Bound by Consent

by Dalia Craig

  Cassie was full of surprises. She returned carrying the hanks of rope and the flogger, plus a substantial flattened metal hook-like object which she fitted over the top of the bathroom door before closing it.

  My mouth dried in anticipation. A hook trapped by the closed door was the perfect height to tie my wrists above my head.

  Cassie arranged me against the door, feet slightly apart, taking time to get me in just the right position. “Give me your hands.” She held hers together in demonstration before picking up one length of rope. With my wrists securely tied, Cassie looped the rope over the hook and tied it off on the door handle before she stood back to admire her handiwork.

  I wasn’t suspended, just constrained, my feet were still in contact with the floor so the strain on my arms wasn’t as bad as it might otherwise have been. It felt good. Very good. Cassie picked up the flogger then paced back and forth. Sometimes touching me with the leather strands, other times standing just close enough for me to feel her breath on my face.

  “You’re doing really well, honey,” she said quietly. “This will make it even better, I promise.” She wiped the flogger over my body, teasing my tits, then up my thighs and across my sex.

  The eroticism of this softly softly approach drove me wild but I knew I mustn’t show any emotion or I’d incur her displeasure.

  “Time to turn around.” Cassie supported me as she turned my body to face the door.

  Not being able to see what Cassie was doing proved even more erotic. I could only feel the sensuous kiss of leather thongs on my back and my ass, then sweeping up my legs and thighs too. The urge to stick my ass out to meet the flogger was irresistible but I soon pulled it back in when Cassie whacked me hard across the cheeks of my butt.

  “Stop that.” Another hard whack landed close to the first one.

  “Sorry, Mistress.” I screwed my eyes shut and prayed I could hold out until she granted me relief.

  Thankfully, Cassie turned me around again before I disgraced myself further. She set the flogger aside, employing her mouth, tongue, and fingers to caress my body. Cassie knelt before me taking my panties and stockings down and burying her face in my sex. Her tongue probed me. Her fingers too seeking out my sensitive spots. My limbs quivered with the strain of holding back on the orgasm that was hammering at the door.

  Finally, when I didn’t think I could last another second, Cassie said the magic words. “Give it to me, honey. Let me have your juice. All of it.” She took me with her tongue, siphoning every last drop from my cunt like it was the most precious nectar. Never had I been so grateful for the support of the rope without which I’d have surely collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  Cassie untied me quickly and carried me to bed.

  “You were superb, honey.” She massaged my wrists and forearms slowly getting the circulation up to normal. “Let's have a quick shower and call it a night?”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  Back in bed, after our shower, Cassie spooned her body to mine and kissed my neck. “Goodnight, honey. I want to take you shopping tomorrow for something special before we have to leave for the airport.”

  ****

  Our arrival back in London early on Friday morning turned into my worst nightmare and lasted most of the day.

  “Oh, my God!”

  I barely registered Cassie’s exclamation of horror as I stopped dead just inside the front door barely absorbing the scene of utter devastation. Somebody had wrecked my beautiful apartment smashing anything breakable and daubing bright red paint over everything else. That included the picture window upon which the intruder had left a crude message.

  ‘FUCK YOU BITCH

  THIS IS JUST FOR STARTERS’.

  “Come away, honey. You can’t do anything.” Cassie tugged at my arm, urging me back. “You...we...can’t stay here. This is now a job for the police.”

  I’m ashamed to say I was too numb to be of much use. I let Cassie call the police and deal with most of the questions. As to how the culprit got in the only possible explanation was that my keycard had somehow been forged, copied or skimmed. Cassie voiced her suspicion of Esmée and Marisa to the police who said they would follow up on it once the forensic examination had been completed and any other leads eliminated.

  I was even too bemused to register where Cassie took me after the lengthy police interview, fingerprinting, and DNA swabs were done. Only that it was somewhere in the center of London, to an old-style apartment block in a narrow street rather than a hotel.

  “Where are we?” I asked Cassie, finally emerging from my stupor to take in the apartment. It had the same look and feel as Auchtercairn, a clutter of mismatched antiques – Georgian, Victorian, even early Edwardian, nothing later, with no period particularly dominant.

  Cassie shrugged and concentrated on pouring drinks into heavy cut-glass tumblers. “A family apartment.” She pushed a glass of something amber into my hand. “Drink it straight down. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Assuming it was brandy, which I sort of liked in moderation, I did as instructed and practically choked on the fiery spirit. “What on earth was that?” My head swam and I quickly handed the glass back to her for fear I would drop it.

  “Single malt.” Cassie’s laughter lightened the mood. “A mature Talisker to be precise. What did you think of it?”

  “Powerful stuff,” I gasped. “Too powerful for me. I told you I wasn’t into spirits.”

  “I know you did...” She shrugged nonchalantly. “But you were in need of something to take the edge off your shock.”

  “It certainly did that.” I brushed the tears from my eyes and sought the nearest chair before my legs gave out. “Do you really think Esmée and Marisa were responsible for all that mess?”

  “Yes, I do. Not that the police seemed keen to believe me. It might take them a while to come around to my way of thinking. In the meantime we will stay here, in hiding, until your next trip.”

  “You’re coming to Berlin?”

  “Too right I am.” Cassie reached down, drew me to my feet and kissed me hard. From now on, certainly until the person responsible for this attack is safely locked up, we are joined at the hip, where you go I go too.”

  “Thank you.” I yawned loudly.

  “Come, honey.” Cassie took my hand and led me down the hallway to the bedroom. “I think we both need some sleep.”

  Sleep, however, wasn’t so easy to come by. Whilst Cassie snored quietly beside me, my brain wouldn’t rest or even begin to come to terms with what had happened.

  I thanked providence that I always kept my most precious work with my awards and other valuables locked away in a safety deposit box. And that most of my photographic gear was safely stored in the Tavistock Street studio. The insurance would probably cover new clothes and all the other ruined stuff.

  One question remained. How could anybody have got into the apartment in the first place?

  Security was pretty tight with an outer door that required a four digit pin code then the keycard for the apartment door itself.

  Okay, so people regularly circumnavigated the outer door by barging in when another person was coming or going. Or getting buzzed in on the pretext of delivering a package or even a pizza. Cassie had done just that when she hunted me down. No doubt the CCTV at the entrance would give the police some clues on that score.

  There were only two keycards to my door – although I assumed the building manager kept a master keycard for emergencies. I had one which was never out of my possession, and Cassie the other – the police had checked them both for clues – and we were in New York at the time of the incident so...

  Oh, shit! I flung the duvet off, sweating profusely. My keycard had been out of sight on one occasion recently, in Amsterdam when I left my purse in the RV and guess who was in there all alone?

  “Why so restless, honey?” Cassie roused from sleep and threw her arm across my body.

  “I need to tell the police.”

>   “Tell them what?”

  “About my keycard. You remember that confrontation I had with Marisa in Amsterdam?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d left my purse in the RV with all my other stuff and, when I went back after Marisa left, it had been moved. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but now...”

  “It may not mean—”

  “Ordinarily I would agree with you but Marisa said an odd thing, ‘Esmée has your card marked.’ I didn’t understand what she meant then but it makes a whole lot more sense now.”

  “Okay, honey, we’ll deal with it in the morning. Now go to sleep.”

  “I can’t... I’m too wound up by what’s happened.”

  Cassie growled. “In that case maybe I can make you forget, for a little while at least.” She rolled over and took me in her arms. Her knee spread my thighs apart as she settled her weight onto me.

  She knew just the right buttons to push to get me going. Within a short while Cassie had taken me over the edge into a place where nothing mattered except the incredible high of my orgasm.

  I woke next day to the reality of the situation, another police interview, plus a lack of clothes, shoes, and all the other personal items that one takes for granted. A few forays into the stores around Knightsbridge, Bond Street, and Sloane Square soon solved the clothes problem, but the rest would take a bit longer to replace.

  Cassie accompanied me on a two day trip to Berlin and then back to New York for the fashion week where, to give due credit, she never left my side. I worked on autopilot with uncertainty about the future playing havoc with my nerves and, to a certain extent, to my relationship with Cassie which stagnated rather than flourished. London, Milan and Paris all passed without any incident other than a few glares from Esmée and Marisa. After a while I stopped phoning the police to check on the progress of an investigation that seemed to be going nowhere fast.

  What is taking so long?

  The one constant in all this trauma was Célestin. Whenever our paths crossed, her contagious enthusiasm for the upcoming trip to Auchtercairn lightened my otherwise gloomy outlook. It would be good to get to know her a little outside of work.

  With the fashion circus finally behind us Cassie insisted we spend the next couple of months at Auchtercairn. Not hiding exactly, although it felt a bit like that to me, but recovering and regrouping as she termed it.

  Fate, however, decreed a change of plan. A phone call from the police just twenty four hours short of our departure north put the arrangements on hold.

  The following morning we presented ourselves to the police station, as instructed. Buoyed up by the summons and assuming we were to hear they’d found the culprit or made some substantial progress in the case. What we learned instead proved a devastating blow to our hopes.

  Cassie was summarily arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

  It appeared that the police had undisclosed reasons to believe that she had conspired with others to kidnap me, send those threatening notes, and cause criminal damage to my apartment in order to gain my trust for unspecified fraudulent purposes.

  They’ve made a mistake.

  I couldn’t comprehend the enormity of these accusations even when the details were explained to me. “No! You’ve got it all wrong,” I protested time and time again. My stomach churned and tears cascaded down my cheeks. In fact I ended up crying all the way through the extended police interview.

  Cassie can’t have done all this.

  The denials reverberated relentlessly in my head. I didn’t believe a word of the claims against her. The police, however, were adamant there was sufficient evidence to pursue this line of inquiry and they had to investigate all the facts before deciding if any charges would be laid. Even worse was to come. Cassie was granted bail while the inquiries were made but one of her bail conditions stipulated that she must not make any contact with me by phone, email, mail or in person.

  “Please!” I begged the desk sergeant. “I need to speak to her, urgently, just for a couple of minutes.”

  “Sorry, Miss Austin, no can do.” He shook his head. “You are a potential witness here. I suggest you go home and forget about her.”

  Some chance of that.

  Totally distraught, I left the police station and wandered the streets with no idea of direction. Only later did it occur to me that I had no home to go to now. I had given up the apartment, after the attack, and never wanted to set foot in the place again.

  I will never forget Cassie as long as I live.

  Then it occurred to me that no matter what the police said I must return to her apartment in Curzon Street. All my stuff was there. I, at least, had the legal right to pick it up. Then I must find somewhere else to stay until this was all resolved one way or the other.

  Cassie was at home. Her face so drawn she looked ten years older.

  “Oh, honey...” She opened her arms and I flew into them. Our lips locked and her arms closed about me. She finally broke the kiss.”Where have you been all afternoon?”

  “Walking. Trying to make sense of this mess.” I shrugged. “Why did it happen?”

  “I don’t know, honey.” She stroked my cheek. “I was so worried about you.”

  “There was no need.” My tears overflowed once again. “Who did this to you...to us?” Stupid question. I knew the answer, deep down, even before the words left my mouth.

  Cassie confirmed my thoughts. “Esmée has exacted her revenge. This is the culmination of everything that has happened before. Her final throw of the dice.”

  “How can she hope to get away with such lies?”

  “She won’t, but it will take time – probably months – to resolve. She no doubt hopes that the waiting, or the uncertainty, will destroy us.” Cassie held me from her, a frown creasing her brow. “We must be very careful, honey. You never know who is watching, or looking for evidence to make further accusations against me. Do you understand the implications if I’m caught with you?”

  “Not exactly... What can they do to us?”

  “To me, honey. Just me. You’re not under any restrictions but I could have my bail revoked and end up behind bars for the duration.”

  “But you haven’t done anything wrong,” I protested, my voice cracking up. “I thought this country prided itself on a premise of innocent until proven guilty? This situation rather smacks of guilty until proven innocent.”

  “The police need to work that out for themselves and until they do I’m stuck in this limbo. Come...” Cassie led me into the bedroom. “I can’t let you go without showing you how much I care.”

  The feeling was mutual. We fell onto the bed, tearing at clothes as if in a race to see who could get naked first. Our lovemaking was urgent and deeply satisfying.

  Cassie kissed me, silencing my post orgasmic gasps, her breathing as ragged as mine “You can’t stay here any longer, honey, that’s for sure. Much as I want you to it’s impossible.”

  ‘I know...” I tried to hold myself together for her sake. “I wish I could be here to help and give you strength but...”

  “You must go to Auchtercairn. Hamish and Effie will look after you and keep you safe until this nightmare is over.”

  “No, I don’t want to go up there without you.” I snuggled closer.

  “You can’t stay in London, it’ll be too risky. Besides which, I couldn’t bear the thought of you being so close yet not having you in my bed.

  “I’ll go to Cornwall. That’s far enough away from London and I know of a quiet place on the Falmouth estuary where I can hide while you get this problem sorted out.

  Cassie shook her head. I’d rather you went to Scotland, but if you’re sure Esmée won’t find you there... Will you drive?”

  “No, I’ll go down by train and leave Jazzy in London, she’s safely locked up in the garage. If I need transport I’ll hire something untraceable for as long as I need it. St Anthony is really quiet, very peaceful and remote. I stayed there, as a chil
d, long before Esmée. I shall be perfectly safe.”

  “Okay, but keep in touch. I know we’re not supposed to communicate but I can’t bear the thought of you out there all on your own. Anything could happen to you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” I kissed her softly. “I’m a big girl and I did okay before you came into my life.”

  “I know, honey, but Esmée may be looking for a way to get at you now that I’m effectively out of the picture.”

  “She’ll have a hard job in a place like St Anthony.”

  Cassie grunted. “While I think of it, you’d better not send any postcards or letters, they’ll be too easy to intercept, and the same applies to phone calls. I’ll get a cheap used notepad from the market tomorrow, something with wifi that I can use anywhere, and set up an anonymous email address for Piper and you should do the same for Tavish. I’ll find a way to send a text to your cell with the details of the account.” She grinned. “Nobody is going to worry about two horses emailing each other.”

  “Okay.” I shook my head, smiling at her inventiveness. “And before it gets forgotten, one of us will need to tell Célestin that her visit is off. Shall I do that?”

  “If you would, honey.” Cassie stroked my arm. “You know her better than I do. I’ll leave it to you to decide how much to tell her.”

  We showered together, savoring every moment of the precious time left to us then I dressed and got online to book a hotel near Paddington from where I could catch a train to the Westcountry the following day. I left calling a cab until last; it seemed so final.

  My bags were already packed from our previously scheduled departure. I added my cosmetics and washing bag, kissed Cassie one last time and forced myself to walk out the door. I knew if I looked back I would never have the strength to leave.

  Tears misted my vision all the way to the hotel and for a good part of the train ride. The further away I got from Cassie the greater the pain of our separation. I broke my trip in Exeter, to stay a few nights in a comfortable hotel close to the cathedral. It gave me the opportunity to make the necessary arrangements for accommodation, buy a few clothes and shoes, things more suitable for the country, plus a new tablet with wifi for portable use. I hoped there would be a good signal for my cell phone in St, Anthony, and a fast internet connection for my laptop too, but I needed to be prepared for any eventuality. In a worst case scenario I could always catch the ferry over to St. Mawes or Falmouth for supplies and hook up to a free wifi connection.