Adventures in Nemesisland Ch. 03

Chapter 3

The White Rabbit

Kim found herself, still naked, her back propped up against a cold stone wall. It was pitched black, only the barest flicker of light seeped past the perimeter of a thick metal door. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness and in the penetrating gloom Kim saw she was confined in a cell of some kind. There were iron shackles on her wrists and ankles locked with padlocks and iron chains attached to them that were in turn secured to metal rings mounted in the stone walls. Around her neck was a leather collar with a ring in it. She rattled at the chains and found that they still let her stretch and move around a bit. Kim gave an ironic snort of laughter. On the floor was a bottle of mineral water and a big bar of Cadbury's fruit and nut chocolate. Whoever was imprisoning her did not intend that she die of thirst or hunger at least. Her mind drifted back to the advert she remembered from her childhood; 'everyone's a fruit and nut case', the jingle ran through her head. Is somebody taking the piss, she wondered? She didn't care. Kim was ravenous and she set about unwrapping the familiar dark blue foil and biting off a huge chunk of chocolate. It felt like bliss. She let the milky chocolate melt in her mouth to savour it before swallowing.

Kim rested her head back against the wall of the cell as she ate and took a moment to reflect on her predicament. She must have looked a state. Her long fair hair was tussled and knotted, she had a bruise on her forehead and her head still throbbed. What was happening to her? Why was she being kept as a prisoner? And, most importantly, was this real or was it a twisted nightmare? The strange events of the last few hours spun around her head as she tried to piece them together and make sense of them. She couldn't. On the verge of being raped in the arse by a psycho in the massage parlour where she worked, her attacker had been disabled by two characters that looked like Tweedledum and Tweedledee from 'Alice Through the Looking Glass." She remembered the strange words spoken by the talking raven, "she needs the girl". Did that mean her? And if so, who needs me, and why? Then she recalled a fog pass over her as she passed out.

The next thing she remembered was falling down a long tunnel, just like Alice in the book, she thought. It was the strangest experience, like she imagined weightlessness might feel. It was an odd floating sensation as if she were a feather dropped from a great height, but always falling deeper. Down, down, down she went. Was it a dream? Had the blow to her head traumatised her so much she was now delusional. Kim wondered if her descent would ever come to an end. First, she tried to look down and make out where she was heading and how far she had to fall, but it was too dark to see anything.

Then, she looked at the sides of the tunnel and to her surprise she found that it was lined with cases full of books. She tried to take in some of the titles as she floated past; '120 Days of Sodom' was one. Very strange, thought Kim. One of her clients in the brothel who enjoyed some domination recommended she read it but she had never got round to it. She understood very well that it was a manual for sadists though. She noticed some of the other titles: 'The Golden Bough', 'A Study of Ritual Hero and Goddess in the Illiad'. 'Chariots of the Gods' and a copy of the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead' drifted past her. What an intriguing collection of books, she thought; their owner must have some very odd tastes.

Down, down, down Kim tumbled. Interspersed amongst the cupboards and book-shelves there were pictures on the wall; quirky sketches showing bizarre scenes of bondage and strange rituals. How disturbing, thought Kim. There was also another set of pictures, comic book covers with fairy tale characters, but fairy tale characters like Kim had never seen depicted before. A black haired vamp-like Snow White in a yellow latex mini skirt with massive breasts squeezing out of tight blue top and a tart-like Red Riding Hood in thigh high red leather boots and wearing only a bra and knickers and a scarlet rubber cloak.

There was one picture that particularly caught her eye, a statuesque dark haired woman dressed in red and black in a costume decorated with black hearts, but it was not this that attracted her attention, striking and unusual though the image was; it was the eyes. They sucked her in and captivated her. She felt that they were watching her long descent into....well, Kim didn't know what. But there was more, Kim felt that she had seen them before, had been the subject of that penetrating gaze in some other life. She could not explain it but she was inexorably drawn to that look as she tumbled until the image receded into the distance and out of her sight.

After descending for what seemed like an age Kim had found herself in this cell. She had no idea how she got there and no recollection of how she had become manacled to the wall. She could only presume she had passed out again. It was hardly surprising. Kim's head was still aching from being rammed against the bed post in the massage parlour. Kim's eyes had fully adjusted to the impenetrable darkness by now and she could see that the solid stone walls and ceiling offered no openings or means of escape.

Her terrifying predicament had finally struck home. Here she was chained up and locked in a small stone cell with only a bottle of water and some chocolate, most of which she'd already eaten. Her experience in the brothel and now this even stranger, more frightening, ordeal began to overwhelm her. Was she going mad? And it was more than just the events of the last few hours, traumatic thought they had been. The enforced confinement was forcing her to look further back over her life. In some ways it was nothing new. She always seemed to find herself being pulled along by circumstance, never quite having control of her life and never really finding a place she belonged. It was like the work at the brothel. She never at any point remembered making a conscious decision to do that, she just seemed to drift into it and the reasons for doing it had got lost in a haze of distorted memories. There was a whole chunk of her life leading up to her starting work there she had no clear recollection of.

She pulled her arms around herself, her breasts were heaving with emotion. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes and then the trails of salty water run down her pale cheeks. She began to sob as the emotion of everything overwhelmed her. She needed that. It was most unlike her to give in like that, but her bizarre situation had given her ample excuse for a good cry. Come on Kim, she thought, pull yourself together.

Well, she reflected, I can't make sense of any of this. There is nothing much I can do. Perhaps this is my fate, that I shall be left here to rot and centuries later my skeleton will be found and I will become the source of a great murder mystery. She imagined the cell a hive of activity; full of white boiler suited and masked forensic scientists. "Yes, we know that she was a girl in her twenties. This is interesting; we can tell from a close examination of her pelvic bones that she was a sexually active young woman." Kim supposed that she would rather her life would not be exposed to that kind of scrutiny but she had to find some way of diverting her mind away from her predicament.

The moment of distress had passed and Kim was settling down to accept her fate, whatever that might be, when she heard movement outside the cell door. Her heart jumped a beat. Was she about to be released and would she now find out who her captor was? A window in the cell door was slid back and a shaft of light filled the room. Kim looked up straining and squinting into the dazzling light.

What she saw startled her. A pink nose, whiskers and black beady eyes appeared at the opening. A white pawed hand ran across the whiskered face. I don't believe this, thought Kim, a white rabbit; I really am in a story book.

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late," she heard a voice mutter.

She heard the jangling of keys and the metal door creak open. There was a man sized white rabbit wearing a yellow jacket and tartan waistcoat in the frame of the door. Kim pinched herself. It was no crude costume, the man's features had morphed into the white fur as if he had really been turned into a rabbit. Kim was reminded of a theatrical production of the 'Tales of Beatrix Potter' she went to when, through a child's eyes, it seemed so magical that people could be turned into animals and for it to look so real.

"You're late," the white rabbit said to her.

A thousand questions Kim would like to have asked spun around her head but she could only blurt out, "What do you mean I'm late?"

The white rabbit hopped nervously from one foot to another anxiously looking at his fob watch, which he had pulled out of his waistcoat, tapping its face hard with his knuckle as if this act might miraculously make time move backwards for him.

"Oh, Oh, I'm going to be in so much trouble. I'm late, so, so late. Mistress is not going to like this. She likes everybody to be punctual. Oh, I'm going to be in trouble," the rabbit muttered to himself.

"Shut up babbling and tell me where I am and what I'm doing here," Kim demanded.

"No, no, there's no time for explanations, I'm already five minutes late. We must be going."

"I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers," Kim persisted.

"My mistress will explain. Look, please, let's go. I'm already going to get punished; the later I am the more severely I'll get punished. You wouldn't like to see me punished, would you?" the white rabbit pleaded.

Kim sniffed, "Well, I don't see why I should care. If it was left to me, and you were a real rabbit, then I should put you in a casserole and eat you. Besides, it's me who has been kidnapped and imprisoned."

"She's most likely done that to keep you safe." The white rabbit looked one way and then the other. "There are strange and wonderful things happen here. I don't expect she wanted you going off on your own. She probably wanted to protect you."

"Yeah, strange things, tell me about it!" huffed Kim. "Whoever she is, she has a funny way of looking after me. I've been chained to the wall and kept in darkness for hours."

"Oh please," the rabbit pleaded. "I don't know anything. I can't answer your questions. She might do. We're already late. Believe me, we don't want to keep her waiting and anger her any more, that's not good for me or you either for that matter. If you want answers please do as I say and come with me."

Kim decided she was not going to get any sensible answers from this bundle of babbling idiocy. If she wanted answers then she might get them from this white rabbit's mistress. The wicked thought crossed her mind that he rather deserved to be punished and she really wouldn't mind seeing it happen.

"I have to put these on you," said the white rabbit apologetically as he dangled a blindfold and leather lead in front of her.

"No way, I'm not putting those on," said Kim indignantly.

"Oh, but you must. I have express instructions. I want the girl blindfolded she said. "

"Oh, well, if you must," Kim sighed with resignation.

Kim's situation was so bizarre that she had got beyond caring. I suppose that being blindfolded by a white rabbit has to be preferred to being fucked up the arse by a psychopath she thought. She would much rather be safe at home, freshly showered in her dressing gown with her cat, Dinah, nestled in her lap and a nice glass of chilled white wine in her hand.

The white rabbit pulled a blindfold over her eyes and adjusted it so that she was in complete darkness and then nervously attached a lead to the ring on the leather collar she was already wearing. Kim heard the jangling of keys as the white rabbit unlocked the padlocks to release her from the manacles.

"Follow me," he said, "I'll take you to my mistress. She's expecting you."