She entered shyly, wearing a shapeless tunic and a long skirt of bright patterns.  She put down a bowl of noodles and a bottle of water in front of me and handed me a pair of chopsticks with a faint inclination of her head.

“Do you speak English?” I asked quietly.

She cast a glance over her shoulder.  “A little,” she said.

“Where is this place?  Where am I?  Is this still Hong Kong?”

She looked at me strangely, like I was mad.  “Of course.  This is Ko Shing.  Fishing village.”

“Evidently not any more,” I said.  “How many people live here?”

“Just me. I keep for Mr Wong.”

“Who is Mr Wong?”

“You come on his boat.” 

At that moment there was a shout from Tiger somewhere outside.  The girl stood up in a hurry and made for the door.

“Wait!” I called.  “What’s your name?”

“Kuan,” she said, then was gone, the door now closed behind her and me left in the semi-darkness lit only by a few thin beams of sunlight through the boarded windows and the loose tiles.

*   *   *

It was early afternoon when they came for me again.  Tiger made me take off my dress and lie face down on the faded foam mattress that came with the room.  I was positioned facing the door so that as Tiger straddled my thighs Serina was able to get the best light for her photos. 

Tiger held my hands behind my back, but rather than palm to palm, they were placed back to back.  I wondered what was coming and was dismayed as he tied first my thumbs together and then my little fingers, using thin sashcord probably only a little thicker than a matchstick.

“There,” he said, tugging the last knot and indicating for me to get to my feet.  The pull on my arms was unfamiliar and somehow unnatural.

“It hurts!” I complained as my thumbs and little fingers took the strain.  “Ow!” I cried as he gripped me by the arm and pushed me outside.  I was astonished at the tension that was placed on each arm through having to twist them round until the backs of the hands touched and my tied thumbs stuck out behind me.

Tiger towed me across the path to the grassy space overlooking the sea, where the three posts stood ominously in a triangle about three metres on a side.  There was a tall post, perhaps three metres high, one about half that and one perhaps waist height.  I was protesting volubly against those nasty bindings on my thumbs in particular and pointedly ignoring Serina and her video camera, when Tiger halted by the middle post and slapped me hard on the cheek, saying something that might have been swearing or some form of abuse in Cantonese.  I was shocked and shut up abruptly, staring at him in disbelief.  Up until now he had behaved tolerably well.  Was this acting for the benefit of the cameras?

He pushed me face first against the post, the top of which stopped slightly below my chin. 

“You are about to learn about minimal tying,” he said casually, his tone suddenly different.  “You don’t always need a lot of rope.  Serina!”  Serina appeared close within my field of vision and focussed on my head as Tiger moved behind me.  A moment later a short piece of bamboo appeared in front of me, with heavy white sashcord wrapped around it for most of its length with a short tail hanging off each end. 

“Open up,” ordered Tiger.  I did so, and the rope-covered section of the bamboo was wedged behind my teeth like a bridle, with the ends of the rope then tied behind my neck.  I rolled my eyes and gurgled plaintively at Tiger when he reappeared in my field of vision.  He smiled, then fondled my right breast as it nuzzled the side of the post.  He said something to Serina who stopped filming and handed her camera to Tiger, before coming and standing on the opposite side of the post to me.

She looked me in the eye and it was not a look I found comforting.  A sudden pain in my nipples made me yelp into the bamboo gag as her slim fingers caught hold of each tender nub and squeezed them hard.  I tried to draw away but she held on.

“Don’t fight it, Leila,” she whispered to me.  “It will only be worse.  Just relax.”  Reluctantly I did so, and the pressure of her fingers eased.  They began to stroke and caress, and she lowered her head to each to lick and suck them into erectness. I closed my eyes, momentarily savouring the tingling warmth that she induced.  Then her lips were gone and she was back on the camera, in close as Tiger took her place.  I watched a strange fascination as he wrapped several turns of the thin cord about my erect right nipple and tied it off tightly.  I winced from the sudden sharp pain, but this eased moments later.  Tiger tied off the cord leaving perhaps half a metre as a tail.  Then the left breast received the same treatment.  I had a nasty suspicion where this was going – a suspicion that was confirmed when he then tugged hard on each tail and tied the two together on the opposite side of the post.

I thought he was finished at this point until I felt a rope being tied around my right ankle and taken around the post to be tied to the left one.  As he did so, Tiger pulled my feet imperceptibly forward on either side of the post, until I was on the point of almost falling backwards.  He tied off the left ankle at that point and stepped back to view his handiwork.  Evidently satisfied, he turned away and walked back to the houses.

Serina grinned at me and picked up her Canon to begin shooting some stills.  After only five minutes I was starting to feel very uncomfortable, held as I was against the post by the taut string on my nipples.  The slightest leaning backward put a painful tension on the string, and with my feet unable to move backward the only way I could counter it was to resist by stiffening my back.  But I could not keep this up for long, and ended up gripping the post with my thighs and knees.

My hands and arms were useless.  The twist imparted in the latter by the contorted finger bondage was transferred up to my shoulders which began to ache.  The slightest movement imparted more loading into the bonds on my thumbs in particular.  It was easy to see how a few pieces of string were sufficient to totally immobilise a person.

The three posts were in the shade of a large banyan tree with cascading roots.  Despite not being in the direct sun, I had broken out into a sweat, runnels of which ran down my back and breasts.  In desperation I lowered my body a few centimetres by bending my knees, so that my chin rested on the top of the post.  This afforded me some more purchase with my chin and allowed my legs to better grip the post, but the downside was a stiff neck and quivering thighs with the strain on my bent legs.

Serina was intent on her craft and shot off a roll of film in quick time, with close ups and presumably more arty photos picking up the surroundings for a bit of atmosphere.  As the Bilboes’ photographer, I could appreciate what she was attempting to achieve from an artistic point of view, but that made the pain of being the subject no less intense.

Serina could not resist plucking the nipple strings as she circled me like a cat eying a helpless mouse.  I felt her fingernails on my back and buttocks as she tried to distract me into a lapse of concentration.  I closed my eyes and moaned but it made no difference.  When I opened them again she had walked off to the house. 

I tried to steel myself by counting in small periods of thirty seconds, determined just to make it to the end of that time, then setting out on the next one.  But I could not sustain it, not with the unknown total punishment time stretching out ahead of me.  From the corner of my eye I could see my captors talking, then Serina wandered over again clearly enjoying herself to the full. 

Right about then I knew my neck and thighs could not take any more and I had to straighten up.  I did so very slowly and carefully, but I could not help myself slowly tilt backwards as the upper part of my body gently tilted away from the post, like a tree falling.  I only moved a few centimetres but it as enough for my centre of gravity to go beyond the envelope able to be wholly supported by my feet.

I screamed into my gag as the load came on to my nipples.  I guess my eyes widened and I know my breath came in hoarse pants, interspersed with agonised moans.  Serina was clicking for all she was worth, then came behind me to push me up against the post again.  I was so grateful as the tension eased on my nipples.  I was sobbing and clutching at the post with my trembling thighs, for I had found that once I had fallen back I could not tilt myself upright again without external help.  It was a shocking discovery and a possible indication of what lay ahead for me.

Serina set the video camera on its tripod and started it on automatic before deciding to get a piece of the action as well.  Breaking off a green twig from a nearby bush she trimmed it of its leaves and flicked it at my buttocks.

“Urrgh!” I gasped, around the piece of bamboo in my jaws.  Another flick.  Her intent was quite obvious – she was out to break my concentration again and have me lean backwards again for the benefit of the video.  There was no way I could resist this, and with the sixth or seventh flick I made the mistake of trying to protect my painfully exposed cheeks with my hands.  The pain in my fingers and thumbs was abruptly overtaken by that in my poor nipples again as the load came on them and stretched them agonisingly.  I wailed as much as I could until Serina finally decided her artistic instincts were satisfied and she pushed me upright again.  Tears were streaming down my face and I was wondering how much of this torture I would have to endure. 

That’s when she stooped to undo the rope about my left ankle, allowing me to move my feet back and lean against the post, gasping and moaning in relief.

“That was very good, Leila,” she crooned in my ear.  “Now I want you to make love to the post for me.”

“Urrh?”

“It’s very simple,” she said.  “I put this inside you, and you make love to the post.” I cast a wild glance at her. She held a slim chrome dildo in her hand.  “If it falls out, you have another hour here.  If I get good footage we will see about some relief for you.  Understand?”  I groaned but conceded I had no choice in the matter.  As long as she didn’t tie my ankles again.

I felt the smooth form of the dildo slide inside me and her fingers caress my labia.  There was no lack of lubrication – all sweat, I told myself unconvincingly.  The presence of the intruder was highlighted by the need to keep my legs closed, but at the same time by the need rub up against the post, like a dog in heat on a human leg.  God, this was so degrading.  It was another point on the list of retributions I was saving for Miss Serina Ng.

The presence of the dildo made it at least easier to create some form of arousal, I thought, but only after I had started to gently grind against the post did I realise what the nipple treatment must have done to me.  They were painfully sore but the speed at which my loins began to go squishy was unexpected.  It was another example of what Monica had told me – that I was an unconscious pain slut.  I felt myself blush and knew I could never admit this to anyone. 

The damned intruder began to work its magic, fuelled by more than just sweat now.  I felt my breath becoming faster, and stole a look towards the houses where I saw Kuan watching me from the doorway.  That was almost more embarrassing that anything to date, for Kuan’s simplicity seemed to me to be out of place amongst what were evidently not the first goings on of this type here.  The poles looked too new and too planned, as did the refurb of the two end houses.  But in the brief few words I had shared with her, I got the impression that Kuan was smart.  I did not know where she came from, but the fact that she spoke passable English was to her credit in such an isolated spot.  I wondered if I had an ally here…

My brief reverie was interrupted by a wave of exquisite sensations that washed up from my crotch.  I groaned into my gag, closing my eyes and trying not to tug unnecessarily on the nipple string.  I was aware of Serina and the video camera, now circling again, but I closed my eyes rather than look at her.  Yes I was being a complete slut, but I couldn’t help myself now – things were getting too intense down below.  Almost without warning the climax surged over me and I ground my pussy into the post, grunting furiously and panting through my nose as the fuzzies rushed through my body.  I’m sure Serina loved the footage but I was beyond caring at that stage.

I finally came down to earth and rested my chin on the post, still panting noisily and grinding my teeth into the rope around the bamboo bridle.  Serina clapped her hands delightedly and I treated her to a baleful glare.  She slipped her fingers between my pussy lips and removed the dildo, catching my eye and smiling as she ran her finger along the metal surface now shiny and slick with my juices.  Tiger had meanwhile roused himself from where he sat at the table reading a newspaper and ambled across to consult with the photographer.  There was some animated conversation and gesturing then Tiger came over to undo the two strings securing my breasts to the post.

Without a word he made me follow him.  Words were not really necessary as he still held the strings in his hand, and I was very motivated under such circumstances.  He led me to the shortest of the posts and motioned me to kneel against it.  I whined my unhappiness which he ignored while he pulled my boots off and tossed them aside.  More of the terrible narrow cord appeared from his pocket as he made me snuggle up against the post.  One piece of cord was tied to the big toe of my right foot, wound up and around my left side and tied to the cord from my right nipple.  A second piece of cord secured the left toe to the left nipple via the opposite route.  I was now in a position that I could not move up or back.  Simple, and very, very effective.

The post, like the previous one, came just up to my chin in this position.  It was also in the direct sun and I knew I would be roasted if I had to stay there for long.  I motioned my head in the direction of the sun and whined again.  Tiger appeared to ignore me and disappeared into the house while Serina said how lovely I looked and proceeded to run off another roll, exhorting me to look distressed, which I thought was somewhat uncalled for.

Tiger reappeared five minutes later with a large sheet of black plastic which he draped over me like a tent, pinning the corners to the ground with weights or nails or spikes – I couldn’t tell which.  So much for getting fried in the sun.  Instead I was going to get steamed.

*   *   *

I spent the rest of the afternoon like that.  The sweat rang off me and I became very thirsty.  I chewed on the rope around the bamboo gag in frustration, and after several hours my jaw was aching terribly.  It did not stretch my mouth as wide as some gags I had experienced, but I had rarely experienced one for so long.  After a while my legs began to cramp as I tried to shift my weight from one to the other, and each time my drowsiness was banished by the pain in my nipples and toes as the cord tugged at them.  And all the while my thumbs and little fingers throbbed from the wicked strictures binding them.

I became conscious of the cooler temperatures as the sun must have dipped behind the banyan tree and the stifling heat under my black tent lessened.  Eventually there came the long-awaited footfalls and a rustling as the plastic sheet was unpegged and I was exposed to the world again.  I must have looked a total wreck.  It was Serina – time for more photos. Yes, this is what a well-done captive looks like after a few hours of steaming.  Just place on platter with some garnish and serve.  Here’s one I prepared earlier…

Tiger reappeared shortly after with my neck chain which he locked on my collar before cutting the string from my nipples and toes and fingers.  Fortunately he left the gag until last, for I made major complaints as the bindings were removed from my swollen extremities.  In fact he left the gag in until he had taken me back to my cell, although this time chaining me to the door frame, where there was a gap between it and the ancient brick wall.  He left me then, allowing me to undo the bamboo with its saliva-soaked rope and to slowly work my jaw back and forth. My mouth was dry and tasted horrible, with the corners of it rough and raw where the rope had been tight against the skin.  My thumbs, little fingers and toes were all swollen and tender, but seemed to function still.  It was such a relief to be able to move again.  And as for my nipples, despite everything and even though they were so tender and sore I could barely touch them, no serious damage appeared to have been done.

I sat on the doorstep, naked except for the collar, my arms clasped around my knees, watching the shadows creep over the little village.  Kuan appeared with some food and water, which I drank rapidly and asked for some more.  I also asked her to bring me my dress, which was inside the room, beyond the reach of my chain.  She did so, and gratefully I put it on.  Not that I was cold, for the air was still stifling and muggy, but it made me feel human again.

When she returned with more water she also brought my red boots, picked up from where Tiger had left them beside the smallest post.  While there was no need to, I put them on, simply because they represented a contact with reality, and in the hope that they might discourage Tiger and Serina from tying my toes again.  The pair had disappeared inside the end house, and I thought I could hear cries coming from there.  I listened, and there was no doubt what was going on as the sound carried on the still evening air.  So Serina and Tiger were lovers… I wondered how that fitted in with the big scheme of things within whatever organisation they worked for…

I motioned Kuan to sit on the step beside me.  She looked apprehensive, but the sounds coming from the end house suggested that there was obviously no danger of interruption by Serina and Tiger.

“How long have you lived here?”  I asked Kuan.

“About a year,” she answered nervously.  She was pretty, I thought – she had got the better side of the Chinese genes, and obviously hadn’t been exposed to the McDonalds and the bright lights of Kowloon.  Her hair, shiny and unadorned, hung down below the small mounds of her breasts.  There was nothing pretentious about Kuan, I decided.

“You like it here?”  She shrugged.  “You are always by yourself?”

“Most of the time.  Sometimes Tiger and Serina and others come.”

“Others?”

“Like you – but Chinese.”

“Prisoners?  Chained up?”

“Yes.”

“How long do they stay here?”

“Sometimes a week, sometimes two.”

“Then where do they go?”

“Guangzhou, I think.  Maybe Shenzhen.  Be prostitutes.”

My heart sank at the awful thought.

“Have any other western girls come through here?”

“No.  You are the first.”

Surely they could not do such a thing to me?  Was there much value in a western female?  Would it be worth the trouble? Maybe I was destined for something different… Like what?  I didn’t even dare to think about the possibilities. 

Had I not been in such uncertain and precarious circumstances I could almost have savoured the exoticism of a sunset looking out over the South China Sea – for I presumed that what I saw was a part of that.  It was idyllic and romantic, yet all I could do was sit there and let the tears course silently down my cheeks as I thought of Jill and Steven and Monica and the girls, none of whom I was likely to see ever again…

*   *   *Gromet's Selfbondage & Mummification Plaza
www.dajungle.com/selfbondage
The following morning, after a broken, exhausted sleep interspersed by waking moments of fear, Tiger took me out under the banyan tree again and locked my neck chain to a large exposed root, while he walked with a machete in his hand, in the direction of a nearby clump of bamboo. I watched as he singled out several pieces of varying size and hacked them free. I did not like this bamboo thing at all.  Bamboo was terrifically strong, very flexible and made excellent switches and canes.  In short, it was a Dom’s dream and a Sub’s nightmare.  I had an uncomfortable feeling I was about to see more of Tiger’s ingenuity.

I watched as he rolled two big dead logs to a spot underneath a large bough of the banyan and positioned them about two metres apart, parallel with each other, scraping little hollows in the ground so that they were bedded properly and would not roll about.  With this done he trimmed the largest piece of bamboo and placed it spanning between the logs, so it was about half a metre above the ground.  The bamboo was about as thick as my wrist and quite rigid.  Tiger chopped a small hole in the top surface in the middle, before nailing one end to the log supporting it.  The final piece in the jigsaw appeared to be the driving of two bamboo stakes into the ground, one each side of the centre of the span and about two metres from it. 

By then Serina had appeared with her camera gear and a brown holdall which looked suspiciously like the one I remembered from our capture in the van. This time I was to be gagged with a piece of bamboo again, but differently from the previous day.  Tiger made me open my mouth then stuck his fingers in it to get a measurement. He hacked away at a piece of bamboo with his machete, before finishing off the work with a wicked-looking knife.  He showed me the end product.  It was a short pipe, open at both ends, about the length of my finger.  Halfway down the top and bottom he had carved notches which I knew were for my teeth, and between these was a hole through the centre for a rope.

When he worked it into my mouth I was not at all a happy teddy, as my teeth clicked into the notches and the bamboo was tied into placed.

“How’s that, dear?” asked Serina with a smug grin. “Can you talk?”

“Hwark hrff!” I said unhappily.  I found I could breathe through the pipe and make weird woo-ing noises but nothing that made any sense.  The lower portion of the bit inside my mouth was longer than the top part, and kept my tongue partly depressed.  A bit like the rest of me, I thought. 

I found I could swallow, but only with difficulty.  The worst thing was the hardness of it.  It was not like a rubber ball that you could bite into, for it was unyielding. Even the rope-bound bridle I had experienced the previous day had had some ‘give’ in it.

Tiger and Serina chattered away in Cantonese.  They seemed quite cheerful.  It had obviously been a pleasant night for them.  I supposed it couldn’t be all bad, sent here with your lover to idle away a few days taking photos and doing devious things to a poor helpless female – if you were that way inclined.

“Stand up and take off your dress – and your boots,” Tiger ordered.  I did so, not liking where this was going.  I liked it even less when he delved into the holdall and pulled out a large chrome vibrator, which he jammed into the hole he had made into the top of the bamboo beam.  Now I saw it all.  This was going to be like riding the plank as we had done in Monica’s dungeon.  Except that what puzzled me was why it was so low, and not adjustable.

Serina spat on the vibrator, caressing it with her saliva in a way that was at once sensual and ominous.  Tiger unlocked the chain from my collar.

 “Get on!” said Tiger to me, pointing to the silver prong.  It was not as big as some I had experienced, nor as knobbly, but it was sizeable, nevertheless.  I tried to ignore Serina’s in-your-face camera technique as I stood over the beast and slowly eased myself down on to it.  I was unable to help myself groaning as it entered me and seemed to keep filling me, until abruptly, to my relief, my knees were on the ground.

It took a moment or two to get accustomed to the thing, and I could not help making groaning noises through the bamboo tube.  Serina loved the sound effects but I was not doing them for her benefit.  Tiger made me hold out my hands one at a time and this time it was string around my thumb and forefinger, binding the two together like the Buddhist meditation pose.  More noises of pleading through the pipe – I just couldn’t help myself, for my thumbs and little fingers were still sore and stiff from the previous day. 

Of course it made not the slightest difference, and I should have seen the ties to the two stakes coming, so that my arms were pulled outwards and downwards and I could neither have climbed off nor fallen off that bamboo pole.  If I was miserable at that point, it was nothing to the pain and wretchedness I was about to feel, as Tiger sat astride the pole in front of me and lifted my legs upwards, first straightening them out, then bending them so that the soles were flat against each other, resting on top of the pole.  Unwisely I struggled at this point, for I saw, with my legs spread like that I was left extraordinarily vulnerable.  Having had my kneeling support removed, my full weight was on my crotch and I had been forced another couple of centimetres on to the invader in my pussy.

But it was to get worse, much worse.  As the video zoomed in for a close-up, Tiger tied each toe on my right foot to the corresponding one on the left, interlacing the fine cords between them before knotting it all securely.  I whooped and protested and shook my head, all of which Serina captured in great detail, I’m sure.  Tiger stood up at that point and I realised the awful position I was in.  My legs were almost horizontal, with the feet sole to sole.  I could not raise them from this position, which strained my hips and the bonds on my toes.  Nor could I bring them closer to my body of stretch them further out.  My legs were spread wide leaving my sex exposed and impaled on the vibrator.  Tiger finished by tightening the cords securing my fingers to the stakes, since they had become a touch looser as my weight had gone fully on the pole.  This pulled my thumb and forefinger into the same line as my arm, putting further tension into my forearms in particular.  I was sure in Serina’s photos it would all be very Zen.

When Serina had finished with the still shots, she consulted with Tiger.  I was starting to get a picture of who was really running this show.  Tiger’s response was to stand behind me and put his foot on the pole, then start to make it flex. Up and down.  Oh God, I groaned, and my protests went up an octave as I began to slide on the prong, at the same time as the tension came on all the thin cord ties.  He kept it up for perhaps ten minutes, but evidently my noisiness was not to his liking, for he pulled a scrap of rag from the holdall and stuffed it tightly into my bamboo gag, stifling my wailings.

The friction in my loins was beginning to mount and there was nothing I could do about it.  I knew I was going to climax and could not fight off the rising arousal from my crotch, despite the fact that my whole weight was seated on the bamboo pole.  The motion of my body was irresistible and before I knew it I was gritting my teeth and screwing my eyes shut as the climax washed over me.  I swore and abused my captors for this was not what I wanted, not how I wished to come, but my verbal assault came out as a series of moans and muffled pantings.

They left me to come down at that point, but the theme for the day had been set.  I endured further torments that brought me to a climax with the vibrator buzzing harshly in my loins.  Tiger produced a pair of chopsticks with rubber bands wrapped tightly around each end.  He pulled apart the sticks to let them spring back on a nipple while I wailed and pleaded for the biting pain to be removed.  This he did, some ten minutes later, shifting the chopsticks on to the other nipple.  In this way the makeshift jaws were alternated from one breast to the other, fastening on to the bruised flesh with renewed energy each time, causing fresh biting pain.  After an hour of this, with tears streaming down my face, the sticks were removed and my captors induced another orgasm out of me.

At length my fingers were untied and the pair lifted me off that terrible pole, depositing me, toes still bound, on the grass.  Perhaps to match the toe binding, my hands were placed palm to palm in front of me and my fingers bound in similar manner to my toes.  That’s when my gag was finally removed and I was left sobbing quietly under the banyan tree.  Kuan appeared with a bowl of noodles and a bottle of water, but with my fingers tied I found it almost impossible to manipulate the bowl and the bottle.  With my legs bound wide apart I could not even use my knees or thighs to grip the bottle to undo the top.  I cried some more, in rage, frustration and hunger at being unable to get at this food.

My captors thought it a huge joke, and Serina returned, demanding that I repeat my efforts for the camera.  Humiliated, I did so, with the same results.  Satisfied, Serina returned to the house with her cameras, and it was only half an hour later that Kuan appeared and fed me herself, obviously with the permission of Tiger and Serina.  While I was being fed, my captors came out of the house and disappeared down the path toward the beach where I had arrived. 

“Kuan, can you untie my fingers?”  I had to take a chance on this.  “Will you?”

Kuan looked distressed. “No, I’m sorry… I must not…”

“Please!  Help me!” I pleaded.  “Help me escape!  Come with me!”

“No – you do not understand.”

“What?”  I asked desperately.  “Why can’t you help me?”

“My twin sister… She works for Mr Wong in another place like this… If we do anything wrong, the other will be punished.  You know what Triads are?  Tiger is part of the Black Dragon Triad.  They will chop me if I cause trouble.  My sister, Weiwei - I do not know where she is, but sometimes I am allowed to talk to her by phone…  I am sorry…” She hung her head.

I was silent.  Mr Wong seemed to have every avenue covered.  Kuan could not be expected to risk possibly her life and that of her sister for a westerner whom she hardly knew.  My only hope had fluttered and died with barely a chance at fruition.  My torment now seemed to stretch out hopelessly into the distance…

*   *   *
Only Tiger returned from the beach later that afternoon.  I suspected Serina had gone to the city, maybe to develop her photos or for some even more devious purpose that I did not want to think about.

That evening, chained by the neck to the doorpost, I saw no sunset.  Instead the dark clouds that presaged a severe storm were rolling across the sky in a metaphor of my life.

“Typhoon coming!” whispered Kuan from next door. 

I wondered if things could get any worse.