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			DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
			Jamie's Story — by Van Chapter 6

Jamie finished tying Margo's wrists behind her back, then busied herself using a short piece of rope to hobble her employer's ankles.  "Okay, up you come," she said, and tugged on the rope still pinning Margo's arms to her sides.  The tall prisoner struggled to her knees.

"I was planning on letting you escape 'til evening, you know," Margo said with a wry smile, "if you had really tried and had given me a good chase, of course."

"And why is that?" Jamie asked skeptically.

"I really did want Kat to leave you alone this trip," Margo said.  "I know you enjoy playing the damsel in distress, but I don't want Kat to think she gets to help you play one every time she crosses your path."

Jamie traced the lasso pinning Margo's arms out several meters, then cut it free from the hidden counterweight she had used to engineer that part of her trap.  "I'm touched by your concern for my welfare and Kitty Kat's emotional development," Jamie said with mock sincerity.  She returned to her prisoner coiling the rope.

"You don't believe me?" Margo asked, still smiling.

Jamie took two additional turns of rope around Margo's arms and tied a quick double hitch.  "Oh, I believe you," Jamie laughed, then grew serious.  "I'd believe you no matter what you told me," she said quietly.

Margo chuckled.  "Then believe this: if you let me go right now, I still won't let Kat touch you, and you get your choice of one of the other 'jungle girls' as your plaything until the end of my visit."

Jamie smiled.  "And that's an offer?  I already have everyone on the Island as my playthings... except Kat, of course, and I plan on having her too by this time tomorrow."

"Good luck with that," Margo chortled, then grew serious.  "So I'm your plaything, am I?"

Jamie leaned down and kissed Margo's lips.  "That's a side of the game you don't get to experience very often, isn't it?" she whispered.  "Well, you wanted the game to be 'Most Dangerous'.  You can't have danger without risk, and you can't have risk and expect to win every throw."

"Keep that in mind when Kat starts her prowl," Margo suggested.

"Oh, I shall," Jamie laughed.  "Let's take a walk," the petite redhead suggested, and helped her tall prisoner to her hobbled feet.

Anne, propping herself half off the ground on her bound arms, her left foot still trapped in the intertwined forks of the two heavy fallen branches, looked down her painted body as Jamie led Margo away, descending down the trail towards the lowlands.  "M'mmpfh!" she shouted through her gag.

"I haven't forgotten you," Jamie called back as she and Margo passed from the helpless lawyer's sight.

Anne sighed and lay back down on her stomach. If that redheaded twerp leaves me here, she thought, I'll... I'll...lie here helplessly and stew.  There was nothing she could do.

Jodi had lost interest in struggling against her bonds, or even in trying to remain completely still.  She knew she wasn't in any real danger of drowning in the swamp.  Even if the safety line that Margo had so thoughtfully rigged somehow failed, Jodi knew Eve would find a way to rescue her.

She looked down at her nipples.  They were just reaching the level of the mud.  As Jodi ever so slowly sank deeper, she watched the surface dimple, then crawl over them.  She noticed there was a very thin layer of clear water... then it got cloudy... and within the space of perhaps a quarter of an inch her skin was lost from view in the soupy, opaque mud.  She watched as her nipples descended... and descended, and were gone.

The bound captive bent slightly at the waist, then straightened again.  Her nipples bobbed back into view, now covered with a thin coat of slimy mud... then were gone again as she continued to sink.

Jodi sighed.  A veteran of many such campaigns against boredom, of waiting for her captor or captors to return from whatever they were doing... and do something new and no doubt even more unpleasant to her helpless body, Jodi knew the value of taking her entertainment where she could find it.

Less than half a kilometer from the scene of Margo's capture (and the abandoned and annoyed "Bait") Jamie and her prisoner came to a side trail that led to a small clearing.  There, one of the Island's many streams paused in its endless journey from clouds to mountain slopes to ocean to clouds to form a waterfall and a small pool.  Jamie felt Margo's tether go taut as her tall captive paused to drink in the scene.

"Beautiful," Margo whispered.

"It is," Jamie agreed.  "You've never seen this one before?"

"No."

"Well," Jamie chuckled, "I'll give you some time to get to know the place."  Jamie led her captive to a tree near the edge of the pool and tied her tether to a low hanging branch.  She then stepped behind the tree and returned totting a large bag woven from dried grass (actually microfiber yarn processed to look like dried grass).  Jamie threw open the bag's flap, reached inside, and withdrew a coil of green rope.  The rope was smooth as braided silk, but had the look of hand twisted hemp.  Like the bag it was more of the microfiber, primitive and natural in style, but with with all the best qualities of the new synthetics.  Margo watched with interest as the diminutive redhead tossed one end of the rope over a higher branch and tied the other around Margo's already bound, gloved wrists.  She then untied the rope binding Margo's upper arms against her torso, tossed it aside, stepped in front of her friend, and gave the green rope a heave.

Despite herself, Margo yelped as her wrists were jerked into the air.  Jamie hauled on the rope again and Margo bent at the waist and shuffled to the side to gain some slack and maintain her balance on her hobbled, booted feet.  Jamie's grin took on a slightly feral curl as she hauled on the rope a third time, and Margo's arms were pulled higher.  The captive twisted in her bonds and shuffled in place, trying to ease the strain on her wrists and shoulders as her captor tied the rope off to a protruding root.

"Tying the boss en strappado is probably not a very good career move," Margo observed wryly.

"It won't be for long," Jamie reassured her friend, then reached into the bag and pulled out a long, narrowly folded, pale green scarf.  "But we can discuss TESSERACT's human resource development guidelines later.  For now... enough idle chit-chat."  Jamie thrust the scarf between Margo's teeth, took a turn around the brunette's head to either side, and cinched the scarf tight until Margo's cheek's bulged.  The grinning redhead tied a tight double knot and stepped back.

Margo's booted toes danced in place and she tossed her head and bit her gag, trying to find some minimal improvement in her condition.  "Let me help you," Jamie said sweetly, untied the rope at the root, smiled, and tugged until the heels of Margo's boots cleared the forest floor, forcing the prisoner on pointe with all of her weight on her booted toes.  Jamie then retied the rope and returned to her straining prisoner.  She lifted Margo's chin and kissed her boss' clenched, gagged lips.  "You should be more careful when you go hunting," she said.  "Gondaloos have a reputation for being very inhospitable to their captives."  Jamie grabbed Margo's hair with both hands, pulled her prisoner's head back, and kissed her gagged lips again, long and deeply this time, as deeply as the gag would allow.  Jamie then pulled back, Margo's hair still in her hands, their eyes locked.  "Some even say we're cruel," she whispered, "... that we're cannibals."

Jamie released Margo's head and took a step back, then crossed her freckled arms across her chest.  "Hmm... as jungle captives go, I'm afraid you're way overdressed for the occasion," she observed, then reached behind her back and unsheathed a small, bone handled knife with a curved, thin, finger-length blade.  "Let's do something about that, shall we?"

Anne looked up from her bound, gagged, trapped, and abandoned misery as Jamie finally strolled back into view.  When the "jungle princess" was only a few paces away, Anne twisted in her bonds and complained as loudly as her gag would allow.

"I know, I know," Jamie laughed.  "'Where the bloody hell have you been?'  'When do I get untied?' ...etc.  Well, I've been touring the Island with Evil White Huntress, and you don't get untied yet."

"M'MMPFH!" Anne interrupted angrily.

"Temper, temper," Jamie cautioned.  "As I was saying, you don't get untied yet, because you and I don't know each other very well, and there's enough uncertainty around here without you running around loose."

Anne sighed and hung her head.

Jamie smiled and lifted the unhappy lawyer's chin with one slender, freckled hand.  "I will take you someplace with a better view, and where you'll have some company," she offered.

Anne was still unhappy, but offered no resistance as Jamie freed her ankle from its wooden prison, helped her to her feet, and led her down the trail.

They took a side trail and Anne discovered a beautiful waterfall, a rippling pool, and—Anne gasped through her gag, her eyes wide with amazement.  Seated in the clearing a few yards from the edge of the pool was Margo, bound, gagged, and nude... nude but for her knee-length, brown, leather boots.

Jamie hooted with laughter.   Anne turned and blinked.  "Sorry," the petite redhead gasped, wiping a tear from one eye, "but you should see yourself, with those ridiculous rings around your eyes and the rest of your paint, and those cute little ears... You look exactly like a lemur that's discovered a giant talking mango, or something."

Anne continued to stare, too amazed to be annoyed.  Jamie led her near Margo and Anne examined her boss' bondage.  Jamie had used a more or less Oriental approach with bands of rope pinning Margo's elbows and upper arms to her torso, and more rope anchored over her shoulders and around her wrists to keep her from gaining any slack by twisting or squirming... and Margo's wrists, hands, and fingers were... wrapped?  Anne turned towards Jamie with a quizzical expression, to find that the self-satisfied "jungle princess" had been watching Anne's inspection with amused pride.

"Margo's nearly as full of surprises as Kitty-Kat," Jamie explained," so I took the precaution of using some microfiber bandages to cover her hands; gloves, bindings and all.  Now even if she has some special escape trick in reserve, like titanium fingernails or whatever, it won't do her any good.  Ever use the stuff?... microfiber bandages I mean?"

Ann shook her head to the negative.

"They're smooth as silk to the touch," Jamie continued, "but when they're stretched tight over themselves in layers, after a while they interact at the microscopic level and grip like velcro."  Jamie leaned down and playfully tousled Margo's hair.  "Especially when you struggle and strain, isn't that right Missy Margo?"

Anne's eyes went wide with alarm.  'Missy Margo'??  Then she noted Margo's calm demeanor and smiling eyes... and relaxed... a little.  Anne gazed down her boss' body to find that a rope had been looped around her narrow waist, tied in a series of overhand and figure-eight knots, pulled through the Chief Executive crotch, stretched back several yards over a low branch, pulled tautly down to Margo's bandage shrouded wrists, and tied off to the other ropes.  A cinched binding above Margo's knees, another at her booted ankles, and a criss-cross lashing that bound the joined ankles to a tree root completed the picture.

Anne watched as Margo squirmed and the crotch rope tightened fractionally... then Anne noticed that Margo was following her gaze, and the bound and gagged lawyer turned her head and blushed in embarrassment.

Jamie's firm hand plunked Anne on the ground and she watched in a daze as her own knees and ankles were tied.  She was then spun on her nearly naked butt until she found herself at a 90° angle to Margo.  Her feet were placed atop Margo's, and her sandaled feet were bound to her boss' booted ones with more tight bands of rope.  Seated on the hard ground, each captive's roped legs forming half of a giant "L," the two inescapably bound and gagged prisoners regarded one another.  Margo was amused and apparently unconcerned.  Anne still more or less amazed.

"Let's make this really interesting, shall we?" Jamie asked, then tied a rope to Anne's bound wrists, stretched it back over a low branch on another convenient tree, then back to Margo's wrists.  She then untied the extended end of Margo's crotch rope, and joined the two ropes with an elegant hitch.  Anne flexed her slightly extended arms, and froze in horror when she saw her motions pulling on Margo's crotch rope.  Margo locked eyes with Anne, and the lawyer blushed more deeply than before and mewed through her gag in distress.  Margo then shifted her amused gaze to Jamie.  "You're welcome," the redhead said with a gloating chuckle and bowed in a polite curtsey.

"I assume The Trickster never made it back to the resort?" Jamie asked.

Margo nodded to the affirmative.

"Then I should find her in the general neighborhood of Surprise Swamp?"

Margo nodded again.

"I guess I should go and collect her, then," Jamie sighed.  She then knelt down and whispered in Anne's ear, low enough that Margo couldn't hear her words.  "I advise you not to move and not to stare at Margo," she said, "and for God's sake, don't start thinking about how sexy she looks all naked and helpless like that, or about all the things you'd like to do to her if you could."

As Jamie stood, Margo locked eyes with Anne... and the lawyer blushed a third time.  Margo gave Jamie a questioning look, but the petite "jungle princess" simply smiled, coyly stretched, spun on her sandaled heel, and walked gracefully away.  Margo shifted her gaze to Anne, whose blush deepened.  Jamie turned as she reached the edge of the clearing and waved, then disappeared into the jungle.  What the hell did she say to her? Margo wondered.

Jodi looked up as Jamie came into her line of sight.  Looking up was about her only option.  She was quite literally in the swamp up to her chin, and Margo's lifeline was taut as a fiddle string.  She waited for Jamie to laugh... but the petite redhead simply gazed down at her with a serene smile.

"Wow," Jamie said after several seconds.  "You have no idea how incredible you look... or how much I'd like to simply leave you like that."  Her eyes never leaving Jodi's, Jamie gracefully lay down on her stomach on the sand of the trail and propped her chin under her hands.  "Wow," she repeated.  "I could just do it, you know?" Jamie asked the bound, bemired honey-blonde.  "I could just leave you 'til tomorrow, and either myself... or the Kitty-Kat would be the next person you see, depending on how the events of the morning go."  Jamie and Jodi locked eyes, the "jungle princess" gloating and amused, the mud immured "lizard" trying to hide her worry.

Jamie rolled onto her back and gazed up at the leaves overhead.  The branches were stirring slightly, and through the foliage she could see dark clouds were blowing near.  "Looks like a squall," she mused, then rolled back onto her stomach and rested her chin on the back of her crossed hands.  "I have a proposition for you, Trickster," she announced.  "Swear eternal loyalty to the Gondaloo Tribe and I'll let this little trick I've played on you be your initiation... and I'll set you free."

Jodi's eyebrows raised in surprise and Jamie chuckled.  "You think I don't know this end of the swamp is quicksand?  I sent you to this dire, or should I say mire fate."

Jodi snorted through her gag, trying to show anger.

"You have a lousy poker face, Trickster," Jamie observed.  "I can tell you appreciate a good joke as much as the next helpless, bound and gagged damsel."

Jodi sighed and smiled up at her captor... at her Princess.

"I can also see you've reached your decision," Jamie said, "but let's do this formally.  Repeat after me: I, Jodi the Incorrigible Trickster, swear eternal loyalty to the Mighty Gondaloo Tribe..."

Jodi hummed through her gag, mimicking the rhythm of Jamie's "oath".

"And promise to full and faithfully follow the orders and instruction of my fearless leader, the ravishingly beautiful and all knowing Princess Jamie..."

Jodi started humming in rhythm again, but broke down almost immediately in a fit of gagged giggling.

Jamie laughed.  "Okay, okay," she chuckled, then grew more serious, "no tricks, no Eve checking your biometrics for deception, nothing but your word... and your chance to prove my trust isn't misplaced."

Jodi looked up at Jamie's freckled face.

"A simple nod of the head will suffice, seeing as that's all you're capable of at the moment.  Do you promise to be a loyal Gondaloo jungle girl?"

Jodi nodded solemnly.

The warm rain had slackened from its initial torrential deluge to a gentle shower when Jamie and Jodi, a very much unbound and ungagged Jodi, reached the waterfall clearing where "Princess Jamie" had left her captives.  Jodi laughed at the sight of the bedraggled, wet, and miserable duo, then slowly examined their predicament, the inescapable bonds, Margo's tight crotch rope, Anne's involuntary participation in her boss' "torment", and nodded with respect.

"Very subtle," Jodi pronounced, "and, well... subtle."

"Thank you," Jamie beamed.  She then walked around her soaked captives, who mewed through their gags and squirmed, shaking water from their dripping hair.  "It's only rain," the grinning redhead laughed.

"We're just as wet as you are," Jodi observed.  Anne glared up at her former companion.  "Of course, we're not sitting in the middle of a deep puddle," Jodi continued.

"Speaking of wet," Jamie said, "why don't you avail yourself of the waterfall and get the rest of the swamp off of you while I have a chat with Margo."

"Yes, oh mighty and serene Princess," Jodi intoned in mock solemnity, backing and bowing towards the rain swollen waterfall and its now overflowing pool.

Jamie retrieved a waterproof, rubber armored, palm-sized microcomputer from her stores behind the trees and walked back towards Margo and the long-suffering Anne, tapping the tiny keys and reading the screen, biting her lower lip in concentration.  "Here's the gist of a message I've prepared for Eve to send Kat in your name." she said to Margo.  "I won't worry about security codes, hidden overrides, or the fact that there are probably eighteen ways you could get Eve and Kat to come rescue you instantly if you really wanted them to, even in your current condition."

Anne looked at Margo with raised eyebrows, wet and dripping raised eyebrows.

Jamie held the small screen where Margo could read the slowly scrolling text.  The microcomputer beeped and Margo raised her head.

 "Catch it all? Jamie asked.  "Do you need it to repeat?"

Margo shook her head to the negative.

"Do you agree?"

Margo smiled around her gag and shook her head to the affirmative.

"Did you see that, Eve?" Jamie asked.

"Yes, I did, oh mighty Princess of the Gondaloos," Eve's tinny voice answered from the microcomputer's tiny speaker.

Near the drawbridge leading back into the resort, Kat paced back and forth, like a tigress endlessly measuring her cage.  The storm had long since passed and now the sun was setting.  Even with three "jungle girls" to hunt instead of two as originally planned, Margo should have been back by now.  Kat knew nothing could have gone wrong.  Standard security protocol was for Eve to monitor everything and she would have been informed if there was a problem.  Kat looked towards the orange clouds billowing in the West.  Soon they would darken to mauve, then purple, then the stars would come out and...

"Unacceptable!" she growled.  Freckle Fox and the rest escaping?  "Unacceptable!"

One of Eve's executive robots rolled across the drawbridge and to her side.  "Ms. Mayfair, I have a message for you from Ms. Wells," it announced.

"It's about time," Kat muttered.  "Put her through."

"The message is not bisynchronous," the robot intoned.  "You are reminded that the rules of the game call for you not to enter the forest until tomorrow morning at 0800 hours.  Under no circumstances will you deviate from these instructions or..."

"Enough of this nonsense," Kat said coldly.  "Put me through to Margo."

"You do know what 'not bisynchronous' means, don't you?" the robot asked primly.

"Do you know what spin-kick your metal ass into the fucking moat means?" Kat answered.

"Kat."  Eve's voice echoed through the clearing.

"What?" Kat growled.

"Margo wishes for the game to continue as planned, but she will be spending the night in the forest.  That is the message."

Kat clenched her gloved fists in suppressed rage.  "Understood," she said finally, "just one thing."

"Yes?" Eve asked.

"This is Black Knight," Kat announced.  "I invoke security protocol prism."

"Acknowledged," Eve answered.  "This area is secure.  The challenge of the day is 'felt hat'."

"The response is 'fedora'," Kat said.  "Continue."

"Continuing," Eve intoned.  "This island is secure.  This region is secure.  All regions are secure.  TESSERACT is secure."

Kat took a deep breath.  "Is Margo in danger?"

"Margo is in no danger of any kind," Eve answered.  "Three different Eve-6900 nexus independently concur... Five concur... All concur."

Kat took another deep breath, suddenly realizing that her heart had been tripping like a hammer for the last several seconds.  So much for emotional control, she mused.  "End prism," she sighed.

"Acknowledged," Eve answered.  "My security status has returned to normal."

Kat turned and glowered towards the darkening jungle, her arms crossed under her breasts.  "Margo's really okay?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," Eve answered, "I promise."

Just then, a low echoing rumble from the Island's interior reached Kat's ears.  It was like distant thunder, only it didn't stop, and it was... rhythmical.

Boom... boooom... boom-boom... boom... boooom... boom-boom...

Kat frowned.  "What is that?" she asked.

"Drums," Eve answered.  "The natives are restless tonight."