KITTEN
by
Brian Sands
assisted by
Cordelia White
Kull The Conqueror, MOVB, Darcy’s site
Chapter Nine: The Pillar
The hours dragged by as slowly as Mignon expected they would. If she had been sitting in more comfort, she might have drifted into a reverie of the sort she often experienced when Meg left her gagged and bound for an evening or an afternoon. But it was very different being the captive of two other women whose characters she did not really know.
Oh yes, it’s a game, and they’re trustworthy, otherwise Meg would not have put us both in this situation, she thought to herself. Her mind ran over the idea and she repeated that consoling sentence over and over in different ways, some not always obeying syntax. Mignon wondered whether she was missing some flaw in the idea.
Alice was firm and commanding, with a hint of compassion and mischief in her eyes. She and Meg appeared to have been great friends, in the past anyway. Mignon felt a little awed by Alice.
Joan was different. She frightened Mignon with all her medical and, probably, military knowledge. Alice tied good strong knots, but Mignon knew that when Joan bound her she had no hope of getting free. And what did Joan have in store for her? Mignon remembered the woman’s words as she left the room - it must have been at least three hours ago by now, the way her bottom felt so sore on the hard seat of the chair - and a shiver coursed its way up her spine. Joan was a stickler for The Rules. They loomed in Mignon’s mind in capitals. And that only made her feel more helpless and frightened.
How would one of her own fictional heroines handle a situation like this? In her latest novel the heroine Rose de la Cours was rescued by the hero Brio la Plage. And, in the novel before that, the adventurous reporter Astra Liana wriggled across the room where she lay gagged and bound hand and foot and cut her bonds on a thick shard of broken glass from a wall mirror. But Mignon had no hero in the wings waiting to leap to her rescue, and she was bound so tightly to the chair that it would be almost impossible to bounce it across the floor to the mirror that did fill one wall. Anyway, she had no means of breaking it, much less somehow pick up a piece of glass if it did become available.
Mignon looked over her shoulder and tried to see how her hands were tied. It was only soft cotton cord, but Joan had tied it tight with a proficiency that allowed circulation to her fingers but made it impossible to twist her wrists more than a fraction against the loops. When she struggled, Mignon very quickly felt her fingers tingle warningly and she gave up. That was what Joan meant to happen. It was terribly efficient. And even if she was able to somehow work her hands free, there were the ties at her elbows, holding them close together against each other and making it impossible to move her arms.
The young woman looked down at the bonds holding her to the chair. There was no chance of escape there either. Joan had wrapped several turns of cord around her waist - it pinched her midriff through the flimsy material of her slip - and fixed her lower back tight against the slats between the two wooden frames. And, with her ankles fixed to the separate rungs of the chair, all she might accomplish if she struggled very hard would be to fall to the hard wooden floor. That was not a realistic option, so Mignon sat and waited. Soon only a grey luminescence entered through the window as the evening set in.
Aside from her stiff back and numb bottom, the other thing that distressed Mignon was her gag. It was a simple affair, just a triangular medical bandage, the cotton rolled into a thick tube with a knot in the middle and tied firmly between her teeth. The packing in her mouth was there so as not to contravene one of Joan’s Rules. But over the hours it gradually dried out her mouth after absorbing a lot of her drool, so that when she tried to call out experimentally all she could produce was a faint croak.
When Meg practiced her knots, Mignon liked trying to cry out as loud as she could to test whether she was wearing a really efficient gag, and it had always been an astonishment to her when she found that she could only make a small sound. She never tired of the wonder and the erotic excitement of being well gagged. But this gag was deceptively simple. Surely Joan could have gagged me more roughly, she thought, but it’s thorough enough.
Mignon had another motive for preferring to be gagged with packing. Having a thick wad of cloth in her mouth sometimes meant that her throat never became quite dry, because of what Meg called ‘the drool effect.’ A satin and silk wad saturated with saliva was not the most comfortable way to have her mouth filled - tasty French cuisine won hands down - but it initially reduced the drying out effect a lot longer than when she had her mouth tied open. But with time even this advantage was lost.
*
When Mignon heard the key turn in the lock, she watched in some relief as the door slowly swung open. Joan stood framed there in the doorway, silhouetted against the lamp in the hall behind her. She had removed the shapeless brown habit and was resplendent in a lycra body suit of bright purple. It reminded Mignon of the Phantom of the comic strip, except that there was no hood and the costume looked better with a woman’s body in it.
Mignon’s purple captor walked up to her and struck a pose that would have brought laughter if there was not that small touch of the sinister that again gave Mignon the creeps. Mignon shrank back in her chair and looked up apprehensively at Joan.
‘Alice thinks that it’s time we changed your bindings to something much less comfortable, and I agree,’ said Joan. ‘Two minutes bathroom privileges - don’t touch your gag - then we’ll see what’s what.’
Joan took her time untying the cords and, when that was done, Mignon stumbled thankfully into the bathroom. The temptation to remove her gag was almost impossible to resist, but Mignon bit into it and emerged a few minutes later, uncomfortable but triumphant at having avoided Joan’s displeasure.
‘You’re learning,’ was that woman’s amused remark when she saw Mignon standing before her, hands by her sides, the gag still in place between her jaws. The exquisite transparent slip revealed that Mignon was wearing nothing else.
‘Come,’ Joan continued, and Mignon was gently but firmly taken by one arm and propelled into an adjoining room.
This room was smaller. It had no windows and the walls were lined with a sort of foam cladding that Mignon remembered seeing once in a radio-broadcasting studio. It was designed to reduce sound, to damp it down in the room itself and to prevent sound from filtering out to other rooms. A table stood over by one corner. An odd assortment of what looked like props for a medieval play was arranged higgledy-piggledy along a narrow wall shelf. Strange coned helmets seemed to be part of the decor.
But what made Mignon’s heart race faster was the sight of a heavy wooden chair with armrests, from which a number of leather straps hung. Additional straps depended from other parts of the chair. The sinister piece of furniture stood over by one wall. The only other feature of the room was a thick wooden post that stood planted in the centre of the floor.
Mignon was led to the phallic object and made to stand with her back to it. Swiftly and expertly, Joan drew her arms behind her around the post and bound her wrists crossed together with one of the wide strips of soft leather that she had used earlier. Joan stepped back and looked at Mignon critically. Mignon’s gaze fell from Joan to the strange chair, then back to Joan again.
‘Oh no, dear little Mignon, you’re not going to have the experience of that chair, yet,’ said Joan, seeing where the young woman’s eyes were directed. ‘That comes later if your friend is uncooperative.’
‘But for now,’ said another voice, ‘we’ll prepare you for our little interrogation, shan’t we Joan Darling?’
Alice had entered silently. She had probably been standing just within the doorway for about a minute. Mignon turned her head and saw with a mixture of apprehension and admiration how Alice was dressed this time.
Mistress Alice wore an incredible pair of thigh-high boots in polished red leather. They in fact reached to mid-thigh. Above them Mignon saw black fish-net stockings that disappeared higher up beneath black lace which in its turn formed part of a red, figure-hugging corset. Mignon had to guess whether or not Alice wore panties beneath the corset. The red matched the boots; the black stockings and lace matched a black mask edged in lace covering the upper part of the woman’s face. She was bareheaded, her long dark hair tied back in a glossy pony-tail held by a black ribbon.
But the piece de resistance of Alice’s costume was the long sleeved blouse she wore. It was white, of semi-transparent chiffon, tucked in under the corset. Her rounded breasts were not hidden beneath the corset. Instead, they were uplifted by it. Alice wore no bra and her large nipples stood raised beneath the thin chiffon.
Alice’s eyes glittered at Mignon from behind the mask. She was the most frightening captor Mignon had ever seen. The young woman forgot all about Joan, until she spoke.
‘I have the make-up kit, Dear Mistress. Shall we start preparing our lovely Mignon for her ordeal?’
‘By all means. I never fail to be impressed by your finesse in these matters.’
Mignon wondered what was coming next as Joan bent over a cosmetics case that stood on the table. In the meantime, her attention was jerked away from what Joan was doing by the realisation that Alice was standing close at her side, literally breathing down her neck.
‘I think, Joan Love, that I will prepare young Mignon’s gag myself this time. I see that you have been unduly lenient with her.’
‘Yers, Mistress. It was only a little packing so I almost broke one of my own Rules. But the little thing is going to suffer much over the next hours so I thought that a teeny bit of leniency was due to her. I have the material you need for the job over here.’
Alice’s eyes glinted into Mignon’s through the mask and she raised her hands to the young woman’s face. Mignon’s heart missed a beat, but Alice merely untied the knot behind her head and eased the gag from her mouth. She stood back and watched as Mignon worked the damp ball of panties out of her mouth until the mass fell with a faint plop to the floor at her feet. Mignon was glad to be free of the gag: Little packing indeed!
‘Th - th -... ’ Mignon began huskily, but her mouth was so dry that she could not complete a word.
‘Here, sweetie,’ said Alice in a gentler tone as she held a cup of water to Mignon’s lips. ‘I take back my implied criticism of your work, Joan darling,’ said Alice over her shoulder, ‘The gag was perfectly effective in its work!’
‘Than you, Mistress. I try to please.’
Patiently, Alice held the cup to Mignon’s mouth and, when she had emptied it Mignon was allowed a second cup which she drained just as quickly.
‘Hmm, we must be a little more alert for dehydration,’ said Alice.
‘I’ve been watching her closely, Mistress,’ replied Joan. ‘If you had not come in just now, I would have slaked the young lady’s thirst.’
‘That’s fine. Now,’ Alice turned all her attention to Mignon, ‘You’re not going to enjoy this, dear, but it has to be done.’
Mignon shook the hair from her eyes with a pretty flirt of her head and looked into Alice’s mask. ‘I- I’ll do everything you say, Mistress. But please, before you gag me again, may I ask a question?’
‘If it’s not a frivolous question such as when are we going to release you - or more correctly, will we ever release you - I’ll give an answer. If it is frivolous you will be punished.’
‘I just wanted to know whether Meg was all right,’ said Mignon in a small voice. She waited fearfully for Alice’s reaction.
‘Oho! What I was told is correct then. You are very loyal to your friend, aren’t you? Well, no, your question is not frivolous and, yes, Meg is quite well. Not comfortable, but well. Now ...’ Alice took something from a bag on the table that stood next to Joan’s cosmetics case. ‘Open wide, sweetheart, you know the drill.’
Mignon accepted the gag that Alice pressed into her mouth. It was a large silk scarf, folded from a small square to a thick triangular pad. The wide base of that triangle went in first and, when it was fully in Mignon’s mouth and behind her teeth, Alice took up a second scarf and tied a knot in its centre. The knot was worked in between the folds of the pointed ends of the triangle that still protruded a little from between Mignon’s teeth. When that was done, the scarf ends were drawn behind Mignon’s head and tied off loosely under her hair.
‘Don’t bite down on the gag,’ said Alice firmly. ‘Take it in your mouth and close your jaws over it. Good girl. Now, press your lips together.’
When Mignon obeyed, the front of her mouth felt as though it was wadded to bursting point. Her cheeks bulged a little in her effort to keep the whole of the packing and the silk knot inside. Alice helped her do this by spreading a wide strip of white medical adhesive tape across her lips and mouth and strapping the ends around her cheeks. Two more strips were applied neatly so that the prisoner’s lower face was sealed from nose to chin. The older woman took a full minute pressing and smoothing the tape down to make sure that it adhered. Mignon, who had been gagged with tape before in different ways, knew from the preparations that it would be impossible to fight her lips free.
She relaxed her jaw. If the tape had not been there, her mouth would then have been forced open by the double silk gag. It would have stayed in place that way, silencing her, and been as effective as anything the young woman had ever experienced. The trick of the triangular pad was that the knot pushed between its corners held it in place in the front of her mouth and tended to prevent it from slipping further to the back where it might choke her. Having her jaws sealed shut over it, with her lips taped tightly together, wedged the whole affair in place and made the gag doubly effective, and doubly stifling. Mignon’s nostrils flared with the effort to breathe, for now she could only get air through her nose.
Alice was not finished yet. She went to the knot at the back of Mignon’s neck and tightened it until the silk tugged lightly at the corners of her mouth. Next she took up a plain black silk scarf, folded the oblong a couple of times until it was about three inches wide, and bound it neatly over and around Mignon’s face. When the silk was bandaged very tightly in place, Mignon’s bulging cheeks were compressed and the gag now lay in her mouth as though it was cemented there.
‘Now, Joan Dear, let’s begin!’
*
Mignon felt utterly strange standing there with her back hard up against the thick pillar, her arms bound behind it, scarcely able to move, and Mistress Joan fussing about her with a powder puff in one hand and a small fluffy brush in the other. Mignon had gone through some delightful beauty programmes in her time, but this was surely the most ridiculous application of the skill she had ever seen. She was unable to make any sound beyond a faint grunt, and could only watch as the brushes and other tools of the beautician’s trade were wielded over her. As the recipient, she had little idea of what Joan was doing. The woman blocked her view of the wall mirror. She felt only strokes across her forehead, dabbing around the skin of her cheeks that was not covered by taut silk and tape. It was not unpleasant. If Joan decides to change jobs, she could make a killing in the beauty clinic industry, thought Mignon sincerely. But what on earth is all this for?
The work appeared mostly to be focussed on her brow, temples and forehead. After a few minutes, Joan stepped back and with an atomiser sprayed Mignon liberally across the face - telling her to close her eyes - and over her neck and upper chest. She did not stop there but pulled down one side of Mignon’s exquisite slip and gave her left breast several quick squirts. Mignon shivered as the cold liquid raised goose bumps.
‘What do you think, Alice Dear?’
‘Hmm, maybe a couple of bruises as well. And a little hint of blood would not go amiss.’
‘Your wish is my command, oh Mistress.’
‘What? You don’t have a Rule for this?’
‘Not yet, Mistress Alice.’
‘Oh well, go ahead.’
Mignon was in confusion. Blood? Bruises? She tried to see what Joan was doing. It was not easy. There was more dabbing, on her right temple and just above her left breast this time. Then there followed some careful work with what seemed to be an eyebrow liner.
Joan stepped back.
‘There!’ she exclaimed in triumph. ‘How does it look now?’
‘Excellent,’ crowed Alice. ‘You’ve excelled yourself, Joan Darling ... I think it’s time we moved into our next phase. But first, bind our lovely languishing damsel tight to that post so that she can’t move. Then blindfold her. We don’t want her sending any eye signals to her friend.’
Alice exited the room and Joan immediately began to lash Mignon tight against the tall pillar. When she had finished, Mignon stood straight to attention, completely unable to move within a lacework of cord that began at her ankles and progressed up her legs to her thighs and from there to her waist and torso. Joan left her chest above her breasts free however, which surprised Mignon.
Then Mignon was able to see herself in the mirror. She could not recognise the woman there, bound to a thick wooden pillar, clad only in a flimsy full slip, her left breast exposed. That woman was ivory-pale despite the tight gag that ordinarily would have suffused her face with blood. Beads of sweat stood out on her brow, neck and shoulders. Sweat ran down her cheeks but appeared to be absorbed by the black silk bandage that hid the lower half of her face completely. A dark bruise stood out on her right temple as though she had received a backhanded blow. Another bruise disfigured the soft skin above her left breast. And there was a thin line of encrusted blood from her left nostril that merged immediately with the silk sealing her mouth. That line was continued for about five centimetres in intermittent splashes over her left collarbone until it ended near the bruise on her breast.
Oh my god, thought Mignon, I’ve been beaten up! What a fiendishly clever trick!
And, as Joan bound a thick silk scarf over Mignon’s eyes, the young woman speculated upon her plight.
I can’t move. I can’t speak or call any sort of warning. This must be one of the most thorough and escape proof gags I’ve ever had! And I can’t see. There’s no way I can warn Meg that it’s all a trick.
Mignon heard the door open. Shuffling footsteps told her that Meg was probably being led into the small aboveground dungeon. She strained uselessly against her bonds and ‘ggd’ faintly into her gag.
© Brian Sands 2003