Unforeseen Circumstances 2

Part 2

By this time, Tara had forced her tired limbs & aching body into a sitting position, waiting with baited breath for the next sound to reach her, & hoping against hope that the voice hadn’t been just wishful thinking on her part. Her next encounter with her potential rescuers -  for there had to be at least two of them out there given the voice - was not aural but visual. Through the encrusted glass & the mesh, the outline of a man’s face appeared briefly before disappearing again, only to return a few seconds later. The voice again accompanied this second appearance.

“It’s barred on the inside, & a bit small, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem once we get this mesh off”

Tara was now in a dreadful dilemma. Her initial reaction, when the face first appeared, was to call out to this unsuspecting person, so that he could raise the alarm & get her out of this mess. But what was he doing here? It didn’t take her long to fathom out that these people were the burglars that her father had so recently spoken about. They were the reason that the window had been sealed & barred. In fact, they were the reason that her father had inadvertently entombed his daughter. So what should she do? Should she still call out to them? No, that was too risky, as being up to no good, the chances were that they’d flee the scene the second they realised that someone was in the house.

She decided to wait until they had broken into before making her presence known to them. But even that had its potential hazards. Being involved in criminal activities, would they be likely to let her go? They might if they took pity on her, but then again, it was more likely that they wouldn’t, assuming that she was too much of a liability if she was free to call the police the minute they left. She’d heard of house-breakers tying people up before, but never of them releasing someone that they happened to find already in that state. Would they, when they found a bound, gagged & helpless female lying on the floor, decide to rape her?  Or even, if they thought she could identify them, kill her?

As far as she knew there was no evidence from recent break-ins that the perpetrators were in any way violent, but it was better to be safe than sorry. So what other alternatives were open to her? Well, it seemed to Tara that the only other plan was to hide amongst the mountain of boxes & crates, wait until they had broken in & hope that, finding the door into the main body of the house locked, they would smash it down. Then, once they’d taken whatever it was they were after – money, jewellery, laptops or whatever - she would be able to escape through the broken door, find her keys & get out of her bonds. If, on the other hand, they found that the door was too much of an obstacle to overcome & decided to leave the way they’d entered, then & only then would she reveal her presence.

Slithering for what seemed like the hundredth time across the floor, Tara curled herself up into the tightest ball that she could in the darkest corner of the attic. Moments later, she heard a sound that informed her that the would-be intruders had begun their quest to gain entry. It took them only seconds to remove the wire grill, then smash the filthy pane; sending shards of broken glass showering onto the floor & boxes below, & making Tara glad that she’d moved to a safe haven.  The next part of their endeavours to get in took somewhat longer however.

Although unable to see from her hiding place, the sounds suggested the bars were being sawn off. This took several long drawn out minutes that were fraught with tension & fear, yet also with a sense of anticipation that she might survive this ordeal after all. Finally, with a loud thud, the first bar hit the floor. This was followed a few minutes later by the second, then the third, giving the uninvited guests a clear route into the attic. The sound of two men clambering in sent a chill down her spine. Here she was, only feet way from strangers who might, for all she knew, be violent men. Yet so far they were oblivious to her being here. For now she wanted to keep it that way.

No sooner were they in, than a torch beam lit the rafters above Tara’s head, which caused her to curl herself up into an even tighter ball. They had no interest in rummaging through the junk in the attic, however, as immediately the sound of the door handle being rattled reached her ears.

“Shit, it’s locked. Now what do we do?”

“Smash it down. There’s nobody here ‘cos they’re all away on holiday. Go on, give it a good kicking.”

Although her parents were about to have their home ransacked & their precious belongings stolen, Tara was overjoyed that they hadn’t given up after finding their way blocked. The repetitive thud, thud, thud of boot against wood resounded around the attic  for several minutes & caused the very frame of the house to vibrate, until a sharp splintering sound announced that they’d achieve their aim. This was followed by an almighty crash, as what remained of the door came away from its hinges & fell onto the floor beyond. The sound of feet tramping noisily down the short flight of stairs left Tara in no doubt that she was once more alone in the attic.

The urge, after having been bound & gagged for over twenty four hours without food or water, to leave the attic immediately was hard to resist. However, she knew that this would not be a wise move at all. Wait, she told herself, until they had taken whatever it was they wanted & departed. Even if she had to wait another hour or two before starting her quest for the keys, at least then she would know that the coast was clear.

Tara shuffled forwards slightly, in order to view the broken window... then froze. How stupid was she? All last night she’d been careful to remain still, so that her family didn’t twig that she was here. Yet now here she was dragging her bound & useless limbs noisily across the floor & potentially alerting the thieves that they were not alone in the house. Luckily, her movements seemed to go undetected, as the sound of returning footsteps failed to materialise.

At first, Tara assumed that the two villains would exit the building the same way that they had entered. This, of course, would give her a clear signal that they had gone. However, as time went by, she began to wonder whether her thinking might have been at fault on this issue. What if they left through one of the downstairs windows? How would she know when they were gone?

Tara waited & waited, listening intensely for clues as to their continued presence in the house. Three or four times, just as everything seemed to have quietened down, there would be a sound from below to indicate that they were still at large. For what seemed like hours, Tara remained motionless & on tenterhooks as this sporadic commotion continued every few minutes; biding her time until she was certain that it was safe to come out from her hiding place. There had been no sound for what she guessed had been around fifteen minutes now, but did that mean that they were gone? Not necessarily, of course, but how would she ever know if she didn’t make a move at some point? Give it ten more minutes, she told herself, then if there was still no sound from below, she would go in search of her freedom.

In the event, she waited no more than five minutes after making this decision. Her desire for freedom & her need to take in liquid refreshment overcame her fear of being caught. It was totally dark in the attic now, but luckily the intruders had left the landing light on & this, shining in through the doorway, gave her enough light to see where she was going. Squirming her way across the floor, taking extra care to avoid the shards of glass directly under the skylight, Tara soon reached the exit, with the remains of the door still hanging from one hinge. She gazed down the short flight of stairs & onto the landing below. Most of the bedroom doors stood open now, whereas she was sure that her mother would have closed them all prior to departing. There was still no indication that there was now anyone in the house.

Negotiating her passage over the remains of the door proved to be more of a tricky operation than she’d at first envisaged, but once this hurdle was overcome she sat on the top step & gradually bumped her way down on her bottom to the landing below. Pulling herself along the corridor to the main flight of stairs that would take her down to ground level, she noticed that each bedroom that she passed had been ransacked. But concerning herself with what had been stolen was the least of her worries just now. Making her way down the stairs to the ground floor in similar fashion, Tara shuffled her bound frame along the hallway until she reached the kitchen door. As this was shut, Tara used the wall to aid her in getting to her feet, then reached around with her chained wrists & opened the kitchen door. It was only a few feet now to the hook where the cellar keys should be, so rather than get down onto the floor again, she decided to risk hopping across to them.

Using her nose to flick the kitchen light on, she gazed with some trepidation over to the hooks. To her great relief the keys to the cellar were still there; she’d half expected them to have been removed, but the burglars seemed not to have taken any interest in them. Seven or eight jumps took her the width of the kitchen. Getting the keys off the hook was, as she’d always known it would be, a case of trial & error. There were three or four other bunches of keys, & they tended to all get tangled with each other even when retrieved normally with free hands. Having to lift the specific set she wanted with her shoulder whilst the others seemingly did their best to thwart her efforts, resulted in this part of her journey towards liberation taking around five minutes. Finally, however, the cellar keys fell to the floor, as did half the other sets that had been hanging there.

Whether the sounds of the keys hitting the tiled floor alerted the intruders to her presence or not, Tara couldn’t say. All she knew was that, before she had had a chance to bend down & try to get the keys into her hands, the sound of footsteps running down the hall announced the arrival, seconds later, of a man in the doorway. Involuntarily, Tara screamed & began hopping awkwardly towards the only other exit from this room, namely the door that lead out into the back garden. Even if she’d reached it, Tara knew that it was locked & would have been no use in her plan to escape. However, she had jumped no more than three yards before she felt a hand grab her around the waist, followed by another around her chest. Tara tried to scream, but virtually no sound escaped the layers of tape.

She was expecting the worst now, but instead he gently guided her back to the kitchen table & sat her down on one of the chairs that surrounded it. Then he took a step back &, for several seconds, simply stared in wonder at his discovery. Tara gazed back, feeling embarrassed & extremely self-conscious. What must she look like in her figure-hugging black outfit, with her legs tightly bound in four places, handcuffs keeping her wrists shackled behind her back & her lower face & head swathed in heavy-duty tape. She whimpered as pathetically as she could, in the hope that he would take pity on her. But instead he simply stood there, looking her up & down, not knowing what to make of this strange vision in front of him. Finally, what seemed like the hint of a smile creased the corners of his mouth &, without taking his eyes off her for a second, he walked the few steps back to the door & called to his colleague.

“Come down here a minute. You’ll never guess what I’ve just found”

The sound of feet in the corridor preceded the appearance of the second man in the doorway. Neither, Tara now realised, was wearing a mask or any kind of disguise, as they’d obviously assumed that the house was empty.

“What the....?” The second man’s voice simply petered out as he saw the bound & gagged young woman in front of him. Regaining his composure, he turned to his partner in crime.

“Where did you find her?”

“Right here. She was trying to get those keys” The first man pointed to where the cellar keys still lay on the floor.

Tara decided it was time to plead for release. Pulling her hands as far around her side as the cuffs would allow, she showed them her manacled wrists, whilst attempting to beg for help in getting free. The words were muffled & incoherent, but Tara was certain they must have known what she was asking for. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem predisposed to grant this wish for her.

“So what are we going to do? Whoever did this to her might come back at any moment.”

“Well we can’t really just let her go, can we?” He turned towards Tara again.  “But what I can’t figure out is that we’ve been through every room in the house & didn’t see her. Then all of a sudden, she’s here in the kitchen. Don’t you think that’s a bit strange?”

By now the second man was kneeling in front of her, & it seemed to Tara that the last question was addressed to her, rather than his companion. She flinched slightly as his hand came towards her face, but then realised that he was picking at the end of the tape over her mouth. Soon he had released enough to begin unwinding the outer gag from her face. This he did quickly, which meant that the tape was ripped painfully from her face & the few strands of her hair that had got caught up in the binding process. What they didn’t expect, however, was to find the ball-gag beneath. Mercifully, this too was soon unbuckled & released, allowing Tara to exercise her jaw muscles for the first time in more than twenty four hours.

Tara tried to speak - to plead for help in getting herself out of the handcuffs - but, ominously, there was no attempt made to release any of her other bonds. A glass of water was proffered to her welcoming lips, however, as her efforts to communicate had come out merely as a hoarse croak. The cool liquid was like nectar on her burning throat, & she drank until the glass was empty. But it seemed that the removal of her gags had not been an act of altruism, as she’d first hoped, but was merely a prelude to a prolonged interrogation of how she came to be all tied up like this.

She briefly toyed with the idea of building up a story in which she had been kidnapped, & was being held here against her will by some third party, who could return at any moment, so it was imperative that they released her without delay. If they had believed this story, which was doubtful, there was a chance they might take pity on her & let her go. But what if they didn’t? How could she explain the fact that she had been trying to stay out of their way, rather than seeking their help as soon as they had entered the house? And what reason would she give for her need to get down to the cellar?  It didn’t make sense & they would easily see through her lies.

So Tara quickly decided that her best plan was to be honest, however embarrassing that might be. As soon as their questioning began, she blurted out the whole story of how she’d tied & cuffed herself up in the attic without her parents’ knowledge. Her eyes filled with genuine tears as she told them of how she’d then become entombed & thought she was going to die there, & how their breaking into the house had been a lifesaver.  She told them of the convoluted trail involved in locating one key after the other in order to release the handcuffs. And finally she begged them once more to help her out of this mess; she wouldn’t, she promised, tell a soul that they’d been here.

For most of her speech, Tara’s head had been bowed, not wanting to meet the gaze of her interrogators. After a couple of initial questions, they had listened in stunned silence as Tara blurted out her sorry tale. Once she’d finished, she cautiously looked up at them, hoping that this tale of woe would find a sympathetic ear. To her dismay, however, through tear-blurred eyes she could tell that both had wide grins on their faces & were taking much amusement from her plight.  As one of them opened the cellar door & disappeared below, presumably to check that the wardrobe key was where Tara had said it was, the second man crouched down in front of her & thrust his face to within inches of her own.

“So, you like being tied up then?”

She flinched at this close encounter. He was unshaven & his breath smelled of cigarette smoke & stale beer. But what was worse, the smile on his face spoke of mischief rather than compassion. Tara had no wish to confirm her love of bondage but, after her recent revelations, she could hardly deny it either. Sadly, she nodded her head.

By now the other man had returned with the wardrobe key in his hand.

“Looks like she’s telling the truth”

The one who was crouching before her stood up & picked the ball-gag up from the kitchen table. He scrutinised it for a few seconds, then, without another word, thrust it back towards Tara’s face. Too stunned to resist, Tara reluctantly allowed the still warm rubber to fill the cavity behind her teeth, & within seconds the buckle was once more secured at the back of her head; even tighter than before, if that were possible.

“Okay, that should keep her quiet. Now let’s find this other key she talked about”

As they started for the door, something snapped in Tara. The reapplication of the gag had made it obvious that these two villains had no intention of letting her go, so why did they want the key to her handcuffs? The only answer was that they intended to take it from its hiding place & put it somewhere else; somewhere that she wouldn’t be able to get at it. All of a sudden she felt angry. How dare they break into her family home & keep her prisoner like this? Tara screamed a curse into her gag & tried to get to her feet. She almost expected to fall over straightaway, but remarkably she managed to remain upright.

As the two men watched open mouthed, she hopped briskly over to where they stood in the doorway & launched herself at them in an effort to get past & out of the kitchen. She had no real plan as to where she was headed, but the need to get away from her newly acquired captors was such that she didn’t care. All she knew was that at that moment she simply couldn’t sit there & watch as they took away the one chance she had of freedom. Unfortunately she never made it through the door. As she lunged at the nearest of the men, she stumbled & basically fell into him.

In self defence he put out his hands & ended up catching her falling body. Gripping her tightly around the waist, he tried to push her back towards the chair, but this time, instead of meekly allowing herself to be man-handled in this fashion, she fought for all she was worth to wriggle free from his grasp. She was doomed to fail, of course, as within seconds his friend had joined in & soon had hold of her legs. With the still struggling woman cursing & swearing at them, they quickly wrestled her back over to the table.

While one of them pulled her arms over the back of the chair, the other took the belt off his trousers, & Tara’s initial thought was that he was about use this to beat her. However, it soon became apparent that his intention was to use the thick leather strap as an extra bond; quickly wrapping it around her waist to encompassing also the struts on the back of the chair. With the belt pulled as tightly as he could get it, he secured the buckle on Tara’s stomach.

“You really shouldn’t have done that. You’ve just made things a whole lot worse for yourself”

 For the first time since she’d been discovered, there was real malice in his voice.

“Come on. She can’t go anywhere now”

They both exited the kitchen, & although they shut the door behind them, Tara could hear from the footsteps that they were making their way upstairs. Tara tried to wriggle out from the tight belt, but it held her firmly in place on the sturdy chair. Then she noticed it. On the worktop, only three yards or so from where she sat, was the telephone.  Of course, why hadn’t she thought of that before? Although bound together, her legs still had the freedom to propel herself, & the chair, across the floor. How long had she got before they returned? She had no idea, but she intended to use every available second. Placing her feet on the floor as far out in front of her as she could, she began trying to drag the chair, & herself, in the direction of the phone.

Unfortunately, the fact that the floor was tiled meant that Tara’s tights could find no grip & kept sliding on the smooth surface, which made locomotion by this method a long, slow process. Even more unfortunate was the fact that the legs of the chair, as they moved, made a loud scraping sound on the floor.  And it was these two inconvenient facts that probably wrecked Tara’s chances of successfully covering the short distance in the time available. She had probably covered half the distance when she heard the sound of one of the men returning down the hall. 

The second he opened the door, it was obvious to him what she was trying to do. He smiled at her. Lifting the phone, he immediately ripped the wire out of its socket, thus rendering it useless to her now even if she could reach have reached it. Despite her attempts to escape, he seemed in a jovial mood now & grinned at her. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out something & held it so close to her face that she was unable to make out exactly what it was at first. It was small & silver-coloured, but it took her a second or two realise that the item in front of her was, quite literally, the key to her freedom.

“Is this what you wanted?” He held the key to her handcuffs tantalisingly in front of her face for a few seconds, before putting it back in his trouser pocket. He laughed harshly.

“If you want the key, then you’ll have to get it off me”

As he said this, his partner in crime returned, & Tara gazed wide-eyed as she noticed that he had a large holdall bag in his hand; a bag that was at once familiar to the helpless woman. It was her bag, the one that she kept all her bondage gear in. He must have returned to the attic & found it. Unceremoniously, he tipped the contents out onto the kitchen table. Several lengths of rope, another ball-gag, three reels of tape, a few scarves & pairs of tights, plus another cat-suit landed in a heap on the wooden surface. Tara noticed, however, that her second set of handcuffs, which she’d used to try to make her escape from the attic, were missing. They must have fallen onto the floor in some dark crevasse & not been found.

When she thought about it later, it seemed to Tara that they must have discussed their plans for her whilst they were out of the room, as they acted as one now, with no words needed. Whilst one of them opened the cellar door, the other released the belt they’d used to lash her to the chair. But this was no act of leniency on their part, merely a prelude to moving their helplessly bound victim to another location. Tara found herself being lifted off the ground by the waist, & thrown over the man’s shoulder. With her head at his back, & his arms now wrapped firmly around her latex-clad thighs, he began walking slowly. Although her head was now behind his back, Tara could tell that they were moving in the general direction of the cellars. 

She had used these windowless, subterranean rooms as dungeons many times in the past, & knew that if they locked her in there she would never get out. In a panic she tried to kick out with her bound legs at her would-be jailer, but her efforts proved fruitless & merely resulted in a sharp slap being administered to her buttocks. Slowly they began to descend the stairs into the wine cellar, with the second man following closely behind. Having cleared the bottom step, her carrier bent forward & deposited his load onto the dusty concrete floor. Tara flopped forward & began struggling for all she was worth; fearing that this was to be her place of confinement for the rest of her days.

Immediately, however, both men were upon her & Tara found any hopes of wriggling out of their grasp stymied. Whilst one held her face down on the floor, the other grabbed her arms & pulled her elbows as closely together as he could. Tara groaned into her gag as the rope was bound tightly around her arms, pulling her shoulders back unnaturally in the process. But her assailants weren’t yet finished.

As Tara tested, as best she could, the new found extra restriction to the movement of her arms, she felt her feet being pulled up behind her back until they almost met her manacled hands. Although she was unable to see what her captors were doing, she knew that they were in the process of applying a length of rope around the chain that linked the two metal bracelets together, then running this down & wrapping it around her ankle bond. This operation took maybe two minutes, before Tara felt the four hands that had been keeping her in check on the floor loosen their grip on her legs & body. But the relinquishing of their grasp on her was not, as she’d hoped, a sign that she could now move any easier. Trying to straighten her legs now proved impossible. In fact, even bending her knees back only very slightly caused the muscles in her arms to stretch painfully, as her arms & legs were now conjoined in a strict hog-tie.

In dismay, her fingers forlornly reached for the knot that now made getting to her feet impossible. Alas, although she could touch her toes, & with a concerted effort her straining fingers could just about reach the rope that she’d tied so tightly around her own ankles all those hours ago, the knots, both of her original bond & the recently added hogtie, proved elusive; both being deliberately stationed in a tamper-prove zone between her legs.

After several seconds of fruitless manoeuvring & struggling, Tara realised that her two tormenters were still standing over her. It was obvious, from the smiles on their faces, that they were taking much pleasure from her discomfort, as they had seemed to do all along. Tara could just imagine how she looked to them; a young helpless woman, handcuffed, gagged & hogtied in a skin-tight latex suit that accentuated every curve of her shapely body & legs, her long blonde hair now falling in a matted & tangled cascade over her face. Through the rubber ball in her mouth, she screamed at them - demanded, in fact - to be released.

“You know what?” The speaker turned to his colleague “I was wondering why she had that tape over the ball-gag when we first found her. Didn’t seem necessary at the time, but now I understand. She can still make far too much noise without the tape sealing her mouth as well”

“Well she gagged herself, if we’re to believe what she was telling us. So maybe we should put things back how they were. After all, it’s what she seems to enjoy”

The reel of thick tape was produced, & while one gathered her hair up & held it out of the way, the other began encircling her face & lower head in the tape; ensuring to press it down so that it bonded efficiently on her skin. Round & round the tape went, far more times than Tara’s initial gagging technique had called for. In fact, he only seemed to stop circumnavigating her head in the strong strips of adhesive once the reel was finished.

The two stood up again & once more gloated over their catch. Tara wanted to scream every obscenity she could think of at them, but she knew that nothing worthwhile could escape her lips, & even if it did, she would only succeed in antagonising them still further. She wondered how long it would be before they became tired of simply staring at her. The answer soon came.

“Okay darlin’, we’ve got some plans for you that we think you might enjoy, seeing as how you’re so into being tied up. They’ll take a while to get set up, though, so we’ll need to leave you here tonight & finish things off sometime tomorrow morning”

The speaker of these words turned & headed for the stairs leading back to ground level, leaving his pal to finish explaining.

“We thought we might crash here tonight, seeing as how the house is empty.... present company excepted of course”

He chuckled to himself as he walked over to her father’s wine racks & pulled two bottles of red at random from the extensive collection. He too then headed for the stairs.

The light being turned off, together with the closure of the door, conspired to plunge Tara into pitch blackness & caused a wail of total despair to force its way through the tape that covered her entire lower face from under her chin to just below her nostrils. She tried desperately to move in the direction that she knew the stairs to be, but the vicious hogtie made movement of any sort almost impossible. She could, with difficulty, roll onto her side, but that was about the extent of her mobility now. And with no light to guide her, there seemed very little that could be done except wait & hope that they were genuine in their assertion that they would be returning to her tomorrow.

When she’d been in the kitchen, Tara had noticed the digital clock on the oven had shown 9:17 pm. That had been only a minute or two before she’d been transported down into her current prison cell.  The hours, however, now passed like years for the hopelessly trapped damsel in distress, & with no window to give her a clue as to the approach of dawn, she could only guess at how long it had been since her incarceration. 

Tara lay still on the floor for most of the night, finding struggle both futile & painful. Every so often, she would fall into an uneasy slumber, only to wake with a start, her ears straining for any sign that she had not been left to rot all alone down here. On each occasion, she was greeted with complete & utter silence.

After what must have been at least twelve hours, if not longer, & just as she was about abandon all hope of her captors ever returning, the sound of the heavy cellar door opening caused her to lift her head from the cold stone floor & gaze up in the direction of the noise. To her relief, a sliver of light greeted her, which got bigger as the door opened to its full potential, casting a pale shadowy light over her surroundings. This twilight lasted only a second or two, however, before the sound of a switch being flicked produced a brighter light that completely dazzled the captive woman after having been subjected to complete darkness for so long. Squinting into the sudden brilliance, Tara could just make out two silhouetted figures moving down the stairs towards her.

As her day vision returned, she could make out that one of them was carrying something, although at that precise moment she couldn’t exactly make out what this could be.  As they’d done last night, the two stood over her for a few seconds, as if fascinated by the trussed up woman at their feet. After half a minute or so, one of them knelt down beside her & began testing the security of the elbow bond & the hog-tie. This took only a few seconds before he rose to his full height again, seemingly satisfied that their handiwork of the previous evening had held firm. As he did so, the second man deposited the mystery item on the floor only a couple of feet from Tara’s face. It was a metal bucket, around twelve inches tall with a diameter, at the brim, of around ten inches which tapered very slightly down to the base. For a few seconds, the significance of this didn’t register with her; at least not until he tipped the bucket over at an angle to reveal what was inside. Tara gazed now at a solid block of ice that came up to within an inch of the brim.

The frosted nature of the contents prevented her from seeing into the depths of the bucket, but Tara knew, even before it was explained to her, what it was that lay hidden deep within the mass of frozen water. Somewhere, right down at the bottom, was the key to her handcuffs. The men took great delight explaining that, after leaving her last night, that they’d put the key in the bucket, filled it with water, then placed it in the freezer upstairs in the kitchen, ensuring that they selected the ‘fast freeze’ option. That, she was told, was why it had taken them so long to return. It was explained also that they would be leaving the house soon, never to return, leaving the helpless woman to get herself free once the ice had released the key from its icy prison.

“We thank you for your hospitality in allowing us to stay the night here. The beds were extremely comfortable. It’s just a shame that you chose to spend the night on this cold hard floor. Now we must bid you farewell. By the time you get yourself out of this we’ll be long gone”

The speaker laughed & headed for the stairs.  His cohort, however, seeing the disbelief & distress in Tara’s eyes, seemed to take pity on her for the first time. Kneeling down close to her head, he offered her a few words of comfort.

“Look, we’re not violent & we’re certainly not murderers. We haven’t actually physically hurt you, have we?”

Tara had to admit that, aside from holding her done to gag her or administer extra bonds, they hadn’t harmed her. He continued:

“If we’d known there was anyone in the house, we would never have broken in here, but since you were here, & seeing as how you obviously enjoy being tied up, we thought that we might have a bit of fun at your expense. I know you probably don’t believe us, but the key genuinely is in the bottom of that bucket, although how long it will take until you can reach it, I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess”

From the top of the stairs, a harsher voice echoed around the cellar;

“Come on, just leave her. It serves her right for tying herself up in the first place”

The man briefly looked up in the direction of the voice, then looked back into Tara’s eyes.

“Sorry”

This was his final word, as he gave a weak smile, rose to his feet & climbed the stairs, not once glancing back until he reached the door. Almost immediately, the light was extinguished & the slamming of the door plunged Tara back into an all too familiar darkness.  She held her breath, dreading the sound of a key turning in the lock. Fortunately, however, this didn’t materialise & she breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Those last few words had eased her fears slightly. He seemed genuine enough, & Tara now believed – indeed HAD to believe – that the key was where they said it was. She would, she told herself, be getting out of here alive. But when? Having herself dabbled with ice-bound keys in the past, Tara knew that the melt time was always longer than you anticipated. The blocks of ice she’d experimented with were in far smaller containers than this, & even then they could take up to eight hours or more to give up their prize. An enormous bucket like this, she guessed, would take at least twenty four hours to thaw sufficiently for her to be able to extricate the key. The fact that it wasn’t particularly warm down here in this underground room would only serve to prolong the process.

Her other concern was being able to retrieve the key once the bucket’s contents had returned to their liquid state. The strict state of her hog-tie ensured that reaching in to the bucket whilst it was upright was not a viable option. Therefore she would have to tip it onto its side to get her hands in. But if she waited to do this until the mass had completely defrosted, she could envisage further danger. The huge volume of water, if tipped over & allowed to spill all at once, would send a torrent in every direction across the floor. If the key washed away in this sudden tsunami, how would she know, bearing in mind that she was in total darkness, in which direction the key had drifted. It would take her hours to traverse every inch of the floor in her restrained state, with her gloved fingers desperately searching for the key.

And what if this deluge of water deposited the key underneath one of the many wine racks that surrounded the room? The consequences of something like this happening didn’t bear thinking about. There was only one answer to this problem. Rather than a sudden surge of water, there needed to be a slow trickle of melt water as it slowly thawed. And to attain this, Tara had to turn the bucket on its side now.

In her extreme state of bondage, it took several minutes for Tara to manoeuvre herself into a position whereby she could grab the rim of the bucket. It took several more to overturn what was, she found, an extremely heavy container. She finally achieved this goal, however. The bucket rolled an inch or two away from her, & it took Tara a minute or two more before she was in the right position to thrust her hand into the bucket. She hoped that maybe the tipping over process might have cracked the ice, or even loosened it somewhat around the edges. Her gloved hand, however, encountered only a solid block of pack ice, which didn’t even seem to be showing anything more than the slightest hint of dampness on its surface, meaning that the thaw had only just begun & might well take even longer than expected.

Tara rested now, in the knowledge that there was very little more she could do to speed up her release. She slept for a while, slightly more at ease with her situation than she had been. Although it was a long way off, she could now see light at the end of the tunnel. 

Tara awoke to a strange sensation. For a second or two, she seemed to forget the events of the past two days.  A shiver ran through her as the realisation that she was still tied & helpless hit her. But this involuntary spasm had nothing to do with fear or despair. No, Tara recognised straight away that the chill that radiated throughout her body was the old feeling that she’d always experienced when she was in a state of bondage. All of a sudden the realisation hit her. If she hadn’t got herself locked in the attic, & if the burglars hadn’t found her & left her down here in the cellar, exactly what would she be doing right now?

It occurred to her that she would be in a similar predicament to the one she faced at the moment. Her intention, whilst her family were on vacation, had been to spend as much time in self imposed bondage as she could. So taking the last two days events out of the equation, she would now be tied up & gagged somewhere in the house, having devised some extremely convoluted, hazardous & time consuming venture to release herself. So what was the difference?

Okay, so the hog-tie was much stricter than she’d ever managed to put herself into, & the elbow rope was something that she could never have hoped to achieved on her own. But essentially, she was in a very similar condition to that which she had an insatiable craving for. If she was going to be here some time, she decided, then she may as well enjoy the sensations & emotions that had always thrilled her in bondage situations such as this.

Squirming, wriggling & struggling just for the fun of it, a feeling of warm security enveloped her & she found herself sighing blissfully into her gags. Tara’s fingers reached out behind her & felt the block of ice again. It was still solid, although she could sense now that the surface was becoming slippery as it gradually became wetter, which signalled a slow but inevitable thaw.

There was nothing for it but to relax & enjoy her time here, however long that might be.

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07.12.13