Monica's Justice - Captives of Shark Island

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica's Justice - Captives of Shark Island)

Chapter Ten - Shark Island

For the umpteenth time I tugged at my handcuffs, trapped within the waist and crotch ropes, and cursed Monica for knotting the rope behind me. Although had she done it in front, of course, then my hands would probably have been secured at the rear to match the others. It wasn’t Monica’s fault, and I knew that. I was feeling rotten and guilty and afraid and a host of other feelings that I tried to deny.

My jaw ached from the ball and my hips were stiff from the hours straddling the sled. The steel collar chafed at my neck and my nipples ached from the clips and chain still attached. Of course it went without saying that my arse was sore from the plug and the salt water. I was aware now that my feet were almost touching the water, whereas previously they had been six inches clear. In the first light of dawn I was now conscious of darker shapes in the dark water – shapes that cruised past with sinister intent, waiting for the time when no doubt the air in the sled would escape to the point where we slipped into the water in a tangle of ropes and limbs.

Despite the anxiety of these trials, I was struggling to stay awake, in the close humidity of dawn, my head nodding periodically then jerking as I came awake. Monica was asleep on my shoulder. I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, and in that time I had been bound continuously in one position or another. I had been screwed, starved and forced to bring women to orgasm. In short, I was weak and not thinking clearly when I slowly registered that I could now see the bow of the sea sled in front of me.

I lifted my head, at once aware of a lightening in the sky – a lightening that was emerging behind us! We had been drifting westwards - towards land! But this moment of favourable fortune was nothing to the amazement I experienced as I came fully awake to the sound of distant surf breaking, and the sight of an island slowly appearing directly ahead of us out of the dawn sea mist.

“Mmmmn! Urggff!” I grunted as loudly as I could. The sound seemed to be sucked up in the emptiness around us. I shrugged Monica’s head off my shoulder and while she seemed to respond, she made no sound. I could only assume the drug had yet to wear off. But Leila and Mary could now see what lay ahead and their excited, gagged squeals seemed to be audible results of frustrated efforts to urge the sea sled closer to the shore.

With the coming of the dawn came a new awareness of our peril. The sea here was calm, perhaps sheltered by the island, and in its calmness so too were the grey shapes cruising past made more visible. Leila and Mary had also seen them, and there was no doubting the terror in the stifled screams as occasionally one of the sharks came too close.

I studied the island. It was long and generally low, but at the right hand end the land rose to a rocky promontory. There was no sign of habitation, just a cloak of greenery, which slowly broke up into a fringe of palm trees as we edged closer.

My feet were touching the water now, which lapped up through the joint between the outrigger tubes and the main hull. My body was sitting in a deeper hollow in the main tube as we sank lower in the water and my heart was thumping as we drifted closer to the island. I felt helpless, unable even to paddle us to a specific point where we might have a chance of landing. We were drifting from right to left along the length of the island, and while we were still coming closer, I was scared that there was a real chance that we might miss the island completely.

We seemed to take forever to get nearer. In the early morning sun the mist had disappeared and I could now see all the details of the island. There were a series of small bays along its length, broken by low-lying rocky outcrops. If we reached one of the bays I thought we could possibly make a landing, but as we got closer I saw that the points between the beaches were made of coral as well as rock. A landing on those would rip our inflatable to pieces and us with it.

The water was getting shallower, turning a clear shade of transparent turquoise. I counted three sharks in attendance, each a couple of metres long. I could deal with the sea and the rocks, but these evil creatures filled me with a more primeval terror that I could do nothing to suppress. The thought of sinking into the sea, bound and helpless to be torn apart by these mobile eating machines was more than I could deal with.

We were now only fifty metres away, and I figured we would make it into the last bay before the end of the island. The water was clear and the bottom was visible – white sand with occasional coral bommies sticking up near the surface. The waves were softly lapping the beach in a way that in other circumstances might have proven warm and inviting, like an advertisement for a remote island resort. Now it offered a different aspect – safety, but an unknown fate.

The water was perhaps only a couple of feet deep when we ran aground. I could see no sign of our three pursuers. It had evidently become too shallow for them, but I was still wary. Getting here was only half the problem solved. We remained handcuffed and gagged and bound to the sea sled, trapped on the beach of some remote island.

I looked round at Monica and the others. She and Helen seemed to be a little more aware of their circumstances, but offered no comment to the rest of us to suggest that they were yet fully in possession of their faculties.

The gentle lap of the waves pushed the sled side on to the beach and I made my first effort at getting off. All of the girls had their ankles joined by ropes passing between the sled and the side tubes, which ultimately would prevent them from being able to dismount. The side tubes, however, stopped short of the nose of the main tube, and I knew that with a bit of manoeuvring I should be able to work myself over the front, allowing my ankles and their connecting rope to come free from beneath the hull.

That was all very well in theory. The good news was that with the slow deflation of the main tube there was more slack in the rubber to enable me to wriggle forwards. The bad news was that the aforementioned wriggling had the uncomfortable result of driving the plug further up my arse and making it squish about inside.

Despite this, I made progress, and had almost got my legs free when I was pulled up by a tug at my neck as I reached the end of the slack in the chain connected to Monica’s collar.

I was caught awkwardly, half-on, half-off the sled, my legs leaning forward, my body back. I strove not to panic, knowing that if I slipped off we could both injure or break our necks on the steel collars.

“Mmmmpfgh!” I grunted. “Hurrgh fwrrgh!” I mumbled, trying to make Monica lean forward with me. I knew I was making no sense but hoped that the pressure on her collar would at least give me the slack I needed. There was no word from Monica and I couldn’t see her reaction, but I sensed an easing of the tautness on my own neck – just enough for me to kick my legs out clear of the inflatable tube.

I slid with a splash into the water. It was knee-deep and for a moment I stumbled before leaning for support against the sled. I was breathing heavily with the exertion, savouring the easing of the pressure on the plug and the relief of being able to close my legs after so many hours spread wide.

I had not really thought beyond this point, and I suddenly realised I was still chained to the others, with my manacled hands still trapped at my waist by the crotch ropes. More significantly, with the awful rubber ball still strapped in my mouth I could not communicate to the others. Mary and Leila, naked at the rear, were aware of my difficulties but likewise could offer no help in their bound and gagged state. Added to this, the fact that they were at the rear put them beyond my reach, chained as I was to Monica.

I looked up at Monica and Helen. They both gazed at me blankly, without interest. I knew then that the drug had definitely not worn off and that I could expect little initiative from that quarter. There was only one way to get us all off the sled, and that was one by one, as best I could manage it.

I pushed myself against the outrigger tube. It was at the level of my crotch, and by leaning against Monica’s thigh I could just get my manacled hands to the knot on the rope encircling her left ankle. Her expensive black leather boots were now saturated and sorry-looking – a metaphor for all of us, I guess. Her black leather skirt had ridden almost to her waist, exposing the tops of her dark stay-up stockings and the white ropes down through her naked crotch.

The knot on the rope around her ankle was tight and hard with water having soaked the cotton sashcord. Had it been nylon rope things would have been easy, and it was only with much frustration and persistence that I finally freed her leg. Monica continued to stare at me uncomprehendingly. I could do little with my own hands still secured at my waist, and so had to resort to tugging our connecting chain tight until she got the message that she could now climb down.

Gingerly she swung her right leg over the main tube, trailing the rope that had been detached from her left ankle. She sat there momentarily, both booted feet resting on the side tube, a trace of uncertainty as I tried to make encouraging noises around the rubber ball while tugging her further.

She took a step into the water, nearly losing her balance as her high heels sank into the soft sandy sea floor. She uttered a small gasp as I bumped her back against the sled and she steadied herself.

With Monica now beside me I had more slack to undo the ropes on the left ankles of the other three, though with each of these the tightness of the knot made the work painfully tedious and frustrating.  When Leila finally mmmphed her thanks and swung her right leg over the tube to match Helen and Mary, the three slid off the sled together. Mary and Leila, without the impediment of shoes, easily kept their balance, but Helen, wearing high heels to match her aubergine sleeveless leather dress, sank momentarily to her knees before recovering.

We staggered out of the clear blue water on to the pristine white beach, our passage leaving a discordant jumble of tracks before we collapsed in disorderly fashion on the sand.

For a moment the three gagged members of our party looked at each other, exchanging expressions of thanks and thankfulness, along with interrogative raised eyebrows and stifled grunts that conveyed our continued helplessness. That said, escaping from such situations was not strange for us, but this particular one was clearly only going to be met with limited success.

Seated on the sand, Monica and Helen were useless at that moment, their brains and though processes still clouded by the Burundanga. I worked my way on my backside so that I was next to Mary, half dragging Monica with me by the neck. Mary understood at once what I was up to. I was the only one of the five of us with my hands secured in front, but even this advantage was of little use while the crotch rope held my wrists trapped below my waist. I backed against Mary and felt her cuffed hands – similarly secured behind her back with a crotch rope grope towards the knot in the small of my back. It took five long minutes as her fingers probed blindly at the knot, testing and tugging as we sat on the sand on the deserted beach.

When the knot finally came free, I grunted in triumph. I could now raise my hands sufficiently to get to the gag strap at the back of my neck and the clips that had been tormenting my nipples for so many hours. I knew the removal of the clips would be painful, and for that reason I did that operation first, slowly easing the pressure of the jaws of the left hand one. Pain shot through my nipple that made me gasp and groan into the gag. It seemed to go on and on even after the clip had been removed, as the circulation returned and piercing needles shot through my ultra-sensitive flesh. I was whimpering into the gag by the time I removed the second one, making a succession of agonised grunts and covering my nipples with my palms until the hurt had subsided. Only then could I trust myself to undo the strap and prise the rubber ball out of my mouth.

There were teeth marks in the rubber and my jaw ached as I opened and closed it, before turning with free arms to Mary.

“Welcome to Paradise Island, ladies,” I said, as the sun beat down on the glassy surface of the sea, and we contemplated our fate.

It took half an hour for us to be as unfettered as we could be under the circumstances, which, in truth, was not particularly free. I had undone all the crotch ropes and we had all expelled the devices that had been embedded in our most sensitive places for so long. Relieving ourselves - in all senses of the word - made us feel better, particularly after I had found a sharp shell that enabled me to cut through the tape that was wrapped around the heads and mouths of Mary and Leila.

That was as good as it got. I removed Monica’s boots and stockings and Helen’s high heels and cast them aside, for they were an impediment on the soft sand. We remained chained together at the neck, however, and all still handcuffed – me in front, the others’ wrists behind their backs.

We were exhausted. Monica and Helen were like zombies, offering no words but at least doing what we told them. We retreated up the beach and into the cooler shade offered beneath the trees and amongst the lush vegetation that fringed the sand. We longed to lie down and rest but Mary was adamant we should search for water first.

“We could wake up at night and have to spend another twelve hours without water,” she had argued, and Leila and I both knew she was right. We were dehydrated and we knew the dangers that could pose if that got any worse – something that was highly likely in the intensely humid atmosphere.

Being the only one with usable hands, I led the chain gang. We were a bizarre group - a naked man, a raven haired woman in black lycra top and leather skirt, a blonde in a purple leather dress, then the slender naked woman with short black hair and the naked blonde trailing at the rear. We had experimented with the handcuffs, but they all had a single link – not enough for any of the girls to work down over their backsides to the front. With my relative freedom I was to be the tool for the girls. Some things never changed.

Before we left the beach we returned to the sea sled. I checked the valve at the rear and sure enough, it had been loosened, and not by accident I reckoned. I screwed the cap back tightly and together we hauled the sled up the beach as far as we could. Who knew if we might need it again?

Finally we moved off into the jungle, but found it too difficult to make real progress, and thus returned to the beach. I noted the coconut palms but while there were bunches of green nuts, none were to be found on the ground around them. However, we figured that if there was any water to be found it would most likely be evident flowing across the beach somewhere, and this would be our best chance to find it. We did not know whether there was habitation on the island, but following the edge of the beach would no doubt reveal any footprints – animal or human.

The idyllic little bay we had landed in was barely 100 metres long. We moved northwards, with the sun on our right now starting to become hot and oppressive, even though it was still relatively early in the day. At the end of the bay was a jumble of rocks that we climbed over very slowly and carefully, conscious of our manacled hands, our bare feet and the chains connecting us.

On the other side was a further bay, about twice as long ending in a similar jumble of rocks tumbling into the sea. We kept close under the fringing palm trees, trying to stay out of the sun, for those of us without clothing would soon be in danger of bad sunburn. The rocks at the end of this bay were steeper and we dared not try to climb them in our chains and manacles. Reluctantly we retreated and I forced a way into the vegetation, beating some of it aside with a stick.

Not surprisingly, the going was slow and we were running with sweat by the time we emerged onto a low cliff fringing a small cove. We did not descend to the sand, for there was no stream here, but pushed on through the jungle. The rocks were getting steeper still as we moved north, but with the steepness in the coastal rocks, so too came a steeper topography inland, and we found ourselves traversing a gully with pronounced dampness. The air was cooler here, away from the direct sunlight, but the humidity must have been one hundred percent. The girls were getting tired. The joy of being able to speak after many gagged hours had worn off and now we were simply concentrating on putting one foot carefully in front of the other. I guided Monica and Helen with instructions which they seemed content to obey, but I was scared as we slowly worked our way up another ridge that one slip could bring disaster.

On the other side the slope was shallower, the ground cover of leaves and humus less taxing on our bare feet. I paused, and Monica bumped into me. The others stopped.

“What is it?” Leila asked.

“Sssh…” I said. “Listen…”

We all heard it – the trickling of water, no doubt the runoff from the rain of the night before.

Leila beamed and Mary managed a smile, though the other two appeared not to take in the significance.

Carefully we edged our way down the slope to the bottom of the little valley, where a small stream gurgled through grey moss-covered rocks overhung with tree ferns.

I guided them to a shallow pool a couple of metres across where we could sit down in a small circle on the rocks with our feet in the cooling water. I cautioned them against trying to drink directly from the water on the slippery rocks with their hands manacled behind them. Instead I knelt in the pool and first splashed all of them with the refreshing spray, before cupping my hands and offering each a drink from these. The water made all the difference and Mary and Leila perked up at once while Monica and Helen simply sat. At length we had drunk all that we could manage.

I looked at Mary and Leila, sitting together on a large flat rock, their naked bodies gleaming with moisture – some water, some sweat – and dirt marks from stumbles and brushes with Mother Nature.

“Now what do we do?” Leila asked.

“I say we follow the stream down to the sea,” I suggested. “We need to know the extent of this water. Maybe we can bathe if it’s deep enough. I still think our best bet is to follow the beach wherever possible. I saw coconut trees on the first beach. We may need to camp there.”

“But we can’t…just…camp…” Leila’s voice trailed off. “We’re chained up, we can’t use our hands…” Her elation at finding the water changed to gloom as the longer term situation took over. We were stuck on a desert island with no food, no clothes, no way of getting off and barely able to fend for ourselves.

Mary saw where Leila’s mood was going and spoke sharply.

“Steven’s right. We need to explore, but to note this as possible base. We’ll get out of this, one way or the other – as long as we don’t do anything stupid.”

Leila said nothing. I stood up and smoothed her damp hair away from her forehead. She looked up and managed a wan smile.

“Scratch my nose, please, Mister?”

I did so and gave her a kiss on the tip. For some reason this appeared to cheer her up.

“We also need to rest,” I said. “I reckon sand is the best bed for our predicament.”

We followed the stream for a couple of hundred metres before it ponded in a hollow the size of a swimming pool, then emerged at the end of a long smooth beach, perhaps a kilometre in length. The stream came out near the rocks at the southerly end where a grove of coconut palms stood. The sea had eaten away at the base of one of the trees, which was leaning at a precarious angle. There was a bunch of nuts just out of my reach, until Mary suggested that maybe if we all straddled the trunk at the lower end we could force it down further.

The idea worked, and for five minutes the small group of naked and chained castaways bounced on the near-horizontal trunk as the roots slowly tore free and the fronds with their booty finally touched the sand. The girls waited expectantly as I pulled several coconuts free before we walked over to the rocks where I laboriously scraped the green fibre off and eventually broke into the nut itself.

I lost much of the milk, but what there was tasted delicious as we all had a gulp. We did four coconuts this way, then I broke out the white meat as best I could using bits of driftwood to prise it free of the brown shell. We munched on this as though it was a Bounty Bar, and everyone felt much better.

With our hunger and thirst dealt with, we had no desire to do anything more than rest. We found a sandy hollow near the pool and I gathered some large umbrella tree leaves for the girls to rest their heads on after I had scooped some hollows for them to lie in.

It is difficult to lie comfortably with your hands cuffed behind you. Already the girls’ wrists were sore and bruised, and lying on their stomachs or on their sides were the only ways they could get halfway comfortable. Regardless of this, heedless of the heat, humidity and restraints, so exhausted were we that we slept the sleep of the dead.

 

It was dark when I awoke. I had no idea what time it was save the fact that there was a nearly full moon glowing through the overhead branches, and looking over the beach, stars were visible in the sky. I felt rested, but hungry. Monica lay facing me on her side, her legs curled up in a sort of semi-foetal position, her manacled hands hidden behind her back. She was making small whimpering noises, almost talking softly to herself. I watched her in the moonlight. Her sleep was restless, punctuated with twitchings and tossing her head on the pillow of broad umbrella tree leaves.

I must have dozed off again, but several times during the night I was awakened by small cries from Monica as in her troubled sleep she tugged at the chain linking our collars. It was in the small hours of the morning when she finally awoke with a start, sitting up and waking both me and Helen, who had also been undergoing her own private tormented dreams. Helen’s awakening in turn woke Mary and Leila, with the result that we were all sitting on the sand when the sun came up again.

Monica and Helen were aghast at what had happened to them. They both had bad headaches, but otherwise appeared unharmed, other than missing two days’ memories since they had sampled the first glass of wine at the Christmas dinner.

We broke open some more coconuts for breakfast, but clearly a diet of coconuts was a short term solution only, and we would need to come up with a more sustainable solution if we were to survive. The awareness of our dire situation was a sobering reminder – as if we needed it.

The girls insisted in bathing before we set out on our second day of exploring the island. More specifically, they insisted on me bathing them. Since I had the only pair of relatively free hands, I was obliged to comply with this request, which meant hair washes without shampoo, and four all-over washes in quite intimate detail. Monica shed her skirt, but could not remove her top because of her linked wrists. I had to lift it over her head and down her arms while washing her breasts and back – a job I admit I found far from distasteful. Helen’s leather dress was a similar case, once I had unzipped it at the back. Helen did not object to my intimacy, which I thought was pretty reasonable since I was the one forced into nakedness first. Unfortunately, even the coolness of the water was not sufficient to keep Mr Willy in check as the sight of four naked and semi-naked women, their breasts and bodies gleaming wet, was sufficient to produce a proud erection as well as some stirring from the girls.

“Now, now,” Monica ordered. “Let’s have a little decorum, team. I think you’re being very hard on Steven, who is doing a wonderful job. We all depend on him – even more than usual. If you were in a ritzy day spa on a beach like this you’d be paying through the nose to have a wash and massage. I think it only fair that Steven gets paid appropriately.” She grasped my dick with her hand and I felt an intense sensation as she squeezed.

“Leila! Do your duty here.”

“Really, Mon, this isn’t necessary… I don’t think Leila…” I started to say. But Leila had a gleam in her eye that told me it was no bother at all, and she was only too happy to oblige her mistress and to show off her skills. It wasn’t that I objected to Leila, or that it was the first time I had sampled her skills – it was just that normally I liked a little privacy for my dalliances, and in this instance I found the presence of three independent observers – all senior dommes in their own right – just a little intimidating. Ultimately I had no say in the matter, as Monica and Mary backed against each side of me to grasp my elbows and effectively overrule my objections.

“It’s not as though you can run away, Steven,” Monica said, pointing out the obvious.

“And it just seems such a shame to see a good erection go to waste,” Helen agreed. I had no real time to argue before Leila was on her knees on the sand, eagerly swallowing Mr Willy and delivering a flurry of exquisite surges of pleasure. I gasped as she engulfed me deep into her throat, sucking furiously and delivering a touch with her teeth and tongue that made me shudder with delight.

There was nothing subtle about Leila’s approach, nothing teasing or romantic. It was pure animal lust, intended merely to satisfy a libidinous urge, and whatever my reluctance or embarrassment, all that was soon discarded as I pulled my arms free and grasped a handful of Leila’s hair. Like a couple of rutting animals we lost ourselves in a brief moment of pleasure as I shot forth in Leila’s mouth and she swallowed greedily. All embarrassment was forgotten for that brief instant until I opened my eyes and Monica’s face swam into focus. She had the look of the cat who’d got the cream, knowing that once again her dominant side had overcome me, coercing me into doing her bidding.

Leila also had the look of a female who’d shown her skill in making a mere male submit to her wiles. Mary helped the flushed but smiling girl to her feet before announcing:

“So what we’ve learned here is that when the coconuts run out, we can survive for a while on the nuts of our token male here.” The others thought this was hilarious, despite the seriousness of our predicament, and this significantly detracted from my own enjoyment in the moment. The girls can be like that sometimes. As the only guy in the team, I regularly get ganged up on. It’s a tough life sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Well, maybe I would have, just then. Being in the company of four gorgeous and scantily clad women had its attractions, but being handcuffed and chained to them on a deserted island with minimal prospect of food or escape was really not so attractive right then.

“All right, team – that’s enough,” said Monica. If she could have clapped her hands to get our attention, no doubt she would have. “Now that we’ve had our little joke at Steven’s expense -” I could see her avoiding my eye and trying to keep a serious expression, “we have to move on. We at least know this water source is here, but we need to see what else this place can offer us to survive on.”

We moved off with the clinking of chains, keeping close together to avoid the tugging of the steel collars on our necks. Out on to the sand again, along the fringes of the palms we reached the end of the beach and another mass of rocks. It was here that I spied what appeared to be a path leading into the vegetation, possibly bypassing the rocks. The path intrigued me.

“Do you think it’s man-made?” Monica asked me as we followed it in single file.

“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “But there could be wild pigs or goats on the island.” There were no footprints in the sandy trail that merged into leaves and humus as we threaded our way through large philodendrons and tree ferns.

The answer was quickly apparent as the path swung beachwards again and we emerged from the forest on to another sandy beach. There was a collective gasp from the entire group as we took in the house at the opposite end of the cove.

Fifty metres away, the other end of the beach took the form of a low cliff, dropping on to a jumble of rocks jutting into the sea. The house was of stunning modern construction, made mainly of glass and steel topped with several gently sloping sails on the flat roof that perhaps provided shade to an entertainment area. The building comprised three floors, the underside of the lowest perhaps five metres above the rocks, supported on a series of steel columns with diagonal bracing ties between them. The second level extended further seaward than the first, with a large balcony cantilevered out over the water, while all three levels were built against – and presumably attached to – the cliff itself at the rear. The third floor was stepped back from the second, and appeared to be edged with a glass balcony for much of its perimeter.

The most striking feature of the house was the dark tinted glass that formed the bulk of the first and second floors. I could not tell if the place was occupied, for the dark glass gave no hint as to whether people were inside. Occupied or not, it at least offered hope of rescue from our plight.

The girls were overjoyed – more so as we took in the two wave runner jetskis on the beach. There were half a dozen solid posts that had been concreted into the beach at the low tide line, each about two metres tall, and the jetskis were tied up to two of these. A five metre runabout with a canopy and a big outboard was tethered to a third, while beyond the rocky point was a detached building the size of a double garage that I reckoned might be a boathouse.

We stopped momentarily to take in the scene, making little exclamations of amazement, before Monica gave me a nudge with her shoulder and we moved off along the beach.

As we got closer I saw that a set of steel stairs underneath led up into the lowest level of the house, alongside the cliff. The stairs were not unlike the drop-down rear door of a large cargo plane, for I saw that they were supported by two large hydraulic pistons that could presumably raise the stairs to close off access from beneath. As if it had not already been obvious, it was now clear that the owner of this place was not short of a dollar or five.

We knew that the place was occupied as we climbed the first steps and the faintest coolness of conditioned air touched the sweat running down our bodies. Somewhere in the distance I heard the muted throb of the generator that inevitably had to come with a palace such as this.

The stairwell was light and airy, with a large skylight in the roof lending a feeling of openness to the full-height chamber. At the top of the flight several doors clustered around the landing where a Japanese bonsai stood atop a large granite block in a simple but effective arrangement. I could see into two rooms through open doors, and I glimpsed spacious bedrooms with simple but carefully styled interiors. Behind me the girls were ‘ooo-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’ in muted whispers.

“Hello?” I said softly.

“Go up to the next level,” Monica said in my ear.

We walked along the polished Tasmanian oak floor to the next flight of stairs. As we did so there was a gentle hiss and the stairs behind us slowly closed on their hydraulic rams to seal the opening behind us and stop the conditioned air disappearing outside. We looked at each other, but nobody spoke. There was something eerie about those stairs, something different from simple automatic doors that you encountered a dozen times a day on a walk through the city. This was a one-off, a design where money was no object and anything was possible.

Like kids in a haunted house we tiptoed up the stairs to what was obviously the main living level, wondering how we would explain our nakedness and the chains and handcuffs. At the top of the stairs were several more doors opening off the landing, with another bonsai taking pride of place and a further flight of stairs going up to the roof. I heard voices coming from one of the partially open doors and led the way. The door opened on to a huge entertainment and dining area.

“You took your time,” said the voice that cut through all our hopes of rescue and reprieve.

Portia Tang was standing in silhouette against the picture window.

“Welcome to our Shark Island,” she said.

* * *

31.01.06

story continues in Monica's Justice - Captives of Shark Island

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