1

The Questions

 

She stood straight, fighting an internal war to remain calm, to keep from breaking out in a sweat. Over the last several months (Or was it a year? Was it really that long?) the tension had ratcheted up little by little, like a growing heat on a skillet until although she still projected an outward calm, within she struggled to retain some emotional control. A control that continued to slide away and when gone she was afraid would never return. With an inner determination she forced the thought away even when she had willingly taken the steps that had brought her here. And her determination was reflected on the outside as she stood straight. Head up. Don't move.

The ropes entangled her arms, drawing them back so tightly that the elbows practically touched. The only reason they didn't was the looped rope between them. More rope just above and below her knees and also round the ankles kept her legs welded together. As for her hands, another rope wrapped her wrists in back and pressed them tight against her ass as another rope delved between the cheeks, then shot up in front and nestled tight between her pussy lips, the end of which was tied off in front to another rope wound several times around her thin waist. She balanced on a pair of spotless, white high heels, the only clothing allowed, with an unusual, pliable collar about the neck. A graceful neck, like a swan she had heard one of the disembodied voices mutter beyond the pool of light that she now occupied. Dragged along like Ellen and Riley, their muffled cries still echoed in her ears while she knew her turn would come in its own time. But to what end? Such knowledge was denied her as a thick, black cloth blindfold and huge leather plug gag had rendered her blind and mute. Yet once set on her feet both items were ripped away, and not even then did she get an immediate answer. The glare of the sudden light served temporarily as just an effective blindfold to extend her ignorance. She squeezed her eyes shut then slowly, slowly opened them, like a little baby fawn come new into the world.

A man dressed in a plain, dark suit and wrapped in shadows sat in a simple wooden armchair while others just as obscured stood around in a loose semi-circle. She guessed maybe twenty in all, men and women in different types of clothing from dress to impress full on formal to too rich to care casual. Yet for all their clothing and put on affectations, they seemed to orbit about the man.

Did she know him? Perhaps not personally but from -

He asked, "What is your name?" His gravelly voice from the grave was a natural match for his remaining still as a stone.

"Harper," she said. She was sure she knew that voice from somewhere, but Harper pushed aside her internal confusion as she had learned that when asked a question you answered truthfully and immediately.

"Is that your true name?" he said.

"No. It's Harperana Callie Trudel."

"What is your age?"

Harper said, "I'm thirty-one. I think." A slight reference to how long since she left the world of light and warmth.

"Last level of education?" This came from a woman in the dark behind the man. She sounded bored and jaded, yet her voice possessed the tone of eternal youth.

"College."

"Degree?"

"Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies. Emphasis in corporate business." She paused then added as if she just remembered, "Minor in medieval philosophy and middle-east cultures."

"Humph. Very highbrow."

Harper didn't answer. No question, no response. She had learned that discipline the hard way. Her knees had ached for a full day after just fifteen minutes of kneeling upon the pencils. Such mundane, everyday things that were used in offices or schools, who knew they could be used to teach in ways never intended? One thing Harper did know was her long term future hung in the balance. On the way here she had listened to Joseph and Tate casually discussing the three women on the slave coffle, how each might fare with their little, secret group. Harper strained to catch every word but due to the shoes echoing on the floor and the almost constant gagged whinings and moanings from Ellen and Riley, Harper had missed a lot of what was said. Being last in line Tate jerked on Harper's collar which in a cascading reaction brought them all to a sudden stop. The other girls screamed behind their gags and if Harper hadn't been so tightly tied like the other two she would have kicked them into silence. If not gagged she would have told them to shut up because Joseph and Tate were talking about where they were headed, what was going to happen, and the special person who would be there. They didn't mention him by name but speculated on what he was looking for and if any of the slaves possessed qualities his followers craved. Little things like that taken together would give a clearer picture of what lay in store for each of them, and Harper hoped with that knowledge came a little bit of control in what would occur. But Ellen and Riley were scared witless; over time Harper had witnessed their fear grow, their doubts multiplying as to just what they had gotten themselves into when Tate and Joseph dragged them singly or with another for increasingly tough training sessions. Now little more than a pair of terrified little slaves they had lost all sense of individuality beyond obeying their latest orders. And when they weren't following orders fear of the unknown ruled them. So when they were brought together before being gagged and blindfolded, Ellen and Riley had begged Joseph and Tate to tell them what they had done to displease. Neither of the doms had answered beyond a curt order to cross their wrists or open their mouths to receive the gag. And now, standing at attention in her bondage, Harper remained absolutely silent as she strained to catch the whispers in the darkness. Mainly she heard the soft tap tap tapping of fingertips on the shadowed man's chair armrest. It reminded Harper of her old job and, after a meeting she presided over, the team she led as their fingers hurriedly sent texts to implement her orders.

Harper had risen fast up the corporate ladder. Not long after her latest promotion to lead a troubleshooting division her team had even given her a nickname and her pride swelled. But then, one day, she found out just what that name really meant...

No, Harper thought. Push it out of your mind.

She did by thinking how so often people repurposed words to fit their needs; submission, slave, obedience, punishment, pain. Her training had taught her alien concepts for all these triggers, and yet none quite as strange as the inverted principle of pleasure and reward that had already ruled her life long before -

"In your training, were you punished?" It was the same bored young woman in the dark.

Harper almost jumped on hearing a similar word spoken nearly at the same time as it flashed through her mind. Freaky, freaky. But then, with all she had seen during this time under the whip, maybe not.

"Didn't you hear me?" came the questioner again. "Were you whipped?"

Harper's silence lengthened as she recalled the swish and crack of the lash, the tender welts on her ass and back, her screams as she dangled suspended, twisting well above the floor in a dank dungeon, the fire within her pussy set off from the leather blades on her skin.

"Answer the question!" Joseph. His demand echoed from a distance. He and Tate were included in this secret gathering and yet set apart. Harper loathed and loved him, not as someone like a passionate lover as it was he who usually doled out the required punishment, most often under Tate's command and scrutiny, but he allowed her to cum, to feel a needed cock inside her to relieve the built up sexual pressure that threatened to tear her apart. But while Harper felt of two minds about Joseph she had no doubt how she felt about Tate. She hated that bitch! But right now it was Joseph she didn't want to anger.

"Answer the question, slave!" he said with a definite warning tone. "Were you whipped?"

"Yes!" Harper called out, at last coming back to the present. Response too sharp. Stay calm. Calm. "Yes."

"How often?" asked the man in the suit.

"A lot. At first."

"But you got better?"

"Yes. The punishments became less frequent."

"Was whipping the only way you were punished?" Another male spoke. Wait, was that...Richard? He was also hiding in the dark (How appropriate!), yet seemingly a lot closer to Harper, as if he were right on the edge of the light. "What other corrections were there? Were you denied food?"

"No," Harper said. "I was adequately fed."

"But you were punished aside from the whip?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Nipple clamps?"

"Yes."

"Suspensions? Stress positions?"

"Yes."

The young, bored woman asked, "Did you endure a butt plug?"

"Yeeesss," Harper slowly said. Take it easy. Don't dwell on how she reacted when Tate first slowly pushed the plug up her ass and how wonderful it felt, or how Tate would don and shove a strapon inside Harper as a penal instrument and how it, in that circumstance, became a hated thing. "It was a punishment, but also part of my training."

Silence again. Instead of fingers tapping on an armrest, Harper now sensed her interrogators were scrutinizing her answers.

The young lady: "Have you ever lain with a woman?"

"Not before I was collared," Harper said.

"Did you enjoy it?"

Harper swallowed and thought, Watch it. Watch it! Stay calm. "...Yes..."

"But not at first?"

"No, not that." Take a breath. The tension, the uncertainty of the forced march here, the current interrogation fed her internal fire. Harper bit her lip, closed her eyes for a brief moment. Breathe. "I was nervous the first time but...well, I...I mean..." She lowered her head.

"That's most interesting," said the young woman. "So you now consider yourself bi-sexual?"

"I... guess so. Yes. Yes." Better now. The fire was still there but now had backed off.

"Good. Very, very good," said the man in the suit.

More silence. The young woman and the older man who had started the questions engaged in a series of quick whispers. The woman approached Harper. A set of black, knee high flat-heeled boots entered the light at Harper's two o'clock. A face leaned in and Harper strained to catch the features but the surrounding shadows kept them mostly hidden. What Harper did see was dark hair that fell to either side of a face neither old nor young with a mouth set in a straight, neutral line and the eyes two dark shadows of unknown quality. Then the face slowly retreated, like a dweller from murky depths come up for a brief look at the world of light, quickly taking in everything found there, then retreating to its natural habitat. Harper tried to suppress a shudder and mostly succeeded, but her shoulders still gave a bit of a twitch. The internal fire suddenly flared, climbed another level. Closer, closer she came to -

Stay in control!

"Something wrong?" asked the man in the suit.

"No!" Harper quickly answered. "I mean, no, sir. Just a little muscle jerk. The ropes are very tight."

"You're not used to such rigid restriction?"

"I... It doesn't matter."

"Oh, it matters. Especially for you. Flexibility and endurance are highly sought qualities. Do you enjoy being tied?"

"Like I said, it doesn't matter."

"Don't evade!" the man who Harper thought was Richard barked. "Do you like to be tied up?"

"Fuck off!" Roaring flames inside her now. "Just fuck off, alright?" Harper couldn't keep it bottled up any longer; the uncertainty of where she was, the stringent bondage, the silent refusal to give her and the others even a clue of what this was all about, and the polite well spoken voices that probed her with questions wanting to know her secrets, all possessing a menacing undercurrent as to what would happen if they discovered the deepest one. Fear of being found out and the cousin fear of the unknown was finally just too much. "I'm here now, aren't I? Isn't that enough of an answer to all your fucking questions?"

If things were quiet before, now they were utterly tomblike. Harper didn't hear anything. It was like everyone beyond her vision had suddenly gone away and she was left alone, in her bondage and turbulent thoughts and one way or the other her fate was now sealed. From behind her Joseph's hands reached around and stuffed her mouth full of red wadding, then wrapped and tied off tight the cloth that was her blindfold to keep it all from being spit out. A dark green, canvas hood descended over her head and was tied off at the neck. As the hood pressed tight against her face Harper panicked, seeking to breathe but then she remembered her training and teased the calm to return as the odor of musty canvas became her immediate world. Joseph gripped one of her tied arms and led her away.

One part was over, but the next was just beginning. Would it be worse or better than her training? Where was she going? Would she ever see Ellen and Riley again? Or, for that matter, just even daylight?