Trading Stocks for Bonds

Markham approved. Linsey was looking better already. He always felt a naked woman looked so much tidier when her hands are neatly held behind her back.

"Clamps?" Cormack suggested to his boss, already reaching into the suitcase. Markham looked quickly at Linsey's neat shapely breasts, her nipples small yet prominent, and slightly upturned. He nodded his agreement.

With Cormack standing behind her, Linsey didn't seen the clamps approaching. She screamed at the sudden shock, like a dog having its tail stepped on. Embraced in Cormack's bear hug she was powerless to resist as her other nipple was clamped. An arc of chain was left dangling between them. His job done, Cormack picked up Linsey's orderly pile of clothing and jewelry and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

This girl had never worn nipple clamps before, Markham suspected, as Linsey hopped around the room, squealing, squirming and swearing. The pain of the clamps made her forget her nakedness and bondage. Never before bound or nipple-clamped, he surmised. He reckoned he had enough experience to be a good judge of such things.

Linsey was desperate to stop the pain in her tortured nipples. She knelt down on the carpet and tried to dislodge the nipple clamps with the edge of Markham's antique desk. At first Markham laughed as the steel clamps rattled against the polished teak, then he saw the damage she was doing.

"Stop that, Miss Altmell!" He commanded. Linsey obeyed, feeling guilty about damaging an expensive piece of furniture. She stood up and prowled the room, tugging on her tied wrists and shaking her breasts in the vain hope of dislodging the nipple clamps. It looked like she was wrestling with an invisible opponent, Markham mused. He never doubted that Cormack's rope-work was secure, so he left her to pace around the boardroom like a caged tigress, while he kept an eye on the street below.

Even though Linsey heard the door locking when Cormack left, she went to the door and yanked on the handle in the vain hope that it might open. Naked or not, she was prepared to run at the first opportunity. Markham didn't turn around to look at her, not even as she cursed and rattled the handle several more times.

Then she noticed a phone on a low bookshelf and backed herself up to it, while Markham looked out of the window. She lifted the receiver off the hook with her bound hands and dialled what she hoped was 9112 for emergency services.

"What do you want from me, Mr. Markham?" she yelled out across the room. "Please don't rape me, I'm begging you!"

Markham turned around, somewhat surprised at Linsey's outburst. "I'm not going to rape you, Miss Altmell, at least not tonight. I already told you, you're going to be a bonded whore. We'll be leaving Hitcham Tower within half an hour and driving to my estate in Hampshire! He tutted at how little attention she had paid to his previous speech. Such lapses of memory would be severely dealt with once her training commenced.

Linsey left the handset off the hook hoping that Markham would continue to incriminate himself to the emergency operators. She glanced at the four wall clocks: New York, two o'clock, Frankfurt eight o'clock, four in the morning in Tokyo, while here in London it was seven o'clock exactly. John, her boyfriend said earlier he'd collect her at seven on the dot. The thought of him pulling up outside at the same time as the police arrived made her tremble in delicious anticipation of victory.

The old man and his latest acquisition stood side-by-side, both staring out the window at the street below, both waiting and watching. Linsey's optimism was as great as the old man's smugness. Markham looked across at his latest acquisition and smiled. The combination of high heels and tied hands had given her an excellent posture. He tenderly pulled her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear just as she would have done if her hands were not tied. He wanted to see that slim neck again anticipating how exquisite it would be when locked in one of his collars. Linsey was a natural submissive and slave, he was increasingly sure of it, even if she wasn't.

A hundred feet below them, with his usual impeccable timing John pulled up in his silver BMW M3. Linsey whimpered his name, calling quietly towards him as she saw the driver's door open. She knew from habit that John would go into reception to check with the desk supervisor. Then the supervisor would call her extension to say her boyfriend had arrived.

She could not have expected what happened a moment later when her nightmare went from bad to worse. John had barely stepped out of his car when a woman exited the building and approached him. He and the woman kissed briefly but affectionately, then they got in the car and drove off. Linsey watched in stunned disbelief as the BMW idled impatiently at a nearby red light. As the light changed to green the car turned right in a squealing, rubber-burning skid, attracting the disapproving glances of passers-by.

What really confused Linsey was that even with a distance of ten floors between them, the woman, especially with her long dark hair, looked remarkably similar to herself. She was an imposter, Linsey realized.

"You see, Miss Altmell. He doesn't love you. He doesn't mind who gets in his car." Markham joked.

Linsey collapsed to the Wilton carpet in despair, kneeling on her calves, bent forward and sobbing wildly. "He loves me," she sobbed "I know he loves me!"

Markham grinned, sensing that Linsey's transition was well under way. He stroked the top of her head, tidying her hair, and enjoying its silky softness. "Come come now Miss Altmell, it's all over. What is it your generation is so fond of saying? Get over it! You should think of your new life now."

Cormack returned to the office. He immediately went to the phone and replaced the handset. Then he bent down and plugged its cable into the wall socket.

"Everything okay?" Markham asked him.

"Perfect!" Cormack replied, "I told the team leader to call you."

Seconds later the phone rang. Cormack touched the hands-free button.

"Sir?" a voice enquired from the phone's speaker.

"Go ahead. What's happening?" Markham called out from across the room.

In measured tones, the voice gave his report. "Everything has gone to plan Mr. Markham. The boyfriend has been drugged and won't wake until at least five a.m. We've put traces of Ms Altmell's blood in the boot of his car with fibres from her most recent clothing. An Internet ticket to Thailand has been purchase using his credit card. The security recordings of Ms Altmell leaving the building on March 21st will be edited into today's security footage, ready for the morning archiving."

"Excellent work, Harry. Have a great weekend!" Markham shouted cheerily as the call ended.

Linsey heard it all, just as Markham intended she should. She was open-mouthed with shock. "Oh my God... it wasn't John in the car. You're framing him for my murder!"

"That's right Miss Altmell. There will be witnesses who remember the car arriving and your getting into it. The burning rubber was a nice touch don't you think? It'll help cement the witnesses' memories. Your boyfriend will have no alibi, and will be fighting against strong circumstantial evidence. He'll be jailed for your murder, of that I am certain."

"Why John? What's he done? I was the one who lost the damn money!" Linsey said, choking back her tears.

Markham had waited patiently to deliver his coupe de grace. "Miss Altmell. We all know that when somebody loses money on the markets, somebody, somewhere gains. John gave you insider tips, didn't he? But they kept going wrong, didn't they? While you were buying, he and his associates were selling. When you were off-loading shares at the bottom of the market, he and his customers were buying. He's been using you Linsey. Your relationship has been a fraud enabling him to put millions in his bank account. Now both of you shall be punished."

Linsey hung her head and started to sob. "Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!"

Markham smiled, delighted that she now hated someone else even more than him. She slumped from the chair onto the carpet, wanting to hide her humiliation. With her wayward hair covering her face, she almost succeeded.

"Tie her up, Cormack." Ranulph Markham commanded imperiously.

Linsey, in her despair, was already hunched over on the floor in exactly the right position for Cormack to commence his work. He took the first rope, wrapped it several times above and below her breasts and cinched her elbows behind her. Markham took up a position standing directly in front of Linsey's kneeling body. She tried to look up to him but it seemed a long way up; it was easier to look at his immaculately creased trousers and highly polished shoes.

Cormack continued to apply his ropes, wrapping, tugging and knotting, with the unfaltering precision of a craftsman. Linsey's only protest was the occasional 'ouch' as the ropes nipped at her flesh. Any thoughts of escape evaporated when Cormack started binding her ankles together, the ropes catching the instep of her high heels binding her shoes to her.

Cormack's fingers burrowed into the folds of her sex, but didn't linger. Moments later his hand returned with a small vibrator that he pushed deep inside her. A little wire with a switchbox trailed out of it, enabling him to turn the thing on or off when required. Then he continued fixing the ropes, winding one several times around her belly, then up between her legs to nestle deep within her crotch to hold the vibrator in place.

By the time Cormack had finished, Linsey had gone from merely tied to thoroughly trussed; a tightly packaged ball, her breasts squeeezed against her thighs, and her bound ankles connected to her wrists. Rope bit into her flesh in all directions.

All Linsey could think about were Markham's words - chained to a pillar and whipped, her body explored by strangers, the collar, the servitude, training to be a whore!

Cormack offered a neatly folded black silk scarf to her lips. Too tired to protest she opened her mouth to allow him to insert it, which he did with the same firm and impersonal touch that he applied in his rope-work. Then he plastered broad strips of white medical tape across her mouth - several four-inch wide strips on top of each other, masking the lower half of her face, and muffling her cries.

"Good girl, Linsey." Markham commented, still standing dominantly above her. He knew how important it was to compliment new slaves on their good behaviour. "Is she moist?" he asked Cormack.

Cormack slipped a hand between her buttocks and tied feet, and fingered her rope-clefted sex. "I'd say so," he confirmed with a smile. "Shouldn't we give her a little reward for being well behaved?"

There was a faintly audible click, then rapid yet gentle vibrations started up deep within Linsey's vagina. She couldn't prevent herself from shivering and squirming in response to the mechanical invader. The men chuckled.

It was time for the hood - a black satin bag barely large enough to fit over her head. Cormack struggled to make it fit, tugging down on it until the opening was around her neck. He pulled the drawstring, knotting it tight enough for Linsey to feel a choking constriction around her neck.

Cormack's sturdy legs straddled Linsey's ball-tied body like a human crane. He squatted, slipped his hands under her knees and lifted her clean off the carpet. In the same movement he lowered her sideways into the suitcase. He noticed that Linsey was trembling. Was it fear or merely the effect of the vibrator? Most likely both, he thought.

He closed the suitcase's lid, and zipped it up along three sides. The long zipping sound signalled to Linsey that her previous life, career-obsessed, materialistic and stressful was ending, and a new life of sexual slavery was about to begin.

Ranulph Markham was right. The Rolls-Royce did indeed have a smooth ride. It was perfectly evident even if you happen to be tied up in the boot.

Several weeks later Linsey could confirm Ranulph Markham was right about everything else too. Thhe whippings, the training, the bondage, the torments and humiliations were exactly as he described on that fateful evening in the boardroom. Now there was only one thing on the whore linsey's mind - whether Markham would keep her or sell her. She desperately hoped she could stay.

... although these characters appear later in my other stories.