Sarah Miles was within a week of her 19th birthday and had answered the advertisement for a weekend gardener in the local paper, so that she could get some experience before she went to horticultural college later that year. All her friends from school had taken a long break and gone trekking in Thailand, but Sarah was an only child and had been raised in an orphanage, so she could not afford the several thousand pounds that her friends planned to spend on their half year in Thailand.
The gardening job entailed spending the Saturday and Sunday in Esher, some 50 miles from her flat in Godstone. She didn't mind staying the weekend because Miss Jones, the owner of the house had offered her accommodation overnight and was paying her well for a long day's work.
Miss Jones was a divorced lady of some substantial means who lived in a huge house on the outskirts of Esher. She was stunningly attractive, with long blond hair, perfect features and a tanned and well toned body.
The garden and grounds of her home were walled in for privacy and were extensive, with different sections of the garden given over to different styles of planting. Wooden benches, trellises, ladders and tables were liberally dotted around the garden, adding to the tranquil English scene.
Sarah's initial interview the week before had gone well.
Miss Jones was slim and very attractive, with a ready smile and stunning legs. She had received Sarah in the sun drenched conservatory of the house, overlooking the extensive grounds. Over glasses of cool lemonade, Miss Jones had pointed out the various aspects of the garden and explained what needed doing. Miss Jones was a great host and soon they were talking about Sarah's ambitions, her past and her upbringing.
That was last week, however; and Sarah now knelt at the flowerbed beneath the conservatory, one eye on the roses she was trying to prune, and the other on the lissome shape of Mrs Jones draped over a recliner on the patio.
Miss Jones was wearing cotton shorts and a white silk blouse open at the neck, which was tight where her breasts swelled and tented the silky fabric with large brown nipples. Her long blond hair was wrapped in a clearly very expensive white silk head scarf, which was tied in the style that Grace Kelly had made so popular.
"To protect my hair from the sun, darling," she had said earlier on, as she saw Sarah wondering why a scarf was necessary on such a hot day.
Miss Jones looked gorgeous, and Sarah wondered again what line of business she was in that allowed her to live in such luxury. At her neck was a large red silk scarf tied in a cravat around her neck, which shimmered as the lustrous material caught the sun. For some reason Sarah could not take her eyes off the vision of beauty that adorned the patio.
Sarah had never had a boyfriend, despite her good looks. Although not a classic beauty, she had gleaming blue eyes, an elfin like face with high cheekbones, framed by shoulder length silky blond hair and a smile that won people over. Her body was toned by sport and swimming and she had no shortage of admirers from the male students at the college. She had always told herself that there would be time for that when she left college. If she was honest with herself, she had never really been interested in men, and wondered from time to time if she might be a lesbian. The thought crossed her mind again as she suddenly realised that Miss Jones had noticed her staring.
"Sarah. Why don't you take a break and come up and share some lemonade with me? You look very hot and sweaty down there."
"Thank you, Miss Jones. I'd like that", she said, as she got to her feet and walked over to the patio.
"Sit down and have a glass of this", her hostess invited, "and do call me Stephanie. It's so very formal calling me Miss Jones. There will be a time for that later."
Sarah wondered what she meant by that last remark, but took the proffered glass and perched on the edge of a wooden patio chair, all slats and brass fittings.
"I notice that you have been watching me while you dig. Is there anything wrong, Sarah?"
Sarah was embarrassed at being found out. "No, not at all. In fact, I think you are terrific," and struggling to find something to compliment her on, blurted out, "And I think your scarf and cravat suit you perfectly."
"Why thank you, Sarah", said Stephanie, pretending not to notice her discomfiture. "Let me show it to you".
She raised her hands behind her head and carefully untied the knot holding the silk square in place, allowing the exotic material to fall forward and frame her perfect face. Her long natural blond hair, unbound from the confines of the rich silk, fell freely about her shoulders. Drawing the scarf off her head she handed the white silk to Sarah.
"It's a Hermes scarf from Paris, and one of my favourites. Do you like the feel of it?"
Sarah fondled the rich silk twill between her fingers and noted how smooth and cool the silk was to the touch.
"Yes, indeed, Stephanie, it is a beautiful scarf." Sarah started to feel a little uncomfortable and disoriented, and so took another large drink of the cool lemonade. Perhaps it was the combination of being in the hot sun and the cool lemonade, she thought to herself.
"Good. I'm glad that you like it because I have a little idea. I need to show you the room you will be sleeping in tonight; but I think I have had enough of you ogling me for the moment, so I think it might be quite fun if I led you through the house as if we were playing blind mans bluff... Don't you?"
Sarah was not sure what Stephanie was talking about but was not about to disappoint her hostess, "However you wish, Stephanie, I am just very grateful for the offer of accommodation tonight".
"Good. There is only one slight problem. Your coveralls are caked in soil and my deep pile carpets will get covered in dirt. Why don't you slip your clothes off out here, and you can put them on again when we come back down? Its OK. No-one will see you; we're very secluded here".
Sarah felt a slight stirring at this turn of events and thought that she should be concerned at the turn of events. Surprisingly, though, she wasn't concerned, and something in her head told her that she just wanted to please this vision of beauty who was her host and her employer.
Dropping the white silk scarf in a pool of liquid silk on the table, she stood up and pulled apart the poppers on her green coveralls and slipped out of them to reveal her bra and a pair of green silk thong panties underneath. She was wearing nothing else due to the heat of the summer day, and knew that she should be feeling self conscious in front of this formidable woman. Again, somewhat surprisingly, she realised that her inhibitions were being kept at bay.
Stephanie watched the girl stripping off and smiled inwardly to herself - everything was going exactly as planned!.
"Splendid Sarah. Now, why don't I blindfold you and we can go inside."
As Sarah had been removing her soiled clothes, Stephanie had been folding the white Hermes into a band of rich silk about five inches wide. She picked it up and went to stand behind Sarah, who just stood meekly still as Stephanie lifted the folded scarf over her head, and pulled it gently but firmly against the contours of her face. The width of the bandage meant that it covered most of her face, from high on her forehead to just above her lips.
As Stephanie pulled on the ends of the scarf, Sarah's nose was buried in the rich silk, and she breathed in the delicate but intoxicating perfume that Stephanie had been wearing. She began to feel a little embarrassed by this strange turn of events but felt it was too far down the road to complain to her host.
The scarf was knotted once, and pulled tighter than Sarah had anticipated at the back of her neck. Stephanie then took the loose ends back in front of her face and tied them in a further tight knot just above the bridge of her nose.
Sarah could now see absolutely nothing, and was finding breathing more difficult as the rich silk was sucked into her nose each time she breathed in. It was a very effective blindfold and muffler, Sarah realised, far more effective than was needed for a game of blind man's bluff, she thought.
"There! You look just splendid. Let me lead you by the hand so you don't fall over. We wouldn't want you to do that just yet, would we?"
Sarah was yet again surprised by Stephanie's turn of phrase, but grasped the warm delicate hand as she felt Stephanie's fingers firmly entwine in hers and allowed herself to be led in through the French doors.
As they moved slowly through the house, she could feel the thick pile of the carpet beneath her feet, and the cool air-conditioning which prevented the thick silk bandage across her face from getting too hot.
"Here we are", said Stephanie some minutes, and two flights of stairs, later. "This is your room. I'm glad you like silk because all of my bedding is made of the very finest Chinese silk".
Stephanie guided Sarah forward, so that she could sit on the edge of the King-size iron bed that dominated the room. The bed was made up with shimmering white silk sheets and pillow cases, and the ornate cast-iron decoration and bars of the frame set off the plainly decorated room very effectively.
Sarah felt the cool silk on her backside as Stephanie guided her to sit on the edge of the bed, and she raised her hands to untie the blindfold so that she could see the room where she was to spend the night.
"No, Sarah. Please leave that on for a moment. You clearly enjoy the feel of silk. Why don't you just lay down for a moment and luxuriate in the feel of the sheets. Sensations are so much more sensitive when you can't see, don't you think?"
Sarah wasn't sure, but seemed to have lost the will to reason things out, so she lay down on the bed and, with no vision at all from behind the thick silk bandage that blindfolded and muffled her face, manoeuvred herself into what she took to be the centre of the King-size bed.
"There, that's better. Let me draw the sheets around you a bit so that you will get a feel for what it's like to be snuggled up later on tonight."
Sarah wasn't at all sure where this was leading, and she felt distinctly uneasy about the turn of events, but the feel of the cool silk on her skin was tremendously sensuous, and she was reluctant to spoil the moment with a crass question, so she lay still, with her arms to her side, as Stephanie took one side of the white silk sheet and folded it across her body before tucking the ends in tightly beneath her. She then repeated the process with the other side of the sheet before securely tucking in any of the loose silk. The sheet reached up to Sarah's neck, and Stephanie wrapped the voluminous silk around her neck several times.
"Just to make sure you are snug," she said, as she finished the wrapping at the neck and moved to Sarah's feet. Here, she wrapped her feet securely in the swathes of silk and folded the excess underneath her body. In no more than about a minute, she had expertly mummy-wrapped Sarah in the huge white silk sheet, and she stood back to survey her handiwork.
"There Sarah, how does that feel?"
"I love the feeling, Miss Jones", she said reverting to her full title in recognition of her somewhat compromising and embarrassing position, "but I don't think I can move now."
"Really!" Stephanie exclaimed, turning to a side table on which was piled a large selection of richly coloured silk scarves, some of which were already folded in to bandages of varying widths and lengths. "Well, isn't that interesting?"
Taking two of the long frefolded scarves she reached up to Sarah's neck and swiftly tied one of the scarves over the folds of silk sheet bunched around Sarah's neck, thus ensuring that the cocoon she had made could not unravel. Before Sarah had a chance to exclaim or to ask what was going on, Miss Jones had moved to the foot of the bed, and done the same at her feet with the second scarf, binding it tightly around her swathed ankles, to ensure that the cocoon remained in place.
"What are you doing, Miss Jones? I think I would like to get back to the gardening now, if that's OK."
"No it's not OK; it's not OK at all." Stephanie's voice had suddenly taken on a workmanlike and frightening new edge. "That's the last gardening you are going to be doing for a very long time."
"I expect you wonder why I have tied you up on my bed. Well, let me tell you. As you can see from the excellent state of the garden, you are not the first gardener I have had. I only recruit female gardeners, and only pretty ones like you. Most of them don't stay very long. I normally sack those that have families or people to look out for them within the first week or so. Quite a few others, however, who won't be missed too much if they disappear, are now serving their masters and mistresses in Thailand. You see, my dear, I am both an entrepreneur at heart, and what you might describe as a "white slave trader", by profession. How else do you think I could afford such a wonderful existence?"
Sarah could not believe what she was hearing. "You must be having me on," she said in a not altogether convincing way, her voice tremulous and muffled behind the thick silk bandage that was bound across her face. "I think you had better let me go now or my friends will call the police".
"Ahh! but I think not," said Stephanie. "You made it quite clear on your initial interview that you were alone and that your friends have gone to Thailand for several months. I don't think anyone will be missing you for a very long time, young lady."
Stephanie knew what would come next - it always did. She quickly unknotted her red silk cravat and pulled it from around her neck, shaking out the folds and balling the silk up in her hand. Before Sarah finally began to fully appreciate the meaning of her words, and opened her mouth to scream for help, Stephanie leant over the white silk-swathed mummy that was Sarah, and tightly gripped her nose under the silk blindfold with finger and thumb, cutting off her main source of air.
Sarah immediately started to struggle and opened her mouth wide to suck in much needed air. Stephanie, with an ease that came from much practice, waited until Sarah's mouth was at its widest and then swiftly crammed the wadded silk scarf packing deep into Sarah's mouth, poking it firmly into every corner of her mouth. Only when the last corner of red silk had disappeared into her mouth did she release her grip on Sarah's nose, allowing her to draw in what air she could through her silk-covered nose.
Sarah's silk-wrapped body bounced about on the bed and muffled sounds of fear and terror came from beneath the gag.
"Stop your pathetic snivelling and snuffling," Stephanie said with a sneer. "If you stop bouncing around, you'll be able to breathe easier. And don't think I am going to take it out if you choke. When I gag my captives they stay gagged!"
As she made her chilling comment, she took a thick rolled white silk scarf from a pile on the dressing table, tied two large knots in the centre, one on top of the other, and forced the large silken knot deep into Sarah's mouth, pushing the silk gag stuffing deeper towards the back of her mouth. She pulled it tight between Sarah's lips before lifting her silk swathed head and binding it tightly in place with a double knot behind her head.
"There. I think that will keep you quiet for a while. I will almost certainly need to add to your gag later, but we will see how we go first. Incidentally, you won't need your clothes again this weekend, and you won't be doing much gardening, either. You will be much too tied up for that".
With Sarah now starting to panic from the severe gagging, and the realisation that she had in some way been kidnapped by her employer, Stephanie set to work to secure Sarah to the bed. Before she did so, however, she stripped one of the white silk pillowcases from one of the full length pillows and pulled it down over Sarah's head like a hood. The oversized silk pillowcase slipped easily over the tightly wrapped silk sheet and she pulled it firmly down to below Sarah's waist, trapping her arms against her sides even more tightly than before, and completely enclosing her head and shoulders in a hood of the finest white silk.
Stephanie then took some long coils of soft white cotton rope from under the bed and proceeded to tightly wrap the mummified body in evenly-spaced tight coils of rope. Starting at Sarah's waist, she wrapped coils of rope around the silk-covered body, overlapping the coils to provide a clove hitch effect and pulling tight after each turn.
When she was left with about five feet of loose rope at each end of the coil, she attached the long loose ends to the brass rings at either side of the bed and hauled in firmly, so that the loops around Sarah's body tightened, squeezing her tight as it bound her firmly to the mattress. Each end was knotted at the brass hook on either side of the bed, ensuring that Sarah's body was firmly roped to the mattress and bed.
She repeated this process with a further five coils of rope, binding Sarah at ankles, knees, thighs, waist and chest, trapping her arms even tighter against her sides.
Satisfied that Sarah's body and the bed were now as one, she tied a final coil of rope around her ankles and secured them to the brass hook at the base of the bed frame.
The rope coils extended all the way up to Sarah's shoulders, binding her so severely that the only movement left was where her head disappeared under the muffling layers of the silk blindfold, gag and silk pillowcase hood. The very muffled sounds of anguish could barely be heard from the silk swathed head and Stephanie looked at her tightly-wrapped silken mummy with undisguised glee.
"Oh yes, my girl. This is just the beginning. You're going to be very sorry that you came to work for me, very sorry indeed!"
Sarah was starting to regain her senses, as the drugged lemonade started to wear off and her mind started to clear. As it did so came a feeling of impending panic. Only a few minutes ago she had been deadheading roses and minding her own business. Quite bizarrely, she was now a mummified, bound, gagged and hooded prisoner, of a woman who was quite clearly deranged.
"What have I done to deserve this", she thought to herself, as she tested the coils of constricting rope that seemed to bind her at every point. The cruelly applied gag, and the many layers of silk that covered her face was making it increasingly difficult to breath, and the silk itself was becoming damp as her efforts to breathe became more intense.
As she breathed in, the moist silk clung against her face, almost sealing her nose and only allowing a small amount of air to reach her bound body. As she exhaled, the silk ballooned away from her face, giving her a temporary respite, until all too quickly, as she tried to suck air into her lungs, the damp silk sealed her mouth and nose and the agonising cycle started once again.
Stephanie looked on with intense pleasure as the layers of white silk around Sarah's face inflated and then collapsed, the muffled rasping noise proof of the effectiveness of the gag she had applied. She adored placing her captives in severe and inescapable bondage, and over the years she had become increasingly proficient and inventive about the restraints she used. It was one of the aspects, along with the excellent financial rewards, that made slaving such an enjoyable pastime.
"Now that you are my bound captive", she said, in a voice loud enough for Sarah to hear through the layers of muffling silk, "let me explain a little more about your predicament, because I am sure that someone of your youth and innocence has only ever heard of the white slave trade in history books. Let me assure you that the trade is very much alive and well - I am living testament to that. There are still many rich men in far away countries who keep female slaves for their own perverted pleasure and will pay handsomely for young, nubile, white girls of your age".
At that point Sarah lost control completely.The panic that had been building up within her finally erupted, and she screamed through her gag, throwing herself manically against the ropes binding her to the bed in a superhuman and crazed attempt to free herself. Stephanie stopped talking and stod back to admire the show.
All her previous captives had panicked like this when they finally realised the predicament they were in. Stephanie's rope work however was designed both to accommodate this weakness and to punish the captive for having the temerity to try and escape her clutches. As a result, Sarah's frenzied struggling served only to tighten the already secure coils of rope binding her.
The struggling beneath the silken shroud continued for fully 30 seconds, much longer than with previous captives, and Sarah's muffled screams for help were much louder than those her previous captives had managed. Stephanie made a mental note that Sarah was quite a bit feistier than the rest and would require extra secure handling and a much tougher gagging and hooding regimen before she was moved again.
"I hope you are satisfied with your little fit of pique, my dear. It took you a ridiculously long time to realise that the more you struggle against the ropes, the tighter they get. I bet that inside all that hot silk your face is now flushed and damp with sweat after your little exertion. Of course, you will now find it even more difficult to breathe, as the silk gets wet and clings more closely to your face. You will also probably notice that the coils of rope constraining your body have also tightened considerably due to your bouncing around. Over the coming hours and days my dear, you will really come to regret that futile attempt to escape."
Sarah was exhausted and terrified. She slumped in her bonds, convinced that she would suffocate underneath the many layers of damp silk. The fight had gone out of her and she could only concentrate on sucking in the precious air as Stephanie continued talking.
"The fact that you have never had a boyfriend will be a particular attraction to my clients, as will your endearing features and blue eyes. They will enable me to travel first class on the cruise that we are both going to be taking to Thailand. They do say that ship board cabins are a bit like large boxes. Well, my dear, my box will be a huge first class suite on the sun deck whilst your box will, I am afraid, be just that: a wooden packing case, suitably padded and kept on the lower cargo deck, where you will be out of harm's way for the three weeks of the trip.
"You will spend most of your time in a cargo container deep in the hold. Every part of your body will be bound immovably inside an insulated wooden packing case, the foam padding formed to perfectly accept your body shape. You will, I am afraid need to be bound rather severely against the wooden supports of the case and you will be gagged, blindfolded, hooded and drugged. "
Sarah shuddered in horror at the implications of what Stephanie was saying. If she thought her situation was bad now, it was clearly about to become much worse. Her previous thrashing around on the bed had greatly tightened the ropes around her body, just as Stephanie had said they would, and she was starting to feel faint from the effort of breathing through the silk gag and hood, and the constriction of the ropes around her body.
Stephanie was now warming to her story and getting a buzz out of telling poor Sarah what lay in store for her. "Unfortunately for you my dear, the drugs will not be of the type that put you to sleep, but my colleagues, who you will come to know intimately, and dread their appearance, will be using a strong stimulant, laced with a muscle relaxant to prevent you moving your limbs.
"It is a cocktail of drugs I have developed myself, and though I say so myself I am quite proud of the dramatic effect they have. As a result of this cocktail, you will remain awake and completely alert for the whole of the first two weeks at sea, unable to sleep for more than a few seconds at a time, yet fully aware of the discomfort of your bondage and the true helplessness of your situation. To ensure your docility even further we will plug your ears with wax to keep the noise of the ship out, and you will very quickly lose all sense of time. It will undoubtedly be a very testing time for you, but it is for a very good reason: it is part of your induction to permanent slavery.
"By the time you reach Thailand your spirit will be broken and you will be ready for the auction block. You may not think so as you sit there struggling to breathe in your wooden prison, but your future masters are capable of much greater cruelty, and this will give you a taste of the way your life has changed forever."
Stephanie picked up the silk scarves and lengths of rope from the floor that she had not so far used on Sarah and placed them on the dressing table. She would certainly need them later when it came time to move her new slave, but for now tidiness was a good principle. It had after all allowed her to stay undetected all these years.
"You will be kept here for a few days, until the ship is ready to sail. I am afraid that most of that time will be spent as you are now, because I am going to have to go and make some arrangements for your embarkation. I hope you have learnt your lesson about struggling though. Your bondage is total, and one hundred percent secure. I suggest you just lie back and reflect on your situation, because there is no prospect of escape. I will speak to you later."
With that Stephanie turned and walked out into the hallway to start on a series of phone calls that would end in Sarah's entombment in a large wooden packing case and her transfer to a cruise ship docked in Southampton, ready for her three week voyage to Thailand.
She would not have been so complacent had she known what was passing through Sarah's mind at that moment. A steely determination was growing in Sarah. She was obstinate by nature and thoroughly determined when she set her mind to something. She had just promised herself that, whatever it took, she would escape from the clutches of mad Miss Jones and bring her and her cronies to justice. She did not quite know how yet, but she resolved that the planning of her escape would keep her sane on the long trip ahead. It was her one comforting thought, as the damp silk once more sucked against her mouth and nose, causing her to breathe as deeply as she could beneath the mummifying silk sheets that bound her so closely.
End of Part One