## Elijah's proposal

Post by lasse672000 » Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:58 am

Amanda walked along a country lane. She was dressed in white thigh-high cotton stockings, black patent-leather shoes, a ¾ length black plush dress, with white lace on the collar, cuffs and hem and several petticoats.
On her left, there were open green fields, and to her right dense forest, although she was unable to enjoy either, due to the fact that she was blindfolded. She also had her hands crossed in front of her and tied together, and she was gagged. A rope was tied around her waist and she was pulled along at quite a fast pace, because the man on the other end of the rope was in a hurry. So far she had managed to stay on her feet, but knew it was only a matter of time before she tripped on her own feet, a stone or something else.
Suddenly, there was a yank on the rope around her waist. “Woah there, miss!” her captor said. “This is as far as I will take you. In a few minutes, there will come a carriage and take you the rest of the way. But don’t worry; I’ll stay by your side until I know you’re safely on your way.” He pulled on the rope to make her leave the road, and tied it to something, thus preventing her from sitting down.
“I wish I knew what time it is!” Amanda thought, as she had completely lost track of it. Right then she heard the sound of hooves, and some kind of wagon. The sounds stopped more or less in front of them, she was untied from the tree and led towards that place. All her dreams of a comfortable carriage-ride (such as they had been) were shattered, when she realized she was going to be put in the back of an ordinary hay trailer, albeit half filled with hay.
She was hauled over to one side of the wagon and the waist-rope tied to the ribs. It started on its’ bumpy return-journey; bumpy for Amanda at least, despite all the hay.
By the time it stopped, she was on the verge of getting motion-sickness, and was glad to be standing on solid ground again. Someone gave her backside a series of hard whacks.
“HHNNGG!” she hollered.
“Sorry ‘bout that, miss,” a man said, not sounding apologetic at all; instead he sounded amused. “But your skirts were full of strands of hay; so I thought it best I removed it before you met the gentry. As best I could, that is. But I’m afraid I did such a poor job of it, I’ll have to do it again.”
He was stopped by an ice-cold voice. “You will do no such thing, Jenkins!” She could hear everyone backing away from her. “You have done quite enough, for now! Andrews; get the poor child to the room I prepared for her!”
“Yes miss,” a sickly-sweet voice answered, and Amanda was lead up a set of steps and inside a very big house, judging by the echoes their shoes made.
She was lead to a small chamber with a glass door at one end, and tied to a pole.
“Miss Hopkins will be with you shortly,” were Andrews’ final words before he left, closing and locking the door behind him.
Clara stood watching Amanda through a one-way mirror in the door.
“What a strange young girl she is,” she told no one in particular, shaking her head. “When I was her age, I could play with dolls for hours on end; but she has for some reason, unknown to me, always been fascinated by kidnappings and being held hostage, ever since she was a little girl, barely able to reach the counter tops!
Come to think of it; I actually might have had something to do with it, reading all those bedtime stories where a girl or two get kidnapped and held hostage by some evil guy, or witch, or troll, or whatever, only to be rescued by a “knight in shining armour”. I tried reading other stories, but she got so restless I had to switch, in order for her to fall asleep. That; and already having told her the family-tradition, might have something to do with it.”
She shrugged, poured a glass of water, put a straw in it, opened the door and walked over to Amanda. She took the gag out, and offered her the glass of water.
“Right,” she said, “how long are you planning on staying this time?”
“I don’t really know,” Amanda replied, “a couple of days, at least.”
“M-hm; or until whatever his name is this time finds you or, which is more likely, call me to say he’s fed up, and doesn’t want anything more to do with you or your stupid games, thank you very much!”
“I know there have been a lot of those calls lately!” Amanda apologetically agreed. Then, a glow was lit in her eyes. “But I swear I won’t give up, until I find the right one; even if I have to spend the rest of my life looking!”
“You’re too melodramatic for your own good; you know that?” Clara told her, sighed and left.
Hidden behind some trees Elijah looked on, not sure what to do. Should he burst in, his proverbial guns blazing, and save Amanda right away, or should he wait and see what happened, and sneak in later that night? She had told him she wanted him to rescue her as soon as possible, but something told him she was having too much fun at the moment for him to burst in and spoil it all.
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t thank me for being too early; but she wouldn’t want me to leave her there for too long, either,’ he thought. In the end, he decided to wait a bit longer, partly because he thought the two men looked menacing, and partly because he liked seeing her like that.
‘I wish she’d allow me to keep her prisoner, from time to time.’
“Elijah’s already been spotted hiding in the garden,” Clara told her prisoner an hour later. “So now, it’s up to him to make the next move.”
“He’s already here? Wow, that was quick! He just might be a good catch after all.” Amanda was impressed.
Clara stood in the window, trying to get a glimpse of him. “Do you want me to close the curtains?”
“Good heavens, no!” Amanda laughed. “However, what I would like you to do is tie me to a chair of some sort, or a bed for a while, because my feet are starting to hurt.”
Clara told Andrews to get a camping-bed, and while Amanda pretended to resist, they forced her to lie down, take her shoes off, and her wrists and ankles were tied to it.
Clara put a pillowcase over Amanda’s head, and opened the window.
Amanda wanted to know why her head was covered and her shoes taken off. “It’s because I want this to be as realistic as possible.” Clara answered.
What she had meant by that became apparent a few moments later, when an intense tickle-torture started. It wasn’t long before Amanda was hollering so loud, they must have heard her for miles.
In the garden, Elijah was becoming more and more indecisive. Should he, or shouldn’t he, launch is rescue-attempt?
On the one hand; she could get pissed because he had come too soon, on the other hand; he could get hurt by the two big men if they were around. Neither option was particularly appealing, but he knew he would have to do something; but what?
When the hollering started, he made up his mind; he would try to rescue her; and do it NOW; no matter what.
He got up from behind the bush where he had been hiding, and slipped closer to the door.
He briefly looked in, and saw Amanda’s captors being occupied by something which made her scream. He looked around and found a broom-stick, leaning against the wall. He grabbed it and charged inside, screaming and waving it from side to side. Luckily, he didn’t hit anyone, although it did come pretty close a couple of times.
The captors, whom Elijah now saw were a man and a woman, apparently in their late 50’s or early 60’s, spun round, took a look at him, and ran out of the room, while he kneeled beside the bed were she lay, busy trying to undo the knots in the ropes.
“They’ve fled,” he told her, as she took the pillow-case off. “I hope they didn’t hurt you too much?”
“No, young man, we tried, very hard, not to hurt her at all,” an ice-cold voice, coming from the door, said. “I never hurt my relatives, if I can avoid it.”
He spun round and saw the woman standing in the door-way.
“Wait, what; relatives?” He was confused.
“Mm, that’s right.”Amanda said.”She is my Grandmother on my mother’s side, and she and my uncle Andrew over there, have helped me do this a couple of times before. They went through the same process with my parents before they got together.”
“And my mother with me and my husband. I believe I can, through the records in this house, trace this tradition way back to the 1600’s, perhaps even earlier than that.”
Elijah sat down on the bed, from which he had just liberated Amanda. It was all a bit much to take in. She had, willingly, been abducted by her Grandmother and uncle? What kind of a girl was she?
A million questions fought to get out, and he opened his mouth to start asking them, but found he couldn’t; so instead he just said:” Oh!”
Amanda ran a hand over his cheek. “Poor Eli,” she said, “you look so confused! Do you want some time to think about it?”
“No,” he replied. “I will marry you, of course I will, and of course we will continue this tradition, if we have daughters in the future. However, I do have one condition; I want to be able to tie you up whenever, and for as long as, I want to; and you to do the same, and none of us will have the right to complain.”
She looked him deep in the eyes. Then she said: “Continuing the tradition is a must, but I do accept the other condition.”
Whazzzz up!.