Vanishing Act 6
by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)
(story continues from Vanishing Act 5)
8
8
Vanishing Act
Chapter Six
8
I thought I detected the vibration of the door closing behind him,
but my world was now different without my sense of hearing. I was
left to explore my new predicament as best I could, lying on the plastic-covered
mattress. It did not take me long to discover that while my new attitude
was not as stringent as the earlier position I had been in, it was imbued
with subtleties I had not appreciated.
I found out my first problem when I reflexively tried to straighten my legs, only to feel the connecting rope suddenly tighten about my throat. I panicked momentarily, but the knot was relatively loose and slipped out again as I pulled my ankles in. The rope ran inside the triangle formed with my bound arms, and even though I could get my hands up to my throat, to my head, my gag, my blindfold and the muffs, the totality of the bindings on my fingers and hands left me quite helpless. I was absolutely unable to do anything with my hands, even though I could move them about. I was at once frustrated and upset. I could not believe there was no play in my fingers, but they might as well have been set in concrete, so effective was the tape binding them.
My next conclusion was why the padlocks were on the belt. It was nothing to do with securing me. They were simply big and bulky enough to make it impossibly uncomfortable to lie on my side for anything more than a few minutes. Lying on my back was just about an impossibility anyway, given my neck-to-ankles connection, but Ash was evidently Mr Methodical and liked to be certain his prey was not about to find a weak link.
I tried to fiddle with the belts, but my hands were useless, and any other attempts to expel the devices embedded inside me proved useless. I slumped on my side, already feeling hot from my exertions. But my side proved uncomfortable with the lock on my hip, so after much struggle I managed to get on my knees, rather in the attitude of a Muslim at prayer. There was that religious thing again! I wondered if there really was a God, or were these similes just popping out of my brain to mock me? What sort of God would let this happen to me, I asked myself, but met with no intelligible answer.
On my knees on the mattress I felt almost in control. I could squirm my way around a little bit, for there was slackness in the ankle cuffs. I came across the cables leading from the knot in the small of my back. They went to the foot of the bed where they appeared to be tied to the steel frame before disappearing off somewhere else in the room. They seemed to serve a dual purpose in confining me to the bed and providing some sort of electrical connection. It was this latter part that scared me, for I was not so stupid as to not expect what was likely to happen.
But time passed, and nothing eventuated. I thought about the riddle that Ash had posed, about computers and used car salesmen and ATM’s. What else was there? Furniture vans and real estate? No, I didn’t get it. I began to get warm as I thought about it, and realised he must have turned the heating up. I tugged on the cables, trying to budge the one knotted in the small of my back or the one tied to the bed, but without success. Even though I could touch the knots on the bed frame with my taped hands, I could do nothing with them, other than to beat against them in frustration.
It got warmer and I retired to my praying position, with my head just touching the top of the bed frame at the foot of the bed. Sometime soon after that I must have dozed, for I awoke with a start to the sound of my mobile phone ringing. For a moment I was totally confused – confused by the familiar sound I knew so well, and confused by the restrictions on my movement, then also my speech and sight. I wondered where I was, then the awful reality came back to me, and I realised the ringing I could hear was through the speakers inside the ear protectors. As I came to my senses I also concluded that Ash must have recorded the particular ring of my mobile. It was nothing special – not one of those pretentious musical tunes people insist on using, but it was distinctive and I knew it as my own. It was not a coincidence. The ringing stopped, and I collected my thoughts.
So Ash had stolen my phone, no doubt when he was rifling through my house. The thought of that at once annoyed and frightened me further – the knowledge that my house was open to his whim, that he could come and go and take anything he wanted. But it was more than this – it was the thought of him exploring through my belongings and doing whatever he wanted there. Why this should have bothered me so much, considering the situation I was in, I don’t know. My mind was not terribly logical at that moment.
My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shock in my rectum that left me panting noisily as I at first tried to straighten out then curled into a foetal position on my side. It lasted only a fraction of a second but it was horribly painful, sending my legs momentarily into spasm. The rope tightened on my neck briefly before I could control my limbs enough to loosen it again. By that time I was making moaning noises behind the tape, like the kind a little kid makes when it is all out of tears and a lack of breath catches up with it – a kind of gasp, pant and moan mixed into a succession of small grunts.
I trembled from the shock for several minutes. I did not know how often I was going to get this treatment, nor did I know how long I could withstand it, nor even whether I had a choice. The room became suddenly freezing, as though the air conditioning had been turned way up, and I began to shake further, but this time from the cold. The sweat soaking my nightshirt was damp and chill and my keening beneath the tape was an unconscious reaction as I squirmed about trying to stay warm. I was starting to appreciate the vulnerability of my position in this dungeon, at the mercy of these technological torture devices.
Maybe fifteen minutes passed, and the temperature slowly came back to normal. My exertions subsided and I was nearly ready to nod off again when the sound of the mobile phone in my ears jarred me fully alert. I crouched on the mattress, waiting for what might next happen, waiting for the terrible pain up my bottom. The minutes ticked by.
When it came it seemed worse than before, possibly because I was waiting for it and had amplified it in my own mind. I jerked and cried out beneath the tape over my mouth, then I was on my side again, making pathetic noises to the world, half numb with the shock and letting the tears flow beneath the thick padding under the rubber helmet. After this the temperature resumed its upward cycle and I lay there, letting the pounding of my heart and the blood throbbing in my ears slowly subside as I began to sweat again. The satin clung to my body and I could feel the plastic wet and slippery beneath me. How long would I have to endure this, I wondered?
The next time the phone rang I was almost dozing again. I snapped awake with a despairing moan and tried to steel myself for the shock. Several minutes elapsed before I finally felt not the violent jolt of the plug up my rear passage, but the subtle vibrations of the vibrator lodged in my pussy.
This was something I hadn’t expected, and I had tried to push to the back of my mind the thought that I could possibly expect an electrical shock in this location. But this was totally unforeseen. The vibrations began at a low frequency and hovered there for several minutes, then gradually began to increase. Despite what I had experienced maybe fifteen minutes previously, I began to become aroused by the insistent buzzing. I tried to squirm around to make myself more accessible, then tried to get my taped hands down there to help it along its way, but the fact that they were taped in a sticking out position with the ankle/neck rope inside them, meant that I could not get my hands near my crotch with any degree of satisfaction at all. I had no choice but to let nature take its course.
The frequency built up steadily and my breathing began to come faster and more raggedly as I let the vibrations do their thing. I found myself grinding my hips, trying to bring myself to a climax, ignoring all the pain I had been through up until that moment. Ignoring, too, any semblance of embarrassment or dignity that I might have conceivably have retained. The abrupt halting of these wonderful feelings, followed by another jolt in my bottom left me in a confused welter of sensations of pain, despair and frustration. This man was clearly skilled at reading women’s reactions and needs. The sudden deprivation of an anticipated orgasm left me in tears of vexation, never mind the pain of the way it had ceased. Such was to be the pattern for my first full night of captivity.
* * *
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand the fact that it was the longest night of my life. The interminable cycle of electrical stimulation – pain and pleasure – mixed with changes in temperature within the room left me sleepless and exhausted, which was obviously the intention. In the back of my mind I knew that if I ever survived what he intended for me, I would never again be able to listen to this particular ringing of a mobile phone without reacting by the resurrection of experiences that were being deeply instilled into my psyche. The very act of linking my own phone with the pain/pleasure was particularly insidious, I thought, and anyone who could be that devious was to be feared, I knew.
I lost all concept of time – how long it was between jolts and buzzings I could not tell, nor how many cycles I underwent. I sweated in the heat – perspiration that froze as the temperature then plummeted and I shivered and tried to warm myself. Sometimes I nearly dozed, but always to awaken with the ringing of the phone. My ability to think clearly began to fade as exhaustion over took me. I was living in a kind of limbo world of harsh sensory input that left me whimpering and shaking uncontrollably. My world was dark and silent, the silence broken only by the feared phone ringing and the sound of my own muffled cries. So this was what it was like to go insane, a part of my mind told me
* * *
Ash reappeared at some time – I have no idea when. My thought
patterns were making no sense. The tape holding the earmuffs was
cut away and the protectors were removed. The rope was untied from
my neck and ankles and the latter were released. Finally, for the
first time, the tape was removed from my mouth and the rubber helmet was
pulled from my head.
Following the hours of darkness and silence, and considering my state
of sleep deprivation, it seemed as though I was overwhelmed by senses all
at once. Now I could head the squeak of the plastic on the bed, the
shuffle of his shoes on the concrete floor. My mouth was dry and
my lips felt swollen and puffy. I could smell the stale odour of
perspiration on my body and knew I must look a total wreck. For a
while I just lay there, oblivious to the uncomfortable intrusion of the
padlock under my left side. I did not want to open my eyes, I just
wanted to sleep. I just wanted to be left alone. I would have
given anything for a few hours sleep. I finally opened my eyes to
bright overhead lights and finally looked at this person who had done these
things to me.
He pulled my legs off the bed and forced me to sit up. I stared at him. He had brown hair to below his ears and a neatly-trimmed beard and moustache. His face was unlined such that it made his age hard to establish. He could have been anywhere between late twenties to possibly forty. There was a possible grey hair or two in the beard but nothing else to give a hint. His eyes were a kind of steely grey colour and they scared me with their coldness. The thin lips smiled at me, but there was no warmth in the expression.
He was tall and slim, dressed in jeans and a long sleeved shirt.
Despite his slender frame there was a feeling of strength that came out
of it.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I croaked.
“I think you know very well, Jan. At least as far as the immediate
future is concerned. Did you solve the riddle I asked you to?”
“What?”
He shook me by the shoulders. “Come on, now, Jan. Pay attention.
I asked you what furniture vans, used car salesmen, computers, ATM’s and
real estate all had in common. Well?”
“I don’t know,” I said tiredly. “Look, please let me go.
What do you want with me? You can’t hold me to ransom – I’m not rich
I have no rich parents
I don’t understand why you’re doing this
”
“Ah, but you will, Jan.” His voice was suddenly enthusiastic, as though
trying to convert me to a new religion. “Shortly you’ll understand
everything. But first you’ll need to be inducted, as I call it.
You will learn the answer to the riddle. I’m sorry you couldn’t manage
it - I had expected a bit more imagination from you. I told
you what was going to happen to you, didn’t I? It was no joke, believe
me.”
“Please don’t hurt me
” I said, the tears starting to flow freely for
the first time since I had had my sight restored. “I’ll do anything
you want, really.”
“Indeed you will, my dear, but it won’t be just the words you’re offering
now. The offer will be made with your whole body and soul.
It will be made without thinking, without looking for something in return,
without a thought. It will be instinctive, reactive, unconditional.
That is why you must be made to suffer first.”
Something snapped in me at that moment. I don’t know if it was fear or what, but I swung my still taped arms at him sufficiently to knock him off balance from where he squatted in front of me and lunged towards the door, only to be brought up with a sudden jerk by the cord still attached to my waist. The abrupt pull made me stagger and he caught me by the arm, hauling me roughly back to the bed and throwing me face down.
“You see, Jan? You promise all manner of things, but beneath you’re like any woman – lying, conniving, plotting your own agenda.” His voice was steely and ruthless and scared the hell out of me. Amidst my tears I tried to turn and face him but he was straddled across my body, pinning my secured wrists against my chest underneath me. I squirmed and began screaming – nothing really coherent save every foul invective I could think of. My mind was not thinking clearly and it probably wasn’t surprising when a red rubber ball on a strap was worked into my mouth, stopping my abuse mid-stream. He buckled the leather strap excruciatingly tightly behind my neck, locking my jaw in a wide-open position with the rubber smothering my tongue and rendering my complaints into a series of nasal moans.
“Not a smart move, Jan. This is why I have to punish you – to show you once and for all who is in charge here – to leave you in absolutely no doubt.”
My show of rebellion died as quickly as it had surfaced and I was sniffling
and snuffling into the gag in a most undignified manner. I tried
to wipe my face with the taped steeple that was my hands, but it was pretty
ineffective. I could only lie there as he pulled a spreader bar from
under the bed and fastened wide, heavy leather cuffs around my ankles which
were locked to the bar. It held my ankles perhaps 80 centimetres
apart – not so extreme as to be uncomfortable, just immobilising.
Then he was on me again and I saw the flash of steel in front of my
face. The sight of the wicked-looking knife made me plead and scream
into the gag, struggling uselessly against his weight. For a moment
I thought he was going to cut my throat when he pulled my head back by
my plait. I let forth as loud a wail as I could through my nose but
it didn’t amount to much. Then came the tearing as the steel slid
smoothly through the satin of my nightgown and a minute later the last
of the material was pulled away from my naked body.
He stayed sitting in the small of my back and made me put out my hands in front of me. The knife took care of the tape around my hands, letting me again have the freedom to wriggle my fingers. Then the rope too was removed from my wrists, but only long enough for him to pull them behind me and bind them palm-to-palm. Oh sure, I tried to struggle in that brief instant, but with his weight on my back and my legs braced apart by the spreader bar I really couldn’t manage it. And the gag, too – this terrible ball that stretched my jaws and stifled my tongue – had a psychological effect that I had not counted on when it came to any form of resistance.
With me properly secured, I felt the locks removed from the hip positions on my belt which still remained in place. Next to be removed were the cables trailing from the implants from my rectum and pussy, followed by the invaders themselves and the crotch and waist straps. The removal of the vibrator left me feeling strangely empty, while with the butt plug I was warned to clench my cheeks during the process. I did so desperately, petrified of disgracing myself and bringing further punishment upon myself. He extracted the plug far from gently, and the brief flash of pain made me close my eyes and groan beneath the ball in my mouth.
Ash hauled me back on to my unsteady feet then made me kneel awkwardly on a rug, finally lying me down on my back. This done, he dragged me across the concrete floor to the middle of the room, my legs spread wide. I just lay there while he loosed some sort of pulley from what I saw were many such attachments mounted on the various exposed joists above.
It was my first chance to view my prison, and it scared me profoundly. The walls were of grey concrete block save for the one entry door, while the exposed joists were lined in between with what looked like plywood – presumably as some sort of sound proofing. At intervals along various beams were big eyebolts or pulleys with ropes through them, neatly tied off out of the way. I saw the bed, with its iron frame bolted to the floor and plastic covered mattress. About a metre and a half in front of the bed was the steel post to which I had been previously secured, which obviously formed part of the house supports. To the left of the bed was the toilet, then a shower in the corner. Momentarily the thought of a shower gave me hope – of exactly what, I am not sure – maybe some sort of easing of my restraints and the delivery of a minimal comforting experience such as a hot shower. Then it dawned on me that it also meant a long-term stay Nearby was the chair to which I had first been secured, again bolted to the floor.
I watched with a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach as my captor pulled down a thin steel cable from a roof-mounted chain block. He attached a loose chain to the ends of my spreader bar then locked the end of the cable to the middle of the chain. I moaned in protest as he moved to the side of the room and began to turn a handle attached to a winch. There was a rapid clicking sound as the winch ratchet clacked over the toothed wheel and the cable began to tighten, lifting the bar and my feet off the floor. I spluttered through the gag but it made not the slightest difference to his focussed look as he watched the lower half of my body rise off the floor. I bent at the waist, but the raising continued and shortly I had only my shoulders and the back of my head in contact with the ground.
At this point he stopped his winding and came to stand over me.
I felt intensely vulnerable – possibly more so than at any stage to date.
Up until that time I had at least had my nightshirt to cover my modesty.
This was now gone, along with inserts, straps, ropes and tape that had
protected my private parts. Now I was fully exposed, my legs secured
wide apart.
He stood looking down at me for a few seconds, then stooped and grasped
my plait and pulled my head clear of the floor. I chewed the rubber
ball, trying to grit my teeth with the pain, but it was not as bad as I
had expected. He pulled me horizontally then spun me about the axis
of my body so that suddenly I was facing the floor, my head held by my
plait only a hand span above the concrete. He lowered me again and
I found myself awkwardly positioned with my cheek pressed against the cold
floor while he fiddled with my bound wrists. All of a sudden
they, too, were going up in the air, almost straight above me. At
once the strain came on to my arms like a strappado, except that it was
not quite so acute an angle. Nevertheless it was taking part of my
bodyweight and I mewed in discomfort as the strain came on my arms and
my head and shoulders were lifted from the floor.
He continued to pull my arms upwards until I was about waist height off the floor. I was now rapidly becoming really scared – terrified at my vulnerability but also at the potential for something to break and for me to smash my head on the concrete. I struggled the little I could and pleaded through the gag as my body bent into a sort of suspended half-hogtie, half-strappado. Ash’s response was to grab my plait and complete the job, pulling my head back and securing my hair to a further unseen rope hanging from above. He gave me a push so I swung from side to side. I moaned in fear from beneath the gag.
He paced slowly around where I hung, as though studying my tautly strung body. At one stage he stopped beside me and let his hand slide smoothly down the inside of my thigh and rove through the patch of hair in my crotch. I struggled the little I could, given my situation. His hand slid under my stomach and up to where my breasts hung free beneath me, defenceless. I could not see him, since he was outside my vision range forced on me by the way my head was held fast. The fingers stroked my nipples and I felt them harden. I hated the way they did that. He squeezed one, then the other between his finger tips, the nails biting into them. I moaned and squirmed feebly. Then the fingers were roving back below my waist.
“You’re wet, you little slut!” he said. Surely it must have been the remains of the lubricant. I could not believe it, nor could not make out the tone of his voice. He was in front of me now, walking across to the cabinet screwed to the wall. It had two doors and was the height of a person by about a metre wide. He unlocked it and swung open the doors to display the contents.
“Nice little arsenal, don’t you think, Jan?” Why did these people insist on calling their tools an ‘arsenal’? I wondered illogically. Then the truth of what I was looking at hit home. There were all manner of whips, canes, leather implements, dildoes, gags, harnesses, plugs, clips and so on hung up or piled on the shelves within the cabinet. I rolled my eyes in fear as he selected a whippy-looking riding crop – the kind with the little flap on the end. He bent it through a hundred and eighty degrees and let it spring back before turning to me with a cold look in his eyes. He walked purposefully across the floor before disappearing beyond my peripheral vision. Then he stopped, as did my heart. Time seemed to freeze for a moment before the first stroke fell across my right buttock.
“Nnnnnmmmph!” I screamed into the ball filling my mouth. I squirmed and struggled within my ropes but ended up merely swaying from side to side. Crack! Across the left buttock! “Nnnnnnnnnph!” again. Three times more against each cheek. I wailed in misery, my tongue trapped beneath the rubber. But this was just the warm up – and that was just starting. The tip of the crop caught first one nipple then the other, as I jerked and cried. Then he was between my legs, massaging and probing in an action that suddenly stirred a multitude of unexpected feelings. I tried to resist the warmth that began to spread when abruptly the warmth turned to fire as the crop caught first my rear passage and then squarely across my pussy.
I went berserk as best I could within my confines writhing and screaming incoherently into the gag, jerking about like a puppet. This was the pattern for the next half hour, at the end of which I hung limply, the sweat streaming from my body, a high continuous keening coming from behind the rubber embedded deeply in my mouth that silenced all coherent pleadings and cries for mercy.
* * *
I lost count of the floggings I received that day. I was hung
by the wrists, by the ankles or bent over a wide belt like a swing, my
wrists chained to my ankles. All the while I remained gagged, my
muted pleading stifled by all manner of devious mouth-filling devices.
He used weights on my nipples and on the lips of my pussy. I knew
at that point I was going to die.
I thought the end would never come – either when every inch of my body
had received its final beating, or when loss of consciousness would finally
overtake me. The latter never happened, despite the agonies of the
flesh I underwent. He at last lowered me from my suspension of that
moment and hauled me to the shower.
My gag was removed and I was left lying on the tiles in the glass box, my aching wrists manacled behind me while cold water sluiced over my body. Every pore seemed to cry out and I lay groaning and crying for a long time before I realised her had left the room. With difficulty I staggered to my feet and turned the water off before stumbling out of the shower. There was no towel or anything else to dry myself against. I finally collapsed on the bed, all cried out, but making a throaty keening sound that I was barely conscious of. I closed my eyes and curled into a foetal position, wishing the nightmare would end. I was trembling from the cold, the lack of sleep and lack of food. He had made me drink several times during the torture session, but my body was starting to retreat within itself as the temperature began to drop.
I couldn’t stop shaking; my teeth chattered and I found that despite
my exhaustion I could not fall asleep. I had no idea if it was midday
or midnight. When he returned maybe an hour later with some bread
and water I was still trembling.
He sat me up on the bed. I cringed in fear from him. He
held his face a hand span in front of mine. I could smell the stale
cigarettes on his breath as he spoke. His voice was serious and intense.
“Do you now see what I have the power to do to you, Jan?” He was
almost kindly in his explanation, as though trying to get through to a
pet that did not comprehend what it had done wrong. “Do you understand
that I can leave you suspended day and night, or starve you until you faint
with hunger? Well?”
“Y-yes s-sir,” I stammered, petrified that another session was about
to start.
“Good. Yes, very good. Do you think you have learned your
lesson?”
“Y-yes sir.”
“You will do anything I command, at the risk of another flogging like
the one you have had today?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Are you prepared to answer some questions now?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. How many bank accounts do you have, Jan?”
“What?” I stared at him. The question had come out of left field.
I had no idea where he had been heading. My penalty for the response
was a slap across the side of the head that made my ears ring.
“How many bank accounts do you have?”
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry please don’t hit me again!” I cried,
cowering like a frightened animal. “I’ve got two – no, three
”
“Details?”
“Uh – a cheque account, a credit card one and a term deposit
”
“Very good, Jan.” He smiled – an expression that stopped short
of his eyes. “I knew that. I’ve gone through your records.
What I want is your PIN number. What is it?”
“I – uh – 534496
” I gabbled without thinking. Not – given the
time to react logically – that I would have done anything else under the
circumstances.
“Ex-cellent, Jan.” He seemed genuinely pleased. He retrieved
a notebook from his back pocket and wrote the number down, while I hung
my head and the tears again rolled down my cheeks.
“Have you figured out the riddle yet Jan? Real estate and used cars and ATM’s? I am going to be kind to you just this once. I’m going to tell you the answer. What all these things have in common is that they all relate to your possessions. You remember we have discussed these things by email? You’ll be surprised how much I know about you. To cut a longer story short, what is going to happen to you, my dear, is that you are going to disappear – to vanish. I am going to sell off your house, your car, your furniture, all your possessions, and to clean out your bank account. You will cease to exist as a person.” He paused, as the onus of what he was saying sank in. “You will have nothing whatsoever in this world. No money, no clothes, no credit cards, no identification. You will be certified dead and buried.”
I felt a cold knot in the pit of my stomach and stared at him in disbelief.
“And you may even get to experience that as well. I just haven’t
decided yet
”
updated: 26.06.02
story continues in Vanishing Act 7
o0o