Chapter 17: Forged in chains

On Friday morning, the other people who were going to the ranch were already waiting for us in the break room. I saw some faces I didn’t recognize. Isabell had come down to the basement with me after we had separated early in the morning. We hadn’t had sex during the night. She had felt the need to cuddle, and I hadn’t been in the mood for sex either. Every now and then, I had the feeling that she really wanted to tell me something but didn’t dare. Of course, I suspected that it had something to do with Rebecca. And for a moment, I was tempted to go with her to the boiler room. But I didn’t really trust Isabell anymore. We got up early at 4:00 a.m., had a light meal, and then said goodbye to get ready separately, which meant that each of us took a thorough shower, did an enema, and then slipped into comfortable clothes, which we would only wear until filming began. The costumes were waiting for us at the filming location.

The greetings and introductions had been kept extremely brief. Somehow, I had the feeling that both Jelena and Diana would have preferred me to kneel before them and kiss their boots. Rebecca behaved as usual, namely inscrutably. Linse, on the other hand, was taciturn and reserved, which was not surprising given the presence of his married dominatrix.

On the right stood makeup artist Yvonne and sound engineer Edward, with Jelena further in the middle.

I don’t know exactly how I had imagined Red Dragon, but certainly not like this little redhead. She was probably in her mid-40s, not exactly slim, not particularly tall. Without her high-heeled shoes, she was significantly shorter than me, at 5’8”.

Matej, Mister Big Dick, was a handsome man, well-built, about 185 cm tall, with black hair and brown eyes.

Lighting technician Andreas and second sound engineer Sandro were also completely unknown to me, but I knew second cameraman Helge from the first shoot in the basement. The seventh man in the room was unusual. He was wearing a full-face mask and black leather clothing. That must be the mysterious Q. I quickly glanced at his crotch, where something that could have been a steel chastity belt for men was visible under his tight leather pants.

“This is our brilliant engineer Q, who is responsible for most of the equipment here,” Rebecca introduced him to me. “He’ll be putting you in irons later. The show will take place in Auditorium Cellar Two. That means that selected studio guests will also have access and will be watching you. Of course, they are not allowed on stage. The sound engineers use directional microphones to ensure that none of the guests’ noises and conversations get into the recordings. Oliver, our chief lighting technician, is only needed for the outdoor shots. In the studios and on the stages, we light everything remotely from the control room. More helpers are waiting for us at the farm. Once everything is sorted out, we can get started.”

Rebecca’s ranch was a little out of the way, and the drive took over an hour, partly on the highway. But I couldn’t say exactly where, because I was sitting with Isabell, Oliver, Edward, and Yvonne in one of the minibuses with tinted windows and a separate driver’s cab, which were probably used to drive VIP customers to the show. The comfort was good, there was a minibar, TV, radio, and internet. Just no view of the outside or cell phones, which we weren’t allowed to take with us. Only a few drivers knew the route and the destination. Linse was obviously one of them, because he had to drive the van with the equipment. My bus was driven by Jelena. Rebecca and Q sat in the limousine with the chauffeur, while the others rode in the second bus with Diana as the driver. It was interesting to find out who belonged to the inner circle. On the way, we speculated about whether we would meet Charly today, who was also supposed to direct the outdoor shoot. I hadn’t realized how many people were involved and working on our side. When Rebecca had said three weeks ago that there were almost 400, I thought it was unbelievable. In the meantime, I realized that our building was not a small employer. And I began to suspect that even in politics and administration, it was not entirely unknown that not everything was above board here, but that with such a large organization, people preferred to look the other way as long as everything looked legal on paper and tax revenues were flowing.

It was a mild August morning, with rain forecast for the weekend, but today there were only a few clouds. When we got out of the car, six more people were waiting for us. Next to René, ‘The Punisher’, stood five women in orange work overalls and barefoot. What was special, however, were their other accessories: stainless steel collars with attachment rings for chains and similar rings on their wrists and ankles. In addition, they wore black, anatomically shaped latex masks with red edges around the openings for the mouth and eyes, with nostrils. Two of them had a tuft of hair sticking out of another opening at the back. The zippers on the back went down to below the collars, and without unzipping them, the masks could not be removed. A two-digit number was printed on the forehead of each mask.