I feel this is my best work to date.
Hope the readers like it.
* * * * *
Learning about love can sometimes start out as a forced situation
The school bus bounced over another of the countless potholes that lined the country road she lived on, but Ashley could care less. In fact, she could not remember a time when she had been happier than she was right now. There were so many things to be happy about. Spring had finally sprung big time. As of today she was eighteen years old and almost fully blossomed into the same kind of strikingly beautiful woman that her mother still is. And best of all, she now had her very first boyfriend.
Doug was one of the guys on the football team that caught the passes or carried the ball. She never could remember the name of his position on the team, but he was tall, slender, very muscular, and with the cutest face of any guy in her high school. And, he had "buns to die for," according to all her girlfriends. She had received her first-ever kiss from him yesterday, and they would be going out on her very first date next weekend.
That date would have been this weekend, but shortly after she had told her parents about Doug her father had announced that the family would be taking a trip this weekend, and for her not to make any plans. Her mother just looked down at her breakfast plate at that announcement, but Ashley thought she noticed a slight smile on her mother's lips.
She thought it was a little odd that her father had not mentioned the impending trip sooner. But that was the way he sometimes was. He made all of the decisions in their household. Ashley shook her head in wonder at that fact. Why, she wondered, did he always have the final word on everything. And her mother didn't seem to mind in the least, deferring everything that might require a decisive answer to her husband of nineteen years. It was all so puzzling.
She walked into the house at 3:00 p.m. sharp and found her mother and father sitting in the living room. They were waiting for her, and both arose as she entered. "The car is all packed," her father announced. "And, to save time, your mother has packed your suitcase for you. Let's go." With that, she dropped her book bag, went back outside and got in the rear seat of the family station wagon. Less than a minute later they were headed down the bumpy road, and she still did not know to where.
Two hours later and around fifty miles into Pennsylvania from that part of upstate New York where they lived, they pulled up a long, winding drive to an attractive old farm house. They all got out and walked up to the side door where they were greeted by a tall, ruggedly handsome and pretty well-muscled man. Ashley thought he was the most attractive older man she had ever laid eyes on. He was around six feet tall or a little more, with a face that was remarkably similar to Tom Cruise, only older. He had dark hair, but with a little gray around the temples.
Ashley, I'd like you to meet Mr. Clint Armstrong. He is a friend of mine from my college days. He was one of my professors then, too. Your mother and I met him again several months before our marriage, and then again after we were hicthed. He is a wonderful guy, a good friend, and the best instructor in certain things that ever was.
The young girl was smiling from ear to ear as she stepped forward to shake his hand. She had never heard her father talk about anyone in such glowing terms. He really must be wonderful at what he does, or teaches, or..... whatever, she thought.
Clint returned her smile as he shook her hand. "Very nice to meet you, Ashley. I hope you and I will become great friends, too, during your visit. Won't you step inside?" With that he slipped his arm around her waist and escorted her through the doorway an into his home.
He closed the door behind them as Ashley found herself standing in what was obviously the living room. It was beautifully decorated with masculine-type paintings of hunting scenes on the walls and antique furniture throughout. It's almost overwhelming presence made her catch her breath. Anyone would be comfortable in this place, she thought to herself.
Then she noticed that her parents had not entered the house with her. "Where are my..."
Can I get you something to drink, Ashley?", Clint asked as he interrupted her. "Or a snack?"
"No. No, thank you. Where are my folks?"
"They have already gone, Ashley. Please, have a seat and I will explain." Clint sat down in a big, over-stuffed chair.
Ashley gingerly sat down on the edge of the very big sofa. "Gone? Gone where? I don't understand. They left me here? With you? Why? How could they....?"
"Ashley, they brought you here to stay with me for the weekend. They will return on Monday, the Memorial Day holiday, to pick you up again. If you will let me, I will teach you many things about life. Wonderful things that every woman should know. I have a special talent for this kind of very specialized instruction. Your parents realize that fact. They want you to learn correctly about some of the most important things in life, and they want me to be your instructor. Will you let me, Ashley?"
"No, I don't want to stay here with you. I want to go home. Please let me go home. Oh, pleaseeee?"
"No, young lady. That is not to be. With your cooperation this will be a wonderful experience for you. But if you refuse to cooperate, well.... In the end, regardless of your attitude right now, it will still be a wonderful experience. And one you will remember fondly for the rest of your life, I promise you."
"What are you going to teach me that is so damn important? Why you? I don't want this. I want to go home." With that Ashley sprung up and raced for the doorway she had entered through a few moments before It was locked. She tried to unlock it, but the handle's secret escaped her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the man was still sitting in the big easy chair. She left the door and ran to the front door on the other side of the room. Damn, it was locked, too. There had to be a way for her to get out. To run away from this situation, whatever it was.
Maybe she could open the door from the outside. Quickly she took off her shoe, looking at the man still sitting in the chair. Then, stepping back a little, she threw it at the large frosted glass window in the upper part of the door. It bounced off. She quickly looked around and saw a kerosene lamp on a pedestal right behind her. She grabbed it and was about to throw it at the glass window when her arm was stopped in mid stroke.
"That lamp once graced the hallways of Buckingham Palace more than a century ago," Clint told her as he gently removed it and put it back on the small table. "I really do not want to see it smashed by being tossed against an unbreakable window." Then the man took hold of Ashley's wrist and started heading for a doorway that led into the interior of the house, almost dragging the girl behind him. He turned left and began climbing some broad steps towards the second floor. She fought him wildly, but his strength was so much greater than hers that she soon realized her efforts were futile. How odd that, right then, she would think about a cartoon a girlfriend had shown her at school earlier that day. It was the caricature of a mouse flipping the finger at a hawk about to grab it. "Defiance" was written underneath the mouse. Was she now the mouse?
They reached the top of the stairs and he opened a door on the left. He drug her to the center of the room where she saw a rope hanging and some strange contraptions laying on the floor. "I was hoping we could skip this room, but your actions mandate that we use it," Clint advised her in a level, controlled voice.
Still holding her wrist, he bent down and picked up one of the strange objects. He put it around her wrist, pulled it snug, and snapped something on it in place to hold it tight. Ashley realized it was a padded cuff of some type. Then he took her other wrist and attached a similar cuff. She again felt it pulled snug and then heard an audible snap. Then she suddenly realized what he was doing and screamed. The man walked to the wall, took hold of a rope tied to a cleat there, and pulled it. Her arms were immediately pulled over her head and up until she was barely standing flat-footed on the carpeted floor. As she continued to scream she saw him tie the taunt rope off at the cleat, leaving her in that position. Then he turned back to her and stood before her. "When you are finished with your tantrum and fully realize that you are here to stay as my guest and nothing will change that, I will return and we can begin your lessons." With that he turned from her, went to the still-open door and left the room, closing it softly behind him.
Ashley was terrified. She had never before felt so totally helpless. She began to cry as another moaning scream escaped her body. In seconds she was sobbing uncontrollably and hanging limply from her shackled wrists. After a minute or so the only movement observable in her body was the convulsion that accompanied her heart-melting sobs.
It may have been minutes, or an hour or more before she finally raised her head and once again got her feet under her. Her crying had ended long ago, but her terror continued unabated. She looked up and saw the heavy hardware firmly attached to beams hidden above the plaster ceiling.
Then she looked around her. The large room had a large bed in one corner against two walls, and, at the other end, a much smaller, very narrow bed sitting out in the room and away from any walls. There was a long and narrow metal table nearby where she was hanging. One end of it was shaped like a deep 'U' with the two narrow parts of the top flaring out oddly. She also noticed it was on rollers, and that there were straps of some kind hanging down at various places.