Simone watched apprehensively, her heart fluttering, as Madame emerged from the bathroom and walked towards her. The Lady in Black was holding something in her hand. When she came closer, Simone saw that it was a dispenser of medical adhesive tape, the white kind. The woman clicked the roll from its can. It must be at least two inches wide, thought Simone, at least as wide as the duct tape that had been used on her earlier.

Madame laughed softly at the look of dismay on Simone’s face as she held the roll of tape in front of the bound girl’s eyes. ‘There’s no need to be too worried, Dearie. This won’t be applied fiercely. One piece will be sufficient, if you behave yourself. I only want to discourage noise. Gosh, it’s nine o’clock already.’

‘I- I’ll do what you want. Please don’t hurt me.’

It was all Simone could think of saying. The hot bath had done wonders for her body, but her mind had not recovered from the previous night’s ordeal, and being trussed rigidly into the chair did not help matters.

‘Is that all you can say for yourself? Of course we shan’t hurt you. But we will keep you uncomfortable and so very helpless and vulnerable while you’re our guest. Your bonds will be always as tight as they are now, though not as overstated. Now if you accept this seal on your lips without trying to get it off, things will be well for you. A single piece of tape won’t hurt. I’ll take care when I pull it off later. And you’re used to breathing through your nose. Of course, if you’re going to be troublesome I can always ask Dougie to apply the duct tape. That way we’ll be completely certain that all you can do is hum.’

Simone shook her head, her soft dark hair swaying across her shoulders. ‘No, please ... I’ll do as you say ... Get it over with.’

The young woman closed her eyes and tilted her head back, presenting her sweet face to her tormenter. She heard the sound of the tape as Madame tore off a strip. A moment later the sticky cloth was strapped neatly over her pursed lips and Madame’s strong fingers kneaded it for long moments to make it adhere smoothly to every pore of her skin. The working of the older woman’s fingers became a caress. When she was satisfied that the tape held fast, Madame allowed her attention to wander as she ran her fingers through Simone’s hair.

‘Don’t take it so hard, Sweetie,’ she murmured at the sight of tears glistening in her prisoner’s eyes. ‘You’re in good hands.’

‘Mmm?’

‘Try to rest. Dougie is in the other room, and I will be, later. One of us will hear if you make any noise, and if you do ... well I’d advise strongly against it!’

Simone shook her head to indicate that she would remain quiet.

‘Be sure you do,’ said Madame sternly as she left the room, closing the door behind her. A key snicked in the lock.

Simone was alone in the bedroom of an apartment somewhere in the city. She had no idea where they were holding her. She was trussed so tightly into the chair that she could not move. The single piece of tape had already become like a second skin. She moved her jaw experimentally. The tape pulled at her lips and it hurt when she tried harder. It would be agonising to peel off if she tried seriously. She quietened her breathing and attempted to make herself as comfortable as her bonds allowed.

Four slow hours of enforced inactivity followed, watching the morning pass punctuated by the shifting of shadows through the window. From time to time she heard distant vehicles, even people’s voices. And at rare intervals the sound of footsteps passed as people entered and left the residential block to which the apartment belonged.

Simone found something new about her situation. It was boring to have to sit bound and gagged for hours. It was not only her helplessness. That threatened to get to her from time to time. It was not only the discomfort, as Madame had put it, of aching limbs and numbed buttocks and legs. It was also the lack of sensory stimulation. All she could do was watch and listen to the bedside clock as it measured out the passing of time in niggardly doses.

At least she could see and hear. It would be worse if she was sealed in a box or locked in a dark closet. She would be screaming and whimpering, just as she had done in the box in the early hours of the morning. Being tied up was bad enough. Simone wondered what the word was for the fear of being tied up. Another word with phobia on the end she guessed.

As the hours passed, Simone wriggled from time to time, trying somehow to lessen the hugging grip of the ropes on her body. Gradually some of the knots tightened and became fractionally smaller, with a roll-on effect of a little slackening of the cords around her torso and her thighs. However, this made no difference to her wrist, arm and ankle bonds. They remained utterly intransigent. Not did it mean that she had much extra room to move in the chair.

The only really tangible result was that the hem of her single garment slipped from beneath the cords around her thighs as they slackened, and rode up higher. There was no one to witness, and her legs were tightly trussed together, but Simone felt embarrassingly exposed without her panties. What dismayed her most when she looked down at herself was to see that her wriggling within the cords had made part of the lacy top of her single garment shift to expose the nipple of her left breast. More than that, the cool of the air conditioning and the caress of the lace had teased both nipples erect. There was no one to see her, yet, but the thought that they would discover her deshabille made her flushed and hot around her neck and cheeks. No amount of wriggling could cover her. It only made it worse.

At last the door opened - it was just after one o’clock - and Madame entered. She walked over to Simone and stood looking down at the girl, tapping a cigarette against the gold case then expertly inserting it into the long holder. Simone turned her head away, but not to avoid the smoke. A match struck and flared. Madame pursed her lips around the end of the cigarette holder in a sardonic smile.

On her exhalation she said softly, ‘I see you’ve got yourself into quite a fix. Don’t imagine I’m going to help you out of it.’ It was in fact one of Madame’s purposes in requiring Simone to wear such a flimsy undergarment and she was secretly gratified.

Lazily Madame reached across, took Simone’s exposed nipple between forefinger and thumb, and gave it a sharp tweak.

‘Mmmph.’

‘Just as I thought. That single piece of tape allows too much noise. Dougie and I are going out to see to the proceeds of our little heist, and you will have to remain very quiet until we get back.’

Simone’s heart quailed. She was uncomfortable enough after sitting for four hours trussed with cord and with her mouth sealed. Now she knew she was going to be gagged more thoroughly. She watched distractedly as Madame left the room. When the woman returned a moment later she was holding something leathery with straps dangling from it. Simone’s eyes widened in alarm.

‘I found just the thing when I took a stroll to the city centre. It was Dougie’s turn on duty in the living room. The second Adult shop I visited had this little number.’ She held it up but Simone could not identify what it was. ‘I’ll demonstrate. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.’

Madame took a pace forward then stopped and inspected Simone’s taped mouth thoughtfully. ‘You know, Dear, I don’t think one piece of tape will do for this new situation. No indeed!’

The Lady in Black, Madame cast the leathery thing onto the bed and walked to the suitcase from which she had selected Simone’s silk slip that morning. She rummaged about among the other filmy underthings that almost overflowed from it until, with a little cry of triumph, she produced something black that caught the light with its lustrous texture. She returned to Simone, shaking out in her right hand a lace-edged pair of silk panties. ‘More from the French collection, new and, above all, clean,’ she said. ‘Think yourself lucky that you’re not wearing any! They’re the baggy kind, so they’ll fill your mouth nicely.’

With a quick movement, she stripped the piece of tape from Simone’s mouth. The young woman’s lips parted in a faint cry at the stinging pain, and the bunched up panties were immediately stuffed between her teeth.

‘Close your mouth!’ Madame snatched up the roll of medical adhesive tape from the bedside table and spread a fresh strip of the wide sticky material over Simone’s lips, kneading it slowly and gently into place as she had done before. She added a second strip. It was a little longer than the first and was smoothed out over Simone’s cheeks with the same sensual care.

Simone gagged on the wadded silk. It seemed to fill her whole mouth. She worked desperately with her tongue to press it to the back of her teeth. While she was doing this, Madame continued with her original intention.

The thing with straps that Madame now retrieved from the bed turned out to be a soft leather pad, quite thick, that neatly covered the lower part of Simone’s face. It was held in place by a single strap around the girl’s cheeks to the back of her neck, where it was buckled tightly over her hair. An additional strap covered the bridge of her nose - separating to either side of her nostrils to allow breathing - up over her head and down again to another buckle on the neck strap. A third strap passed across the girl’s forehead and around her temples where it was buckled firmly at the back of her head. Simone’s head and face were now encased in what felt like a network of straps and the pad was very tight over her mouth and jaw. It partly extended beyond the tip of her chin. Simone shook her head from side to side but the whole frightening arrangement felt as though it was welded on.

‘This is a half-mask,’ explained Madame. ‘It’s more of a muffler than a gag, but really there’s very little difference in it’s effect, especially with your mouth packed and your lips already sealed. I’m sure it will muffle that sound you made earlier.’

Madame gently peeled back the lace that barely covered Simone’s other breast and, in a repeat of her earlier test, gave that nipple a sharp tweak.

‘Mmmmm.’

‘Better. Almost perfect. Dougie, come see my handiwork. You’ll be pleased, in more ways than one!’

Douglas entered from the living room, in his hand a book of poetry he had been reading, and walked to Madame’s side where he stood and surveyed their prisoner with bulging eyes. Simone looked up at her two captors, her face red as a beetroot and with tears of humiliation glistening in her eyes.

‘Like what you see, Dougie?’

‘Yers,’ came the reply, as unreadable as ever.

‘Not to be violated, however. Touch but do not violate. Understand?’

‘Yers.’

My god, what are they going to do to me? thought Simone, now thoroughly frightened.

‘We’re leaving,’ said the woman. ‘But we must take one more step to reduce noise. Dougie, please do the honours while I check on the merchandise.’ She handed a black cloth of some kind to Douglas and left the room.

‘Righty-ho, Dearie. This an’t goin’ to hurt. Hold still! Strugglin’ won’t do yer no good. Resistance is useless.’

The dark cloth in the man’s hand was a hood of strong-textured silk. It was pulled over Simone’s head and face, enclosing her in darkness and making breathing difficult. She shook her head from side to side, more in reaction than with any real thought that she could get it off. She became aware that Douglas was bending over her. His voice against her ear came muffled through the thick silk.

‘Only a few more hours, Love, then we’ll give yer some relief.’

For about a minute Douglas’s hands cupped, caressed and squeezed Simone’s breasts. Then, astonishingly, she felt the thin lace of her slip being pulled up and adjusted to cover her breasts once more. Next, the silk hem was pulled down and patted neatly over her thighs in an ineffective attempt to cover them. The slick silk slid back over the cords almost to where the hem had been before.

‘Nice ... Nice.’ Douglas’s hands rested for a moment on each of her thighs.

Then all became quiet. She heard and felt nothing, and after a few minutes had passed she realised she must now be alone.

Simone lifted her head, and in an excess of misery tried to call for help as loudly as she could.

‘Hmmmmmmm hmmm.’

The panties filling half her mouth, the tape sealing her lips, the covering leather pad immobilising her jaws, and the silk hood occluding her head and face kept her utterly mute.

This is certainly how to keep a woman quiet, Simone thought with a grudging admiration for the pains and attention to detail that Madame and Dougie were taking to render her always helpless.

*

It was not as bad as being folded up inside the padded box. Simone could still hear the street sounds. They came from a distance, muted by the thick layer of silk that covered her ears. She could hear the distant roar of the traffic and sometimes a scattered shout from a passer-by when she kept her head still. For whenever she moved her head the material of the hood brushing across made a crinkling sound that blocked out all the outside noises.

But the hood itself was distressing. It sealed out all light and made breathing difficult, especially as she could breathe only through her nose. The strips of tape over her mouth were so tight that she had no way of working them loose. Each time her lips strained against the sticky stuff the pain forced her to stop. In any case, very small movements of her jaws were all that the covering leather half-mask permitted. The tight soft band of leather and the straps around her cheeks and head that held it firmly in place virtually immobilised her lower face.

During the first few minutes after she knew that she was alone, Simone attempted to call for help as loudly as she could through her closed mouth.

‘’Mmmm mlmph.’

The result was not reassuring. Even to her own ears, when any noise she made appeared loud, the attempt came out muffled and distorted.

For the thousandth time, Simone’s fingers stretched and searched fruitlessly for a saving knot. But her wrist bonds were as tight and uncompromising as when Madame had first bound her that morning. The cord barely allowed for circulation. Her fingers always tingled, and if she struggled for any length of time or made fists with her hands they became numb. A sensation of coldness and tingling had slowly moved up her forearms that, together with her shoulders, were now aching unmercifully. It was impossible to remain comfortable, bound so stiffly to attention in the chair.

All Simone could do was wait in an agony of suspense for the return of Madame and Douglas. From time to time the young woman lost all hope and sobbed quietly. The silk clung stickily to her face and, with the tears, made her fight for every breath. The packing in her mouth made her fear that she would choke at any moment. Her face was hot. Her neck and the rest of her body grew cold, however, as the sweat slowly dried under the air conditioning whenever she ceased her struggles. Her slip remained damp with sweat and clung to every curve, making her shiver violently. Although it was impossible to get free by struggling, Simone found that if she renewed her struggles her body became a little warmer, until she had to stop as her hands began to grow numb again.

She was glad that Dougie had covered her breasts and attempted to smooth out the hem of her slip. He was a meticulous, tidy and somewhat prissy man. Was it gallantry that he had acted in that way, or was he just a wimp? Simone’s body told her the answer. Her breasts still felt as though they had the imprints of his fingers on them. Dougie was also a lecher. And she had to admit to herself that, against all common sense and her natural revulsion, her body betrayed her. She had begun to respond to his touch.

It was the same with Madame, thought Simone with growing alarm. The woman’s fingers in her hair, the gentle kneading of the tape over her mouth that was then communicated to the rest of her face, even Madame’s soft authoritative voice, had made Simone respond. There was something reassuring in knowing that although she was being held a prisoner, and expected to spend most of her time bound and gagged, no real harm was going to befall her. If the ropes were not so tight, and if the gag was not so breath taking, Simone thought that she might almost enjoy being bound. It was an astonishing revelation. Maybe being gagged and trussed up like a chicken forces me to confront some things in my psychology that I scarcely dare admit to myself, Simone mused.

Those thoughts began to lead in another direction. What if ..., said Simone to herself, what if I cooperated with them, offered to do things for them? Little things in exchange for captive favours like not being bound quite so tightly or gagged and blindfolded. And Simone knew too that if the chance presented itself - if she could win their confidence enough to lead them to get a little careless - she would try to escape. It was after all a prisoner’s duty to attempt to escape whenever possible. One had to be realistic.

These ideas made Simone feel a little more confident in what was at the moment a situation over which she had no control. But to get back a little free will ...

Simone was startled out of her reverie by the sound of a door slamming open. They were back, and she could feel that one of them was bending over her.

‘How’s our lovely prisoner, Dougie?’ called Madame from the other room.

‘Yer. She’s okay,’ the man grunted, his hands checking over Simone’s bonds and her body at the same time with the familiarity she was beginning to expect from him. ‘Her slip’s slipped again!’

‘Good.’ Madame sounded as though she was in the room with them now. ‘We’ll give you a little respite from your bonds, Sweetie. Dougie, be a dear and get those ropes off our young lady while I remove her gag.’

With all the impedimenta removed, Simone sagged from the chair to the floor like a rag doll, coughing and with tears seeping from beneath eyelids squeezed shut against the sudden light. Her fall was intercepted by Douglas, who lifted her easily and laid her upon the bed. Madame massaged Simone’s arms vigorously while Douglas held a glass of cool water to the girl’s lips. Gradually Simone revived until she was looking up at her two captors. Douglas’s face was unreadable as usual. Madame in Black was wearing a long diaphanous white scarf round her throat. It added a further touch of class but scarcely broke the austere image. Her face was composed, but with just a trace of annoyance showing at the corners of her mouth.

‘Don’t say, "Thank you," my dear. Any speaking is unnecessary, as I’ve said before. You will be given another bathroom break, and something to eat.’

Simone nodded. The bedside clock showed the time was almost eight. She had been bound and gagged all afternoon, for seven hours. She licked her lips. She must take the risk and speak soon, try to ingratiate herself with Madame who was clearly as hard as nails. But how could she do that while under the threat to remain silent?

Madame turned to Douglas, ‘Sounds travel more easily after dark. We shall have to take extra precautions. She must be gagged more stringently when we prepare her for the night.’