Chapter 4: the End of the Beginning

Isabel awoke, as though from a dream, with a hangover from the sedative and the gritty achyness of the rough bondage she had endured all day.  She still thought she was dreaming and shook her head to clear her mind.  But the heavy steel collar sat at the base of her neck and the reality of her desperate situation sank in.

She was still in the back of the limousine, chained and naked except for a yellow loincloth; beside two well-dressed, but probably delusional African professionals en route to a destination she knew not.

"Ah, you’re awake, finally," Sheikh, the doctor, said to her.  "I’ve dressed your ligature wounds and they should heal in a couple of days.  You’ll be okay, I’m sure."

Omar, the economist, said, "Yes, and you’ll soon meet Amina who will help you through your learning process."

The limousine and its three passengers continued its way along the rocky desert for another hour until Isabel thought she saw a mirage on the horizon.

"There’s home," said Omar, "just over there about 10 miles.  Distances in the desert are as deceiving as they are at sea because you have no points of reference.  Our Centre of Excellence over there actually looks closer to us than it actually is.  In fact, if you were to walk to where we presently are from there in the midday heat, you would surely perish; am I correct, doctor?"

"Indubitably," the medical man replied.  "Dehydration, hyperthermia, heat exhaustion, confusion, stroke, paralysis, death, in that symptomatic order," he said, in a suddenly cold clinical tone.

‘No escape,’ Isabel thought. ‘How could I get away, anyway, chained up like this?  And I’m sure they’re going to lock me up at night.’

Thousands of miles away, at precisely that time, Peter was barging through the front door of the little white bungalow in the Western Scottish Highlands with Isabel’s brand-new engagement ring clutched firmly in his right hand.

 "Isabel, where are you?" he called.  "I’m home and I’ve something to give you.  Isabel?  Isabel?"  Only silence greeted the tired carpenter.

Peter dropped the one-carat diamond ring to the floor when she saw the unmade bed and Isabel’s neck chain askew on the bed sheets.  He balled his fists as he tried to quell the rising tide of panic as he fled down the hallway looking for any sign of his woman.  He knew straight away something had happened to her but wasn’t sure. 

After five minutes of frantic searching, he looked into her closet to see what clothes she might have taken but nothing was disturbed, not even the ankle chains he had brought from Canada, and the first feelings of deep despair grabbed at his guts.

Ten minutes later, looking at the chain he had locked on her neck the night before, he wailed, "Isabel, where are you?  I love you."

Isabel heard the limo’s tires crunch on a gravel driveway as the Cadillac pulled into the forecourt of three modern, white buildings, with palm trees and a small pond in front, in the middle of the desert.  Looking out the tinted windows, she noticed a high, razor wire-topped, chain-link fence along the perimeter as the vehicle pulled up to the front of the largest building, followed by the jeep with three dusty soldiers and a dead white slaver inside.

No one came out to greet them but Omar spoke first, "We’re here, Isabel.  Time for you to get out and meet your new friends."  Omar slid out of the back seat first and helped Isabel to her feet.  Only three wide steps leading to the entrance of the main building greeted her this time.

Omar took her left arm and Isabel wrenched it away with a clatter of her chains, growling at him.  "I’ll walk alone," she said.  "I managed 25 steps at the University of Edinburgh’s faculty of engineering; I can certainly walk up these."

The two African men were quietly pleased at Isabel’s pluck and determination; it was more than they had hoped for.

Isabel’s chains rattled more noisily than before on the white limestone steps and she pushed open the wide front door with her shoulder, followed by Omar and Sheikh, into a large, open area at the front of the building.  She looked around and saw what she believed to be offices, laboratories and a dining room further down the hall.

"Welcome to our Centre of Excellence for Genetic Engineering," the doctor said.  "Amina should be here momentarily.  Amina?  Where are you, please?  Our guest has arrived!"

"Just a moment," a cultured, feminine voice called out.  "I’m on the wireless to my friend at USC."

‘Wireless,’ Isabel thought, ‘so that’s how they communicate with the outside world; no landlines out here.’  She also noted a cool draught of air circulating in the spacious lobby indicating the presence of air conditioning and a power source, possibly solar panels and battery storage, she thought, as she gathered information and evidence for the charges she was going to pursue once she got free.

She was determined to get free, despite her chains, her nakedness and her location (where in hell am I, anyway? she asked herself) and she would bring these crackpot quacks to justice somehow.

Isabel looked around and heard a slight rustle of chain in a hallway to her right.  Turning, she saw a statuesque African woman, about 25, naked, slender and beautiful.  Isabel was not the least bit surprised to see this woman’s ankles shackled by a 24-in. chain -- at least she would have a soul mate -- and she walked as though she was free.  Clearly, she was used to her bondage, Isabel thought, but as Amina drew closer she saw her additional jewellery: silver rings through her septum, her nipples and her vaginal labia, all linked together by light, decorative chain.

"Amina, come and meet Isabel, our new subject," Sheikh said.

The African woman walked with a light clink up to Isabel, extended her right hand and said, "Hello, Isabel.  I am Amina and I will be your maid, your slave, your friend and your instructor."

Isabel raised her chained right hand and shook Amina’s welcoming hand with a clink and rattle, wondering about the multiple roles Amina would play and the order in which they might occur.

"Well, I guess I am pleased to meet you," Isabel finally blurted.  "I look forward to knowing more about you.  Are you the graduate from the University of Southern California?"

"Yes, I am," the African woman said.  "I will be assisting Dr. Sheikh in the genetic engineering initiatives of our study."

‘Oh, great,’ Isabel said to herself, ‘and I am the guinea pig.’

Amina asked Isabel if she would like a bath before supper and Isabel quickly agreed. 

"I’ll show you to your quarters, Isabel.  Come this way, please."  The leggy African woman slowed her pace to accommodate Isabel’s small, chained steps, noisy on the flooring, as the two women walked down a long, cool hardwood hallway into a suite of two apartments.  The door on the left opened to Amina’s chambers, she said, and Isabel’s was next door.

As Amina opened Isabel’s door, she fully expected a jail cell but was amazed to find a well-appointed, two-bedroom apartment, complete with living room, dinette, fully-appointed bath and small patio with a 16-ft.-high chain-link fence bordering three sides.

"This is your apartment, mine’s identical, except for the chain-link fence," Amina said.  "Please make yourself comfortable.  I’ll come by in 90 minutes to take you to dinner.  It’s now just before 5 p.m. local time, dinner is at 6:30 p.m., on the dot; see you then."

Isabel’s apartment door closed solidly and she heard two barrel-locks thudding home outside. 

Here she was, locked inside a luxurious apartment in the middle of the desert, chained hand and foot with a steel collar riveted around her neck, and being asked to get ready for supper at 6:30 p.m.  What next?

Isabel clinked her chained way around the apartment, looking at the furniture, inside her refrigerator (there was no stove), at the dinette, the en suite bathroom, the large and small bedrooms -- she suddenly had a pang of sexual hunger for her Peter -- and decided she would enjoy a bath as it had been a long and tiring day.  She clinked into the tiled bathroom and ran a steamy, hot bath.  She took off her sole piece of clothing -- the eight-in.-wide strip of translucent, pale-yellow chiffon tied on her so long ago by Peter -- and eased herself into the tub in a clash and clatter of chain.

"Mmm, noisy, noisy," she said, as she sank down into the hot, soapy water, feeling the suds rise up past her metal collar.  Her ankle, wrist and waist chains scraped along the marble interior of her tub as she watched the desert grime, and the aches of her hemp bondage -- wash away.  Long, lingering moments later, she stood up, drained the tub and pulled the shower curtains closed in another loud clash of chains and ran the shower to wash her hair and rinse off, taking care to avoid the red welts on her wrists, elbows, knees and ankles.

Warm, relaxed and somewhat serene, she turned off the shower after 15 minutes, stepped out, nearly tripping over her chains on the edge of the tub and staggered to the towel rack to dry herself off in the large, fluffy towels.

‘Do I go to supper with a towel wrapped around me,’ she wondered, ‘or have they given me any clothes at all?  Maybe even a hospital johnny shirt?’  But even that wouldn’t go on with her chained the way she was.  She had to sit down on the edge of the tub to towel her hair with her tethered hands.  She then stood up and took a step to the medicine cabinet.  There were the usual contents: alcohol, perfumes, quality makeup but no razors or anything else that could be used as a weapon.  She stood tiptoed and pulled her chains taut to reach into the cabinet to withdraw a small perfume bottle.  Looking at it, she opened it and daubed a little scent behind her ears by kneeling down in front of the mirror.  She also put a dot between her breasts with a little laugh; at her elbows where she noticed the dark-red, corrugated ligatures and behind her knees where she once again felt the inflamed roughness left by her hemp cords.  

Freshly showered and with damp hair, she clinked into the master bedroom and looked in one of the two closets.  There she saw a long row of hangers with the same garment --  five-foot-long lengths of 8-inch-wide chiffon -- literally dozens of them.  ‘So this is to be my wardrobe,’ Isabel thought.  The row of hangers was conveniently low enough for her to reach in her chains and she picked the first one -- a champagne-coloured item -- off the rack.

She put it on the usual way, over and under her waist chain, and straightened out the front and back lengths as though she was straightening hems on a skirt at home.  Freshened up, she shuffled stiffly into her fenced-in patio and let the hot desert air dry her hair.   It was dry in five minutes and she came back in, lay on the bed in a clink and rattle of chain, organized her wrist, ankle and connecting chains and began running the day’s events over in her mind.

Her right hand wandered down toward her vagina and she began idly to stroke her sensitive clit as she thought of her hours of tight bondage in the back of the little jet.  She rotated the little nub with her right index and middle fingers, relishing the feel of the chain over her abdomen and upper thighs. 

Her reverie was soon interrupted by two sharp raps on her front door.

"Isabel, it’s me, Amina.  Supper’s in 10 minutes and we’re expected."

"I’ll be there," Isabel called out, struggling to get off the double bed.

She clashed, clinked and clanked her way to her front door, found it unlocked from the outside and opened it to see Amina in a beautiful, white evening gown that revealed more than it covered. 

Isabel’s hands went instantly to her breasts and said:  "I don’t have a thing to wear; just this little loincloth.  What am I going to wear to dinner, Amina?" 

The African-born, USC-educated engineer calmed the Scottish woman and said, "You look just fine the way you are.  Don’t worry about it.  If you want, I can put on the same thing you are wearing and we’ll be two of a kind."

Isabel thought about this strange offer and replied, "Well, yes, Amina, if you would.  That would greatly reduce my embarrassment if you and I appeared the same."

Amina agreed, returned to her apartment and emerged five minutes later in a loincloth nearly identical to Isabel’s, her nipple and nose rings and their light chains flashing brilliantly against her dark skin.

Together, they walked into the dining hall and joined Omar and Sheikh in a formal, British-style three-course evening meal brought them by white-jacketed male waiters. 

Isabel and Amina sat at one side of the long table and the two African gentlemen sat across.  Isabel had to place her feet on the lower rungs of her chair to allow her some slack in her chains to reach her plates and cutlery but other than that the dinner was a great success and she enjoyed the small talk offered by the two gentlemen-kooks.

The only difficulty Isabel had was reaching some of the silverware, just out of reach of her shackled hands.  Instantly, a waiter would appear at her side and pass the fork, spoon or plate to her.

The small talk was far from the usual chat she was used to, "How long have you been in chains, Isabel, not counting today?"

"Oh, about three days."

"Do they distract you?"

"Only when I’m doing something."

"Do you prefer rope?  Or chain?  Or both?

"Never both. I am getting used, slowly, to being chained.  But the prospect of being tied and chained is not looked forward to at all."

"How did you acquire your ankle shackles?  They look very strong and difficult, if impossible, to remove..."

"It happened at night not far from home.  And that’s all I’ll tell you.  The rest is too fantastic to believe.  And you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you."

After supper, the two men, Amina and Isabel withdrew to a library where sherry, cigars and cigarettes were produced.  Isabel, seated in a big easy chair, accepted a cigarette from one of the servants who placed it in her mouth, lit it for her adroitly and offered her a crystal glass of expensive sherry.

The sherry hit her like the proverbial ton of bricks, considering her exhausted physical and psychological states, and she was tipsy with the second glass.  Giggling, she set the glass on the table beside her with both chained hands, and then knocked it off when her chain caught on the stem.  She was not used to being chained nearly naked in such a high-class atmosphere with this lot of certifiable kooks, she thought, as she looked about her with an apology on her lips.

"Oops, silly me; sorry," Isabel said, as she knelt with a soft rustle of chains to pick up the shards of broken crystal.  Amina, Omar and Sheikh looked at Isabel on her knees, her chains dangling from waist wrists and ankles, and were all smiles.  ‘Yes,’ they all thought, ‘she will make a wonderful subject.  And slave.’

The walnut wall clock chimed 10 p.m. and Isabel bent forward slightly in her chair to stifle a yawn with a chained hand.  Amina offered to "secure her for bed" and Isabel’s eyes widened in recall that she was still, very much, their captive.

‘Yes, I’m ready for bed, Amina; do with me what you will."  The two women bade Omar and Sheikh good night and walked slowly to their quarters.

Amina came into Isabel’s bedroom with her.

"Stage One of the process involves getting you used to bondage at all times, Isabel," the younger woman said.  "You seem predisposed to being in chains and shackles and we are all personally very pleased with this.  But every night, for security purposes and to prepare you psychologically for our procedures, you are to be chained by the neck until breakfast.  And gagged."

"Gagged?" Isabel said.  "Why?  No one can hear me way out here."

"I’ll tell you tomorrow," Amina replied.  "Meanwhile, let me lock this chain -- it’s 30-feet long -- to your collar and put in the gag.  There’s a sleeping pill beside your bed if you need it."

Amina reached down to the floor beside Isabel’s bed, picked up the length of chain and padlocked it to the ring built into the front of Isabel’s collar.  It snapped home with an air of finality that Isabel remembered from her home, so far away this night in western Scotland. 

"This is called a ring gag," Amina said, as she showed Isabel the 2 ½-inch diameter, 1/8th-inch thick, stainless-steel ring with two lengths of small light chain welded to either side.  "Open, please."

Isabel opened her mouth and Amina inserted the ring behind her upper and lower front teeth, splinting her mouth open in a perfect O.  Isabel then submissively raised her head as Amina passed the two small chains around and locked them securely at the base of her skull just above the top of the back of her collar.

"Good night, now, Isabel.  See you in the morning."

"Arr-gg-ll," Isabel replied.  ‘Now, how am I going to sleep with my mouth wide open?’ she thought.  ‘Where’s that pill?’   She moved over to the right of the bed and struggled to turn on her reading lamp, found the little, pink pill, reached for it with her chained hands and lay back down.

She then raised her feet to allow her slack to reach her mouth, tilted her head back and tossed the pill into the back of her throat, nearly hitting herself in the face with her wrist chains.  She managed to swallow it without gagging and was soon sound asleep.

Seven a.m. arrived before she knew it and Isabel was gently shaken awake by Amina, now wearing a white lab coat which covered her nudity but not her ankle chains.

"Grr-arr-gg-ll?" Isabel asked.  (What time is it?)

"Seven a.m.," Amina replied.  "Here, let me take the gag out and your neck chain off."

Two snaps and Isabel was working her jaws again between cuffed hands.

"How did you know what I just asked you?" said Isabel.  "I could barely make it out myself."

"I’m used to gag talk," Amina replied sweetly.  "You see, I was into bondage almost full-time when I was going to USC.  I had to pay the tuition and bills somehow so I found a rich guy who paid plenty to gag and bind me.  Chains paid off for me big time; I got my two degrees that way.  And the gags?  Well, they just came with the territory, I guess.  Personally, I prefer the ring gag over the others."

Isabel’s first day as a lab subject was about to begin. After a hearty breakfast, she was taken to a lab and asked to lie down on what appeared to be an operating table in the lab wing of the main building.

"Don’t worry," Amina said, "we’re not going to put you to sleep.  Just a few tests to get your genetic profile, look at some of your reproductive organs and test your responsiveness to sexual stimuli."

Isabel positioned herself on the table and Amina secured Isabel’s chained wrists and ankles to the table sides with strong leather straps.  "Just to keep you in the same position throughout," she informed her.  The physician then appeared at the foot of the low table and began Isabel’s pelvic examination.

When he was finished 45 minutes later, Isabel was writhing, panting and wringing wet with perspiration and pussy juice.  She had just experienced the strongest orgasm ever induced in her by a physician trained in ancient African sexual tradition and stimuli.

"She is most assuredly a 9.8 on the Ushwanti orgasmic scale," Sheikh said to his assistants.  "Reproductive system entirely normal with evidence of previous childbirths.  Nipple rings may hinder breastfeeding.  Nevertheless, she tolerated the examination and orgasm measurement extremely well.  Highly recommended for breeding."

It was the news Isabel did not want to hear and she began to shake.

"No, no," she cried.  "I will never submit.  Do what you want with me, chain me up some more, but I don’t want to have anything to do with your experiments.  Please."

"Gag her, please, Amina," the doctor ordered.  "And proceed to Stage 2."

Amina produced the same ring gag as the night before and chained it securely around Isabel’s head.  "Mmffrr," Isabel groaned.

The doctor then ordered her leather straps unbound and Isabel was taken to an adjoining lab which had a single, narrow cot with two long lengths of chain attached to each of the four corners of the frame.

Isabel freed her arm from Amina’s grasp, looked at her with her O-shaped mouth and lay down unassisted.

Isabel’s breath came in gasping pants through her wide-open mouth and her chest heaved in expectation and anxiety as Amina set to work chaining the Scotswoman to the cot.

Waiting in the hallway was a handsome, black African male, chained identically to Isabel.  His credentials, according to Amina’s chart,  were perfect: STD-free; 6-foot 2-inches, 218 lbs.; athletic, endomorph physique; BP 120/80; P, 62/min; high sperm count; single, 22 y/o; MSc, UCLA, 1971; varsity football player, flanker position, three years; no injuries.    

"Wilson, you may come in now," Amina called.  The young African stud strode in clattering and Isabel’s eyes grew wide in despair and admiration as she saw the length and breadth of the huge manhood rising between his legs.

"Aww-gg-aa-kk.  Nntkaawwtt," (I can’t take all that) she cried, as Amina finished securing Isabel’s ankles just 18 in. apart. Isabel, nearly as helpless as she was on the plane the day before, pulled futilely on her chains, heard their clack, metal on metal, and knew herself to be bound securely once again.

"You may mount her now, Wilson," Amina said clinically.  "Do your duty."

Wilson grunted as he climbed with some difficulty aboard the spread-eagled Isabel and Amina assisted him by directing his firm penis into Isabel’s still-moist vagina.

"Ah-h," Wilton said, as he sank his 12-inch member deep into Isabel.

"Mrarf," Isabel groaned.  "Mmmmnnn."

Wilson began rhythmic thrusts and Isabel thought she would climax almost immediately. 

‘No, impossible,’ she said to herself.  ‘Not so soon. Ohmigod.’  She thought Peter was good but this stud was even better -- today anyway.

"Isabel," Wilson whispered softly in Isabel’s ear, out of earshot of Amina who was standing 15-feet away.  "Don’t look at me and don’t give any sign you hear anything," he said quietly into her left ear as he continued to thrust into her.  "Just listen.  These people are mad.  Mad scientists.  I can help you escape but we need to plan."  Thrust.  Pound. 

"Mroofay," (OK) Isabel said softly through her circular mouth.  "I will get a note to you somehow." 

Pound, pound.  "Be prepared to flee at a moment’s notice.  Be brave."

"Permission to come, Mistress Amina?" 

"Permission granted, Wilson.  You may proceed."

"Arrr-gggg-hhhh," Wilson cried as he spurted his hot white cum inside Isabel, pulling out a moment later to shoot another load of semen on her breasts, abdomen and thighs. Isabel’s eyes were wide open as he stuck his rigid cock through her ring gag and the big African football player pounded her mouth for a few seconds.

"Gaa-aack," Isabel choked, as she felt the large cock slide through the ring into the rear of her mouth.  She faked her orgasm and as Wilson withdrew his thick member from Isabel’s gaping mouth, she tried to swallow his cum and digest what he had just told her.

Here was her chance to get away from this madhouse.  But how?

"Very good, Wilson; you may go to the locksmith to be unchained.  You are free to go."

"Yassum," said the big football player.

Wilson clinked away down the hall and Amina approached Isabel with the second bit of startling news of the morning.

"Well, Isabel, I hope you enjoyed it.  It appears your cycle is on track and we should know in six weeks whether Wilson has successfully impregnated you or not.  If not, we have another subject waiting in the wings to copulate with you."

Isabel recognized a significant change in Amina, especially from last night’s relatively amicable overtures to her.

"I hope you’re pleased that our scientific studies are under way.  It’s a combination of business and pleasure.  Don’t you agree?"

"Nnnggg," (no) Isabel replied. 

Amina unlocked Isabel from the cot, removed her ring gag and Isabel sat stiffly up, wiping her lips, mouth and chin as she swung her legs onto the floor, feeling Wilson’s high-grade African semen dribbling down her legs as well as her esophagus.

"You are free to go," Amina said ironically. 

Isabel clinked her way back to her apartment and heard the door close with a solid thud, followed by the double-bolts, and she was locked inside her apartment again.

She ran another bath, showered, and dried her hair out on her fenced-in patio.  Sitting in a chair out of the hot, dry sun an hour later, she noticed a small paper-covered rock come sailing over the 16-foot-high fence.  It clattered on the patio stone and she stood up, took two clinking steps over and picked it up, unwrapping the note.  "Meet me here at 0200 tomorrow.  W."  

It was just after 10 a.m. and Isabel had the whole day to herself to think about this next move.  She clinked into the bedroom and sat down on the bed, fingering her chains and wondering how Wilson could effect her escape.

Soap.  That’s it.  She clinked back into the bathroom and found every bar of soap she could find. 

She lathered her wrists as best as she could and tried with all her might to push her wrist cuffs down over her wrist bones.  They wouldn’t budge.  Frustrated, she threw the bars onto the bathroom floor and shook her chains in frustration.

She had been chained continuously for four days and was finding a way to escape.  But how could she manage to get free of these chains by 2 tomorrow morning?

She paced her bedroom and living room, lost in thought about how to get the riveted shackles off her wrists.  She had given up on freeing herself from her ankle chains and the steel collar would not hinder her escape, she thought, unless she was leashed.

She stopped the inner dialogue and looked in the fridge for something to drink.  She poured herself a glass of cold water with both hands and took it to her dinette, sitting down to look out the patio doors into her chain-link enclosure and further into the vast, deadly desert expanses. 

Time passed and still, no solution came to the chained Scottish woman. 

She got up and shuffled over to look at the bookcase in her living room and was not in the least surprised to find they were all fantasy fiction novels dealing with female bondage.

"Just great," she said, as she scanned the cover titles of the rows of paperbacks.

"Isabel in Chains"; "Carly Chained"; "Sheila Shackled"; "Moira Manacled."  Isabel smiled at the drawings and cover illustrations, each showing some damsel in distress.  She picked up the first one she looked at, titled "Isabel in Chains," and started reading.  It described the plight of an ordinary university coed kidnapped by African slavers who bound her in steel and sold her to an Arabian sheik.  Isabel started reading with interest; perhaps there would be a clue, she thought, as she read chapter after chapter that dealt with a hapless, young woman put in bondage.

There were no clues, only lurid details about sex, bondage, chains and hope for escape where there was none. 

Time passed and by the time she finished the book, it was after 4 p.m. 

She started reading the Carly novel and soon she was summoned for supper.

The stately supper passed again with idle chatter at the table, sherry and ciggies in the library afterward (Isabel did not knock over her class this time and nursed one drink). 

At 10 p.m. Amina led Isabel by the arm back to her apartment, locked the chain onto Isabel’s collar and inserted the ring gag.

"Night, Isabel, see you in the morning," Amina said.

"Mmffggou," (fuck you) Isabel replied.

"Now that’s not nice, Isabel," came the reply.  The door shut again firmly followed by two solid thuds and Isabel was secured and chained for the night -- at least until 2 a.m.

Isabel lay in bed, wide awake on top of the covers, toying with her neck chain.  Her breath made a peculiar sound as she contorted her jaws around the 2 ½-inch steel circle that propped her mouth wide open.  She wondered how far she could get across the desert, chained and gagged as she was, and whether she could get free of her leash.

"Aa-ww-kk?" (Anyone there?)  she called.  No one answered.

‘How is Wilson going to hear me?  Or how is he going to break these,’ she wondered, as she grabbed her neck and wrist chains together to remind herself of her implacable bondage.  Did he have tools?  Unsure whether her leash was long enough to allow her out the patio doors, the resourceful woman stood up in a rustle of chain and carefully pulled her tether along as she backed her way out to the patio doors.  She had to pull up on her ankle chain to reach the patio door latch and succeeded.  She took 1 ½ steps outside was nearly pulled off her feet as her tether pulled taut. 

But at least she was able to get outside if Wilson came by.

She went back in her apartment, left the patio door ajar and sat down in her living room, gasping through her gag and checking that her long chain was not caught on anything as it reached back to where it was locked in the bedroom.  It was after 1 a.m. and she would just sit there, mouth wide open and mute, until someone came by. 

She began thinking about the desert and was reminded of the doctor’s description of the perils she faced if she dared cross it on foot.  She decided she should at least get a drink of water before her escape and adventure and made her noisy way to her small refrigerator for a drink. 

Leaning down, she withdrew a water bottle with both hands, unscrewed it and sat down, careful not to tangle her chains any more than they already were.  She placed the bottle neck carefully against the lower part of her ring gag, tilted her head back and poured in an ounce or two, swallowed and repeated until she had consumed nearly a half-quart and put the bottle back in.

Quenched, she resumed her seat by the patio door and looked out quietly at the stars, thinking quietly about home and her lover, Peter.  A tear trickled down her cheek into her open mouth as she looked out and around.

She saw her reflection in the glass door and was at once appalled and resolute: her propped-open mouth made her appear awe-struck or dumb-founded and she looked away, saddened and anxious.  When she looked again, however, her chains made her desire for escape even greater, despite the odds against and, she had to admit, she still looked kind of sexy sitting there, in chains, waiting to be rescued.

She then began to wonder whether this was the right night to make a getaway.  If they did get away, and were recaptured, what cost would she have to bear?  What more could they do to her?  She was already completely chained and gagged!

Isabel looked at a wall clock and saw its digital face -- 1:45 a.m.  -- looked away and thought she saw a fleeting shadow through the patio door, outside her fenced enclosure.

"Wffn!" (Wilson) she said urgently.

She stood up, breathless, holding her chains in her hands, slid open the single patio door and ventured into the cool desert air as far as her neck tether would allow.

"Wffnn?  Iffaaatooo?"  (Is that you?) she called, at the full length of her neck chain.

"Sshh," he replied.  "Yes, it’s me."  Isabel saw his dark physique barely outlined by the night sky outside her enclosure.  He was carrying a long, narrow tool -- bolt cutters -- and Isabel looked wide-eyed over her gag-propped mouth as he snipped a hole through the bottom of her fence.   

It was not electrified, fortunately, and after a few too-loud snaps, Wilson squirmed inside.  He applied the bolt cutters quickly to the neck tether and it fell with a chink into Isabel’s hands.  She placed it quietly on the patio stones.  He then cut away the chains holding her ring gag in place and she pried it out from behind her teeth, dropping the hated device on the patio beside her tether.

"Thank you," Isabel whispered.  "Can you cut these now? she asked, as she held out her wrists.  Wilson put the cutters on her wrist chains, pressed with his strong arms, and snap, Isabel’s wrists were free.  Two more snaps and the waist chain that held her loincloth and the chain that fell from her hips to her ankle chains were free. 

"Forget the ankles, they don’t come off," Isabel told him. 

"Sure?" Wilson looked at her quizzically. 

"It’s a long story," Isabel replied, as she stooped to pick up a length of chain Wilson had just removed, wrapping it round her hips to drape her loincloth.  "Let’s go.  Can you carry me?  I can’t walk very fast because these are only 18-inchers."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," Wilson said, as he swept Isabel up in his powerful arms and carried her to the fence.  She dropped out of his arms to her belly and scraped her breasts and ringed nipples on the rough ground on both sides of the fence.  In a moment they were outside and Wilson picked her up again, half-running towards a waiting jeep he’d hotwired a few moments before.

He threw Isabel into the passenger seat, ran around to the driver’s side, clashed the gears and took off in a cloud of dust and the whiny roar Jeeps are known for.

Wilson drove all night, using a compass and flashlight he had borrowed from the Centre of Excellence.  Finally, after a jarring, four-hour ride across the rubble-strewn desert, he stopped at first light to get his bearings.

Isabel looked at him and asked if he knew where he was.

"I was born and raised in Ushwant," Wilson replied.  "I am a son of the desert and I know this area very well.  Those people back there are very bad and we shall report them to the authorities when we get to town.  The town I was raised in should be about 60 miles further south.  We should be there in just over an hour." 

Isabel leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, remembering their copulation of just 24 hours ago.  She brushed her left breast against his brawny upper arm for good measure and Wilson shifted into first gear toward the town of Ubangi.

"Don’t worry about being topless there," Wilson said, as he glanced at Isabel’s breasts jostling with the lurches of the jeep over the rough terrain.  "All Ubangi women believe in the sacredness of their breasts and they go uncovered year-round."

"Oh, that’s a relief," Isabel said.  "What about my chains, though?"

"That’s another story.  I don’t know.  Ushwanti women have not known chains for centuries so you will be a bit of a novelty to them."

Half an hour later, they were entering the outskirts of the dusty little town and Wilson drove straight to the house of a mechanic he knew with a request to use his grinder.   Isabel clinked into the little ramshackle garage and Wilson’s friend looked at Isabel carefully as he plugged in his handheld grinder.  "This will vibrate a lot," the mechanic said as he held the machine to her collar.  After a minute of teeth-clenching grinding and a shower of sparks, Isabel’s steel collar fell to the ground with a thud.  Her wrist cuffs were less painful to remove and soon they too joined the little heap of scrap metal on the ground at her feet. 

Forget the ankle chains," Isabel told the surprised young man as he was about to kneel down to grind them off.  "They’re on for good, I think." Wilson and his mechanic friend looked at each other and winked and Isabel smiled her thanks to both.  She gave the mechanic a little peck on the cheek as Wilson and Isabel turned to climb back in the Jeep to continue to the town hall.  The single main street of Ubangi was deserted at 7:45 a.m.

Isabel clinked her way into the police office and Wilson followed, both only too anxious to tell their stories to the police chief about the Centre of Excellence for Genetic Engineering and its bizarre staff. 

The 35-year-old woman and the 22-year-old athlete/stud told their wild stories to an incredulous, young constable who recorded every word on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder.

The policeman then picked up the phone and made a series of inquiries.  Within the hour, Isabel had some western clothes -- a skirt, blouse and nothing else -- and after signing her police statement, she thanked Wilson for her rescue and was in a dusty, little taxi en route to a small airport nearby for a connecting flight to Tangiers and home, courtesy of the British Foreign Office which the town hall had contacted.

With travel and customs arrangements organized through the Foreign Office, Scotland Yard and Interpol, Isabel was on board an Air France flight at Tangiers the same day, bound for Heathrow and connecting to Prestwick. 

French national police escorted Isabel through the Tangiers air terminal building into an official vehicle that took her to the waiting Air France flight.  She was the first to board and was shown to a seat in the first-class section where she received the warmest hospitality and attention, and the finest airline food imaginable, from the male and female cabin attendants.  She was the only person in first-class and was the first to be allowed to disembark when the plane rolled up to the Heathrow arrivals area three hours later.

The Air France crew wished her bonne chance and Isabel stepped slowly and carefully into the arrivals/customs area, and freedom, for the first time in three harrowing days.

Isabel Metcalfe’s breasts swayed and bobbed seductively underneath her white blouse in time with her clinking progress through Heathrow ATB and she was aware of the stares, giggles and gestures from men and women in the public areas.  She did not have a police escort and she did not mind in the least.

She was now aware that the chains were there to stay and she had been informed by the airport police and security staff there was no law or ordinance that said she could not be chained in public, provided she did not make a spectacle of herself and minded her own business.  

She would read about the arrests at the Centre of Excellence in the British press tomorrow.

She was anxious to tell Peter of her adventures.

Epilog

Isabel Metcalfe arrived seven hours later at Prestwick Airport, to be greeted by Peter and her two boys, 18 and 19, who were aghast to see their mother braless and barefoot in chained ankles, dusty and dishevelled from her desert ordeal.  Peter had informed them, en route to the airport, about their mother’s kidnap, bondage and escape, as he was in communication with a senior official in the Foreign office, London, but his explanation did nothing to ease the shock of seeing "mum" hobble in chained progress across the busy airport arrivals area, her breasts swaying side to side in time with her small steps.

The reunion was heartfelt and there were hugs and kisses all round.  Isabel told her boys she was all right, that they should accept her the way she was for the time being and that she going to keep her chains for an indefinite period.  She thought this was the best way to break Dr. Ledstone’s news to her sons. 

At home in rural western Scotland later that night, Isabel spent an hour in the bath getting rid of the East African grime and memories of her forced orgasms hogtied in the jet and chained in the desert labs.  When she re-emerged, she was dressed in her best skirt, blouse and shoes, her hair was washed and combed and she looked fresh but tired.  Her boys told their mother they would support her decision about her chained ankles -- they had not heard of Dr. Ledstone or his findings -- but if she wanted to have chained ankles it was all right with them.  Isabel asked the boys to step out for a half-hour and she told Peter her amazing stories of kidnap, bondage, murder, coercion and sex in the desert.  When her boys returned she gave them a sanitized version of the same events.  After the boys had gone to bed, Peter showed her a copy of the local daily newspaper with its page one story about the arrests at the Centre of Excellence in the Ushwanti desert earlier that day and the sidebar article with a few details about her kidnapping and desert experiences but no mention of her mysterious ankle chains.

Next day, Peter took Isabel to their family physician who treated her for bruises and ligature injuries but declared her otherwise healthy, although he was extremely sceptical about her insistence on keeping her ankles shackled. 

"Isabel, these small pierces in your nipples and the rings were put in by someone who obviously knew what he or she was doing," Dr. Hall informed her. 

"The procedure was evidently done recently but the piercings have healed entirely, and in a remarkably short time.  The scar tissue suggests the pierces were done by cautery -- an extremely-hot instrument -- and the rings were evidently sterilized before they were put in.  Your rings can stay in without compromising your breasts’ health but I need to warn you of consequences to your hips, knees or ankles, caused by your short strides and unusual gait.  You may want to have your shackles removed professionally as I do not understand how they have been fitted to you." 

Isabel said she would check back with him in a month when she would request a pelvic exam and they left on good terms.  Isabel returned home with Peter and decided to get pick up their life where they left off.  The boys left for their Royal Marine training base and said they would be home in about six months.

Their sex life resumed its normal vigour and sensuality and, one month later, Peter applied for a marriage licence.  Isabel and Peter were married within the week at a town-hall ceremony.  She wore an off-white, knee-length bridal dress and a full-length picture of the bridal party -- Isabel, Peter, the boys, Moira and her husband, Dennis, and the JP -- was published on the front page next day.

Nine months later, she gave birth to a bouncing baby girl and exactly one year after that happy event, was contacted by the University of Edinburgh’s engineering faculty with an offer of employment as an assistant in the metallurgy division.

She was only too happy to accept -- at a salary of 12,000 pounds a year -- and went out and bought herself a new wardrobe of suits, skirts and dresses, all sensible, knee-length fashions, to begin her new career as a university staff member where she has been employed, happily, productively and effectively, from 1977 to date. 

Before starting her employment, she decided she liked the bra-less fashions that were in vogue and kept only one bra in her dresser for a special occasion.  Every June 11, she puts it on for one hour and drives out to where she took it off the night she was chained forever, just moments away from home.  She then shrugs out of the bra, puts it on the car seat and drives home again to tell Peter, her husband, her story once again.  Peter never tires of hearing her account of the events that changed her life that night so many years ago.

Today, if Isabel gets tired of her breasts flopping about while she does housework, the gardening or at bowling, she simply passes a locket chain through her nipple rings and ties her breasts together snugly until her vigorous activity ends.

At the university, years of tests and studies followed to determine the best ways to remove the shackles from Isabel’s ankles -- all ended inconclusively.  Isabel and Dr. Ledstone became the subjects of national media attention and articles, photographs and illustrations of her and the unremovable chains appeared regularly in prestigious scientific and engineering publications, medical and psychology periodicals and newsmagazines around the UK. 

Today, Peter and Isabel are living a happy, quiet life in the highlands of Western Scotland.  Peter has started his own construction company and Isabel continues to work at Edinburgh University, Monday - Friday, her chained ankles and bouncing breasts everyday sights and sounds in the laboratory wing of the metallurgy division where she is employed as a technical assistant/consultant.

Carly, their 27-year-old daughter who lives nearby has lately discovered the joys of bondage with her live-in boyfriend. She had recently seen Mrs. Moira McPeak, her mother’s best friend, in a swim suit in her back yard with curious bands of mild abrasions on her ankles, wrists and neck.  She also noticed Moira had begun walking with her mother’s unusual gait, even though she was not bound, the day they found an ad for ankle cuffs in the Police Gazette. 

She has decided she will tell her mother tomorrow about her experiments with handcuffs and the curious ankle chains she acquired through the post.

At exactly that time, meanwhile, 56-year-old Amina Drumm was having her handcuffs and leg chains removed for the first time in 25 years.  Sentenced to life at the East Africa Prison for Women for her role in the Centre of Excellence, she has thought of nothing but finding and re-enslaving Isabel Metcalfe.

She avoided the looks of the prison guards as she stepped outside the prison walls to a waiting dusty-black, beaten-up 1975 Cadillac limo that would take her to her important meeting later that day with her former colleagues.