by Van ©2011
		Chapter 3

Rory languished in the bondage chair for what had to be at least an hour.  Wow, she thought, sighing through the ball-gag.  Languishing in a bondage chair...  Nancy Drew never languished in a bondage chair.  In your face, Drew!

Finally, the door opened and Fiona returned to the scene of her despicable crime.  "How's it goin', Ginger-Fox?" she inquired.

Rory glared at her captor and growled through her gag.  "Mrrpfh!"

"Temper, temper," Fiona chuckled.  She stepped behind the chair and unbuckled and removed Rory's gag.  "Well?"

Rory worked her lower jaw and licked her lips before answering.  "Well what?"

"How's it goin'?"

"It's not goin'," Rory answered evenly.  The "it" in question being Rory, she'd made a highly factual statement.  With her wrists cuffed behind the chair's back post and broad, thick, tight straps buckled across her chest, waist, thighs, and ankles, Rory wasn't going anywhere.

"Enough lounging around," Fiona giggled, and began unbuckling the straps.  She worked her way down Rory's nightie-clad body to her ankles.  "So, do you want in the club?" she asked as she unbuckled the final strap.  "You think you can handle it?"

Rory snorted in disgust.  "Noting how you've told me almost nothing about the so called  'trials' you expect me to pass—yeah, sure.  Bring it on, Baby-Fox."

Fiona giggled, again, stepped behind the chair, and unlocked Rory's cuffs.  She picked up Rory's fuzzy pink bunny-slippers and dropped them on the initiate's lap.  "Here.  Get yourself upstairs, take a shower, and for cryin' out loud, put some clothes on."

"You are such a comedian," Rory huffed, but the smile threatening to curl her coral lips betrayed her true feelings.

"I'll meet you in the library for tea," Fiona announced, and left the chamber.

Rory watched Fiona depart, then slipped the bunny-slippers on her feet and hopped off the chair.  "I bet I'm gonna regret this," she muttered as she opened the door to the secret passage and followed her cousin.

Rory treated herself to a long, hot shower, thoroughly scrubbing herself—very thoroughly.  She slid the soapy washcloth between her legs much longer than was necessary to get clean... or even really clean.  No, she scolded herself.  Later.  I need to talk to Fiona.  She rinsed off, turned off the water, and toweled herself dry.  Her damp hair wrapped in a towel, she donned panties and a bra, followed by shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers.  She then returned to the bathroom and used her hand-dryer, brush, and comb to finally deal with her mussy hair.  Her long locks tamed to their usual long, straight, ginger glory (with bangs), she bounced down the stairs to the first floor and into the library.

Megan Whelan's collection boasted more volumes than the public libraries of some small towns.  Rory smiled.  "Mama-Fox" was a tenured professor of English Literature.  Big surprise.

Fiona was waiting, sitting in one of a pair of comfortable chairs and sipping from a cup and saucer.  "Doesn't that feel better?" she inquired with a broad smile.

Rory rolled her eyes.  "Better than being strapped and cuffed to a bondage chair in a subterranean dungeon?  Hmm, let me think."  She flopped into the other chair.

Fiona giggled as she gestured towards the tea set on a nearby table.  "How do you take your tea?"

"Uh, I'm not a big tea drinker," Rory admitted.

"Allow me to educate," Fiona smiled.  She poured a generous dollop of milk into a cup from a small pitcher, then lifted the tea pot and filled the cup's remaining volume.  "Darjeeling," she explained, then handed the cup and saucer to Rory.  "You take your coffee black, so I'll assume no sugar."

"Milk?" Rory asked, taking a cautious sip.

"It's traditional," Fiona answered.

"Pretty good," Rory conceded, and took another sip.

Fiona smiled.  "No doubt you have questions."

"Questions?"  Rory shrugged.  "No, not me—other than... when the hell are you finally going to tell me everything about the damn trials I have to pass to get into into your damn club?"

"Language, young lady," Rory smiled.  "The club is actually an ancient and secret society."  She paused to sip her tea.  "We're like the Freemasons, only with a lot more kink... I assume."

Rory rolled her eyes.

"There are different levels," Fiona continued, "like I told you before.  You'll be qualifying for the entry-level rank of Bondage Brownie."

Rory rolled her eyes, again.  "Bondage Brownie?  Really?  For a second I thought you were serious."

Fiona smiled.  "Six trials at three levels."

Rory nodded.  "Three at level one, two at level two, and one at level three."

Fiona sipped her tea, again.  "Level one of the trials.  The specific details are left to your examiner—"  She gestured at herself.  "—moi, in this case; but there are binding rules, pun intended.  Two of the first trials must employ rope and the third must employ something other than rope.  With the rope, you must be tied to something, and then tied not to something."

"Huh?"

"All will become clear, Initiate," Fiona chuckled.

"And what about the others?" Rory demanded, "the fourth, fifth, and sixth trials?"

Fiona sipped her tea before answering.  "One level and one trial at a time, Initiate."  Clearly, she was enjoying frustrating Rory's curiosity.  "I will tell you this," Fiona continued.  "Sexual stimulation is not allowed in Bondage Brownie trials."

"Huh?"  A blush colored Rory's cheeks.

Fiona smiled.  "Caitlin initiated me when I was fourteen," Fiona chuckled.  "Mom was furious, but she cooled off when she discovered Cat had followed all the rules."

"And you're hoping for the same reaction," Rory purred, then frowned.  "Wait, now I'm really confused.  It's almost like there really is a secret society."

"I told you," Fiona smiled mysteriously.  "All will become clear."

"Okay," Rory huffed, "so what's the plan for the first trial."

"That would be telling." Fiona chuckled.

"Fi-O-na!"

"Don't have kittens, Ginger-Fox," Fiona giggled.  "First trial will be tomorrow.  Now—"  She pointed to one of the library shelves.  "Over there are the Nancy Drew books.  We'll go through them today and decide on your costume for the first trial."  She raised a finger, preempting Rory's opening mouth.  "And that's all I'm gonna tell you."

Rory blinked in surprise.  "Nancy Drew?  I was just thinking about Nancy Drew."

Fiona smiled.  "While you were strapped to the bondage chair?"

Rory sipped her tea and ignored the question, unless you count the blush coloring her cheeks as an answer.  "So, am I actually going to be Nancy, or just a generic, royalties-free Girl Detective?"

Fiona smiled and shrugged.  "That's between you and your fevered imagination.  And don't forget, not so much as even the vaguest hint to Caitlin.  She may be a professional bureaucrat and pathetic stick-in-the-mud, but she's not stupid.  When she asks how your day went, tell her I gave you a tour, you looked through the library, and say nothing about becoming a Bondage Brownie Initiate."

Rory shrugged.  She knew Fiona didn't really think her big sister was a stick-in-the-mud, but they both knew Caitlin was plenty smart.  "Not a hint," she agreed.

That evening, after Caitlin came home from a hard day of pencil pushing and number crunching, Rory cooked supper.  She was happy to pull her weight and demonstrate her own culinary skills.  They all chatted, ate, cleaned up, watched some TV, then went to bed.  Rory retired with the Whelan library's copy of The Mystery of the Winged Lion, the one where Nancy, George, and Bess are captured by the bad guys and bound and gagged together in a locked room.

With the triple inspiration of her time in the Secret Dungeon strapped to the bondage chair, her imminent initiation into the ranks of the Bondage Brownies, and an afternoon spent perusing Nancy Drew books, Rory was keyed up.  She'd decided a little "relaxation" was in order.  However, she decided a replay of the previous evening's self-bondage was inappropriate.  Getting caught by Caitlin might be an exceedingly remote possibility, but it was best not to tempt fate.

The book was set aside and the bedside light turned off.  Then... youthful fingers fiddled, perky bosoms heaved, delicate nostrils flared, adorable toes pointed, and clenched, coral-pink lips smothered moans of ecstasy.  'Nuff said.  Afterwards, Rory slept like the proverbial log—a ginger-haired log with a goofy smile on its face, that is.

The next morning, Caitlin left for work at dawn, as usual.  Rory and Fiona prepared and ate breakfast, all the while carefully ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the kitchen—the looming trial.  Meal over, Rory bounced up the stairs to her room to change.

So... costume.  Between the combined wardrobes of Rory and the Whelan sisters, they could have carried off either of two options:

Option one: Schoolgirl.  None of them owned an actual school uniform, but they could cobble together a reasonable facsimile thereof.  Clunky but sensible shoes, knee-socks, pleated wool skirt (both tartan and heather charcoal skirts being available), white blouse, "school tie," and a V-neck sweater in a compatible color—it would have been easy.  There were two problems with going this route: (1) it wasn't all that Nancy Drew, and (2) it was waaay too Hogwarts.  There was nothing wrong with some hypothetical villain stealing Hermione's wand and tying her up (or doing the same to Ginny Weasley, in Rory's case), but they (meaning Fiona) had decided to go with a reasonable facsimile of Carolyn Keene's famous teen heroine.

Option two: Girl Detective.  Rory donned saddle shoes, bobby socks, a blue, over-the-knee skirt, a white cotton blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and a fuzzy pink cardigan.  Finally, leaving her bangs intact, Rory parted her hair down the middle and arranged a ponytail to either side, securing them with blue ribbons.  Then, it was back down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Fiona had finished cleaning up and was sitting at the kitchen table making a shopping list.  She looked up and smiled as Rory entered.

Rory lifted her skirt and curtsied.  "Have you seen George and Bess?" she inquired, smiling her dimpled smile.

"Seriously adorable, Ginger-Fox," Fiona chuckled.  "Where's your flashlight and magnifying glass?"

Rory favored her cousin with a skeptical stare.  "Really?  We're going to stage a little skit?  Where's your costume?"

Fiona shrugged.  Her sandals, jeans, and cotton blouse were hardly the attire of a Nancy Drew villainess.  "I suppose I could steal one of Caitlin's suits and be a businesswoman-with-a-secret."

Rory pointed an accusatory finger.  "So it's you who are secretly scheming to burn down the orphanage, petting zoo, and home for cute little old ladies and sell the land to unscrupulous real estate developers!  You'll never get away with it!"

Fiona laughed as she rose from her chair.  "No skit.  Follow me, Nancy."

They left the house and made their way to the outbuilding Fiona used for her bird and dollhouse business.  It was in good repair and sported the same "painted lady" color scheme as the main house.  That said, it was simple frame construction without a lot of Victorian refinements.  Inside, Rory beheld Fiona's radial arm saw, table saw, router table, and drill press.  None of the power tools were particularly new, but all were in good repair and more than adequate for Fiona's purposes.  There were also work tables, racks of hand tools, some shelves and cabinets, and a horizontal rack with various lengths of lumber.

Rory detected the odor of sawdust, as well as a faint whiff of paint and/or varnish, but nothing that was overpowering.  The workshop was well laid out, clean, and had a rustic charm, enhanced by prototype examples of Fiona's product line interspersed on the shelves between boxes and small bins.

"Hmm..."  Fiona surveyed her domain.  "I suppose I could tie you to one of my longest, thickest boards and rig something that would slooowly drag you across the table saw; but then I'd have to clean up all the teeth, hair, and eyeballs, not to mention the blood.  Imagine the splatter."

"You're a comic genius," Rory sighed.

"C'mon," Fiona laughed, crooking a finger.  She led Rory to the back of the room and a wooden door.  It had heavy strap hinges and was secured by a wooden crossbar and heavy iron hasp with a hefty, high-security padlock.

"I assume this is where you keep your finished birdhouses?" Rory inquired.  "So they don't get stolen?"

Fiona smiled as she lifted the crossbar from its iron brackets and leaned it against the wall.  "Yes, roving gangs of nature enthusiasts are the bane of my existence."  She pulled a keyring from her pocket, selected a barrel key, and inserted it in the padlock.  "Actually, this is where we put snoopy girls who stick their pretty little button noses in other people's business."  The padlock surrendered to the key—Click.  Fiona snapped it closed on the open hasp, then pulled open the door.

The room beyond was small, on the order of a generous walk-in closet, and was empty.  Like the rest of the workshop, the floor was poured concrete and the walls were exposed studs.  A small window was set high in the far wall.  Its four glass panes had been painted and admitted only a feeble amber glow, and it was covered by a set of iron bars solidly bolted into the framing.  Finally, more or less in the center of the room, there was a vertical wooden post.  It was a peeled log, rounded on all sides and about six inches in diameter.  Its base was bolted to an iron bracket set in the floor and the top affixed to an overhead beam by another bracket.  Even a non-watcher of This Old House, like Rory, could tell the post wasn't carrying any part of the weight of the roof.  It might be solidly and rigidly fixed in place, but it was clearly an afterthought.

"Back against the post, Nancy," Fiona purred.

"Woe is me," Rory sighed, and followed her soon-to-be kidnapper's orders.  "I assume you want my hands behind?"

"You read my evil, twisted mind," Fiona chuckled, and pulled a hank of thin white rope from her hip pocket.

Rory sighed as the rope tightened around her crossed wrists.  "You're really good at this."

"Practice makes perfect," Fiona answered.

Practice? Rory wondered.  Practice on who? ...or is it whom?  Caitlin?  The rope was cinched, cinched again, and a knot tied.  Rory could tell immediately that it was well out of the reach of her fingers, placed somewhere between the far side of her wrists and against the post.  Fiona took a step back as Rory tested her bonds.  "This is it?"

"Hardly," Fiona chuckled as she strolled out the door.

Rory watched her Dastardly Kidnapper depart, that being her only option.  She heard a cabinet open, then close, and Fiona returned.  In her hands were several coils of rope, the same weight, color, and type as her wrist bonds.  The Captured Girl Detective swallowed nervously—and she wasn't playacting.  "Uh, that's a lot of rope."

"Three sixteenths braided nylon," Fiona explained, "and this is only enough to get things started."  She dropped all but one of the coils to the floor.  "Don't worry, I've got plenty more."

Rory watched as Fiona released the hitch securing the coil and shook out the rope.  "Woe is me," she sighed.

Rory was tied to the post... very tied to the post.

Multiple, horizontal bands encircled the post and/or her body at the ankles, above and below her knees, thighs, waist, and above and below her breasts.  Additional bands bound her elbows together behind the post.  Not touching, of course, but a few inches apart, with several neat inches of wrappings cinching the bondage.  All of the bands were cinched, between Rory's limbs and body and between her and the post.  Finally, diagonal ropes—one long rope, actually—yoked her shoulders and crisscrossed her anatomy and the post all the way down to her ankles.  Everything was neat, tidy, symmetrical (as far as she could tell), and obviously inescapable.  Rory could flutter her fingers and squirm a little, but knew she wasn't going anywhere.  That said, she wasn't in any real discomfort... yet.

"You've come a long way since the last time you tied me up," Rory conceded, "when we were kids, I mean, playing in the woods."

"Yeah," Fiona chuckled, "we pretty much relied on volume and the unreachability of knots back in the good ol' days."

"Which still seems to be the case," Rory sighed, testing her bonds with an energetic (and pathetic) squirm.

"Add to that style and symmetry, Ginger-Fox," Fiona lectured.  "Also, rope placement with respect to pressure points and breathing.  Like I said, practice makes perfect."

Rory's lips curled in cajoling smile.  "Practice?  Quit being a tease and tell me more."

Fiona smiled back and shook a warning finger.  "No club secrets, Ginger-Fox.  Not 'til you pass your trials, take the solemn oath, and get the required ritual brands and tattoos."

Rory's eyes popped wide.  "What??"

"You should see your face." Fiona chuckled, then turned and strolled out the door.  "Just kidding, about the brands and tattoos, I mean!" she shouted from somewhere in the workshop.

"I knew that!" Rory shouted back.  Thank god!

Seconds later, Fiona returned.  In her hands were a folded, white linen handkerchief and a six-inch length of gray PVC pipe.  The pipe was about an inch in diameter, capped on both ends, and with a steel eye-bolt in each cap.  A length of the same white nylon rope binding Rory to the post was threaded through the eye-bolts.

Rory watched as Fiona gave the handkerchief another fold.  "W-what's that for?" she demanded.

Fiona raised an eyebrow.  "Really?"

Rory blushed.  "I'm nervous, okay?"

"No problem," Fiona chuckled.  "Open."

Rory sighed, then complied.

Fiona thrust the handkerchief into Rory's mouth, centered the pipe between Rory's teeth and over the handkerchief fold, and dropped the eye-bolt to eye-bolt part of the rope over Rory's head to the nape of her neck.  Fiona then stepped behind the post and pulled the free ends back from either side.

"Nrrf," Rory grunted through what was effectively a padded bit as Fiona cinched the rope tight.  The pipe and hankie were now cleaving her mouth and binding her head against the post.  She felt her captor thread the remaining free ends of the rope through the eye-bolts, pull the ropes back behind the post, again, take another cinch—"Nrrf!"—then tie a knot.

Fiona strolled back into Rory's now limited field of vision, crossed her arms under her breasts, and smiled.  "That should hold you, and keep you quiet."

Rory squirmed and struggled, but her bonds were so elaborate and so tight, it wasn't clear exactly how hard she was trying to escape.

"Now," Fiona continued, "a Big Gloating Scene is more or less required for this sort of thing, so...  No one will find you here, Miss Drew.  I'll be returning to town and making a show of participating in the search for poor, missing Nancy Drew.  Then, in a few hours... or days... after things have settled down, I'll come back and dispose of you permanently."

Rory rolled and blinked her eyes and continued squirming and mewling through her gag.  "M'mmpfh!"  It was required, given the circumstances.  She knew she wasn't that good an actress, but she had to hold up her end of the melodrama.

"This is what happens to nosy little snoops," Fiona said, spun on her heels, and made her exit.

The door closed with a solid thud, and Rory heard the bar slid into place, the hasp close, and the padlock lock with faint click.  Then, she heard maniacal laughter—Fiona's, of course—fading into the distance.

What a ham, Rory thought, then gave her bonds another struggling test.  And my goose is cooked.  She stopped her pointless efforts and sighed through her gag.  I forgot to ask about lunch, she realized, and it's a little too late now.  She knew Caitlin wouldn't be home 'til sometime between five and six, which meant Fiona would have to release her Captured Girl Detective somewhere around four.  That meant she'd be keeping the post company for... seven or eight hours?

Rory sighed, again, relaxed as best she could, and stared at the bare walls and locked door.  Wow!  A shivering thrill of "dread" rippled up her spine (and through her crotch).  This is sooo coooool!