Chapter One

Cheryl, Captured

Cheryl was standing in the living room of her apartment gazing out at the lights of the city. The noises from the street, ten floors below, were faint but persistent reminders of the world outside. A distant siren, the rev of the random motorcycle, an occasional car horn, all floated faintly up from the street. On most nights these sounds comforted her, making the world seem a little less lonely.

Tonight the symphony of sounds of the street life outside her window made Cheryl feel more alone and abandoned than she had ever felt before. Rather than connecting her to the busy lives of the millions who crisscrossed the busy streets, the sounds now epitomized for Cheryl her isolation and her fears. If only she could reach out to those noises, the people who made them, call to them, speak of the unspeakable which faced her now.

But that was not possible. For tonight Cheryl stood alone in the middle of her living room floor, naked but for a pair of sheer black stockings which reached to the middle of her thighs. Her arms were manacled behind her, her legs hobbled by a leather leash. And she was gagged.

Normally, Cheryl was proud of her pleasant curves and generous breasts. She chose her clothes carefully so as to discreetly highlight her charms. Her skirts were stylish if somewhat demure. But stylish in a studied manner. Carefully bunched at the hips, the peasant style skirts, reminiscent of the hippie days she liked to emulate, flowed around her as she walked, and made clear the gentle curve of her hips, the flatness of her belly. In her blouses, she liked to display some bit of the cleavage of which she was so proud, just enough to tantalize.

But now, Cheryl had reason to regret her physical attractiveness. If she could have, she would have tucked away the breasts, which now swayed gently free as she shuddered in fear, disguised the delicate but well-muscled thighs, which were accentuated by the lacey tops of the nylons she had unwillingly donned. She would have gladly chopped off the delicate, light brown hair that cascaded down her shoulders to the middle of her back. She would certainly have hidden away the soft furrow between her thighs. But, although she could close her thighs, she could not hide the furry triangle between them.

Cheryl was afraid, exhausted by the tension and strain of the past few hours. She was hungry too. She had skipped lunch that day, except for a small salad from the cafeteria. She liked to watch her weight, although if you saw her you would never think she had a reason to. She was of average height, about 5’6”, 118 lbs. Her face was narrow, with small features that preserved a child-like quality, in spite of her 24 years. Her breasts, although not large, were certainly ample in relation to her slender frame.

Cheryl’s good looks and cheerful manner had been an asset in her efforts to find a rewarding career. Employers and personnel managers took an instant liking to her. It had helped her land a job in publishing. She worked uptown for a mid-level publishing house, specializing in the spy thrillers and bodice rippers you could find at the newsstand, drug store or supermarket. Cheryl wasn’t an editor yet, but she had her dreams.

In addition to her role as eye candy, Cheryl’s job was to read, or rather reread, manuscripts submitted to her boss. They had a system. Once her boss decided a manuscript had interest, Cheryl would actually read the thing and construct a four or five page summary of the plot, sprinkled liberally with quotes from the text to exemplify the writer’s style or lack thereof. Her editor, a long legged, tall, elegant Radcliff gal, initially only read the two or three paragraph agent’s summary and four or five pages of the first and last chapters. With her entertaining and stroking of the firm’s established authors, the entertainment and stroking of her seniors in the publishing house and the demands of her upbeat lifestyle, Cheryl’s boss had little time to actually read.

So Cheryl often plodded through the dreariest mysteries, the drabbest romances, and the most improbable of plots. In spite of her boss’s elementary screening process, more than 90% of the stuff that landed on her desk was just crap. But the other 10% was different. Cheryl lived for the gems she found. Daring adventures, hair-raising escapades, deep emotional bonding and unbonding, these all allowed Cheryl to live on a plane higher than her mostly pedestrian life. Pedestrian, yes, but she had hopes. Hopes that someone upstairs would notice her work, that someday she would sit in the corner office, windows on New York, beautiful men flocking to her beck and call. Oh yes, she had hopes.