Part I here

Alice was naked and afraid as she waited. The barn was cold and dark and only the ropes at her wrists burned her. She shook them off and watched them fall like discarded snakes to the floor. No, she thought, she needed them or else it was her fault. The thought made no sense, nor did picking them up and wrapping them back around her wrists.

“Let me help you with that,” John said pleasantly and gently retied her hands.

Alice blushed and then seeing Adam watching she dipped her head.

“We only have the one whip, we will have to share it,” John said with some regret.

Alice stole a glance at Adam who grinned wolfishly and brandished the heavy bull whip.

“Don’t worry, I can make every stroke land across your ass,” Adam said proudly, “We won’t break your skin.”

“Will it hurt?” Alice whispered.

“Of course,” John said reassuringly, “We have a bet to see who can make you scream first.”

Alice was dizzy with arousal and wanted to run.

“You can if you like, we can chase you,” John told her, he was grinning wolfishly like Adam.

Alice wondered how he knew what she was thinking, but it didn’t really matter.

“Hey, she has enough ass for us both, let me punish her and then she can run, that way we can punish her twice,” Adam snarled.

“I was going to anyway,” John said dismissively and then offered Alice a conspiratorial smile.

“I know, but it should at least make sense,” Adam cracked the whip and moved nearer.

“It doesn’t, it doesn’t make any sense,” Alice protested.

“It makes perfect sense,” wolf with the whip said.

“Run,” said the other wolf.

Alice woke with a start. She was sweating all over and the nightmare threatened to pull her back in. The continued arousal made her half want to. Memories of the previous day and a night came flooding back.

Alice tried to be horrified, she tried hard. Everything she knew or thought she knew was dust. She was beyond the Land of Oz and in a landscape she did not recognise. Apparently Adam had turned into a wolf before her very eyes; a trick of some kind no doubt, but she felt sick and uneasy at the thought knowing that the trick or something else playing in her head was a lie.

The wolf was less shocking to her than the whipping she had watched, although yesterday Stacy and Augusta had separately spoken after of a spanking. Stacy had even laughed. Was that worse? A grown woman had been put in her place and brutally. Alice felt her mouth go dry as she replayed the punishment in her head. She had to work moisture up in her mouth, ignoring that elsewhere that was still no problem as the dream lingered on. Behind it all John and Adam still watched her with wolfish grins.

“You have to remember that these people were brought up in the 19^th and early 20^th century by people who probably drew on old world values from a century or two before that,” Stacy had sounded almost eager as if writing a chapter for her book.

Alice got up and hit the shower. She had to get away from here.

*

Breakfast was the usual organised chaos, with most of the men seated as they were served by the women. There were exceptions. Stacy for one was helping herself to pancakes and bacon and anything else that was going. That for her meant coffee. As Alice entered she looked up and smiled.

There were a few women sitting with the men on equal terms. Mostly they were older and all of them Alice guessed worked the ranch with the men or were guards.

Then she saw Marsha. She was standing over the back away from the melee and at first Alice thought she was helping prepare food with the other women and then she noticed she was eating.

“You want a place at the table Marsha, there is plenty of room,” Augusta called over.

Marsha blushed for America and held up her half empty plate as in acknowledgment. “No thanks Mrs Stone… I eh… I would rather stand,” she said with an embarrassed smile, “I am almost through anyway.”

“You sure? I can always fetch you a pillow,” Augusta said without a hint of mockery.

Several of the men laughed and Marsha’s blush deepened. Then she sucked it up and smiled. “No thanks Mrs Stone, I kinda think that with or without a pillow I will be standing for mu meals for a day or two.”

This brought more laughter and Stacy grinned as she looked over at Alice knowingly.

I really have to get out of here; Alice thought and dropped into an empty seat for her meal. What was Stacy playing at?

*

“Mr Stone,” Alice called as she saw Garrick crossing the yard, “Mr Stone can I…?”

A man stepped between them and regarded her with contempt. The morning was young and the smell of bacon and eggs still lingered on the air. Beyond the compound fence there was mist hanging silver in the sunshine. It reinforced the unreality Alice had been feeling since her arrival at the ranch.

“I have a minute Miss Eden,” Garrick said from behind the man blocking her way, “Let’s talk.”

The man stepped away letting Alice see her host for the first time close up. Garrick looked a little over 60 and the straggled grey hair made him look like a hippy from the 1960s, that or a biker. He wasn’t tall, although taller than Alice, but he was powerfully built with a barrel chest and piercing grey eyes that announced that he would get his way.

“Mr Stone I am… well you know…” Alice took a deep breath and moved closer to offer the man her hand. “I have been trying to talk to you for days now.”

“You want to talk to me about some damn legal papers? Now?” Garrick had a scolding tone and Alice felt her buttocks clench and remembered Marsha.

“If you will only take a look at them, all I need is your signature. It really is just a formality. Then I can go and get out of your hair,” Alice tried to sound like a lawyer asserting herself in court.

“Sure, I will look, I will even sign once my lawyers have checked over the documents; but you’re not going anywhere, not right now,” Garrick said sharply.

“But why? I mean you can’t keep me here,” Alice protested.

Garrick drew his visage into a furrow forming a uni-brow on his forehead. “I am not accustomed to explaining myself to anyone,” he sighed. For a second Alice thought that was the end of the conversation and sank dejectedly where she stood. Then he added, “By now Coleridge and his people will have road in and out of Pulver watched. You wouldn’t get a mile. If they get you then either they have some leverage or they think they do. Either way it was bad for us and even worse for you.”

“So you are saying I have to stay here until… what you have a fight with these people?” Alice said indignantly.

Garrick looked her up and down and offered her a genuine smile. “Something like that,” he said and turned away.

“Do these people really think you are a werewolf? Is that what this is all about?” Alice tried to sound superior, like she was talking to a backwoods fool about old wives tales.

Garrick rounded on her and she flinched, even taking a step backwards.

“Miss Eden,” he sighed, “I know full well what these people think, so do you. What do you think, really?”

Alice didn’t want to go there and right then she thought about Marsha.

Garrick smiled paternally and shook his head and then he turned away. It never ceased to amaze him the lengths city folk would go take to deceive themselves.

*

Alice was fuming. Garrick had given her the brush off and the twins hadn’t as much as said hello since they had abducted her. She now decided that it was about time she confronted them. It took a moment before she could calm down and then she took I the scene.

The compound was bustling with people. There were lots of guns, armfuls of them being carried to strategic points. The only person she recognised was Marsha, the woman she had seen punished the day before and at breakfast. She seemed no worse for wear though, but as she crossed the yard Alice noticed the woman kept grabbing her behind and she was walking with a slightly awkward gait as if suffering lower back pain. Very low, Alice thought wryly and realised that she was smiling. She frowned and shook off the faint sense of schadenfreude that assailed her now. For some reason her dream came back to her and she blushed.

For a moment she considered looking for Stacy, but something told her that the writer would be of no help today. After breakfast she had muttered something about sussing something out; forever the journalist, Alice groaned inwardly. Then mid thought she saw Adam. He was striding confidently across the yard to some out buildings and she watched John and another man fell into step with him. They were talking seriously and the man nodded vigorously at something Adam was saying before sprinting away.

Alice watched them for a long minute more and then steeling herself she began to walk fast in their direction. As she went she made a plan in her head.

Firstly she would thank them for saving her. Then she would ask about the… no scratch that, she amended, her legal brain told her that was irrelevant. Second she would… she thought about the wolf again and stopped for s second to take a deep breath. Then walking on she fixed firmly on her intention to find out why they had brought her here and thirdly when she could go.

Satisfied that she knew what she was going to say she broke into a trot. “Hey, hold up,” she called as they disappeared around a corner of the out buildings.

To be continued…