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			DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
			Anne's Story —  by Van Chapter 4

Anne drifted in a warm, relaxed half-slumber, where the dream world and real world seemed to whirl and coexist.  I dreamed I was swimming, she mused, and Jodi Weber came and tied me up and tried to drown me... and fed me pizza and... then Margo Wells came and she stripped me... and I ran away into a mirrored maze... and I ran, but she was always right behind me, even though I was running and she was only walking... and I ran and ran and...

"...Anne? ... Anne?"

Anne became aware of a voice calling her name.

"Anne?"

A hand was gently shaking her shoulder.

"Anne, wake up."

Anne stretched... or rather she tried to stretch.  Her arms were behind her back and were wrapped in something.  Her shoulders were a little sore... and her ankles were tied together, they were—Anne's eyes opened wide, and she awkwardly struggled to sit up.  She was a prisoner!  She was tied up!  Naked!  Naked, in a brightly lit, white room.  She opened her mouth to scream, and—a hand clamped tightly over her mouth.  Another hand pushed her back down to the padded floor.  Anne's eyes focused.  It was Elke.  Elke Weber!

Elke was dressed in what Anne recognized as her usual work clothes: leotard, thong, and sports bra in a combination of heather gray, "TESSERACT blue," and black; the kind of outfit worn in various permutations by all members of the TESSERACT health club staff.  Anne squirmed and mewed through Elke's strong hand as the tall, tan, well-muscled blonde straddled Anne's hips and settled a portion of her weight on the distressed brunette's abdomen.

"Shh, quiet," Elke scolded with a good-natured grin.  Anne stopped struggling and looked into her captor's smiling eyes.  "Are you awake yet?" Elke asked.  "Is it starting to come back to you?"  Anne blinked and slowly nodded her head.  "Good," Elke said with a friendly chuckle.  "I assume I can take my hand away without you screaming loud enough to blow my ear drums?"  Anne nodded a second time.  "Good," Elke chuckled.  "No one would hear you, anyway."

Elke slowly released her hand, then lifted herself off the still dazed Anne and sat in a semi-lotus on the floor.  Anne squirmed in the "flipper sleeve" arm-binder tightly zipped & strapped around her arms, then looked down at the black cord binding her ankles.  Elke watched with amusement as Anne pointed her toes and flexed her joined feet.  After several seconds, Anne took a deep breath... and swallowed.  The metal choker, the fine jewelry Margo had said was some sort of tracking device, was still around her throat.  Finally, Anne spoke.  "It..." she whispered.  "It wasn't..."

"No, it wasn't a dream," Elke laughed.

"I..." Anne tried again.  "She..."

"You really are bound and helpless, and you really are Margo's prisoner."

Anne swallowed again.  "She... she tricked me, didn't she?"

Elke laughed and stretched.  "Who?" she asked.  "Margo, or Jodi?"

Anne twisted in the flipper sleeve, Jodi's supposed invention, and found it still implacably inescapable.  "Jodi, of course, she..."  Anne blinked.  "Mar.. Ms. Wells?"

"Please, Anne," Elke chuckled, "we're all on a first name basis in the Inner Circle.  Margo won't mind you getting personal... especially seeing as how she's made you her prisoner, stripped you, gagged you..."

Anne blushed, very much aware of her nude and captive condition.  "'Margo,' then.  Margo tricked me?"

"Margo's been watching you for some time," Elke said quietly.

Anne grew very still.  "Watching me?" she whispered.

Elke smiled reassuringly.  "Nothing sinister, I assure you."  Anne continued watching Elke, her captor, quietly.  "Margo is what you might call something of a missionary hedonist," Elke explained.  "She likes to enjoy life, and sees no reason why others shouldn't as well."

"She plays... games," Anne suggested.

Elke nodded her head in agreement.  "Win-win games," she explained.  "Always win-win."

"What made her—makes her think I want to—"

"Please," Elke said with a chuckle, "don't even try and tell me you aren't enjoying yourself."

Anne blushed.  "It was—is sort of fun, but I have no desire to be anybody's slave, or—"

"It's all about fun," Elke said.  "Margo doesn't want a slave, just a new playmate, a new member for her Inner Circle."  Elke stood and walked to one of the padded walls.  At her touch, a section of padding opened like a cabinet door to reveal several steel drawers.  "Margo's recruiting methods are varied and complex.  Even I don't know about all of them.  Suffice it to say Margo recognized in you something of a kindred spirit... or maybe I should say a complimentary spirit."  Despite herself, Anne flinched when Elke tossed several items onto the padded floor next to her.  "We'll talk some more later, but for now, let's get you cleaned up and have some breakfast."

Anne's stomach growled at the suggestion of breakfast, but hunger took a back seat to apprehension as she nervously inspected two pair of wide, steel cuffs and what had to be a gag, a black rubber ball in the center of a black rubber loop.

"No," Anne said, shaking her head to the negative.  "I don't want—"

"It's not open to discussion," Elke said pleasantly.

"But how can I eat breakfast if you..."  Her voice trailed off as Elke picked up the gag and approached.  "Please, Elke," Anne said nervously.  "I—Mmmpfh!"

Elke thrust the ball into Anne's mouth, stretched the rubber loop behind the captive's head, and let it go with a snap.  Anne winced and glared at her captor... her handler.  She found the gag to be tight but not what she would call uncomfortable.  More irritating and humiliating than anything else.  Anne mewed and frowned in complaint, but Elke only laughed and began untying Anne's ankles.  Anne swallowed around her gag and watched as the thin, black cord was unknotted and unwound, the cord Margo herself (Anne shuddered at the memory) had used to bind her the night before.

Elke reached for a pair of the cuffs she had retrieved from the alcove and held them up for Anne's inspection.  The cuffs were thick and wide, and there was nothing like the ratchet mechanism that allowed traditional police cuffs to close around the wrists or ankles of different prisoners.  The edges were smooth and rounded, similar to the choker Margo had locked around Anne's throat.  The inside surface of each open band was coated in a hard, black rubbery substance, and Anne could see a paired pin and socket in the open edge of each cuff.  The cuffs themselves were joined with a steel ball-and-socket joint (rather than a short chain or hinge).  Anne glanced at the second pair of cuffs still lying on the floor, and noticed that they were slightly smaller than the pair in Elke's hand.  Anne's attention returned to her feet as Elke locked the first pair of cuffs around her ankles.  They were tight and heavy... but surprisingly comfortable.

Elke smiled.  "One advantage of being a billionaire with automated workshops controlled by the world's most advanced AI—"

"Thank you, Elke," Eve interrupted.

"You're welcome," Elke answered.  "As I was saying, one advantage is a foretaste of the sort of customized manufacturing we'll all find affordable in a few years.  These manacles and shackles are in exactly your size, Anne."

Anne pulled on her ankles and found the cuffs—shackles in question to be solidly locked, and her ankles just as solidly joined.  Elke rolled Anne onto her stomach, sat astride her buttocks, and began unbuckling and unzipping the "flipper sleeve" Anne had been told was broken and couldn't be removed.  Anne mewed through her gag angrily as the sleeve was tossed to the side and she got a good look at the perfectly intact zipper clasp.

"One of Jodi's infamous practical jokes," Elke chuckled.  "Of course, it was also a test," Elke continued, in a more serious tone.  "It was a test for both of you, actually.  You passed... but my sister 'The Trickster' failed."

Anne's now free hands darted to her gag and she tried to pull it from her mouth.  (Simultaneously, she noted that her arms and shoulders, finally free from their hours of enclosed, elbow-touching bondage, felt glorious).  Anne mewed in confusion.  The gag was solidly in her mouth to stay.

"It's not really an overgrown rubber band," Elke explained.  "It's a steel cable inside a rubber sheath wound on a spring loaded, spherical, rubber clad housing, controlled by Eve... and one of these."  Elke held her hand before Anne's gagged face, presenting the small TESSERACT signet ring on her right ring finger, similar to the ring Anne had seen on Margo's hand.  "If you're a very good girl, you'll probably get one of these some day.  For now, suffice it to say that ball remains in your mouth 'til I decide it comes out."

Anne growled in frustration and awkwardly tried to squirm out from under her smug captor.

Elke responded by grabbing a handful of Anne's short hair, and, with surprising gentleness, pulling her head back.  "Enough of that," Elke admonished.  "I want you to fold your hands under your chin... and relax."  Elke released Anne's hair and the captive reluctantly rested her chin on her hands as ordered.  "Resistance is futile... to coin a phrase," Elke chuckled.

Anne was trying to work herself up to a proper tantrum (or at least a serious pout)—when Elke began giving her neck, shoulder, and upper arms a very expert massage—and it was wonderful.  Anne sighed in near ecstasy and rolled her eyes in pleasure.

The massage continued for several minutes, until Anne felt like she was hovering in a cloud of warmth and contentment.  Elke leaned close to her ear.  "Feel better?" she whispered. 

"M'mmpfh," Anne murmured.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Elke laughed. and before Anne knew it was happening, cuffed her wrists behind her back.  Elke climbed off Anne's back, retrieved the flipper-sleeve and ankle cord, tossed them down an open chute in the alcove from which she had produced the cuffs and gag.  Elke stretched and closed the alcove door, restoring the room to its former featureless, padded state.  By the time Elke turned back to her prisoner, Anne had rolled against the opposite wall and was sitting with her back against the padding, eyeing Elke with carefully controlled trepidation.

"That's how it works in the Inner Circle," Elke said.  "The carrot and the stick, pleasure and punishment; but it's all about having fun, Anne," Elke continued.  "I give you my solemn promise that no one you ever meet in the Biosphere, the... special parts of the Headquarters Campus, will ever do you any harm.  I won't allow it, Eve won't allow it, and Margo won't allow it." 

Anne twisted in her bonds and tossed her head, trying to straighten her short, tousled locks, but her attention was very much on Elke and her words.

"Of course," Elke said with a wry smile, "that doesn't mean being a bound, helpless captive will always be pleasant, but just as a hard workout has its pains and rewards, so does being a damsel-in-distress."  Elke walked over to Anne and lifted her (with effortless, Amazonian ease) to her shackled feet.  At the same time, a padded section of the wall slid to the side to reveal a new alcove, this one a brightly lit, circular, glass walled chamber, roughly a meter and a half in diameter and as tall as the ceiling of the main room.  The helpless lawyer squealed in surprise as Elke put her arms around Anne's waist, lifted her joined feet off the padded floor, and carried her towards the alcove.  The glass wall slid open like a rotating cylinder with a hollow scrape.

"The important thing to remember is that it's mostly in the mind," Elke continued.  "For example, in your current circumstances, you are a bound and gagged prisoner, but you know I won't harm you."  Elke planted Anne's feet inside the alcove and turned her around, steadying the captive with her hands on the brunette's shoulders.  "You do know that, don't you Anne?"

Anne stared at Elke for a few seconds, then nodded her head shyly to the affirmative.

"Thank you," Elke said quietly, then leaned forward and kissed Anne on the forehead.  She then took a step back and the glass door cycled closed, leaving Anne alone inside the alcove.  "Now, as I was saying," Elke continued, her voice hollow and muted through the thick glass.  "You know I won't harm you, but let's pretend I wasn't such a nice person, and Margo was an Evil Master Villainess... complete with Nehru jacket and white Persian cat?  ..and I, her loyal assassin, had been ordered to drown you?"

Anne blinked in surprise. What a peculiar thing to say, she thought. Drown me?   Suddenly, she felt a drop of liquid splash the crown of her head.  She looked up to find the ceiling covered with a grid of small holes.  As she watched, a second large drop emerged from the center of the grid and splashed her gagged face... then a third drop... and a fourth—and suddenly the drops became a torrent , a torrent of blood warm, clear water.  Anne sputtered around her gag and shook her head—and then the torrent redoubled into a veritable monsoon .  Anne squealed in alarm, noting that the water was already well above her joined ankles, and the cylinder was watertight... and there seemed to be no drain!   She blinked and looked towards Elke's figure, strangely distorted by the water streaming down the glass.  Anne screamed , and noticed only a slight soprano shift in the hollow, drumming, near deafening cacophony of wet noise.  She twisted her wrists in their inescapable cuffs.  The water was up to her thighs!  She looked towards Elke again, and saw that her captor seemed to be... undressing, stripping off her thong, leotard, and sports bra.  The water was above Anne's waist.  Anne screamed again.  The now nude Elke, her back to Anne, was performing a series of slow, even stretching exercises.  Anne's ankles slipped out from under her and her head slid under the warm water.  Anne planted her joined feet in the center of the chamber and carefully stood erect.  Her head cleared the splashing, sloshing surface, but the water had risen past her point of buoyancy.  She had no choice but to balance on her toes and put her head back, above the surface of the water, but directly under the pounding cascade.  She couldn't breath!  The water was splashing into her nostrils, sloshing past her gag when she tried to breath through her mouth—then, abruptly, the torrent stopped.

Anne half floated in her watery prison, her head above the sloshing surface, her toes grazing the smooth floor of the cylinder, giving her just enough purchase to remain upright.  She looked towards Elke and found the nude Fitness Director regarding her with a sardonic smile on her tanned face, her trim, muscled arms folded across her firm breasts.

Anne could feel her heart beating like a trip hammer.  She wasn't exactly frightened, but what had just happened, what was still happening to her, was very real.  She twisted in her bonds.  She was naked, helpless, trapped, being drowned!  Anne looked at Elke's smiling face.  Well... not really, Anne admitted. 

Anne became aware of another feeling.  She twisted her ankles in their tight cuffs, causing her thighs to rub together.  Anne was... aroused.  She felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment as a tiny wave of delight shuddered through her loins.  She felt... wicked... and she wished she was alone... with her hands free.

"What shall it be, Eve?"  Elke's voice echoed through Anne's cylinder, now apparently amplified by the room's systems.  "A slow drip with, say... one hour 'til the last of the air is displaced?"

"Of course, Ms. Weber," Eve answered, and a steady stream of water began to drip-drip-drip from the center of the overhead grid, splashing Anne's forehead.  Anne mewed through her gag and struggled, playing her part.  They weren't really going to leave her floating in here for an hour, the small gap between the water's surface and the ceiling getting ever smaller... were they ?

"I can't decide about the rest," Elke mused aloud.  "Total darkness?  No, she should see the approaching ceiling, shouldn't she?"

"It would make her slow, horrible demise more terrifying," Eve observed.

"Yes..." Elke answered, biting her lower lip in apparent concentration.  "And the rest... freezing... parboiling... I just can't decide."  Anne and Elke locked eyes through the glass.  Anne squirmed slightly and grimaced around her gag, futilely testing her restraints.

"I have a suggestion," Eve volunteered.

"Yes?" Elke answered.

"R&D is working on a new formula for our packing gel.  It's water based and completely biodegradable.  The catalyst has an isomeric decay feature activated by UV light that..."

"Let's cut to the chase, shall we?" Elke suggested with a chuckle.

"I could add the required ingredients to Ms. Clayton's drowning chamber.  Within one hour, the water around her would turn into a clear solid, from the bottom up.  The result would be a solid cylinder with Ms. Clayton's upturned face just above the top surface.  With a properly applied surface fixative, after she expired, of course... which would take only a few days, she would make a delightful decorative feature for one of the corridors."

Elke and Anne gazed at one another through the glass.  "Preserved for all time, like a fly trapped in amber," Elke mused.

Anne shuddered in her watery prison.  Her feeling of excitement doubled as she savored the fantasy.  It would be horrible, but she knew it was only The Game.  They were teasing her... weren't they?

Elke chuckled.  "File that one away for later," she said.  "For now, we'll stick with the original plan."

Anne felt a vibration... and suddenly the water was draining from her "drowning chamber."  In less than ten seconds she found herself leaning against the back wall of the cylinder, wet, but very much not drowned.

The cylinder door cycled open and the nude, towering Elke joined the bound, gagged, and dripping Anne.  Their eyes locked again as the door cycled closed, trapping them together in the close, humid space. Anne heard a small noise and watched a small drawer emerge from the cylinder wall beside her.  Elke reached in and extracted a wet, soapy mitten.  Their eyes locked again as Elke smiled and slid the mitten over her right hand.  Anne reflexively backed against the wall of the cylinder, but was (of course) powerless to prevent the Amazonian Elke from grabbing her bound self, spinning her around, and hugging her close to her firm, toned body.  Elke's muscled left arm was across Anne's chest, pressing the top of her breasts, Elke's left hand gripping Anne's right upper arm.  Anne could feel Elke's breasts against her back.  She squawked through her gag as Elke reached around her joined legs and slipped her left leg between, planted her left foot on the floor, and straightened her body.  Anne felt her feet leave the floor, her wet body sliding against body of her tall, powerful, nude captor as their embrace became tighter, closer, more intimate. 

Anne mewed through her gag and leaned her face against Elke's shoulder.  Elke leaned her face against Anne's and began slowly, gently scrubbing her prisoner's body with the soapy mit,  humming tunelessly.  Anne found her earlier excitement returning, in spades.  Her condition of complete helplessness, Elke's firm body pressed against her back, the Amazon so easily controlling her, it was wicked... delicious.

Elke spun Anne's body around and again held her close, this time breast to breast.  Anne's body quivered as the warm, soapy mit caressed her arms, back, and buttocks.  Elke's breasts slid down Anne's and across the prisoner's stomach as Anne's captor leaned low and scrubbed her prisoner's thighs and legs.

Elke pulled her leg from between Anne's and took a step back.  Their eyes locked and Anne blushed.  "Down," Elke ordered.  Anne frowned in confusion.  "On your knees," Elke explained with a patient smile.  Anne swallowed around her gag... and slowly, awkwardly, dropped to her knees in the close, humid chamber.  Elke put one hand in Anne's hair and pulled her head back.

Anne closed her eyes as Elke's other hand, with its wet, soapy mit, scrubbed her face, neck, and ears.  She was very aware of Elke's blonde bush and sex, just inches from her gagged mouth.

"Eve, rinse please," Elke said.  Anne blinked as a warm, gentle shower washed the soap from her face... then squealed as Elke leaned forward to place the mit back in its drawer, the motion planting Elke's bush firmly against her face.  Her hand still in Anne's hair, Elke leaned back and grinned.  Anne felt her cheeks burning, despite the water streaming down her face.  "Quite a charming blush you have, Anne," Elke teased.

The door cycled open and Elke pulled Anne out into the main chamber.  Dripping and still embarrassed, Anne watched as Elke opened another hidden cabinet and began drying herself with a thick, fluffy towel.  "We'll have our breakfast now, Eve," Elke announced, watching Anne shake the dripping hair from her face.  "I'll have a cheese omelet," Elke continued, "and Ms. Clayton will have a nice, steaming bowl of Damsel Mush."

Anne gazed at Elke.  Damsel Mush?

"Flavored, or plain?" Eve asked.

Elke grinned and approached Anne with a fresh towel.  "Ms. Clayton has been a good little girl," Elke said.  "Flavored... with..."  Elke gazed down at her prisoner.  "Brown sugar?"

Anne twisted in her bonds.  Damsel Mush?

"Brown sugar, Eve."

"Yes, Elke," Eve responded.  "A service-bot will arrive in approximately 45 seconds."