THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF LADY PENELOPE: OLD
SCHOOL PERIL
The giggling and screaming of English schoolgirls that filled the grounds was momentarily drowned out by the high-pitched turbine whine of the exotic pink car that rolled up the gravel drive and stopped in front of a phalanx of policemen. Their ranks parted as the tinted roof of the futuristic vehicle began to retract and the door closest to the ancient school buildings opened. The diminutive chauffeur quickly stepped out and hurried to extend his hand to a passenger who was just now coming into view.
A long, lovely left leg extended toward the gravel drive and was soon followed by an equally shapely right leg that immediately drew the eye of every one of the policemen.
"Mi'Lady," the chauffeur said in a thick Cockney accent as he helped her step from the car.
"Thank you, Parker," she said in perfectly enunciated Queen's English, softened a bit by her obvious affection for her servant.
Two official-looking men in dark suits and a matronly woman of about 60 hurried down the front steps of the building to meet her. Even they couldn't help but pause for a moment to take in the sight of this beautiful young woman.
She stood still for a moment, wistfully taking in the sight of her old school. While she was only about 5-feet-5 or 5-6, her stiletto heels made her look much taller. She wore white spectator slingbacks with pale pink accents on the pointed toes, and the 4-inch heels were the same shade of pink. Her legs were sheathed in the finest white silk stockings, which flowed up into a slim pencil skirt that fell just above the knee. The material of the skirt and the matching jacket of her suit was seersucker, but instead of the usual blue stripes, the vertical crinkles of the fabric were a pale pink that matched the accents on her designer shoes. Her single-breasted jacket was tailored to hug her utterly feminine curves in a way that was flattering but not daring, for this young beauty was nothing if not tasteful. A string of pearls adorned her slim neck, and in her right hand just below a matching pearl bracelet she held a pale-pink leather portfolio. Her makeup was tastefully applied, highlighting her classic bone structure and using just enough eyeliner and mascara to make her sparkling blue eyes pop. Pale pink gloss adorned her full lips. Her golden blonde hair was swept back from her face and held there with a pale pink headband before falling to her shoulders where it was flipped up stylishly at the ends. Anyone who was familiar with English society knew immediately that this was none other than ...
"Lady Penelope," gushed the woman who now led the two men in suits to greet her. "It's been far, far too long since you've graced us with your presence!"
"You flatter me, headmistress," Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward said without a hint of false modesty as she extended her hand to the woman. "But it has been too long since I returned to Charring Abbey School. Many of my fondest memories are of my time here."
"You made a lasting impression on us, as you have on society," the woman said with a smile. "If we had known it would bring you back to us, we would have honored you sooner."
"There are so many more deserving alumnae than I," Lady Penelope said. "But my purpose here is two-fold, as you gentlemen know only two well," she added, taking a more serious tone and turning toward the two men who were looking on impatiently.
"Indeed, your Ladyship," one of them said. "The headmistress has cooperated with our security measures for tomorrow, but I'm not sure she fully understands the gravity of the situation."
"On the contrary, I'm sure she does," Lady Penelope said, speaking up for someone who she obviously respected immensely. "But she has many other matters to address that are of much greater concern to her young charges, such as tonight's parents' dinner and tomorrow's post-graduation reception.
"We'll leave you to those arrangements, headmistress," she said, and they embraced.
"Gentlemen, where would you like to begin?" Lady Penelope asked as the headmistress hurried off along the gravel drive toward another building.
As she said this, her attentive chauffeur rushed forward and slipped the strap of a pink leather laptop computer bag over her right shoulder and she walked toward the stone stairs that led into the main entrance. One of the policemen huddled around the Fab One couldn't help but stare as she walked away from them. He watched her ascend the steps, her stiletto heels making her calves tense just so and if possible accentuating her eye-catching legs even more.
"I say, that's a filly I wouldn't mind taking out for a stretch run," a voice beside him said as his mind snapped back to reality, somewhat annoyed at having to do so.
Parker gave both of them a dirty look that said he did not appreciate anyone ogling his employer or making such remarks, and then he closed the boot of the Fab One and took up a familiar position guarding the car.
***
As the two men from MI-5 and Lady Penelope made their way down the narrow staircase to the basement of the ancient building, the sound of her stiletto heels on the old wooden steps echoed. Lady Penelope's instincts told her that, like most government functionaries, these two considered anyone from International Rescue -- and particularly a beautiful young aristocrat -- amateurs at best and thrill seekers at worst. This despite the organization’s track record of having bailed out MI-5, the CIA and even the KGB and its remnants on any number of occasions. She would make a point of deferring to them whenever possible, but she would not under any circumstances compromise her mission. If she had to be a bitch, she was prepared to do so.
Her mission was to ensure the safety of all the guests at Saturday's graduation ceremony, but two in particular: President Patrick Yeboah-Kode of the oil-rich West African republic of Songhay and his graduating daughter, Patrice.
There had been a dramatic upswing in the number of threats on President Yeboah-Kode's life in recent months, and a few attempts had even been thwarted at the planning stage. Songhay's ruler was an inviting target for two reasons: 1. His attempts at spreading democracy and prosperity throughout Africa would be stopped, solidifying the positions of any number of brutal regimes in the region; and 2. His death would destabilize already skyrocketing oil prices and make a lot of money for any speculators who knew such an event would occur.
As Lady Penelope set up her laptop and accessed the secure network that had been set up by MI-5, the two men in charge of security -- they identified themselves only as Difford and Tilbrook -- seemed most concerned not about the future of West Africa or the Yeboah-Kodes, but about their own hides. Everything they did seemed to be driven solely by their fear of the embarrassment that an attempt on President Yeboah-Kode's life would be to England in general and to MI-5 in particular, whether or not such an attempt was successful. Lady Penelope tried to hide her distaste for the two of them as they went over their preparations and security measures with her in their condescending way.
After hearing that they had taken sufficient measures to control access to the school grounds and to screen all possible guests, as well as service employees, she asked, "What about a mole? Someone inside MI-5, the local constabulary or in some other way involved with event security?"
Before either Difford or Tilbrook could formulate an appropriately indignant response as they looked at Lady Penelope with disdain, a voice from behind them interrupted.
"I believe I can answer zat question," a thickly accented and deeply masculine voice interjected.
As she turned to see who had joined them so stealthily, Lady Penelope was more than a little bit intrigued by what she saw as she did a quick mental inventory. The man now extending a hand toward her was extremely handsome. His wavy dark hair was stylishly long. His dark brown eyes were deep and soulful. His face could have been that of a male model, but a couple of scars from some untold battles -- one small one through his left eyebrow and another larger one at the corner of the right side of his mouth -- told her that he was no poser. No, he was extremely fit and muscular, a fact that could not be hidden by his French-tailored charcoal-colored suit and the black silk polo shirt he wore buttoned to the collar underneath.
"My name is Philippe Chatrier," he said. "I'm with Securite Suisse, and I've working with President Yeboah-Kode's government on security for the past five months."
"Monsieur Chatrier, I'm ..." Lady Penelope said, extending her right hand as he took it and completed her sentence for her.
"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, of course," he said, smiling and taking her hand in his and kissing it gently. "Your reputation precedes you, your Ladyship, but nothing could have prepared me for ze pleasure of meeting you. And please, call me Philippe."
Lady Penelope was no blushing schoolgirl, but she was more than a little bit flattered, although she thought she hid it well.
"Philippe, I was just going over security for tomorrow's graduation ceremonies with these gentlemen from MI-5," she said, composing herself. "They seem to have a keen grasp of the obvious threats, but as you may have heard, I think we must address the possibility of a breach of internal security via a mole or someone providing inside information."
"A wise precaution, your Ladyship, and one I have addressed through my contacts with Interpol and my former employer, NATO," Philippe said, releasing her hand from his and taking his own laptop out of its case. "If you like, I can link my laptop to yours and download the appropriate files." (Difford gave Tilbrook a quick grin at Chatrier's double-entendre, intended or not, and wondered if the Frenchman would in fact be linking and downloading with her during the next few days.)
"Excellent!" Lady Penelope said with a smile. "Do you prefer USB or Firewire?"
"Firewire, definitely," he said with a smile of his own that said Difford was not far off.
***
After the four had wrapped up their discussion of security measures to the satisfaction of all, they adjourned for the day -- Difford, Tilbrook and Philippe to continue going over the details and Lady Penelope to prepare for the awards banquet. As they headed down the long hallway toward the entrance to the building and a waiting Fab One, her Ladyship lagged a bit behind Difford and Tilbrook with Philippe.
"Monsieur Chatrier, I mean, Philippe," she said, almost bashfully. "Because security arrangements have occupied much of my time the past few days, I find myself without an escort to tonight's school awards banquet ..."
"At which you are being honored," he said with an admiring smile.
"Exactly," Lady Penelope said with a gentle laugh. "Some of my old schoolmates are returning for a homecoming of sorts, and they would have a few good laughs at my expense if I were to arrive ... empty-handed, shall we say."
"And you would like me to help you with zis problem, yes?" he asked. "And what is in zis for me, as zey say?"
"I think I could make it worth your while," Lady Penelope said in a near-whisper as she gave him a sly grin.
"How can I refuse such an offer?" he said with a wide smile. "What time shall I pick you up?"
"I still have so many arrangements to make for tonight and tomorrow that it's probably best that we meet back here, if that's all right with you?" she said. "The pre-dinner cocktails begin at 6, and the event is semi-formal, so you won't need a tux."
"Your Ladyship, I would have found a tux if zat was required," he said taking her hand again and kissing it gently. "Six it is."
"And one last thing, Philippe," she added. "Please, it's Penelope. The dinner isn't the only thing that isn't unnecessarily formal."
"Penelope it is," he added as he turned to head toward another part of the building and Lady Penelope headed for the Fab One and Parker, her thoughts on anything but security for a moment.
***
As the Fab One rolled up the gravel drive in the warm fading sunlight of early evening, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward clicked open her compact and looked at herself in the small, round mirror. Her sparkling blue eyes and perfect evening makeup stared back.
She wasn't usually nervous about such functions, having attended more than a few since her coming-out party eight years earlier, but something was different about this evening. Maybe it was her concern about security for President Yeboah-Kode and his daughter, who – to Lady Penelope's great relief – would not be attending tonight's dinner, or maybe it was the haste with which she'd had to throw her outfit together, not that anyone would notice since she was always stylishly attired. More likely, it was her thoughts about was a security expert named Philippe Chatrier, her "date" for tonight's dinner.
"Mi'Lady?" Parker said, interrupting her thoughts. "Are you ready?" he asked before opening the door to the Fab One and helping her from the car.
"Yes, indeed," she said, taking a deep breath. "Thank you, Parker."
In an instant, the automatic door at the side of the car was opening and the roof was retracting as her chauffeur/servant stepped out of the Fab One and, when Lady Penelope was ready, extended a hand to help her from the futuristic vehicle.
She emerged gracefully as always, placing one dainty foot and then the other on the stone path that led from the gravel drive to the front steps of the main building at Charring Abbey. Lady Penelope wore a pair of shoes that had been custom-made for her by her good friend Manolo Blahnik. The were a pink -- naturally -- variation on a shoe that Sarah Jessica Parker and a few other celebrities had made famous, a see-through floral mesh lace pump with a pointed toe and a satin stiletto heel. Lady P had asked him to try to give her just a bit more height while keeping the shoe balanced, and he accommodated her with a heel that was almost 4 3/4 inches high.
As Philippe watched from the shadows just outside the front door of the building, Lady Penelope dazzled him with her outfit. She did not wear stockings on this warm evening – at least by English standards – but her legs were smooth, her skin flawless as she turned on her daringly high stiletto heels and thanked Parker again. Her cocktail dress began just an inch or two above the knee with a band of deep pink chiffon at the hem. Just above the hem, the dress became lace in the same shade, but with a thin chiffon layer underneath for modesty. The cocktail dress hugged her shapely hips and her tight little bottom as if it were cut to her exact measurements – which, of course, it was – and showcased her slim waist to great effect before flowing upward to lift her magnificent breasts and ending just high enough to avoid showing too much cleavage. Another band of chiffon fabric ran around the top of the strapless frock, holding everything together. A long gossamer-light scarf in the same chiffon fabric and color was wrapped once around Lady Penelope's long, slim neck before draping over her toned but utterly feminine shoulders and trailing behind her. In her right hand, she held a matching clutch.
As if the outfit wasn't enough, Lady Penelope's stylish up-do hairstyle amplified the beauty of her classic features by not hiding her high cheekbones, her full lips (coated with a deep-pink gloss) or her crystalline blue eyes. Her old schoolmates would be green with envy, even if she hadn't been able to accessorize with Philippe, but that was merely the French cream on the cherry, she thought and smiled wryly just as the dashing figure of her evening date stepped into view with a gaggled of eyes following him. They shifted away quickly or went downcast as soon as her ladyship accepted his arm; they walked into the main hall under the ancient stone arch, through the large enormous double oak doors Lady Penelope’s hand gracefully reaching out and touching a smooth stone.
“What was zat about if I may inquire?” Philippe asked softly as his lips came close to her ear and she tensed slightly in arousal.
“Oh, my goodness, pardon my manners,” her Ladyship said as her hand tenderly squeezed his wrist before she continued. “This is called the Fleeing Stone. All graduates of the school touch it whenever they enter or leaving the building. The stone is completely smooth as you can see except for this small clip missing here,” Penelope said as perfectly-manicured finger pointed it out. “The stone was originally the birth stone of the founder of the school, Lady Alice Hamilton, in the year 1355. The stone was part of her parents’ castle, which these grounds now stand on. They chose it to celebrate her birth and incorporated it into the main entrance of their manor home. When the Great Pestilence arrived in 1348, all her family died within days of each other, including the then-23-year-old Lady Hamilton’s husband. She was encouraged by members of the household to flee north with her young baby to escape certain death, taking only what money she could gather, she had a small piece of this stone chipped out for her, thus the fleeing stone,” Penelope explained.
“But I do not understand. Such a sad story, why be reminded of it?” he asked.
“Because Lady Hamilton came back in 1355, sold all the house had left, freed the indentured servants and gave them land to farm, except for this 100-acre plot on which she started a school for girls to obtain an education and endowed it with a very handsome trust which, if you can believe, still funds the school to this day. The Fleeing Stone to us represented those in much earlier times being given a chance to flee poverty, ignorance, oppression amongst other things. We continue that honour,” Penelope finished
“So a happy ending for all, but I see no portraits of her in this hall, “Philippe said as his head swiveled about the great entrance way, its walls covered in pictures of past headmistresses and distinguished graduates.
“Sadly there are none. We shall never know what she looked like, but that does not diminish her at all in my mind, rather it enhances it, but listen to me boring you with my own personal speculation rather than introducing you to some of the guests,” she smiled.
“Not at all, but first a champagne and a toast to such a fine school and, if I may be permitted, the word is liberty, yes?” he smiled then pivoted like a dancer on one foot scooping two champagne glass from a passing waiter’s tray, sweeping them clear of the silver tray without a sound and perfectly delivering one into the hand of Lady Penelope, who was swept away by this handsome man like the champagne glass.
“To a wonderful school and certainly its most beautiful graduate,” he said clinking her glass.
For a second, her Ladyship entertained thoughts of making an excuse to leave so she could be alone with Philippe, but as usual in her life duty intruded, this time in the form of several ex-classmates.
“Penelope darling,” several woman said at once and exchanged a series of, to Philippe’s trained eye at least, very strained faux kisses.
“You’re not going to keep this man all to yourself are you? Do be a dear and share,” two of them said while the third simply looked at Philippe with she-wolf eyes, her intent clearly visible.
“Monsieur Philippe Chatrier, Prudence Aspic, Tabitha Bellwood and Bertie – oh, very sorry – Alberta Manderville,” Penelope said in total sweetness and innocence that masked what she really thought.
“Well, I overheard Penny telling you all that dry history, but I didn’t hear her mentioning the equally important tradition of sharing amongst us girls. Now listen to that divine music in the main hall, just being wasted. Perhaps a dance, Philippe?” Prudence said as she unhooked his arm from Penelope’s and started to lead him away.
“That would be my most great pleasure, Miss Aspic, but I have promised all my dances to your classmate and, being a gentleman, I cannot go back on my word, much as I would like to. I am sure zat you can understand,” he said and gently unhooked his arm from hers and took Lady Penelope’s leading her away from the maddening crowd into the dance hall a small look over her shoulder at the left-behind party and a smile of victory to them. She also just caught out of the corner of her eye a stunning blonde woman in an elegant yet sexy cocktail dress lovingly touching the Fleeing Stone.
“Some people can never overcome their childhood pettiness nez pas?” he smiled down on her as they moved about the dance floor and she drew closer into him, her mind again drifting off to other thoughts, thoughts she did not wish to share at this moment.
Dinner was excellent, but the cadre of speeches as is usually the case at such events went on far too long with speaker after speaker. Penelope gave her speech, wonderful and heartfelt, then sat down crossing her legs underneath the curtain-fronted head table. She took a sip of water, pausing slightly in mid-sip as Philippe’s hand found the knee of her crossed leg and slowly slid up her exposed thigh. Penelope put the glass down nonchalantly and applauded the latest speaker, who had just finished, as Philippe’s hand slipped downward and up her warm inner thigh.
Philippe could the feel the dizzying paradox of her smooth soft skin against that of a toned, well-conditioned and firm thigh. His gaze lingered on her and hers on him as his fingers traced blue sparks of electricity inside her as they lightly caressed back and forth. Penelope demurely uncrossed her legs so that if by chance someone was watching them they would see and suspect nothing.
He moved his hand up farther, feeling Penelope tense her already steel thighs even tighter, but she did not dissuade him. He reached the apex a minute or two later, the softness even more pronounced here as he slipped his fingers inside a lace thong. Philippe danced his fingers across the first contact with her pussy hairs, forcing Penelope’s will to exert its maximum inward control against the façade of exterior calmness. Her fine hairs seemed drawn to the tips of his fingers as if some magnetic force drew them to his touch. Her mind raced, she imagined the feel of each hair slowly passing between his fingers as they came down each strand, the heat getting hotter and hotter the closer he came to touching her paradise until that one spark off the flint of his fingers would ignite her. Then it came. Penelope blinked her eyes, nothing to the outside world or anyone who happened to watching her at that moment, but in the millisecond of darkness, was all the glory, passion, fire, lust, animal desire she had ever known or thought she’d known and now wanted to express. Penelope thought she would explode if not given release and then she calmed and it was Philippe who did it with just a simple soft placement of his hand over her mound.
His hand conveyed warmth and loving and peacefulness all at the same time. It was just as sexual if not more so than his other touch, but in another way, and she enjoyed it just as much for the rest of the speeches, Philippe timing it perfectly as his hands reversed the process and trailed down and off her thigh, but leaving behind the unspoken promise made to each other when he first touched her.
Lady Penelope mingled at the after-party for an hour or so, as was required of her station in life and good manners, the latter not the former of more import to her. Philippe was swallowed up by her former classmates, but she had nothing to worry about. Even from across the room when their eyes meet, she and he could feel the smoldering fires begin to stroke their passion into a kiln of soon to be mingling flesh.
At an appropriate and fortuitous break in the proceedings of small talk, Lady Penelope excused herself and with just the touch of her hand to her hair she signaled Philippe to follow her lead out of the hall. He did so after a few necessary minutes and just caught the flash of her calf as she exited the main doors and turned left, he briskly pursued her only to be nabbed by a hand and pulled into the shadows of a brick buttress support for the main hall. The shock of the arm was replaced by the scent of expensive perfume, soft snaking arms tight about his neck and warm, hungry, moving lips that devoured his. He raced to match her speed, but not her passion as he was her equal in that.
“That does nothing to extinguish my fire, if anything it only increases my conflagration, but luckily I know a place, not far from here, only a few minutes walk, if you would care to join me,” she said, her eyes blazing.
Penelope led him along a main path into the woods of the school grounds and then from a very old-growth oak she paced out seven steps, spread open a nettle of vines and smiled as she passed though before putting a hand back through for him to follow.
“What is zis place?” he asked.
“An enchanted garden, complete with a swing for two,” she smiled as she led him to the swing where he sat and she followed, her hands pulling up the sides of her dress as she straddled him. “Actually, it’s a bit of a mystery. I stumbled upon it when I was out exploring the grounds as a first-year student. I kept it to myself and never heard anyone else talk about it. For all I know I may be the only one who knows about it, except now you, of course,” she said conspiratorially.
“Telling a foreigner about an English secret garden, do you not think zat could constitute a security breach?” he smiled as his arms encircled her exquisite waist and pulled her a little closer.
“Perhaps, but as I am skilled in international diplomacy, I choose to think of it as just a furtherance of the Entente Cordiale,” she smiled as her lips found his.
A few tentative kisses was all it took for them to find a rhythm that worked for both of them, Philippe teased open her lips with little effort and hungrily devoured the kisses as her hands gracefully undid his belt and pants. His hands hugged the contours of her body almost as much as the dress itself did, he swept them around her undulating hips, up and down her sides and back and then the climbed up her flat stomach and onto her breasts, a small sigh of pleasure escaping her as she relented kissing him for a few moments and enjoyed herself in his arms.
Lady Penelope felt every swirl and slide of his most adept hands and fingers. Her nipples hardened and protruded from her expensive custom made French strapless bra. Philippe’s soft palms and finger tips made slow, rolling revolutions of her stiff nipples as her head rolled about his shoulder, her delicious perfume heightening his arousal even more. Lady Penelope languidly kissed his neck and across his cheek until she had his lips again. Philippe positioned a hand at the base of her neck and touched her hair, the wonderful softness of it filling him with the desire to undo her wonderful up-do and feel her silky locks in his hands. Instead his other hand slipped between her legs and probed.
“Opening a new front Philippe? Two can play that game,” she smiled sexily as her hands wound inside his pants and took his stem in her soft embrace.
Her Ladyship turned her hands about his swelling shaft. She stopped kissing him while he stiffened magnificently in her care, her gaze on his as a look of ecstasy filled it. She kissed him lightly about his face while she spoke.
“My touch seems to have you in its thrall, Philippe. You’re so hard, but I’m willing to wager, oh, say a Penny that I can make you harder yet. If you don’t have a Penny, I know where you can get one,” she breathed hotly in his ear as she caressed his throbbing rod.
“I will take zat wager, your Ladyship,” he could barely answer as he panted.
“Please, Philippe call me Penn… oh, oh,” the aristocrat began to say before her voice trailed off into a low purr of delight as her partner slipped a finger into her most perfectly.
Lady Penelope arched her hips up and about as the two toyed with each other for a few moments longer before she pulled his obelisk free and he pushed her dress up just enough. Penelope kicked off her Manolo Blahniks and wrapped her sumptuous legs tight about his waist. Philippe slowly pulled Penelope’s shear pink silk scarf away from her neck, the smooth, cool feel of the silk against her skin raised goosebumps on her arms or maybe it was more the thought of him actually undressing her that raced through her mind as the fabric caressed her and her dreams of them together.
“He knows how to please a woman,” she thought. “And oh, my, how to surprise one, too.”
“Perhaps a bit risqué, mon cheri,” she breathed hotly as she longed for him.
“Perhaps, but zat is what makes life worth living, ze risk and ze reward, in zis case both are intricately entwined as are you,” he whispered as his hot breath ran down her neck.
Philippe had used the aristocrat’s scarf to bind her wrists behind her back in a series of complex, miniscule knots that Penelope could feel held her fast. He had kept enough of each end of the garment to hold in his hands to act as levers when he wanted to, and her Ladyship knew when that would be and looked so forward to it as she mock-struggled, heightening his sense of fantasy and fulfilling one of her darker ones.
“It appears I am a puppet and you are the puppet master holding all the strings. What act will you have me perform for you?” she cooed.
Philippe pulled her up with gentle hands at the waist raising Penelope above his erect monument. Their lips touched and he slowly began to lower her when it happened. His cell phone rang.
Philippe guided Lady Penelope back down away from him and then, with one hand, fumbled in his pants pocket for his phone.
“Yes, yes. I will be there immediately. Yes, do zat and have the results ready in 5 minutes,” he said snapping the phone shut with more force than was necessary.
“I am very sorry, for both of us, Penelope,” he said with a smile that made her want him even more. Her sense of duty always paramount, she found that quality very attractive in another.
“Well, I will attest to being disappointed, perhaps when we get together again it will be in more comfortable surroundings,” she demurred as he reached around her waist and undid the knots in the scarf she had been fumbling with herself and freed her in seconds. She slipped her lace stiletto-heeled pumps back onto her feet. “Anticipation brings out the best in me.”
They each adjusted their clothes, then inspected the other and made their way to the exit of the secret place and back onto the path. Philippe paused at the entrance and kissed Lady Penelope deeply a final time.
Philippe walked back toward the main buildings first, allowing Lady Penelope some discretion, although she watched him longingly as he faded from view. She paused for a few moments and couldn’t help admiring his muscular physique as he moved along the path.
After taking her compact from her clutch and opening it, Lady Penelope used the bright light of the full moon to re-apply her lipstick and touch up her makeup. She was surprised by the girlish smile she saw looking back at her in the mirror. After checking the time on her pink cellphone to make sure that she had given Philippe ample time to return to the school, she was off. Lady Penelope’s stiletto heels clicked as she strode along the path, unable – and even unwilling – to wipe the wide smile from her face as her long chiffon scarf trailed jauntily behind her in the soft evening breeze.
After a quick cellphone call to tell Parker that she would meet him in front of the main entrance hall in a few minutes, Lady Penelope came into sight of the school proper. She was already thinking about when and where she and Philippe might become even better acquainted when she passed through the stone arch under one of the buildings and out into the moonlit common area. She looked up at the face of the giant clock that loomed over the grounds just as it began to sound the hour.
Lady Penelope quickly looked down at the time on her cell phone. “How curious?” she thought, knowing that her cellphone clock was precise to the second. “The tower clock is at least two minutes slow.”
You could set your watch by it during Lady Penelope’s days at Charring Abbey, and many students did just that, not wanting to run afoul of the school’s strict rules. Had things slipped that much? Her Ladyship couldn’t believe they had under the headmistress. No, something was amiss and she decided it was worth investigating.
A quick call was made to Philippe’s cellphone, which Lady P had added to her phonebook at their first meeting, was greeted only with his voice-mail. She told him she was headed for the clock tower and asked that he meet her there. The beautiful aristocrat then called Parker to tell him not to wait for her, that she would be doing some late work in preparation for tomorrow’s graduation and that she would have Philippe bring her back to the hotel in town. She then strode across the stone walkway toward the tower, the moonlight silhouetting her against the ancient stone buildings as her hips swayed seductively.
The clock tower was not an unfamiliar place to Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward. She had spent some time there alone and with a few other girls breaking various and sundry school rules during her wild and rebellious youth, before both of her parents had died. She found the caretaker’s entrance in a rear corridor unlocked, just as it had always been when she was a student. But the lights that illuminated the full height of the staircase were all lit. Something wasn’t quite right about this. She thought about calling Philippe again, but decided against it.
The narrow spiral staircase proved much more challenging than it had in Lady Penelope’s youth, not because she wasn’t fit – far from it, hers was a body honed to a fine but feminine edge by regular yoga, Pilates and even martial arts training – but because of her form-fitting dress and the 4¾-inch stiletto heels of her pink lace Manolos. Still, she negotiated the steps with more grace than any woman so attired had a right to, although her shoes made more noise than she would have preferred, and soon found herself at the top of the tower just outside the main clockworks room.
Lady Penelope paused for a moment when she thought she saw movement in the shadows near a maintenance closet, but she didn’t see or hear anything else and reached for the latch to the clockworks room’s door. As she lifted the heavy steel latch upward, something crashed downward onto the back of her head and her pink world fell into darkness.
The next thing Lady Penelope felt was an intense aching in her shoulders and hips that almost matched the throbbing at the base of her skull. Her head was swimming as she faded in and out of consciousness, the pain pulling her through the haze and back, back to another time when she felt similar sensations.
Lady P was back in London, at a fashionable scarf shop where she had been invited to personally select some of the wares for a charity auction. But she wasn’t in the shop proper, she was in a back workroom, where things had taken a dire turn as they sometimes did for the International Rescue agent.
The throbbing pain in her head that afternoon was the remnant of a potent chemical that had been applied to a pink abstract print scarf she had tried on. The chemical had left her unconscious and helpless while a woman posing as the proprietor’s assistant had placed her in yet another perilous predicament.
As Lady Penelope had regained consciousness, she found herself stretched taut atop a large, flat wooden surface. When she tried to speak, she found herself unable to utter more than a muffled “Mmmppphhh!” because of the two scarves – pink, naturally – that were working in concert against her. One had been wadded up and stuffed into her pretty mouth; the other, much longer, had been pulled tight between her teeth as a cleave gag, then wrapped back around her head once more to form an over-the-mouth gag from her nose to her chin. Another scarf held her wrists together high over her head, while a similar piece of fabric bound her slim ankles. Even longer scarves were threaded through her wrist and ankle bindings and pulled taut to secure her to two objects she could not as yet see. As she wriggled the little that she could, the 4½-inch metal stiletto heels of her pink python-skin pumps clicked against the hard wooden surface. But every other article of her clothing had been removed. Lady Penelope, in all her glory, was naked.
As she looked around and began to assess her situation, the beautiful face of one Tracey Hale had loomed over her, gazing down with a sadistic smile. The bangs of her shoulder-length brown hair could not hide the twinkle in her brown eyes as she clearly enjoyed her work.
The D.O.O.M. agent had been hired to dispatch her Ladyship and had been given specific instructions about how the deadly deed was to be done. She then advised Lady Penelope not to struggle too much – at least not yet – lest she trigger her diabolical deathtrap prematurely. That’s when Lady Penelope’s sparkling blue eyes had widened noticeably and she had frozen at the sight of the instrument of her doom. Five feet or so to her right was a long jigsaw-type blade protruding from an electric motor. The razor’s edge of the blade, which was at least 18 inches long, gleamed as the bright lights in the workroom reflected off the metal. The motor’s housing was mounted on an overhead track and as Lady Penelope’s eyes traced its path, she realized to her horror that her magnificent breasts were directly in its path. As she looked down at the surface of the work table, she could see an inch-wide groove in its surface that would accommodate at least two inches of the blade’s upward and downward movement.
Tracey Hale had then used the longest scarf Lady Penelope had ever seen – also pink, of course – to further bind her gorgeous victim in the most erotic way. At first, the smooth silky material had been wrapped around her in a manner that made it appear as if she were wearing a one-piece halter swimsuit, albeit one that left very, very little to the imagination. Her breasts, the nipples now rock hard from the heady mix of peril and bondage, were cupped by the delicate fabric, which was then threaded between her legs just so, gently parting her lips and touching her most sensitive flesh. But the assassin hadn’t stopped there. Oh, no, the ends had been snaked around the curves of her hips and down over her shapely legs, binding them together and running through the gap between the stiletto heel and the curve of the sole of her shoes as an anchor, then upward through the crack between the cheeks of her taut little bottom, along her spine and around her slim neck where it was cinched into a slipknot.
Lady Penelope then learned – through words and sensations – that the scarf had been treated with another chemical, one also designed to be absorbed through the skin, which would stimulate and arouse her beyond even her experience. Tracey Hale had then explained the way the chemical and her Ladyship’s intricate bondage would work together to ensure her erotic demise. The scarf running from her wrists was tied to a lever that, when pulled, would send the jigsaw blade moving along the overhead track. But there was another trigger to the peril. The scarf running from Lady Penelope’s ankles was attached to a second lever, the safety switch that had to be thrown to free the mechanism to do the work cut out for it. With the heat in the workroom now turned up as high as it would go, the lovely young aristocrat’s pores were already opening – allowing sweat to flow from them, sheening her in a Ladylike glow, and allowing the chemical aphrodisiac to enter her system. The way the end of the almost impossibly long scarf was slipknotted around Lady Penelope’s neck would allow it to tighten enough to induce mild asphyxia and heighten any orgasm, but would never completely strangle her, as this was not the way Tracey had been paid to dispose of her victim.
Tracey then turned on the jigsaw cutter, its gleaming blade whirring to life and into what quickly became a blur. Once freed to glide down the track toward her Ladyship, the blade would take about five minutes to reach her. The assassin then stepped back, turned on security cameras that would capture Lady Penelope’s erotic demise for posterity and exited to the sounds of her victim’s soft moans and pants as the scarf and the chemical took full effect.
But Lady Penelope’s keen mind had shown her the flaw in this erotic peril. The levers that would unleash the deadly device meant to cut her to bits were vertical and, when pulled, would even be pointed diagonally toward the bound beauty. This might, just might, allow her to work the scarves binding her to the switches upward over time and enable her to slip free once the trap was triggered. But it was a risky plan, one that left her little or no margin for error. After a few experimental pulls and twists, Lady Penelope estimated that it would take 30-40 agonizing, ecstatic minutes to work the scarves into the proper position.
International Rescue’s London operative fought valiantly to master her own body and its urges as she wriggled and writhed and the chemically treated scarf slipped and moved silently about her erogenous zones, but she underestimated herself and the erotic nature of her deathtrap. After only 15 minutes, an orgasm that rocked her Ladyship to the core left her bucking her hips and flopping about on the workroom tabletop, pulling both levers as she screamed into her thick gag in panic and then in ecstasy.
By the time Lady Penelope had regained some semblance of control, the whirring blade had covered about half the distance to its tempting targets – her exquisite breasts. She realized that her only hope was to take the opposite approach to the one she had been trying and to ride the next orgasm for all she was worth, hoping that her bucking and thrashing would help free her wrists, her ankles or both from the levers that still anchored her in the path of the jigsaw blade.
With the whirring blade scant millimeters from her heaving chest, Lady Penelope had managed to foil Tracey Hale’s attempt on her life when her ankle bindings slipped free. She used her flexibility and sheer will to swing her long lovely legs up over her head and backward, allowing the deadly device to pass by her before she was able to work her wrists free and escape from one of the most erotic deathtraps she had ever experienced.
She suspected that was not the last time she would cross paths with Ms. Tracey Hale, but the D.O.O.M. agent had seemingly vanished without a trace.
As the thoughts of her perilous predicament in the scarf shop faded back into the haze of her mind that the blow to her head had caused, Lady Penelope again felt the aching in her shoulders and hips. It had grown even stronger, if anything, and was now forcing her back into full consciousness.
Rhythmic, mechanical noises filled her ears, telling her that she was probably still somewhere in the clock tower at Charring Abbey. As she regained more of her senses, Lady Penelope felt a burning in her wrists and ankles that immediately told her she had been bound and bound tightly, based on the pins-and-needles sensation she felt in her hands and feet. Fortunately, she hadn’t lost feeling in her extremities, which would have made it impossible for her to escape without help, but she would have to work to get the feeling back in her fingers in particular.
The fact that her wrists and ankles and the ropes with which they were bound seemed to be taking all of her weight told her that she was suspended in the air and stretched fairly tight. As she flexed her toes slightly and experimentally, she noticed that her shoes had not been removed. But the rest of her garments, save for the long silk chiffon scarf around her neck, were gone.
Her Ladyship ha
As her thoughts turned back to her current predicament, Lady P was thankful for the unseasonably warm weather in England, but still felt an unmistakable chill, particularly between her legs and on her breasts, where her nipples were rather hard. The beautiful blonde was careful not to open her blue eyes just yet. Lady Penelope wanted to gain as much information as possible about her predicament before letting anyone know that she was fully conscious again. Toward this end, she tried to take a slow, deep yoga breath to calm herself and focus. She immediately found her effort hampered by a gag. Lady Penelope wasn’t the least bit surprised that her captor or captors had made every effort to silence her, and the thoroughness with which it had been done also came as no shock to her. A thick cloth was wadded into a ball and stuffed into her mouth, nearly filling it as Lady Penelope learned by trying to push it outward ever so slightly with her tongue. A second piece of cloth, probably a scarf or bandana had been pulled tightly between her teeth, cleave-gagging her. Lady P wasn’t about to lose the element of surprise by crying out, but even if she had been so inclined, this type of gag would’ve rendered her effectively mute to anyone more than a few feet away.
The next step was to try to determine the exact nature of her predicament. Lady Penelope knew she was stretched horizontally and tied to something beyond her wrists and beyond her ankles. She felt no other restraints besides those bonds and, of course, the gag tied tightly between her teeth, so she only had to work on two sets of knots. It would be a challenge, but her experience at escaping from such relatively simple bondage – in the service of International Rescue and in her personal life – left her hopeful if not confident.
Still, Lady Penelope wondered for a moment if Philippe had heard her voice-mail and how long it had been since she left it for him. (Without opening her eyes, she was unsure if it was day or night.) Was Philippe looking for her? And what about Parker?
When she determined that she couldn’t learn any more without opening her eyes, Lady Penelope learned the answer to her first question.
The first thing she saw when she slowly opened her eyes was Philippe looking down at her. The bound aristocrat’s natural reaction was to cry out to him. A muffled “Phhhhpppp!!!” was all that escaped the thick gag.
He smiled as he leaned forward and gently touched a finger to Lady P’s gagged lips.
“Shhhhhhh!” he said softly. “I am here, cherie.”
But he made no attempt to free her. The feeling that hit in the pit of Lady Penelope’s stomach was like a crushing body blow. The look of shock and then profound disappointment that flashed across her blue eyes told Philippe that she had quickly put everything together. He was here not to protect President Yeboah-Kode but to kill him – and her, too, if she could not find a way to escape.
“Yes, Penelope,” Philippe said with a thin smile that chilled her to the core. “I am ze one who regrettably had to knock you out back zere. I had hoped to spare you zat – and spare you from ze knowledge of what it is zat brought me here, what it is zat I do. But alas, it was not meant to be.”
Lady Penelope screamed into her thick gag and pulled at her bonds, but “Mmmppphhh!!!!” was all that even Philippe could hear.
“Mon cher, I am truly sorry zat it must end zis way,” Philippe said, holding up a sniper’s rifle with a laser sight, “but I have a job to do here – a very lucrative job – and I cannot let you or anyone else get in ze way. It is now 11:08 a.m. At noon, zat job will be completed.”
Lady Penelope stopped struggling, as it was futile for the moment, and tried to take stock of her predicament. As her eyes scanned her surroundings, her suspicion that she was still in the clock tower was confirmed. A quick glance toward her ankles showed her that the rope that was knotted at least three times just above her shoes ran about three feet beyond her heels to a giant gear within the clockworks. She couldn’t see the end of the rope, but it was obviously secured to the gear. By craning her neck and looking backward beyond her wrists, she was able to determine that her wrists were similarly secured,
Before Lady Penelope could contemplate her fate, Philippe saved her the trouble.
“Ah, Penelope,” he said almost wistfully. “I care not about President Yeboah-Kode. Zat is business and nothing more. But you, you my dear were not part of my plan. Once zis business was done, I had hoped to put zis aside and get to know you intimately.
“When I tied your wrists with zis lovely scarf,” he said, reaching to the ends of the fabric dangling halfway to the floor beneath her, “I felt your excitement. I sensed from our first meeting zat you were an adventurer, too, cherie, zat you and I were kindred spirits. I had hoped to slowly and fully explore ze boundaries of pain and pleasure with you. But now … “
Philippe laid the rifle against a tall gear box on the floor of the clock tower and picked up a long piece of thin but rough hemp rope.
“ … Now we must move more quickly, as my time with you, cherie is fleeting,” he added as he began to quickly and effortlessly tie a series of small but intricate knots into the rope. “You see, my dear Penelope, your fate and zat of President Yeboah-Kode are now intertwined, as your pain and pleasure soon will be.
“As you must know, you are tied between two of ze largest gears in zis clock tower,” he said as he put down the first rope and picked up another from a pile of long coils. He began to tie different, larger knots into this piece of rope. “When ze clock begins to sound ze noon hour, each strike will move ze two gears a few millimeters – in ze opposite direction. While zat will be a bit uncomfortable for you, ze 12th strike will reset ze clockworks and each gear will move one full turn.”
Lady Penelope’s eyes widened and she couldn’t help gasping at Philippe’s words.
“But zat is not all I have in mind for you, mon cher,” he said softly. “Non, non. …
Philippe watched her face and her wonderfully expressive eyes as he continued to work the ropes, tying them together in a pattern that Penelope could not follow but she judged he was quite familiar with.
“I had hoped, no dreamed zat you could experience this under more pleasant circumstance, but I see zat your reputation for being – how do they say, ah, yes, “part of the action” – always seems to win out. Well perhaps not in zis case, as you are the action and it is sure to be most stimulating action, perhaps for the both of us,” he smiled as he finished his handiwork.
“Only ze finest material for your Ladyship, I would not think of offering anything else. It seems such a same to cover even the smallest fraction of such a fantastique body and for an Englishwoman you show no modesty,” he leered.
“I have nothing to be modest about,” she thought, smiling inwardly. The truth of the matter was that, in spite of the mortal peril the sexy aristocrat found herself in, she could not suppress her dark desires, which this one certainly was.
“As I was saying, a shame to cover up such a body, but if one must do so, then it should be with the smoothest silk imaginable and designed from the haute couture collection of Philippe. I regret that it will only have one showing and zat is a private one for me,” he mocked as the assassin unfurled his creation and stepped close to Lady Penelope.
It took him no time to apply his fashion statement to the bound woman, then he stepped back and admired his creation.
“You have heard no doubt the saying, trapped in the web of love. Well, zis is zat experience magnified only with as you know a heartbreaking or perhaps I should say, body-breaking ending.”
Lady Penelope Creighton Ward’s body from her shoulders to knees, front and back was covered in a silk rope webwork, a patch of interconnected ropes all tied in squares about 2 inches wide.
“I’m sure your sharp beautiful blue eyes have picked up already the variation in ze size and shape of ze various knots in the silk. Zat is for a very important reason, Penny,” he said
“I rather think we should go back to Lady Penelope,” she thought as she mmmppphhhed her indignation through her gag.
“As you wish, Lady Penelope,” he said with a small bow of respect.
“Ze web works are designed to stimulate your more sensitive areas. As the minor gears of the clock move, zay pull ze web work about your body, both front and back. I have tied it to the four fastest gears, ze two zat regulate the second hand and ze two zat counterbalance them. I owe a debt to whomever designed zis clock for providing such a wonderful device,” he said lost in wonder at what was about to happen to her Ladyship.
“Once I pull zis lever and engage ze wheels, ze silk will move about your luscious form, stimulating it in ways you can only imagine now but will experience for ze next hour until ze clocks tolls 12 for you, Lady Penelope. Oh, I almost forgot zat special silk rope you can feel against your wonderfully firm derrière moves with the unique plunging pendulum, up and down. Ze specialized knots I create will kindle passion explosions to compete with ze ones ze web works will create, ze same goes for your front as well. In short, your Ladyship, you will be nearly driven mad wis pleasure before being driven mad wis pain,” he said as he smiled and pulled the lever.
Lady Penelope watched the pendulum plunge and with it the silk. Philippe watched her face; she stayed as impassive as possible, as if she was engaged in a contract bridge game, only she wondered who was playing the dummy in this round. Philippe’s eyes widened after the third up-tick of the silk. Penelope wondered why, but then she realized she had been concentrating so hard on the mental aspect of being impassive she had forgotten the physical aspect. She realized her nipples had burst out and were hard, their full bloom of pink on display for her admirer. She felt herself get hotter and a flush come over her, much as it had in the garden.
Philippe only had to wait two more complete thrusts of the pendulum to see more results. The aristocrat’s head tilted back slowly and just a little, her mouth opened and her eyes closed as the smallest sexiest gasps escaped into the air through her gag.
“You’re a devil, sir!” Lady Penelope thought as the silk caressed her soft receptive zones and he smiled evilly.
Penelope opened her eyes wide, then closed them to Philippe and slipped into her own little world of erotic fantasy, all too aware of the danger of such an escape, but unable to control her desires any longer. The aristocrat felt the smooth pull of the silk, her compact, firm ass twitching for the first few plunges as she tried to dislodge its running track, but she soon found the opposite happening. The silk snake slithered deeper, penetrating her will and her desires, and her cheeks relaxed as she welcomed the run of silk to embrace her deeper.
The motion of her ass, its slow, swirling churns, gave the silk a chance to kiss her paradise with a touch only a lover could improve on. Penelope soon found she was lunging into the moving silk and it captured her in its gossamer folds.
She could feel Philippe’s hot breath and smell his desire, she let herself imagine it was he doing this to her, his hands and the sheets of a bed they shared all acting to heighten her desire and race her pulse towards a glorious release. She knew it was madness, but he had tapped a part of her, a deep, buried part that wanted the danger and the dark desires, even if it meant sharing them with opponents who meant her harm. A strange paradox, a contradiction, but she could not vanquish it from her mind, and as she fed off the desire, her body fed off the stimulation until she jiggled perfectly in place, her taut ass and breasts quavering as she moaned in joy and writhed.
“I’m trapped in a silk web of pleasure, all of your doing and I cannot escape,” Penelope thought through pants and gasps as she stared at Philippe’s cold eyes.
He drew close to her unable to resist such an erotic picture as his mouth closed around hers, despite the cleave-gag that parted her lips. Penelope gave only the smallest sound of disapproval before she joined him in the kiss and devoured him with as much passion as she could manage while securely bound and gagged. The kiss seemed to last forever, but was interrupted by the first click of the opposing timing wheels and then Philippe released her. Penelope climaxed again, her naked, burnished body bucking wildly this time, thanks to the silk and the added excitement of the kiss. Philippe smiled at his seduction and Penelope hated herself for giving in to her baser instincts, but not as much as she knew she should have.
“Ah, Mon Cheri, you still desire me, but you will have to desire me from afar. I have to set up for my mission,” he smiled and nipped her lips before leaving her for the window and his equipment.
The lovely young aristocrat felt the inside of her luscious thighs tense just a touch, the movement giving an even greater shape to an already glorious set of gams. Her muscles pushed to the surface as she fruitlessly strained her body against all the raw power of the clock.
The sexy agent soon became lost in the silk again, the turning of the gears pulling the silk net over her body. Each specially-tied knot did just as Philippe had told her it would.
“Ooooooh!” Penelope mouthed through her gag. “This will be the death of me,” she thought. “I can’t fight the silk on my erogenous zones, and now this – each touch is entirely a different sensuous lover that has me in their arms.”
The gears had clicked three more times, placing her Ladyship in no great discomfort, her yoga training and daily stretching seeing to that, but she was being exposed and pulled taut. This allowed the deadly trap complete access to her, each strand of silk seeming to locate and activate her numerous erogenous zones with alarming ease. Her magnificent breasts were captured on a hole created by the tying of several knots around each other as her extended and hard nipples coursed back and forth inside the silk; her motion stimulated her more, as did the silk sailing up and down her ass and pussy. Penelope undulated wildly, her body twisting and snapping like a cobra after its prey as she fought to dislodge her distended nipples. She rolled her body quickly from her toes to her head, her motion wicking water from her damp body and twirling the long, flowing scarf that was still wrapped around her slender neck toward the gears. In mid-motion she slowed and stopped, then exploded.
“MMMMM!” came a lower throaty purr through her gag as she arched and writhed in total pleasure. She completely missed the click of the gears, but her body felt it. Pulled even more taut, her yoga was now useless to her. Her damp, hot body was coated in goosebumps of a very sexual nature as Lady Penelope was now totally laid open for the silk to work on her.
Philippe watched for a few moments in lust. The fine features of Lady Penelope, her delicate, sexy figure stretched and straining to hold back the tide of desire inside her while what little strength she had left was employed in trying to stop time. He watched her lithe body endure another click of the gears and then succumb to a crushing orgasm, her heaving, panting body bucking and thrashing as she moaned muffled screams of joy into the gag.
“My reserves are almost gone and my body is nearing its limit. I must focus,” she thought, then was stretched with another click. “AHHHH!!!” Her mind exploded in pain and then rapturous pleasure as the wet silk delivered her into delight and clung to her.
“Oh, my word, it has me. My bottom, my privates and my nipples … I’m building … no respite … no refusal any longer,” her mind exploded, then so did she.
Penelope slipped into a delight such as she had never experienced. Her mind, always so disciplined, swam in nothing but pleasure. The silk net and pendulum caressed and plunged its lover, leaving the blonde lovely too frenzied to break its spell. She fought to surface, but was pulled into the passion pool each time until she sank in it. Her head flopped to one side and she was glassy-eyed; only small jerks of her body told Philippe she was still alive, and only barely at that. The gears clicked and then clicked again. He took one final look at Lady Penelope, then focused on the gathering crowd and the minute before he completed his mission.
It was the pain that finally surfaced the International Rescue agent. It overcame the pleasure as her wonderful form was pulled to its very limit. At that moment, all the pleasure left her mind and body as the acute feel of death flooded in. She had only one chance, only one possible way out of the most diabolical deathtrap she had yet experienced. But could she do what needed to be done in the moment she had left?
Philippe steadied the weapon. This was an easy shot for him, too close even to be sporting. He watched and waited for his target to turn toward the podium before he squeezed the trigger. His pupil dilated just a faction and his finger slowly squeezed inward, the shot went off, a sudden crack filling the calm air below, followed by screams of panic and running feet. The rifle fell from his hands, not by his force but by that of a pink silk scarf.
“It appears your little plans have come a cropper,” a naked Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward said as she unhooked the gun from her scarf and tossed it to the far side of the clock tower.
“I detest those things,” she added.
“How did you escape, Mon Cheri?” Philippe asked as he got to his feet, more menace than affection in his words.
“I spent six months in India with my parents. Apart from the yoga I took up, I also became quite adept at untying knots of almost any variant. You know you should never leave a woman unattended. Weren’t you taught deportment as a young man?” she asked.
“Perhaps it is not too late for you to teach me or perhaps I can teach you a few lessons,” Philippe said as he rushed her.
Lady Penelope was more than ready for such an obvious move. Just as he arrived she dove to one side in a neat compact somersault, the scarf stretched between her two hands. It tripped Philippe face-first to the floor. Penelope weaved one end around his legs a few time in a graceful motion with one hand while her other hand fed the opposite end under his neck. She pulled the length tight and slipped it between an open space of a knot she had left on his ankles.
The silk snake then caught one arm and next its partners in its grip and they were affixed to the line running from his neck to his ankles. Philippe was caught!
“I’ve managed to entangle many men in my web over the years, but you’re the first in a literal sense. I must say I rather enjoyed that,” Lady Penelope fashioned in an amused tone.
“Oh, and Philippe darling, try not to struggle too much or you will be drawn back and killed. The knots react to motion and self-tighten, so do be a love and remain still until the police arrive,” she added with a smile.
“Speaking of which, I do believe I hear a commotion below.”
In less time than anyone could have thought possible, her Ladyship was in her dress and shoes and not looking that much worse for wear. All would think a struggle had taken place and she could explain away her appearance as a result. Her last gesture was to toss the silk bondage devices Philippe had used into a dark corner of the tower where she could retrieve them later. The door burst open and men rushed in to find Philippe tied and motionless on the floor and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward standing over him, the light from the luminescent clock face creating a sexy silhouette.
“Lady Penelope! What? … “stammered one of the men from MI-5 (she couldn’t remember if he was Difford or Tilbrook). “And Monsieur Chatrier … he was the assassin?”
“It would appear so,” Lady Penelope said moving quickly toward the security team that was looming in the tower doorway, guns aimed at the bound bundle on the floor. “And President Yeboah-Kode? Are he and the others at the graduation safe?”
“Yes, other than some bumps and bruises,” the other MI-5 agent said with a palatable sense of relief. “And you, Lady Penelope, are you quite all right?”
“Quite, quite,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It was touch-and-go there for a bit, but I think I’ve managed to tie up all the loose ends,” she added pointing at Philippe, whose steely eyes shot daggers at her.
“We’ll take it from here, your Ladyship,” the first MI-5 agent said as he and his security team moved quickly to take Philippe into custody.
“Do be careful,” she said looking at her now-former lover with a grin. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him before he can be thoroughly interrogated. I’m sure there’s quite a bit of useful information in that head of his.”
Philippe, now untied from the scarf but securely handcuffed, snarled at her as he was dragged toward the door, “No one leaves me zis way! Zis is not over, cheri! We will meet again!”
“In your dreams,” Lady Penelope thought as Parker stepped past the security team that was taking Philippe toward the spiral staircase.
“Mi’ Lady, are you all right?” Parker asked in a voice filled with deep concern. “I heard the shot and …”
“Nothing to worry about, Parker, but thank you all the same,” Lady Penelope said with a smile. “I’ll just collect a few things here and we’ll be off,” she added, waiting for everyone else to finish collecting Philippe’s rifle and bag before she made a discreet move to gather the silk webwork that had taken her so close to an untimely demise.
Meanwhile, on the gravel drive at the front of the school, a commotion could be heard and a series of rapid gunshots rang out that echoed even into the clock tower, freezing Lady Penelope in her tracks.
In a dimly lit room in a brothel in one of Marseilles’ most notorious areas, Philippe slowly withdrew his stiff, condom-covered shaft, inching out millimeter by millimeter from between the legs of the young blonde who was bowed grotesquely beneath him. Her blue eyes were wide with fear as she felt the knots tighten even further about her limbs and her slender neck. “I told you zat we would meet again, Penelope, did I not?” She looked almost confused as she was frightened as she moaned softly into a thick double over-the-mouth gag formed by a series of silk scarves. And then, just as he was about to leave her, he plunged back in with the full force of his muscular frame as she gasped and the orgasm hit her like a tsunami. Philippe rode it and her like a man possessed, thrusting in and out in a piston-like frenzy as she wriggled and writhed the little bit that she could in a vain effort to free herself from her bonds or to extricate him from inside her. Her slim hips bucked almost spasmodically until finally she moved no more and he exploded inside her.
When Philippe was finally sated, he pulled all the way out and rolled her now lifeless body over. It was now plain to see that the woman was not, in fact, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward but a similarly built but not nearly as attractive young woman he had picked up somewhere in the city’s red-light district.
“Zis is nothing compared to what I will do to you, Lady Penelope,” he said with venom. “Ze exquisite bondage you will experience will make you long for ze death it will ultimately bring, but it will be slow, oh, so slow. And I will not make ze same mistake I did in ze clock tower. No, I will be with you to ze very end.”
