Part Nine - Missing Inaction

"It looks as if she's not been here for hours," Martine said, emerging from her bedroom. "The bed's still made up and there's washing up left over from yesterday. Kerri's a tidy bug and she wouldn't go to bed without seeing to it first."

"Did she say anything about going out last evening?" Adam asked. Martine shook her head, the blonde tresses dancing about her shoulders.

"No, not a thing. She said she'd wait up until around one a.m. and then turn in, if I wasn't back by then."

"And this is the ex-girfriend?" Adam mused. "She didn't seem that worried about what you might get up to." Martine tapped her hip, her gloved knuckles making a hard sound where they made contact with the steel waistband beneath the leather skirt.

"She seemed to think this would keep me out of trouble," she muttered grimly and then her cheeks began to colour at the memories of just what she had got up to, chastity device or no chastity device. "Anyway," she went on, hurriedly deflecting the course of the conversation, "she walked out on me long before all this started - and that's all her fault anyway.

"No, I'm a bit worried, to be honest. She would have left me a note if she intended to be out for any great length of time."

"What's she taken with her?" Adam suggested. "I mean, don't take this the wrong way, or anything, but maybe she changed her mind, especially when she knew you were determined to meet me. Maybe she was a little bit jealous?"

"Maybe," Martine said, "but I don't think so. That's not Kerri's way, not since I became ... became a girl, anyway." She broke off, recalling how Kerri had set her up as a lesbian sacrifice for the voracious appetite of her hairdresser friend, Lois. Or maybe Adam had a point - sharing her new girfriend with her old girlfriends was one thing, sharing her with a man ...?

"Wait," she continued. "I just want to check the wardrobe." She turned and went back into the bedroom. Less than a minute later she was back.

"Curious," she said. Adam looked interested at her tone of voice. "Unless I'm much mistaken, she's taken what was my rubber catsuit. Certainly most of her own stuff is still here, though she's wearing her black ankle boots and a little rubber miniskirt and leather bomber jacket that used to fit me before ... " Her voice trailed off and she bit her bottom lip gently.

"Why would she want to take my catsuit?" she mused. "I mean, she's never really liked rubber that much. Leather and PVC, yes, but she always reckoned rubber made her feel too hot and should be worn by submissives."

"She sounds an interesting girl, this Kerri of yours," Adam said, unable to suppress a grin. "Likes to be the one in charge, does she?" Martine nodded, pensively.

"You could say that," she agreed. Adam shrugged.

"It's all a bit beyond me," he confessed. "I mean, yes, I had those handcuffs and I've even got one of those little braided whips you sometimes see on the market stalls, more for fun than anything else, but I never realised there were really people who played these things for fun, let alone ... " He stopped speaking in mid-sentence and turned to pace to the window, drawing aside the curtain and staring out into the pale morning light.

"You wouldn't be having me on, now, would you?" he said, carefully. Martine looked up, but he kept his face away from her and she could not see his eyes. "I mean," he went on, "all this stuff about you having been a bloke. It is just a wind-up, isn't it? Yes, I reckon that's it." He turned back to face the centre of the room and now Martine saw that he was grinning hugely.

"Your girlfriend locks up your cunt and sends you out on a date, knowing it'll frustrate the hell out of you and probably - if my guess is right - knowing exactly, or nearly enough anyway, just what you were likely to do. What was it? Some sort of penance or forfeit?" Martine stared at him, uncomprehendingly.

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," she said, slowly. "Or at least, I hope I don't." Adam looked at the expression of consternation and laughed out loud.

"It's okay, sweetheart, you can drop the act now," he said. "It doesn't bother me either way and I have to say I had a damned good night." Martine felt the anger surging up within her and only just prevented herself from flying at Adam, fists flailing. That might have been of some use once, but now her relatively diminutive frame would be no match for Adam's strong masculine physique.

"You pig!" she spat, instead. "You think this is some sort of lesbian girls' game, do you, is that it? What you think is that Kerri locked me in this bloody contraption and sent me out to give you a blow-job and that what I told you was some sort of ... test, maybe? ... to see how you reacted? That's sick!" Adam shrugged.

"No sicker than you trying to kid me that your underwear, sexy as it is, is some sort of shape and gender rearranger. Clever idea and you told it well, but you didn't think for one minute that I really swallowed any of it, did you? Shit, girl, I'd have had to be mad."

With a cry of anguish, Martine threw herself into the sofa and buried her face in her gloved hands. There was a brief moment of silence and then she felt his strong hand on her shoulder. Instinctively, she shrank away from his touch, flapping at his fingers with her left hand.

"Don't!" she snapped. "Keep your filthy fucking hands off me, you bastard!"

"Look, I'm sorry, really I am. I just thought - "

"Fuck what you thought!" Martine snarled. "I thought - I was stupid enough to think - that you really believed me."

"Is it that important whether I did or not?" Martine stared up at him, fighting to keep her voice steady.

"Maybe not to you," she retorted, "but then you're not the one who's - shit!" Her hands dropped away from her face and she sat bolt upright once more, staring at Adam in a way that made him take half a pace backwards. "Shit, that's it!" she almost shrieked.

"What is?" Adam asked, uncertainly. Martine extended one finger and pointed it at him like a pistol.

"If I can prove I was telling the truth, you promise to do every single thing I tell you for the next forty eight hours?"

"But you can't prove - "

"Shut up!" The vehemence of her command surprised even Martine. "I didn't ask if I could or not, nor whether you thought I could. But if I could, just supposing, prove any part of my story beyond reasonable doubt, would you agree to what I just suggested?"

"Maybe." Adam appeared to be considering the proposition. "But if I agree and you fail, what do I get in return? Do you agree to obey me for the same period?"

"As whatever you have in mind undoubtedly includes finding some tools to get this damned belt off me, yes." Adam stared at her and shook his head in disbelief.

"You mean you'd happily let me cut that thing off, even though you know what I'd want next?" he asked, incredulously. "After I've just upset you big time, too?" Martine rose to her feet, covered the few steps between them and grasped his large hands in her own tiny ones.

"Listen," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, I shan't be losing this little wager and the belt gets to come off, whatever the result. I meant what I said last night. Something's going on inside me as well as outside, something I don't even pretend to understand, but right now my memories of being Marty are becoming more and more foggy and, to tell the truth, I don't care a bit.

"Okay, if I can ever get myself out of this lot and everything returns to normal, then I may possibly - probably even - feel guilty as hell, but right now I am what I am, which appears to be a blonde bimbo who's as horny as she is desirable. And this time, mister, whoever wins and decides the belt has to come off, you'd better make sure you've got those handcuffs on me first, otherwise you may just not survive the experience!"

Kerri's head cleared slowly, but still her eyes refused to penetrate the darkness that continued to surround her. Experimentally, she tried to move, but something - several somethings, more like - were holding her pinioned firmly in a sitting position.

She was still wearing the rubber catsuit and the squeak of leather, when she shifted her buttocks as far as her bonds would allow, seemed to suggest she still retained the skirt. Also, to judge from the angle at which her feet were arched, the boots were still in place, but the leather bomber jacket seemed to be missing. However, her outfit seemed to have been added to, for the persistant all round pressure on her features suggested nothing less than some sort of discipline mask, rubber rather than leather, to judge from the aroma that filled her nostrils.

Heavy, unyielding straps seemed to be securing her at wrist, elbow, neck, waist, thigh and ankle. Someone, she realised, had done a very thorough job.

"Hello!" she called into the black void, thankful that she had been at least spared a gag of any description. Presumably, whoever had kidnapped her, or been responsible for whatever that gas was that had overpowered her, had not wanted to risk her choking whilst she was unconscious, hence the sitting position, likewise. "Hello?" she repeated, her voice sounding curious to her. "Anyone there?"

Nothing. Silence.

"Please!" she almost wailed. "Please, someone, anyone!" She concentrated, trying to focus her hearing, conscious of the fact that the rubber stretched over her ears would dull that sense considerably, even if it was not so effective as the rubber over her eyes, doubtless the cause of her sightlessness

"I'm afraid that there's only me, at least for the moment." The speaker sounded very close to her right ear and Kerri jumped in her straps. Despite her terror, she recognised the woman's voice immediately.

"What do you want with me?" she demanded, between sobs of terror. "Please, let me go." She heard the woman from the shop laugh, the same woman who had sold her the outfit for Marty.

"Perhaps I should be the one to ask what you want with me?" the woman chuckled. "After all, you came to me, not the other way around." Kerri fought to keep her thoughts into some sort of order.

"Listen," she said, "I'm really sorry. I mean, I know I broke in here and I'll pay for the window, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. I've been trying to get in contact with you for two days now."

"Yes, I thought you might," the woman purred. "They always do. I presume Marty - it was Marty, wasn't it? - is no longer as impressed with your little present as he was at first? What do you call him - sorry, her - now? Martine, I suppose."

"Yes. Yes, that's right. Martine."

"How very original," the woman drawled, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "And I suppose she's now throwing herself at everything in trousers and trying to get it out of them?"

"No," Kerri said, without pausing to consider her reply. "No, we've managed to solve that aspect, at least for the moment, but I can't keep her locked up in a bloody chastity belt forever." As Martine finished speaking, the woman let out a loud guffaw.

"Oh, very good, Kerri!" she exclaimed. "Very good indeed. Full marks for initiative. But of course, locks can be picked and any good hardware shop will sell her a hacksaw for five or six pounds. Not that I can think why you'd be worried about poor Martine's chastity. I thought part of the idea was to educate her and show her what it really means to be a female?"

"A female, yes," Kerri blurted out. "But not a raving slut of a nymphomaniac. And anyway, I never had any idea that outfit would work the way it has. I just thought Marty'd be stuck in a corset and boots for a few days and have to stay indoors until the timer on the locks, or whatever, finally ran out.

"You never told me what it would really do to him!" she added, accusingly.

"Would you have believed me if I had?" the voice mocked. Kerri sighed, hopelessly and shook her head, about the only part of her body she could move, if one didn't count her fingers ...

* * *