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			DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
			Jamie's Story — by Van Chapter 8

Jamie led Margo through several more twists and turns in the cave's seemingly endless system of passages, then came to a halt before another boulder.  The redhead used her signet transponder and the huge stone rumbled aside to reveal a large chamber, roughly four times the size of Jodi and Anne's "bedroom."  With a smile and a slight bow, Jamie invited her "guest" to enter.  Four large posts, each about a meter in height, stood upright in the center of the chamber.  Suspended between the posts was a very large, square, net hammock.  Several hanging lanterns of dark bronze and sea-green glass and dozens of fragrant, beeswax candles illuminated the chamber, and a collection of large, covered baskets of woven grass stood in a row against the far wall.

Margo looked back over her shoulder as the boulder rumbled closed behind, then turned to the front to find Jamie rummaging in one of the baskets.  The petite "Princess" produced a large silk pillow which she fluffed and placed on one side of the hammock.  Jamie looked up, puzzled by Margo's almost disappointed expression.  "I'm sorry, 'Evil White Huntress,'" Jamie said with a laugh, "but the Tribal torture chamber is closed for renovation.  I'm afraid these accommodations will have to do for the evening."

"I confess I was expecting something a little less comfortable," Margo remarked.

Jamie smiled, secretly thrilled that again she seemed to have surprised her friend and employer.  She motioned for Margo to sit on the edge of the hammock, knelt at her boss' feet and removed the captive's tall, brown, leather boots, then helped her recline on the hammock.  The TESSERACT CEO lay back on her gloved, bound, and bandage shrouded wrists, her head on the pillow.

"Legs apart," Jamie ordered.  Margo looked up at her captor and protégé, smiled, and opened her legs about a quarter meter.  "Good," Jamie said.  "Now, don't move."

Margo watched with an amused grin as Jamie rummaged in another of the baskets.  "My my," Margo began, "aren't you— "

"Silence!" Jamie barked.  "Evil captives awaiting horrible fates should be seen and not heard."

Margo's grin widened, but she kept silent as ordered.

Jamie returned with what appeared to be a net, no, a second hammock, only this one was woven of slightly lighter cordage than the hammock on which Margo was lying.  The redhead dropped two braided loops over the posts at Margo's feet, then pulled the rest of the second hammock up and over Margo like a ridiculously inadequate comforter until she reached the amused prisoner's chin.  Jamie then produced a bundle of small, almost tiny cable ties.  Margo recognized her company's automatically self-tightening product, but these ties were molded from a brown myoplastic that more or less matched the color of the hammocks.

Starting at Margo's feet, working alternately left and right, inside and outside each leg, and up either side of her torso, Jamie used the cable ties to join the mesh of the top hammock to the main hammock, enclosing her employer in a tight, close, body-conforming pocket of taut netting.  The self-tightening feature of the ties made for quick work, and it was less than two minutes before Jamie had "sewn" Margo into a net purse up to her throat.

Jamie stood and gazed down at her friend.  Margo obliged by twisting in her bonds, attempting to flex her shoulders and knees, and pointing her toes.  The netting stretched slightly and the cords slid fractionally over Margo's pale, naked skin, but she was obviously completely helpless and inescapably Jamie's prisoner.

Jamie walked over to one of the baskets and returned with a small bundle, then climbed onto the hammock and knelt over her employer, her knees straddling Margo's torso, the redhead's weight (what there was of it) resting on her captive's flat stomach.  Jamie then leaned close and gave her employer a long, deep kiss.

When their lips finally parted, Margo wriggled in her bonds and grinned.  "I had no idea you enjoyed being on top of situations this much," Margo purred.  "I always had you pegged as about 90% damsel and only 10% villainess."

Jamie smiled coyly.  "How about you?" she asked.  "Are you enjoying assessing the bottom line?"

"It's important to balance the books yourself, now and then," Margo answered, "but it's not something I like as a steady diet."

Jamie's smile widened.  "Speaking of 'steady diet...'" she said, reaching into the bundle.  Margo watched as her captor extracted a large roll of microfiber bandage.  Jamie shook out the roll and found the center of the strip, then held it before Margo's lips.  Her friend sighed and opened her mouth, "allowing" Jamie to take several turns around her head and between her teeth, giving her a tight cleave gag.  She then watched as Jamie reached back into the bundle and extracted a roll of wide, flesh-colored tape Margo recognized as dermafoam, a product recently developed by the Medical Division of TESSERACT.  Dermafoam matched the tensile properties of human skin, and incorporated a microencapsulated layer of a special catalyst in the adhesive.  The capsules burst when a length of tape was pulled from the roll, and over the next few minutes, wherever the tape came in contact with itself it fused into one, pliable, inseparable mass.  Jamie ripped the end of the tape, releasing the fruity, not unpleasant odor that gave proof the reaction was starting.  She then slowly, carefully, wrapped the tape around Margo's lower face and head, from just under her nose to the point of her chin, completely covering the prisoner's bulging cheeks and cleave gagged lips.

The reaction was well underway by the time Jamie finished applying the last of the roll, climbed off Margo and the hammock, and tossed the bundle in the direction of the baskets.  By the time she finished pulling the remaining portion of the top hammock over Margo's head and stretching the net's top loops over the two head posts, the dermafoam had nearly fused.  By the time she finished using the last of her cable ties to "sew" down Margo's head, completing the form-fitting net pocket encasing the captive's body, the dermafoam had fused.

Jamie stretched and yawned.  "Eve," she called, "A little night music.  Something... Balinese, please."  The melodious chimes and gongs of a traditional gamelan filled the air; strange, exotic and oddly atonal (to Western ears).  Jamie smiled and walked towards an alcove in the chamber, removing her sandals, bandeau, loincloth, and jewelry as she went.  Margo watched, her gagged head raised as far as the netting would allow, as Jamie stretched again, and stepped into the alcove.  A blue-green glow and a slowly increasing cascade of clear droplets emanated from the alcove's ceiling, bathing Jamie's petite, naked, freckled, painted body in twin showers of fluid and light.  The droplets abated, and Jamie rubbed her hands over her body and through her hair, raising a soapy lather.  The shower resumed, stronger than before, and this time it was blood-warm, clear water.   Jamie continued rubbing her body while the lather, together with her body paint, Margo noticed, streamed down to an unseen drain in the floor of the alcove.

The showers of water and light finally faded and Jamie stepped from the alcove, walked to the baskets, found a thick towel, and stepped to the side of the hammock and its bound, gagged, and net encased occupant.  Jamie and Margo's eyes locked as the petite redhead dried her body and hair.

Jamie stepped back to the baskets, then returned, without the towel, but with a cylindrical plastic rod in her hand and a mischievous grin on her face.  She stretched yet again, stifled a yawn with one slender, freckled hand, then climbed onto the hammock and snuggled close to Margo's captive form.  Margo savored the scent of damp red hair, perfumed soap, and clean, freckled skin.  Jamie propped herself on one elbow and held up the rod for Margo's inspection.

The rod was about four centimeters wide and twenty long.  One end terminated in a rounded point, and the other was flat, with a tiny recessed switch.  It was translucent, and had a sort of slumped, half-melted look to it.  Jamie flicked the switch in the end, and the upper three quarters of the rod began softly glowing in alternating concentric rings of ruby and emerald, each about a half centimeter apart.

"Do you know what this is?" Jamie asked in an impudent whisper.  "Blink once for yes, twice for no," she suggested.

Margo blinked once.

"Charlie Paretsky's Secret Project ," Jamie confirmed.  "The world's first solid state, completely silent, non-vibrating vibrator.  She explained the principle to me, stacked wafers of alloy impregnated plastic, a helix of wiring, a couple of chips, and a 100-hour rechargeable battery..."  Jamie ran the tip of the rod over her left cheekbone.  "Hmm... feels good," she purred.  "Where was I?  Oh yes!  Chips, battery, standing waves of piezoelectric potential that interact with nerve endings.  She lost me when she starting prattling about phase harmonics and strong and weak molecular forces.  I could follow the math," Jamie confided to her helpless, captive audience, "but I know there was a lot there I was missing.  Quantum Theory and Physics never were my best subjects."

She touched the tip of the rod to Margo's left nipple, which blossomed erect.  The prisoner squirmed in her net cocoon.  Jamie smiled and slid the glowing rod down Margo's net covered stomach, and touched it to Margo's sex.  Margo's nostrils flared above her gag.

"Did you know Charlie had sent me one of these little marvels?" Jamie asked.

Margo blinked twice.

Jamie laughed, tucked the rod through the netting and carefully arranged it until the tip nestled against Margo's clitoris, then reached behind her ear to produce two more cable ties, and secured it firmly in place.  Margo squirmed and writhed, but the rod would not be dislodged.

"Perhaps you should discuss it with Charlie when you get back to Seattle," Jamie suggested.

Margo blinked once, very emphatically.

Jamie chuckled, lay close to her prisoner, and lightly ran one hand over Margo's net shrouded breasts, stomach, and thighs.  The short, freckled redhead sighed contentedly and closed her eyes.

"Good night, Eve," she called.

"Good night, Jamie," Eve responded.  "Good night, Margo.  Sleep tight."

Slowly, ever so slowly, the haunting, hollow, bamboo and metal tones of the gamelan orchestra faded, as did the lantern light, as did the candle light, as did the rhythm of Jamie's breathing, as did everything in the chamber except the soft, red and green glow of Charlie's gift, and the magic it was working on Margo's bound, gagged, and net-encased body.

Kat leaned against a tree at the edge of clearing near the drawbridge.  The safety lights of the resort glowed dimly through the tunnel.  An untouched meal sat in the grass beside her.  She had told Eve she didn't want anything, but a serving robot had delivered a collection of plates nonetheless.  She idly reached down and picked up a barbecued shrimp.  An ant was crawling on the shrimp's tail.  Kat flicked the ant towards the jungle and ate the shrimp.

Not bad, she thought, then looked up at the unfamiliar Southern constellations wheeling overhead.

"Eve?" she called.

"Yes, Kat?" came the disembodied response.

"Are you sure Margo is—"

"She's fine," Eve interrupted.  "Why don't you get some sleep?"

"I'll sleep when Margo tells me what the hell is going on," Kat growled, "and when I have that little, carrot-topped, sycophantic pip-squeak by her—"

"I thought you prided yourself on your emotional control," Eve observed.

Kat said nothing for several seconds, then sighed.  "Touché.  Actually, I'm not really that mad at the Freckle Fox," Kat confided.  "It's Margo who's ticking me off.  She knows it drives me crazy when she changes her plans without telling me, and—"

"What if Margo's plans were changed for her?" Eve asked.

Kat smiled, envisioning Margo in her Victorian garb tied to a stake in a rainforest clearing with Freckle Fox, Trickster, and The Lawyer dancing around her in their native costumes.  "Unlikely," Kat answered, "but if one of Margo's schemes has reared back and bit her on the ass—good!  I keep telling her she needs to be more careful about her security."

Kat considered trying to pump Eve for more information, but decided that would only spoil the rest of the game... and if Margo had somehow been captured by her prey...  Kat felt a tiny frisson of pleasure at the delicious thought.  That meant Kat would get to rescue her.  Maybe I'll let her remain a prisoner, Kat mused.  Maybe I'll pretend I think she's one more jungle girl, and let her think I'm going to treat her like the others.  Maybe... Kat shook her head.  Margo captured... absurd!

Kat looked up at the stars again, and found a large moth and a bat locked in a dogfight overhead.  The moth dropped and cartwheeled, successfully dodging two attacks... then succumbed to a third.  The bat fluttered away towards the mountains with its prize.

Kat smiled, picked up the plate of shrimp and slowly consumed them, one by one, carefully flicking away her ant competitors as she ate.  Tomorrow was going to be... special.

Eve had released Jodi and Anne from their chains an hour after they fell asleep, then awakened them at 0600 and directed them to the nearest shower alcove.  They found panties, modern sport sandals, shorts, and tank tops waiting when they finished, all in primitive, earth tone, batik patterns (which just happened to double as excellent jungle camouflage).

They were directed to another chamber and found Jamie, similarly attired, waiting for them.  The "Evil White Huntress" was on the floor in one corner, her lower face wrapped in dermafoam (her gag unchanged from the night before), her wrists still bound and wrapped behind her back, her ankles crossed and bound, a rope stretching from her ankles up and around her throat, holding her in a slightly bent semi-lotus.

Anne, who had finally decided to give Jamie a piece of her mind for the treatment she had received recently, rushed over to Margo instead, a frown of concern on her face.  She lifted Margo's chin with one hand.  "You okay?" she whispered.  Margo nodded to the affirmative.  Anne heard Jodi laugh and turned to find Jamie whispering in the honey-blonde's ear.

"You rat!" Jodi accused.  "Charlie sends you a freebie gizmo and this is how you repay her?  Do you know the kind of stuff Margo's gonna do to her when she gets back?"

"Of course I bloody well know," Jamie responded with a grin.  "I told Charlie if she didn't show me a draft of her dissertation before last month, I'd get her good, and Eve tells me she isn't even working on it, that she's working on a dozen unrelated projects instead.  Margo's told her not to neglect her degree work, regardless of however many lucrative discoveries she keeps coming up with."

"So instead of academic torture she's gonna have to put up with real torture," Jodi laughed.  "Some friend you are."

"She can have her doctorate whenever she wants it," Jamie said primly, "if she'd just get off her duff and finish it."

Jodi shrugged and joined Anne next to Margo.  "She's fine," Jodi reassured Anne, winking at the Evil White Huntress (who winked in return), and led her friend to the center of the chamber and a waiting, robot-catered breakfast.

Margo lifted her gagged head and watched her employees eat, her stomach grumbling in complaint.  Keep it up Freckle Fox, Margo thought.  Your time will come.

0740
"KING KONG CLEARING"
GONDALOO INTERIOR

---

Margo was bound between the two columns of the stone platform, her wrists and ankles first tied with an abundance of thin, microfiber cord (expertly applied so as not to cut her skin or her circulation), then again with thick, vine-like ropes, "for cosmetic effect," Jamie had explained.  Her dermafoam gag was still intact, but was covered with a wide swath of batik cloth.  She was, of course, nude, and up on her toes, legs and arms flung wide in a standing spread-eagle.

Jamie watched as Jodi and Anne finished applying a thick layer of sunblock to their employer's body.  "Let's hurry it up, shall we?" she ordered.  "We're on a schedule here."  Her helpers, especially Jodi, were taking much more time than Jamie had planned, rubbing the thick, oily fluid over every square inch and into every nook and cranny of the captive's skin.

Jodi and Anne finally finished, and stepped back to let Jamie approach.  Margo watched as her petite protégé used a small brush to stir the contents of a small clay pot.

"I suppose we ought to do this formally," the redhead mused, "so... by the power vested in me as Princess of the Gondaloos... and by being the one that captured you and tied you up..."  Jodi giggled, until Anne jabbed her in the ribs and whispered for her to hush.  Jamie glared at the Trickster briefly, then continued.  "...I hereby sentence you to be devoured alive... by butterflies."

Anne and Jodi exchanged confused looks, then said in unison, "butterflies?"

Jamie smiled and began dabbing the contents of the jar at various sensitive points on her amused "victim's" body.  "I've been experimenting with scent attractants," she explained.  "This formula is a cocktail of the most potent of the volatile chemicals that naturally lure several local species of butterflies to their coevolved adult food sources, only much stronger—butterfly super-stimuli, if you will."

"Huh?" Jodi asked.

"Artificial, hi-octane flower nectar," Anne answered.

"Exactly," Jamie confirmed, "with enough sugars and trace minerals thrown in to make it worth the bother for them."

"Does it really work?" Jodi asked.

Jamie locked eyes with Margo, smiled and answered.  "It's horrible to behold, hordes of the little buggers swarming all over the place in a feeding frenzy."  She dabbed a final bit of nectar over each of Margo's nipples.  "Little feet scrambling for a foothold, tongues lashing like tiny whips, wings fluttering... they can strip a human to the bone in nothing flat."

"Nothing flat?" Anne asked, grinning skeptically.

"In the geological sense," Jamie admitted.

As a batik blindfold was applied from behind by the giggling Jodi, Margo's final sight was Jamie's smiling, freckled face.

0759
"DRAWBRIDGE CLEARING"
MAIN RESORT

---

Kat's attention was focused on her wrist watch.  ...57, 58, 59...

"It is now 0800," Eve announced.  "According to the rules of the game, you may now..."

The AI didn't bother finishing.  Kat was already sprinting up the main trail and into the Island's interior, sleek and dangerous in her feline/jungle camouflaged tropical catsuit and face paint.

Kat could easily read the track sign as she ran, even after nearly 24 hours and a light rain—three sets of sandaled feet, one booted.  She neared the clearing where she knew the main trail would fork... and skidded to a halt.

A primitive scarecrow of branches lashed with vines had been planted where the trails branched, a scarecrow dressed in the tattered remains of Margo's clothes, complete with jungle hat and boots.  Kat approached with caution.  Kat felt a genuine thrill of excitement.  Margo has been captured! she thought.  I do get to rescue her!  An envelope protruded from the left breast pocket of the scarecrow's—of Margo's bush jacket.  Kat opened the envelope and read.

Kat grinned.  Grave tactical error, Freckle Fox, she mused.  You don't give away the prize... then open negotiations.

Minutes later, Kat was standing at the edge of the clearing in question.  She hadn't known exactly what to expect (other than a trap, of course), but...

Kat could see Margo, bound in a standing spread-eagle between the columns of the high stone platform, facing the platform's steps, the entrance to the clearing, and Kat.  She was blindfolded, gagged, nude, and glistening with oil... and butterflies, hundreds of butterflies of every color and size were fluttering around her, and on her.  Kat watched mesmerized as Margo twisted and writhed in her bonds, flinching and shuddering as butterflies flitted and danced on her forehead, breasts, navel, sex, the backs of her knees, the inside of her arms, her armpits, her ears.

Kat felt a thrill shudder through her loins.  Margo was so helpless... so beautiful...  "Thank you, Freckle Fox," Kat whispered in a daze.  I'll have to do something epic to Jamie to make up for this.   Everything I've got planned now will just be preamble. Kat then shook herself from her reverie and started forward.  I'm sure Margo will have some ideas.

The first order of business, of course, was rescue.  Then she would stalk the perpetrators of this delightful outrage.  Kat was halfway up the stone stairs—and froze, her left foot poised in mid stride.  A hair-thin trip wire stretched before her, across the next step.  Kat grinned and slowly, carefully stepped over the wire and up onto the step above.  She then turned in a slow circle and surveyed the jungle.

"Nice try, Freckle Fox!" she shouted, "but it'll be a cold day in hell when you—"

The entire stone stairway dropped open beneath her, like an exquisitely engineered trapdoor (which she now belatedly realized it was).  Kat tried to catch the edge of the steps as she fell, but the sloped sides of the trap made that nearly impossible. She tucked and rolled as she landed on soft sand, and found herself crouched at the bottom of a ten meter well of smooth, dressed stone.

"Damn, damn, DAMN!" Kat swore, pounding the sand with one fist.  Knowing she had to act quickly, she reached for the grappling hook and climbing wire hidden in her catsuit... and saw movement overhead.  Jamie stood at the edge of the trapdoor.  Kat leaped to her feet.  Without a word, the redhead raised and fired Margo's net gun.  Kat was fast, but no one was fast enough to evade the expanding projectile under such circumstances.  Kat was instantly wrapped in the tight, multiple folds of a strong, sticky net.  She fell heavily onto the sand and made a very feline growl, glaring up at her captor, struggling against the cocoon of thin cords.  Jamie smiled and reloaded the gun.  Kat struggled to a kneeling position.  Her left hand had almost worked its way to one of her many hidden blades, when Jamie fired again, adding more net to Kat's predicament, and returning the bodyguard to the sand.

"Talk about yer fish in a barrel," the freckled redhead mused aloud.

Jodi and Anne came into Kat's view, one on either side of the grinning Jamie.  Jodi, of course, was laughing her head off.  Anne was amused, but more subdued.

"Just you wait," Kat threatened.  "When I get out of this. I'll—"

"Don't be a spoil sport, Kitty-Kat," Jodi teased.  "She caught you fair and square."

"Fair and square my ass!  You must have embezzled half the fucking construction budget for the damn Island to built this damn trap," Kat complained.  "You call that fair, you red-haired geek?"

"We Gondaloos are clever engineers," Jamie answered with a chuckle, "And unlike our very distant neighbors on Easter Island, we don't waste our energy on statues... but on damsel traps."

"I'M NOT A DAMSEL, DAMMIT!!" Kat shouted, struggling furiously, flopping and rolling on the sand (with no effect on her captive condition).

"You look like a damsel to me, " Anne stated.  Kat growled wordlessly and continued her futile struggles.

"Seriously, Kitty-Kat," Jamie continued, "Margo has had Eve construct many such diversions around the Island, most of which you won't even find in your security files... unless you ever have a need to know."

Kat's struggles became even more frenzied and athletic (still with no apparent effect on her bonds).

"Pooooor Kitty-Kat," Jamie mused, then handed the net gun to Anne, reached behind her back, and produced a small, spherical object.  "I think you better take a little catnap before you strain a muscle or something."  Jamie then casually pulled an attached pin and tossed the sphere into the trap.

Kat watched the sphere fall with a sinking, fatalistic feeling of dread.  This game was not going anything like she had planned.  I HATE LOSING! Kat fumed inwardly.  The sphere landed in the sand about a half meter from her net shrouded head, hissed softly for three seconds, then popped like a blossoming, steel flower, releasing a cloud of pale mist.

Kat held her breath, even though she knew it was pointless.

"Don't tax yourself, Kitty-Kat," Jamie said.  "That stuff's an aerosol that works on skin contact.  You're asleep already, you just don't know it."

Kat became aware of a metallic, mildly unpleasant taste in her mouth, then her vision began to go tunnel... then fade to black.  Her last impressions were Jodi's mocking, increasingly hollow and echoing laugh, and bright, multicolored spots fluttering in the darkness... or were they butterflies?