“Where to?” asks the uniform driving us back to the City.
“My offices, thank you.”
“The offices?” murmurs Elizabeth from her place in my embrace.
“We’ll stay in one of the guest apartments. I’ll feel better knowing I have you close at hand, and it means we have James and Michael close by too.”
All the drive back, I cradle her in my arms. She doesn’t speak, simply resting her face against my chest. And desperate though I was to have my Elizabeth returned to me, I can’t forget that I have left behind James and Michael, their Charlotte still lost.
I’m uneasy.
Will they think I’ve abandoned them?
Surely not… Not under these conditions…
Elizabeth…
Back in the apartment, at last with privacy to speak properly, I almost crush her as I hold her to me. She bursts into tears again, her shoulders shaking as I rock her. “Oh, Master. I thought I was never going to see you again.”
“We didn’t know how to find you. I was ready to tear the world apart, but it was Charlotte who did it.”
Her face is splotchy with tears. “I know. She saved me. She saved us both. But they haven’t found her yet, have they?” Her voice is rising, self-recrimination in every note, echoing the stress that jangles in me.
James and Michael would be bound to call.
What if she was captured again?
Fighting through my tangled emotions, “The best thing you can do to help Charlotte right now, is to tell me what happened, in as much detail as you can remember. I’ll go order some food and you get out of those dirty things. We’ll share a bath and you can tell me everything.”
I set the jacuzzi running.
If she has a good warm soak she’ll feel better….
I keep my mobile close to hand, in case James or Michael tries to call, or for that matter, Will Stanton.
In the bath, up to our necks in warm bubbles, I bathe her, watching water and foam sleek down her skin as I draw a sponge across her shoulders and her beautiful swan neck. Keeping my touch sensual, but non-sexual, I comb the knots from her hair, so that once more it drapes in long red falls to her waist. Then I massage in shampoo, rinsing it through from a jug of water. All the while, she sits, passively, letting me care for her.
“Do you feel able to talk?” I ask. “To tell me what happened?”
She leans into my touch, sighing. “I’d been on the shopping trip with Charlotte and the other girls. The others left, but Charlotte stayed a while longer, and we shared a bottle of wine while we chatted. Then, Ross called to pick me up. I went to the parking lot under the store to meet him as we'd arranged. It was where I usually went for him to collect me….”
Habits….
we
a few minutes
her words hang. “Shhh….” I stroke her hair and kiss
speaks again, haltingly. “I’m sorry. It’s just remembering it. It was so
there, so I suppose I was quite visible to anyone looking. Anyway, two cars came in and stopped, one to each side of me. I didn't take much notice
got out, four or five of them, and two came towards me. The others stood by the
into the back of one of the cars. Something was pulled over my head, so I couldn't see, a hood or a bag of some kind, and my hearing was muffled too. And then they taped my
were speeding or anything. It didn't feel like it anyway. We were outdoors somewhere. I couldn’t see, but the light was filtering through the hood. I'm not sure how long it was, but not long I think, when it went dark and it felt as though we were dropping. After a couple more minutes, the car pulled
took the hood off and let me see
like we had the right
They had her underground….
taken me, but one just pointed at a WC sign and then at some food and cans of drinks on the side.
they didn’t threaten you?
how long for. Days I think, but it was hard to tell. There were no windows, and I had no way of telling how much time passed except that I needed to
they wouldn’t speak. I found I was talking to myself, or singing, or reciting poems and nursery rhymes just to hear a voice. The
put the hood over my face. And they taped my wrists and ankles and carried me. It took a while, but eventually they put me, I think, in the back of a car and drove for a while. When the car stopped, they carried me out again and when they took the hood and tape off, I was in a sort of cell. There were bars on the windows and only some horrible blankets on the floor to sit on. Things kept biting me and getting in my hair, but there was nowhere else to sit, and just a
when the door swung open and a man came in. He seemed to be in charge and told one of the others to give me something to eat….” Her words stumble. “…. But the way he looked at
looked at
at me as though I was just something to be measured or …. evaluated. It’s
“Threatening?”
smiled, but it was the kind of smile that only moves your mouth. Then he just said that I’d clean up well and he’d look forward to seeing me properly presented…. Master, could I have a
You stay there. I’ll just be a
whatever’s in the fridge, something white and
her more if
and I could use one
lower myself in again, once more encircling her with my body. As I slip into place, her spine eases against
I murmur. “Tell me the
“I’d not been there long when the door opened again, and this time it was Charlotte.” She twists around to look me in the face. “Master, I just wanted to cry when I saw who it was. They shoved her inside and locked the door behind her.” Another sip of
was to get to you. To get them
shrinking in on herself. “She really set herself
she did. Against everything that anyone could do to stop her. Will Stanton suggested the idea, but Michael and James wouldn’t hear of it. They
I tell her that I tried to stop Charlotte
perhaps, when she’s
gave me…. It was just an excuse to plant a tracker on
so. You can ask her yourself when
hard, pressing against me. “But we’ve lost
Don’t answer that….
on with your story. What