Chapter 2

After the phone call with Ingrams HQ was done, April decided to have a beer in the pub, to celebrate. She’d been there every evening after work and this evening, as she appeared and took a seat, Bernie glanced over at her, didn’t even blink, and just got her a pint of cider and placed it in front of her.

April was very pleased. She was a regular!

“You look happy?” inquired Bernie, and he wiped down the bar, glancing around. There more people than usual, but it was still not exactly crowded.

“A friend was just found back home. She’d been missing for a while – kidnapped or something,” she said, as she took a long sip.

Bernie stopped wiping and stared at her. “For real? Kidnapped?

“Something like that,” said April, wishing she’d not said anything.

“Wow, miss April. You guys out there live dangerously,” said Bernie, as he returned to his wiping. “I expect you’ve been on the dog all day, no doubt,” he said conversationally.

“The ... dog?” asked April quizzically, putting down her glass.

“Dog and bone. Cockney rhyming slang,” answered Bernie.

April just arched an eyebrow at him. She’d found this worked well to get explanations when the language let her down.

“There’s this church, right? In east London. In Bow. Bromley by Bow, in fact. Anyway, it has this big old bell in it. When they ring the bell, if you were born in within hearing distance of the Bow Bell, then you are a true cockney. See, it’s east London right? Where all the docks and stuff were, on the Thames Estuary. They had a ton of people show up on the ships there, all of who spoke different languages. So all these Johnny foreigner types would wander the markets and sit in the pubs and jabber away in their lingo, and no one could understand them. They all spoke English, of course, but could talk about people and stuff and no one would understand them. But your English boy, well, he couldn’t say anything because he only spoke English and everyone understood that. So they came up with a way of using English that you’d understand only if you were local, right? Sort of like that Pig Latin thing, but a bit cleverer.

“So the idea is that if you want to use a word, you use a two-word phrase where the second word rhymes with the word you intend to say. So, Dog and Bone – Phone, right? Whistle and Flute – suit. Apples and pairs – stairs. Trouble and Strife – wife. You get it?”

April nodded, enthralled.

“Often though, it’s abbreviated to one word – the first word of the two-word phrase. So, you’d say ‘the trouble is on the dog - you want me to say you ain’t here?’ And that means the wife is on the phone. You get it?”

“Yeah. Sounds complicated though? Isn’t there a lot of it to remember?”

“Can be. It’s a living language, though. New stuff being added to it all the time. So you could ask for a pint of Britneys, meaning Britney Spears, beers. You have to be fluent in it though, to use it a lot. You spend any time in the east end and it comes thick and fast. I am generally left working out what the word was three sentences ago. Once you know the trick you can often work it out from context but still, it’s very uniquely London.”

A customer ambled up to the bar and Bernie wandered off to serve them, and then April got hit on.

It had happened to her the world over. In a bar, alone, nicely dressed, having a drink and not obviously with someone, given time, she’d get hit on.

This time it was a local – a young lad, obviously put up to it by his friends, at a table in the corner, who were doing their best not to show they were watching intently. She’d seen them in the bar before, and obviously they’d been cajoling each other, in an attempt to muster up the courage to actually approach her.

The bravado the youth showed was endearing, as was the amazingly inventive bullshit he produced. April judged the boy to be in his early twenties, certainly not more than twenty-four.

He introduced himself as ‘James, the Duke of Chelsea, ‘ and he was just about to inherit his title, but he was put out ‘to the world’ as he put it, by his father, to learn about the world, before the title was bestowed on him. He was wondering, as April was obviously a woman from ‘the great country’, if she’d have a drink with him and discuss the issues of the day.

It was pure bullshit and quite eloquently delivered, if lacking a bit because the gentleman doing it was too young and didn’t believe a word of it himself. April didn’t know if she should be offended or impressed. She glanced at Bernie - while “James” was extolling the virtues of the English pint - who shook his head and rolled his eyes, dramatically.

One part of the pitch had had April in genuine pearls of laughter. James, at one point, while discussing why one beer was better than another, dropped into the conversation, “Well, of course, this beer is the dog’s bollocks.”

April had had to stop him right there, and inquire, incredulously, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“It’s the dog’s bollocks. You know. Bloody awesome.”

“Dogs ... bollocks, are awesome?”

“Well, most bloke dogs seem to think so. They seem to be licking them enough. They must be great to get so much attention?”

It was all done so matter-of-factly that April couldn’t help bursting into laughter. Every day she learned some new phrase that made her laugh. She couldn’t wait to drop that into conversation once she got back to the US.

In the end, April decided if bullshit was the order of the day, she’d drop some out there herself. When she could get a word in edgeways, she accepted his offer of a drink, but then during conversation, casually mentioned that she was a professional psychologist, on sabbatical from the University of Pennsylvania, doing a post doctorial study in Domination and Submission, and James seemed like a perfect candidate to interviewed on the subject? She kept pressing him, mentioning that most of the interviews were done while handcuffed, and James, being a man of the world and all, would have no issues with that, surely? When she started describing some of the more intimate things they would do, with him wearing sensors, so she could tell exactly when to stop swatting him with the riding cane, before the pain got too much, he went a bit green, and then announced that while it was lovely to meet her, he had to get back to his friends, or “they’d run out of things to talk about.”

All in all, it was a bit of silly fun, and April felt even good heading to bed – alone. She was very enthusiastic about finding the answers Rachael would need to move on, and was so optimistic she even hoped it would be sunny the next day.

The next day was a busy one. She had the call in the morning, the people in the UK office making sure she knew the news of the night before, and then she tasked them with finding her a suitable date for Rachael. By definition, it would have to be some kind of professional. Someone with skills, who could rock her world. Someone she could respond to, who was not only skilled in the bedroom, but could flatter her in the way she needed. Someone who would understand this was a one-time thing, and she was not a vulnerable lost little rich bitch for them to hone in on. She knew she’d have to make that very clear up front, with equally clear consequences for not following the instructions. Not just because that was the right thing to do, but also because April quite liked Rachael. She wanted to do right be her.

April just worried that if it was all too pat – if she got someone too accomplished, Rachael might put two and two together and get four, underlined and in bold. The trick was to make it as believable as possible. That’s what Rachael needed, even though she wasn’t aware of it. Her ego had taken a beating and she needed rebuilding. It wouldn’t take much; Rachael wasn’t someone who built their own sense of self-worth on top of attention from others – but still, the blow she’d taken would be taking its toll and this was one way to buttress up the walls, so to speak.

The fact that she was manipulating Rachael and her situation didn’t bother April at all. This is what she was employed to do, and she was very good at it. The circular nature of the logic – that because she was employed to do it, and because she was good at it, that that somehow made what she was doing right, didn’t occur to her at all.

She set Mark and his team to finding a somewhat local player she could co-opt to her means. And then April got her day of work out of the way.

She made arrangements to stop by the Ingrams office in Camden to do some research after work. She had a work laptop, but the wifi at the pub was slow and unstable at best, not to mention insecure.

She spent the evening researching the people who had “possession” of Lee Hicks. They were a couple in the Bath area, in the county of Somerset. It was way out west, near a city called Bristol. It would take a bit of traveling; she’d have allow a full day to get there.

They had a website – quite amateur, she noticed. Jodi and Kevin Dinty. Dinty. What a name. Might even be real. She asked the research team to look into them. They offered ‘full corrective services’, and there were a bunch of pictures stolen from various places on the web on their website. She sighed. Domination and submission was not an area April enjoyed very much, but she’d do what was needed.

She made a reservation on the website, using their primitive system. At least she didn’t have to put her credit card into the website – she’d have balked at that. They asked for cash ‘if at all possible’, which also made the purely amateur nature of the services more apparent.

If April had to guess, they were a couple who had some fantasies, and had decided to go for it. They probably didn’t have that many people actually responding, and almost certainly had no training in the area. They were in it for the kicks more than anything. Being a good Dom required imagination and sophistication, and the ability to judge what a sub needed, without the sub even telling them. It was a deep and lifelong study, and April severely doubted they had this kind of background. More than likely they’d attended a few BDSM gatherings and got all excited about it and then decided to have a side business, in much the same way people tended to get excited over tarot card readings. It doesn’t require any qualification to believe you have some kind of gift, and then start spreading that ‘gift’ around the place.

But then, they had Major Lee Hicks, late of the Grenadier Guards, now professional submissive. There had to be something about them special.

Either way, in two days, she’d find out.

The two days dragged. She had lunch with Rachael, and assured her she was on the case, and she’d had to take a day off to go research some things. Rachael was busy preparing for another board meeting, expecting to be savaged for her long term vision again, and was at least somewhat distracted.

Eventually April drove across to the West Country. It was actually a nice day, so she had the top down, her hair streaming out behind her in the wind. She had some of the usual devices with her – Taser and mace, just in case. But she mostly trusted her training and ability. The single day the Ingrams people had had to research the couple didn’t turn up much, at least nothing she hadn’t already suspected. They were exactly as they appeared to be. He was an accountant, she was a makeup sales lady – the kind who held parties where they made up the people who attended and then attempted to sell them that makeup. They were childless, had a mortgage on a semidetached house in Trowbridge, near Bath, had two four year old cars and were, in fact, entirely unremarkable in every way, apart from their extra-curricular activities in the sexual domination area. And even then, there was nothing that remarkable about them. Certainly there was nothing they appeared to offer that was out of the ordinary. April had met people across the world who were imaginative to the nth degree in terms of domination and humiliation – these two looked like they’d read 50 Shades of Grey and thought they could turn it into some kind of exciting side business, with zero ability or experience.

She pulled up to the house – the house next door had plastic kids toys strewn across the garden – and she sighed again. She made a quick call to the Ingrams operation center, to let them know she was going in, set her phone to record everything and then rang the doorbell.

The door was answered by Jodi. She was obviously prepared, although she answered the door with just her head around the door itself, the rest of her body hidden.

“Oh dear, right on time. Come on it. Cup of tea?” she inquired. As April walked in, she noticed that Jodi was in full regalia – black leather corset, black stockings, black long gloves, high heels, the whole deal. Basically exactly what you’d get if you put in “Dominatrix” into Google images and looked at the first image.

The house was cluttered, and the living room smelled faintly of mildew. April accepted the cup of tea, marveling at how this couple had managed to make a domination session so very British in approach. Jodi actually apologized for not having herbal tea, quite missing the point of the whole experience.

While she was making the tea, Jodi kept up a whole stream of conversation from the kitchen, and then apologized for her husband not being present, because ‘the overtime right now is too juicy to give up. You know how it is, with having to make ends meet.’

It was entirely laughable, and April had to restrain herself from bursting out several times.

Eventually Jodi came back in the room with a mug of milky tea and she sat down, opposite April and said, “Let’s take a look at you, dear?”

April had the tea half way to her mouth, and just looked at Jodi, who suddenly transformed and slammed her hand down on the table and screamed, “Now, Bitch!”

April was a little shocked, but did as she was bid, standing and pirouetting.

“Good,” said Jodi, sitting back with a self-satisfied grin on her face. “Bitches like you should know their place, and that place is doing what I tell them to, when I tell them. Do you HEAR me?”

It was all April could do to not laugh, but she kept a straight face as she nodded.

“Rules. You obey. That’s what you are here for and what you are paying for. We will keep this among us today, first session and all. But if we like what we see, you will be invited back and perhaps to some parties. You may be the center of attention but then slags like you enjoy that, don’t you?”

The professional in April noted that this was intoned like a script. Obviously Jodi and her partner had read this somewhere and were attempting to follow it. It was a quite pathetic attempt to get the subject to provide limits, which is why they kept asking if she was along for the ride or not.

“We will not leave marks, today, but you’ll be getting the discipline you need, won’t you, bitch? You will address me as Mistress, and nothing else. You won’t touch yourself, you won’t speak unless spoken to, and you will obey all commands without question. You’ll cum when I tell you to, and do whatever you are instructed to do. If not, you’ll get some of this.”

She dipped down and picked up a riding crop, flexed it and then swished it around a bit, for effect.

April had to look down, just to avoid smirking. Jodi took that as her due, her sub showing her correct deference.

“Now, restraints. We can use the real thing – handcuffs, or just go with duct tape. We prefer the duct tape, since it doesn’t leave bruises. I would suggest we go with that. Do you have a preference, slut?”

April also preferred the duct tape, since she knew exactly how to get out of a duct tape restraint.

“Duct tape,” she said, adding, “mistress”, as a throw away afterthought. Jodi looked at her sharply, as though debating whether to discipline her or not.

“Get up, and take off your jacket and most of your clothes. Leave your knickers and bra on, yank bitch.”

The temptation to take the birch away from Jodi and smash it over her head was quite overwhelming, but April had a job to do. She needed to see Lee and talk to him, and she wasn’t going to get that by resisting, so she did as she was told.

Standing almost naked in front of Jodi, she posed with her hands on her hips, staring directly at Jodi, who was literally salivating at her body. Eyeing her, Jodi unconsciously caressed her breast and licked her lips.

“Oh very nice. Very nice indeed. Kev is going to LOVE this,” she said, twice.

She glanced at the clock. “And he’s going to be home any minute, in fact.”

She gestured at April to turn around and then roughly grabbed her hands and once they were together behind her back, she roughly duct taped them. No finesse; no cross tape to solidify the restraint. Which was good, if she needed to get out fast.

“Now, on your knees.”

Again, April had to fight the impulse to put Jodi in her place, but went along with it. Evidently it wasn’t fast enough because Jodi suddenly stood and smacked April across the back with the crop, with hard fast motion.

It stung. It stung a lot. And what’s more, two more swipes came down, hurting even more. April had never been into pain as a stimulant, and her fight or flight impulse became even stronger, leaning towards the fight version.

She looked up at Jodi, standing over her, brandishing her crop and breathing heavily. She could smell the arousal from the beating she’d just delivered.

Apparently that was enough to set Jodi off again.

“Did I say you could look at me, whore? Did I? You need to learn the rules, slut.”

And with that, she swatted April again, this time moving so she could bring the crop down over the back of her knees and calves. The pain was huge and April gasped.

“Good, bitch, that’s what I want to hear.” The beating didn’t stop at one or two hits, but carried on. She could hear Jodi’s breathing increasing, and not just from the effort.

With sudden realization, she understood that Jodi wasn’t in this for the Dominance aspects. She just wanted to hit people and have someone sit there and take it. She was a bully. The worst kind, who couldn’t deal with someone who fought back.

Eventually she stopped and April rolled over, wincing at the pain in her calves. So much for not leaving a mark. Jodi stood over her, grinning at her pain, and then pulled April upright by her hair, showing surprising strength.

“That’s discipline, bitch,” she said, before suddenly plunging her tongue into Aprils mouth. April had no real choice but to acquiesce, and let herself be kissed roughly. The only alternative was to stand up and beat this woman to a pulp, and that wouldn’t get her what she needed to know – the whereabouts of Major Lee Hicks.

Pulling her head off April’s lips, Jodi smiled at her, and then just spat in her face.

“Don’t get used to that, whore. That’s only for when I am satisfied.”

The front door clicked and Jodi turned to look, as her husband, Kevin entered the room.

“Here Babe. Look what I got? A little slut plaything for us. Smile for your master, bitch,” she said, cruelly twisting April’s ear with one hand.

April winced and made a grimace towards Kevin. He was about thirty, somewhat unshaven, almost chinless and quite thin, almost looking emaciated. His suit was too large and his eyes were too big for his skull.

But he devoured April with his eyes, hungrily, and nodded and said, “I’ll get changed. Hmmm.”

As he started for the stairs, he suddenly stopped and said, “You know what? Bring her to the play room. Show her what happens if she doesn’t obey.”

“Oh ... yeah, let’s do that. Come on bitch,” replied Jodi, enthusiastically, prodding April in the back with the handle of her birch.

April walked towards the stairs, following Kevin up. At the top of the stairs, she was directed to a room at the back of the small corridor.

Kevin opened the door and walked in, followed by April, then Jodi.

The room was dark, and Kevin went to the window and pulled back the drapes, revealing a squalid room, with bare wood floors and a large cage along one wall. In the cage was Lee Hicks.

“This is our toy. He’s called Gimp. Isn’t that right Gimp?” snarled Kevin.

Lee was lying on two wooden planks in the cage. It was only four feet tall, so he couldn’t stand. There was a small bucket at one end, from which some pretty evil smells wafted. Another bowl sat next to it, with water in it. Lee was almost naked, wearing a small, very dirty loin cloth, and a large collar with spikes in it, with a chain that was attached to one of the bars of the cage with a padlock.

His body was covered in welts, half healed and half fresh. There were small wounds, which April thought looked like where cigarettes had been put on the raw skin. He was emaciated, his eyes were sunken and blood shot, and his tongue was hanging out and covered with some kind of white scum. One arm had what looked like an infected cut on it, it was swollen and there were blisters along it.

But it was the expression in his eyes when he looked up and saw April that shocked her most. She’d never seen such an expression of misery and dejection on another human being before. Resigned defeat radiated from him, as he looked at her. Then he looked over at Kevin, and the expression changed, right there and then. Fevered affection, the need for validation and approval, hunger for a good word suddenly appeared. April had never seen anything like it before. Something here was very very wrong.

Kevin unlocked the chain with a key hanging on a nail on the wall – more torture, only of the psychological kind, because Lee could see it but never reach it – and unhooked the cage, jerking Lee out.

Lee tried to stand and wobbled and fell over, his legs failing him. Kevin got suddenly angry and said to Jodi, “Give me the paddle, Jodi” and held out his hand.

Lee whimpered and looked up at Kevin with longing in his eyes – April couldn’t decide if it was with desire or dread – or both.

Jodi walked over to the cupboard in the room and opened it, revealing an entire battery of tools of violence – maces, paddles, electric cattle prods, whips, everything was there. No wonder Lee looked like he did, if this was what was being used on him regularly.

Jodi pulled down a paddle that had large metal studs driven into it, and handed it to Kevin with a predatory gleam in her eye. “Give him what he needs, Kev, love,” she whispered, before walking back to April and cruelly grabbing a fist full of her hair and yanking her down back to her knees.

“Watch this, bitch. This could be you.”

And then Kevin beat Lee. Not just once, but repeatedly, striking any part of Lee’s body he could hit. Lee curled up, trying to make the target area as small as possible, but doing nothing else to protect himself. April heard him cry out several times with pain, and something snapped inside herself.

This had gone far enough. These people weren’t sophisticates – there were brutal sadists and they had no idea how to care for anyone. Lee was just a target. They got their jollies from beating someone who didn’t fight back and April couldn’t take it anymore.

Behind her back, she rotated her arms so instead of them being down, with wrists parallel, she turned them so the wrists were along the same axis. It took some doing, because the duct tape didn’t want to let them go that way. She had to do it two or three times, to stretch the tape enough that she could move her wrists in any direction and then just pull one hand out of the larger loop she had made. Jodi didn’t notice, being so intent on watching the beating.

With one fluid movement, she stood up, and as Jodi turned toward her, intent on disciplining her, April slapped her.

It wasn’t just a catfight slap. It was a full on punch level slap. The only difference between a body slamming right hook was the fact that her hand was open and not in a fist. Most people regard a slap as just that, a slap. But a slap with power behind it can rattle someone to the point of insensibility, as April had been taught in her martial arts training.

Jodi flew across the room and collided with the wall, banging her head hard.

“What the fu...” said Kevin, turning towards April and Jodi when he heard the crack of April’s hand connecting with Jodi’s face.

“What the fuck do you think... ?” he exclaimed as he strode towards her, raising the paddle with the intent of striking her.

April responded by dropping to one knee and punching out with a classic karate closed fist straight punch, catching Kevin squarely in the crotch. She wasn’t going for his balls, although that would be nice. She was aiming for a dick punch, and with his momentum towards her, and her punch speed, she got it. Bullseye.

Kevin instantly wooshed out air and folded over. As he did so, April smoothly stood back up, raising one knee to Kevin’s face, as it was on the way down. His nose crunched nicely against her knee, and blood suddenly spurted everywhere.

Kevin jerked back and hit the floor, completely out for the count. Pausing only to make sure he was lying sideways, so the blood from his nose wouldn’t flow back down his air canals and choke him, April turned to Jodi, who was now standing, clutching her face – where a large red welt was starting to appear - and saying, “You hit me? You hit me?” in disbelief, before watching Kevin fall to the ground.

She looked at April wildly, and said, “Why did you hit me? Why did you hit him?”

April snorted and then stepped forward and grabbed a fist full of Jodi’s hair.

“Listen, bitch. Now the shoe is on the other foot. If you don’t want to find yourself in there,” she nodded at the cage, “You’d better tell me what I want to know. Or I’ll play with the cattle prod on your tits. Do you HEAR me?”

Jodi tried to nod, but couldn’t with April holding her, and instead, meekly said, “Yes.”

“Good. Where did you get him?” she gestured at Lee.

“Someone gave him to you. There’s no way a two-bit operation like this could get someone like that. Why does he look at you the way he does? Why are you treating him this way?”

“He’s dying!” Jodi exclaimed. Her face was already starting to swell from the impact of the slap, and one eye was starting to close.

“That’s what they told us. I swear. He’s dying, and this is his dying wish. That’s why we don’t have to worry about marking him. He already has his will all signed.”

“Who is ‘they’?” demanded April, shaking Jodi.

“I don’t know. They answered our ad online, and asked if we wanted a live in sub. We thought it was a joke, but we answered. We had to attend one session with him, at some place down south. Something to do with imprinting or something. Then we could leave with him.”

“He’s not dying, you stupid cunt,” spat April, even more angry now than she had been.

“Either way, he leaves with me. I want details of who you spoke to, and where they took you.”

“I don’t know. We were in a blacked out van. I just know it was close to the sea. There were seagulls. That’s all I know. The email address doesn’t work anymore – we tried to ask if he needed medication, but the email doesn’t work.”

“Why didn’t you just ask him?”

“He can’t answer. He’s a mute.” Jodi was getting more and more frightened by the second.

“No he’s not. Who told you that?” exclaimed April, savagely.

“They did. I swear. He’s never said a word the whole time we’ve had him”, she explained, pathetically, cringing away from April, trying to not get hit again.

April just dropped Jodi disgustedly, pushing her away so she fell on the floor.

She moved over to where Lee was still curled up and crouched over him, not sure how to touch him to not make the fresh wounds Kevin had dealt him worse.

“Lee? Lee? Can you hear me? I’m here to get you out of here. They won’t hurt you anymore. Lee? Can you talk to me?”

Lee uncurled a bit, and his head hesitantly raised, looking at April. She could see him trying to form words, but all he got out was, “nahhhhh...”

“Lee, it’s ok. You don’t have to be afraid any more...”

Finally, Lee got a word out, trying mightily, “No...” then followed up by, “don’t ... hurt ... my ... mast...” and then he suddenly started to spasm.

His whole body convulsed, several times, and foam started to appear from his lips. His eyes rolled, and he reached out to April, trying to hold on to her.

She leaned in, as it was apparent he was trying to say something.

He spasmed again, then managed to get out, “Help ... me”, his eyes imploring her, and then a final larger spasm, and he went limp.

April was horrified. It seemed like some kind of epileptic fit. He was still alive; she could feel him breathing.

She glanced over at Jodi, who was lying on the floor, propped up against the wall, one hand to her face, staring at April and Lee. She looked at April, and saw the expression in her eyes and whimpered, lowering her gaze.

April cursed, and then got up and hurried downstairs, to find her bag and her phone. Pausing only to put her clothes back on, she grabbed her phone and dialed the Ingrams UK office. She hurriedly went through the signal / counter sign and when the operations officer came on the phone, she explained the situation, asking for instructions. April had no idea if she should just call the local hospital, or try to arrange something private through the Ingrams office.