Hello, Lovely Readers
I'm really fascinated by stories of forced, reluctant, and dubiously consentual submission in liminal spaces -- think servicing a captor in the hallway closet while guests chat outside, waiting for your arrival, or being taken under a stage, while your friends dance and wonder where you went off to, and if you're having as much fun as they are. Especially when they involve a good dose of humiliation play. Let me know what you think of this one, and if you'd like to read more like it.
--Inescapable
It happened so quickly, and with such precision that Jenny initially thought it was a prank. Then again, the whole evening had been sneaking up on her like that. Hell, the whole week was that way: ambush after ambush. First, her boss screwed up the schedule at the office, forcing her to cancel plans and work extra hours because he couldn't be bothered to fix his mistakes. Then, there'd been a big eruption of family drama she'd almost been puleld into about which, the less said, the better. And that was just the start of the week.
the call she'd gotten on Wednesday night was comparatively mild and pleasant. It was from an old friend and more recent ex named Frederick. Apparently, he would be in town on Friday. Frederick had been a lousy boyfriend, but a decent friend otherwise. He wasn't the worst guy she'd dated, and she wasn't completely unhappy to see him. But he would not normally make her "people I would make time for at the last minute" list -- especially after such a stressful week. But he had a pair of tickets to a festival she had sort have wanted to see. It put him back on the list, if only barely.
The local fall festival wasn't normally her kind of scene -- a little too ren faire meets pagan revival -- but they'd gone more upmarket this year. Sure, there was still the burning wooden effigy and the hippies, but instead of setting it up in an empty field this year, they'd made it marginally safer by putting it squarely in the middle of a concrete lot. And while there were still the drum circles, novelty acts, and college kids fumbling through early music on small stages, there were also some pretty cutting edge EDM groups this year, along with an indie act or two she'd been wanting to see. After such a tiring and dreary week at her tiring and dreary desk job, she really could use the night out.
And anyway, it was one of very few places she could wear a bustier without feeling all, "look at me" about it. Well, without feeling too "look at me" about it, anyway. She didn't really like the old-time vibe, but Jenny looked fantastic in the clothes. With her dark hair, pale skin, thick build, and large breasts, she could have done very well on the ren faire circuit. Not wanting to give Frederick the wrong idea, she tried to play down the outfit, as much as you can play down such things without ruining the fun. She accessorized the top and skirt with a long black jacket, which had the effect of taking her cleavage out of landscape mode and into a more modest portrait mode. It looked kind of classy, she thought; sexy, but not like "whomp! Here's my boobs on a shelf" sexy. Although a part of her wondered if, when the wind caught it just so, she wouldn't look just a bit like a stripper on the way to her job.
They got there, spent twenty minutes looking for parking, another twenty waiting in line and walking in, and then Frederick had to use the bathroom. By the time they got to their stage, over an hour had passed. But that was alright with Jenny, because she was excited for the act. And then there was the fire.
No, not the planned burning of the effigy, but a house lit up just a few blocks away. And it quickly became obvious that the the event organizer were totally unprepared for it. Rumors circulated through the crowd, the roadies shuffled around on-stage, not sure whether to finish unpacking or start repacking. Finally, someone got on the sound system and announced that they were evacuating the stage "out of an abundance of caution." They'd try to figure out a way to host the act at a smaller stage on the other side of the park, and could the crowd all move out that way, just to be safe?
Since all the main stages were on the side of the park nearest the fire, there were soon a lot of people shuffling around, having spent a considerable sum and gotten quite a buzz, and now having nothing to do but get drunker, higher, and more irritated. And on top of it, she was still stuck with Frederick. Now, conversation was awkward with her ex as it was, but it wouldn't have been too bad with some music to pay attention to. Now, with no entertainment and a much denser and more inebriated crowd, it was turning into an awful evening. And so, instead of standing around and listening to Frederick tell her more about his new furniture and his new job in a new city over the noise, and how well he was doing, really, she proposed they take a walk. Frederick looked relieved as well. She supposed he really wasn't such a bad guy, now that she wasn't dating him.
Which was how they happened into the old section of the festival, now relegated to what looked like it might have once been some sort of military facility built by the only army in the world with the budget to waste so much land. There were the remnants of structures here and there, and it looked like some people had started to setup a sort of minimalistic skate park at some point in the past. It was a little bleak, but an interesting bleak, at least.
She hadn't intended to see it, but the effigy figure they'd built really was impressive. The wooden person looked to be more than two stories tall and well-constructed, with a more modern look than she'd expected, in spite of the bundles of wood sticking out of various gaps and orifices in a gesture she supposed was meant to convey some message about pagans not being good at building. They'd made use of a grid of free-standing metal columns that must have held some kind of semi-permanent housing or offices in the past to help support the installation. Most interestingly of all, they'd repurposed corrugated metal sheeting and stuck it angled inward around the sculpture, attaching it to the pillars. It formed a network of little metal lean-tos, with alleys in between, all leading to the effigy.
With its broad hips, sloping to widely planted feet, Jenny thought it looked more like the silhouette of a woman than a man. She pictured the sculpture in flames, the metal sheets reflecting her light and heat back on her as she was consumed. The image was quite beautiful; if the whole thing had been handled in a more safety-conscious manner, she would have liked to see the pagan, sacrificial spectacle.
Unfortunately, it appeared the safety standards were pagan and sacrificial as well. There was no real barrier to the statue, except a low metal temporary fence that people continuously stepped over. Jenny began to wonder if the statue were really as well-built as she thought when she noticed a big board was missing from the statue's left foot, leaving it open. Nearly anyone could scramble up inside to the sculpture's crotch at least, where no one would be able to see them. There were a couple volunteers guarding it here and there, but there were way too many people around for them to watch, and they didn't seem especially interested anyway. She could think of easily half a dozen ways this could end in tragedy, particularly with the thicker, more intoxicated crowds now roaming around, with nothing to do.
And then Frederick, who had been thoroughly tolerable and even a bit charming at moments, decided to make his move -- and not the kind of move she'd half expected. He was easy enough to fend off, and although he could get a bit whiny, a come on from him really wouldn't have made the night all that much more disappointing. No, the prick said what he'd apparently been plotting to say all night, after leading her around in circles looking for somewhere quiet enough to put on the performance he'd planned for her and her alone.
"I'm sorry, Jenny. I wanted to give this another chance, but I suppose I have moved on," he said. Jenny laughed in surprise; she couldn't help it. He flew into town (probably visiting his parents, to be fair) and spent God knows how much on tickets to take the girl who had dumped him nine months ago on a date, so he could tell her how well he was doing and "dump" her. And since they couldn't find a quiet spot, he did it by practically shouting in her ear over the white guy with dreads scat singing along to the drum circle.
But it was too loud and he was too busy giving his prepared speech to notice, which was a relief to Jenny. She didn't need to embarass him -- in fact, she'd greatly have preferred if he hadn't decided to embarass himself. She wasn't even really disappointed at this point, except in herself for going along with him. She didn't shout or storm off in a huff or give him a bird. She just walked away, as if she hadn't heard, and had already forgotten about him entirely. He followed her for a few steps, trying to do an "I hope you're okay, and we can still be friends," kind of thing, but he couldn't really keep up the charade. Apparently, his elaborate exercise in self-justification wasn't even convincing to him.
She walked a little further just to put some distance from his nonsense, then took what was meant to be her last look back at the effigy. For a few minutes, watched the volunteers guarding it half-heartedly from the rambunctious teens and twenty-somethings attempting to climb, pose and (in one case) throw each other into it. Off to the side, there was an official-looking man, talking with two or three volunteer staff wearing lanyards. They were standing next to a shack where Jenny assumed they kept supplies for igniting the statue, and the official looked decidedly agitated. Shaking his head, he threw up his hands and walked off to make a call. She certainly understood the feeling.
Jenny was always the responsible one in the group, the one who thought a little too much about the consequences to offset her friends thinking not enough. So there was something horrifying and a little thrilling about seeing so many people partying around what she was sure at that moment would end as a disaster. But there was nothing she could do about it, which was sort of comforting. She made her peace with the whole night, resolving to experience the end of this saga from the safe distance of tomorrow morning's news. Then she started to walk towards 4th Street., where she'd be able to catch a cab or call a Lyft home.
Unfortunately, the path took her past the statue again, and something morbid in Jenny couldn't resist crouching to peer inside the statue's open toe, to see what disasters hormones and booze might be aranging at the moment. It was only a quick look. Really, it was too dark to see much, and she had the distinct impression of a shadow moving in the inner darkness, which made her half-jump out of her skin, and return to her original plan. But when she stood and turned back towards 4th, the week decided to play its final cruel joke on Jenny. Her walk was over; her night was just beginning.
The ambush baffled and disoriented Jenny for just long enough for her to have no hope of escaping it. As she turned, two men walked right into her, pushing her backwards whilethey each grabbed her under the arms from either side. And with a whoosh of air, she was pulled down and dragged into the statue's foot, her feet scrabbling ineffectively against the ground in her stylish, black, low-heeled ankle-boots.
At the moment, it hadn't felt like being attacked by men it all. It was more like being picked up by a giant bird you thought was a myth, or pulled through a vortex into another dimension by some powerful force beyond her comprehension. There was a moment of trying to orient herself and wondering why she was facing the sky. For a tiny sliver of time, she half believed she'd simply stumbled, and was relieved second that someone had caught her -- two someones, apparently. But then, why hadn't they stopped and helped her to her feet? She looked to her right, and saw a young man from below: short, black, scruffy hair, a black fall coat, and the side of a pale neck, with a sinewy body that gripped her uncomfortably.
She didn't get to look at the other one, because they were already halfway in, and she was busy trying to dig in her heels and put her hands down, while making indignant, but not particularly communicative sounds. At this point, she felt a chill of fear, but wasn't ready to accept what she was experiencing. This was must be an exceptionally shitty prank. It was a "prank" that made no sense to Jenny, but then young people did do strange things for views nowadays, and of course she hadn't had a chance to think about it. She was mostly worried that they'd mess up her clothing and make her look ridiculous on camera. Had she known what was about to happen, she'd have found little comfort in knowing that her clothing, at least, would come through it without major harm.
By the time Jenny fully processed that this was much more serious than a prank, her feet were disappearing into the statues toe. A moment later, her ass bumped and dragged painfully as they climbed up a ramp to the flat platform where the statue's legs met.
