For once, something Joan had gotten me into wasn't a hideous disaster. I was on my way to the office of 'We Help', an organization that provided services for the elderly and the disabled. I still didn't have a paying job, but at least I now had a reason to get out of the apartment. Performing useful work really helped me break out of my depression.
The office/warehouse was a storefront in an old part of Flagstaff. I parked my '95 Neon in front and went inside. (Yes, I still have my car. After Carla's theft ring was broken up the police in L.A. found her truck, and my car was still on it).
"Hello, Kristen."
"Hi, Madison." Madison is a good friend of Joan's and the office manager/telephone answerer/generally indispensable person who keeps 'We Help' running. "What have you got for me today?"
She consulted her computer. "There's a roof repair at the top of the list. We replaced some shingles, and now we need to tar the cracks. You up for that?"
"Sure, but I can't carry a ladder on my car."
"Not a problem. The client has a ladder."
"OK." I went to the part of the building where the donated roofing materials were stored and selected a couple of gallons of roof cement and the tools I needed. Tarring a roof is normally a messy job, not one where you'd want to wear good clothes. I was wearing ratty shorts and a faded, stretched-out tee shirt, perfect for the job. Of course, this is what I usually wear. I did add a pair of rubber gloves to the tools.
While I was doing that Madison called the client. "Hello, Mrs. Summers? This is Madison at We Help. I've got somebody to finish your roof. Is now a good time?". . ."OK, her name is Kristen and she should be there within the hour. Bye." She printed out the name and address of the client and gave it to me. "Here you go, Kristen. See you later."
"Not today, though. I have a dentist appointment this afternoon. I'll see you tomorrow."
"OK, bye."
I hauled the stuff out to my car and loaded it in the trunk. Madison had given me a map as well as the address. The client lived outside of Flag, out to the northwest. Most of the land out there is National Forest, but there are enclaves of private land. I started my car (this event is not always a certainty) and I headed out.
The client lived near the edge of a development just off US 180. The property was surrounded by a wire fence, which wasn't unusual, but I was surprised to find the driveway blocked by a locked gate, with an intercom. I pushed a button marked 'bell'. After a minute or so a woman's voice asked, "Who is it?"
"This is Kristen, from We Help."
"Just a moment, please."
I waited for several minutes before the gate rolled back and I could drive on, and because of the thick trees and shrubs the house wasn't visible until I had driven a couple of hundred yards along the curving gravel driveway. When I finally saw the house it was obvious it wasn't part of the modern development, I guessed it had been built in the 1920s or 1930s. It was made of red brick, with a steep roof covered with white asphalt shingles and pierced by two dormer windows. A long, covered concrete porch spanned the entire front of the house. The area in front of the house was paved with pea gravel and there wasn't any lawn, but there were several large and well-tended flower beds.
The driveway widened out in front of a separate two-car garage. This was a prefabricated steel building, painted white, and it really clashed with the mellow brick. I parked in front of it and walked over the house. I climbed a half-dozen steps up to the porch and knocked on the door. It opened the length of a chain and a little old lady peeked out. "You're Kristen?" she asked.
"That's right, Mrs. Summers. I'm here to finish fixing your roof."
"Just a minute, dear."
The door closed and I heard the chain rattling. Then it opened and Mrs. Summers stepped out onto the porch. She looked just like a traditional grandma is supposed to look, dressed in a gingham dress and with her gray hair up in a bun. She was short, less than five feet tall, and I guessed her age to be about eighty. This didn't seem to slow her down, though. She bustled past me and down the porch steps.
"This way, dear. The ladder is in the garage."
I followed Mrs. Summers to the garage and she unlocked the door. I opened it and went inside. Half of the garage floor was covered with junk, but an old Buick was parked in the other half. It had the portholes on the hood so I guessed it was from the fifties or sixties. The finish gleamed with wax. "Nice car," I commented.
"Thank you, dear. My late husband bought it new in 1967. I don't drive it much now, though."
There was a sixteen foot extension ladder on a wall bracket and I grabbed it and headed for the house. I propped the ladder against the house and got the roof tar and the tools from my car and carried them up onto the roof. There wasn't a lot to tar, just some plumbing vents and around the dormer windows. When I finished I looked around. The trees kept me from seeing very far, but I noticed that behind the house was a very large vegetable garden, about 200 by 200 feet. I wondered how Mrs. Summers could take care of it by herself.
I climbed off the roof and put the tools back in my car. I had smeared some tar on my arm, so I got the hand cleaner and rubbed it on the tar. I needed water to wash it off, but I didn't want to mess up Mrs. Summer's sink. I had seen a garden hose in back and I walked around the house and used it to finish my cleanup.
The garden was surrounded by a fence, not unusual in itself, because the deer and the rabbits might eat the vegetables without it, but this fence was unusually strong. It was made of chain-link fencing, it was eight feet tall, and it had three strands of inward-sloping barbed wire at the top. The bottom three feet of the fence were covered with chicken wire. A five-foot wide gate was padlocked shut. This aroused my suspicions. Was Mrs. Summers growing pot? I took a close look at the plants, but I didn't see anything but vegetables. I also saw footprints in the soft dirt, prints made by bare feet. Very strange.
Mrs. Summers was on the front porch when I went to put the ladder away. "Were you out back, dear?" she asked.
"Yeah, I used the hose to clean up. That's quite a garden you have there."
"Yes, I like fresh vegetables. I also give some to my friends."
"Why do you need a fence that high around it?
"Uh...a while ago there were some hippies camped in the woods. They stole most of the crop until I got that fence."
"Don't you find it hard to take care of a garden that large?"
"Oh, no. I enjoy working in it."
I laughed. "Sort of back to nature, eh? I saw the prints of bare feet."
"You did? Oh, my!"
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Except for my boyfriend, but I tell him everything. And are you still having trouble with the hippies? If so, I'll report it to him. He's a deputy sheriff."
"Oh, no, dear, they've gone now, don't bother him. Thank you for fixing my roof. I baked some cookies, please take some. I'll just go get them, don't leave before I get back." She scampered into the house.
I put the ladder back in the garage and walked back to the house. Mrs. Summers was on the porch. She had a paper sack in her left hand and was holding her right hand behind her back. When I got close to her she produced a paintball gun from behind her back and shot me on my bare thigh. It hurt. "Ow! Why did you do that?" The projectile didn't have paint in it, just some clear liquid which was absorbed into my skin. I got this funny garlic taste in my mouth, and then my legs stopped supporting my body. I didn't fall down, I just sort of folded up until I was on my back on the ground. I tried to protest, but my mouth wouldn't work, none of my muscles worked.
Mrs. Summers took some large zip ties out of the paper sack and rolled me face down. She tightened a zip tie around my right wrist and slipped another tie through the loop. She bent my arm behind my back and connected the open tie around my left arm, just above my elbow. Then she did the same thing with my left wrist and right elbow. I tried to resist, but my arms stayed limp. She completed the ensemble with ties around my ankles and my thighs, just above my knees.
Once I was securely bound Mrs. Summers made a call on her cell phone. "Hello, Patty? This is Edith. I've got a tiny problem here. A nice young woman saw just a bit too much and I had to seize her. You need to come to my house at once and remove her, and you'll have to take Annabelle as well. I imagine the police will come here looking for her, people know she's been here. And you'll have to dispose of her car as well." She listened for a few minutes. "Yes, I know this is inconvenient, but I had no choice. Tell your grandmother I'll call her later and explain everything. Bye."
During all this my mind started to drift. I was never unconscious, just sort of out of it. Nothing seemed to matter, being drugged and tied up by a crazy old lady seemed to be the most usual thing in the world.
Mrs. Summers said, "Don't worry, dear, the tranquilizer doesn't have any serious side effects. In about half an hour you'll be back to normal, except for a mild headache. I developed it, and I'm really quite proud of it. I was a professor of biochemistry before I was forced to retire, you know. And don't worry, we aren't going to hurt you. You'll just join the program."
How nice. I'll join the program. Nothing to worry about. I didn't worry when Mrs. Summers took a piece of nylon rope out of her sack, doubled it, and looped it around my ankles. She circled my forearms with the rope ends and pulled until my heels touched my butt. She knotted the rope around my arms and I was in a strict hogtie. But, hey, nothing to worry about.
"I'm sorry I have to make you uncomfortable dear, but I've got to get Annabelle ready so I'll have to leave you here." She went back into the house.
The paralysis and my pleasant state of mind lasted about half an hour, just as Mrs. Summers predicted. Then I started to worry, a lot. I also thrashed around, trying to free my arms and legs, but all that got me was chafed wrists and elbows. Normally bondage like this would turn me on, especially if Jim was the one who tied me up, but now I felt nothing but fear. I briefly considered screaming for help, but quickly discarded the idea. The only person who could hear me was Mrs. Summers, and my screaming would do nothing but annoy her. I stopped struggling and just lay there, face down on the gravel, wondering which god I had insulted so much that he would condemn me to this fate.
* * *
A long while later a big black Ford pickup pulling a flatbed trailer stopped in the driveway and a woman got out of the cab. I figured this must be Patty. She was tall and wide, dressed in shit-kicker boots, faded greasy jeans, and a plaid flannel shirt. I estimated she weighed over 200 pounds, and from the way she moved I could tell very little of that was fat. She had a way about her, an attitude that screamed, 'Don't mess with me'. She looked tough enough to be a bouncer in a biker bar.
Mrs. Summers came outside and walked down the porch steps. There was a young woman with her. I couldn't tell a lot about her, just that she had brown hair, a slim figure, and was about six inches taller than Mrs. Summers. She was wearing what looked like an old gingham dress and, yep, her feet were bare. Steel rings around her ankles were connected by a short heavy chain and shiny metal cuffs locked her wrists together behind her back. She was wearing a steel collar with a chain leash attached. Mrs. Summers was holding the other end of the leash in her left hand and the paintball gun in her right hand.
The parts of the young woman's skin that I could see were deeply tanned, but her face turned white and she staggered when she saw Patty. She whimpered with fear, and Mrs. Summers reassured her. "Now don't worry, Annabelle, you haven't done anything bad and you aren't going back to the factory to be punished. I just have to get you away from here for a little while."
Patty interrupted, "Yeah, she won't even be goin' there. Dorothy has some heavy work to do at her place and her girl can't handle it alone. I'll drop Annabelle off there before I take the other one to the factory." Mrs. Summers unclipped the leash from Annabelle's collar and stepped back. Patty took a red ballgag out of her pocket and barked at Annabelle, "Open up, bitch!"
Annabelle obeyed instantly and Patty jammed the gag into her mouth and buckled the strap behind her head. The next command was, "Down, bitch! Face down on the ground."
Again Annabelle reacted without hesitation, dropping to her knees and then flopping down onto her stomach. I could hear a thump, and it must have hurt, but Annabelle didn't make a sound. This worried me, because slavish obedience like that implied harsh training, and I was about to 'join the program'.
Patty padlocked the chain connecting Annabelle's ankles to the link between her wrists. She produced a black cloth bag from her pocket and pulled it over Annabelle's head and tightened the drawstring around her neck. There was a big bolt-in crossbed tool box just behind the pickup cab and Patty unlocked and opened one half of the lid, which was hinged along the centerline. Then she grabbed the chain connecting Annabelle's wrists and ankles in both hands and effortlessly swung Annabelle off the ground and dropped her into the toolbox. Annabelle did scream then, the sound muffled by her gag.
Patty closed and locked the toolbox lid and turned towards me. I whimpered with fear, but nobody reassured me. Patty strode over to me, her boots crunching on the gravel. When she got closer I saw strands of gray in her short black hair and I estimated her age to be in the early forties. She rolled me onto my back, and I whimpered again when she pulled out a switchblade knife and clicked it open. I cringed when she reached for my shorts, but she just slit open my pockets and took my keys, wallet, and cellphone.
She produced another ball gag, a black one this time, and put it close to my face. I opened my mouth quickly and Patty shoved it in and buckled the strap behind my head. Next came the black bag over my head and my world turned dark literally as well as figuratively. Patty reached under me, grabbed the rope joining my arms and ankles, and picked me up like a suitcase. It really hurt, and I screamed through my gag.
Patty laughed. "You think this hurts, bitch? Wait 'till we get to the factory and I got you in the trainin' room." She walked over to the truck (I assumed) and dropped me onto the ground. I could hear her opening the toolbox lid and then I was swinging through the air and hitting the bottom of the toolbox with a thump that knocked the wind out of me. The lid slammed shut and the darkness became total.
The pickup's engine started and there was some maneuvering. The pickup stopped and I heard the trailer tailgate lowered. Then my car started up. Naturally, the perverse machine now started without so much as a sputter. I felt it being driven onto the trailer and soon we were bumping down the driveway. Another stop and then we turned onto the highway, once more on the way to some unknown (to me) destination.
I lost track of time. It was hot and stuffy inside the toolbox, and my head was jammed up against Annabelle's knees. Neither she nor I tried to talk around our gags; she was sobbing softly and I was too depressed. But I did realize that this little episode gave Joan a perfect record: everything she'd gotten me into had turned into a hideous disaster.
We traveled on the highway for a while and then through city traffic, then back on the highway. Finally we stopped and Annabelle was taken out of the toolbox. More waiting, then we were back on the highway. We drove along a highway for a long time, then turned off it and I didn't hear any city traffic so we were probably in a residential district. I had no idea where I was. I could be in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, or any place in between. The only way I had of telling time was the state of my bladder, and it was way past full o'clock.
The pickup stopped briefly, then moved a short distance and stopped again and the engine was turned off. "Are we there yet?" I muttered. The question was answered when Patty opened the toolbox lid and dragged me out and dropped me on the floor. I didn't know my location, but I did know where I was; inside a repair garage. There's no mistaking that garage smell, composed of oil, grease, and hot metal. Again Patty suitcased me, and again I screamed. We went though a doorway and I was dumped on a table. Patty removed the bag over my head and took out my gag. I blinked in the light. I was in some sort of workshop, although I couldn't see much of it.
Patty untied the rope around my arms and ankles and I was finally able to straighten my legs. She cut off my tee shirt, shorts, and panties and took off my shoes and socks. She rolled me onto my back and used her switchblade to cut the zip ties off my numb legs. She collected the rags that used to be my clothes and dumped them into a trash can. Somehow, I wasn't surprised to be naked.
There was a storage cabinet against one wall and Patty unlocked it and removed a foot-long length of heavy chain and two ankle shackles. These were kind of crude, just semicircular pieces of half-inch diameter steel rod with the ends flattened. The ends of one piece were threaded and the other just had holes in the ends. Patty assembled a shackle with a bolt and put it through the end link of the chain. She closed it around my ankle and used another bolt to fasten it shut. She did the same thing to my other ankle and tightened all four bolts with an Allen wrench. Next came more chain and a collar, which was a just a bigger version of the anklets. Patty used her Allen wrench to tighten the collar bolts too. The chain linked to my collar was about ten feet long, and the free end was attached to a short steel rod sticking out of the center of a steel disk about two inches in diameter and half an inch thick.
Patty forced me to sit up and cut the zip ties off of my wrists and elbows. I groaned as my limp and useless arms fell to my sides. Patty took a big roll of two inch wide black nylon strapping out of the cabinet. A strip of stainless steel, about an inch and a half wide and a sixteenth of an inch thick, was riveted to the center of the strapping. Patty measured my right wrist with a cloth tape measure and marked off this distance plus an inch on the strapping. She put it into a shear and cut it off at the mark, then used another tool to punch two holes in each end. Then she used a brake to bend a flange on each end. Patty slipped a D-ring over the completed bracelet, bent it around my right wrist, and fastened it with two industrial-strength pop rivets. Then she did the same to my left wrist, and I had two shiny bracelets.
I pondered the implications of what I had just seen. Patty & Company had invested in a large quantity of the bracelet material and in the specialized tools used to fabricate it. How many women had they kidnapped? I didn't remember hearing Jim say anything about an epidemic of disappearances, but nobody would go to that much trouble and expense for just a few casual captures. Then a more frightening thought struck me. Was I the captive of a white slave ring? But how could that be? Patty looked like a villain, but Mrs. Summers seemed so nice!
My dark thoughts were interrupted by Patty jerking my chain and dragging me off the table. She pulled me to a metal-covered door in the back of the shop. There was a wide gap at the bottom of the door, and a steel shape extended into the room about six inches. Its two inch by two inch cross-section was shaped like a block-letter C, with the open side up. I'd seen stuff like this before, it's the steel track that's usually fastened above a dropped ceiling and used to support pipe and conduit. But why was it attached to the floor? The end was blocked off by a large padlock. Patty dug a key out of her pocket and unlocked it, put the disk at the end of my chain inside the shape, and relocked the padlock. Then she unlocked and opened the door. She shoved me into the next room and followed me inside. She shouted, "Jenny! This bitch will be here for a while. Show her what to do." Then she left and closed the door behind her.
I finally had a chance to look around. I was in a large steel-arch building, shaped like half a cylinder laid on its side. It was about forty feet wide and it was about thirty feet from the solid, roof-high wall where I stood to the end wall. There were no windows, but two lines of translucent skylights about five feet to either side of the roof peak gave plenty of light, although it was fading now as sunset approached. There were several cameras mounted in strategic locations. To my right were some stainless steel vats, and to my left were, of all thing, two looms. They were in operation, filling the room with the sound of their clattering. The track holding my chain went straight ahead for about ten feet and then branched to the left and right. I walked forward, dragging my chain along the track as I went.
A room with a closed door was straight ahead, but to my left was an open area containing a toilet! I took the track to the left and then another track that branched off to my right, plopped down on the toilet, and emptied my bladder. There was a sink next to the toilet, and I washed my hands and then used them as a cup to gulp down some water.
A voice with an English accent said, "Hello, my name is Jenny. What's your name?"
One of the most beautiful women I had ever seen was smiling at me. In her mid-twenties, she had creamy skin, brown eyes, long red hair, and a fantastic body; slim waist, flaring hips, and high firm breasts that made my B-cups look like goose bumps. She was naked and chained the same as I was, with leg irons, a collar fastened to the track by a ten-foot chain, and shiny bracelets.
"Uh... my name is Kristen. Where are we? What's going on here?"
"This is called the factory. I don't know where it is exactly, but I think it's in northern Arizona. It's main use is to indoctrinate and punish slave girls."
"Yeah, I can believe that. A girl called Annabelle nearly fainted when she thought she was coming here. But what are those looms for?"
"They're used to counterfeit antique Navajo rugs."
"Huh?"
Jenny smiled again. "I'll explain, as I've done many times before. But not here, I have to tend the looms." She dragged her chain along the track, walking gracefully even with the short chain between her ankles, until she was standing next to the looms. I followed her, stumbling several times as I snubbed my ankles during the long, twenty-foot journey.
"What month is it now?" she asked.
"August."
"I was abducted a year ago last April, so I've been here almost a year and a half."
"You mean you've been in the factory that long?"
"No. Perhaps you'd better let me tell my story without interruptions. You can ask questions when I've finished."
I nodded and she continued. "Did you ever have a moment when something seemingly trivial happened, but had it gone another way your life would have been entirely different? This is a common theme in cinema, but it happened to me in real life. I was traveling around the United States, mostly by bus, and I took a tour bus from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. Once there I did some sightseeing and souvenir shopping, and then I took the shuttle bus that goes along the west rim. You know it?"
"Yeah, the Park Service won't let cars on that road during the peak season."
Jenny nodded. "Now here is that trivial incident. I took the west-bound bus to a viewpoint, got off, and then hiked west to the next viewpoint. It was getting late, so I waited there for the east-bound bus, which would take me back to Bright Angel Lodge, where my tour bus was parked. If I had hiked east the shuttle would have stopped for me and I would have returned without incident. But I hadn't noticed that the east-bound bus didn't stop at my viewpoint, and by the time I realized that and walked to a viewpoint where the shuttle bus did stop it was so late that the tour bus had returned to Flagstaff without me. I was stranded."
"I was really angry at myself. I had left all my luggage at my motel in Flagstaff, and anyway I didn't have money to spare for the expensive lodging available in the Park. I had to find some public transportation. I don't like to hitchhike, it's too dangerous."
"Yeah, especially for someone who looks like you."
Jenny smiled again. "There were two little old ladies nearby, and I explained my predicament to them and asked if they knew where I could find a bus back to Flagstaff. They said they were about to drive there and offered to take me with them. I was happy to accept their offer and I didn't see any danger, after all, these were two little old ladies. They took me to their car, a big old sedan, and we drove off, with me in the back seat. They asked me where I was staying in Flagstaff and they said they would take me there".
"We casually chatted during the trip. I told them my name, that I was from Wiltshire, in England, and that I was traveling alone without any fixed schedule. Shortly after that the driver, whose name was Ruth, pulled off the road. We were in a birch forest, about seventy kilometers from Flagstaff. Before I could say anything the other woman, Maude, shot me with a paintball gun. I got this funny taste in my mouth and I couldn't move. I was hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded. They hid me behind the front seat under a blanket and drove on. We made a stop in Flagstaff, where I assume they picked up my luggage from the motel, and then we came here to the factory and my indoctrination started. After a few weeks they thought they had broken me and I was sent to another little old lady, to be her slave girl."
"Break you!" I exclaimed. "What did they do? Were you tortured?"
Jenny shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it. Suffice it to say that the looms weren't here then and I had to spend the day doing pointless hard labor. As for the torture, well, I'm afraid you will find out about that soon enough."
That was a happy thought, not. I asked, "What did you have to do as a slave girl?"
"I did the common household chores, but this old lady, Mrs. Summers, had a big vegetable garden and I spent most of the day working there."
"Mrs. Summers! She's the one who captured me. I saw her garden, it has a high chain-link fence around it. Talk about trivial incidents changing your life! If I hadn't told her I'd seen bare footprints in the garden none of this would have happened to me. I would have driven off, gone to my dentist appointment, and I'd be at home with my boyfriend right now."
"So fate was unkind to you as well! I'm really sorry, Kristen."
"Yeah, thanks. But go on with your story."
"All right. The garden just had a low fence when I was there. Instead, a long chain was locked to my ankle chain. The other end was welded to a heavy steel rail. I could move it, but just barely. I certainly couldn't escape while I was chained to it."
"Didn't you have any other chances to escape? Couldn't you have overpowered Mrs. Summers?"
"No, she was very careful. She never approached me unless I was chained to something or unless my hands were fastened behind my back. And she always carried that paintball gun. If I tried anything all she had to do was shoot me with it. My life wasn't too bad there. I had to work hard for most of the day, but Mrs. Summers wasn't gratuitously cruel, and I had good food and a comfortable bed in the cellar, although I was chained to the wall at night.
"I desperately wanted to escape, and I finally got my chance when I found a bent nail. I reasoned that if I could file down the end I could make a wrench that would fit the hexagonal sockets in the bolts that fastened my shackles. It took about two weeks of rubbing the nail on the concrete floor of the cellar before my wrench would fit. I loosened the bolts on my right ankle, but the bolts on my left ankle just wouldn't budge. My efforts damaged my wrench, and I had to re-file it to shape. Then I managed to bend the nail into a right angle to give me more leverage, and finally my left ankle was free.
"I was working in the garden the next day, and I moved as far from the house as possible before I removed my shackles and ran into the woods. Even if Mrs. Summers had seen my escape I was sure she couldn't catch me. I ran to the highway and flagged down the first vehicle that came along, a black pickup truck. It was Patty's truck, and my escape was over before it had really begun. She shot me with her paintball gun, tied me up, and put me in the toolbox. Then she brought me back here and tortured me. Apparently they realize I'm going to try to escape no matter how much I'm tortured, so it's too risky to let me stay with a little old lady. I've been here at the factory ever since, and I'm meant to stay here, too. Look at my collar."
She indicated the junction between the semicircular pieces. The bolts were gone, and now the semicircles were welded together. Her anklets were also welded.
"That's terrible! What rotten luck! And do you mean you haven't left this place in over a year?"
"That's right. I haven't given up hope, but I do get discouraged at times. Let's talk about something else."
"OK, tell me about these looms. Why would anyone want to counterfeit rugs?"
"For the money, of course. An antique Navajo rug in good condition is worth thousands of dollars. I was here when the looms were installed, and I overheard an old lady talking. She was a recognized expert, one who people consulted when they wanted a rug authenticated or appraised. See all that electrical equipment on the looms? That's there to adjust the process while the loom is running and introduce the subtle imperfections that mimic hand weaving. Those vats over there are used to dye the yarn, using the original vegetable dyes. And who better to sell an old rug than an old lady? She can plausibly say her mother bought the rug a hundred years ago."
There was a beep and one of the looms stopped. While Jenny was replacing an empty bobbin I looked over the looms. There was a computer, and from it a maze of wires ran to servomotors connected to the warp and woof yarns. It was extremely complicated. I wondered who did the maintenance. Another little old lady?
When the loom was running again and Jenny could talk I asked her the question that had been preying on my mind. "You said you were a slave to Mrs. Summers. Is that all you were? Were you ever a sex slave?"
"No, there was never anything like that. The only people I ever saw were Mrs. Summers, Patty, and Ethel, her grandmother. I was locked in the cellar, tied and gagged, whenever anyone else was about. I don't think any of the other girls were forced to have sex either. None of them mentioned it, and there's no reason they wouldn't talk to me about it."
I was relieved to hear that. If a luscious babe like Jenny wasn't forced to have sex I certainly wouldn't be molested. "How many other girls are there?"
"I don't know the total, but in the year or so I've been here ten women were indoctrinated and sent on. Three that I hadn't seen before came back for punishment."
"So at least thirteen women have been enslaved? Where did they all come from?"
"Actually, fifteen women if you include me and you. All of them were abducted while they were hitchhiking or something similar, and all were traveling alone. You are the only one who is from this vicinity, all of the others were from far away. One woman was from Poland and another was from Korea, although most were from the U.S."
"And they all became a little old lady's slave girl? How many little old ladies are involved with this?"
"I have no idea. It's possible some have more than one slave girl. I am fairly sure Ethel is the ringleader. She's here most of the time, and as far as I know Patty is the only person involved who isn't a little old lady."
"Yeah, that matches up with what I saw. After Mrs. Summers grabbed me she told Patty she'd explain everything to her grandmother."
At six a buzzer sounded and the looms stopped. Jenny said, "It's mealtime. We've got twenty minutes to eat. The food's next to the door."
Sure enough, a tray had been slid through the gap at the bottom of the door. There were two plastic plates, plastic utensils, and two plastic cups filled with milk. The meal included roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, and peas. I asked, "Is this meal typical? Where did it come from, a nutritionist?"
Jenny smiled. "Ethel cooks it. She has firm ideas about the importance of a balanced diet. I just wish she considered a cup of tea part of it."
"These portions are large, too."
"That's because we only get fed twice a day, now and at 6 AM. I usually save some fruit or something from the morning meal and eat it as a mid-day snack."
We ate sitting on the floor, and when we had finished Jenny shoved the tray back under the door. "Well, back to work. Our day isn't over until ten o'clock. I'll show you how to do some of the simpler jobs, such as winding yarn on the bobbins."
And that's what we did. The work wasn't difficult, just tedious and boring. A clock was on the center wall, high up near the roof, and Jenny looked at it constantly as the time approached seven. She also seemed to be tense and nervous, but she relaxed once it was 7:05. "What's up?" I asked.
"The torture sessions always start at seven. We're safe for today."
"What, they never have impromptu sessions? It's all on a strict schedule?"
"I know it sounds strange, but it's true. In all my time here all the torture started at seven. And I saw a lot of torture."
"You expect to be tortured every day? How can you stand it?"
"I'm not tortured much now, only if I screw up. Only the new girls and slaves being punished are routinely tortured. Once they decided to make me the permanent factory hand they stopped most of my torture. Patty may be a sadist, but Ethel isn't and she won't let Patty torture me, or anyone, just for fun. It's all business with the little old ladies. They've found that torture produces subservient slave girls, so they use it."
"I'm a new girl. Does that mean..."
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
After that revelation I didn't feel much like talking, and we worked silently until ten. Then a buzzer sounded and the looms stopped. Jenny and I took turns using the toilet facilities, and she even produced a new toothbrush for me.
"I haven't seen any beds, Jenny. Where do we sleep? Not on the floor, I hope."
"No, we sleep in the storage area. It's not a proper bed, just a pile of rejected rugs, but it's comfortable enough, once you get used to it. Hurry, the lights go out at 10:15 and it's really dark in here then."
Jenny took the lead and guided me to the rug storage area. The center of the building's back wall was occupied by a room, about twenty feet wide and ten or twelve feet deep. As we passed it I asked, "What's in there?"
"Patty calls it the training room, but it's the torture chamber. The walls are insulated to muffle the screaming, but I can still hear it."
I was sorry I'd asked. On the other side of the room was an open area filled with stacks of rugs. One stack, maybe six inches high, was covered with a cotton blanket and had two pillows on it. Jenny said, "That's the bed. It's a bit cramped for two, but I've managed in the past."
We crawled onto the 'bed' and Jenny pulled the blanket over us. The lights went out and it was really dark. Jenny ran her hand through the inch-long hair on my head. "Why is your hair so short, Kristen? Did you shave your head for some reason?"
"No, that happened to me during another of my misadventures. It's a long story, one that seems to amuse most people, but it wasn't funny for me. I'll tell you about it sometime."
Unexpectedly, Jenny leaned in towards me and kissed me on the lips. I was so stunned, I just let her. When she broke lock I protested, "Hey! Don't do that! I'm not bi."
"I’m sorry, Kristen, I couldn’t stop myself. I prefer men as well, but I’ve been a little... deprived? So now I find women 'acceptable'. I’ve been here so long, and I feel so lonely, I just want to feel close to someone ... "
I heard the catch in her throat and imagined the tears in her eyes, and I felt sorry for her. I joked, "Yeah, that's me. Acceptable if nothing else is available."
From her tone of voice, I imagined Jenny smiling bravely. "I'm sorry Kristen, I didn’t mean to insult you. I just get lonely, and you will too if you have to stay here. Why shouldn't we comfort each other in this horrible situation? Please, let me... all you have to do is enjoy it."
Jenny kissed me again, her tongue gently easing between my lips and stroking my own, and then I felt her finger tips brush against my nipple, quickly bringing it erect, before moving on to the other one. I relaxed my jaw, opening my mouth a little, and her tongue slid a little deeper into my mouth, exploring gently but persistently. I felt my body reacting to her oh-so-gentle touch and I put my hand up to cup her impressive breast. She broke the kiss and pulled my hand away, not aggressively but not allowing it to stay there, and pushed me over onto my back, so she was above me.
“Just lay back and enjoy it, Kristen,” she whispered breathily into my ear. “Let me take you to places you've never been."
She took the opportunity to nibble my earlobe, something I happen to find a real turn-on, so I was happy to oblige and I just lay back to enjoy the show. I felt her hot breath on my neck as she licked and sucked and nibbled, gradually moving down, inevitably, to my nipples. She took them into her mouth in turn, her moist lips sliding across my flesh as her mouth opened wide and it felt like she’d sucked in most of my breast. Her tongue flicked out and circled my areola, before her teeth gently squeezed down on the nipple itself.
I let out an involuntary whimper/gasp and, despite my promise to be passive, I arched my back in response. Her tongue continued to swirl around, prodding, poking, flicking. Just as I was thinking I couldn’t take much more, she moved on to the other breast, which received equally lavish treatment. I realized that by now a man (even my lovely, thoughtful Jim) would have got bored and moved on, assuming the job was done. Jenny knew I would take this all night if she wanted to do it, and the sensuality of her touch was excruciating but almost addictive.
I realized her hands had moved on and the tips of her fingernails, having traversed my stomach, were now exploring my pubic hair. A random thought – how does she keep her nails trimmed so neatly? – wandered across my now rather relaxed brain as she gently played across my already swollen lips and, almost unconsciously, I parted my thighs a little to give her better access. Her fingers slid across my vagina and probed gently inside. I knew I was soaking wet by now, but at least Jenny couldn’t see my blushes in the dark, and I opened my legs a little further.
Now her mouth followed down, her tongue tracking down across my goose-pimpled flesh, pausing briefly to explore my belly button and making me hope I didn’t have any lint in there, before reaching my tangle of pubic hair. I now rather wantonly splayed my legs wide open. My mind cried, 'Access all areas, Jenny, come on in!' She accepted my unspoken invitation, and I let out another involuntary gasp as her devilish little tongue burrowed between my lips and made first contact with my engorged clitoris. I had to bite my lip, and I lifted my hands over my head, clasping and unclasping as any thought of relaxation went out of my head. In fact, I was not managing any coherent thoughts, just giving myself up to sensation.
As Jenny took my clitoris between her lips and sucked, I let out an animalistic moan, a sound I had never heard myself make before. My head was thrashing about as I tried to cope with the stimulation, but Jenny was unrelenting. She shifted her position and I found myself with my feet as far apart as the chain allowed, my knees bent and her head buried between my thighs. I felt a thumb go up my ass; two, maybe three fingers were in my pussy working away, finding and stroking my G-spot, and her ever-busy tongue on my clit! At that moment, I really wished I had a gag to bite down on, but instead I was making little distressed animal noises as I teetered on the edge of orgasm. This seemed to go on forever, and I suddenly realized Jenny wasn’t letting me climax! As I got closer, she redirected her attentions slightly and I backed off until she brought me back to the edge again. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Please make me cum, Jenny!” I whined pathetically. Finally finding something for my hands to do, I grabbed her soft hair and pushed her face even harder against my groin. She responded, finally driving me over the edge and into the promised land, which I greeted with a cry of blissful recognition.
I won't say it was as good as sex with Jim, because our emotional bond wasn't present, but it was very, very, close. "You're good at that, Jenny," I panted.
"Thanks, I’ve had eighteen months of practice. I'll teach you how to please me, too; I'm not completely altruistic, you know. Now we'd better sleep. We have to be up at six."
After my interlude with Jenny I had no trouble sleeping, and a good thing too, because at six the buzzer sounded, the lights came on, and a new (long) day started. Jenny and I performed the morning rituals and ate breakfast from another tray pushed under the door. At 6:30 the looms started up and the work began. I helped Jenny as much as I could, which wasn't much.
Just before nine Patty opened the door and snarled at me, "Get your ass in here, bitch!"
I moved as fast as my chained ankles would let me, and as soon as I was in the workshop Patty closed and locked the door. There was another little old lady waiting there. "Hello, Kristen, my name is Ethel. I'm the coordinator of our Cooperative Labor Society. You present something of a problem."
I froze. One way of solving problems is to eliminate the cause. Ethel picked up on the terror I displayed. "Now don't panic, Kristen. We're not planning to dispose of you. We're not barbarians. It's just that people will be looking for you in this vicinity, so we don't think it would be wise to assign you to one of our members in the community. You will have to be sequestered. I looked you up on the Internet. You've had an experience similar to this before, haven't you?"
I nodded.
"You're a diesel mechanic, I believe?"
I nodded again.
"That's helpful. This garage is doing good business and I could use another mechanic, especially one I don't have to pay. You will be permanently assigned here. We'll close off one of the service bays so you won't have to interact with the customers or the other mechanics."
"You want me to weld her up, Grandma?" Patty asked.
"Yes, that's a good idea. She'll have access to tools so those bolts aren't secure. Take care of it, Patty, and then start her indoctrination."
Ethel left the room, leaving me alone with Patty. "Climb up on the table, bitch. Face down!"
I scrambled to obey and Patty padlocked my wrist cuffs together behind my back. She left the room for a minute and returned with a bucket of water and a couple of shop towels. She soaked the towels in the bucket and wrapped them around my neck, working them under my collar. Next she wheeled up an arc welder and attached the ground clamp to my collar. "Hold still, bitch, unless you like gettin' burnt."
Patty removed one of the bolts holding my collar closed, put on her face mask, and welded the collar ends together. I closed my eyes tight and tried not to twitch. Patty poured some water on the hot ends, rotated the collar and welded the other ends. Then she repeated the process on the rings around my ankles, and I was permanently chained.
"Now we're goin' to the trainin' room. Stand up."
Patty 'helped' me by grabbing the chain close to my collar and pulling me off the table. She opened the door and pulled me inside and along the track to the 'training room' door. I got a glimpse of Jenny's stricken face while Patty was unlocking the door, and then I was inside the dimly-lit room.
An ordinary chain-link gate was placed across the corner of the room to the left of the door, forming a small triangular space. Patty opened the gate and pushed me into the corner with my back to the walls. When she closed and locked the gate I was left standing in a space so small I couldn't sit down, I could barely bend my knees. This was torture, all right.
Patty said, "See you tonight at seven. That's when the torture will start." She laughed and left the room, closing and locking the door behind her.
That's when the torture will start? There was a clock mounted on the wall opposite the door, and it indicated it was now 9:23. I was going to have to stand here for almost ten hours? I moaned.
The day dragged on. I slumped down to take the load off my feet until I couldn't take the pain of the wire mesh cutting into my knees, and then I stood again, over and over. There was a water bottle mounted at head height, like you'd find on a rabbit cage, so I wasn't thirsty, but I didn't get any food. Conveniently, there was a drain in the floor just below me so I could pee, but with my hands locked behind my back I couldn't do anything about the spatters and drips.
The only light in the room (except for the small red lights on the cameras) came from two small spotlights mounted over large circular wheels, like you'd see on a game show set. One listed twenty of so numbers from zero to five, with a lot more twos and threes than the other numbers, and only one zero. The other dial was a Wheel Of Pain. It had names of what must be tortures listed on its twenty spaces; rack, thumbs, strappado, plank, oars, treadmill, and pillory. One space was blank. I didn't know how all this was going to work, but I was sure I was going to find out all too soon.
Promptly at seven Patty opened the door. By this time I was in so much pain and I was so bored that I was almost glad to see her. Almost.
"This is your first trainin' session, ain't it, bitch? This is goin' to be fun, at least for me." She moved over to the wheels. "I suppose you wonder what those wheels are for. They're just a way to add a little more excitement and break up the routine. One wheel decides what you get and the other says how long you get it. Ready?"
I wasn't, but that didn't stop Patty from spinning the torture wheel. It went round and round, the pointer clicking, until it finally stopped on 'plank'.
Patty exclaimed, "That's a tough one for you, but I don't get to play. Oh well, I got things to do anyway. Now let's see how many hours you get. You may be lucky and get zero."
I wasn't lucky. The wheel stopped on 'three'. Patty unlocked the gate and dragged me out into the room until I was a few feet from the back wall and facing it. "Stand there, bitch, an' don't move."
She made sure I couldn't move much even it I wanted to by locking the center of my ankle chain to an eyebolt set in the floor. Then Patty came up behind me and shoved a 2 X 8 plank between my legs. There was a bracket on the wall a little below waist height and she bolted the lower corner of the plank to it. Then she lifted up the free end of the plank until its top was horizontal. The top of the plank was sharpened to a right angle and I screamed as it bit into my crotch as it lifted me up. My toes just touched the floor, but they didn't support any of my weight.
Patty laughed. "Wassa matter? This gives you a chance to get off your feet." She pushed a sawhorse under the plank end.
I screamed and moaned. I would have begged if I thought it would do any good. Patty tied a rope to the lock between my wrists and ran the free end through a hook in the ceiling right above me. She pulled until my hands were just above my shoulders and tied it off. This forced me to rotate forward so my pussy took most of my weight. This hurt more than I thought possible, and it was just starting. In three hours I might be dead. Patty left the torture chamber, locking the door behind her. I was alone with my pain.
I squirmed a little, trying to find a less-painful position, but I soon realized that it was best to stay as still as possible. I just endured, my eyes closed, not looking at the clock. I tried all sorts of mental tricks to fool my brain into believing my body didn't hurt, but none of them worked. I hoped that my pussy would become numb, but that didn't really happen. I just sat there, in unending pain.
I was roused from my pain-wracked stupor when Patty unlocked the door. "Well now, how was your first session? You got a lot more comin'. Maybe it'll get easier as you go along." She laughed. "Course, it didn't for none of the other girls."
She unlocked my ankle chain from the eyebolt and removed the padlock holding my wrists together. I screamed as my arms fell to my sides and pain flared through my shoulders. Patty pulled the sawhorse out from under the end of the plank and I collapsed, kneeling on the floor and moaning with pain.
Patty grabbed the chain close to my collar and dragged me out of the 'training room'. I just sprawled on the floor, not wanting to move. Patty yelled, "Jenny! Get over here and take care of this bitch." She locked the training room door and left, slamming the outer door on her way out.
Jenny hurried over to me, her neck chain rattling in the track. She knelt beside me. "Let's get you to bed, Kristen. Can you walk? I'll help you stand."
She put her arm around me and I managed to stand up enough to shuffle to our bed. She lowered me onto my back and left me briefly to fetch a wet cloth, which she used to sponge off my crotch and legs. I croaked, "Is there a lot of blood?"
"No, you're not bleeding, just bruised. It will hurt a lot for several days, but I don't see any permanent damage."
I saw tears on Jenny's face. "Were you punished too?" I asked.
She wiped them away in embarrassment and forced a smile. "No, but I could hear your screams and I knew what was happening to you."
I was touched by her concern for me, and wondered how such a soft heart had survived eighteen months in this hellhole.
Just then the lights went out. Jenny got onto the bed and pulled the blanket over us. She hugged me, and finally all the fear and despair that had been building up in me let loose in a flood of tears and sobbing. I didn’t want sex, just comfort, and somehow Jenny knew that, hugging me tighter and making soothing noises until I finally slept.
When the buzzer went off at six the next morning I just twitched. Every movement hurt. I just lay there as Jenny got our food tray and brought it to the bed. She helped me sit up and I was able to spoon my oatmeal into my mouth, even though my arms hurt. When the bowl was empty I used it as a bedpan, because I knew I couldn't walk to the toilet.
Jenny got to work, tending the looms, but I didn't move. I was afraid that Patty would show up any minute and drag me back to the torture chamber, but it didn't happen. When the evening meal arrived at 6 PM I was able to sit up and afterwards walk to the toilet under my own power. I began to hope that I wouldn't be tortured today.
That hope was dashed when Patty appeared promptly at seven. I was standing next to Jenny by the looms, and Patty didn't say anything. She just grabbed my left wrist, spun me around, and padlocked my hands together behind my back. Then she used my neck chain as a leash to drag me to the torture chamber. I tried to keep up, but I tripped over my shackles and fell after about five feet. This didn't even slow her down, and I frantically twisted, trying to keep the collar from digging into my throat as she dragged me behind her.
When Patty stopped to unlock the door I was able to breathe again, and I used this ability to whimper with fear. Patty pulled me into the room and closed and locked the door.
"Ok, bitch, let's see what you get tonight."
Patty spun the pain wheel and I chanted to myself, 'nothing, nothing, nothing...' but the wheel stopped at 'plank'. I cried, "No, please, no! Not again so soon!"
Patty chuckled, "What will you give me to spin it again?"
"Anything! I'll do anything you want." The idea of providing Patty with sex revolted me, but I knew another session on the plank would ruin me.
Patty laughed at my humiliation. "You are a slut, aren't you? Well, I don't go for that girl-on-girl shit, and you got nothin' else I can't take any time I want it. But lucky for you, Society rules don't allow two planks in a row."
She spun the wheel again, and this time it stopped on 'treadmill'. "Damn," Patty exclaimed, "you have to run to do that, and I'm not cuttin' off your ankle chain. One more time."
This time the wheel stopped on 'oars'. Patty said, "Hey, that's one of my favorites. I get to participate. Now let's see how long you get."
She spun the time wheel and it stopped on 'two'. "Only two hours? You get off easy tonight, bitch. Let's hook you up."
She dragged me over to this old-fashioned rowing machine and lifted me onto the seat. She padlocked my ankle chain to an eyebolt on the footrest and unlocked the padlock holding my wrists together behind my back. There were short chains attached near the ends of the oars and she padlocked my bracelets to them. Then, much to my surprise, she booted up a computer sitting on a nearby table. When it was running she entered something, but I couldn't see what it was. A little green light on the footrest lit up.
Patty went to the wall and took down a long leather strap. "This is the way this works, bitch. The computer will bang a drum. When you hear that, pull on the oars. If you don't bring 'em all the way back in time the green light goes out and I encourage you with this strap. Understand?"
I nodded, and Patty pressed a key on the computer. A resonate 'boom' came from a speaker and I pulled back on the oars. It didn't take too much force, and I relaxed a bit, which was a big mistake. I was slow in moving the oars forward, and the next boom came before they had gone all the way. When I heard the boom I pulled back, but apparently it didn't count, because the green light went out.
Patty giggled, and there was a loud 'crack' as she laid the strap across my shoulders. I screamed, and I frantically tried to get back in sync with the drum, but it took a while, and Patty hit me three more times, moving down my back. The pain was awful and I screamed after each stroke. Patty laughed.
Finally I established a rhythm and I rowed for a while with no punishment, but I was tiring, and my strokes became slower and slower. The green light went out and the strap landed on my back. I screamed and picked up the pace. I was almost exhausted, but the thought of more pain kept me moving long after I would have stopped if I could.
A metallic voice said "Rest period. Ten minutes," and the light started to blink. I leaned forward, groaning. My back was burning, and I was so tired I could barely move.
Patty said, "Well, this is fun, but I've got a date so I have to go. Lean back."
Patty has a date? With whom? Or with what? Not that I wouldn't be glad to see her go.
She jerked my collar and I straightened up. She went to the computer table and picked up a pair of coiled wires and walked over to me, uncoiling the wires as she went. Each wire ended in an alligator clip, and she fastened one to each of my nipples. It hurt, but compared to the rest of the pain I'd experienced so far it was nothing.
Patty went back to the computer. She said, "Testing, testing," and pressed a key. I felt a tremendous shock through my breasts and I screamed. Patty laughed. "I won't be here, bitch, but this should keep you movin'. Have a good time."
She left and I was alone with my automatic slave driver. At least electricity doesn't raise any welts. The light stopped blinking, there was a 'boom', and I pulled on the oars. Just one more hour to go, if I lived.
Somehow I survived, although I lost count of the number of times I was shocked. Finally the booming stopped and the light blinked. About ten minutes later the door opened and Ethel entered. She had a key ring in one hand and a paintball gun in the other.
"I hope you're not going to do anything foolish, Kristen. The key to the track lock isn't on this ring, so even if you overpower me you won't be able to escape. And I must warn you that assault is punished very severely. Do you understand?"
I nodded. In the state I was in I wasn't sure I could beat her even if I wasn't chained. All I wanted to do was collapse.
Ethel released my bracelets from the oars and moved my hands behind my back and locked them together. Then she unlocked my ankle chain and helped me stand up. I was able to walk and we left the torture chamber. Once outside, I saw Jenny was kneeling facing the wall at the end of the track on the other side of the looms. Her hands were also fastened behind her back.
Ethel pressed a key ring into my hand. "Go unlock Jenny's hands, and she can unlock yours. Then return the key and the padlocks."
Ethel unlocked the outside door while I was staggering over to Jenny. After some fumbling I was able to unlock Jenny's wrists, and she released me. Then she slid the locks and the key ring along the floor to Ethel, who picked them up and left the room, closing the door behind her. Very slick. Ethel could have shot us both before we had a chance to jump her.
Jenny helped me to bed and I lay there face down, moaning. Jenny said, "You've got some nasty welts, but the skin isn't broken. I'll get a wet towel to put on your back, it usually helps a little. Then I've got to get back to work."
The towel did help. I lay there until the looms stopped at ten, and by then I had recovered enough to make it to the bathroom. Then I crawled back into bed and Jenny joined me. I was still too sore to take part in any erotic activities, but we cuddled and she comforted me.
The next morning Patty showed up at about eight, dragged me back into the torture chamber, and locked me in the corner behind the gate. The rest of the day was hell. I had only guessed how painful it could be when I was forced to stand in one place for a long time. My feet, my legs, my back, every part of me hurt. My sore shoulders hurt even more because my hands were locked behind my back. By the time Patty arrived at seven I had been crying for hours and I would have said or done anything to avoid more torture. But I knew it was futile to expect mercy from her.
Patty said, "What will you get tonight, bitch?" She spun the pain wheel and it stopped on 'pillory'. "That's a good one. You get to stand up some more. For how long?" She spun the time wheel and it stopped on 'two'. "You're still lucky, bitch. If Grandma wasn't watchin' the monitor I woulda changed it to five. Grandma's too easy on you girls. But there's one more spin, and maybe I'll get lucky."
She spun the time wheel again and it stopped on 'four'. Patty chortled, "That's better. To get the number of whip strokes I multiply the time number by three, and three times four is twelve, so that's how many times I get to hit you."
When I heard that I almost fainted. When Patty opened the gate I tried to resist, but my feeble attempts were useless. She dragged me over to the pillory and bent my head down. Unlike traditional pillories, this one had a single wooden crossbar. Steel hoops plugged into it to hold the victim's neck and wrists. Patty put the hoop around my neck and locked it in place before she released my hands from behind my back. I had no chance of resisting as she fastened each wrist to the crossbar. As the final touch she locked my ankle chain to an eyebolt set in the floor.
Patty got a bamboo cane from a hook on the wall and swished it through the air. Then, without warning, she hit me across my thighs. The pain was so shocking that I could only gasp, and she hit me again, on my bottom this time. Now I screamed, and I continued to scream while she delivered all twelve strokes. I didn't stop screaming even after the beating stopped, the pain was so bad.
Patty wrapped a rope around my hips and tied it to a hook in the ceiling. "There you go. Now you can faint without breaking your neck. So long for now."
She slapped my welted bottom and I moaned. Once she left the room I cried, the tears pooling on the floor below my face. In some ways this position was harder to bear than the plank. There the bondage held me in place, but now I had to stand on my own. I tried supporting some of my weight with the rope around my hips but it was too painful. As time went on the pain got worse and worse.
At nine o'clock Ethel entered the 'training room'. She inspected the welts on my bottom and thighs. "Patty was a bit harsh, Kristen. I'll speak to her about this." She released my wrists and padlocked them behind my back and only then unlocked my ankle chain. When she took the hoop off my neck I collapsed at her feet. I hurt too much to move.
Ethel was having none of it. She ordered, "Get up, Kristen. I don't want to leave you here all night, and if I have to call Patty she'll be very angry with you."
That was enough to motivate me, and with Ethel's help I managed to stand and stagger out of the torture chamber. Once again Jenny was kneeling against the far wall with her hands locked behind her back, and we went through the same routine as before, although this time it took me a lot longer to reach Jenny, and I fumbled with the lock on her wrists for so long that she took the key and unlocked me first.
Ethel said, "She's had a hard time, Jenny. Take care of her. You can quit working now."
And with that benevolent gesture Ethel left. Jenny helped me to the bed and once again treated my welts with a wet towel, but it didn't help much. I had a hard time getting to sleep, and Jenny hugged me while we both cried.
* * *
The next morning I stayed in bed without moving any more than I absolutely had to. The welts on my back and legs hurt a lot, and all of my muscles were sore. Jenny brought food to me, but I didn't feel like eating. I tried to sleep, but it was difficult, both because of the pain and because I was afraid that Patty would appear at any moment and lock me up in hell's corner.
As the day went by I felt slightly better and I tried to take care of myself so I wasn't a burden on Jenny. We finished the evening meal with no sign of Patty, and I started to hope that Ethel had decided to stop the torture for a while after she saw how much damage Patty did with the cane. I'd heard that hope dashed is worse than no hope at all, and that was proven to me when Patty appeared at seven, locked my wrists together behind my back, and dragged me into the torture chamber.
Patty locked the door and went over to the pain wheel. "This is always an excitin' time, ain't it? But I bet it's more excitin' for you than it is for me. Let's see what you get. It could be the plank again." She spun the wheel and it stopped on 'thumbs'. She spun the time dial. "Only three hours. You're lucky again. Besides, thumbs ain't what it used to be. I can't hang you by the thumbs anymore, it does too much damage, Grandma says. Now you just get hung up by your wrists. But I still get to whip you."
I begged, "Oh no, please don't whip me! It hurts so much. Please, please, don't." In the deep recesses of my mind I recognized how far down I had fallen when I was reduced to making such a futile plea. I knew Patty would just laugh.
Patty laughed. "The whippin' is part of the treatment, bitch. Besides, I like to whip you and hear you scream. Let's see how many you get."
She spun the number wheel and I watched in terror. What if it stopped on five? It stopped on 'two', and I sighed with relief.
This angered Patty. "Don't get your hopes up, bitch. You only get six, but they go on your front, and I'll make 'em extra hard."
She pulled me over to a steel cable hanging from the ceiling, released my hands from behind my back, and locked them to the loop at the end of the cable. There was a winch mounted on the wall and Patty cranked it until my feet were off the floor. She took a heavy strap from its hook on the wall and positioned herself to whip my front. I cringed with fear.
Patty swung the belt and it struck me squarely across my breasts. The pain was like nothing I had felt before. I screamed, and Patty smiled. She hit me again, across my stomach. Another scream. A stroke across my thighs, another scream. Working her way back up, another blow on my stomach. By now I was screaming continuously, not in response to the individual blows. Another stroke across my breasts, exactly centered on my nipples. I was so distracted by the pain that I no longer watched Patty, and she surprised me with a vertical slash along my pussy.
I must have fainted, and when I returned to my world of pain Patty was gone. As time passed the pain in my arms increased to match the pain from the whipping, and I hung limply from my wrists, moaning and crying.
Finally Ethel appeared. She inspected my fresh welts and shook her head. When she released the winch I just collapsed in a heap. She must have realized how helpless I was because she released my numb hands from the cable and locked them behind my back without all the usual elaborate precautions. I had no thoughts of escape. I just wanted to die, if it would make the pain stop.
Ethel let me lie there for a few minutes before she said, "Get up, Kristen. You can't stay here all night."
I forced myself to my knees and put my forehead on the floor at Ethel's feet. "Please, please, don't torture me any more," I begged. "I'll do anything you want. Just don't hurt me any more." I started to sob. I had expected to feel a twinge of shame when I degraded myself like this, but there wasn't any trace of it. I was genuinely broken. The little old ladies may not have been able to break Jenny in three weeks, but they broke me in four days. The individual torture sessions were horrible, but what really pushed me over the edge was the repetition. I couldn't face a future where I would inevitably be tortured every day, at precisely seven o'clock.
Ethel considered my plea for a few moments. "Very well, Kristen. I believe you're sincere about this, so your indoctrination is now over. But if you display any insubordination or if you even appear to be attempting to escape it will be resumed, and for a period of weeks, not days. Do you understand?"
"Yes, yes, I understand! And I'll do as you wish and I'll never try to escape, I promise." Now I did cringe a little, deep inside.
"Good, I don't want to punish you. The modifications to the garage have been completed, but even so I think it would be best if you are not there during the day when customers and other mechanics are on the premises. The garage hours are 9 AM to 6 PM, so you will work overnight, from 6:30 to 8:30, starting tomorrow evening."
Ethel helped me out of the torture chamber and Jenny and I went through the usual process of releasing our hands. On her way out Ethel said, "Kristen, you may rest tomorrow until you start work in the garage. Jenny, help her. That has priority over your other work."
Jenny helped me to bed and got a wet towel to put on my welts. This time there was some blood, from a small cut on my right breast. I moaned as Jenny wiped it off.
"Sorry, Kristen. I'll try to be careful, but these welts are really nasty." She laid the towel over my front. "What did Ethel mean when she said you'd be working in the garage?"
"I guess I never told you. I'm a diesel mechanic, although I've been out of a job for a while. Ethel's going to get some skilled slave labor." Then it hit me. "We won't be sharing a bed anymore! I'll be working while you're sleeping. This might be my last chance to pleasure you. Sit on my face."
Jenny laughed. "I appreciate your rather blunt offer, but you're in no condition for that now. I'm sure we'll find some time to be together. Now you'd better sleep, if you can."
* * *
Surprisingly enough, I could sleep. I didn't wake up until the buzzer sounded at 6 AM, and after I ate I slept some more. Jenny and I shared the evening meal when it arrived, and although I was still in a lot of pain I was able to move around. Which was a good thing, because Patty appeared at exactly 6:30. She fastened my hands behind my back and took me into the workshop. She removed the lock at the end of the track and I was no longer chained to it for the first time in days.
Patty used the chain as a leash and pulled me through a side door and into a storeroom. This was connected to a service bay, and another track was mounted overhead. A six-foot chain dangled from it and she padlocked it to my neck chain.
"OK, bitch, here are the rules. You don't ever write anything that might be a note to the police. We got cameras that cover everywhere, and Grandma watches 'em all the time. Next, you don't ever get in a cab. If you need to run the engine you call me or Grandma." She pointed to an intercom. "Just press that button. Also use it if you need a tool or a part that's not in the storeroom. Understand?"
I nodded.
"The chain's long enough to let you get to anywhere you need to be. Remember, you fuck up or even if I just catch you loafing you go back in the trainin' room, and next time I won't go easy on you."
I literally shuddered at the thought. Patty noticed and laughed. Laugh, you bitch, I thought. You'll pay for all you've done. This thought surprised me. Maybe I wasn't completely broken yet.
We entered the service bay. It was long enough to hold two vehicles end to end, and a pickup truck and a medium-sized cargo truck were parked in it. Patty said, "The pickup just needs the injectors changed, so do that first. The other truck is in for an engine rebuild. When you're done with the injectors pull the engine and start takin' it apart. Understand?"
I nodded again.
"Get to work."
Patty left and I got to work. First I looked around. This service bay was against the outside wall of the building, divided from the rest of the garage by a ten-foot drywall partition, and I briefly wondered how Ethel explained it to the other mechanics. There were the usual tools, except there weren't any cutting tools; no hacksaw, no chisels, no torch. No surprise there. In the storeroom was a round cooler full of water, but no toilet facilities. I scrounged around until I found an old coffee can.
I started to work on the pickup. It still hurt to move or when I bumped a welt, but I managed. I got into the job and even managed to forget my troubles for a while. When the pickup was done I moved on to pulling the engine from the other truck, using a permanently mounted chain hoist that ran along an overhead beam. Working on machinery is what I like to do, and the time passed quickly.
At 8:30 Patty took me back into the loom room. A new can of Goop was in the bathroom and I cleaned off the grease and used the fiberglass shower stall to wash all over. Once I was clean I ate my (cold) breakfast, kissed Jenny, and went to bed. I woke up an hour of so before the evening meal, shared it with Jenny, and then Patty took me back to the garage.
* * *
This was my routine for the next several weeks. I obviously wasn't shirking, and I never tried to escape, so I wasn't tortured again. I was almost happy, at least when I was actually working. The biggest downer was that the only time that Jenny and I had together was during the evening meal. All the rest of the time Jenny and I were either working or sleeping.
I worried about Jenny. She had been such a brave, supportive person when I needed her help, but now I could tell she was sinking into depression. The biggest part of the problem was her crushingly dull job, and the prospect of doing it forever under the ever-present threat of torture.
One night I was doing some routine maintenance on a big crew cab pickup truck. There was a construction company logo on the door that seemed familiar. I thought about it until I remembered that a friend of Jim's was a foreman for the company. This might even be his truck! This might be a chance to escape! I was scared out of my mind at the thought of failure, but I knew I had to try. If someone as resilient as Jenny had reached the end of her rope after 18 months I knew I couldn't last nearly as long.
I knew I couldn't write a note, so how else could I get a message out? I thought of something that might work, or might get me killed if Patty found out. I crawled under the truck, where the cameras couldn't see me, and removed a sheet metal heat shield. I scratched a message on it with a screwdriver, saying that Kristen was a prisoner in the garage and pleading with the reader to call Jim. I provided his Sheriff's department phone number.
Now for the tricky part. How to bring this to the attention of the good guys without letting the bad guys find out? I fastened a three foot wire from the heat shield to its mount and reattached it with just one loose screw. If all went well the heat shield would come loose, its clattering would attract the driver's attention, and he would call Jim. So many things could go wrong I couldn't even think of all of them. The best failure would be that nothing happened. The worst failure would result in me being tortured to death. I realized that if I was killed Jenny would probably be killed too, to eliminate her as a witness. This made me really think hard, but I decided that she would want me to risk it, and I was genuinely concerned that before too long she would decide that committing suicide was her only escape.
I wasn't under the truck for an unusually long time, and I had a plausible reason for being there (checking the exhaust system), so no questions were asked by Ethel or Patty. All I could do now was wait for (literally) liberty or death. The waiting was terrible. I had to act normally, even with all this desperate hope inside me, which I knew might come to nothing. I so wanted to confide in Jenny, but I was sure that if I did and nothing happened the disappointment would kill her. Somehow I managed to function without anybody, even Jenny, noticing anything unusual.
Three days later Jenny and I were waiting for the breakfast tray to be slid under the door when suddenly there was a lot of shouting. Then the door opened and Jim entered the room, followed by a several uniformed Coconino County deputies. Jenny and I both spontaneously burst into tears.
Jim dashed over and held me. "Hello, Kristen. Are you OK?"
I forced myself to calmly answer, "Yes, Jim. But I'm not the only prisoner. There are dozens of young women being held as slaves by little old ladies. Ethel is the ringleader. Don't let her or Patty warn the others." Then, my duty done, I clung onto him, crying in pure joy and relief. After a few minutes, I grabbed Jenny into a three-way hug and there were many, many more tears of joy and relief.
Jim gave some instructions to his men and tried to comfort me and this beautiful, naked stranger. When I was calm enough to talk he asked, "Was Mrs. Summers responsible for your disappearance?"
"Yes, I said something that made her think you might discover she had a slave girl."
Jim shook his head. "I don't know why everything happens to you, Kristen. Captured by little old ladies! Who's next, elves riding unicorns? I'm going to have to put a tracking collar on you, like the ones zoologists use on bears."
"OK, as long as you're the one who puts it on me."
Epilogue
The truck did belong to Jim's friend. When he found the loose heat shield he already knew I had disappeared and thus the message was no joke, so he called Jim at once. Jim used his friend's information to get a search warrant for Ethel's garage and he raided it. Ethel and Patty were arrested right then, and a search of Ethel's computer found a complete list of all the slave girls and all the little old ladies, and their locations. More raids were made, all the slaves were liberated, and all the little old ladies were arrested.
Naturally, the news caused a world-wide sensation. The legal complications still haven't been completely sorted out. The Feds got into the act, since slavery is a Federal offence. A few of the little old ladies said they were innocent, since they believed all the slaves were kinky volunteers, but most pleaded guilty to various charges. Patty ratted out Ethel and the Cooperative Labor Society in return for a reduced sentence. Mrs. Summers had a massive stroke and died when she was arrested, taking the secret of her magic tranquilizer to the grave.
I finally got free of my car. Patty had chopped it up and sold it as scrap.
One of the deputies took a cellphone photo of Jenny at the moment of our liberation. The picture of her gorgeous nude body, in chains, was leaked to the Internet, and in less than a day thousands of messages addressed to her were sent to the sheriff. Many of the messages were propositions, some financial, some lewd, but one was a marriage proposal from an eighty year old multimillionaire. She's still considering that one, in the comfort of his motor cruiser sailing in the Bahamas.
It wasn't long before all the world's amateur and professional psychologists were embroiled in a heated discussion about why seemingly normal little old ladies, many of whom had successful careers before they retired, would do something so monstrous. There were probably as many reasons as there were little old ladies, but apparently there were two main competing theories on the talkshow circuit:
1. They wanted a servant to do all of the physical chores that became more difficult as they aged. That these servants were actually slaves made it even better. Slavery existed for thousands of years, and its abolition is relatively recent. The little old ladies lost their inhibitions about it as they grew older and they had less to lose.2. They resented a society of younger people who had forced them to retire from active participation in life. The young women they kidnapped and punished represented the society that had excluded them.
Probably each little old lady was partially motivated by both of these reasons and many more besides. Who knows? People are complicated, and this complexity doesn't get less as we age.A few months later Jim got another promotion. He said this case was largely responsible for it. "The sheriff was really happy with me for all this good publicity, Kristen. This is the second time your misadventures have aided my career."
"Thank you, Master. This slave is glad her suffering has helped you." I'm not really his slave, of course. He hasn't collared me. Yet.
The End
Copyright© 2011 by Zack. All rights reserved. I welcome your comments. Email me at zack_writer@hotmail.com
19.09.11