I watch her tottering as she navigates the crowds that bustle along the busy pavement.
Before even noticing how unstable she was on her feet I had noticed the long black nylon clad legs in the first instance. Long slender legs that seemed to never end before meeting the ludicrously short skirt of a dark red dress worn under a black fitted jacket.
Parked on the side of the street I watch as a couple approach me, refusing eye contact I lock the doors and pull away from the kerb closing the gap between myself and the blonde with the legs as she steps unsteadily towards the edge of the pavement. Looking up she raises a hand as she recognises the private hire signs magnetically affixed to the bonnet and sides of the silver Mercedes saloon.
Drawing up to a stop alongside of her I drop the passengers window and lean across from my seated position just as she crouches, placing a manicured hand with long delicate fingers on the edge of the open window to steady herself.
"Can you take me home please" she offers reasonably coherently despite the glassy tired, drunken eyes set in her attractive features.
"Sure..." I offer without a moments thought "...where's home?"
"Gold... Goldburn Street" she offers slurring her words a little now as she attempts to concentrate.
"Jump in," I offer genuinely unsure of the address she requests, a matter of some confusion for me as I pride myself on my encyclopaedic knowledge of the City's streets and addresses.
Pulling open the back passenger door of the cab I watch as she clambers into the back of the cab, I am unable to keep my eyes of those legs as the incredibly short skirt of her dress hitches up as she settles on the leather seat and pulls the door closed.
As she sits back the sound of her phone ringing fills the cab. Frantically tapping at her pockets until she locates the device, I concentrate on pulling the cab away into heavy slow moving traffic cautious not to hit another vehicle or any one of the multitudes of drunken revellers who move between the slow moving cars. The chaos of the last Friday night before Christmas turns the City into a scene reminiscent of a zombie movie.
"Hey babe..." I hear her state into the phone enthusiastically.
"No.... No... I'm alright..." she states after a pause given that I can only hear one side of the conversation.
Conscious I still have no idea where I am heading but equally aware that I've at least a mile of excruciatingly slow traffic to navigate around the City's one way streets before it becomes a concern.
"I'm fine... I'm all right... I'm already in a Taxi..." I have no choice but to listen to her one sided conversation. Glancing back in the rear view mirror I watch how she slumps across the seat up against the passenger door as the central locking finally kicks in as I get the car above ten miles per hour for the first time.
"I... I dunno I just feel strange.... Not ill ill and not drunk... but just tired and sleepy..." she continues "...and I didn't fancy going to that Club anyways."
"You cheeky bitch...." My little blonde passenger chuckles sleepily "...I am so still a Party Girl... even if I am going home to be home alone."
Picking my way through the traffic with greater ease now, the inside of the car is intermittently strobed by the Christmas lights that hang suspended above the wet streets as I pick apart the pertinent facts I discern from her conversation. I glance back occasionally then set the heating in the back of the cab to its highest setting. A devious plan forming in my mind.
"No... no... no..." I hear her sternly offer as she sits upright a little, "...You listen to me Sarah Fitch you do not go home with that barman... do not... do you hear me?"
The potential sordid nature of the subject matter has my intrigue now.
"There's something creepy about him... and his brother..." my passenger warns on a frustrated tone, "...please don't do it Sarah... don't, do you hear me?"
I start to consider if she has any right despite her obvious concerns to tell her friend how to live her life or behave. My mind wandering to the situation I had found myself in only two weeks prior with the flame haired schoolteacher and her best friend taking a ride home in my cab. A dark grin passing my lips at the sordid way the night had ended.
"Sarah... Sarah... are you there?" my passenger frustratedly enquires, "Aww my fucking battery."
As I look back the glow from her phones screen has disappeared. I watch as she taps her finger repeatedly against the screen as if not believing the device to have run out of battery.
"Hey Mister..." the blonde offers leaning towards the thick plastic screen that separates the front and the back of the cab, "...Do you have a charger? ...and and it's getting really warm back here."
Pulling up at traffic lights I turn to look back at her, her face close to mine through the screen. Her eyes now narrowed and heavy looking.
"Haven't got a charger sorry." I bluntly offer as she slumps back once more on offering a disgruntled sneer but saying nothing further on the subject as she slips the little black jacket from her shoulders, wriggling and revealing her svelte body as she does so.
As the lights turn green I take a side road to lead us towards our destination, she is as blissfully unaware of the route we take as I am of the address she had previously offered to me. None of that matters heading out of the City I watch as she falls into a slumber induced by the amount of alcohol I assume she has consumed combined with the heat that floods the back of the cab.
I know my destination, by the time she comes around it will be too late. I tap my finger against my phone nestled in a cradle on charge, hitting a speed dial number.
"Hillview Hotel," the familiar gravelly voice offers.
"So, we're a Hotel now, are we?" I offer on a chuckle.
"Hotel.... Guest House... B&B what-fucking-ever," the voice on the other end of the line retorts.
"Well... Set up a room Santa's delivered early," I offer as I look back at the blonde passed out on the back seat of the cab.
I press my foot to the accelerator pedal, the diesel engine roaring under the bonnet of the Mercedes as I am eager to arrive at my destination.
**********
I watch as she finally stirs.
Stirs as much as she can given the heavy restraint that holds her in its grip.
Long navy black out curtains pull across the only window of the third floor room, behind them daybreak slowly edges around the gaps of the material. The room largely held in darkness all the same as I watch her, just as I have intermittently across the night.
There was more than alcohol in her system I had fast concluded. On arrival at the Guest House, I had been surprised but somewhat relieved when she had not come to even after being parked in the freezing temperatures for ten minutes with all the cabs windows down as I had smoked a cigarette. Another five minutes later after a certain amount of coercion Frank had helped me lift her lifeless form from the back of the cab and as I bore the weight of her upper body, he had carried her by her perfect slender legs up three flights of stairs to the cold damp dark bedroom that awaited her.
Her head moves first from side to side as she attempts to move her upper body, her legs those perfect slender long legs next pull at the restraints that fit tightly over her nylon clad ankles. As she slowly regains consciousness the blonde struggles in the darkness, her plight further exacerbated by the blindfold that sits tightly over her eyes.
"Wh... what the..." she offers in immediate panic.
I step forward my feet causing the floorboards beneath the threadbare dark red carpet to creak, as she hears my approach she falls still.
"Who's there... who are you?" the blonde offers.
Still fully dressed, other than her dark red heels, she lays across the bed on her back, her arms wrapped in the long sleeves of the short burgundy dress extend outstretched above her. Hands and wrists held the other side of the metal bars of the headboard in the merciless grip of a pair of steel handcuffs.
Her upper arms, chest and waist are held by thick black leather straps that run from under the mattress of the bed and buckle to her left hand side. Her waist to her ankles are restraint free, the spreader bar held between her parted legs may be unnecessary if only by virtue of the leather cuffs that hold her ankles on taught thick black nylon ropes to the legs of the bed.
Darkly in my boredom as I had waited I had decorated her and the bed, a string of flickering red, green, blue, and yellow lights thread through the metal frame of the headboard. A thick length of silver tinsel wraps her wrists and the cuffs that restrain them. With a second shorter length of silver tinsel tied in a knot over her left ankle.
"Where am I... where am I?" She frantically begs.
"It's not Santas workshop" I state as I come to stand at the base of the bed admiring my capture at such close quarters. "Can I just clarify that whoever put drugs in your drink last night it wasn't me... I'm grateful for their unwitting assistance... but it wasn't me."
She falls silent her head dropping back against the bare dirty grey mattress beneath her.
"Who... who are you?" she feebly offers her voice trembling on barely contained emotion.
"Full of questions aren't you," I offer as I kneel upon the bed. The moment I do she frantically struggles in her restraints, her slender body struggles, and thrashes. I watch her and mentally note the effectiveness of the restraints.
Dropping over her I clamp my hand over her petite jaw feeling the pout of her firm possibly enhanced lips against the palm of my hand, her body immediately stills her breath fast and heavy across the back of my left hand.