Descent Into Darkness (7 page)

CHAPTER XII - Preparations

Raven
watched as the bound Katarina bucked within her restraints, before slumping against the bands that rigidly held her. If seen, Katarina’s eyes would have told a tale of brief and temporary ecstasy immediately replaced by pure hopeless misery, mirroring how she felt inside.

“Pretty Whore and No More.” It was the real voice of Mistress Raven this time. Katarina’s reaction was a shock to her as an infuriatingly pleasant tingle surged through her loins. This time had been different though. No vibrations. No physical stimuli as a trigger. It was conditioning and Mistress Raven smiled back seeing the jolt. The cat had created the cream.

“
Good
girl.” The judgement held more than a hint of malicious satisfaction. “Your Master will be so pleased when you are returned to him.”

Her Master? She’d almost forgotten. Was she still under Immelmann’s rule, his direction? Was this all part of a plan to break her down, to make her more pliable to his will?

Mistress Raven stepped out of Katarina’s immediate field of vision and the screen showed her enter a shop. Katarina watched a door to the shop display open and saw Raven’s hand run appreciatively over the dominant twin of herself as she passed it.

Standing before Katarina now, Mistress Raven was tall, as tall as Katarina was in her ballet boots. Up close, she was just as stunning. Minute flaws, as everyone has, only seemed to add to her allure. Katarina could not help but be entranced, wondering how exactly she was linked to Immelmann, the man who she apparently had to view as her master. An employee? A trainer? A lover? A whore?

The woman was all poise and brutal grace. Even as she spun in her spiked heels to face outside, there wasn't a hint of imbalance. She stretched up. Her already lithe figure elongated to reach a button and the roller blind unwound to close Katarina off from the outside world.

The creeping descent of the blind seemed to signify the same closure of Katarina’s fate. It had been strange, remote and yet somehow comforting to be once again in contact with the outside world. However far removed, the normality of life was being wound down now and it was only the hands placed on her waist that drew her back from her despairing thoughts.

“You’ve served your purpose for today girl.” Mistress Raven’s hands ran down the curve of Katarina's hips, following them hungrily with her eyes. “I must say you’ve caused quite a stir in town and really polarised opinion. Never mind though, your future has been determined and you must be prepared.”

Mela was held tightly by the redhead to prevent her rushing to Katarina's aid as a breathing mask was fitted over Katarina's immobile, rubber-covered face. Katarina held her breath at first but with near empty lungs the chloroform soon started to sweep sleep over her. Her eyelids fluttered an ebbing rebellion before settling closed as her consciousness was chased away.

Quickly, the blonde set to work disassembling the display while Raven carefully removed the camera that had recorded Katarina’s day. The unconscious Katarina was left until last then wheeled out and back to the same preparation room where she had first been strapped to her stand.

If awake, Katarina would surely have struggled at being returned to the white room. She would have seen Mela chained in the corner, waiting for punishment for her crime of compassion. Mela and Katarina, sisters in confinement. Both restrained, one coherent and deeply concerned, one content for now in a drug-induced slumber.

The centre of the room was once again Katarina’s destination and she was wheeled there under the harsh glare of lights, the centre of attention that her waking ego would have demanded in better times.

Mela’s eyes followed the abducted beauty picked out by spotlights. The deep sheen of Katarina’s catsuit gleamed and danced as her chest steadily rose and fell in slow shallow breaths. Mela had been drawn to defy Mistress Raven and silently scolded herself, “How fucking stupid am I?”

It was a question that needed no answer. The sadistic beauty would extract what in her world passed for pleasure, reminding Mela of both her place and the expectation of complete obedience.

Raven ran hungry hands over the slumbering Katarina watched by a tearful Mela whose emotions churned. She knew she was in trouble, she expected it. This was a situation she’d entered willingly though. She’d eagerly given herself to slavery to feed her own dark desire. She had a narcotic need to serve and be punished, and the cruelty of Mistress Raven just
worked
.

She didn’t know the victim’s name but Mela guessed that she didn’t have the luxury of choice. Her eyes had shown her to be frightened, humiliated, even despairing. It pricked Mela’s conscience and a realisation crept across her thoughts.

The hands of her Mistress caressed another but Mela’s tear was not the usual one of jealousy for the given touch. She wanted to help the bound woman and inwardly cursed that she didn’t do more when she had the chance.

Understanding the futility of fighting her chains, Mela’s imagination set to work in conjuring images and scenes. The voice of her Mistress though snapped Mela’s attention back to the present and its consequences, watching as the brutal beauty spun on her stiletto heeled boots and stalked toward her.

Eyes locked on her prey, Mistress Raven sashayed slowly across the room with an exaggerated, sensual sway; a huntress completely confident in her position at the top of the food chain. A chill of fear shot down Mela’s spine. Her power and presence were like nothing Mela had experienced before and fear fought anticipation as Raven crouched before her. A waft of expensive perfume spiced with the heat of arousal filled her nostrils. A leather-gloved hand grabbed Mela’s chin, raised her head and forced her to look directly into the ice cold eyes of the woman she chose to serve.

“Bad girl.” Concise yet laced with such threatening malice that Mela’s tears now welled up unchecked. Leathery fingers pressed the flesh of her cheeks into her lower jaw. She didn’t fear for herself. The thought of future punishments normally sent her spinning into deliciously intoxicating places. She feared for the young woman in latex. In this mood, no quarter would be given, no compassion would be shown and that saw Mela’s tears flow.

A haze of pity was broken by the sound of scrapping. Large wooden boxes were dragged into the room. “Crate them.” A simplistic sentence from a malicious Mistress.

The sinister command would have meant nothing to the casual observer but Mela knew better. It represented her personal claustrophobic hell. So she fought. She fought like she had never fought her Mistress before as she was inexorably dragged roughly toward a waiting crate.

CHAPTER XIII – Crate Expectations

A
heavy smell invaded her nostrils, jolting Katarina from her nightmare-wracked sleep. Her head jerked back, or at least it would have had the bands not held her tight.

“Welcome back, my pretty whore.” A familiar voice whispered words beside Katarina’s right ear. She flushed. A tingle of pleasure ran between her legs. That phrase caused it - or it could have been the intrusive hands that cupped her breasts with scant care for her personal sanctity.

The hands trailed lower until they both rested between Katarina’s legs. “You seem to like being my whore.” The very realisation that even her body was betraying her brought Katarina yet another shade of embarrassment.

Raven slid her hands once again over Katarina’s body. Like the tactile examination of a fine marble statue, the hands followed every curve. Was she no more than an object to cherish? She couldn’t be much else while posture-locked, perversely proud.

Her armbinder already gone in her sleep, Katarina felt hands tugging, wrestling away the layered coverings of her balled fists. Her fingers unfurled slightly though remained cramped and clawed. Blood pulsed a painful return and Katarina moaned behind her gag. Unable to flex them back to life, she felt something pressed into her palm, a prelude to her fingers once again being folded back and rebound into a useless ball. There was to be no freedom here, no respite from her hell.

Her latex mask was peeled away, pinching her hair, wrenching out strands by the roots. If she could have seen her face, Katarina would have seen it smeared and reddened, the immaculate façade she had presented at her earlier shoot long gone. She couldn’t parade and pose and there was no photographer to stroke her ego with assurances of her beauty anyway.

The photographer’s praise had been something yearned for. He was confident, assured in his professionalism but there was more besides. He had an engaging air about him. Katarina had first harboured thoughts of asking him for coffee to see where it would lead, perhaps a first friendship in a new town.

He’d probably been in on the whole thing though. They seemed to control everything after all. He’d built her up only for others to peel away her armour of self-confidence, proven now to be nothing more than a delicate porcelain veneer. It had been carefully stripped away layer by layer, then brutally shattered by the spiked heel of Mistress Raven.

The air seemed to brush Katarina’s skin, a cooling whisper of calm. With the field of her vision now widened to its normal sweep, her eyes found Mela. She was gripped by two women next to one of the rough-hewn wooden crates. ‘Live Animals in Transit,’ she read.

Two and two were soon added and realisation dawned. Katarina’s stomach knotted tight. Mela had been as harshly bound as Katarina and was now scooped up and deposited inside the membrane within the waiting crate. The time and attention Mela received told only at a continuation of the bitter attention to bondage detail.

“Your turn, my pretty whore.” The barbed velvet voice spurred a realisation that the earplugs had now gone. Katarina tried to shake her head but the posture collar grasped her tightly still to negate her efforts, leaving nothing more than a muted grunt as protest.

The key still looped around her neck was cradled into view by an elegant hand clad in the finest black kid leather. Katarina felt another hand trailing around her waist. Eyes like fine crystal, harsh yet beautiful, Mistress Raven stood surveying her prize, the key shining between them. A flimsy barrier or perhaps the binding connection between them, the key’s significance couldn’t be denied. It was raised and scarlet lips brushed a studied kiss onto the small metallic object with a single satisfied word. “Mine.”

A second, stranger shape loomed up before Katarina to break the spell and the key dropped from sight. Perspex but with strands of rubber hanging from it, it could only be described as sinister. The faceplate was held to Katarina’s face and tight rubber straps tugged around her head. They gripped and ripped at her hair, pressing her face into an airtight seal with the gasmask.

With no other option, Katarina took her first masked breath. Pungent, rubber scented air was sucked up into her nostrils causing her immediately to recoil. “Be still, my pretty whore,” the luxurious voice reassured.

Katarina settled uncomfortably into the abbreviated rhythm of breathing needed to draw in the tainted air. A heavy weight hung now from her waist, an unseen cylinder buckled into place to provide life-preserving air.

With unnecessary ceremony, Raven’s gloved finger extended and pressed a single button on a remote brandished before Katarina. She’d learned to fear these but nothing. No fried crotch. No vibrations. Nothing.

She relaxed. In relief Katarina exhaled in relief. When she inhaled again though it all became apparent. Nothing. No air to fill crushed lungs.

Katarina tried again, sucking a second hasty breath. Again, nothing. Panic surged over her. Eyes wild with fear, she tugged against her bonds with all she had left.

An electronic beep sounded. “Press the button whore and you will be rewarded,” the sultry voice prompted. “It’s in your hand.” Katarina understood and pressed. And pressed. And pressed. The valve reopened and Katarina felt the joy of breath.

“Mistress Raven is your life.” A recorded voice preached to the accompaniment of gushing air.

“Remember your lesson, my pretty whore,” the real Mistress Raven added as hands started to finally release her from the frame. “Press every ten minutes.”

Muscles protested violently as Katarina’s lifeless limbs were stretched back into more natural positions. Lactic acid flowed freely and scorched her agonised muscles - movement was nothing more than pain. Katarina could do nothing but be lifted into her own crate and bent into a kneeling position within the waiting membrane. She saw a hand reach past her faceplate and felt something pressing across the back of her collared neck. Trying to straighten, Katarina soon knew she had been chained down and was there to stay.

A hand now pressed down now on Katarina’s back. The thickly-boned corset bit into her ribs and her already squeezed breasts squashed against her thighs. It was redundant but, as was their way, an additional strap was threaded across her back and ratcheted down tightly, pressing scant air from already limited lungs. A pat on her rounded rump signalled her captor’s satisfaction with her work and probable appreciation of the black latex of her catsuit stretched tight across the curve of her flank.

She waited. There was nothing else to do any more. No fight to be give, no hope to reach for. They were too many of them. They were too careful. They were too thorough and Katarina knew now that any semblance of hope that seemed to be offered would be just another tool to break her spirit. There was nothing left but to settle and wait for the next stage of her fate, accepting that she was theirs.

A cool sensation started to climb her bound form. Starting from the floor, it crept resolutely up her body until it reached her head and liquid started to rise up the faceplate of her mask. No struggle this time. Acceptance was all she could muster, even though within her panic was rising quicker than the liquid.

Her reserves had been spent and when the liquid crept past her eyes Katarina could barely summon the will to fear. Inexorably, it passed the top of her head. She had been reliant on the rubber-tainted air before but now the visual prompt of her total submersion made it doubly clear. Katarina sucked desperately for air. Nothing again. A fleeting panic seized her. The button. Yes, the button. She flexed a finger and, after a few seconds, was rewarded with cool air and a reminder of how Mistress Raven was her life.

The membrane was sealed unseen above. As the liquid started to warm and harden with its exposure to air, Katarina was sealed into position like a mosquito trapped in sap before it hardened to inescapable amber.

The translucent red glow of the liquid dulled slowly, the lid being dragged across her crate to seal her within. Each dull thud of a hammer blow jarred Katarina through the resin prison. There was a permanence and as all turned black, it heralded the entombment of not only body but past.