Chapter 1.
The package came by messenger, just before 6:00 pm.. Susan threw a robe on over her t-shirt and panties to answer the door. She was not expecting a delivery. She signed for it and carried it to the kitchen counter to open it. She looked it over, wondering who had sent it. There was no return address and no markings to tell her what it was. It was about the size of a shoe box. She hefted it, shook it gently. It weighed about five pounds or so. Very curious now, she cut the brown paper off. Inside was an unmarked but apparently antique wooden box with brass corners and hinges. She opened the catch and lifted the lid. Packed carefully in crushed paper she could see a wine bottle, a cut crystal wineglass, and what looked like a CD or a DVD. An engraved note card was on top with her name printed on the front. She opened the card. It said:
"From your secret lover
"Susan,
At 8 o'clock this evening, please open this bottle of wine, pour yourself a glass of this wine, drink a glass slowly, pour yourself a second glass, put the DVD on to play, and sit down in a comfortable chair to enjoy them."
There was no signature.
Susan picked up the wine bottle and read the yellowed label. The label was hand lettered in calligraphic printing. It said, "Chateau Rothschild, 1549.
Was the bottle really over 450 years old? Could it be?
She set it down carefully and picked up the DVD. It had no markings, either on the jewel case or on the disc.
Susan was amazed. Her "secret lover" she assumed must be that fellow, John, with whom she had been exchanging erotic e-mails. He had called himself that several times. But she had never given him her full name or address. If that was really who it was, how had he found her? Had he been stalking her? She shivered. What should she do? She went to her computer, sat down, and wrote him an e-mail, asking if he had sent her a gift. She knew he was not normally at his desk at that time of day. She did not get an immediate response.
She fixed herself dinner, reading some fantasies online. She wasn't sure what to do about the wine and DVD. Just before 8:00 she got up and took another look at the wine and the DVD.
Finally, she thought, "Oh, what the hell. What harm could it do?"
She got out a cork puller and screwed out the cork. The cork was obviously old. She poured a glass. She sniffed it. It smelled very nice. She took a sip. It was delicious - maybe the best wine she had ever tasted. She sipped some more, savoring the delicate flavor. Sipping it, she opened the DVD case, turned on her DVD player, and inserted the disc. She poured another glass full of the wine, and taking the remote, sat down on her love seat, tucking her legs under her. She pushed play. Baroque music began playing. Patterns of colored lights began flickering on the TV screen. Then a voice began speaking. She immediately recognized John's voice. His voice was deep, gentle, soothing:
"Good evening, Susan. I'm sure this is a surprise for you. Please let me explain. I am not who you have supposed. You are about to take a trip. You are about to travel through time. You don't yet believe that but you will soon. Relax. You need do nothing. Everything is taken care of. Are you feeling all right so far, Susan?"
Actually, she was feeling very tired. He eyes were drawn to the flickering patterns on the screen, but she could hardly keep them open. She felt strange, almost faint. She thought, "Am I drunk? Already?"
She set the glass down on the end table without taking her eyes from the screen. She sensed the room going dark around her. She felt as if she were floating. The room went out of focus. She sensed the passage of time dimly, like a night that passed in dreamless sleep.
She began to wake. She was bouncing around on an upholstered bench seat of some sort. She felt totally disoriented. She tried to steady herself with her hands, but they were bound behind her. She opened her eyes. Puzzled, she tried to figure out where she was. She was inside what looked like a carriage. The moonlight was shining in through windows at the sides. She could hear what sounded like horses galloping in front of the carriage. She was alone in the carriage. The carriage bounced as if on a rutted dirt road. She shook her head. She must be dreaming. The carriage went round a corner causing her to slide to one side, bumping the side of her head against the window. It hurt. If this was a dream, it was the most vivid dream she had ever had.
She looked down at herself. She was still wearing just the t-shirt and pink panties she had on in her living room. She could feel something around her neck. It seemed to be a leather collar.
She looked out the window. She was indeed rolling along a dirt road through a forest. As she stared, the trees ended, and she saw thatched stone houses, dark in the moonlight. They passed what looked like a quaint old Inn, not slowing or stopping. The name over the door appeared to be in French. Past the village, she saw what looked like a huge stone castle looming above it. . The road turned straight toward the castle, which appeared to be several hundred yards away. They passed through an arched gate in a wall and into what appeared to be the castle grounds. A row of trees bordered the roadway or drive that was apparently going to the castle. The carriage approached the castle, the horse slowing to a trot. The carriage rumbled across a wooden bridge over a moat, and then they passed through a large gate into the castle itself. It darkened as they went through a stone tunnel, emerging into a large courtyard, with stone walls all around. There were a number of men standing around in the courtyard, apparently soldiers. They were wearing belted tunics, woolen breeches, swords in scabbards, and leather helmets. The horses slowed to a walk. The carriage crossed the courtyard, and turning, came to a stop with Susan looking out the right side of the carriage at an entry passage that went inside the back side of the castle. She heard the driver speaking to the horses, and then heard him climb down from the driver's seat. The carriage lurched a little to the left as he climbed down that side, and then sprang back. He came to the door on that side. Opening the door he looked in at her, grinning lewdly at her scanty clothing. She shrank back against the right side of the carriage, fearing he would try to get to her. She huddled there, pressing herself against the side, as far from him as she could get.
Suddenly, the door beside her opened and rough hands grabbed her from behind. She was pulled bodily through the door and placed barefoot on the dirty cobblestones of the courtyard. She turned. Three large soldiers were right behind her. They were well over six feet tall, muscular, wearing the tunic and breaches uniform of all the soldiers in the courtyard. Susan's legs were shaking. She had no idea where she was, how she had gotten there, or if this was even reality. Surely it must be a dream. She shivered, party from fear and partly from the cold night air, with her wearing virtually nothing, standing in front of these men. The three soldiers laughed down at her, eyeing her hardening nipples sticking out against her t-shirt. One of them spat to the side, then took hold of Susan by the waist, hoisted her up, and threw her over his shoulder like a potato sack. She screamed. She felt her bottom sticking up in the air, knowing her thin panties were exposing more than they were hiding to the soldiers standing around in the courtyard. One of the three soldiers gave her bottom a smack, and the three men laughed heartily, making some sort of laughing comments to each other in a language that sounded like possibly French.
The third soldier opened the heavy wooden door in front of which the carriage had stopped and led the way in. She was carried through the door into a stone passageway lit by smoky torches in sconces along the wall. They walked in single file, the soldier in the middle carrying her. They passed several doors, all closed, turned a corner, and continued for many feet down another long torch-lit passage, coming finally to an open door at the end of the passage. The soldier carried her into a large room, and the second soldier closed the door behind them, throwing a heavy bolt into place.
The soldier carrying her set her on her feet again. She looked around. The room was lit by candlelight from chandeliers over head and wall-mounted sconces. Several tables in the room also held candles of various sizes and shapes.
She felt the soldier clip something to her collar, and then she felt her collar pulled upwards, forcing her to her tiptoes, preventing her from trying to run (as if there were anywhere she could run to). He turned her around, facing away from him and toward the opposite side of the room. About fifteen feet away, where there was an ornately carved door. To her left, at the end of the room, there was a huge fireplace, with a fire crackling in the grate. Directly in front of her was a vertical rectangular wooden frame. It was a complete rectangle, fitting between two heavy posts that went from floor to ceiling. There appeared to be a pivot halfway up.
She felt her wrists being unbuckled from the strap that had been binding them behind her. Two soldiers each took one of her wrists, while the third – the one who had carried her in -- picked her up as easily as before, his huge hands nearly encircling her waist. He lifted her up into the frame and the other two soldiers stretched her arms out to the top corners, where her wrists were buckled into leather cuffs attached there. The straps holding the cuffs were then cinched tight. The two men then each grasped an ankle and similarly pulled them down and widely apart, where they were buckled into cuffs at the bottom of the frame. She was now stretched out tight, spread-eagled in the open frame. Her weight was supported partially by her feet on the bottom of the frame and partly by her outstretched arms. Already she was feeling the strain from this tension. She hung there, confused and afraid, stunned by this weird turn of events.
The rope was then unclipped from her collar. The soldiers attached a wooden bracket to each side of the frame at the pivot points. These extended out toward her waist. The soldiers made some adjustments and the brackets were extended to just touch her waist. Then a heavy leather belt was threaded through eyes in the brackets and completely around her. She felt it being cinched tight around her waist, and buckled, holding her rigidly in place; she could not sway forward, backward or side to side.
The soldiers then stepped back and surveyed their work. As though to test the apparatus, one of them reached up to the top of the frame and pulled it down and back. The heavy frame rotated backwards and Susan, bound into it, spun with it, head down, then up, then down again The frame continued to spin and the girl rotated with it, much like a piece of meat on a spit. To Susan it seemed the room rotated dizzily. She soon lost her sense of up and down, and her stomach became uneasy. For all its weight and size, the frame rotated smoothly and noiselessly.
