15 year-old Erika got off the train at the little mountain-village and looked around for the person she was supposed to meet.
“Are you Erika?” she heard a voice behind her ask.
“Yes, I am,” she confirmed as she turned around,” and you must be Philip; nice to meet you.” In front of her stood a boy who appeared to be about her age and height, with dark, crew-cut hair.
“Likewise,” Philip said. “Are those yours? Here; let me help you carry them.” He took the two trunks, which she had placed on the ground beside her, and carried them to a carriage, drawn by two horses.
She walked around the carriage, admiring it, and the horses. It sure would be much more stylish to arrive at the mansion in a horse-drawn carriage, than by car; that was for sure. She opened the door, lifted up the skirt of her heavy, ankle-length wool dress, and, aided by Philip, stepped inside. There she sat down on the plush covered seat, and the carriage started moving.
The mansion was big; it actually was more like a castle than a house. Philip helped her get out, and she slowly walked up the stairs. So this was going to be her home for the foreseeable future? “Mm; not bad,” she thought, as she looked around. “Not bad, at all! I think I’m going to enjoy my stay here. No; I know I will! The letter said something about special conditions, but with surroundings like these, it would have to be something very gross for me to want to go home, any time soon.”
“Mum, dad; we’re here now!” Philip shouted.
From a door to their right, two regal-looking persons, in their mid-forties appeared.
“Erika, I presume?” the man asked. “Welcome, to our humble house. I trust you had a pleasant journey?”
“Yes, thank you, uncle.” Erika politely answered and curtseyed deeply, just as her mother had taught her. Meanwhile, the woman had slowly walked around her, giving her a thorough inspection.
Surprised and a bit taken aback, Erika noticed she had her hands in heavy, ornate handcuffs in front of her, and she thought she had just glimpsed a pair of equally ornate cuffs on the woman’s ankles. Now she lifted her hands, and asked if Erika thought they looked nice against her dress. Suddenly unable to speak, the girl could only nod in response.
“Good; Charles said they did, but sometimes I don’t trust him in such matters. You will get your own in a couple of minutes, as soon as you’ve looked at your room.” When she saw the puzzled look on the girl’s face, she added: “Weren’t you told all women over a certain age have to be cuffed in this house, at all times, and sometimes gagged, too? It’s an ancient rule, dating back to God knows when, and for God knows what purpose, originally. I’m sure I wrote something about that in the letter I sent you.”
“Yes,” poor Erika stuttered, still taken aback. “Yes, you did. It’s just that I thought you were joking!”
“I NEVER joke about such matters,” the woman hissed. Then, she added in a normal tone: “Take her to her room, will you Phil, and make her comfortable.”
He led her to a room with a four poster bed, a regular bed, a desk and an office-chair. “This will be our room, for as long as you stay here. We will sleep in the same room, so I can help you at night, if need be.” She stepped closer to the bed and saw there were cuffs attached to the head- and foot-boards of the four-poster. Now it really hit home, what the woman had meant when she said, all women were to be cuffed “at all times”.
She picked up the wrist- and ankle-cuffs lying on the bed. “You’d better put these on me, before we do anything else. And before I change my mind, and take the next train home!”
“O.K,” Philip said, smiling from ear to ear. “It’s not all that bad, you know, once you get use to it! Or so I’ve been told, anyway.”
Five minutes later, Erika was cuffed and had to admit they weren’t as heavy as they looked. The only real problem she had, and she suspected it wouldn’t be a problem for long, was that she had lost her arms’ full range of motion. Being hand-cuffed meant she had to swing her body from side to side, in a way she wasn’t used to.
“It’s going to take some getting used to, not having your arms hanging by my sides as I usually have. Oh, well,” she thought. “You can’t have everything, I guess!”
Escorted by Philip, she rejoined the rest of the family.
“Now you really look as if you are a part of this family,” Philips mother, Ursula, said. “How does it feel?”
“And I really feel like I am a part of it. Being cuffed felt a bit strange the first few minutes, but I got used to it much faster than I thought I would.”
Later that night, it was time for yet another first for Erika. She and Ursula were asked to sit in wooden, high-backed chairs in front of the TV-set, and their wrists were cuffed behind the backs of the chairs.
“Charles;” Ursula haughtily said, “don’t forget my ankles!”
“Do I ever?” he sighed, and Erika thought he sounded a bit annoyed. He took a couple of short pieces of rope, and tied her ankles to the legs of the chair.
Philip asked if Erika would like to have her legs tied like that too.
Erika shrugged. “I might as well, so I really get the feel of how things are done around here,” was her reply. A couple of minutes later, there were two women tied and cuffed in high-backed chairs.
When she lay on her back in bed, dressed in an ankle-long, over-sized, cotton long-sleeved frilly night-gown, she asked Philip:
“Just out of curiosity; do you know how long I am supposed to be here?”
Philip, standing at the foot-end of the bed busy cuffing her feet, was taken aback by the question.
“No, I don’t. Why do you ask?” he wondered. “Don’t you like it here?”
“Yes, I do; very much. As I said; it was just out of curiosity. Ouch, that’s a bit tight isn’t it?” she added, as he locked her wrists in the cuffs.
“Oops; sorry!” he apologized. “There, I’ve loosened it a bit. Better?”
“Much better,” she replied, as she tried to yank her wrists out of the cuffs. “It’s much more comfortable, and I’m still not able to free my hands, either by accident, and certainly not deliberately.”
“Good; I’m glad to hear that! As a finishing touch, I will put a blindfold over your eyes. It will also ensure you won’t see me change into my pyjamas.”
She could her him throw his clothes about, and then he gave her a kiss on her fore-head.
“Good night,” he whispered.
“Good night,” she replied. “I really hope you pick up the clothes you threw around, before I’m released from bed tomorrow.”
“Yes, dear,” he joked; or at least she hoped he did.