Aaliyah's fear and panic began when she awoke groggily from a deep sleep and could neither recognize where she was at nor recall how she had gotten there. She could remember socializing at the backyard barbecue she had been hosting for her friends while her parents were out of town. She could remember saying goodbye to the last of the guests and cleaning up the yard. She vaguely remembered feeling overwhelmingly exhausted and leaning back in one of the patio chairs to catch a moment's rest. But none of those things added up to where she was at now.
Gazing around the room, she could make an educated guess that she was in the basement of someone's house. The walls and floor were fashioned of plain concrete, marked with chips and the occasional crack. Cast iron support poles were planted strategically around the area. A couple of small glass-block windows up near the ceiling were the only source of light, although a few bare bulbs with dangling pull-strings were visible in the room as well. Aaliyah was lying on her back on some sort of a bed; it was a plain, queen-sized mattress covered with an average off-white sheet. None of these things were that unusual to Aaliyah—the fact that she was stark naked and bound with links of chains was definitely the most frightening aspect of the situation.
A metal cuff had been fastened rather tightly around each of her wrists, with attached chains stretching off somewhere above her head that she couldn't quite turn far enough to see. Each of her knees also had its own metal cuff, with the loose ends of chain going off below her eye level, probably mounted to the floor somewhere. Her ankles were restrained in very much the same way, except Aaliyah could see that these chains led to pulleys, which were screwed into the wooden rafters of the ceiling a foot or so past her head. At least for the time being, all of the chains attached to her arms and legs were completely slack, leaving her limbs free to move about. However, three other identical lengths of chain had been wrapped tightly around her body at her chest, waist, and hips. As far as Aaliyah could tell, each of these chains was pulled around the entire mattress and fastened underneath so as to hold her body closely to the bed. Save for this unyielding restraint of her torso, Aaliyah could move around as much as she pleased, kicking and flailing her arms and legs to her heart's content. She frantically clawed at her wrists and ankles, trying desperately to shimmy her way out of the cuffs.
Aaliyah, normally a rather independent young girl, would have loved to scream for help by this point, but when she attempted to do so, it came out a bit muffled. "Haaaaa!" After all, the most unnerving facet of this entire predicament was the piece of equipment that was stretching her mouth open. Because she could still breathe and make noises, Aaliyah decided it had to be some kind of O-ring; this metal ring was wedged so tightly into her mouth that it was impossible to dislodge, no matter how much she tried to wiggle her jaw around or how hard she pushed at it with her tongue. She screamed incessantly and fidgeted around for what felt like hours, but succeeded at little more than chafing her skin on her metal bonds, irritating her throat, and tiring her facial muscles. Exhausted, she sighed heavily and ceased her movement and laid down in defeat on the mattress. She did not scream anymore, but merely panted from exertion and whimpered in fear of what could possibly be going on.
Aaliyah couldn't help but jump when a light flicked on at the opposite end of the room, which appeared to be at the bottom of a staircase. She turned her head to the side and stared at this corner of the room, fearfully awaiting whoever it was whose loud footsteps could be heard stomping down a staircase. Her heart raced, her chest moved up and down more rapidly with her quicker breaths, and she found herself trying to edge towards the opposite side of the mattress. When the individual reached the bottom of the staircase, Aaliyah could not believe what she saw. There, on the opposite end of the room, was her next-door neighbor.
Mr. Anderson was a little bit of an older man, probably in his mid-fifties, with somewhat wrinkled skin and a head of gray hair. He had pretty good muscle tone for his age, although he could have been in much better shape if he wasn't such a raging alcoholic. Aaliyah had many frightened memories of her family having to deal with Mr. Anderson's unsettling drunken behavior; in fact, her family had recently installed a privacy fence in order to prevent Mr. Anderson from staring when Aaliyah and her friends went for a dip in Aaliyah's backyard pool. Mr. Anderson had never failed to throw on his Speedo, set up a lawn chair on his back patio, and crack open a six-pack of beer whenever Aaliyah showed up outside in her bikini. He would sit there for hours, his hairy chest and generous belly on display for all of the neighbors to see. Other times, the neighbors would swear they had seen him peeking out of his back window with a telephoto-lens camera when Aaliyah mowed the lawn in her bikini top and denim shorts. The man was creepy and had shown up uninvited at Aaliyah's family's house one too many times with the scent of Budweiser on his breath; hence, the fence had been put up. Aaliyah and her family had not heard nor seen from him since.
He lurked across the basement, a beer bottle in his hand, and Aaliyah attempted to vocalize her fear. She tried to shout through the giant apparatus in her mouth, but only managed to get a few slurred sounds to escape from her lips. She tried to scream for help again. "Haaaa!"
Mr. Anderson set down the beer bottle on a nearby table and chuckled evilly. "Hello, Aaliyah," he greeted her, apparently amused by her inability to speak coherently. He allowed his eyes to roam freely over her body, hungrily taking in the sight before him. He licked his lips and chuckled quietly to himself as Aaliyah desperately attempted to cover herself with her hands. Aaliyah was a beautiful girl, twenty-one but with the looks of a sixteen-year-old. It turned him on more than he was willing to admit. She had dark, cocoa-colored skin that almost glowed in the dim light of the basement. Her soft black hair was quite long, a few inches past her shoulders. He had always found her face to bear a striking resemblance to Gabrielle Union. Her big, pouty lips were stretched around the giant metal O-ring that he had forcefully crammed into her mouth hours earlier. She had quite generous breasts, almost C-cups, which were truthfully a bit on the large side for her tiny frame—not that he was complaining about it. Her body tapered in drastically at the waist, and then sloped back outwards at her wide hips. He knew from memory that she had a large ass as well; it was a shame that he couldn't see much of it due to the position he had placed her in. Her thighs were a bit on the large side, but they were muscular and did not have the slightest bit of cellulite. Overall, she had a body that would make most guys her own age drool with lust; to a man of his age, it was like being in the presence of a Playboy goddess. At this particular moment, Aaliyah's vulnerable naked body was quivering in fear, and it inspired a similar quiver just behind the fly of his jeans.
He circled the bed for a minute or so, mutually admiring both her body and his bondage work. When he arrived at the foot of the bed, he leaned forward and, with a slight moan of "Ohh," escaping his lips, attempted to caress her smooth, creamy thigh—but his hand was greeted by a sharp kick from Aaliyah's foot.
"Ow! You fucking bitch!" he growled at her. He stormed halfway around the bed and gave her a hearty slap right across her right breast; his hand was still wet from the condensation on the beer bottle and made loud, cold, wet contact with her flesh. Aaliyah yelped in pain through the O-ring and began angrily thrashing her body around as much as the restraints would allow. Mr. Anderson quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, and she ceased her violent movement out of sheer fear. As she panted heavily through her nose, he leaned on her face and began to speak. "Look, Aaliyah, this is not any kind of a situation for you to be causing me any trouble. In case you haven't noticed, you are completely at my mercy. I would suggest that you sit back and shut up; otherwise, this is going to be a very long and very painful night for you." Tears had welled up in her eyes, and they now began to spill over and trickle down the edges of her face. He glared at her for a moment or so, searching her face to try and decide if she was going to continue to misbehave or not. Finally, he lifted up his hand, and Aaliyah gave a barely audible sigh of relief.
This relief was short-lived. Mr. Anderson suddenly drew his arm back and sharply slapped her across the face, full-force, causing her head to snap violently to face in the other direction. She cried out once more, but did not otherwise protest his action. He nodded in approval and walked up to the head of the bed.
