Dominatrix Hunting

By Sevikaa

It was way, way too early to be dealing with stuff this weird...

I was a fresh-out-of-Police-Academy officer working with the San Francisco Police Department, based out of Inglewood Station and with the misfortune to have to punch in at six in the morning. I was literally two minutes into my shift – not even long enough to make a cup of instant coffee – when I heard something of a commotion down the hall, a handful of my colleagues craning their necks to get a look. Maybe a half-dozen officers were moving somebody to one of the interrogation rooms. One of the friendlier ones, that is – no one-way windows or scowling interrogators, but still rigged with cameras and microphones to catch every word.

“Alright people, nothing to see,” came the booming voice of Lieutenant McGregor, a man in his mid-forties who still had the physique a lot of college students would die for. “Let’s make a hole.”

It was then that I caught my first glance of the woman everyone was jostling to see. I figured she was a celebrity at first – some heiress-turned-porn star out of Hillsborough Heights, maybe – but at first glance she appeared nondescript. She was a dark-skinned girl, likely of Indian or Pakistani descent, standing maybe a few inches about five feet with tar-black hair that curled around her shoulders. I was about to turn back to the coffee machine when I realized there was a thick piece of white cloth tied around her head and knotted in her mouth, effectively gagging her. Her hands were being forced behind her back by something I couldn’t see, and tears appeared to be rolling down her cheeks.

“Could somebody get Ms. Khalifa in here?” barked McGregor, in a tone suggesting there’d be hell to pay if it wasn’t snappy. A few of the officers scuttled off to find Jasmine al-Khalifa, a young but uncannily talented forensics officer who was typically assigned to the Personal Crimes Division. I’d been teamed-up with Jasmine twice in the past month – first time investigating a series of vandalism attacks in the Conservatory of Flowers and the second time on a string of cat burglaries in Chinatown, successful on both counts. As I spotted twenty six-year old Criminology Major darting between people, I figured I had a shot of tagging along with her.

“Morning, Jasmine,” I tried to say nonchalantly, catching up with her a few second’s walk from the interrogation room.

“Curious to see the girl too, eh?” she replied, thwarting my attempts to discreetly slip-in. “Fine. I’ll probably be needing a beat officer in a few hours anyways.”

The two of us slipped into the interrogation room, which was populated by myself, Jasmine, an exasperated-looking Lieutenant McGregor, one of counsellors from downstairs I recognized but couldn’t name, and, of course, the Indian girl. I quietly shut the door behind me, and the noisy hubbub of the rest of the Bureau evaporated. The room was just a little too small to fit all of us in comfortably, so I hung back in a corner, clasping my hands in front and trying not to make eye contact.

The Indian woman was in an unusual situation, to say the least. She was wearing a snow-white blouse with a large knotted bow at the collar, which ended just above her breasts. The blouse was tucked into a grey wool skirt that stopped a few inches above her knees, along with a pair of polished black leather strap-on heels maybe three inches high. The look was definitely retro, like it was in the spirit of the clothes a woman in an office would have worn circa 1960. It was by no means unattractive, just a lot more formal and uncomfortable than we’re used to seeing in 2010.

Jasmine wasted no time getting to work. She pulled a high-end Nikon digital camera out from a filing cabinet, and fastened on the right lenses. It was the kind of camera that was typically used for processing crime scenes, which I suppose this was.

“Ma’am, I need to take some photographs for reference before we can remove the gag,” said Jasmine, speaking to the Indian girl. Jasmine had one of those voices that was soft with an edge of steel. She was kind, but would be completely unrelenting if you didn’t cooperate, as a few unfortunate graffiti artists had found out. The gagged woman looked up, her jaw forced open by the massive knot in her mouth, her dark brown eyes tinged red from crying. Jasmine hurriedly snapped photos of the gag, including the knot behind her head, before gingerly removing the gag and sealing it in an airtight plastic bag.

The counsellor, a middle-aged woman of mixed Caucasian and Hispanic ethnicity, began asking the woman a few basic questions designed to get her ready for the actual interrogation. I didn’t follow along, instead slipping up beside Lieutenant McGregor as Jasmine began peppering him with questions.

“Yeah, it was Officers Sanchez and Schwartz that got their after the janitor called 911,” said McGregor, his voice considerably softer now than nobody was in his way. “Janitor removed the gag and untied her when he found her-”

“Idiot,” interjected Jasmine, expressing a rare contempt for some of the officers on the Force. “We may have lost a lot of information about whoever did this to her.”

“I know,” replied McGregor, trying to make amends. “Sanchez and Schwartz tried to re-tie her the same way the janitor found her. If his memory’s as good as he says it is, she should still be trussed up the way she was bound.”

“My arms really hurt!” exclaimed the Indian woman, and for the first time I saw how her hands were restrained. A thin, white rope tightly bound her wrists together, palms facing outward, while her elbows were pressed together behind her back strappado-style, something that must have been putting her in immense discomfort if she wasn’t a yoga instructor. “Can’t you untie me?”

“Ma’am, we need to make sure we can preserve the ropes for forensic investigation,” replied Jasmine, a note of annoyance in her voice, but she picked up her camera again and quickly snapped several photos of the ropes binding the woman’s wrists and elbows. With a pair of medical shears she carefully snipped each coil of rope, placing them in their own bags. Jasmine was one of the top forensic analysts on the Force, having passed down a recruitment offer from the FBI a year back, and if anyone was going to get some information out of those ropes, it would be her.

“Alright, Amy, can you please explain what happened?” asked the counsellor, once the woman’s arms were free. Amy immediately crossed her arms over her chest and began massaging her biceps. “Your boss, Mr. Goto, told us he last saw you around 11:15 PM.  You were working late on some programming work?” The counsellor was trying to jog Amy’s memory, get her to continue the narrative.

“Mm-hm,” Amy agreed, grabbing a Kleenex from the thoughtfully-provided tissue box and dabbing her cheeks with it. “It was Python code for one of the company’s Internet apps.” So she was a computer programmer. “I had to work with this shitty, archaic crap one of the script kiddies in Seattle had sent me. Everything was taking twice as long as it should have and I had to work late to meet the deadline on Thursday. On top of that, Mr. Goto has me working as his personal secretary ever since Lucy left last week. I’ve been running around doing his goddamn appointment schedules instead of getting some actual work done. I was one of the top of my class in M.I.T., and he has me deleting his spam mail?”

Amy gave an exasperated sigh, but nobody spoke. She was ranting, put the rant was definitely going somewhere. All we had to do was wait.

“Well, it was maybe a few minutes before midnight, and I was about to give up, look at it with a fresh set of eyes, you know? Then I remembered Goto wanted me to burn some DVDs for tomorrow, so I went into his office to get that done before leaving.” Amy shuddered a little. “And that was when... she showed up.”

I saw Jasmine about to begin bombarding Amy with questions, but the Lieutenant put a hand firmly on her shoulder, cutting her off.

“She....she said that I wasn’t dressed appropriately for secretary work,” said Amy, tears swelling her eyes again. “I tried to leave but she had a... a... whip. She tripped me, began hurlin’ insults at me, then made me strip. She said this is what a proper secretary dressed like, wanted me to know my place.”

“These are the clothes you’re wearing right now?” asked the counsellor, gesturing at the perfect-white blouse.

“Yes.” Amy paused for a second, then began trying to tear the blouse off.

“Gah! Careful!” half-shouted Jasmine, leaping forward and stopping her from doing any damage to the shirt. Amy struggled for a fraction of a second before buckling. Once she’d settled down Jasmine released her, and Amy began untying the knot around her collar and slipped off the blouse, sitting there in a black bra. Jasmine examined the blouse, before finding a hanger in a nearby closet. “You say she brought these clothes for you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Weird, they’re a perfect fit...” Jasmine was obviously lost in thought, so the counsellor resumed the questioning.

“So this woman made you put on these clothes. Did she steal anything from you? Or the building?”

“N-n-no,” stammered Amy. “At least, I don’t think so. She... she made me power up Mr. Goto’s computer, open up a Notepad file. I... I had to sit perfectly straight – good posture, she called it. She then said she wanted me to type-up everything she said. If I made a mistake - I hit the wrong key, missed a quotation mark - she hit me with the whip.”

It was then that I noticed a series of thin red streaks across her sides and up and down her back. She obviously wasn’t the most precise typist. I’d have guessed the whip was pretty thin, and none of the gashes seemed to have caused serious harm, although I figured that was Jasmine’s department. Undeniably painful, though.

“Do you remember what she made you write about?” asked the counsellor.

“It was some old Japanese tome about honour and servitude and obeying one’s master. It sounded pretty old, like pre-Meiji Restoration. You can probably just Google it to find out.” Amy was obviously regaining herself now, and she began combing some knots out of her hair with her fingers. “After that was done, she made me play some game she called Secretary. I had to run around Mr. Goto’s office cleaning up old papers, refilling things in the proper manner. She taught me how to curtsey, kneel and kowtow. How to stand when be spoken to by a superior, how to keep my blouse clean, when to use ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’. Every time I made a mistake – any mistake at all – she hit me with the whip. I tried to get away, maybe call the police, but every time I so much as glanced in the direction of the door she whipped me. When she was finally done... educating me... she tied me up, gagged me, and locked me in Mr. Goto’s office. It was one of the cleaning staff guys who found me.”

There was a few second’s awkward silence, as the counsellor was unsure about the next course of action. Jasmine stepped up.

“Alright, Amy, I’m going to need to take all the clothes she made you wear. If we’ve got any luck, she left a little too much forensic evidence behind and we can nail this sadistic bitch, okay?” Amy nodded, and Jasmine gestured with her eyes for the Lieutenant and I to get out as Amy began further undressing.

“Well, this is going to be a good one for the papers,” grumbled McGregor, as soon as the door was closed. He began walking towards the coffee station, where a fresh pot was still half-full. “I take it Jasmine and you’ll be spearheading this one?”

“I guess so, sir,” I said. “Probably will have to wait for the rest of the report.” The Lieutenant handed me a cup of coffee. Black, but acceptable at the moment. “Well, at least it’ll be interesting.”

*

TWELVE HOURS LATER

“The subject we’re going after here is a Caucasian female, approximately five-foot-seven and in her late-twenties,” began Jasmine, handing out manila folders carrying the official report. “The woman is described as having yellow-blondish hair, blue eyes, and Hollywood-grade teeth. On the night of the attack she was described by the witness as wearing a black latex catsuit with strap-on high heels, carrying nothing other than a black whip and a plastic bag containing the clothing she forced Ms. Amy Singh to wear.” Jasmine sighed. “CSI has been crawling over the office all day, but no look finding fingerprints. A handful of hair samples are still be processed, but the results are so far inconclusive. The woman apparently entered the office by scaling a pipe adjacent to the office’s open window. In any event, nobody else reported seeing her, and there’s nothing on the building’s CCTV feeds.”

“So... no leads?” asked one of the Sergeant’s in the conference room.

“See page six. The clothing the attacker forced Ms. Singh to wear was fairly rare, along with the shoes. All the styles are carried at only a handful of stores in the city. We have people going to these stores as we speak, and we’ll be looking through sale logs to see if we can have any luck IDing her as the buyer. Also, both the clothes and shoes were perfectly fitted to Ms. Singh, so whoever this was, she obviously had her eye on Amy for some time.”

“I’ve recommended Ms. Khalifa to spearhead the investigation,” declared Lieutenant McGregor, “with on-the-ground assistance provided by Officer Hans Zyryanov.” He gestured at me, and I bowed my head politely. “Psychological profiling is being provided by Taylor Smith, on lone to us from Quantico. Taylor, your report?”

Taylor Smith – actually an FBI liaison agent – stood up, skimming a few pages in his binder before clasping his hands behind his back.

“The suspect has all the personality markings of a dominatrix – the clothing, the whip, the submission-domination mechanic. Unusually, she favoured a female victim rather than a male, and didn’t hurt her apart from some role-appropriate whipping. This suggests her objective – whatever it may be – is psychological, not sexual in nature. She seems more interested in mind games than any... conventional crimes. Since we don’t have much supporting information, predicting her modus operandi is going to be a little difficult. I’ve forwarded this information back to a friend in Quantico who might be able to shed some light on this, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Since we have no solid identification, my report simply refers to her as ‘The Dominatrix’.”

“So, there’s nothing we can-”

Before the officer could finish speaking, a young policewoman poked her head into the room, making eye contact with McGregor.

“Sir, Dispatch has a call they want me to forward to you. They said it’s urgent.”

The Lieutenant quickly got to his feet and hurried out the door. I hesitated for a moment, but followed Jasmine as she exited a few seconds later. We caught up with McGregor in his somewhat claustrophobic office, where he was shouting angrily into a phone.

“I don’t care if it’s the President of the United States himself, tell them not to touch anything before CSI gets there, understood?” He slammed the phone down before the dispatch officer could respond. McGregor sighed, placed his large hands on his desk, hunching over. “Well Jasmine,” he said, fatigue audible in his voice, “I guess Mr. Smith will have a bit more to work with now.”

*

FIVE HOURS AGO

“Violet Jensen, to the Principal’s office. Violet Jensen, report to the Principal’s office immediately.” The raspy voice crackled over the school-wide intercom system, and Violet’s classmates turned to look at the seventeen-year old schoolgirl. Violet, as was typical, didn’t let any emotions show on her face, nonchalantly flipping her binder full of scribbles shut before standing up from her desk in the back of the classroom. Mr. Chirac, her calculus teacher, smiled a little as he gestured towards the door. Violet hadn’t particularly endeared herself towards any of the teachers – or her fellow students, for that matter – earning her the unenviable nickname  psycho bitch.

Violet wasn’t a bad student – at least not in the academic sense. She took her time walking down the hallways of St. Alban the Martyr’s School for Catholic Girls, absent-mindedly humming the song Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, seemingly oblivious to the trouble she was in. Violet’s lack of respect for teachers came not from some adolescent need to rebel but from the simple fact that she was smarter than most of them. And, of course, that she had no tolerance for the perceived ‘stupidity’ of some of her classmates, or school policies she considered ill-conceived.

Violet arrived in the Principal’s office five minutes later, taking a seat in one of the wooden chairs and crossing one leg over the other. The Principal’s secretary looked up at her as she entered, a scowl of disapproval crossing the old woman’s face.

“Would you like to perhaps tidy up your uniform before you see Ms. Kosowski?” asked the secretary, rhetorically, trying to point out the glaring Uniform Code violations in Violet’s attire.

“Not really,” replied Violet, indifferently, picking up a twelve-year old copy of the National Geographic. She spent at least ten minutes reading outdated articles about the NASA Clementine probe and Pakistani nuclear weapons. The tactic was obviously designed to make Violet sweat in fearful anticipation of her meeting with the Principal, although it was obviously not working.

“Send her in, Carol,” came the Principal’s voice over the secretary’s phone by the time Violet was ready to begin counting ceiling tiles. Violet stood up without further prompting and strolled into the Principal’s office she was oh-so-familiar with.

As the door closed behind her, Violet craned her neck to spot Ms. Kosowski who was apparently neither behind her desk nor on one of the couches. She was just about to call out for her when a hand shot out from behind her and was clasped firmly over her mouth, hand gagging her. Violet instinctively tried to pry the hand off her mouth, but found both her forearms were pinned behind her back with one iron hand.

“Shhhh, Ms. Jensen. No need to make a struggle out of this,” came a female voice from behind that definitely wasn’t Ms. Kosowski’s. Violet felt a small electrical shock tingle the small of her back, causing her to let out a muffled yelp of pain. “That is the lowest possible setting. Resist, and I’ll show you something that can knock a horse out cold,” whispered the voice, in a soft but menacing tone. “It has an effective range of twenty-five meters, and I assure you I am well experienced with it. When I let go of you, I want you to walk strait to the wall, drop to your knees, and place your hands behind your head. Any attempt to struggle or make a sound will be met with a one-way trip to the tip of my stun gun.”

The woman released Violet without another word, and the school girl had no choice but to comply. Violet walked briskly to the far wall and dropped to her knees, something uncomfortable on the hard wooden floor, and laced her fingers behind her head. She heard footsteps crossing the room to Ms. Kosowski’s desk, and someone picking up a phone.

“Carol, I think I’m going to call it a night,” said the attacker, in a eerie impersonation of the principal. Over the distortion of the intercom, even her secretary wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. “Why don’t you take the day off early?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” replied Carol. The room was silent for a few seconds, and the sounds of the secretary gathering her thinks could be heard faintly through the thick wooden door. Once the door to the Principal’s waiting room was closed, she spun about and began strolling towards Violet.

“Ms. Jensen, you certainly have a lot of explaining to do,” said the woman, her tone almost playful.

“Who the fuck are you?” demanded Violet, although she was still kneeling in the corner. “And what the hell have you done with Ms. Kosowski?”

“Look at me,” demanded the woman. Violet turned away from the wall to lock eyes with the intruder, but before she could get a good look at her, an open-palmed slap struck her across the cheek, almost toppling her. “From now on, you will refer to me only as Headmistress or ma’am. Do I make myself clear?” Violet was silent, the left side of her face still stinging from the blow. “Do I make myself clear?” she repeated.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Violet, saying the words through gritted teeth.

“Good. You may stand up, and take a seat in front of my desk,” instructed the self-declared Headmistress. Violent reluctantly complied, taking a seat in a large, cushioned chair much more comfortable than those in the waiting room. As her attacked sat down in what was normally Ms. Kosowski’s chair, Violet got a good look at her for the first time. She was – by the standards of a sizeable percent of the world’s population – strikingly good looking. She looked like she was in her late twenties, with the kind of perfect blonde hair most of Violet’s classmates would have killed for, icy blue eyes, flawless white skin and the natural poise of Parisian model. She was wearing what looked like a tailored suit jacket and a spotless dress blouse that exposed just a hint of cleavage. Her matching black skirt was on the borderline of how short was generally accepted, while on her feet were a pair of Italian-designed four-inch high heeled shoes, each fastened on with two small buckles. Her breasts were large enough to draw the male gaze without making her look like a cheap porno star, and she wore a crimson read nail polish that matched her lipstick. She flipped open a folder which Violet immediately recognized as her permanent record, flipping through the pages until she reached on leaf in particular.

“Ms. Violet Alyx Jensen, age seventeen. Your academic record is quite impressive, really. Top of your class in Calculus, English Literature, Spanish and Computer Sciences. You’ve never received a mark below 90% in the past three years...”

“What do you want with me?” demanded Violet, preparing to stand up. The woman looked up from Violet’s file, a look of disapproval on her face.

“It’s obvious enough, Ms. Jensen. Academically, there’s nothing to keep you from succeeding in whatever you put your mind to,” she said. “The problem, however, is your attitude. In the past month alone you’ve been reported disrespectful to teachers fourteen times, contempt for rules twenty-one times, and a shocking thirty-two violations of the Uniform Code.” She flipped the cover of the folder shut, and looked Violet straight in the eye. “The short story, Violet, is it’s your attitude that going to keep you back.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Violet, rising to her feet. “You’re a fucking psycho.”

“Not so fast, Ms. Jensen,” replied the woman, who remained calmly seated. “The workplace has no room for women with your kind of attitude. While your knowledge of physics or cellular biology might be leaps and bounds ahead of your classmates, you lag behind them in a number of areas. Ideas such as respect, self-discipline.... you might as well be a child.” She paused for a few seconds. “And that’s what I’m here to fix.”

“Fix?” repeated Violet, incredulously. “You can’t fix me, because I’m not broken! In fact, you’re the one who needs help. I’m calling the pol-”

Before Violet could finish her sentence, the woman’s hand shot across the desk with the speed of a cobra and grabbed Violet’s necktie, which was hanging fairly loosely. The woman yanked Violet forward, pulling her torso over the large, wooden desk, and bringing them face-to-face. With her free hand, the self-declared Headmistress slapped Violet across the face for the second time, once again causing Violet to wince in pain.

“Starting right now, Ms. Jensen, you are going to learn something about discipline. And you will not be leaving until you do.” The Headmistress released Violet and walked around the desk, Violet tried to stand up, but a firm hand pressed her face into the wood. “In your last sentence, I noted six violations of proper etiquette when speaking to a superior. I think this is as good a place as any to start.” Violet struggled a little, but found herself pinned down. “Oh, and remember – if you try to resist...” The Headmistress let the sentence trial off, but Violet felt a stinging electric shock crawl up her naked thigh. She bit her lip in pain. The Headmistress proceeded to pull up Violet’s skirt, exposing her white panties, and took a step back.

“I found this,” began the Headmistress, “amongst your lazy Principal’s possessions.” Violet saw the tip of a thin piece of bamboo come to a rest on the desk beside her. “It turns out it’s a souvenir from a trip to South Africa. Over there, it’s apparently much more common for teachers to enforce their rules through pain. And not a slap on the wrist either, no sir – this is a bamboo cane designed to bring the deviant back into line. Let’s see how it works.”

The Headmistress walked around behind Violet, her high heeled shoes making soft clicks on the wooden floor. Violet felt the bamboo cane caress her buttocks for a few seconds, before it drew back, whooshed through the air and impacted her ass with an echoing smack.

“Ah!” Violet shouted out in pain. She instinctively tried to massage the struck area. Before her hand could begin rubbing, however, the cane batted her hand away.

“No moving from your position, Ms. Jensen,” chided the Headmistress. “And no crying in pain, either. You must learn to control yourself. And that earned you an extra stroke, for the record.” Violet suppressed a groan, and then a yelp a second later as the cane struck for the second time. Then the third. Violet bit her lower lip, but managed to contain her pain. This isn’t so bad, she told herself. Fuckin’ psycho’s looking at seven years in prison for this, anyways. The cane fell again, and again. Violet felt her legs quivering, her arms growing weak, but she maintained her resolve. Six. “And your extra penalty,” concluded the Headmistress, caning Violet’s ass for the last time. “Turn around.”

Violet complied. Standing up, she turned about-face, bowing her head, clasping her hands in front and using every ounce of willpower to avoid rubbing her bottom. Violet felt the bamboo cane beneath her chin, forcing her head up. She locked eyes with the Headmistress, who ice cold gaze betrayed no hint of emotion. Violet only hoped hers looked the same.

“You will now thank me for that,” instructed the Headmistress.

“What? Are you-” before Violet could finish her protestation, the cane raced through the air and smacked her across her breasts. Violet let out a short gasp of pain, but kept her hands clasped in front. She bit her lip. “Thank you, ma’am,” she finally said, trying not to let the hatred seep into her voice.

“Very good. Now for the next order of business – your uniform.” The Headmistress just shook her head in disappointment. “Off the top of my head I see... unpolished shoes, wrinkled socks, a belt that’s too loose, untucked shirt, unbuttoned collar, loose tie and, of course, hair maintenance violations.” She paused for a second, as if coming up with a plan. “Strip.”

“Ma’am?” asked Violet, incredulously, but managing to address the Headmistress properly.

“You heard me. Strip down to your underwear.”

Violet paused for a fraction of second, then began loosening her tie, slipping it over her head and tossing it onto a nearby chair. She then unbuttoned her blouse, slipped out of her skirt, unlaced her shoes and pulled off her socks. Despite herself, Violet felt a her cheeks reddening in embarrassment as the Headmistress surveyed her mostly unclad body. The schoolgirl fought the urge to cross her arms over her breasts, which were covered by only a small white bra.

“Start doing jumping jacks,” instructed the Headmistress. Violet reluctantly complied, and was bouncing up and down for a few seconds before the cane smacked her ass again. “Touch your hands all the way over your head. Don’t cut corners. I’ll tell you when you can stop.” Violet continued doing her jumping jacks. She always did well in Physical Education classes, more due to innate talent than any practice, though. Although she normally kept in pretty good shape, the adrenaline from earlier on had taken a toll on her body’s useable energy, and Violet already felt her arms growing heavy.

As Violet sweated, the Headmistress walked over to a closet beside the Principal’s desk and slid it open. To Violet’s surprise, Ms. Kosowski hobbled out a few seconds later. The school’s Principal was a woman in her late-thirties, wearing a cheap grey business suit. She was, however, tied up tightly, apparently using pieces of the school uniform that were kept in the office for students who ‘forgot’ their own. Violet could see her mouth was stuffed with a pair of knee-length socks that were puffing up her cheeks, held in place by a school tie tightly cleave gagging her. Her hands were tied behind her back with another tie, and her arms were pressed against her body by a leather belt buckled around her elbows and beneath her breasts. The Headmistress directed her to one of the wooden chairs in front of her desk and sat her down, carefully binding her to the chair with an assortment of belts and ties.

“And now, Ms. Kosowski, I am going to show you how to do the job you should have been doing,” said the Headmistress. Ms. Kosowski let out a mfffff in protest, but the well-worn socks effectively silenced her. Violet kept doing her jumping jacks, sweat trickling down her forehead and body. “All these years you’ve been letting your students run wild like children on too much sugar. You’re the Principal – it’s your duty to enforce discipline.” Ms. Kosowski tried to say something in protest, but the Headmistress simply slapped her across the face, hard. “And not another sound out of you. Pay attention, or you’ll find yourself on the receiving end.” She turned to face Violet. “You may stop now.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Violent, obediently. She recognized the tactic – the Headmistress was trying to physically tire her out, sap her will to struggle. But even as she was aware of it, Violet knew it was working. “May I put my uniform on, ma’am?”

“You may,” replied the Headmistress.

Violet walked over to the pile of her discarded clothes, and began sorting through them. The uniform for the schoolgirls of St. Alban’s was pretty straightforward – grey wool knee-length socks, a matching grey skirt, a white blouse, grey tie, and black leather belt and shoes. It was, of course, horrendously uncomfortable – the heat-retaining wool may have been fine for the chilly schoolchildren in England it was designed for, but in California, it often turned classrooms into saunas. Not to mention the fact that the material was abhorrently itchy – Violet often came home from school and had to take a shower just to get the discomfort of the skirt off her thighs. Right now, however, she was looking at the uniform much more favourably.

Violet pulled on her socks, then her blouse, taking care to button it all the way up the collar, and both wrists. She then donned her gray skirt, tucking her shirt into it, and tightly buckling the belt around her waist. She then untied and redid her tie in a triple Windsor knot, before rubbing some of the dirt off her shoes with her skirt and buckling them onto her feet. She turned to face the Headmistress.

“You will present yourself to me for inspection,” informed the Headmistress. “You will do this for all superiors who demand so of you, without question. Now, present.”

Violet awkwardly held her arms out, a bit below shoulder-height, brushing a few strands of her hair out of her face with a toss of her head. Before she could wonder if she was presenting herself properly, a smack of the cane across her breasts – still stinging from the previous strike – gave her the answer.

“Completely unacceptable, Ms. Jensen. Completely unacceptable,” declared the Headmistress, as if she’d just found out Violet was shooting heroin in the bathroom. “When you present yourself, you begin with an introduction. Perform a deep curtsey, and declare yourself ready for inspection. Then spread your arms and legs. Present again.”

Violet took a step back, then curled her fingers around the fringes of her skirt, pulled them up, crossed one leg behind the other and curtseyed deep, bowing her head. When she stood upright again, she spread her arms and legs so she resembled a starfish.

“I present myself for inspection, ma’am,” declared Violet. The Headmistress nodded in tactic approval, and began walking around her, like an army drill sergeant addressing a newly-minted soldier. Her cane pressed against Violet’s calf, slipped up her thigh and around her buttocks. Violet’s muscles tensed up, but she remained otherwise calm. The cane travelled up the small of her back, around her breasts, finally coming to a rest beneath her chin.

“Very good, Ms. Jensen,” declared the Headmistress. “Your uniform is acceptable.”

“Thank you for the inspection, ma’am,” replied Violet. She tentatively dropped out of the inspection position, clasping her hands behind her back and pulling her feet together.

“Now, drop your skirt and panties, bend over, and grab your ankles,” instructed the Headmistress.

“But I was good!” protested Violet, regretting the sentence before it was out of her mouth. The Headmistress’s cane struck her hard across her breasts, and Violet’s nipples felt like they were on fire.

“Ms. Jensen, whether you were good or not is irrelevant. I have informed you that you will be punished, and you will accept that, without question. This is what it means to be disciplined, Ms. Jensen. To accept your position, and submit. Now, bend over.”

Violet reluctantly turned around, letting her skirt and underwear form a puddle around her ankles. She then bent forward, her fingers coiling around her ankles while her ass was held high in the air. Her hair fell around her face like a veil, while her cheeks reddened as humiliation upon humiliation was stacked against her.

Violet waited for the swoosh of the cane, but didn’t hear it. Instead, it sounded like the Headmistress was passively struggling with Ms. Kosowski.

“If you ever want your students to learn respect and discipline, you will have to learn how to enforce it,” said the Headmistress. Looking between her legs, Violet saw the Headmistress was carefully untying the Principal. The gag remained securely in place, but Violet saw the Principal was otherwise free, and holding the bamboo cane in her hands.

“Ngggh!” declared the Principal, in what Violet presumed was a protest. It was then that she saw a small, handheld device vaguely resembling a gun appear in the Headmistress’ hands. She truck the Principal in the left breast with it, causing her knees to buckle, and a scream of pain to be muffled.

“You will do it, Ms. Kosowski, or you’ll find yourself bent over. And I assure you, I do not take negligence lightly,” threatened the Headmistress, menacingly. She pushed Ms. Kosowski forward, who appeared to be moving into position. “You will give her what is known in some circles as the Finnish Forty-One. Forty-one strikes of the cane on the bare ass, delivered no more than seven seconds apart with a thin cane. You will be using this to maintain order when a student gets out of line. If I detect any trace of sympathy, if your blows should soften because of pity, I assure you I will have ample punishment for the both of you. Now... discipline.”

Violet watched the Principal hesitate for a fraction of a second, her cheeks still bulging from the socks stuffed in her mouth. She then turned, and tentatively raised the cane to buttocks-height.

“Mm rrrrry,” said Ms. Kosowski, which Violet interpreted as ‘I’m sorry’.

Smack. The fire was reignited on Violet’s ass, as blow after blow fell on her bare skin. The strokes fell fast at first, and Violet was able to maintain most of her self-control. This was infinitely more painful than the Headmistress’s first round of spankings. Her ass was already tender, and now in a much more exposed position.

As the cane impacted her bottom again and again, Violet felt tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. She bit her bottom lip, hard, to keep from crying out, but the blows were no less painful.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Violet’s legs were shaking from side to side, her butt cheeks quivering with every blow. Tears silently streamed down her cheeks and off her jaw, but her she didn’t let a yelp of pain or a pathetic whimper slip past her lips. Not going to give the bitch the satisfaction of begging she resolved.

Smack.

“Ms. Jensen, you will now walk over to the corner, facing the wall. Once there, squat down, bring your arms between your legs and grab your ears. This is known as the murgha position.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Violet in compliance, walking over the corner, her voice tight and shaky. She crouched down, initially thinking the described position wasn’t too uncomfortable. Her arms moved between her legs, her hands clutched her ears – then she realized how wrong she’d been. The position put much stress on her thighs, which practically cried out in pain, exposing her scarlet red ass for the world to see.

“Well, Ms. Kosowski, I’d normally like to be thanked for such a favour, but I rather like your gag in the position it is,” began the Headmistress. “But I’d like you to appreciate how far you’ve come in these few minutes we’ve had together. Just hours ago you were a timid high school Principal, the thought of taking any discipline action against a student completely incomprehensible. And yet, here we are! You’ve shown that you are capable of doing this, that you have it within you to bring discipline and order to the school. All you needed was a little kick in the ass, so to speak.”

“Rrriirrgh. Mmmnfff.”

“I’m truly sorry that I have to leave you a bit tied up. You might understandably be a bit peeved with your current situation, and I can’t risk my work be impeded. You can send me a thank-you card, or something.”

A minute or two later, the Headmistress turned back to Violet, whose legs were remarkably in more pain than her ass.

“Alright, Ms. Jensen, your corner time is up. Lie down beside Ms. Kosowski on your stomach, place your hands behind your back, and cross your ankles over one another.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Violet wasted no time getting out of the murga position, but was surprised to see her Principal lying face-down on the floor, hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded. Violet suspected her fate would be similar. Violet promptly went prone on her belly, pressing her wrists together in the small of her back and crossing her ankles over. She wasn’t wearing a skirt or her underwear, so her red-striped ass was still bright as Rudolph’s nose, but at least her thighs were no longer in agony, and the stinging sensation on her butt cheeks was dying down.

The Headmistress, of course, wasted no time getting to work. Using an old school tie, she bound Violet’s hands together, palms facing outwards, before tightly tying her ankles, knees and elbows together in a similar fashion. Another tie was used to connect the coils around her ankles to those around her wrists, pulling her into an incredibly stringent hogtie. Violet’s heels were practically pressing into her ass, and the way her wrists were positioned meant it was near-impossible for her to try to pick the knots, which were of a security a veteran sailor would envy. The Headmistress then stuffed two old socks into Violet’s mouth, which caused her taste buds to practically go into rebellion. The socks had definitely been worn by someone fresh out of the gym, and nobody had taken care to wash them. Ties were used to cleave gag and blindfold her, while leather belts above and below her breasts kept her arms pinned to the rest of her body. Violet was as immobile as she’d ever been in her life – capable of doing little more than wiggle her fingers or toes.

“Well, Ms. Jensen, today was a very important day for your personal development,” declared the Headmistress, although Violet was incapable of seeing or replying to her. “Just make sure you don’t forget today’s lessons, or we can avoid any unnecessary check-ups, okay?”

Violet heard the Headmistress’s high heeled shoes clicking down the wooden floor, the sound of a light switch being flicked off, a door opening, closing, and being locked behind her. Then Violet began to cry in relief.

*

NOW

“Nobody has any memory of seeing the attacker in any of the hallways,” I reported back to Jasmine, having spent the past half hour talking to and calling as many people in the school directory as I could reach. “I sent out a call to the IT girl, she’s on her way over, and will find the school’s CCTV records. Maybe she was picked up on camera.”

“We can hope,” agreed Jasmine, taking a sip from a can of Monster energy drink. She was overseeing a half-dozen CSI technicians in the Principal’s Office, who were busy dusting for prints and collecting hair samples. She sighed, reasonably assured they wouldn’t fine anything of significant use. “Too bad the women undid their own bonds. From what evidence I’ve seen, it looks like our attacker is quite the knot expert.”

“You think she was a sailor, or something?” I asked, wondering if that information could be of any use.

“Possibly. The knots we recovered were of remarkable strength and complexity. I’d say we’re looking at someone dominatrix training, maybe. Or at least a very enthusiastic bondage practitioner.” Jasmine tossed the empty can into a nearby recycling bin. “So what’s our next move, Solo?” She glanced at me, using the Star Wars-themed nickname she’d come up with months ago.

As her eyes locked with mine, I was reminded about how beautiful she was. Second-generation child of Jordanian immigrants, she had a beautiful light brown skin that was a mix of Mediterranean and Arabian ethnicities. She had straight black hair that stopped just around her shoulders, with emerald green eyes and a perfect face. On top of all that she was smart – spoke three languages, knowledge of world and historical events, and a top-notch crime scene investigator and forensics analyst. She was wearing a pair of tight blue denim jeans and a sleeveless shirt based off the style of a Chinese qipao, a dark blue color. I, too, was dressed in civilian clothes, having done some plainclothes investigation in the hours before we’d gotten our next lead, if it could be called that.

“By the sound of it, the schoolgirl, Violet, managed to get over to the other captive, Principal Kosowski. She apparently spent about an hour futilely trying to untie the knots around her wrists, before ending up just pulling her gag off. The woman called for help for about half an hour before somebody actually heard her. All the materials used in the restraints were local – school ties, socks, and belts, by the look of it. Not likely to get any leads there.”

“And the spanking? What’d you think of that?” I asked. I’d seen the schoolgirls ass when Jasmine was taking photos of it, for the record. Her butt was red as a Communist flag, and you could easily pick out a dozen stripes where the cane had hit her. She’d taken a much more severe beating than the first victim

“Officer Lucas was talking to them earlier. It sounds like the attacker forced the Principal to give the schoolgirl the spanking. Used some TASER-like device to shock her when she didn’t comply. The cane’s the Principal’s too, by the way. Apparently some novelty item she picked up in South Africa a few years back.”

“No shit.” I paused for a few seconds. “Ah, fuck, we’re going to have to arrest her,” I said in a soft voice, as the two were seated only a few feet away, covered in police-issue blankets and clutching cups of coffee. Jasmine raised a thin, black eyebrow at me. “It looks like she hit that kid fifty or sixty times with her own cane. Coerced or not, we’re going to need to detain her, at least until we can get an official interrogation done.” Jasmine nodded in silent agreement, glancing over her shoulder. Nobody appeared to be talking to the two victims at the moment.

“Hey, are you guys done with the witnesses?” asked Jasmine. A few of the SFPD officers nodded. She then turned to me, giving me the non-verbal green-light. I reluctantly stepped forward, slipped my hand into the back pocket of my jeans where I kept my handcuffs.

“Ma’am,” I said, causing the Principal to look up at me, “I’ve going to have to detain you, on account of the fact that you gave this girl here quite a beating.” The handcuffs came out, dangling from one hand.

“What?” cried the Principal, incredulously. “But I didn’t want to! I had to! You must understand!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, placing one hand firmly around her arm and pulling her to her feet. She struggled a little, but I was significantly stronger and larger than her. “Ma’am, I know you’re innocent, but we have to follow police protocol on this.”

“No! You can’t! Please!” It was kind of sad, but I had no choice. Pulling her arms behind her back, I forced her to kneel on the ground, then snapped the handcuffs tight around her wrists. The iron cuffs snapped tightly shut with a click-click-click, although I realize now I might have dug the cuffs a little too deep into her skin. I passed her off to another Officer, who began reading her rights and escorting her to a patrol car.

“Wow, you’re a monster,” decried Jasmine, teasingly, as the crying Principal could be heard down the hallway.

“Oh, shut up,” I retorted, not feeling my best about that. Before I could strike up the next round of conversation, a peach-faced officer ducked into the office, locking eyes with me.

“Officer Zyryanov? I just saw a young woman heading into the IT room on the second floor.”

“That’d be my techie,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. I gestured towards the door. “Alright, Jasmine, let’s go.”

The two of us jogged up the school’s stairwell to the second floor, where I saw the young, black woman who I’d spoken with earlier over the phone. Her name was Sami, as I recalled, and I called out to greet her from down the hall. I saw that she was clutching an old VCR cassette that must’ve been from the CCTV system – my heart soared with the possibility that we might actually have some solid images to work with. To my surprise, however, as soon as she spotted Jasmine and I, she bolted down the hallway in the opposite direction.

“Ah, shit,” I cursed, breaking into a full sprint in pursuit. She had maybe a hundred-foot head start on me, but hell if I was going to let her go. Jasmine and I raced down the hallway, pursuing her down a flight of stairs, out an emergency exit, and then into the suburban neighbourhood that surrounded the school.

She was running fast – probably faster than me. To my surprise, however, Jasmine was keeping pace with the both of us, her body darting over fences and between shrubs as the foot chase lead into a row of homes. Sami was running through backyards like a kid playing tag, and moved with the grace of a parkour expert. I found myself struggling to keep up with Jasmine, who was able to match her agility, while I stumbled along behind like some miniature juggernaut. We were always one step behind – entering one backyard just as Sami was exiting it. I tried calling for backup, before realizing I only had a cell phone with a dead battery on me. Fuck.

Sami hurtled the VCR cassette in the opposite direction, apparently hoping to either throw us off or lighten the load. She was obviously tiring – she was fast, undeniably, but she lacked the endurance I possessed.

“Grab the cassette, I’ll grab her,” I yelled, seeing as Jasmine was probably becoming too tired to continue the chase anyhow. Jasmine yelled what I presumed was an affirmative, and darted off in the direction of the tape. I redoubled my efforts to catch her, and had my success about thirty seconds later, when her foot slipped on a deflated soccer ball in somebody’s backyard. She stumbled a little, giving me the opening I need to put on an extra burst of speed and tackle her onto the grass.

“You...fucking...cunt,” I panted, grabbing both of her wrists and pressing my body atop her to keep her pinned to the ground. I tried reaching for my handcuffs, only to remember I’d used them on the Principal a few minutes ago. Sami was still struggling, her black body glistening with sweat, the fight-or-flight instinct obviously dominating her thought process. She tried kicking at me, but I kept her pinned to the ground.

I kept her horizontal there until Jasmine showed up a minute or two later, equally exhausted, but clutching the old cassette triumphantly in one hand.

“You call for help?” I asked. Jasmine shook her head.

“I think my phone fell out a ways back. Want me to-”

“No.” I looked down at my still squirming prisoner. “That psycho dominatrix has stuck twice in less than a day. She’s probably gunning for her next target even as we speak. We can’t afford the whole Miranda Rights ordeal. We need to find out now.”

Jasmine looked sceptical for a second, before nodding her head in agreement.

“Right,” she said. She looked at the house whose backyard we were in. All the lights were off. “Looks like nobody’s home. Want me to see if I can find a way in?”

“Please,” I said. I pulled Sami to her feet. “Hear that, you little bitch? You’re going to get to spend some one-on-one time we yours truly. Bet this is something your boss didn’t anticipate.” I saw Jasmine pull a key from under a potted plant, and swung the door open. “You’re going to tell me all about your special friend.”

“You can’t do this,” protested Sami, although she seemed too tired to yell.

“I shouldn’t do this,” I corrected, a grin creeping across my face as her self-confidence vanished. “But this is all off-the-books, okay?”

Sami struggled, but I managed to force her into the darkened house. Jasmine locked the door behind us,  then lead us into an unfinished basement. It had an uneven concrete floor and bare walls, with cardboard boxes of possessions from a previous life piled up or just scattered about. Lighting was provided by a handful of incandescent bulbs swinging from strings overhead, giving the basement the feeling of a Soviet torture chamber. Perfect.

“Jasmine, you got any cuffs?” I asked, forced Sami to take a seat in an old wooden chair.

“Seeing as I’m a forensics officer, no. But this works just as well,” she replied, lobbing me a large roll of industrial grey duct tape she’d picked up from a nearby counter. “I’m going to go see if there’s an old VCR or something in this place.”

“I wait with bated breath,” I replied, twirling the roll of duct tape in my hands.

“You’ll never catch her, you know,” said Sami, defiantly. Despite her exhaustion, she still looked visibly rebellious. Her black hair was tangled and sticky with sweat, although I have to admit she looked very attractive in her tight-fitting black tank top and matching leather skirt. She was short, thin and lithe, her muscled arms and legs glistening from the run. A rebellious prisoner is always a fun thing to break.

“Who said anything about catching her?” I asked, pulling her hands behind the back of the chair. “All I want to do is have some fun with you.”

“I hope you’re not expecting any revelations, officer,” she retorted. “All you’re doing is wasting time.”

I ignored her, beginning by wrapping the duct tape around her wrists. I kept her palms facing outwards, to keep her from possibly rolling her hands under her buttocks, and thus escape. I rolled the tape around her wrists several times, and also wrapped her fingers and thumbs, to keep her from possibly picking at anything. I took off her shoes and socks before taping her ankles to the legs of the chair. I locked eyes with her, and she gave a look that expressed boredom more than anything else. I fastened a piece of tape to her cheek and began wrapping the roll around her head several times, getting a fair amount of hair in the process. I’ve seen those Hollywood movies where a single strip of duct tape is enough to keep someone silent – I assure you, that’s not how it works. Unless you physically wrap the tape all the way around their heads, a tape gagged subject is always capable of just dropping their jaw, giving them enough space to call for help, no matter how much tape you used.

“Found it!” declared Jasmine, descending the staircase. She was carrying a large red laundry bin filled with anything but laundry. She was obviously thinking ahead. As Jasmine began connecting the VCR to an old sixteen-inch television in the corner of the basement, I pulled out several alligator clips – the type often used by electrical engineers – and a large pair of scissors. I grinned, as Sami’s eyes widened in fear.

“Ooh, a little less confident now, aren’t we?” I asked, smirking as I did so. The scissors found their way to the fringe of her tank top. I let the metal blades hover there for a second, delighted to hear her whimper a little. I then proceeded to cut upwards, slicing through the tank top’s thin fabric and leaving her completely bare-chested. Her boobs hung down limply, although I was surprised to see her nipples were hard. “Ah, yes, this isn’t normal police procedure now, is it?” She tried to say something, obviously muffled by the layers of duct tape plastering her mouth. “Oh, I’ll let you know when I’m ready to hear what you have to say.” Despite the gravity of the situation, I was enjoying myself. Police bureaucracy could be such a nightmare.

I picked up the two alligator clips, each with a bright red rubber casing, pushed them open, then clamped them down on Sami’s erect nipples. She whimpered in pain. I pulled out a handful more, and began stringing them along her breasts, the metal teeth digging into her skin and causing her much pain, judging by her squirming.

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you not like pain? I thought you would, seeing as you work for someone whose self-declared job this is.” Whoever lived here was obviously and electrical engineer at some point, which was, right now, a blessed stroke of luck. I was far from an engineer, but it didn’t take a genius to string together a battery, a portable generator and a handful of cables. Before long, the half-dozen alligator clamps were wired to a nine volt battery, with my hand on the dial. Tentatively, I cranked it up to two volts...

Sami let out a muffled howl of pain. She struggled as much as possible, and I realized the chair may be less secure than previously thought. Turning the current off, I quickly taped the chair to a nearby support pillar, ensuring she couldn’t knock the chair over or anything. I cranked the dial up to three this time, and left it on for ten seconds. Sami’s body shook with pain as electricity coursed through her nipples and throughout her body. Tears began welling up in her eyes, and I switched it off again.

“So, Sami, now we get to see how tough a girl you really are, don’t we?” I asked. She was softly crying. “That was level three of nine. Just bear that in mind.”

“Hey, I got the video working!” declared Jasmine, pointing triumphantly to a black-and-white video apparently recorded by one of the school’s security cameras, apparently taken from the school’s parking lot. Jasmine fast-forwarded to the appropriate time, when, sure enough, a woman in a tailored suit walked into an expensive-looking car... a BMW E63, if I recalled correctly. And, sure enough, there was a licence plate, plain as day. I grinned, as Jasmine froze the frame.

“So, want me to call-”

“No, I got it,” I said, picking up the handset of an old landline in the basement. “I know a guy who owes me a favour. He’ll run it through the city’s traffic cams, see if we get a match on anything.” Jasmine nodded, and I rapidly dialled the cell number of an old college friend.

“Henry here,” came the voice of Henry Wu, an SFPD technician who basically ran the traffic camera system.

“Hey, Henry, how’s it going?”

“Hans? No shit, man. Long time no see.”

“Yeah, listen man, I need to call in favour.”

“I figured you would,” sighed Henry. “Never a social call with you, is it?”

“Seems that way,” I said. “I need you to run some plates for me, off-the-books.”

“Not a problem,” he replied. “Apart from one of thousands of logs in the system... it’ll be practically invisible. Now, what am I looking for?”

“A black BMW E63, California plates reading 2DYEZ94,” I said, reading the alphanumeric code off the screen. “Begin search at 3 PM today.”

“Will....do,” muttered Henry. I heard him typing rapidly on a keyboard. “And... wait for it.... wait for it...” I had to wait the better part of two minutes before the query finally made it through all the databases. “Alright, gotcha,” declared Henry. “Mapping this on Google Maps and.... huh, looks like the car pulled into a parking lot near one of the downtown condos. I... you looking for a hot blonde chick in a suit?”

“Off the record, yeah,” I said.

“Well, she ducked into one of the condos about, oh, half an hour ago?” He gave me the address, which I scribbled down with a felt-tip marker on an old receipt. “She’s carrying a navy blue duffel bag. Worried your supermodel girlfriend is cheating on you?”

“She is not my girlfriend,” I protested. “Well, thanks for the hand, Henry. We’re even now.”

“Don’t mention it,” Henry replied, with a small chuckle. “You should drop by some time. I found this great fusion place near-”

“Sorry, I gotta cut this short,” I interrupted. “Talk to you soon.” I hung up the receiver.

“I’ll call the condo,” said Jasmine, pulling out an old Yellow Pages phonebook. “See if they picked her up on the cameras.” I nodded in agreement, then turned back to my prisoner.

“Looks like your boss isn’t Superwoman after all,” I taunted. The look of defiance in her eyes was gone – it was just anger, now. “Oh, don’t be mad,” I said, twisting the dial up to four volts for a second. Sami bowed her head, incapable of any verbal protestations thanks to the thick tape gag. “Hey, look on the bright side – we can’t prosecute you for this! Well, not yet, anyways. I’ll just dump you out somewhere, say you got away, and that’ll be the end of that. At least, until we formally arrest you a few weeks later.” I heard Jasmine angrily slam the phone down, and turned to face her. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? The fucking condo’s upgrading their electrical system. All their cameras are down for the next two days.” I turned to Sami.

“But your boss knew this, didn’t she? We can send a SWAT team to that thirty-story condo, but we’d have no goddamn clue where to luck.” I paused. “You, however, do.” I knew she did. The way she tried to break my gaze, as if looking away would somehow divert my attention. “Well, this is interesting.”

“Um... I’m going to go place a few calls back to Central,” said Jasmine, gesturing to the main floor. “Give ourselves and alibi, you know?” I nodded.

“Understood. I’ll holler if I need you.” Jasmine hurried up the staircase, closing the door behind her. Now it was just the two of us. “Oh, you have some defiance in you yet, don’t you? Unfortunately, I’m short on time, but happen to have an interrogation-accelerator device. And your boss likes to take her time, doesn’t she?” My fingers hovered over the dial, and I saw Sami wince in anticipation. I slipped the dial up to five.

Sami shook as the electricity coursed through her body, the shock causing her to writhe in pain as she struggled uselessly to escape it. I let the electricity run for a ten, maybe fifteen seconds. She tried to let out a yell of pain, although the tape suppressed that. Every muscle in her body was fighting this, but it was a battle she couldn’t possibly win. I dialled it back to zero.

“I hope you’re ready to talk now,” I said. “’Cause, I’ve got a lot more juice in this battery, and you don’t exactly look like you’re enjoying yourself.” I stood up, and began unravelling the duct tape. It was fine until it reached the deepest layer, where the tape was bonding nicely to her hair. I continued pulling the tape, uprooting quite a few hairs as I did so, she winced in pain as the final layer was ripped off her cheeks and lips. I balled up the duct tape and tossed it into a far corner, hair and all. “So, let’s start with which floor she’s on.”

She sounded like she was whispering something. I leaned forward, and was about to ask her to repeat it when a glob of saliva hurled through the air, impacting my cheek. Still some defiance in Sami’s eyes. I wiped off the spit as calmly as I could, sucking in my lower lip and closing my eyes. Then, I unclipped one of the alligator clips from her breasts, forced her jaw open, and let the clip’s teeth sink into her tongue. Neither of us said anything, then I twisted the dial up to three.

I heard her yells of pain for the first time, as the shock travelled through her nipples, breasts and tongue. I turned it off a few seconds later, reattaching the clip to her breast. I could see a red mark where the teeth had dug in, but wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic at the moment. Reaching into the laundry bin of goodies, I pulled out a thick rag that had probably been used to wash windows at some point. Unzipping my fly, I placed the rag on the ground in front of me and relieved myself, letting my stream of urine soak the rag thoroughly. I picked it up, dripping with piss, and grabbed a handful of her hair with my free hand. I pulled her hair back, which in turn forced her mouth open, against her will. I carefully dropped the stained rag into her mouth, keeping it in place with some black electrical tape. I then returned to the dial. This time, there would be no holding back.

The dial spun up to nine volts, and Sami’s shrieks were audible even through the thick gag of cloth and tape. No rest for the wicked. It was maybe a full minute – something that must seem like an eternity when electricity is shocking your nipples – before I flicked the switch off. Sami’s head hung limp, and she was breathing very heavily. I undid the tape gag maybe a minute later, pulling the cloth out of her mouth and tossing it aside.

“2701,” murmured Sami. That was all she said.

“2701? That’s where she’s at?” I demanded, my fingers moving threateningly to the dial.

“Yes!” she yelled. “I’ve told you everything I know. Just please, for the love of God don’t shock me anymore. I beg you! I’ll do anything you want!”

“See, if you’d opened with that attitude,” I taunted, “we could have avoided this whole ordeal. Not that it inconvenienced me a great deal.” I glanced at my watch. “Alright, jungle cat, time to get moving.”

I began disconnecting the alligator clips, noting the line of red teeth marks along her breasts they had left. Her body was covered with sweat, her hair tangled, her face wet with tears. I used a pair of scissors to free her from the tape, briefly. I then picked up the roll of tape again and began wrapping her up. Sami didn’t resist, to my relief. I taped her wrists and fingers behind her back, her ankles tightly together, then blindfolded her. I picked up the urine-flavoured rag and stuffed it into her mouth, sealing it in there beneath several more layers of tape wrapped around her head. I picked her up over my shoulders fireman style, and carrier her upstairs.

“Hey Hans. Sounds... like... fun...” said Jasmine, upon spotting me and my bound prisoner. She then shook her head. “I don’t want to know. I take it we have a room number?” I nodded.

“2701. I’m just keeping her as a souvenir in case she gave us some bad Intel.” I glanced over my shoulder at my silver-masked prisoner. “I suppose we can’t take a taxi, can we?” Jasmine dangled a keychain from her index finger.

“Family SUV. We should probably get moving – don’t want our big bad girl finishing her business and hightailing it out,” replied Jasmine.

We found a large black duffel bag in an upstairs closet, which I lowered Sami into, zipping it up and wrapping a few coils of tape around the bag for good measure. I slung the bag over the shoulder, and the two of us slipped outside, Jasmine taking care to lock the door and re-hide the key behind herself. No need to give the investigators any clues about the house’s visitors. I popped open the trunk and tossed the duffel bag in none-too-gently, covering it up with a few emergency blankets that were already there. I walked to hop into the driver’s seat, only to find Jasmine already sitting there.

“You’re riding shotgun this time,” declared Jasmine, already adjusting the mirrors. I was about to protest, when she pre-empted me: “I seem to recall a certain incident involving us driving around Chinatown for forty-five minutes because you had no sense of direction.” Sulking, I hopped into the passenger seat.

It was pretty dark as Jasmine drove us through the streets of San Francisco, the glow of streetlights and storefront windows playing over her face. She was undeniably beautiful – arched cheekbones, a small nose, silky smooth hair. Not to mention her qipao-style shirt looked absolutely beautiful on her, all the while exposing her lithe, tanned arms. We rode mostly in silence, the radio playing in the background, Jasmine carefully avoiding flooring the pedal and racing there. All it all, it took us a little less than fifteen minutes to get there. Jasmine parked the SUV in a nearby parking lot, exhaling softly as she killed the ignition. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.

“Time to be heroes,” muttered Jasmine, unfastening her seatbelt and hopping out of the car. I followed her, and the two of us strolled confidently into the condo’s lobby. There was some keycard security system at one of the doors, but a departing resident was kind enough to hold the door for us. I walked in as casually as possible past the middle-aged security guard at the reception desk, slipping into an elevator and pressing 27.

As the elevator ascended, I checked my gun – a compact Glock 26 semiautomatic pistol. I’d never actually fired it in anger before – most officers never did – and with any luck we’d actually be able to take this psycho bitch down. Or at the very least place her in a duffel bag next to her minion...

*

3 MINUTES AGO

Nabila Zahari cried a little, although the large, bright red ballgag forcing her jaw open prevented any meaningful sound from coming out of her mouth. The twenty-one year old Malaysian immigrant struggled to scrub the wooden floor of the penthouse with a large yellow sponge, something made difficult by the fact that her hands were bound together in front with tightly-cinched plastic zipties. Nabila was scrubbing the floor as hard and as fast as she could, but it was never fast enough for the woman....

“You missed a spot four paces behind you,” barked the woman, and Nabila winced in anticipation of the blow that was sure to follow. Sure enough, the elongated leather riding crop swished through the air, striking the twenty-one year old’s ass, painfully. Nabila let out a small whimper of pain, although she barely made a sound. “Another mistake like that, Ms. Zahari, and we may have to re-evaluate your uniform. You’d like to avoid another uniform re-evaluation, wouldn’t you?”

Nabila nodded, pressing her forehead to the floor in submission as the woman had taught her. Her uniform was quite humiliating for the semi-practising Muslim girl – a black satin dress that exposed her arms and stopped a few inches above her knees, translucent black stocking that left her knees bare, a white apron around her waist and a leather collar locked around her neck, complete with a small bell dangling over her throat. Walking in the three-inch high heeled shoes was difficult on its own for the girl used to sandals, and the fact that her ankles were also bound with plastic handcuffs didn’t make things any easier. Nabila returned to her scrubbing, praying inwardly that this night would be over.

Crash.

*

I burst into the penthouse condo suite, pistol held at shoulder height. None of the lights were on, but light from the hallway and the evening sky flooded the apartment. We appeared to be in some kind of an antechamber, and to my surprise, I was greeted by a young woman kneeling at my feet. She was of Southeast Asian descent, I figured, with an oversized ball gag in her mouth, wearing what I made out to be a French maid uniform. Her hands were held in front as if in prayer, although I immediately recognized the plasticuffs binding her hands together. The cheap, disposable, one-use cuffs were commonly employed by riot police.

I stepped further into the room, sweeping it, but there was no sign of our target. Shit. Were we too late? Jasmine followed me in a few seconds later, walking over to the ziptied maid and pulling the ballgag out of her mouth.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” cried the woman. Jasmine wasted no time pulling an X-Acto knife out of her back pocket and pocket and slicing the girl’s plasticuffs.

“When did she leave?” I asked, flicking on a light switch.

“Leave?” replied the woman, confused. “I think she’s still here. She went that way,” she gestured to a closed door. “Please.... don’t let her get away.”

“Not this time, ma’am,” I promised, actually believing it myself. I flicked the safety off. Definitely not getting away. “Jasmine, cover the door. Call for backup if she starts making a break for it.” Jasmine nodded, although she was apparently focused on examining the recently-emancipated girl. I walked into the next room...

An empty study. I felt the adrenaline surge through my veins, like I was James Bond in one of the more realistic fight scenes. Two doors, both closed. I picked one at random, kicking it open. My brain was processing the room to be a bedroom, when I saw a shadowy figure duck out through a door on the opposite side of the room.

“Freeze!” I yelled, but to no avail. The door slammed shut before I could reach it, a bolt audibly being thrown. She was right on the other side of that door. I through my weight against it, without detectable results. The door was solid oak, probably a nightmare to force open. I doubled-back, looking to go back through the study...

The door to the study flew shut a second before I got there, also locking in place. Fuck. I tried to force the door handle, but it wouldn’t budget. It was then that I heard Jasmine scream.

“Jasmine!” I yelled, another surge of adrenaline hitting me. I threw my shoulder against the door, but it barely budged. Thick wood. “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered. Taking a few steps back, I raised my pistol and fired into the door handle, hoping to shatter the bolt. My first shot missed comically, hitting the adjacent wall, but my next two shots were true. Running at the door as fast as I could, I managed to splintered a large portion of the door and possibly dislocated my shoulder. I ignored the pain, and kept ramming the door. About a minute later I barrelled through, colliding with the opposite wall. I sprinted back to the antechamber, only to find the Southeast Asian girl lying on the floor and Jasmine gone. I dropped down, checking the girl’s pulse – slow, but steady. I raced to the intercom panel and pressed the EMERGENCY button, then sprinted down the hallway in pursuit. The woman had maybe three or four minute’s lead on me, but she was burdened, and didn’t have a lot of places to go.

The hallway was empty, but none of the elevators were near my level. She’d probably taken the stairs. I burst into the stairwell and, sure enough, could make out somebody moving quite a few levels below. I raced down the flights of stairs as fast as I could, keeping a hand on the handrail for balance. It was a dizzying process to say the least – something that didn’t mix well with the adrenaline – and I arrived on the ground floor about a minute later. She’d probably taken a service exit so as to avoid any unusual questions at the lobby. I followed what I hoped to be her tracks to the parking lot again, just in time to spot someone in a dark blue Jaguar – the new X150, I believed –  and racing away.

“Fuck!” I cursed, hurtling my pistol to the ground. I held my head in my hands for a few seconds, completely at a loss as to what to do. It took me the better part of a minute to get my head thinking straight as the adrenaline slowly made its way out of my system. A new clarity of purpose in mind, I picked up my pistol and walked over to our commandeered SUV.  Making sure nobody was watching, I popped the trunk, unzipped the duffel bag, and pulled Sami up by her hair. She squealed in pain through her tape gag, which I proceeded to unravel, taking a bit more of her hair with me, again. With my free hand I grabbed her right breast as hard as I could, pinching the skin that had been tortured with alligator clips shortly before. She let out another yell of pain.

“Your boss, where’s her safe house?” I demanded, twisting her boob to add emphasis to the point.

“I... I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sami pleaded, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I began pinching her nipple, which was still raw from all the electricity I’d surged through it. “Ah! I... I... I don’t know for certain.... She showed this place once – it was a rented office space, in Little Russia. That’s where she lives, I think. She keeps all her cars and clothes there...”

Checking over my shoulder, I pulled her out of the trunk by her hair, none too gracefully. Sami stumbled, her feet hobbled by the tight tape. I forced her into the passenger’s seat, where I’d sat a few minutes ago, and forced her into the foot space beneath the glove compartment. Slamming the door and the trunk shut, I hopped into the driver’s seat, where Jasmine had left the keys waiting on the dashboard.

“Time to play tour guide,” I said, once we out of the parking lot. I ripped the piece of tape blindfolding her off, pulled her onto the seat, and awkwardly buckled her seatbelt. Sami pulled her knees up to her chest to hide her naked breasts. Hopefully nobody would give us a second glance. And if she called for help, well...

But Sami didn’t seem to want to get away, for whatever reason. Maybe the electroshock therapy had turned her into a model citizen. In any event, she directed me into a darkened part of the Little Russia neighbourhood, which nobody paid too much attention to. This part of the neighbourhood was pretty derelict, and Sami directed me to a two-story, windowless building standing by itself. I contemplated calling for backup, but knew I couldn’t risk Jasmine. No, this was something I had to do myself.

I helped Sami out of the car, ripping the tape binding her ankles together so we could walk at a reasonable speed. She was naked apart from a short black leather skirt, her hands still bound behind her back with layers of duct tape. Sami directed me towards an entrance around the back of the building. I swung open a heavy metal door, pushing Sami ahead of me, pistol loaded and ready.

The room I was in was a little bizarre. It was maybe one-hundred and sixty square feet, with a bare concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. Lighting was provided by a handful of neon light bulbs, and it was completely empty. That was, apart from the half-dozen women obviously prisoner there.

The floor was studded with women wearing bright orange, latex costumes designed to resemble those worn by prisoners. Each of the uniforms stopped a few inches below the crotch, however, leaving arms and legs bare. Each of the girls was fully chained-up in a fashion that would seem overkill for a repeated offender. Their hands were cuffed tightly behind their backs with chainless steel handcuffs, which were linked to chains running around their hips. The girls were all on their knees, their bare feet shackled together by a pair of cuffs with only a few inches of chain between them. A polished steel collar was locked around each girl’s neck, a chain descending from a G-ring connecting her neck to the chains of her shackles. Another chain kept all of the women locked to rings bolted into the floor, preventing anybody from so much as squirming. Their heads were all covered with that I figured to be a kind of sensory deprivation gear – latex blindfolds, leather harness-style muzzles and, of course, earmuffs. It eerily resembled something out of Guantanamo Bay.

I walked over to the nearest girl – a young girl with flowing blonde hair – and proceeded to unbuckle the leather muzzle keeping her mouth shut. A thick piece of cloth tumbled out of her mouth as I did so. I then carefully lifted off the earmuffs.

“Remain calm. I’m a police officer,” I said, speaking softly.

“Oh thank god!” rejoiced the woman, a little too loud for me. “You’re here to rescue me?”

“In a few minutes, yeah,” I replied. “Listen, I need any information you can give me about this place.” The woman shook her head, discouragingly.

“I... I don’t know anything. They keep me all chained up all the time. But... they occasionally move me to another room – not far, maybe a minute’s walk. It looks like a classroom. That’s where she... teaches me.”

“Okay, listen, I need you to stay here for now,” I said. “Stay calm. Help’s on the way.” Well, that was a little white lie.

“What? No! You can’t-” I hurriedly picked up the piece of cloth and shoved it back into her mouth, before re-attaching the muzzle and placing the earmuffs over her head. The girl struggled angrily as I did so, although she was barely able to move an inch in her chains.

“Alright, let’s go,” I said, gesturing towards Sami. We passed through another heavy metal door, hurriedly walking down a cold hallway. There were green metal doors dotting either side, each with no windows, designated only with numbers. I stopped when I saw the first marked door – SUBJECT PROCESSING. Sliding the door handle down, I pushed Sami into the room, then ducked in myself.

The room vaguely resembled some of the interrogation chambers we used back at my home station – it was maybe twelve by twelve feet, with a one-way window covering one wall and a large, steel table in one corner. I rushed forward as I saw Jasmine’s clothes laid out on the table – her qipao-style shirt, jeans, shoes, socks, bra and panties. A white latex globe lay discarded in a corner, suggesting the strip search had involved a little probing. I picked up the qipao-shirt, feeling it with my hands – it was still warm. They couldn’t be far. I opened the door on the opposite side of the room and... bingo.

Now, I knew Jasmine was of Jordanian descent, but I never really thought of her as being Arabian until I crossed the threshold of that room. She looked it not modern-day Arabia, no, more like Walt Disney’s Aladdin with its scantily-clad belly dancers... which I figured was the inspiration behind Jasmine’s current attire.

Jasmine was standing maybe forty paces away from me, wearing an Arabian belly dancer’s costume that looked like it was straight out of some Saudi prince’s fantasy. She wore a cleavage-exposing black bra and panties, each with a gold trim. Her forearms and the fronts of her legs were covered by pieces of translucent black silk, held in place by metal bands fastened around her ankles, thighs and elbows. Her feet, back, and the backs of her legs were completely bare, exposing her beautifully-tanned skin, while a partially see-through veil covered her mouth and neck, focusing my attention on her brilliant green eyes. That, of course, was not all. In addition to the striking costume, heavy, gold-coloured shackles kept her feet within a few inches of one another, while two more golden cuffs around her wrists were fastened to a chain connecting to the ceiling. Her arms were pointed towards the sky as if preparing for a dive, and it looked like she was standing on her tip-toes. On top of that, I thought I could make out a solid black ballgag beneath the veil, silencing her.

Her eyes lit up when she saw me, but she didn’t make a sound or struggle at all. Pushing Sami ahead, I looked around. The room was fairly large – you could probably park a few trucks side-by-side if you had to – although poor lighting meant I actually couldn’t make out the walls, which were veiled in shadow. The only reason I could see Jasmine was because an overhead spotlight was illuminating her, as if she was about to dance on a stage in front of an audience of thousands. Keeping Sami within arm’s reach, I began advancing towards her.

“That’s close enough, Officer Zyryanov,” declared the Dominatrix. I heard her voice for the first time, coming from the shadows, where I trained my pistol.  She stepped into the spotlight, hands raised a little in a mock-surrender. She placed herself a little behind Jasmine, and I wasn’t confident I could make the shot from the distance. The woman was wearing a black latex catsuit that left her arms and shoulder bare, forming a collar around her neck. She was wearing what I took to be maybe four-inch heeled boots, which she walked in with the ease of a catwalk veteran. She brushed a few strands of her blond hair out of her face, at which point I spotted the remote control device clutched in one hand.

“Get down on the ground, spread your legs, and put your hands behind your head,” I demanded, carefully advancing, while using Sami as a human shield. The woman smiled a little.

“I don’t think so, Officer,” she replied. She had scarlet red lipstick on, and an almost playful note to her voice. “No, in fact, I think you’re going to drop your firearm, and let my accomplice go.” She tapped a button on the remote control. “Or else.”

Immediately, I heard some machinery operating in the dark ceiling above. Jasmine let out a muffled yelp of surprise as she was pulled up off the ground by the chains around her wrists. She rapidly ascended maybe sixty or seventy feet in the air, and then began dangling there like a ragdoll, completely helpless.

“Now, that fall might not kill her,” taunted the Dominatrix, walking towards me. She had a finger hovering over one of the buttons on the remote control, which I could only guess would send Jasmine plummeting down. “But a fall from that height could very well break her spine. It’d be a pity if she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, don’t you think?” I flicked the safety off my pistol.

“Who are all those women back there?” I demanded. She smiled a little.

“Those were subject I couldn’t get to reform their behaviour. The true rebels, I suppose. Maids, schoolgirls, secretaries, nurses, ex-convicts... the list goes on and on. As much as I try to shape them, to make them realize their place in the world... they won’t.” She glanced up at Jasmine, dangling from the ceiling. “I certainly hope your partner isn’t so, hm, defiant?” She placed a hand on Sami’s bare shoulder, who was an arm’s length away from me.  “I must admit, Officer, nobody has ever tracked me this far. It seems I’ll need to have a chat with my assistant when this is over.” Her hand slipped down Sami’s back, before painfully pinching her ass cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” apologised Sami, speaking for the first time in quite a while. “He... he was unrelenting. I couldn’t-” The woman cut off Sami’s apology by grabbing a handful of her hair and pulling it backwards.

“There will be time for disciplining later. Run along back and find your uniform. The officer and I have an agreement to settle.”

Sami hurriedly ran to a far corner of the room, her hands still bound with duct tape behind her back. I took a step back, training my pistol on the dominatrix.

“The only agreement we can reach is the one where you lower Jasmine back to the ground, nice and slowly, then spend a few years in restraints of your own,” I said. The woman was backing up, moving closer to Jasmine.

“How about this, officer: the girl and I scurry out of town, never to be seen in this neck of the woods again. You then get to make the find of your life, get the girl, a promotion, and the keys to the city. And, of course, a briefcase filled with $100,000 in non-sequential hundred-dollar bills?”

“Nice try. Game’s over.”

“Not...yet.”

The Dominatrix pushed a button on the remote control, diving out of the way of the shot I instinctively squeezed off. Jasmine began plummeting towards the ground, and I broke into an adrenaline-fuelled sprint, managing to grab her in my arms a fraction of the second before she hit the concrete floor. I spun around, but the Dominatrix was nowhere in sight.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, reaching under Jasmine’s silk veil and pulling off her ballgag.

“Don’t worry about me,” demanded Jasmine, the moment the large piece of rubber was out of her mouth. Her voice was surprisingly calm for someone who’d been seconds away from grievous injury. “Catch that bitch.”

I nodded in agreement, but not before firing one round into the chain that linked her manacles to the ceiling. At least she wouldn’t be completely defenceless. I hurried off in the direction of the Dominatrix, quickly finding a door hidden in the darkness, which I pushed through.

I found myself in a conversely well-lit room, the brightness temporarily blinding me as my retinas struggled to adjust. Before they fully did, however, a black finger lunged at me, jabbing me in the neck with a kind of stun gun. The shock caused my muscles to spasm and dropped me to the floor. I’d been Tasered as part of police training, and this wasn’t too bad. I was able to focus on the figure – Sami – that was now kneeling on my chest.

“This is for-” Before she could finish her sentence, however, I rolled her off me, knocking the stun gun out of her hands. Grabbing her wrists for the second time that day, I pulled her to her feet, and got a good look at the room.

If the woman was actually a dominatrix, this must have been where she kept her gear. Every conceivable piece of equipment was stored on racks or hanging from pipes, ranging from cages and stocks to rows of ballgags, hoods, muzzles, handcuffs and every kind of spanking implement imaginable. Countless costumes and clothes hung from racks across the room, ranging from cheerleader uniforms to Japanese kimonos to things that could favourably be described as rags.

“You just never give up, do you Sami?” I asked, forcing her in the direction of a nearby iron pillory. She was wearing only a black bra and bikini, having apparently not had time to change into her ‘uniform’, but this barely registered in my mind. The pillory was based off the old medieval design – basically a large slab of wood with circular holes for the neck and wrists. You see them a lot of the time at renaissance fairs or old touristy castles, although most of those are just holes you stick your limbs through, and can’t actually hold squat. This one – a utilitarian iron design – obviously could. I forced Sami’s wrists and neck onto the pillory before bringing down the ‘top’ bar, locking it in place with a small catch-lock. She was completely immobilized. I gave her a smack on the ass for good measure, then moved on in pursuit of the bigger fish.

Picking up my pistol, I began carefully moving through the walls of BDSM toys and gear. It didn’t look like there were any other exits from this room, but one could never be certain. I heard Sami calling out for her mistress in the distance, although I could no longer see her through the maze of clothing and equipment. Whoever she was, she was definitely not a stringent spender. I was just stepping between another row of costumes when...

Crack.

My hand stung as a cat whip raced through the air, striking the back of my hand and causing me to drop my pistol in the pain of surprise. Some blood seeped from a small cut on my hand, and I spun around just in time to be struck square in the chest with a high-powered electric cattle prod. The shock sent me stumbling onto my back, my vision blurry as tears welled in my eyes. That was a real stun gun.

“You should have taken my offer, Officer Zyryanov,” declared the Dominatrix, digging a high-heeled boot painfully into my stomach, causing me to wince in pain. As my vision cleared, my heart began going into triple overdrive as I realized she was holding my pistol, pointing it square between my eyes. “Goodbye, off-”

Before she could deliver my epiphany, however, she was knocked off by a blow from behind. Rolling groggily onto my stomach, I watched in surprise as Jasmine wrestled the gun out of the Dominatrix’s hands, tossing it into a distant corner of the room. Jasmine was still wearing her shackles and manacles, the Arabian dancer costume still barely covering her glistening body. How she’d managed to hobble all the way over here was a mystery, but one I was too busy to worry about. As I struggled to my feet, I watched as Jasmine pushed the Dominatrix with all her might into an open, man-sized iron cage that resembled those some clubs featured for cage dancers, although there was no slipping out of the those tightly-spaced, black iron bars. Before my would-be killer could recover herself, Jasmine slammed the door to the cage shut, grabbing a nearby pair of handcuffs and cuffing the door in place. As soon as the Dominatrix was secure, she hurried back over to me – as fast as she could with only a stride length of only a few inches.

“You, you.... that was incredible,” I declared, as she helped me up. Her eyes expressed a look of worry I found very cute – she was genuinely worried. She held her forearms, displaying the golden chains still binding them together.

“Less with the praise, more with the freeing-me,” she replied, a smile creeping to her face. The black veil still covered her mouth, and the ballgag dangled from her neck. “Sooner I get out of this get-up the better.”

“I dunno, I kind of like it,” I teased, provoking a look of disapproval from her. She shuffled along beside me until we found a large wall of keys of every conceivable size and shape, from archaic skeleton keys to some so small they could be mistaken for sewing needles. It took Jasmine and I the better part of ten exasperating minutes to find the key that undid the locks to her shackles and manacles. As soon as she was free, she wrapped her arms around my next in a tight embrace. Her lips pressed against my cheek, although the silk of the veil was still between us.

“Oh, my knight in shining armour,” she said, pressing her body against mine. “It’s a childhood fantasy come true!”

“Funny, I never took you for the damsel-in-distress type,” I replied, as she released me. She smiled.

“Well, a girl’s got to have a few secrets, don’t you think?” She paused. “But enough about me. We still have two vixens to deal with, don’t we?” She began strolling back towards the cage the dominatrix was locked in, letting her hips gyrate as she walked, placing one foot in front of the other with the precision of a fashion presenter. I stared at her long, bare legs, which formed such as perfect ass. Then followed along. “I suppose we can’t take them back to the Dispatch for processing, can we? Kind of broke a few judicial procedures to get to here.”

“Maybe one or two,” I admitted. “Also, I can’t imagine they’ll be too happy with us dropping off the face of the earth for a few hours.”

“Oh, I covered that while you giving Sami her enhanced interrogation,” replied Jasmine. “Placed a call, told them you had a concussion and I was taking you to a hospital, without specifying which. I’ve got a friend at the Chinese Hospital who’ll cover for us – write up some fake report. The suspect got away, the case is pushed to some dusty filing cabinet.”

“That still leaves the question over what we do with her,” I said, gesturing at the Dominatrix as we approached her cage. She was kneeling seductively on the floor of the cage, her hands clasped behind her back. “I suppose we can’t just leave her here.”

“No. But I did come up with some pretty good ideas while she had me chained up back there...”

*

FOUR WEEKS LATER

Wearing a loose Hawaiian t-shirt, khaki shorts, sunglasses and sneakers, I probably looked like just another tourist taking in the sites of historic Puerto Vallarta, a Mexican resort city along the Pacific coastline. Jasmine was sitting next to me on the hood of our rented Jeep Liberty, which was rather dirtied thanks to the cross-country driving we’d taken it on. She was wearing a pair of ass-hugging short shorts and a black bikini top, sipping from a piña colada and taking in the gorgeous sunset.

“Pardon me, senor,” said a middle-aged Mexican man, wearing sunglasses and a large sombrero. “But you wouldn’t happen to be in the market for companionship?” This was the pre-arranged code word we discussed over the phone back in Tijuana. I looked around. There was nobody else in sight.

“I like to spread the love,” I replied, putting on a fake Boston accent. The man nodded in approval, then whistled loudly. About a minute later, an off-red, timeworn Hummer H1 rounded the corner, with two burly Hispanic men inside.

“You don’t mind if we take a look first, no? Make sure nothing got, ah, bruised?”

“Be my guest,” I replied. I hopped off the hood of the Jeep, and popped open the trunk. I pulled off a layer of thick blue tarp, revealing – always to my pleasure – to young women who’d crossed the wrong officer.

Both women were tightly restrained, wearing nothing other than small green bikinis. If, by some miracle, they did escape, the local authorities would probably dismiss them as tourists on LSD. I’d had some fun raiding the dominatrix’s private stash before we left, something I perceived as a little poetic justice. The women’s feet were kept apart with an iron spreader bar, exposing long, bare legs. I kept their wrists and elbows bound behind their backs with plasticuffs, enjoying the discomfort the prolonged strappado had to be causing them. They were kept sightless with latex blindfolds, while they were gagged with tightly-buckled muzzles complete with a silicone penis that was forced into their mouths at all times. Around their necks and thighs we’d fastened high-voltage shock collars, the kind commonly used on dogs. Jasmine and I had amused ourselves on the ride down by pushing the ‘shock’ button whenever one of us got bored, which was hardly infrequent.

“Is everything to your liking?” Jasmine asked, strolling up beside me, still sipping her drink. The Mexican man nodded a few seconds later, signalling for the old Hummer to come closer. It parked with its trunk facing ours, and the exchange was quick and easy. Two young, white slaves in exchange for $50,000 of cash. But it wasn’t about the money, really. This was about satisfaction.

“Oh, one second,” I said, just as the Mexican buyer was about to close the trunk. I hopped up next to the Dominatrix, peeling back her blindfold so she could look me in the eye.

“Enjoy Thailand.”

*

DISCLAIMER:

This is a work of fiction, created for entertainment purposes only. The author actually condemns this kind of behaviour in real-life. All names, places, and events are fictional, and any real-life similarities are merely coincidences. This work may be freely re-distributed, although you must give the author (me) credit.

AUTHOR INFORMATION:

Sevikaa is an author specializing in bondage- and corporal punishment-themed works of fiction. This author is open to story requests – send me the information you want, and there’s a decent chance I’ll write it up. My e-mail is:

sevikaa@hotmail.com

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