Descent Into Darkness

Descent Into Darkness

H.A. Kotys

The

Written Pictures

Series

This book is dedicated to my patient partner….

PROLOGUE

The left bank of the river
had been a place Katarina always went to walk and dream and there was nothing like a late summer evening to just let her mind meander. Away from the cafés and the general hubbub of the town, it gave her space to think, space to drift, space to dream and space to try to process all that was happening in her life and to try to pick a path through it. Wandering slowly through the trailing veil of weeping willows, her thoughts had floated from this topic to that as if carried along by the water that burbled lazily beside her. It was her safe place; a place that allowed her to escape from the dull drudgery of daily life. She could dream about what could be with only the occasional hint of distant voices from the far bank to risk snapping her attention back to a reality she sought to escape.

That was where she had first been spotted and that had been only the first of many times she had been watched over several days. She had never noticed but then, lost to her thoughts as she usually was, little intruded beyond the sounds of the river as they softly soothed her soul. When ‘spotted’ had evolved into ‘precise targeting’, the man had waited until the time and opportunity had been right and Katarina had taken the longer path back toward the park, just like she always did.

He had been suave-looking in an overly smart suit and was soon to show the impeccable manners that would instantly strip away the immediate irritation of being bumped from her daydream. Seemingly engrossed in his smartphone like so many other sidewalk zombies, he had stumbled into Katarina in a deliberate and well thought out accident and he had pulled it off perfectly. After he had gasped the gasp he knew would be expected, their eyes had met, lingering longer than they should, precisely as he had planned. Karma it seemed had been more than kind to Katarina in presenting her with this handsome stranger. A conversation had ensued that would forever change her life, a life ripe and ready to embrace what he had to offer.

Exotic charm mixed with an easy sophistication had been practiced and perfectly presented to pique her interest. His research had of course been thorough and he already knew what would spark an excitement in her that had been dulled by the all too recent loss of her father.

The rapids where she had stood with her Dad that day were just over there; she always tried to look away from those. The seabirds that often followed the river back from the coast always pricked memories of him too and even the willows reminded her of those perfect family picnics when she had been a little girl and life was still just a perfect adventure. Even in her safe place there was no true sanctuary of late. She needed to heal and to do that she needed to make a clean break from the hurt that still burned within her. There were too many memories and try as she might to move on they kept on clawing her right back. She needed to get away and had already decided as much. She knew the ‘why’, and the ‘when’ was as soon as she could, but she just didn’t know the ‘where’ and hadn’t even begun to think about the ‘how’.

The man had spoken of her beauty and about the ease with which he could launch Katarina straight into a modelling career. It had seemed that fate had found her at last and was eager to fill the void inside. He clearly couldn’t believe their chance meeting either but sometimes the world just worked that way. The where and the how were now flashing in flaming neon. It had been overdue,
long
overdue and the tall man couldn’t begin to know just how much. As his words had flowed over her though, it couldn’t be clearer that fate was finally ready to begin repaying the debt it had started to accumulate two years earlier with the loss of her mother.

He’d initially spoken in English too and even that’d smacked of destiny. He’d then falteringly corrected himself, repeating what he’d said in what barely passed for her mother tongue. Katarina had answered back in her own near perfect English, for once thankful for all those late night private lessons her doting father had paid for, just to give her that extra leg up in life.

Too good to be true? Perhaps, but she had nothing to hold her there anymore other than the painful echoes of memories triggered every day, around every corner of every street. To Katarina at least, it had been nothing more than coincidence but when tethered to the twin horses of her vanity and ego, there was nothing to be done but to take a deep breath and let herself just go with it.

It meant that she'd be swept halfway round the world on nothing more than a vague promise but right then that was enough. She had needed something new, something fresh, a new direction. In a seemingly chance meeting and over a seemingly innocent conversation, her future had been intentionally nudged down a path that would change her life and that of many others.

Now here she was, adrenalin pumping after she’d been pampered and posed. She was the centre of attention and inwardly glowing because of it as the third shoot of the week headed towards a pause before the final session.

The first had been headshots, capturing a smile that they said would radiate from cover pages like the first shafts of sunshine pushing through a misty morning.

The second shoot had seen her posing poolside in a bikini that she hoped they’d paid for by the square inch rather than paid for by the carat based on the stones garnishing the ornate clasps. Katarina had never been self-conscious about a body she pushed consistently to hold off those extra pounds and even as people had looked on, it had only served as confirmation that she was here and she
would
make it. She was starting afresh and striking out on a journey so fantastically intoxicating that she could barely stop her smile long enough to supply them with the looks they demanded.

Not quite the knockout glamorous shoot she had expected, the third shoot they had explained would show off her racier side and would be one that would open up a whole different market. It would shoehorn her into a more risqué niche that few with her looks had dared to step into. She would be the new fresh face in a corner of the market where makeup and attitude were sometimes offsets for
real
beauty. It was all so obvious in the way they had explained it; so obvious and clearly the right thing to do.

And so Katarina had pushed herself into the stubborn latex to prepare for the edgy scene she was of course to be the star of. She’d been pulled this way and that by the girl helping her dress before she had made her excuses and scurried away. It had felt a little odd at first but then latex was unfamiliar and Katarina had silently explained to her inner voice that anything different was always that way, or at least it was at first. Still, strange or not, she was now a model. Nobody back home would believe it and yet she believed them when they showed her the proofs of the first two sessions and promised her that there was no doubting she’d take the world by storm. And so she’d posed and pouted just as they directed while she was coaxed into a sensual series of camera-loving looks.

A new experience to her, the constant grip of her catsuit had somehow been absorbed into her thoughts as she had bent and bowed, stretched and simpered, seeding the fertile imagination that bubbled below but was never far from the surface. It had been a strenuous session of simulated seduction and as the photographer puffed out his cheeks and finally lowered the camera, he nodded a break from the day’s shoot, allowing Katarina to ‘take twenty’ and rest back in her room.

Part 1

The Taking

CHAPTER I - End of the Shoot

Another set had finished shooting. Katarina, in her recently launched career as a model, had completed most of her third shoot of the week, her aspirations heading ever upwards as the photographers reconfirmed how much the camera loved her.

She sat back on the edge of the bed in her hotel room, her feet burning from two hours standing in sky high boots. She’d posed for the camera, charming both the photographer and the magazine editor. He’d belatedly arrived to watch the shoot of this new girl who, he'd apparently been told, was sure to be the next big thing in the industry. The twenty minute break was most welcome and Katarina took advantage of it as best she could, downing two espressos and smoking as if her life depended on it.

Technically, this was a dressing break. Katarina had been given a change of boots to wear and she held them in her hand, looking at them with fascination. She'd practiced ballet as a child so balancing in them shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Ballet boots they were apparently called but these were a little different to any boots she’d seen before. The heels were staggeringly high for a start. At the ankle though, they sported a strap from which hung an open padlock, apparently asking to be closed on the waiting buckle. The sheer suggestiveness of them, the implications of locking them on her feet, pushed her mind into a dizzying dream.

'Just decoration' they had told her, and yet the locks looked sturdy with a permanence that screamed of bondage and fantasies she’d long held but never deeply explored. She turned the boots over in her hand, studying them, her imagination firing into all sorts of erotic directions.

A slamming door jolted her back to her senses. Gasping, Katarina looked up to see the swarthy face of Michael Immelmann, the editor, approaching her. “Break over sweetheart,” he said with a wink. “Let's get those boots on you and get back to the shoot.”

Smiling, he knelt down before her, taking the first boot from her hand. She knew putting them on herself would have been almost impossible as the thick leather corset she was wearing gripped her tighter than any lover could, pressing the latex of her catsuit forcefully against her narrowed waist.

As she looked down at him, the handsome executive kneeling at her feet, her already heightened senses tingled with excitement as she imagined him submissive before her, the latex-clad Goddess.

He drew the laces tightly around her foot, knotted them and took the opportunity to brush her latex-covered leg. New to the industry, Katarina held back her objections. She couldn't afford to upset this man - he was the key to her career and this shoot was the launch, she had been told, for a high circulation magazine that would propel her into international recognition.

Brushing her leg again, he now circled her calf with both hands, massaging the knots in the muscle that had built up. “Can't have my new cover girl uncomfortable.” He smiled in an attempt to ease the concerns which were etching across her brow.

Visibly she relaxed as he rose to his feet, prizing the other boot from her grasp. “Be right back sweetheart, this one needs a bit of a touch up.” Immelmann flashed the boot before her to demonstrate a flaw in the leather. Though she couldn't see much wrong and doubted that the camera would anyway pick up that kind of detail, she nodded as he hurried out of the door.

The hotel room was stunning. She had really arrived this time. Cover girl for a top magazine, a personal audience with the editor and the promise of a career where only the sky was the limit. She leaned back, waiting for his return, drawing her leg up onto the bed to see the dramatic heel of the single boot he had adorned her with. Katarina looked at the seven inch heel and the dramatic en pointe toe. The thought that the laces were unusual flicked across her mind as she examined them. With these, it may have been the norm; thin strands of leather, delicate and yet expensively strong. A triumphal smile crept across her lips, this was it, this was the life.

It wasn't long before he returned, the second boot in hand, tucking and prodding at the inside. “Not 100% fixed but should work for the shoot,” he explained, chasing away any lingering concerns as he placed a travel bag on the bed behind her.

Once again, he dropped to one knee. “Your foot please fair Lady,” he requested gallantly, eyes sparkling at the clear imagery he knew it would conjure for her. “You may find this one a little more uncomfortable, there's a leather seam on the inside which doesn't quite sit flat to the boot. I apologise in advance for any discomfort.” Smiling up at Katarina, he busied himself with the boot, wrapping the laces tight, closing the tough leather around her delicate foot.

His struggles to tie them off didn't even register with her as she luxuriated in the feel of her feet being gripped in the exotic embrace of the severe boots. Only the harsh metallic click of the first padlock closing yanked her back to reality. The second click locked her other foot within the boot and she felt the discomfort he had warned her about. She hoped there wouldn't be too much standing in the last part of the shoot; it wouldn't be long before the minor irritation of that seam grew into a pain.

The eroticism of her situation made her head spin. Here she was, clad in a gleaming black latex catsuit, tightly corseted and locked in those extreme heels she instantly loved so much. “You do know where the keys are for those?” she half joked.

“Let's get that corset tightened up, I noticed it worked a little loose in the first shoot.” His urgency to get back to work deflected the question.

The bed creaked as he moved behind her. She felt his breath wash over her neck as he started to draw the laces of her corset closer, tightening them further after each exhaled breath. Katarina's eyes narrowed in pleasure as the thick leather bit into her ribs. She would have curves to die for, curves to wow.

Tighter and tighter he pulled until she only waited for the tell-tale sound of bone cracking. At the precise point she thought it couldn’t possibly be drawn in any further, she felt him lean back on the bed and pause, hopefully satisfied with the reduction he had achieved.

She looked down, admiring her narrowed figure as her latex-covered breasts spilled over the top of the corset as if an offering to anyone she took as hers. His further struggles with the laces went unnoticed while she drifted off into her own world of erotic imaginations inspired by the musky aroma of his cologne infiltrating her senses.

Katarina started back to reality once again when his warm hands found her waspish waist. A moan involuntarily escaped as she caught a glimpse of them both in the mirror across the room. She, the beautiful latex model, him the powerful editor who held both her career and now her body in his grip.

The kiss he placed on her neck was a pure surprise. Leaning back, she rested her head against his in thanks. “One more thing sweetheart, to complete the look,” he whispered as a third metallic click abruptly broke the softened mood.

Gasping an abbreviated breath, all her corset allowed, Katarina tried to twist and, as she did, caught sight of the glint of a third lock dangling from the hasp at the top of her corset. Her breathing quickened, each breath forced shallow. Her mind fired back to erotic thoughts; thoughts of capture and control.

He trailed a hand around her narrowed waist while dismounting the bed, not taking his eyes from her, darting across her shoulders, her breasts. Katarina looked to him, for the first time noticing a bestial hunger lurking deep in his eyes. She realised her exposure to his whim. She was in a foreign country, in a strange hotel, locked in impossibly high boots and padlocked inside a harsh leather corset which compressed her waist to the extreme, almost robbing her of breath.

The first flicker of concern played in her eye as he once again reached into the bag behind her. From the sound of it the bag was full as he searched for his quarry before retrieving what she saw to be a leather item from its depths. “This next scene is a little more risqué than the first,” he explained, approaching Katarina with it. “For this section, we need to add a little more spice to your outfit.”

Subconsciously, she edged further back onto the bed, wary of the change of direction things appeared to be taking, warning signs starting to flash in her head. “You do know this is a fetish magazine, right?” he continued, receiving a hesitant nod in response. Her mind was racing to process the possible implications and make sense of her situation.

“The last photo of the piece will be the knockout pic where the readers get to see you in our sponsor's products.” With that, and the addition of his warm smile, it all seemed so plausible that fleeting thoughts of concern were pushed away.

Holding the item before her, she could see now that it was a collar. She'd worn them before when playing with her sometime girlfriend as they skirted a bondage theme but never anything quite like
this
. It certainly wasn't like the simple dog collar she'd had round her neck in the past. The leather was thick; robust in a way that she knew would fire the imagination of the readers. Metal rings hung from the sides and front, suggestive and serious. The collar was a style she'd seen on the net but never quite plucked up the courage to buy - a posture collar she remembered it as and, as he drew close to her, Katarina stretched to receive it.

Slowly, he closed it around her neck, the significance of her collaring lost as she pictured the knockout multi-page spread this might be for. Katarina's chin nestled into a small indentation in the front of the collar as the back was closed around her slender neck. Two buckles were drawn tight and a moan surprised her as she felt the straps sealing her in their embrace. Stretching her neck, she tried to turn to see him but to turn was impossible because of the raised sides of the collar.

“Wow!” she exclaimed with difficulty as her lower jaw was now almost fixed in position. While already hard, her breathing became yet more laboured as the collar compressed her throat. She felt him moving again behind her and then heard a fourth click. Katarina jerked forward, her hands immediately darting to the back of her neck. As her fingers explored they confirmed a horrible fear; the zip of her catsuit was padlocked to the collar, sealing her into her current attire.

“You have the keys for those, right?” pressed Katarina with a growing concern, the tremble in her voice not really hidden by a forced smile. Again unanswered, she tried to turn to challenge the man that now controlled her but corset and collar restricted her movement. She felt hands once again resting on her tightly nipped waist as his breath stroked her shoulders, the warmth barely filtering through the taught latex of her catsuit. Was that a kiss on her shoulder? A second confirmed it, a third began to usher away her fears. Confused, she leaned back into him, trying to work everything out yet comforted by his presence.

As his hands traced up her body, the electricity of his touch surprised her. Maybe sparked by the danger of her clothing, perhaps by the power he had over her career, she felt the tension course through her. It was a tension that she would normally only expect from the touch of her occasional lover, Lauren, on one of her surprise night time visits. Straining against the strong leather collar, Katarina nestled the back of her head onto Immelmann’s shoulder, luxuriating in his touch on her waist, chest and ultimately down her arms as he explored her latex-clad body for the first time.

She drew in his aftershave until corset and collar would allow no more. Should she kiss his cheek? Was that what he expected? Was this how things worked? She couldn’t risk ruining everything, he was her career and she was in his hands. Would it be going too far? Would he simply step back and walk away?

A second moan passed her lips, floating in the air as she felt herself charged by the touch of this powerful figure. Her wrists in his, she thought nothing as he drew them back, causing her to lean further into him, be more dependent on him for support. Even as handcuffs ratcheted around first one wrist, then the other, Katarina barely noticed as she received yet more kisses along her jaw line, which nestled snugly against the harsh leather of her collar. Involuntarily twisting her arms, she soon found these were not the playful fur-lined cuffs, often found in the closet of lovers. No, these were the real - serious hinged cuffs that severely prevented movement.

Her body stiffened and her eyes shot open in alarm. “Relax sweetheart,” he cooed as her heart pounded a heavy rhythm. “You’re gonna be famous.” His words was like honey to her, soothing the rising doubts. Katarina had no defence against such velvet. She was his model, his property and increasingly his toy and his reminder of the shoot made it all make sense again.

Her dreamlike state was roughly broken though as he pushed her onto her side, her stringent corset making it impossible to prevent the fall once momentum had been engaged. Thudding into the plump duvet, Katarina tried to right herself but the cuffs, collar and corset combined to rob her of her usual flexibility. Powerless to resist now, she could only lie there as she felt something being pressed into the palm of her hand.