I'm in the back of a small but powerful boat, feeling the fresh salt wind blowing over my body and through my long, light brown hair as we make our way across the waters of the strait that separates Vancouver Island from the British Columbia mainland. The Strait of Georgia, or to call it by its modern, more native-inflected name, the Salish Sea, is littered with islands that range from large ones like Galiano and Thetis, to smaller and even tiny ones. The one we are headed for is officially known as Johnson Island on the map, if you have a map with a lot of detail and can read really tiny print, but informally it has another, more colourful name. Pussy Island.
Pussy Island is privately owned, and there isn't much of anything there aside from a small but incredibly luxurious resort known as Fantasy Villa. It's a bit like an X-rated version of Fantasy Island from the old television show. The brochures don't really say a whole lot about it, and that's the point. One of its attractions is that you aren't supposed to know what will happen there, except that it will be powerfully sexual in ways you probably wouldn't expect.
It's for people who get off on the thrill of the unknown, the hint of the dark and dangerous, even though the organizers guarantee that you won't come to any real harm there. Beyond that, things will happen to you, and you don't get to know exactly what until they happen. The forms I signed had a space for me to write down any really hard "no's," but it was a very tiny space, just big enough for me to rule out any really horrible and diabolical tortures, but not much else. But what's the point of being surprised if you rule stuff out?
I'm the only person on the boat aside from the driver, who keeps his eyes on the water and his mind on his job without engaging in any chit-chat. I know I won't be the only person at the resort, but I also know there will be very few other customers there. That's why this adventure costs so much. It's supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime exclusive experience, uncluttered by hordes of other travelers. According to the brochure, staff outnumber customers two to one.
I'm coming here because I desperately need to get out of a rut and blow thirty-five years of accumulated cobwebs out of my brain. I have a moderately interesting job, a moderately interesting boyfriend with whom I do moderately interesting sex once or twice a week, and a handful of moderately interesting hobbies. I need to rip the band-aid off my moderately interesting life and do something totally weird at least once before I die.
The boat throttles back, reverses briefly to kill its speed, and swings up to a small dock. While the driver reaches over, grabs the edge of the dock, and holds the boat against it, I pick up my small bag - a few changes of clothes and a small selection of toiletries -- and hop onto the wooden surface of the dock. As soon as I'm off, the driver revs the outboard motor and heads out, leaving me wondering what to do next.
There's a path leading from the end of the dock into the dense West Coast forest. "Follow the yellow brick road," I think wryly to myself. I trudge up the path and eventually see the resort ahead of me, looking very much like the pictures in the brochure. It's surrounded by a high cement wall so I can only see the upper floors. It certainly does look luxurious.
I walk up to the tall door and knock. I half expect a little portal to open and an Emerald City guard to peer out, but that doesn't happen. In fact, nothing happens. After standing for several minutes, feeling somewhat foolish, I try the handle. It turns, and the door pushes open easily. Obviously, you have to be prepared to take things into your own hands here. I wonder what the two-to-one staff is for.
Inside, I find myself in a large courtyard dominated by an equally large pool. There is still nobody around, so I walk around the courtyard and explore. The total absence of other human beings is starting to feel downright creepy, but I guess downright creepy is part of what I signed on for.
There is a poolside bar, but of course, no bartender. I nerve myself up to do something I'd never think of doing anywhere else, and go behind the bar to help myself. On a shelf laden with bottles, I find an excellent single-malt Speyside Scotch, open a chest to find ice, and pour myself a generous glassful. Then I settle into a poolside chair and try to start relaxing as I sip my drink.
I am just begining to get into my drink and this "Guess What" experience when I hear a sound that chills me to the bone. It's from fairly far off, but clearly from inside the compound somewhere: a long, drawn-out woman's scream. I can't tell whether it's a scream of pain, of terror, or maybe of some perverse kind of pleasure, but it does two things to me at the same time: it terrifies me, and it also goes up my spine with a kind of thrill, the same kind that you get when a rollercoaster hesitates for a second at the very top just before it takes the plunge that floods your body with adrenaline.
The most terrifying aspect of the sound is how it's abruptly cut off in mid-scream. I listen and can't hear another sound from that direction. It's totally B-grade horror flick, but my knowledge that it's very probably real raises my adrenaline level into the stratosphere.
I take a big gulp of my drink and try to centre myself. I'm sitting by a pool in the relatively rare West Coast sun, sipping a drink that I couldn't normally afford, trying to get what I paid for in my Magical Mystery Tour holiday. "Shake it off, Samantha," I tell myself firmly. "Just relax and wait for whatever will happen next."
What happens next is that I feel a pair of hands grip my chair from behind and abruptly dump me onto the concrete pool deck. My drink goes everywhere, although miraculously my glass doesn't shatter. I lie there for a few seconds, dazed, and then look back at who dumped me. It's one of the biggest and strongest-looking men I've ever seen outside of a WWE show. He has a big black beard, and he's grinning at me.
The man reaches down, and I think he's going to help me up. Not exactly. He grabs me by my hair and hauls me to my feet, which hurts exactly as much as you'd expect it to. Once I'm on my feet, he reaches out, grabs the neckline of my shirt, and rips it all the way down until it hangs in two sad pieces. He moves his powerful hands apart and the two pieces fly off in opposite directions and land on the pool deck.
I'm too stunned to react. I just stand there as he reaches around me and grabs my bra from either side of the clasp. Another pull, and the clasp breaks and the bra heads for the deck like the shirt. Then he grabs the waistband of my shorts and, with a powerful yank, pulls me off my feet. He does it expertly enough that, instead of hitting my head on the concrete pool deck, I careen backwards into a lounge chair and land in a heap with my legs in the air. He reaches down and yanks my shorts and panties off in one motion.
I get shakily to my feet wearing nothing but my sandals, too stunned even to try to cover myself with my hands. He stares at me for a minute, inspecting my medium-sized, firm breasts and my bare pussy, its labia peeking out between my legs.
He still says nothing, which seems to be the custom around here. I don't know whether to be terrified or aroused. It's all so sudden, unexpected. I feel a bit of a sexual thrill run through me at suddenly being naked in front of this stranger, but I'm deeply frightened as well. What's he going to do next?
What he does next is grab my left wrist and spin me around so I'm facing away from him. I feel steel encircle my wrist and hear the ratchet of a handcuff. He grabs my other wrist, twists it behind me, and ratchets the other cuff around it. Then he lets me go.
I turn and stand looking at him, naked, handcuffed and totally helpless. I'm aware of my nipples hardening and my pussy moistening as another strange thrill begins to run through my body. This certainly isn't the moderately interesting life I had paid all this money to escape.
I fully expect to be bent over a table and raped. Instead, the man grabs me by the chain joining my wrists and marches me back to the entrance door. He opens the door, unceremoniously shoves me outside, and slams the door behind me. I hear an ominous click as it closes. I back up to the door and try the handle with my cuffed hands, and am not surprised when it doesn't open.
Now what the fuck am I supposed to do? As usual, there's no-one around, so I don't feel quite as exposed as I otherwise would have, but I certainly feel afraid and helpless. I walk forward a few feet, and notice a camera mounted on a pole turn to follow me. Shit. How many pairs of eyes are staring at me like this, and from where? Am I just being ogled by a few staffers, or am I being uploaded to some porn site on the internet?
I contemplate my situation. Two paths lead away from the compound. I know that one leads down to the dock and dead-ends there, so there isn't much point in trying that one. The other disappears into the undergrowth.
Suddenly I hear the crack of a gunshot and feel a sharp pain in my left asscheek. Instinctively I grab at the pain, and am relieved to find no blood. I look in the direction of the sound and see a man some distance away holding what appears to be a small-calibre rifle. I guess that I've been shot with a plastic bullet, the kind of less-lethal ammunition that police use when they're trying to break up a riot.
I see the man work a bolt to lever another round into the chamber. It isn't hard to make out the message he's trying to send: run like hell.
I take off down the non-dock path, not caring where it goes as long as it's away from the sniper. My ass is sore enough from one shot; I really don't need any more. There'll be a small but deep bruise there shortly, I figure.
Fueled by adrenaline, I run as fast as I can, although my stride is a bit awkward with my hands cuffed behind my back. I'm grateful that Pool Thug allowed me to keep my sandals when he ripped everything else off me: the path is gravel and strewn with twigs and other forest debris, and not something I'd enjoy running on barefoot.
My breasts aren't big enough to dangle and sway, but I'm aware of them jiggling in a slightly obscene way. I'm really not used to running without a sports bra, or anything else for that matter.
After a few minutes, I realize that no-one is chasing me, so instead of running myself into exhaustion I slow to a steady trot that I know I can keep up for a long time if I have to. I have no idea where I'm going, but I guess that's part of the adventure I've signed up for.
Up ahead, I can see that the path forks. There doesn't seem to be much to choose between the two directions: one looks about as less-traveled-by as the other. As I hesitate, I hear another crack and feel another sharp sting, this time on the outside of my left breast. I instinctively try to grab at the pain, but of course I can't.
