Chapter 26: A Taste of Her Own Medicine
It had taken Bethany a few seconds to cotton on to what Saskia had in mind. The latter’s instruction to the zombie-like servant to tie Bethany up again had been acted upon immediately, and with such ruthless efficiency, that she’d had no chance to even think about taking evasive action. In dumbfounded paralysis, Bethany had watched as the still dripping wet-suit that fit snugly around Crystal’s slim figure moved towards her. With her head enclosed in a rubber hood, from which only her eyes and nostrils were visible, the recently released woman was in Bethany’s face within no more than a second or two of Saskia’s surprise edict, her long red hair sprouting in a rat-tailed plume from somewhere at the top of her head. Her eyes remained fixed on her projected target, and showed no emotion of any kind as she grasped Bethany by the shoulder, turned her swiftly around, and pulled both arms together behind her back.
Too shocked and surprised to even contemplate resistance, Bethany felt the familiar curved steel bracelets close around her wrists to a point where they pressed snugly into her flesh. The swift, staccato click of the ratchets provided aural confirmation of the fact that she was now once again a captive. As Crystal bent down in order to apply the first of the ropes around her ankles, Bethany at last found her voice.
“What are you doing? Why are you tying me up again?”
Although Bethany’s words were meant to convey indignation and shock at this latest turn of events, they carried very little conviction because, quite frankly, her protest was half-hearted and merely a token gesture. Okay, so for a few seconds a sense of dread had overcome her, and the thought entered her head that she’d been duped and that something bad was about to befall her once more. But by the time that the metal shackles had been secured, the first stirrings of arousal had made their presence felt, and she realised that to resist or try to hinder the binding process would be against her nature.
She looked across at Saskia, who simply stood viewing the unfolding drama with a look of interested satisfaction on her face. To her left stood Cathy, open-mouthed and in as much of a state of astonishment as herself... in fact probably even more so. For it was she who next came to Bethany’s defence.
“What the hell are you playing at Saskia?... I thought you were on our side. You’re actually working for Dolores aren’t you?... She’s not really tied up is she?... This is all just one of her devious deceptions, to give us false hope then suddenly have our optimism dashed again.”
Cathy’s words came out in a breathless stream, and she moved several paces backwards, her eyes flicking back and forth around the less than well lit room, expecting that she too was about to succumb to another bout of bondage, and searching for the best escape route as this perceived act of treachery sunk in.
Saskia laughed. Not the harsh, evil laughter that Cathy would have expected of one who had just conned two desperate young women into thinking they were on their way to freedom, when in actual fact the opposite was the case. No, her mirth, although slightly mocking, had no malicious edge to it, and when Cathy looked across at Bethany - who was still having her legs bound by the single-minded Crystal - she noticed that she too had by now figured out Saskia’s purpose, and was at ease with the evolving situation.
Cathy glanced from one smiling female to the other, as if uncertain of whether she was the brunt of the joke, or perhaps that she’d missed the point of what was going on here? It was Bethany who chose to enlighten her.
“Don’t you see Cathy? This is all part of the test, to make sure these poor lost souls do exactly as commanded. We know they’ll tie themselves up to order, but Saskia is just checking that they’ll obey when she tells them to tie someone else up... And from what I can deduce already, she’s doing a good job of making sure I can’t escape.”
In case Cathy wasn’t totally convinced by this explanation, or she thought that maybe Bethany had been hoodwinked, Saskia backed up the now well and truly bound female’s story.
“Bethany’s got it spot on. I thought we’d better check that the servants understand all the commands we’ll be giving them.”
She looked across at Bethany and grinned.
“...And besides, I was getting bored with simply watching these emotionless women binding themselves up. And as Bethany admitted she originally came here voluntarily, I thought she might appreciate being a guinea pig for this little experiment.”
Crystal, having completed her allotted tasks, had now seemingly gone into ‘energy saver’ mode, and had backed away a few feet, statuesque and motionless with her legs slightly apart and her hands behind her back. Her dull eyes showed no emotion as she stood awaiting further orders .
Bethany tested the efficiency of her bonds by trying to part her legs. Teetering on her bound feet, she nearly lost her balance in the process, and almost fell to the floor; managing to steady herself and restore her equilibrium at the last moment. The cuffs, she already knew, were escape proof. But now what? As if in answer to this unspoken question, Saskia once more seized the initiative.
“Okay, let’s all relocate upstairs and have a quick run through of how we’re going to handle tonight’s event.”
She looked across at the blankly staring Crystal, who had remained unmoving for a minute or more by now, and would no doubt have stayed that way indefinitely, had no further instruction been forthcoming.
“Okay, you‘d better untie Bethany now.”
Without hesitation, Crystal responded by crouching down and, with an expertise honed through years of practice, soon had Bethany’s legs released from their fetters. When she came to the handcuffs, however, she paused, as if not certain of what to do; and for the first time a look of uncertainty entered those otherwise dead eyes. It took Saskia only a second or two to correctly identify the cause of her consternation.
“Ah... I see we may have a slight problem here.”
Bethany looked across at the speaker.
“What sort of problem?”
Saskia smiled nervously.
“Well I seem to have overlooked a vital ingredient when I was cooking this plan up.”
Bethany still didn’t seem to have caught on to what the delay in releasing her could be, so it was down to Cathy, who had twigged straight away, to inform her long time cellmate of the bad news.
“It appears that Saskia didn’t bother to check on the whereabouts of the keys to the cuffs before embarking on this venture. So it looks like you may be stuck like that for a while, until we can work out where Dolores hides such things.”
Saskia decided to put a positive slant on what she saw as no more than a minor inconvenience.
“Unfortunately, the keys on the bunch I found earlier all seem to be for doors, with nothing resembling the small keys that fit handcuffs or padlocks. Don’t worry too much though Bethany, I’m sure we’ll come across the right one at some point. There must be hundreds of pairs of handcuffs in this house, so we’re sure to come across the keys to this particular set... eventually”
In truth, Bethany wasn’t in the least bit fazed by this turn of events. In fact, deep down she was quite glad that the key to her shackles wasn’t readily available. That meant she could spend a bit of quality time in the cuffs without fear of being released before she was ready. And the fact that she couldn’t use her hands augured well for the bondage class, as the only thing she’d be of use for in this state was as a model to be experimented on by the pupils. This, of course, was exactly how she would have wanted it, and was actually the reason she’d been drawn to Shackleton Grange in the first place. But the thought of how she would be spending the evening had to be pushed from her mind for now. Saskia was once again taking the lead and requesting – or was it ordering? – the rest of this strange assembly to heed her instructions.
“Okay, I think we should leave these two here for now,...”
She pointed at the two shackled and bound wet-suited figures sitting on the floor, around whom small puddles of water had become visible on the ancient flagstones.
“... get everything sorted for the class, then pay Dolores a little visit...”
She flashed a devilish grin at both Cathy and Bethany.
“...I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you both again!”
****
Commanding the ever obedient Crystal to lead the way, Saskia, followed by Cathy and the manacled Bethany, left the dark environs of the cellar and returned to the slightly more inviting above ground world of Shackleton Grange’s baffling array of rooms and passageways.
Setting the chairs and other equipment out for the impending class took Crystal only a few minutes, after being ordered by Saskia to do so. When asked to get the ropes and other bondage paraphernalia ready for the arrival of the seven scheduled pupils (according to the paperwork that Saskia had chanced upon), Crystal briefly left the room, but quickly returned carrying boxes which, when inspected by Cathy and Saskia, were found to contain enough ropes, shackles and gagging material to truss up an entire army of willing female acolytes, or so it seemed.
Without being instructed, Crystal automatically began placing these bonds on the tables situated around the room, making sure that each set included a pair of handcuffs, six or seven lengths of rope, a reel of grey duct tape, and a pair of already rolled up tights to be used as makeshift gags. When questioned about the whereabouts of the keys to the cuffs, Crystal without hesitation handed these over to Saskia. There must have been twenty different keys on this newly acquired bunch, each of which were small and clearly belonged to padlocks, shackles or other metal bondage equipment. Beckoning for Bethany to turn around, Saskia was about to attempt to deduce which one would open the manacles that still adorned her wrists. Bethany, however, had other ideas.
“You know what Saskia? There’s really no rush to let me out of the cuffs. I’m quite happy to stay chained up for the duration of the class if you want me to. You can use me as a demonstration model if you like, and get the girls to practice their new found skills on me.”
Saskia marvelled at how quickly Bethany had seemingly recovered from her recent horrific experience and was ready – keen even - to spend long periods once more in hopeless captivity. Once a submissive, always a submissive, she thought to herself. If Bethany wanted to stay tied up, then who was she to argue or intervene?
But if Bethany was of the submissive persuasion, then Saskia was, she was beginning to realise, the complete opposite. And to think that it wasn’t until today that she had ever had even the slightest inkling that she had any latent dominant tendencies in her. But now, she found herself getting really excited, not only about the forthcoming opportunity to humiliate and dominate Dolores, but also with the thought of helping the girls that would soon be turning up here to live out their own tie-up fantasies. In fact, it was a real turn on. If these women wanted to be tied up as tightly as possible, then she would be only too pleased to help out.
“Is that okay with you?”
This question from Bethany rudely awakened Saskia from the daydream-like state that she seemed to have momentarily lapsed into.
“What?”
Her one word reply came as if from a distance, and her glazed over eyes betrayed the fact that she had briefly been transported from reality into her own little fantasy world. As if to remind her of the gist of their conversation, Bethany swung her handcuffed wrists around to her left, so that the connecting chain clinked softly, and her state of bondage could be clearly viewed.
“Oh yes, of course. That’s fine. As far as I’m concerned you can keep the cuffs on all night.”
Saskia shook herself mentally, in order to refocus her mind on the task in hand. She looked around the room for a few seconds. Crystal had by now apportioned the bonds out equally amongst the tables that stood at intervals around the walls of the oak panelled room, and was now standing to one side, her brain seemingly having returned to neutral mode once her allotted tasks had been accomplished. Bethany stood in the corner, gently manoeuvring her hands back and forth, as if the very process of trying and failing to get free was causing her the utmost pleasure. Cathy loitered on one side of the room, eyeing up the contents of an elaborately carved, glass fronted cabinet, in which a large amount of exquisitely polished silver goblets, plates and various other objects sat on show.
“Okay girls, we just need to quickly run through the plans for this evening.”
Cathy reluctantly tore herself away from the silverware display, which she clearly had designs on as items of contraband. Beckoning her two associates to sit, Saskia began to explain how she envisaged tonight’s session panning out. Her vision was to start the evening in the same manner that the beginners’ class last week, as detailed by Bethany earlier, had been conducted. Only after the attendees had been given some instruction in bondage and been allowed to put their newly acquired skills into practice, would the evening take a slightly different course with the entrance of Dolores. From then on, Saskia planned to ensure that the former ruler of the BATH society really paid for her past misdemeanours.
****
As Saskia finished outlining her agenda for the coming event, the grandfather clock in the entrance hall struck six times. Getting up from her seat, the self-appointed leader of the newly formed alliance took her cue from this proclamation of the hour.
“Right girls, not long now until our guests arrive. I think it’s time to get Dolores ready for her debut as a submissive.”
She called across to the still-as-a-statue servant, asking her to lead the way in accompanying them to the mansion’s master bedroom. As Crystal headed for the door, Saskia whispered to her co-conspirators.
“This will be the big test, as it’ll show us how the servants are going to react when they’re in Dolores’ presence. Let’s see if they continue to take orders from us, or if their loyalties revert back to their ex-leader.”
Picking up two pairs of handcuffs from the nearest stash, she handed one set to Cathy.
“If she turns against us, we’ll need to work as a team, grab her, get her on the floor and handcuff her as quickly as possible. Do you think you can manage that?”
Not totally convincingly, Cathy nodded. Saskia didn’t seem to notice this show of trepidation however, as she was already halfway to the door, following the already departed Crystal.
****
After a short detour back to the training room to pick up a necessary component in the forthcoming preparations, the strange procession made its way upwards to the chamber of the recently deposed ruler of Shackleton Grange. With Crystal leading the way through the confusingly identical corridors, they soon found themselves marching in single file along the very landing that led to the place of Dolores’ incarceration. At first, Saskia and her two cohorts had become engrossed in discussing and ironing out any outstanding details as to how the night’s events were to unfold. But as they reached the door behind which Dolores lay, the conversation gradually petered out and an almost reverential hush descended on the unlikely caravan of women.
The unlocking and opening of the heavy door allowed the visiting party to gaze into a room in semi-darkness due to the drawn curtains. Switching on the overhead light, however, revealed Dolores’ plush apartment to Cathy and Bethany for the first time. Unlike much of the other sleeping accommodation to which they’d been subjected, this room was both large and lavishly furnished, with deep-pile carpets, luxurious bedding and extravagantly tasteful fixtures and fittings. But although Cathy was eager to check out some of the more expensive looking items that appeared to be in such abundance, Saskia immediately ushered her two colleagues towards one of the ornately carved wardrobes. Turning the key in the lock, she slowly - tentatively even - opened the door and peered into the interior.
Even with the light on in the room, the bottom section of the revealed space, with its row of cat-suits hanging directly above, was shrouded in darkness. As both Cathy and Bethany moved in for a closer look, however, a slight movement, accompanied by what could only be described as the most pathetic of whimpers, told the now fascinated onlookers that a living being of some description did indeed languish in the cramped space close to their feet, as Saskia had foretold.
Saskia’s opening remark - part sarcasm, part communiqué - caused a longer, more sustained burst of sound to emanate from the tightly packed confines of the wardrobe. But it wasn’t until she bent down and dragged the wriggling mass out onto the carpet, that the full extent of Dolores’ woes were revealed. Dressed from head to toe in black, with a leather hood obscuring all features bar her nostrils, she cut a pitiful figure compared to the last time either Cathy or Bethany had set eyes on her. Hogtied with handcuffs, elbow tied and sightless, her attempts at speech left the captivated audience in no doubt that a gag of great efficiency lay beneath the stretched layer of hide that covered her mouth.
For several minutes, none of the assembled onlookers spoke; each content, it seemed, to bask in the knowledge that their former tormentor was no longer capable of inflicting any further suffering on them, and indeed that the boot was now most definitely on the other foot. Finally, however, remembering that time was short, and that they’d come here for a purpose other than to gloat, Saskia broke the spell. Slowly, she began to loosen the lacing that kept the hood welded to the contours of Dolores’ face; so much so that her eye sockets, her nose, and the ball that kept her lips permanently apart, all stood out in stark relief against the terrain of her leather-clad face.
****
The removal of the hood took a minute or more, but finally Dolores’ tangled, sweat-soaked tresses were revealed. Blinking profusely in the alien light, her red-rimmed eyes eventually focused to gaze up at a ring of faces staring down at her. A long, drawn out whine of displeasure slipped easily around the edges of the rubber ball that filled her mouth. But if this dismal attempt at communication was intended to stir compassion in the gathered horde, it failed miserably.
As the faces sharpened into those of Saskia, Cathy and Bethany – the latter seemingly standing awkwardly with her hands held - tied? - behind her back - Dolores knew immediately that any pleas for mercy were doomed to pass unheeded. Struggling ferociously in her bonds also failed to elicit a positive response as far the cuffed woman was concerned. As she writhed in her impotence, she caught a glimpse of a fourth figure standing behind the trio who had come to revel in her misfortune. And the sight of her servant, watching with detached disinterest, suddenly awoke fresh hope in the demoralised detainee. For here, surely, was an ally who would help her out of this bleak situation that she found herself in.
Pronouncing her words as best she could, Dolores’ mandate, although muffled, was clearly conceived as a direct order to Crystal; the gist of which was to overpower the three women who had had the audacity to tie her up and keep her prisoner in her own home, then release her from her own bonds. But if she had been expecting blind obedience from her usually compliant attendant, she was once again to be left feeling let down. For although a brief flash of uncertainty seemed to furrow the brow of the silent subordinate, a few words from Saskia soon seemed to resolve any indecision that might have momentarily crossed her stultified mind.
“Stay where you are Crystal. Under no circumstances are you to release or in any way tamper with Dolores’ bonds unless I tell you to.”
Dolores tried again, with even more gusto than before, and her screeching, beseeching voice, rising to a shrill crescendo, caused the windows to rattle and the bottles of perfume and lotions on the dressing table to vibrate. But it seemed that her calls for assistance had been overridden by the more coherent, authoritative directive from Saskia, and she watched despondently as Crystal’s eyes returned to their original, apathetic state.
Saskia turned to her two colleagues, a note of smug triumph evident in her voice.
“You see girls? Crystal has no particular allegiance to Dolores, or anyone else for that matter. She simply takes orders from whoever appears to be in control... and that’s us now!”
Although this revelation may have been reassuring to both Cathy and Bethany, Dolores was not finished yet, and it was immediately obvious that she took issue with this point of view and was determined to disprove it and regain the authority which she saw as rightfully hers. Once again, her appeal-cum-demand for Crystal to come to her aid rang out around the ancient beams and masonry of Shackleton Grange. But as before, her endeavours failed to bring about a satisfactory resolution to this personal crisis that she was stuck in.
And that crisis was about to get even worse.
****
As her melancholy chorus finally ran its course, Dolores could only watch with alarm as Saskia turned again to the emotionless servant and dismissed her from the room; telling her to go back to the main hall and wait there for further instruction. With her only possible sympathiser now removed from the equation, Dolores’ panic rose to new heights, as the three remaining woman in their identical spandex outfits all moved in closer to where she lay.
But what was this? All of a sudden, renewed hope surged through the formerly all-powerful despot, as Saskia bent in close and began to release the buckle on the strapping that held the gag in place. But if she thought that the removal of this vocal inhibiting ball was in any way indicative of a general thaw in the harsh, icy climate that hung over proceedings, and that perhaps a more lenient era had suddenly dawned, she was soon to be dissuaded of this notion.
With the ball removed, Dolores screamed loudly into the ether, hoping that her once faithful servant might still be in the vicinity, and that her now clear commands would stir recognition in her former compliant employee that she was the true ruler of this house, and that her orders - and hers alone - were the ones which must be obeyed.
But whether Crystal was still within earshot, or whether she simply no longer recognised Dolores as the authority she had once been, was a moot point, as this hoped for aid failed to materialise. And soon Dolores found herself with a far more sinister development to contemplate. As the dethroned tyrant watched with fear-etched eyes, Saskia produced a small phial of liquid that she’d retrieved from the training room, and which she’d kept hidden from the bound Mistress up until this point.
“So Dolores, soon it’ll be payback time. In less than an hour your paying customers will be turning up to learn how to tie and be tied. We wouldn’t want to let them down now, would we?”
Dolores squirmed in her bonds as this rhetorical question was put to her, and began a lengthy rant concerning the morality of interfering in her business dealings, before informing the trio of the consequences they faced when she was eventually restored to her rightful place as head of the household. But if these threats were aimed at intimidating the triumvirate, then she had made a grave error of judgement. Because far from having Saskia, Cathy and Bethany quaking in their skin-tight spandex, this tirade was perceived to be exactly what it really was; all bluster and hot air delivered from a position of utter powerlessness. And it was Saskia, obviously the spokeswoman for the group, who put Dolores in her place.
“Threaten all you like Dolores, you can’t do a thing to hurt us anymore.”
As she made this pronouncement, she broke the seal on the phial.
“Now, as you seem to like trying to control people with mind-numbing drugs, it’s time for you to – quite literally – be given a taste of your own medicine.”
She turned to Cathy.
“Hold her head still while I administer this potion, will you?”
Hesitantly, as if still not completely convinced that Dolores wasn’t suddenly going to burst free from her shackles and overpower them all, Cathy leant forward and grabbed Dolores by the jaw. Pulling her head upwards, so that her neck was stretched to its limits, Cathy fought to keep the enraged woman’s head stationary, not to mention stop her fingers being bitten, as Dolores used the only weapons available to her to hinder the process of rendering her unconscious. The grabbing of her nose by Saskia, however, soon put paid to the still wriggling woman’s attempts to sink her incisors into her subjugators’ flesh, and in one quick movement the phial had been tipped to such an angle that the thick, syrupy liquid spilled slowly into Dolores’ unwillingly waiting throat. With the tiny vessel empty, Cathy and Saskia worked as a team to hold their adversaries head back, so that the vile concoction couldn’t be spat out again. Once certain that the medication had been ingested, they finally released their vice-like grip on her face.
For a minute or two, Dolores fumed and seethed, her invective consisting of threats pertaining to the action she would take in order to avenge what she saw as the unprovoked and completely undeserved treatment that she was undergoing. Slowly but surely, however, her speech began to falter and slur, with the coherence of her diatribe gradually turning from well enunciated insults and clear yet less than credible threats, to complete gibberish. And it was this, the proof that the drugs were taking effect, which Saskia used as the signal to reapply the ball-gag to Dolores’ mouth.
Even so, despite the gag and her failing faculties, for a while Dolores continued with both her efforts to vocalise her displeasure at the treatment being meted out to her, and her attempts to achieve what would have been a miraculous, Houdini- style escape act. As the minutes wore on, however, her bucking and contorting exploits, which had been a constant since being disinterred from the wardrobe, gradually subsided, until at last she lapsed into a state of motionless tranquillity.
Whilst the drugs had been taking effect, Saskia, Cathy and Bethany had held their vigil in silence, watching and waiting for the inevitable to overtake their former persecutor. With her limbs and body now limp and lifeless, and with her mouth now mercifully silent, however, the next phase of the mission could be set in motion. As always, Saskia took the lead.
“Right girls, that should have knocked the evil bitch out for the next two or three hours. Now we need to find some way of transporting her downstairs ready for tonight’s little show.”
At precisely this moment, both Bethany and Cathy seemed to have exactly the same idea. But it was Cathy, with an evil grin lighting up her face, who was first to offer Saskia the solution.
“I think I know the perfect way to make certain that her entrance tonight will be memorable for all those present...especially Dolores.”
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20.03.18