Descent Into Darkness (8 page)

CHAPTER XIV – Boxed In

The lurch
felt in Katarina’s stomach hinted at movement but to where she didn’t know. She would have gasped but the thick leather pad still pressed firmly against her lips removed that option so she sucked for the comfort now associated with her phallic companion.

She quickly lost all sense of direction as the liquid sloshed back and forth in the benwa balls still sealed within, a sensory input to focus on at least. It seemed like she was being lifted and then a thud. Was her crate just bumped into something or was she being loaded for the next stage of her journey? It was impossible to tell. All she knew was that each movement caused her seemingly permanent invaders to press against her insides to edge her arousal higher, one jolt at a time.

The rush of rubber-scented air through her mask lulled Katarina into stupor until an electronic beep shocked her awake. The air supply stalled just as Mistress Raven had promised and, in frantic response, Katarina duly squeezed the button taped to the palm of her balled hand. Her reward wasn’t instant but with the reopening of the air valve the words chimed again, “Mistress Raven is your life.”

In parallel to the voice, vibrations invaded Katarina’s restrictive prison. Deep seated and resonant, they confirmed Katarina’s transportation. A truck? A plane? It could have been anything. She only knew that she was being taken somewhere and that somewhere would not be back to the home she regretted ever leaving.

Katarina felt a faint flicker of security in knowing instinctively that she was not alone. The elfin-featured Mela was close by in a crate of her own, sharing what she felt and that at least was something to cling on to. Katarina’s eyes closed with the comfort of that and thoughts drifted to perhaps seeing her again. With that grain of comfort as solace, she drifted, descending into that quilted thickness on the verge of sleep.

A coffee shop on a warm summer’s day. Laughing. Joking. Brushing hands with the cute girl sitting opposite in the pretty sundress. Comfortable. Friendly. Katarina tried to speak but not a sound emerged as she realised her lips remained crushed behind the leather pad. She felt herself flush with embarrassment to be gagged in a public place. All else seemed normal though. All that is apart from the harsh armbinder that still held her arms fast. She tried to rise, she needed a place to hide. The wicked heels clanged against the legs of the stainless steel chair she now found herself chained to.

Why was nobody helping? Why did they just walk past? She needed help but none was offered. She watched the girl rise, slide across the chair to her and position herself onto Katarina’s lap, looping an arm around her. Her other hand brushed through Katarina’s tousled hair and traced along her cheekbone. It was public, taboo but the assurance of a connection drew her back toward comfort.

The intrusion of a disconnected buzz spun Katarina backwards and flicked the entire village square scene away from her. It spun into infinity to be replaced by an inky darkness as her eyes shot open. How long had she slept? She felt as it the world was pressing down on her.

Katarina breathed in but her efforts were denied. She tried again, her chest now starting to tighten with a feeling of dread. Through the haze of brief sleep, the thought flashed when her fourth attempted breath failed. The button. She pressed. She pressed with the fervour of fear and was soon rewarded with the gush of rubber-scented air once again. “Mistress Raven is your life,” Katarina was reminded once again and Katarina knew it to be true.

She couldn’t let herself drift again. Not here. Not now. It was simply too dangerous and so she steeled herself to stay awake. The mercury still sloshed but now also danced to the dull vibrations penetrating the crate, a new movement within her. It would prove to be her longest night.

Part 2

The T
aming

CHAPTER XV – Just In Time Delivery

Ragged. It was the only description that could even come close. She’d tried to count the beeps
as a touch point. That hadn’t lasted long as the events of the day pulled her thoughts first this way, then that, then pulled her to the briefest but most dangerous of sleeps.

Katarina knew that she was still under way – the sensations in her stomach told her that. But from where? She hadn’t recognised the town. And, more importantly,
to
where? Her sense of place had been ripped from her in so many ways it barely mattered anymore, so she simply endured, waiting for an unknown fate.

She had held such optimism. Her narcissism had earned her a painful lesson though. She thought she could just turn up, simper and succeed as the model all would clamour for to sell their wares. That could’ve been a different life but they had thoroughly shattered that dream. And now, wracked by the pain of her cramped position, head throbbing through enforced lack of sleep, she suckled for solace.

The beep, that infernal beep sounded again and Katarina held her breath. It was a small rebellious pleasure she derived from that extra second or two of not obeying before her lungs started to burn and she had to press.

She’d learnt something else too. They had built in a delay. So cruel. Katarina squeezed the button taped in her palm and waited those tortuous five seconds for the pump to push air back to her. “Mistress Raven is your life,” the dislocated voice said once again. Much as she hated it, in the shroud of dark, it was Katarina’s only touch point with other humanity.

This time though, the air seemed thinner as if rationed compared to previous rewards. Oh God, perhaps the cylinders were running out! She should panic. She should thrash and kick against the hardened gel surrounding her but Katarina merely breathed while she could behind her mask. If this was to be it, then so be it. At least it would be an escape from hell.

The crate jarred, juddering the motion through her balled body. If she could have seen, Katarina would have breathed a sigh of relief at the end of her journey. The screeched complaint of a nail being slowly withdrawn from wood though was her sign. More followed before, finally, the lid of the crate was dragged aside and light streamed in through the translucent resin that held her still.

An increasing heat started to embrace her from the arch of her back to her badly aching knees. Warmer and warmer until pleasant changed to uncomfortable and uncomfortable to sore. Hot now, nerve endings screamed their agonised protest as they threatened to boil. As Katarina was approaching her limits of tolerance though the resin liquidised to flow freely away. It oozed through the slats of the crate with the melting of the membrane, leaving a thick strand of her red-stained hair splattered across the Perspex faceplate of her gasmask.

Somehow, she felt free. No longer the fly in amber, she was a person again. Bound? Yes, but relatively free. The sides of the crate were levered down and Katarina’s spirits nudged higher, seeing a polished marble floor. It was less clinical than the harsh white tiles of the preparation room. This was expensive, cultured even. Nobody of taste would allow this predicament to continue.

The strap around her waist tightened briefly before flailing loose, recoiling through the buckle. A fiddling at her neck finally released Katarina from the balled position of her transit. Like a spring, her back muscles snapped her upright with such speed that she lurched to the side, falling heavily against her shoulder.

Fingers worked around her head to pull the mask free. Katarina gulped in what air she could, sweet and fresh, lacking the stench of rubber.

Gentle hands lowered Katarina’s head so it rested sideways on the cold floor. It struck an unexpected chill that drove a shudder through her body. Her eyes slowly adjusting to contact with light, she started to make out shapes moving around her.

Strangely nebulous, at first her focus turned to the matted hair which splayed across the marble floor. Such a mess. Katarina’s vanity jumped up to protest then slunk back, a guilty cause of her misery.

As the shapes sharpened into focus, long legs approached in towering heels. Sharp stilettos speared down from knee high leather boots. Lifting her head as far as the posture collar would allow, Katarina explored further.

Slender thighs were encased in the deep burgundy leather of a catsuit. The woman momentarily passed from view before striding back. She was tall and, moved with a lithe athletic power. Katarina quickly placed her as one of the women that had taken Mela down outside the shop. This woman was clearly not one to be trifled with. The collar she wore said ‘Red’ and she was well named from the fiery mane of hair that billowed behind when she moved.

A reflection seemed to appear beside the woman. Katarina frowned and focussed on a second face. This woman was different, pretty but with the trace of devilry that hinted its own story. This was the second of Mistress Raven’s assistants and she was apparently called ‘Amber’.

Amber reached forward and pulled the redhead to her by the webbing of straps over her torso. Leaning across a second crate, the two women’s lips met in a smiling kiss. Mela! Katarina
knew
she had been with her. That was relief in itself even as the two leather-clad woman kissed passionately above them, inspired by the two captive women at their feet.

A third pair of legs manoeuvred around the crate to stand with an unquestionably confident pose. Katarina’s gaze edged upwards, her recovering eyesight allowed her to increase the distance of her focus. Shapely beyond question and squeezed into a latex catsuit similar to her own, Katarina’s exploration settled on the collar which picked out a single word, ‘Bitch’.

The answer she already knew. Nevertheless, Katarina raised her gaze a degree or two higher until it rested on a face she had grown to fear, the face of Mistress Raven.

CHAPTER XV
I – Familiarity Breeds Contempt

“Welcome to The Manor, my pretty little whore.” The voice was familiarly wicked but still caused a conditioned thrill to spark within Katarina. The two leather-clad assistants slowly extracted themselves from their kiss, limbs entwined in that easy manner of two people that had clearly shared so much more. Mistress Raven strode toward the prone Katarina.

She stopped in front of her, bringing the spikey stiletto of a boot to rest on a breast. Raven gently rocked her captive back and forth, toying with her as if considering her next move while the redheaded woman behind smiled at the image. The sharp sting in her breast rolled Katarina until she rested on her back, bound arms crushed beneath her.

A flick of the toe of a boot against the side of Katarina’s breast and Mistress Raven crouched into view. The malicious depth of her smile hinted toward plans for the future and she couldn’t resist tracing a finger over the features of the prey that lay vulnerable at her feet, before poking out Katarina’s earplugs.

Mistress Raven stood, moving away to the retort of stilettos and Katarina breathed easier with her increasing distance. Strong hands scooped her under each arm and she was quickly drawn upwards. Her legs numb, she had little chance to even try to stand and was dragged forward toward the far end of the room and the platform that stood there.

Katarina tried to look up but her neck remained stubbornly immobile. With no other choice, she watched the only thing she could, the swirling patterns of the marble floor as they sped beneath her. To be this size, it must have been some kind of grand hall.

The supporting hands positioned her fully upright. Before her, raised on a stepped platform was a chair or, more correctly, a throne. And there, sat legs crossed, fingers drumming on his leg, sat Michael Immelmann.

He smiled briefly before looking down, directing Katarina’s wide eyed stare to the woman kneeling before him, head bowed. A frown furrowed her brow as she tried to decipher the scene.

“Your new slave, Master.” Raven’s words blew away Katarina’s mists of confusion in a gale of realisation.

A shocking new twist. Mistress Raven, she of the sadistic malice, herself submitted and called another Master. Leaning forward, Immelmann laced fingers through Raven’s hair, yanking her head sharply back so she looked directly into his eyes. “If you have drawn blood from her, you will feel my lash, Raven,” he said matter of factly, as if stating the sky was blue.

“She is delivered untarnished Master.” Raven was suitably reverential in her response. “And her training has already begun.”

Immelmann looked up. Katarina’s hair hung limply around her streaked and reddened face but even as the residual resin dripped away, her natural beauty still shone through. Hungry eyes last seen in the hotel feasted on Katarina’s bound form again, widening his smile of satisfaction, seeing her journey so far written across her.

With his hand still clutching hair, Immelmann twisted Raven around to his right. The guttural groan was more pleasure than protest until, releasing the hold, she settled on the floor to the side, facing the trio at the foot of the plinth.

Flanked by leather, Katarina couldn’t help but be intoxicated. The powerful woman who had controlled her with such disdaining arrogance was cowed and submissive. The man who had singled Katarina out also owned her tormentor, a bizarre connection.

The authority he had shown in the hotel room had been something but this was a different level. Immelmann was the pre-eminent presence while Katarina was bound tight and held. She felt like little more than an object to be toyed with on a whim, a feeling furthered by the hand she now felt resting on her butt.

On her left flank, Katarina assumed it must belong to Amber. A second hand on her right removed the need to guess.

“It seems your girls like my choice, Raven,” Immelmann observed casually, leaning slightly to his right to enable the discussion. So it
was
him,
he
had done the choosing.

“Your tastes are impeccable as ever, Master.” Raven’s response, though respectful, seemed a touch forced. Katarina thought she could see jealousy dancing in her eyes.

A slap to Raven’s cheek only fed her fire. “Staunch your jealousy, Raven!” His authority was undeniable. Pausing, Raven duly bowed her head in deference to the warning, seething within. She would exact a fitting revenge on this girl who seemed to so entice, the thoughts of which formed a malevolent smile. Her eyes met Katarina’s and drilled through to her soul and in that brief moment of connection both glimpsed the future.

“Forgive me, Master,” Raven pleaded with a humility she had to force to the fore. “Please allow me to present her to you cleansed.”

Immelmann looked at Katarina. Critical this time, he observed the ragged-looking woman supported before him. A single nod of permission had Red and Amber turn the bound Katarina, dragging her through the room while Mistress Raven’s smile broadened still further, thinking of the delicious work ahead.