Hard Rain

by Melissa Vayle

  The woman was a brunette but her face was largely concealed by the large black scarf used to blindfold her and the black tape that sealed her mouth. She was laced up into a shiny black, possibly rubber, corset, with no knickers on but stockings clipped to the suspender straps of the corset. She was in black high heels. The alternating black and white portions of the woman’s figure were quite dramatic. The more Catherine stared at her, the more she began to stand out from the background and take on three dimensions, and, mesmerized, Catherine - eyes and mind - was being lured into the picture, into the very room she was already here standing in. She blinked as a shiver ran down her spine.

  The photo changed, and, despite the nature of the content, now looked quite still and innocuous. All that struck Catherine was that the woman seated rigid in the chair, looked, curiously, rather at home. She had lost the thread of what she had been thinking earlier and moved on to the next photograph.

  This time there was the picture of the top half of a woman, naked except that she was wearing some form of head harness like a horse's bridle, with straps down the sides of her nose and with a rubber-like bit gagging her mouth. Trees and a hedge could be discerned in the background. The more Catherine peered at the face, the more convinced she became that the face looking into the camera was that of Anne. Her heart thumping, she put the set down on the shelf and went through the previous set to find the close-up facial shot of the hooded and gagged figure on the trapeze. Her eyes switched back and forth relentlessly between the two photographs as she tried to match the faces.

  Ding-dong!

  The ring of the doorbell pulled her up with a start.

  ‘Oh God!’ she cried, ‘Someone at the door!’ Anne! Back already? The thought threw her.

  Panic! She put the photographs back on the pile. Oh God! Which was it? Left or right?

  Ding-dong!

  She slid the cupboard door to and dashed to the doorway, flicked off all the lights, and, shutting the door behind her, fumbled to turn the key in the hole to lock the door. It would not turn.

  ‘But it must!’

  Ding-dong!

  ‘Oh God! It must!’ She was frantic. Suddenly, the key slipped home and turned. Next the outer door. But which key this time?

  Ratter-tat-tat! Ratter-tat-tat!

  ‘Oh God!’ It was the knocker.

  On her fifth try, she found the right key. Flushed, heart pounding, she raced back to the library and dropped the keys on the desk where Anne had left them.

  Ding-dong! Ratter-tat-tat!

  She rushed to open the door.

  Ding-dong! Ratter-tat-tat!

  Anne was standing there, hands on her hips, quietly fuming.

  ‘Where’ve you been?! What kept you?’ she said angrily.

  ‘I'm sorry, I was in the loo.’ Her face was hot and she could hardly catch her breath.

  ‘Well, I forgot my keys!’

  ‘Oh! Did you?’ Catherine gulped.

  Anne glared at her intensely then said ‘I'm sure I left them in the library!’

  ‘The library?’ Catherine tensed.

  ‘Yes, the library, under your nose, on your desk.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Catherine, ‘I realized but you'd already gone. I forgot.’ She was now bright red and very hot.

  ‘Did you now?!’ Catherine looked away. ‘You all right? You’re all flushed!’

  ‘I've just rushed full-speed from … hmm … I'm fine,’ replied Catherine.

  Anne fixed her for a moment with a searching gaze then at once pushed past her.

  ‘I'll get those keys off your desk right now,’ and with that, she was heading down the corridor towards the library. ‘It's not like me to forget something. I always know exactly where everything is.’

  Chapter 7. Nightmare

  Beeeep!!

  She swerved the car back into the centre lane as lights dazzled her mirrors and the other car shot past her on the outside. The speed he was going, he had nearly hit her and she was shaken badly.

  ‘Oh God!’ she gasped, trying to get a grip as she realized what she had done. 'Oh my God! I could have been killed, smashed up. Other people could have been...' The possible consequences tore through her brain in a flash. My fault. She had wandered into the outside lane without realizing it. Oh my God! Get with it! she told herself. For God's sake, get with it!

  Traffic on the inside lane was passing her already as she dropped her speed while that behind her in her own lane was pulling out to get past her. Pull in! Pull in! She was losing it and knew it. Gradually, she managed to move into the nearside lane and turn off the carriageway into a side-road. There, engine switched off, Catherine sat there rigid and silent, staring through the windscreen but seeing nothing as the shock ran its course through her.

  She had been in a daze all afternoon, straight after the incident over the keys with Anne and the ...that room. She still could not believe it. For a split second, she stood there again before the couch and its straps. Those other straps... images, real things, shocking things. Feelings had been triggered she could not handle, did not know how to handle. Again and again throughout the afternoon, she had got up from her desk abruptly for no reason and stood there vacillating on the spot. She wandered about the room in that cramped space wherever the piles on the floor allowed her to. Back and forth she went, unable to sit down long, incapable of keeping still. So unreal. It was so unreal. She still could not believe it. Everything was normal around her. The sun streamed in though the windows as usual. The pure blue sky looked on and a flight of starlings told of a world outside of her own that beckoned with all the light and warmth and life of summer.

  But all she could see was the dark and spotlighted room with its unearthly contents, like some ghostly cavern deep inside some mountain, far, far removed from the light and air of the world above. But this was human, however abnormal, the purpose of that room was only too clear to her, and that was what, perhaps, perturbed her most. Try as she might, she could not erase the memory of the disturbing thrill that grabbed her at moments in that room, nor forget her mounting fascination with what she was exposed to.

  Pervert! The voice within was familiar but this time she did not answer back. She was squarely on the ropes and, in a perverse way, she liked it. She knew, deep down, she wanted more. She wanted to know more, to feel more. Wanted to go back into that room, and, once there, as the blue sky at the windows gave way to darkness punctured only by spotlights, she sensed where she might belong and a delicious feeling came over her.

  But then cruel facts stole into her imaginings and told her bluntly she was deluding herself. Anne. Again and again, try as she might, she could not reconcile Michael and her, that woman - involved together like that. She could not sustain the thought for one second without turning away in revulsion.

  Oh, why? Why did she have to go into that room? And so it went on, all afternoon, like a dog chasing its own tail, she racked herself on an unstoppable torrent of thoughts and feelings pulling her this way and that, with no sign of a resolution to the turmoil within her. Until the near-accident on the by-pass.

  She sat there in the car for a long time, oblivious to the rush-hour traffic raging by behind her. She switched on the ignition and, as she moved out to rejoin the traffic, she had made a decision.

  As the car approached the junction with the by-pass, she felt able to finish the journey home more composed, and far more safely than earlier. Indicator flashing, she moved out smoothly into the traffic flow and was, at last, underway. She was going to quit the job.

  She had a light meal and watched television but had no real interest in the programme. Gradually, her thoughts had come back to the real world - of Val, of her parents, of Paul, of what had brought her so far, of what had made her. She felt lightened, and positive, and suddenly extremely tired. She knew she would sleep well and at once looked forward to going to bed. Something by way of a treat to herself, she decided to re-make the bed. Fresh sheets. A new start, and she fetched out her p
each satin sheets. She deserved to be pampered, and set to.

  It was still quite hot and, taking off all her clothes and leaving them on the chair nearest the bed, she switched out the light and slithered between the sheets. The deep weariness eased her down softly into a warm, cosy bed. She became aware of the gentle brush of the silk-like bed-sheet on her bare skin. In a half-hypnotic state, she surrendered to the exquisite sensation with each rise and fall of the satin as her breathing grew deeper. Down she drifted, floating free as the balm of sleep lapped her sides, and then washed over her.

  Suddenly, through half-closed eyelids, standing there in the dark, looming over her, was a man. Startled, she gulped and sat up immediately but a gentle hand embraced her, and Paul gazed down at her. He was smiling softly and, bending down, kissed her forehead tenderly. Paul. He kissed her on the lips. The kiss was so achingly sweet that she felt transported on the gossamer wings of a thousand butterflies to the realms of infinite bliss. Somewhere beyond, in the dark, she heard the beautiful melody of a string serenade from some distant orchestra, music she knew well yet could not place. Still the kiss endured. She could say nothing but accepted his embrace as he moved onto the bed and began to kiss her more passionately as she reeled intoxicated.

  Then, gently pulling away the satin sheet which covered her body, he started to caress her. She sighed as he fondled her breasts and kissed and sucked her stiffening nipples. He kissed her all over the front of her body. It was very, very nice. A voice cried out within her: Yes! Ripples of delight triggered murmurings of greater pleasure deep down and slowly her sleeping frame awoke. Her back arched slightly as she stretched out like a cat on the rug in front of a cosy fire. She lapped up the pleasure now pouring through her.

  Pleasure became want, want became need and a dreadful longing came from within and she felt that warmth and stirring down below and parted her legs. She breathed deeply, and shut her eyes. Beneath her, the soft bed breathed in unison as she lay there on her back, arms raised on the pillow, wrists limp, in complete and utter surrender.

  For a flickering instant she felt the slight brush of the bracelet on her wrist. She thought she had taken it off earlier for bed and turned to look. At once, his strong hands grabbed her wrists and yanked them both above her head and, before she realized what was happening, he had clicked the second handcuff round the other wrist. To her shock, he had handcuffed her to the top of the bed-rail. The warm, gentle smile had gone. Instead was not the face of Paul but that of a gloating Michael, squatting astride her legs, and the bed was the one in the dungeon. The orchestra was becoming discordant, the music now malevolent, and the violins began to shriek.

  She gasped and panic seized her. She tugged wildly at the steel cuffs and struggled in vain as he watched her writhe and twist. She saw his dark eyes take in fully her naked body. Her breasts suddenly seemed to stick out hugely as she heaved under increasingly desperate efforts to break free. Each twist and turn only seemed to excite him the more and her distress grew as her plight now grabbed her hard and tight.

  Something inside of her tried to call out, begging him - Please! - but his sadistic smile stifled the pleas in her throat. He bent forward and kissed her fully, passionately, sucking her energy from her. Then, ignoring her distress, he began feeling her breasts, then feeling her more extensively, more lasciviously than Paul ever did. She strained every muscle in her body to unseat him from her legs.

  ‘Please!’

  The cry reverberated round her head. Twisting and weaving, she could not blot out the look of lust in his eyes or the horror of being the focus of that lust, and, she felt, the very cause. She felt a dirty, little slut. Something shot through her, powerful, electric, that thrust her hard into the bed. She groaned. Suddenly, from nowhere, he stuffed her knickers into her mouth.

  ‘Shut up you whore!’

  Then, deftly, he tied her bra tightly round her face to secure the gag. Shocked, stupefied, all she could bleat out was Please! –

  ‘Phlumph!’

  At once, he grabbed her under her thighs and calves, yanked her up and roughly flipped her over on to her front. She bounced hard on the bed and, winded, gave a stifled gasp. Dazed, she was now unable to take in fully what was happening. Helpless, she could do nothing as he squatted down heavily on the back of her legs. Stretched taut and awkwardly shackled by the twisted cuffs, all she could do was take in the cold brass rails, inches from her face. Like the bars of a prison cell.

  ‘Mmph! Mmph!!’ came her distressed cry as he bounced her on the bed, stretching her uncomfortably. Her heart pounded. She was boiling hot, her arms and wrists were aching.

  ‘I said shut up!’

  Sideways, she glimpsed the black leather strap, a foot or so long, in his hand. Her heart raced, she struggled in vain against the cuffs and desperately cried out ‘Please!’ but the sound that reached her ears was hideously wrong: ‘Phlumph! Phlumph!’

  Her struggling grew in intensity as she tried to unseat him from her legs.

  ‘Mmph! Mmph!

  Thwack!

  Her buttocks clenched up tight and her wrists pulled hard on the cuffs.

  Thwack!

  ‘Mmmmmmph!!’

  Struggling against her steel manacles, she thrashed about, twisting herself into bizarre contortions that only mocked her all the more.

  Thwack!

  ‘Mmph! Mmph!’

  With no mercy, a thousand sensations at once assailed her body, mind and soul.

  Thwack!

  She was so racked and stretched that it seemed her very being would snap in two. Every atom in her body pulsed with the overcharge and, for a moment, she was oblivious to everything except the surge which crashed up through her from her cunt. She climaxed, all thinking obliterated, frenziedly, writhing violently in convulsions of ferocious pleasure. Then as the glow of intense gratification suffused her whole being, she became aware of the bed creaking maniacally, the slap of the strap on her buttocks, of her long-sustained moan into the gag. The din quietened as the wave of spasms subsided. She ceased struggling as the whipping stopped.

  As she came back down to earth, she was aware that the music had changed. Violins rasped a shrill staccato sound that, for a moment, rapped her brain like a repetitive Morse code. She knew the sound but could not recognize it and then suddenly grasped what it was she was hearing: unrestrained laughter, and coming nearer. Slowly, from somewhere off to the right, behind her, there came dimly into the edge of her view a dark figure. She turned her head as far as she could and from her contorted position looked up.

  There, smiling, looking right down at her naked, bound, stretched-out body, and then stooping close to grab her by the chin to shake her head, side to side, and inches away from her face, lapping up the sight of her knickers-stuffed mouth and gaping, horrified eyes, and then, howling with laughter and mockery, was Anne.

  She woke with a start, confused and terrified, sweat soaking the edge of her hairline. She sat bolt upright, and stared fixedly into the dark. She felt her wrists and breathed in deeply through her mouth.

  The room was hot, stiflingly so, and she got out of bed and opened the window wider. A cool, sweet breeze brushed her hot cheeks and she looked out over the sleeping city beyond the low tree tops. Streetlights snaked their way along empty roads and boulevards that crossed a thousand blocks between her place and Blackthorne. A car, somewhere nearby, started up. A dog, far into the distance, barked forlornly at the night. It was already tomorrow. The letter of resignation. How would she explain it to him? Why was she leaving so soon? She felt sick. Yesterday's events were even more unreal now as she gazed upon the tranquil world below. Oh Paul! She wished he was here now. Perhaps Val will understand .Talk to her, she’ll know what to do. But she knew, in her heart, she could speak to no-one. She was alone, utterly alone, and the sleeping city suddenly looked distant and cold, and the night now alien.

  She went back to bed with a heavy heart and a sense of hopelessness that made even the satin sheets, pulle
d over her, a dead weight which burdened her, body and soul. It was going to be a long night.

  Morning, and with it came a reality she now had to face. Fatalism, rather than her, drove the car into work.

  The letter of resignation faded from her mind as the stillness of the room echoed the emptiness within. She was very tired and felt washed out and not up to facing anything remotely demanding and just wanted the day to go quickly without her seeing either of them. She felt she might find sanctuary in work and, with no conviction, thought she would finish sorting that pile of manuscripts on the floor in the corner by lunchtime and set to.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  Michael was standing there in the doorway. He was not smiling and simply looked at her. She felt weak. She wanted to sit down.

  ‘Hmm … no,’ but it was not convincing. It all suddenly welled up in her and her nerves snapped and with them went the pile of music scores between her hands, all over the floor. She panicked and at once dropped down to pick them all up.

  ‘I'm sorry!’ she spluttered, scrabbling around on her knees, trying frantically to retrieve them. She burned with embarrassment, her heart racing. She could hear herself apologizing repeatedly but could not stop it until she realized that the room had gone very still. His black shoes shone just inches from her face. She looked up.

  The look that met hers was fixed, impassive, cold, and stern. It pierced her to the core. He knew! She felt humiliated and she sensed he knew she perversely liked what was happening and guilt was written all over her face.

  ‘You’d better clear that up.’

  Suddenly he was gone. He simply turned on his heels and, without another word, walked out, leaving her there, still down on her hands and knees, flushed crimson.