MIA CHANTAL IN
JEOPARDY by Brian Sands
Part Three:
I'll Get My Cut
'Now
that's what I call cooperative.' Snedley walked across to his
prisoner, bent down and examined the gag, running his dirty fingers across
Mia's lips and checking the tightness of the leather bands around her
cheeks. He whistled speculatively. Then he went behind her and began
fiddling with the strap at the back of her head. For a nasty moment Mia
thought he was going to tighten the gag, but that discomfort was only
momentary while he unbuckled it. Mia had only worn the gag for a few
minutes but her release from it brought genuine tears of gratitude to her
eyes. Her captor stood over her, the gag with its scarf padding in one
hand.
Mia looked up at him and decided to take a chance. 'Thank you,' she said
softly, trying to find the right mix of grateful submission in her voice.
'I have cooperated, as you put it,' she continued quickly, 'so there's a
favour I want to ask in return. Could I have these handcuffs off? They're
hurting like crazy because the back of this chair is too wide for my arms.
You can tie my wrists with cord like before, if you want. I'd rather that
than being handcuffed. And I'd be ever so grateful.' Mia widened her eyes
and wrinkled her brow to show how helpless she was and how reasonable was
her request. She hoped she had touched a nerve in this unpredictable man.
It seemed she had. Snedley stood irresolutely a moment, then he wheeled
about and left the room quickly, making certain however that he closed the
door and turned the key in the lock. Mia waited for what must have been
only five minutes before he returned, almost running. He carried another
chair before him. When Snedley set it down on the floor a few feet from
Mia, she saw that the back of the chair was more narrow than the one in
which she was seated, and that it had narrow wooden arm-rests attached to
the outer frame.
'Ho-kay,' said Snedley in what Mia recognised as the flambuoyant, slightly
silly way of speaking he often affected, 'let's see how Mademoiselle
Chantal likes this one for size.'
Snedley unfastened the cord holding Mia's ankles to the chair leg and
unwound the rope she had used to bind herself into the chair, then when the
young woman was standing upon her leather-cuffed feet he lifted her bodily
into the other chair. Taking the cords he had used earlier on her, Snedley
completed binding her as tightly as before, legs above and below her knees
and around her waist to the chair back. Moving behind her, he released her
from the metal cuffs and stood back for a few moments, allowing Mia to rub
her bruised and aching wrists and her stiff arms.
'Okay kiddo, that's enough. Get your hands behind you and I'll use the
cord like you ask. That's the end of the favours.' Biting her lip, Mia
nodded. She knew she would have been pressing her luck to attempt to charm
Snedley any further at this stage, and without a word she stretched her
arms around to the back of the chair. She found with some gratification
that she could cross her wrists with a fair degree of comfort in her arms,
made possible by the more narrow chair back.
Mia's sense of relief was short-lived. Snedley twisted the cord tightly
around her wrists many times until he had used nearly all its length,
making single knots every few turns to further snug the bonds in place. He
then tied off the ends in a very tight double knot that was well away from
Mia's fingers. It was a plain wrist tie without criss-crossing or cinching,
but it was very effective. Stepping across to the hateful drawer from which
Mia had chosen the ankle cuffs and leather gag, Snedley selected a large
roll of gaffer's tape. He neatly taped the young woman's wrists with four
layers of the stuff so that the knot was completely inaccessible to her
fingers, not to mention securing her wrists tighter than ever. Mia drew in
a sharp breath when she realised how hopeless her situation had become once
again. With the immoveable constrictions around her wrists, all thoughts of
cleverly making an escape were banished from her mind. She was there to
stay in Snedley's lair, at least for the time being.
Snedley was not yet finished in his procedure to make Mia uncomfortable.
Taking a short piece of cord, he bound it tightly around Mia's left arm
above the elbow, lashing her arm in this way tightly to the wooden frame of
the chair. He did the same with her right arm. Mia's arms were now fixed
securely to the sides of the chair. She was glad that she was wearing a
long sleeved blouse, though the thin silk did not really cushion the soft
flesh of her upper arms from the tight cord. She found that her arms were
anchored firmly in place.
This was followed by a net-like roping up of Mia's body as Snedley had done
before, wrapping several lengths just below her breasts, criss-crossing
between them, and then wrapping her upper body. The ropes went all the way
around her body and the back of the chair. Mia was now fastened upright in
the chair and unable to move at all except for quivering and straining as
she tested her new bonds. 'This fellow's a demon for knots,' she thought
ruefully. 'Here I was scheming how to talk him into being softer with me,
and instead he's trussed me up as tight as ever! But at least there's no
need to gag me again. He said that no sound could get through in or out of
this place.'
Once again Mia was wrong in her judgement of Snedley. The leather gag was
retrieved from the table where it had been placed and Snedley approached
her, a knowing smirk on his face. 'I applaud your choice, Mia Chantal, and
I'm going to let you live with it for the rest of the day. You do know it's
day-light outside, don't you?' He stood to one side of Mia and with both
hands reached the face mask over her head. 'Open wide.'
Revolted by the idea of being gagged again, Mia turned her head aside and
stubbornly shut her mouth. Snedley took a deep breath and in a voice that
scarcely hid his excitement, said, 'We can do this easy or hard,
Mademoiselle Chantal. It's up to you. I can squeeze your jaws either side
just where they hinge ... here!' His rough, incredibly strong fingers took
Mia's face and demonstrated briefly. Mia let out a yip of pain. 'Or I can
pinch your nose shut,' Snedley continued, 'Like this.' Mia fought for
breath as Snedley demonstrated on her. 'One way you hurt, the other way you
run out of breath.' He released Mia's nose. Tears stung her eyes as she
shook her head from side to side in a frantic negative to both ideas. 'Do
we understand each other?' Mia nodded. 'So ...?' With a sinking heart Mia
raised her head and reluctantly relaxed her jaw. 'Wider.' She obeyed and
felt the soft leather penetrate her mouth.
As Snedley began to buckle the straps in place behind her head, Mia noticed
that the scarf she had folded earlier into thin layers of silk was still
part of the gag, and she was thankful for that small mercy. She felt the
leather straps tighten around her cheeks as Snedley drew one end through
the buckle. And he kept on pulling until it was two notches tighter than
Mia had drawn it when putting it on herself. The leather pad between her
teeth, cushioned by the scarf that protected the corners of her mouth, felt
as though it was set in cement. Mia shook her head from side to side in a
feminine gesture that had no effect at all in ridding her mouth of the gag.
It was not like being gagged with cloth, she discovered. There was very
little give in the leather. The section in her mouth, which was padded,
induced a filling, stuffy sensation and Mia felt hot in the face, and
stifled. More than ever she regretted having chosen such a cruelly
efficient gag. Why couldn't she have just tied a scarf in her mouth instead?
Snedley produced the polaroid camera once more and took several additional
photographs of the helpless woman. Mia looked on at his doings with a
feeling of remoteness from it all, and when he triumphantly held the
results close to her face she closed her eyes and wearily turned her head
away. Snedley chuckled. 'This little package will be landing on deVille's
doorstep today. Then there'll be some doings! You're potentially worth a
lot of money, honey. And you won't be going any place for quite a while,
crocodile. Not till I've had my cut.'
His cut? Were other people involved in her kidnapping aside from this
horrible man? Mia lifted her head and looked at Snedley wide-eyed, which
was all the emoting she could do in the circumstances.
Snedley interpreted her questioning gaze correctly. 'Oh yes, sweetie. It's
not only me. How could I afford a place like this on a chauffeur's wage? Oh
I admit the house is in need of repair, what the sales ads. call "good for
a handyman," or "potential for development." This little set-up
down here
is your own honest-to-goodness nuclear fallout shelter. The guy who owns
this place is loaded.' Snedley stopped abruptly, realising, Mia guessed,
that he had said too much. 'Anyhoo, that's enough said. It doesn't concern
you anyway. You're just a convenient little pawn, a bargaining chip. A
stuck-up little bitch who just wandered into the right place at the right
time.' A strangled sob escaped through Mia's gag, coming suddenly like a
hiccough and surprising her. Snedley went on. 'You've got a few hours of
quiet thinking ahead of you, deary. I won't be back from the big city till
late. When I do get back, I might just give you something to eat, and
drink.' Mia had not eaten since the dinner with Miles the night before her
capture. With a mocking bow, Snedley left the room, in his hand the small
package of photographic prints illustrating Mia's plight. The key turned in
its lock once more with a suggestion of finality.
During the first few minutes after Snedley's departure, Mia struggled
frantically in her bonds, desperate to have the gag out of her mouth. It
was too tight. Opening her mouth wider had no effect, neither did biting on
the padded leather give her any relief. She felt smothered. The only
movement she could make to any degree was to shake her head, but all she
succeeded in doing was to disarray the topknot of hair and loosen the pink
ribbon that held it. Her hair was not all that became disarrayed. In her
struggles the silk blouse popped its third and fourth buttons, exposing the
lacy sheer bra beneath. Her wrists ground against each other in a useless
effort to work free from the cord and tape combination, and her arms
strained so hard against the ties just above each elbow that one silk
sleeve of her blouse was ripped, the red material blending with a thin
streak of blood. Her fingers fluttered uselessly.
Mia found herself whimpering continually in short strangled gusts of
smothered breath, unable to stop herself from attempting to vocalise. 'Mph,
mph ... mph.' When she did manage a hopeless scream it did not come out
right. She could make only a thin wailing sound, a cry that remained locked
in her head. Tears pooled in her eyes and her breath came in short,
shuddering exhalations as she fought to control the pain of the gag and the
constrictions around her body.
Eventually Mia learned to relax in her bonds as she had done in the trunk
of the car, only it was more difficult sitting up in the chair. If she
slumped forward, her body pulled on the ropes, especially at her arms, with
a pressure that became insupportable. Struggling did not help. It only
exacerbated her plight. In the end, she found a compromise. She rested her
head on the back of the chair, closed her eyes against the harsh light of
the room, and relaxed as far as she was able. Her head ached abominably.
She tried not to think about her dry mouth and aching jaw. Perhaps it would
have been worse, she speculated, if that pad of silk was not there. At
least it prevented the corners of her mouth from being cut by the sharp
band of leather. But after an hour of sitting in this way even the silk
padding could not prevent the painful chafing of her mouth against the
leather gag. There was no clock in the room. She had no idea of the time
outside her prison. Later Mia could not believe that she had managed to
survive the ordeal.
By the time Snedley returned to the tumbledown house, Mia was barely
conscious. She scarcely noticed the ropes drop from her arms and wrists or
that the gag was finally removed, or that she was dumped onto the old
mattress in the corner of the room, her legs still tied together. Snedley
worked with cold efficiency to bring the young woman round, rubbing her
limbs and slapping her face. He grinned at the sight of Mia's open blouse
and cupped her breasts several times, until through the combination of
rough massage and intimate touching Mia groaned and opened her eyes. 'Wakey
wakey, mademoiselle Chantal,' Snedley crooned mockingly. 'No sleeping on
the job. You're a precious kidnap victim.' The girl cringed from her
captor, revolted by his touch.
Mia's wrists were again bound behind her, then she was propped sitting
against the wall. Next, Snedley held a large glass of water to her lips and
allowed her to drink her fill. Then he force-fed her from a tin of baked
beans, spooning the stuff into her mouth. This was all done step by cold
clinical step. There was no sign of caring in Snedley's treatment of her.
The meal was bland, and cold, but it was the first food Mia had eaten in
twenty-four hours and she finished it gratefully.
'You can have an hour to clean up,' Snedley grunted, 'before I prepare you
for the night.' Mia could scarcely believe that she was going to be free of
the hateful bonds. As she stammered a 'Thank you,' Snedley leaned behind
her and freed her wrists. But he left her to unfasten by herself the ropes
binding her legs. He seemed to like doing that sort of thing, she noted,
first with the tape over her mouth, now with her bound legs. With shaking
and almost numb fingers, Mia managed to free herself and walk haltingly to
the bathroom. She prepared a hot bath and luxuriated in it, massaging her
arms, legs and body from a small bottle of baby oil she found in a
cupboard. By the time she dried herself with a soft fluffy towel - one of
her own, she noticed - she felt almost human again.
When Mia stepped into the adjoining bedroom, her hair tied up in a pink
scarf worn as an Alice head band, she found that Snedley had laid out on
the bed one of her most glamorous nightgowns. It was a silk number,
gossamer black with floating translucent panels and a long waist tie in
black satin. Mia shuddered at the thought of Snedley touching it with his
paws, but she saw that if she continued showing signs of cooperation it was
just possible that the awful fellow would treat her a little better. But
she had to admit that her theory about humoring kidnappers had not worked
on Snedley with much success. The day's torture attested to that: bound to
the chair with the incredibly tight gag choking her. It remained vivid in
her mind. It would take more than half an hour soaking in the bath to wash
away that memory! But Mia still hoped that an opportunity to break away
from the horrible place would present itself.
She heard the key turn in the lock and again Mia was confronting her
captor. The look on Snedley's face made her quail inwardly with revulsion,
and as he approached her, a length of cord in his hands, he actually
drooled. 'Let's get it over with,' Mia thought to herself - she was
terrified to say anything in case she unwittingly sparked his anger - and
she turned and offered her hands behind her back. That action was becoming
depressingly familiar to her. At the same time, Mia presented herself
falteringly, which was not hard to do. She was still exhausted from being
trussed up to the chair and gagged all day.
As she felt Snedley wind the cord around her wrists, Mia wondered whether
playing the part of a weak woman held captive was not in fact working on
Snedley - at last - for the cord was snugged firmly but not too tight, and
it was bound in only the one direction much as it had been before. 'If he
tapes my wrists, though,' she thought, 'there'll be no escape!' Mia held
her breath. She was led to one of the chairs by the bed, ordered gruffly to
sit, and had an unappetising view of Snedley's hair from above as he knelt
and bound her ankles together. He tied her feet side by side, cinching the
cord between her ankles. But he had not chosen to do that with her wrists.
Snedley rose, regarded her a moment, then walked into the outer room. Mia
prayed that he was not going to the drawer where he kept his bondage
equipment, and she listened anxiously for any sound that would suggest he
was at the cupboard. But he returned almost immediately, a medium-length
satin scarf of Mia's own in his hand plus a black scarf still folded into a
neatly pressed rectangle. Snedley placed the small scarf on the bed while
he tied a knot in the center of the satin scarf. Then, taking the black
silk rectangle and folding it into a neat square pad, the man leaned over
Mia and stuffed the satin knot into her mouth, cushioning the edges of the
knot with the silk pad which went in too. Pad and knot now filled the front
of Mia's mouth. The strip of satin was bound around the girl's cheeks to
the back of her head over her hair and tied very tightly. Her mouth was
neatly plugged with cloth, but this was a light gag by comparison with what
she had suffered under during the day. She shook her head from side to side
and mumphed with what she hoped was a satisfactory display of helplessness.
The truth was that a gag tied OVER her hair might be loosened with the
right sort of struggling. She tried not to show the sudden hope that had
entered her heart. That was not difficult since he gag masked a lot of her
facial expressions.
Snedley threw open the bed sheets and lifted Mia in his arms.
'Nighty-night, mademoiselle,' he chuckled. 'You'll be nice and secure like
this for the morning I trust. Otherwise, if I find you've interfered with
your gag or anything like that, you'll be very sorry.' With that threat, he
tucked her in and withdrew, turning down the lamp in her room but leaving
the lights ablaze in the outer room, the door between both rooms left ajar.
Mia lay on her side, her arms tied behind her, ankles together, her head on
the pillow. She did not try to fight the gag in her mouth. Instead she
watched and listened. Where did Snedley go to spend the night himself? Was
he somewhere else in the ruined house, or did he take off for some more
comfortable place? And was Snedley alone, or did he have accomplices? He
had said, 'I'll get ny cut.' What did that mean? Had Miles received the
package that contained the photographs of her bound and gagged? Was she
worth a stiff reward, or would Miles wipe his hands of the business and
leave her to her fate? One thing Mia was sure of was that, given time, she
had the best opportunity so far of getting free. Her hands were not tied
stringently and she felt almost certain that with a lot of careful effort
she could work them free. The same went for her gag. But it was not too
uncomfortable, and she resolved to concentrate on the ties at her wrists,
when she was relatively sure that Snedley would not make a sudden
reappearance.
Chapter Four