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Monica's Travels 24

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica's Travels 23)

Chapter Twenty Four – Planning and Plotting

I awoke after I don’t know how many hours sleep.  I was lying fully clothed on a king-sized bed in a darkened room.  For a moment I had no idea where I was, nor what had woken me.  Then it came flooding back – the rescue, getting Monica back to Jade Wong’s house and Emma taking charge of the recovery process.  At some stage I had been sitting with Monica, just watching her sleep, when everything must finally have caught up with me – the long flight from Hong Kong, the frantic tracking the girls to Symonds Yat, the fight, and further flight to New York and thence to LA.  We had gone three quarters of the way around the world chasing Monica, seeing nothing of the places we had set out to enjoy, but spanning countless time zones.  The intense need to free the girls had been on us the whole time, and now, suddenly, it had ended, and events just caught up, I guess.

In becoming conscious of where I was, I also became aware of what had woken me.  The room was gloomy, but enough light was coming from behind the drapes to suggest that it was now daytime outside.  Monica’s hand was resting on my shoulder.  I turned, and found her awake and looking at me.

“Hi,” I said. “God, I’m glad to see you awake – I mean, looking better…”  I stuttered to a stop, not being able to adequately express what I felt in the sight of those blue eyes now alert and appearing to be some semblance of her former self.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position.  She was naked beneath the covers, which slipped down across her stomach, but she appeared not to notice as she turned to me and draped her arms around my neck.

“I’m sure I don’t look half as good to you as you do to me…”  I saw that she was crying, and my own eyes went watery.  I wiped the back of my hand at the corner of my eye.

“Ohh…” she said concernedly, at the recognition of my state.

“Just got something in my eye,” I said, making a more pronounced gesture. 

“It must be contagious, because the other one’s the same,” she said, smiling through the tears and hugging me tighter.  “God, I thought I was going to die – several times.  I didn’t think I was strong enough…”

“Huh!” I snorted, trying to divert her attention from my own pitiful showing.  “You’re the strongest person I know!”

“Yeah, look at me.  A real Boadicea, crying my eyes out… You know you got me through it all?”

“What?”

“I thought of you.  I knew you’d catch up with me…”

“I did have help – and lots of it.”

“I know.”

“They’d go through anything for you – you know that too?”

“Yes.”  More tears.

“They’re the smartest and most resourceful girls I’ve ever come across.  It’s all because of your influence.”

“Oh shush – now you’re just embarrassing me.”  She kissed me lightly on the lips, her tongue intruding lightly, just enough to tantalise.  I dropped a hand to her breast and felt the nipple harden instantly under my fingers.

I disengaged her lips.

“You, my dear, have to rest.  I’m sure you have a lot to think about and plan.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked artlessly.

“Because, Monica,” I sighed, “I’ve known you for long enough to know how your mind works, and to know that there are certain events which require… what shall I say… closure?”  She smiled, brushing back her straggly hair and adopting the look of a small girl.

“Well, sir, if I have to rest, suppose you do a little thinking for me, and tell me what you propose?”

This was an example of the empathic thoughts we shared sometimes – where we both knew exactly what was being discussed without the subject being openly expressed.  In this instance it was Jade Wong and Portia, and what was to be their fate. I stood up and moved across to the door.

“All right.  But only if you promise to stay here and behave yourself.”

She pouted, holding up the sheet demurely to cover her breasts.  “Spoilsport.”

“Any more trouble and I’ll send Nurse Emma to sort you out.”

She poked out her tongue as I shut the door behind me.

*   *   *

A short time later I was sitting on the doorstep of the outbuilding, enjoying the late morning sun.  Emma had issued a firm statement that Monica was to be left in her care, and was not to be bothered on any account, to enable her to rest.  In the hours that I had been sleeping, Jade Wong and Portia had been lying bound hand and foot in the room with the whipping bench.  Each wore a discipline helmet devoid of eyeholes, and each had their mouth stuffed with a sponge ball.  They lay on the floor, ankles crossed and wrists crossed, securely tied in what were uncomfortable hogties.  Both were naked, and both bore scars from a number of strokes from the cane across their buttocks.

“It was made very clear to them that it was just an entré,” said Mary.  “Just a little taste of what lay ahead.  A mere soupçon, comprenez?”

“Oui.  Tres bon, ma cherie.” 

Mary seemed delighted at my schoolboy French.  “So what now, oh He Who Has the Ear of Our Leader?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“I see.  You’re thinking about it.    But let me tell you, a straw poll amongst interested parties in the vicinity suggests that anything that does not encompass inverted suspension by the toes, daily enemas and severe electrical therapy is unlikely to be met with enthusiasm.  Well, perhaps we’d best leave you to your deliberations, oh wise one.”

“Thank you Mary.  I’d appreciate that.”

*   *   *

I went for a walk to explore the property.  It seemed to go back for a long way from the house, as the walls of the canyon closed in and finally became a steep ravine up which it would have been possible to scramble only with difficulty.  The floor of the canyon was studded with Acacia trees and for the first part was penetrated by a rough dirt road, leading up to a small earth dam, obviously built in earlier times to capture runoff for private irrigation purposes.

A short way up the road I spotted the container that Portia had told us about, which Jade had intended having fitted out as a cell.  It was a rusty red colour, and was closed up.  I heaved on the lever that unlocked the doors and pulled them open.  It was your standard container, twenty feet long by eight wide, lined with rugged timber that had no doubt seen many cargos in its time.  It was like a furnace inside, testament to the steel skin and the airless heat at the bottom of the canyon.  Experimentally I pulled the door closed as far as I could, getting a feel for the darkness and stifling atmosphere.  An idea was starting to form in my mind.

I braved Emma’s instructions and consulted with Monica, and obtained her approval, plus a few embellishments that Monica thought appropriate, before calling Louise and asking the whereabouts of a good hardware store.  Not content with telling me, she came out to the house and – together with Trish, my erstwhile helper at Bilboes, and Emma – we drove to a huge DIY and furniture warehouse.  Here I was able to order what I needed – a small electric cooker and oven, a sink bench with cupboards underneath, an upright fridge and freezer, a wall airconditioner, DVD/video player, double mattress, water and drainage pipes, timber, and a toilet.   All this would be delivered the next morning, and in the meantime I splurged out on some tools and all the usual stuff that you need for a major renovation.  Emma signed for it all on Jade Wong’s credit card and we returned to the house kicking round the ideas I was putting forward.  One of the keys to my plan was finding a decent and discrete electrician, and here Louise was again able to help.

“Phil does a lot of work for our establishment,” she explained, passing me a black book as she drove.  I found the number and she dialled him on her mobile.  “He’s into B&D himself – as a sub – and does regular favours for us in return for payment in kind – Philip!  This is Mistress Louise.  I have a job for you.  Of course it’s urgent.  Would I ring you if I expected you to turn up in your own good time?  It’ll take a day.  I want you here bright and early tomorrow morning.  I’m sorry Philip, but that’s not my problem.  You’ll just have to call in sick.  Am I making myself clear?  Good.  Now here’s the address…”

She hung up on him after a little more verbal abuse, then turned to me sweet as pie.  “Those other things that you wanted – the switches and stuff.  You’ll have to get Phil working on those straight away, so that he can have something put together for me to get made up.  We have this wonderful guy called Anthony who makes all our leather products, and I’m sure he’ll do a rush job for me, but of course he needs the switches first to build the product around.  Oh, and might I make a little suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“There is a marvellous steel fabrication company called “Martin’s”, which creates special restraints.  Why don’t you come along and see if there’s anything that suits your plans?”

“Do they do chastity belts?”

“Of course.”

“Could they adapt one to order?”

“I’m sure they would for me.”

“Maybe we’ll send Mary.  I think the rest of us will be too busy.”

*   *   *

In what was left of the afternoon Trish and I set to work on the container while Mary went with Louise to visit Martin’s.  I had measured up the various items for installation and now I marked them out inside the container.  Central on the end wall opposite the doors was to be the cooker and oven, with the sink bench in the corner immediately to the right, and the air conditioner to be installed immediately above the cooker.  Moving back down the right hand side beside the sink bench would be an upright fridge freezer.  It was a double door model, two thirds freezer and one third fridge, since the inhabitants of the container would be eating frozen food for a considerable time.  Beside this, and taking up most of the width of the container, would be a thin double mattress, and closer still to the doors would be a wide wooden platform to be raised some 10 centimetres off the floor.  The last item on the right hand wall would be the toilet.

On the left hand side, in the farthest corner, next to the stove, was a space for an exercycle, which Mary and Louise had been tasked with procuring on their shopping expedition.  Closer to the door, opposite the double mattress would be a hole in the wall for a large flat screen television, DVD and video.  All of these, like the airconditioner, would protrude through the wall, and be accessible from the outside, but not the inside.  They would be either on or off, from the perspective of the container’s inhabitants.  The electrician would have to wire these up, along with strong overhead fluorescent lights and a camera at each end of the container.

By the time we had marked all these things out, experimented with the space and generally finessed the plan, it was dark.  Trish and I walked back to the house well satisfied with our work.  We looked in on the prisoners in passing.  Mary and Louise were already in the out building where Jade and Portia were being kept.  There were several boxes on the floor and they had pulled out various pieces of hardware from their straw packing.

“The two special orders will be a couple of days,” Mary told me.  “And how cool is this one – off the shelf,” she said, holding up a solid steel collar.  It was impressive, almost 3 centimetres thick and the same in height, it was made up of a series of circular flat plates screwed together, overlapping at the hinge point which was in the form of a rod connecting the two.  I picked it up, noting that the screws securing the plates were of a one-way security type, unable to be unscrewed once the assembly had been put together.  It weighted about a couple of kilograms, I guessed, and felt incredibly chunky and solid.  It clicked closed with a satisfying sound then locked with two turns of the key in the integral lock.  The person who had made this was a master of the craft, I concluded, passing it to Mary who secured it around Jade Wong’s neck, then locked it with a metre-long chain to a waist-high eyebolt in the wall.

Jade was still naked, with the discipline helmet locked in place.  Her wrists were locked in a pair of handcuffs obviously designed by the same person who had designed the collar.  They were heavy and rigid, with a slight bend between the two wrist holes so that the wrists were angled at ninety degrees to each other.  Her position had been made more uncomfortable by steel thumb cuffs that further restricted her hand movement. 

Jade was sitting on the floor, her legs stretched wide and held in position by a spreader bar locked on at the ankles.  I saw that she still wore the series of metal rings through her labia that Monica had put there at the end of Jade’s visit to Australia, before sending her home with a set of Ben Wa balls trapped in her pussy.  I didn’t know whether Jade had kept the rings as a war trophy, or whether they were freshly installed, but I did observe that they were now laced closed with black plastic cable ties, looking like a piece of surgery by a mad doctor.

Mary saw my gaze and smiled.  “Watch,” she said, pulling out her mobile phone from her skirt pocket.  She pushed a quick dial number, and the tinny, muted tones of Beethoven’s Fifth sounded from Jade’s crotch.  “The vibrator is on, of course,” Mary said unnecessarily as Jade made mmphing sounds from under the hood and pressed her rigidly cuffed hands down into her crotch, squirming and trying to either reach her own embedded mobile phone to presumably turn it off, or simply to lessen the arousing effect.  It soon became evident that the former wasn’t going to be possible, and after five minutes of moaning frustration for Jade, Mary turned off the call when she thought that Jade was getting just a little too excited.  The bound woman sat there, her breasts heaving and her breath sounding loud from under the leather hood. 

“Fun, huh,” said Mary.

“Makes me wish I was a girl,” I agreed.

On the other side of the room, Portia was similarly secured.  Mary explained that their ears had been plugged and that the prisoners were to remain deprived of sight and sound until further notice.

“They are not to be spoken to, until the container is ready,” she said.  They will have minimal diversions, will be unable to communicate with each other, and will have no concept of the passing of time.  How long will it take you to get the container ready?”

“Maybe three days?”

“Fair enough.  They can play with themselves and get bored and frustrated and wonder just what the hell is going to happen to them.  We may give them a whipping from time to time, just to break the monotony, but otherwise, they will be kept in the dark – physically and literally.  We’ll let their own minds do our job for us.”

“You’re good at this, Mary,” I said with genuine admiration.

“Thank you.  Oh, and some further news for you.  Do you want some help on the container?”

“Sure.”  I was surprised, for Mary wasn’t into hard physical work.

“Good, because the others get in on a flight from Paris tonight.”

“Really?”  I was delighted, not so much because I needed the help, but just because it would be so good to see Jill, Leila and Shawnee again.

“It’s a little surprise for Monica.”

I was sure it would be.

*   *   *

The Air France flight got in at eleven o’clock but it was past midnight before the trio were through customs and immigration.   Trish and I had driven out to collect them in Jade Wong’s Lexus.  At least we assumed it was hers.  It was in the garage and the key was on her ring, but it could have come with the house.  Whatever, Trish navigated us safely there and back, and despite their obvious tiredness from the long flight, the girls were eager to hear the latest developments from our end, just as we were from theirs.  We swapped stories as we drove.

It seemed that Leon, Warren and Pearson had been committed for trial and the media were baying for blood, not to mention answers.  There was plenty of information being published in the tabloids, with lurid explanations of the various torture devices found at Symonds Yat Hall, along with the videos, but Jill said there were some things that were not being said.

“Our role is being played down,” she said.  “The media have sort of skirted round how they came to be informed and how the three guys came to be in the predicament they were.  The fact that the suits of armour were welded in place has them all intrigued, and you were right, Steven, they have been looking for us.  It was a good job we got out when we did.”

“And the other thing that hasn’t been mentioned is the shipping aspect,” Leila added.  “You know how we concluded that they were shipping women off to buyers around the world?  We reckoned we had stumbled on a major slave trafficking ring, but that has hardly been raised by the media.” 

“They’re obviously keeping it under wraps while they do a major investigation undercover, with spies and volunteers infiltrating harems,” Shawnee chimed in.

“Oh shush, Shawnee.  You’ve been reading too many lurid spy novels,” said Jill. I glanced up in the rear view mirror and saw Shawnee pout at the rebuke.

“Whatever the reason, we’re glad you’re here,” said Trish.  “We’ve got an excellent program of physical exercise planned for you.”  There was a concerted groan from the back seat as we pulled up to the gates.

*   *   *

We were a little short of beds as it turned out.  The place was large, but stopped at five bedrooms rather than eight.  With Emma’s permission, given on the basis that I had to behave myself, I was allowed to share the big bed with Monica, while Jill and Emma also shared.  Trish, Mary and Leila took the remaining rooms while Shawnee was allowed to sleep on a sofa in the living room.  Mr Foo thought he had died and gone to heaven with all the delightful young women to keep him busy cooking and making endless pots of Chinese tea.  It was the early hours of the morning, after the newcomers had paid their respects to Monica, that we finally got to go to bed. 

I curled up next to her. “I have to keep my hands off you,” I told her. 

“What about the other way around?” she asked coyly. 

“Emma will be cross, and I really don’t think it’s a good idea, in light of what you’ve been through.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, touching my cheek.  “I can deal with Emma, but you’re probably right.  I’m very tender down there.”

“I’m glad you see reason,” I told her.

“But there are times to think outside the square, and although my mouth has had various things stuffed in it recently, I think it still functions pretty well.”

Now smelling clean and fragrant, she leaned over and kissed me.  Her lips set off sparks in my own southern regions, at the same time as her questing fingers found Mr Willy and he sprang into life.  It was but a short step for her to be burrowing beneath the sheets to produce a surprising performance that neither of us were going to tell Emma about.

I fell asleep dreaming of the plans we had made for the two prisoners chained, gagged and hooded in the out building nearby.

*   *   *

18.09.04

story continues in Monica's Travels 25

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