front door open.
“What the fuck - “
He’d made up his mind to be as aggressive as possible, but his aggression died within him very suddenly.
He was confronted by a man in dark blue overalls and a ski mask, which had been rolled up to look like a hat, but which was now pulled down and hid its wearer’s face completely. Only the eyes gleamed out at him, through small round eyeholes.
“Back off. I’m coming in.”
A gloved hand held a revolver, and when Trevor saw that, everything else disappeared from his consciousness. The gun moved, pushing the air in his direction. He backed away from the door.
The eyes took in Trevor’s lack of clothing. “Were you on the job? Where’s your girlfriend? We’d better go and meet her.”
***
There were three of them. The one with the gun was the leader, and a bit older than the other two, judging by the voices. They were going systematically through the house. As he lay bound and helpless on the floor of the spare room, Trevor’s eyes met Mistress Christine’s, looking at him from above her gag. He read her thoughts easily, perhaps because they were an exact match for his own: “oh god, let them be gone soon, and without coming back in here...”
Putting up any kind of resistance had been out of the question. Trevor had backed away from the leader, who’d been followed into the house by his two comrades. Going upstairs, the four of them had met Mistress Christine, who’d crept on to the landing to find out what was happening. At the sight of the revolver, any pretensions to dominance on her part had vanished into thin air: a very frightened fat lady, she’d retreated into the spare room at their order.
When the raiders had found the handcuffs, ropes, whip and tawse, they’d been highly amused. “Kinky fuckers! Comes in handy for us, though...” Trevor and Mistress Christine had been made to stand side by side, and each had had their hands cuffed behind their back. Then, in the absence of ready-made gags, the counterpane of the bed had been ripped to pieces. Thick strips of twisted cloth were tied between their jaws, with knots tied in the middle to hold them apart: additional strips were bound over their mouths, muffling them into near-complete silence. “Does that feel tight on you?” the gagger asked each of them; receiving a faint mumble of assent, he pulled the gag still tighter before fastening it.
Then they had to get down on to the carpet, to lie on their faces. Trevor found it awkward enough, and Mistress Christine stumbled and fell on her side then rolled helplessly over, with a mumble of alarm and discomfort. Laughing fit to bust, the raiders bound her ankles with rope, then bent her knees almost double and secured the rope to the connecting chain of her handcuffs. They’d tied up Trevor’s legs in the same manner, pulled the blind shut and cut the cord that raised it, and then had left their victims alone, shut up in the spare room.
As he lay there, his eyes looking into Mistress Christine’s, Trevor could hear them, plundering one room after another: not confining themselves to what they could grab, but hauling large articles down the stairs, leaving the front door open, and making several return trips. He wondered if Marriott Removals was a real firm, or just a front for their modus operandi. He heard brief questions and answers:
“Stereo?”
“Yeah.”
“CD cabinet? And all the CDs?”
“Yeah.”
“Computer?”
“Yeah.”
“What about the telly in there?”
“Yeah. Pull your mask down first, dickhead!”
The door of the spare room swung open and completely ignoring the bound and gagged couple at his feet, one of the robbers came in, unplugged the portable TV and carried it away. He pulled the door shut after him, slamming it with a force that nearly dislodged Mistress Christine’s duffle bag from its peg.
A few minutes later there came the slam of another door, followed almost immediately by the deep rumble of a powerful motor engine, revving into life, building up to a roar, then fading away into the distance. They were gone.
The house was silent. With the blind down, the spare room was left in semi-darkness. Outside the sun shone, but the daylight could only get in around the edges.
Trevor bit down hard on his gag, clamping his jaws against the material, striving to push forward the portion in his mouth and so stretch and loosen the ligatures around his head. At first the gag refused to budge, and the struggle only made him salivate and soak the cloth into a foul lump; but gradually it began to give way. Meanwhile, Mistress Christine was following his example, grunting with each renewed effort. Suddenly she rolled over again, on to her side. In his surprise Trevor left off chewing and watched her writhe over the carpet. As she shifted her bulk inch by inch, the cups of her basque were dislodged from her breasts; her hairstyle fell into a tangle, as much of it in front of her face as behind. It took her perhaps two full minutes to slither across to the bed.
When she was there, she rested a minute before nuzzling her chin up against one of its legs, in an attempt to dislodge her outer gag. Her idea worked. The outer gag slipped down under her chin and her mouth was revealed, chewing on the knot between her teeth while a steady flow of drool dripped to the floor. Trevor was chewing again too; he pushed with his tongue and the gag almost came out, then settled back into place. Again he pushed, and again; the gag was halfway out, and he shook his head right and left as if violently disagreeing with something, causing it to work its way down his chin and drop loosely around his neck. At almost the same moment, Mistress Christine also succeeded in regaining the use of her voice.
Both drew in long, weary gasps of relief. The gags had made it hard to breathe. “Oh, god,” Mistress Christine breathed at last.
“There was nothing I could do,” Trevor said.
Mistress Christine didn’t argue the point; instead, she looked up at the window. “Do you really think no-one’ll hear a shout?”
Trevor felt a chill. “I don’t know.”
That answer seemed to confirm Mistress Christine’s worst fears. She gave a useless wrench at her cuffs and ropes, then yelled, lifting her head as if to throw the words out into the street: “Help! Help! HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY!”
With each word, her lungs gained in power. “Shut up, for Christ’s sake!” Trevor exclaimed; there was a panic mounting in her voice, and he couldn’t stand it because it’d only take a little more to send him over the edge, too. “I - I mean, it’s no good. There’s nobody to hear. We can get out of this by ourselves,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “These handcuffs - you must have brought the keys for them.”
“There’s only one key. It unlocks both pairs.”
“Well, all the better. Where is it?”
He followed her eyes, upwards to the back of the door, where the duffle bag hung from its peg. It was hanging maybe five feet from the floor; but bound as they both were in a kneeling position, it mig
ht as well have been on the moon. “Oh, shit.”
“Let’s both of us shout together.”
“There’s no-one to hear, I tell you! There probably won’t be for hours...” He fell silent. His eyes returned to the duffle bag, and then searched the bedroom; but even as he looked around, he knew that there was absolutely nothing there that a person lying on the floor could use to poke the bag free from hanging. He tried to flex his wrists inside the handcuffs, to push them downwards: he was reasonably slim, and it’s possible for a slim person whose hands are cuffed behind to escape by pushing the connecting chain down past his or her bottom, from which point it’s fairly easy to get it out from under the legs and past the feet - but that’s only if the cuffs allow the wearer’s wrists some slack. Trevor’s handcuffs were tight: each cuff encircled his skin with a hard, unrelenting grip of metal. He glanced over at Mistress Christine, but didn’t bother even asking how securely manacled her wrists were. “Did anyone know you were due to come here?”
“April’s gone away for the weekend. I’ve got a date for tonight - but I don’t discuss work with my boyfriend...”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Another thought occurred to him. “One of us has got to get our feet free,” he said. “Stay there.”
He took a deep breath and began to wriggle forward, shuffling his body sideways in jerky, painful movements, like a rattlesnake with arthritis. He’d been facing Mistress Christine, and her feet were bent up behind her; he had to squirm around, circumnavigating her, in order to see them, booted up to the knees, trussed together at the ankles with her own rope. It was thin, wiry stuff, woven from some man-made fibre; Trevor’s ankle bonds bit into his bare skin.
A few inches away from her, and he rolled over. With his back to her, his fingertips made contact with the smooth supple leather of her boots. He’d seen where the rope was knotted, and now he had to search for the knot again, by touch. He found it: a small, solid round thing, it felt like. That kind of rope tied into very tight knots. He clawed at it.
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