The Surprise

As the hours dragged by, Carlie felt that her body was catching fire. Burning throat, burning limbs, burning genitals – the batteries of the vibrator had long since died. Carlie could feel her distended bowels cramping and spasming. Her head ached and her nose throbbed. She marveled at how well she had trussed herself, given that she was a true bondage neophyte. If only she had not been so efficient. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the edges of reality merged with the hallucinations of delirium. Carlie dreamed – both of sanctuary and nightmare. Time seemed to waft past her with the capriciousness of a zephyr – sometimes plodding and sometimes flying.

In the middle of the third night, she heard a key in the door. Although her thoughts were barely coherent, she hoped that maybe Darin was coming at last. Surely it must have been him, using the spare key Carlie had given Tanis, to give him. "At last! Here at last!" she breathed, mutely, feeling a flare of hope light her brain. "Better late than never," she added, wryly, "But, it kinda takes the edge off 'the surprise'." Nonetheless, the pending flood of relief held barely in check, she struggled to control her breathing. Mewing around the dildo, through her swollen, parched throat, Carlie whimpered to her would-be rescuer, but the footsteps stopped before they reached her. Someone was there – what were they doing? Carlie struggled pathetically, but was unable to turn to see the interloper.

Had she been able to, she would have observed Tanis pulling the DVD from the video camera, and copying it carefully onto the hard-drive of her laptop. Only when she had finished the copy and returned the disk to the camera did she look over at Carlie. "Still with us, eh?" she whispered. "Has it been everything you expected?"

Truth was that Tanis had neglected to mention to Darin anything about Carlie; indeed, Darin had gone straight to the airport, departing the environs for the entire long weekend.

Carlie heard the whispered voice but couldn't actually make sense of the words. Her cries of "Please save me!" were little more than whimpers in the silence of the apartment. The footsteps were receding again. She couldn't believe it. Heaving herself to and fro she tried to turn over but was unsuccessful; meanwhile, Tanis slipped out of the apartment, locking the deadbolt surreptitiously before stealing out of the building into the hush of wee morning hours. She discarded her latex gloves in a trash bin some blocks away.

Carlie huffed and choked weakly, her eyes wide in disbelief. Finally the realization that she really was going to die dawned, but her dehydrated body could barely even produce tears. Her heart stopped beating about thirteen hours later.

Tanis watched the video over and over with a glittering coldness that seemed to grow in her. It was the middle of the next week, when the body of the unfortunate Carlie was finally discovered by the apartment manager, at the insistence of a concerned co-worker. Everyone was horrified. Had she been murdered? The investigation immediately answered that question by viewing the video. "Death by misadventure." Everyone who had ever met Carlie, with the exceptions of Tanis and Darin, were completely mystified. Darin almost let himself feel guilty, but then shrugged, "What, did she think I was a mind-reader? She didn't even let me know. What a flake! Anyway, it was nothing to do with me."

Some time later, after having watched the video hundreds of times, after having masturbated to the video hundreds of times, Tanis clandestinely uploaded it onto the web, "for the rest of the world to enjoy." Maybe someday she could, surreptitiously, steer Darin in the right direction – help him just stumble upon it.

© 2004