'All done,' he
said, his lips curving in a quirky smile.
He bathed her
labia and dabbed her dry, then dusted it with talcum powder. She
fought the urge to drag him down and kiss him till they were both
senseless. She longed to feel his tongue in her mouth, his hand on
her breasts, his thumb bringing bliss to her clitoris.
But it was
Vincent Gabor who ran a hand over her satin-soft pubis, smiling.
'That looks so sweet,' he said, and then probed the bud that
crowned her delta, the sensation acute, almost bringing on her
crisis.
'And the
nipple piercing?' Kevin asked, absentmindedly twisting the rings in
his own.
'That, too,'
Vincent promised, and signalled to Jason.
'No...' Julia
cried, sitting up, her bruises forgotten.
'But yes,' he
insisted. 'Look on it as a fashion accessory. Many use piercing
these days, but for you it will be my mark; a constant reminder
that you belong to me.'
Grace's arms
snaked around her. The back of the bench was raised and Julia's
wrists and legs tethered to it. The last remnants of her tattered
T-shirt were hauled off and her bra removed. She felt the
astringent sting of disinfectant as Grace applied it, after
carefully washing her nipples with a pad of cotton wool.
'Do her navel
too, while you're about it,' Gabor said, regarding the preparations
coolly.
Part of Julia
wanted to run away, but deep inside her smouldered a dark ember of
desire. She had secretly considered having her bellybutton pierced,
and had poured over pictures of women with rings through their
nipples, labia and clitoris, wondering what it would feel like. The
write-ups suggested that they enhanced sexual sensations -
especially the one through the clit. But she would have come to
this in her own good time, maybe. Now she was being forced. Vincent
had made up her mind for her.
There was no
escape. Grace held her still and Jason loomed with an instrument
similar to that which had pierced her ears long ago. She had been
frightened then, but this was as nothing compared to the terror
that now made her tremble. Grace held Julia's right breast steady
and, so swiftly that she hardly felt it, Jason pierced her nipple
and inserted a gold guard ring. There was a minimal loss of blood,
Grace bathed it away, and the disinfectant stung.
'Nice,'
Vincent said, nodding his approval.
'She didn't
scream - you're being too soft with her, Jason,' Kevin whined.
'Shut up,'
Vincent growled. 'Do the other one.'
After what
seemed like an eternity her ordeal was over, both nipples ringed,
and her navel too. At first these wounds were numb but, as the
shock wore off, they began to throb. Tears streaked her cheeks and
she crawled wearily from the couch, dreading what further torments
lay in store for her. Grace made her put on her bra and the
remnants of her top, the fabric rubbing against her sore teats,
while her skirt and what was left of her knickers added to the pain
in her navel.
She still
harboured the faint hope that she would be locked in one of the
guestrooms, but to her dismay, she saw Jason and Grace manoeuvring
a cage into position. It was small and on wheels, similar to the
kind once used by circuses to contain wild animals.
'Get in,' said
Grace.
'This is a
joke, surely?' Julia said, her voice rising in desperate
appeal.
'No joke; a
means of correction,' Vincent Gabor answered.
Julia glanced
round wildly, but each face wore an implacable expression 'I won't
go in there,' she insisted. 'It's too claustrophobic. I can't stand
confinement.'
Kevin and
Marty Blake gripped her arms and dragged her towards it. She
stumbled on the low step, cracked her shin, and was then catapulted
into the musty interior. The gate clanged behind her and the
padlock shut with a snap.
'Good night,
and sweet dreams,' mocked Blake.
'Have you seen
Julia?' Will said, arriving unannounced in Arlene's workshop.
She was on her
knees, working on a made-to-measure garment draped on a dummy and
looked up, mumbling through the pins held between her lips. 'No, I
thought she was with you.'
'I haven't
heard from her for two days. Not since she went to Marty Blake's
studio,' he said, and searched his pockets fruitlessly for his
cigarettes.
Arlene
straightened up, removed the dressmaker's pins, returned them to
their crimson velvet cushion and reached for her own pack. 'Have
one of mine. Shit, this isn't good news. Have you tried phoning
Abbey Reach?'
'I didn't; I'm
not supposed to know her. But I did get Denise to do it, with the
excuse that she wanted to interview Julia after her success at the
fashion show. She was told that Miss Jones was away on a
shoot.'
'D'you believe
that?' To give her hands something to do while her thoughts
whirled, Arlene made for the kettle and jar of instant coffee.
'Sugar?' she asked, while her imagination dreamed up images of
Julia being enslaved, used, turned into Gabor's whore - or worse
still - seriously hurt if she'd been caught snooping.
'Two,' Will
answered absently, then added, as if his thoughts were on the same
track, 'Supposing she fouled up, and they've kidnapped her?'
'That's pretty
farfetched, isn't it?' she said. 'I can't believe that.'
He frowned,
and ran a hand through his untidy hair. He looked crumpled and
worried. 'Would you have believed a year ago that Marty Blake would
rob you?' he said sharply. 'I'd have dismissed it as crap, and so
would you.'
'You're right.
So, where do we go from here?' Arlene asked, making a space on the
table for her cup, and fishing for an ashtray among the debris -
snippets of fabric, reels of cotton, scissors, scraps of paper
covered in rough sketches - but underneath these practical actions,
she was running around screaming, panic-stricken for her friend's
safety.
'We could try
Hazel House, or Blake's apartment. Denise has Julia's notes. She's
been scrupulous about keeping the magazine informed of her actions
and whereabouts.'
'But there's
been no communication?'
'Not over the
past forty-eight hours.'
'I'll give
Eugene a bell. He'll be up for it. He can ferret around, maybe make
a trip out to Hazel House. Don't worry. He's cool.'
'Someone may
recognise him from the show.'
'I doubt it.
They were all too busy wanking their own egos.'
'If she
doesn't turn up, then I'll get hold of Theona. She's gigging up
north till tomorrow.'
'Then you'll
hack into Gabor's system?'
'There won't be any alternative; we've just
got
to find her.' Will's
brown eyes registered deep concern, and Arlene realised he really
did care for Julia. She was lucky to have someone so devoted. In
many ways, he was like Eugene.
'Maybe I'd
help you, if you were nice to me,' Jason said, letting Julia out of
the cage and walking her up and down, a lead attached to the collar
that encased her throat. It was part of his job to see that she was
exercised. He had been entrusted with her care, and took his duties
seriously. He brought her food, loosened her manacles so she could
eat, and emptied the slop-bucket provided as a toilet. He also
changed the pile of hay that was her bed.
'What d'you mean,
nice?
' Julia asked, though she already
guessed the answer. 'And what day is it? What's the
time?'
The hours
dragged dreadfully when she was alone down there in the gloom.
Grace came in twice a day to check on the rings in Julia's nipples
and navel. They were healing well. There had been no sign of Gabor,
but Grace had been unable to resist taking advantage of Julia's
helplessness. Keeping her chained, she had entered the cage on the
first day, and slipped Ben Wa balls into Julia's sex. Then, getting
Jason to assist her, she greased a large black dildo and worked it
into Julia's bottom.
'You'll wear
these till I come again tomorrow,' she had said and, before
departing, stood in front of her, lifted her grey skirt and wanked
herself to a noisy climax.
Julia had been
unable to dislodge the foreign bodies inserted into her body. Every
time she moved she was aware of the balls stirring in her vagina,
and tormented by the enormous plug in her arse. Next day, Grace
took it out long enough for Julia to relieve her bowels, watching
as she did so, and then inserted an even larger one.
Yet this
constant reminder of her sexual area had another effect; it made
Julia randy, but her hands were fastened in such a way that she
couldn't touch herself to masturbate. When she wanted to pee she
had to stand astride the bucket and let her water flow, and she
longed for the removal of the objects that stimulated and stretched
her, and longed above all, for a bath.
'It's Sunday,
and,' Jason glanced at the watch strapped round his thick wrist,
'three in the afternoon.' He pressed closer to her, no longer in
bondage gear, but wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. His cock and
balls seemed even more prominent, though covered. They bulged
against his flies, and despite her sorry predicament Julia's
fingers itched to curl around that promising package.
'Did you mean
it when you said you could help me?' she asked sweetly, and didn't
move away.
'Sure,' he
confirmed, and one of his large hands closed on her bare
breast.
'In what way?'
There was no question of pushing him off. She couldn't anyway,
given the shortage of chain linking her wrists. 'Could you get a
message to my friends?'
'Maybe.' He
planted a wet kiss on her lips.
'If I give you
a phone number, will you ring it?' she asked, breaking the kiss for
a moment.
'I'll try, but
I've got to be careful. They'll slit a man's throat as soon as look
at him.'
'Mr Gabor?'
She could still hardly credit him with being a murderer.
'Not himself,
but he'll pay others to do it. He wasn't always a businessman. In
his early days he was a mercenary. Spent time engaged in warfare in
South America, the Middle East, and trouble spots on the Russian
border, anywhere he could get rich pickings. He's no stranger to
violent death, that's for sure.'
He said this
so matter-of-factly that she went cold. Jason had become
brainwashed into accepting this as the norm. The army had started
it, and employment by Vincent Gabor had completed the job. Yet he
was a sensitive brute. He probably sent his mother a card on her
birthday, maybe even flowers.
So Julia took
a chance on him, reeling off Will's mobile number. 'Slow down,'
Jason said, and fished in his jeans, pulling out a stub of a pencil
and a crumpled till receipt. 'Say again?'
She repeated
it and he printed the numbers, slowly, like a six-year-old. Then he
folded the paper and tucked it into his hip pocket, grinning,
anticipating his reward. He slackened her manacles and she moved
her hand over his bulge. It grew bigger. When she unzipped him his
serpent leapt through the gap. She had seen it in bondage, but now,
freed from restraint, it displayed its majestic length and generous
girth. Fascinated, her clitoris a hot kernel of desire, she took it
in her hand. Her fingers didn't meet round it. Jason groaned and
moved it through her palm, leaving a sticky trail.
His hands
rested on her shoulders and she felt their steely pressure,
obediently sinking to her knees. His crotch was on a level with her
mouth now, and she breathed in his body warmth, the musky scent of
male genitalia, which no amount of showering entirely erased. Her
nose brushed against the tight scrub of pubic curls and she lapped
at the long, brown-skinned stem of the cock that reared upwards to
his belly. His strawberry-coloured helm gleamed with the emission
which tasty salty on her tongue.
The tip alone
distended her lips and filled her mouth and palate so that she had
difficulty in sucking him. Its taste and texture were wonderful,
and she wanted him to frig her, but he was too engrossed in his own
fast approaching climax. She felt his cock's urgent tension, and
achieved a result far sooner than she expected. He groaned like a
wild beast and she felt the power of his discharge rushing along
his shaft. He bucked, growled, and his semen filled her mouth and
bespattered her face and, when she recoiled, volleyed over her
throat and breasts.
'Oh, oh... that was
wicked
,' he panted, laughing in a
hoarse vibrato.
At that moment
the vault seemed to explode. Vincent Gabor burst in, followed by a
gang of men wearing sleeveless green string vests, khaki trousers
and hob-nailed boots. They were young, tanned and muscular, their
tops straining over powerful chests, their bare tattooed arms
bulging. Grace was with them, also dressed in camouflage, as butch
as the rest of them.
Jason tried to
cover up, but not before Gabor had spotted his still large, though
rapidly shrinking cock. 'You've been keeping her in training, have
you?' he bellowed, and Jason abandoned her, trying to melt into the
shadows.
Gabor seized
Julia by the hair, jerking her head back so that she was forced to
look up at him. Her face and breasts glistened with Jason's creamy
spunk. 'You like a bit of rough?' he asked, and then went on
without awaiting her reply. 'Then you shall have it, darling. I can
be as rough as you like, and so can my men.' He was dressed like
them, though a sweatband confined his hair. He looked scruffy and
muddy and stank of fresh sweat. He could have been the leader of a
band of mercenaries, and for some reason she found it incredibly
sexy.
He handled her
crudely, feeling between her legs. 'How wet you are,' he goaded.
'Grace tells me you've not been allowed to come since she
introduced you to her little toys. I think the boys and me can do
something about that. We've just completed some intense training,
so we're hyped up and looking for a way to release our
energies.'