I got around to unpacking our stuff the next day. I unpacked Mom's in her bedroom. I didn't know quite where she kept all her different clothes, but I thought I'd better try my best, it was all I could do for her, give her a tidy clean home on her return, whenever that was going to be. It would make me feel like a good boy and hopefully keep my mind off worrying about her, which didn't entirely work.
I did wonder why she had so many rather sexy items of underwear. There were various kinds of things you only see in adult sex shops etc, as well as the more everyday things. Some had been worn on the holiday of course. The erotic clothing was kept in a separate clothes bag in her case. As I put them in the wash, looking at the labels to try and get it right, I noticed one pair were solied more, with what I could have sworn was dried sperm. I dismissed it, telling myself it was probably just some discharge for some reason, or spilled cream from coffee in her hotel room or body lotion or something. There was no way she could have been with anyone, I had been with her all day every day. Except of course at night when we were in separate rooms. I was sure she wouldn't anyway, she was a respectable woman. Very attractive admittedly. Some might have called her a MILF, but she was very demure in dress and habits normally.
At the very bottom of the case, I found a folder. It contained, surprisingly, essays she'd been writing. I knew she was doing a course under a female psychologist at the hospital she worked at, about human behavior and the history of the country we'd gone to. I remembered meeting the woman a couple of times, she was a tall brown skinned foreigner with long black hair. She had seemed somehow offhand, cold and domineering although she was an attractive woman. Dr. Shangwal was her name, I think she was mixed Asian and Middle Eastern. Mom wasn't a complete prude despite her nice, sometimes slightly Victorian manners, and I remembered us jokingly calling her Dr Shagwell!
These particular essays were about democracy, human sexuality and the psychology of torture in that country. It seemed mostly professionally presented, dispassionately and objectively describing cases and examples. However, reading on, I discovered descriptions of some of the instruments used in modern times, including a thing called "The Picana." My heart began to beat harder in my chest as I read that it could resemble a souped up cattle prod, but was modified, designed more for human torture, as it could inflict greater pain than the cattle prod, but with less marks on the body, and so less evidence of maltreatment of prisoners.
I was more disturbed to find a note penned by Dr Shangwal. It said, "The contact in that town is a young man who holds market stalls. You may get some information from him on current goings on by the police there, but I think he may want something in return!" A suggestive smiley accompanied it, of a smiling face and a doodle of an erect penis!
The shattered pieces of this jigsaw were beginning to come together! "Oh, no!" I thought. "MOM! NO, MOM! Surely you didn't?"
My cock was already hard, throbbing erect in my summer shorts, betraying my own feelings to my logical mind.
The phone rang. I ran downstairs, hoping it was her again, reassuring me everything was all right still. There was a few seconds of silence when I picked it up, then suddenly a brutal whipcrack and "OOOOOOUUUUAAAARGH!" Then a loud buzzing sound, and "HOOOOOOHH, NO!" Then a long drawn out wail. "GGGRRRAAAAAAAH - HUUUUUAAAARRRGH!" A woman gasped and sounded like she was hyperventilating, then the call clicked off.
I fell into the chair, shaking with shock. Surely it was my college friends winding me up, the bastards!? They'd done pretty bad wind ups before, and I'd confided in one of them that morning on the phone that she'd been held back and I was worried about her treatment.
Then again, what if it was her? What the hell were they doing to her? I went back to sorting out her stuff upstairs but my concentration was wrecked. I got my cock out, and pressed her sexy underwear to my face. I found her slippers too. I didn't know if she ever guessed I used to wank into them. As always, they smelled of her, the sweet sexy scent from her bare feet and the talcum powder she used.
All the things that could be happening to her whirled around in my head. Images floated into my mind of her being whipped, scolded, slapped, electro tortured, shagged, sodomized, led round on a leash. What were they doing to her? MOM! OHHH, MOM!" I thought, as I cum into her undies, bra and slippers, again and again, blushing in my shame and uncontrollable desire to know.
Mom didn't call again. There were no more strange calls with noises either. However, two days after I found the essays, a letter came. Postmarked from that country, first class international carriage, with the stamp of the regime. Inside was a postcard, with no letter of explanation. Mom's handwriting was easy to recognise, she wrote that she was all right and again not to worry. She said she wasn't at the police station now, they'd let her go. She wouldn't be home yet, there were things and agreements she had to sort out, and they were keeping her under scrutiny until they were satisfied. She said she'd write at least once a week if they'd let her, to let me know she was fine. I took it that the mail being sent in an official envelope like that meant they were taking care of her.
I was glad she was writing as the weeks turned into months. I'd have gone out of my mind without that reassurance, slim as it was. I still worried, naturally. I didn't see why the cards would always be sent in official envelopes. When I'd come home from college I'd find myself unable to concentrate on T.V. and I'd sit there with my mind turning over the events that holiday. I'd had no idea it was anything more than a normal holiday. We'd been abroad before without any problems.
I sought out a couple of new internet friends from any websites and social networks I could, in the town where we'd gone to stay. I mentioned my Mom was there at the moment. I described her in as much detail as I could. Attractive, cheerful and maybe a touch sweet like many mature western mothers and with a magnetic friendly but quite cultured and respectable way about her. She would show herself to be a good honest soul, helping anyone she could and if they asked about she'd probably be helping people in need and teaching some first aid.
I asked them to do me a favour and try to find anything about where and how she was. They knew nothing much, from what I could understand of their attempts at English anyway, and the translation tools didn't improve it much. I did get reassurance from one person that she was indeed no longer held at the station. That was an enormous relief. So she was free and just dealing with whatever remained before heading home, as she said on her postcards.
Out of the blue, Dr Shangwal's secretary called me one day. She said I needed to come in to the hospital to see Dr Shangwal, and as it was confidential it had to be in a private meeting. Puzzled, I went as she said.
"Hello Bob!" The foreign psychologist as I tentatively entered her room. Like a doctor's surgery, it was quiet, almost stifling in its contrived peace. She began in the way they do when encoraging familiarity. "Can I call you Bob!? I nodded. She went through the usual smalltalk, then breached her subject. As she sat at her desk typing into her computer, she began. "How is your mother, do you know?"
I said I thought she was dealing with some official tangles and was delayed abroad.
"Hmmm." she said. "As you know, Ann is doing a project for me. This is very important to her, it gains her necessary qualifications, and afterwards I can get her much better jobs. Among the work I've set she's had some amount of choice, but mostly I decide. She's been there six months now, and I think her project should be complete. I feel it's time to resolve these diplomatic glitches." She smiled at me without emotion in her beguiling dark eyes.
Then she went on, "I do several types of work here. One thing I do, is counselling. I work for the government in some capacities. I have done work abroad too, counselling victims of all kinds of stress and ordeals. We are concerned here because you must be very worried about Ann. I have - "
She broke off as the phone rang. An agitated voice babbled on the line, then she quickly got up and excused herself, saying she was sorry to make me wait but there was an urgent matter at the other wing of the hospital. She closed the door and her footsteps hurried down the silent corridor.
I thought hard. Government? Victims? What the hell was going on? I listened for a minute but no sound was heard. Nobody about. I decided to glean anything I could from the doctors' computer screen.
I went around to the other side of her desk. Dr Shangwal had opened a very official looking site, something of an internal password protected thing, for professionals with access to certain foreign affairs. It was undoubtedly a foreign site, but she had left herself logged in. I couldn't understand the language and symbolism, but I saw a menu option for the English version. I was risking things by doing this but I had to press the button, as sites usually don't translate names, and the name heading the page was Ann (Mom's surname.)
My heart beat faster as it changed to English. Listening intently for anyone approaching the room, I read haphazardly. The first item I saw was titled "ARREST SHEET." I clicked on it. I heard my own voice gasp.
It was a translated arrest sheet, just like it said - with photos.
The page showed a logo at the top, with the country's insignia, and "MINISTRY OF JUSTICE." Another official seal at Mom's name, and lower was the general Seal of the Regime.
Placed between the name and the description below, were four photographs of a naked woman, blindfolded. She was hancuffed and photographed in different positions. It was undoubtedly my Mom. That same hairstyle and body shape. Except I'd never really seen her unclothed. I took in my Stepmother's nude handcuffed form. Her breasts, mature and quite firm, with large areolae. Her bare back and peachy bottom were shown in the lower photo, where she was cuffed behind her back.
My hands shook and I felt overcome with fear and shock, but a strange morbid fascination drove me on. Opening other windows, I discovered what had been held from me. It was true, she wasn't in the police station now. It was far worse than that. She'd been officially charged with several offences and comandeered by higher powers, and transferred to a secure military base!
Now I heard the sound of Dr Shangwal's heels echoing in the corridor. Damn, I had no time to discover more and get the current news on her. I fumbled but just about closed the extra windows and changed it back to the original language, pretty much how it had looked when she went out. Despair and longing and terror reached unbearable heights in me as I went back to my seat.
I'm a good actor but I couldn't conceal my hands shaking as I sat there, and I barely heard what she said as she continued. My head swam. She probed me about life with Mom. Had her problems being "caught up in red tape and delayed" caused me much stress? How close were we? and various more invasive questions. I didn't know why she needed to know those. No wonder she wouldn't talk over the phone. She touched on my sexual feelings and fantasies. I normally wouldn't anyone anything like that, doctor or not, but somehow I felt compelled to. Something was odd and overpowering about her.
She concluded "You will be pleased to know I am now in a position to secure your mother's release and return home." She eyed me in a way I found uncomfortable when she added, "She will need to sign some papers, for confidentiality and assurances of her not taking action because of what's happened, and here are yours, sign here please. This is that you undertake to vouch for her and agree to the terms."
The papers she presented were in a foreign language. I signed anyway, all I wanted was her return. I had no idea what the documents actually said.
I couldn't wait any longer, I blurted out, "Has she been tortured?"
She smiled at me, a cold smile with serious eyes. "We'll have her home soon."
As she ushered me out she laughed as if my question was a joke. Shangwal was a patronising bitch but I saw no point in pressing her to open up on anything.
Three days later I finally picked up Mom at the airport and drove her home. I was an emotional reunion, and we both got slightly tearful. To hug her again, smell her perfume, hear her loving voice was wonderful. She seemed all right. We cooked dinner together and I asked no strange questions.
She asked me for a foot massage that night, something she'd not done before. I blushed as I cradled her sexy feet and ran my fingers over them. She said she was exhausted and her feet were in need of some TLC. As I ran my thumbs up her soles, I noticed she had hard pads of skin at the balls of her feet beneath the toes. I wondered what had caused that, maybe just the rougher life she'd lived while in custody. It somehow turned me on to feel them. I didn't know how I was going to get around to all the qustions I was burning to ask. It wasn't the right time, if ever.
I felt a lot better now she was here safe again.
In bed that night in my dark room, I felt safer and less guilty to let my mind run over events and let myself get the horn. My secret shameful feelings came easier to the surface. I went over things again, at least all of what I knew. There was a strange vinegary kinkiness about the whole thing. I wanked like crazy!
Days turned into weeks and months. It all went back to normal.
Spring was in the air and I was off college, with Mom at work one day, when I got a message on my cell phone. A video clip. I froze at its title.
