by Van © 2020
			Chapter 6

Various permutations of I'm-in-trouble! and Woe-is-me! cycled through Skye's fevered brain for the next few minutes.  She wiggled and squirmed inside the tight hemp web of her box-ladder-Karada-tie semi-suspended bondage, overriding the complaints of her tied-together big toes and knot-nudged clit.  She couldn't help herself.  It was impossible to stand still.  Skye was naked, bound, and gagged in a fully equipped torture chamber!

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Skye reflected that she did the same thing when she visited the dentist.  She squirmed!  No matter how painless and necessary the procedure, Skye couldn't help but clinch her fists, point her toes, and wiggle in the chair.  And in the office of Dr. Anna Melzl, DDS, she wasn't naked, bound, and gagged (not counting the times the Dental Assistant felt it necessary to cram cotton pads between her teeth and gums).  Here, in Mistress' Torture Chamber, she was naked, bound, and gagged!

And then, Mistress returned!

Apparently, wherever she'd gone to put the black spandex hood in to soak wasn't far—and Skye no longer thought of Lacey as "Lacey," or even as "Mistress Monjeau."  Dressed as Lacey was, and naked and helpless as Skye was, and given their current surroundings, Skye could only think of her hostess/captor as... " Mistress!"

Mistress smiled at her prisoner/guest.  An objective observer would probably consider Lacey's expression to be more-or-less friendly (and absolutely gorgeous), but Skye was anything but objective.  To Skye, Mistress' smile was wicked and chilling.

"There's no reason to continue gagging you," Mistress purred in her husky, alto, very sexy voice.  "No practical reason, anyway.  This chamber is completely soundproof.  A potential rescuer could stand in the outer basement and hear nothing, no matter now loudly or persistently you might scream for help.  But rescue is not the issue.  Psychologically, an effective gag can have a devastating effect, taking the feeling of helplessness to a higher level.  You're unable to beg for mercy or do anything to influence unfolding events."  Mistress' smile became a dread-inspiring smirk.  "Except by making whimpering, whining, well-muffled, and highly entertaining noises, of course."

Skye watched as Mistress spun on her boot-heels and (swinging her undeniably sexy hips) sauntered to a row of whips, riding crops, multi-tailed floggers, paddles, and canes hanging from a row of steel hooks.  Skye continued wiggling in her incredible rope bondage, panting and sweating.  Understated sarcasm, voiced or unvoiced, was something of a Skye Gilroy trademark, but at the moment, some pithy, nonchalant observation regarding Mistress' obvious interest in the hanging instruments of torture arrayed before her was not forthcoming.  What was filling Skye's very worried consciousness, however, was the phrase Oh-my-god! running in a continuous loop.

Once again, here's Learning the Ropes, by Turk (aka Revbayes)

After several seconds, Mistress selected a bundle of twenty or more individual canes with a handle of tightly wrapped braided cord, a sort of cane-flogger!

"There's an art to flagellation," Mistress lectured.  The cane-flogger was in her hands but she continued staring at the hanging implements.  "Any ham-fisted amateur can flail away until her victim's flesh is reduced to hamburger, but it takes training and experience to cause exquisite pain without also causing lasting damage."  She turned back to face Skye.  "A rosy pink blush is to be expected, and with proper aftercare it will fade quickly, but if the flagellator knows her craft, the agony can still be unbearable... or rather would be unbearable if her victim wasn't bound in place."

Mistress' turned and her smile became even more disquieting and maleficent, something Skye hadn't thought possible.

"And don't worry," Mistress purred as she stepped forward, "the ropes won't get in the way.  You're in expert hands, Skye."

Skye did not find this reassuring, especially when Mistress stepped behind her and out of sight.  Flagellation? she thought.  Skye had never tried flagellation.  She'd never even been tempted to try flagellation.  She'd never even given Pallavi or Harper a spanking, much less a paddling or a whipping or a cropping or a... flagellation!  Granted, she had applied isolated slaps to her friends' naked buttocks, but only when they deserved it, only when they got feisty, and never as a prolonged punishment-for-punishment's-sake!  This was a brave new world that Skye had zero interest in exploring, especially as the... Flagellee?  Is that a word?  Anyway, Skye didn't want to flagellated!  That was for damn sure!

And then, interrupting Skye's mental freak out and somewhere behind her back, she heard the sound of the canes rattling together.  There was a pause—Here it comes!—she heard the canes whistle through the air—Mommy!—and the cane-flogger tapped her rope-cleaved butt-cheeks!

"Mrrrrrrrf!" Skye screamed through her gag... then blinked her green eyes in surprise.  It had been a tap, definitely a tap, and not a strike or a blow or a whack or a... whatever.  She'd barely felt it, and not even a hint of pain had been involved, much less agony.  The truth dawned: Lacey was teasing her!

"Mrrrf!" Skye reiterated, looking back over her right shoulder and glaring at her hostess.  And this time it was quite clear that her muffled remark wasn't a scream of abject terror, but an exclamation of Righteous Anger (with added expletives).

"Don't get crabby with me, young lady," Lacey chuckled.  "I'm still the one with all the power."  She gave the implement in her hand a shake and the individual canes rattled together.  "As well as the one  still holding the cane-flogger, remember?"

Point taken, Skye conceded, but continued glaring.  The spell was broken.  Mistress was Lacey again.  Skye returned her gagged face to the front with a disdainful sniff.

"You are such a brave, adorable young lady, Skye," Lacey purred as she strolled past Skye and returned the cane-bundle to its former hook.  She then turned to smile at her captive guest,  "I think we're done playing with rope.  Let's try some leather."

Leather?  Skye realized she was blinking again.  Or... I could go home.  "Nrrr!" (No!)

"I'll take that as a yes," Lacey purred, deliberately misconstruing Skye's obvious reluctance, then strolled to one of the chamber's large, red-painted, steel tool boxes, opened a lower drawer, and pulled out what Skye recognized as a pair of leather bondage-mitts.  They were black, like Lacey's uniform, but unlike Lacey's uniform the leather was thick and lightly padded.  And like everything else in Lacey's torture chamber, the mitts appeared to be top-of-the-line.  No cheap, shoddy workmanship for Mistress Monjeau!

Mitts in hand, Lacey strolled behind Skye's back and began untying the ropes binding her forearms and wrists, pausing when most but not all of the doubled hemp strands were dangling free.  Skye's upper arms were still pinned to her sides and her arms still folded behind her back and held by at least a few loops of tight rope.

"Make a pair of fists for me, darling," Lacey purred, her no doubt wickedly smiling lips inches from Skye's right ear.

"Mrrr!" Skye huffed.  Not bloody likely.  She then yelped through her gag!  "Mrrr!"  Lacey had given her right butt-cheek a very businesslike slap, just like the slap she'd received upstairs when she'd squirmed after being hoisted onto Lacey's shoulder.

"Don't make me use my riding crop," Lacey said quietly.

A pair of fists?  Yeah!  Sure!  Why not?  Skye followed Mistress' order and clenched her fists.  She continued holding them tight as, with minor difficulty, Lacey slipped the mitts in place, then tightened and buckled the straps of their integrated wrist-cuffs.  Skye relaxed her hands, but her fingers remained curled.  The mitts were well-designed.  Her fingers and hands were now utterly useless.

Lacey strolled back to the cabinet, and this time returned with what Skye decided to call a... box-tie-binder?  That was as good a name as any.

If Lacey had her way, she would buckle a pair of, uh, strap-cuffs around Skye's upper-arms.  The strap-cuffs were separated by a horizontal strap, the center of the horizontal strap was attached to vertical strap, and the vertical strap was attached to a horizontal leather tube that secured with three buckles.  Obviously, the tube would wrap around Skye's forearms, binding them together like an oversized cuff.

In other words, Skye's hemp box-tie was about to become a black leather box-tie!  Skye frowned.  Or is it a black leather kimono tie?

This time (not counting the fist-mitt fiasco), Skye tried her best to resist the changing-of-the-bondage.  She wiggled and squirmed and twisted and complained—"Mrrrrrf!"—but once again, Lacey demonstrated her damsel-handling expertise by untying just enough of Skye's hemp bondage to allow her to buckle on the leather binder's components, no matter how vigorously Skye tried to resist.

So... eventually... Skye found herself semi-precariously balanced on her toe-bound feet.  Her rope bonds remained in place from the crotch-rope down, but she was rope free from the waist up.  Skye was still semi-suspended from the vertical ropes attached to the ceiling, but only by that pesky crotch-rope!  And she was still box-tied, but Lacey had succeeded in replacing rope with leather.  Also, she was still gagged.

And Lacey wasn't done!  She strolled back to the tool-cabinet and returned with a jingling, jangling mass of long, thin, black leather straps.  Once again, she stepped behind her guest, then began sorting out the whatever-it-was.  The majority of the mass dropped over Skye's gagged head, settled on her shoulders, and now draped down the front of her naked body.

It's a body-harness! Skye realized.  This was another first in Skye's remarkable day of firsts, her first direct exposure to an actual leather body-harness!  And she was about to wear it... then was wearing it as Lacey secured the harness' horizontal straps, one-by-one.

The straps yoking Skye's shoulders anchored the top of the harness—a pair of horizontal straps passed above and below her boobs—and a third horizontal strap encircled her waist and anchored the bottom of the harness.  And making the entire shebang even more secure, the boob-framing straps passed over the box-tie-binder's vertical strap, and Lacey had passed the waist-strap through the oversize D-rings of the fist-mitts' wrist-cuffs!

The bondage aficionado in Skye was impressed.  The fist-mitts, box/kimono-tie-binder, and body-harness were independent restraints, but Lacey had applied them in such a manner that they constituted an integrated system, a full, upper-arm-pinning box-tie.  Wow.  Also... Yipes!

Lacey then set to work untying the remaining ropes.  Soon, Skye's was standing flat-footed on the vinyl-tiled floor, naked, panel-gagged, body-harness-box-tie-binder-fist-mitt bound from the waist up, and totally free from the waist down.

Finally, Skye was free to make a run for it!  However, with her fingers and hands trapped in the mitts, opening the doors between herself and true freedom would be... problematic.  And if she somehow did manage to escape Lacey's lair, there was the issue of cross country scampering all the way home.  The police would probably take an interest in a bound and gagged streaker, Lacey would be arrested, and Plumeria would lose her business.  Mom would be devastated.

Skye watched as Lacey methodically coiled her former hemp bonds, readying them for storage.  Her highly iffy escape window was closing.  Soon it would be too late for Skye to sneak over to the torture chamber door and fail miserably at getting it open.  She heaved a gagged sigh.  Why bother?

Her rope-bundling task complete, Lacey smiled at her helpless guest.  "Let's go back upstairs, shall we?"

Skye nodded.  Leave the torture chamber? What an excellent idea!

Lacey draped an arm over Skye's strap-yoked shoulders, then leaned close and kissed her slightly sweaty forehead.  "You need a shower and shampoo, darling,"

No kidding, Skye silently agreed, rolling her eyes.  She was still somewhat piqued by Lacey's pretending she was going to cane-flog her bound body, and then not doing it.  She wasn't mad about the not doing it part, of course, but about the prank.  Really, that was mean!

Lacey led her through the torture chamber door and out into a hallway.  The floor under their bare and booted feet, respectively, was the same Cotswold-limestone-gold and laurel-green vinyl tiles as back in the torture chamber, and the walls were the same sealed cinder blocks.  Apparently, Lacey's entire dungeon had benefited from the talents of a single decorator, but Skye had yet to see whatever was behind the steel doors they were passing on either side of the hallway, so she couldn't be sure.  The jury was still out.  And oh-by-the-way, Skye would just as soon not see what was beyond the steel doors on either side of the hallway, not today, anyway.  Enough was enough.

And then, Skye realized Lacey was leading her to the end of the hallway and a... blank wall!  Huh?  There was a pause when they arrived and Lacey reached to the side and touched something.  Skye didn't see what as she was busy examining the wall.  Anyway, somewhere a motor hummed and the entire wall began sliding to their left with a deep, low rumble!  Skye recognized the sound.  She'd heard it before, while naked, bound, gagged, hooded, and balanced on Lacey's shoulder.

Skye's eyes popped wide, again.  Lacey's dungeon is hidden behind a secret wall!  Cool!  This place is amazing!

Lacey led her across the threshold, the wall rumbled closed behind them—Wow!—and Skye found herself in a typical basement with the usual home laundry (deep-sink, washer, and dryer), a furnace or heat-pump or whatever-the-hell it was, overhead pipes and heating ducts, municipal water and sewer hookups, and metal storage shelves laden with cardboard boxes and plastic tubs.

Skye remained impressed, not by the basement, but by Mistress Monjeau's Hidden Dungeon!  Wow!  A secret wall!

While they climbed the wooden stairs to Lacey's kitchen, Skye's stomach rumbled—Gurgle-gurgle—and she suddenly realized she'd missed lunch.

"How does Chinese sound?" Kanoa asked as she unlocked the front door of the Mid-Century Modern suburban ranch house she shared with her daughter (who would be spending the night at Harper's apartment).

"Huh?" Jodi inquired.  Clearly, her thoughts were elsewhere

 Kanoa knew exactly why her partner was distracted: Skye, and whatever was happening at Lacey's house.  "Chinese takeout," she clarified as they removed and hung up their coats.  "Dinner?"

"Chinese is fine," Jodi sighed as they crossed the threshold and entered The Anuhea Girls' modest but stylish home.  "The Anuhea Girls" was Jodi and Skye's nickname for the Kanoa/Pallavi mother/daughter team.  It was in retaliation for the Anuheas first branding Jodi and Skye "The Gilroy Girls."

"We need to think about hiring a new shop girl," Kanoa suggested as they entered the living room.

Jodi frowned.  "To replace Skye?  That's a little premature, don't you think?"

Kanoa's smile broadened.  "Premature and insensitive," she purred, "but we still need to think about it."

Jodi held her frown for a few seconds, then surrendered.  "I know," she admitted (with another sigh).

Kanoa pulled her partner into a warm hug.  "I only said think about it," she whispered, then gave Jodi's pouting lips a friendly kiss.  "We already have some promising applications on file.  All we need to do, when and if the time comes, is make some phone calls, see who's still interested, then hold the required interviews."

"When and if," Jodi agreed.

Kanoa released the embrace, took hold of Jodi's hand, and led her to her bedroom.  "Strip," she ordered.

Jodi's green eye's widened.  "What?"

"Relax, Red," Kanoa chuckled, then pointed to the door leading to her bedroom's attached bath.  "Strip and take a shower.  I'm thinking the 'D' dinner for two from Emperor's Palace."

"Whatever," Jodi responded, then began undressing.  "But I like the 'E' dinner, only with Hot and Sour Soup instead of Won Ton."

Kanoa beamed.  "The 'E' Dinner it is, with a Hot and Sour Soup substitution.  I'm gonna make the call."  And with that, she turned and left the bedroom.

Jodi finished undressing, draping her dress and underwear across the easy chair Kanoa used for reading and gazing out the window-wall at her back garden... then padded into the bathroom and took a shower, as ordered.  She kept her hair dry using an aqua-green shower cap that hung next to Kanoa's white shower cap.  There was a similar pair of green and white caps in the master bath of "Stately Gilroy Manor," the white cap being for Kanoa's use when the tables were turned and she was Jodi's overnight guest.

Jodi didn't linger.  The hot water felt good, but she knew Kanoa would want to take a shower as well.  There was plenty of time.  The takeout delivery would take at least thirty minutes.  But why take chances?  She dried herself with a large, fluffy, Prussian-blue towel, removed the green shower cap and returned it to its hook, then padded back into the main bedroom.

Kanoa was waiting, her gorgeous smile still dimpling her gorgeous face.  And oh-by-the-way, Jodi noted that waiting on the bed's jade-green bedspread were four loose coils of deep hunter-green, half-inch, double-braided nylon rope.

Freckled arms folded under her freckled breasts, Jodi glared at her still fully-clothed partner.  "You were going to find me something to wear, remember?"

"I did," Kanoa beamed, indicating the sinister coils with a graceful flip of the wrist.

Jodi rolled her eyes.  "I'm worried about my baby, who may be tied up and helpless at this very moment, and your idea of emotional support is to tie me up?"

Kanoa shrugged.  "Well, when you put it that way... yes."

Jodi rolled her eyes, again (carefully stifled the wicked grin threatening to curl her pouting lips), then climbed onto the bed.  "Spreadeagled, I assume?"

"Spreadeagled," Kanoa agreed with a grin.  "You know me too well."

When the dust settled—not that Kanoa's bedroom was anything but immaculate, or was the entire house for that matter—Jodi was spreadeagled on her back on the queen-size bed.  Kanoa had used what practitioners of the Bondage Arts call the "Somerville Bowline Single Column Cuff."  Six strands of rope each encircled Jodi's wrists and ankles, and the complex knot arrangements were non-compacting.  Jodi could tug on the ropes as long and as hard as she wished without the cuffs tightening and impeding her circulation, but her bonds would remain inescapable.  The far ends of the four doubled ropes were tied somewhere near the floor at the four corners of the platform bed.

Jodi tested her bonds (just to be polite) and found that she had very little slack.  It was a stringent spreadeagle.  Obviously the grinning (gloating) Kanoa had done a very good job.  Lacey Monjeau and Jodi's adorable pipsqueak of a daughter weren't the only competent riggers in town.

Jodi would have complimented her partner (and villainous captor) on her skill, but, as the pièce de résistance of her masterpiece, Kanoa had opened the drawer of her left bedside table, pulled out a very pretty ball-gag, and used it to render her "victim" mute... or semi-mute.  Okay, a little mute.  The ball-gag wasn't especially effective as a damsel silencer, but it was pretty.  The strap was brown, the hardware gleaming bronze, and the mouth-plug a 43 mm sphere of black silicon rubber with narrow, round, rubber extensions to either side to reduce the possibility of chaffing at the corners of the wearer's mouth.

Lying on her back on the jade bedspread, her arms and legs splayed and bound by taut, hunter-green ropes, and her piteous pleas stifled by her pretty gag, Jodi was quite an alluring sight.  That was Kanoa's opinion, anyway, and it was difficult to imagine anyone would disagree.  She smiled down at her helpless, naked, bound, and gagged partner, guest, and lover for several long, gloating seconds... then continued gazing and gloating as she undressed.

Jodi watched as her partner, captor, and lover reduced her costume to a set of skimpy, sexy, and moderately expensive underwear... hung her dress in her spacious closet... hung up  Jodi's dress as well... dropped Jodi's underwear in her laundry hamper... then removed and placed her underwear in the hamper.  Gloriously nude and still smiling in Jodi's direction, Kanoa reached for the ceiling and executed a full-body stretch.

"Arrrrr!"

 Kanoa's smooth, brown, full breasts did their best to flatten as she arched her back, but their volume was too great.  They only flattened a little.  Jodi continued watching as Kanoa turned and padded into the bathroom.  The door closed, and she was gone... all of her... including her firm, dimpled butt, smooth back, strong legs, and long, straight, sun-streaked hair.

The shower started running and Jodi heaved a deep, ball-gagged sigh.

Skye!  My baby!

A mother can't help but worry about her daughter, even a mother who finds herself naked, gagged, and spreadeagled on her best friend's bed.

"How does Chinese sound?" Harper asked.

The question was for Pallavi, but at the moment Kanoa's daughter was unable to answer.  Why?  As the saying goes... she was tied up at the moment.  Why?  Because upon their arrival at Harper's apartment, she'd lost the coin toss.

To be specific, Pallavi was naked and lying on her stomach on the bottom of Harper's bathtub.  Her bonds were white cotton clothesline, laundered and conditioned with fabric softener.  A simple kimono body harness yoked her shoulders and encircled her upper torso, framing her ample boobs (as Harper described them), and passing above, below, and between the boobs in question.  And the harness served as the upper anchor of a stringent hogtie.  Pallavi's wrists were bound together behind her back with her hands palm-to-palm—her ankles were crossed and bound—her wrist-bonds linked to her ankle bonds, close enough that her fluttering fingers could easily touch her heels—and the nexus of the kimono-harness was tautly linked to the wrist-to-ankle nexus of the hogtie, half-lifting Pallavi's breasts and thighs off the cool, white enameled steel of the tub, and leaving her mostly balanced on her taut tummy.

The key knot was tied through the harness, between Pallavi's shoulder blades and totally beyond the reach of her useless fingers.  Harper might be the least experienced rigger in the shop girls' little bondage club, but she was no slouch.  Pallavi wasn't going anywhere, not until "Mistress Harper" deigned to release her.

But how did being naked, hogtied, and rolling around on the bottom of Harper's bathtub prevent Pallavi from voicing her opinion as to the desirability of Chinese takeout?  Pallova was also gagged.  The panties she'd worn all day while serving countless customers at Plumeria were stuffed in her mouth and trapped there by a wide strip of microfoam medical tape tightly adhered to her lower face from ear-to-ear and nose-to-chin.  And Pallavi's panties had company!  Harper's panties were crammed in there too!  Both shop girls had been wearing rather skimpy bikinis, so Harper had decided additional stuffing was an "absolute necessity."

For all these reasons, Pallavi's answer was a truly withering gaze and an irritated but totally ineffectual wiggling squirm of her naked, hogtied body.

"Chinese it is, then," Harmer said with a smile.  "After it gets here, we can discuss why the Skyster decided to take most of the day off, why our cruel bosses let her get away with it, and what we're gonna do about it.  I vote we gang up and finally tie her up—meaning Skye, of course, not the bosses—then tickle her 'til she cracks and spills the beans.  Sound like a plan?"

Pallavi continued glowering and not escaping.  Tying up Skye was a nice fantasy but a horrible plan.  Their ginger fellow shop girl and friend would fight like the proverbial wildcat if they jumped her and tried tying her up.  Skye Gilroy was a feisty, scrappy, competent fighter.  It would be knuckle sandwiches, black eyes, and hurt feelings all around if they tried implementing Harper's cockamamie "plan."

"No?" Harper asked as she paused in the bathroom doorway.  Obviously, she sensed Pallavi's reluctance to stage a coup and dethrone the mistress of the club.  "Well, I'm gonna finish changing, then order the food,  We can discuss it later."  With that, she turned off the bathroom light, closed the bathroom door, and Pallavi was alone... naked, hogtied, panties-tape-gagged, and left to languish in total darkness.

Amateur! Pallavi fumed as she halfheartedly squirmed in her inescapable bonds.  If Skye was the one doing this, she'd have stoppered the drain and turned on the cold water at a slow trickle.  That would be truly horrible.  This is only... mean.