Vanishing Act 1
by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)
(story continues from Vanishing Act)
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8
Vanishing Act
Chapter One
8
My name is Jan Sherwood.
I’m thirty-four. I’m a nurse. No, I was a nurse.
My occupation was now prisoner, kidnappee, hostage, captive, slave, call
it what you will.
I shall describe myself. I could walk across to the full-length mirror that was fixed to one wall. It was covered by a piece of perspex, just in case I got any ideas about breaking the glass and slashing my wrists. I could stand in front of the mirror and observe the reflected figure.
I am naked. This was my normal form of ‘dress’, if you could call it such. I believed some or all of my clothes might be stored upstairs, but I did not really know this. Nakedness was my normal state of being - naked of body, naked of mind and naked of soul. I had long since passed the stage of embarrassment, such have been the indignities and humiliations that I had had to bear in that dungeon.
I had lost weight. I stood at 180 centimetres tall. My hair was an auburn colour, but I had seen the first faint hints of grey appearing at my temples in the weeks I had been kept prisoner. Such was the price that was being extracted from me, although physically a grey hair or two was the least of my torments. At least I’d been allowed shampoo and conditioner and a hairbrush to keep some element of shine to my locks. My hair sat on my shoulders. He had cut it once since I had been there, which perhaps told me that maybe three months had passed since my incarceration.
My eyes are a grey green colour. In the right light you could sometimes see little hints of gold in the iris. My cheeks were now slightly sunken, showing my cheekbones as more prominent than they used to be. I never thought of myself having the thin model look, but that’s where I appeared to be heading. The puffiness that surrounded my eyes when I first arrived here was gone. That was the result of a lot of crying and not much sleep. Nowadays I seemed to have overcome those obstacles – it’s amazing how the body adjusts. Meanwhile the little lines were appearing at the corners of my eyes, but they’re not laughter lines
My body was lean. I was never overweight, but what little surplus flesh I had, had been shed under the cruel punishments and the forced isometric exercises I had endured. My food intake had varied, depending on his mood. I had gone two days without food in one instance, wondering if he had suffered an accident, but it turned out he had merely been visiting his mate and had decided I was not a high priority. The weight I had shed made my breasts seem bigger than I remembered. I was now so much more aware of my own body than before – aware of size and proportion, of colour and skin changes. When you’re locked in a 7-metre by 7-metre cell with no clothes, no company, and only a mirror for a diversion, you tended to notice these things.
I knew every inch of my body in a new way, now, as did he. It seems every inch had at one time felt the sting of the cat or the sharp crack of the riding crop, or the tightness of securing ropes. I knew the sensation of my own weight and how it tugged on strapped and suspended wrists or ankles. As I said, my breasts appeared bigger. While not over-large, they were big enough for him to bind with rope such that they bulged and protruded in a way that delighted him but caused me only more pain and discomfort, magnified many times if he decided to hang clamps and weights off my nipples.
You could almost see my ribs, but not quite. My stomach was still firm as it sloped down to where the downy triangle of hair used to be. I suppose I should thank him for the exercises I had undertaken that have tightened my abs. If only I had not been bound in such severe positions during the sessions, it could almost have been as tolerable as a hard gym workout. But it wasn’t. And of course he shaved me. Being the way nature intended was clearly not to his liking, and my pussy had to have its little mop of hair removed. I’m sure this was yet another part of his debasement program.
My thighs and calves were toned and muscled, which is not surprising, considering the amount of time I had spent either squatting, hogtied, or attached to a spreader bar on tiptoes. All these positions amounted to strenuous isometric exercises, but with a significant incentive to maintain them. The incentive was usually a whip, leading to a beating that would leave me bruised and marked.
Predictably, my tan was long gone and my skin had become deathly pale
in the absence of sun. I was still trying to persuade him to let
me see the light of day and to get some vitamin E, even just for a short
while, on whatever terms he wished to specify. My resolve was growing,
not weakening, I had decided, and using my mind to outwit him remained
my focus.
I said that I was naked. Naked except for my chains, of course.
They rattled when I walked, but I had nearly become used to them.
Let me describe my ensemble. Around my neck was a stainless steel
collar which he must have had made especially for me. It was about
the width of two fingers and was riveted on - quite light and comfortable,
but very strong.
The edges were slightly rolled so that it did not cut into my neck with
just enough clearance to get a finger between my neck and the metal.
On the front there was a U-shaped fitting to which a chain could be locked
when it pleased him. It could almost have been pretty, were it not
for what it had come to symbolise, and such was clearly his intention.
Around my waist was a larger version of the collar, slightly wider
and with a U-fitting on each hip supporting a steel ring the diameter of
a fifty cent piece. Again this accessory was riveted in place and
was snug, provided I didn’t put on any weight, not that there was much
danger of that.
I wore steel cuffs on my ankles and wrists, faced on the insides with a thin layer of dense foam – the kind that sleeping mats for campers are made from. The cuffs could be locked in place and usually remained so until he decided that maybe ropes or straps would be more appropriate, so that Jan could be made much more uncomfortable.
The cuffs were all in place now, as I stood looking at myself in the mirror. Additionally, a thin chain connected my right ankle to my right wrist, and an identical one connected my left ankle and wrist. These chains ran through the rings on my waist belt at each hip. When I stood straight, the chains pulled taut such that my wrists were pulled in against the rings and I looked like a gunfighter waiting to draw. If I wanted to scratch my nose I had to bend one leg upward to give me enough slack for the attached wrist. It was a devious configuration. It forced me to eat either cross-legged or kneeling. I had to wash my hair or clean my teeth the same way. Again, all part of the slave culture. Additionally, with a single padlock he could lock both wrist cuffs to my collar and leave me unable to do anything except waddle about the room in a crouched position. It was no wonder my leg muscles had toned up.
I should also describe my room. It was a converted double garage underneath his house. It had been entirely lined with a newly constructed concrete block wall. Anyone opening the garage roller door would be greeted with this blank blockwork wall immediately inside the door. To all intents and purposes it was soundproof. When the properties of the exterior wall were added to the sound-deadening qualities of the blockwork, the room was silent, with the only sounds being those of its inhabitant – me. I could hear him when he was at home, for the timber joists were exposed above me and some of the rooms above appeared to be uncarpeted. I had got to know the creaks of the floorboards and the sound of footsteps and all the small noises that indicated the workings of a house.
My room had a double bed, a shower and a toilet. In the middle of the room there was a steel post supporting a steel bearer under the overhead floor joists. This post was one of his favourite anchor points when I was to be tormented. I had grown to fear it, if one can do so of an inanimate object.
You entered the room through a door in the corner. Central on the opposite wall is the double bed, iron framed and bolted to the concrete floor and set slightly away from the wall. There was about a metre and a half between the foot of the bed and the steel post. To the left of the bed, in the corner was the small shower. Next to that was the toilet. The only other objects to break up the room were a steel chair bolted to the floor near the corner diagonally opposite the shower, and a wall mounted steel cupboard next to the door. This cupboard was locked, and contained the many and varied instruments of torture that I had experienced in my time there. The perspex covered mirror was mounted on the wall next to the steel chair, so I could sit there and do my hair, or alternatively watch my expression of pain as I was subjected to the sting of the lash while bound to the chair.
Looking around the room, some faded oil stains on the bare concrete floor were visible, but the concrete block walls remain pristine. I thought about trying to make marks for the days of my incarceration, but I had no idea of the passing of time, since I could not see daylight. Even the food he brought me seemed to be randomly delivered and appeared to be whatever he found handy, rather than any form of breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Dangling from the exposed joists were several pulleys and a chain block, attached to which I had spent many unpleasant hours. Under the cold glare of the fluorescent lights it was a grey and depressing place, filled with memories of pain and humiliation. The lights were turned on and off in a seemingly random manner. Sometimes it was like I was in pitch darkness for twenty-four hours, then the next session was only a quarter of that. It continued to disorient me and disrupt my sleep patterns – not that I really had such a thing any more. It was obviously intended to lower my morale and will to resist. And it worked, in an insidious and stealthy way.
So that is where I was. But I must tell you about the beginning
of it all, and how I came to be held captive in this dungeon
12.07.01
updated: 26.06.02
story continues in Vanishing Act 2
o0o