Book I: The Manor
This is the first of 20 chapters of the first part of a planned trilogy. This volume is complete, and I plan to post a chapter each week.
The Bedroom
It wasn't an unusual dream for Don. He was chasing his best-friend and perpetual unrequited love interest Tascha through an ever shifting landscape of parking structures, Moroccan ruins and crowded shopping malls. This time there were no evil robots or monsters chasing them, only some kind of generally tag-like game they were playing. Ultimately, Don caught up to his elusive quarry. There was some nonsensical banter, and then the dream Tascha, who at that moment looked a lot like the actress Alyson Hannigan, grabbed Don's head and kissed him hard, almost painfully. This intense moment was followed by a chaotic flood of erotic sensations and images impossible to make sense of. This chaos gradually sorted itself out and Don was lying in bed watching Tascha undress. Tascha now looked like herself, fit and slim, with narrow hips and perfect small breasts -- honey brown hair, straight, falling to her shoulders in a tousled mess from the chase -- pretty gamin face smiling at him mischievously. Don couldn't see her beautiful violet eyes in the darkness but he felt them dancing with playful wit. She slowly peeled herself out of the harlequin costume she was inexplicably wearing, and then, with supple grace and speed she slipped under the silk top sheet and snuggled up to Don, her back spooned against his front. She then promptly fell asleep.
Of course, Don could not sleep, even in a dream, with Tascha's warm naked body pressed up against him. He could smell the floral scent of her hair, his hand could feel her breast pressed against his palm, and her feet were against the tops of his own. Not least, her firm butt was pushed back against his erection, which was rather insistent in its demand for attention. Don cautiously gave Tascha's breast a gentle squeeze, and then moved his hand to run up along her arm, which was crossed in front of her belly. He ran his hand down along the side of her body, caressing the curve of her hip. Raising his head, he kissed her round shoulder. His hand moved down to her upper thigh, as his lips moved slowly, lightly up her shoulder toward her neck. Reaching around a bit further, Don gently slipped his hand between her thighs. Tascha rolled back toward him a bit and parted her legs a little for him. His lips reached her neck, and he paused there, lingering, as he felt her moist sex with his questing fingers. Tascha pushed her behind back against him a bit, parted her legs a bit further, and let out a quiet sigh.
And, that was when Don realized he was no longer dreaming. There was actually a naked woman lying up against him and responding to his touch. Moreover, he was sure it was actually Tascha. Confusion pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, shoving a loudly protesting arousal out of the way. Perhaps responding to a change in Don's caress, Tascha's body stiffened a little in his arms. Then she was twisting around and pulling away.
"What the hell?!" she looked around in the dark, and then down at Don's own confused face. "Don?"
"Yeah," he croaked, appreciating for the first time that he had just been deeply asleep. In retrospect he would realize that he should here have taken the high ground, but Tascha got there first.
"This isn't funny!" she exclaimed. "Where's Sarah?"
"I'm not laughing, am I?" Don managed, "And I have no idea. How did you get in here?"
"Me? What are you doing in my bed?"
"Your bed?" Don frowned and then, for the first time since waking, looked at something other than Tascha. "Well, I don't have silk sheets, so it's not my bed, but is this really your bedroom?"
He knew of course that this was not her bedroom, because this room was immense. The enormous four poster bed, which Don guessed must be about the size of four king-sized beds put together, was situated in the middle of the largest bedroom Don had ever seen in person. He imagined there must be palaces with bedrooms this big, but nothing that either Tascha or he could possibly afford to even rent. All about the room were small tables, and some bureaus with drawers, that had candles on them. The ceiling was at least fifteen feet overhead, and was paneled in the same dark wood as the walls.
"Where the hell are we?" Tascha demanded.
"Seriously, do you honestly think I have any idea?" Don asked.
"Yeah, I guess not," Tascha grudgingly admitted. "But still, what the hell is going on?"
Don shrugged, and clambered over to the side of the bed and sat up, putting his feet down on the soft plush carpeting that covered the floor from wall to wall. He stood up and took a few steps toward the nearest bureau.
"Yep, you're naked alright," Tascha said from behind him.
He looked back over his shoulder with a smile, to see her crawling across the bed to join him, and said, "I'm pretty sure you are too."
"Yeah, I noticed," she scowled. "Do you see any clothes lying around?"
"Not even a little," Don admitted. "What's the matter? Bashful?"
"Ha!" she laughed as she got out of the bed, and moved toward him. Don couldn't help but gape a bit at the sight of her body, which he was seeing naked for the first time. He was a little surprised that she looked pretty much as he had imagined, even down to the neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair. She frowned a little at his attention, and said, "I can see you're not bashful."
"Well, it's not like... Oh!" he noticed that she was looking at the hard-on that was standing out proudly in front of him. Don laughed, "Well, what can I say? You're hot."
"It's not just that," she said as she stepped ahead of him toward the bureau. "Don't think I didn't notice what you were up to when I woke up."
Deciding to change the subject, Don said, "I'm pretty sure these candles weren't lit a few minutes ago."
"You mean when you were groping me?" she scowled over her shoulder at him, catching him looking at her butt.
"Um, yeah, then."
"Make it a habit of molesting any woman you wake up next to?"
Don frowned for a second before saying, "Well, yeah. Should I be apologizing for that? Look, I was, at best, half-asleep. I stopped as soon as I realized I wasn't dreaming."
"You didn't take your hand away," she observed with a wry smile.
"You didn't give me a chance."
"Uh huh."
"Hey, you weren't exactly unresponsive," Don pointed out.
Tascha shook her head, and said, "Fine, we were asleep, and you didn't kidnap me and try to rape me."
"Exactly," Don nodded. "But, really, did you need to throw 'rape' into the conversation?"
Tascha looked around the room angrily, "Well, somebody sure as hell is up to something like that. We've been kidnapped, stripped and put into bed together. This is either going to turn out very badly or we're the victims of some really elaborate and twisted practical joke."
"Yeah," he nodded, "that does seem to be about the size of it."
"Now, let's see if we can find some clothes." Tascha pulled the top drawer of the bureau open.
"Well, we can't wear those," Don observed.
After what felt like a long moment, Tascha swallowed and said, "No, that one can be worn."
The black-felt-lined drawer had an interesting array of dildos of various types, colors and sizes lined up inside it. Tascha was right; the one furthest to the right was a strap-on.
Tascha pushed the drawer closed emphatically, and then rather forcefully opened the next. This one held a variety of other sex toys, including a number of tubes of what were labeled as simply "LUBRICANT".
"What, no brand name?" Don wondered as he took one of the tubes to examine more closely.
Tascha ignored him and opened the third and final drawer, only to find a number of whips, flogs and riding crops. She slammed this drawer shut angrily, and stormed off to the next bureau. Don trailed after her, still looking at the tube of LUBRICANT.
"This really is weird," he pointed out. "Not only is there no brand name, there's nothing else at all on this. No manufacturer, no ingredients list, no expiration date, no instructions or warnings. Nothing."
Tascha stopped, the handles to the next drawer in her hands, and looked slowly around the room. Don looked up, saw her, and also took a moment to look around the room. Almost simultaneously, they said, "No doors."
"This is less and less funny by the minute," Tascha scowled. Opening the drawer in front of her, she snapped, "More fucking sex toys!"
Don fought back the urge to point out that that was a bit redundant; Tascha was clearly in no mood for silly comments. Instead he said, "You know I really think what I said earlier about the candles was important."
"You really think they lit all by themselves when we woke up?" Tascha asked while continuing to open drawers in the dwindling hope of finding any kind of garment.
Don, who thought their state of undress was the least of their troubles, stopped to look at one of the candlesticks more closely. He said, "Well, I had the distinct impression that it was very dark when I started ... 'groping' you. I'm certainly sure it wasn't this bright."
There seemed to be nothing unusual about the candle. He took the candle in hand and pulled it out of his holder. Tipping it to the side only resulted in a trickle of melted wax running onto the carpet. Don felt a pang of guilt for messing up someone's carpet, but quickly got over it. Whoever had abducted them, out of mischief or malice, deserved to have their carpet messed up, at the very least. He blew the candle out, and it stayed out. He put the candle back in place and it promptly glowed back to life.
"Fucking hell," he said. "Did you see that?"
"Damn it, Don," Tascha said from the other side of the room. "There's nothing but sex toys in this place. What the hell is going on?"
"A couple of things come to mind. Probably the least alarming is some kind of Candid Camera thing," Don suggested as he looked around a bit more carefully at the walls, peering into the dark corners.