Animal House

Molly's Stories 6. Animal House

Molly and Stephen and their story-telling were introduced in "The Professor series," but they continued to write stories and share them with one another. Molly's stories will appear in the BDSM category, while Stephen's better fit under Romance.

"Here's my next one, Prof. It's longer than usual, so sit tight."

Animal House

Jill Carlson waited impatiently at the table for Vanessa to appear. It was Tuesday, their weekly lunch. Best friends since high school and now working only blocks apart, they were in the habit of sharing every aspect of their lives; and today Jill had something juicy. She waited until Vanessa sat down and they had ordered before drawing an envelope from her purse.

"You are not going to believe this. Yesterday afternoon I came home from work and this was waiting for me on my bed. On my bed. Go ahead, take a look." She watched Vanessa's expression intently as she opened the envelope and read the card within.

"What is this? Who is it from?"

"I have no idea. And I don't know how anyone could have gotten it into my apartment. I asked the doorman and he didn't know. He offered to call the police, but since nothing was missing, I told him not to bother."

"No idea at all?"

"No. I tried to think of everyone I know who might be a secret admirer. I don't even know anyone who is hosting a Halloween party."

"How exciting."

"Of course, I'm not going."

"Why on earth not?"

"I don't know who this is or where this is or what I might be getting myself into. I won't know anyone there. I haven't danced since high school. . . ."

"So, you are just going to stay at home alone."

"It's what I do most nights."

"Then take a chance. Live a little."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"OK. If you come with me."

"It says invitation only."

"So, I have been invited. And I invite you."

Jill and Vanessa were both single, trying to build careers and waiting for their lives to get started. They cried and laughed with one another over their pitiful dating lives. They were both attractive, but shy. Jill had insecurity issues, Vanessa knew, that blocked her from letting her true beauty shine. Vanessa herself was a bit of a nerd and simply didn't spend time in places where she might meet men. She said it wasn't her highest priority, but there was an emptiness in her life. She was genuinely excited for Jill that at least some opportunity had shown up.

Two days later, Jill phoned her. "So, I called the RSVP number."

"And?"

"A woman answered. A secretary, I assume. She took my name and told me a limousine would come for me at 8:24. Not 8:25 or 8:23, but 8:24."

"Wow."

"Whoever is throwing this party has got some class."

"So who is it?"

"That remains a mystery."

"And where is it?"

"Who knows."

"That doesn't sound right. I mean you will be getting in a car with a total stranger and don't know where you are going?"

"But you will be with me. I have made an appointment for both of us at Theodore's for the morning."

"Theodore's?"

"The spa. Hair, facial, nails, pedicure - the whole works. My treat. It'll be fun. I haven't been this excited since I don't know when."

At 8:15 on the 31st, Jill and Vanessa were ready, looking their most sophisticated in new gowns, opera gloves, and heels with hair, nails, and make-up to perfection. The intercom buzzed at 8:23.

"Limousine for Miss Carlson," the voice stated. The girls took the elevator down and met a uniformed chauffeur on the curb.

"Your invitation, please." Jill showed him the card. "And identification." She produced her driver's license. "And you are?" he addressed Vanessa.

"She's with me," Jill explained.

"I'm sorry. Invitation only. My strict instructions."

Suddenly both girls were deflated. "I'm so sorry. . ." Jill began to apologize.

"It's all right. You go on. There is nothing to do about it. Tell me all about it tomorrow."

As the driver held open the door, Jill reluctantly stepped in. There were already four other young women inside. She turned to the driver. "Where are we going?"

"Don't bother. He won't talk," said one of the women. Jill turned to the black-haired girl beside her. "I'm Abigail." She offered a hand.

The other girls introduced themselves. When the initial chatter died down, Jill began to review in her mind all the reasons why she had been reluctant to go to the party alone. Chief among these was that she wouldn't know anyone there. However, Abigail, seemed friendly and they quickly hit it off.

Vanessa was momentarily disoriented by the swift turn of events. She hailed a cab to take her back to her apartment. On the ride she remembered her misgivings about Jill going alone to an unknown destination. If she had known she could not go too, she would have discouraged her friend.

The limousine pulled up to an elegant mansion on the edge of town. The door of the limousine was opened by a man in a dinner jacket wearing an expressionless white mask. He greeted each of the ladies as he helped them out of the car and ushered them up the steps. Inside they were directed to a dressing room. At the door was a poster: "All secrets to be revealed at midnight."

Inside, they were instructed to leave their handbags and cell phones and to select a mask. The choices were beautifully crafted with animal themes - birds, a deer, a rabbit, a pony, a dog, a cat. Jill selected an arctic cat, surrounded by white fur. It fit closely on her face and buckled by a strap behind her head. It had adequate holes for the eyes, and the lower part of her face was free for eating and drinking. She was amused how effectively her new acquaintances disappeared into anonymity as soon as they donned their disguises.

She emerged from the dressing room and was met by a gentleman in black tie and white mask. He introduced himself as Frank and extended his arm. She took it and was led to a large festively decorated ballroom. The theme was not a cheap scary Halloween, but a tasteful bow to the extravagances of Old Europe.

What followed was a very civilized affair, where she was attended to by a series of men dressed similarly in formal wear and wearing the same mask, so that she struggled to tell them apart by hair or body build. She danced with several of them and sipped champagne. Drinks were freely poured. Delicious canapes were served; she expected something more substantial later. Time passed quickly with dancing, flirtations, and drinks.

Jill was having the time of her life. She scarcely noticed when one of the ladies was helped out of the ballroom. Another was slumped onto a couch, asleep or passed out. By the time she had finished another waltz she realized most of the ladies had left the room. Another drink was pressed into her hand. Giddy, she gulped it down. As yet another gentleman walked her across the floor, she said, "Let's sit. I think I've had a bit much for now." They went to a sofa and within minutes she was fast asleep.

She awoke in total darkness. Someone was holding her head - no, they were removing her mask. "Sanks," she slurred. Or maybe they were putting it on. She couldn't think straight. She felt the prick of a needle in her arm and slide back into unconsciousness.

*

Detective Sam Jenkins pressed the button. He was buzzed up seconds later. An attractive brunette met him at the elevator. "Ms. Hyatt? Detective Jenkins, Atlanta Metropolitan Police."

"Yes. Please come in." She led him to the open door of her apartment. "Thanks for coming."

"You said you want to report a missing person."

"It's my best friend Jill Carlson. She went to a party and I haven't heard from her since."

"Let's start at the beginning." He wrote down names, addresses, phone numbers. "Now tell me what happened."

Vanessa recounted the invitation, the peculiar lack of names and address, insistence on invitation only, and the mysterious limousine pickup. "I expected her to call me on Sunday. I've been trying to reach her, but her phone seems to be disconnected. She didn't show up at work, either.

"That was last Saturday? Just two days ago? We normally don't open an inquiry until a person has been missing for three days. You don't have the invitation? Maybe she found a boyfriend and took off for an extended weekend."

"That's not Jill. But I know she would have contacted me We share everything and talk nearly every day. And the fact that I had been excluded from the limousine at the last second . . . You must think I am crazy."

"Ms. Hyatt, I assure you I will take this seriously. Please let me know if you hear from your friend or if you remember anything else." He handed her his card.

"Thank you." She saw the detective to the door with the sinking feeling that this had been a waste of time.

*

The next time Jill awoke she sensed great deal of time had passed. Again, it was completely dark. She was lying on her back on a mattress without a pillow. There was something on her face; she tried to lift her arms to remove it but for some reason was unable to. She tried to sit up, but couldn't. As she struggled it was clear her arms were bound at her sides her. Her legs were also bound and she felt the tightness on her ankles and thighs. Her fingers touched what felt like leather. Some other material covered the rest of her arms and torso so that she could not feel the surface she was lying on. Her feet and legs were bare. She tried rolling to the right and encountered a wall. She rolled to the left and ran into another barrier. With great effort she wriggled onto her back and tried to raise her legs. By sliding them up the wall, she found a ceiling about two feet up. The thought that ran through her was, "I have been buried alive."

"Hello?" She called out, but her voice was muffled. "Somebody? Help me!"

She lay in the dark drifting in and out of consciousness with no sense of time. Eventually she heard a noise and two hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her out of her cell. She was placed on a chair. "Where am I? What . . ."

Her question was silenced when a hand covered her mouth. She stopped fighting and it was taken away. A glass of some beverage was held to her mouth and she was allowed to drink through a straw. It tasted like a thick nutrition drink of some kind. She was given water; but when she stopped drinking a gag was placed over her mouth and she was lifted bodily and slid back into her cell. The door closed with a clang and she was alone in the dark again.

She awoke and smelled her own urine. Her arms were numb.

She awoke and found herself floating. She had neither arms nor legs, but seemed to be drifting in circles. A light appeared overhead, dim at first, but growing closer. She looked to her right.

Strange

, she thought,

there is nothing but emptiness. Where did the light come from? Was somebody holding it?

She heard a distant voice call, "Help me." Then she realized it was her own voice behind the gag. She shook her head back and forth to gain attention and hit the wall beside her. The pain brought back her awareness and she knew she was hallucinating. "I' going mad."

She was pulled from her cell and fed and second time and then returned. She tried to stop fighting her visions, but they turned into bad dreams.

She was pulled from her cell and fed and third time.

The fourth time she did not open her mouth, but refused the food. She would have fallen from the chair had someone not caught her.

*

There were two files on Jenkins' desk when he reported for duty on Friday. Two more women were reported missing, both attractive, single, and in their 20s. As he compared the cases, he noted that all three missing women lived alone and were last seen on Saturday. One of them was known to be preparing for a blind date.

The first was Kathryn Wagner, age 28, reported missing by her parents, who were supposed to have had dinner with their daughter on Wednesday. She didn't show and she hadn't answered their voice mails or texts. On Saturday she had been very excited about a date with a mysterious stranger, but they hadn't any details. That was the last they had heard from her. According to her parents, Wagner had no current boyfriends and lived a quiet social life. They could only remember the names of two friends Kathryn might still be in touch with. She was happy with her job as an administrative assistant, at least for now.

The parents let Jenkins into Wagner's apartment. It wasn't the neatest he had seen, but there was nothing suspicious. The bed was made. Clothes on it and on the floor suggested she had changed just before leaving. There were a number of make-up products on the dresser and bathroom counter. The fact that they were not in the medicine cabinet or dresser drawer suggested that either she used them regularly or had used them just before she left. Her appointment calendar lay open on the desk. The entry for Saturday read, "ball 9:00; pickup 8:05". As he skimmed through the calendar, he confirmed that she had very little social life. Most weekend evenings were blank.

In the afternoon, he interviewed a co-worker of Page Johnson, age 25. According to her friend, Page lived alone and worked two jobs to support herself and help support her younger brother in Macon. She was a clerk in a big box store and moonlighted as a caterer. She had no time for boyfriends and was quite adamant about it. She rarely went out and didn't seem close to anybody. Her friend has not spoken to her for nine days, but had left two unanswered messages since Wednesday. Jenkins visited Johnson's mother and was told much the same story. She was supposed to visit tomorrow, but they had not heard from her.

Returning to the office, Jenkins put in requests for traffic camera footage near the addresses of the three women for the hours of six to ten on Saturday evening. He also requested cell phone records for the previous month.

*

She awoke and found she had arms again. This time they were wrapped across her abdomen, but she could not move them. She rolled onto her side. Instead of meeting the wall, her legs fell off the mattress. She swung them to the floor and obtained the leverage to sit up. As she tried to stand, she heard the jangle of chains on the floor and realized her ankles were shackled together. She took a few tentative steps until she came in contact with a wall. Edging along the wall, her shins hit the edge of a bed. Or was it her own, back where she had started? She tried to sit down, but realized there was a person on this mattress. She heard grunting. That person, too, was struggling to sit up. She tried to speak, but neither girl could make herself understood. They sat, side by side, getting a minimal comfort from physical contact of their hips. They waited.

*

By Monday, Jenkins had three more missing persons cases that seemed to fit the same pattern. Erica Ruff and Carla Fletcher had both mentioned a mysterious invitation. Erica had bought a new evening gown. Both women had made salon appointments for that Saturday and showed up. They had each spoken excitedly to the hairdresser about a masked ball. Rachel Lee was young and single, but her friend knew nothing about her plans on the Saturday in question.

Jenkins made out a list of similarities.

All were attractive young adult women, age range 21 to 30

All were single and not known to be seeing anyone

Four were white; Page Johnson was black; Rachel Lee was Chinese American

All lived alone and had relatively few friends

Three worked in different corporate offices; two served in coffee houses in the downtown area; one was unemployed but looking for work

Three - Carlson, Ruff, and Fletcher were known to have received similar invitations. Wagner was probably going out that evening, but he had no information about Lee and Johnson.

The phone records of five of them - all but Johnson - showed one phone call to the same number between October 8 and 17. That number belonged to a phone card and could not be traced to an account.

There was one outgoing text recorded from Fletcher's phone during the time of the party. Jenkins traced that number to a phone owned by one Renee Huiser. She did not answer his call.

Traffic cameras observed a limousine in the vicinity of the Carlson and Wagner apartments between 7:30 and 8:15. There were no cameras near the other apartments. The license plate on the limousine in the traffic cameras turned out to be stolen

Over the next few days, four more missing persons reports were filed regarding young women. Grace Edwards and Hanna Davis fit the profile, but offered no further clues. Samantha Miller was last seen on November 2 and her boyfriend was a person of interest. Jenkins dismissed her as an unrelated case. Abigail Wood was a 17-year old college student who had gone home for the Halloween weekend and had not returned. There was nothing to connect her to the other disappearances.

Time to call in help.

*

Jill heard the jingle of keys and the door creaked open. Someone touched her throat and she felt a pull on her neck that jerked her roughly to her feet. She understood that she was being led by a leash. She followed through several turns until a hand on her shoulder signaled for her to stop and stand. Not a word had been said, but she could hear the shuffle of footsteps and the clinking of chains on the floor. A moment later her gag and blindfold were removed.

As her eyes adjusted, she found herself in a large brightly lit room with no windows. She was in the middle of a line of eleven women bound in straightjackets and naked below the waist. Each wore a collar and shackles on their ankles and each one wore an animal mask. These were not the same as the other night, but covered most of the head. A man in a business suit stood in front of her holding a riding crop. Another man in a T-shirt moved down the back of the line still removing blindfolds. A third in an old polo shirt stood behind her. She recognized him as the chauffeur who had driven her to the ball. The room was carpeted. Two chairs stood against the wall, on either side of a walnut cabinet. Along another wall was an odd wooden constructions, a giant "X" made from two wooden beams.

The man in front of them began to speak. "Welcome to the rest of your life. You are no longer a person. You are a slave."

The woman to Jill's left started to protest. "You have no right . . ." The man in front struck her hard across the breast with the crop so that she nearly fell over.

"And you have no rights at all. You may not speak unless addressed. Do you understand?" He spoke those last words loudly in her face.

She cowered. "Yes."

"Address me as 'Master.'"

"Yes, Master." Blood trickled from a cut in her skin.

"You, Slave on the end. Come here."

The girl on the left tentatively stepped forward. Her mask was a black horse's head with a flowing mane. The reins hung down in front of her naked torso.

"Turn around." He unfastened the buckles of the straightjacket and let it fall on the floor. "Face me. Hands at your side. Palms forward. Eyes down." The girl obeyed. He addressed the other girls. "See the way she stands? That is the way a slave stands before her master. Hands behind your head, shoulders back."

The man caressed her left breast. "Note how she stands now, her breasts uplifted for my pleasure. Learn."

As he spoke, the other two men were removing the straightjackets.

"All of you, lift your breasts."

The other girls assumed the position of the first. Some quickly, some more hesitantly. Jill quickly brushed her hand behind her head to feel the leather of her mask and wondered what is looked like from the front. She felt two buckles with small padlocks.