THE LOFT
		by Van © 1996
		Chapter  2

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

When last we left our heroine (that's me...Brooke...the short, cute, tom-boyish one...remember?) she (I) was tied to a chair with enough cotton clothesline to rig a small schooner, and tightly gagged with a silk scarf secured with two, (count 'em, two ) different sizes of adhesive tape, not to mention being secured at the wrists and ankles with plastic cable ties.

I languished in that chair for almost three hours while Erin worked at preparing the vault to serve as my prison. (You know, Erin ...my stunning, svelte, red-headed roommate? Didn't you read Part One? Well, I'm not going to repeat the whole thing for you.) Anyhow, Erin looked in on me every now and then, usually with a box or bundle of something under one arm. Later she told me she was sort of worried about me, was afraid she had gotten carried away with the rope and tape. My state of sexual excitement, which had built to minor volcano-ready-to-blow proportions right after she finished tying me, had subsided to a dull, delicious, simmering ache—the proverbial itch you can't scratch.

At the end of the three hours Erin marched into the den and began untying the yards of ropes melding me to the chair. It took about 15 minutes, but finally my bonds were reduced to the plastic ties holding my wrists tight against my belt at the small of my back, the ties binding my ankles, and the tape sealing a wadded silk scarf in my mouth. Erin cut the ties on my ankles and began massaging my ankles, calves, and thighs, (or at least did the best job of massaging them she could. As has already been explained, I was wearing my usual tight denim jeans.) All the time she was making the sort of maternal clucks, coos, and baby-talk that makes me want to puke. (Luckily, as I was very tightly gagged, I controlled the nausea.) Finally, she stood me up and inquired, "Feeling better now?" I nodded yes and she clutched my hair with her left hand, pulling my face close to hers. "Good, 'cause its time to get you ready for bed." I squawked through my gag as she dragged me after her down the hall, her hand still in my hair.

Instead of heading for the vault, we went into the bathroom. "Time for all good little prisoners to go potty," she said. Without further ado, she snipped the ties holding my wrist bonds to my belt, the tie holding my belt itself closed, and began peeling off my jeans. I started to protest and struggle, then realized that being a bound prisoner, I couldn't answer the call of nature on my own. Erin and I had had been roomies for years and had seen each other in every condition of dress and undress imaginable. I had no real excuse to feel embarrassed, and if she didn't look after my needs, I would probably be feeling an urgent need to use my panties and jeans for a diaper before the night was over.

When my jeans and panties were a heap on the floor, she sat me on the commode and stood back like a mommy waiting for her toddler to do her business. After about a half minute of inactivity, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and asked, "Well?" I blushed and made a few inarticulate moans through my gag. "Oh for heaven's sake," she muttered. "If you’re going to be that way, I'll leave you alone for a few minutes." She turned to leave, then made a quick circuit of the bathroom, gathering up our razors, toe nail clippers, and everything else she could find that was remotely sharp. "I can tell I'm going to have to put some effort into making this place escape-proof," she said. The door closed and I was alone.

I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say I accomplished my mission and Erin found me fumbling with a handful of toilet paper when she returned. She laughed and I again blushed bright red. "Sorry," she apologized, "but you look so funny like that. Here, let me help." She used the wad of paper and a washcloth to make me spanking clean. (It's just an expression! Don't even think about it!)

The warm, damp washcloth started stoking my sexual embers, and by the time we were ready to leave, my frustration index was climbing towards the red zone. As Erin put her hand back in my hair and made ready to drag me to whatever dire fate was waiting in the vault, I made as much noise as I could through my gag and pointed at the heap of panties and jeans with one foot. "Oh, no," she laughed. "From now on I'll keep you dressed for my convenience, and pulling those jeans on and off you several times a day is not convenient." She pulled my face close to her mouth and whispered in my ear. "Besides, they're sort of smelly right now, aren't they? I think if I hung them outside right now, every tom cat from two miles downwind would come scratching at the door." I blushed again and she laughed.

So Erin was aware that the situation was getting me a little hot (...well, OK, a lot hot.) Neither one of us had ever demonstrated or expressed anything you could call lesbian tendencies, but my prisoner status (however voluntary) and her total control seemed to be doing things for both of us. What would she do now?

There! That was it! It wasn’t so much that it was Erin, (although I had acknowledged to myself on the day we met that she was foxy in more ways than her hair color,) and it wasn’t my condition of bondage. It was being at the mercy of someone I trusted completely. I knew Erin wouldn't do anything to harm either my body or our friendship, and whatever she did, she was in control. It would be her responsibility. In my powerless state, I was "free" in a way I had never been before. Erin could do all sorts of kinky, decadent, sexy things to me, and it would all be part of the game. I would forgive her, (if she needed my forgiveness, she was my best friend,) but how would our relationship change if anything sexual did happen? For now, all I could do was go with the flow.

I whined through my gag as she marched me down the corridor towards the darkened vault. With one hand still clutching my hair, she groped for the wall switch and the vault was flooded with light. Erin had been busy. Before we had started this little experiment all five cages had been sparsely occupied with extraneous boxes, clothes, and stuff we had mostly been meaning to give to charity. Erin had cleared the center cage and neatly stacked the material in the outer cages against the far walls. In other words, a person locked in the center cage (soon to be me) could strain against the bars to her heart's content, but everything in the neighboring cages would be at least five feet out of reach.

That wasn't all she had done. The center cage had been swept clean, and the cushion from the old futon we had found at a flea market when we first moved out of the dorm had been spread on the floor like a bedroll. It was threadbare and slightly stained, (wine, margaritas, and some cheese fondue) but was still serviceable.

Erin unlocked the center cage and thrust me inside. I moved to the far wall and looked back at her over my shoulder, trying my best to look lost and pitiful. Hands locked behind my back, mute behind my tape gag, wearing only a cotton blouse (which had come partially unbuttoned at some point when I wasn't paying attention and was falling off one shoulder), short black hair tousled and badly in need of combing; I was the very picture of a bound waif. She laughed and followed me into the cage. With much careful pulling and a few strategic snips from a pair of small safety scissors she removed the tape from my face and pulled the silk wad from my mouth. I swallowed and croaked, "Thank you."

Erin pocketed the wet scarf and used tape and helped me lay down on the futon cushion. "I’ll get you a drink of water in a minute," she said. "Any other requests before I leave you to your fate?"

"You're going to leave my hands tied all night?"

"That's what you did to Carrie," she said. (Carrie was the heroine of my novel Minoan Gold (at better bookstores everywhere)— as you'd know if you'd read Part One!)

I looked up at her with a little smile. "Could I at least have a pillow?"

Erin shook her head in mock disgust, went to one of the lefthand cages, and returned with an old throw pillow that no longer matched our decor and the ratty wool blanket we used to sit on during picnics. She tucked the pillow under my head and covered me with the blanket. "There. All nice and comfy."

"Hardly comfy."

"As comfy as you're going to get. I'll go get you that water, but no story, and no Mr. Muddles." (Mr. Muddles is the decrepit stuffed bear I still keep on my bed... my real bed.)

Erin locked the cage door and walked away down the hall. I lay on my bound wrists and looked at the brick walls and iron bars of my new prison. It was the same old vault, but it was amazing how different it seemed. This morning it had been an overly secure storeroom. Now it was a sinister dungeon, all harsh lights and dark shadows.

Erin returned with a clear glass of water, unlocked my cage, and held the back of my head while I drank. (I never realized that being gagged was such thirsty business.) When I was finished she helped me lay back down and pulled my blouse back into some semblance of order. My nipples tingled as the cotton fabric and her hand brushed across them. "I know you're getting kind of horny, and that's the other reason I’m going to leave your hands behind your back," she whispered. "It will be hard for you to do any finger fiddling with them back there. Feel free to try humping the bars after I'm gone, though."

I blushed and turned my head away. "You're turning into something of a cruel mistress, aren't you?"

She leaned down and kissed me lightly on the lips. "Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind," she said quietly.

I was still debating whether to try and return her kiss when she stood, walked out of the cage and pulled the door shut with a clang. The key rattled, the lock turned, then she was in the vault doorway with one hand on the light switch.

"Pleasant dreams, or nightmares, or whatever," she said. I tried without success to think of a snappy comeback. I wanted her to stay... perhaps... maybe... sort of, but our friendship was still too much in the way. Without another word, she turned off the light, pulled the vault door closed and locked it as well.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and eventually I could see a bar of light under the vault door. It didn't provide any real illumination, but at least I wasn’t in total darkness. I lay there thinking about Erin, my new status, and our possible future.

Erin was right, with my wrists back there I couldn't really reach anything interesting, (but not for want of trying.) After what seemed like several hours, and may even have been several hours, I fell into a fitful sleep. Thus ended my first hours of captivity.

The next few days settled into a somewhat bizarre routine.  In the morning I was taken to the bathroom, then fed breakfast in the kitchen (usually yogurt and fruit, sometimes granola and skim milk.)  Before Erin left for work I was popped back in my cage and the doors securely locked.  The futon, pillow, and blanket were my only amenities, although after day two a quart bottle of spring water and a covered diaper pail (plastic, in semi-ugly pastel baby colors) was added in place of plumbing.  (At first Erin was going to provide a cat box and kitty litter, but we settled on the diaper pail alternative after I threatened to scratch her eyes out at the first opportunity if she came anywhere near me with feline care products.)

These days of solitary confinement were becoming an increasingly onerous ordeal of frustration and crushing boredom, but I was determined to suffer in silence.  (I guess I was trying for "Stoic Martyr of the Year" or something.)

When Erin returned at night, I was tied to a kitchen chair and we chatted while she prepared the evening meal.  Afterwards, we would listen to some music or watch a little TV (always with myself trussed like a Christmas goose), then it was one last trip to the bathroom and back into my cage.  My arms remained locked behind my back with the same inescapable plastic ties, but I began to adapt to that.  I found that by bending at the waist and flexing my arms up and down I could get some degree of relief.

What about sexual relief you ask?  Forget it! Erin delighted in my condition, and enjoyed subtly teasing and titillating me, all of it perfectly innocent, none of it overtly sexual, and I was going to scream and actually try humping the bars if she didn't stop.  However, I still had my pride, and I wasn't about to beg her to come after me with a vibrator or something.  I simmered in my juices and endured.

During the evening of day four Erin took me into the bathroom and began running a bath.  She then took a pair of safety scissors from her hip pocket and began cutting off my blouse.   (Well, it was an old one anyway.)

"You're beginning to get a little ripe," she teased.

It was luxurious!  I practically purred like a kitten while she scrubbed my body and washed my hair.  I lay back in the hot soapy water while she lifted my legs one at a time and carefully shaved them.  I tried not to squirm when she got to my upper thighs (I didn't want to give her the satisfaction,) but she could tell what she was doing to me.

At last Erin helped me out of the tub, dried my body with a fluffy towel, and sat me down on the edge of the tub.  She then dried my hair with her blow drier and combed and brushed it until it shone like polished ebony.

"I've always liked your hair," she said.  "You should let it grow out more—chin length maybe, parted down the center with a blunt cut."

"Too much trouble.  I like it cropped."

"Well, in two or three months it'll be long enough for me to cut it even.  Then you'll see what I mean."

"Two or three months?  I'll be free long before then, and I like it short!" I knew she was trying to get my goat, and I wasn't going to let her teasing ruin the occasion.  "Isn't it about time for me to get dressed.  How are you going to handle that by the way?"

Erin smiled and opened the bathroom door.  "You are dressed.  It will be ever so convenient for me with you like this. All I'll have to do is hose you down every now and then, and it cuts the laundry bill in half."

"Very funny," I pouted.  "You're just trying to embarrass me, aren't you."

"It's working, isn't it?" she laughed.  I was marched down the hall and locked up for the night.

From that point on I went without clothes.  (Did you ever sit on a varnished wood or a leather chair with your bare bottom?  When you stand up you sort of unstick like a rubber suction cup.  It's most unsettling.)

The evening of day five Erin had one of her quarterly dates with her out-of-town boyfriend, Paul.  (They had one of those bicoastal affairs, high phone bills and infrequent anything else.)  I got fed early, then was rushed through the evening routine and hustled into the vault.

"Paul's going to be here in an hour, so I'm going to have to get you ready."

"Ready?" I asked nervously.

"If all goes as planned, we'll have a nice candlelit dinner, then either go back to his hotel room or come back here.  If it's back here, I can't have you ruining the evening by screaming like a hysterical kidnap victim or something."

"I'm not going to enjoy the evening, am I?"

"Probably not," Erin laughed.  "Do you know what a hogtie is?" she asked innocently.

"No," (I lied), "but I’m about to find out, right?"

"Right!"

My bedroll was dragged to the middle of the cage floor and I was deposited on it on my stomach.  My ankles and knees were tied with about ten yards each of cotton clothesline.  Next, my arms were bound tightly to my upper body with several loops above and below my breasts.  My waist was encircled with several tight coils and a single strand was passed from the front, between my legs, and through the waist ropes in the back.  I squirmed a little and the rope nestled in that very itchy place I had been anxious to scratch for several days.  (Erin pretended not to notice.)  My already securely plasti-cuffed wrists were wrapped in rope, then she grabbed my ankles pushed until they nearly touched my buttocks, then secured them to my wrists with several loops.  Things got more interesting when the free end of the rope from between my legs was tied off at the ankle/wrist juncture.  I flexed a little and felt the rope slide through my moist tunnel.  The hogtie could be increasingly uncomfortable, but that crotch rope might give me the release I was craving.

As she had done the first night when I was tied in that chair, Erin took a second coil of rope and embellished my predicament by adding a hitch here and a loop there.  When she was finished, I was not just hogtied, I was virtually webbed in a tight net of clothesline.

"This is going to get old, fast," I grumbled.

"You might surprise yourself, especially if 'Mr. Crotch Rope' is doing what I think he's doing."

I said nothing and she left the vault to return with several silk scarves.

"Let me guess," I said. "Open wide?"

"Open wide it is."

Erin stuffed a very large wadded scarf in my mouth, then kept it there by wrapping a second very large scarf through my teeth and around my head.  The second scarf circled my head three times before she secured it with a tight double knot at the nape of my neck.  She then folded a third scarf into a compact square, placed that over the wad tied in my mouth, and secured it with a fourth very large scarf, which circled my head twice.  By now my cheeks were bulging over the tight silk bands, and I knew I would never get that gag out of my mouth with any amount of squirming or rubbing.  For overkill, Erin added a fifth very large scarf, which she tied as a wide bandage from below my chin to below my flaring nostrils.

"There," she said. "Now you can squirm 'til you and Mr. Crotch Rope have a deeply personal relationship, and your cries of ecstasy won't intrude on my cries of ecstasy with Paul."

I made a few pathetic and feeble grunts and moans while Erin added the finishing touch to my bondage.  She took a third long coil of clothesline, tied it off to one corner bar of the cage, ran it through the center of my hogtie, on to the opposite corner, and pulled it tight.  The process was repeated with the opposite corners, leaving me pinned like a butterfly in a rope cocoon at the center of a tightly stretched "x" of clothesline.  I could squirm all I wanted, but I wouldn't be doing any sliding or rolling.

Erin blew me a kiss, locked the cage door and turned out the lights.  I made a feeble attempt at protest as she pulled the vault door shut.

I listened for several minutes hoping to hear Paul arrive, but the front door might as well have been in the next county.  I couldn't hear anything through all that brick and steel.

I did have a 'deeply personal relationship' with Mr. Crotch Rope that night—several times.  It was about two in the morning when the ropes were peeled away and I was finally able to stretch my legs.  As Erin finished untying me, I noticed angry red marks on her wrists, similar to the rope marks covering my body.  When my gag came out I croaked an inquiry.  Erin blushed bright crimson, as embarrassed as I have ever seen her.

"Ah, we went back to the hotel, and I asked Paul if we could experiment a little.  I guess I got carried away with the struggling," she mumbled.

She gave me my now customary after-gag glass of water, and locked me in for the night. My mouth and lower jaw were a bit sore, so I didn't really want to talk about her evening, so it was just as well she got embarrassed and bolted.  My rope marks had faded by morning.

The evening of day seven brought the proverbial good news—and bad news.  The good news was I was finally going to be free of the plastic ties I had been wearing for a full week.  The bad news was they were to be replaced with nickel-plated steel.

"They're the finest handcuffs made," Erin explained proudly.  "The man at the store said all the cops prefer them.  They're double-locking so they won't over-tighten if you roll over on them, and see how they're hinged instead of being joined by a little chain?  When I lock them on you with the key holes pointing up, even if you ever did somehow get hold of the key you still wouldn't be able to get out of them without help.  You can't reach the keyholes!  Aren't they fabulous?"  Erin usually only got this gushy when she bought something new for one of her computers.
"I think I've created a monster," I said evenly.

"Tosh. Let's try them on. Shall we?"

"Let me know how they fit," I quipped.

"I mean try them on you ," she chuckled.  Erin took the precaution of tying my ankles together and my arms to my side before she snipped the ties binding my wrists.  She immediately snapped the cuffs on me and turned the keys twice.  The ropes were removed and I was "free" to try out my new costume.

"They are pretty solid," I ventured, twisting and tugging my wrists.  I actually had less freedom of motion than I had had with the plastic ties.  The hinges made the cuffs act like little stocks.  I could move my wrists from side to side, but they had to swing together.  "Aunt Carol said I should buy them," Erin explained.   "She was afraid the plastic ties would cut into your wrists.  I explained they weren't on too tight, but she—"

"Aunt Carol?" I interrupted.  "Aunt Carol?  You explained all of this to your AUNT CAROL??"

"Calm down.  I explain everything to Aunt Carol.  I don't know what you’re getting your panties in a bunch about—figuratively speaking of course."

"But—"

"Aunt Carol is very progressive.  She saw nothing wrong with our little experiment."

"But—"

"She is an artist after all."

"I know, but—"

"She thought the whole thing was fascinating, and that you are very brave."

"What if she tells someone else?"

"Oh, she won't," Erin said confidently.  "Aunt Carol is many things, but she's not a gossip."

It happened the very next day.  I was pacing my cage, bored out of my skull as usual, when I heard the key rattle in the vault door lock.  I moved to the front of my cage, ready to greet Erin, when the vault door swung wide to reveal a beautiful woman of about forty five with curly red hair.  She was wearing suede open-toe sandals, a medium length light olive skirt, and a beige cotton blouse.  With hands on hips she surveyed my nude, handcuffed form, her pert mouth in a dimpled smirk.

"Uh...Hello Aunt Carol," I stammered.