The Contract – ebook

Excerpt

At 19 the world seems to be at one’s feet, waiting to blossom with all sorts of wonderful things.

My father and mother were divorced and wanted few entanglements with grown children still going to school, but they had been thoughtful enough to provide an apartment for me, even though I was attending one of the local colleges only on a haphazard basis. They’d combined forces, for once, to provide me with a monthly allowance over and above the apartment rental, so I only had to worry about preparing meals and finding things to hold my attention.

One day while sunning on the balcony, leafing through one of the up-market women’s magazines that seemed to have sprouted roots in the apartment, despite the maid’s efforts to keep it neat and clean, I came across a discrete advertisement near the back. In elegant script it stated that “excellent pay” was being offered for a five year, foreign service position, provided the applicant passed rigorous intelligence, appearance, and aptitude tests. For some reason it caught my eye while passing over the usual drivel, and knowing that I was far from stupid and had some modicum of culture, I penned a long and thoughtful handwritten reply to the impeccable Vancouver address, as was requested. I had become really bored with how things were going now that I was out in the big wide world all by myself, and thought that this might be just the thing to alleviate my growing ennui.

The allowance that mother and father provided was pretty good by most people’s standards, but I always seemed to end up short of money after the second week of the month, then had to take it easy until the next cheque arrived. Later in the afternoon, a little uncomfortable from a mild sunburn and bored with sitting around the apartment, I walked down to the Granville Street post office and mailed it off. I promptly forgot about the letter I’d sent when my latest date, a handsome young law student named Jason, called and asked if I’d be interested in going to a hot new club downtown, later that evening.

Three weeks passed and I became more and more bored with a pointless life, until one afternoon the large gold-embossed envelope that would forever change my life arrived. Having forgotten completely about the application, I took it back to the apartment along with the usual selection of junk mail and then, like a little kid, opened all the other correspondence first. I sat at the glass and polished brass table staring thoughtfully at the enigmatic envelope propped against the flower vase centrepiece, wondering just what it contained. There wasn’t a return address on it, only a postmark indicating that it had been mailed from in-town. Finally, I reached out and opened it with the silver letter opener.

The beautiful, flowing script of the handwritten note informed me that I was one of a select group of young women requested to appear at an exclusive downtown hotel for an interview, three days hence. It advised me that a limo would be sent to pick me up and it would return me to my apartment after the interview was concluded. In addition, the note requested that I dress appropriately.

The arrival of the note in the prestigious envelope aroused my curiosity, challenging me to do something that would be entirely different from my humdrum existence and that evening while watching some mindless fluff on TV, I mulled over what I would need to buy in the way of clothing and accessories, to really knock the socks off whoever was doing the interview. Right then, I began to plan my next two days for shopping, hair appointments, a manicure, facial, and the myriad of other small details that would complete my image of sophistication. Finally, I went to bed that night with a purpose, even if only for the next three days or so.

Strangely, during the past two weeks and on a number of occasions, I’d gotten the haunting feeling one gets when being inspected or stared at and a lot of the time, even during the day, I had the sensation that I was being followed. I could never catch anyone at it, try though I might to surprise them at their observances.

I spent the next 48 hours shopping for just the right clothes and shoes and completing my other appointments, then on the third day, took all morning preparing myself for my appointment with destiny, as I jokingly thought of it. How prophetic those thoughts were, I had no idea.

When the interphone buzzed, I checked the TV monitor and saw a tall, black-uniformed woman waiting in front of the camera for an acknowledgment. She wore the classic Chauffeuse’s Uniform, but in addition, the bottom half of her face was hidden by one of the obscuring veils that are in favour in the Middle East. All I could see of her features were her dark, heavily made-up eyes; these being almost obscured by an even finer mesh veil that disappeared under the brim of her peaked cap. The eyes behind this fine mesh were separately delineated with what appeared to be a narrow strap passing up over the bridge of her nose, also disappearing under the bottom edge of the cap. Instead of the usual Chauffeur’s jodhpurs, she wore a tightly-fitted, long, narrow, black skirt that descended to her ankles, and from under whose hem appeared the toes and heels of a pair of what I later found out were tightly-laced, six-inch heeled knee boots. When I looked her over more closely in the television monitor I noticed that her long and lustrous black hair was neatly coiffed; contained in some sort of invisible netting. Realising that she was being inspected, she held an elegantly lettered, small sign in front of her in gloved hands, not speaking a word. My name was all that was written on it.

Foolishly, I asked if she was here to pick me up for the interview, and she nodded wordlessly, then spun abruptly on her high heels and left the foyer with short, skirt-hobbled steps. I assumed that there would be some sort of kick pleat at the back of her tight skirt that would permit her to walk easily while wearing the snugly fitted and restricting garment, but there wasn’t. It was obvious that she was a willing, so I thought at the time, captive of her clothing. She strutted out to the gleaming Rolls Royce limousine waiting under the portico, then waited expectantly for me by the opened passenger door. Without further delay, but a little nervous about the coming interview, I locked the place up, got into the elevator and on the way down to the lobby wondered to myself about the whole mysterious scene I had become involved in; not a little intrigued by the fact that there hadn’t been one square inch of the Chauffeuse that was not covered, even if only partially. That in itself, here in Vancouver, was very strange.

I hadn’t told anyone about the letter, mentally shrugging it off while I walked through the front doors and slid as gracefully as I could into the back of the limousine. The door closed with a solid, metallic thunk, the kind of sound that only comes from expensively engineered machinery. The Chauffeuse slid into the driver’s seat, somewhat stiffly I thought, and spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time settling herself in place behind the wheel. She leant forward for a few seconds and seemed to fumble under her seat, then there came a couple of subtle clicks when she connected something there. I wasn’t aware of it of course, but she’d fastened locking hooks at the end of sturdy web type straps to staples on her skirt- and boot-hidden ankle cuffs. For the moment, they were long enough to allow her to use her feet on the accelerator and brake pedals. I watched with fascination when she next reached back to her shoulders and drew a pair of thick, wide, black leather straps over her shoulders and through the opened divider window between the passenger compartment and the driver’s position, I heard the snap of each of their connectors when she slid them into the (also unknown to me at the time) locking restraint harness she was required to wear. I’d only seen seat restraint arrangements like that in acrobatic aircraft at the Abbotsford Air Show and wondered why the system appeared in such a luxury vehicle.

Next, to my amazed eyes, her tightly gloved hands reached over her shoulders to a bright protrusion on the high back of her seat and pulled up on another heavy strap. She fumbled with it for a moment at the back of her neck, under her netted hair, then clipped it to a substantial staple on what appeared to be a wide, silvery band that encircled her neck that until this point had been concealed by her hair and veils. Although I didn’t realise it either at the time, of course, she was tightly and securely gagged beneath her veil, while under her restrictive skirt, she was locked into a remotely-controlled chastity belt, complete with a large and vastly intrusive, uncomfortable vaginal probe that monitored and disciplined her into complete subjugation. In addition, she wore a locked-in set of unobtrusive ear buds and so was totally and remotely-controlled from the suite of rooms at the hotel I was being taken to. Although appearing to be free of any encumbrance other than her clothing, she was kept in continuous, secure restraint. The vehicle contained a transceiver that assimilated and re-broadcast her governing signals to the very personal control of her hidden chastity belt, also ensuring that she stayed electronically locked into her seat harness and collar chain, unable to release herself until her Arabian mentors decided that she should be freed.

The large, expensive car moved off with a silenced hum from the powerful engine and I was driven in dignified splendour within its richly appointed interior, through the humdrum traffic of the busy mid-afternoon to the hotel’s lower parking garage; there pulling into a reserved slot right next to the Executive Elevator. The door on my side swung silently open, but my Chauffeuse remained silent and unmoving in the driver’s seat after she’d turned off the engine. Unseen by me, she moved her arms to cross each other to either side of her waist, manoeuvring the thick, staples of her glove-concealed wrist cuffs, these protruding through them on the inner side, into other, locking slots of the seat restraint harness hip belt.

I watched her suddenly stiffen, but could not understand why she did. Hidden within the structure of the seat a series of small but very powerful, geared-down motors tightened her ankle, waist, shoulder and neck restraints, pinning her securely. A panel on the divider between our compartments flipped open and an envelope dropped out. Naturally, I picked it up and saw that it was addressed to me and upon opening it I found that there was a single sheet of paper inside and a credit card-type key. The note instructed me to leave the vehicle and use the card to access the Executive Elevator next to the parking space, also informing me that the Chauffeuse would wait in the car for my return. When I glanced up at her again after retrieving the card and reading the information, I faintly heard another muffled whine coming from under the front seat, and watched while she was pulled deeply into the soft cushions when all of her restraints tightened even more. Her head was now drawn back very firmly into its rest, sinking into it noticeably so that she stared straight ahead. She seemed to struggle for a moment and I thought I heard muffled gasps of discomfort, but, after some twitching she sat totally unmoving and silent.

Unknown to me, she was being rewarded for her job, for, inside the chastity belt a clitoral and vaginal vibrator hummed to life, while pleasurable pulses of electrical energy teased and tormented her down there, and through her breasts. The door remained swung open and so I slid across the seat then walked over to the private elevator. Once inside the richly-appointed car, I ascended smoothly and quietly to the penthouse and when the doors sighed open, was a little astounded to find two swarthy-skinned men in full desert robes, barring the entrance door.

A moment later, it was opened by a very proper English Butler who wordlessly guided me into a comfortable sitting room that overlooked Coal Harbour through panoramic windows. When I walked further into the room, a tall, slim, handsome man of Arabic descent rose from his chair to greet me. He was of a commanding height and presence; dressed elegantly in a very expensive Saville Row suit and watched me enter with a hawklike alertness, following my every movement with eyes that missed absolutely nothing. I had never been so frankly appraised by a man before, and felt a little shiver of apprehension and anger at his evaluating stare while I stood before him, blushing. Unable to meet his evaluating gaze, I looked down at the carpet in some confusion.

The interview was definitely not starting the way I had planned it, but finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silent inspection, he graciously urged me to make myself comfortable. When I was seated in the deeply cushioned chair, he resumed his own seat across the low table.

“Would you care for any refreshments, Miss Henderson?” he asked in a deep, carefully-modulated voice with just a touch of an Arabic accent.

“No, but thank you very much,” I replied somewhat shyly, much to my annoyance.

I nervously tried to tug my too-short skirt down to my knees when he began the interview, quietly polite while he asked all sorts of questions about my background, education, hobbies, state of health, friends, relatives, and parents. He wrote brief notes on a pad in his lap after each answer until, nearly an hour later and with what appeared to be a mild case of embarrassment, he asked about my sex life. At first I was a little shocked by this intrusion into my personal affairs, then, thinking ‘What the Hell’, I told him the truth.

He explained that his Employer required these details in order to make a full evaluation of my potential as a member of his Staff, and so he had to ask the questions. I replied, a little embarrassed, but determined to be honest, that I’d only engaged in sex twice: both times with the same person because of the AIDS scare, and had been celibate now for the past six months.

“Although,” I added with a smile, “I’m not contemplating entering a convent yet, either.” He gave a secretive little smile at that comment, really only a slight twitching of his lips, then continued on to other topics.

Time seemed to fly after that, until an hour and a half later he stood up, signalling the end of the interview, and told me that I would be contacted one way or the other within three days. For my trouble in coming, he handed me another gold-embossed envelope which, when opened, I found contained 25, crisp, new, $100.00 bills. When I turned to leave he stopped me and asked that I remain in my apartment until contacted and refrain from any ‘romantic’ entanglements. Still a little stunned by the money, I assured him that I would do as he requested and that there would be no affairs he need worry about.

Once in the garage, the door to the limo swung open and I slipped into the back seat. The silent, veiled, and motionless Chauffeuse seemed to come to life when I entered the car and was partially released from her hidden confinements, then with quiet efficiency, drove me home as promised. The interview, other than some of its more bizarre aspects, had been somewhat of an anticlimax and once back in the suite of rooms that I hadn’t quite started to call home yet, I took off the expensive clothes and carefully hung them up. I poured myself a tall glass of cold white wine and moved into the lounge to catch the latest Oprah show.

It had been an interesting day for once, and I was anxious to see what would happen next. The interview seemed to have gone smoothly enough and I wondered what kind of job they were hiring for, with only a passing thought to the strangely attired Chauffeuse. The TV blathered on about some meaningless question that seemed to entrance the studio audience and phone-in respondents, then eventually, I made myself a small steak dinner and spent the rest of the evening moping around the place until, exhausted by doing nothing, I went to bed at 10 pm and eventually drifted into a restless sleep.