Megan returned to the verandah and unlocked Monica’s neck chain,  hauling her down the steps and positioning her under the overhead wire I had just erected.  At it’s lowest point Megan could just reach it with her hand by standing on her tiptoes, and tossed one end of the chain over the wire.  Grasping the two loose ends of chain, she lifted Monica’s chin and locked the chain to the ringbolt protruding from the ball in Monica’s mouth before stepping back to admire her handiwork. 

It was a simple but quite stringent position.  Monica’s neck would soon begin to ache as she fought the upward pull.  Portia, who had just appeared again, was delighted.

“This is good, Megan.  A nice little piece of improvisation.”  The bull whip was still on the verandah from the previous day and my stomach went cold as I saw the Chinese girl pick it up and descend to the lawn near Monica.  Monica looked wild-eyed at the figure in red advancing on her, and began to back away.  She slid the chain a few metres along the wire before the wire became just too high for her to go any further.  She tried to crouch, to make her body a smaller target, but that was impossible.

Portia let fly with the whip.  The tip zinged through the air with a fearful noise and hit the ground just beside Monica’s foot.  She jumped, and the wire twanged.  Portia cracked it again, this time the tip flew beside Monica’s other side.  Portia was now standing about three metres away from the mid-point of the wire, directing her shots either side of her helpless prisoner, making her run back and forth, chin pulled up, straining to keep her distance from the awful strike of the whip.  Monica didn’t know whether to turn her back on Portia, and thus not see where she was aiming, or to face her tormentor and expose her vulnerable breasts and pussy to the flying thong.

Portia was good with the whip.  She grazed Monica a couple of times, but it was the fear factor as much as anything that kept her on the move.  Portia’s white teeth were exposed in a smile of pure pleasure as Monica, arms bound high behind her, danced to the ring mistress’s tune on the back lawn.   Megan, too, was watching with amusement, while I, momentarily fearful at the sight of the whip, pretended to get on with my trench digging, now believing that at this stage Portia merely wanted amusement rather than punishment.

I glimpsed Emma come out of the kitchen with a tray.

“Coffee!”  Megan called. Portia fired off one more flick then walked across to where Monica stood trembling and wild-eyed.  Portia let her hand stray to where the ropes were embedded in Monica’s crotch.

“Did that get things going down there?” she asked.  “If you can get yourself off now, Monica, good luck to you.”  Something told me the moment for that had passed.

It was more like an hour before the poles arrived.  I had made more progress with the trench, down the west side of the house past the workshop, watched over by Megan who had positioned a director’s chair on the balcony to supervise.  Monica had remained head up and chained to the wire, while Jillian, still strapped into a ball, was serving as a footstool to Portia.

The poles were of hardwood, and damned heavy.  It appeared that Monica and I were to be the beasts of burden in carting them from the gate to the back of the house.  I wondered whether Megan had had them dropped at the front gate specifically to give us this exercise, or whether it was simply to keep prying eyes away.

Whatever the reason, I found my steel collar connected by a two-metre chain to the driveway wire. Two minutes later Monica was unlocked from the aerial wire and joined me with the same secure linkage. 

“You two are going to bring the poles here,” Megan explained.  “I will mark the locations they are to go with sticks in the ground. Steven, you will have Monica to help you with this, because I don’t want you straining a muscle.  But neither of you is expected to have it easy, so Monica’s help will be limited – limited to however you can utilise her, that is.” 

I wondered what she meant by this but found out soon enough as she disappeared into the house and returned with a discipline helmet.  Monica rolled her eyes at me.  It was to be the last I would see of them for the rest of the day.  The helmet was identical in style to the white one Jillian was wearing, except that this one was black.  I waited while Megan removed the ball gag, replacing it with a soft spongy ball without a strap.  It was like one of those stress relief sponge balls that so-called stressed executives have on their desks, with the little smiley face

Monica had no chance to protest, complain, even utter a word, as the solid rubber ball gag was replaced by the squishy one.  It allowed her to close her mouth fully, while still making it difficult to let any utterances find their way out.  Most commonly the girls used it in conjunction with duct tape or, as in this case, a discipline helmet.  Megan lid it on over Monica’s head, pulling her sweat-matted hair out of the way and beginning the process of tightening the laces down the back.  She checked that the nostril holes were properly positioned halfway through the process before doing a final tightening and tying off at the back of Monica’s neck, where the raven hair protruded several inches below the edge of the leather, hiding most of the shiny steel collar below that.

Megan locked a chinstrap and neck strap in place with small padlocks, then began to untie Monica’s wrists from the hammerlock behind her back.  It took some minutes to undo the complicated web of cords, and when her wrists finally came free, the hooded figure gave a low moan of relief and massaged the red marks  gouged into her flesh.  The cords remained in place over Monica’s shoulders leading down through her legs and up her back, where they knotted and encircled her waist.  It seemed these ropes were to stay there, for the loose tails from the wrist ties were wrapped around her torso and looped through the vertical ones in front, to produce a diamond pattern before being tied off.  They did nothing significant in the way of specific restraint, but no doubt would give Monica a fair dose of stimulation where they remained embedded in her crotch.
“Hands out front!” Megan ordered.  Monica obeyed, and Megan locked two heavy leather wrist cuffs in place, connecting them with a short length of chain.

“I really hope you’re a good communicator, Steven,” Megan said.  “How much use your friend is to you will depend on what you tell her to do and how well you explain things.  Portia wanted to gag you as well.  That really would have made things interesting, but it would also have made it unsafe, so I have refrained from that.  Somebody has to keep a balance around her, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” I said, meaning it.  She ignored my comment.

“Well?  Go on, the pair of you.  Get moving, or Portia will be after you with the whip!”

*   *   *

It took us nearly two hours to carry the eight poles and over a dozen forty-kilo bags of dry-mixed rapid set concrete from the driveway entrance to the rear of the house.  In enforcing Monica’s silence not only was Megan making the carrying exercise much more difficult for me, but she was also limiting our general communication.  I could not gauge Monica’s reaction to my thoughts, nor could I receive her own ideas.  While Portia had the big plan – whatever that might be – Megan had the eye for detail and the canny knowledge of how to control her slaves and to limit communication between them.  She was aware that within our holding cells we could be eavesdropped on, unlike in the open air, and this was the first time Monica and I had been out of earshot of Portia and herself.  Maybe that was the real reason Portia had wanted me gagged, but Megan had at least seen reason in practical terms.

I had speculated on Megan’s role.  As best I could guess, she was being offered some sort of deal in running Bilboes as an extension to her existing establishment.  Obviously she was benefiting already in having lured Monica’s customers away from her by threats, intimidation or whatever Portia had masterminded.  I suspected Megan might just be having second thoughts about the whole thing, however, given the greater understanding she had now had of Portia and her obsessions.  For that matter, Megan had had more to do with Portia than I had, save for what Jillian had told us had transpired in Macau, and I suspect Jill had left some things unsaid which may have been just too painful or too embarrassing.  How far would Megan go along with the plan?  What effect would Madam Wong have on her actions when she arrived?  What could we expect in the way of punishment from Madam Wong? 

I had a sneaking suspicion that our punishment had only just begun, and that the very work we were now doing was leading up to something nasty.  All these thoughts I voiced to Monica as we slowly traipsed up and down the driveway.  Monica could only make muffled grunts, and I don’t think she could hear too well, either.  These points, plus the fact that I had to be constantly telling her to “move more to the left”, “stop here” or “bend down and pick up the pole in front of you”, meant that there was a limited facility for strategic planning. 

The difficulty was that there was little pattern in our treatment to date.  We had been split up and assigned different tasks in different places.  From our perspective, Monica and I could only rely on each other, and even then we were so effectively controlled and restrained that there was little opportunity for one of us to get the jump on our captors, never mind both at the same time.  I was worried with the impending arrival of Madam Wong in that firstly life would get tougher for us, and secondly there would be another person to overcome should we have an opportunity.  In short, from my point of view, it seemed that unless one of the others could spring a surprise, it would most likely be up to me to do something, with only a slim possibility of help from Monica, who had always been chained up – if not restrained elsewhere - in the brief instances when an opportunity might have presented itself to me.  I still believed such an opportunity would come – in time.  But how long we could survive like this, and what Madam Wong’s plans were for us remained high on my list of ticking time bombs.  And above all was the unpleasant thought of what would befall us all in the event of a failed coup.

By the time we had returned to the gate for the fifth pole, we were getting the hang of things.  We had discovered that in putting the two turns of wire around the tree trunk near the house, every time we reached that point we had to go round the tree and duck under the incoming cable twice, before continuing on our way.  While carrying a pole, it meant we had to put it down, do the double circumnavigation, climb under the wire we had just come down, then pick up the pole and proceed again.  In carrying the pole, I took the lead.  On the return journey, I walked behind Monica with my hands on her shoulders, steering her.

We were both sweating heavily under the late summer sun as we reached the gate once more.  I helped Monica to sit down on a large rock.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.  She made a non-committal grunt.  Surviving.  “How are those ropes?” I queried, reaching over and slipping my hand through the cords leading down into her pussy.  She made a protesting noise and blindly tried to slap me away. 

“That’s all right for you to say.  Some of us here haven’t even been able to get worked up, despite all manner of things that have been done to them.  Do you understand me?”  There was a nod – reluctant, glum, regretful, or all of the above.  “On the other hand,” I continued, “others amongst us – who shall remain nameless, except that they’re not speaking at the moment – managed to make a total exhibition of themselves in getting their rocks off yesterday.  Know anyone like that?”  Another nod.  “I would have thought that, with the offer of a friendly helping hand and a moment’s quiet time to assuage those urges no doubt being stimulated by those ropes, that a sensible person would accept what was graciously offered.

Monica reached out her chained hands and laid them on my shoulder, moving them round until she held my face, at which point she pressed her own leather-covered face against mine, in her best attempt at what I presumed was a kiss.  She laid her head on my shoulder and allowed me to slip my hand down her abdomen under the rope.  I helped her on to the ground, allowing her to lie flat and ease any constrictions that might have developed in the cords.  They were greasy and wet where they split her labia, and I knew that was not all due to the sunscreen.  Leila had got Mon wound up this morning and she had not really got over it, despite the episode with the whip.  The walking up and down the drive had made things sensitive and receptive in her crotch and it did not take much to stoke the fire to where Leila had left it. 

Monica tried to help but I just got frustrated with her impeding me so I hooked her chained wrists behind her head and made her keep them there while my fingers slid under the ropes and into her wet passage.  She began to moan under the hood and drew up her knees.  I let thumb explore her clit, which had become swollen and responsive from the ropes, and soon she was tugging hard on the wrist chain as the warm fuzzies began to build inside her.  My other hand toyed with the nipple rings, making her squeal behind the leather and mouth packing.  I tugged them gently and the moaning went up in pitch. Her nips were rock hard around the barbells and rings – I had never known them to provoke such a reaction. A shudder ran through her body and her breathing began to speed up.  I watched her breasts rising and falling faster while continuing to work on her pussy.  She began to moan in time with her breathing, seeming to struggle to do both, then abruptly crashing into an orgasm that make her roll onto her side and draw up her knees.

She was making “Uh! Uh! Uh!” grunts as the climax swept over her and her body jerked and bucked.  The grunts became more drawn out and turned to groans that slowly subsided as she lay against me.  I could feel the trembling in her legs as she curled up into a foetal position and the movement of her breasts slowly settled down.

“You owe me one, Miss,” I told her.  “The meter is ticking until this thing comes off my friend.”  I let her hand rest on the inert Mr Willy. 

“Uhrrrmm,” she agreed at last, with a faint nod of her head. “Uh-huh.”

*  *   *

When the last bags of concrete had been delivered, using a wheel barrow in this instance, the chains tethering us to the driveway wire were unlocked, but instead of being released entirely, they were locked together, leaving us joined at the collars  by a four-metre chain. 

The poles were to be set out in a semi circle around the pillory, which was still incomplete.  I did not like the set out - it smacked of druids and sacrifices and witch-burning.  Monica had the easy part of the work from then on.  She had merely to sit by while I bored the holes with a hand auger, a tedious performance that I interspersed with mixing the concrete and placing the poles.  Before erecting the poles Morag had instructed that four eyebolts be screwed into the tops of them, at quarter points around the edge.  The possibilities for these did nothing to remove my sense of foreboding, nor did a further requirement for a heavy-duty cleat at waist height on the back of each post.

Monica got to turn the hose off and on, helped me with lifting the posts into the holes, and then holding them straight while I shovelled the wet concrete around them.  Lunchtime came and went.  Megan told us we would be fed when the job was done.  In the meantime I contented myself with drinking from the hose and hosing Monica down to her utter annoyance and frustration.  She tried to do the same to me, but couldn’t seem to get the direction right.

Finally we were complete.  Monica was taken inside the house – presumably to be fed, while Emma brought me some sandwiches on the back steps.  I had almost got used to being naked at this stage, although I doubted I would ever get used to the plug up my bum and the heaviness and lack of feeling that currently marked the presence of Mr Willy. 

My plight was nothing compared to that of poor Jillian, though.  While Monica and I had been erecting the posts, Portia had tied a cinching rope through the wide belt anchoring Jill’s knees to her chest, then had hung the rope on the hook of the overhead pulley and had hauled Jill into a suspended position.  With her centre of gravity being what it was, poor Jill was now leaning slightly backwards, although only a matter of inches above the floor. 

Emma sat with me while I devoured the food.  She looked lovely, clad in the black rubber corset which pushed her breasts up and squeezed her waist in.  Clearly she was not there to keep me company, but to see if there was any way in which she could lend at least moral support for the suffering Jillian was undergoing.  Emma rested on her high heels, squatting on the deck between me and Jill, her cuffed and chained hands gently touching the leather-encased head as it swayed in the breeze.

“Aren’t you hot in those?” I asked, pointing to the black latex stockings and gloves that reached nearly to her armpits and trying to divert her attention from Jill.  She nodded. We were sitting in the shade but it was still warmer than it would have been inside, where the air conditioning was running.  She turned her big black eyes on me.  Black was Emma’s colour – her hair, her eyes, her clothes, and today, the rubber ball and the strap trapping it in her mouth.  Her pale skin and white teeth made a startling contrast to her outfit.  Her eyes flicked from me to Jill and a tear rolled down her cheek. 

Nobody else was on the verandah at that moment.  Megan had chained my collar to the post again while she was occupied within the house.  I gave Emma a brief hug.

“Don’t worry,” I lied.  “Monica and I are working on a plan.  We’ll soon have things sorted out.  We’ll get you out of all this – you too, Jill.”  There was a faint moan from under the leather helmet and a creak from the taut ropes and straps holding her body immobile.

“Emmah!” came Portia’s voice from inside, followed by a torrent of Cantonese.  Emma brushed her tears aside and jumped to her feet, hurrying into the kitchen, and I was left alone with Jill.  I cradled her head briefly in my hands, hearing footsteps coming nearer inside.  For some reason I kissed the taut leather stretched across her forehead, then stood to return to the steps.

It was Megan.  She unlocked my chain and told me to return to finish off the pillory.   I did not see Monica again that day and finished the pillory on my own, under the watchful gaze of Megan.  The only other event that interrupted the afternoon was the appearance of two men with Portia, about an hour later.  They were well-dressed and came out briefly on to the verandah.  Jillian’s suspended form evidently appealed to them and they took their time inspecting her and giving her a few gentle swings, which prompted muffled cries from under the helmet.  Portia let her down at this point, and untied both the cinch rope and the wide strap.  I could hear Jillian’s groans as her painfully bound body unfolded into a loose hogtie, for the ring on her sleeve was still attached to her ankle straps.  I could not conceive of being that tightly bound for so long.  I knew the girls were flexible, and could have their elbows touch without too much strain – something that I could barely manage -  but to have it done for such a time worried me.  Monica had once told me that the laced up sleeve spread the load and allowed better blood circulation, but I would still not have wished anything like that on anyone. Jill was moaning as the blood returned to her bent limbs. 

The two men asked permission to untie the rope from the sleeve ring, and Portia nodded.  With this undone, they sat her against the wall of the house and inspected her as prospective buyers might do with a horse.  Her breasts looked good in the corset, pushed up as they were.  Not in Emma’s league, of course, but attractive, none the less.  They prodded them and tweaked the nipples.  Jill seemed to exhausted to resist.

Eventually the pair stood up and spoke some more with Portia, who pointed out various aspects of the back yard, me included, and then took them back inside.  I had a fair idea that these were the guys from the Brisbane Hellfire Club that Portia had mentioned earlier.  The Hellfire Club was an S/M club where like-minded people met and exchanged more than just business cards, and I understood there were more than a few opportunities to try whatever S/M kink it was that turned you on, given that the place evidently had its own stocks, St Andrew’s cross and various other devices of restraint and torture.  In many ways it was a quite remarkable establishment, given that Queensland had been the last state in Australia, according to many, to enter the twentieth century in terms of a liberal outlook.

The two men were obviously Doms, come to explore the possibilities of Bilboes and the potential of the two newest subs, Mary and Trish, imprisoned in the dungeon in who knew what circumstances.  Portia was wasting no time in building up that side of the business.  I caught Megan’s eye and she impatiently motioned me to get on with my work, waving the remote control in ominous fashion.

I did as I was told, fashioning two heavy Cyprus planks of six by two such that they sat neatly on top of one another, then cutting out the holes for the neck and two wrists, to the appropriate size suggested by the Bilboes Book of Measurements.  It was a similar pillory to that in the dungeon, but rather than hinging at one end, this one slid up and down to locations that could be fixed by bolts through a series of holes in the post at each end.  However, once the lower plank was fixed in place, the there was a danger that the upper one – which had to be raised directly upwards – could drop unexpectedly.  I solved this problem with a counterweight at each end running over a pulley.  I made the counter weights from plastic juice bottles filled with water, to get the adjustment exactly right. 

The final touch was to file the edges of the slightly oversize holes and line them with heavy duty padding covered with leather.  I knew from experience that a pillory – like any form of rigid restraint – was very unforgiving.  Necks and wrists became extremely uncomfortable, as did backs and legs as a consequence of keeping one’s upper parts totally still.  A two-inch think plank was about as extreme as you could get.

Megan was quite impressed when I had finished with it. She made me try it out – why was I not surprised – at varying heights.  I made sure she understood that once the two planks were locked together, it was not meant to be adjusted with the prisoner in place.  That would be a good way to promote a broken neck.  All in all it was tolerable – at least for the short time I was held in its jaws.  That was when Megan told me she wanted a further pair of wrist holes, outside the existing ones, presumably to give a wider spread option for restraint. 

Daylight was fading when I completed this last requirement, and I was again not surprised to find myself testing it.  It was more of a strain with your wrists held further apart, for because of the thickness of the planks, it was necessary to keep your arms at right angles to the timber, which meant keeping elbows high and out from the body.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when Megan dropped down the two hasps and clicked the padlocks closed, locking the top plank to the bottom one, then walked away.  I was bent over at the waist – a decidedly worse position than if the holes had been positioned higher, or even at kneeling height.  My legs were – of necessity – spread, without the need for a spreader bar.  I felt vulnerable and helpless.  Did I call out to be released? How long was the appropriate time to endure this in silence, before reminding Megan of my presence?  What was the correct etiquette under such circumstances?

I could not raise my head sufficiently to see the verandah, such was the snugness of the fit.  I am not saying I have a big neck, but it  was bigger than the girls’, should they have occasion to use the device, and something told me this would be the case.

I waited perhaps fifteen minutes, before calling out “Mistress?” a couple of times.  I heard footsteps on the deck then the sound of heels coming down the steps.  My heart sank when the red sandals came into my field of vision.

“Was that you making all that noise?” came the rhetorical question.

“I was only – “

“Shut up, slave!  How dare you interrupt your mistress when she’s having her dinner!  You will remain here until you are released, which may be tomorrow morning if you carry on like this.  Would you like to stay here all night?”  There was no doubting in Portia’s tone that it would be of no consequence to her to do just this.

“No Mistress.”

“As Mistress Megan put you here, I will not interfere with her plans.  I will, however, shut you up in the meantime, just so we can eat in peace.”

“I’m sorry Mistr – urgh!”

“Open wide – don’t fight me, dammit, or I’ll whip your arse!  There.”  The rubber ball was wedged behind my teeth and the strap buckled unnecessarily tight behind my head, in Portia’s usual uncompromising style.  That was me taken care of until further notice.  I guess I now knew the appropriate length of time to leave things until calling out – all night if necessary.

I stared at the ground, and was able to make out little within my field of vision by the lights of the verandah.  I presumed Jillian was still bound and gagged on the deck where she had been propped up with the arrival of the two customers.  I had neither heard nor seen any signs of her relocation.  I wondered where Monica was, and what was being done to Trish and Mary.  I presumed that everyone had been fed in their cells this morning, for nobody – other than myself – had received food on the verandah.  I guessed Leila and Emma were waiting on the two Mistresses at that moment.  Just as I was, but in a different sense.

Probably another hour passed before Emma’s high heels and black stockings appeared in front of my eyes.  The gag strap was undone and the ball was pulled from my mouth, while something like a large milkshake with a straw was presented for my inspection.  Emma grunted something unintelligible, and I found myself drinking a delicious fruit smoothie as Emma squatted in front of me.  Predictably, she was still gagged, and her jaw must be aching like anything, I thought, as I sucked greedily and gazed at her divine breasts positioned immediately in my line of sight. 

We had various sizes of ball gags in our store.  Some were more extreme and mouth-filling that others.  Some had slivers off them that allowed them to fit more naturally in the mouth.  Some were hard and some were soft.  With the right selection, I knew a twelve-hour shift was possible, albeit uncomfortable.  With the wrong selection, the discomfort increased markedly, although of course there was nothing one could do about it.  Safewords were evidently not now relevant as far as the staff of Bilboes was concerned.  Megan and Portia were no doubt working on the premise that we were all professionals and should be able to handle anything within reason that came our way.  However it all depended on whose reasoning we were talking about, and I suspected that some of the voices in Portia’s head were a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.

After Emma left with the empty container, it was another half hour before Megan appeared, presumably having enjoyed dessert and a fag afterwards, if that was her want.  Whatever the reason, my back and neck were aching.  Emma had apparently been told to put back the gag but at least she had not made it as tight as before.

I pulled my head out from the holes with a groan as Megan raised the upper plank. 

“Come,” she said, turning and heading back up the stairs.  I followed, massaging my stiff neck and wrists as I walked.  I had been correct – Jillian was still sitting propped against the wall.  For the second time in two days I was instructed to carry her downstairs to her cell in the Sluice Room.  She made little whimpering noises as I picked her up and the white leather of her hood rested on my shoulder. 

She was the only one there in the Sluice Room as I laid her on the mattress.

“You will chain her collar to the wall,” Megan ordered, “then you will undo the restraints.”

There were three chains locked to a ring at the base of the wall, all about three metres long – long enough to reach the toilet, and washbasin I thought.  I locked one end of the chain to Jill’s shiny steel collar with the padlock Megan tossed down beside me, then rolled Jill on her side while I undid the buckles at her neck and chin, then began on the laces at the back of the hood.  They were devilishly tight and I had to pull half of them clear of the eyelets before I could work the hood off her head.  The blonde, collar-length hair beneath was slick with sweat and Jill’s eyes were closed.  I saw her mouth had been taped over with a number of pieces of duct tape, which I peeled away gently. 

She groaned softly but her eyes remained closed as I eased her over on to her stomach.  Undoing the white sheath pinioning her arms was even harder, for what with the constant strain and the sweating that had taken place, the leather had stretched somewhat around her elbows and the laces had become tighter.  When I finally peeled the leather away, the flesh on Jill’s arms was deeply indented from the folds and eyelets and laces. 

Even after the removal of the sleeve, Jill’s wrists remained strapped together, as did her ankles.  When I finally undid these she remained immobile, breathing shallowly and clearly exhausted.  I was about to undo the crotch strap, which I knew held in an anal plug or vibrator when Megan stopped me with an imperious wave of her finger.

“That’s enough!  Hold out your wrists!”

Megan took the strap that had until then secured Jill’s wrists and buckled it around my own, before hooking the strap over the shower pulley hook and hauling my arms above my head.  Shawnee appeared shortly after wards to give me a thorough scrubbing down then towelled me dry, and I was ordered back to my cell while Jill slowly showed more signs of life on the mattress.  At one point she had made as though to talk to me, then had realised Megan was still there and had decided better of the idea.

I was shoved into my cell to find a tray of food on the floor and Monica chained to the wall and in a severe hogtie on the bed.  Her right wrist had been bound to her right ankle, and her left wrist to the left ankle before her ankles had been tied together.  She still wore the black leather discipline helmet Megan had laced on her that afternoon, so I could only assume she had been in that state for several hours.  Her whole body was trembling from the strain of being bent like a bow.  Under the leather hood I could hear a faint keening sound as Megan locked a wall chain to my collar then slammed the door closed behind me.

I managed to get my gag strap undone, reaching behind my head with my bound wrists, then undid the wrist strap with my teeth.  Only then could I untie Monica to the point where she lay drained on the bed while I removed the discipline helmet and extracted the wet squishy ball from her mouth.  She looked at me with glazed, exhausted eyes.

“Hi Mon,”  I said. “How was your day?”