Bound to Now

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.

*****

While written to stand alone, this story nevertheless follows, and extends, two earlier tales, the Geek Pride entry 'An Infernal Folio' and the subsequent 'Infernal Fornications'. Readers who value context and character background may find their enjoyment enhanced by reading those first.

*****

It was inevitable that someone at work would notice my overnight bag.

Ira eyed it thoughtfully, tucked into a corner next to my desk in the university archives, as he stepped into my office. He raised an eyebrow.

'Is Miss Stay-at-Home-Sophy actually going somewhere this weekend? Not cooped up in her little cottage on a Friday night reworking another draft of the "The Abelartus Text"?'

I laughed, perhaps over-casually.

'I don't get to take a weekend off on occasion?'

I didn't wait for his reply.

'I am off by train to Durham, an old university friend has promised me some long walks in the countryside.' I disliked deception but the real story required privacy.

'Will you be stopping in at the University archives there?' Ira's grey eyes gleamed. 'John has just acquired that thirteenth century

Book of Hours

from Montpellier. The illumination he said was stunning.'

'Unlikely, although tempting in different circumstances. This weekend is purely a pleasure jaunt.' At least this last sentence was truthful.

Instead I would be staying in town, my first true overnight with Phausto. Here in Cambridge. As an out-of-town visitor he had always driven to my country place in Oakington for our increasingly wanton dalliances and sometimes dinner but had been strangely reluctant to stay the night. Always he returned to his hotel with one excuse or another. His invitation for me to visit at his friend's lodging in town was therefore not only welcome but an event of extraordinary significance for me.

Two hours later that afternoon, anyone who would have seen me crossing Midsummer Commons, the site for the great market-fair that brought farmers and traders from all over East Anglia together at the height of a medieval summer, could have deduced my excitement. The lightness of my step, even in the swirling fog and damp November air, the smile of anticipation on my face.

The address I had written down on an index card directed me to a two-story building, one I had passed by many times before but never noticed. It was ancient enough, like so many others in town, that the outside had grown up around it, and the ground-floor windows looked out only just above pavement level.

Phausto had instructed me to go down the front stairs and ring the bell at the blue door on the left. I paused at the landing, took a breath. My nipples were erect. It was not the cold, just unusual for me to go without a bra in public. Their unrestrained movement against my blouse from walking plus my own excitement had called them to attention. Phausto would notice, and enjoy, the absence of this particular article of undergarment all weekend. At least that was my hope.

It took several minutes for him to answer. The smile in his creased, olive-hued face never ceased to incite a little ripple of pleasure through me. His fine woollen suit, dark blue, was typically elegant, although he wore no tie. I was not sure I had ever seen him without one in public before. But of course this was not public but his home, or his friend's home anyway, and he could do as he wished.

'Sophia! Excellent! Let's get you in out of the cold.'

He took my bag and led me down a long, dark hallway towards the back of the flat. I was reminded, for the dozenth time, how self-assured he was - tall, confident and forward. His leather shoes squeaked faintly on the polished hardwood floor. He paused partway down the hall, between a set of two doors.

'Forgive me for this request, but it is quite important. This is my old friend Conrad's home, he has allowed us use of the upper apartment through Sunday. You may not, must not, enter any of the rooms on this floor this weekend. Can I have your promise?'

'Of course. I appreciate his generosity and value his privacy.'

Phausto's eyes narrowed. 'Even if there are sounds or alarming noises behind closed doors? You must stay clear.'

I nodded, although the explanation could not but provoke curiosity.

'Excellent.' He took my hand and led me to the back of the flat, and we ascended a narrow, wooden, switch-backing staircase.

He eased my coat off and hung it next to the inner door of the flat. 'You look lovely as usual.'

He gazed at my long lavender skirt and light-coloured blouse. He couldn't resist touching my chest through the fabric and noting the firmness of my nipples. His recognition, and appreciation, of my uncharacteristic braless condition was reflected in a slow smile.

The main room of the flat defied any expectations I might have had, although the nature of our lodgings had been the least of my anticipatory thoughts. The layout was conventional enough, with windows at the front overlooking the commons, an expansive view that itself likely increased the value of the place by several hundred thousand pounds, but the furnishings were highly irregular.

The room featured high ceilings with exposed rafters, but it was neither airy nor light-filled. Predominantly wooden construction, including all the furniture, as befit its age. A crossbow was mounted, at a forty-five-degree angle, over the mantle, with a small fire going underneath. The crossbow was clean but not a reproduction, the metal parts old and weathered. An unusual decoration. What military conflicts had it seen in its career, what bolts shot from it in anger or defence?

Red-tinted fabric hung in wide strips down the walls, from ceiling to floor. These undulated gently from the heated air coming from the hearth. The texture was striking. I did not see an electric light or appliance anywhere. A lit candle stood in the centre of a table, above a shallow lectern holding open an old codex that Phausto must have been consulting.

The overall effect was both dark and inviting, although a bit eerie.

'Some Madeira?' Phausto asked, after taking my bag to the bedroom.

We stood at the window, side by side, overlooking the commons, sipping sherry from handsome glasses. It was grey outside, fog from the fens slowly sweeping across the fields, the five o'clock sky darkening in the late November season. The dark figures crossing the commons passed with heads down, shoulders hunched, everyone on their way to a warm home and supper.

'Tell me about your friend Conrad,' I asked, a bit impulsively.

Phausto stared out the window and did not answer immediately.

'We have known each other for some time. His expertise is in late Latin and early German vernacular scripts, of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries in the Empire. You would be hard pressed to name a pre-1500s manuscript from there - the Rhineland, Saxony, Bohemia - that he has not either read, handled, or digested in some fashion.'

I confess I shuddered. Of course his friend was wise in the ways of old books and manuscripts, his knowledge likely rivalling Phausto's. So three paleographers were all under one roof and it was not even a conference. Had these two known each other at the monastery at Sponheim?

'Will I meet him this weekend?'

Phausto paused. 'Unlikely', he murmured, 'he is a most private individual.'

He turned to me. 'But that matters little. These next days are for us alone, are they not?'

Phausto made supper, a simple but elegant stew, with crusty bread and an unusual vegetal spread. I was touched at his attention to the food, how much he wanted me to enjoy it.

Our coupling that night, after a week apart, was short and intense. He took me from behind, as usual, his member stretching my channel, his hands gripping my breasts, and he kept my own pleasure in check for quite some time before my release, and then filled me with his 'spawn', as he termed it, his teeth fixed onto my neck whilst his hips humped into me.

I was so relieved, finally, to be able to drift off to sleep with him next to me, he had always been so skittish about over-nighting at my place. His arms now were around me, the front of his body pressed into my back, soft penis nestled into my bum furrow, his warm breath on my neck. It felt as if we were crossing another of those relationship thresholds of intimacy.

I awoke whilst it was still dark, noting immediately that his warmth was absent. As my mind cleared I also heard sliding, rumbling noises from below our floor, like something being pushed or dragged. I turned my head and saw Phausto in the next room, wrapped in a coarse, brown robe, a candle burning next to him at the table, while he wrote notes with his fountain-pen. The same text was on the lectern as when I arrived. His face was creased and distorted in the taper light, intent and not unhandsome.

I rose, my skin shivering although the hearth-fire was still alight, but low. He noticed me and discretely slid his writing into a drawer.

'I have awakened you with my scribblings, my apologies.' His eyes were clear, piercing.

I was about to ask what he was writing but didn't. Another noise came from below, dragging something of some mass, also perhaps a human voice although I could not tell. I raised my eyebrows.

'It sounds like something being pulled', I ventured.

His eyes narrowed. 'Conrad is apt to be up at all hours. He has artworks in one of his rooms, sometimes he moves pieces around, some of them quite large. You must pay no attention.' I was aware that he was likely prevaricating, the first time in our conversations together.

I was silent. He seemed to read my thoughts. 'Stay away from downstairs.' His voice was low but firm, and his words were spoken in a way that prohibited any reply. 'Let me join you back in bed', he said more softly.

We settled in together and I drifted back into deep, warm sleep.

He prepared breakfast in the morning, strong tea and fresh bread with butter and jam. I was aware of dim, puzzling noises from the rooms beneath us. I looked at Phausto but his face registered nothing.

Afterwards we went over the latest draft of my paper. The journal reviewer had complained of excessive 'interpolations' I had taken about the 'Abelartus text', that my drawing attention and linkages to the occult abbot Trithemius' work was a logical stretch, unsupported by the evidence, that the cryptic allusions of Abelartus must refer to other matters. The reviewer acknowledged the potential value of the work but disparaged my analysis.

Phausto puffed his lean cheeks and issued the verdict of 'rubbish'. He pointed to several sections of Trithemius' work that directly supported my argument. For two hours we went over the draft, clarifying language, adding evidence, restructuring the narrative, until it looked much better. His insight was astonishing, as it had every right to be.

He leaned back from the table.

'Forgive me, I have two errands to run in town, not ones that would benefit from your presence. I'll be back by noon when I can then construct a dinner that should satisfy you, perhaps with a nice bottle of Arvanitidis Xinomavro?'

This was not a varietal familiar to me, of course it must be Greek, but he assured me that it would work well with the cheese and potato gratin he had planned.

I watched him from the window as he crossed the commons, not quite as foggy as the day before but hardly fair. The wind came from the east, off the fenlands. Others on the paths looked bundled up, scarves pulled tightly around their necks.

I wrestled with my conscience briefly after he left, but my curiosity got the better of me. The text he had been consulting late last night was still on the lectern. He had closed it, but it was not too difficult to reopen it to the page he had been reading. The hand was Germanic fifteenth-century, careful and controlled, the content fairly opaque, but I knew Phausto's fondness for deciphering complex works.

The Latin words for 'flagellation' and the verb 'secure' (

securiare

) were not common in texts of this vintage, so their presence was jarring in the work. There were more rumblings from the floor below. What could be going on down there?

I hesitated as I read the text. How great a breach of our confidence would it be to glance at the notes he had taken last night, his 'scribblings'? Indeed, he had slid them into a drawer, not left them out on the table, but the drawer had no lock, they were not secure. The safest course would be to ask him directly, but if deflected, I might be deprived of an insight. Plus, I was annoyed at what I considered the unnecessary secrecy and the flavour of evasiveness he had demonstrated earlier.

I pulled them out. My fingers fidgeted as I glanced through them. His hand was small, precise, the sentences entirely in Latin. The word 'bound' reoccurred repeatedly and the transitive verb 'restrain'

(restringere

). '

Membrum virile

' was frequent but ambiguous or oblique. I looked vacantly out the window, another enigma had raised its head in this complicated man's life.

A sudden sharp thwack, followed by a muffled human voice which came from downstairs, a voice of surprise, highly pitched, brought me up short. This sequence was followed by another, perhaps a minute later. I hastily shoved the notes back into the drawer, making sure that all appeared undisturbed.

I slipped out the door, padded quietly down the staircase. The hallway was silent.

More rumbling, moving of something on a track, sliding or being pulled. Another muffled human voice, indistinct but high-pitched. I crept along the hallway until I thought I was outside the room in question. Looking carefully up and down the hallway, I put my ear to the door. Nothing.

I waited for several minutes but no sound emerged.

So far I had not technically violated my promise to Phausto. I had not entered any room, although it was not true that I had 'paid no attention' to the sounds that emanated from them. I glanced at the door at the end of the hall outside to the commons, where Phausto would enter upon his return. All was still.

Another sudden vocal disturbance intruded from the room, a sound unmistakably human, unmistakably in distress.

I tried the door latch, which opened easily, and quietly, in my hand. A short narrow passageway led to a room that opened beyond. Lighting was subdued, of a flickering orange-yellow tint.

Cautiously moving down the passage, I paused at the corner. The room, like the one where Phausto and I were lodged, was highly unusual. There were five candles on a table in the far right-hand corner. The small table that held them was draped in a fabric of rich, dark red.

The sight which caught my eye on the left side of the room was far less benign however, and I inhaled despite myself. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled and stood on end, in a way that had only occurred to me a few times previously.

One afternoon as a girl of six or seven, I was home with my younger sister whilst my parents were out on errands. A large dog had gotten loose, had leapt the fence into our yard, and up on its hind legs was pawing and barking furiously at our front door, lunging violently at it. I could see it from a corner window, its teeth bared, hurling its substantial weight against the door, the sturdiness of which I suddenly began to doubt. Never before had my well-being ever been in such danger, and with no parents to help. I did not dare think what would happen if it got inside.

My sister and I huddled in a corner, watching, while I tried to reassure her, my own confidence shaky. Luckily the dog gave up after what seemed an eternity and bounded away. I have no idea why it acted that way or what it wanted, but my heart rate remained elevated for some time even as relief settled in.

Now in the dimly lit room, I saw a girl of perhaps twenty years, quite without clothes, with her arms up-stretched and tied by a length of black rope to the ceiling. A scarf or ribbon of fabric of some sort was bound tightly across her face, cutting into her mouth.

Her curly hair, of a light red colour, tumbled just past her shoulders. I noted that her groin hair was a darker shade, and that freckles dotted her shoulders and some distance down the front of her chest in a 'V' shape. A rope went under and crossed between her breasts, which were heavy and strikingly white, pushing them up and to the side. Another rope went down her front and up her back, cutting tightly into her labia and spreading them.

I gave a start. I had seen the girl once or twice before at the open-air market-place in the town centre, buying cucumbers and tomatoes. She appeared to be of Irish descent, and when I'd noticed her in town she seemed rather too flouncy and strumpet-like for my taste. Her eyes would flash indecently at young male vendors at the market, and the cut of her dress was far too low in front, the channel between her breasts always quite visible.

Standing before her, facing away from me with a small whip or riding crop in his right hand, was a tall, slender man with light skin. He wore leather riding boots and a curious short mantle of some canvas or other heavy material over his shoulders but was otherwise unclothed.

The girl's eyes darted in my direction and that was my downfall.

Her tormentor noticed her glance instantly and turned towards me. I initially froze, and then began a retreat, my throat tightening. Yet before I had taken two steps backwards a pair of hands held me in place. I tried to turn, only to hear Phausto's voice in my ear.

'I thought perhaps you would not be able to resist', he whispered. The shock and silent suddenness of his presence unnerved me.

He gripped my wrists and pulled them behind me. I sought to free myself but he held them tightly.

Why, why? Yes, I had not honoured his request, but he was my friend and ally, someone whom I had regarded, and treated, as my new lover. What did this new force against me mean?

The other man approached. He was somewhat shorter than Phausto, of indeterminate age. His belly was flat but not young, his thighs those of someone who ran regularly or spent much time on long walks. Most alarming was his penis, erect and sticking out menacingly, red-tipped, in front of him.

'Your friend?' he asked.

I sensed, rather than saw, Phausto's nod of assent.

I felt the stranger's eyes rove over me, from head to feet. They lingered on my chest, as Phausto's grip on my hands had forced my breasts forward in my dress. He took in my dark hair, my narrow waist, my feet clad in thin slippers. A smile, most disconcerting, grew slowly on his clean-shaven face, which was lined and weathered, a face of age or of someone who spent much time outdoors. He had dark eyes and a long, sharply-angled nose.

'Shall we find a place for her?' he asked Phausto, eyebrows arching. 'There is a track adjacent to Mary's.'

I noted then that the ropes securing the hands of the girl, apparently Mary by name, were attached to a peculiar track-system arranged in the ceiling, which allowed positioning. The sounds I had heard earlier now made more sense, the sliding of them while bearing weight would make an unusual rumbling noise.

Mary's eyes were wide as she stared at me. I could not entirely read her expression, since the scarf around and in her mouth concealed a good percentage of her face and thus her ability to reveal her internal state. Yet it was not the appearance of tranquillity. Did she recognise me? I hoped not.

Phausto urged me from behind, across the room. My feet moved reluctantly but with no option for resistance.

I was positioned at right angles to Mary, perhaps ten feet away. We each looked at each other. Her eyes were wild, fearful.