Lisette and the Cyber Geeks
by
Brian Sands
Mill of the Stone Women, Movie Star News, Brian Sands Didscan
Chapter Eighteen
Transit Lounge
So unexpected was the close-quarters confrontation with Sir Justin Hoffnung that Lisette stood rooted to the spot with surprise. She gave no resistance as the big man sidled around the corner and trapped her against the wall of the building in a smothering embrace. In a trice, Hoffnung whipped a large white handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it into Lisette’s mouth. The cloth was still neatly folded and formed a solid wedge against her teeth. The man feverishly removed his necktie with one hand and stretched it across the linen pad made by the handkerchief.
"Open," he hissed under his breath.
Lisette obeyed. As Hoffnung tied the gag tightly between her jaws, Lisette from the corners of her eyes saw Chérie Chalmers watching helplessly, her face registering fright and bewilderment. What could Chérie do, with her hands cuffed rigidly behind her back?
"Stay where you are if you don’t want me to hurt your friend," the man warned Chérie. The girl nodded and stayed put. Hoffnung returned his attention to Lisette.
"Turn around."
Lisette obeyed. The man found the clasp at the back of her bra, separated it neatly, and with a swift movement pulled her bra away.
"No!" he commanded as Lisette reflexively raised her hands to cover her breasts. "Arms behind!"
When Lisette reluctantly complied with this direction, Hoffnung crossed her wrists and bound them one against the other with the bra. The extendable elastic made Lisette feel as though she was being tied with a stocking. The way in which the bra was under-wired allowed the lacy half-cups to stretch and narrow. When it had been bound one way and tied, the bra was looped and tied the other way as well. Lisette’s wrists were held in cross-ties that were as efficient as any rope or tape.
"Right, let’s go where we won’t be seen."
Hoffnung took Lisette firmly by an arm and hustled her towards the corner where they had just met. The young woman’s bare breasts bobbed prettily as she walked.
"Come along," he rumbled over his shoulder. Chérie followed reluctantly.
Lisette glanced back at her friend with a twinge of envy. At least Chérie was allowed to keep her bra, its half cups giving a modicum of support as well as concealment.
Several paces around the corner, they came to a small side door. Lisette realised that they were not at the front of the building but by one of its sides. Choosing from a bunch of keys in his pocket, Sir Hoffnung opened the door’s Yale lock. Lisette was pushed roughly into the dark interior of a narrow passageway. The man followed, dragging an ever more reluctant Chérie behind him. They walked for several yards before Hoffnung stopped again. Once more Lisette heard the jangle of keys. Another door opened. Again she was pushed unceremoniously inside, followed by Sir Justin Hoffnung, followed by Chérie. A light switch clicked and they were all dazzled momentarily by the neon lamp set into the ceiling.
They were in a small vaulted room. It was an office of some sort, plush carpeted, but it had scarcely any furniture. At the far end was a window, its curtains drawn. Leaving his two prisoners standing helplessly near the door, the man walked to the window and inspected it. A grunt of satisfaction was followed by a ripping sound as the lining at the back of the curtain was torn from its stitched moorings. Hoffnung returned to the two young women, trailing several feet of sun bleached voile behind him. He seemed to notice Chérie’s wrist cuffs for the first time.
"I see you won’t be giving me much trouble," he said. "I wonder whose idea that was, the goggly one or the maiden aunt?"
Lisette guessed that he was referring somewhat familiarly to his manager Priscilla Moons and Mrs Gamms; or was the maiden aunt Madame Vellum?
"All right ... Both of you, down on the floor!"
Lisette and Chérie scrambled to do his bidding. Both lay on their faces as the only way they could think to hide their embarrassment. Lisette heard more ripping sounds. She looked up. Hoffnung was tearing the curtain lining into long strips. She knew what that meant.
It was not long before Sir Hoffnung had rolled Lisette onto her back and was tying her ankles and legs - at the knees and then around her thighs - with several strips of the scratchy stuff. He cinched the cloth between her limbs before tightening the makeshift bonds and tying them off. He was not like Doctor Kidd - his brother he had said - mused Lisette. He paid scant attention to their near-nakedness, the ripe pointed breasts close at hand, or those of Chérie. He propped Lisette up and began tying her arms at the elbows.
Chérie fund her voice at last. "Wh- Who are you? And what are you going to do with us?"
"Your friend can tell you about that, when she can speak again," was the curt reply. "But I’ll have you know that I’m the king pin around here, the big cheese, numero uno, the alpha male, the boss. And you ..." he added as he jerked a double strip of thin voile painfully tight around Lisette’s body just under her breasts and over her elbows, "You did not turn up for our meeting. You ..." He punctuated each word by jerking a knot tighter. "Did - not - hand - over - the - photographs. You have caused me a lot of inconvenience."
"You’re the boss of this cartel?" said Chérie slowly. "I’ll have you know I’m a lawyer, and that it’s a felony, as our cousins in the U.S. say, to deprive us of our liberty."
Sir Hoffnung chuckled and reached out for one of the pieces of voile lying on the carpet nearby.
"Just think of the next few hours as a restraining order."
He had finished with Lisette, who was now trussed up in thin scratchy voile around her chest and her waist as well as at her breasts. Her arms were fixed against her back. The inability to move them, by now familiar, was no less frightening.
Chérie had only time to utter a disgusted "ugh," before a wad of the curtain lining was packed into her mouth. Then, to the young lawyer’s utter consternation, Hoffnung removed her bra, tearing the shoulder straps apart to get it over her cuffed wrists. The man used it to cleave the gag very tightly between her jaws. Hoffnung bound several thinner strips of voile over the lower part of her face, leaving her nose free for breathing.
The man took up the remaining strips of voile and turned to Lisette.
"Sorry about this, my dear, but I want my tie back. I’m rather fond of it." The necktie quickly came away. "You can keep the hanky."
As the voile was packed into her mouth on top of the handkerchief, Lisette was forced to open her jaws as wide as possible. Even so, not all of the cloth could fit in, and the broad strips that were then bound over her face bulged in front where the cloth extruded from her lips. The thin voile was bound very tightly at the back of her neck. It smelt stale, though Lisette was thankful that sunlight had probably destroyed any must-causing bacteria.
"I don’t want you two moving from here,’ said Sir Justin Hoffnung a trifle unnecessarily. "They wanted to hold you, I suppose."
Both Lisette and Chérie nodded in unison.
"Good. That’s another one up them then," he said with satisfaction. "You will be my guests, and my passport out of here. The authorities won’t dare to touch me with you two as hostages. That is, if they have any idea where the meeting point is. You haven’t told them, Have you?"
Lisette shook her head no.
"Ah, there is one more thing."
A single strip of frayed curtain voile lay on the floor. Hoffnung took Lisette by the ankles and pulled her across the carpet until she was sitting side-on to Chérie. The carpeting may be plush, thought Lisette, but it’s a bit rough on a girl’s bottom with only string panties! Her feet were placed over those of Chérie and the last piece of curtain lining was used to tie the two young women together at the ankles.
"I have a couple of things to do and then we will be on our way," said the man cheerfully. He paused at the door. "I advise you not to even try to get out of those bonds. You will be a lot safer with me than with the others, though you have to suffer the indignity of remaining tied up. Think about it; it could be worse."
He left.
Chérie’s puzzled expression - on what Lisette could see of the girl’s face above the large gag - was not what concerned Lisette. Hoffnung had surprised her and tied her up on two separate occasions, and he had not offered her any harm. And his threats had been a bluff. She guessed that he would try to elude the rest of the gang and, if he took her and Chérie with him, she might reasonably expect to be treated well. There was nothing she could do about it anyway, gagged and bound again. She thought that she could make a good attempt at getting free. But there was not enough time. Hoffnung would be returning at any moment.
*
Lisette and Chérie regarded each other disconsolately. Any concerted attempt at speaking was out of the question. The words Lisette tried to utter were cut off by the wadded handkerchief and foul-tasting voile that filled her mouth almost before they began. She saw it was the same for Chérie, whose attempts to speak produced only faint glugging sounds in the back of her throat.
Lisette found it difficult to drag her eyes away from Chérie’s well rounded breasts, forced into greater prominence by the ties trussing her body and arms. She looked down at herself and gazed with embarrassment, but also with a perverse sort of pride, at the raised points of her own breasts entrapped in the thin cloth that bound them. Was Chérie similarly embarrassed - but intrigued as well - to see her new friend naked in this way?
A forbidden thought came to mind. What would be Don’s reaction if he found her tied up like this on their bed? The thought gave her a warm and very unsettling feeling. In another context, taken out of the dangerous scenarios through which she had passed lately, it would be delightful fun to be tied up, helpless, and at Donald Caisson’s pleasure. It had been a wonderfully liberating experience to give herself up to Don, to be gagged, bound and delightfully ravaged by him. The astonishing difference between the fear and helplessness of being tied up by criminals and the trust and sexual power of being bound by her lover set Lisette’s mind reeling. The fantasy helped to prevent her from panicking, as she heard the key turn in the lock and Hoffnung re-entered. His arrival sent the daydream packing.
"Good girls," said Sir Hoffnung approvingly as he untied the cloth that bound the two women’s ankles to each other. "It won’t take long before you’re both neatly stowed away in a pretty pink Flowers R Us delivery van that Vellum has conveniently left at the back door. They’re all in the front office, which means I have to move fast."
As he spoke, Hoffnung laid out a blanket on the floor next to Lisette. The young woman grunted with renewed indignation as she was rolled up over and over in the thick wool from head to foot and lifted onto Hoffnung’s shoulder. With her feet hanging down in front of the man and her head swaying from side to side at his back, Lisette was carried along one of the building’s echoing corridors. It was difficult for her to know what was happening because the blanket muffled all but the sounds of Hoffnung’s footsteps on the concrete floor.
The next thing she knew was that she was being rolled unceremoniously out of the blanket onto a large mattress. She looked around her as Hoffnung withdrew from the rear of the van, pushing the door almost shut. A strong sickly smell of dead flowers permeated the narrow interior. A few crushed blooms lay scattered here and there around her, and she found that the mattress on which she lay was encrusted with black potting soil. Trussed up as she was, all Lisette could do was to roll with difficulty onto one side in order to take the body-weight off her arms.
After about two minutes, the door of the van opened and Chérie was dumped in beside Lisette and unrolled from the blanket to came up against Lisette face to face. Hoffnung scrambled in after her, pulling the door shut and locking it behind him.
"Better keep you two from moving around," he muttered.
Quickly the man took up a handful of black binder twine from a corner of the van and set to work tying the two young women together where they lay. Lisette and Chérie soon found themselves bound together around their shoulders, at their waists, and along their legs at the thighs, knees and ankles. Chérie was a little taller than Lisette, whose face pressed close to the lawyer’s chin. Her own neat pointed breasts rubbed against Chérie’s more fully rounded ones. Hoffnung pushed an old pillow under their heads for support, its rubber extruding from the seams. He then threw the blanket over the two women and left them. The van rocked slightly as he climbed into the driver’s seat from inside.
The van started gently enough. From its movements, Lisette followed their traversing of the small parking area and the turning at the driveway onto the main road. The young women’s breasts rubbed gently against their opposite, and the soft furry mounds that were scarcely hidden beneath the string-sided panties slid silkily against each other. Lisette felt Chérie flinch. Then the young lawyer relaxed noticeably and gave up trying to pull away.
Lisette wriggled her head out from under the end of the blanket so that Chérie’s face broke to the surface too. Chérie’s face above her gag was strained and red with embarrassment. Lisette guessed that she probably looked similarly flushed above the wide strips of voile that were bound over her own mouth. She knew why they were both embarrassed. It was not only that they were tied together virtually naked; it was also because their bodies were beginning to respond to that fact in defiance of what their minds said.
This is how women who like other women must feel when they go to bed, thought Lisette. That’s not so bad. But oh, if it was only Donald Caisson, rubbing me right now on those places! She winked at Chérie over her gag. Chérie looked back at her mischievous friend with wide eyes, as though she could be more embarrassed that she was already, and Lisette felt her trying uselessly to strain away. Then Chérie relaxed and settled down again. She even attempted an acceptable wink in return. Oh well, thought Lisette, might as well ... um ... enjoy the ride.
But Lisette’s vision of a comfortable woman to woman embrace for a relatively long journey was shattered the next instant. With a bound like a frightened deer, the little van picked up speed that, from the sideways rocking, quickly reached dangerous levels. Then for good measure it began to weave across the road, throwing the two young women from side to side over the mattress. Bound helplessly together, they could do nothing to steady their movements. One moment Lisette found herself on her back looking up into Chérie’s terrified eyes. The next moment they had turned completely over as the van changed direction, with Lisette on top and Chérie crushed beneath.
As this went on, the continual sideways rolling drove the breath out of their bodies. The situation continued to deteriorate. They heard a sharp crack, followed a moment later by two more. Hoffnung’s shooting at someone, thought Lisette. Someone following us. Was it Don and Roger? Then Hoffnung began shouting. Lisette managed to catch some of the words over the racing of the motor.
"Damn you ... recalcitrant minions ... will get ... bloody Vellum ... trusted you ... worthless br ..."
The shooting and the tirade continued, and stopped abruptly when Lisette guessed that Hoffnung’s gun was empty. So the gang’s chasing us, though Lisette. At least they’re not firing back!
Lisette was proved wrong the next instant when they heard a sharp series of pinging sounds at the rear door. By the time she had craned her neck around that of Chérie, who was lying on top of her at the moment, and located the sinister dents in the metal, there was another ping that ended in a ricochet somewhere around the chassis. Then the glass pane of one of the two rear door windows shattered.
They were dangerously vulnerable, but lying flat was probably the best precaution, the only difference being that they were bound there and had no choice. Otherwise, getting under the mattress might have been another option. The van swerved again and the two prisoners were once more lying on their sides. Liette tried to say something to Chérie but all that came out was a strenuous grunt. Chérie nodded in sympathy and grunted back. Lisette shrugged. The driver had settled down and progress was no longer punctuated by swerving from side to side. But they were obviously travelling as fast as the small motor could manage.
Lisette wondered whether they were still being chased. If only she could look through one of the windows. She half-heartedly tested the thin twine that tied her to Chérie, and found that the loops around her upper body had come adrift. With more wriggling - that made Chérie’s eyes widen considerably - she managed to literally shrug off their shoulder bonds. The ties at their waists also came loose and Lisette found that she could sit up. It was a huge effort because her arms were bound tight against her back. She and Chérie were held together only at the legs and thighs.
Lisette nodded her head in the direction of the rear door. Chérie understood and did her best to cooperate. Slowly, fighting against the swaying of the little van, the two women wormed their way down the mattress. Chérie wriggled on her back. Lisette pushed with her hands against the floor. It was Chérie’s wriggling that moved them along best. At last, when Lisette came up against the door, she took a deep breath and raised herself onto her knees. The twine at first bit painfully into their legs until a section of it parted from around her upper thighs. Lisette thanked their lucky stars that they were tied with old gardening twine rotted from long exposure to the soil and the sun. She was now in a position to look through the shattered window.
What Lisette saw was the narrow road receding from them at a rapid rate and, in the middle distance, Madame Vellum’s large black car. The exchange of shots must have persuaded the driver, at Vellum’s command, to slow down. But they were continuing to follow all the same. The van began to lose power as it came to a long hill, and this gave Lisette a more sustained view of the ribbon of road that snaked behind them. In the far distance she saw another vehicle. She tried to remember whether it was Donald Caisson’s car, the Mercedes. She could not be sure, but she hoped it was. Behind that vehicle she saw another one. The last vehicle was travelling so close to the one she thought was Don’s that Lisette wondered whether Roger was at the wheel. Her heart lifted. Although she could not be positive about it, Lisette believed that it was Don and Roger. She wondered whether Sir Justin Hoffnung was aware that he was being pursued by three cars.
A grunt followed by a tug from Chérie brought Lisette back to their current plight, and she lowered herself onto the mattress beside the lawyer. It was no use trying to communicate what she had seen. The gags are doing a wonderful job of keeping us quiet this time, she thought ruefully. She closed her eyes and allowed the van’s rocking to calm her down. Chérie nuzzled quietly beside her. From time to time their breasts touched. Neither woman did anything to prevent it. Lisette’s wrist bonds were hurting - she would never have imagined that a bra could be so uncomfortable - and she guessed that Chérie was in more discomfort because of the rigid cuffs at her wrists. Hoffnung knows where we’re going, thought Lisette, but what will he do with so many people on his tail?
About ten minutes later the van slowed down, then bumped to a stop. They were somewhere off the road. Lisette risked another look through the rear window. Getting onto her knees was more difficult this time because her body was stiff and aching from the multiple bonds, and she did not stay up for long. But all she saw were trees. Lying next to Chérie, she listened to the distant passing of vehicles. Has he lost them? Wherever we are, Hoffnung must know this area, to find a side road here. They lay in a silence broken only by the small pings and groans of the cooling motor. From the smell that drifted to the back of the van, Hoffnung must be smoking something particularly foul. She lifted her head and saw the man’s profile for a moment He had a cigarillo clenched in his teeth. Then he appeared to make up his mind, stubbed out the cigarillo, and switched on the ignition. The van bumped slowly forwards.
The manner in which the vehicle now moved suggested strongly that they were travelling across country, perhaps avoiding roads altogether. At least twenty minutes passed before they rocked to a halt. Hoffnung switched off the motor. We must have arrived, wherever we are, thought Lisette.
Hoffnung climbed out from the driver’s door. A moment later, the back door of the van opened and the man looked in on his two prisoners.
"Been for a bumpy ride eh? Well, couldn’t be helped. Let me introduce you to your new stop-off point."
Once again, Lisette was the first to be wrapped in the blanket and carried over the man’s shoulder, her indignant grunts ignored. She was set down on a rough surface, unrolled and left to consider where she was this time as Hoffnung fetched Chérie. When he returned with Chérie over his shoulder, Lisette had managed to sit up with her back against the wooden wall of what was a shed of some sort. Thank god we’re not blindfolded, she thought. But the fellow sure finds ugly places to put us. Maybe a blindfold would have been better. When Chérie was propped up beside Lisette, Sir Justin Hoffnung sat back on an old bench and surveyed the two women. He looked at his watch.
"Less than half an hour to twilight," he remarked. "I’ll leave you two here for awhile."
"Mmmmph mmmph!" Lisette could not contain herself any longer.
"What’s that? ... I imagine you’d like the gags removed?"
Lisette and Chérie both nodded their heads.
"Well, there’s no harm in that. We’re a long way out in the country. There’s no point in screaming for help," he continued, as he bent to untie Lisette’s gag. "Only cows and sheep will hear you."
The strips of old curtain voile had to be cut from Lisette’s face with a small pocketknife, and the young woman needed help to eject the gag. First came the foul-tasting voile followed by a sodden wad of handkerchief. Lisette coughed and licked dry lips as Hoffnung freed Chérie of her gag.
"Wh- Where are we?" croaked Lisette.
"I don’t suppose it does any harm to tell you," Hoffnung replied as he reseated himself. "We’re at one of those old abandoned wartime air strips. This isn’t a hangar of course. It used to be a radio post. All the equipment’s gone."
"What did you mean when you said we were hostages, your passport out of here?"
"Just that, my dear. If anyone tries to stop me from catching that plane, I can use you as shields ... But I don’t think it will come to that. Madame Red Vellum and her gang - correction, my gang until they decided to do some operations on their own while I was away - Madame Vellum and that lot have lost us. They don’t know about this place ... A pity about my wayward younger brother. He never had the sense to keep out of trouble. No, I’ll leave them to their own devices."
"Y- You raided my apartment twice, looking for the photographs and the tapes of your organisation’s financial records. Why did you do that?"
"Simple. I wanted the photographs in order to destroy them. Their existence pointed straight to us as the kidnappers of the young lawyer here." Chérie nodded and bit her lip. "And I wanted the disc - still want it - so I could find out what the hell Vellum, Moons, Wimple, and Gamms were doing with my money! Not to mention my worthless brother Bombodil who even calls his own sister ‘Mumsie’ fer chrissake!"
"And Legato the Doc, and Sigrid?" asked Lisette gently. More pieces were beginning to fall into place.
"Hangers-on. Legato is just a worthless little thug. Sigrid is an extra heavy, a bodyguard I suppose. She’s new to the business."
"And ... Douglas?" asked Lisette on a dangerous inspiration.
"That man? ... He was a courier for us. Did his job well too. But there was something ... Madame took a dislike to him, distrusted him. I don’t know why. It’s hard to find good help in this business. But there was something about Europe and the Austrian Alps. Vellum was mixed up with a drug-running group there and ‘Dougie’ was mixed up in it too. All before my time I’m afraid. I’m sorry I employed that woman in the first place."
"She took over?"
"Yeah, she took over all right. She put the rap on Dougie but she was the one siphoning off my money!"
"One more question," added Lisette, greatly relieved to learn that Hoffnung knew nothing about Donald and herself. "How do you know so much about Revenue, where I work? That day you came in dressed as a courier with the right papers and everything, you really took me in!"
"Ah, yes." The man smirked. "You’ve probably tumbled to it but I don’t have to kill you to hide it. The fellow will have to take his chances ... There’s a mole in your organisation. He told me the procedures, loaned me the clothes, and the paper work."
"I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who it is?"
"No. I wouldn’t tell you if I could. But the truth is, I don’t know what he looks like. For all I know, the mole could be a woman. That’s why your life is not at issue."
Lisette shivered with the realisation.
"Can- Can I interrupt?" It was Chérie.
Hoffnung turned his attention to Chérie. The young lawyer was almost in tears.
"Please won’t you do something about these handcuffs? They’re hurting terribly!"
Sir Hoffnung rose and inspected Chérie’s cuffed wrists. Lisette saw with a pang that they were chafed and beginning to bleed. But Hoffnung shook his head.
"Sorry. Only Vellum will have the key, or that Sigrid."
Chérie subsided, tears running down her face. Lisette wanted to put her arms around the girl, but she was still tightly bound.
"Won’t you loosen my bonds?" Lisette asked.
"Sorry, can’t be done. I have to go out and lay down the lights for the plane, and you two have to stay put."
"When the plane comes, what will you do with us?"
"Why, leave you here Miss Rivers, and your friend, securely bound of course. Someone will find you. You will be gagged, but there’s no need for it to be right now."
"Thank you."
"Yeah. So, sit tight. Enjoy the facilities of this, ah, transit lounge," he said ironically. "I won’t be long. The plane will be here in an hour."
Sir Justin Hoffnung left the shed, carefully closing the door behind him and putting a wooden latch in place. Lisette and Chérie sat alone in the gathering dark of the hut.
"You heard all that?" said Lisette.
"Yes."
Chérie was shivering from the growing cold and the pain of the handcuffs. Lisette was feeling the chill seeping into her bones as well. Her much too exposed area of skin was having goose bumps. They lapsed into silence. In their shared misery, there was nothing much to say.
After about ten minutes, Lisette and Chérie heard a sound at the door. He’s back, thought Lisette. How can I persuade him to let us go, or at least to keep us warm and give us a chance to get free once he’s gone? It could be days before a farmer or a shepherd finds us.
The door opened. Chérie gasped. Lisette, deep in thought, had not been looking.
"Well, what have we here? Two little mices, all in a row."
It was Madame Red Vellum, gun in hand. Sigrid, as ever, loomed behind her, and the others could not be far away.
ã Brian Sands 2004