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Monica and the Black Fortress

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

Book 6 of the Monica Chronicles by Richard Alexander

Chapter One – Visitors

Occasionally there are times in your life when you can remember just where you were at the start of some significant adventure or turning point.  I recall the moment at which the whole Indian adventure began, for me, and it was not a particularly enjoyable one.  Shawnee and I were working in the garden when Monica came down the front steps and called to me.

“Steven!  Go get yourself cleaned up and be in my study in a presentable form in fifteen minutes.  I have a visitor coming, and I want you there.”

“Urph!” I said, tugging and waggling the padlocks at the back of my neck that secured the discipline hood and wetsuit in place.  Monica fished in the pocket of her jeans and tossed me a small ring of keys. 

“You can chain Shawnee to something convenient and out of sight.  She won’t be needed, and I prefer not to be reminded of her incompetence.”  Then Monica was stalking up the steps again, and I was wondering what was going on. 

I should explain that Shawnee and I were in Monica’s bad books at that point – never a good place to be, I might add. There had been a series of events which – while not directly related to what followed – certainly influenced things indirectly, and I should explain a little about the preceding few weeks, and how Shawnee and I came to be working in the garden in rather restricted fashion. 

*  *   *

I suppose it all started with the arrival of Arthur Baines at Bilboes.  I wasn’t initially privy to his presence and particularities, but conversation flowed on the back verandah over dinner – as it does – and we all soon learned of Mr Baines’ earnest desires. 

There was nothing particularly unusual about Arthur Baines.  He was in his early fifties, and was English.  As the girls got to know him, it emerged that he was alone in the world, had come into some money, and was travelling the world on the back of this.  He had been in Australia a month or two, and had recently arrived in Brisbane.  In Trish’s view he was suffering a delayed mid-life crisis which was manifesting itself in a desire to submit to the onerous orders of attractive but very strict women.  In Bilboes he had found Nirvana, and had signed up indefinitely for a 24/7 role.

It was unusual, to say the least, for that sort of thing did not come cheap to a paying customer. Shawnee’s role was not dissimilar, perhaps, but she paid in kind and had become part of the family.  Arthur’s role was strictly business, if you’ll pardon the pun, and it was obvious he was pretty well off – a fact which was not lost on Monica.  An agreement was reached where Arthur was allowed outside for one day a week, provided his behaviour was up to scratch.  The rest of the time he was either imprisoned and suffering various punishments (and occasional rewards) in the dungeon, or else was made to work around the house.  It turned out that he was a good cook – something that did not go unexploited, and he soon endeared us to this aspect of his abilities.

There was something about Arthur which even I – as another mere male (in the eyes of the girls) – could recognise as being different from the normal run-of-the-mill clients who wish to be whipped, beaten and generally humiliated.  Arthur was of slight build, with a shock of white hair and a meek but affable manner.  Nothing he was asked to do seemed too much trouble for him, and after a week or so, as he perceptively sussed out the girls’ personalities, they began to have difficulty in finding reasons to punish him.  This didn’t seem to bother Arthur overmuch.  He was content to be shackled and plugged and left to his own devices in the kitchen, whence wondrous smells emanated that had dinner time attendance suddenly becoming a major event.  After he had done the washing up, he was led back to his darkened cell where he would inevitably be bound to his bed and given some special attention by whomever was in charge of him at the time.

The girls came to be what could only described as sympathetic to his cause, and there was much discussion between them about why he was there.  Monica, I noticed, was singularly unpartaking of this discussion, and was not inclined to be drawn, to such an extent that she forbade the girls to question Arthur with the various persuasive devices that were available downstairs, stipulating that while various forms of restraint might be used, there were to be no marks on Arthur. 

We knew something was going on, but Monica remained tight-lipped – until one day Arthur failed to return from his weekly day out.  The girls were puzzled, and Monica appeared decidedly anxious.  Arthur had arrived at Bilboes with little more than a carry bag, and this remained in the storeroom downstairs.  When we assembled for a decidedly less-than-gourmet dinner cooked by Shawnee that night, Monica broke the news to us.

“I’ve just got off the phone from the hospital.”  A concerned murmur ran through the group.  “Arthur collapsed in the city today and is in intensive care at Royal Brisbane Hospital.  I suppose now I have to come clean with you, and explain a few things.  I’m only sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”  Monica paused and took a deep breath, tucking her lustrous black hair behind her ears.  Her blue eyes were grave as she spoke.

“When Arthur came to me he explained his circumstances fully.  He has an incurable brain tumour – something called Jenkins’ Syndrome.  Arthur is well off, I should explain – comfortably well off, with no family back in England.  The doctors couldn’t tell him how long he had left, other than the fact that it was in the range of a month to six months.  Arthur decided to live life a little, and began his world tour, but he reckoned there was something missing from the round of sightseeing, and this omission evidently dawned on him when he reached Brisbane.  He came here in the throes of a late mid-life crisis on top of everything else the poor guy was facing.  He was sexually naïve and sexually confused at the same time.  I gave him a couple of private sessions, and we experimented a bit.  All he was really after, I think, was someone to take charge of his life and give him some love and attention.

“It would appear that the tumour has finally reached a critical size – hence Arthur’s collapse.  I don’t know how long he has left…”

*   *   *

Arthur died two days later.  Jill and Emma were with him at the time, and both were distraught when they returned home, as was everyone.  To make matters worse, they had tried to phone Bilboes from the hospital, as Arthur’s condition had deteriorated quickly, but the phone line appeared to be out of action and Monica’s mobile was turned off.  It turned out that Shawnee had managed to dig through the phone line that ran under the garden beside the driveway, while under my supervision.  The combination of Arthur’s demise and this communication failure cast a deep pall of gloom over Bilboes, and Monica in particular.  As for Shawnee and I, in Monica’s eyes we were spawn of the Devil, and had it not been for the sadness of the occasion we would no doubt have been keeping each other company suspended upside down in the dungeon.

As an immediate measure we had to have the phone company out to dig up the cable – which, in my defence, should have been in a conduit, and wasn’t – and install it in the aforementioned conduit.  This meant disruption to the household, and an unsightly open trench in amongst the plants along the edge of the driveway.

Shawnee’s and my punishment had begun at the funeral the next day.  It was a gloomy, mist-shrouded morning as we stood at the lonely graveside and watched the plain wooden coffin being lowered into the hole.  Evidently Arthur – despite his wealth – had left instructions that he was to be laid to rest without fuss and ceremony. 

We were the only mourners, and this in itself was sad.  The girls wore black dresses while I was in my rarely worn suit. However I was now paying a slow penance for our mistake, for underneath my suit was a rubber wetsuit, locked in place at the neck.  Beneath this was a large butt plug firmly locked in my arse and held there by a stainless steel waist and crotch cable, with a chrome dick case securing Mr Willy in a permanently deformed position, also locked in place.  The wetsuit had a thin plastic sheet sewn in place across the chest area, underneath which two nipple clamps were firmly screwed to my nipples.  The rigidity of the plastic insert meant I could not fiddle with the clamps through the rubber of the wetsuit, and as I stood at the graveside with the girls, Monica remotely switched on the electrode inside the butt plug, forcing me to maintain voluntary silence as pain in my arse and nipples coursed through my nerve ends. 

There were a lot of tears from the girls, not least Shawnee, and I knew she was rubberised, plugged, clamped and electrified beside me.  She wore a long dress and black high-heeled boots, which hid the legs of her own wetsuit.  Monica was making the two of us suffer now, though she had kept our punishment a secret from the others.  I knew there would be plenty more in store for us once we returned home.

It was late morning by the time we got back from the funeral, and we all sat on the back verandah and drank too much.  Talk was desultory and tears were frequent, and Shawnee and I suffered uncomfortably and silently, not knowing what was now expected of us.  We soon found out, however, when Monica took us aside, told us to remove our outer clothing and report for duty at the front of the house.  Monica was in no mood for argument and her tone was terse and icy.  The fact that she and the others had not been given the opportunity to be with Jill and Emma for Arthur’s last minutes in the world would not be readily forgiven, that much was clear.

I reported for duty as ordered, and it wasn’t long before both Shawnee and I were wearing matching black leather discipline hoods, linked to the locks at the nape of our necks that held the wetsuit in place.  My hood had holes for eyes and nose and only a small 5-millimetre hole at the mouth.  A soft sponge ball was trapped in my mouth, through the middle of which was a plastic tube that poked through the hole in the hood, to enable us to drink sufficiently to prevent dehydration, while being unable to enunciate anything.  Both of us wore rubber boots, complete with steel cuffs and hobble chains.  My wrists were manacled in front and linked with a short chain, while Shawnee’s were handcuffed behind her.

You might ask why I submit myself to these indignities, for while I must admit I can get quite excited while bound and having pleasurable things done to me, I don’t consider myself a natural submissive.  I‘ve thought about my role at Bilboes a lot, and continue to reach the conclusion that I like the good bits, and go along with the bad bits simply because the life at bilboes is worth it.  Truth to tell, I wouldn’t swap my job for anything.  Being able to design and build ingenious bondage devices, and even doing normal house and ground maintenance is a pleasant enough occupation at any time.  Throw in some role-playing, a few adventures that have occurred, involvement in web sites and even a bit of writing, and things get even better.  The icing on the cake, of course, is the company.  Doing all this with the team at Bilboes is as good as it gets.  Monica, in particular - like any woman - has her moods and her needs, and one of those is to see herself as the boss.  In short, there is too much in favour of my job, and a bit of pain now and then is something you just go with.  Or so I always tell myself up until it happens.

And so I went with the flow again, and found myself with Shawnee suited and gagged and directed by Monica to get filling in the trench that the nice telephone people had left open when they completed re-laying the phone cable into the house – this time in a proper conduit.  Monica, being her usual organised self, had worked out exactly how Shawnee and I were to work together.  Evidently I was to do the shovelling of soil and levelling, and Shawnee was to do the compaction with a small water-filled garden roller, that was just narrow enough to fit in the trench.  In order to do this, Monica locked a chain to the handle of the roller, led it through Shawnee’s crotch from behind, and chained it around her waist.   If Shawnee chose not to hold on to the handle with her manacled hands, she would end up with a lot of pulling pressure on her crotch, just like any good workhorse at Bilboes.

And that was how we had spent the rest of the afternoon.  The rain had stopped, but it was sticky and humid.  We were sweating like crazy inside the rubber suits, forcing us to rehydrate often.  Monica must have been watching us from inside her study, for every now and then, as we paused for breath or a drink, we would both get a sharp pain from the plugs inside us.  The message was obvious – get back to work.  The rain had made the earth sticky and hard to work, and poor Shawnee was continually having to scrape the roller clean.  I recognised - more than once - that the effect of the plugs, the rubber suit and the stimulation at nipple and crotch just became too much for her, and she sneaked in a climax as discretely as she was able.  Of course Shawnee’s idea of discretion was loudly snorting and moaning into her gag while tugging wildly on the crotch chain.  Which was fair enough, except that I felt decidedly deprived, for I couldn’t even get Mr Willy upright, trapped as he was in the chastity lock.  I was getting all the cerebral stimulation that Shawnee was causing, never mind the physical presence of the butt plug and the aching nipples, yet nothing could come to fruition. Monica’s punishments were as usual appropriate to the crime and protracted.

It was starting to get dark and we had nearly finished when Monica had come down the front steps and ordered me to present myself in her study in fifteen minutes.  I unlocked Shawnee from the roller and towed her by the crotch chain to a palm tree in the middle of a group of smaller bushes, where she would be hidden from sight.  I kept the chain running between her legs and passed the loose end through the handcuffs between her arms before wrapping it and locking it around the tree trunk. I figured it would give her ample opportunity to get herself off as much as she wanted without disturbing anyone.  She could orgasm herself into a trance for all I cared.  She was the reason I was in this mess in the first place.

“Urmph?” she grunted, her eyes looking out at me questioningly through the eyeholes in the hood.

“Phurrmp.”  I told her emphatically.  For some reason she either didn’t understand, or deliberately chose not to.  She was still grunting plaintively as I walked away, nearly tripping on my hobble chain.

I went back to my room, passing Trish on the way.  Normally she would have made some very amused comment at my situation, but not today.  Instead she just laid a comforting hand on my shoulder and smiled wanly, as if to convey that it wasn’t my fault.  I appreciated the gesture, and knew that the girls were not the sorts to harbour grudges.

As I stripped off the wet and clinging rubber under the shower, I found that the keys Monica had given me did not include those to the padlock holding the crotch chain, butt plug and dick restraint in place.  Damn her.  I had no choice but to wash as best as I could, which after hours of physical exertion while trapped in the rubber suit was still a pleasurable relief.   At least I could now release the achingly painful clips from my nipples.  I dressed as quickly as I could and hurried back across the lawn to the house, conscious of the plug still in place and the fact that Monica held the remote.  Even as I did so, there was a sharp tingle in my back passage – evidently a reminder for me to get a move on.

Monica’s study door was closed.  I knocked and pushed it open.  Monica was seated behind her large desk, with Jillian in a chair to one side.  Seated in front of the desk, facing away from me, was a man, who stood and turned as I entered.

“Ah, Steven,” said Monica.  Her tone was serious, but not tinged with the ice I had encountered that afternoon.  Now it was businesslike.  She introduced the visitor.  “This is Detective Inspector Bates from Scotland Yard.”

For a moment I thought she was joking, but there was no sign of a smile on her face.  “Mr Bates, this is my associate, Steven Reynolds.”  Oh, so I was an associate now?  “Both Mr Reynolds and Miss Whiting were closely involved in the affair in England, and I’d like them to also hear what you have to say.”

I shook hands with the man.  He was about forty, of average height but had lost much of his hair, leaving only a ring of pale blonde hair around his head.  He had a neatly trimmed moustache and a firm grip, and was dressed in a suit and tie that somehow seemed not quite appropriate.  I reckoned he would have looked better in an old jacket with leather patches on the elbows.

Monica waved me to a chair next to Jill, and I sat down carefully, allowing for the familiar thrust of the plug as I did so.  Monica appeared not to notice my suppressed grimace and my efforts to make my breathing stay normal.

“I’ve asked Mr Bates to wait until you got here,” Monica said, directing her words to Jill and myself.  “I have an idea what it is about, which is why you’re both here, but he has told me no details as yet.  Perhaps you’d like to begin now?”

Inspector Bates took a breath and looked at each of us in turn.

“I’d like to make it clear firstly that this conversation is entirely off the record.  We – that is Scotland Yard – have pieced together a lot of the goings on that took place some months ago, when a group of people from this household visited England.  We have investigated various records, and noted your arrival times and departure times from the UK.  All, that is, except you, Miss Armstrong, and Miss Cheng.  We seem to have no record of you leaving the country, which is a little concerning.”

“I was rather concerned at the time, too,” said Monica.  “”Emma and I were caught up in events beyond our control.”

I thought of the terrible boxes of sand they had been imprisoned immovably in for many hours as they were flown across the Atlantic in Jade Wong’s private jet, and wondered where this conversation was going.

“The reason I’m here is not about what I suspect might be a number of irregularities associated with your visit to England,” Bates clarified.  “At least, not directly.  I should tell you that we’ve viewed video footage taken from the Earl of Penhros‘s estate.  This video footage comprises various tapes taken by the Earl, and also security footage from the entrance to Symonds Yat Hall.  This latter footage showed various people from this establishment, and a hire car, and gave us enough information to trace you back to Australia.

“That’s how I come to be here.  The other information on the tapes was sufficient in itself to enable an effective court case to be mounted against the three men whom the local police found restrained very effectively and painfully on the village green at Ross-on-Wye.”  The policeman allowed himself a wry grin.  “I am told that whoever did the welding on those suits of armour did a very good job.  It took many hours to remove them.”  Monica smiled at me for the first time and inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement of the remark. 

“I don’t know if you’re up to speed with the outcome of the court case, but the Earl of Penhros will be comfortably house at Her Majesty’s pleasure for the next twenty years, based on the evidence on those tapes.  The key element was the shipping of the girls overseas, with the video showing them being packed into those crates.  Unfortunately, the actions of the other two men were only caught on one tape, and they constituted minimal evidence without the victims there to complain and testify.”  He paused and looked pointedly at Monica and then Jill.  Neither acknowledged his querying look.

“The end result was that we managed to cobble together enough circumstantial evidence to convince the judge that they should be put away, but six months was the maximum he could give them for some of the indignities on you that were recorded.  The Earl was the fall guy, as the Yanks say, and the other two blamed him for most things.  We got them on some deprivation of liberty aspects, but there wasn’t much more on tape involving them.

“I’m not going to pursue the issue of those two gentlemen,” Bates said to Monica.  “That will be a matter for yourself and your friends to decide if anything goes further.  Of most interest to us were the various tapes that identified girls being shipped abroad in those metal crates.”  I caught a glimpse of Monica closing her eyes momentarily, as if willing herself not to remember what it must have been like chained and gagged and buried immovably in pitch darkness for many hours.  Then she seemed to bring herself back to reality and concentrate on what the policeman was saying.

“The Earl appeared to have a particular obsession with recording his conquests, and we were able to get a lot of useful information from the videos, not least some addresses of recipients around the world.  That’s when the real problems started.”  He sighed and sat back in the chair, crossing his ankle on his knee. 

“You have to understand that the people to whom the Earl has been sending his packages are all enormously wealthy.  That sort of plaything doesn’t come cheap.  It follows that they are invariably powerful figures in their own countries, and therein lies a further difficulty.  Not only are these people powerful, but they’re outside our jurisdiction.  We’ve had to involve Interpol, but there are still enormous problems to overcome.  These chaps have top lawyers at their call, and there are all manner of diplomatic sensitivities to be observed.  It’s all very complicated, but we’re progressing slowly.  We have one particular case, however, that we need some help with.  It concerns two young women who have apparently been shipped to India.”

“India?  Somehow I wouldn’t have expected India to be on the list,” Monica observed.

“No, it was a bit of a surprise, but Sanjay Mandrekar is a very modern Indian, educated at Oxford and thoroughly westernised.”

“And lives in India?” Jill said, half-query, half deduced statement.

“Oh yes.  He has a number of mansions there.  Not only is he an industrial mogul with countless computer-manufacturing companies worth millions, but he’s also a fully-fledged member of the Indian aristocracy – stopping just short of being a maharajah, I believe.  Please excuse my unfamiliarity with the Indian nobility.”

Ever direct and practical, Monica cut to the chase.

“Your difficulties are obvious, and the whole thing is all very unfortunate, Mr Bates, but I really don’t see how we can help you.  Short of your applying for some sort of extradition for us to testify against Warren and Leon, and having our lives plastered all over every tabloid in England, I don’t see what you’re intention is.  You have the resources of Interpol at your beck and call – what has any of this to so with us?”

The Inspector picked up a briefcase that I hadn’t seen on the floor beside his chair.  He opened it and extracted a video cassette. 

“Perhaps if we might view this…?”

Jill took the cassette and walked across to the television screens build into the wall behind me, beside the door.  There were two sets, and they were normally linked to the closed circuit television such that Monica could keep track of the goings-on downstairs, as a quality control to ensure the clients were receiving the best beatings available, or whatever else was applicable to their requirements.  Of course there was a video and DVD linked to one of the sets, for these methods of recording were a fundamental tool of our industry.

Jill inserted the cassette and Monica flicked the remote on her desk to the video channel.  Instantly the screen came alive with a recording that was obviously taken back at Symonds Yat Hall. I swivelled around to watch, along with Jill and our visitor, as the slightly shaky but very clear images crystallized in front of us. 

The scene was the open area behind the Symonds Yat manor, in England’s Wye Valley, where the Monica, Jill, Leila and Emma had suffered at the hands of Warren, Leon and the manor’s owner, the Earl of Penhros.  He was both a bdsm fanatic and an enthusiast for all things medieval, such that his manor was crammed with various instruments of torture and discomforting restraints.  He had obviously had a predilection for sharing his hobby with like-minded fellows, and for recording their exploits at certain gatherings, for it was on such tapes that we had first discovered the extent of his perverse penchant.  Similarly, we had used such tapes to track Monica and Emma to America, just as other tapes had been used to convict him.

Now the tension and desolation of the time when the girls had been captured and tormented came flooding back, and out of the corner of my eye, I sensed a tenseness in Jill.  We watched as the camera focussed on a group of oak trees set in the well-manicured lawn.  For a moment nothing happened, then a figure – followed moments later by another – came running towards the camera, weaving unsteadily between the trees.  Both were female, the detail becoming clearer as they got closer and the camera zoomed in.  The first was a brunette, her hair loose and tangled past her shoulders.  She was wearing a white muslin blouse open to the waist and a long dark blue skirt.  Her wrists were bound in front of her and she had a ring gag strapped in her mouth, forcing her jaw open in a permanent ‘O’.  There was a look of terror on her face, as she ran awkwardly in the full skirt, hampered in her action by her bound wrists.  The blouse flapped open revealing full breasts that bounced rapidly with her movement.

Only a few paces behind her came another girl, similarly bound and gagged, and again running for her life.  They were both in their late twenties, I guessed, though their faces were distorted by the gags and the look of fear as they fled from whatever was chasing them.  The second girl had hair the colour of rust, and was dressed in a full-length red velvet dress that was unbuttoned to the waist. Her breasts were smaller than the lead girl, but were heaving with the exertion she was putting in.  Every few seconds she cast a panic-stricken look behind her, and seconds later we saw the first of three chasing horsemen emerge through the trees.

Bates spoke quietly, his voice grave.  “The front one is Abby Wilkes and the girl behind is Claire Parker.  Both are on our list of missing persons.”

As the pursued and pursuers came closer, we could hear the thundering of hooves on the ground.  The riders were dressed in chain mail and conical Norman-style steel helmets with vertical nose protectors.  The lead horseman drew close behind the Claire and dextrously unleashed a flick of a long bullwhip.  We could not see the impact from our position in front of the chase, but we heard a muted scream from the rearmost fugitive.  She stumbled, straining to keep her balance, before sprawling full length with her bound wrists in front of her.  The rider reined in and was on her in a flash, laughing and hauling her roughly to her feet as the second rider drew up and dismounted, while the third rode down the brunette. 

It took only a few seconds for the last rider to overhaul Abby, and he cut her off with some clever horsemanship, forcing her to stand still as he circled around her at the edge of the copse.  Then he, too, dismounted, taking with him a coil of rope from the saddle pommel and grabbing the girl by her bound wrists.  She struggled, but in her breathless and restrained state was no match for the soldier.  Moments later he had tied one end of the coil of rope as a cinch around her wrist bonds, and had tossed the remainder over a bough a couple of metres above them.  It was a simple matter for him to haul on the free end until the girl was forced on to her tiptoes while the rope was tied off, and she was left there taut and helpless as the man went to help his colleagues.

By the time he had got there Claire was in a similar situation, again tied to a stout branch above her, on her tiptoes.  The three men taunted her as the camera wobbled about and closed in on the group, with the cameraman walking across the intervening open grassy area.  It was evident that what we were seeing was a little re-enactment of the good old fashioned warrior knights about to partake in the spoils of war.

The soldier who had used his whip to make Claire fall was evidently about to further imprint his possession of her, as he unbuttoned the lower section of the velvet dress, then tied a further rope about her left ankle.  As his two friends watched with amusement, he tossed the free end of the rope over the same bough that supported her wrist rope, and began to pull.

Slowly Claire’s leg began to rise upwards in front of her, as she hopped about on her right foot.  She was uttering little sounds of protest as her dress parted further, revealing a slim body which already bore evidence of past floggings in the form of faint red weals.  Her foot rose past her waist, and then to chest level, forcing her thigh against her breasts.  She was straining to accommodate the position, but the mere fact that she had managed this much suggested to me that she was proficient in dancing, gymnastics or aerobics, for her body was obviously supple and flexible.  Her distress was evident when the soldier stopped and tied off the rope when her left foot was level with her head.  Her body was now taut and quivering, every limb straining against the ropes or stretched to support her weight.

When the man took off his wide leather belt from over his chain mail tunic, Claire’s brown eyes widened as she realised her vulnerability.  She shook her head making pleading sounds as she saw the man’s gaze alight on the red triangle of hair between her legs.

“Ngoh!  Ngoh!  Ease!” she tried to enunciate around the gag holding her mouth open.

The man struck with a practised expertise, snapping the belt against her crotch in a move that made Claire scream and hop up and down as she struggled for balance.  He struck again, and again, and Claire was briefly left hanging totally, as she tried to bring her unrestrained leg up to protect her crotch.  The three men laughed at her antics as she cried out under further blows from the belt.  A brief close up of her face showed tears streaming down her cheeks as she screwed up her eyes with each strike on the most tender part of her body.

Finally the man grew tired of his torment, and untied first the leg rope, allowing her to stand on both feet again.  Her body was shaking as he then undid the suspension rope, and as he released the tension she slowly slid to her knees, her head bowed and her arms still held above her when the man re-secured the rope.  The next act came with a quick inevitability as the man approached her and raised the hem of his chain mail tunic to produce an erect penis that he inserted unceremoniously through the ring gag, as he controlled the prisoner with one hand in her hair.

Despite her pain and hurt, the redhead immediately began to perform the expected act, whether by natural instinct, previous instruction, or through having had such expectations beaten in to her.  The soldier now held her head in both hands, assisting her endeavours with a pelvic thrusting which culminated in a series of faster movements and an abrupt stiffening as he shot his load and Claire was forced to gulp frantically. 

The man then withdrew without ceremony, turning to grin at his mates, while Claire gasped for air and hung her head, hiding behind a curtain of dishevelled hair. 

“Secure her,” said a voice off screen.  “Now it’s our turn.”

The man who had had his way with Claire produced the rope he had previously used to tie to her ankle, and this time bound both, again tossing the rope over the bough and pulling the free end through Claire’s wrist ropes.  Her ankles rose off the ground, so that her weight was borne by her knees.  The girl groaned as he tied off the rope with her heels nudging her backside.  He tweaked her nipples in a farewell gesture, prompting an exhausted cry of pain, before the three men walked away to where the brunette, Abby, awaited her fate as the spoils of the victor. 

The soldiers gathered around where the frightened girl stood on her tiptoes, her arms stretched tautly above her by the rope over the branch.   One of the men undid the long blue skirt and let it drop to the ground before he kicked it away.  Abby’s white blouse now hung loose, and a second soldier grabbed the free ends and tied them together behind her, exposing her uplifted breasts to the attention of her tormentors, much to their pleasure.  They squeezed the nipples and rubbed mailed hands roughly over the orbs with their erect pink points.  Abby struggled, trying to twist herself away from the questing hands, which then dropped to the dark patch between her legs and her writhing continued as a steel-clad finger insinuated itself into her cleft.

One of the soldiers undid the rope and eased the girl down, but there was to be no release from her predicament, as the other two men seized a bare ankle each and pulled her backwards, so that she was nearly horizontal, around waist level, head down, staring at the ground.  The man who had released the rope retied it, and walked between his colleagues who now held the girl’s ankles with her legs spread wide apart.  There was no escaping the inevitable now, as the soldier freed his dick and pushed himself roughly between the girl’s legs, while his mates pulled her against him.  He inserted his member into her and began to pump in rhythm with the other two, leaning forward briefly to grab the hanging breasts and give them a rough mauling, while Abby cried out around the ring gag.

The little group of four moved in a steady tempo for a couple of minutes before the controlling soldier finally climaxed with several brutal thrusts, then an abrupt withdrawal.  He took over the support of one ankle from the remaining man who was unsatisfied, and who then proceeded to obtain oral satisfaction in the same manner as Claire had been forced to provide.

It had been a clinical and premeditated attack on two helpless prisoners that left us shocked, even though we were inured somewhat to the perversions that men and women played out on each other, and which Bilboes was often asked to provide to paying customers.  Without leaving the way open for comment, Bates briefly fast-forwarded the video to a scene that looked all too familiar.  A black rubber-clad figure was being led, struggling, towards a box.  The picture settled and we saw that whichever of the girls it was, she was not going quietly.  Briefly the camera focussed on the face – a pale oval outlined by the opening in the rubber hood.  It was Abby, sporting a ball gag with a short straw sticking out of it.  Her hands were cuffed in front of her and the sight of the open metal box into which she was obviously going, had obviously terrified her.

Her captors were now in normal clothes, and it took two of them to hold her.  Eventually a third – Pearson, who had evidently been doing the filming at this point, in what was the garage at the manor – was obliged to come forward and bind the girl’s ankles and then secure her cuffs to her waist with a further cord.  Her struggles thus largely overcome, Abby continued to make frantic grunts and gagged cries as the other two men lifted her struggling form into the box.  The overhead lights glinted off the shiny rubber suit she wore as she was lowered into the aluminium double-skinned box and a horizontal threaded rod was forced from one side to the other.

The box was just wide enough for her body, and only long enough so that as she sat, her knees were bent though not pulled up against her chest.  Now unable to move much, she was similarly unable to resist when a full-head rubber gas mask was forced over her head and the short tube through the ball gag was threaded through a hole in the mask and connected to a bottle of liquid which was placed in her hands.  The air tubes from the mask were connected to the outlets at the bottom of the case and then the box was filled with sand using the bucket of the front end loader that was parked in the garage, just as it had been when we were there.  I glanced at Jill.  She was open-mouthed with horror and the obvious thought of what it had been like for Monica and Emma, as the sand had risen past the facemask before darkness and total immobility had come about.

The tape continued as the sand was packed down, the crate was banged with rubber mallets to make the sand settle further, then finally the lid was screwed on.  The camera focussed on the label as a hand wrote in neat script:

Mr Sanjay Mandrekar
MCI Group Industries, 
Chatrapore Street
Chandrai
India.

The video stopped and the screen went blank.  I realised how tense I had become, and consciously eased the grip I had on the chair arms.  There was an audible exhalation of breath from the two girls, and I realised how tense and keyed up we had all become.  We turned away from the screen back to Monica, sitting behind her desk, now looking pale and shaken, as though overcome with memories of the same fate that had befallen her and Emma, and which I suspected had been suppressed ever since.  Clearly those memories were now flooding back, and Monica was reliving her hours confined immovably inside the dark crate, breathing the rubberised air as she was flown in the private jet to New York.

There was a brief silence, as though everyone was wondering how to respond, and waiting for someone else to begin, before Bates spoke.  His voice was controlled and grave.

“You no doubt recognised the Earl of Penhros in the video, though probably not the other two.  The evidence we’ve obtained from various video tapes has been sufficient to arrest a number of the Earl’s colleagues and put them on trial.  Suffice to say, it has caused a major uproar in England, not least because many of them were from the aristocracy – as if there hadn’t been enough in the papers about the purpose  - or lack of it – of our well-heeled nobility.  There’s been scandal and the papers have had a field day.  Unfortunately, while arresting the culprits has been reasonably successful, tracing the whereabouts of the girls sent abroad in this fashion has been met with limited success, for the reasons I outlined before.  I now want to ask you, Miss Armstrong, if you’re prepared to help us with this task?” 

All eyes were on Monica as Bates left the question hanging in the air.  Monica looked at me, and then at Jill, and I thought I detected the slightest of inclinations from Jill.

“Before I make a blind commitment, Mr Bates,” Monica said with careful deliberation, “what do you envisage will be involved, and why have you come to me? It’s obvious that you consider I might have a strong moral motivation, given that I’ve suffered the same terrible things that you’ve just shown on your video, but you haven’t made clear exactly what I can offer.”

“The difficulty we have with Mr Mandrekar is our inability to penetrate his organisation.  His lawyers have wrapped up the Indian police at every turn, and regrettably we have no video evidence that directly implicates him.  Our only option is therefore to play on his weaknesses.”

“Which are?” Jill asked.

“Mr Sanjay Mandrekar is a bit of a playboy,” Bates said.  “Perhaps not quite in the flamboyant western way, but he has his own particular style.  Like many successful captains of industry, he is never shy of the right sort of publicity – the chance to see his photo on a magazine cover.  At the same time, we know he has pronounced bdsm tendencies from a dominant’s perspective - I think that’s the correct terminology.  To take the risk that he has - secretly flying western women into India, - and then to keep them prisoner in his palace… Well, it’s an enormous risk, and therefore we can conclude that the reward – in whatever form you like to consider it - is likewise enormous in his eyes.  A psychologist probably would tell you that such rewards must be sexual, psychological, egotistical gratification, surrounded by a perceived invulnerability – a belief that he cannot be caught.  A classic criminal profile, but this time wrapped up in a position with far too much power and money.

“Oh, we’ve done the analysis, and there are all sorts of details that the psychologists would have you believe, like the fact that he presumably prefers western women, when he could have any number of Indian girls without the need for such elaborate operations.”

“What about the Claire and Abby themselves?” I asked. “What are their backgrounds?  Surely there must be enough backpacking women in India to save on private airfares?”

“All good questions.  Let me give you a quick rundown.  Claire Parker is 29 - a personal assistant in a publishing company.  Abby Wilkes is 27, and a graphic designer.  Apparently they know each other, though whether it is through their occupations or hobbies, we’re not sure.”

“Hobbies?” queried Jill.

“Oh yes, both into bdsm, both ‘subs’, I think you say.  We believe they may have visited the Earl’s bdsm club in London, at the time when he was a grand master there.  We suspect it was all a bit of fun which got quite out of hand, culminating in their being abducted to Symonds Yat.

“As for the matter of their being chosen over a couple of backpackers, my own theory is that it is all a matter of risk.  For whatever reason, Mandrakar wanted the abduction to take place in England, and wanted to see what he was getting before he placed the final order.  We suspect he has viewed such tapes previously, or has had details emailed to him.  He wanted to let the fuss die down in England before the merchandise was sent to India.  That would avoid a lot of hue and cry on his own back doorstep.  The cost of a private plane and a few bribes to the customs people to look the other way is small change to him.  In short, money is not an issue, but getting caught is, so he is happy to pay to reduce the risk and keep the dirty work at arm’s length.”

“Which comes back to what you expect of us,” Monica said quietly.

Bates entwined his fingers and looked at Monica over the top of them.  “At the risk of making it sound like an episode of Charlie’s Angels, Miss Armstrong, we want you to pay Mr Mandrekar a visit, preferably in some form where it will mean publicity for him.  With this as a starting point, we consider your obvious knowledge and demeanour associated with your industry will be enough to get you noticed in that secondary capacity.  No doubt that will spark his interest, and hopefully will lead to our abductees.”

“Presuming they’re still alive,” I commented. Bates looked at me with an expression that told me he had considered the same thing, and also wished I hadn’t.  “And just where is all this going to happen?”

“I can’t tell you the details, since they’re somewhat in a state of flux, depending on our man’s movements.  You will be liaising with the Indian police force, and the intention is to have one of their staff go in with you.  I would think you could take two people from here – no more.  You must understand that my job was simply to establish whether you were willing or not.  I can’t do any more than I have done to persuade you, except perhaps to show you a video of Claire’s and Abby’s parents, but somehow I don’t think that would add to what I‘ve already shown you.”

Monica sat in thought and the rest of us were momentarily silent.

“Mr Bates, would you give me a few minutes to think about this?  Jill will show you to a room just across the hall.”

Jill led the Englishman out and returned a few moments later, shutting the door behind her.

“Well?”  Monica asked neither of us in particular.

“Well what?” I said.

“You’re my advisors.  What do you think?”

“I don’t believe we have a choice,” Jill said softly, looking at me.

“I agree,” I said.  “It’s bloody crazy, we need our heads examined, and I’m coming with you.  But ultimately we can’t walk away from this.”

For the first time Monica smiled.  “Good.  Thank you Steven.  Jill, you’ll be in charge here.  We have to call for another volunteer.  I hear India is nice at this time of year…”

*   *   *

22.11.04

story continues in Monica and the Black Fortress

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