Death Of A Salesman Part 1 free porn video

Death of A Salesman I am a salesman - or at least I was - and a damn good one. If you ever saw "Glengarry, Glen Ross" I'd have been the one winning the car. If I'd had a couple more years I'd have been the one setting the prizes and sending other people out to earn money for me. The trouble was, I was too good. It aroused envy in my peers. It made my boss afraid. They knew they could never beat me fair so they cheated. Most things they could have come up with I'd have outsmarted them and they knew it. What they eventually did was so far out of left field I never even saw it coming. Looking back I should have smelt the proverbial rat. We'd just cracked open the champagne to celebrate my being the firm's top salesman for the seventh month running and my boss takes me aside and tells me he has a special job for me. An up and coming firm wants to switch its suppliers and we're in with a chance - he's set up a meeting the very next morning for me to get in there and pitch. Now this is unusual for two reasons. We cold call. We never bother with appointments. Calling to set up an appointment is giving the mark a chance to say "no". Secondly, the next morning is a Sunday. There will be nobody around in the district of the Square Mile address he gives me. Why wouldn't this firm - "Odalisque Supplies " their business card reads - simply wait till Monday instead of having people come in especially to meet me? Still, no one ever got ahead through turning down chances. Bright and early the next morning, there I was, striding through sunlight and deserted streets, on top of the world and ready to take my chances. I don't stride much any more. It still isn't easy in heels. Odalisque Supplies breathed serious money, from its ancient oak doors through to the five hundred pound suits of the men who escorted me in and the can't -even-calculate-the-price designer clothes of the woman sat behind a gleaming table of what appeared to be real mahogany. "Ah! Mr Bell! Punctual I'm glad to see. That's the sort of virtue that will serve you well in your new life." Then, nodding to the two doormen "I see no point in prolonging things. Take him!" Now, a good salesman has tremendous powers of focus, almost a martial arts Zen type thing and I did martial arts so I know what I'm talking about. Added to that we're pretty fit. Try walking up to ten miles a day in all weathers for your job and you'll soon be either fit or fired. So when the first man leaped for me and I spear struck him with three stiff fingers to the abdomen I did it right. He went down like he'd been hit with a hammer. If the second man hadn't tasered me while I was getting a lock on his other arm this story would have a different ending. I want you to know that. I did everything anyone could have, honestly. When I woke up I was strapped to a chair in a huge room with old fashioned Tudor beams, the real thing, not modern fakes and tastefully arranged furniture and ornaments, antiques by the look of them and quality ones. A huge blaze roared in an open fireplace- strangely, for the day was warm. On the back wall was a painting of a young woman in Victorian dress, posed with a small child in her lap and a spanish poodle nosing through the embroidery basket at her feet. The detail was good enough that you could see an incongruous expression of fear on her pretty, rosy-cheeked face. Behind her chair a country squire stood looking down at her in what I can only describe as stern satisfaction. In another context I would have called it a gloat. Sunlight streamed in through the windows and outside I could see a green sward stretching towards trees. In front of me stood the woman from Odalisque Supplies. Only one of the men was with her. It looked like fingers beat taser! "Welcome back to the land of the living, dear. Those straps are only to keep you upright in your chair- feel free to undo them at any time. Although you'll soon get used to being tied up" Sure enough they buckled at the front and my forearms were free. A moment later I lurched, slightly unsteadily to my feet. "Stand clear of the chair, my dear. I don't want you to get hurt when you fall." I wasn't planning on being the one falling. I was going to flatten the goon, get out of this place and go straight to the police. Then I was going to have serious words with my boss over the sort of lunatic he associated with. Or better yet, with his boss, and get my boss's job - there was a plan. Then the woman produced a small black plastic box with a button on top, and pressed it. How can I describe the pain that followed? I can't really because nothing on earth could ever describe it, not so that anyone could understand it. Imagine being burnt alive from the inside while ants eat you alive from the outside. Imagine feeling your internal organs twist like you're being sick while all your muscles cramp at once. Imagine sandpaper wrapped round a needle and shoved up your urethra. Imagine every nerve in your teeth radiating pain up to bounce around your cranium and back down again til your head re-echoes with it. It was worse than that. It seemed to go on forever. I could hear my own screams. Some dim part of me knew I was threshing around on the carpet, my limbs flailing with bruising force but I couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel anything but the pain. Finally, after what seemed like hours it stopped. "That was ten seconds," said the woman. I gaped at her incredulously. "I'm not going to explain to you how it was done - you aren't James Bond, I'm not a supervillian and I only tell you what I want you to know. What I want you to know, what you NEED to know, is that I can do it from any distance for any length of time. You can't stop me, you can't avoid the pain, you won't lose conciousness. Do you understand?" For a long moment I couldn't say anything until with an impatient gesture the woman raised the box again and I cried out, "Yes, yes, I understand!" "Good. Now, any questions?" Where to start? "What's going on?" "We are going to cut your balls off." "What??" "Eventually. You have been kidnapped. You will never escape and you will soon cease to be you as you are now. We are going to cut off your balls, laser away your facial hair, shave your Adam's apple away, turn that nose into a rather charming and ever so slightly tip-tilted affair, small and perfectly formed. As far as is humanly possible we are going to turn you into a girl. We haven't perfected the womb and ovaries transplant yet, but if we do you will be the first to know." She chuckled evilly. "We are going to teach you to walk in high heels, to dance backwards, to sew, cook, giggle and flutter your eyelashes, everything a girl needs to know. And you are going to help us and co-operate with us completely and in every way because we can always find someone else and resistance becomes tiresome after a while. If not, I will press the button and you will be in mortal agony until you finally die of thirst. The last one to resist lasted a fortnight, but I suspect it felt much, much longer." If it hadn't been for that monstrous device the woman was carrying I would have broken the habit of a lifetime of not hitting women and killed her on the spot out of sheer rage and, yes, I have to admit, terror. As it was I could only shiver. "Why?" "Because in this age of independent women there are men who will pay a fortune for an old fashioned girl - devoted to her man, bringing his slippers, admiring him, feeding him up, in short a lady in the drawing room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom. Strangely enough no one does this better than a man who's been thoroughly broken. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because you know there's no way out - and believe me there is no way out." "No, I meant why me?" One thing I was certain of - you couldn't find worse raw material for what they had planned than me! "Partly because we've been paid to do so, partly because you're barely twenty - that gives us plenty of time to work with, partly because you have no close relatives to come looking for you and you focussed on your work so much your only friends are the ones who paid us to do this to you. " She sniggered again "Sad for a girl to be all alone in the world" I didn't know it at the time but that was a direct quote from a musical comedy called "Thoroughly Modern Mille" about young women being kidnapped for the white slave trade. (They made me watch it later as part of my "education".) And who the Hell thought that was a suitable topic for a comedy I'd like to know? "Don't worry though. You'll get lots of social interaction in the future. Now, are you going to co-operate?" Dresses or death. I didn't like of those options but while I was alive there was always a chance of escape - or revenge! I told you I was focussed. At that moment my whole being became focussed on getting through this whatever it took until the chance came to escape. "Yes, I'll co-operate." "Good. You may call me Miss Erinye. You can begin by taking off your clothes and throwing them into the fire over there. One by one, we don't want to set the chimney alight. The fire is quite hot enough to burn your clothes to ashes without that." Slowly I obeyed, tie, shirt, shoes, socks, trousers and lastly boxers going into the flames. "Those will be the last trousers you ever wear. It will be skirts and dresses for you from now on for the rest of your life. No more serge either. Lambswool, cotton, silk, satin, lycra, lace, tulle, muslin, those will be your fabrics from now on." Miss Erinye paused and sniggered "Or maybe PVC and leather - after all, a girl has to appeal to her man's tastes." I felt sick but oddly reassured. I might be slim with all the walking and I might have boyishly youthful looks that I played up shamelessly when selling office supplies, but there was no way they'd ever be able to make me look enough like a woman that anyone would be fooled - and if Odalisque's customers were willing to pay for the sort of money this firm obviously had there was no way they would accept less than the best. Hopefully, by the time Miss Erinye realised that I would have found a way to escape. "Follow me," Miss Erinye said, stridinjg from the room and up a narrow flight of wooden stairs - very old wooden stairs - wherever I was it was obviously some sort of Manor house or even a Stately Home. The landing we came to was about a hundred yards long. If I hadn't been naked, embarrassed , kidnapped, terrified and being followed by a thug in a suit who, from his expression was mingling laughing at my plight with a desire for revenge for his battered friend, I might have enjoyed my surroundings. The place was truly beautiful. That included the bathroom we came to, with a huge, claw-footed cast-iron bath, thick, soft velvet curtains, and giant fluffy towels. The windows overlooked a swimming pool surrounded by an old wall of faded seventeenth century brick with herbs and wildflowers growing from every crack and cranny and gnarled pear trees almost holding parts of it up. "Now show your co-operation. We have body scrubs, bubble bath, scented soaps, oils, razors, hair removers, moisturisers and perfumes. I am not going to tell you what to do, I'm just going to stand here. But by the time you leave this room you will have not a visible hair below your eyebrows (apart from your crotch, which will be a neat little triangle) you will be properly moisturised, flawlessly clean and smell like a girl. If I am not satisfied you will spend one minute undergoing pain." A minute? If she'd been telling the truth earlier ten seconds had felt like forever, no way could I stand a minute. What else could I do, I started running the water adding a generous dollop of peach scented bubble bath, then picked up the cannister of Veet hair remover. From the instructions it seemed simple enough - test on a small patch of skin first to see if you have any allergic reaction. Two minutes later I didn't seem to have, and what did I care anyway? It's not like I was aiming to look sexy, just to avoid torture. I smoothed the (frankly foul smelling stuff ) all over me carefully avoiding the groin some skin being too sensitive to risk, whatever. Then I settled into the bath, luxuriating as the hot water soothed my tired muscles. I had, after all, had a Hell of a day. I took advantage of the fact that this was all my kidnapper's idea to stay there for nearly an hour, resting, relaxing, recovering and soaping and scrubbing myself until my clean, smooth skin positively gleamed and my aches and pains had gone away. Then I reluctantly climbed out, dried myself and prepared to "smell like a girl". Frankly the soap and bubble bath, the facial and foot scrubs had already gone a long way to doing that but I wasn't risking another jolt of Pain for lack of a little scent. Eventually I decided on sandalwood and patchouli oil, since at least it didn't say "perfume" on the bottle. It certainly smelt girly enough though! Hardly the stuff secret gestures of defiance are made of but then until I escaped the less defiance the better. "Tie that towel under your armpits. " Miss Erinye instructed me "You must learn to be modest now." Sod that, I thought but of course didn't say so. I simply did as I was told and followed her along the corridor. As soon as I escaped someone was going to pay for these humilations. Miss Erinye led me to what was, unmistakeably a girl's bedroom. The walls were a pale wash with a hint of pink, the flowered curtains gathered in sashes tied with bows. There was an old fashioned pine wardrobe, a matching dressing table topped with a large swing mirror from the top of which hung a variety of hairbands, bows, ribbons and scrunchies, a pine chest of drawers and an old fashioned brass bed, its frilled duvet and pillow cases a pleasing white dotted with little blue flowers . A fluffy stuffed penguin perched on the pillow and a set of clothes were laid out across the covers. On one wall was a full length mirror and the windows overlooked the same stretch of velvet turf bounded by woodlands I had seen earlier from downstairs. On the surface of the dressing table was a jewellery box, a makeup bag, God help me, and a little pile of papers. A couple of posters were on the walls and several pieces of framed embroidery. In one corner of the room was a screen with a variety of handbags dangling from one corner. "You'll need those," said Miss Erinye following my gaze. "You won't have much in the way of pockets and you need to have a lipstick, nail file, perfume and deodorant with you at all times. Now, go and get dressed, dear." Wordlessly I crossed to the bed and picked up the first item on top of the little pile of clothes. A pair of cotton knickers decorated with little pink hearts confronted me and I shuddered. I felt almost dizzy with embarrassment. In the back of the knickers was a name label. "April Elizabeth May," I read aloud. I looked around at Miss Erinye in mute protest. She was smiling, not evilly but happily and toying with the black box. "A charming name for someone who will soon be a charming young girl. We arranged for your predecessor to do some labels for you but most of them you can sew in yourself - it will help you remember who you are now." I paused. If I jumped her did I stand a chance of overpowering her before she could press the button? I measured the distance. Too far. "Hurry up dear - you don't want to catch cold," Miss Erinye said almost gently. What could I do. I slipped the knickers on, drawing them up my legs and over my bottom and groin. They felt tight but had enough "give" to tuck away my genitalia. Next came the tights, black and opaque, with pale rose patterns twining their way up the backs of my legs and very warm and snug, moulding themselves to every part of me - obviously this was how girls survived cold weather in skirts. After that was a thing like a short corset. It took me a little while but I worked out how to put it on around my waist and stomach. Obviously the idea was to pull me in to give the impression of the hips and curves I didn't, in fact, have. Now for the worst part - the skirt. It was easy enough to put on - it was the fact of it being a skirt that sent the blood flaming to my cheeks. It was "modest" enough, and how I hated the fact that I'd been made to think of modesty as if I really was a girl - it came to a couple of inches above the knee and had a semi-transparent silky feeling layer underneath, like a sort of petticoat. I didn't dare take my eyes from the bed for fear of catching a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors. Oddly enough the bra was a sort of concession to the fact that I was a man, whatever my kidnappers said or pretended. Black and lacy it contained built in silicon sacs to give the impression of breasts. When I was fully dressed it would be pretty convincing. For the last, I had a choice of items. Staring up at me were a frilly blouse with short, puffy sleeves or a T shirt emblazoned with the words, "You've been a very naughty boy. Go straight to my room." No way was I wearing that! The blouse it would have to be. I sighed audibly as I did up the tiny buttons, struggling a little because it buttoned up the wrong way. "Do you know why women's and men's buttons are the sides they are?" Miss Erinye said suddenly, interrupting my miserable thoughts. "No. Why?" "They were designed that way so that a man could have his swordhand free while a woman could bare a breast with her left hand to feed a child cradled in her right arm. Neither of those things are likely to happen to you in a hurry and most people don't know that anymore. I wanted you to know because the attitudes behind it still go on. In your old life people might have looked at you and assumed that simply because of your biology you were the right person to take charge in a conflict. In future they will look at you and assume that you are the right person to deal with babies." Miss Erinye smiled, quite naturally. She wasn't being cruel for once, she was simply giving me information, information which I knew when I thought about it was true, or would have been if I really had been a woman. Everyone always assumed the woman in any situation would deal with the children. It was a role women were pushed into whether they liked it or not. "Under the bed you will find some shoes. Please put them on." Under the bed I found enough shoes to equip a football league provided they only wore high heels. As the lesser of a great many evils I eventually chose a pair of what Miss Erinye told me were called court shoes, with a heel of "only" two inches. I felt shaky just standing up in them as they forced my legs into new and unfamiliar positions. I could feel my newly smoothed and moisturised calf muscles tensed. I remembered hearing some feminist psychologist on the telly saying that the purpose of women's shoes was to make their legs look as if they were tensed to run away - making them prey - while simultaneously making sure they couldn't actually run anywhere in a hurry. Naturally enough she'd been against these things. I somehow suspected my captors considered them to be a plus. "Good girl April. Over to your dressing table now honey." As I wobbled over I felt simultaneously hobbled and exposed. My legs were displayed for all to see - my arms too, in a way that felt very different from, say, wearing a T-shirt. The cotton of the knickers I wore, the silk and steel of the waist cincher and the scratchy black lace of the bra all nagged at me constantly making me totally aware of my predicament. The skirt swished around my thighs and backside as I moved, seating myself awkwardly in front of the dressing table mirror. "First things first my dear. Let's get the paperwork out of the way." On the dressing table in front of me were three bits of paper. The first was an application to change my name by deed poll to April Elizabeth May. The second was a document giving power of attorney to my captors. These were going to make things a lot harder when I escaped. Yes, a decent lawyer could sort them out but at the least it was going to be an embarrassing converstion. Would he believe that a man could be forcibly kidnapped and forced to change his name to that of a girl? If It hadn't happened to me I wouldn't have believed it myself. No sense in worrying about that now, I decided. Once I escaped I had options. Here they were limited to death, co-operation before torture or co-operation after it. What could I do? I signed. The third piece of paper was a timetable that I read with utter despair. Hormone treatments, voice therapy, ballet, orientation, flower arranging, ballroom dancing, beauty classes, latin american dancing, cooking, basic sewing, more cooking, crochet, dressmaking, deportment, embroidery, domestic skills, social skills, interior decorating, belly dancing, aversion therapy (eh?) skin care, diet science, cross stitch, even more cooking, art, Romantic Novel appreciation classes (???? WTF???), modern dance, drama, pianoforte, fashion, jewellery making... On and on it went, a sort of catalogue of everything I would never in my life have touched with a bargepole. "Aversion therapy?" "You'll find out." The smile this time said that Miss Erinye would enjoy watching me find out, and I wouldn't enjoy it at all. "But I wouldn't worry your pretty little head about that just yet - you still have your make-up to do. Start with the nail polish. But clean and smooth your nails first. I want nice, smooth ovals before you begin. And if I think you're being secretly uncoperative, or even if I'm not satisfied with how well you're doing... well, you know what happens." I did. Gently and carefully I filed away raggedness and unevenness, pushing back my cuticles with Q tips and trimming away hangnails as instructed. What else could I do? "Very good honeybunch. Now, the polish." I looked through the selection in front of me. Pink, bubblegum pink, slut red, pink with gold sparkles, dark purple and black. "Not the black! Not today." With a sigh I put it back and reached for the purple. The heavy, solvent smell of it shot up my nostrils as I opened the tiny bottle. From the nagging feel of the brastrap across my back to the smooth cold feel of silk and now the alien scents of makeup all my senses seemed to be ganging up to embarrass me. Not sight though. I steadfastly avoided catching sight of myself in either mirror. Steadily I painted my nails, fluttering them dry in that butterfly hand way women do and awaited my next ordeal. "I think I'll do your face and eyebrows myself. Minimal foundation with that skin, and of course we won't need any blusher. Just look!" I looked. Before they'd laid a finger on my face something was already wrong. The deep red flush across my features was a dead ringer for the helpless blush I'd always taken such pleasure seeing on women. For the next half an hour I kept my eyes tight shut as Miss Erinye plucked away with and painted my lips with pencils and brushes. Then I had no choice but to open my eyes as she poked them with eyeliner, coated my lashes with multiple layers of mascara and coated my lids. Luckily I still didn't have a chance to look in the mirror while she did all this but I knew I must be looking like a freak. Lastly she whipped a punch gun out of a drawer and pierced my ears, carefully cleaning them before popping little gold studs through my lobes "Stand up dear. Go to the full length mirror and take a look at the finished product." I did as I was told - and wanted to scream! I had good legs. The knees might be a little knobbly but I'd seen worse on women and gone on lusting anyway. Between them the waist cincher, the false bra and the underskirt gave me enough curves that it mimicked a female figure. Despite what I'd hoped the little studs through my still throbbing ears looked natural on me. My face was the biggest shock. My brows made a delicate curve, my lips clean and well defined, my high cheekbones more noticeable. My eyes were huge and filled with fear. You could still tell I was a man. But you could tell that could be taken away. I was no cosmetic surgeon, but if it was possible to change my jaw a little and my nose a lot I don't know if anyone would ever spot me for what I was! "Lovely, you look simply lovely! What do you think Mr Tait?" I gasped and whipped round, stumbling and almost falling off my heels as I did so. Coming through the door, still moving a little gingerly, was the second goon, the one I'd dropped this morning. "I think she's going to make some lucky guy very happy," grinned Mr Tait. "I was more man than you could deal with!" I snarled in rage and fear - then winced in anticpation of the terrible pain flooding through me. To my surprise it didn't happen. He simply smiled with happy good nature and said, "Yeah you were, kid. It's good to go out on a high note. I'll remind you of that when you're just a pretty little thing eating out of my hand. But in the meantime that's why I wouldn't miss this next bit for the world." "Mr Tait and his colleague Mr Elliott are here for you to practice the arts of being a young lady relating to men. They'll be sure to let you know if you do anything wrong," Miss Erinye interjected but I was no longer listening. "What next bit?!" Mr Tait produced a brace of syringes from inside his jacket. "This bit. The hormones and the anti-androgens. One will cut off the effects of any masculinising hormones you produce, though there'll be less of a problem once you've had your operation. The other - well there'll be a whole host of effects. Your head hair will become much finer and abundant- male head hairs are typically five times thicker than female ones and women have far more individual hairs to compensate. Facial hair we'll electrolyse of course. Your skin will become much smoother and softer. If you've ever wondered why girls are so nice to the touch, hormones is why - you might call it natural selection. In your case it's less natural but you still can't escape being selected. Your body will start laying down fat in a female way - that means more of it, and concentrated on the bottom, thighs, upper arms, hips and of course, the breast area. We won't be doing implants. Our customers like the natural look. Typically you can expect to be about two cup sizes smaller than your female relatives." I wanted to turn and run. My relatives start at D cup and go up from there. "What else? Well, bones don't change but all the same you'll probably find feet, hands and shoulders getting narrower, while your hips get wider. A lot more of your body is muscle than you think and you just won't have the testosterone to maintain it. Once we're sure of that we'll be starting you on an exercise regime so you don't get too curvy. You'll probably also become a lot more emotional. All our girls do but I'm never sure how much of that is hormones and how much is trauma. You may develop a hormone induced emotional cycle similar to women who have period related mood swings." Mr Tait's grin was now threatening to split his face. "Best of all, once these effects really kick in, there's no way back. And I get to give you your first injection. Bend over the bed for me April." One injection won't be irreversible, I promised myself. A dozen won't be. I will be out of here before they can do this to me. I heard the rustle as my skirt - no, not my skirt, the skirt I had to wear as camoflage til I could escape, there would never be a "my" skirt - was pushed up, felt the tights and knickers come down and winced as a firm hand held me steady while a needle penetrated me, carrying essence of girl deep inside my very skin. Done, I felt a palm jovially slap my arse as I covered myself again and my cheeks flared scarlet. "Good kid. Life can still be a good thing, kiddo. But my advice is to take some of that drive of yours and turn it on yourself. You're basically destined for a life as someone's cutie. Only that someone will own you. The better a cutie you are, the happier you'll be." The hormones couldn't possibly have begun to kick in yet, but I could feel tears of shame and fear trying to form as I straightened up. Nothing flowed but my eyes must have been shining with unshed tears and everyone could see it. Surprisingly the dreadful Miss Erinye reacted with sympathy. "You've had a very long day dear, with an awful lot to take in. I think you should go for a walk around the grounds to get used to your new things. You might like to try walking by placing one foot in front of the other, to help give your hips the proper wiggle, but don't worry, we'l cover all that in deportment tomorrow. Be back in an hour for tea." And off I went! The grounds were enormous, stretches of open parkland, interspersed with wooded areas, a small, artificial lake and an entirely natural stream but surrounded by fifteen foot walls topped by spikes you could shave with. I might have enjoyed them if the circumstances had been different. As it was, being outside in these clothes, as if they actually were *my* clothes went beyond shaming to frightening. I didn't want to live this life they were intent on forcing me into. Worse, their motives seemed to be to actually SELL me as a "cutie", maybe for some dragon lady type like Miss Erinye or maybe to some dirty old man. If it was the latter then one of us would die the first time he tried to touch me, pain or no pain. I hoped. Millions of women have been assaulted and misused over the centuries. I doubted if any of them had wanted it, and at least some of them must have been just as determined as I was but it hadn't necessarily done them any good. Maybe the muscle these psychopaths were determined to melt off me with hormones counted for more than anybody liked to admit? Luckily, I wasn't going to find out. Fifteen minutes into the walk I found what I was looking for in a clump of trees near the wall. As I'd always expected branches had been lopped back anywhere they might otherwise be used to escape over the wall, but plenty of them had then been left lying on the ground. With a lot of care I was able to pile them into a loose, unstable ramp that just enable me to reach the spikes atop the wall. Kicking off those hated high heels I stripped and clutching the bundled clothes in my arms sprinted up the rough wood barefoot. Normally anyone would have been stopped by the spikes at this point but my kidnappers had unwittingly given me the key to their undoing. Normal clothes alone couldn't have been thick enough to blunt the razor spikes, but on top of the gel sacs from that bra they would hold for just long enough, and if I broke my neck as I vaulted over the ramparts and into freedom that was a risk worth taking! Only I didn't. I vaulted into pain. The instant the arc of my leap took me over the wall that terrible indescribable pain was all over me. They hadn't lied about whatever it was they did to me being independent of distance. I didn't even feel the impact when I hit the ground, didn't find out until much later that I'd dislocated a shoulder doing it. My screams must have been deafening but I didn't hear them. I simply lay there, unable to get up, writhing in unspeakable agony for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. Or so I thought. In fact I later discovered that I'd been there for about twenty minutes. An alarm had sounded the instant I went over the wall - the only delay after that had been Mr Tait having to walk all the way round to where I was lying to carry me back - which he did while mascara ran in tear trails down my face and I sobbed, "Thank you, thank you," over and over again. The next two hours or so passed in a blur of hot baths but at the end of it I sat in front of Miss Erinye again, knees together, hands folded in my lap, bathrobed, shoulder relocated, freshly made up, a pale and chastened penitent. "I'm very disappointed in you. I thought you were bright enough to realise that your old life is behind you now. But we don't want girls who aren't prepared to cooperate so this has to be your last chance. Fail and you can lie outside the wall until you die of thirst. From now on, we won't be making you into anything. You will be turning yourself into a charming, pretty, graceful, feminine and thoroughly cooperative young lady - we will only be helping. Every morning you will undergo five minutes of pain. If you are good we will gradually decrease the time, but it's up to you to impress us. The way to do that is to become a "cutie" as Mr Tait puts it. Do you understand?" "Yes Miss Erinye. I promise I'll be good." "Prove it. What are you going to do now?" "I - I'm going to get dressed Miss Erinye" "Anything else?" "I'm going to practice my makeup." "Good. Anything else?" I went blank. "What would you like me to do Miss Erinye?" "Practice trying on different outfits and seeing what jewellery goes with what. Girls can do that for hours I assure you so it's a good habit for you to get into." Inwardly I was desperately running through a thousand plans, every one of which, I could see, had no chance of success and every one of which would lead to my death by torture if it failed. Outwardly I looked as meek as a kidnapper could hope for, and unless I could think of plan 1001 I was going to have to *be* that way as well. I got up and moved towards the door, where a not-unsympathetic looking Mr Tait waited to escort me to my room. "Oh one more thing! Who are you?" For a few seconds I was baffled - she knew who I was, she was the one who'd kidnapped me. Then I realised what she wanted. "April. I am April." And until I could work a miracle, so I was.