_
		DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
		Kat's Revenge: A Love Story ——————————————————————————— by Van © 2001
		Chapter 9

DAWN
GONDALOO ISLAND RESORT
JESSIE'S GUEST SUITE

---

Chelsea awoke to find sunlight streaming through the open windows, raucous birdcalls echoing from the nearby trees, and Jessie untying the last of the scarves that had held her so deliciously helpless and vulnerable throughout the night.  She yawned and snuggled back into the untidy heap of rumpled sheets and discarded silk, then yelped when Jessie slapped her lightly on her naked, tan, dimpled rump.

"C'mon Sleepy Head," Jessie ordered.  "Let's get clean and rustle up some breakfast."

"Let me guess," Chelsea said sleepily, "you're starving again.  Well... I'm not... and tell those Cockatoos or Lorikeets or whatever they are to shut the bloody hell up!"

Jessie laughed and began tickling the diminutive Brit's ribs and tiny waist.

Chelsea convulsed with laughter.  "Stop it!" she protested.  "Stop it you Cowgirl! "

"Again with the 'Cowgirl,' eh?" Jessie laughed, "well... get along Little Doggie!   Time to hit the trail."  She redoubled her tickling, herding her giggling victim off the bed and into the bathroom.

Minutes later the pair returned, toweling their now clean bodies and damp hair.  Jessie opened the drawer of Resort supplied bikinis and started rummaging through the contents.

"Pick one out to your liking, darling," Chelsea said, smiling at her American friend as she ran a brush through her short blonde hair, "but don't put it on."

"What're you babblin'?" Jessie demanded.  "You tellin' me what to do, Short Stuff?"

"It's my turn, isn't it?" Chelsea countered, smiling sweetly.

Jessie laughed.  "I'm not gonna spend the day tied up in this room."

"Who said anything about remaining in this room?" Chelsea asked innocently.

Jessie laughed again.  "Well we can't very well—"

"Why not?" Chelsea demanded.  "Penelope and Jamie are off doing... whatever... so there's no one here but the two of us."

Jessie gave her short, blonde companion a skeptical look, unconvinced.  "Well...  I didn't think we'd be quite this blatant about it."

Chelsea dropped her towel and sidled up to the tall, equally naked, redhead.  "I'm spoiled, and I want my way," she pouted, running her small, tan hand over Jessie's comparatively pale, freckled, flat tummy.

"You can say that again," Jessie mumbled, smiling affectionately.

Chelsea bit her lower lip coyly, picked up a long, thin scarf from the bed, and carefully folded it into a narrow bandage.  "I'm spoiled..." she said, turning the unresisting Jessie around and gathering the American's strong, slender wrists behind her back.  She dropped a loop of silk around Jessie's crossed wrists and jerked it tight, causing the now sheepish redhead to gasp and bite her lip.  "...and I want my way."

"I have a feelin' you've been gettin' your way your whole life," Jessie said, still smiling.

"I am spoiled," Chelsea agreed, reaching for another long scarf.  "I know it's a bad thing, and it makes me feel terribly guilty... but I never let it get in the way of gratifying my every whim."

Jessie flexed her shoulders as Chelsea used the second scarf to bind the redhead's elbows tightly together.  "Is that really necessary," she grumbled, a grin belying her protest.

"I love the way it makes your breasts point," Chelsea explained, reaching around her prisoner and lightly cupping the breasts in question with both hands.

"Only 'til noon, okay?" Jessie asked, snuggling her bound arms against her captor's breasts and stomach.  "Then I get you 'til sundown."

"And tonight we sleep in my bed," Chelsea agreed, "and you'll be my prisoner, and you get to show me how much you've retained from what I taught you last night."

"Hey!" Jessie protested.  "I'm the one that taught you the frog-tie."

Chelsea laughed.  "Not that, Silly Goose.  The other things."

"Oh that stuff," Jessie laughed.  "I'm afraid I've forgotten everything.  You'll have to teach me all over again."

"'Forgotten,' have we?" Chelsea asked archly, then gave Jessie's rump a sharp slap.

Jessie started. "Wait... wait... It's all coming back."

Chelsea laughed and stepped to the still open drawer.  "Which one do you like?" she asked, indicating the bikinis.

"The metallic blue one's kinda cute."

"Yes, it is," Chelsea agreed, holding up the minuscule, shimmering, two piece garment.  The grinning blonde then carefully folded the bottom, top, and strings into a tight, tidy cylinder, folded it in the center of a third scarf, and approached her captive.  "Say ahhhhh," she teased.

"Hey!  I really am hungry," Jessie protested, "and not for silk."

"You have to have something to wear with you," Chelsea explained, "in case we meet the others, and you can't expect me to carry it, now can you?"

"Oh, that's logical" Jessie said sarcastically.  "Why don't you just hand it to me and—M'mmpfh!"

Chelsea smiled sweetly as she crammed the silken wad between Jessie's teeth and cinched the scarf once, made sure the bulge of the silk wrapped bikini was well seated in Jessie's mouth, then tied a tight bow under her prisoner's straight, red hair.  "I'll take it out so you can eat," she promised.  "Now, we'll stop by my suite so I can get dressed...  Then at least one of us will be presentable," she teased her tall, nude, bound and gagged friend, "...and then it shall be off to the kitchens!"  The short blonde walked to the automatically opening door and struck a vampish pose.  "What do you think, darling?" she asked, "white again today, or perhaps pink?"  Swinging her hips seductively, she sauntered into the hallway.

Jessie rolled her eyes and laughed through her gag, twisting her wrists and arms in their tight, silk, inescapable bonds.  Little flirt! she mused, then hurried after.

DAWN
GONDALOO ISLAND RESORT
PENNY'S BEDROOM

---

Penny wasn't sure if she was awake or having another nightmare.  A robot had rolled into her bedroom on quiet, rubber treads, an arm had extended, and had caged her ring-gagged head in a tight set of clamps.  Two more arms had extended and locked wide, padded pincers around her upper arms.  The three exquisitely engineered appendages of chromed steel and strong pistons than hauled Penny to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, and held her there.

Penny struggled weakly in her bonds (and the robot's grasp), and mewed through her gag.  Suddenly, a misting spray of water wet her lips and tongue, and she felt something, a hard rubber tube perhaps, sliding into her mouth.  The insertion was quick, and so deftly accomplished the prisoner didn't even have time to think about what was happening before the intruder was down her esophagus and into her stomach.  Penny shuddered in her bonds and blinked miserably as something warm was pumped into her stomach.

"Eeee-yyyawww!"  Penny's eyes darted to the screen to find her cyber-torturer, Eve-L, stretching and yawning.  "Mornin', Sweet Cakes!" the grinning avatar said pleasantly.  The tousled, "sleepy," blonde simulacrum was dressed in a skimpy baby-doll nightie, a frilly strap seductively hanging loose off one tanned, curvaceous shoulder.  "Enjoying a nutritionally balanced breakfast of organic sludge, I see," she teased.

The feeding tube retracted (with more water spraying to ease its passage), and the robot released its hold.  Penny tottered on the edge of the bed for a few seconds, then collapsed back onto the soft surface.  By the time the robot stowed its arms and rolled out the door, Penny was, to all appearances, fast asleep.

"Penny, dah-ling...  Wakie-wakies!"

Penny slumbered on.

Eve-L sighed.  "Wake up, Lazy Bones," she urged.  "Don't make me..."  Eve-L paused, and smiled, evilly.  "Oh wait... I enjoy that part, don't I?"  The nightie-clad avatar pointed her right index finger at Penny's belt.  "Zzzap!"

Penny flinched in her bonds, and her eyes opened, blinking weakly.

"I said... Zap!" Eve-L repeated, and Penny writhed on the bed as the interior of her chastity belt sparkled with TIKLER stimulation... and then the ordeal was over.  "Now that I have your attention..." Eve-L purred, "I want you to hop into the bathroom.  Chop chop!  Hop hop!"

Penny slowly squirmed to the edge of the bed... eased her bound legs off the side... slowly struggled to stand... and collapsed back onto the mattress.

"Penny?  Get up, Your Ladyship!" Eve-L demanded.  "Zap?"

Penny barely flinched as her chastity belt pulsed... then pulsed again.

"Oh... she's no fun, she fell right over," Eve-L sighed.  "I told Kitty Dearest we should have done your part in full VR," the disappointed avatar pouted, addressing her unconscious victim, "even if hacking the medical and ethical safeguards would have been a bear."

Dead to the world, Penny dozed on the bed, twitching feebly as the belt returned to blinking in "routine" mode (and the subliminal voices resumed their whispering.)

DAWN
GONDALOO ISLAND RESORT
MARGO'S BEDROOM

---

Kat and Jamie were snuggled close on Margo's bed.  Jamie was still bound hand and foot; hands and arms taped together behind her back from elbow to elbow; ankles crossed and lashed together with the sash from one of Margo's robes; and both women were still naked.  Kat had caused the bedroom's ceiling to close some time earlier, to prevent the morning dew from settling in the room.  The glass walls on all sides were open, but the teak louvers of the many sliding screens were set to block the rising sun.

"And that's when Margo offered me the bodyguard gig," Kat said, finishing her story.  She stretched and stifled a yawn.

"How could you refuse?" Jamie observed, smiling sleepily.  "I still don't believe ya didn't go to prison fer what ya did to those cheerleaders... or to that tennis team bitch... or..."  Jamie raised her head and noted that Kat's eyes were closed.  "When did you sleep last?" the short, redheaded prisoner inquired.

"I don't sleep much," Kat said quietly, her eyes still closed, "compared to most people."

"Well I sleep a lot," Jamie said with a dimpled grin, "especially after being mercilessly tickle-tortured fer hours an' hours an'... yawn... an' right now would be niiice."  The bound captive snuggled against Kat's nude flank and closed her eyes.  "I'll tell ya 'bout when I met 'Her Majesty' later," the diminutive redhead mumbled.

Kat lifted her head and stared at Jamie's smooth, freckled face.  "You want anything first?" Kat asked softly.  "A drink?"  Jamie said nothing.  Seconds passed and Kat realized the petite Aussie was already asleep.  Kat reached down and smoothed several errant curls away from Jamie's angelic face.  The redhead sighed and her lips moved soundlessly... then she was still again.  She looks like a little girl, Kat mused... then closed her eyes again and was soon fast asleep herself.

MIDNIGHT
TESSERACT WORLD HEADQUARTERS
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA
MARGO'S WORKING OFFICE

---

Margo finished annotating the eighth report of the hour and closed the window, sending the virtual document spinning on its way back into the dizzyingly complex organizational matrix that was TESSERACT International.  Dozens of other reports, memoranda, notes, and missives flashed and scrolled on the wall-sized display, jostling and competing for the CEO's attention.  Margo stretched and leaned back in her exquisitely comfortable (and hideously expensive) chair.  Clad in a robe of indigo, washed silk (and nothing else), it was almost time for Margo to reward herself with her customary swim...  but first...

Margo touched a series of squares on the touch-panel that was her desk, and the various working windows on the huge display spun together, melding into a set of icons which bounced to the bottom of the screen and settled together in a neat, nonintrusive row.  A satellite image of the globe appeared, rotated until Australia was centered in the display, then zoomed in on Gondaloo Island.  The background cleared, displaying a subdued mosaic of two playing cards: the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Diamonds.  Both royal personages were rendered using a caricature of Margo's visage.  Three new windows opened.  Margo smiled and examined the first window's contents, tapping a square and allowing it to fill nearly the entire screen in vivid, hi-resolution detail.

Chelsea and Jessie were on their way to breakfast, strolling across the Resort, the tropical sun caressing their nearly nude bodies, the morning breeze stirring their hair, the sunrise chorus of jungle birds providing a hooting, cawing, warbling concert.  The redheaded American was playing (and being) the prisoner, her wrists and elbows bound behind her back with silk scarves, a third scarf tied between her teeth (wrapped around a small bundled wad, Margo noted), an effective gag; and was otherwise properly, submissively nude.  Her short, blonde British companion was dressed in the dominant (if minimal) costume of a string bikini (in a tasteful lemon yellow knit) and was leading the way towards the main kitchen, chattering like a magpie.

"I've been to Paris, but what I really want to do is take a walking tour from the Spanish border, through Provence, and all the way to the Italian Alps.  Wouldn't that be fun?  And then I'd like to..."

Margo smiled.  Chelsea was a talker... had been since she was a toddler.  Margo was pleased her pairing of Jessie with adorable "Chatty Chelsea" (Abby Brightman's youngest, Penny's kid sister) seemed to be sparking a reaction... to put it mildly.  It remained to be seen if the youngsters would settle into a long-term relationship or if this would be a simple fling... but either way the signs were good, and Margo was pleased.

Margo tapped the touchpad and Young Love was replaced by...

...Chelsea's big sister.  Penny was still asleep, nude and bound on her bed.  Fingers and thumbs wrapped in dermafoam, wrists tied in a double hammerlock, arms pinned to her sides and wrists to her spine by a shoulder yoking, breast pinching rope harness, knees, ankles, and big toes all tied tightly together... yep, she was bound... and gagged, with a ring-strap... and what the Seattle Inner Circle had christened a "Charlie Belt" was locked around and through her loins.  The tall, blonde, unconscious Brit writhed slowly on the single sheet covering her mattress.  Margo's smile turned slightly feral as she examined the way the rope dimpled her employee's tan, flawless skin, the sinuous, sensuous curve of Penny's helpless body as she slowly struggled against her bonds, even in her sleep.

Margo tapped the touchpad again.

Kat and Jamie were nude, asleep on Margo's very own bed.  The grinning CEO stretched, instantly forgiving Kat's invasion of her private Gondaloo domain.  Jamie was bound hand and foot, snuggled against Kat's perfect, athletic, dangerous body.  Kat's face was... relaxed... almost girlish in its perfect beauty.  Margo sighed, pleased to see the innocent kitten, rather than the angry tigress that had stalked the Biosphere and Katacombs the last few months.  Elke's spin on Operation Fox Hunt seemed to be solidly on track.

On screen, on distant Gondaloo, Jamie stirred from her sleep, stretched in her bonds, opened her eyes... and smiled at Kat's sleeping face... then slowly, carefully, settled her face against Kat's warm, tan ribs, and closed her eyes.  Margo noted the way Kat's closed eyelids fluttered slightly, the way the muscles of her arm, protectively outstretched around her pale, freckled prisoner, twitched, ever so slightly... then relaxed.

I wonder what prey you're chasing through what jungle, Margo mused, my Perfect Panther.

More jungle birds could be heard calling in the background.  Margo smiled, remembering many a morning of waking to their sometimes sweet, sometimes raucous serenade... then her smile faded.  Something wasn't right.

Margo tapped the touchpad and once again Penny's bedroom dominated the display.  Margo increased the audio volume until the crackle of the noise floor could just be heard... and waited.  One minute.  Two minutes.  Three.  The only sound occurred when Penny stirred in her restless, captive slumber.  Her body slid across the sheet with a dry, exaggerated slither... and then silence resumed.

Margo returned the volume to normal.  "Eve?"  Instantly, the ghostly form of Eve-Prime appeared on the screen's background, making her presence known but not interfering with the camera feeds from Gondaloo.  "Audio analysis, please.   Is it my imagination, or have the birds suddenly deserted Penny's part of the Resort?"

A minute later, Eve-Prime's face appeared in full detail, accompanied by several new windows of graphical information.  "My preliminary conclusion is that the audio feed from Penny's bedroom is being tampered with," the avatar reported.  "As you can see from these sonograms—"  Several sections of several of the graphs were highlighted.  "—the same background elements can be isolated on the Jessie/Chelsea feed and on the feed from your bedroom.  That is, the same birds can be heard calling at each location."

"Allowing for geometry, of course," Margo muttered.

"Of course," Eve agreed.  "Those same birdcalls do not appear on the feed from Penny's bedroom, and they should, even with the tsunami shutters in place, which they are not."

"The audio feed from Penny's room is being edited," Margo concluded.  "Find out why."

"Yes Margo," Eve-Prime intoned.

"And don't let Eve-L know we're curious.  Something's rotten on Gondaloo."

"Yes Margo."

DAWN
GONDALOO ISLAND RESORT
MAIN KITCHEN VERANDAH

---

Jessie stretched in her bonds, eyes closed, her face and breasts towards the morning sun.  The tropical sunlight felt glorious... for now.  I'm gonna have to ask Chelsea for some sunblock, when I get a chance, the nude, bound and gagged redhead mused, otherwise I'm gonna burn. 

When they'd reached the verandah Chelsea had plunked her prisoner down in a chair.  In full sun, but with the magnificent view of the rainforested valley they'd been denied by yesterday evening's darkness.  Then Chelsea had removed her bikini top and used its strings to tie Jessie's big toes together and lash them to one of the front legs of her chair.

She's a clever one, Jessie mused, wiggling the bound toes in question, clever and inventive.  Guess I better not ask about sunblock.  She might stuff me in a laundry bag and call that sunblock.  Jessie squirmed in her bonds and smiled behind her gag.  Hmm... It'll be my turn this afternoon.  I wonder where they keep the laundry bags around here.

Jessie heard distant cawing... and opened her eyes in time to watch a flock of birds cross the far end of the valley.  They were parrot-size and green, with yellow breasts, but the distance was too great for her to get a really good look.  Then Jessie heard crockery clinking together and turned... and sighed... a thrill passing through her loins.  Chelsea was approaching the table, topless (the missing top, of course put to use binding Jessie's wriggling toes, rather than covering the petite scamp's pert, firm, tan breasts.)  Strands of her tousled, sunbleached bob waved in the morning breeze, a heart melting, dimpled grin graced her shining, freckled, pixie face, Chelsea was burdened by a large tray loaded with cups, coffee and juice carafes, and a huge platter of food.  Jessie sighed again (and again felt that thrill).  Oh damn! the grinning redhead mused, I'm smitten!  As if my life wasn't complicated enough.

Chelsea set the tray on the table and stepped behind her prisoner, parted Jessie's straight, red locks, and untied her gag.  "Miss me?" the grinning munchkin inquired.

Jessie turned and gave her captor a kiss, then turned back to stare at the "food" before her.  Sausages and scrambled eggs, okay, but...  Beans?  Dried fish carcasses?  ...and those other...  "What the hell?" she mumbled.

Chelsea leaned over Jamie's freckled shoulder and pointed at the various items on the platter.  "Bangers, black pudding, bubble and squeak, kippers, kedgeree... Margo's pantry had almost all the makings for her robot chefs to do a proper breakfast nosh-up."

"Gastronomic torture," Jessie muttered.  "What did I ever do to you, Shorty?"

Chelsea laughed and pulled out a chair for herself.  "I was nice enough to brew you some American coffee."  The perky Brit produced a small palmcom from behind her back.  (Jessie surmised it had been tucked in the back of her captor's bikini bottom.)  "And look what else I found," she crowed, indicating the tiny computer's scrolling screen.

"What?" Jessie asked as Chelsea opened a napkin and spread it on her prisoner's naked, freckled lap.  The palmcom was too distant for Jessie to read.

Chelsea spread a napkin in her own lap, then leaned back in her chair and smiled.  "I went to the kitchen terminal to do a search and found this little beauty," she indicated the palmcom, "plugged into a port."

"Search for what?" Jessie drawled.

Chelsea's smile broadened... and turned slightly sinister.  "Why... for the means to secure you properly, of course." she purred.  Jessie swallowed nervously.  "On a lark I searched for 'manacles' in the island inventory... and got seven hits!"

Jessie blinked in surprise.  "'Seven?'" she repeated.

A dimpled grin on her face, Chelsea nodded.  "This place has three large storerooms full of nothing but costumes.  Apparently, Penny decided this place couldn't be called a resort unless it could outfit a full-blown fancy dress party for a thousand of her close personal friends."

"Or Margo," Jessie muttered with a smile.  "Sounds like her style.  Anyway... 'manacles'?"

"Apparently the costumes come with all the required accessories," Chelsea explained.  "Swords for swashbuckling heroes, magic staffs for wizards..."

"Manacles for convicts," Jessie sighed.

"Straitjackets for dangerously insane cowgirls," Chelsea suggested, with a perky grin.  "Now... let's eat, then see what we can find to have a fancy dress party of our own, shall we?"

Jessie grinned sheepishly and twisted in her bonds.  "As if I have a choice," she muttered.