Usher House

The sound of a cinder skeleton of a once heavy log cracking and settling among the embers of a roaring fire stirred Elenora, Lenore to her lovers and closest acquaintances, from her slumber. Still drowsy, dreaming dreams upon dreams, fearing this was just another dream within a dream; she valiantly fought the urge to awaken. She adjusted her position and rolled to her side, reaching for covers that were not there. Unrewarded, she soon abandoning this short and futile quest as she then brought her free previously searching hand up to join its compatriot as a pillow under her cheek, Elenora giving off a wistful sigh as she did, curling her legs up slightly into a more fetal position. Contentment enveloped her.

However, as they do to all that slumber, the sounds and smells of morning slowly overwhelmed her efforts at remaining at rest. Beyond the slow dawning of registration of the persistent crackle of that seemingly distant fire, Elenora could perceive the beautiful earthy aroma of a recently past gentle predawn shower, the gentle tapping of the drops of that shower having long since dispersed to the abyss. That aroma blended with the smoky flavor of charring wood within her senses. Still, there was one other pleasant smell about, one of tea, but with the scent of a gentle soap mixed upon it. As her awareness rose further from sleep, she knew that heady heavenly smell. She would know it anywhere, for she loved the sources of it so. It was NOT tea, and it was NOT soap, it was her pleasure of life, it was roses, dozens upon dozens of roses, all in full bloom. Elenora opened her eyes, fully aware that she must be in a garden.

She found herself...in an simple yet ornately elegant room, curled up on one of two mirror love seats, those love seats richly upholstered in plush green fabric and well cushioned, with a dark heavy and ornate low table between them. Despite the fire that was by now more gently burning in the regal fireplace near her feet, and with her mind concentrating on taking her surroundings in, Elenora suddenly felt a slight chill on her upper chest. As she arose to a sitting position, moving her legs forward to the edge of the love seat and allowing her feet to reach the floor, she reached for the lapels of her top so that she could pull them together and huddle in on herself in an attempt to ward off that chill. All she felt were her hands rubbing against the skin of the nape of her neck. She tried again, and again she failed to find the material that she sought. Only then did she realize the disconcerting truth and looked down at her herself.

Elenora wore a diaphanous rope of white. The sleeveless gown crossed her shoulders at her shoulders, and then fell down to below her exposed breasts, with no spare material present around her back that would allow her to otherwise cover those breasts. The gown then held a white silk ribbon sewn in that obviously, for that was the case, tied the two sides of it together below her breasts, the only such ribbon and the only obvious means of fashioning the shear material together. The remainder of the floor length shear white gown fell away to either side of her legs such that her charms would be inescapably exposed with every step that she took or every time that she sat down. Further, her legs exposed as they were, Elenora became aware of the matching shear white thigh high stretch top stockings that enclosed each leg so sensuously.

With a start and with a not too soft of a shriek, Elenora jumped to her feet in embarrassment, wrapping one arm over her breasts and the hand of the other arm reaching to cover her womanhood, her face frantically turning one way and another, trying to see if anybody was around to see her exposed so. She promptly and awkwardly fell forward toward the table in front of her, slightly bruising a shin as she did. Still trying to cover herself, Elenora looked down to her feet for the reason for her graceless collapse and found white strappy sandal-foot stiletto heels of what must be 4 inch height on her feet. She kicked her feet to remove the heeled sandals but to no avail, as they would not budge. She reach, as best she could while still desperately covering her exposed flesh, to pull the heels off, and by and by became aware of the two tiny locks, one on the strap that held each of her shoes in place.

Suddenly frightened, and falling to her knees between the couch and the table, Elenora frantically, tearful screamed out, "Who are you and why are you doing this to me?"

All that she heard was the continued popping and crackling of the fire in the fireplace,

Overcome by emotions, "Please, stop it! Stop it!" tears now freely falling down her face as she collapsed into a ball of crying flesh on the floor, fist pounding on that floor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After more than an hour, having accomplished nothing by her out lash, her fears and frustrations remaining insatiated, Elenora slowly acceded to the inevitable. Whoever was doing this, if there was anybody: was not going to make him or herself known; was not going to tell her why she was as she was where she was; was not going to come and cloth her and free her.

Still fearful and embarrassed, Elenora knew that nothing would be accomplished by staying as she was.

She, still attempting to cover herself, sat up on her haunches and surveyed the room. The floor was sparsely covered by near tapestry quality throw rugs. The ceiling was impossibly high. The room, itself, was lined, along one alcove, by row after row wine casks, from floor to that distant ceiling. Above the fireplace, where the portrait of the "lord of the manner" would be expected, was a huge black and white portrait, instead, of a young blond woman, in a short baby-doll negligee, holding a glass of bubbling wine in one hand a magnum bottle in the other, her waist, genitals and legs blatantly bare. Along another wall, another huge larger than life black and white picture of a woman's exposed genitals, perhaps those same as in the first picture, this time with legs splayed open as the contents of a wine bottle were poured over them. On the far wall, there was an opening, through a gate that seemed to lead to what appeared to be a country garden. Elenora ran to it, tripping over her stiletto heels several times, but found the gate locked. Peering through, she could tell the garden beyond was inside of some internally lit green house. Elenora fell to her knees in dejection. Finally, beyond the two matching couches, at either end of a wide two-step downward staircase that lead to another room, were matching grandfather clocks, their pendulum bobs rocking in unison.

"Perfect," she thought, "I can at a minimum tell the passage of time! That is something, a start."

Just as quickly, however, her mind registered that she had yet to hear the telltale tick of a clock, nor any tintinabular chiming of the bells announcing the hours from these twin behemoths, even though she knew that she must have spent that long in her frustrating tantrum earlier. Elenora got up off of the floor and this time more carefully took a step or two in her stiletto heels toward one of the clocks only to see that the hands had been removed from the face. She more quickly ran to the other clock only to find the same outcome. Staring upward at the clock face, she sank back to her knees at the base of this second clock in dejection.

Whoever was behind her torture, Elenora knew that he or she would not be giving her anything too easily.

However, after a while, and with bravery beyond how she felt, Elenora decided that she was not going to face her future just sitting in this room. She stood up, girded her courage and moved to explore the rest of her confines.

The only way from this room was down those two wide steps into a large open hall sans furniture. As she stepped onto this lower hallway, lights in that hall turned on. No, to be correct, they just increased in intensity from near minimal to a soft warm rich glow. As they did so, Elenora saw that the huge floor to ceiling pictures that existed in the room that she had left continued here. These were all in generally 'good taste' in that nothing was too offensively blatant. There was a picture of nude woman sitting fully exposed among a collection of sheets. Another was of a female curved behind, from behind, with black bands from some variety of thong panties lining the exposed ass cheeks. A third picture was of a front view of a female on her hands and knees her chest down her ass in the air, the garters around her hips visible, her ecstatic expression evident as she faced the viewer. All of these pictures were exquisitely displayed in rich heavy frames, set off with accent highlighting and hung, again above rich thick tapestries lying as rugs on top of the slate floor.

As Elenora scanned these pictures, a change began to occur with her demeanor. This was some sort of art gallery! These pictured women were not being tortured; at least Elenora could believe that. No, they were almost pictured adoringly. It was obvious that her captor enjoyed the female form. Elenora, until then, had been covering her exposed flesh, from whom she did not know, but cover herself nonetheless. However, as she looked at these enormous pictures, she became at ease, her arms coming down, almost falling away, as her guard came down. Elenora began to wonder was that why she was now here? Was she to be the next model for one or more of these large portraits? If so, how? If so, when?

As Elenora pondered this, she became aware of two things. One, to her left was a set of doors of the kind that one would expect to see in an entryway. Perhaps this was the entrance to the house that confined her. Yes, it was obvious that those doors were the front entrance to the house. Somehow, she just knew it. She walked to it, by now accustomed to the stilettos, they giving her gate a most feminine sway. As she walked, she expected the door set to not open, and she was not disappointed in that expectation. The other item that she became aware of was her growing need to relieve her biological needs. Normally, she was in the habit of doing this as soon as she awoke. However, that was not the case so far, and after her crying fit earlier, she was starting to realize how desperate she might need to relieve herself fairly soon.

Hence, she began to search, and as she began to search, her posture changed. Elenora very quickly became transformed into a stately, even statuesque, vision of beauty, elegantly moving from adjacent room off of this entrance hall to adjacent room, the lights of each room brightening as she enter that room just as they had in the central hall. Elenora somehow was comforted by this, she was controlling her environment, even if just the lighting of it, as she walked about. Elenora somehow was no longer worried about hiding her exposed breasts and vagina. Rather, Elenora seemed, as the moments went by, to be a vision of feminine beauty that was almost gliding through the rooms.

Soon, she found a half bathroom, exactly where she would have put one if she had built this house, and which she then used to her great relief. She then, as she washed her hands, stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Why did she feel this way? Why was she so calm? She did not know where she was. She did not know how long she had been held before she awoke in the room. She did not recall any aspect of the events that led to her waking here. She did not know, although she suspected, the reason for her to be held here in this place. Just a short time earlier she, terrified, had been screaming while bundled on an unknown floor, crying her eyes out. However, now, it was almost as if she could care not for or against being naked? It had to be more than that she was apparently alone in this house. Instead, she felt that she now would have held her head up and walked with her shoulders back through a crowd of on lookers.

She turned and re-entered the main entrance hall only to find what she knew had not been there before, on one of the few pieces of furniture, an armoire, was placed a silver serving tray with an opened bottle of wine with one glass filled, sitting next to it.

Elenora stood contemplating it for a second, even taking a step toward it, and even reaching a hand forward, when her thoughts congealed. The wine was not there before. It had just been placed there, perhaps seconds before. Somebody else was here. Rescue! She was about to scream out to let them know that she was here and in need of such rescue! Then, suddenly, somebody could be watching. Somebody WOULD be watching! Her, with all her body exposed! Elenora collapsed to the floor, huddling her arms as best she could, hiding, once again, her body!

"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! STOP IT, STOP IT!" Tears once again welling up from within.

However, just as before, her screams, her tantrums, were met with silence, as from a grave.

Presently, after several interminable minutes, Elenora knew, exposed as she was, that she was expected to continue to explore her confines. Realizing this and that those confining her had decided to allow her no respite just yet, Elenora acquiesced. She mentally re-steeled her self-image and, regained her stature. After deciding that the wine must be for her and must be safe (whoever was behind this could harm her too easily by any other of hundreds of ways), she reached for the glass and took a sip, then another, then decided to drink the entire glass full, her thirst momentarily quenched. Elenora then set about to continued to explore, room after room and hour after hour, each room containing minimal amounts of furniture yet each containing two to four such pictures of beautiful women is ever more erotic but tasteful pose after ever more erotic but tasteful pose...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Then, late in the day, after exploring what must have been an exceedingly large mansion or castle filled with rooms, no less than a haunted palace, as Elenora turned one final corner, a cold chill suddenly ran down her spine, settling in the innermost pit of her stomach. There, at the end of the hall, was what could only be described as a jail door, as one would see on any jail cell, heavy silver colored steel bars, large keyed lock, recessed hinges and all. She knew that she was somehow a prisoner already, but Elenora had felt that she was being held humanely and passively. If that was true, why was the need for this steel bar door? Further, whether it was true or not, this blatant addition of a cell door to her knowledge caused her world to shrink just the tiniest amount.

Elenora hesitantly stepped toward the door, doubting as she drew near. As she did so, she became aware of a cool damp, even downright cold, draft slowly wafting its way between the bars. Presently, she touched the door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked and slowly and heavily swung open as she pushed on it.

Unlike all of the rooms to her back, which had so comfortably lit up as she entered them and that had remain calmly and soothingly lit as she left them, the room to her front, on the far side of the jail cell door, remained Cimmerian in its darkness. Not even the light from the rooms and halls behind her seemed to reflect off of anything from within. Long into that darkness Elenora peered, as if into a crypt.

"Surely, my captor would not have done all this to let anything untoward happen now!"

Here, she boldly stepped forward into the pitch, as a wayfarer descending into the maelstrom. To steady herself, Elenora placed a hand against the wall as she passed through the entrance. Unlike the luxuriousness of the first welcome room that she had awoken, and unlike the stark but functional walls of what she now thought of as the art gallery, Elenora now felt stone, cold hard stone. Startled, she took her hand away and momentarily stared toward where it had been, seeing nothing. Aside from the hollow echo of her heels against some surface no longer covered by throw rugs, tapestry quality or not, she heard not a sound. Again, she took a second step further into the blackness. Again, with the exception of the tapping of her heels on what must be damp rock, she hears nothing. A third step followed, then a fourth, each time the same procedure, stop, listen, and nothing, then repeat. Then all too slowly and deliberately, Elenora heard the jail door swing shut behind her. Further, she knew that the lights in all of those previous rooms and halls were being diminished. How she knew this, she could not say, but she knew it as such anyway.

She made no move, for she knew that it would be useless, the jail cell was assuredly this side of the door, the rest of the well-lit house, with its locked gates and entry doors notwithstanding, was the outside world. Elenora had just, purposely and deliberately, stepped into her confinement.

She waited, as she knew that she must, in that deathly cell, hands folded together across her midriff, breasts slightly rising and falling with each oh-so-shallow breadth.

Presently, somewhere out ahead of her, the oh-so-subtle sound of metal sliding against metal. This was soon followed by a slight whoosh as if a tiny amount air was suddenly expanding and moving. Soon, and almost imperceptibly at first, a slight yellow-orange glow appears to be expanding from either side of a remaining black shadow directly ahead of Elenora.

In her current state, Elenora was prepared for anything. Was she did not expect was the utterly mundane. As the yellow-orange grew, it took on a flickering aspect, that flickering recognizable to anybody as the light cast from yet another fireplace. That light of that fireplace now showed the room in ever-increasing detail.

To the left of the central shadow, built on silvery aluminum legs and sitting on a white shag carpet square, were several high-backed black-leather modular couch units, arranged as if in a conversation pit. Although they appeared to be well cushioned, they further, to Elenora's eyes, appeared more decorative than functional, appearing to offer awkward seating.

Further to the left, Elenora somehow did not have to look, sat a smaller than proper size pool table. The odd ingredient of this pool table, short chains, of strong links of a silvery metal, ending with wrist and ankle sized locking bracelets hung from each of its four corners. Again, how Elenora knew this completely escaped her.

To the right of that central shadow, now rapidly being transformed by the light emanating from around it into the side wall of a rather stylish pass through fireplace, again over another white shag carpet square, this one significantly larger than the one at the conversation pit, on a cantilevered wooden frame hanging from the far wall, was a king sized mattress, covered in a white bedspread, with black pillow-case covered plump pillows.

Finally, to the immediate right of Elenora, on the wall, again in an elegant frame, was another of the immense white and black portraits that had populated the gallery that was now out of reach due to the steel door at the entrance to this room, which Elenora thought of as a bedroom, perhaps the master's bedroom. Elenora walked toward this portrait, due to something appealing about it. It showed, in brilliant over exposed white, the close up outline of a female genitalia, the hand of the woman partially hiding the more graphic details of the subject. Why was this particular portrait here? Was it the master's favorite? Moreover, why was it that she was so drawn to it? Questions with no answers kept fighting with each other in Elenora's conscientiousness.

Suddenly, Elenora turned toward the fireplace. She found herself naturally being drawn to the emanating warmth of the now comfortable flame found in that fireplace. While warming herself, she took the entire room into her senses. Everything in it was so strange and out of place. The steel jail-cell door, the pool table with the manacles, the awkward black leather seats, the post-modern bed, and the picture, well ALL of the pictures in the house. Yet, the most disconcerting aspect of this particular room was that the tactile hint that Elenora had experienced while entering it was now obvious. The walls of the entire room, floor to ceiling, were grey stone, as in a dungeon.