Chapter 2

I awoke abruptly just as the first light of dawn was pouring in through the bedroom window

"I'm in here!" a voice yelled. "Please help me!"

Jumping out of bed, I searched frantically for the ski mask and pulled it back on over my head. I scrambled towards Olivia's bedroom door and fumbled with the lock. She let out an ear-splitting scream as I entered and tried to dodge past me, making a dive for the open doorway. I pounced and wrestled her to the ground but the minx fought with all her might; my hand blazed in pain as she sank her teeth into the flesh and it took all my resolve to pin her body beneath mine.

I stared into her defiant face as she used the last reserves of energy to try to displace me but her strength was no match for my own.

"Is this what you want?" she panted breathlessly. "I'm helpless. I can't stop you doing whatever you want to do."

"What I want is for you to be quiet but seeing as you can't seem to manage that then I guess we'll have to resort to plan B."

As I manhandled her onto the mattress and reached for the rope to restrain her, she renewed her struggles and it took a monumental effort to finally secure her. Suffering several kicks, slaps and scratches in the process, I gagged her with relish and taped her mouth shut.

I ran my injured hand under the tap, watching as a trickle of blood spilled from several small puncture wounds. The application of antiseptic ointment and sticking plaster reduced the pain to a dull ache but did nothing to quell the anger and humiliation of nearly being outwitted by a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl.

The girl's eyes glowered with rage when I checked on her; her arms yanking forcefully against her restraints whilst she muttered indecipherable oaths from behind the gag.

"Enjoy the rest of your sleep," I snapped as I prepared to lock her in once more.

"Fuck you!" she replied, easily discernible through the wadding that filled her mouth.

I clambered back into my bed, deriding myself for my carelessness and realising I couldn't allow myself to be complacent even though the girl seemed so young and helpless. She had more about her than I'd given her credit for but she had played her hand too early; I was now forewarned and would not be fooled again so easily.

It was ten o'clock before I awoke a second time and the house was eerily quiet. I filled the kettle with water and set it to boil before tentatively approaching the locked door as though some vicious predator lay caged behind it. I opened the door and peered carefully around the jamb, expecting to be attacked at any instant.

Olivia lay sleeping peacefully on her back, all her ferocity thankfully suspended. I sat beside her and stared into the serene visage, imagining what her life was really like, and not really blaming her for having the resourcefulness to try and escape. I had violently dragged her away from her family and it was clearly wishful thinking to expect her cooperation.

Leaving the door ajar, I returned to the kitchen and brewed myself a mug of tea then popped two rounds of bread into the toaster. I'd just smeared a generous coating of jam over the slices when I heard the mewling from Olivia's room as the smell of breakfast awakened her.

"Are we going to be cooperative today?" I asked hopefully, to which she glared back at me.

I grasped the edge of the tape and ripped it sharply free. It caused a sharp intake of breath from the girl as her skin clung to the adhesive coating. Tears flooded her eyes with the pain of the tape's removal but compared to the damage inflicted to my hand, I felt little sympathy. She eventually forced the wadding out with her tongue and swore at me.

"Bastard! That fucking well hurt."

"Good. It serves you right after this morning's little escapade."

"Go to hell."

"Keep a civil tongue in your head or I'll put this back in," I threatened, picking up the cloth gag and searching around for the roll of duct tape.

She fell mute and my relief was profound.

"I can make you some toast if you want," I offered, "or there's cornflakes."

"Toast," she hissed.

"Please," I reminded her.

"Please," she responded acerbically.

"Do you drink tea?" I asked. She nodded imperceptibly in response.

As I stood up to leave, she shook her arms and legs. "Untie me," she demanded.

I shook my head and left to prepare her first breakfast in captivity.

Sitting beside her on the bed, I made her suffer the indignity of having the toast broken up and fed to her, piece by piece. She drank the tea through a straw with me holding the cup, suffering her malevolent stares.

"New ground rules," I told her. "Disobedience brings punishment. You took advantage of me and it won't happen again. Don't make this any harder than it needs to be."

"What the fuck does it matter?" she whimpered. "You're not going to let me go, even if you do get the money."

"It doesn't matter what you believe. I spoke the truth when I said that I wasn't going to hurt you. I may be a kidnapper but I'm not a murderer."

With breakfast complete, I addressed a matter that required my urgent attention. The hire car needed returning to Avis. I informed Olivia that I'd be leaving her alone for a few hours whilst I performed some errands. Her expression told me that despite her hostility, the thought of being left alone in the house, unable to move, did not thrill her in the slightest.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," I reassured her before locking the bedroom door and proceeding to the garage.

I unloaded the portable traffic signals, then carefully searched every inch of the vehicle for anything incriminating. When the car was restored to the same state as when I collected it, I drove away down the lane and headed into the centre of High Wycombe. I topped up the tank at a supermarket filling station then pulled onto the forecourt of the rental office.

I'd hired it using a forged driver's licence and cloned credit card furnished from a dubious contact from my past. Even if the police obtained a description of the vehicle, it would provide then little in the way of useful leads. I'd never been fingerprinted, so not even a forensic examination would reveal my identity.

I walked into the city centre and entered a Tesco hypermarket. I pushed a trolley around the aisles, replenishing my stocks of food and selecting a few items for Olivia. I bought her several changes of underwear, three t-shirts, a pair of jeans and some medium length skirts having estimated her size earlier on. I also bought some feminine hygiene products in case she started with her period, something I'd overlooked previously.

After ordering a taxi using the courtesy phone, the driver was soon dropping me at the end of the lane leading to the farmhouse. I staggered up the rutted track, weighted down by the shopping bags, and was happy to reach the comfort of home. Dropping the bags on the kitchen table, I followed the faint sound of sobbing echoing down the hallway. With the mask back in place, I sat beside the distraught teen and attempted to restore calm. Annoyed to have me discover her moment of weakness, Olivia blinked her eyes to clear her vision then glowered in my direction.

"I'm back," I reassured her. "I shouldn't need to go out again."

She sniffed as she stared into my disguised features.

"It's okay to be scared," I told her. "It's only natural. I'm going to do my best to look after you until your dad finds the money."

"I don't like being left alone. The house makes funny noises."

"It's just the wind. There's nothing to worry about. I bought you some stuff at the supermarket. Some clean undies and a change of clothes. Do you want to get out of your uniform?"

"I bet you'd like to see that," she growled sarcastically.

I returned to the kitchen, gathered up my purchases and stacked them on top of a laundry hamper in the bathroom. Finally, I untied her hands and feet and then left her to get changed.

She emerged wearing a denim skirt and a thin t-shirt that clung tightly to her upper body, accentuating the modest endowment of her breasts. I quickly tied her back down to the bed and then started preparing dinner.

I heated a couple of frozen curries in the oven and carried them into the bedroom on a tray, complete with plastic cutlery. I untied her wrists and we ate in silence, her quiet composure of the previous day having returned.

"Feeling better now?" I asked.

She nodded and replied. "Thanks for the clothes."

"I'm used to buying them for my girlfriends. After a while, you learn to judge the right size and style."

She stared at me, doubtless trying to fathom my intentions

"I bought some Coke if you'd like some."

I unscrewed the top of a family-sized bottle and poured a generous quantity for the both of us into two travel cups.

To pass away the evening, Olivia and I played a couple of games of Scrabble. Much to my surprise, she beat me both times. When the time came to retire, I offered her a cup of hot chocolate which she eagerly accepted. She sipped it slowly, blowing over the surface repeatedly until it was sufficiently cool to drink. I kept my distance, just in case she decided to do something silly.

When she'd finished, I slipped a rope around her wrist and quickly secured it to the bedpost. I gave her a stern look to inform her that this was not negotiable and she reluctantly allowed me to bind her other wrist.

"I'll keep quiet," she told me as I reached for the gag. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm going to leave the door open and if I hear so much as a peep then I'll gag you and leave it in all day tomorrow," I threatened.

She scowled but maintained her silence. I sat with her until she drifted off to sleep, helped along by the nitrazepam that I'd crushed and mixed into the chocolate. I removed the mask and sat by her side, watching her at peace and admiring her trim figure bound to the bed. She reminded me of a girl that I knew in my youth. My mind wandered back to happier times twenty-five years previously.

I'd just turned eighteen and it was the summer holidays. All my exams were behind me and I had six weeks to waste before going away to university in September. With predicted straight 'A' grades in all my subjects, I'd secured an unconditional offer to read Maths at Imperial College, London.

I lived with my parents in a large semi-detached house in a quiet suburb of Reading. My bedroom was at the rear of the house and overlooked the large rear garden and those of the two adjacent properties. A retired stockbroker and his wife lived to one side of us whilst to the other side there resided a professional couple with a teenage daughter.

The girl, Rebecca, had recently taken to sunbathing in her garden, dressed only in a skimpy bikini. I would often observe her discreetly from my bedroom window, watching as she reclined on the sun bed reading a fashion magazine and listening to her portable cassette player.

We'd played together often as children but once in our teens we'd occupied separate universes. Whenever we met in the street, we'd acknowledge each other with a smile and a wave, but seemed to find little in common to talk about.

My fondest memory was of some of the games that we played as youngsters. My favourite was one called 'tying up' where one of us would play the kidnapper and the other their helpless victim. We'd take it in turns using cotton handkerchiefs to bind the wrists and ankles of the other, sometimes use a third hankie as a makeshift gag.

Rebecca didn't like the gag but the eleven-year-old would occasionally indulge me and I'd secretly admire her restrained body, confused by the flush of excitement that swept over my body. It was a fixation that would follow me throughout later life.

My bedroom at that time had a very stiff lock and during one of our 'sessions', I suddenly discovered that I was unable to open the door. I panicked and banged on the wood with my fists, eventually drawing my mother from downstairs. The embarrassment of locking myself in my own bedroom paled into insignificance compared to having to explain why Rebecca was tied up on my bed. That was the last time we played that particular game. Over the course of the next year, as Rebecca moved into high school, we saw less and less of each other.

With the discovery of her sunbathing habits, the curvaceous, blonde sixteen-year-old had begun to feature prominently in my dreams. At night, I'd often stroke myself under the sheets imagining what we could do together. In truth, I had only the vaguest idea what went on between the sexes. I was an only child and attended a local grammar school for boys that provided only the most perfunctory explanation of human sexuality. The occasional dirty magazine that passed around the sixth-form common room yielded little useful knowledge, other than pictorially revealing the finer details of female anatomy and teasing with the obviously fictitious accounts that littered the letters page.

I'd often touch myself as I watched Rebecca sprawled semi-naked on the back lawn, darting back behind the cover of the curtain whenever she stirred and looked up in the direction of my window. My mind would secretly remove the remainder of her clothes and I'd masturbate as I imagined her in a revealing pose such as the ones I'd seen in the girlie magazines.

The day that everything changed, my parents had driven over to visit an ageing aunt that was suffering from the after-effects of a nasty fall. Grateful to be spared from the ordeal of having to accompany them, I was dismayed when my father left me the arduous job of tidying the garage and sorting through the mass of junk accumulated within. Deprived of the opportunity to spy on my pretty neighbour, I reluctantly set about the task, hoping to complete it quickly so that I could return to my sanctum and indulge my fantasies.

During the afternoon, as the work dragged on, I sensed movement behind me and turned to see Rebecca hovering in the doorway, leaning casually against the jamb. She wore nothing but a bikini plus a pair of cheap flip-flops on her feet.