Destined for Algeria Ch. 18

Her thumb swiped the screen and selected messages to ring her husband as Ally rocked the suspension by exiting the motorhome.

He walked across the courtyard, around the top of the walls of the dugout dungeon where he saw Tess's gaze follow him through the gates of the old ammunition store.

Met by an excited girl at the bottom of the narrow steps, the two lovers embraced each other in a very fun-loving way.

"I've got a surprise for you." He said.

"Those two padlocks in your hand, by any chance?" she pointed out, stating the obvious.

"Nearly." He said, swapping sides with her and purposely crashing his shoulder blades against the back wall to protect her arms, which were holding on lower down behind him.

Tess released her hug and reached up towards the rings set into the brickwork.

Gripping both single ends of the chain links in her fingers, she pinned Ally against the wall and shared the taste of her freshly cleaned teeth with a pleasant kiss.

Being careful not to lift her anywhere near the metal waist belt, he wrapped his arms around her hips and picked her up off the floor.

Letting go of the chain links in the wall, she allowed him to turn her around and rest her back against the wall.

"I'm assuming the builders are coming today." She asked.

"Yes. So we haven't got long to try these rings out for size."

"Should we wait until tonight then?" she suggested, feeling her feet back on the ground again.

"No." Ally replied, looking down and taking hold of her left wrist. "That's the surprise."

Tess surrendered her limb to his control and watched him thread the open padlock through the welded ring of her cuff.

Her heart fluttered with a silent intake of breath as he raised her arm up towards the chain link hanging through the cement in the wall.

Without pulling down, the weight of her arm hanging from the manacle proved sufficient to confirm its security once he'd snapped the spring loaded shackle of the lock shut.

Now, even with her other arm still free, without the key to this lock there would be no escaping an eternity of its entrapment.

Curiously, she tried gently stroking his face to see if she could distract his deviant mind into delaying him from locking her other wrist but she couldn't. If anything, it made it easier for him to take possession of her free wrist and elevate it against the wall, up above her shoulder where the opposing ring in the brickwork awaited the padlock's hasp.

Not only did the sight and posture of her manacled wrists send her mind into a frenzy, but the elevated position of her arms raised the bottom of her shirt, further exposing her nakedness and enhancing her feeling of vulnerability.

He pressed himself against her and lifted her shirt with both hands, high enough to be able to fondle her breasts.

"Spread your legs." He ordered.

Tess shuffled her feet apart and lowered her body, creating the effect of raising her arms.

"Further." Ally said, bending down to her right ankle and rotating the cuff so that the chain hung from the outside of her leg rather than the inside.

She shuffled a little more, pulling slightly further down from her wrists but not yet enough to cause concern.

With the insides of her ankles now spaced three feet apart, the lower chains hanging through the wall, when pulled, overlapped the excess of her leg cuff chains by plenty.

"Move them back in, a little bit."

Without locking them, Ally wanted to see how much freedom she would have if the ends of the wall chains were attached to the ends of her ankle cuff chains.

With the insides of her feet spaced at just wider than shoulder width apart, Ally had his answer.

"The surprise by the way, is that me and Ingrid are taking a road trip today to drop her off at the Norwegian embassy." Ally held off at the end of his sentence to kiss her lips. "Do you want to come with us or do you want to stay here like this?" he ridiculously offered.

Tess laughed at the impracticality of his suggestion. "Stay here with all these builders?"

"I know." Ally laughed bowing his head to kiss her through her hair. "Which means that I'm going to have to prep the motorhome and get us ready. Can I trust you to behave down here on your own?"

"Very funny." She said talking to his back once he turned to walk away. "Hey, wait!" By kicking her right leg across her front, she twisted her body and looked up at her left wrist, pointlessly pulling against it in a vain attempt to bring it closer. "What do you mean, taking her to the embassy?"

"Exactly that." He said, turning sideways to ascend the narrow steps. "Great news eh?"

The movement of Ingrid's silhouette at the top of the narrow stairs, prompted Ally to step back and allow her the right of way to come down. He watched her fingers inspecting the standard of brickwork whilst forced sideways to face the wall when descending. With a quick nod of approval and friendly smile at the bottom, she walked passed Ally, across the floor towards Tess, who stood facing her, chained to the back wall.

"Wow, you look tempting." Ingrid said, keeping up the pleasantry's. "I'll bet you didn't put up much of a fight either did you?" Her hand reached up and grasped one of the snug fitting cuffs to test its proximity from the wall. "I must say, if these shackles had locks instead of being riveted so irremovably around your wrists, I might be tempted to have a go myself. I quite fancy trying a bit of damsel in distress foreplay."

"I'm sure something could be arranged with ropes if you really wanted to swap places." Tess smirked.

Ignoring Tess's comment, Ingrid's hand, lowered to the exposed pink lips between Tess's legs and stroked her with the most feathery of touches to remind her of her vulnerability. "You two think you're going to have so much fun with me out of the picture, don't you?"

"Excuse me." Ally interrupted, "Hands off. Women have been stoned to death for less than that." He smiled before sidestepping up the stairs, to look down from above. On his way up, he stopped and pushed back between the two walls, frowning at the error in judgement on behalf of the project manager Don, who'd obviously not taken the thickness of the bricks into account when overseeing the steps part of the dig.

Now alone, Ingrid asked Tess, "Did he not tell you that I'm going away today?"

"Yes. He told me that we're going on a road trip."

"You too?" Ingrid asked Tess, relieved to hear that she would be coming along. "It's a one day drive each way, so we'll be sleeping in the van tonight I think."

Tess transferred the weight from one foot to the other a couple of times to familiarise herself with her options ahead of Ingrid's approaching hand.

Now a little less fearful of her fate after learning Tess would be accompanying them, Ingrid rubbed her fingers over the tied back hair on top of Tess's head, from front to rear, "I think I might miss you." She said, coming across as a close friend. She figured if she had any chance of surviving this trip, she needed to keep Tess on her side.

"Yea-right!" Tess spluttered.

"No, I mean it. I'd like to stay and help your relationship flourish. That man loves you more than he realises. You are going to be so well cared for by him, and I'm sure you flaunting your sexually submissive appeal, will be his downfall when you're married." Ingrid rested her hands on Tess's shoulders and looked into her eyes. "He'll do absolutely anything for you. So to win him over, all you have to do is keep him on the edge of temptation by being in his chains and acting the part."

"The part?" Tess questioned, confident of what she meant but looking for confirmation.

"Yes. The part. This part. The one that you secretly like." Ingrid replied.

"Is it so obvious?" Tess smiled, drawing attention to her shackled hands by innocently looking up from right to left, then down again.

Ingrid smiled back at her confiding friend before quickly glancing up over her shoulder to look out for her potential enemy Ally above the walls.

Taking advantage of Tess's immobility, as an endearing practical joke, she forced a kiss onto Tess's tightly reluctant lips and followed her twisting head for a short time to keep her displeasurable contact for as long as possible.

"Mmmm-Piss off." Tess spat out to her side, much to the delight of Ingrid, who'd stepped quickly out of kicking range and backed away towards the steps.

"Don't worry. I'm going." She called to Tess, moving sideways up the narrow passage of the stairs.

"Good." Tess called after her in a childlike manner, "Can't wait till you're gone."

"It won't be the last you'll hear from me though. That I promise." Ingrid replied in what sounded like an almost threatening demeanour.

"What do you mean?" Tess asked, noticing the shift in tone of Ingrid's voice but receiving no reply from her departing friend, who walked away checking for messages on the phone from her pocket and ignoring the question.

Now alone with her hands chained conveniently close enough to scratch her face if she strained her neck, she used the opportunity to take stock of her surroundings and look for any minor details missed by the builders during the design and construction of the roofless dungeon. The floor had solid stone flags laid flat with the rounded bricks, or boulders in some cases, built on top to form the walls of the room. The thickness of the brickwork had not only taken its toll on the passageway of the stairs but it had also reduced the entire dugout basement to a mere ten feet by eight feet in size.

Reaching to the side with her foot, she lifted one of the chains and listened to the muffled rattle as it swung back down against the back wall from its six inch high cemented position. The wrist cuffs needed no further investigation but she pulled down against them anyway, flapping her elbows to feel the dull rubbing of metal grind, through the bones of her arms.

The tops of the walls above, didn't quite reach the courtyard's ground level. This had been purposely designed to accommodate the ten, precast concrete roof trusses, which would span the width of the room once constructed.

Tess surmised that with the roof in place, the only way out of this stone prison would be via the narrow alleyway lining the stairs, which as of yet had no doors or gates to obstruct a person's exit.

Assessment complete, her mind drifted back over the events of the last couple of weeks, beginning with the dramatic departure from her abusive ex-boyfriend and the small damp house where she'd lived in misery with him. In comparison, this unfurnished dungeon looked bigger than the single bedroom she had shared for such a long and unhappy time.

"You still alive down there?" Ally called to Tess, peering his head over from above.

Before she could answer, her attention turned to the dinking sound of him clunking their large empty cooking pot, accidently onto the floor, as he swapped hands when carrying it through the gates. She watched his failed attempt at bringing the cumbersome cooking pot, down the steps, in an almost comical show of misjudgement as he tried every angle to make it fit through the gap.

Tess wanted to see how long the unfazed look would remain on his face after he left the large, seventy-litre pan on the edge of the wall and walked down the steps, empty handed, to lift it into the low room from above his head.

Without questioning the obvious toileting reason for the large buckets' appearance, Tess ridiculed the miscalculation of stairs width made by his workforce, "Are those steps supposed to be so narrow?"

Ally gently let go of the handles either side and clunked the wide based pan onto the stone floor at the side of Tess's legs, ignoring her comment with his reply of, "For your convenience."

"Don't forget the toilet paper." Tess smiled as he climbed the steps once more.

Alone again, she continued to reflect on the recent turn of events in her life but the dwindling novelty of having her wrists locked to the chain cemented into the block wall behind her, naturally overturned her thoughts towards the more pressing issue of how much longer.

She fought boredom by denying the reality of her situation and keeping her mind occupied with thoughts of what the future may have in store. She had no doubts that her handsome hunk of a guy would have intimate plans for her on their upcoming road trip, which helped her subconscious mind hold it together.

Determined to make good of her situation, and with no one around, curiosity found her shuffling her feet sideways to see how far she could.

Using the support from her wrists above, she stretched her groin and held it for the count of thirty, before lifting herself back up into a normal stance.

To recover, she repeatedly raised her knees one at a time until she felt ready to improve on her last attempt by inching her legs that little bit further.

After numerous repetitions, she'd exceeded her goal of the two lower hanging chains, which made her evermore eager to flaunt her achievement in front of Ally, the man she knew would appreciate it the most.

How else might she be able to impress him? With words perhaps? Could she get inside his head by asking him if it would be possible to move the chains further apart? Winning his mind would be an even better achievement. Alternatively, maybe she should hang fire until they were a significant way into their journey before demonstrating her elasticity or suggesting her fake request to have the lower wall chains moved further apart.

Watching Ally enter the old ammunition store, clearly happy about something, skipping down the steps, Tess decided this would be a good time to try her mind games on him.

"Babe, this is draining the life out of me." She said, enticing a sympathetic kiss from him. "I'm getting pins and needles and my wrists are going to bruise if you keep them up here like this. Any chance of a minute?"

"No, I only came down here to check in on you and to gloat a little at the beauty of your helplessness." He smirked, "I have to get back to packing for us."

"Can't you stay with me a little please? It's no fun on my own." She asked, "I've been thinking, because I can't stand down here like this all the time, would you be able to get the workmen to make a bed for me, or even us if you wanted?"

"I can do that myself." Ally offered, "I can dismantle ours from the house and rebuild it down here."

"Possibly, but I was thinking of something a bit more sturdy, something metal, like the bunk beds they had on the boat when I came over here." She said, further working her way into his mind. "Just so that I can have rest periods until I get accustomed to standing in this position. Just for the time being, until I get used to it."

She could tell by that look in his eye that her words were hitting their mark and striking him right at the heart of his brain's communication path down to his balls. She also knew that each word she spoke came with a heavy price of commitment, like vows of submission that she wouldn't be able to retract.

Seeing his eyes widen with each surrendering oath that left her lips, made her question if she should go all out and take this opportunity to show him the distance she could now achieve when spreading her legs.

"Wow, I love it when you talk dirty to me." He said, taking the key from his pocket to release her padlocks and allow a short relief.

"Wait." She snapped, looking up at her wrists then down to his face. "Make love to me first." She taunted.

"Ha ha ha." Ally laughed, thinking she must be joking after only just convincing him to release her wrists.

"Look." She proclaimed, no longer intent on keeping her secret of flexibility until they were away from the blockhouse. "Does this not tempt you?"

Ally looked in awe as her widening legs passed beyond the lower hanging chains in the wall. Unable to hide his sexual urge, he threw himself towards her and lifted her back up again to match his height so he could better plant his face on hers.

Their kiss broke after only a few seconds, but convinced him of enough passion to clarify both of their wants.

Still holding the keys in his hand, Ally reached up and unlocked her wrists from the wall. "We don't have enough time before the contractors get here. We need to be on the road." He reluctantly objected.

Tess lowered her arms and rested them on his hips, locking her stare to pre-empt another kiss.

"If you carry on like this I might have to restrain you?" He said in a quiet yet, firm voice.

Still looking into his eyes but without smiling, she bent her elbows and raised her wrists behind her, high enough to be able to touch the rear waist belt loop, had it not been for her shirt covering it over.

"I am so in love with you." He unwittingly whispered, unable to resist the lure of her seduction any longer.

To celebrate another victory, her arms quickly swung up behind his head and her mouth pressed against his lips.

She rotated their bodies around and pushed him against the wall, forcing herself on the undeniable bulge in his trousers so that she could tease him even more.

His hand worked its way down far enough behind her so that his fingers could reach through her cheeks to sample her willingness. Finding minimal lubrication set him back a little and indicated that sex may not be such a quick event after all. Regretfully he had to place his hands on her shoulders and ease her away from him.

"Turn around." He said, twisting her shoulders whilst walking behind her. "And give me your hands." Ally raised her shirt to expose the gleaming polished steel belt around her waist. "I know I normally enjoy restraining you for my own gratification but I think on this occasion it is going to be necessary to serve a purpose."

With the padlock in place through the ring of the belt and the ring of her first cuff, he positioned her free wrist in place and quickly clicked the lock closed.

"Aww Babe. For a minute there I thought I had you." Tess confessed, looking back over her shoulder with a smirk on her face. "I thought I had you seduced."

"No. I told you, we have to get going." Ally insisted, suddenly snapping out of the love spell she'd cast over him with a realisation of her cunning objective. Having fallen victim to the feminine prick tease in the past, he knew just how much of a laughingstock his gullibility would be making him look right now. His ignorance towards her game plan during this silent moment of his exposure began to anger him, forcing him to quickly present some form of defence against her ridicule.

"Manipulative deception like that will not go unpunished." He mumbled into her ear, with an obvious tone in his voice.

The vibrations of his words tingled the sensitive skin of her neck as he spoke. This sudden exchange of authority may have weakened her body, but she still had the power of speech to retaliate.

"I'll look forward to it." She challenged him, gambling that he hadn't yet lost all of his desire for her.

He turned his chin and kissed her neck hard and quick, sucking on her skin for the makings of a love bite. Tess twisted out of his way with a giggle in the hope of keeping him playfully happy.

"I might have to introduce that soft little neck of yours to my collar." He threatened.

Tess's whole demeanour changed in an instant at the mention of the heavy shiny necklace, flashing a look of terror across her face.

"Ha ha." She nervously laughed, "Can I choose an option B?" she suggested trying to look calm and less panic-stricken.

Ally smiled at the truth of her timidness and held her by the elbows from behind. He took a moment to admire the perfect hand hold where the two braids of hair joined together to form one central plat down her back, before wrapping his arms around her shoulders from behind and pulling her in close to him. "Option B?" he queried.