Well Situated with Hidden Potential

There was a recent thread on the Literotica Forums about the top 20 words that British people know and American's don't (and visa versa), so as a challenge, I've included all of them here. You may want to see if you can guess what they are.

Edited on 18th March 2022 to remove a inconsistency regarding Rebecca's accomodation and other minor corrections.

*

"This is the place," Rebecca Brown said to her former colleague as they drove past. "I'll just find somewhere to park."

That proved difficult. There were no spaces by the side of the road, so they had to pull up in the carpark of a little cluster of shops: a florist, a fish-and-chip shop, and a chiropodist. Rebecca made careful mental note of the 'friendly local amenities' for future reference. She might even get plaice and chips on the way home so she could be able to describe it to interested parties as 'a lot better than it looks on the outside' without having to lie directly.

It was another rainy Nottingham day in April. Her first step getting out of the car landed her straight in a kerbside puddle. She had to retrieve an umbrella from the boot before going over to Phillip's side to shield him while he got out. Client and customer trumped lady and gentleman these days, even if he was only playing at being a customer. An estate agent should have learnt by now to always keep at least one umbrella actually inside the car and she theoretically had at least three at any one time to ensure clients stayed dry, but she found it almost impossible to stop people wandering off with them. It seemed like she'd been getting increasingly ditzy recently. She'd ended up locking herself out of the house last-week and had to wait an hour for her mother to come back from the pub. She'd moved back in a couple of months ago, at the age of twenty-seven, when her latest relationship had gone south. It was just a temporary thing, but it was causing her any number of frustrations. She was planning on addressing at least one of those frustrations today.

They had to huddle together to avoid getting wet. This brought her close to Phillip. Despite what the movies may have had her believe, she found very little that was romantic about sharing a brolly. You were either dry and worrying if your partner was getting wet, or else you were getting wet and wondering if you could move it slightly without appearing selfish. Still, he'd come, so she was happy enough.

Phillip Musgrove had been her partner when she'd first joined. He'd shown her the ropes of selling houses. He was a master of getting people to fall in love with a property they'd otherwise ignore. It was, he said, not fundamentally about how you described it. People weren't fools and two decades of constant property shows on TV had made them wise to all the little linguistic tricks; saying 'compact' when you meant 'tiny', describing a garden as 'easily maintained' because it was all concrete. The skill was making friends with them, finding out what the clients really wanted out of a property which was always connected with what they wanted out of life and which rarely what they said they wanted. The you had to work out the areas where they were willing to compromise. This could take weeks and months, enough time for the wife or girlfriend to start to fall just that little bit in love with him, as Rebecca had noticed on more than one occasion.

He'd always been more than happy to take advantage of this to sell a house, but, as far as Rebecca know, he'd never taken 'advantage' advantage. At the time he'd been happily married. She'd met his wife on a number of occasions, both at company social events, but also just while they had been out and about between clients, dropping off keys or credit cards. They'd even bumped into each other at the tombola at the annual Nottingham Faire and she'd seen them laughing like teenagers on the dodgems later. It must be nice to be able to feel that young when you're that old, Rebecca had thought. Increasingly she was feeling old when she was still young, especially since moving back in with her mum. Of course, that had been when his wife could still get out of the house. Her illness had been sudden and she'd gone from diagnosis to death in the space of six months. Phillip had worked for year after that, but his heart wasn't in it anymore and, after revaluating his finances, he'd decided to enter an early semi-retirement. Rebecca had been wondering what he'd been doing with his life in the two years since. She'd asked round the office a few times, but apart from him sitting on some sort of historical building commission or quango or something, she hadn't been able to find out much. People tended to have a bad impression of estate agents, especially after they'd been gazumped a few times, but Phillip had always seemed like a really nice guy as well as sexy as hell.

"Nice area," Phillip remarked. It was indeed, as their marketing blurb said of practically every property on their books, well situated. Far away from the students to the east, the yobs to the north but not quite into the boring blue-rinse areas to the west.

She opened the gate to a semi-detached four story Victorian property which appeared a lot thinner than it was tall. "Not the front," she said. "Round the back."

She guided them towards a side gate and fumbled for a moment trying to hold both the key and the umbrella and not get soaked. Phillip took the umbrella from her, and she had more success in getting the door open. Immediately through it was a set of steep steps that went down a whole storey. They were slick with the rain, so they took their time going down. The garden was long and thin and, unlike the front of the property, looked poorly maintained, if not yet quite overgrown. The back of the house jutted out about twenty meters or so, but only one floor high. There was a white plastic garden table and chairs that were quickly collecting water. Rebecca got the side door to this back apartment open and they happily got out of the downpour.

"Owner?" Phillip asked.

"Died recently in his early fifties. Nearest living relatives are a couple of twenty-somethings in Australia and apparently hardly knew the guy. They seem to want us to get them both a quick sale and a high price. Kept getting bolshy whenever you mention any of the actual practicalities of selling a house. You know what people are like."

Philip, having worked as an estate agent for decades, immediately began to size up the room. There was a small kitchen at the back which would collect the sun from the back garden, at least when there was any. A lot of the furniture had been taken from the living room. There was no TV or any smaller items. There was a naff seventies style-fireplace with little chaffinches moulded into it and an equally chintzy curtains and pelmet round the windows. There was a fold-out sofa-bed that had been left in bed form and which took up most of the spare space. Looking toward the back of the house, he saw a door leading to the space underneath the set of outside stairs they'd just walked down. "Oh, this is one of those properties that is half basement, isn't it? Only all on the same floor. Yeah, they can be hard to shift. People find them weird. The back tends to be fairly dank as a rule."

"Yes, that's part of it. You'll need to see a bit more to fully understand my problem," said Rebecca. "Don't worry about the kitchen and living room, they have issues, but they're basically fine. What I need your help with is what's back there."

She took him through the door at the back and immediately the temperature, which had not been exactly warm before, dropped five degrees and there was a sudden dampness in the air. The corridor bent round and ran for the whole length of both of the semi-detached houses above it. A number of side doors led off on the right.

The first door opened to a small room, no more than 2 meters on either side. It was largely undecorated and only had a large cage and dog bowl in it. A single lightbulb hung from a wire in the middle. Apart from a dirty blanket in the middle of the cage there was nothing else in the room.

"You're going to have to do something about this," Phillip said. Rebecca nodded. There were things that people couldn't unsee about a property and the impression of animal abuse would be a major issue for, well, practically anyone who came to view it. Phillip hadn't look at the blanket closely and so hadn't noticed that, while it was clearly unwashed and smelly, it didn't seem to have any actual dog hairs on it. Rebecca hadn't noticed it at first either.

The next room was another tiny room containing only an Asian-style squat toilet. Above and to the sides there were four large rings, the size of tea-saucers, embedded into the wall. Two at arm height. Two at ankle height. You could hang a hand towel on one of them if you really wanted to. Rebecca had opened the door and they were peering in from the corridor.

"Is the owner Chinese or Japanese or something?" Phillip asked.

"Not judging by the name." Rebecca said. Phillip didn't say it needed replacing. That too was obvious.

She shut the door. It was time to decide now if she was doing this or not. She could still chicken out, show him the third and final room and just ask for some advice. Hell, he might actually have some good suggestions for moving the place. No, she decided, everything had gone to plan and she should stick with it. She might end up looking a fool, but Phillip was enough of a gentleman that even if he refused, he wouldn't tell anyone else. At least none of their mutual acquaintances. Probably.

"Phillip, sorry to trouble you, but I left the details folder on the backseat of the car. Could you get it for me? I need to make a quick phone call back to the office." She said distractedly playing with her mobile phone. She felt bad about sending him back in the rain, but it was what it was. It'd been a bright sunny day in her imagination when she'd planned this.

"Sure," he said, took the keys from her and disappeared down the corridor. If he'd been offended by being sent off like an errand boy, he didn't show it.

Okay, Rebecca thought, this was it. As soon as she heard the front door close, she opened the door into the dungeon. It was better decorated that the other rooms, but not by much. It was clinical, with all white tiles on the floors and walls. There were nails in the walls that suggested pictures had hung there, but they had been removed before she took possession of the property. She wasn't sure by whom. The room contained a large wooden stocks, a gynaecology chair, and some kind of bench. The whole place was so incredibly skeevy. She didn't know why she was so attracted to it.

The stocks were a simple design, Rebecca wondered if they may have been homemade. They had one large hole for the head and two smaller holes for arms and a hinge to separate the two pieces of wood. The top board could be raised and lowered according to the occupants' height.

The bench was made from black and red leather. It had one large raised section in the middle then four lowered down rests for the arms and the knees. It was designed to raise the behind of the user up for easy access. The chair looked like it might have been an authentic hospital chair judging by the fact it was well worn. The stirrups had been modified to allow the legs to be bound in place. It was partnered with an office chair that looked to be part of the same original set.

In one corner of the room, rather incongruously, was a set of Ikea plastic boxes. Whatever they had stored had already been removed. Rebecca wondered why they hadn't been taken as well, but then whoever had been here maybe hadn't wanted to repurpose them knowing what they'd recently contained. There was a set of interlocking gym mats propped up against the storage boxes. On the other side there was a showerhead and the tiles had a drain. Most importantly, by the door, near the stocks, was a small storage heater on wheels. She plugged it in, turned it on and moved it over to the stocks. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to let the room heat up before getting undressed.

She quickly took her clothes off and threw them on the bench. She knew she was going to keep the heels on, but hadn't been sure about the tights. Feeling the coldness of the room she decided to keep them on. She was knickerless underneath. She reaching into her handback and got out a condom packet. She tucked it into the band of her tights.

She'd already adjusted the stocks to the appropriate height on her previous visit, so there was just the matter of getting into them. This wasn't simple and if the wooden bars had been any heavier wouldn't have been possible at all. She'd discovered that propping it open with an object such as a stick of lipstick at one end would allow her to get her head and one hand in. She could then knock away the lipstick with the other hand and then gently work the hand back in place. She'd practiced until she could do it in under forty seconds. Of course she couldn't lock the stocks, but that would probably be a good thing if anything went wrong. She left the key in the padlock, so it could be locked later.

Choosing the stocks over the other two 'furnishings' had been fairly easy. The gynaecology chair was, simply, too gynaecological, and so was the bench really. The stocks let you offer up your arse without offering up your cunt. It made the deal clear without being immediately shockingly pornographic. A girl needed to keep something hidden. Pity it was such a pain to get in and out of. She'd had to move everything around in the room to get the stocks properly situated so they and her would be the first things Phillip saw when he came in the room.

By now Phillip would have reached the car and realized that the property folder was actually empty. Written in biro on the inside over it merely said, Come Back. No Talking. Have Fun. That last item she'd originally written as Do What You Like, but she'd decided at the last moment that it seemed a bit too cheap and tippexed over it. Rebecca realized that she'd left the door open when she'd come in. She wouldn't have time to get out and back into the stocks again. She tried reaching out with her left leg. After a few tries and an almighty stretch she was able to kick the door to again, though not fully closed. As she did so, she felt heard something drop. Damn it, the condom had fallen out. Never mind, she wanted to avoid talking, but she could quickly draw his attention to it if needs be.

Now she was in place, each second ticked incredibly slowly. She couldn't wait to see what he would do. She couldn't wait to feel his hands on her, couldn't wait to feel his breath on her neck. She'd wanted Phillip since the first day she'd met him. He was so mature and handsome, even with his greying hair. There'd been times, late at night after an evening viewing, when they'd been sitting in the car and she thought he was about to kiss her. Then later she'd decided she'd been imagining it. Once his wife had become sick, those moments had stopped completely. She'd continued talking him non-stop to her friends, but when they started to accuse her of having 'daddy issues' she stopped and re-evaluated her love life. She'd gone on a succession of Tinder dates, some of which had been enjoyable, but nothing had stuck. Increasingly when she masturbated or when a date went down on her, she thought of Phillip. When she'd seen this room she'd been fascinated by it and knew she had to try it and knew who she had to try it with.

Finally, Rebecca heard the door open and footsteps coming through. It couldn't be anyone else but Phillip but suddenly she was nervous in case it was a stranger. As the door opened, she heard him say, "The folder was empty, I don't..." He stopped suddenly. "Oh, I see. It's like that. Oh right, no talking." The tone of his voice was very hard to read. There was a pause of a few seconds. Then she heard the sound of the padlock sliding into place right by her ear.

She took that as a yes.

Nothing happened for a moment. She couldn't see Phillip as he was still behind her. He was looking around the room maybe. Then he left the room.

Her heart started to beat loudly. Of all the things he could have done, why this? Was he just going to lock her in and then run away and leave her? That wasn't the man she had known all these years surely. She'd been pretty sure that the worst that could happened was she'd get turned down. She started to do some calculations. As Phillip wasn't employed by the estate agents, she'd put him down as a viewer for this apartment so everything was nicely official. This was her last viewing of the day, of course, she hadn't wanted to have to rush it. She'd usually call into the office at the end of her shift, but they wouldn't be too worried if she didn't. Delphine, her best friend, was having a dinner party tonight that she was invited to. They'd discussed the likelihood of something developing between her and Phillip, and crucially she'd said that she'd call if and only if she was able to come. She wasn't expected. On the other hand, she'd told her mother she was definitely going on the basis that she wouldn't be home early whatever happened. It would only be in the morning that serious questions about her whereabouts might be asked by her family, friends or colleagues. She could be here overnight even if this was the first place they looked, left dreaming of Delphine's authentic French escallops and bacon-wrapped chipolatas. She could kick herself for her stupidity which, luckily for her, was one of the few things she actually could do in the stock. If she'd have known she'd be trapped her all night, she'd have moved the storage heater further away. Her legs were starting to get uncomfortably warm.

Just as she was starting to wonder about issues such as toilet arrangements for an overnight stay, Phillip suddenly came back and wandered into her field of vision. "Just locking the front door," he said. He was carrying a large plastic basin filled with some objects and a towel. He pulled out one of the storage bins and tipped most of the items into it. Rebecca couldn't make them all out but she did see a hairdryer and a roll of toilet paper go in. He kept a bottle out: shower gel or shampoo. He started the showerhead running, pointing it at the drain. When it started to get hot enough, he started to fill the basin. Rebecca found herself relaxing. They were unlikely to be disturbed, but it made sense to be careful. She wondered briefly what would happen if they were disturbed by a band of visiting Jehovah's Witnesses. It probably wouldn't be as funny as she first thought; she'd could get fired. She'd been hoping for Phillip to rip her tights off and take her then and there, but she also should have known he would take the methodical approach. That was so Phillip.

As the basin filled up, he took his jacket and shirt off revealing a chest that was hairy with a lot of grey in it. He was in good shape, maybe better than when they'd worked together. He'd always been active when she'd known him, always talking about rock-climbing or abseiling or rugby. He'd obviously kept it up during retirement. Rebecca was slightly disappointed that he didn't take the trousers off at the same time. No rush though, she thought. He stopped the shower, and brought the basin over to the floor near her.

Standing with one hand on the stocks, he said quietly, "No talking eh. I think you probably don't mind talking unless I'm saying the wrong things, am I right? Oh, but your no longer in a position to set the rules, are you? I think we'll keep no talking for you. I can say what I like. You've had a lot of experience bondage play?" The stocks made it difficult for Rebecca to shake her head, but she tried to do so. She had been shocked by his tone of voice. It was like she suddenly didn't know him. Was he implying that he had experience? She'd had no idea.