The Scarlet Anniversary

by Lubowa M. Planet

  The kettle started whistling and the sound dragged her from her fantasy. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath, all that they fantasized about would happen soon enough and she knew that he needed a cup of coffee. She poured the steaming water into the mugs and added sugar and milk. She had also brought his favourite biscuits and as she fished around in her bag for them she heard a sound from the living room. Something had shifted and she wondered if perhaps the luggage had fallen over or something. In fact David had been gone for a little longer than she had thought he would, and it dawned on her that perhaps he needed a hand after all. She turned and was about to leave the kitchen, but she paused and took a large kitchen knife from the wooden block that housed them. She didn’t anticipate she would need it, but it was always better being safe than sorry.

  She walked through to the living room, sparing a glance at the first piece of luggage; It was lying face down on the floor but seemed to be okay and was still exceptionally secure. So she walked past it and out into the yard.

  Sure enough David was struggling with the second piece of luggage. He looked at her and grinned sheepishly. ‘One of the straps came loose I think.’

  ‘Can you still manage all by yourself?’ She laughed, placing her hands on her hips, keeping the blade of the knife away from her body.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a problem,’ he grunted as the luggage almost slipped free from his grasp and she laughed again. ‘Though, it would be less of one, Could you grab hold of the other end?’

  She shook her head with affection and slid the knife into her belt before walking to the car and taking a firm hold of the loose end of the luggage. It almost slipped free from her grip but she grabbed it with a firm, tight grip and pulled at it until she had it securely in her control.

  ‘Thanks,’ he looked at her and she saw that his face was red and shiny and the slightly sad fact that he was not as young as she thought he was tugged at her a little. She smiled and together they maneuvered the luggage from the yard into the living room. They moved it to the opposite side of the room and laid it on the floor. David took a deep breath and then kicked it, not too hard but hard enough that Maddy winced.

  ‘Careful,’ she said and he looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled in reply. ‘I nearly did my back in out there.’

  ‘Still, don’t kick the luggage,’ she admonished. ‘Now sit down and I’ll bring your coffee through. I got some of those biscuits you like.’

  ‘The minty ones?’

  ‘Yes, the minty ones,’ she smiled and as he flopped into the big easy chair, she went through and placed the coffee and biscuits onto a tray. She returned to the living room and saw that he had already removed his socks and as usual his big toe was sticking through the left sock.

  ‘Honestly, you would think that you don’t have any new socks,’ she shook her head as she placed the tray onto a small polished walnut table. ‘I would hate for you to be in an accident because if they saw your socks in that state, I would get a bad name for myself.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he sighed. ‘I was in a hurry getting dressed this morning. I had a lot to do before I went to work.’

  ‘In too much of a hurry to check you had decent socks on?’

  ‘Apparently,’ he took a sip of the coffee. ‘Oh, that’s lovely Maddy, that’s a good cup of coffee.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject; I haven’t finished with your socks.’

  ‘I’ll throw them out later, that should make sure that this catastrophe never happens ever again.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic David.’ She said, her tone taking on a flinty edge and he looked at her.

  ‘I’ll go and change them then.’

  ‘No, finish your coffee first,’ she took a sip of her own coffee.

  ‘Listen Maddy, we’re here for a romantic break, I don’t know why we’re bickering about my socks.’

  ‘It would have been nice if you had made a little effort – you should see what I have on under my clothes and when I see your socks I just wonder why I bothered.’ She paused and looked at him. ‘Sorry, I’m being a nag.’

  ‘Yes you are, but you’re being a nag that seems to be wearing sexy underwear. So I’m fine with that.’ He sipped his coffee and glanced at the luggage that had given him trouble. ‘So, will we unpack the luggage first or shall we have dinner?’

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘I’m starving to tell you the truth,’ he looked at her and then glanced at the bundle in the corner. ‘I might secure that first; I don’t want any more trouble with it.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go and make a start on dinner while you deal with it.’ She stood up and looked at him. ‘Give me a shout if you need any help.’

  ‘I will, but I won’t, not this time.’ He drained his cup and put it on the table. ‘Do we have any extra rope in here by the way?’

  ‘In the top drawer of the bureau I think,’ she replied as she walked into the kitchen. David nodded, took one of the biscuits and took a bite from it; savouring the minty flavour as it danced on his tongue. He stood up and went across to the bureau and opened the top drawer, sure enough there was a length of hemp rope nestled inside. David took it from the drawer and moved over to the luggage.

  ‘Okay, if you struggle or kick, I will hurt you,’ he said as he grabbed the luggage around the ankles and began to tie them together. He ignored the whimpering that came from under the black hood that covered her head and tied the rope tightly and securely. There would be more than enough time to relish in her fear and pain over the weekend Right now all he wanted was something to eat. He stood up and moved over to the second piece of luggage, she hadn’t moved or struggled since he had put her into the car earlier, but she was still breathing steadily and that was all the assurance that he needed.

  Satisfied that everything was okay he moved to the chair and sat down to finish his biscuit.

  This was going to be a great weekend. His father, the old bastard, had been fond of saying ‘just what the doctor ordered’. He would say it whenever he had a whisky, or a meal he enjoyed – he said it when he punished David for whatever disappointment he had managed to create for his father. All in all, it was a trite, banal expression that David had come to hate. However, it actually had some relevance for this weekend. Although on the surface it seemed that his marriage was rock solid, he had begun to notice a hint in his wife’s green eyes that suggested that she was bored in some way. It was true in many ways that they had fallen into the seemingly inescapable trap of routine. The things that they did on a daily basis and even their little ‘treats’, the toys they got to spice up their lives had started to become a little bit too similar. He glanced at the two women, bound and helpless on the floor and hoped that his thought process had been correct – having two of them to play with was different than just having the one, but there was a malignant seed of doubt that had somehow burrowed into the very back of his mind that whispered to him that it would mean they would somehow separate even further than he feared they were. After all it could mean that they would spend time apart as they played with their own ‘gift’. He did love her and glad he made the right decision years ago, just after they had met because he simply could not imagine what his life would be without her. He also knew that restlessness could be a curse and that making the wrong decisions could inexorably damage the balance to a point where perhaps nothing could be the same ever again.

  One of the pieces of luggage moved a little and he knew it was the brunette – she was gorgeous, everything that he wanted and needed and as he looked at her move as much as the ropes that he had wrapped around her would let her, he found himself shunning the idea that it would be fine to go over and start squeezing her breasts. That wasn’t what they were there for. These women were just objects to be used and then disposed of – his wife had a stunning pair of breasts that belied her age and he was more than happy with them.

  The brunette tried to move again (and her ability to move was very much hampered by the fact that he had
taken his time in applying the bonds). In fact he found the act of tying them up to be as cathartic as it was stimulating – Sometimes he became so engrossed in the patterns that the ropes made as they were applied that when he had finished, he was surprised to see just how incapacitated the woman was. He hated loose strands and made sure that every knot and coil was applied tightly and aesthetically. Often that was difficult as there was usually some struggling at first, but his trusty knife usually gave them the proper incentive to be still for long enough that he could get started.

  David finished his biscuit and stood up, he gazed at them for a moment and then moved away. He wandered through to the kitchen as the smell of food cooking and the sound of his wife singing as she busied herself around the stove brought him back to the pleasant reality of life.

  He loved her and felt nothing for these bound, mute and helpless things that lay on the floor of their living room; That was always how it would be.

  ‘Darling, can I give you a hand?’ He said as he entered the kitchen.

  ‘No, it’s all under control,’ she said as she stirred a saucepan.

  ‘Can I ask a favour?’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Can you stop singing,’ he laughed and she turned to look at him with mock outrage. ‘Maddy, you have been blessed with many things but a singing voice sadly wasn’t one of them.’

  ‘Shut up, I have the voice of an angel,’ she giggled and he smiled.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘If you persist in singing I still have plenty of tape left, I am willing to gag you!’

  She turned fully and leant against the kitchen counter in a pose that she knew made her breasts look particularly pert and appealing. ‘After dinner David,’ her voice was low and husky. ‘You can do whatever you want to me then – but I want to make sure you have enough strength to keep your promises.’

  He felt a stirring around his cock as she smiled and went back to cooking, singing in a voice that would make a baby cry. He laughed a little and sat down on one of the chairs to watch as she cooked.

  ‘I love you!’

  ‘Of course you do,’ she shrugged. ‘I’m very loveable. I love you too by the way.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Katie Sullivan sensed the footsteps of whoever had kidnapped her moving away and tried to keep as level a head as possible. Her body had been bound in ropes and it felt as though she had been tied from her ankles to her shoulders. She had never felt so helpless in her life. Her mouth was packed with a foul tasting cloth and it felt to her as though her lips had been sealed with the use of adhesive tape. She also felt tape over her eyes and even though she had been blindfolded, she could sense from the heat of her own breath that there was some type of bag over her head. There were headphones in her ears and she knew by the music that had played constantly since she had woken up that it was her own iPod that had been turned on and was disguising whatever external sounds were surrounding her. Her body and limbs were feeling stiff and there was a peculiar throbbing at her wrists and ankles and she assumed that the ropes had started to affect her circulation. She had only ever been tied up twice before in her life; Once when she was twenty, she had appeared in a low budget horror film and had been tied up to a chair in her role as the hostage of a devil worshipper. That had been boring and dull, in the end she had been secured to the chair for about seven hours for ten minutes of footage. The other was when a boyfriend had persuaded her to allow him to bind her to a bed with silk scarves; That had been okay, it hadn’t really done anything for her on any level but he had enjoyed it. This was different – she was totally and utterly silent, blind and helpless – someone had robbed her of her basic humanity and she was terrified. She had no idea how long she had been like this and it was only a short while ago that she managed to shake off the effects of whatever had been used to drug her. In fact, her memories of what she had been doing before she woke up tied up and helpless were a little fuzzy in themselves. She remembered that she had been walking through a street and then someone had called for help and that was it. The next thing she knew, she was tied up and someone was next to her and it felt as though they were moving. She had tried to move but the conditions had been cramped and this, to her implied that she had been in the trunk of someone’s car.

  The true enormity of her situation began to sink in – she had no idea where she was and as she had only been in the United Kingdom for a few months and as her family were halfway around the world in Australia, things were looking exceptionally bad for her. She thought of her family and the impact that her disappearance would have on them. This alone was terrible enough to contemplate. She knew that it would possibly kill her father. He had tried his best to dissuade her from travelling because he had been a policeman in New South Wales for years and had been indelibly stained by the things that some people did to other people. She was his only daughter and because of that, there had been a special bond that had grown between them as she had grown up. Her brothers, all four of them, would be devastated if anything happened to her – but Tim, the youngest of the family, but only by three minutes and her twin would suffer a loss that the others couldn’t really contemplate. She knew that because he had been stricken with leukaemia when they were both ten and she had honestly thought that a part of her was dying. Thankfully he had responded well to the treatments given to him and the cancer had gone into full remission but he had not had a particularly easy life from that point forth. He had confided his deepest and most personal secrets to her. It was to her that he had first admitted the fact that he was gay. She had been the one that had supported him when he had told their family. That had not been easy, because although they were a loving family, there were elements of a very old fashioned rural attitude that permeated their existence and it had taken them a while to fully accept and embrace Tim’s announcement and life. Her mother would, as always, be the lynchpin that held them together, but she would always blame herself for convincing her husband that it would be fine to allow their only daughter to go travelling and Katie knew that it was entirely possible that their mother would never fully forgive herself for her support. As the thoughts of her family filled her mind, she could feel tears welling up under the tape that was stretched across her eyes and she fought hard against the desire to cry. It wouldn’t help. In fact it could potentially make things worse because it was possible that her captor would be enraged or galvanised by the emotion. She wanted to maintain as calm a demeanour as she possibly could. She had no idea of what the best way to act was. She had never had what her dad called a ‘hard-on for murder’. She had never read any of the true accounts of famous serial killers or watched any of the millions of television documentaries about Fred and Rose West, Ted Bundy or even the Australians, David and Catherine Birnie, a married couple that had abducted and murdered three women and had only been caught when their fourth intended victim had escaped. In fact because of her dad’s stance against the sensationalism of serial killers, Katie had pretty much followed his example. So, finding herself abducted and taken away from the normal world was something that she had absolutely no preparation for dealing with – although she guessed that even if she had been some kind of expert in the field, that would still not have been any level of preparation.

  Katie tried to move again and pain shot through her arms and legs. She allowed the pain to subside and as she did, she wondered who the other person was.

  Portia Ross lay across the room from Katie. Although neither knew each other and neither were one hundred percent sure of the others , (although they both had felt another body next to them when they were tied up in the back of the car) neither was sure if they had both been brought to the same place. She was bound and restrained in exactly the same way as Katie but she had a slight advantage; Her iPod had not been fully charged and had stopped playing quite early into their uncomfortable journey. She knew that there were two people holding her prisoner, a man and a woman and she had heard enough of their conversation to have
worked out a very rough idea of what their relationship was. Her hands and ankles in particular were of concern. She had decided that it had been nice enough a day to put on her shortest skirt. She also knew that her legs had a peculiar but predictable effect on her tutor and usually helped get her higher marks; Not that she needed to do this. but it also made her smile to see the stupid middle aged spinster squirm at the sight of some thigh. However, her stockings were proving to be no barrier to the rope that was bound tightly around her ankles and lower legs. She knew what a lack of circulation could do and was afraid that she might end up with permanent nerve damage. Portia was extremely confident that she would survive this incident. She had always possessed an exceptionally strong sense of self-preservation and to be honest ,on the face of it, she had probably been in worse situations. As soon as her captors removed the tape and bag from her face and head, she would be able to engage them and then it was only a matter of time. She was confident that they would ungag her at least; people didn’t go to the trouble of drugging, binding and transporting people for three hours in a car without wanting to at least hear them beg and plead for their lives. So at the moment all that she could do was lie on her side and buy herself time. She had managed to work the ropes around her ankles free against what felt like a tyre jack when she had been in the car, but the man, David, had noticed this and panicked a little more than she would have liked. There would have been no point in even attempting to run from him, her legs had still been restrained from the knees up and she was blindfolded, gagged and hooded – where would she have gone, where did he think she would have gone? However she didn’t fight as they brought her in here and she managed a little whimper and moan when they were retying her ankles and that was enough for now. After all mighty oaks grow from small acorns as her father had been known to say with depressing regularity. However, she needed to try and get these idiots to loosen the ropes around her for a moment because if it came down to it, there would be nothing she could do if her hands and feet were tingling and battered with nerve damage. She estimated that she could wait maybe twenty minutes and then she would have to get their attention. So, she lay on her front and waited as she heard the sounds of cooking and food preparation coming from the kitchen and slowly decided what her best course of action might be. Her captors had retired to the other room and whatever they were saying had become an indistinct murmur. So Portia allowed herself to relax as much as she could.