Chapter One
My name is Jan Sherwood.
I'm thirty-four. I'm a nurse. No, I was a nurse. My occupation was now
prisoner, kidnappee, hostage, captive, slave, call it what you will.
I shall describe myself. I could walk across to the full-length mirror that was
fixed to one wall. It was covered by a piece of perspex, just in case I got any
ideas about breaking the glass and slashing my wrists. I could stand in front
of the mirror and observe the reflected figure.
I am naked. This was my normal form of 'dress', if you could call it such. I
believed some or all of my clothes might be stored upstairs, but I did not
really know this. Nakedness was my normal state of being - naked of body, naked
of mind and naked of soul. I had long since passed the stage of embarrassment,
such have been the indignities and humiliations that I had had to bear in that
dungeon.
I had lost weight. I stood at 180 centimetres tall. My hair was an auburn
colour, but I had seen the first faint hints of grey appearing at my temples in
the weeks I had been kept prisoner. Such was the price that was being extracted
from me, although physically a grey hair or two was the least of my torments.
At least I'd been allowed shampoo and conditioner and a hairbrush to keep some
element of shine to my locks. My hair sat on my shoulders. He had cut it once
since I had been there, which perhaps told me that maybe three months had passed
since my incarceration.
My eyes are a grey green colour. In the right light you could sometimes see
little hints of gold in the iris. My cheeks were now slightly sunken, showing
my cheekbones as more prominent than they used to be. I never thought of myself
having the thin model look, but that's where I appeared to be heading. The
puffiness that surrounded my eyes when I first arrived here was gone. That was
the result of a lot of crying and not much sleep. Nowadays I seemed to have
overcome those obstacles - it's amazing how the body adjusts. Meanwhile the
little lines were appearing at the corners of my eyes, but they're not laughter
lines...
My body was lean. I was never overweight, but what little surplus flesh I had,
had been shed under the cruel punishments and the forced isometric exercises I
had endured. My food intake had varied, depending on his mood. I had gone two
days without food in one instance, wondering if he had suffered an accident, but
it turned out he had merely been visiting his mate and had decided I was not a
high priority. The weight I had shed made my breasts seem bigger than I
remembered. I was now so much more aware of my own body than before - aware of
size and proportion, of colour and skin changes. When you're locked in a
7-metre by 7-metre cell with no clothes, no company, and only a mirror for a
diversion, you tended to notice these things.
I knew every inch of my body in a new way, now, as did he. It seems every inch
had at one time felt the sting of the cat or the sharp crack of the riding crop,
or the tightness of securing ropes. I knew the sensation of my own weight and
how it tugged on strapped and suspended wrists or ankles. As I said, my breasts
appeared bigger. While not over-large, they were big enough for him to bind
with rope such that they bulged and protruded in a way that delighted him but
caused me only more pain and discomfort, magnified many times if he decided to
hang clamps and weights off my nipples.
You could almost see my ribs, but not quite. My stomach was still firm as it
sloped down to where the downy triangle of hair used to be. I suppose I should
thank him for the exercises I had undertaken that have tightened my abs. If
only I had not been bound in such severe positions during the sessions, it could
almost have been as tolerable as a hard gym workout. But it wasn't.
And of course he shaved me. Being the way nature intended was clearly not to
his liking, and my pussy had to have its little mop of hair removed. I'm sure
this was yet another part of his debasement program.
My thighs and calves were toned and muscled, which is not surprising,
considering the amount of time I had spent either squatting, hogtied, or
attached to a spreader bar on tiptoes. All these positions amounted to
strenuous isometric exercises, but with a significant incentive to maintain
them. The incentive was usually a whip, leading to a beating that would leave
me bruised and marked.
Predictably, my tan was long gone and my skin had become deathly pale in the
absence of sun. I was still trying to persuade him to let me see the light of
day and to get some vitamin E, even just for a short while, on whatever terms he
wished to specify. My resolve was growing, not weakening, I had decided, and
using my mind to outwit him remained my focus.
I said that I was naked. Naked except for my chains, of course. They rattled
when I walked, but I had nearly become used to them. Let me describe my
ensemble. Around my neck was a stainless steel collar which he must have had
made especially for me. It was about the width of two fingers and was riveted
on - quite light and comfortable, but very strong. The edges were slightly
rolled so that it did not cut into my neck with just enough clearance to get a
finger between my neck and the metal. On the front there was a U-shaped fitting
to which a chain could be locked when it pleased him. It could almost have been
pretty, were it not for what it had come to symbolise, and such was clearly his
intention.
Around my waist was a larger version of the collar, slightly wider and with a
U-fitting on each hip supporting a steel ring the diameter of a fifty cent
piece. Again this accessory was riveted in place and was snug, provided I
didn't put on any weight, not that there was much danger of that.
I wore steel cuffs on my ankles and wrists, faced on the insides with a thin
layer of dense foam - the kind that sleeping mats for campers are made from.
The cuffs could be locked in place and usually remained so until he decided that
maybe ropes or straps would be more appropriate, so that Jan could be made much
more uncomfortable.
The cuffs were all in place now, as I stood looking at myself in the mirror.
Additionally, a thin chain connected my right ankle to my right wrist, and an
identical one connected my left ankle and wrist. These chains ran through the
rings on my waist belt at each hip. When I stood straight, the chains pulled
taut such that my wrists were pulled in against the rings and I looked like a
gunfighter waiting to draw. If I wanted to scratch my nose I had to bend one
leg upward to give me enough slack for the attached wrist. It was a devious
configuration. It forced me to eat either cross-legged or kneeling. I had to
wash my hair or clean my teeth the same way. Again, all part of the slave
culture. Additionally, with a single padlock he could lock both wrist cuffs to
my collar and leave me unable to do anything except waddle about the room in a
crouched position. It was no wonder my leg muscles had toned up.
I should also describe my room. It was a converted double garage underneath his
house. It had been entirely lined with a newly constructed concrete block wall.
Anyone opening the garage roller door would be greeted with this blank blockwork
wall immediately inside the door. To all intents and purposes it was
soundproof. When the properties of the exterior wall were added to the
sound-deadening qualities of the blockwork, the room was silent, with the only
sounds being those of its inhabitant - me. I could heard him when he was at
home, for the timber joists were exposed above me and some of the rooms above
appeared to be uncarpeted. I had got to know the creaks of the floorboards and
the sound of footsteps and all the small noises that indicated the workings of a
house.
My room had a double bed, a shower and a toilet. In the middle of the room
there was a steel post supporting a steel bearer under the overhead floor
joists. This post was one of his favourite anchor points when I was to be
tormented. I had grown to fear it, if one can do so of an inanimate object.
You entered the room through a door in the corner. Central on the opposite wall
is the double bed, iron framed and bolted to the concrete floor and set slightly
away from the wall. There was about a metre and a half between the foot of the
bed and the steel post. To the left of the bed, in the corner was the small
shower. Next to that was the toilet.
The only other objects to break up the room were a steel chair bolted to the
floor near the corner diagonally opposite the shower, and a wall mounted steel
cupboard next to the door. This cupboard was locked, and contained the many and
varied instruments of torture that I had experienced in my time there. The
perspex covered mirror was mounted on the wall next to the steel chair, so I
could sit there and do my hair, or alternatively watch my expression of pain as
I was subjected to the sting of the lash while bound to the chair.
Looking around the room, some faded oil stains on the bare concrete floor were
visible, but the concrete block walls remain pristine. I thought about trying
to make marks for the days of my incarceration, but I had no idea of the passing
of time, since I could not see daylight. Even the food he brought me seemed to
be randomly delivered and appeared to be whatever he found handy, rather than
any form of breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Dangling from the exposed joists were several pulleys and a chain block,
attached to which I had spent many unpleasant hours. Under the cold glare of
the fluorescent lights it was a grey and depressing place, filled with memories
of pain and humiliation. The lights were turned on and off in a seemingly
random manner. Sometimes it was like I was in pitch darkness for twenty-four
hours, then the next session was only a quarter of that. It continued to
disorient me and disrupt my sleep patterns - not that I really had such a thing
any more. It was obviously intended to lower my morale and will to resist. And
it worked, in an insidious and stealthy way.
So that is where I was. But I must tell you about the beginning of it all, and
how I came to be held captive in this dungeon...
