The Abduction of Monica 15: Clues
by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)
(story continues from The Abduction of Monica 14: Trial by Pleasure - Mary's Story)
When I reached Sofiya she was shifting from one leg to the other as much as the ankle ties permitted, her body writhing in her restraints. Her mouth was open and she was gasping for breath as though she had just run a hundred metre dash. She had been in bondage perhaps half an hour, but I could see no signs of welts or other indication that she was having to endure some sort of vicarious beating. Rather, she ground her hips and made an animal-like sound that might almost have been a groan of pleasure. Sweat ran down her breasts and thighs as she tugged against the rope holding her upright and the ties on her arms and wrists.
She was muttering under her breath – at least it sort of sounded like that. It seemed garbled and incoherent, but it also sounded Russian. My grasp of Russian being nil, I was perhaps not in a position to assess whether it was garbled or not, I’m simply saying what it sounded like. I wondered whether to leave her there a little longer, for she didn‘t seem to be in direct physical danger, but then I saw the muscles quivering on the inside of her thighs and the way her head drooped.
It took only a moment to release her ankles, but it seemed to have no effect – I had to physically lift each foot and place her in a more upright stance. Her movements seemed to slow at that point and she groaned again as I undid the rope supporting her. At that point her knees gave way and I just managed to catch her before she fell to the floor.
I carried her to the couch easily for she was such a light weight. I sat her down while I undid the belt at her elbows and the ropes on her wrists, after which she flopped to one side like a rag doll. I pulled off the scarf over her eyes but they were closed.
“No more... no more... please...” she mumbled, this time in English, her hands moving to cover her crotch. Given the years I had spent at Bilboes I had a pretty good idea what had been going on. I have seen women take orgasm after orgasm and scream for the pleasure to stop. Often they can’t scream and simply collapse – to the extent that they are able. It’s something we males will never be able to fully appreciate, other than to recognise it when it happens.
Sofiya was trembling and shaking with the obvious exertion that had been vicariously imposed on her – something I found almost as astonishing as the appearing and disappearing welts. Heaven knew what the local populace would have made of such a gift a few hundred years previously. Sofiya would either have been canonised or burnt at the stake.
I loosened the ties of her corset and held her until the trembling finally subsided and she seemed to come to her senses.
“Welcome back.”
“Ohhhh...” she groaned, staring up at the ceiling. “I feel like I’ve been fucked by brigade of Cossacks...”
I was taken aback by her expression. Quite obviously I had mistaken Sofiya Volkonskaya for a well brought up young lady. Clearly she had been around.
“Were they any good?”
She groaned again, the semblance of a smile on her face.
“The first ten were. After that...Oh - God, just let me sleep...”
* * *
Her sleep lasted only an hour, before she was back, this time dressed in a white halter-neck sundress.
“I’m hungry.”
“I’m not surprised, young lady. You’ve used up enough energy to power a brigade of Cossacks.”
She grinned.
“Don’t make fun of me. Seriously, we need to talk, but I need food.”
We walked out of the motel a short distance back down the main road into town and found a cafe, where Sofiya managed to demolish a huge plate of fish and chips.
“I really don’t know where you put that,” I told her. “You must have worms.”
“I have naturally slender physique and fast metabolism,” she retorted demurely.
“Do you want to talk about it now?” I asked as she ordered some herbal tea.
“You did it again with the tie,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The way you tied me... I was standing up, my legs apart... my wrists were manacled behind me. The worst thing was this gag – it was like a metal bar in my mouth but fixed to a post behind me. I couldn’t move my head at all. I couldn’t speak properly.”
“Gags are supposed to do that,” I told her gently.
“I know, smart arse. But until you have experienced it... Okay maybe I am slow learner.”
“Where are they? Are they close?”
“Yes!” Her eyes lit up. “I can tell – very near. Very strong energy. Monica knows we are here!”
“You’re kidding me? How?”
“This time we have link. She senses me, I know it.”
“Can you communicate?” Any previous astonishment I had was now left behind on the official Steven Reynolds Astonishment Scale.
“Sort of. But they don’t know where they are either. They were blindfolded when they came in. They think some sort of factory ruins.”
“How close?”
“I don’t know, Steven. Within twenty kilometres, maybe.”
“Twenty kilometres radius? Of here?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh crap.” I did a quick calculation. Pi times the radius squared. “Sofie, that means over a thousand square kilometres... “How do we narrow it down?”
“Ask someone?”
* * *
We walked back through town around one of the side streets, just looking in shop windows to clear our heads. Maybe it was time to call in the cops, though how I would explain Sofiya’s theory I had no idea. Maybe Paul would have to do all that from his end.
I was miles away when Sofiya grabbed me by the arm and pointed to a small shop set back from the road with a gravel parking area in front. We were in an area that was a bit touristy – the obligatory arts and crafts stores that seemed to exist in this part of the country, a mixture of local pottery and art galleries, with the odd wood carving shop thrown in. But what Sofiya was pointing to was something a little different – a blacksmith.
“They were chained!” she said earnestly. “Big iron manacles. Not handcuffs. Tight fitting. Special make. Believe me I know these things. And that gag! You don’t buy them in an adult shop!”
She was right. When I thought about the videos we had seen, everything was iron or steel work. That needed welding and cutting equipment, and the moment you start heating and shaping iron you have something close to a blacksmith’s forge.
Sofiya dragged me to the display in the window. It showed all manner of arty creations, from coats of arms to animals to decorative gate ironwork. There were also some photos of weapons that – according to the accompanying description – had been specially made for the Lord of the Rings films. There were some two-handed swords and some helmets and breast plates. Sofiya waited for my brain to compute and after a moment I led her inside.
A bell tinkled as we opened the door and found ourselves in an extension of the window display, with all manner of pieces on display in glass-fronted shelves. The place was warm, the smell of hot iron and the sound of banging and the occasional sizzle of hot water coming from an open doorway behind the counter.
The sounds died down and a man eventually emerged from the doorway. He was in his fifties and built like a tank. He was not as tall as I was, but was stocky and solidly muscled, his torso clad in a sweat-soaked tee-shirt. His skin was deeply lined and ruddy from I presumed a life on the anvil, but it might just have been his Maori ancestry.
“Yes?”
“Are you Mister Kingi?” I asked, recalling the name on the sign outside.” The man grunted. “I –uh – I was admiring your collection,” I said. “I work with an Australian film company. We’re doing a historical film that might need some props – the real thing, I mean, not just fakes. I heard good things about you.”
“Who from?”
“Oh, you know – around the traps. The Rings people.”
“What sort of thing were you looking for?”
“Uh – chains, manacles. It’s a convict story – you know, most Aussies are descended from them.”
“Sure.” He reached under the counter and pulled out an old lever arch file. He flicked to a tab and turned it round for me. “Done all sorts of that stuff. I keep a picture of everything I’ve done – just in case the client wants another. Look, I’m in the middle of something – steel tempering can’t wait. It’s like setting cement. Why don’t you just have a look and see if there is stuff that would fit the bill. If it’s already in there it will save a lot of time, eh.”
It took only a quick look to see that there were more than just film props in this photographic collection, from manacles and chains to yokes and cages. I had been in the bondage business long enough to recognise human restraints when I saw them – iron boxes with openings in strategic places and lockable doors; frames that would take a human body and restrain it in any number of contorted positions. Pipework that had been shaped and bent and which was joined with allen-keyed clamps. Oh yes, I’d been here and done this myself. But somebody around here was into B&D in a major way. Mister Kingi was more than likely an unwitting participant.
I saw that a lot of the photos had names on them – presumably that of the client. The final piece fell into place when Sofiya’s hand shot out and pointed to a page. It showed a piece of iron rod bent into a kind of “W”, but with the two long side bars parallel and the middle section curved in and out in a tight shape that might have fitted a human mouth. The two side bars passed through two holes in a cross piece that had a slight curve in it that might have fitted across the back of a person’s neck. Attached to the cross piece was a backwards pointing spur that was attached to a round plate with four screw holes in it. It wasn’t hard to see this screwed to the wall ready for an unwitting victim to be secured within its stifling confines. It was evidently made for a Mister Smith. Yeah, right.
“That’s it! That’s it!” whispered Sofiya excitedly, ceasing abruptly as Kingi returned.
He looked at where the page lay open.
“Mmm. That was a weird one. Never quite worked out what it was for. I just makem how they tell me. Don’t care what they do with ‘em.”
“Who’s Mister Smith? Is he Jerry Smith, from Bilbo Productions?”
“That one of the Rings mob? No idea, mate. I think he is something in films, though. Sends plenty of business my way.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Sorry mate. Pays in cash, collects the stuff himself. Can’t ask more than that, eh.”
I apologised for taking up his time and asked for a card. I could at least go through the motions of being a film industry scout.
We were about to leave when Sofiya said:
“Mister Kingi, is there an old ruin around here, some sort of factory or something like that, maybe a little into country? I am sure I’ve seen picture of something like that.” She smiled winningly at him.
“Sure. You must be talking about the old cement works on the Mahurangi River.”
“Where is that?” Sofiya asked with all the charm of an attractive young woman appealing to an older man’s best instincts.
He pulled out a battered brochure of the local district and showed us on a basic map. My heart raced at the thought of what we had discovered.
“But don’t go thinking you can use it for filming,” he said abruptly. “The land belongs to the Ngapuhi tribe. You want to go there, you need permission from them. Not to say you won’t get it, of course,” he continued, wiping his big hands on his tee-shirt. “We are reasonable people. Problem is, the cement factory is full of asbestos, eh. Built a long time ago, now it’s a health hazard. Bit of a blight on the landscape. Government folks fenced it off only a few months back when they found the asbestos. Shame really, but also a worry, since we used to play there as kids. Guess it’s off limits til the folks in Wellington decide what to do with it.”
“I guess it is. I suppose we’ll just have to find somewhere else.” I shook his hand – and wished I hadn’t. Sofiya went to do the same but I stopped her. “You’ll need it later,” I said. Kingi grinned. “Thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch.”
Sofiya was almost jumping out of her skin when we got outside.
“Steven, we’ve found them! We know where they are! That must be the place!”
“Whoa, lady, settle down. We haven’t found them. This place is some sort of asbestos hazard. It must be somewhere else.”
“No, it’s not! I can sense this. This is place! They are there!” she said adamantly.
“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do...”
* * *
18.08.09
story continues in The Abduction of Monica 16: Insertion
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