She had intended to look around for a way out immediately, but she was exhausted in every possible way and couldn't even manage to stand up. Her ankles ached from the tight band of plastic binding them, and she couldn't seem to get her balance. Instad of hopping around she fell backward onto the bed and rolled onto her side.
She relaxed and let her body go slack. It was pointless. She was caught, completely unable to help herself in any way. They had already checked the room for sharp objects. And whose house was this, anyway? Where were the owners? They talked like it wasn't theirs, but they must have been pretty confident that nobody was going to come home, because outside she heard two doors slam and the van start up and pull away. She was alone, but she couldn't even manage to stand up, much less free herself. Being tied up, frightened, exhausted--it was the most pathetically helpless feeling she'd ever experienced. She couldn't even say a word.
Hours and hours passed. She finally managed to get onto her feet and try the window, but it was locked in some way she couldn't even see, or maybe it was just stuck. Either way, no luck. She thought about trying to break it with the lamp but the lamp was ceramic; all she'd succeed in doing would be to fall down and probably cut herself on shards of broken lamp base, maybe electrocute herself in the process.
She bent wobbily and looked out the window at the clearing. It was almost dusk. She was wasting valuable time with her captors gone, and yet she had barely been able to get off the bed since they left. Maybe it was luck, or maybe they were good at this, or maybe she was just too weak. She felt like a man would have been able to just pull hard enough to snap the bonds, but she was straining to the full extent of her ability without feeling the tiniest amount of give.
Then inspiration struck. The cable ties they had used to strap her up into this helpless bundle had little tabs on the receiving end, didn't they? And if you took the tip of a needle or a pen and depressed that tab, they'd let go. She knew this from the club, from helping the sound guy out at the end of the night. She had gone down a twisted rope of microphone cords with a piece of metal he gave her, undoing the straps after she found cutting through them too hard on her nails. She wondered ironically if the same cable ties were now biting into her wrists and thighs.
She was tipping herself into position for another hopping session when headlights washed across the house. The heavy engine could only be the van, returning.
"Shit," she murmured (it came out "mmph"), and began to hop for her life. She backed up to the dresser and re-opened the top drawer. It was the only one with anything hard in it (the other two were filled with unidentifiable clothing), and the only thing she could find was the metal pin from the back of an empty picture frame. She began to bend it back and forth, praying for it to snap.
The front door opened and closed.
Back and forth, back and forth, wobbling the metal pin until the bent place in the metal felt hot and soft. Still it wouldn't break.
Footsteps in the hall.
Back and forth one more time. It broke. She tucked it into her palm and spun just as the door opened and her captors stepped in. She felt like she'd been caught doing something wrong, and she supposed she had, but at least they wouldn't know what she'd gotten.
"Looking for something?" Lennon, always the leader, asked first. "How cute. Good thing I took the scissors out of that drawer, huh Steve?"
Steve, then. He had a large duffel bag slung across his back. He unshouldered it and unzipped it and removed a mid-sized green metal tank, the sort of thing you'd see at a dentist's office, only a little shorter and fatter. There was a twist-valve at the nozzle end. Steve took out a clear plastic mask with long, looped tubing and plugged it onto the nozzle.
"You're curious about that, huh babe?" Lennon asked her, following her gaze. He approached and pushed her gently onto the bed, using his hand on her back to prevent an awkward fall. "This place isn't ours, as you may have guessed. We're going to have to move you girls, and I don't want you making a scene until then. We still have some work to do, but we did manage to see my friend Dirty Dave, and we visited your apartment. Very nice stereo, by the way."
Tiffany gave him a grimacey, squint-eyed little headshake of contempt.
Dirty Dave gave us some morphine and some H, which we thought were the best we were gonna do for you, but then he managed to hook us up with this tank of nitrous oxide here. Have you ever had nitrous oxide?"
She had, at the dentist and at a party. She nodded.
"Good, so you know a little bit of what's coming. Here's the thing: What most people don't know is that nitrous doesn't just make you all giggly and light-headed; it also knocks you out cold, when you breathe enough of it. The laughing gas effect comes first, but then it puts you under."
Her eyes widened. Steve had the mask attached and was situating the tank next to her legs. She shook her head in fear. "Nmm," she grunted.
"Don't fight," Lennon admonished. "Take it easy, relax, and do this in a few short breaths. We aren't going to leave this thing on you while we head out because it would be too dangerous. So we have to make sure you get what you got coming to you before we leave. Then we're going to have to do the housesitter."
He took the mask from his partner and nodded. Steve pulled her up by the shoulders into more of a sitting position. "Nmm, nmmmm!" Tiffany gag-screamed, tugging and twisting. She pulled away from him and fell onto her knees on the floor. She was terrified, knew that they'd fuck it up and give her too much and kill her. Anything but being drugged by these criminals.
Suddenly there was a syringe in front of her face. She stopped trying to scream and looked up at Lennon, who was holding it there.
"Morphine," he said. "I don't know how much you weigh--about one-ten?--but this will probably put you out until tomorrow afternoon. Nitrous feels good, it's safe, and we're only giving you enough to send you off to dreamland until we get back. It's up to you which one we use. As you might be able to tell, you're in no position to negotiate much, so I'd take this opportunity to choose. You want the gas, right?"
Tears welled up in her eyes, bitter tears of rage. How could they do this to her? She wanted the police right then and there, somebody to come busting through the door and put a bullet in each of these assholes' heads. Nobody had the right to do this to her.
"Gas, right?" Lennon wiggled the needle.
She glared up at him, utterly miserable. Nodded.
"Good girl." He hauled her back up and sat her on the bed. Steve gave him back the mask. He stretched the rubber strap with the back of his hand and put it around her head, over her hair, then situated the soft, clear rubber mask over her nose and tape-sealed mouth. She stared at them with a slit-eyed expression half fear and half anger. She felt like a lab rat.
Lennon unscrewed the choke valve. The smell of new plastic was replaced by a hissing gust of air that quickly became lilac-scented. It was a faint masking smell, in place to cover up the medicinal hospital smell of the gas.
"We'll see you in a few hours," Lennon said. Then, to Steve, "Go check on the housesitter."
Tiffany wondered who the housesitter was, and if she had been in the house all day. She hadn't heard a sound other than what she had made, and she had just assumed she was alone.
And now her hands and feet began to go all warm and tingly, a remarkably good sensation that travelled up her arms and legs and spread through her body. Her nipples hardened and tingled, and her fingers felt loose and relaxed for the first time since she was bound.
She wobbled and nearly fell. Her captors eased her over and put her head on the pillow. Steve lifted her legs up onto the bed and positioned them, then began to stroke the arched insteps of her nylon-covered feet. By now Tiffany was beyond caring. The warmth was in her brain, giving everything a euphoric, rose-tinted glow. Each breath she took through her nostrils increased the glow. Lennon leaned over and smiled down into her face, and she wondered how she could have been so angry at him a moment before. He was so...funny. Such a silly, clownish guy. They both were. She chuckled twice, letting the second one drag out into a happy sigh. Even her gag seemed funny. Mouth all taped shut...what did she need to talk for anyway? Much better to lie here and feel warm.
"Not bad, huh babe?" Lennon asked. "You just stay here and we'll be back to move you somewhere safer after a while, deal?"
She nodded her agreement. Or thought she did. It was hard to tell if she'd actually moved anything because everything was so pleasantly numb and detached. Darkness was beginning to blot things out in a patchy way. She blinked a slow, draggy blink and found that half of the room was washed away. She let her eyelids slide down, peeking out for just a second before they closed completely, and floated away on the lilac-scented cloud that filled every inch of her brain.