I am the Harbinger Of Your Ascendance...
Holly looked over at the guy opposite her and then leant over, casually snagging his hand with hers and fixing him with her pale grey eyes.
“So,” She said quietly. “How do you think we’re doing?”
He looked back and gave a sly grin.
“Well, considering I’m American and you’re about as British as a ‘nice cup of tea’,” He said with a faint drawl. “I think we’re doing fairly well. You haven’t told me I’m an ungrateful colonial more than 3 times so far and I haven’t threatened to use your bathtub for re-enacting the Boston Tea Party yet, so I think we’ve conquered the nationality issue.”
She pinched him gently.
“I didn’t mean that special relationship you useless yank,” She tutted. “I meant the… other special relationship.”
His grin spread.
“Oh, the other special relationship,” He leaned closer too. “Well, being as your intent to tie me up and rape me senseless has only been displayed in subtext and semi-serious jokes, I think we’re doing pretty well at being discreet.”
He laughed as her cheeks flushed bright red and she slapped his wrist gently.
“No, you absolute puddenhead,” She grinned. “I meant the whole… you know. Liking each other thing. Being as how neither of us knew how this was going to go when you messaged me going ‘hey, I’m going to be over in Scotland next week, fancy meeting up for a drink’, we seem to be getting on fairly well.” She looked at him, dropping her tone slightly. “And you would have been disappointed if I hadn’t made a few jokes about turning you into my little slave boy.”
He drew himself up, looking mock-horrified.
“I have no idea what you mean,” He said with fake indignation. “I am horrified by even the thought, I am totally vanilla and have never had any kinky thoughts in my life. Ever.”
She grinned and gently tapped the back of his hand.
“Lying is a sin sugar,” She murmured softly. “And be sure, your sins will find you out.”
Now it was her turn to laugh as he shifted awkwardly in his chair. She leaned over further and took a tighter grip on his wrist.
“Do you have anything to get back to?” She asked quietly.
He gave her a long look.
“Only an empty hotel room,” He replied slowly.
She flicked her hair back, her grey eyes boring into his.
“I know you said all your meetings were done until Monday, so… are you free this weekend?” She asked quietly.
He looked at her, then glanced around the restaurant before leaning forwards too, still smiling lopsidedly, but his brown eyes dead serious.
“As free as you want me to be, Mistress,” He replied.
“Well then,” She murmured, drawing circles gently on the back of his hand. “How about we skip dessert and go back to my place?”
He licked his lips nervously, then a mischievous look returned to his face.
“I don’t know, I really fancied the crème brulee.”
She smiled.
“I’m sure I can make up for that,” She murmured. “And… I’ve definitely got a tub of ice cream waiting for a good home.”
“What kind of ice cream?” He asked.
“Ben,” She said reprovingly.
Ben grinned.
“It matters, okay?”
“I think it’s Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food.”
“Not Caramel Chew-Chew?”
“No.”
“Oh,” he pouted.
She scowled at him and he grinned again.
“I am so going to beat you someday,” she growled.
“Well,” he winked. “No time like the present?”
“Don’t tempt me,” She warned. “I will put you over my knee right now if you’re not careful.”
“Promises, promises,” He flipped his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers. “I’d love to come home with you tonight.” He leant forwards and stroked her cheek gently. “I adore the way you blush. How far down does it go?”
She blushed redder, but managed to give a saucy smile.
“If you’re a very, very good boy, I might just let you find out,” She said with a grin.
They both jumped as his phone went off. She rolled her eyes and pulled her hand back.
“You answer that while I nip to the loo,” She slid to her feet then gave him a sideways glance. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Ben rolled his eyes, delving his phone out of his pocket. Holly strutted across the restaurant floor and heading across to the bar area. The waitress looked up with a smile.
“Hi,” She said with a grin. “Can I settle up?”
The waitress looked momentarily surprised and Holly grinned.
“Shush, don’t tell him, it’s a surprise,” She continued with a wink. “He’ll pay later.”
The waitress still looked a little baffled, but rang up the total for their table. Holly winced slightly at the price, but pulled the money out of her purse, along with a decent tip.
“Thanks for looking after us tonight,” Holly said cheerfully.
“You’re welcome,” The waitress said. “You guys seem really happy together.”
“Not bad for a first date, eh?” Holly asked with a grin. “Thank you.”
Holly tripped delicately away to the toilets, mulling it over. It had been their first date, she thought, proper, official, face to face, but truth be told, she and Ben had been dating, on and off, for years. They had started chatting due to a mutual love of certain types of ‘art’ on an ‘art’ website, starting as comments on each other’s work, feedback, hints and tips, encouraging compliments, and then longer, private messages, her seeking a sub’s opinion, him seeking a domme’s. Together they had helped flesh out each other’s worlds, understand the other’s point of view. They had started the odd roleplay to help with scenes, which became more and more common, switching from the clunky website to an instant messaging system, and from there, to video calls that lasted long into the night, followed by the odd selfie from the far flung places his work sent him to. And then the message of the other week saying he would actually be in the same country as her.
They’d jokingly discussed it, of course they had, but to actually be there together?
Holly paused by the bathroom mirror to carefully re-apply her lipstick and check her appearance. Her wispy brunette hair was, as always, trying to stage an escape from the careful bun she’d twirled it up into earlier, and she tugged at the stray strands irritably. Her hair was wonderful in that it was fine, shiny and straight, so it dried in 5 seconds flat and never did any weird curling crap on her. That being said, all it ever did was fine, shiny and straight and trying to get it to do anything even slightly adventurous was a feat better not attempted. At least her little black dress was behaving, she thought, smoothing it over her stomach. With its 3 quarter length sleeves, boat neckline and a-line skirt, it always made her feel beautiful and with her patterned tights and singing scarlet heels, she thought she’d packed quite a punch. The look on Ben’s face when she had stalked up to him and kissed him full on the mouth had told her she had.
She put her handbag on the counter and reached in, pulling out a little gun. She weighed it in her palm and then took a deep breath.
“Right,” She told her reflection firmly. “Fortune favours the brave.”
Ben jumped as he felt something hard and cold touch the back of his neck.
“Listen to me closely sweetheart,” A familiar voice purred, in low, dangerous tones. “I’ve got a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it. You’re going to get up with me right now and walk to my car. Any trouble and I will shoot you, understand?”
Ben swallowed hard, gripping the table, and then blew out an unsteady breath.
“Brimstone,” He said firmly.
“Ah bollocks.”
He laughed despite himself as the pressure was removed from his neck and a very put out Holly plumped back into the seat opposite him, pouting.
“What did I do wrong?” She demanded, still pouting. “I thought that that was one of your favourite scenarios?”
“It is,” Ben assured her, glancing at the gun in her hand. “That looks… pretty authentic.”
Holly pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. A foam dart bounced off his tie. It looked like a tiny little derringer pistol, if you ignored the fact that the muzzle of the barrels were painted bright blue and had orange nerf darts sticking out of them.
“Spoilsport.”
Ben sighed and Holly’s eyebrows shot up. The playful, teasing Ben of 5 minutes ago had evaporated. He looked tired, and about 5 years older than he had done, worry lines appearing on his brow, a deadened look in his eyes.
“What’s up?” She asked.
Ben nodded to the smartphone left on the table.
“That was my boss. They need me back in the states, ASAP,” He said grimly. “The boy they recruited to do my job has FUBARed and they need some-one to unpick it, and I’m the only one with the experience, so my leave has been postponed.”
Holly’s jaw dropped.
“They can’t do that to you,” Holly said. “You have a right to take your leave!”
Ben sighed again.
“If I don’t go back now the company could fold and I won’t have a job to go back to,” He said quietly.
“Then good riddance!” Holly said. “You’re highly qualified, you could get a job with any company. Weren’t you telling me the other day about how they have you over a barrel doing all the stupid jobs and running here and there like a startled rabbit? If these fuckwits can’t keep themselves afloat without you then they don’t deserve to. Screw them, Ben. Let them drown.”
Ben looked at her with a slight smile.
“I love it when you’re indignant,” He said quietly. “Your domme side peeps out.”
Holly blushed again. Ben sat back in his chair.
“You’re right,” He said after a moment. “But I can’t do it to my colleagues. It’s not who I am.”
Holly looked at him, and then sat back in her chair too.
“How long have you got?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged.
“That long, eh?” Holly gave a wistful smile. “And I’d even put clean sheets on the bed.”
He playfully gaped at her.
“You, strip the bed? The world must have ended.”
“I do actually do it fairly regularly, I just hate doing it,” She told him primly.
“I know,” He looked at her. “And here I was thinking that you’d’ve had the ropes waiting for me.”
“Those too,” She assured him.
“Damn,” He said quietly. “Sorry. They’re trying to switch my flight now, so they want me at the airport ASAP.”
She shrugged.
“Come on then, I’ll give you a lift back to your hotel,” She said, getting up, returning the nerf gun to her bag and then swinging it onto her shoulder.
He looked at her in surprise.
“Are you sure, I mean, I can get a taxi…”
“Hey,” She cut him off. “I borrowed a car from my brother-in-law for the weekend, and I’m damned if I’m going to have pulled a favour for nothing.” She laughed at his surprised look. “What, do you think I rode here on my bike in my little black dress and fuck-me heels?”
He blinked, clearly imagining it. She rolled her eyes.
“Come on,” She commanded imperiously, turning away.
He got up and caught her wrist. She looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Thanks Holly,” He said. “And I’m sorry. You put a lot of effort in and… you know… if things had been different…”
She put a finger on his lips.
“Shush.”
Holly tapped her thumbs absently against the steering wheel of the white Range Rover her brother in law had loaned her, driving through the backstreets of the city, trying to avoid the multiple sets of roadworks and only ending up in another set. Ben had been oddly quiet the entire drive back, obviously taking her ‘shush’ too literally, normally he couldn’t resist getting the last word in.
“So which gate was it again?” Holly asked, gently slowing at a set of lights. “Ben? Ben?”
She turned to look across at Ben. In the red glow from the traffic lights, Holly could see that he was slumped to one side, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and regular. Holly gently reached over and tapped his shoulder. He was actually asleep.
“Ben!” Holly called loudly.
Ben didn’t even stir. He was totally spark out. Holly looked back ahead. She knew he always suffered from jet lag fairly badly, and with all the stress he’d been under, she wasn’t exactly surprised. She pulled away as the lights changed, and then pulled over in a deserted street, turning to look at him. He looked so sweet, Holly thought. Peaceful, long eyelashes resting on his cheeks. Almost perfect.
Holly looked at Ben, tap-tapping on the steering wheel… and Ben’s phone beeped. She reached for it, pulling the phone out of his pocket.
“Gate 8, midnight flight. Need you in the office the moment after you land.”
No pleases. No thank yous. Bastards.
The raging thought burst through Holly’s mind. He’d been busting a gut to keep the company afloat and now… now he wanted to spend some time with her, and he couldn’t because of their selfish ineptitude. Of course he’d go back, it was the innate need to please in him. He couldn’t bear to let people down, even when they let him down, time after time, after time. They didn’t deserve him. They deserved to sink.
But he’d never let them sink. He’d drown with them first. That stupid misguided loyalty…
“Hell no,” She said. “Enough.”
Flipping the hazards on, she got out of the car and stalked around to the back of the car. She opened the boot to reveal his carry case that they’d picked up from the hotel, and an innocuous purple sports bag. A bag that clinked as it moved. She paused, staring at the bag, turning it over in her mind.
She could do this. She’d waited outside of the hotel when he’d gone in to get his stuff, on the opposite side of the street, so she doubted she’d’ve been caught on any CCTV cameras. Same for the restaurant, and anyway, it wasn’t her car, it was one of her brother in law’s fleet of cars, and he was forever selling them on and buying new ones. When she’d asked if she could borrow one, he’d said sure and invited her to take her pick, so he wouldn’t even have known who was driving the car if they did ask. She could get it valeted when she got home, to remove any traces too. As for the other traces… she’d paid with cash, not card at the restaurant, and hell, she couldn’t have been doing better if she’d been planning this, she didn’t even look like herself right now, it was like she’d planned a disguise. They’d used a secure messaging service when they talked, and she had his phone and his laptop right here, so no-one could stumble into their chats. He’d always been very secretive on the ‘art’ website, so it would be a miracle if any-one put that together. She knew he didn’t have much family, and due to his punishing work schedule had fallen out of contact with them and his friends. They wouldn’t notice if he vanished.
She could do this. It would be surprisingly easy too. The phone beeped in her hand again.
“‘Change of plan. Need you to fly to Singapore before US’,” She read. “‘You need to talk the client down.’ That settles it.”
She reversed it in her hand, deftly popping the back off the phone and retrieving the second (work) sim card.
“Bye-bye,” She announced, dropping it down the drain.
She reached in the side pocket of the bag and pulled out a large rectangular padded bag that looked like a laptop case. She’d obtained the faraday pouch out of curiosity more than anything, and had thought that it might be useful in a roleplay scenario. She’d never thought that she might actually use it for the intended purpose. She dropped Ben’s phone into the front pocket of the pouch, before flipping open his suitcase to retrieve his laptop and doing the same with it. She zipped the pouch shut decisively. Now no-one would be able to track the phone or laptop. No messages in, no messages out. She shoved the pouch into the depths of the boot of the car, and realised that she was breathing hard.
This was actually happening. She grinned despite herself, biting her lip. They’d roleplayed this moment a million times, but now it was actually happening. He would really be hers. She knew he protested he didn’t like BDSM, that he was vanilla, and never ever even considered being some-one bondage slave, but… the gentleman definitely protested too much.
Holly reached into her bag and pulled out a mass of leather and chains and what looked like a lower face mask, flesh coloured and contoured to fit a human face. She paused, about to shut the boot and then paused, looking at his suitcase. It had a fabric strap around it, a thick expandable fabric strap with a clip fastener to hold it together.
“Mine.”
She grabbed that too and sauntered around to his side of the car. Ben stirred slightly as the cold air hit him, but didn’t wake up. She smiled to herself and crouched down next to him. Leather cuffs, linked with fine, but tough, chains were wrapped tightly around his ankles and buckled in place She tested them carefully, tight, but loose enough not to hurt. Perfect. More chains led from the leg cuffs up to a belt that she strapped tightly around his waist. This belt had a built in lock and she felt a thrill as she heard it click shut, adjusting it to be the perfect snug fit. She paused as Ben stirred again, and then gently took hold of his wrists. A little leather baggie went over each hand, sealing them into tight little fists, trapping his wriggly little fingers away. Then the cuffs went on over the baggies. Holly took care that the chain connecting the wrist straps went behind the seatbelt so she could release him from the seat without untying him. Finally, she adjusted the strap from his suitcase, wrapping it around his chest, under each of his arms and around the seat, compressing him into the upholstery, and clicking it shut behind him. Even if, by some miracle, he slipped the seatbelt, he was going nowhere.
That just left the difficult bit. Holly paused, and then smirked. She knew his turn ons by now. Glancing around the street, she stepped out of her heels onto the mercifully dry pavement. Reaching under her dress, she slipped down her tights, and after a moment’s hesitation, her knickers.
“Yup, I am so going to need to get this car valeted before giving it back,” She murmured to herself.
Carefully wadding the material up, she took a nervous breath. This was definitely going to be the difficult bit. She pulled open his slack jaw and started to gently pack the fabric in. Ben definitely stirred, his eyes cracking open and Holly threw caution to the wind, cramming the rest in and then fitting the silicone pink mask against the front of his face, fastening it in place. Holly leant back to admire the effect, ignoring the slightly panicked look in Ben’s eyes as she did.
The soft flesh coloured silicone covered him from mid-way up his nose, leaving 2 holes for his nostrils, under his eyes and across his bulging cheeks, moulding to the shape of his lips and curving underneath his chin. Black straps went above and below his ears, vanishing into his brunette hair. At this distance, it was fairly unobtrusive, Holly thought. At a distance, at a glance on the motorway at night? She was pretty sure that no-one was going to spot anything amiss. All the same…
She knelt on the seat, her knee sliding between his legs, and she felt him tense under her. She grinned, looking into his horrified eyes and kissed him on the forehead.
“Just consider me the Harbinger sweetheart,” She told him, grinning mischievously, then dropped her voice to a low growl; “Assuming direct control.”
She turned the seat adjust wheel, reclining him back slightly, putting his face into shadow. She hopped off him and slipped back into her heels, admiring his bound form one last time and then shutting the door with a smirk. She crossed the road and slid back into the driving seat, pretending not to notice, and secretly savouring the rapid struggles Ben was doing, squirming and thrashing against the restraints, with markedly little gain. Holly clicked her seatbelt into place, started the car and smoothly pulled away.
Holly hummed to herself as she exited the motorway. She was aware of the baleful stare that Ben had been fixing her with for the last 20 minutes. He’d been fighting the restraints on an off since they left the city, with short pauses where he had fixed her with an accusatory stare. This was definitely the longest lull.
“Don’t stop struggling on my account,” Holly remarked. “I was enjoying the show.”
She laughed at the garbled swearword he shot at her.
“Look sugar,” She said. “I know you’re pissed at me right now, and you have a good reason to be, but I’m doing this for your own good.”
She put a hand on his knee, ignoring his flinch as she did.
“Ben,” She said quietly. “You’re driving yourself into the ground, they’re treating you like rubbish. I saw a few texts your boss sent you – they wanted you to go to Singapore on no notice, ordering you this way and that with no consideration. They’re treating you like a drone sweetheart, no, worse than that, you’re a machine to them. And I can’t let that happen. If you’re going to be slave to some-one, it’s going to be someone who cares about you.” She glanced across at him. “And I do care. A lot.”
Ben met her gaze and then looked away sharply. She squeezed his knee gently and then returned her gaze to the front view.
“Ben,” she said. “You’re miles from Edinburgh, before long, you’ll be in the middle of nowhere. You checked out voluntarily, taking your stuff with you, and no-one knows who I am, or even that you were with me. You’re off the edge of the map now, here be monsters.”
She turned off down a side street and out into the middle of the countryside.
“And hey…” she slid her hand up his thigh to just below his crotch and smirked at the bulge forming in his trousers. “It’s not like you’re not enjoying this, is it?”
She laughed as he started to struggle again.