Jillian’s face lit up in an ominous way at the appearance of the mistress of the house.  She reached into the pocket of her skirt and produced the two lockable nipple clamps.

“I have another birthday present for you, Madam Wong,” she said with a tight smile, slowly releasing the steel jaws on the Chinese woman’s nipples, then squeezing them tighter as the shanks on the padlocks slipped through the holes and locked shut.  The captive whimpered through her nose. Madam Wong’s bound hands were then tethered to a rope running over a pulley and she was pulled hard into a head-down, bum-up position which I’m sure she found most undignified, if her protests from under the layers of tape around her head were anything to go by.

You did not have to be a rocket scientist to work out what was coming next with the bench, although Jill, now apparently the mastermind, still managed to surprise me.

At Jill’s instigation the Runt was bound to the horse, ankles apart and bent right over the padded top, handcuffed wrists pulled as far up his back as he could stand before being tied off to cleats on the opposite side.  Mistress Nightshade was then released and instructed by Emma to administer six strokes of the cane to the bare buttocks.  The cane Jill selected was a heavier one than the whippy cane used on my feet, and Mistress Nightshade appeared not to think twice about it.  She remained gagged through this process, but otherwise was unfettered, and I had to say I admired her physique.  She was lean and muscled with breasts that were full and firm – nearly as attractive as Emma’s in fact.  But watching her with the cane in her hand brought back fearful memories of barely a few hours before, and I wondered where Jill was going with this strategy.

The blows were unnervingly sharp in the enclosure that was the dungeon, the crack of the cane on flesh mingling with the muffled cries of the Runt.  We kept a close eye on Mistress Nightshade, but she never considered trying to make a break for it against all of us, and when she had delivered the three strokes, her wrists were cuffed behind her while the Runt was freed from the whipping horse.  The tape was removed from his eyes which brimmed over with tears of pain.

His place was taken by Mistress Nightshade, her buttocks taut over the horse as Jill and I secured her ankles and then her handcuffed wrists in the same manner as the previous prisoner. 

As directed by Jill, Emma then passed the cane to the Runt and instructed him to give ten of the best to his mistress.  The poor guy looked aghast and there was a flurry of muffled invective and protest from the gagged woman bent over the horse, clearly telling him his life would not be worth living.  Emma then explained that either the Runt delivered the ten strokes, or I would do it to his mistress on his behalf.  In that case, Emma evidently explained, I would do it very, very hard, and Emma would follow it up with ten more strokes to the Runt’s backside.  She further explained that if his blows lacked sufficient force, the same punishment would result.

The guy clearly recognised a no-win situation when he saw it, and was extremely unhappy.  He begged and pleaded – as much as he was able under the tape wrapped around his mouth, which essentially amounted to a series of nasal mmphing and whining.  He was crying still, the little twerp.  Emma was adamant.  Do it or have it done to you far worse.  He saw the inevitability of it all and delivered the first stroke.

Mistress Nightshade howled into the ball strapped in her mouth.  I reckoned it was not just the physical pain, it was the anger and the huge loss of face in being beaten by her own slave, particularly in front of Portia and Madam Wong.  Life was about to change for both Mistress and slave, I suspected.  The Runt let fly with the second stroke and the woman jerked and quivered, uttering a muffled scream.  The third blow was harder still.  I decided the Runt was secretly enjoying it and had decided to go for broke.  With the fourth blow, the buttocks were starting to mark nicely, and I knew I was witnessing the end of a beautiful relationship.  The Mistress was in tears by the sixth stroke, though whether this state was from pain, rage, frustration or embarrassment I did not know, nor did I really care.  I was glad the Runt had accepted the responsibility, and I suspected a few old scores were being settled under the guise of ‘having no alternative, Mistress’.  I did not think I could have beaten her to the same extent, despite my sore feet.  Guess I’m a wuss at heart.

After the last blow the Runt was re-cuffed and made to bend over the horse on top of his Mistress.  Jill unbuckled the harness and pouch he wore and inserted a large butt plug up his arse and Emma warned him that if it came out of its own accord it would mean six more strokes.  He whined as the device was rammed home, then he was allowed to stand up and Mistress Nightshade was released from the horse.

“We’re going to the light well,” Jill told me, flourishing a torch she had found in the cupboard.  “Do you want to come?”  I nodded.   “You two can stay and think about what is going to befall you,” Jill told Madam Wong and Portia, both of whom looked decidedly apprehensive all of a sudden.  From the punishment that had just been dished out, I decided that they might well be.

Jill picked up a duffel bag and proceeded to fill it with a selection of ropes and padlocks before taking the Runt by the arm and departing.  I limped slowly after the girls as they marched the Runt and Mistress down the vaulted corridor and into a side passage which I found led to a dark light well, if that wasn’t a contradiction in terms.  Overhead I could make out the dim rectangle of overcast sky, lighter than the dark surrounding walls.  It was starting to rain – the first spits of what could be a summer storm bringing relief from the cloying humidity that made the sweat run from every pore. 

The girls moved quietly here, talking in whispers while I sat on the steps to rest my feet and direct the beam of the torch.  Jill deposited her bag and located another plastic bag from the corner of the light well.  Inside this were more implements of restraint and discomfort.

The girls positioned the Runt behind his Mistress in front of one of the two heavy chains that hung from the overhead beams.  Mistress Nightshade’s handcuffs were undone and re-fastened behind the Runt, so that she clasped him to her back.  His own wrists were likewise released and re-fastened in front of her, embracing her from behind.  Jill fixed a spreader bar to the woman’s legs, ignoring muffled protests.  At this point Emma dropped to her knees between them and did something I could not quite follow.  It soon became plain, however, that she was giving the Runt a hand job.

“Hmmmn – big boy,” Emma murmured in a surprised tone, pausing in her endeavours.  She seemed to fiddle about for a bit, then more protests and muffled cries came from both prisoners as Jill bound a short length of rope around the hips of the pair, pulling them together.  Mistress Nightshade was seething, not surprisingly, as Emma had just impaled her arse on her slave’s evidently not inconsiderable member.  Not content with the beating, the girls were inflicting this ultimate indignity.  The woman squirmed and tried to extract herself – something which I suspected only excited the Runt further, for he appeared to have accepted his fate and was going to take advantage of it as best he could, thrusting into her with an enthusiasm she was unable to counter, as they embraced each other unrelentingly. 

Jill picked up the loose end of the heavy chain from where it lay on the ground and passed it between the woman’s spread legs, then through the Runt’s, drawing it up his back and pulling it tight, before locking it to the main part of the chain above head height.  She completed the position with oversized padlocks that locked his handcuffs to the chain in front of Nightshade, and her cuffs to the chain behind him. 

The pull of the chain between his buttocks obviously drove the Runt’s butt plug deeper inside, and seemed to spur him on to greater efforts with his likely former Mistress, as he humped away at her arse.  The pair had limited movement and they were clearly going to stay that way until they were unlocked.  We left them in the state of humpty as we returned to the dungeon.

The process was repeated here, with first Portia being obliged to give Madam Wong ten of the best with the cane, and then the reverse.  There was no doubt that the latter process was the more severe.  Jill left the tape on Madam Wong’s head, but had wrapped Portia’s head in the same head harness, with the same inflatable gag, that Portia had inflicted on her earlier that night.  Both the tape and the inflatable gag proved reasonably effective against the shrieks that emanated from the pair as they beat each other with the cane.  I had to hand it to Jill – her sense of justice and occasion was faultless.  But I worried that time was passing and we could not afford to dally in the luxuries of revenge.

The plan for these two prisoners was almost identical, except for the minor detail of neither having an appropriate male appendage to equate to that of the Runt.  Jill solved this with a thick penile strap-on which – I found out later – both women had used on Jill at various stages and in various orifices.  I really couldn’t blame her for wanting her pound of flesh under such circumstances.

The women ended up in a mirror image of the Runt and his Mistress, except that Jill opted for thumb cuffs rather than handcuffs.  Nice touch, I thought.  What goes around comes around.  Portia now had a large plug up her arse and wore the strap-on penis which in turn impaled her own Mistress.  This act was done with much complaint and protest from Madam Wong before she eventually succumbed to the inevitable.  The second chain was fixed in place and the thumb cuffs were locked to it.  Jill finished the setting with two pairs of nipple clips on chains, which were attached to Nightshade and the Runt.  For the front pair of Madam Wong and Mistress Nightshade, Jill now tied their nipple clips together joining the pair nipple to nipple, breast to breast, gagged face to gagged face with enough tension to make movement not a desirable thing for either of the pair.  It did not, of course, affect the Runt, who appeared to have climaxed once and was not above doing it again.  Clearly this was part of the reason he had been retained by his Mistress, although no doubt she had never envisaged such circumstances as these.

The rain was coming more steadily now.  Jill’s final action was to rummage in the plastic garbage bag in the corner and give a small grunt of satisfaction as she came up with a polaroid camera in a ziplock bag.  The four amigos were then immortalised for posterity and the Bilboes album.  We turned to go and Jill waved the keys to the various locks. 

“You can find these at the bottom of the harbour,” she told them flatly – a statement which obviously caused more distress, especially when Emma translated it for the benefit of the Runt and his Mistress.  The distress resulted in struggling, pain, things moving inside then despair as reality came home to roost.  We closed the door quietly and left them to contemplate the humiliation of being discovered by the staff and eventually cut free in what would be a long and painfully embarrassing process.  Mess with the Bilboes Team, would they!

*   *   *

We retraced our steps down the corridor towards the dungeon, with Jill in the lead.  She ducked momentarily into a small cell a couple of doors before the main dungeon.  I poked my head inside long enough to make out the small iron-framed bed with a foam mattress.

“This was my room,” said Jill.  There was no emotion in her voice and I knew she was keeping herself in check, keeping inside the suffering she must have undergone in here.  She picked up a pair of white high-heeled shoes that had been placed on the floor near an ammunition box against the wall.  She briefly lifted the lid.  “The torture box,” she explained flatly, then moved past us back into the corridor.  Mon, Emma and I exchanged the look of those who recognised concealed pain but could do nothing about it.

We entered the dungeon again to collect the Serina Case.  “Now to find Weiwei and get out of here,” Monica said.

“We want a getaweiwei car,” I suggested.

“Can’t you be serious for one moment!” Monica shot at me.

“Weiwei?  What does she have to do with anything?” asked Jill in a whisper as we left the dungeon. 

“She’s been kept here on threat of harm coming to her sister, who we’ve now rescued,” Emma explained quickly.  “And we have to get to the harbour to meet out getaway boat.”

‘Getaweiwei boat’, I murmured.

“Steven!”

“Sorry.’

“The servants have their quarters out the back in a separate building,” Jill whispered as we climbed the rear set of narrow stone steps.  “I know where Weiwei sleeps.” We paused in the gloomy hallway at the top while Monica searched for a phone to call Leila.  She was gone for a couple of minutes, during which time we stood listening to our own breathing and ready to jump at the slightest sound.  Then Monica emerged making the thumbs up sign and we turned into another corridor that led past the kitchen and laundry to a back door.  Jill undid the two tower bolts that secured it and eased it open, sticking her head outside and checking the immediate area was clear, while I kept a nervous watch behind us.

We slipped out the door and I closed it behind us before following the girls with the Serina Case clumping gently down the wide back steps over the moat.  The wind had risen and was shaking the trees as large drops of rain splattered on the flagstones and the foliage around us. The path appeared to head towards the back gate in the high stone fence, some thirty metres distant through the garden.  A few paces down this path, the perimeter path on which I had raced the Runt crossed at right angles.  Jill turned left on this and after several metres turned right towards a low building in the corner of the grounds.  The building was a simple structure, with four doors and four windows, as though it comprised four separate rooms side by side.

We reached the first room and Jill turned the handle of the door.  It was unlocked and she pushed it open, flashing the torch inside.  The room was small with a single bed, a tiny bedside table and a narrow freestanding wardrobe the only furniture.  A figure with long black hair was asleep in the bed.  Jill put her hand over Weiwei’s mouth and prodded her awake.  Her eyes snapped open fearfully as she struggled to comprehend what was happening.  The blanket fell back and I saw that she was naked.  Emma knelt beside her and spoke low and fast in Cantonese.  Jill removed her hand as Weiwei’s limpid eyes widened in the torchlight and she smiled in disbelief.  There was a brief exchange between the two Chinese girls as Weiwei struggled to comprehend that her sister was safe and that she was going to join her. 

She threw the bedclothes off, barely conscious of her nudity, and retrieved a satin cheongsam from the wardrobe.   It was the grey one with the holes for her breasts – evidently her standard uniform in the house and all she had a choice of.  She was a practical girl and did the dress up on the move, slipping a rubber band around her waist length ponytail.  My heart sank, however, as the beam from the flashlight revealed her ankles still hobbled with a short chain between steel cuffs, which only allowed her to move at a steady shuffle.  We would take forever to get down to the harbour.

“Emma!” I said, catching Emma’s arm and pointing out the chained ankles.  Emma was dismayed.  There was another brief exchange and Weiwei shook her head as if to indicate the obvious fact that she did not have the keys, nor did she know where they were.  I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances and picked her up in my arms.  She was reasonably light and gave me a wonderful smile as she wrapped her arms around my neck.  The girls smiled gratefully at me as we entered the garden again, slinking stealthily to the back entrance, with Monica pulling the Serina Case behind her. 

Again, there were two massive tower bolts securing the solid wooden door in the wall, but they were not padlocked.  Emma pulled them back carefully and began to open the door.  That was the moment we learned that there was obviously an alarm linked to the gate, for floodlights came on and somewhere nearby the alarm went off – possibly in one of the other servant’s quarters.

We ran.  Instinct took over at that point, but not so much that we ran blindly.  We had done our homework and explored the lanes behind the house for exactly this situation.  Jill’s local knowledge had now ended and she was in our hands.  Monica let me lead and I quickly ducked into a side street, twisting and turning into further alleys as the alarm faded behind us.  While not knowing exactly where I was, I had a good enough sense of direction to know where I was heading, and this was generally down, towards the harbour on the western side. 

The rain was falling in earnest now, big, hard drumming raindrops that splattered on the cobbles like bullets and thrashed through the overhanging trees with a roaring noise.  I could hear the clack-clack of Emma’s and Jill’s high heels on the pavement, while conscious of the awful pain that was scything up from my own bare feet.  My breathing was laboured as I struggled with my burden and of course Weiwei bumped and rubbed at my tenderised nipples. 

After a few minutes I paused, partially to listen for sounds of pursuit, and partly just to catch my breath.

“You okay?” Jill asked, concerned.

I nodded.  In any case, it was just one of those points in life where you have no choice but to get on with things.  There was the sound of a car on a nearby street and we froze, before resuming our journey at a slower pace – three soaked girls in spunky clothes and a gweilo carrying a Chinese chick with her ankles on a hobble chain.  Pretty much your everyday normal sight in Macau.

After a few heart-stopping moments as cars had swished by in the wet, causing us to cower behind trees or parked vehicles, we finally reached the corniche that ran alongside the water.  For a moment I was unsure exactly where I was in relation to the stone steps that descended to the water at one point along the sea wall, but I soon spotted a prominent house I had used to mark the place in my mind. 

The dinghy with Baz was waiting for us.  He was by himself, anchored just far enough from the steps as to be barely visible but able to see anybody who might turn up.  He was sheltering under an umbrella and I felt an enormous surge of relief as the outboard burst into life and the boat loomed out of the darkness.  It was only a small dinghy and we crowded on board, soaked and bedraggled, then chugged into the darkness toward where I presumed the Doris H. Bonkers was moored.

We said little on the way there.  Jill and Emma sat side by side, their arms around each other, while Weiwei stayed on my lap, where she seemed quite comfortable.

“Kuan is on the boat?” she asked in a whisper. 

“Yes,” I told her.  Her eyes seemed to sparkle with excitement and she snuggled closer.  The Doris H. Bonkers appeared suddenly, as the lights on the rear deck were snapped on.  Leila and Kuan were beside themselves as we nosed alongside.  Then everyone was hugging everybody else while I was desperate to sit down and take the weight off my feet.  I slumped down on the vinyl-covered squabs on the seats, so painful were my feet from the journey down the cobbled streets.

“Steven! Your feet!”  The look of horror on Monica’s face surprised and concerned me, and I saw bloody smears on the deck.  I was at once the centre of attention as Emma took charge and ordered hot water and antiseptic and bandages.  I did not want to look at my feet.  The sight of other people’s blood is bad enough, but I have a particular aversion to studying my own at close quarters, particularly when it means there is a problem.  I was aware of Leila helping Baz get the dinghy on board, and shortly thereafter the main engine started up and we were underway

When Emma had bandaged my feet and we had overcome those distractions, we were then able to tell Leila the full story.

 “I hope you left them in a suitable state,” Leila said.

“Take a look at these,” said Jill, flourishing three polaroid photos of the four captives chained up painfully in the light well.  Leila, Weiwei, and Kuan gasped and giggled at the expressions of outrage and fear on the four faces. 

“These will definitely take pride of place in the Bilboes photo album,” Monica decided.

*   *   *

By dawn the next morning we were well out into the Pearl River Estuary heading east to Hong Kong.  Emma had been on the phone to her Uncle Stan and had arranged for him to meet us with our passports and air tickets at Tung Chung, the new satellite town just a stone’s throw from the airport.  She had also confirmed seats for five of us on the eight o’clock Cathay flight to Brisbane that evening. 

Monica had also been on the phone, conveying the good news to Bilboes, where Trish had confirmed that everything was under control and life was going on as normal.  For a while I wished I had a life like that…

*   *   *

As we approached Tung Chung, Serina, who had spent the journey bound hand and foot and blindfolded in the forward cabin, was prepared by Monica for dropping off.  Again we had opted for the Serina Case, which has proved so useful to date.  This time Serina was dressed, albeit in what I was sure would prove a rather warm latex dress that had formed part of her wardrobe that we had brought with us from her house. It was red with long sleeves and would soon have Serina on the boil, especially as she was plugged with a nasty inflatable butt plug and a vibrator equipped with long-life batteries, both of which were secured in place with a thin stainless steel wire through her crotch that connected to another around her waist that we had crimped into place.  They would only be removed with a hacksaw or bolt cutters.

This attired, Serina was blindfolded with two pieces of tape, and the leather hood I had worn in Macau was laced down tightly over her head, secured in place with a plastic electrical tie.  Monica had had the foresight to stuff the hood and the steel strap gag into the case with Serina when we had escaped, and the irony of having her now secured with these was enjoyed by all of us.  The gag was clicked into place and ratcheted shut, the ball protruding through the mouth opening in the black leather hood. 

Serina’s wrists were now handcuffed in front of her and her ankles bound with half a dozen turns of sashcord.  Thus secured, she was made to squat and the handcuffs were tied to the ankle ropes, her arms enveloping her bent legs.

“Just to show we are not heartless,” Monica advised her, the keys to your gag and your handcuffs are taped to the vibrator now warming your pussy.  You will be able to get free once you get that little toy out.  I’m sure you can find somebody to help you with it.”  Serina squirmed and mewed under the hood, but it was in vain.  Oh, cunning, I thought.  You have to ask someone to cut off the wire crotch rope, to get to the keys to your gag, but you can’t speak because of the gag… Very Catch 22.  That would be an interesting pantomime performance to watch.

“We’re going to unload you near the star ferry in Central,” I lied to her, identifying a popular drop-off point for private launches.  “You’ll be left in a nice public area, where with a bit of jumping about I’m sure you’ll make your presence known. Somebody will let you out.  You’ll have plenty of time to think up a good story to tell the newspapers.”

We loaded her into the case amidst protests and more mewing from behind the ball. This went up a bit as Monica fastened a couple of electrical crocodile clips from Baz’s repair box on to Serina’s nipples through the thin latex, then zipped up the top to the case.

We moored at the jetty in Tung Chung – actually about as far away as you could get from Central and still be in Hong Kong – and Emma and I hauled the case on to the dock.  While the rest of us waited, Emma, looking demure and inconspicuous amongst a multitude of other Chinese, towed the case off past the bus terminal to the shopping mall that formed the heart of Tung Chung.

She was back in half an hour, no doubt having taken a circuitous route that would have bumped over all manner of kerbs, cobbles, roadworks and stairs, before dropping Serina in an obscure corner and making her escape.

*   *   *

We stood on the small jetty at Tung Chung - Monica, me, Leila, Emma and Jillian, watching as the Doris H. Bonkers continued on its journey.  Kuan, and Weiwei were returning to Sai Kung with Baz, who had remained rock solid and imperturbable throughout the whole adventure.  Kuan and Weiwei could start their lives in freedom, while Serina would no doubt get around to releasing a guy chained to some water pipes who must be close to dying of boredom.

As for Baz, I wondered what he would write if he ever decided to include this little escapade in the memoirs of his life through the turbulent times of Hong Kong.  Nobody would ever believe it.  He had left, embarrassed and delighted and smothered in hugs and kisses from the girls.  There had been tears from the Chinese girls and we had all waved until our arms hurt.  Then we had turned our attention to where Stan and Alice waited against the backdrop of the new white apartment towers of Tung Chung and the green of Lantau Peak behind them.  Just over the bridge was the sprawling terminal of Chek Lap Kok and all things modern and high tech that led back to our life at Bilboes, where not much seemed to happen and things would now doubt be trundling on as normal.