The Tied Man

by McGowan, Tabitha

  I listened to Henry’s regular, brisk footfalls echo and recede as he escaped Blaine’s dungeon to the haven of his kitchen to crack on with the washing up. The poor bastard always hated stringing me up; he apologised all the while even though he had as much control over his job as I did, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at me once I was naked. I was only glad it wasn’t Coyle’s job tonight.

  I waited in the darkness, breathing deeply and urging the everything I’d necked over the last few hours to kick in fast and hard so that it would begin to quell the panic that the shadows always caused me.

  A nocturnal junkie, scared of needles and scared of the dark. The irony was hilarious.

  After what could have been ten minutes or an hour, I felt the muscles in my shoulders begin to release their grip as the dope continued its steady, reassuring journey around my body. I shifted my weight whilst my legs could still support me: I had minutes at most until it would be easier to give in and hang by my wrists. Payback would come the next day when every joint in my arms would scream at me for the slightest movement, but in the now of my immeasurably fucked-up existence, ‘tomorrow’ was nothing more than a shifting, inconsequential concept.

  What I needed more than anything else in the whole wide world was for the grey blanket to cover my soul and turn my thoughts into muffled thuds in a distant room and to smother the loathing like it always did once I trusted and let go.

  Lilith’s ice-blue eyes, piercing the evening’s darkness as she challenged me, haunted me still. I had been a cunt to the only woman who had ever shown a sign of giving a damn, and as the velvet fog closed in I gave a secret smile to the wall. It looked as though my penance had already been worked out.

  I heard her voice first.

  ‘I see the guards have caught our runaway.’

  Great, I thought. Role-play, and crap role-play at that.

  The location really didn’t help. In my time at Albermarle, I had been fucked and flogged by more knights and their ladies than I cared to count, and it was always the same banal, predictable shit. However many grand a night, months of meticulous, erotically-charged planning, and they couldn’t get beyond ten yards of lurid polyester satin and a few mangled thees and thous for their money.

  ‘Now slave, you’re going to have to be punished,’ Royce said, in a low voice that was his best pissed attempt at command.

  Scriptless, I kept still and silent. Knew that my first wrong move could get me seriously hurt.

  Naturally, this was my first wrong move.

  ‘I said you’re going to have to be punished, you ignorant shit,’ Royce snarled. ‘I expect a fucking response.’ He grabbed a handful of my hair and wrenched my head back, and I yelped in equal parts pain and shock.

  ‘Yes master,’ I offered, sounding like a complete twat, but hopefully playing the role.

  ‘Yes, Emperor,’ Royce corrected me, and I squinted and forced myself to focus on my clients. For the first time I saw what they were wearing, and I thanked God that I was too doped to remember how to laugh.

  I should have guessed by the after-dinner smalltalk: Royce plainly fancied himself as Julius Caesar, or more likely Caligula, and had changed into an ill-fitting homemade toga that emphasised a pot belly and legs like twigs. He looked like the same, sad little man, albeit in a white king-sized sheet, but in his mind he was a Roman emperor.

  Selena sat on the edge of the bed, stoned and pissed to high heaven on the cocktail of narcotics they’d been necking over dinner, her new and improved breasts spilling out of a lime green chiton that barely covered her long, bronzed thighs, and her calculating gaze appraising me as though I was her latest purchase. Which, to my rapidly gathering concern, I was.

  To start, Royce ran a trembling hand over my hair and then down my neck, spine and arse. There was the usual moment’s dread that he had suddenly decided to get curious for his money, and I began to alter my breathing and will those muscles to relax in anticipation of the coming assault. I could hear his excited, raw breath and I wondered if he was together enough to remember to use lube.

  He bluffed me. The only time his hand lingered was when it reached the soft flesh behind my left knee. I felt the ball of his thumb brush across the tendons and delicate skin there and foolishly thought, Not too bad.

  ‘Are you sure you brought it?’ Selena demanded, her voice urgent and shrill.

  Royce straightened from his examination. ‘It’s in my bag, darling. I was hardly likely to forget now, was I? I even found a sterile one.’

  I didn’t have a clue what they were on about. Didn’t care. Clients brought their own toys all the time, keen to play without judgement or boundaries, and as far as I was concerned it usually came down to some arsing around on the night followed by a couple of ibuprofen and a hot bath the next day. My arms ached, my head felt like it was full of wet mud and I wanted a piss, a cigarette and my bed, preferably in that order. Whatever they were about to do, I willed them to get a move on.

  *****

  I didn’t get it. They had paid thousands to fuck each other senseless whilst a glorified rent boy dislocated his arms for the best part of a night.

  Royce and Selena, dinner guests from hell and shite actors to boot, seemed content to have noisy, artless sex in as many positions as they could think of, breaking only to have another drink or check their captive for disappointingly non-existent signs of escape. I wondered what the hell it was about this set-up that was getting them so excited – especially Selena, who was, as far as I could see, enthusiastically shagging a troll. At the time I thought it might be some drug-induced frenzy. It wasn’t. It was pure, cold-blooded anticipation.

  From my limited angle of vision, I saw Royce use a monogrammed Albermarle facecloth to mop the sweat from his balding head before wiping down Selena’s thighs and shaved bush. I had given up guessing their game: she’d had enough cock to last a year, and he looked as though another round might see him off. I was stupidly thinking that I might actually get the chance to fall into my own bed when Royce walked over and slapped me hard across the head. He caught me on the ear and my eardrum throbbed to the sound of a tidal wave.

  I hated getting hit by amateurs. I would settle for a real bondage freak any day: they at least knew how to avoid any real damage. Royce, like most of my clients, was simply a git with too much money and an urge to hurt someone who couldn’t thump him back.

  Are you ready for your punishment, slave?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, Emperor,’ I replied, hoping that this was the response he was after this time. I began to imagine my back turning into a sheet of ice in anticipation of whatever he’d found to whack me with.

  Instead of the impact there was an odd, plastic rustle that I didn’t recognise and I felt the first dull, indistinct nudges of panic. This wasn’t what I was expecting and I was in no position to do anything about it. Selena picked up the cloth that Royce had used on her and forced it into my mouth. Only the thought that I might choke to death stopped me puking on the spot.

  ‘Slaves who try to run need to be taught a lesson. Something that’ll make sure they don’t do it again.’ There was something in her tone of voice that suggested she was no longer role-playing: half a kilo of Columbia’s finest and a few pints of champagne had sent her into her own make-believe world. This wasn’t good – the concept of ‘boundaries’ was well out of her reach, and I was stark naked and tied to a wall.

  I fought hard not to gag as she stood on the tips of her toes and entwined her arms around my neck. I could feel her hot, desperate breath on my cheek and I instinctively recoiled as she began to nuzzle my face. ‘You’re going to have to be hamstrung, slave.’

  It’s hard to explain the sheer ball-shrinking terror that comes with such words, knowing that you’re in a place where they’re not just an empty threat but a promise; the culmination of someone’s ‘special night’. I wondered if involuntarily pissing myself might be enough to put them off. Judging by their expressions, it was unlikely.

>   Are you sure about this, my sweet?’ Royce asked.

  ‘Do it,’ Selena replied, and her lover, somewhere well and truly in another orbit by now, stooped and gripped my left leg at the ankle, clamping it hard in his deceptively strong fingers, and jabbed something cold and sharp deep into the flesh at the back of my knee.

  I rapidly learned that it took long seconds for your brain to recognise that some sadistic fucker was carving into your leg, but when the pain finally hit it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It began in the pit of my stomach, radiating out in unrelenting waves while the assault continued and I impotently bucked against my restraints as my whole body was engulfed and my muffled howling became nothing more than an irritating background noise.

  Royce continued with his work, and I felt blood flow down my calf to pool on the stone floor. He was in no hurry – this was his big moment after all – and Selena lay back and desperately fingered herself, acrylic-taloned fingers sliding deep into her cunt as her fiancé continued his leisurely butchery. Her loudest, fiercest orgasm of the night was reserved for this.

  ‘Darling, is it meant to take this long? And are you meant to cut that deep?’ Selena’s voice suddenly sounded worryingly sober.

  Emperor Roycie paused in his task and I rammed my head into the wall in agony. He didn’t notice. ‘Well I don’t bloody well know, do I, my love? I shouldn’t think so, but the bugger won’t keep still.’ Frustrated at my continued off-script struggling, Royce straightened up and punched me in the stomach. ‘Fucking well stop it!’ he barked.

  It wasn’t the worst blow I’d ever received, but Selena gave a pathetic little squeak of horror. ‘Royce!’ she hissed. ‘What the hell have you done? Didn’t you say we wouldn’t do anything too damaging?’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, my love, and I didn’t think this would be quite so messy, did I? I mean, didn’t think the bastard would fight back.’

  ‘Shit, what if he dies? I mean, there’s an awful lot of blood…’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, woman! You were the one who wanted the authentic experience! If he does, I can’t imagine the BBC buying my next series, can you?’

  Selena stopped being a Roman empress pretty sharpish, then. Raw panic took over, and I heard a sob catch in her throat. ‘We need to go, Roycie,’ she whimpered. ‘Now, please? I don’t want to be here anymore.’

  ‘And what the fuck do we say to Lady Albermarle, eh? I hardly think that this is going to make for pleasant small talk at breakfast, do you? Hell, look at all this mess – it’s all over my toga...’

  ‘I don’t care what we say. I just want to leave. Now. We can tell that man who brought us here I’m not well, and just go. Please, Royce.’

  I knew what was going on in her head. Selena, in her naivety, still thought that if they ran far enough, fast enough, that they could leave all this behind them. I could have told her that if they ran all the way to a small hut in the Amazon, Blaine Albermarle would track them down with a bill for the dry cleaning, but the gag that had been so kindly shoved into my mouth was making the simple task of breathing pretty tricky. Anyway, they’d find out the hard way soon enough.

  Royce was panting now, desperately trying to find a way out of the nightmare he’d manage to create for himself. ‘Right, come on then,’ he grunted, and I heard something metallic skitter across the floorboards, followed by two pairs of bare feet scuttling down the corridor, and then nothing at all except my own laboured breath.

  I had a vague feeling that unconsciousness wasn’t meant to be smart in situations like this, but couldn’t for the life of me remember why, and then the final salvo from my personal record dose of temazepam arrived and everything ceased to matter.

  Lilith

  My solid oak door shook on its hinges as I kicked it shut. ‘Arsehole!’ I hollered, loud enough for Finn to hear, wherever the bastard was.

  As I undressed, adrenaline coursed through my body and I trembled like a malaria victim.

  I had hit Finn.

  Everything I knew about him and his life, everything that I had witnessed, had meant nothing in that one dreadful moment of betrayal in a shadow-filled corridor. I had no doubt that it had been engineered by him so that he could triumphantly declare that he had been right all along, but this did nothing to assuage my guilt.

  ‘You twisted fuck.’ I climbed into bed, having decided that I didn’t give a damn what happened to him anymore.

  By three in the morning I still didn’t care. And I still hadn’t slept.

  The soft tut of the outboard motor cut through the silence, and I sat up. I couldn’t imagine Henry needing to go into the village at this hour, and Royce and Selena had paid too much to leave so early out of choice.

  The whisper of disquiet that had begun the previous evening returned as a full-throated roar and I retrieved my paint-stained tracksuit bottoms and vest-top and ran barefoot to the cavernous reception hall, where Henry had just let himself back into the building.

  ‘Lilith! What on earth are you doing awake at this hour? You’re not ill, are you?’

  I ignored his concerned questions. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Just sorting out the launch so our latest guests could get back to the mainland. Apparently Selena had a migraine and she’d left her medication in their lodge.’

  I fought down the panic that had begun to flutter in my throat. ‘You let them leave? And take the boat?’

  Henry took a step back, startled by my aggression. ‘I don’t think there’s too much of a problem. They decided she’d be better off staying on shore for the rest of the night, and they said they’d bring the launch back first thing in the morning. She was looking rather peaky.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Henry!’ I exploded. ‘They pay a small fortune for a night of high-level filth, disappear at half time without so much as a goodbye, and you don’t think there’s too much of a bloody problem? How bloody docile do you have to be not to question something like that? This place has fucking lobotomised you!’ My voice, hard with fury, echoed through the still night. ‘Where’s Finn now?’

  ‘I assumed, well, I thought he must be back in his own room,’ Henry stammered. ‘Oh my goodness, you don’t think…’

  ‘Go and get Blaine,’ I snapped. ‘Go and wake that bitch of a woman up and tell her I need to see her. Now.’ I was already walking away.

  ‘Lilith, she really won’t like being disturbed at this hour. What on earth do I tell her when she asks me why?’

  ‘Anything you like. Just go and get her, Henry.’

  ‘But where will you be?’

  I began to run. ‘Wherever they’ve dumped Finn,’ I called over my shoulder.

  *****

  I sprinted down the spiral staircase to Finn’s squalid tip of a room, hoping to see his stoned body crashed out across the mattress.

  Empty.

  Sick with dread, I hurtled down the corridor to the dungeon, bare feet slapping loudly against damp stone. I heaved on the wrought iron handle and the door swung open.

  Empty again.

  I stepped inside, hoping for some trace of Finn’s whereabouts, but saw only the crumpled bed, an abandoned bottle of champagne and two smeared, empty glasses, illuminated by a guttering, dying oil lamp. I began to back away, glad to be out of that place, then realised. I forced myself to step up to the great St Andrew’s cross.

  My first thought was that they had killed him.

  Finn hung from his wrists, his head bowed and still as death. Just as I was about to scream, he gave a juddering breath and looked up at me, wide-eyed. ‘Got cut.’ He slumped down again, and I had to fight hard not to retch as I breathed in the ferrous tang of congealing blood.

  He made a feeble attempt to pull himself up by the straps around his wrists as I began fumbling at the first buckle. ‘Had a... a knife or somethin’. Bas’ard.’

  ‘Fall into me, Finn. Let’s get you on the floor and see what’s going on.’ The second buckle flicked open. I half-caught him as he fe
ll with a wet, dull thud onto the stone slabs, and finally I could see the damage Albermarle Hall’s latest guests had inflicted.

  ‘I think it might be a very good idea if you don’t move,’ I managed, with considerable understatement. The back of Finn’s right leg had been ripped wide open, and his stomach was daubed in blood. ‘Oh crap,’ was all I could manage as my mind raced away from me, dredging together scraps of anatomy classes and the first-aid learnt from my mother’s litany of suicide attempts.

  Dark red suggested venous rather than arterial blood, which was a blessing, but the sheer amount from the two wounds was horrific and even worse, I couldn’t tell whether Finn’s blitzed state was due to his cavalier approach to self-medication, or simple blood loss. Right now, an interesting combination of the two was looking like a good guess.

  ‘Okay sweetheart, I don’t know how much you’re getting of all this, but I need you to stay really still for me,’ I finally managed, and Finn narrowed his eyes.

  ‘You’re being nice to me. Now I’m scared.’

  ‘I’ll call you a pig-shagging Irish cunt if that makes you feel any better.’ I began to tear a length of fabric from the bed sheet. I turned the strip over and over until I had a thick wad, then pressed it firmly onto the gaping hole in Finn’s leg. He gave a surprised yelp of pain and tried to haul himself away but I grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back onto the floor. ‘Still, Finn,’ I ordered.

  ‘Wha’ you doin’ here anyway? Thought you hated me.’

  ‘I do, just not enough to let you bleed to death.’ I made another pad from the ripped sheet and gently covered the wound on his stomach. There was only a tiny hole, but I had no idea how deep it was, or what Royce might have managed to pierce. I wasn’t about to take any risks.

  ‘What you doin’now?’ Finn asked. ‘He only punched me.’

  ‘Yeah, with a scalpel in his hand.’ I nodded at the little blade that had been thrown across the room. I was surreptitiously checking the pulse at his wrist when Blaine’s voice, clipped and irritated, rang down the corridor.