Tied Up in Wonderland

by London Saint James

  I pressed send. I tapped my fingers on my still wet thighs, and watched the rain distort the night through the front windshield of my car.

  When I heard the ping on my phone, a sense of relief began to ease through me. Derik was up.

  Allison. Which SU parking lot are you in?

  D.

  I quickly typed my reply.

  The south lot. The one closer to the dorms.

  Derik was fast in his next reply.

  I’m on my way. Stay inside your car, the storm is a nasty one. Lock your doors. I’ll be there as fast as I can.

  D.

  I didn’t wait long. Derik was a man of his word. He must have broken numerous speed records to get to me. He jumped out of his Jeep, smartly wearing a black rain slicker, and knocked on my driver’s side window. I opened the door.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said. “My car won’t start.”

  “Pop the hood,” he said.

  I pulled the gear looking thing with the hood icon on it. The hood detached. Derik went to the front of my car, lifted the hood and messed with something. I couldn’t really see. I shut my door in an attempt to try and not soak the inside of my car any further. Derik lowered the hood a bit, twisted his hand, gesturing to try the ignition. I tried. Nothing happened. Derik let my hood fall. My car shook from the impact. He jogged back to my side. Opened my door.

  “We’re going to have to call a tow,” he said. “Come on. Get in the Jeep. I’ll take you home.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I grabbed my bag, pressed down the lock on the door, got out, and bounded over to his Jeep. He opened the passenger side door on his vehicle, and helped me in, closing the door behind me.

  Derik sprinted around the back of his Jeep then jumped in the driver’s side. “Nothing like our spring time storms.” He smiled at me, removing the hood on his rain slicker. “Did you go to a costume party?” He asked. Eyeing my slutty outfit, that was more like a slutty bathing suit.

  “I got into Wonderland.”

  “How did it go?”

  “All right. I need more.” I probably blushed then clarified. “I mean, I need more information.” Derik didn’t need to know I needed more of Master Hatter’s personal attention.

  “So, did you learn anything about Nina Robbins?”

  “No, not really. But I do have the location of the building. I sort of caused a scene on my way out, and they forgot to blindfold me.”

  “Blindfold?” Derik asked, his brows rising in question.

  “Yeah. It’s a long story, but I have a little more to go on now.”

  Derik revved his engine. “You better call for a tow.”

  “Um…”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t bring any real money with me. And my credit cards are in my wallet, with my ID back at my apartment.”

  Derek chuckled. “I don’t want to know,” he said. “I’ll call the tow company. I’ve got cash. What mechanic do you use? They might as well tow it to a shop.”

  “I promise I’ll pay you back.”

  “I’m not worried about it.”

  “I guess I don’t really have a mechanic. The car isn’t that old. Maybe we should tow it to the dealership shop.”

  After making a call to the tow company, we waited for them to arrive. Derik turned on the heater in his Jeep, and even pulled out a blanket from the back seat, so I sort of dried off. Actually, he took care of everything, including paying for the tow.

  On the drive to my apartment, Derik talked about his latest column. I enjoyed listening to him talk when he wasn’t pouring on the charm. When he pulled up in front of my building, I suggested the parking garage entrance. He agreed, and turned into the structure. The pouring rain vanished.

  He helped me out of his Jeep, walked me inside my building, and insisted his job wasn’t done until he knew I was safe and sound inside my apartment. I couldn’t do anything other than invite him in.

  “It’s late, but would you like to come in a few moments? Let the storm settle down some before you go,” I offered.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Good thing I cleaned my apartment. I’d hate for Derik to see my inner slob.

  “Take a seat,” I said after we entered my tidy space. “I’ve got to go change out of this wet mess. I’ll be right back. The remote to the TV is on the coffee table if you want to watch something.”

  I was in my bathroom when I heard the TV come on. I grabbed a towel from the cabinet. Toweled off my hair. Peeled off all the wet garments, hung them over the shower rod to drip into the tub, and rubbed my body down with another towel. I scampered into my bedroom, grabbed an old T-shirt, and some baggy sweat pants and put them on. I swiped my finger under my eyes to remove my mascara smudges, and headed out into my living room.

  Derik was seated on my couch, his sandy-brown hair dark from being wet and slicked back tight against his head. He’d pulled it back into a nubby pony tail. He looked different. Perhaps it was the light, or the night, or both.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” I asked.

  He glanced up. Tilted his head. Grinned. His blue eyes sparkled. “Sure. What’s on the list?”

  “Well, bottled water. Orange juice or milk.”

  “Whoa. Heavy drinker,” he teased. “I’ll have milk.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “How about some chocolate chip cooks with your milk?”

  “Hell yes,” he said, his face beaming.

  I poured us two large glasses of milk, and made a tray of cookies. I sat his milk down in front of him, along with the cookies. He grabbed two, dipped them in his milk, and downed the cookies before I could take a seat.

  “I really do appreciate everything you did for me tonight, Derik.”

  “Any time,” he said, and ate another milk drenched cookie.

  “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “I need to go get my wallet. Pay you back,” I said and started to get up. Derik reached out and stopped me.

  “Don’t worry about it. Really.”

  “Come on, Derik.”

  “Allison,” he said. The stern voice hit me, and for a moment I was transported back to being bound up with the Hatter. “I don’t want your money.”

  Maybe I was tired or perhaps crazy, but Derik had a scowl to die for.

  “Okay, but at least let me buy you dinner sometime next week.”

  “Sure,” he said, and took a gulp of his milk.

  We chatted, watched late night TV, and worked the tray of cookies over. I giggled.

  “You’ve got a cool milk mustache going on,” I said and wiped my fingers over the top of his lip. He looked at me, and I swear, if this wasn’t Derik, I’d shiver. The look was pure top of the food chain predator, masculine, and devastatingly sexy. Then again, maybe I did quake.

  Derik leaned in, palmed my cheek, and gently brushed his lips across mine. For a moment I was stunned, then I was…I admit it, turned on. He kissed me softly, deeply, then harder. When I gave way and kissed him back with full on lust, he tugged me up. I straddled him on the couch, grinding down onto his rock hard erection, kissing like I’d never kissed before. His hands were in my hair, down my back, squeezing my ass. Sparks flew between us. Without disconnecting our bodies, Derik laid me down on the couch, and pressed between my hot, wanting thighs. We were tongues, hands, breathless pants. Then he stopped. Stared at me. Pulled back. Got up.

  “I better go,” he said.

  “Now?”

  “Yes,” he said. I sat up on the couch, watched him put on his rain slicker, and turn back toward me. “Lock the door when I go. I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

  And that was it. He was gone.

  Fired up in more ways than one, I needed to do something about all the pent up energy. I knew there was no way I would be getting to sleep any time soon, so I had just the thing to ease the tension in my body. I placed the dirty tray, and the two milk stained glasses into my kitchen sink. Meand
ered over to my desk. I had the one thing the Hatter tried so hard to hide from me. The address to the warehouse that was the current location to Wonderland. I turned on my laptop, and started to search for information as to the owner of that building.

  I pulled up old building permit records for the warehouse district Wonderland was hidden in. It took me a while, working from A to Q. And then I saw it.

  “BINGO!”

  There across the screen was the information I wanted. Q.S. Industries owned that building, and three more buildings around the greater Seattle area. It was a bit harder locating information on Q.S. Industries itself, but I tracked down a banking source in… New Zealand? I knew someone from New Zealand. And he’d been popping up lately. In fact, I even saw him in Wonderland. Mr. Mysterious was the owner of Q.S. Industries. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. Zaden Quinn, the object of my lust, also went by another title. The allusive Master Hatter.

  “Got ya!”

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday evening.

  I turned on the TV to catch the evening news, and dropped the remote. It bounced off the couch and hit the floor. But I’d worry about that later. My attention was fixated on the news commentator as he talked about a new Wonderland victim. The lady in red. She was being interviewed.

  “I don’t really know what happened,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “My friend and I went to a club then the next thing I remember was waking up in a strange hotel room.”

  She was the lady at the end of the bar. Mr. White was talking to her. I high tailed it over to my laptop, and entered in the name of the pharmaceutical company I assumed Mr. White worked for. Since I crashed their business meeting in the Seattle Central Library a few days ago, the name was fresh in my head.

  I typed Dayton Pharmaceutical Company into the Google search engine, and watched as my options appeared. I narrowed my search to Seattle, got their website, hopped on over, and took a look at their management team page. Luck was shinning on me lately. In front of my eyes were pictures of the senior staff. Mr. White was the senior vice president of sales, only Mr. White was Mr. Stephan J. Salinger.

  My cell phone pinged from across the room. I went to pick it up from the coffee table.

  Little Alice. Meet me tonight. 8:00 p.m. We have much to talk about, and much to disclose. 8090 TerraceLinePark. Penthouse suite. Master Hatter.

  I wasn’t surprised to see the address to my own building, nor Zaden’s penthouse suite. We did have much to talk about, and more than a lot to divulge between the both of us. I glanced at the time, jumped in the shower, then dressed in my new dress. I wanted to look good, even though I had every intention of calling Master Hatter out.

  At ten till eight I stepped onto the elevator, pressed the button to the penthouse, and watched the elevator door close. When the bell dinged, my stomach did flips. The door opened into a foyer, and I exited the enclosure. I came to the front door of the penthouse, rang the doorbell, and waited. A young woman answered the door wearing a bright red kimono with a detailed dragon embroidered across the front.

  “Hi,” she said. “You must be Alice. I’m Nina.”

  Nina?

  “Nina Robbins?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” She stepped aside so I could enter, her short black hair bobbed off in asymmetrical shapes around her face and fluttered. She walked over to a well stocked bar. “Master Hatter said to make you a drink.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” I said. “Nina, do you know the police are looking for you?”

  She giggled and waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, my roommate jumped the gun. I was never missing. I took the bus home to California to visit my mother. It was all just one big misunderstanding.”

  “Okay,” I said, Eyeing her.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a drink?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right.” She exited the bar. “Follow me,” she said.

  We walked through an open living room that connected to an open kitchen. The huge marble and jade dragon sculpture Zaden had hoisted up the side of the building sat between the two rooms as a focal point. Overhead, domed skylights showed of the sparkling of the stars in the night sky.

  Nina took me down a hall, opened the door to a room, and entered. I followed in behind her. One wall was brick. The other three were mirrored. The floor dark slate. There was a stainless steel table next to the rough honed brick wall, a red braded silky looking rope on the table, and a red heart shaped face mask placed next to the rope. Hanging from the ceiling in the corner was a strappy swing, looking very similar to the one I saw in Master Hatter’s Wonderland lair.

  “Where’s Master Hatter?” I asked.

  “Oh, he will be here,” she said. “But for now, you need to lose the dress, and I need to secure your hands.” I stared at her. “Don’t worry. Master Hatter wouldn’t allow—”

  “I know,” I said. “He wouldn’t allow any harm to befall me. I’ve heard it before.”

  “Come on,” she said.

  I walked over to where she stood.

  “Do you belong to Master Hatter?” I asked. Feeling a twinge of jealously.

  She laughed a breathy sound. “No.”

  I was relieved by her answer.

  “You don’t want to keep Master Hatter waiting,” she said.

  I unbuttoned the front of my dress and let it slide down my body until it hit the floor. I took off my bra, left the panties and my heels on, and held out my hands toward her. Nina wrapped the red silk rope around both of my wrists like an expert then secured it to a hook on the brick wall. Next she placed the red hart face-mask upon me. I sort of saw light and movement, but nothing that could be fully detailed. The room dimmed. Became quiet except for the slight hum of the air-conditioning. After a few minutes, my body was beginning to feel the awkward position with my arms tied up over my head, so I rested my torso on the cool steel table.

  “Hello, Little Alice,” Master Hatter greeted from somewhere close.

  “Master,” I said. “I thought we had much to discuss.”

  “Be quiet,” he demanded. That tone struck my core. Hands caressed my back then ripped my panties from my body. I jumped. Startled.

  “Lift that beautiful ass for me. I want to see your sweet pussy,” he said in a low grumble. I wiggled.

  I experienced a whoosh of air. It hit me before the sting of his large palm landed on my bare ass. “Do as I instructed.”

  A sound of enjoyment squeaked from me as the pleasure from the slap rippled over my sex. I licked my lips, stood up on toes, lifting the heels of my shoes as high as I could, and raised my ass for him.

  “Fuck me,” I said.

  He smacked my ass once more. I bucked. “Little Alice is so impatient.”

  Something soft skimmed down the length of my spine. The sensation, almost feathery. I chilled and squirmed. My naked upper body bent over a stainless steel table. The cool surface enticed my exposed nipples. When I moved, the friction against the hard, cold, exterior caused them to stiffen. They became pebble-like hard.

  “Spread your legs,” he demanded. I spread them. “That’s it.”

  Strong fingers waltzed down the crack of my ass. Parted my body intimately. He licked my shoulder blade before his mouth pressed into the small of my back. When he kissed each dimple on my lower back, he traced his finger down the seam of me. I squealed. He murmured low sounds of pleasure. The vibration of his voice mapped the progression of his mouth across my right globe. He kissed. Caressed. Squeezed the plump flesh as if he were kneading pie dough.

  “Your ass is artwork,” he whispered.

  My forehead fell to rest upon the cool steel beneath me. His rock hard cock pressed into the hindmost part of my right upper thigh.

  “Esta noche voy a tocar todas las partes de su cuerpo,” he said. The sound of his voice trailed over the curve of my neck like a whisper of seduction.

  Spanish. He’s speaking Spanish to me. Chills danced over the canvas of my skin.


  “Please. Tell me what you said.”

  “Tonight,” he replied, “I will touch every part of your body.” He fisted my long blonde hair. Pulled it with gentle force. Sucked on my earlobe. My sex quaked. My breasts lifted from the cool steel as I arched backward. It was pleasure/pain. Exquisite.

  “Voy a todas las sensaciones propias,” he said. He bit the side of my neck, nuzzled his nose in the hallow behind my ear before he translated. “I will own every sensation.”

  He reached around my body and plucked one of my erect nipples before he rolled it between his strong fingers. I grabbed at my restraints, tugged. He swiped my hair over my left shoulder. Placed his mouth firmly to the back of my neck. Raked his teeth over the sensitive flesh. I trembled. His body enveloped me. Fingers, possibly two, plunged deep inside my quivering wet pussy. Shock at the invasion was overtaken by heat, stretching, and bliss.

  “Mmm…” I moaned.

  He angled his fingers. In that one maneuver, he demonstrated his skill as a Master. His touch caused me to shake from somewhere within. I wanted more. In a moment of pure incoherent pleasure, I may have said, “More.”

  He fingered me deeply. When I began to fuck his fingers, he pulled out. Swatted my ass. The stinging blow wasn’t expected. I writhed. Twisted. My pussy ached for more. My ass tingled. He plunged at least three fingers back inside of me. Cries of pleasure escaped my lips.

  “I will own every sound you make,” he said.

  Master Hatter rapped slap after stinging slap on my ass as he fucked my pussy with his fingers. I was on the verge of a monumental orgasm.

  “Please, Master. Please fuck me with your cock as I cum,” I said.

  He stopped. Pulled his slick digits free of my body. The sound of my overactive heart beat, and the sound of my breath seemed amplified within the space. All I felt next was the mask being removed from my face. I blinked. Opened my eyes and saw the reflection from one of the side walls. Remnants of my lacey blue panties dangled off the corner of the table in a tattered mess. My chest and neck was flushed. Nipples aroused. My cheeks pink with a blush. My ass berry red. And the man behind me…