As Head Mistress, Stephanie hadn’t maintained her position at the top of the Canadian branch by taking everything at face value.

A month ago, her old friend Mrs. Talbot (a.k.a. Mistress Destiny) had phoned – out of the blue – and asked to reactivate her old client account. Yes, there was some money owing. Stephanie recalled she had written it off years ago. But Destiny hadn’t forgotten her debt. And she had a client under contract, that she was sending her way. His name was Martin Porter. He was rich, the son of one of her best clients. Conrad Porter.

“Wow, there’s a name I haven’t heard for years. Like father, like son? Is he as kinky as his dad?”

“No. More laid back. But Marty likes to try new things. He’s about half-way there. Some days, he’s just a pretender. Other days, he’s a bit more real. Growing into the scene. Sort of looks like Conrad. You’ll see.”

Mrs. Talbot, as she was known then, was seven years older than Stephanie; she had introduced Conrad to her in 1984, when Stephanie was very tentatively beginning her career in what was called  rough trade. Those were years of euphemisms. I’m sorry he can’t come to the phone right now. He’s tied up.  The years of leather jackets and leather pants with lacing up the outer seams, the elements of punk fashion, along with the safety pins through the nose. Going public with piercings, to show one had a kinky side. Tight garments, to evoke the corset, to evoke the idea of being  laced in.  Latex was starting to be seen. Many were inspired by Atomage and the House of Milan. Even the word  kinky  seemed old, Stephanie thought, after her call with Destiny.

Yet the code worked, because if anyone suspected what you meant by take a walk on the wild side, most never dared admit they were into bondage or S&M or dressing in drag, or were queer or bisexual. It was a very big closet then. Conrad was much more Destiny’s client than Stephanie’s, but their paths would cross: usually at private parties or at Leathersex events in the gay bars in Toronto or Montreal. Destiny and Conrad had done a photo shoot that ended up in the magazine  Latent Image. He was devilishly good-looking. A fit, tall man who could have been an actor or football player. A Tom Sellick kind of look. Not a mindless jock, but a smart man, an engineer who eventually settled down into business and built a steel fabricating plant down the road in Burlington.

Martin’s mother had died when Martin was six years old and later Conrad gradually began to be part of the very small scene around Toronto, seeing a dominatrix once a week, when his son was older and in boarding school. Conrad never seemed to doubt what he wanted. He was more direct than most men Stephanie had escorted and occasionally dominated. But Conrad, like everyone those days wascompletely closeted. Eventually, he went with Destiny and only Destiny. They went to the opera together. They went on cruises, took a few vacations together. Some of Conrad’s friends in business thought he and “Mrs. Talbot” were engaged, or even married. Conrad Porter worked hard, a man possessed by his goals. He never did drugs, and rarely drank. Those years were his time of great personal accomplishment: building his business – investing and deal-making his way into a sizable fortune. Putting behind him the relationship that was shattered by the death of his wife.

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

The manager of client services woke and groggily reached for her phone. Sleep mode, I must remember to set it to sleep mode.

“Security. Men’s section. Philpott speaking.”

Do I know a Philpott? Hell, yes. “Adrian. I am off duty.” She sounded groggy, even to herself. “What’s up? Someone have a heart attack?”

“We found a young woman prowling by the cells. She had a cell phone with her, her own I think. She wasn’t wearing a bracelet.” The manager rolled out of bed. The digital clock showed 3:03 a.m.  “We used a little knock-out gas on her. Just enough to get her back to our office. She’s waking already. We have her cuffed in the small holding cell.”

“I’ll be right down.” Clients generally surrendered their phones when they checked in and were given computer tablets with limited outside access. Virtually everyone wore a patented AbductCo i.d. bracelet. Guests were never caught free in the prisoner quarters at night. Had someone on Front Desk screwed up the check-in? Mr. Jack R. perhaps? Or was this intruder some kind of investigative journalist? She pulled on her jeans, put on her bra, and a fresh, pale blue blouse. She brushed her hair a few times, put on her staff identification, picked up her phone again, swept up her keys by the door, and set off.

In the sub-basement security office, she saw the young woman, handcuffed and gagged, sitting on a stool, behind bars in the corner of the supervisor’s office. The cell was precisely large enough to hold her. She could not have stood or turned around. The manager picked up the girl’s phone from the desk and checked the AbductCo. app. It showed little more than her name: Melody Throckmortense. Incoming and outgoing calls, texts, and emails were blocked, as they should have been. She glanced at Melody’s contact list. Then she looked at the girl’s daily schedule. There was nothing. No planned activities for her at AbductCo.

This was very odd. There were no dominants or submissives assigned either. She went back to the phone’s contact list. Only one AbductCo. employee was listed: “Amber, Housekeeping 27.” The other names were not from AbductCo.

“I’ll take this,” she said. She slid Melody’s phone into her purse and took out her own. She dialed Head Mistress and heard an automated message. Then she texted the executive director’s suite. A reply: “Meet us in Stephanie’s office in fifteen minutes.”

“You got a hood? Nothing too severe? So she can’t retrace her steps?”

The prison guard grinned. He went to the top drawer of his cabinet. “Colour?”

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing too fancy.”

The guard produced a brown leather hood with lacing down the back and a separate set of draw-strings at the neck. Below the neck, the leather flared out, to cover the shoulders and a little of the chest and back.

Melody groaned and her head slumped forward, until it touched the bars of her cage. The other guard unlocked the front of the confinement cell and pulled Melody forward, catching her as she fell into his arms. “Still a bit drowsy.”

“Uh, let’s put a blindfold on her instead.” The manager looked in the drawers of a cabinet by the door. She pulled out a patent leather blindfold that included four straps around the head: one over the top of the skull, one around each side under the ears, and a fourth strap that went under the chin. It resembled a head harness; it would cover more than half her face. The guard held the barely conscious girl up under the ceiling light.

The manager removed the gag. A small amount of drool followed as the ball popped free. She attached the blindfold by mounting the broadest piece of leather across the prisoner’s face, centering it over her nose, between the two halves of the mask. Any light from any direction would be blocked, as her eyes and cheeks would be fully covered. The bottom of the mask tapered back across the jaw and the left and right flaps were drawn together at back. The strap over the top of her head was drawn back to meet the two at the back of her skull. The manager loosely fastened the chin strap, to keep the ensemble from shifting upwards or sliding back from the face.

Melody’s dizziness kept her docile. The manager tightened the three straps behind Melody’s head a little more. “Open your mouth again.” She popped the red ball back into the girl’s mouth, and tightened the leather strap. This pulled the mask tightly down on the lower part of her face. Melody shook her head. “She’s awake after all,” said one of the guards.

“We must be careful of her breathing. With this blindfold I can see her nose and mouth, see what’s going on.” The manager touched the red ballgag, wet with saliva. She tightened the gag-strap another notch, pulling back on the corners of Melody’s mouth. The ball sank further behind her teeth. The manager tried to get her fingers between the gag-strap and the leather covering Melody’s cheek.

Now she turned her attention to the chin strap, jerking it several times to get the tongue of the buckle into the hole in the strap she wanted. She stood back to survey her captive. Melody’s skin was beginning to bulge between the openings of various straps. The chin strap of the blindfold made everything tighter: the straps around her face and over the top of her head, and especially it prevented her from opening her jaw in the slightest. The large red ball, glistening with saliva, was held tightly between clenched teeth and stretched lips.

The manager suddenly raised her knee into Melody’s midsection. The impact was not severe, but the manager wanted to see her reaction. How conscious was she? Melody groaned with pain. Her gag and blindfold did not move in the slightest.

“I leave nothing to chance,” she murmured to the guards. “I’ll need one of you to help me take her upstairs.”

They rolled out a small heavy steel cage, on a platform with four dolly wheels. The cage top opened outwards like the top of a box. Melody was helped to step inside. A hand on the back of her neck forced her down to her knees. She tested her limits of movement, trying to twist her arms, that were still cuffed behind her.

The guards slid a steel bar from one side of the cage, under Melody’s elbows, to the other side. Each end of the bar had slots through which a hasp and lock could be threaded. Each side of the cage had numerous small hasps to enable the bar to be inserted different ways. As Melody tried to straighten up she felt the bar across her back. She couldn’t raise her torso or lower her arms. Her cuffed wrists, which now rested just below her waist, were joined by a short chain to the cage floor between her feet. The manager checked to ensure the hand-cuffs could not tighten any further.

One of the guards wistfully put the hood back in the drawer. “It would have looked good on her.” The other guard reached down into the cage with a steel collar and put it around Melody’s neck. A silver ring at the front was attached with a few links of chain to the front of the cage, inches from her nose. Melody, in her kneeling position, was a good fit for this cage. Once the top door was closed and locked, she’d be barely be able to move in any direction. The chains to her neck and from her wrists to the floor were technically unnecessary; they enhanced her confinement. They made her look and feel even more helpless.

The head guard summoned two others on shift in the men’s section and told them he was going upstairs with the prisoner and the client services manager. “We don’t get too many intruders around here. Not a place anyone usually breaks into,” one joked.

“I would have liked to feel her up,” said the other as he reached through the bars of her cage and squeezed one of her tits through her T-shirt and bra. The client services manager looked over her glasses and let him continue for approximately the time it took her to find the long wooden ruler on the desk behind her. She slapped the guard’s free hand that hung at his side. She moved to swing again; her first blow had caught him across the knuckles. He stopped groping the captive and put both hands behind his back.

“Enough of that. I agree she shouldn’t be down here and she deserves some discipline, but it’s not up to you to administer it. C’mon sweetie. Head Mistress will want to interrogate you for sure, unless she already knows why you’re down here.”

The manager stepped out of the office into the hall. The head guard pushed the cage with its captive. The manager and guard trundled down the coldly-lit concrete passage with Melody in tow. Within ninety seconds they had exited the elevator and were walking the carpeted cozy passage to toward Head Mistress’s office. The guard dragged Melody in her cage behind him on a chain.

Stephanie arrived and let them in. She had called a stenographer too. They gathered in the executive board room, next to Stephanie’s office. It was equipped for an interrogation. There was a table for board meetings, and various equipment for suspension, chairs for bondage and discomfort – and more comfortable chairs for those in control. Along one wall was an enormous variety of ropes, chains, spreaders, and frames for stretching or confining a prisoner. Stephanie pulled back a curtain that concealed another wall. Here was most of her extensive collection of whips, canes, and clamps. She selected a Wartenberg wheel and some nipple clamps with teeth and put them on the edge of the table, near her seat. She moved the cage containing Melody into the centre of the room, under a spotlight in the ceiling. The others took seats at the boardroom table. Stephanie turned off most of the lights except for the one over the cage.

The manager of client services pulled Melody’s phone from her purse and slid it across the table. Stephanie activated the phone. “This girl is a special case. We’re here to persuade, not to punish. Right, Melody?” She mumbled in reply.

“Mistress Destiny sent her to me. Not quite sure why she thought I needed her around, but since Mistress Destiny also sent me her boyfriend five days prior, I suppose I’m stuck with her.” The stenographer was recording all she said with pen and paper. “Why don’t you just tape this meeting?”

“I am, but having my notes helps me edit the transcript later, if you want to use it in a proceeding.”

Head Mistress turned to the cage. She studied Melody’s restraints, then she reached inside and grabbed Melody by the hair and pulled her head back. “What the hell were you doing in the men’s prison tonight?”

Melody cried in pain, unable to say a word. She thought she recognized the voice. Was this the woman who had given her a warm welcome the night she arrived? The one who had introduced her to Amber?

“So you don’t deny being in a forbidden area tonight?”

Melody made more indistinct sounds.

“Make a note that the prisoner accepts the accusations,” Stephanie said.

One of the guards helped Stephanie wheel the cage over to the table. The general lights in the boardroom were turned up again. The top edge of the cage was flush with the edge of the table. Melody still faced downwards, by reason of the steel bar that kept her elbows up. She couldn’t see in any case, due to the blindfold.

Stephanie asked the guard to unlock the cage. “Get her out please. And remove the handcuffs. Put her into one of these chairs.”

Finally seated, Melody rubbed her wrists. She raised her hands to her gagged mouth, then ran her fingers over the blindfold. She felt someone pull her t-shirt up and she raised her arms. Then her bra was removed. She had no idea how many others were in the room.

“Stand up!” came a man’s voice. Her jeans were pulled down along with her panties. She was seated again. Her jeans and panties were pulled all the way to her ankles and removed over her feet. Someone attached a short chain from her steel collar to a fixed point in front and below her face. She put her hands out to steady herself. She felt the edge of a heavy table . She tried to stand. The chain limited her to a crouch. Two people, one on each side, took her hands off the table, and wrenched them behind her. In a moment, her wrists were put into steel cuffs, heavier than the standard police cuffs they’d used in the guards’ office. She heard two locks clicking; she felt the steel, cold and snug on her slim wrists.

“Put the keys there.” A second later, someone else picked up the keys.

A chain was threaded through her handcuffs and raised high behind her. It had been attached to something that swayed. Now, she heard a mechanical and metallic sound. A winch was activated and her hands were suddenly pulled higher behind her. She scrambled to straighten her legs. Her hands went higher and higher, until the chain between her neck and the board table became tight.

Stephanie spoke. “You should not assume you have the run of this place. You are my guest, and subject to my rules. As much as I would like to be gentle with you, Melody, I cannot. For your misbehaviour, you must be punished, do you understand?”

Melody whimpered. She heard a pair of women’s high heels cross the room. Then after a moment, they returned. “Prepare yourself. You will be caned.”

Her whimpering became a wordless cry for mercy. She squeezed her eyes shut beneath the blindfold. She had never been caned before. She had seen it done, however.

“Don’t be a baby. You’d be surprised how much pain you can take, once you get over the fear.”

The first cane stroke to her buttocks was both hard and strange, exquisite even. It burned and stung and bruised all at once. It seemed like a jolt, that quickly faded. Melody had no sense of time, wondering if there would be another. The second and third blows, which fell rapidly across the same part of her ass, hurt much more, like fire penetrating deeper into her. She screamed into her gag when the fourth and fifth blows left their marks on her. Now, it was just raw agony. She imagined she was black and blue and bleeding. The cane, she thought must have left deep cuts in her skin.

She heard something placed on the table, beside her face. She sobbed uncontrollably. The pain went on and on, like nothing she had ever felt before. “That’s enough. Your offense was minor. You are still very new here.” She jumped when she felt a woman’s hand her buttocks. A rubber-gloved finger traced the welts on her aching bum, delineating the marks. Two fingers covered with a wet cold substance were pushed into her bum. The fingers continued to explore her. Suddenly they were gone. She heard the gloves being stripped off.

Her gag was loosened. She managed to push it out of her mouth. “Oh you crazy bitch!”

The male guard laughed. Stephanie loosened her blindfold. Melody’s eyes clenched shut. The room seemed very bright. After a few seconds, she could open them slightly. Eventually she could see she was staring at the dark wooden grain of a massive polished table. The chain at her neck was unlocked. The winch mechanism began to whirr and her hands were let down. She saw the others in the room. They were all clothed. She remembered her nakedness and blushed, deeply humiliated. They had witnessed her punishment, seen her soft skin absorb every hard blow from Head Mistress’s cane. They might have filmed her. Not one of them had tried to stop it. Mistress’s implement lay on the table: a heavy rattan cane, four feet long and at least a half an inch in diameter. Her hands were disconnected from the hook that had held them up high behind her.

Stephanie smiled and spread a thick blue towel across a chair. “Sit on this.”

Melody sat, not without pain. She could not lean back; her hands were still pinned behind her. “Despite your characterization of me as a crazy bitch, I’ll be kind enough to put some salve on your pretty little bum in a few minutes. For now, it’s important we not abbreviate your pain, that you feel the consequences of your misbehaviour a few minutes longer.”

Mistress Stephanie addressed the group. “The purpose of our gathering here – at 3:15 in the morning – is to investigate and report on your appearance in the men’s prison area. AbductCo gave you, free of charge, a luxury room on the twelfth floor and a monitoring bracelet.” Stephanie looked at the monitoring app on her own phone. “I can see the bracelet Amber gave you is still in your room. Explain yourself.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was a rule I had to wear that bracelet. Amber just offered it to me. I thought I could decline it."

"Paranoid people think it is for keeping track of everyone at AbductCo. Most of our guests thankfully realize we have much to offer and they accept our rules. They take the time to learn our rules and understand them. For some of our visitors, Melody . . .  AbductCo. is the culmination of a long-held dream. They understand their submission to their dream. For them the bracelet a triviality, a small symbol of their longing and what they belong to. But in purely practical terms, it enables us to find anyone in distress at any time. Medical emergencies are best dealt with by a quick response. The bracelet enables first responders to find you accurately and without any wasted steps or false turns.” Stephanie pointed to her own bracelet. One of the prison guards held out his wrist, displaying his too.

“If I had worn it, you would have known immediately I was in the men’s prison.”

“Yes. But I found out anyway. And incidentally, our security department does not spend every waking minute assessing the locations of every guest, staff, and administrator. Bracelets are to notify them of problems, guests who are lost, guests who are in an emergency. Secondly, you went there to find Martin. I never gave you permission to do anything of the kind.”

Melody looked down. “Can I have the salve now?”

Stephanie stood beside her. “Stand. Turn your back to me and bend over.” Melody turned and presented the handcuffs. Stephanie unlocked them and placed them on the board table with the keys.

“You don’t want Martin to see the marks of your punishment? The blows you took while searching for him? Your dearly beloved?” Stephanie took a tube of ointment from a shallow drawer under the table.

“Bend forward.” Melody put both hands flat on the table. It was a relief after having them cuffed behind her in the cage, and then drawn up behind her for the caning. She wanted to cover her breasts with one arm, but there was no point. She was all out in the open now.

Stephanie approached. Melody went tense. “Relax! Stretch forward a bit. Show them your feminine charms.” Melody could not stop blushing. She tried to lean forward. Stephanie smoothed the cooling gel on her buttocks, then handed her the tube. “You can add more, whenever you need it. Sit down again.”

The manager of Client Services spoke up. “If it’s alright with you Stephanie, I’m going back to bed. You don’t need me here. If Melody is a special case, then she’s outside my department’s mandate. If she’s a real client, she should be set up as such in our systems. Send me the minutes of this investigation and let me know what action items there are for me.” The head of guards in the men’s section, Adrian Philpott yawned conspicuously.

“Fine Agatha. Off to bed for you.” The manager of Client Services left.

“And Adrian? No offense, but I don’t need you any more, either. Back to your section. Finish your shift. My stenographer and I can handle the rest of the inquiry. You’ll be copied on the outcome.” Philpott took one last look at Melody’s naked breasts, her cute face, her disheveled hair. He assumed this Martin fellow was the lucky bastard she had been looking for. Martin had been in his prison section for a few days. But he had quickly been transferred to Mistress Blaise.

Stephanie escorted Philpott out of the room and within a minute she was back with a robe, and a pair of moccasins. Gratefully, Melody put them on.

“Let the record show,” Stephanie said to the steno, who filmed her boss as she spoke, “that five strokes were administered to the offending subject, for the misdemeanor of being unauthorized and present in a secure – and for her – a prohibited location of the building. Additionally, lenience was shown due to this being a first offence and that the subject is not a participant or signatory of the standard AbductCo. imprisonment contract. She is, however subject to all the house rules and the authority of the Executive Function to maintain order within the premises, without exception, for the welfare of all guests, found-ins, slaves, and human property.” Stephanie paused. “You can stop there, Alice.” The stenographer put down her phone and made a few final notes on her laptop.

“In fact you can return to your quarters too. Text your department head that you’ve put in two hours that you were not scheduled for, at my request, and that you will begin your next shift two hours later than otherwise scheduled.” The stenographer added these notes as well into the file on her laptop, then closed the device, and pushed herself back from the table.

Stephanie turned to Melody. “I am the Executive Function. Tell me how you came to be kidnapped by that odious Moustache and Burly. Did Mistress Destiny give you any idea what was going to happen? Or when?”

Melody paused. She looked over at the stenographer, who caught her glance and said, “No worries. I’m just leaving. I had to make a little film with my cell phone while you were being caned, but it won’t be viewed anywhere outside the disciplinary system we have here. Besides you weren’t named.”

She put out her hand to be shaken. “I’m Alice. I’ve worked in Executive Support and as an adjunct to the Legal Department here for almost seven months. If you need to ask me a question or . . . ” She left the sentence unfinished. Melody took her outstretched hand and gave it a weak squeeze. Alice took a little white slip from a pocket on her computer case and slid it across the table. “My card.” Then she left, throwing a warm smile at both Stephanie and Melody over her shoulder.

Once they were alone, Stephanie asked “How do you feel?”

Melody started sobbing.

“Oh baby,” Stephanie put her arm around her.

“I’ve never been caned before,” she cried. “They all watched you. They saw me without a stitch of clothing on.”

Stephanie moved a box of tissues from the centre of the table and put it before the crying girl. She smiled slightly, and waited. Time seemed to have slowed. Melody took another tissue and then another. Her wails gradually subsided. She wiped her eyes.

“Did you like it?” It was an improbable question.

Melody looked up. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but . . . Yes. Now it’s over, I did like it. I can still feel the strokes, a kind of a glow.” Melody sniffled, then coughed.

Stephanie beamed. “I’m very happy to have met you, Melody. I think we’re going to get along very well.”

Melody saw the rubber gloves in the wastebasket. She brought her gaze up to meet Stephanie’s. Without her make-up she seemed wholesome, like a fit older woman one might meet on vacation, on a beach in Nice or on the Mediterranean sands at Algarve. Melody loved beaches. She had been to Europe. Twice.

“What do you think of Mistress Destiny? I assume you’ve met her.”

“She’s o.k. A bit of a crank. I went to her place in Mississauga to get some information about Martin. I think, in retrospect, she was trying to tell me that he was in financial trouble with her and she had sent him away. I don’t know how she had the power to do that. I mean, Martin has money. Then she said she could bring me . . . oh what did she say?  . . . That she could send me to him. And now I’m here. So Martin must be here. Is he?”

“And you figured he must be in the men’s prison section.”

“Yes.”

“But he isn’t. Even if there had been no guards there tonight and you had had the time to inspect every cell and drive ninety percent of the inmates out of their minds by teasing them through the bars, you wouldn’t have found Martin.”

Melody gathered up the clothes that were stripped from her an hour ago. “I should tidy up after myself.”

“Oh, sweetie. You are so blind to your own powers! Even in jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt, Melody my dear, you are formidable. . . ” She pronounced the word en francais.  “Right down to the nipple rings.”

Melody pulled her robe tighter and ignored the compliments. Stephanie picked up the gag, the blindfold-head harness, and handcuffs and put them in the bottom of the cage on wheels. She pushed the cage into a corner. The only remnant of Melody’s trip from the men’s prison to the boardroom was the stainless steel collar she still wore.

“On the surface of it, Martin was sent here because he signed a foolish contract with Destiny and she’s making sure he gets the service he contracted for and she gets the money (or some of the money) he owes her. As you noted, Martin can afford it. For a man of his means, we are talking about a very small sum. Abduction Company is simply the service provider on that contract. We’ll be paid too, and Destiny will get about 30% of the contract.”

“What I wonder is how Destiny discovered you? Moustache brought an impressive folder of information about you with him when you arrived. And clients don’t usually talk about their girlfriends (or their wives) to their mistresses.”

They left the boardroom and walked slowly to the elevator. They were two floors below Melody’s suite. “I got Destiny’s number from an old cell phone I found in Martin’s apartment. I shouldn’t have, but I visited her. She promised she could put me in touch with him again. That he was still alive.”

“But your abduction was a surprise.”

“Hell, yeah. I didn’t give her my address or my schedule or anything.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. “But Burly and Moustache got your apartment keys somehow. And they turned up on a day and at a time you’d be home and alone. That almost never happens. Abductions are never a surprise to the one being kidnapped. Because they are the ones who arrange it, who pay for it. But you, you’re another example of things being out-of-joint here.”

Melody recalled how flawlessly Moustache and Burly seemed to do their work. “I was sure, at one point, I was going to be shipped overseas.”

“Might have been an inside job,” mused Stephanie.

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t work for Abduction Company.” Melody remembered Burly telling her that too.

They got off at the twelfth floor and went to Melody’s room. She fished her door key out of the pockets of her jeans. Inside, they found two workmen installing a metal frame around one of the beds. It resembled the canopy over a four poster bed, except the roof was open. The bed’s headboard had been removed. The frame was built of two-inch diameter steel pipe. A variety of adjustable clamps with attachment rings adorned the uprights at the four corners and along the four-sided rectangle above their heads. The lower-level pipes that framed the bed were equipped with clamps and attachment rings as well. A subject on the bed could be suspended or stretched in all manner of positions. The bed was the centre and base of an enclosure, as sturdy as a steel cage, but without walls. Melody feared how it could be used. This was a decisive form of imprisonment, to which a slave – most likely herself – could be tethered.

“Almost done, Head Mistress.”

“What are you planning?”

“I hope this need only be a temporary solution to your wandering ways.” Stephanie picked up Melody’s bracelet from the side table. “Left or right?”

Melody held out both wrists. “Left, I guess.” Stephanie snapped it on. She held her phone to the bracelet, presumably activating some functions and exchanging data.

“It is completely waterproof, you can shower or swim while wearing it. It monitors your key body functions: breathing, heart-rate, pulse, blood pressure, blood sugar, hemoglobin levels, that sort of thing. It doesn’t control you in any way. It has no connection to your nerve networks or brain or emotional functions. It cannot punish you or pleasure you. It only gathers data and updates your record in our computer system. It will also respond to queries from Security and perform regular updates to your status, tasks completed, your movements from location to location. One of the more mundane things it does is control the devices in your suite. You can turn on the TV with it, adjust the volume, for example.”

“Oh, and this is important. You can use it to communicate with me and with Amber, if you don’t have your phone handy. You simply hold this button down for two seconds to call up your contacts menu. You speak the name you want to contact. Simply follow the voice commands.” Stephanie demonstrated a bracelet to bracelet call with her own identifying band. “You can also read your bracelet’s data – well in your case, some of it – with your cell phone when you touch it here, on this side. The AbductCo app on your phone handles the communication between the bracelet and our main systems.”

“Does it keep track of my movements?”

“Yes. Yours does. Virtually every bracelet you will see on every client does that.”

“But yours doesn’t?”

Stephanie gave her a withering look.

“This frame is for keeping me in bed, right?”

“How astute! You will have to earn your freedom back, Melody. Until then, we are taking no chances. You will have servants coming to keep you on schedule, Amber being the one in charge. Also, Nursing will respond if the bracelet puts out a medical alert on you.”

The older workman indicated that the frame was fully installed. His partner approached with four shining steel cuffs. Melody pulled her robe tightly around her torso. Undeterred by Melody’s modesty, the man said nothing; he simply dropped to his knees and began attaching the two ankle cuffs. They locked with an integrated device.

Stephanie continued: “These cuffs are keyless and water-proof. Only my phone or the phone of manager-level staff can unlock them. Or Amber. She is still your assigned maid.” From behind, Stephanie pulled down Melody’s robe. The workman added and locked the wrist cuffs to her wrists. Like everything at AbductCo. they seemed to have been made to Melody’s exact measurements. The identification bracelet seemed to magnetize itself to the steel edge of Melody’s left wrist cuff. “It’s not really magnetism. These cuffs are actually stainless steel, but the i.d. bracelet has other properties which makes it very comfortable and flexible when combined with other restraints.”

After a trip to the bathroom and a chance to examine the welts on her behind, Melody soon found herself bound on the mattress, her wrists and ankles secured into the corners. She stared at the ceiling, worried about what Stephanie had planned. There was a very little play in the connecting chains. Was she supposed to sleep like this?

Stephanie pulled a sheet and a comforter over Melody’s body. “It’s four p.m. now.” The workmen had Stephanie sign a work order on a tablet they carried. They slipped out of the room. Melody gazed up at the modifications to her bed.

“For the remainder of your days here, you will be enrolled in our BDSM academy. You will be roused in about four hours by Amber, who will have your schedule and reading and video list. As you seem to have not yet discovered any dominant characteristics or inclinations in yourself, I have enrolled you in the Submissive Stream and the courses there are generally for beginners, which will also suit you, I think.”

“I have experience as a bottom. In more than one relationship, in fact.”

“Good. But you’re rather young, you have plenty to learn. Amber will be here in soon enough. Be a good girl and don’t soil the bed.” Melody made a face. “You know, that steel collar looks very pretty on you. I could turn that around so the ring is in the back and attach that to the bar at the top of the mattress.”

“Please don’t. I’ll be good. I promise.”

“Can I tell you a bedtime story?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Stephanie laughed and leaned over. She stroked Melody’s cheek. “No dear, you don’t.”

“Where to begin? We have need of Martin at Abduction Company. There is much more than that ditzy little contract he signed with Destiny at stake. And since we have done our research on Martin, we think we need you too. We didn’t arrange to acquire either of you, that was Destiny’s idea. And I’m curious as hell to know what’s on hermind. But, you’re in good hands. Be patient and all will be revealed, including your darling Martin. No matter how helpless you may find yourself in the days to come, you will not be raped, or abandoned, or forgotten, or starved, or mistreated. A little light punishment? That’s par for the course.”

Melody nodded. “I guess. Some of it is fun. Having punishments for infractions, that’s kind of nice in an old-school one-room-schoolhouse kind of way.”

“Your ass will be fine. Tomorrow you won’t feel a thing and by the next day the marks will probably all be gone. By the end of this little drama, I think you’ll come to see us in a much different light.”

Stephanie began to tell Melody some of what she had told Martin earlier at the  Clumsy Slave café: about Mistress Destiny and how they had been partners in a chain of bars and steak houses, how they were once both escorts and professional dominatrixes. She did not mention Martin’s induction the night he arrived, how she tested his tolerances, his endurance, how she determined what turned him on, and secured his financial payment for services that would be rendered. She also omitted to mention his assignment to Mistress Blaise.

“We are a refuge. For people to learn about themselves and the nature of desire. For those who are ready, we help people accept their kinkiness, and not hurt themselves looking for something they think society will forbid them. We all struggle against the big  No from uninformed lovers, families, social groups, and religious and political leaders.”

“Uninformed lovers?”

“That’s why we do education, demonstrations, seminars, publishing, and so on. We simply want to de-mystify what pain is, what submission is, what safe play is. How to communicate with partners. We don’t torture, we play. Do you find Martin to be an informed lover?”

“Not really. He’s too busy. We don’t spend enough time at it.“

“So, you’d like him to spend more time with you, be more responsive to you, to love you more?”

Melody tried to turn. The way her hands were splayed above her head made movement awkward. Stephanie shifted on the bed beside her, relaxed in her jeans and blouse and cowboy boots. “Uh, yeah. Wouldn’t every woman want the man she loves to love her more?”

“I agree! I think the effort, the preparation that a BDSM session requires can be a bit intimidating. Some men who want sexual variety somehow think it’s easier to find another partner, than to make the most of the one they already have. The one they first fell in love with. It’s madness to do that, but I’ve seen many who do.”

Melody said nothing.

“Melody, tell me. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a travel agent. A bit of a dying profession I’m afraid. They’ll be expecting me back at my desk today, ah, tomorrow. What day is this?”

“Very early Sunday morning.”

“OK, tomorrow then.”

“We’ll call you in sick then. We have enough recordings of your voice we can call your employer and leave a message in your voice.”

“What will you have me say? That I’ve quit my job and taken the Malaysia Airlines discount offer to Australia?”

Stephanie laughed. “No dear. Just that you have a bit of food poisoning and that you’ll be in with a doctor’s note when you can.”

“But you’re not going to let me see my doctor! Are you?”

“Why? You’re not sick. You don’t need to see a doctor. I’ll get one of the doctors here to write you a note. Did you not come up here, up north I mean, for a little getaway?”

Melody groaned. Her head fell back on the mattress.

“Where were we?” Stephanie continued. “BDSM requires so much communicating. It’s hard, even for married couples. Speaking of which, do think Martin will propose to you? Do you think he’s the kind you’d marry?”

“I’ve only known him about four months. Mistress Stephanie, can you release me from this bedframe thing? If you want to keep me confined to one place – like in this room – you have other ways, don’t you? How about you just set the bracelet thingy to signal Security if I leave the room?”

Stephanie smiled. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“I won’t be able to sleep like this.”

Stephanie called her security office, stepped out in the hall for a few moments, and then returned. She pulled the sheet and blanket away from Melody’s body and began taking some measurements. “Evidently, they didn’t know your every dimension.” Within fifteen minutes Melody’s cell phone and bracelet started to download the profile updates that would keep her confined, or at least notify Security if she passed out of the room and into the hall.

Stephanie leaned over. She was about to undo one of Melody’s wrists. “I confess I find you very hot, dear. Those nipple rings, your collar, your lips, your eyes.” Stephanie gripped Melody’s breast. She gasped. Stephanie smiled, fondly. “Are you afraid?”

“No. I’m o.k. Martin has spread me out to the corners of his bed, in the past.” Melody was breathing rapidly.

“At Mistress Destiny’s house I presume you saw her dungeon.” Stephanie released her breast. Melody gasped.

“Thank-you. My tit thanks you too.” She paused.

“Destiny was cool. Definitely. I mean her place was nice. Destiny herself didn’t appeal to me, and I couldn’t understand why Martin had been seeing her, but the anticipation of imagining oneself spread out on a cross or something, that seems like an awesome idea.”

“Are you wet now?”

Melody blushed.

“I’m going to put my hand into . . . “ She paused.  “Yes. I see you are.” Stephanie slid her fingers across Melody’s pussy, worked them side to side, pressuring her a little more with each pass. Melody began to buck her hips and pull on the chains that held her legs apart. She pressed and gyrated against the pressure.

Suddenly Stephanie withdrew and licked her fingers, one by one. “I shouldn’t mess with property that isn’t mine. But thank-you for giving me a sample. I like to take what I want, when I see it.”

She sauntered to the head of the bed, where Melody’s hands were stretched and chained. She undid her wrists. “Your legs look so delightful spread out like that. I can’t bring myself to release them.”

She tucked the wrist chains, still attached to the side bars, down the sides of the mattress. “For future use.” Melody sat up. She pointed at her ankles. “The shackles stay on. Part of training.”

“Thank-you,” Melody whispered.

“Good manners always improve a slave’s experience.” Stephanie bent over and kissed her on the cheek. Stephanie’s breasts brushed against Melody’s arm. Melody raised her hands to feel them through Stephanie’s clothing. Stephanie hovered, encouraging Melody’s attention. Then she put her hand around the back of Melody’s neck, pulled her close, and kissed her deeply. At first Melody resisted, then yielded. She was confused, yet deeply aroused. As Stephanie began to break off the kiss, Melody raised herself up to her lips again, then fell back, giggling.

Stephanie loosened the hasps at Melody’s ankles that gripped the steel pipe across the foot of the bed. She pushed them towards each other. “More comfortable?”

“Yes. Thank-you Mistress.”

Stephanie tightened them again with an Allen wrench to the frame giving Melody about twelve inches of space between her ankles. “Good solid steel,” Stephanie said. “Steel looks good on you. Now go to sleep, you brat. And remain in this room until Amber calls on you in the morning. I don’t want to have to cane you twice in the same day.”

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

Melody woke early. Her fingers were drifting across her vulva before she even realized she was awake. The shackles on her ankles were still attached to the frame. Her wrists were shackled too, but loose. Her hips ached after being splayed for four hours. Despite the rigidity of the cuffs, she had been able to slide down the bed, put her bare feet on the steel rail, and bend her knees. She pushed down a little more, raised her knees higher, and began to masturbate in earnest. She fantasized about one of the workmen. He’d come back for a sack of heavy tools he’d left behind. He stripped off his overalls and then, he attached her hands over her head. He walked back and forth, just out of reach. His hard-on looked really splendid. He joined her on the bed, his hands on either side of her, his knees between hers. He slid his long cock into her without saying a word. She loved men who didn’t say a word. He lowered his body onto her and penetrated her again and again. He took her perfectly and her craving for him was almost unbearable. She came quickly, which was unusual. Melody often took fifteen minutes or more to crest over the edge. A slow burner, Martin had called her.

But now, her whole body shuddered. Again and again, her climax seemed unending. And as she drifted, gasping, breathing really deeply, having that feeling like her head would explode, and while her body’s nerves tingled almost everywhere, as she slowly slowly sank into a puddle of pleasure, . . . she dimly realized, she needed to be freed from the frame.

The doorbell rang. A voice spoke. It took her a moment to realize the voice was coming from her bracelet. The system voice was advising her that Amber, her maid, wished to enter her suite. Melody asked the bracelet, “What should I do?”

The cool mechanical voice said: You can allow her in or deny access.

“How do I let her in?”

You must tell me to let her in.

“Oh. Let her in. Please.”

The lock released and the door to her suite swung open on a motorized hinge. Melody hoped Amber was alone. As soon as Amber saw her predicament, she released her links to the frame, using her own bracelet. She helped Melody off the bed and watched her hobble to the bathroom, wearing only her shackles.

Melody squatted on the toilet. Amber poked her head around the door and placed a fresh terrycloth robe on the edge of the counter. She withdrew, then poked her head in again. “I have here a three page form: a highly detailed questionnaire about your sexual tastes. I can run through the questions verbally with you and write down your responses, while you wash and dress and make yourself up. It would be faster that way.”

A few days ago Melody would simply have refused such a request for information. Now, she didn’t question whether Amber, or Mistress Stephanie, or AbductCo had any right to know her sexual tastes. They were asking. She was going to have to give.

“Uh, sure,” she said.

When Melody come out of the bathroom a fresh pair of jeans, a brassiere, a T-shirt and sweater, and a pair of socks and sneakers were laid out for her. Melody dressed. Amber said nothing until she was finished.

“No make-up?”

“No. How’s my hair?”

“It’s fine. We have a full schedule and this survey must be forwarded to management, this morning.” Amber had dressed conservatively, in a burgundy uniform with slacks, much like the one Melody had seen on the staff at the front desk, two days before. “You have classes in Rope Technique, BDSM in the Arts, and Equestrian Techniques in the morning. You have classes in Make-Up and Costumes after lunch, followed by Practical Dominance, and finally Chastity Through the Ages: An Ethical Overview. After that, you have some time for self-study before supper. You will be expected to do your studying in the Library, not in your room here, or in some other unspecified room.”

“The rules rule, by the sound of it.”

“Tomorrow you’ll begin with Basic Locks, followed by Electro-Mechanisms and Anatomy, then you have a Philosophy class given by Dr. Behr . . .”

“I get it, Amber. Lots of classes.

“I’m just telling you how it is.”

“You sound angry. I’m sorry for yesterday. I really am.”

Amber flipped her hair off her shoulder. “It matters not to me, whether you want my help adjusting to your role here.”

“What is my role here?”

“We’ll have a better idea, once you complete the questionnaire.”

“Do I have to wear these shackles all day?”

Amber began searching the drawers of a bureau. She found several leather hospital restraint cuffs. They were fawn-colored with white trim. The two ends of each cuff could be closed with a lock through a metal tab. In another drawer she found some padlocks. Amber unlocked Melody’s steel shackles with her AbductCo. bracelet and noted the chafing, especially on her ankles. “These will be more comfortable.” She put the thick leather restraints on Melody’s wrists and ankles.

“Fair warning: I can clip these together or tether you to something you at any time. I’ll take you to each class and I will pick you up when it is over and I will escort you to the next class. Everyone will see you aren’t to be trusted. Even unattached, those shackles and dangling locks will keep you in your place.”

Amber attached a chain leash to Melody’s silver collar.

“Do you have the key to this collar? I’ve been wearing it since last night.”

“It opens with an Allen key. No, I don’t have one. We have to leave now for breakfast. Otherwise you’ll be late for your first class. We’ll do the questionnaire while you eat. And, on the way down, you can tell me what happened last night. I heard you were a found-in, in the men’s prison section. Getting fucked by lowest of the low, were you?”

+ + + + + End of Part Seven + + + + +