MIA CHANTAL IN JEOPARDY by Brian Sands

They were not missed by the chauffeur, however. He leered down at her, his face within a few inches of Mia's face. She felt revolted by his smell. A bubble of spittle hung on the corner of Snedley's mouth and the girl closed her eyes and turned her head away with a shudder. Then Mia felt his vice-like hands on her ankles and there was an uncomfortable moment when she did not know what he intended to do to her. It was no better when she understand what he was up to.

'Gonna do a little kickin, eh?' Snedley rasped. 'Can't have that. Someone just might hear it. But I'se got a way of fixin you good an proper. Y'ever been hawgtied? Nah, I don't s'pose yer have.' Mia's legs were drawn back behind her and she felt additional cord being wrapped about her ankles. Snedley threaded the ends of the cord between the girl's bound wrists and passed them back to her ankles, only this time threading the end between her ankles too. There was a pause, then the cord was jerked cruelly tight. Mia's legs were pulled to within a few inches of her wrists and the ends of the cord were tied off at her ankles, so there was no hope of reaching the knots with her fingers. The additional pressure at Mia's wrists began to cut the circulation to her hands, and she soon found that it was wiser to let them relax.

Mia was now lying on her side in a painful arch. She was thankful that she was relatively fit from workouts at the gym, and supple enough for her body to cope with confinement in the stringent position. Tears of pain and fear welled in her eyes, but she fought them back. She knew that with her mouth sealed by the tape her only chance of surviving in the short term was to keep her nasal passages free. A stuffy nose brought on by crying would be the death of her. Was that going to be her fate anyway? But if she was being kidnapped it was for a reason, to hurt Miles she suspected. That was a puzzling thought, because they had known each other for a very short time, a month was all it must be, and they had never become intimate until that night.

The young woman thought wonderingly about the contrast in intimacies. When she had been bound and gagged by Miles it was an adventure. His body language over dinner and then later the soothing touch of his hands testified to his caring for her. She had been well tied and unable to escape - the bonds still at her wrists had been applied by deVille - but she had felt entirely safe. It had been as though she had control in the relationship. She had heard a little about what was called love bondage, and during the long wait for Miles she had made a mental note to look up more about it in books and magazines.

Being bound and gagged by Snedley the chauffeur was an entirely different sort of intimacy. His strong hands were rough with her. She remembered, and resented, the sharp cuff he had given her across the face. The ropes had been tied with glee, in a conscious intention to inflict pain on her. The man must have a deep hatred of women. Perhaps some woman hurt him in the past. Or perhaps he had always been that way, a misanthrope, a social outcast. A mysogynist too. And there had been planning in it all.

From what he said earlier, Snedley had been stalking her. Mia realised that would not have been diffciult. The man was a chauffeur, with easy access to places where others might be questioned. The cap and uniform, and the name of a respected employer, would have been enough. Snedley would have had several opportunities for observing her in the normal course of his duties. And, apart from that, Mia thought she could remember moments that at the time did not seem unusual: the slowing down of a vehicle yards behind her when she walked home one evening, or the way a car's lights up the street behind her suddenly flicked off when she looked over her shoulder, hearing shuffling footsteps somewhere behind her when walking up the steps to her apartment but seeing nothing when she turned. These things had registered in the back of her mind without causing undue worry. But now, in hindsight, she told herself that she must have been watched often, and there must have been many opportunities for her to be snatched. What had Snedley said back there in the dungeon? 'I would have found you anywhere?' Something like that. The idea gave her a creepy feeling. Now she WAS kidnapped.

Snedley, having finished securing his captive's legs into the hogtie, straightened and stretched, looked around furtively into the dark night, then bent over her again, his face in shadow. Then he produced the roll of tape and pulled off a strip about eight inches long. As she saw the tape descend towards her, Mia involuntarily closed her eyes. In a very short time, the tape was spread smoothly across her face from brows to cheek bones. The sticky material sealed her eyelids effectively. Mia could neither move, speak or see. Being blindfolded was an unnecessary cruelty, for she was already going to be locked in the darkness of the trunk. Her throaty whimper was ignored.

The lid closed with a dull thump and Mia was alone, trussed, utterly helpless, in darkness, stifled by the gag and the feeling of enclosure. The trunk smelled of must and engine oil and she fought back nausea. As it was, she retched a couple of times into the gag. But with an immense effort of will Mia managed to avoid being sick. The taste of bile in her throat almost overwhelmed her and when the spasm was over she was cold and shaky, with sweat streaking her neck and shoulders and beading her forehead and temples above the tape that covered her eyes. Mercifully, she succeeded in calming herself, and by relaxing as completely as possible in her bonds she found that her confinement could be tolerable for awhile. How far would they have to travel before she would be released from the foul air of the trunk?

Mia again consoled herself with the idea that the chauffeur wanted her alive as a bargaining chip, and that if she did not succumb to panic there would come a time when she would be removed from the trunk and put somewhere else. But where? Her future prison could not be worse than this, could it? She must surely be destined for a small room, an old bedroom or a storeroom or shed. That was where kidnap victims were kept, she guessed. And in places like that she might be able to seek a means of getting free, to find a piece of iron or something sharp on which she could abrade her ropes. But if she was kept blindfolded that would be different. She would not be able to discover much about her surroundings and escape would be more difficult if not impossible. She psyched herself up to remain as alert as possible, so as to take any chance for freedom if it came along. Snedley had been right about one thing. Mia Chantal was a feisty woman.

As she felt the vehicle begin to move, Mia settled down to explore the various sensations she was now experiencing. The physical part of her predicament was obvious: bound, with her arms immoveably fixed behind her in the small of her back, gagged with a small wad of silk cloth held in place with broad layers of tape that sealed her lips tight shut, trussed into a hogtie so that she could scarcely roll from one side to the other without an exhausting effort, her eyelids sealed tight shut by the strip of tape. She found when she tried to roll over that her head brushed against the lid of the trunk, making her lose balance so that she flopped back onto her side. Falling like that, even for such a short distance of a few inches in the confined space, made her feel particularly helpless. 'I'm like a badly coordinated sack of potatoes,' she thought. It was a logically inaccurate figure of speech, but it served as a self-description for the feeling that she had virtually no control over her body. As far as the gag was concerned, she concentrated on keeping the wad of material firmly pressed against her teeth with her tongue. The gag was now a heavy, soggy ball in her mouth. She could still feel the slickness of the silk weave against her tongue even though it was sodden with her own saliva. The layered tape completed her silencing with utter efficiency, allowing very little movement for her jaws. Mia had explored her wrist bonds thoroughly to her satisfaction while waiting for Miles deVille's return, and there was no possibility of working free from those exquisitely tied knots. Her fingers fluttered uselessly. It was impossible to twist her wrists and hands in a search for knots. The ropes that wrapped her legs and body, tied with all the fierce strength of the madman now at the wheel of the limousine driving Mia to her fate, prevented all but the smallest of movements. If she rolled a little to one side, the rest of her body followed as a single unit. As the vehicle picked up speed, Mia realised that Snedley was also an insane driver. Whenever the limousine rocked wildly from side to side, Mia rocked helplessly too. Snedley appeared to have chosen an unsealed road of some sort. Perhaps they were approaching their destination. Release from the trunk could not be a moment too soon. Every muscle in her arms and shoulders was screaming with the combined tight constriction and stretching caused by the hogtie. Pins and needles shot up and down her arms and her legs became cramped in their own separate agony. Her back was stiff and sore from being continually bent in the hogtie.

The psychology of Mia's state of capture was far more complex than the physical helplessness of her body, though it was dominated by that. Mia tried to explain to herself why she enjoyed being tied in the first place. She speculated that if she had not teased Miles into binding her, she might be free now. Snedley's boast about being able to capture her at any time must surely be empty. There were too many people around her in the normal course of her life to allow a kidnapper many opportunities. But the thought suddenly came to her that perhaps this was to have been the night and that her own actions - by allowing herself to be bound - and those of Miles - leaving her because of something that happened at the office - played fortuitously into Snedley's hands. Her flirtation with bondage - no, it was flirtation with Miles she had to admit - had nothing to do with Snedley's schemes. What made the difference was her safety. With Miles she felt gloriously feminine, trusted him and allowed herself to be the weaker partner in their quickly sealed deal over the tying-up. With Snedley she was a real kidnap victim, her life very likely in jeopardy. And if she was to survive, she realised, she would have to strike a different sort of deal with that man, and be brave about it.

After something like twenty minutes had gone past, the car was still travelling over bumpy roads. They had not arrived anywhere, and Mia resigned herself to a long journey. Although she managed for the most part to rest in a loose, relaxed way, from time to time she revolted against her bonds and renewed her struggles. This succeeded only in a bodily quivering and straining at the ropes, flopping very litle, like a fish close to death on the bottom of an angler's dinghy. She did not forget to clench her teeth over the gag and press her tongue against it to hold it in place so that it would not slip down her throat.

Gradually Mia began to discover things about her gag which offered some hope that with a careful effort she might be able to breathe a little more freely. She realised with surprise that she could be fairly comfortable with the tape wrapped around her mouth and jaw, as long as her lips did not attempt to fight it or her jaw to strain against it. So she lay still. But the wad in her mouth grew so unbearable that she found herself unwillingly fretting against the tape, her lips hurting whenever her jaws pulled against it.

The gag, already sodden, continued to make her drool. She swallowed some of her saliva, fighting back a gagging reaction, but the moisture also began to seep from between her lips to the adhesive tape. She had heard that tape could be loosened if she moistened it with her lips, and had attempted to do so when Snedley had first applied the wrapping. There had been no result because the silk scarf wadded in her mouth was comparatively dry. Now that wad was dry no longer, it was saturated, and additional moisture was starting to do the job that she had been unable to perform earlier. Mia felt the tape slowly begin to lose its adhesive quality where it covered her lips. She strained under it more carefully with her jaw and felt the tape slowly peel away from her lower lip to her chin. The sticky stuff remained fast across her upper lip awhile longer, but soon that too was free. It hurt, but she gritted her teeth and only the faintest of whimpers escaped.

The rest of the tape remained stuck fast to Mia's face, but she found that she could open and close her mouth beneath it. Her mouth was in a bubble of freedom but she could not yet draw in air. The wrappings over the tip of her chin remained tight for awhile, then with renewed effort from her aching jaws they too began to give way. Mia could now open her mouth wide beneath the tape, and she used this new freedom as a means of ejecting the bolus of silk from behind her teeth, pushing it out with her tongue. She managed to get it wedged between the tape and her lower lip and chin, and although it was very uncomfortable there it was a huge gain to no longer have the cloth in her mouth. Slowly, agonising moment by agonising monent, she worked the wet silk down over her chin where it eventually did its job of loosening the overlap of tape. Precious air was now drawn in from that source, around the silk ball which no longer could be worked further from her face. It was a luxury to breathe through both her nose and her mouth. Mia began to sob quietly with relief.

The young woman was so intent on this long and painful operation that she was scarcely aware that the vehicle was slowing down, and she was jerked back to her full predicament when she realised that the limousine had come to a standstill. All was quiet. Mia listened intently but there was no sound aside from the faint creak of the vehicle settling down, and the pinging of cooling metal. The frightening thought gripped her heart that perhaps this was going to be her prison. Then she thought she heard something, muffled and distant. A door slamming it might have been. A few moments later she heard more clearly the crunch of stones underfoot as someone walked towards the rear of the car. Snedley must be already close if she was able to hear those sounds through the lid of the trunk. A shiver went through Mia's body at the thought of being touched again by that man. But she craved freedom from her noxious confinement more than anything, and steeled herself for whatever ordeals lay ahead at the hands of her kidnapper.

When the lid of the trunk opened, a rush of cool air swept over the bound woman. Mia lifted her head and thankfully breathed in the rejuvenating oxygen-laden breeze. There was a smell of pine mingled with other, earthy scents, and she guessed they were now somewhere deep in the countryside, in the hills, certainly no longer on the coast where salt breezes would have been the clue.

'Now to take care of our pretty prisoner,' Snedley muttered. Mia felt the man's rough hands at her ankles, and the cords that secured the hogtie slackened and were removed. She was lifted out of the trunk and carried in the man's arms like a child. He was incredibly strong and she felt that he lifted her with no effort. She was a light-boned woman, only five feet six in height, but her dead weight in her exhausted condition would have had other men puffing after the first half dozen steps to the house. Snedley crooned dementedly as he walked. Amid the incomprehensible burble Mia caught an occasional phrase that showed some small measure of rationality in the man: 'I'se got a girl, a neat li'l gal, just like my old dad didn't ...'

Snedley came to a stop and for a moment Mia was stood upon her bound feet and held around the waist to prevent her from falling while the door was opened. She was then lifted into Snedley's arms again, to the accompaniment of something about 'crossing the threshold,' and heard the creak of old floor boards as they entered, followed by the sound of the door slamming shut behind them. The house sounded empty as Snedley's footfalls echoed with each step. They seemed to travel in a straight line for awhile, then take a turn and another turn. Then Mia had the strong impression that they were descending a flight of stairs. Not another dungeon basement? It had to be. She was propped up on her feet again and the pattern of a door opening and her being lifted in Snedley's arms was repeated. The air in the room they had just entered felt still and a little stale, but it was incomparably better than the stuffy trunk where Mia had lain for more than an hour of driving. The floor must be carpeted too, because she could no longer hear Snedley's footsteps. There was instead a scuffing sound as she was carried further.

Mia was placed in a chair - she could feel that its back and the seat were padded by some kind of material, it felt like leather - and additional ropes were wound about her waist. They were jerked tight, pushing her lower back firmly against the chair back and hurting her bound arms, which were jammed tightly between her body and the chair. Step by step she was anchored immoveably into the chair. Her legs were slanted sideways and her ankles lashed to one of the chair legs. A web of rope was passed around her body, starting from just below her bosom, and criss-crossed diagonally between her breasts before being wrapped three or four times around her upper body. With each individual winding, Snedley jerked the rope cruelly tight, allowing no slack. She was now rigidly fixed to the chair so that all she could do was to move her head from side to side. It was like being in Miles's chair back at his dungeon, but surpassingly worse.

There was a long pause. Snedley appeared to be doing something in another part of the room. At last Mia heard him approaching across the carpet - he seemed to drag one foot a little - and she heard the click of a switch. Within a few seconds the girl became aware of heat that felt as if it came from a light source, though with her eyelids taped shut she could not tell for sure. There was another pause, then she heard a click followed by a whirring sound. It was repeated after several seconds. Then she felt Snedley's hands at her face. His fingers were picking at the tape strapped across her brows and as she felt one corner of it begin to peel away she shut her eyes as tightly as she could, fearing that her eyelids would be harmed and hoping the man would not remove the tape carelessly. Snedley was surprisingly attentive on the essentials. When it came to stripping the tape from Mia's eyelids, he drew it downwards slowly without pulling the tape away. The girl's tears had had some effect in loosening the tape, and even her eyelashes came free without too much pulling. But Snedley completed the job with a quick movement. Mia's cheeks stung and more tears welled up in her eyes. But at least they were free and she could see once more.

Mia blinked away the tears and tried to focus on her surroundings. It took a little while, during which she realised that Snedley had left the room. She was indeed in a carpeted room. The chair to which she was bound stood in its center. A mattress with a gaily coloured quilt lay on the floor in one corner. Large cupboards were arrayed along one wall. They were closed. A table stood against the other wall, and near it another chair like the one in which she was sitting. Aside from that, the room was empty. Turning her head, Mia saw that a partially open door led to an inner room.

The young woman looked down at herself and at the additional ropes that now constricted her body so tightly that it was an effort to breathe. The short skirt of her dress had ridden high up her thighs revealing the tops of her stockings, still held by one suspender belt though the other had broken. The expensive silk was ruined, her dress grubby with dirt and traces of oil from the trunk of the limousine. Her breasts were not only raised and pushing from the cleavage of her dress, caused by the first cords used to bind her; they were now isolated by the criss-cross ties of the heavier rope securing her to the chair. The tape remained tight about her face except where her mouth was free, and the wad of silk pressing over her chin was itching like crazy. She had to be thankful for small mercies however. Snedley had not yet noticed that she had managed to get partly free from her gag. He would find out, if he ever intended to free her mouth, and then she guessed that a man as deranged as he was would punish her for it.

Mia was beginning to wonder whether she was in for a long wait when Snedley reappeared through the main doorway. In his hands he carried a large camera of the sort that developed its own film. It had a flash attachment and Mia realised that it had been the source of the clicking and whirring sounds she had heard earlier. Snedley had been taking photographs of her!

'Hullo dere,' Snedley lisped. 'Smile for de birdy, li'l bird. Say gaaag.' He pressed the shutter and the camera did its work, taking in what would have been a full-length snapshot of Mia sitting bound to the chair. Snedley approached much closer and took another photograph, this time a head and shoulders portrait of his captive. He waited in silence until the chemicals in the two snapshots had done their job, then he peeled away the thin covers and looked at the results. He gave a low appreciative whistle. 'Looky here.' He held up the two photographs. Mia could not believe that the dishevelled, wild-eyed and obviously terrified woman staring back at her from the photographic print was herself. 'A neatly trussed Mia Chantal,' Snedley went on. And he showed Mia the two photographs he had taken while she still wore the tape blindfold. The close-up of her face showed the trails of sweat and dust that had become encrusted over her forehead and throat. 'These'll make that dumbhead Miles deVille pay up big eh? If he wants his little bird back.' Mia felt sickened to think that Miles would see her in this condition. But she also felt relieved. This was no more than a common kidnapping for money, and Snedley would not harm her while she remained a valuable piece of merchandise.

Snedley bent over and began inspecting Mia's gag. Her heart sank. Now she was for it! But the man only shook his head and muttered, 'Reckon I'll leave you to get that stuff off yourself.' He straightened up. 'You promise to behave and I'll reward you, kiddo. You don't behave and I'll string you up from the ceiling.' He indicated an iron ring embedded in the ceiling almost directly above them. Mia's heart quailed. 'Guess you'd like to know the reward for being a good li'l kidnapee,' Snedley went on. 'First thing is, being a woman you'd like to use the bathroom, clean up a bit, take a bath.' Mia nodded vigorously. 'Second thing is, you could do with a change of clothes.' He walked across to one of the cupboards and opened it. It turned out to be a wardrobe. Dresses hung from the rack and a suitcase stood on the floor below them.

Snedley hefted out the suitcase and dumped it on the table. Mia recognised it with a sudden sick feeling. It was one of her own suitcases. And the dresses in the wardrobe were hers. The contents of the suitcase - underclothes, scarves, blouses and light skirts - were hers also. Snedley had been to her apartment and collected most of her clothes. He leered down at her. 'You get the picture, kiddo? I know where you live. I could have snatched you anytime, like I said. DeVille's place just gave the opportunity sooner. And I took it. I took you!' He cackled. 'You've read The Collector haven't you? I'm going one better that him,' Snedley boasted. Mia hung her head. Tears pooled in her eyes and ran silently down her cheeks to be absorbed by the tape around her face. Snedley was despicable.

'Okhay, let's get this show on the road,' Snedley said irrelevantly. He began to unfasten the heavy ropes that bound Mia to the chair, talking as he worked. 'I'm going to untie your arms and leave you here to do the rest of the untying yourself. When you've done that you can use the bathroom off the next room. You've got en suite in this apartment. I've laid out some fresh clothes for you on the bed - you've got a real bed in there. You have an hour. When I come back I want to see you sitting in this chair again. There's a pair of handcuffs in a drawer the other end of the cupboards. Put on some sort of a gag - I'll rely on you to make the choice, but it has to please me - then Cuff yourself with your arms around the back of the chair. Got that?' Mia nodded. 'Good. Don't try any cute tricks. You'll be sorry if you do. This place is below ground. There are no other places near, and anyway no sound can escape these rooms. The walls are too thick, and they're partly underground.' By now Snedley had lifted Mia from the chair and laid her face down on the quilted mattress in the corner. He began untying her arms and wrists. When Mia's arms were free they would not work for her but stayed limp at her sides. Without another word, Snedley left. A key turned in the lock and Mia was alone.

Mia lay exhausted on the mattress. She still had to untie her legs and get the wretched tape off her face, and when circulation had been partially restored to her arms she started on the tape straight away. It was a painful ordeal. Mia cried out in agony as the tape pulled at the soft down at the back of her neck below her hair. She was glad however that it had not been wound around her hair. That would have caused a real tangle. It seemed to take ages but eventually her face was free of the horrible stuff and she could start on her legs. The knots were tied so tightly that it took a long time to work them loose, but eventually she succeeded in accomplishing that too. How long had it taken? Was there enough time to have a decent cleanup in the bathroom? Snedley would have to wait if necessary, Mia thought grimly. She too could bargain. In fact she realised that if she could bargain with her kidnapper there could be a means of getting away from him. That is, if she did not spend her time with a gag in her mouth.

The shower was glorious, the water hot, and she managed to get most traces of the sticky stuff left by the tape off her face. Her lips and cheeks especially felt raw, and the back of her neck still stung from the tape's removal. When she dressed, she had to admit that Snedley had some taste in the clothes he had picked out for her. She now wore a pair of light jeans and a pink long sleved silk blouse over black panties and a lacy white bra. Mia took care to tie her hair up in a top knot, because if she was going to be gagged once more, and by her own hands, she did not want it tangling in her hair.

Mia walked into the adjoining room and found where the handcuffs were kept. The drawer contained other devices of restraint. She recognised a ball gag and what must be some sort of leather face mask, and leather wrist or ankle cuffs. She had seen things like that from time to time in the popular media, which did not seem as uptight about those matters as it had once been. She sorted through the impedimenta carefully, and finally chose what seemed to be a muffler in soft leather that would cover her lips and mouth. Or was it designed to go in her mouth between her teeth? She turned away from Snedley's bondage trove with disgust and crossed reluctantly to the chair. There was nothing for it but to do what Snedley required of her.

Going to the suitcase that contained her clothes - it still lay on the table where Snedley had placed it - Mia selcted a plain colored silk scarf, a brown one that even when folded was relatively flimsy. She placed the rectangular pad of silk over the center of the leather muffler and experimented whether it would best fit over her mouth or in her mouth. The leather strip that would cover her mouth and face proved to be narrower in the center, so therefore it was meant to go IN her mouth, not over it. With a grimace of distaste, Mia applied the gag to herself, pressing the narrow section of soft black leather into her mouth between her teeth. She found that the silk pad had been a good idea. It extended beyond the sides of her mouth to partly cover her cheeks, and it cushioned the leather binding strap where it would have cut into the corners of her mouth. She slipped the tongue of the face mask into the matching buckle and drew it tight so that the soft leather and silk combination fitted firmly inside her mouth just behind her teeth. She had to pull it tighter than was comfortable in order to fasten the buckle at the back of her head, and when that was done the gag felt very secure.

In the spirit of propitiating her kidnapper, Mia went back to the hateful drawer and selected what appeared to be leather ankle cuffs. She sat once again in the chair, put the leather cuffs on her ankles, and fastened her ankles to one of the chair legs with a piece of the cord that had been used earlier to bind her. She next wrapped a longer piece of cord around her waist andc the back of the chair and tied it off. It circled her waist three times. Finally, taking a deep breath, Mia cuffed her left wrist and brought her arms around behind the back of the chair. It took a little effort to find the other cuff, and when she had clicked it in place over her right wrist she found that the chair allowed very little movement for her arms. The short chain of the handcuffs was stretched, pulling on her wrists painfully. The rigid steel hurt so much that she thought being bound with cord might mave been the better option, if she had had a choice.

Mia determined to cooperate with her captor. Between the moments of obvious lunacy, Snedley had moments of apparent rationality. She had only to think of the detailed and organised way he had instructed her about preparing herself for him. Maybe that was something she could work with, Snedley's rationality. Mia would negotiate with him, even to suggest ways of binding her if the alternatives seemed too stringent. And she determined to make a bid for escape when the first opportunity presented itself. The young woman settled down to await her captor, in what was becoming an increasingly more uncomfortable position. After about two minutes had passed, she heard the key turning in the lock and the door began to open.

Chapter Three

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