Melody ate with gusto: the table was spread with containers of yogurt, colourful bowls of strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, sliced kiwi, sliced oranges, and tiny tomatoes. There were also shelled nuts of various kinds and a bowl of sweetened granola. To one side was a large toasted bacon and egg sandwich, just delivered by a waiter. On the other side, a glass of chocolate milk. Amber was putting questions to her about her kinky play preferences, but had made little headway completing the open form on her tablet.

Melody reached for half the sandwich. A porter in the standard AbductCo uniform appeared beside Amber. He held a cute black-and-red leather knapsack in one hand and a cloth bag in the other. He bent and whispered in her ear.

When he saw Melody watching him, he stood and handed her the knapsack. Melody opened the drawstring and pulled back the inner flaps. The bag smelled of fresh leather as if it had just come from the craftsman’s shop. Inside were some things Moustache had taken from her apartment the afternoon she was kidnapped: her chastity belt with the vaginal and anal probes, steel shackleswith locks, one of her corsets, two ballgags (one white, one red) on leather straps, two kinds of nipple clamps, a dildo, a medium sized butt plug, and two different men’s chastity cages.

The porter resumed whispering in Amber’s ear. Amber pulled back. “Unless it’s confidential – “ She glanced at Melody.

“Kinda foolish to whisper around me. My hearing has been rated in the top ten percent by an audiologist.”

The porter straightened up. “Everything on your list, Amber. I included her latex corset, but left the redrope, the quick links, and the carabiners behind.”

“Did you get new notepads, pens and pencils?” Amber asked. The shopping complex had a small stationery store calledThe Bondage Student.Melody had gone in yesterday, during Amber’s tour. The porter nodded. “And a tablet?”

“Certainly, Miss. They are all in this cloth bag.”

“Is her data account set up? Fully functional, so we can update it?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Thank-you. That will be all.” The porter receded quickly. Amber glanced in the cloth bag and transferred the stationery and computer tablet to the leather knapsack, which she then gave to Melody. “You’ll carry this for the remainder of the day.”

Amber returned to the questionnaire on her own tablet. “There are 136 categories of BDSM play. Security wants at least a partial record for you established before you attend your first class. Most classes have a hands-on component and you might be selected to model and demonstrate things by a few of the instructors.”

“Why me?”

“Classes are often small. You’re young and flexible. You have an easy smile. You’re not afraid.”

“How can I learn if I’m being used as a demonstration dummy?”

“You’ll learn by having the experience.”

Melody frowned.

“Do you have any medical conditions, chronic or otherwise, that a top should know about? Allergies, epilepsy, a previous stroke or heart attack?”

“No.”

“Are you on any prescription medications?”

Melody chuckled. “No.”

“Do you have any phobias or mental conditions your domme should know about?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid of heights? Do you have claustrophobia?”

Melody paused. “I’m afraid of the cliff edge.”

“Most people are,” Amber said, her stylus poised over her screen.

“No.”

“Any specific scene-related things you will not do?”

“Like what?”

“Needles? Have you ever pushed a needle under your skin, just to feel what it’s like?”

“No! Is that a thing?”

“Certainly, it’s a  thing.”  Amber mimicked her. “Some people find it very enjoyable.“

“But it makes them bleed.”

“Not always, rarely more than a drop or a little dribble.”

Melody cut her off. “I’m not really into pain.”

“Really? You have pierced nipples!”

“I got them before I met Martin. I was surprised how easy it was to be pierced. I mean, I just imagined I was at a doctor’s office. The parlor even looked like a clinical office. Some topical anesthetic, a sharp jab in each, and then a little soreness as they healed up, moving up to a larger ring over time. Not an erotic, love-making kind of experience.”

“OK. There are two pairs of nipple clamps in that knapsack that were brought here with you when you were taken from your apartment. One is a pair of Japanese clover clamps with a decent spring in them. The other pair have bars with inward-facing spikes that can be tightened pretty severely.”

Melody had bought the spiked nipple clamps and a red ball gag as souvenirs in Amsterdam last year. She’d gone with four other girls from her office on a three-city quick trip to Europe. How could she forget Amsterdam’s red-light district: De Wallen? Wild and crazy times, crazy friends. They had introduced Melody to BDSM by taking her to a dungeon. “Just to have a look.” The district came alive after dark. Crowded with curious tourists, live models in shop windows. She remembered staring down, half drunk into one of the waterways, that divided one side of the street from the other. She couldn’t claim the clamps were Martin’s idea. She had become insanely curious when she saw them in a shop, under a glass counter-top. Must have. Must feel, she recalled as she reached for her purse.

“Has Martin ever whipped you?”

Melody nodded. “With a riding crop and with a cat of nine tails he bought at Northbound Leather.”

“I see,” said Amber. “I presume you gave him permission. And that whipping is not a hard limit for you?”

Melody stared. “How would I know if it’s a . . . whatever you call it . . .  limit?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you limits are, Melody. As for what you’ve done with Martin, well –he’s here. He’s been interrogated.”

“Yes! I know he’s here. That’s why I was in the men’s prison section last night!” Melody paused as if adding a silent “duh!”

“And lastly, when Head Mistress struck you with the cane five times last night, you didn’t like it, but later you said it was o.k.”

“And you know that, how?”

“Head Mistress wrote it on your file.”

Melody rolled her eyes.

“So your statement about not enjoying some level of pain is not really true – and as the incident last night showed, your opinion of a single incident, or one pain event, can change over time. There are many different ways to inflict pain. Some ways turn some people on. Other ways turn other people on. One of the purposes of this survey is to . . . “

“. . . figure out my preferences.” Melody suddenly remembered what she wanted to say. “I won’t eat shit or drink piss.” Two men at the next table overheard and turned to look.

“Aside from that, are there any specific scene-related fetishes you really dislike?”

“No needles. I don’t want to be pierced by an amateur. No huge dildos. No gang-bangs. If it comes right down to it, no sex with strangers. No strange men coming in my pussy.”

“What about your asshole or your mouth?”

“No strange men in there either.”

Amber laughed. “You’re a clever, witty girl. I’ll put that in your profile. Anything else?”

“Playing with unbathed people, anyone with bad breath, skin eczema, hives, Crohn’s disease, syphilis, gonorrhea, psoriasis, dandruff, foot fungus . . .”

“OK. Perhaps we should continue with the kinds of play listed here, rather than hear about more of your limits.”

Did Melody enjoy, tolerate, or would she prohibitthe play described by phrases like  Being Gagged, Daddy Play and  Verbal Humiliation? Then she had to indicate if she had experienced the activity or not, and whether she found it fabulous, disgusting, or somewhere in between. There were not too many things Melody forbade, but since she had tried so very few of them, she had no idea if she would like most of what was on the list. Many phrases meant nothing to her. Often she would say “It would depend who I’m doing it with. And of course, what you’re talking about.”

Amber finally stopped questioning her and shut down her screen. “We’re not done, but we only have ten minutes until your first class. For now, I’ve submitted your questionnaire as a  Partial. Security will treat the unanswered questions as if you are not interested in that activity, until the survey status moves to  Complete. Also, surveys need to be updated every three months, because as you have said, people’s tastes change. There’s still no substitute for discussing what you like with your submissive.”

Melody’s eyes narrowed.

“Or with your domme. Your first class is  Practical Dominance. It’s a bit theoretical. But it’s led by a great instructor. You’ll like him.”

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Mr. Yates wore a tweed jacket of flecked browns and pair of dark brown corduroy trousers. He was a little old for Melody – not a man she might lose her heart to – but he seemed very trustworthy. It wasn’t long before she imagined him draping a cat-o-nine tails across her breasts and belly. He moved easily back a forth before the class as he spoke.

Yates personified what Stephanie had said about the virtue of good manners.  He patiently tolerated every question and interruption from his students. He would not have been out of place presenting a report on climate change at a government news conference. There were twelve students in the room, some having taken the course name – Practical Dominance– to heart by wearing leather or latex. All of the seven women and four men were wearing leather boots of some kind. Melody was in sneakers and jeans. She was also the only one in a steel slave collar and encumbered by two leather cuffs on her wrists, that rested on the table before her.

The class sat around a horseshoe-shaped set of tables. At one end, Mr. Yates checked his automated attendance system. His laptop, he explained, was able to register the identities of everyone in the room who was wearing a bracelet. He noted a few like Amber and his own assistant, who were present but not enrolled. He asked students to say a few words about themselves and the reason they had signed up.

Some said they were curious about dominance, or were feeling pressure to dominate a partner, or were eager to be better with particular aspects of topping. Finally, the focus fell on Melody.

“And you are miss . . . Melody. Is that right?”

“Just Melody. Not  Miss Melody.”

Mr. Yates smiled. “Doesn’t matter. Your first name is all we need.”

“I was enrolled by someone else. Head Mistress Stephanie, I think.”

A few students gasped. Mr. Yates looked up from his tablet and slowly put his hands together.

“And you wore those cuffs and locked them together in front of you, because . . . you just like to wear cuffs?”

“Her idea,” Melody raised both hands and awkwardly jerked both thumbs over her shoulder, at Amber who sat with her back against the wall, staring at her phone. She had not heard Yates’s question.

“I only mention your accessories because we send signals to others with our clothing choices.”

”Yeah. I think I knew that.”

“All right. Good. We are very glad you’ve joined us, Melody. Welcome to the first day of class.”

Mr. Yates spoke to them all. “Let’s begin with a little philosophical background. It is my view that, in the role of the domme, you have only three basic techniques to develop deference (or submission) in your slave. The quality of their deference relies on:

• The effectiveness of your bondage.
• The personal authority of your orders and the humiliation implicit or explicit in your commands.
• The effect or impact of your punishments; your ability to raise pain while increasing your slave’s desire for even more pain.”

“I call these the three pillars of dominance. You cannot dominate without using at least one of these powers forcefully. Use more than one, or all three of them, and your slave will never leave you.”

He paused. No one challenged this assertion. No one even laughed.

“Notice how I don’t consider your choice of equipment and costuming to be essential. Success does not depend on wearing black or red or any other colour. Using a steel restraint or a wooden one, or one made of rope makes no material difference. You can dominate with your voice alone. You can dominate with your bare hands, or your bare foot, or two pieces of hemp, with the most ordinary of clothes on your back. I have met many, many people who think that if they just got a better chastity cage or another kind of whip or a particular style of latex dress or restraint or a new piece of furniture in their play-room, that their relationship would be made better. Not true! Such things might add variety to a session. But in the absence of good communications between partners – which is how we learn our partner’s likely responses and secret cravings  – they mean very little. In the absence of your understanding the three pillars, dressing like a domme (or if you prefer, a top), will confer very little authority on you.”

An older woman put up her hand. “Isn’t one of the best ways to start with a man who already loves you? Like what is the relationship between your marriage, assuming you are stable, you know, and in love, and all that, and the three pillars you’re talking about?” She sat back in her chair, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Ah. It didn’t take long. The love question.” Several students laughed. Amber looked up from her phone.

“Does love, freely and honestly expressed, act as a foundation for dominance?” asked Yates. “Or to look at it from the other end, can dominance and submission be a mask or a disguise or an acted role under which love may live and thrive?”

Three or four hands shot up, begging to speak. “In a second,” said Yates. “I promise we’ll be discussing love in our next class, since you have raised it. I just wanted to add my question to get you thinking.” He glanced at his assistant, a middle-aged woman in business attire, making notes in a tablet connected to an overhead projector. “The discussions raised by you here today, will be the proof for me, that I’m reaching you.”

“Let’s consider sloppy rope work. Imagine you have a sub who just enjoys slipping out of bonds. One who thinks she’s a junior Houdini and gets her kicks from competing with her dom for the upper hand.” Yates paused. “Any ideas about that?”

“I had a girl-friend like that,” said a chubby young man, gloomily. He sat opposite Melody across the circle. He had been staring at her, trying to make eye-contact from the moment she entered the room.

“We call that kind, the brat.” Yates replied. “Misbehaving in order to entice stricter punishments, in this case better-executed bondage, from their top. The example I wanted you to focus on however is effectiveness. Is ineffective bondage helpful to establishing dominance?”

“No way,” said a wiry, dark-skinned Asian boy with greased-back hair. He wore a blazingly bright red-checkered shirt.

“Why not, Alex?”

“Bad knots is just incompetent, man!”

“Do we respect competence?”

“Damn right I do. I come to courses like this to improve myself. To become competent.”

“Good Alex. Happy you’re here.” Yates replied. “What kind of head-space is the sub likely to be in?”

Potential answers flew across the room.

• “She’s likely to start telling him how to tie better.”
• “You can’t feel helpless if you’re not really helpless.”
• “It’s easier to pretend to be the boss than to pretend to be helpless.”
• “She might grab him and start tying him up! To show how it’s done.”
• “The whole scene they had planned might come crashing down. Can’t stay in the role.”
• “If dominance is an act, it has to be convincing. Would you trust a person who is unprepared to do their thing, play their part?”

“Very good,” Yates summarized. “But it’s not expertise in absolute terms that counts. We don’t seek to test our dom against some abstract example of expertise; for example, what we might have seen in a movie clip or on the internet. What counts for a dom is having their partner believe in their expertise. Expertise should support confidence. And a sensitive submissive will not undermine the confidence of their dom. Some of you might know I also teach a course called Practical Submission. And we cover sensitivity in the sub there too.

“However, if a dom gets their confidence from something else, for example that their sub is simply to happy to be with them, and to take whatever comes – within limits – expertise becomes less of a challenge. Why is that?”

Melody cleared her throat. “Because if you love your man and part of your relationship is outside of kink, then he will know that no matter what mistakes he makes, he will be forgiven and your sessions will go on and, for that matter, your relationship will go on.” Several members of the class nodded. But a few shook their heads, not everyone agreed.

“Very good, Melody – if by “man” you mean “dom.” Yates scanned the rest of the class. “In what other ways can bondage be made effective?”

The class began shouting out ideas. “Make it last!” “Make it tight.” “Practice your knots on inanimate objects or yourself before you play.”

Soon they were following the idea that some kinds of materials (like metal) were better than some other kinds of restraints (like leather and rope). Others were criticizing locks, because keys could be lost.

Yates gradually guided the class into several exercises with commands and talk within a scene. The students were paired up. Melody’s partner was one of the middle-aged ladies who had introduced herself at the outset as a natural submissive but because her husband was a switch, she felt she ought to dominate him sometimes. This morning, she had taken a stab at dressing for the part. She wore black high heeled booties, a corset and a long black skirt. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a pony-tail.

“We are going to craft scenarios to gently humiliate your sub and hopefully, enrich their feelings of submission. It’s not always necessary to tie them up. Or beat them. Your paraphernalia, your tools, are not an end in themselves. Intimacy through bondage and teasing and playing with pain is the end. Bringing two people into as intimate a space as possible, is what it’s about.”

“Because we’re role-playing today, we’ll use commands to maintain your submissive in their mental space. Sub-space. After you decide with your partner, whether to top or bottom, you’ll be challenged to craft a scenario and keep it simple: just specify the nature of the humiliation and give us some of your language that might go with it.”

“(1) For example, you’re at a public function – perhaps a party – and your sub is instructed to attempt to seduce one of the men (a stranger). This is to test exhibitionism and sluttiness and discretion. Specify the punishment if she fails to do this. If your sub is a man, have him attempt the same thing. With a stranger, this will raise the whole issue that you’re demanding that he pretend to be gay. And if your target is gay, it goes one way, and if your target is not, it goes another way.”

“(2) You’re outdoors in a wooded area and you’re going to tie your sub to tree along a path and leave him (or her) there for a specified length of time. Provide a reason why this is being done. The sub is to practice begging for mercy. What will your sub offer to avoid a scenario where they might be discovered or embarrassed or humiliated by a third party coming along the trail?

“(3) You’re at home and you decide you are going to punish your sub for a domestic (cooking or cleaning) infraction. Define the infraction and the punishment. Give us the dialogue to make it happen.”

“You’ll spend about five minutes putting your scene together. Then, each pair will act out the scenario in the middle of the room, within the circle of these tables. Remember, a top should always have a sketch of a plan and your bottom may or may not know the outline of it. It should never run afoul of personal hard limits. This is the kind of thing a sub has to share with their dom. Hard limits. For the professional femdom, it’s easy to run similar scenarios with different subs, though of course there will always be variations, things added in or left out. For the monogamous top, more planning and variety may be required. And please, please . . . be prepared to go with inspiration, when inspiration strikes!  Be prepared to improvise. Actors, comedians, and anyone used to a public stage will do well in this exercise. But even if you don’t have such experience, give it a try.“

“You will be able to use three moderate lengths of hemp, that I will provide each couple, then each couple will present their scene, and we will watch your scene with a focus on the effectiveness of the dominance. You don’t have to use the hemp. It’s just there in case someone feels they need it.”

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Melody’s second class was  BDSM in the Arts. The instructor was a middle-aged woman who went by the name of Ms. Periwinkle. She wore no make-up. Her head was covered by a scarf, not unlike a hijab, that matched her beautiful moss green robe. She spoke softly with an English accent. Melody studied her face. Her make-up was very effective: purples, pinks, and reds cunningly blended around her eyes, and across her cheekbones. Her unstylish metal glasses seemed to hide whatever natural beauty was in her face. The glasses and head covering reminded Melody of Sister Wendy, the British nun and art critic.

“The purpose of this class is to give you some familiarity with the artistic expression of physical suffering through the ages and to help you recognize what artistic ambitions you might have in the areas of illustration, writing or film-making.” The first three classes this semester will deal with visual arts and writing, particularly an overview of the history of BDSM in the Arts.”

Melody surveyed the lists on her desk.

Literature:

• Pauline Reage: The Story of O
• Sacher-Masoch: Venus in Furs
• N. Roquelaire: The Beauty Trilogy
• de Sade: Justine
• Initiation Stories: the test of authenticity / proving one’s desire.

Visual and Musical Arts Study List:

• Titian’s Venus and Adonis
• portrayals of St. Sebastian (various)
• portrayals of Joan of Arc (various)
• Classic Japanese prints portraying figures in bondage.
• Robert Mapplethorpe: Gay Kink.
• Janet Jackson, Suzi Quattro, Joan Jett.
• John Willie & Eric Stanton: early fetish artists.
• Robert Bishop, Coco, Tsarsis, Tom of Finland.
• Atomage and the Rise of Rubber. Cultural or technological?
• Pulp anthologies.
• Men’s Magazine covers: the aftermath of War
• comic book characters: Lois Lane, Wonder Woman, horror comics, selected comic book covers in mystery, super-hero, western, detective, and suspense genres
• Houdini and the Art of Escapology
• Isidoro Bianchi di Campione, painting 'Allegory of Love and Wisdom'
• Lesbian Fiction (various)
• Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, various
• selected songs by The Beatles

Periwinkle spoke slowly and softly. She seemed uninterested in questions. The class was small, only eight students. “Whether or not practitioners find Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, or Masochism in their activities, a common thread exists in the form of constructed power play between two or more individuals. BDSM as a sexual realm is often misrepresented in mainstream depictions; it is presented and perceived as deviant, perverted, and violent in media and pornography consumed by the general public. BDSM as a form of counter-culture lends itself to the formation of communities who enjoy it and who desire a space where they can be surrounded by like-minded individuals and free of the judgment they often face from the wider  vanilla population.”

The class was only scheduled for sixty minutes, but Melody feared continuous exposure to the teacher’s soft drone. “We will examine famous depictions of BDSM over the last fifty years and attempt to deconstruct the inherent biases against them (that they were deviant, perverted, and violent, etc.) with close readings and study, making particular note of cultural context.”

Melody’s third class was about pony play. The first class was held indoors. Subsequent classes in Beginners Equestrianwould be held at the barn and at outdoors at various stations built around the property. Melody thought it would be a difficult course with many techniques and much equipment to practice with. There would be thirteen classes in all, leading to racing competitions on the final day (fourteenth) of class. Unlike in Mr. Yates’s class, Melody did not have to explain why she was wearing a slave collar and cuffs. Amber dropped her off when the class began and returned a few minutes before it ended.

+++++++++++++++++++

As they ate lunch, Melody complained her classes had been full of dominant men and women.  “Practical Dominance I can understand, but surely the mix should have been even for the other two:  BDSM in the Arts  and  Beginners Equestrian. I mean the ponies would need more training than the drivers, wouldn’t they?”

“Actually not,” said Amber. “Driving a pony is a lot harder than pulling the cart. I speak from experience here. As a domme, I failed  Beginners Equestrian  on my first try. More responsibility. Much more can go wrong. As for finding lots of dominant types at these classes, well, that’s your luck of the draw.”

“That damned instructor of  Equestrian Techniques  whose name I never did understand. Of course as soon as I said I had worn a pony bit. Like in Martin’s bedroom ONCE, I got to be the demonstration pony for all the other equipment.” Melody paused. “I liked the woman who actually asked me if she could poke a few needles under my skin on my back. She was very friendly.”

“You said you didn’t like that on the survey.”

“I just said I liked the woman. I didn’t say I would let her do it to me.”

“So you see, it is a  thing.” Amber mocked Melody for mocking her earlier. “But with the expertise of the right person, you thought you might like it? Even though it was completely new to you?”

“I’m glad she didn’t have any needles out in front of me. I might have fainted. Anyway, I just didn’t like the instructors (except for Mr. Yates) always assuming I was a submissive and, you know, ready to show off.”

“The steel collar, you’re wearing is a dead give-away. And the cuffs.”

“Can you please take the cuffs off?”

Amber smiled, took out her phone, pressed two buttons on the screen, and held the device against the locks linking Melody’s wrists in front of her. Amber took the locks into her purse. Melody popped off the cuffs, and began to rub her wrists to speed up the circulation and massage away the marks on her wrists.

After lunch, Amber took her to the rubber clothier in the shopping area, wanting to set her up in a catsuit to go with the heavy rubber corset in Melody’s knapsack.

“I’d rather have a leather dress, with strappy high-heeled sandals.”

“It’s not going to cost you anything. Either Mistress Destiny or Martin are going to pay for it.”

Melody kept her answer back when she saw the salesman approaching. He went into a quick speech about how clothes make the woman. How to convey one’s preferences and not raise unrealistic expectations.”

“Do you have any rubber restraints?” Melody asked.

“Mais oui, Madame, but you have a suit appointment now. A fitting.”

Melody stared at Amber. “I have a rubber suit, at home. I don’t need another one.”

“You need to try topping,” Amber interrupted.

“No disrespect Amber, but no. I’m not going to be your domme. I’m way over my head here.”

The salesman could see trouble ahead. He said, “Ladies, if you have some emotional issues to work out, please don’t do it in my store. My time is very valuable.” He began to retreat.

Amber persisted. “I’m only saying you should give it a try. Topping, I mean. There’s just more money in it honey. More than being a travel agent.” Amber’s voice softened further. “Think of it as a career change.”

“Oh, mind your own business.”

Amber kept her temper. “The reason we’re shopping for a new catsuit is your black one got a tear in it when Moustache brought you. Mistress Stephanie sent it for repair. Should be ready in a week.”

“You people have such an agenda! Do you know how annoying you are, doing all this stuff behind my back?”

“OK. Forget it,” Amber said. “I’m only trying to tell you what’s going on and you blow up at me. You have a scheduled fitting with Andre here.”

“Yeah, he’s gone now,” observed Melody. Andre was now in the back of the store, speaking to an employee who was shifting some clothes from one metal rack to another.

Amber calculated whether there was time any more for a fitting. She should have told Melody what she was planning. “OK. Forget it. We’ll be early, but let’s go to the next thing on our schedule: a special guest lecture on BDSM in the 1960s, in Auditorium Two. The speaker is Dr. Barbara Behr. Should be fun.”

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Melody’s final class of the day – Beginners Rope – was taught by Mistress Blaise. The room was packed. Amber had put a chain on Melody’s collar. The two waited patiently by a side door to the stage. Amber unlocked the connector between Melody’s wrists. She turned Melody over to Blaise’s assistant, a severe looking man, with long hair and a braided beard. Melody was to be one of two models Blaise would use. Her other rope dummy was a sixty year old man who was somewhat overweight and stiff. Amber said: “You two were chosen to demonstrate the difference in abilities between a twenty-five year old female . . . and an old geezer.”

The hall held over two hundred people. Every seat was taken and at least twenty people stood in the aisles along the walls. Mistress Blaise came to the podium, dressed in jeans and a turtleneck sweater. She had a deck of slides operated by the hall’s audio-visual staff. Additionally, overhead monitors displayed various camera feeds. Everyone would be able to see the details of her demonstration. Blaise’s classes were usually filmed and some were sold online.

Once they were on stage, Blaise told Melody to remove her wrist-cuffs and T-shirt for the demonstration. Amber’s phone was passed up to Blaise from below, to open the locks. Melody hesitantly removed her black t-shirt, revealing her rich purple brassiere. She’d been told it wouldn’t be hard to be a rope dummy and reluctantly she had agreed. She just needed to be responsive.

She was confused by being on a lighted stage while the crowd was in semi-darkness. Often she was positioned so she faced into one of the wings, or found herself looking at the back of the stage. One of the stage hands made funny faces at her, flirting she supposed, trying to solicit a laugh. For at least ten minutes, early on, she was blindfolded. Amber remained on hand at the foot of the stage. Melody heard her speak several times to Mistress Blaise’s assistant.

Melody’s arms were tied and retied behind her back. Ropes were placed and then removed around her legs and torso. At one point, the house lights went up, while the stage hands were bringing a large wooden frame to the front of the stage. Although the lights went down again within twenty seconds, Melody’s confidence was shaken. All those faces staring at her, in rapt attention. She felt faint. She tried to imagine she was fully clothed, which she almost was, but it didn’t help because she couldn’t stop thinking about her steel collar. She did not enjoy exhibitionism. Martin had mortified her once when he suggested they take a walk in the nearby park, while she had her hands tied behind her.

Halfway through the lecture, Blaise stepped close to behind her. “C’mon kid. Get it together here.” She gestured for assistant to bring the old geezer back as the rope dummy.

Blaise continued: “Would you rather not see?”

Melody nodded. Blaise slipped the blindfold on her a second time. “Better?” Melody nodded.

“You’ve done great. Only five more minutes to go. Until I need you again, I’m going to sit you down in a chair, stage left. I can finish with our old guy here.” Blaise’s assistant took Melody to a seat. He undid the few ropes tied rather loosely around her torso and slipped off her blindfold. He helped her put her T-shirt on.

When the demonstration event was finished there was a round of applause. Blaise’s assistant stood behind Melody. He escorted her to centre stage when Blaise called her name. The house lights were up again. Blaise thanked Melody profusely and the ovation from the crowd was enormous. Melody smiled shyly, and attempted a little bow, but she was unsteady and almost fell. Straightening up, she crossed her arms defiantly across her breasts. The audience cheered. Melody began to cry, then she started to grin through her tears. Her face, when it appeared on the overhead monitors encouraged the crowd to cheer even more.

Blaise brought everyone who had helped with the show, to the stage for a round of applause. She thanked them all by name. Each took a bow and receded into the wings. Finally the house lights came all the way up.

Amber came onstage and gave Melody a hug. “Excellent, sweetie. Just a fabulous job on your part.”

Melody looked around for Blaise and her assistant. “Oh yeah, I’m a natural on a huge stage. I really love being tied up in front of hundreds of perverts.”

“Don’t be cynical. Blaise spoke very sincerely about you at the end.”

On the opposite side or the stage, at a back door, a line of people waited to speak to Blaise; Melody assumed they were fans of her videos. Melody had given up trying to work out if all the girls in line were really girls. She knew male cross-dressers were numerous at Abduction Company. She’d seen so many men in drag, she scarcely noticed them any more. On the other hand, the women who dressed as men were easy for Melody to pick out, especially if they were walking or dancing.

A tall girl in a full maid’s outfit with a bosom and a full stiff skirt looked directly up at her from the floor below the stage. She wore a luxurious dark brown wig. Her make-up was extravagant and kind of excessive. She wore opera length rubber gloves, stockings and black pumps with moderate-length, perhaps three-inch heels. The girl was saying something. Melody couldn’t make it out with the noise around her.

Amber knelt at Melody’s feet. “Time to restrain you a little.” She put on the ankle cuffs and tethered them. Melody felt a little sad, but content to be back in a smaller role.

“Hands behind.” Melody complied and Amber attached the soft leather cuffs to her wrists and joined the locks. Amber stood and snapped a chain leash to the front of Melody’s collar.

“Hey what happened to my independence?” Melody joked.

“Melody! You’re here!” a man shouted from behind them. The voice was familiar.

Both girls looked around. Amber, closest to the stage edge, felt a pair of hands enclose one of her ankles. It was the girl in the maid’s outfit, who had powerful hands, and now had her in an unshakeable grip.

“Let go! What the hell, you’re going to pull me over!”

“I have to speak to you,” the maid said, not indicating who was meant.

Amber shifted her weight to her captive leg. She raised her free foot an brought it down on the gloved fingers around her ankle.

One of the stage hands rushed forward with an eight foot pole. Its blunt steel head formed the shape of a  T.  “What’s going on. Who are you?” he shouted at the figure whose arms extended over the edge of the stage. He got down on his knees and laid the pole across the maid’s forearms. He only had to exert a small downward pressure to get Amber’s ankle released. He shouted at the maid. “Stay right where you are!”

But the maid did not stay. His frilly dress and stunning brown wig vanished quickly into the crowd.

“Who was that?” Amber demanded.

“I don’t know,” said Melody. “I hope he wasn’t after me. It’s a bad time, since you just got the ankle cuffs on me again and my wrists are behind me now. I can’t exactly defend myself.”

“You said He. You think that was a boy? A cross-dresser?”

“I don’t know any cross-dressers. Could have been. I was at the wrong angle and his skirt came out too far to see if his balls were locked up or not. In any case, without checking the family jewels . . .” Melody paused. Amber studied her face. “It could have been a girl.”

Melody knew perfectly well who it was. The face and wig had been expertly applied, and the maid’s uniform fit the body to perfection, like it had been made to measure, even to the manner in which it shaped and enhanced what was likely a false bosom. But despite an almost perfect disguise, she recognized Martin.

His voice had been unmistakable. His low tenor, the slight whine he always used when he was being emotional.

Melody had searched for him for days, and been roughly abducted; she had been implicitly promised by Mistress Destiny that she would find Martin at the Abduction Company.

Martin had called her with a profound urgency. For a moment, her name had sounded angelic. Uttered by her lover  – most comically dressed, to be sure – but hell, this was breakthrough.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The corset was difficult, Martin thought. He’d never considered what it would feel like to have a constricted lower chest, waist and hips. It was boringly beige, to be worn under his black maid’s dress. The corset would hold him from his nipples to his hips. Heavily grommeted. Steel boned. Thick cotton laces. The world’s most unglamorous undergarment. He tried to put it on after his shower, thinking that’s what Blaise would want. She watched him handle it like a foreign object.

“Let me help you.” He felt his breath become more shallow and more difficult as Blaise worked the laces, and relentlessly narrowed the shape of his torso.

The night before, she had ordered the necessary clothes from AbductCo’s stores. This afternoon, after they had come back from walking in the grounds, their large order had arrived. Martin’s hands shook as he opened the packages. A black satin maid’s dress with white frills at the shoulders, neck line, and the hem of the skirt. Three pairs of stockings: black, smoke grey, and white. A light white cotton garter belt with four stays for each leg, to go underneath his corset.

Blaise had prevailed upon him to order a (men’s) size ten pair of black patent leather pumps. “Don’t get ambitious about the shoes and the heels. They take practice. I’d suggest you start with three inch heels, just to develop your confidence, balance. And to build your muscles, your endurance.” Blaise had taken charge of his transformation, after he’d confessed it was something he had always wanted to try. He had fantasized about dressing as a woman over the years, passing down the street unrecognized, but he’d never made the effort to create his own outfit, even for indoors. He’d limited himself to secretly putting on clothes of his mother’s that his father had kept after she died. He particularly liked her stockings and shoes: putting on a black brassiere and stuffing the cups with tissues and lying back on his bed and masturbating. He loved the rustling sound and the feel of stockings as he rubbed his legs together.

Blaise had also ordered several hair-pieces for him, including a long brunette wig, based on a fitting Marty had in the  Transformations shop. Additionally, Marty had received long black gloves that went over his elbows, a full gaff and tape for his genitals, a set or false breasts (36C) mounted in a flesh-tone harness, three pairs of large-sized panties, elasticized and close-fitting: in black, smoke grey, and white.

Before they went to bed, Blaise helped Marty shave every part of his body, except his eyebrows (which they had thinned and shaped with her tweezers) and the hair on his head. She helped him remove the hair high up between his legs, under his buttocks, and in other hard-to-see areas. She shaved his hair across the back of his neck and all across his back and around his waist.

“Tomorrow l have a full teaching load including a rope bondage overview lecture in the afternoon that is being filmed in Auditorium One. Tonight we’ll do your preparation work and try things on. I’ll help dress you for real tomorrow morning before I leave.”

“And my make up?”

“Yes, sweetie. I’ll do that for you. Teach you enough that you can start doing it for yourself while you’re with me. Tomorrow, while I’m out, you will clean my apartment, wash the dishes, clean the bathroom, and order what’s needed in the kitchen in terms of food and supplies. I’d like you to make a lasagna for us for supper tomorrow night. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can cook. You have all the ingredients? I’ve seen your collection of recipes in your online files.”

“Actually, I have a frozen lasagna in the freezer. The AI module in this apartment will monitor your progress, assisted by your black wrist bracelet.” Blaise reminded him.

“Like a maid or butler. You want me to run your household.”

“Exactly. Like my wife. You enslaved little boy! All you get to choose tomorrow will be whether to wear a pink chastity cage or to tape your cock and balls down and wear this gaff, which, as you see, will give your groin the look of a shaved pussy under your panties. You’ll wear the maid outfit all day. So if I were you, I’d choose the chastity so you don’t have to undress completely to pee.”

Martin nodded.

“Number Two will visit in the afternoon. Make sure your chores are done by the time he arrives. He’ll escort you to my lecture. You could use instruction in rope.”

Next morning, Blaise put on her teaching clothes. Her top consisted of a white blouse and a dressy jacket. To this she added a pair of slim jeans and moderately sexy canvas shoes with wooden soles. She spent about fifteen minutes on his first make-up lesson. Then, he got a passionate kiss as she left. Martin immediately went to the bathroom mirror and checked his make-up. He had little idea how to fix things if she’d mussed up his lips or foundation. Marty gingerly added to his lipstick, and lightly added a little more blush around cheeks and forehead. He could feel cold air around his shaved upper thighs above the stockings. His pink chastity was comfortable, which was fortunate as Mistress Blaise had the key. It was the first time any woman had held the key to his chastity and left the room, except on the day of his kidnapping.

He hadn’t allowed Mistress Destiny to lock him and hold his key and this had caused problems in their sessions. He’d never been locked by Melody. He felt almost depressed but also happy, in an unexpected way, that he could not lie down on their bed and masturbate. In any case, he had a lot to do before Number Two arrived. He really wanted to please Blaise. It wasn’t love perhaps, just the hope that she would enjoy his submission. It was very calming. He felt he could maintain his submissive feelings  – all day and every day – for the first time ever.

The tip of his cock pressed against the inside of the pink chastity. He felt the sides of the tube around his cock. “Oh, I’m so fucked. This is going to keep me horny all day and there’s not a thing I can do about it.” He rubbed the smooth surface of the plastic cage, pushing his cock down and letting it spring back up.

He was wearing delicate steel ankle cuffs over his stockings. He was not tethered. Blaise really wanted him to get all the chores on her list done by 2 p.m. He imagined how her voice, praising him, would sound. Could he really live like this forever?

Then he remembered his business, the employees in his office, in the factory. He remembered the half-million dollar bond that his company owed at the bank. It was due at the end of next month. They could probably get it refinanced. Did he have seven days left in his holiday? He’d lost track of the days. His phone, on the bedroom chest in the other room, had been wiped of photographs and most everything else, before it was returned to him by the Security department. It barely worked anymore, except to run the AbductCo. apps.

Eventually he would be back in the steel fabricating business. Then what? And what about Melody?

+ + + + + + + + + +

“How do you feel bout it?” Number Two asked. “you want a financial piece of this organization?” Martin was finishing his chores. He awkwardly bent down to put away a pot and a frying pan in the cupboard under the kitchen counter. Martin’s skirts flew up and his balls, stocking tops, suspender straps, and bare thighs were on display. “I must say Marty, you’re taking your mentoring by Mistress Blaise quite seriously.”

“Sorry. Almost done. The lasagna is in the oven. The timer will come on at 4:30 and the meal will be done by 6:30. I’ve set up the oven controls and the AI in the apartment will monitor it and shut it down if anything starts to become a problem. It’s all safe.”

“I understand you’ll have to consult with your own lawyers about taking some ownership. Just give me a handshake on this, that you’re willing to come in for a million dollar stake. It’s less than 5% of the total, as you know.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s sounds good. Really good. It’s hard to think of business while one is living here.”

“And dressed as you are. How are your balls? Do you still chafe in a chastity cage or did you get the fitting issues sorted out?”

Marty dried the water off his rubber-tipped fingers and lifted up the hem of his dress. “Got a new one. Pink. I think the plastic ones with the thick flat ring agree with me.” He dropped the hem of his skirt. Number Two picked up Martin’s phone and slipped it in his own bag.

“What are you doing?”

“Sorry, my friend. You will have to be cuffed to leave the apartment. You’re welcome to try without, of course.” Martin walked to the door and tried to open it. The apartment monitoring voice said: Unauthorized attempted exit. Either modify your wrist band parameters, or submit to an authorized band wearer.

“What the hell?”

“Mistress Blaise probably left it on.”

“She doesn’t trust me?”

“No. I’m sure she does. It’s just that she’s been away all day. You’re still new here and you could get in trouble walking around in that get up.” Number Two pulled a pair of steel handcuffs from the holster on his belt. He pulled one of Martin’s hands behind him, then the other, and joined them. Martin listened to the sound of each cuff clacking closed around each wrist. Number Two set the security pin on each cuff so they could not overclose.

Number Two opened the door of Blaise’s apartment without difficulty. The monitor voice said: Thank-you, authorized member, for facilitating proper exit. Have a good day gentlemen.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +

When they reached Auditorium One, they were admitted five minutes before the presentation began. Blaise had reserved them two seats near the back. Before he sat in the plush theatre seat, Number Two undid Martin’s hand cuffs.

“Better?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Your black i.d. wrist band will track you and Blaise can access what it’s reporting at any time. Security too, can answer my call with information on you if you go missing.”

“Good to know.”

“I trust this won’t affect your decision to become an investor in the Abduction Company.”

“Not in the least,” joked Martin. “Can a man dressed as maid, in a corset, black patent pumps, and a pink cock cage be in any position to say no?”

“That’s the spirit.

“

The house lights went down and Blaise introduced her assistants both on stage and behind the scenes. Then she introduced her two rope demonstration dummies. Neither Melody or her sixty-year-old male co-demonstrator were named.

Melody’s appearance on the stage hit Martin like a thunderbolt.

“Cute kid,” said Number Two. Blaise made Melody turn around a full 360 degrees with her arms outstretched. After Melody had removed her T-shirt and stood rather hesitantly in her purple athletic bra, there was a small burst of applause. “Wow. She’s amazing. To be doing this, in front of so many people,” said Number Two.

Martin gritted his teeth. He remembered a piece of advice from his father:  to always have a Plan B. Never tell all one knows in a negotiation. The prospect of Melody finding him – and freeing him from Abduct Co. – had always been remote. But it was what Martin had clung to in his early days as a captive. Melody had been his  Plan B, and on her shoulders she’d carried most of his hopes.

Now she was less than a hundred metres away, bathed in stage light, while he sat in the semi-dark disguised as a woman. Mistress Blaise told her male rope dummy to take off his shirt too. Her voice came clearly through her face mike into the theatre PA.

Martin was overcome. This was the woman who had made him up this morning, who had encouraged him to give cross-dressing a try. Now it seemed Melody and Blaise were acquainted. Oh shit. He was in an entirely new kind of trouble. Or, was it a kind of supporting seduction to get him hooked on the place to such a degree, that sure, he’d put up a million dollar stake, as an investment?

The male rope dummy kicked off his shoes and dropped his trousers. Now he stood in the glare of stage lights wearing his black briefs. He was sort of fit, but had a noticeable gut. Although he couldn’t hold a candle to the 25-year-old Melody, he was utterly enjoying his moment on stage, grinning from ear to ear. He spread his arms and turned 360 degrees with a flourish. The audience laughed to see him mimic what Melody had done timidly moments before.

Martin turned to Number Two. “That guy’s quite the clown. You ever seen the girl before?”

“Who? Blaise? Of course, stop kidding around.”

“No. The other one.”

“She’s new to me. You know her?”

“Nope,” Martin lied.

With yellow, white, and blue ropes Blaise demonstrated single column, double column, and over the shoulder ties. Martin wanted to get away from Number Two, but how? He hoped there might be a chance at the end of the class to speak to Melody. It was a long shot.

On large overhead TV screens, Martin watched Blaise create knots around the waist and running through the groin of the sixty-year-old man. For a moment he thought it was all quite disgusting, that Blaise had to put her hands on him. That this old nobody was the focus of her talent and attention.

With five minutes to go before the presentation ended, Number Two got a call on his phone. He excused himself and left the theatre to speak at length. Martin could not believe his luck. That sounded like a business call. Probably more funding offers or negotiations or some unrelated bank business. Off you go, thought Martin.

The presentation ended and the applause rose for the everyone who returned to the stage. Martin joined a line of admirers snaking forward, then began to pass them by, as if he had other intentions. He arrived at the foot of the stage. Melody had her back to him. There was a shorter attractive blonde with her. She was putting some cuffs on Melody’s ankles. The blonde stood up.

Martin called Melody’s name. She turned but didn’t see him. She was scanning the room, but looking too far in the distance, over his head.

This damn wig, the make-up, the maid’s dress. Oh damn. Oh damn. The other girl looked down, directly at him. Impulsively he reached for her ankle. She was about to slam her other foot down on his hands. Then, a stage hand in a company T-shirt had rushed out and whacked him across his forearms with a mean-looking pole. He panicked and fled, running as fast as possible towards the doors at the back of the auditorium.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

“Amber, who grabbed you?” asked Blaise as she sorted her equipment into carry cases in her dressing room.

“I think it was a guy in drag,” Amber replied. “At least she thinks so.” She gestured at Melody, her arms held back in cuffs, and her ankles tethered.

“I never said he was a guy. Never said I knew him.” Melody looked at the wall, trying to avoid being involved in a conversation that was turning on the question of whether there was adequate security at Abduct Co., despite all the gadgetry they used. Melody studied the vintage photographs on the walls. Here was a large glossy of Louis Armstrong, performing for military personnel. Soldiers and women in various forces’ dress uniforms danced in a ballroom, under a stage that held the legendary trumpeter and his band.

Number Two knocked at the open door.

“Come in Francis, what’s up?”

“I’ve had a message from Head Mistress. Martin is missing. Security is tracking him across various floors. His bracelet must be malfunctioning. He’s showing up in multiple locations simultaneously. And we three have a bit of a mess to clean up. Head Mistress will explain. Amber or Blaise, you are to take this girl back to wherever she came from.”

.

“She has a room on the twelfth floor. Her name is Melody Throckmortense.” said Amber.

“I presume you know Francis, that Melody was abducted on the instructions of Mistress Destiny?” said Blaise.

“What has that to do with Martin being loose?” said Melody.

Number Two stared at her, and Melody confidently returned his gaze. Amber reached behind Melody and released her wrist cuffs and ankle tether with a sweep of her phone. Melody let the restraints fall to the floor. “I’m not picking those damn things up,” she said.

She approached Number Two. “Who are you? You look like you’re a jailer in that ugly black uniform. Have you been abusing Martin?”

“I’m not abusing him or anyone. I think he and I are friends. Who are you?”

“I think he and I are friends too,” Melody replied curtly. “I’m the girlfriend, the lover. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

Francis put a hand over his mouth, as if to stop whatever idiotic thing he was afraid he would say. He had heard Martin mention Melody on the second night he’d spent in the Men’s Prison section. Number Two checked on her name with Security. They had sent him one poor quality photograph of the girl taken from Martin’s phone before they wiped it. When Francis saw her on the stage an hour ago, he had completely failed to make the connection, failed to realize that the girl was not safely out in the wilds of Mississauga somewhere. Somehow, she’d made it to AbductCo.

To fulfill Head Mistress’s plans for Martin, Francis knew he had to be kept more or less isolated. Several times Head Mistress had stressed this. And Francis had fumbled the ball entirely; Martin was loose, the tracking system was malfunctioning, and Mistress Destiny would be here in a few days, perhaps even by tomorrow.

Blaise was also dumbfounded. Why had Amber had recommended Martin’s former girlfriend as a demonstrator for her beginner’s rope seminar? The little minx must secretly hate her, what other explanation could there be?

Amber, who knew Martin was on the premises because she knew of Melody’s repeated efforts to find him, simply said. “Does anyonehere have a picture of Martin? Despite the efforts of Nancy Drew here to find him, I’ve never seen this Martin fellow.”

Blaise laughed bitterly. She thought of all the effort she’d put into grooming Martin over the last three days. “What a fucking mess,” she said, almost under her breath. She got a ping on her phone. “Oh great. The lasagna’s ready, and the oven has shut itself off. We should take it out and leave it on the counter to cool for ten minutes for optimal taste. What else?” she said sarcastically. “The AI in my apartment says it cannot locate Martin Porter.”

Melody giggled and silently thought. That’s my boy.

+ + + + + + + + + End of Part Eight +  + + + + + + +

The Abduction Company is being written by  Taped2  exclusively for Oxy-Shop.

Inspiration by Robert Bishop.