by Paul Blades
"So, if you had to keep someone prisoner for a while and you didn't want to cook for them, what would you feed them? Caviar?"
"Maybe they just like franks and beans?" Jake said.
"Right. Enough to store four cases of them in the event of emergency?"
"Okay," Jake conceded, "but there has to be a place to keep the prisoner or prisoners around here somewhere. I checked the basement, there's nothing there. That leaves the barn. I'm going to check it out. There's a computer in the living room. See what you can find."
Jake scurried to the barn careful not to leave any tracks. It was padlocked shut. It was a conventional three tumbler Master combination lock. Jake had the lock undone within a minute. He swung the door open and went inside. The barn was as decrepit as the house. There were no storerooms that could serve as a jail. Jake looked around, perplexed. "There's got to be a lockup here somewhere."
He decided to check around outside. He started at the perimeter of the barn and worked himself around in a widening circle. When he got to the edge of the trees, on the opposite side of the property from the road, he saw two pipes sticking up from the ground. Curious, he leaned over and put his hand over one. He felt a push of air. He put his hand over the other one and there was a slight suction. When he put his ear to one pipe he could hear the sound of a small fan whirring. Something was underground.
There was no obvious entry outside, so it had to be in the barn. He returned inside and made another, more careful examination of its contents. He noted a small pile of wooden skids near the far side of the barn. There were scrape marks on the floor as if they had been moved. He picked them up carefully, first noting their exact position, and saw underneath them a small trapdoor. It had a sturdy brass lock on it. This was what he was looking for.
Not fifteen feet below where Jake stood, Maureen and a small brunette girl were locked in their cages. Louise had come to them about two hours before and washed and fed them. Louise figured they were good for at least forty-eight hours, probably more. She saw Maureen cringing in her cage and wished she had time for a good cunt licking before she and Herman left for Florida. "We'll be back in a couple of days, slut," she told the now almost emaciated girl. "Don't go anywhere." Louise laughed at her own joke. She poked the electric wand into Maureen's cage and gave her a jolt. Maureen moaned and spasmed at the pain. The brunette girl watched, wide-eyed. As Louise pushed the wand into her cage, she tried to back away from it, putting her back against the rear of the cage. Louise gave her a jolt as well. The brunette girl squealed and cried out, her protestations frustrated by the thick leather gag in her mouth. "You be a good girl too!" Louise told her.
The caged young women watched as Louise mounted the stairs. The trapdoor slammed shut with a loud thud. They could hear the click of the bolt being locked into place.
Due to the heavy insulation of the 'hole', neither Jake nor the young women below knew they were in close proximity to each other. Jake yearned to learn what was under the trapdoor, but didn't want to fuck with the lock. Something was down there all right. He would find out when he sprung his trap on the old couple.
Back in the house, Irving had struck gold. The computer contained a detailed record of all of the transactions of the couple over the last four years. It had been locked in a coded file that was no match for Irving's ingenuity. The girls were listed by first name. Maddy's was among the last group. Jake saw a price of one hundred thousand dollars next to Maddy's name. She was a good looking girl, all right, but why was her price so much more than the others? There was only one other price that broke eighty thousand.
"Is there any information on who they were sold to?" Jake asked Irving.
"Just the notation, 'Elizabeth'," Irving replied.
"I found the hiding place. It's under the barn."
"Is there anybody in it?" Irving asked.
"Don't know," Jake replied. "I didn't want to fuck with the lock."
"But if there are any girls down there we've got to get them out!" Irving said frantically.
"Hold your horses, Irving," Jake answered harshly. "We've got one goal on this job and one only. That's to find Madeline and bring her back from wherever they've taken her. I'm not concerned with any other damsels in distress, got it!"
"You can't mean that!" Irving insisted. "You're going to let these girls be sold into slavery?"
"We don't even know if there are any girls down there," Jake insisted. "Now you're on my team and you're going to follow my orders. Got that!"
Irving blanched. Jake was not one to fuck with. "Okay, Jake. If that's what you say."
"That's what I say. Now we're going to set up surveillance on this place and we'll move when I decide."
The men restored the computer and locks to how they found them and left the house. Irving set up tiny, remote controlled, battery operated cameras around the perimeter and in the barn from the backpack he had carried in. When the job was finished, the men retreated though the woods back to the road. They called Martinez who picked them up.
* * * *
Maddy sat listlessly on her bench. The morning had drifted on uneventfully. The brown haired girl in the opposite stall stared back at her whenever she looked up. Occasionally she could hear the rattling of a chain as one or another of the girls changed positions.
Maddy heard the barracks door open and the heavy tread of boots on the wooden floor. As the sound came closer, she felt a sinking in her stomach. The presence of the men boded only ill to someone. She prayed it wasn't her.
Two men appeared at the entrance to her stall. One carried a leash. Maddy moaned in fear. Whatever the reason she had been held back and treated differently from the other women was, she felt, about to be revealed. One of the men ordered her to her feet. While he disconnected the chain from her collar, the other man attached the leash. She felt a tug on her neck and was propelled forward.
Maddy was led past the open stalls of the other women. She had time only to glance at the naked and gagged females as she was trundled by. Each one looked up as she passed, silent witnesses to her departure.
The men led Maddy through the barracks door out to the courtyard. The sun was bright and it was a warm and beautiful day. As before, men seemed to be engaged in random activities throughout. One of the Mercedes had just been started up and coasted up to the gate. Maddy saw the gate swing open and the car, filled with male passengers, drive through it and away.
She was taken to a doorway at the far right end of the building opposite the barracks. She was led through an outer room which contained a desk and a man sitting behind it. At the end of a long hallway, the man who was leading her opened a door and pulled her into a small room with an elevated chair in the middle of it.
Maddy's hands were unbound and she was pushed into the chair. Her wrists were locked into the arms of the chair and her ankles strapped to its legs. One of the men removed her gag, unbuckling it from the back of her head. Maddy yearned desperately to learn why she had been brought here but was too afraid to make any sound.
The chair was straight-backed, and Maddy sat at full attention. One of the men removed the narrow steel collar that had been around her neck and replaced it with a wide one made of leather. The collar was wider in front than in the back and forced Maddy to raise her head. A bracket was attached to the arms of the chair. It had an adjustable arm in the middle which the men raised to the level of Maddy's mouth. At the end of the arm was a thick leather plug. One of the men held Maddy's head still while the plug was moved closer. Maddy resisted the opening of her mouth. She didn't know the reason for this bizarre apparatus, but it didn't bode well for her. She tried to speak, to beg the men not to force the plug into her mouth. The man holding her head released it and stepped back. For one moment, Maddy thought she had won, that she would be spared, but the man gave her a single jab to her solar plexus, and the air rushed out of her lungs. She opened her mouth in a desperate effort to draw in oxygen. At her second breath, the leather plug was jammed in.<
br />
While Maddy strained to breathe in through her nose, the men finished the adjustments to the apparatus. A clamping device was adjusted to the contours of her chin and pressed in tight. The gag had a pump on its end and, after the men filled it full of air, the gag tightly filled the cavity of Maddy's mouth. The net effect was to fix Maddy's head in a static position. She couldn't move her head in any direction. Tight straps around her torso completed her immobility. One of the men squeezed her breast, rubbing his other hand in her long, strait, brown hair and smiling. He shut the door behind them when they left.
The frightened girl sat alone in the room for a long time. She gave up straining at her bonds almost immediately, but she couldn't help the writhing of her hands or the tremors in her legs. Tears flowed down her face as she tried not to imagine what strange torture she was about to undergo.
At last, the door to the room opened. A heavy set, middle aged, peasant woman entered. She had blond hair that was tied up in a bright yellow kerchief. Her face was broad and friendly. She wore a plain brown skirt and a white top embroidered with yellow and pink flowers across the bodice. She smiled at Maddy as she entered and spoke words of greeting. She was carrying a large basket over one arm and a large, covered steel bowl that had steam leaking from its sides. The woman walked behind Maddy and the girl could hear her put the bowl and basket down on a narrow table that stood against the wall.
The woman came around to the front of Maddy and studied her. She stroked the frightened girl's cheek as if to calm her. Maddy took some small comfort at the seemingly benign nature of the woman. She pleaded with her with her eyes. The woman's blue eyes seemed gentle, kind. Maybe she would help her.
Without further ado, the woman retreated back around Maddy. Maddy heard her rummaging around in her basket then felt the woman's hands on her head. She felt the bristles of a brush run through her hair. Maddy tried to talk to the woman, desperate to gain some aid and sympathy from her. Her words were just mumbled sounds, however, and the woman paid them no mind.
After the woman had thoroughly brushed Maddy's long, chestnut hair, Maddy felt the woman pull her hair back. The woman was twisting her hair into a long ponytail. Maddy thought it odd that the woman was only using the hair at the back of her head. Maddy felt a rubber band rolled up against her head, pulling the hairs close to her head. More bands were attached to the conjoined hair, down its length.
There was a moment's silence as the woman went back to her basket. Maddy heard the unmistakable sound of scissors. Realizing her hair was to be cut, Maddy tried to struggle out of the chair. She desperately tried to move her head to frustrate the clipping of her locks, but she was held tight and the most movement she could effect was a slight tremor in her torso.
Maddy couldn't see what the woman was doing, but she could feel and see the locks of her hair falling away at the front and sides. The woman expertly began to remove all her hair except that which had been rolled together in the back. The hissing of the scissors was torture to Maddy as her precious hair was sliced away. When the woman was finished with the scissors, Maddy could feel the nakedness of her head. She cried as she imagined her new, strange appearance. The woman ran her hand over the stubble left in the areas that had been cut. Maddy felt the woman's heavy, calloused hand pat her cheek from behind and heard her say something in her thick, harshly accented native language.
Just when she thought the woman was finished, Maddy heard the rumbling of a small cart being rolled up to the back of the chair. She heard the top lifted off of the steel bowl and it being placed down on the cart behind her. There was the sound of a brush being whisked in a bowl, then Maddy felt the application of warm, foamy soap to her head. The girl tried to scream when she realized her head was to be shaved. From an appearance point of view, it really didn't matter since the damage had already been done, but it was the indignity of it all that caused Maddy to revolt with all her being. She was being turned into some kind of freak!
The peasant woman paid no attention to Maddy's demonstration as she went about her task of removing the stubble from the helpless girl's head. She used a finely honed strait razor, and it removed the stubble down to its very roots. When she was done, she washed Maddy's head free of the remnants of soap. She ran her hands over the smooth cranium, rubbing in a soothing cream. Maddy was not in a position to appreciate the gesture as she was overwhelmed with shame and despair. These people had control of her body. Nothing was left to her. What do I look like? What more will they do to me? she wondered, fearfully.
Maddy felt the woman begin to brush the remnants of her hair from her naked body. She was using a small whiskbroom and the stiff bristles scratched her skin. The woman brushed the hair onto the floor. When she was satisfied that all the hair was brushed off, she grabbed another broom and swept the droppings into a dustpan then poured into a plastic bag.
To Maddy's dismay, there was one more indignity. The blond woman took a small pair of scissors and, after covering Maddy's eyes with her other hand, began to snip away Maddy's bushy, brown eyebrows. When they were down to a stubble, she took the strait razor and carefully completed the job. She stood back and took in the results of her work. She smiled at the now almost featureless face, satisfied.
When the blond peasant woman was done, she gathered up her things and headed for the door. She balanced the steel bowl in one arm and draped the handle to the basket over the other. She looked back at Maddy's tear streaked face once more before she left. "Goodbye," she said in English, and was gone.
Maddy sat in the chair stunned at what had happened to her. She could not understand its meaning. Why would someone want to make her look so strange?
After about a half-hour the men returned to the room. They removed Maddy from the chair. Grabbing her by the arms, they dragged her from the room and further down the hallway. Maddy was too shocked to speak. They entered another room where an older man with wire rimmed glasses waited for them. He wore a leather apron around his waist and a thick denim work shirt. Behind him were shelves of leather straps and bindings. Maddy was spun around and she felt the man measuring the width of her shoulders and the length of her torso. After a moment or two, she felt the man reach around her from behind and drape a leather harness over her chest. A belt ran just under her breasts and was pulled tight and fastened behind her back. A leather strap ran up between her breasts and divided, one strap rising over each shoulder. The straps were attached to the belt.
Too afraid to struggle, Maddy passively allowed the man to adorn her body with the leather harness. She was still wearing the thick collar and could not lower her head to see what had been affixed to her. Her arms were pulled behind her and she felt leather bracelets being attached to her wrists. Her wrists were then raised behind her back and attached to the belt by means of metal clips. Maddy felt the strain on her shoulders as her wrists were forced up behind her. Her moaning protests were ignored.
There was a pause while the man with the glasses returned to his shelves to retrieve more accoutrements for Maddy's body. Her arms were held tightly by the two men who had brought her and she couldn't turn to see what he was doing. She felt a tug at her ponytail and something being threaded up it. When it reached her head, it was pulled over the top and tugged down over her ears and her face. Momentarily, the young girl was in darkness as the leather hood covered her eyes. "Oh, please, no, please," Maddy cried. It was the first words she had been able to speak for days. Her terror at what was being done to her finally overcame her fear of the whip or whatever else these men could do to her.
Maddy struggled as the man adjusted the hood to her head. She begged and pleaded to be let go. It was if a dam inside her had broken. "Please don't do this to me, please!" she cried out. One of the men at her sides grabbed a nipple on her breast and twisted it harshly. Maddy moaned in pain. He barked a harsh word to her. She did not understand its meaning, but was able to gather its tenor. She stopped struggling and the pain in her breast stopped. She may have stopped screami
ng, but inside, she was begging and pleading with her maker to come to her aid.
When the hood was finally adjusted and strapped on, it covered her whole head and her face down to below her nose. The nostrils were left free. Only two narrow vertical slits let in light for her eyes and her vision was consequently greatly diminished. She felt a long, thick leather covered bar pressed into her mouth and pulled tight, widely spreading her cheeks open and jammed in between her teeth. A sharp metal plate depressed her tongue. The strange gag was buckled tightly behind her head.
Once the men had placed heavy, black high top boots on her feet, they stood around the frantic girl and admired their handiwork. A leash was attached to her collar and she was led around the room while the men laughed and joked. Maddy's sounds of protest were oddly animalistic. A hand grabbed her sex and stroked her between the legs. Her legs were locked open by the men's legs. A mouth began to suck on one of her breasts while a hand massaged the other. Maddy tried to resist the stoking of her passion. She tried to swing her torso free and only succeeded in adding to the men's merriment. Slowly, as her pussy moistened and engorged with blood, she felt heat rising in her loins. Fingers plunged inside her, stroking in and out, spreading her lubrication over her tender nether lips. A finger began to tease her button of pleasure, shooting a tingling throughout her body. Her breathing became heavy and she began to moan. She could no longer resist and she pressed her vulva against the hand that was tormenting her. When she came, her whole body shuddered. Her knees weakened and she fell back into the arms of the man behind her. Pulse after pulse of exquisite pleasure flowed through her. She could hear the men laughing as she came.
When they were satisfied she was done, the men settled her back on her feet. She felt a slap on her behind as she was tugged forward by her leash. She followed the men helplessly back out into the courtyard.
Maddy was left to stand alone in the courtyard for a long time. Her collar was attached to a post by a ring in its back, high up, so she couldn't sit down or kneel. Her obscured vision made her feel more naked than before, if that were possible, probably because she couldn't see the men who she imagined were ogling her. A truck had pulled into the courtyard while she had been inside the building and she could see, dimly, several hooded and bound women being loaded into its canvass covered back. When the women were loaded, the truck pulled out.