Kate Stuart had been bound and gagged and taken into the night, sandwiched between Sisters Faith and Hope into the backseat of a vintage Volvo stationwagon with Mother Grace driving.
They headed north out of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate, through Marin County and on into the green hills and valleys of Sonoma.
Wrapped up in one of the Convent's long, black leather capes that hid the strait jacket Glenna Jane Roper had let them borrow, Kate hummed with a growing frustration into the rubber ball that filled her mouth. Finally, Sister Faith – a zoftig nordic blonde – eased her head against her leathered breasts and stroked her long hair gently. Despite herself, Kate calmed down.
The Volvo finally came to a tall gate of wrought iron. Beyond the gate was a single lane dirt road that was surrounded by the ripe vineyards that had made the Sonama Valley famous the world over.
The gate opened mysteriously on silent hinges and the Volvo puttered through. It closed just as mysteriously behind them.
It was another long drive through the vineyards before they finally reached a sprawling, walled Spanish mission of white stucco and Spanish tile. The Volvo drove through the archway and into the large courtyard which was illuminated by flickering gaslights.
The first thing Kate saw that was out of place were the naked women in the courtyard who were being restrained in several pillories and sets of stocks. Two were being forced to stand with their wrists and neck through the locked halves of thick wood, while three others enjoyed the relative luxury of sitting on the ground with their feet in locked stocks and their hands tied behind their back.
All the women seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties, which seemed to fit with the mission statement of the Convent for Sequestered Girls; to discipline and teach maturity to girls who don't act their age... which still begged the question for Kate as to why she was here.
Kate was pulled out of the car and led by both elbows into the main building, where she promptly got lost in a maze of long. dark hallways and heavy wooden doors that were locked behind her.
Finally they stopped in room lined with leather robes, straps of various lengths, harnesses and gags. Kate was not heartened by the decor.
Hope was a robust looking black girl who unstrapped the ballgag, allowing Kate to work her jaw and lick her lips.
"I hope none of this stuff is meant for me," Kate said aloud.
Faith looked at Hope who shook her head and sighed. She grabbed Kate by a handful of her long, dark hair, and bent her over, holding her in place while Faith chose a wooden paddle and laid out three sudden and very hard smacks on Kate Stuart's well-padded hinder.
The first made her hiss. The second made her yelp. The third made her cry. Faith smiled and lifted her up by the hair, brought her up to face her and wipe away her tears with her thumb.
"Hush now, madchen," Faith said, speaking with a slight German accent. "That was for speaking out of turn. From now on you just speak when you're spoken to, understand?"
"Ye-yeeesh," Kate warbled as she flexed her hips and tried to ride out the burn on her buns.
"Good girl." Faith kissed her on the lips and hugged her.
"You not gonna do anything dumb if'n we let you outta this jacket, are you?" Hope asked her.
"No... I won't try to escape," Kate replied. "Honest."
"Uh huh." Hope looked at her dubiously. "We'll see."
Kate groaned with pleasure as she felt the straps and canvas around her finally loosen. When the strait jacket was finally pulled off she stretched her arms and worked her fingers.
"Now its time for your bath, madchen," Faith said kindly. "Off with your clothes!"
Kate considered putting up a fight, but what was the point? Beside she was free of restraints for the moment. Maybe if she continued to be a 'good girl' she could avoid any further bondage or... gaggage.
She nodded and was led to an old fashioned wooden shower stall. She looked up at the old fashioned showerhead and frowned.
“In here? The place looks like you’ve barely heard of indoor plumbing.”
Six more hard smacks on the bottom later, Kate was taking her shower, still sobbing uncontrollably and doing a little dance as her bottom sizzled like a pan of bacon. She shampooed her hair twice and scrubbed her face and body with a jasmine scented soapbar.
When she was done and was minus her makeup, her long hair combed out loose, she looked cleanfaced and much younger.
She toweled herself dry and was handed a couple of small pieces of very worn, heather gray cotton cloth. She looked at it and then to the sisters.
"Your clothes," Hope explained. "Don't worry, all intiates wear the same thing... and one size always fits all!"
Still it was a bit of stretch. The gray tank top wouldn't cover her midriff no matter how hard she pulled. In fact, the more she pulled the more her large breasts strained the front of the top, causing the letters CSG stenciled in front to bulge in odd ways.
The grey cotton shorts were no improvement. She had to shimmy and wiggle to get them up and over her hips, and then they were so tight against her burning bottomcheeks... not to mention the problem up front.
Kate gasped and raised her hand like a good girl.
"Yes, madchen?" Faith asked.
"Can we do something about... that?" Kate looked down at her crotch.
"You mean that amusing cameltoe?" Faith replied. Both sisters had a good long laugh while a red-faced Kate tried to adjust her shorts, but they were just too damned tight. Dammit, it was all Jeb's fault anyway! He always liked her 'trimmed'...
"C’mon, Mother Grace wants to see you before we bed you down for the night," Faith said. She held up an array of shiny chains, cuffs and leather straps that Kate had hoped to avoid. "You've got your clothes, now it's time for your jewellery."
***
A few minutes later, Kate was again being led down another long, dark corridor. Her freedom from restraint had been short lived. She now sported three-link handcuffs in front connected to a thick leather strap locked about her waist, and leg shackles that gave her a ten-inch step.
Most humiliating was the leather head harness that was strapped about her face; a horizontal strap across her mouth that forced another goddamned rubber ball to stay put, with two smaller straps on either side of her nose that met between her eyes to run over the top of her head where it was locked into place. A thick leather collar about her throat anchored the whole contraption nicely.
Her long brown hair had been brushed and combed straight on either side of her face and through the straps.
She ended up in a lovely old study, with a desk, chairs and a floor to ceiling bookcase that took up a whole wall.
Faith and Hope sat her down in a high-backed, very solid wooden chain facing the desk. Hope took a length of chain and snapped one end to the center ring of her leg shackles, then ran the other end up the chair to the back of her leather collar and locked it in place.
It was a tight and exact fit. Kate couldn't even wiggle. Faith kissed her cheek and then the two sisters left her there.
For what? Kate wondered. To sit here and contemplate her new status as a bound woman? She looked down to her lap and pulled at her cuffed wrists secured by the waist strap. Everything was so... implacable. There was no way out of these cuffs, or those shackles or even the harness about her face until someone took it off of her. She was entirely at the mercy of the sisters of this convent, and wasn't that the point?
There was something else though. A tiny lil nuthin that she barely admitted to herself, much less something she would admit to any of these so-called sisters.
It had started that first time that Jeb and Kate had 'played the game', soon after their honeymoon. The Pirate and the Lady. The Thief and the Rich Bitch. The Teacher and the Naughty Schoolgirl.
Most of these games ended up with Kate getting tied up. Sometimes even gagged. Then she was ravaged in a most pleasurable way by her husband.
It worked out well, Jeb liked tying his wife up, and Kate liked to be tied up.
Which explained why she was more than a little excited by her present situation. In fact, she had been since the Ropers had buckled her up into that strait jacket and had her join her fellow prisoners.
Now here she was the prisoner of a 'convent' right out of a classic F.E. Campbell bondage novel. Well chained and sucking on a rubber ball. She knew she wasn't in danger, that Jeb would eventually come for her. So why not settle down and enjoy the ride?
She looked up as Mother Grace breezed in, taking off her leather coat to reveal a tee shirt and loose-fitting blue jeans. Hummng to herself, she sat down at the desk opposite Kate and opened up a file.
"Now, girl," she said. "Let's get you situated and put to bed! This is a working farm, and things start mighty early around here!" She picked up a pen and looked over a form. "Name?"
Kate pulled at her cuffed hands and hummed.
"Hmmmm... Katherine Stuart is waaaaaay too much name for a little girl like you." Grace looked her over and finally wrote something down. "Name: Katie."
Kate's eyes went wide and she shook her head. Her mother had called her Katie as a child. She hated that name!
"Age?" Grace studied her again. "You look younger, but we do have an 18-year old minimum standard, so consider yourself a teenager."
"Nmmmmph!" Kate shook her head, not liking this game at all!
"Period of detention?" Grace smiled. "Standard two-year committal order, with review every three months. Better be careful tho... during these reviews your stay can be lengthened..."
Kate blinked away tears. Two years?! Was she fucking joking or what? I can't stay here two goddamned years! I have daughters to raise! A husband who loves me! No no no... she must be joking!
"You'll grow to like it here, Katie," Grace said as she walked around the desk to stand beside her. "No, not at first. But over the weeks and months, you will come to think of the convent as your home, and us as your family."
Grace placed her fingers on Kate's harnessed chin and made her look up at her.
"Now just a few rules, okay? Don't sass off to the sisters or other inmates. Speak only when spoken to by the sisters, but you and the other inmates can always speak among yourselves. If you have something to say to a sister, just raise your hand and wait for permission. Understand?"
Kate nodded.
"Do your work and chores the best you can and nobody will say a thing. Slack off and you will be punished," Grace continued. "Punishments are harsh but always fair, and we always punish out of love, and not malice."
Grace walked around the bound Kate.
"Punishments can consist of solitary incarceration, a session on the pillory or corporal punishments like a good hard paddling. We do not use whips or canes or any of that dogma... a girl's round bottom is the perfect receiver for discipline around here!"
Grace bent down and kissed Kate.
"And then there is sex. Every girl here is allowed to keep her chastity. No one – not sister or inmate – will ever force their desires on you. You have my word on that.
"But," she continued, "you will find in your time here, a need for... intimacy. To bond. You will be allowed to hug and hold and kiss your fellow inmates if you so desire. That is your choice. And yes, sex between women here is allowed. But you must always ask permission from a sister first. Understand?"
Kate nodded. She realized that this was no game this time, but a dark, mysterious world of women that would become her life for some time to come.
***
After Mother Grace left, two more sisters unchained her from the chair and led her still cuffed and shackled from Grace's study. This time it was down several flights of old stairways and through several barred doorways to the cells where the other sequestered girls were kept.
It was a long, darkened hallway, lined on either side by old-fashioned cell doors that were all locked tight. Kate saw that some cells only had one girl, while others had two or more.
The sisters stopped before a cell and unlocked the door, shoving Kate in. They locked it behind her.
"We’ll take that harness and cuffs if you want," a short, red-haired sister said. Kate nodded and stepped towards the bars. The sisters unlocked the cuffs and waiststrap and the head harness. Kate licked her lips when the rubber ball popped out of her mouth.
"Get some sleep, Katie," the other sister said. Then they were gone.
Kate Stuart held on to the bars while the last door clanged shut. Then there was silence, except for the occasional sound of weeping or perhaps a groan of passion from the cells.
Kate looked around her cell. A set of bunk beds with the top one loaded with blankets. A toilet in the corner and a sink. A barred window too high to look through let in the chilly night air. And that was it.
Kate went to the sink and drank some water from the tap to get the taste of rubber out of her mouth.
"Hi there."
Kate gurgled and turned. A young woman with short, spikey blonde hair was sitting up on the top bunk looking at her.
"Hello," Kate said.
"You're my first cellmate!" The girl hopped off the bunk and landed beside Kate. She was slender and wore a tight CSG crop top and shorts like Kate. She hugged Kate, almost crying. "I am so glad I have someone to talk to!"
"Me too." Kate looked at her. "Now what can you tell me about this place?"
The girl dried her eyes. Kate thought she looked 18 at the oldest. "Well, I've been here almost a year now. I was brought here by my own mother and my sister, if you can believe that!"
Kate thought of her darling husband. "Oh I can believe it all right."
The girl sniffled and stepped back from Kate. "Please, tell me one thing... do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?"
Kate studied her cellmate for a long moment. "Well, to be honest... no."
"Awwwwwww... fuck!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper. "Fuck fuck fuck!"
Kate reached out to her. "Hey, calm down! So who are you?"
I am," she sniffled and wiped her tears away, "or rather was Cherry Starr." She looked at Kate expectantly. "The Cherry Starr!"
"Okeeeeee..."
She sighed. "Look, a year ago there was a three way race on the charts going on between me, that slut Christina and goody-girl Britney! We had all been on TRL and had our vids in heavy rotation on MTV, and all three of our CDs were going like gangbusters."
"Ah, you're a singer."
"I was a Rockstar! I was a Diva! And then right when I'm signing my big movie deal in LA... my own goddamn mother ships me off to this hole!" Cherry Starr buried her face in Kate's breasts and wet them down with her tears.
Kate held her. "Why did she do that, dear?"
"I dunno... some crap about me sleeping around with the boys in the band and dressing too slutty... but I was 18 years old, goddammit! I was able to make decisions about sex and how I dressed by myself! It was my call! My life! And it all got stolen away from me."
"You won't be here forever."
"Ha! Another year at the least!" Cherry whispered. "Let's see how upbeat you are after a few weeks here."
The two women froze as a flashlight beam caught them embracing.
"Okay you two! Get to bed!" The voice of a shadowy sister commanded.
Cherry instantly hopped up to her bunk and got under the covers. Kate climbed into the lower punk and did the same. The sister moved on.
So that's how it is, Kate thought. It's all for real. Girls stolen from their lives for being too much this or not doing enough that. Funny, Kate had thought the concept was fine and dandy before she had been brought here.
Now she thought it sucked.
"Hey!" Cherry Starr was looking at her with her head hanging upside down from the upper bunk. "What's your name?"
"Kate," she answered.
"Kate... I like that." She disappeared.
Kate looked at the high, barred window and felt the deep pang of loneliness. She missed her daughter Tess. The twins. Even her rat of a husband. And in the ultimate scheme of things, she was just another incarcerated girl.
"Kate?" It was Cherry again, her head over the bunk.
"Yes?"
"Can I... sleep with you? We're allowed you know! And I promise to be good."
Kate remembered her twins running into her bed whenever a thunderstorm or a scary movie got to them, snuggling in between her and Jeb.
"Sure, hon."
An instant later, Cherry was snuggling in next to Kate, arms around her tight and head between her pillowly breasts. Kate would've been lying if she had said that she didn't love having the warmth and touch of another person here in this girlprison.
The two women were both sound asleep in a few minutes. Beyond their bars, Mother Grace stood in the darkness and smiled, walking silent down the long corridor of cells that held all of her imprisoned girls.
***
After sharing a late night snack in the kitchen, Sister Faith said good night to Sister Hope and went up the stairs to her quarters.
The staff quarters were spartan, but compared to the cells for the inmates, they were quite nice. A single room with a closet, a nice bed and room for a few personal nick-nacks. The communal bathroom and showers were just down the hallway.
Faith also had her own laptop PC and a 13" TV/VCR combo with cable hookup. This wasn't the frikin' Middle Ages after all.
She removed her leather coat, and also removed her jeans and tee shirt, followed by her panties and bra. She decided to put off her shower till the morning. She put on her nightie and had one more thing to do before bed.
She sat on her bed and took her Nokia cellphone out from her bedside table. She stared at it for a long moment. It was one thing to talk the talk, quite another to walk the walk.
She thumbed in the appropriate numbers and waited.
"Yes?" Will Tanner-Hyde answered on the fourth ring.
"This is Faith, from the convent," she answered.
"Yes, what can I do for you?" Tanner-Hyde asked. He was in the process of boarding an Air Weskler Gulfstream at the airport in Naples, Florida.
"Someone arrived tonight you might be interested in."
"Really?" Tanner-Hyde had cultivated a mole at Mother Grace's convent after that damnable Jeb Stuart had stuck his nose into the Jessica McClintock affair. He knew if Stuart got ahold of Jessica, this would be her destination. Who?"
"Katherine Stuart."
"Really!" Tanner-Hyde smiled. The wife of that pest Stuart? Last intel had him coming to the east coast, if he wasn't there already. "You sure of this?"
"Saw her files and picked her up myself," Faith answered. "You interested?"
"Very much so," Tanner-Hyde said. He looked at his Patek Phillipe watch. "Call me again at 8 am your time. I'll need you to assist in the snatch and grab."
"We are talking about the same amount of filthy lucre you offered me for Jessica, right?"
"Indeed. 100K... taxfree."
"And no harm is to come to any of the other sisters or any of the other inmates, right?"
"That's up to you dear," Tanner-Hyde replied. "Give my people easy access to the damsel, and nobody gets hurt... and you'll only get richer."
"Fair enough. We have a deal." And with that Faith clicked off her phone and put it away.
***
Tanner-Hyde did likewise and boarded the Gulfstream. He took his seat and looked at his watch once more. It was 3:47 am, a jet flight to JFK would put him in NYC at 7am at the latest.
Things were looking good overall, except for the fact that one of Air Weskler's jets had been hijacked out of Greenbrae Airfield north of San Francisco just a few hours ago.
Two of Tanner-Hyde's associates had found an empty hanger and the bodies of Weskler's cockpit crew, some security goons and the two bodies of the Yakuza punks who worked with Michiko Kazikama.
He didn't think she had double crossed him. What he did think was that a 'Pro from Dover' had swooped in, killed the goons and re-kidnapped Iwana Binder along with dear, cruel Michiko.
Tanner-Hyde also had a good idea who had done it, or at least who was paying the bills. The news channels had let everybody know that this Iwana Binder was the LA cop who killed the only son of Don Vincenzo Scagnetti in a shootout the night before.
Still, the hit at Greenbrae was far too professional to be a mob operation. That meant somebody else was helping Scagnetti. Tanner-Hyde already had his feelers out on the eastern seaboard trying to find out who that someone could be.
Meanwhile, a squad of 'cleaners' were removing all evidence that anything had ever happened at Greenbrae.
This still left the problem of how to snatch Kate Stuart. He knew the Convent for Sequestered Girls was a big, well protected operation in its own right.
Will Tanner-Hyde smiled as the Gulfstream finally took off into the night and headed north. When push came to shove, there was really only one crew in the skintrade who could handle this job...