The Box

THE BOX

CHAPTER TEN

"Are you worried that my hands are going to get cold?"

Ally was still sitting on a chair in the suite. But now, after much rummaging in Lady Heather's bag, a second pair of handcuffs had been produced and each individual wrist was now firmly manacled to a chair arm.

Sarah, in her sisters uniform, had arrived and with the help of Angela, was beginning to carefully bandage each of Ally's hands.

Ally was restless and impatient because she was nervous and she wanted to get on so she sat in the chair swinging her bare feet and making comments to anyone who would listen. As an experienced nurse of more years standing than she cared to remember, Sarah knew when to listen to a patient, when to respond and when to take no notice, something Linda often referred to as "cocking a deaf 'un."

"Hey! Any chance of a bag a crisps? I'm gettin' hungry!"

Kneeling beside her and doing her best to avoid her flailing feet Sarah looked up at her.

"You'll get fed when we get to the studio, young lady and not before and watch those feet! You nearly had my eye out then!"

Ally, by and large, was extremely mature for her age but she had steam to let off and without really considering the consequences, she manoeuvred her left foot and placed it as firmly as she could over Sarah's face causing her to swing her head away spluttering.

She stood up, her kindly; smiling features momentarily flushed and stared at Ally who was a picture of innocence.

"What's wrong?" She shrugged, "They don't smell!"

Sarah regarded her for an uncomfortably long time and then she stalked off to the table where the bandages were and picked up several long rolls of pristine white cloth. Then she returned to where Ally was sitting.

"Don't smell! Don't smell eh? Well, young Allison YOU won't be smelling much for a little while but you've got that to come! In the meantime I think we need to do something about those little feet of yours!"

*

"Well?"

The Bishop drew long and hard on his cigar and then blew thick bluish smoke into the air. He looked at his wife who was leaning over the wheelchair watching him and smiled.

"I know it's been said before, but I love it when a plan comes together!" He looked at the more than half full bottle of Romanian Cabernet Sauvignon and said, "Seems a shame to waste this, although it's not exactly vintage…"

"Not Californian either," Said Niles who had been contacted by phone, he held up the bottle and looked at the label, "£2.99! That's less than five bucks!"

"Well look at it this way, Niles," Said the Bishop wryly, "It's not exactly for a wine tasting!"

Lady Heather pulled a face,

"Nope, I doubt very much that she's going to have much sense of taste where this is going!"

*

Sarah was surprisingly strong. Although with years of training it was often a matter of technique rather than raw physical strength and in one swift movement she had caught hold of both Ally's feet and was now proceeding to wind a bandage around and around her ankles, trapping them both together. Ally tried to swing them away but Sarah's grip was firm and as the wrapping became thicker so Ally became more and more vociferous.

"Hey! Hey! I didn't mean it, okay? I was just fooling around! Sarah, stop it! Anyone in there? Hey, the lights are on, is anybody home? Sarah!! No, Sarah, don't!" Once Sarah had made up her mind however, she seldom changed it. Still keeping a tight hold on Ally's feet she looked up at her.

"You know Ally, " She said smiling for the first time, "I know a lot of people don't like them, but I do. I LIKE feet! Especially little podgy ones like yours!" She gently touched a big toe. "Little podgy bare feet with little podgy toes and yours are SO cute!" Ally looked at her reprovingly.

"Don't Sarah. Don't! Don't touch my feet!"

Sarah gently plucked at a toe.

"This Little Piggy went to market…"

"No Sarah! Not my feet. Anywhere but my feet…"

"This Little Piggy stayed at home…"

"No, Sarah, no! I'll go hysterical. Don't. Please don't!"

"This Little Piggy had roast beef…"

"Sarah! Sarah listen to me…"

"This Little Piggy had none…"

"Don't do it Sarah! Please don't do it. I'll lose control. I'll scream. I go mad when people touch my feet…"

"And this Little Piggy went wee, wee, wee all the way home…"

There was silence. Ally had momentarily closed her eyes. When she opened them Sarah was still kneeling in front of her in her dark blue uniform with the short sleeves looking poised and demure. She was still holding her bound at the ankles feet and the fingers of her right hand were poised just above the sensitive wrinkled soles. It wasn't exactly a Mexican standoff. The two protagonists stared at each other.

Ally did her best to smile ingratiatingly.

"Sarah…pleeease!" And she let out a long sigh.

And then Sarah struck. With no hint of warning she opened her mouth raised her hand, licked her right index finger and ran it quickly down Ally's left sole. Then another lick and the same thing to the other foot and then her hand was everywhere, jumping from one foot to the other, touching the soles, then tickling, then touching again.

Sometimes she would delve a finger in between the toes and then withdraw it just as quickly as it arrived and sometimes she would just linger in one place and tickle, tickle, tickle.

Ally's reaction was definitely not the threatened one. At first she giggled and then she began to sway in her chair and then she began to laugh and laugh and laugh until soon she was breathless but she still kept on laughing, whilst Angela looked on. fascinated and just a little worried at the same time.

Soon Ally's face was red. Soon she was gulping in lungfuls of air and laughter is contagious because very soon Angela and Sarah were laughing too but nowhere near as hard.

Eventually Ally gained enough breath to speak, she was sweating and hanging limp in her chair.

"Pleee..eease…Plee..eease," She looked at Sarah as pitifully as she could whilst still convulsed with laughter and Sarah stopped but her right hand remained poised over her susceptible soles.

"Are you going to be a good girl now Ally and do everything I tell you?"

"Yes…yes ..anything… just please stop. Please… stop… Sarah. Please!" Sarah wondered idly if full-scale torture could possibly have been more effective in such a short space of time. Unfortunately Linda's feet were not quite so vulnerable.

"Hello! Are we having a party we weren't invited to?" The Bishop stood in the doorway flanked by Lady Heather and Niles.

"Or is it just li'l ole' Ally being awkward again?" asked Lady Heather walking over to her and placing an arm round her shoulder.

By now Ally had recovered her breath a little.

"I'm not awkward," She began indignantly but Sarah was already reaching for her feet again, "Okay, okay! yes I am! Yes, I'm really awkward. I'm the most awkward person in the whole wide world… just don't tickle me again! Please!"

Phil Bishop clapped his hands in a sincere round of applause.

"Good Girl Allison! We'll make an obedient little slave girl of you yet!"

"I think it's highly unlikely," Muttered Sarah under her breath and for a moment it looked as if Ally was going to aim a kick at her with her bound feet but the two women looked at each other and she thought better of it.

Niles and Angela meanwhile were renewing old acquaintances. They were locked in a clinch and Nile's hand was sliding slowly up the unexposed part of Angela's stockinged thigh.

"Hey, hey, you two! You saw each other this morning!" Phil Bishop looked about him and then in the general direction of his wife, "Is there a fire bucket around here anywhere?"

"Well there sure as hell won't be any water in it darling! You must have used all that up on "you know what" outside!"

Ally looked up at them sharply and The Bishop threw a glance at his wife,

"Oh well, now's as good a time as any."

Lady Heather agreed,

"Yeah and you can get changed while you're out there, we're running out of time." She bent down next to Sarah, "Need any help? Only it looks like Angela's otherwise engaged!"

As he left the room Phil Bishop threw the couple a glance and said.

"For God's sake Niles put her down. You'll set the fire alarms and the sprinklers off in a minute!"

*

Sarah decided, for safety's sake, that she should continue the binding of Ally's feet in case she wanted to kick out again. Very soon both legs were joined at the ankles and completely enclosed with bandages down to the toes, it looked as if she were wearing one large white sock.

Meanwhile Lady Heather had finished wrapping Ally's left hand from just above the wrist to the tips of the fingers. She had tucked in the thumb and then asked her to make a fist, which she then wrapped. Ally could not have used the hand even if she wanted to.

Before finishing the right hand, Sarah, who had now joined her, opened a small box and produced what appeared to be a black rubber bulb with a lead attached. Still handcuffed to the chair ally watched fascinated as Lady Heather placed the bulb between her fingers and her palm and Sarah began to wrap her hand.

"That's your lifeline Ally, she said tapping the back of her hand. Once you're in the chair it jacks into a terminal in the right arm and from then on if you're in any distress at all I want you to squeeze the bulb. Just one squeeze will stop us and three squeezes will tell that you want out altogether. Squeeze twice if you feel threatened in any way, Understand? One's a warning, two's…"

Ally was still being slightly over exuberant.

"Yeah that's fine but can I have something to eat?"

Lady Heather was about to shake her head but Sarah stood up and touching her on the elbow suggested that she wanted to talk outside. She, in turn, stood up and looked over to Angela who had now disengaged from Niles.

"Can I trust you two together?" Lady Heather looked from Ally to Angela and back again. Handcuffed to a chair with her feet bandaged together and her hands wrapped, wearing a flimsy hospital gown that just covered her knees, Ally was tempted to stick out her tongue. But she didn't.

"No Your Ladyship you can't!" She looked at Angela who was attempting to pull down her hem to a level approaching decency, "As a matter of fact we were thinking of going shopping, weren't we Angela?"

Angela giggled.

"It's okay Lady Heather, I'll look after Allison and make sure, " She traced a finger across Ally's lips, "that she's kept occupied!"

Lady Heather stared at them for a few seconds.

"Hmm, that's PRECISELY what I was worried about!" And she turned on her heel and walked out the door.

*

Sarah was in the main suite with her arms folded across her ample chest.

"Okay Sarah what's worrying you?" She had one of the most readable faces that Lady Heather had ever come across.

"Are you going ahead with the enema?

"Yeah. The reservoir's full."

"How much?"

"Two quarts. That's okay isn't it?"

Suddenly Sarah's face wasn't so readable.

"And how much wine?"

"Oh about two big glasses. That's not much is it?"

Sarah looked pensive.

"Alcohol's absorbed a lot quicker through the colon than it is through the stomach. No gastric juices to break it down, quickest way to alcoholic poisoning if you're not careful."

Now Sarah's face was positively inscrutable.

"So you're saying we can't do it?" Lady Heather was now concerned.

"I'm saying she needs to eat or she could get tipsy or even worse!" Sarah's face was legible once again, "And she's bad enough now!"

*

Looking at Angela standing before her, with a slight pout to her full, dark red and glossy lips, Ally was reminded of a singer. A torch singer in a fairly sleazy LA nightclub in the fifties. The sort that feature in television movies. She could just see her in a tight floor length white dress covered in sequins that matched her short platinum blonde hair. She could even hear the single alto sax in the background that would herald her entry…

She was bought back to reality by the fact that Angela was now straddling her and hiking up her uniform.

"Hey!" Protested Ally. "Don't people wear knickers any more?" But a gentle but insistent hand, that pushed her face, or rather her lips, tightly and neatly into the shaven V that nestled just above Angela's legs stifled her protests.

TO BE CONTINUED

WARNING.

This is only a story and you can do things in stories that you would never do in real life. In real life people DO take red wine enemas but it should only be done under strict medical supervision. I do not advocate it and I do not do it. Perish the thought!

© Wallace 2003. The writer wishes to be acknowledged as the author of this piece. This story is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any events or places, real or imaginary, or to any people living or dead.