Chapter 1: The Water Under the Bridge
Lara Abington sat on the hard wooden stool, trying in vain to ignore the severe tightness of the crotch strap that kept the straitjacket locked onto her toned body.
Her feet were bare, and she saw the nude polish on her shapely toes had chipped slightly since her last visit to the salon. It was the kind of thing that irked her, even in these absurd circumstances. Her legs were mostly bare too -- except for a pair of thin cotton short shorts that were similar to the ones she was wearing when she was captured, but more flimsy, like pajama bottoms. It was good the shorts were made of soft cotton, because they were digging quite obscenely into her virgin pussy at the moment. They were helped along by the fact that her crotch strap which was made of some kind of satin material, slippery to the point of being almost friction-less. It contoured her sex and her ass perfectly, banishing any hope of escape from the 19 year old teenager's mind. She was sure this was all some kind of psychological operation against her -- bothersome, but tolerable in the very short term. She didn't plan on being here long.
Her legs were mostly bare, but not entirely.
Thick leather cuffs were securely fastened around her slender ankles, with chains linking them each other and to a metal eye that was fastened into the floor. These things were a consequence of her first violent outburst -- the staff of this mental hospital were obsessed with control. Lara understood that their goal was probably to trample her spirit and mold her into a meek, compliant girl. It offended her to her core.
This created a sense of urgency for the young Tomb Liberator. In the short-term, she could resist their invasive therapy, but over a longer period of time...
Her doctor, a middle-aged Taiwanese woman, gave her a measured smile. She had on eyeglasses with gold trim, and a white lab coat. She was quite pretty, and had the self-confidence that comes with extraordinary wealth. Lara had seen this among her own rich friends, and it always rubbed her the wrong way.
"Are you feeling more calm today?" the woman asked.
"Yes, doctor," Lara answered.
Lara wanted to say something more assertive, or to demand to speak with her solicitor but she was on thin ice already. This woman, Dr. Yeung, was one of the people she had assaulted on her previous escape attempt. She didn't make it far, and ended up sedated in a padded room for an obnoxiously long time, eating tasteless gruel and nearly going mad at the lack of sensory stimulation. Nothing that was happening here was legal, but that wasn't the sort of thing she could debate with her kidnappers.
Now Lara knew that she could be put right back in that room, so she figured it was best to go along with the doctor's plans at least for the time being. She imagined how her friends from finishing school would react if they saw her now -- haughty Lara Abington, the free spirit, sitting meekly on a little wooden stool, waiting patiently to be addressed before she spoke! It made her blush, and she shifted her feet a little nervously.
The metal eye that was supposed to secure her legs to the floor wobbled a little.
"Good!" the doctor said, scribbling something on her notepad.
"I was hoping we could discuss today, your attempted robbery from Mrs. Liao's estate. Would you like to explain what you were thinking?"
Lara had to be careful here.
After her father's untimely death, she was quickly drawn into a contentious and nasty battle with her Uncle Errol over her rightful inheritance. "Uncle" Errol -- he was a real piece of work! The man said he was a long lost cousin to her late father, but Lara seriously doubted the legitimacy of his claim.
First of all, he looked and behaved nothing like her father. Errol was short and overweight, with low-class manners and abhorrent personal habits such as gambling and coarse language. He would show up to her estate as though he owned the place, smoking cigars as he impugned Lara's athletic and academic hobbies. When she politely asked him not to smoke cigars indoors, he went so far as to imply that once he was her guardian, she would learn her proper place!
As though she needed a guardian -- some wild hair he had about Lara needing to be 21 to get her full inheritance. She had originally planned on simply bribing him to go away, but before it came to that point, he made some remark about how ladies shouldn't be traveling unnecessarily and should focus solely on the domestic sphere. That was when Lara lost her patience, and told him he was no longer welcome in her estate, and they would only talk through lawyers.
Here was the problem: Lara had something of a double life. She was the Lara Swift, the Tomb Liberator, a sort of Robin Hood archeologist who pulled daring heists that benefited the common people of the world.
At least, she would have been, except on her very first sortie at Mrs. Liao's estate she had been discovered, arrested, and was now incarcerated in this weird mental institution. She had no way of knowing how this would affect her legal proceedings (she had been held incommunicado the whole time), but she had an awful suspicion that a judge might see it as evidence of her own instability. The thought of Errol being awarded her inheritance was her deepest fear, which was what provoked her first escape attempt a few days ago.
"Ah, I am not quite ready to discuss that," Lara answered in her posh accent. "Or maybe I could, if I had my solicitor present?"
Dr. Yeung frowned, but she didn't appear to notice the subtle way Lara was testing the tensile strength of the metal eyelet by her feet. The window in the office was open, and they were only on the second floor.
"I'm afraid not," was the doctor's terse reply, "and if you remain so recalcitrant, it might be necessary to transfer you to a more long-term facility."
Did they seriously think she was so stupid to just play along with their little games? Lara glared at the woman, narrowing her grey almond-shaped eyes in a way she knew to be very threatening.
"I am the heiress of the Abington estate, and I will not be treated this way. I realize your plan is to torture me until I confess, and I can only pity how unimaginative and dated it all is. Honestly, your best option is to release me now. As soon as my lawyers find out about this, I will personally see this place investigated in a most thorough way."
That made her feel like her old self! But why wasn't the doctor shaken? Usually, when Lara took that aristocratic tone, people couldn't comply fast enough. But now, it was Lara who felt rattled -- the doctor stood up from behind her desk and walked over to her.
"Poor little birdie," Dr. Yeung said, reaching out to stroke Lara's cheek. There was no comfort in the gesture.