In My Clutches...

Good Role Playing

2011-03-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

I have mentioned plenty of times how in my view the main ingredient in a good RP partner is sincerity and commitment to the scenario. It's not technique - there is no "right" way to do it. All that is required is for my partner to react genuinely as if she were in the peril (or the moment, wherever we are in an RP).

It occurred to me that this might be seen as incompatible with a true "role play" in the sense of, say, a superheroine character who is very extensively defined as to capabilities and personality.

I don't think so. Anyone RPing such a character is doing so because it gives him or her a thrill or some other rewarding experience. So even if the character has personality traits unlike that of the person typing at the other end, he/she has (ideally) revealed something by choosing that character. If my RP partner is fully participating in a fully reactive way, writing as if she *were* that character, then her role is still sincere. If she is second guessing her response, consciously checking for consistency, it's not genuine and then, for me, not fulfilling.

I actually do think I can tell the difference. It's harder with email than IM -- in IM indifference or calculation reveals itself in countless ways. But even in email the truth ultimately comes out.

Oh yes, and if I have written something for you, and you like it? I do expect a little reciprocation.... let me in. Make a little effort and I'll meet you 90% of the way your end.

Happy and Safe Holidays to All

2010-12-21T18:56:00.001-08:00

...and best wishes for 2011....

Evil Henchgirls

2010-11-29T12:49:00.001-08:00

Second only to my love of good damsels in distress is my love of bad girls in service of the villain. I know Vanessa Doofen-whatever (of Phineas and Ferb) is not really evil, blah blah blah, but work with me here. Since I enjoy damsels in the clutches of evil villainesses (villainesses get away with more torture of the damsel before it gets icky or creepy) what better than a sexy evil female minion to torment a damsel I have captured?

Sexy female accomplices were a staple of the old campfest 60s Batman series: characters like Lydia Limpet or Pauline were the perfect accompaniment to the ridiculous arch villains they served.

There is even a discussion of the hottest Batman evil sidekicks. I even like the idea of an unwitting female accomplice turning on her villainous boss, only to be captured and placed in peril herself!

I was living in a black and white world.... part 1

2010-11-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

In an meandering search for silent movie peril scenes on Youtube (a thankless task) I came across a scene of sorts with silent star Olive Thomas. Now, I know a little about silent movies. Certainly Pearl White, Ruth Roland and Helen Gibson are names that last because of their famous serials. But I was a lot less aware of Olive Thomas -- mostly because she did more straight films than chapter plays.

My goodness, what a hottie! Seriously, look past the fashions of c.1920 - do you find her as remarkably pretty as I do? Folks at the time did - she won the "Prettiest Girl in New York" contest in 1917 or so, then got discovered by Ziegfield, and went on from there. She was also the first screen "flapper" -- before Clara Bow or Louise Brooks. Although you can't see it in a b&w photo, she apparently had violet eyes, just like Elizabeth Taylor (swoon).

Too bad she wasn't in peril more!

2010-11-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

Found a cute video from yesteryear by accident: "The Mayor of Simpleton" by XTC (c. 1988?) I happen to like the group and the song, but what's of interest is their spoof of the Avengers video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Da9sc6YDBo&playnext=1&list=FLumd-rMlZsos

The Mrs Peel character even gets tied up! (Not in the catsuit, but still....) and she's quite cute in a 1960s Mary Quant way.

A Holy Grail I did not know even existed!

2010-11-04T20:36:00.001-07:00

Since by now everybody interested in the topic has seen the photo of Taylor Swift tied to the tracks for the new single, I thought I'd put up some lovely themed photos sent by a very good friend.....

Madness

2010-10-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

For a depressing view of the hypocrisy of today, look at this:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Connecticut-cheerleaders-want-uniforms-with-more?urn=highschool-274505

Here's enough of an excerpt to get the gist:

Earlier this year, cheerleaders in one Florida district had to get special permission to wear their skirts on game day, because the uniforms were too skimpy for a new dress code. In a fascinating twist, last week cheerleaders in Connecticut begged school officials to help make their uniforms less skimpy.

According to the Connecticut Post and NBC Connecticut, Heidi Medina, the captain of Bridgeport Central's cheerleading squad, stood before the Bridgeport Board of Education in her team's standard uniform, which bares athletes midriffs and uses either small shorts or baggy sweatpants as bottoms, to make a statement that it was inappropriate.

Medina and fellow seniors insist that the Central uniforms do not meet regulations that require cheerleader uniforms to cover an athlete's midsection when they stand at attention.

"It really hurts our self esteem," Bridgeport Central senior Ariana Mesaros told the Board of Education, according to the Post. "I am embarrassed to stand up here dressed like this. Is this really how you want Bridgeport to be represented?"

As noted by NBC Connecticut, the Bridgeport cheerleaders' plea comes on the heels of a recent study of college cheerleaders, which found that college cheerleaders whose uniforms exposed midriffs faced a significantly higher risk of developing eating disorders.

etc....

Dear Miss Mesaros: your self esteem is hurt? You're a cheerleader for Chrissake! Not a Supreme Court Justice. That's why we have cute young girls in skimpy skirts and old ugly farts in black muu muus. As to your question, is this how we want Bridgeport represented: hell, yeah!

As for the "recent study" I hope my tax $ did not fund a study so blindingly obvious as this -- a "study" with a pre-ordained result. Now, repeat after me: correlation does not imply causality. Repeat as needed to get it into your head.

Studies show that repeated exposure to idiotic studies give higher IQ people ulcers. I think my health, and public health in general, are being attacked by these silly studies. Studies prove it! So what's more important, your self-esteem or my physical health?

Courtesy

2010-08-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

I suppose my destiny is to post this every two years or so, admonishing random passersby like the old mariner at the start of Coleridge's famous poem.

I haven't bothered to go out looking for new RP partners since about 2007 or so not because I am hostile to the idea, but because it just all seems so pointless. And even those few who somehow come across me online can be -- well let's just say they often seem to have been raised by wolves.

So someone rattles the cage on my Yahell account about a week ago, and claims to want to RP. Sure! I spend a little time to find out what "she" wants -- and that is reasonable, no obvious signs of madness, or inbred imbecility. We start to Rp, and "she" wants to send some photos. OK - I accept, and much to my surprise they're not vile.

I continue to set up what I think will be a good intro RP just to break the ice. I get nothing back but a few one word lines like "no!" In mid-sentence "she" goes offline on me. Well, that can happen due to any number of reasons. I am still willing to give it a shot next time I see "her" online.

Next day, she's on. I show availability, and "she" almost immediately switches off. Right. I get the picture. "She" is banned.

Really, is a little courtesy going to kill you? Take up that much time? A simple "no, thanks" or "not what I'm looking for" while not exactly magnanimous, is at least flirting with politeness. Particularly when I am giving (in this case) more than I received, however briefly.

You think I'm an a**hole? Take a number. Smarter, prettier, more prominent people than you already think that. So try a little courtesy.

Spellbinder, O-girl and videos

2010-07-19T10:48:00.001-07:00

Much of "non-mainstream" damsel in distress doesn't do much for me. Specially made superheroine DiD (a sort of eccentricity within an eccentricity) in particular is rarely to my tastes. Usually it's just girls beating each other up (um....not really hot for me) or having their cleavage exposed (um, too much silicon, usually) and very seldom about perils.

There are exceptions, of course - O-girl, over at B)ndage-Cafe, and Super-becca -- the latter all within a PG rating. But by an large any general purveyor of BDSM video usually finds a way to contaminate the aesthetics of overall BDSM into DiD -- and while that doesn't repel me, if there's too much of it it gets in the way.

One of the rare exceptions is/was Spellbinder -- as portrayed in the 90s/early 00s by first Darla Crane and then Kelsie Chambers. I am very grateful to Sasha over at Danger Theatre to have referenced two Darla Crane vids -- they were sort of a Holy Grail for me. Darla really gets into it -- and the cips have a nice sense of humor about them while taking the story seriously.

If the O-girl series is better, it's mostly because it's clearer -- none of that dying 90s video tape. Jim Weathers did an awesome buzzsaw scene -- and got Diana Knight (?) to play the villainess - and she did an amazing job. It just goes to show you -- a DiD video is immeasurably improved with a top-notch villain(ess). Let's face it -- a girl -- let alone a Supergirl - is not going to be too intimidated by a nasally guy named Larry as a villain. As Thurston Howell said to Gilligan when they were doing a movie of Mary-Ann tied at the stake, "Menace her, boy, menace her!"

Furries

2010-06-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

I am not a furry -- I don't long to re-imagine myself as an animal. I don't own a velour suit shaped like a wolf, etc. However, as a kid I watched lots of cartoons and some anthropomorphic cartoon characters I think fueled my earliest inclinations to the damsel in distress fantasy. Here are three I can think of off the top of my head:

Gadget Hackwrench (from Chip n Dale's Rescue Rangers). Yeah, a mouse. She was drawn to be captured and imperilled. Love the overalls.

Polly Purebred (from Underdog). A sort of bizarrely drawn Lois Lane of the poodle world. Despite the weirdly big head, I always wished for Riff Raff or Simon Bar Sinister to use her as bait to catch Underdog. Sometimes it actually happened.....

Callie Briggs (SWAT Kats). I don't remember SWAT Kats. I have no idea what the premise was. But I remember Callie. I saw so few episodes of this I don't even know if she was ever a damsel in distress....

BTW, sorry I have not been posting. Partly it's RL, partly it's having nothing new to say for a while. But I am still around.....

Dream casting

2010-01-26T12:52:00.000-08:00

Even though I now basically never have time to watch TV -- or go to the movies (not that many appeal to me these days), there are still series that I would love to see turned into movies. On the adaptation front, Hollywood need to atone for the atrocious Avengers it did a few years back (Uma Thurman as Mrs Peel? No way.) I also would love to see cartoons other than trash like GI Joe or the hideous Transformers turned into live action. And before you say, "but Transformers gave us Megan Fox!" I'll just add La Fox to the list requiring atonement. (Sorry, but I find her unbearable -- even more unbearale than Jessica Alba, and that says a lot.)

Anyway, I was originally going to post my own dream casts for a few live action movies that will probably never get made, but it would take me forever to do. So I am making a virtue of my laziness and lack of time by opening it up to all: How would you cast:

Kim Possible -- Kim and Dr Mom Possible?

Josie and the Pussycats -- Josie, Valerie, and Melody?

Totally Spies -- Clover, Alex, and Sam (and Brittany if you're industrious)

What is it about rope?

2010-01-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

In most of my RPs and stories, no matter what the circumstances or heroine, I usually end up tyign the damsel up with rope, or something like it. Even superheroines, for whom chains or something less flimsy than rope might be called for, I usually deprive of their powers or else invent some form of rope that is stronger than their powers. In other words, I am a bit of a rope snob. Don't get me wrong -- handcuffs work, and on occasion chains are fun, but I tend to prefer ropes.

There has to be something aesthetically preferable about it. It's not like rope is more effective -- it's easier to escape from ropes than, say, handcuffs, assuming they aren't a size too big. Or maybe it's more that I like the bonds to really fit the form of the damsel -- tape is a runner up to rope. Ribbons and the like also do the trick.

Maybe chains just don't hug the damsel's limbs enough. I don't know. All I know is -- I am a rope snob....

Architecture

2010-01-07T05:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't been around too much on this blog. Part of it is RL busy-ness, part of it is that, at a result, I often don't have too much new to say. I don't feel like I should just periodically signal hey, I'm alive, just for the sake of it. Anyone who really wants to know can just email me to find that, yes, I am still here, etc.

Anyway, now that the holidays are over I have a little more time to be in a peril mood, and I was struck in one particular daydream of how much an influence the actual architecture of the locale in which (indoor) perils has on me.

The actual thought process was: I really like the look of heroines tied up around poles, and I really like them reclining at an angle, but it's really kind of hard to imagine how you could combine those two likes in one situation. Then the idea struck me of the heroine being captured in some sort of contemporary architecture with exposed slanting rafters extending to the floor, and tied to one of them.

I really like moody spaces as locales to distress damsels, but they do not at all have to be old or particularly gothic to fill the bill. They should be distinctive, and menacing in context. The damsel doesn't have to always be in a dark cellar, although that is fine of course. Some of the curvy, swooping public architecture of the last decade (some of which I think is built just to show that it can be) also serves as locales from which a tied up heroine might slide down to her doom. The absurd escalators and tubes of Roissy (CDG Airport) seems to me to have been designed by someone who should have spent his time designing damsel traps. But that's just me...

Just occurred to me that my love of railroad track perils also has this in it -- the repetitive look fo the rails and the cross ties -- much like the stud and joist of a building.....

Double standards

2009-10-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

My last blog entry on role models made me think of double standards, especially in the US (if only because I happen to reside in the US, and am more familiar with everyday life here than elsewhere).

Here is another double standard for you – related, I think, to the double standard that allows Jerry Brookheimer to make TV in which I am subjected to a grisly murder (with lots of food colouring and Karo syrup) in the first three seconds before I can even reach the remote to shut the TV off – but in which it is offensive to women to have a plucky female character tied to the buzzsaw.

Some of you may be familiar with Philip Pullman’s sort-of children’s book series called His Dark Materials. The first book of the three was published in the UK as Northern Lights and in the US as The Golden Compass (also the title of the movie they made of it). The books are a little controversial because the author is a self-avowed atheist, and the books are seen as anti-religion in general and anti-Catholic in particular. I have my problems with some aspects of the books – having read the first one – not because he is anti-religion, more because his hostility to organized religion is so adolescent, so fundamentally trivial for all the gussying up.

But I digress. Small parts of the last book in the series were censored in the US because of references to the central character’s (a girl on the edge of puberty) emerging sexuality. Now, before we go all gangbusters on an anti-censorship rant, let’s admit that free speech has some limit, even if the right is very broad. We don’t want graphic porn in the hands of little kids, for example (well, I don’t).

But Pullman is hardly porn. So even though I really disagree with this particular example of censorship, it’s on the lack of merit of this case, rather than a general (and empty) platitude of “censorship is wrong.”

Now at the same time, this being close to Hallowe’en, one can go to any mall in my area and find specialty seasonal stores selling costumes and props for Hallowe’en for kiddies and grownups. Have you seen what they make for little kids these days? I don’t mean 18 yr olds, or even 13 year olds. I mean have you seen what they are selling for 6 year olds? Let’s just say things that in my view are highly age-inappropriate. Stuff with the same creepy tinge as the sort of outfits you’d find in very disturbing JonBenet kiddie beauty pageants.

So let me get this straight: it’s OK to dress up my first grader like a whore from the Emerald City of Oz, but it’s not ok to let my adolescent daughter read something true and accurate about her first sexual feelings. Right. And I am weird for liking damsels in distress?

Role Models

2009-10-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

One of the hoariest reasons for the decline in DiD scenarios in mainstream media is that the role is inconsistent with female empowerment, out of touch with today’s societal roles, etc.

This is bunk. Women are still treated badly in today’s media. The only change is that they are treated far more brutally than they would in a classic serial – that’s Hollywood “realism” for you. Apparently it’s better for women in movies and TV to be horrifically murdered than imperiled and saved. Right.

Frankly, I have not had time for TV for years – and I find most of it unwatchable. It’s gruesome for the most part. And it’s not any “faster” than before. It’s actually slower – but more visually kinetic, which is something else entirely. I can process it visuals just fine –it’s not that I am an old slow geezer, and besides, I can, if needed, play video games as fast as anyone. But TV is so often just motionless vibration – and it makes me seasick to watch.

Back to roles. Women still have drastically truncated opportunities in mainstream media. How else do we explain the rise of a Megan Fox? Sure, she’s “hot” – but what exactly does she do? Even La Fox has pointed out that Michael Bay films are not exactly about the craft…..

No, girls still get killed, raped, tied up, drowned, tortured. They are either whores, or arm candy, or “bitches,” and they disappear at 35, only to reappear as wise/benevolent grandmas at, oh, 45. Yes, there is a parallel trend of Meryl Streeps et al who are making a go of it longer than other women – but in action films? Tentpole productions? TV? Forget it. How is this better than the damsel in distress as the centre of attention?

Why then is a DiD role condemned as limiting? If you look at early serials, the women were very independent and capable. Pearl White – I’ll say it – was a proto-feminist in Perils of Pauline, doing things women of the time could usually only dream about. Tell me Lois Lane is not a full, juicy character -- unless portrayed by a humourless bad-school feminist like Margot Kidder. (I am not trying to start a political debate about feminism, I am making a point about Kidder’s treatment of a great role.) The political correctness kills the character, and when you’ve turned a living, breathing character into a poster for any ideology, you’ve disenfranchised not just women, but the human spirit as a whole.

No, I think the problem with old-time DiD scenes is their escapist feel at a time of a cultural fetish of “realism” and authenticity. Even preposterous series like Lost still need to be grounded in a visual and metaphorical language of signs that are easily digestible for a docile public – visual soma. What keeps us from DiD is not the (non-existent) insult to women. It’s that it’s too hard for modern audiences to understand a female action character on TV who isn’t a cartoon.

Someone who needs the treatment...

2009-10-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

...maybe just treatment. But no, "the treatment" would do her a lot of good. Tightly trussed up, gagged, and in an old melodramatic trap.

For those of you lucky enough to live outside the zone of US cultural imperialism (a true empire of idiocy) the photo above is a non-fake one of Kim Kardashian, whose slender claim to fame (she's the daughter of part of OJ Simpson's defence team -- er, the first one) has been parlayed into a baffling omniprescence. Since she's not much good at anything other than filling out a jumpsuit, I say we give her her own ""Perils of Kim" TV series.

Sorry for the long absence. RL has been very hectic. I hope I am around to blog more, but can't promise it near term.

Every day, in every way, I get better and better

2009-09-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

For a long time I felt
Without style or grace
Wearing shoes with no socks
In cold weather
- Talking Heads

Well, my adolescent socially integrative hurdle was not an excess of 80’s preppie-ness (although I did go to a sort of prep school, but that’s another story). Mine was that, for the longest time, I didn’t dare resolve my real life attraction to girls with my fantasy life of seeing them tied up and in peril. That really screwed me up for a long time, and when you’re already earmarked for social ostracism (waaay too smart to be popular, not much use at team sports – at an all-boys school) then having an internal barrier to meeting girls becomes nearly insurmountable.

I really thought I was weird. I didn’t really think I was uniquely weird (the refrain we often see among newcomers to the DiD world: “I thought I was the only one.”) I just thought that anyone who admitted to having a kink like mine would subject himself to ridicule among peers and abhorrence from adults. And maybe that was even true, but in retrospect – so what? It’s not like I wanted to, oh I dunno, jet to Argentina on the taxpayer’s tab….

But so bad was my psychological dissonance that I could not really imagine any girlfriend (or, more accurately, desired girlfriend) as a damsel in distress as an adolescent. This wasn’t a problem in childhood – I often daydreamt of some of the girls in class – no later than first grade – as captives of some villainous mad scientist or what have you.

All that changed in adolescence. And it really wasn’t out of shame of the eroticism of the DiD for me – it wasn’t some sort of weird version of a Madonna/whore thing, which I have never had. No, it was my inability to think that any woman (or girl, since we are talking about teen years) might find being a damsel in distress exciting. I thought any girl I told my fantasies to would look at me like I was an axe murderer and conclude that I hated women or something.

And if you know anything about me, you know – I like girls. A lot. And not just the way any hetero guy would. I like being around them, talking to them, working with them, listening to them. Apart from my (male) friends, I typically despise being around guys. I detest pro sports. I don’t bond over beer and hi-cholesterol snacks. I don’t use appellations like “Bro” or “Bud” or any of that crap. However, I also don’t have that nasally superior NPR-listener voice, with that effetely impotent condescension of what passes for the intelligentsia in this benighted country. Neither am I metrosexual, to use a fave term from 2002. I am not nearly vain or douchy enough for that. I guess I am just a very heterosexual gay man. But I digress.

I think I was incapacitated right through college by this very deep split between what I was (and loving the damsel in distress is more than just a sexy kink for me, it’s a core part of my identity) and what I thought was socially acceptable, or romantically acceptable. Since there was only one girl I had a massive crush on in college, we have a small statistical sample for what I am about to say: never, not once, not even in retrospect, could I ever imagine her as a damsel in distress.

However, there were plenty of girls whom I did not have crushes on that I DID fantasize tied up and in peril. Some I thought were cute. Some I was not particularly attracted to. But the moment I “invested” emotionally in one – and it was only one in college – she was, in my mind, cut off from the DiD fantasy world.

Parenthetically, I still remember that girl in college with enormous fondess, even thought we went out exactly once. She is the physical model for one of the heroines in my (non-DiD) fiction, although the character does not really share that much of her personality.

I’m not really sure when I really became comfortable with my “inner villain.” I suppose it started in grad school, which was simultaneously very isolating but also in a weird way socially liberating. Maybe it was seeing people far more socially impaired than me. At any rate, in retrospect, I think one relationship finally did it: my most “ex” of ex-girlfriends. I think I started off in the same failed mode as before, but the relationship turned into something so uneven, so “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours we share” emotionally speaking, that at some point I just snapped and thought of her in peril. So maybe my happy state of mind now is really just the by-product of a grudge match. I never got to tie her up – shame, it would have done her good.

At any rate, I still am not foolish enough to think that I could let the world at large know I am a DiD aficionado. I don’t think that is some sort of criminal societal hypocrisy; one doesn’t immediately share one’s cholesterol count or SAT scores (well, maybe the latter if you are some Ivy League fuckwit – full disclosure, I am Ivy League, but I hope not a fuckwit). One has to slowly ease into DiD just as one has to be a little circumspect about any other intimate revelation. But at least I now no longer care whether it’s right or wrong in an absolute sense.

News flash: Women wearing miniskirts later

2009-09-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

Who says the news is always depressing? UK women are wearing miniskirts longer, according to Debenham's department store.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090901/lf_nm_life/us_britain_miniskirts

I say Rule Britannia! I know for some of you, the thought of an old woman in a miniskirt is not that appealing, but we are not talking about wrinklies here, we're talking about women in their late 30s/early 40s. If you're fit and can pull it off, please go for it! There are plenty of un-fit 20-somethings whom I'd less rather see in a short skirt than a toned 40 year old.

Plus, a few words in praise of older women. They can be a lot more feminine, and that's a good thing. To me, there are few, say, teen girls at the prom/graduation dance who look right in long dresses or ball gowns. They don't know how to wear them, how to walk in them. The limits on dressing go in both directions, young and old.

Plus, as damsels, older women sometimes just seem to "get it" more instinctively. They know just how to struggle, how to be helpless without being a twit, how to strain just so, how to really work it in the ropes....

The Proust questionnaire

2009-08-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

Since I am still sort of "starting over" with this blog, I thought I should repost the old blog below for new readers, since it is pretty much all most of you will ever want to know about me.

For reasons no longer pertinent, I decided a while back to fill out the notorious “Proust Questionnaire” – the list of questions the novelist answered at a party when he was in his 20s. A version of the questionnaire is often asked of a celebrity in Vanity Fair magazine. Now, if all goes well with my life I shall never be on the back page of Vanity Fair, but that doesn’t mean I can’t test your patience here and now. This is probably more about me than you’ll ever want to know….

What is your most marked characteristic?

Decisiveness and will

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Humility

The quality you most like in a woman?

Loyalty

What do you most value in your friends?

The ability to point out my flaws with kindness

What is your principle defect?

Pride

What is your favourite occupation?

Writing, or chopping wood – but favourite activity is skiing

What is your dream of happiness?

No need to dream, I live it every day

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?

Losing my memories, even the bad ones

What animal would you like to be?

A tiger

In what country would you like to live?

Grande Siecle France or Edo period Japan

What is your favourite colour?
Black

What is your favourite flower?

Rose

What is your favourite bird?

Phoenix

Who are your favourite prose writers?

Conrad, Gogol, Kafka, Willa Cather, Gaddis

Who are your favourite poets?

Auden, Lermontov, Ronsard, Keats, Aphra Behn, Rilke, Blake

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?

Feanor in The Silmarillion (warning: he is me)

Who are your favourite heroines of fiction?

Imogen (from Cymbeline), Rebecca West (in Rosmersholm), Beatrice Rappaccini (Rappaccini’s Daughter),Angellica Bianca (in The Rover), Emily St Aubert (Mysteries of Udolpho), Lois Lane, Cinderella

Who are your favourite composers?

Bach, Telemann, Purcell, Haydn, Mozart, Copland, Shostakovich

Who are your favourite painters?

Sargent, El Greco, Turner, Rembrandt, Vrubel

Who are your heroes in real life?

Horatio Nelson, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Cincinnatus, Ernest Shackleton, Saladin, Chuck Yeager, Basil II Bulgaroctonus ("the Bulgar-killer")

Who are your favourite heroines of history?

Lou Salome, Margaret of Anjou, Mary Queen of Scots, Helen of Troy

What are your favourite names?

Women: Siobhan, Isabeau, Cassandra, Elizabeth, Vanessa, Lucy, Callista, Priya, Suki, Rebecca, Citlali, Rosamund, Emily, Katinka
Men: John, Santiago, Eamonn, Stephen, Laszlo, Andrew, Ethan, Alistair

What is it you most dislike?

Disrespect

What historical figures do you most despise?

Stalin, Robespierre, Luigi Cadorna, Iwane Matsui, Donald Trump

What event in military history do you most admire?

Battle of Verneuil, 1424.

What reform do you most admire?

Edict of Milan

What natural gift would you most like to possess?

20/20 eyesight

How would you like to die?

In aerial combat.

What is your present state of mind?

Restless

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

In others? Jealousy

What is your motto?

Sursum corda.

2009-08-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

No, not that kind. I am talking about bad music. Really bad music.

I am in the mood for a confessional, of sorts and within reason. A close friend asked me recently for a deep dark secret wish, and it turned out our minds thought a lot alike. You really don’t want to hear that one. But I had already shared a really embarrassing fact earlier in the conversation, and that was one of my guilty musical pleasures – a song I know I shouldn’t like, but do anyway.

I’ve made a list. Go ahead, laugh. Some of these get me in a mood for peril, some don’t.

“Miracles” – Jefferson Starship, 1976. Oh lord, where to start? The dippy little 1970’s stardust keyboards? The strangulated sax arpeggios? How about the most gruesome sound ever recorded: Grace Slick trying to sound sexy in the b-vox? I let this out of the Ghostbusters containment field where it had been sequestered these 33 years. And it is even trippier-dippier than I remember. I love it, but… any time anyone tells you the 70s didn’t suck, just say Marty Balin for the win. I was there. I know.

“Misunderstanding” – Genesis, 1980. Phil Collins. Don’t need to say much else to damn this 3 minute ode to exactly one (inadequate) musical idea and the perfidy of Woman. But it was a great tune to get drunk underage to. Plus, it – and its utter vacuousness – perfectly summarizes my early teen understanding of relationships. The guy who wrote this deserves to have been dumped – as did the skinny, dorky kid who thought this said it all.

“Brandy” – Looking Glass, 1972. A retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view? Er, no. The chee-zee 70s soft rock vibe just makes it all go down smooth. Like motor oil. This song reminds me of a close friend, one who loves peril, so it gets me in the mood for highly idiosyncratic reasons.

“C’est la vie” – B*witched, 1996. Just in case we thought the sucking stopped in the 70s, here comes along this bit of Eurovision Oirish whimsy to brighten your day and destroy your future.

“Lido Shuffle” – Boz Scaggs, 1976. Anyone who refers to Chicago as “Chi-town” has never been there.

“Jungle Love” – Steve Miller, 1976. The second of a brace of guilty pleasures from two guys who went to the same prep school in Texas. For all the goofy guitar work on this, Steve-o sure put in some dark lyrics: “We all reach a scarlet conclusion/But we live our life in a dream…”

“New in Town” – Little Boots, 2009. Despite how it looks, my musical taste is not locked in the Carter Administration. Most of the contemporary music I get I actually think is good (Grizzly Bear, Phoenix, JJ, Yeasayer…) but this is a great, trashy song. You might know the origin of the name “Little Boots” better in the original Latin: Caligula.

“Let’s Go” – Wang Chung, 1984. Now, those old enough to fear the past probably recall the ultimate 80s-sucks song “Everbody Have Fun Tonight.” Believe it or not, Jack and Nick actually wrote that one as a very sweet, quiet song, which the label weasels turned into the icon of crap it is to this day. And “Dance Hall Days” is a clever quickstep. But you have to love the utter ridiculousness of this song. Well, you don’t, I guess. But I do.

I could go on, but I have incriminated myself enough for one day....

A peril vignette

2009-08-25T12:50:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted this before -- it's an old vignette I wrote for someone a few years ago. Hope you enjoy. Photo reflects the peril but not the heroine's attire therein....

When we last left our heroine….

You had picked up a mysterious note left accidentally near the café where you worked. Two quiet men had sat down, ordered nothing but coffee, and barely exchanged a word as they opened up their briefcases and exchanged files. One small slip of paper had fallen on the floor, and you noticed it long after the pair had left. The slip was an electrical bill for an address – simply “The Rambles” – and you were about to throw it away when you saw the handwriting on the back. The handwriting was neat, and consisted of two words. “Fire Jade.”

You knew you had heard that phrase recently...but where? Then it had hit you: in the newspaper – the report of the jewelry heist. The famous “Fire Jade” pendant.

Your mind began to race. As a journalism major, paying her way through university with waitressing and part time jobs, this might be your big break, if you could unravel the secret of the missing gems! And you knew where The Rambles were – it was the old, spooky house at the end of the lane not far from her home. The Rambles was supposed to be unoccupied – some credulous folk said it was haunted. And someone was paying an electrical bill there? Perhaps, you thought to yourself, you could investigate. You wouldn’t do anything foolish – just see what was going on, if anything, at the old, creepy Victorian mansion.

After work, toward sundown, you return home, and prepare for your first big sleuthing adventure. You think of the Famous Five books you had read as a child – and how they always seemed to run into smugglers. You laugh to herself as you dress in “detective black” – black short leather skirt, mock turtleneck (it was a bit chilly out) chic black tights and your black leather knee boots. You throw on a leather jacket to keep warm, and bring along your tape recorder, electric torch, and a notepad and paper. Your long black hair catches the late afternoon breeze and trails slightly as you walk toward the Rambles.

It does not take you too long to arrive at the house. The dark mansion was set back from the road with a hundred and fifty year old iron railing around it. Inside the decorative gate, the front yard was overgrown as befitted an empty house. The building itself was shuttered up and in the first stages of dilapidation from neglect.

You remain out of sight across the street, and watch. There is no sign of anyone coming in or out of the house, but even from across the street you could see the door was ajar. Was the Rambles a drop off point for the stolen items? A rendezvous site? ”Maybe I should take a look a little closer,” you think, visions of awards and accolades leading you where caution would keep you away. You look around – no one was coming down the street, so the crooks would not see you enter the house. “OK, back up story in case I am confronted…” you say to yourself. “I was doing a story on neglected architecture for the local paper, and the building seemed open and unoccupied.”

You suck in a deep breath and head purposefully toward the house. The heels of your boots click quickly on the stone path as you stride briskly past the front gate. There still seems to be no one around, inside or outside. Swallowing hard to overcome some last minute misgivings about the enterprise, you pull the massive oak doors open just wide enough for you to slip inside.

The house is dusty and filled with cobwebs from years of neglect. The light is very dim, just enough to walk around without tripping on something, but not enough to really see much more than shadows at depth. The red sunset light shines dimly through the gaps in the boards which cover the large bay windows.

You are in the foyer, a generous space that opened to the parlour to the right, a dining room to the left, and a wide balustraded staircase that went straight up to the first floor. The parlour to the right is very large, with a high ceiling. From the centre of the ceiling, around cracked mouldings, a glass chandelier hangs, wired for electricity but dark. The furniture is all covered with white sheets, both in the reception room as well as the dining room

So still is it that dust hangs suspended in the air, sheets of it seeming to form where the horizontal shafts of dying daylight illuminate the interior. You turn on your flashlight and begin tiptoeing through the empty rooms. You can hear your own breath as you walk through the reception room, your footsteps echoing faintly and leaving slender boot prints on the dusty floor.

All this dust….You examine the side tables, the sofas, the fireplace with its enormous mantle. “Achoo!” You can’t suppress a sneeze as you sweep your flashlight’s beam across the walls. There are dark patches where pictures had been hung, and light had not faded the wallpaper. Those pictures are all gone – packed away in all likelihood in the cellar, and –

A loud creak on a floorboard. You freeze. Was that someone? Or just the house settling? You can’t tell for sure, but your courage is leaving and a common sense instinct to leave the house was taking over.

Your flashlight catches a swirl in the dust. Odd – You haven’t moved. It must be --- mmmpphhfffff!

Everything goes dark as you are enveloped in a sheet of some kind. You drop your torch, and try to flail to escape the unseen attackers who have snuck up behind you. But strong male arms pin yours to your side, and lift you off your feet. You try to kick, but you cannot get free!

Finally, a voice: “I got her, Nigel! She’s got some spirit, I’ll tell you!”

Another, deeper voice: “Let’s get her downstairs, Rog.”

You feel yourself being wrapped more tightly in the sheet and now picked up by two men. You buck and fight uselessly as they take you down the stairs, screaming for help, your cries muffled partly by the sheet used to trap you, until they plunk you on the floor, still wrapped up.

“Let me go!” you yell still literally as well as figuratively in the dark.

The voices ignore you. “Tie her up and gag her until I figure out what to do with her!” says the deeper voice. Your blood runs cold as you realiz this is no accident – you are the prisoner of these ruthless men! What had you stumbled upon?

You feel the sheet being unwound and you prepare to make a bolt for the exit as soon as it’s off. But as you try to run, powerful hands grab you by the shoulders and pin you to the ground as another set of hands pull your slender wrists behind your back.

In this basement there is some dim light bulb providing some dismal illumination. You can see one of your assailants now: Nigel, the deeper voiced man: tall, thin, with a thin, cruel mouth, a hawklike nose, narrow, mean eyes, and fingers like talons. You try to kick at him with your pointy boots with their narrow heels, but even with a direct hit on his shins Nigel just makes a face of mild pain without relaxing his hold on you at all. All you are doing with your kicks is annoying him, and you stop.

Meanwhile the other, Rog -- who is kneeling behind you out of your field of view – is tying your wrists wincingly tight. “Ow! Please, that hurts!” you say, hoping your pitiful pleading will make him ease the torque in your bonds.

“Gotta make sure you can’t get away!” says Rog, as he knots off the ropes. You test your wrist bonds, twisting your upper body in a futile gesture of resistance.

“Please! Why are you doing this? I’m researching local architecture and – “

Nigel looks at Rog, ignoring you as he cuts you off. “Rog, you seen her before?”

Rog comes around as Nigel pushes your booted feet together and starts tying your ankles. Your heart sinks. Rog is one of the fellows at the café. Your cover is blown. “Yeah, I seen her!” says the smiling, creepily affable man with the fleshy face , oddly reminiscent of Spencer Tracy – on a really bad day. “I never forget a pretty face, I do! She was the waitress at the caff!”

“No! Please! Let me go! I am sorry I intruded!” you plead, tears of fear forming in your eyes.

“Yeah, that you will be…” says Nigel with a grunt as he continues to tie your ankles. You try to kick, but Nigel holds you fast, enjoying your wriggling as it makes your short skirt ride up a little, exposing more of your lithe, delicious legs. He cinches your bonds, and knots the ropes.

You try to kick once more, but with your legs now tied, resistance is hopeless. You look up at your two kidnappers, you eyes wide with fear. “Wha…what are you going to do with me?”

Nigel smiles evilly. “Yeah, you’re right Rog, she’s a fine bit of crumpet,” the thin man says.

“Please, I don’t know why you are doing this!” you wail, hoping ignorance will save you.

Nigel holds your purse in front of you and opens it. Reflexively you pull your feet in closer to you, as the criminal violates your privacy. “Leave my things alone!” you protest. “I don’t know why you are doing this!”

Nigel takes out the slip with the clue on it. “I think you know exactly what we are doing, Miss…” he pulls out your wallet and looks for identification. “….Alexis. Pretty name. You’re a pretty girl. A pretty girl in a lot of trouble.”

You feel a sense of panic rising in your throat. “But..but..you have to let me go….this is kidnapping!” you shout.

“Rog, please gag our guest.”

“Nooooo!” you wail. “You can’t do this!” You thrash furiously in your bonds, accomplishing exactly nothing. “Please! Let me mmmpppphhhh!”

Your pleading is cut off as Rog pops a wad of old cloth in your mouth. Before you can spit it out he clamps a hand over your mouth, then with the other hand gets a scarf ready. He forces the scarf between your lips, wedging it deep between your teeth. He pulls the scarf back til it digs at the corners of your delicate mouth, highlighting your cheeks and forcing a kind of terrified involuntary smile on your face as the cleave is pulled taut. You feel the thug lift your long black tresses before he knots the cleave gag bracingly tight. Your jaw already is starting to ache. Your wrists are raw, your hands and feet numb from the savagely tight bonds. And now the two criminals look at you with diabolical triumph as they savor your utter helplessness.

“So, thought you’d tip off the police and get a big reward, right Alexis? Or maybe some prize? Well, it looks like you made a foolish choice today!” says Nigel, leering at you and patting you on the leg.

“So, Nigel, what do we do with her?” asks Rog. You look back at the one, then the other, your terror rising as they begin to discuss your demise.

“I think she knows too much,” says Nigel, rising to his feet and placing his hands on his hips. “I think she needs to meet Chip”

Rog laughs heartily and entirely inappropriately. He whispers in your ear, “He means the wood chipper in the other part of the cellar….”

You nearly pass out in terror, until Rog says “Hey, won’t that make too much noise?”

You nod energetically, and writhe pathetically in your bonds, moaning miserably in the hopes they take pity on you and let you go.

Nigel strokes his chin. “Hmmm, yes, I guess it would attract too much attention to this supposedly ‘haunted’ house.”

“Mmpphhfffff!” you try to interrupt their plans for your elimination. They look at you – Rog winks at you – smile, and carry on with their murderous plans.

“OK, then we’ll time it so that we can get away while she meets her maker. Rog – help me get her set up on the conveyor belt.”

You moan a muffled “Noooooo!” through the gag as the two men pick you up, Nigel by your feet, Rog by your shoulders, and carry you through a doorway to another, larger part of the cellar. There you see a very large metal box, easily eight feet cubed, with apertures at opposing ends. A fifteen foot conveyor belt, with high stainless steel sides, leads to one opening in the box. You can see the grinding wheels and teeth of the wood chipping machine through the aperture – an aperture wide and tall enough for you to go through!

The two thugs prop you up against a long piece 2x8 plywood and begin tying you down to it. You squirm to no avail as they lash you at the shoulders, waist, knees and ankles to the plank, then lift you and the plank to put you on the conveyor belt.

You frantically twist and turn but can do little as Nigel and Rog place you on the conveyor belt, feet first, heading level straight toward the maw of the crushing, gnashing machinery! You try to slide your way off the conveyor, but the sides are too high, the belt itself too narrow, for you to move at all! All you can do is raise your head to look directly at the inert, but evil-looking gears and crushing teeth of the machine’s infernal innards.

“Mmmmpphhfff!” you make once last attempt to beg for you life, but all you do is provoke the derision of your heartless captors.

“She’s make great compost,” says Rog sunnily.

“I thought you thought she was pretty?”
“Aye, that she is, but gardening comes first, don’t you say?”

Nigel chuckles and surveys your delectable, bound body as he answers his demented colleague. “That I do, Rog. That I do. Now Rog, you gather up the rest of the jewels and prepare to decamp. I’ll attend to our snoopy guest.”

Rog leaves you to Nigel’s dubious mercy. Well, Alexis, it has been an all too brief pleasure,” the thin man says. “But we leave you in the hands of Chip, who will embrace you in a very special way.”

“Mmmphhfff!” you moan, sobbing in your gag, your eyes desperately pleading for him to reconsider.

“Ta ta!” Nigel says, throwing a switch on the side of the machine. The teeth start to rotate slowly inside, in a hellish augury of your immediate future if you aren’t rescued in time!
Nigel pushes a lever and the conveyor belt starts to move, achingly, cruelly slowly.

You arch your back, but you cannot loosen your bonds that way. You twist and turn, thrusting your knees forward one at a time to try to make your restraints yield. But it’s no use! You are being drawn slowly but inevitably to your doom!

Nigel blows you a sarcastic kiss as he leaves you to your grisly fate. You are now maybe 13 feet from the maw of the wood chipping machine. You are blinded briefly as tears well up in your eyes. So stupid of you to try to get the ‘big scoop.’ Now look what’s happening.

You writhe helplessly some more. No use. No hope at all. 10 feet from your demise. The machine makes a low, diabolical hum, as if it is relishing the chance to sink its rotating teeth into your soft flesh. You think, incongruously, of how your clothes will be ruined!

Eight feet. You hear the footsteps of Nigel and Rog leaving the house. You are all alone now. It won’t be long.

Seven feet. Your struggling is slowing down as you are left exhausted and weakened by your earlier, useless attempts to get free.

Six feet. “Hewp! Hewp!” you try to scream through the gag, knowing no one will hear you.

Five feet. It must be sundown by now, you think. But you can hardly tell in this boarded up cellar. You slump in your bonds, defeated, helpless.

Four feet. You realize this is going to hurt a lot as your booted feet will be the first to be eaten by the machine. You thrash again wildly at the thought, then give up again.

Three feet. You think of your friends and family, how they will miss you and you them.

Two feet. The lead edge of the plank enters the maw of the machine. A horrible gnashing wail is emitted as sawdust and woodchips fly everywhere. You now realize how horrible the end will be! You try to pull up your feet but they are just tightly bound to the plank, which shudders in nausea inducing fashion.

Twelve inches. The end is here. There is no hope. No one will save you.

Six inches. You close your eyes. The plank is being eaten up in front of you. Bits of plywood fly everywhere.

Three inches. Suddenly, all goes quiet. You open your eyes. The light is out as well. What happened? You struggle, but you’re as tightly tied as ever.

Footsteps on the main floor. “Helloooooooo?” says a new voice. You try to call him, but your voice is stifled by the hateful gag. “Helloooooo – it’s Powergen – I’m here to read the meter…”

Footsteps coming down to the cellar. “Look, sorry to cut off your power, but you haven’t paid your bill!”

You see a torchlight beam sweeping back and forth. “Anybody here?”

You growl as loudly as you can. Footsteps race toward you. A flashlight beam on your face, gagged tightly.

“Mmmppphhfff!”

“Why, Miss! Whatever happened to you?”

You can make out the outline of the meter man in the twilight as he pulls you away from the machine. He quickly unties you and ungags you, and you thank him profusely as you rub your wrists to get the circulation back. A narrow escape, but maybe you have a story for the paper after all!

How not to create a villain

2009-08-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

(The enchanting Spirit, once of Hunter's Lair, and compensation for a summer re-run...)

In my travels I came across this website on “How to create a credible villain in fiction.” It was so absurdly namby-pamby, I have to share it with you with a few reactions. Come laugh along with me as we rebut:

http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Credible-Villain-in-Fiction

1. Start by reading Create a Fictional Character from Scratch. This will give you a foundation on which you can create any type of character.

2. Choose the degree of evilness or just plain "ick" you want to place into your villain. Some tales require the viciousness of a serial killer, while others only call for a bully.

>>>>> How tedious. Grading villainy on a scale of 1 to 10 is like saying I like Jackson Pollock because he used a lot of grey. Villains have to be fun!

3. Create a single, traumatic incident for your villain. It could be as devastating as seeing his parents murdered or as sublime as seeing a prized rosebush destroyed by the whims of nature.

The reason for this is to create a turning point in the villain's life.

>>>>> I loved Seth Evil in the Austin Powers movies. Inherited villainy. Just like real life. Perfect! This turning point idea – as if goodness were the natural state of the human condition. Rubbish!

4. Expand on this singular incident. Exaggerate it, twist it, and distort it until it becomes the rotten core of your villain.

>>>>> No. Better idea. Take a normal hobby – exaggerate that, twist it, and distort it until it becomes the rotten core. That’s closer to the honest truth. Example: butterfly collecting. Make the villain's attentions turn, for example, to collecting pretty damsels in glass cases, anaesthetized into a state of aware living death, and held captive and in chains. Why? Just because.

5. Choose a single thing that the character adores without greed or malice. It doesn't have to be a big thing--in fact, it's better if it's not. For example, the villain may enjoy strolling in a rose garden in order to clear his/her head. Or, even smaller, the villain enjoys the simple pleasure of cracking open a sunflower seed on his tongue and enjoying the saltiness of the meat inside.

>>>>> Oh spare me this cliché. Every villain adores a pretty girl. A bit too much. And not in a socially acceptable way. Why should the villain be this twisted? Making him quite normal on the surface makes him all the more dangerous when provoked.

6. Combine the "turning point" and the "single thing" and bounce them back and forth in your mind. How are they related? Why does the villain love one thing so much and is still filled with malice, hatred or just plain "ickiness"?

>>>>> If you have to think about this, it’s over.

7. Take into account the hero of the story. How does the hero fit into the villain's life? How do his wants mix, match, and collide? How are they similar, how are they different?

>>>>> A useful idea at last.

Warnings

· The creation of a truly villainous character can become especially intense. Try writing about him in smaller chunks than you ordinarily would. If you don't take a small break every half-hour or so, you may find yourself absorbing a portion of the villain's negativity, which can affect your relationships with the people you care about.

>>>>> Whaaaaat? Hey, listen: being a villain is my good side, an escape from my negativity!

· Avoid the temptation to start a villain from one of the deadly sins. If you do, you'll end up with a parody of a bad guy instead of a true villain. It is one thing to end up with a character that is the epitome of a deadly sin. Just don't start there.

>>>>> No kidding. I love the line in Serenity where the high-minded villain (called simply The Operative) asks all his victims “Do you know what your sin is?” before he assassinates them. The hero replies, “I’m a pretty big fan of all seven, but right now I’m going to go with wrath.” Then he proceeds to beat the crap out of the villain.

OK, I need to detox. Some lyrics from They Might Be Giants:

I look like Jesus, so they say,

But Mr Jesus is very far away

Now you’re the only one left who can tell me if it’s true

That you love me, and I love me

I built a little empire out of

Some crazy garbage called

The blood of the exploited working class

Now they’ve overcome their shyness

And they’re calling me “your highness”

And the world screams “Kiss me, Son of God.”

Bait

2009-08-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

A great photo from Deviant Art - artist is Koukei. http://koukei.deviantart.com/art/Bait-60780990.

Although I generally don't have much time for heroes in RP, I do love the idea of torturing a damsel with the knowledge that she is bait for a trap set for soemone she cares for. That tends to make them a little less rude, you know? The struggling gets more desperate, the pleading that much more sincere....

NB the problem in RP is that it is hard enough to get 2 people in sync over IM -- villain and heroine. It's almost impossible, in my experience, to do it with 3. The hero usually treats the villain as someone to be overcome and dispensed with as soon as possible, and though I don't mind that, if you do it too quickly it is boring. And, as I sometimes take a great deal of care and time to set up a peril, I'd liek to get my money's worth, as it were.

Anyway, it's been so long since I actually set up a girl as bait that this photo really hit me. In this case, because it's Little Red Riding Hood, obviously fanciful, etc, I don't at all mind the loose bonds or lack of gag. That makes it suggestive in all sorts of ways I like.

Rewriting Star Trek

2009-08-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

Slightly off topic, but for some reason I have been thinking about how much I like the girl yeoman outfits on Star Trek (the original series). I know they weren’t all yeoman – some were lieutenant this or phaser technician that, but really, in skirts that short with the scoop neck collars and the tights and go-go boots, they were all yeoman. And that’s a good thing.
More should have been in peril. Yeoman Rand got herself kidnapped and tied up in “Miri”, but that should have, like, happened every episode if I were running the show.
So, as an unabashed straight guy, I started thinking of Star Trek: TOS babes – especially the guest star babes. Here is a partial list of the ones I can remember – or ones I am particularly partial to: a top five in ascending order of awesomeness:
Lt. Marla McGivers in “Space Seed” (Madlyn Rhue): Misguided, accidentally treacherous, and filmed through only-in-the-60s gauze. Who cares? If only she had crossed Khan and paid the price. But no, it’s the Shat who winds up in the decompression tank. What a waste.
Yeoman Smith in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (Andrea Dromm): She never got to wear the skirt – no, she was in black pants like she was a waitress in some dreary late-1990s restaurant. But who cares when you are this hot? She made the frumpiest uniform awesome. And she’s on for about 10 seconds.
Yeoman Mears in “Galileo 7” (Phyllis Douglas): Another wasted opportunity. Plucky and capable crew girl marooned on a planet inhabited by really big cannibals. What could possibly happen to her? Actually, nothing.
Lt. Marlena Moreau in “Mirror, Mirror” (Barbara Luna): Man, did she rock the evil universe outfit (bare midriff, thigh high boots) or what? And (if I recall right) the sultry purr in her voice? Why go back to the “good” side?
And for my all time fave:
Dr Helen Noel in “Dagger of the Mind” (Marianna Hill): …and Kirk disses her because he’s so fricken Mr-Captain-nobody-between-me-and-my-ship dude. Jimmy, what in the name of Rigel XII are you thinking? I cannot even begin to describe her pulchritude! She even kicks a little ass in the episode, after being a little damsel-ly too. And she totally rocks the oufit. Totally. This is the reason you enlist in something as dippy as Starfleet.

Odd gags

2009-08-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

(Not a terribly odd gag, but a thorough one. Darla Crane as Spellbinder...)

Here's a little list of odd gags I have used in perils. I’ll give the ones I can think of off the top of my head in a moment. First, I need to point out that I really have been giving attention to devious gags only in the last 2-3 years. For whatever reason, in the past I would often come up with unusual methods of binding a heroine, but would then just stuff a nice, cute little silk cleave gag in her mouth to shut her up, or else apply tape (ouch! But the peel off smarts!)
But lately I have diversified my gag portfolio in RPs and stories. As with materials used for restraints, I find that I just try to imagine myself using whatever materials are at hand as a gag. The scenario – the location, the peril, etc – has an influence on the gag.
The damsel also has a role. Mental images of a damsel often will steer me to particular gags. Or, if I know of a particular damsel weakness -- a favourite food, perhaps, or a penchant for a particular pampering – I take great delight in subverting that, and using that against her.
I started off diversifying with pretty standard things – if I had a girl hogtied in a scenario, I might serve her on a plate with an apple in her mouth for laughs. Heroines caught in large spider webs usually got their mouths stuffed with spider webs by large arachnids with a curious need to gag their victims. But then I started to branch out more. Here are a few odd gags used in perils that I can think of. No guarantees on realism here.
· I had a secret agent girl tied up in a car set to roll down a mountain road until she plunged over a cliff. I wrapped the car seat belt between her teeth and around her head before strapping her down in the seat (she had already been tied up before being placed in the car).
· An evil delivery man stuffed an unsuspecting damsel’s mouth with a bouquet of flowers
· A damsel about to be taken by conveyor belt into a giant paper shredder had her mouth stuffed with shredded paper before the tape went over her lips.
· A damsel turned into a tiny winged fairy, captured by other fairies and gagged with a single thick blade of grass. This was a part of a very atmospheric peril based on a Victorian era painting.
· A heroine captured by carpenters, who gag her with a wooden dowel rod fastened in place by black electrical tap in the shape of an X
· In a garage peril, the heroine finds herself gagged with a thin, supple inner tube
· I can’t recall why, but I do recall gagging a heroine by packing her mouth full of chocolate truffles.
· The heroine was to be eliminated by being tied in a crucifix pattern to the arms of a giant kite, then flown in a thunderstorm in a horrible recreation of Ben Franklin’s experiment. She was gagged with kite string. Lots and lots of kite string.
· The damsel had been kidnapped, but had to be taken out in the middle of Times Square and led to her demise under the tracks of the S subway line. So she was tied, her coat over her shoulders, and then gagged with clear tape so that in the evening, she could be held hostage in the middle of a huge Manhattan crowd, and no one would know she was being kidnapped.
· In the middle of farmland, the only gag available was a metal horse bit – used (ewwwww!)
· A block of ice was used once, that would melt too slowly for her to cry for help before she was destroyed.
· The damsel was on a movie set, tied up with film stock from a reel, also gagged with celluloid. The really fiendish part of this trap was that the heroine was slowly dragged by her mouth under a giant hinged film cropper – kind of a makeshift guillotine – until her neck was under the blade and the trap triggered
· Again, so long ago I can’t recall the details, but a superheroine story in which the heroine was subdued by special drugged nerf balls fired from those kiddie toys and bouncing off her spandex clad body, then when she awoke, she was of course tied with superheroine-proof cables, and her mouth stuffed with a nerf ball to keep her powers depleted until her diabolical demise.
· In a really sensuous (for me, certainly) finale of a story, strips of red velvet silenced our delectable heroine at a costume ball.
· In one of my more fantastical stories, the heroine had been taken prisoner by giant insects, and had been glued to a giant honeycomb with honey, and gagged with the same, as the queen bee’s larvae wiggled toward the damsel to slowly eat her. Ewwwww!
· Damsels should take care with their fashion accessories. I have used their berets (raspberry or otherwise), hats, scarves, belts, handbags, etc...
· Another superheroine found herself tied to a rock under giant rubber bands, and gagged with the same.
· A heroine captured in a bakery of sorts, her hands bound with molten sugar that hardened when set, and hardened spun sugar gagged her. She was dunked in cake batter and nearly turned into black forest torte
I am sure I am forgetting a lot of things. But this is a little sample of my devious and warped mind.

Talk talk talk

2009-08-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

Something jogged my memory of a comment made by a very good online friend a while back. She said she was turned on by the idea of being, say, a superheroine who had been captured by a villain and put in some trap (the specific exampel was tied to the tracks). Her character escaped, but the peril was in a public enough place that it was covered on the evening news, which she and her friends were watching. And there she was, with all her friends commenting on the (public superheroine's) peril, while she in her secret identity had to play along.

I can relate to that. A recurring daydream of mine -- not a dominant one, but one which recurs from time to time, is of a damsel giving a sort of TV ad for a show of her "real story." It would go something like this: "Hi. I'm Caitlyn. I'm a secret agent. And I get captured. A lot." Cut to clips of her latest episode where she is indeed tied to a chair as the time bomb ticks away. "Tune in at 8 PM to see if I escape in time..."

A variant of this daydream is to imagine a damsel's internal thoughts as she struggles, tightly bound and, say, headed to the buzzsaw. "I...I can't budge! This time there's...there's no way out!"

I really don't know why, but the idea of a damsel in distress commenting on her own predicament seems to enhance the peril for me. Weird, or what?

Thoughts on a live action Penelope Pitstop movie

2009-08-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

Many of you already know how much the reruns of the cartoon Perils of Penelope Pitstop warped my young brain. That, of course, and Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl, but that is a topic for another day. Anyway, a few years back it looked like they were thinking of doing a live action version of the cartoon. And why not? They’ve made two friggen movies about Transformers, a cartoon based on a toy. They’re making a movie about Hong Kong Phooey, for Jah’s sake. So why not a movie whose characters are human beings – what could be so difficult about that? The Pitstop movie was going to star Reese Witherspoon as Penelope and Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek: Next Gen) as the Hooded Claw.

I am not a huge Witherspoon fan, but at least she is a real Southerner and bankable. And Spiner, if you think all he can do is robot – well, the guy is a great character actor all around and (IMHO) is a brilliant casting idea for the Hooded Claw. He would have the perfect update of Paul Lynde’s maniacal laugh. It seems though that it all fell apart…

Too bad. Perhaps the suits got nervous about the idea of all those perils, and how it would play to the 20-somethings. I think they needn’t have worried; it’s only the 40-somethings who would take the role stereotypes seriously. C’mon, dammit – we need to get a whole new generation corrupted by melodramatic gender roles and of course some good old fashioned bondage and death traps! Otherwise the central task of civilization – to perpetuate bad ideas – will collapse!

Argggh. It is not to be. But perhaps that liberates me to think of ideal casting for today for a live action Perils of Penelope Pitstop movie:

Penelope

I tried to limit myself to young Southern blondes, a discipline which produced this short list:
Hillary Duff – very annoying to some, but I do think she’s pretty for all the fakery and Disneyfication. She doesn’t seem to be Southern, but she was born in Texas, so she qualifies.
Britney Spears – yeah, I know, would have been sexier pre-breakdown, but Penelope can’t be jailbait, you know? Spears can’t act? Who cares, she’s from Louisiana.

Dakota Fanning – born in Georgia, check. If you think she is the little kid from War of the Worlds, well look again. She’s turning into a real beauty. By the time I got my movie green lit, she’d make a great young heiress.

The Wild Card Pick: Katy Perry. I know, I know. Brunette. Californian. But talk about someone who knows how to be very girlie but also very outspoken and self-reliant! Plus she is really pretty, has curves in all the right places, and knows how to use them. Her instinct for melodrama overrides technical objections in my view…. OK, so I just want her tied up and in peril, sue me.

Hooded Claw

It’s really hard to beat Brent Spiner. I have only one very offbeat alternatives.

Bono – Admit it. Isn’t he annoying now? The glasses, the posturing, the sanctimonious hectoring of people who actually know what they are doing? Now imagine all that bad faith in a dark suit, the same zeal aimed at sweet young Penelope’s fortune. He can keep the stupid shades – that will help.

Bully Brothers

We need some comedy here….

Jon Heder (a/k/a Napoleon Dynamite) and his twin brother Dan. Who does slackjaw better?

If we wanted to depart from the cartoon’s identical twin dimwits, how about a pair of physically similar political opposites. I am thinking of Michael Moore and Glenn Beck for example, both pudgy and vaguely thuggish. Their bone-headed semi-theological wrangling over how many liberals/conservatives dance on the head of a pin could provide Penelope with her window of escape….

Anthill Mob

No casting. Utterly irrelevant to the drama. Or better still, if we used, say, the principal cast from some awful pseudo-ensemble movie like Armageddon, just have the Claw kill them off in the first scene, to show that, in this movie, Penelope really is in danger!

Anybody have suggestions?

Poetry in Motion

2009-07-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

(Another summer re-run from the old Yahell blog....)

A very pleasant comment on a very old blog entry set me thinking the other day. The comment was all about struggling as "poetry in motion." How true! And like poetry, struggling comes in its high forms and doggerel, rhymed and free verse versions.

When I look at DiD scenes on TV or clips, it occurs to me that some girls just know how to struggle better than others. It has always been difficult for me to define what makes some struggling "good" and for a long time I just thought there was something ineffable about a damsel who could. Part of the reason was that there were so many different types of heroines, and personality-appropriate struggling meant there were countless variations of sexiness in struggling.

Take Yvonne Craig as Batgirl -- talk about an actress who made that pattern cutter scene work! She isn't even really tied up under those belts - but Yvonne made it utterly believable! And yet her manner of struggling is very different from, say, Jane Seymour in Memories of Midnight -- a mch more traditional damsel in distress. But both struggles are epic, making a potentially ho-hum scene a classic.

Bad struggling can wreck even a great set-up. It's a little like dancing - if you just "learn the steps" by rote, it can be technically good but still look tedious. You have to give something of your personality - you have to commit to it -- to make a great struggle. But, like dancing, it's not a matter of "just go out and do it." There are elements that good and bad struggling have in common.

So here, in a somewhat rude fashion, is my "do and don't list" as a primer on good struggling form. Sorry for making it look like a demand --it's just the easiest way to make my point. I don't even know why I am making it - it's not like I'll be directing a DiD movie any time soon.... But if I were, here would be some of my ideas for a DiD actress:

Do change facial expressions. We want to see a range of emotions from defiance, to frustration, to anxiety to terror.Just presenting one face means you haven't embraced the role of DiD - you're just going through the motions.

Do moan. It shouldn't be too loud or constant, but an occasional whimper of exhaustion as you are defeated by your tight bonds is a nice touch.

Do vary your struggles. Try to wriggle out of the wrist ropes, then try your ankles, then try rocking your body.

Do act with your eyes. Don't be self-consciously "wide eyed" because it will come across as fake. Just think of the set-up peril, look at it, and believe yourself to be in great danger. You'll look convincing.

Do slump in despair from time to time. We have to believe you're trying, and failing, to escape. It should be tiring.

DON'T

Don't move rhythmically. There is no way that anyone really desperate to escape her bonds would twist left and right, move her feet up and down, in anything in a regular pattern for long. Staccato =frustrated and afraid. The only exception of course is a girl who has found a sharp object to slowly cut her wrist bonds. Rhythmic sawing, especially slowly done, can heighten suspense: will the villain return to catch her escape attempt? (Hint: yes.)

Don't self-consciously try to show off your "best attributes." Nothing reeks of lack of credibility than lifting your feet to show off your bound legs - even if they look nice. A damsel first and foremost shold be thinking of her own predicament, not how she looks in fromt of the camera (or spectator). Of course, the obvious exception is a girl who has been captured but not yet placed in peril, trying to persuade the villain to let her go by twisting ever so slightly in her bonds to emphasize her good points. But the exception proves the rule -- what makes this acceptable is that the heroine is thinking of escape.

Don't scream nonstop into your gag. It gets annoying. You can scream as your doom lurches closer, or when you're extra frustrated. But constant yowling into your gag will come across as "something you're supposed to do" as opposed to a genuine reaction. Don't feel the need to cry unless you really feel like it. If you try to fake it, it will look fake.

Again -- JMHO YMMV

Hogties

2009-07-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

(not a hogtie of course but since we'll be talking about immersion perils soon...)

Many readers of the old blog know I am not a big fan of hogties. The name repels me: I don't think of damsels in any way as hogs. (I think of them as princesses). I have thought hogties extra degrading for some reason (as if being left in a death trap could not be seen that way!) And since I can abide almost any fate for a heroine, no matter how grisly or bizarre, as long as I do not feel she was being objectified, there the matter stood for some time.

I have thought about it some more. I think there is another, more concrete reason I don't care for hogties, and the reason was revealed when I thought of the exception: having the damsel tied up over a vat of acid/molten lead/bubbling wax/etc.

Now, I can easily go with alternatives -- hanging her by her wrists, tying her up in a net, leaving her on a verrrry rickety wooden platform suspended by feeble, fraying hemp. Anything but upside down, really. But I do like the idea of having a girl hogtied over a bubbling cauldron of good hot liquid death.

At first I thought the reason was for her: the damsel is face down, looking at her horrible fate. But I think that's not the only thing. I, the villain get to see her face as she dangles over her doom, since usually she is suspended well above floor level.

And I think that's the reason I don't like a girl hogtied on the floor: she is naturally face down. Sure, she can look up, but I really don't get to see her from the front overall as she struggles.

Funny what my little peculiarities turn out to be....

Miniaturization

2009-07-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

(the photo above is of Becca, a sweetheart among damsels: http://www.super-becca.com)

There are quite a few people out there -- both damsels and villains -- who are drawn to the theme of the shrunken or miniaturized heroine facing peril. This has been something I am more than willing to do in a story or RP, and it can certainly be fun. But it hasn't been something I would suggest myself.
I think the reason for this has been the difficult in tying the damsel up if the size difference between the villain and heroine is too great. I go back and forth at the importance of having the heroine tied up -- certainly when I started on the net, it was very important to me. Then it got less important than having her trapped and in peril -- and I think the bondage aspect is starting to rise in relative importance again.
For example, strapping down a tiny heroine with a piece of cellotape/scotch tape is certainly fun even now -- but not as sexy as it might have been, oh, a year ago. Then again, in RPs I am not always looking for raw erotic appeal. Humour has its place as does the sheer satisfacvtion of having pushed someone's buttons, even if they aren't exactly the same buttons as mine (within reason -- there is a sort of elastic limit to my fantasy desires, as I suppose there is for anyone).
But the more I thought of this, the more I recalled my childhood and adolescent fantasies. I can't recall having had any shrunken girl peril fantasies as a child -- after all, at first, my fantasy damsels were the prettiest girls in school, and at age 5/6 (yes, it started that early) you're so small that you hardly need to be shrunken to imagine your sweetheart in the clutches of much bigger villains, ie adults. I can distinctly remember a really cute little blond girl who lived a few blocks away who was (in my daydreams) constantly captured by mad scientists, strapped to a tilted metal table and menaced with lasers or other death rays.
Hey, now that I think of it, she was also a secret superheroine -- I still remember the red sort of teri-cloth body suit (which must have been a modification of an actual article of clothing she had) and little white ballet-like flats as her superheroine costume.) I imagined the villain's lair as an underground complex under the playground in the small park that separated her street from mine. She'd be all triumphant and joyful rather than cocky, just before the villains nabbed her and dragged her through a secret hatch under the sandbox...
As an adolescent, I think I did have the occasional miniaturization peril fantasy. But if I recall right, these were usually multiple damsel affairs -- an ongoing story of (usually) four girls I fancied who were mysteriously abducted by a villain, miniaturized and left to negotiate a shrunken world of model trains, pendulum traps and the like -- one rescuing the others, on a rotating basis.
In this case I think in retrospect the shrunken aspect was just to solve the problem of how to keep four damsels, some of whom are in peril and some not at any given time, from just running away. If I remember right there was nothing epecially intriguing about the aspect of the damsels' being shrunken in itself.
Also, it was not until I started online that I really embraced beign a villain. As a little kid, I was the hero; the villains were never me, but usually the guys I disliked the most in school. This was even true in college. And by the time I was ready to accept my inner villain, I wanted a full sized, captive female for -- well, let's not dwell on that.

Bad RPs -- addendum

2009-07-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the comments! They are much appreciated.

The quote of the day, apropos this topic, has to be from Martha Gellhorn (I paraphrase): "The only part of our travels remotely interesting to other people are the disasters."

- Evil TRU: I wish I could say I only had 3 awful RP experiences. These are the only three that are funny. Most of the others were just dreary.

- Vladi: The hypocrisy you point out is very funny!

- Athena: Someone who just does a bait and switch like that really doesn't need an RP partner. Just a mirror.

My Worst RPs Evah! (Er, no, the word is Ever. Ever.)

2009-07-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

(The pic has nothing to do with the blog -- I just happen to like it. Check out the rest of the artist's work on http://arnie00.deviantart.com/)

Back on the old blog I often extolled those friends whose sensitivity, descriptive talent, and out and out sexiness have in my mind merited special attention. But todayI have a mind to share some of the most entertainingly godawful online experiences I have had.
Now, what will follow are to me distinct from what I would call ‘failed RPs.’ I have had plenty of RPs which just didn’t click – a simple lack of compatibility, or perhaps I just wasn’t properly tuned in to what the girl wanted. It happens, and I’ll take the blame. Who knows, perhaps I am on someone else Worst Evah! list. But I would not accuse of those people of being bonkers – we just didn’t mesh, for whatever reason, but I still think of them as reasonable people.
No, these are different. The experiences that follow were not abusive, but so weird as to be from an RP Twilight Zone. I have to take extra care in dissembling here, because I really have no desire to wound people. I doubt any of the people I will recount here (in disguised form of course) will be reading. But you never know – one person’s dreck is another’s gold. Anyway, I will change enough details to make it very hard to discern the exact person I am talking about in each of these examples.

Bad RP #1:
This person wanted to be a superheroine with a secret identity. OK, no problem. Then it turned out “she” (well, I have my doubts about this part too) wanted to be captured in her secret identity so she could not turn into the superheroine. Also, OK – a standard melodrama trope, and kinda fun if handled right.
Then the RP began. I lured her into a warehouse, and captured her. Tied her to a chair. Started an interrogation. I thought she might like that, given the need to protect her true identity. I asked her questions. Response? “You fiend!” Not just once, but every time.
Ohhhh-kay. Maybe that was a hint? I should threaten her? I tried that. “Talk or else (insert fate worse than death). Response? “You fiend.”
No matter what I did, the response was “You fiend.” At first I thought I was just not hitting the right button, not giving “her” her thing. But no matter what I tried, I got the same reply, and no guidance as to what the next step ought to be.
Now, I mention this because an absolutely fantastic RPer – and a close friend – also resorts to calling me “Fiend!” when I trap her. But in this other case, it’s perfect. It’s just one reaction amidst so many others. In this other case, because I am getting so much information about what’s going on in her mind, when she says “you fiend!” it just sends me.

Bad RP #2:
This person was less obviously a man, but I still ended up thinking she too was a faker. She wanted a standard kidnapping for ransom. OK, no problem. She was rather specific about setting, and that should have been my first warning. I had to arrange a rather elaborate kidnapping given the setting – but that was OK, as I like the challenge.
Then things started to go all pear-shaped. I was going to take her to somewhere isolated to be held captive until the ransom demands were made. No, she wanted to be sold into white slavery. Ohhh-kay, I thought it was for ransom, but OK, I was willing to adapt midstream.
Every step of the way, whatever choice I made, it was wrong. Something extremely specific and not divinable beforehand had to be inserted as a correction pretty much with every line I sent her way. I was taking her in a van. No good. Must be a plane. OK, the van takes you to an airstrip. Then she had to be loaded into a crate. Etc, etc.
It was so specific that I felt I was just there to provide specific text for her amusement. It was ridiculous, and I just dropped it. Nevertheless, like bad RP #1, she kept coming back for more every time I showed online. That, by the way, was why I had severe suspicions about the sex of both these RPers – their relentless hitting on me any time I was online was an indicating sign of maleness. They were always on, they never gave it a rest – yep, they were guys.

Bad RP #3:
This was so loopy it was amusing after a while. I shouldn’t even call it a bad RP as we never got that far.
This one had me raising an eyebrow early. She volunteered she was 18, shy, and (this part was likely true) not a native English speaker – yet she had found my profile and asked me to RP with her. Right.
Anyway, she wanted to play a particular well-known character. Not a problem. Then she wanted me to play not just the villain but also the romantic male lead who also is captured alongside her. Again, in principal not a problem, but the way she seemed to stress this before we even got started was….odd.
I tried to start an RP – and I couldn’t get three words out before I was asked about back story. OK, we spent – I do not exaggerate – 3 sessions, about an hour each, working out a detailed back story. Every time I tried to pin a decision – any decision – on her, there were all sorts of complications. Finally we agreed. I tried to begin the RP again, and at the third line I got another query why the characters were behaving this way – wouldn’t it make more sense to do it another way? Another way completely different from what we had spent three hours working out? Forget it. I just started laughing at this end, glad that only three online hours of mine had been wasted on this bizarre set up.

Conclusions from Clinical Trials

So, what have we learned? Well, we have not learned that I attract psychos. Not at all. Some of my best online friends are ones that came to me, not vice versa.
I have learned, however, that if something strikes me as odd at the outset, that person usually turns into a nutjob. Also, one of the usual attributes of male fakers is – not so much annoying persistence, but monomania combined with fricken ubiquity. God, don’t you people have jobs? Hobbies? Trips to the convenience store?
There are exceptions – someone who was posing as a girl and turned out to be a man (and someone whose friendship I still esteem very highly) had mercifully none of the more obvious male giveaways in his female persona. He most definitely has a job, and most definitely is not online all the time, and – most importantly – does not treat me as if I were put on this earth for his amusement. He is a friend. He was not faking that part. These three others above – well, they were just fakes about more things – and more important things -- than their sex.

A peculiarity of mine

2009-07-08T09:56:00.001-07:00

Right. Like the whole DiD thing didn't make me peculiar already. I came across this photo (on Deviant Art: http://dazzle-63.deviantart.com/) and it made me think why I found the damsel in this photo so appealing when the thought of actually going to a Hooter's "restaurant" fills me with acid reflux.

For those of you outside of the reach of US cultural imperialism, Hooter's is a restaurant and bar chain whose wait staff consist of nubile blondes attired like Dazzle in the photo. To give you an idea of the mental level of the clientele, I will point out that the decor includes yellow diamond shaped traffic warning signs such as "Danger - blonde thinking". Lotsa laffs. Oh yes -- the food, from someone who has actualy been to one, is crap. Not that that matters.

Anyway, I don't have anything against a girl making a few extra bucks by letting some neanderthal alternatively drool over/patronize her. Nor do I assume anything about the wait staff. All I will say is that I don't find the idea terribly enticing.

But there is somethign about the girl next door - someone who obviously is not working at Hooter's - who allows herself to get dressed up in a slightly silly outfit like this. Dazzle also happens to be quite pretty (IMHO) on her own, non-blonde-party-girl terms. Maybe it's the message that this isn't just work for her - that she is willing to dress like this as a departure from the everyday. Maybe she even likes it. That (to me) is quite a turn on.

I think that appeal can be extended. I am not sure I am terribly excited by real ballerinas in a ballet. But a girl with nice legs who would dress up lke that (and, ideally, fall into peril)? Magic.

That "off duty" willingness to engage in a little fantasy might be so appealing because it strips away part of my "character" facade as well. I love, for example, RPs with women playing superheroines. In the little world we create online, she is a superheroine and I am a villain. Thinking about a woman who is obviously not a superheroine makes it easier for me to imagine a real life peril for her. I'm not talking about stalking someone - believe me, I just don't think that way. I am suggesting that it makes it easier for me to imagine the fantasy of simulating the fantasy in real time, in the flesh. The photo above makes it easier for me to imagine her really tied up in front of me, enjoying the role but revealing her real feeligns toward the DiD fantasy.

Peril fantasy du jour

2009-07-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

(The photo has only the vaguest conection to the peril below, but, hey, I like it...)

I had been thinking of how best to tie a girl to a chair (we villains have to think of these things you know) and I was about to write about arms behind versus arms in front, and how the least preferable way to tie her for me was to tie each wrist to a separate arm of a chair. (Too loose, plus half the fun is watching a damsel twist her wrists prettily...) Well, instantly I thought of an exception to that preference, and that led to a write up of the following little vignette. Hope you enjoy it.
The first thing Callista became aware of was the pounding inside her head.
The secret agent girl had confronted her prey – the global criminal mastermind known only as “The Engineer” – after having tracked him down to his hidden lair deep in forgotten, abandoned air raid shelters directly under the busiest streets of the city. She had him cornered….and then the billowing white fog surrounded her. Knockout gas, she realized too late. Agent Callista tried to evade the soporific fumes, but her knees buckled almost instantly, her head started to swim, her gun dropped out of her hand, and….
…and the second thing Callista became aware of was that she was seated in a chair – and tied up in it. Her wrists, still covered by her long black silk gloves, were tightly tied with white nylon straps to the wide arms of the massive stainless steel chair, and her ankles, sheathed in sleek black leather knee boots, were bound snugly to each other and to a rod that connected the two front legs of the chair. She twisted in her bonds, testing them for weaknesses, her skin tight black catsuit squeaking slightly as she wriggled and flexed her lithe, trained muscles. But to no avail: the straps dug into her wrists, and pinned her ankles, and as she struggled Callista noticed yet more straps lashing her to the chair about her waist.
She was not yet able to truly focus her eyes; the knockout gas was wearing off slowly. She was in some large room; a basement, windowless. “Typical villain hideout,” Callista muttered, determined to escape. She pulled at her restraints some more, the effort forcing little gasps from her as she strained her muscles with greater effort but no more effectiveness.
“Ah, our guest has awoken!”
Callista snapped her head angrily toward the voice. A tall ashen faced man in a white lab smock was approaching her. Several hideously sharo and curved metal implements poked out from the breast pocket of his smock. Callista recoiled momentarily, then tugged ferociously at her bonds and addressed her captor angrily.
“You’d better let me go if you know what’s good for you!”
The villain smiled as he came up to her. “Oh, I think you should develop some manners very soon if you know what’s good for you!”
Callista twisted helplessly in the white nylon straps, trying to pull out one wrist, then the other, grinding her catsuit-clad hips into the chair as she tussled with her bonds. “You don’t scare me, Mr Engineer!” she vowed
The villain laughed with diabolical amusement. “You know my name? Well, just my nom de guerre, of course. You are no closer to discovering my secrets than any other fool in your pathetic little counter-espionage agency. I, on the other hand, know all about you, Agent Callista Barnes…” The fiend pulled out a PDA, punched a button, and began to read. “Echelon 1 secret agent, ooh, well done, top rank! Hmmm, martial arts trained, black belt aikido and judo, infiltration expert – oops, that didn’t work out so well today hah hah….various commendations, letters of thanks from world leaders, yadda yadda, oh, here’s an interesting thing: always works alone – tsk tsk, I guess no one will be coming to rescue our pretty little spy girl today!”
Callista fumed and tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder with a shrug in order to focus her blue eyes straight at the smug villain before her. “If you kept reading, Mr Engineer, you’ll see I have never needed rescue – 100% mission completion rate.”
“That’s Dr Engineer, PhD to you my fetching little captive.”
“That’s redundant, douchebag –“
“Not when you have 2 PhD’s, crumpet.”
.”—and your language is starting to really annoy me!” Callista spat out in fury.
“Don’t split your infinitives, cupcake – as long as we Strunk & Whiting it.”
“OK, I’ll just split various parts of your anatomy when I get free of – uhnnn! these restraints.”
The Engineer let out a low, menacing chuckle. “Oh, but you won’t get free my dear. Go ahead, struggle all you want, you can’t escape. At least, not in time. You see, I know all about your secret agent bag of tricks, the little tools you have – or rather, had hah hah hah….”
Callista looked down at her pinned wrists and fussed pointlessly in her bonds, growling in frustration.
The villain giggled and drank in the sight of his prisoner, her entire body wriggling in futile efforts to free herself, from her blond flowing hair, down her high-collared catsuit all the way to her sleek high heeled boots. “How deliciously sexy you are when you struggle, Callista, all tied up and in my clutches!”
Callista let out a savage “oooh” of frustrastion as the straps defeated her again. She glared at the Engineer. “Well, what are you going to do with me? Bore me to death?”
“Oh no. I have gone to great lengths to set up an intricate demise for you.” The villain flicked a light switch and the entire darkened area before the captive spy girl was suddenly illuminated. Callista gasped as she saw a huge model train set all laid out in front of her, complete with little model landscape, buildings, streams, trees and hills. The tracks were set up like a crazy spaghetti pattern, criss-crossing and switching with bewildering frequency. The whole set up covered several square yards, and filled up a significant proportion of what was revealed as a huge underground warehouse-sized bunker.
“Aren’t you a little old for toys, Doctor?” Callista said mockingly.
“Look a little closer, dearie.”
Callista did as she was told. Soon enough she understood what the Engineer was talking about. Near her, across the tracks, lay a little figurine of a girl in an incongruous black catsuit, just like the one Callista wore. The figurine, the real spy girl could tell, was tied to the tracks with what appeared to be pipecleaner.
“You have one weird hobby,” she said.
The Engineer was unfazed. “That little figuring represents, you, my dear. The figurine is made of metal, and is attached to wires that go all the way the the city’s electrical mains – more voltage than third rail of the city subway lines. Now, I will place two train engines on the track….”
The villain stepped over and placed one train on one side of the display, then placed the other one on the other side of the track array. He continued his explanation. “If either of these trains runs over the little damsel-in-distress figurine of you, the circuit will be completed, run right up the steel chair to which you are so exquisitely tied, and incinerate you to a cinder.”
“You….you fiend!” was all Callista could say, to the Engineer’s great amusement.
“Oh, now, I’ll give you a sporting chance. You see how many switches there are on this track? Confusing, isn’t it?” The Engineer pushed another wall button. Callista gasped as two panels slid back on the top of her steel chair arms right under the palms of her hands. Up from the interior of the wide chair arms came two groups of small red buttons, each arranged in rows within reach of the spy girl’s fingers, despite the nylon strips restraining her wrists.
“How do I know which button controls which switch?” Callista asked.
“Hah hah hah, that’s the great part – you don’t!” the villain roared with laughter. “But I tell you what – hee hee hee…” the Engineer tried to contain his glee, “if you manage to make the two engines ram each other and derail, the mechanism is so that the springs holding your nylon straps in place will release. You’ll be free, if your pretty little head can figure it out in time.”
“No…don’t you dare!” Callista growled as the Engineer threw another switch. The model train display’s lights flickered, then shone true as the engines started to move slowly.
“The trains will pick up speed the longer this game goes on, Callista my pet, hah hah hah…”
“You…you bastard! You’ll – uhnnn! – you’ll never get away with this!” Callista said angrily as she began more furious tugging on the straps.
“OK, I think I’ve heard enough out of you!” the Engineer walked back toward his captive and pulled a thick silk handkerchief out of his pocket.
“No! Please don’t ga—mmmmpphhhfff!” The secret agent girl’s plea was truncated as her captor pushed the silk wad into her mouth, then swiftly took out another long handkerchief, wedged it between her teeth, and pulled the cleave gag tight, knotting it in the back and making sure her long blond hair flowed freely over her constricting gag.
Callista looked nervously at the villain, her blue eyes open with silent pleading, her bravery all but eroded by the hopelessness of her predicament.
“I’d pay attention to the melodrama unfolding before you, pretty Callista,” the Engineer said. “I think your prefect mission completion record is going to suffer a little blemish….”
“Mmppphhfff!” Callista could only release a muffled cry, then turned anxiously to the toy train display below. The track set up was crazy, toy tracks went this way and that, from the far wall of the huge underground lair practically to her bound, booted feet.
Callista started pushing buttons to see what would happen, but if it was easy to figure out which button activated which switch, it was far more difficult to determine the effect of a switch in all that crazy, loopy track layout. Did a switch put a train on the path toward the bound figurine before her? Or did it take her out of harm’s way? It was almost impossible to tell until the trains had run a few circuits – but Callista couldn’t let that happen. And watching two trains made the task even harder!
“Farewell, Miss Barnes.” The Engineer drank in the sight of his beautiful, bound captive, turned, and walked away, shutting the door behind him. Callista was now alone, facing her own electrocution!
She cringed as one train rounded a bend and suddenly seemed on course to run over the miniature version of her! But no – that was an optical illusion given by the parallel tiny tracks at such a distance.
Callista moaned into her gag as she flezed her wrists and tested out the buttons. She could soon identify what each did but – what was the use? The trains were now picking up speed, and Callista writhed instinctively against her bonds – all to no avail!
As one of the trains rounded a corner to her right, Callista realized it would pass on the tracks closest to her feet in a few seconds. A desperate plan came to her. If she could just….kick the train off the track!
She would have just one chance at this. “Come on, Callie, come on…” she found herself thinking as the toy train approached. It was fifteen feet away, then ten…. The tied-up spy girl prepared herself as the train came closest to her. Five feet away….two feet – now!
Callista kicked with all her might, pushing her bound ankles to the limit the straps would allow, hoping the pointy toes of her boots would connect with the train as it passed by. But the straps were too tight! She missed, and the train continued on its way.
Now the other train seemed to be heading for the figurine damsel in distress. Callista had neglected it as she focussed on her useless effort to derail the other train. She mewed with terror and started to push the small red buttons on the arm rests frantically as the train seemed on a collision course with the miniature spy girl in the display!
Was this the end for our sexy spy girl? How could Callista ever escape?

Contraptions

2009-06-28T18:10:00.001-07:00

Oh, how I love contraptions. Impersonal devices or set ups that slowly draw a damsel to her destruction are in my view far more fun than personally turning the screws on a damsel stretched out on a rack. I can’t be alone: I think this is the reason for the popularity of the clichéd “damsel tied to the tracks” peril. The train is just coming, nothing personal, just deadly – and there is nothing the damsel can do to stop it.
That principle – impersonal implacability – is the guiding one behind my love of contraptions. If they are scary looking, so much the better. But they should also have an elegant simplicity to them. As a good friend recently said, “If you need to enclose a diagram to make it clear, you’ve gone too far.”
Indeed, that is what separates a true villain from a Promethean anti-hero like Wile E Coyote. Mr Coyote is to be pitied more than feared – a victim of the Acme Company’s mail order promises and made-in-China materials. But I digress.
For the last few months I have been stressing atmosphere and setting in my stories. The perils themselves have tended to be minor embellishments of classics. (An example in a recent story I wrote for Peril Place was filling a dunking booth with highly corrosive sodium hydroxide pellets – this is just a solid form of Drano, and – uh, trust me on this one – it dissolves flesh quickly and horribly.)
I suppose some really fiendish traps are those which have two or more damsels in peril, and making them choose which one lives and which one dies. In another story I wrote a while back for Peril Place (yeah, the place deserves a plug!) three damsels were tied on a melting ice floe over a pool filled with hammerhead sharks. Eventually the floe would shrink until not all three could stay on it. Who would go in first?
There was another very complicated set up later in the same story with three interrelated perils occurring simultaneously. One damsel was trapped in a tank filling with water, with a float attached to a servomechanism that would take a second damsel, who was tied to a log, closer and closer to a buzzsaw. The first damsel could hold down the float and slow down the second damsel’s buzzsaw peril, but drown more quickly as a result. The second damsel could grab a rope that would hold back the log for a little while, but said rope went round the neck of damsel number 3, who would be strangled thereby. Damsel 3 was tied to a chair between some ominous industrial capacitors, with a rod that would slowly descend, eventually connecting a circuit that would discharge the capacitors and incinerate the heroine. Two pedals were within reach of damsel 3’s tidily bound feet. One pedal would drain water out of the first damsel’s water chamber, but, alas, hasten the rod that would incinerate damsel 3. The other pedal slowed down the rod, but accelerated pace of water pouring into damsel 1’s booth, thus speeding up the demise of both the other damsels. Oh, how I enjoyed working that one out…)
I haven’t been doing as many of those because I haven’t been doing many multiple damsel perils lately. I tend to focus on one-on-one perils. I know some heroines really want company (I know of one who wants to do a campy/sexy version of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl – and yes, I would love that!). But it is hard to give equal detailed attention to two heroines at the same time in the same story. So usually my multiple damsel/ extra complicated traps are for public consumption, and for quite a while I was so busy with private peril stories I really couldn’t do any public ones.
I hope I do get the time to do a few more public ones. No promises when, though. I am always looking for damsel, er, volunteers….

Emma Davies and the Great Race - Chapter 6: Death in Delhi

2009-06-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

(When we last left Emma, she was about to be sacrificed on a funeral pyre...)

You writhe helplessly in your tight rope bonds, lashed decoratively to the top of a small tower of wood and wicker, as a procession of grieving Indians moves toward you, the men bearing torches to turn that same ziggurat into a funeral pyre – yours! Behind you, the Taj Mahal in all its splendour begins to turn a delicate rose colour as the setting sun seems to make the marbel glow – a beautiful foreshadowing of the terrible immolation about to befall you!

Osgoode continues to gloat as the procession advances down the long plaza toward you. “In theory, the practice of sati -- wives burned on their husbands pyres -- was banned in 1850 by Her Majesty’s Administration,” Osgoode says, placing a beautiful violet orchid in your hair at your left ear, “but try telling these people that. Ah, look!” he says, directing your attention to two men in the middle of the procession, “they have already carved your mahasati -- your ‘heroine stone’ as they call it. In other words, your tombstone!”

Two men in saffron robes and turbans carry a heavy stele of granite carved with words in Sanskrit and depictions of your heroic – though involuntary – self sacrifice. The crowd is beginning to gather around you, weeping and chanting as they prepare to set you on fire!

“Who says the locals aren’t industrious?” Osgoode says, checking your bonds one last time to make sure they are still tight. He needn’t have bothered – your struggles have proven to you how hopeless your situation is. The ropes bite into your bare wrists and ankles; the gag is making your mouth parched. Your eyes well up with tears as Osgoode blows you a cruelly sarcastic kiss. You turn away to deny him the satisfaction of seeing your distress, and your eyes are once again arrested by the majesty of the Taj Mahal. You dissolve in a miserable combination of fear and loathing toward the villain, and awesome insignificance before the majesty of the architectural wonder.

The nasty lawyer lets a smug smile emerge from his thin lips as he takes hold of your chin with his bony fingers, and forces you to look back at him. “How ironic that the Mughals who built this were Moslems, the ones who will burn you are Hindu, and I was raised a Christian. Your demise will have a true multi-faith dimension!” he says, looking you over up and down with distinctly un-Christian thoughts running through is head for a moment. But you both hear the procession has stopped, and the crowd s ready to set fire to the funeral pyre.

Osgoode lays a rose on your chest and steps down. You arch your back in reflexive fear as several large Hindu men approach your pyre with burning torches! You moan as loudly as you can in your gag, twisting and turning in your tight and unyielding rope restraints, hoping that you can convince them to reconsider!
Nothing seems to alter their determination to immolate you. The Hindus place the torches at the base of the pyre, and in short moments the dry wood and wicker at the bottom are smoking, then burst into flame! Smoke starts to rise toward you, making you cough through your gag. You close your eyes, hoping for a quick end, as you begin to feel the heat of the flames that are rising toward you!

It all seems so hopeless. You are far away from al possible help. Uncle Ned, Serge, all your protectors are gone. Even your plane is now hundreds of miles away in Chittagong . It’s a horrible way to end, so far away from home….

You feel the ropes tighten ever so slightly as the heat begins to dry them out, making them dig ever so slightly more into your skin. You barely struggle now, as you try to remain calm, and think of friends and family back in England . It should be over soon….

A commotion breaks out in the throng gathered around and below you. There is shouting, some of it angry! You open your eyes, and through the licks of flame and gasping smoke you see khaki-clad British soldiers dispersing the crowd. Others are opening fire extinguishers on the pyre, the whoosing and sputtering noise of the devices for a moment drowning out the altercation. The fire extinguishers beat down the flames on one side of the pyre, as someone bounds up toward you as if from a dream – tall, grey-haired – it’s impossible….

It’s Uncle Ned! Somehow he has found you in time! He cuts you free from the wicker frame and carries you off the pyre, in your violet sari. You throw your arms around his thick but kindly neck, curling up in his arms as he lifts you to safety!

As he lowers you onto your feet on the soft grass, you ask, “But….how did you find me?’

“My staff and I followed the car – my car! – to Chittagong station. Aung Hla and Osgoode were clever; we could not find you in that throng. But we lay in wait until the driver returned to dispose of the evidence. We caught him, and he quickly confessed all he knew. We managed to race the train to Agra – luckily the Alvis is a pretty quick saloon!”
”I can’t thank you enough for rescuing me Uncle Ned!” you say, still shaky on your feet after such a close call.

“It is I who cannot apologize enough to you, Emma!” Ned replies. “I intended this to be fun. I used my network to make sure you would have a safe adventure. I did not know that Osgoode would use that knowledge to set a trap for you. But you have succeeded more than I could ever have thought possible, and overcame more than I ever intended.You will inherit my fortune, my dear!”

You smile, exhausted but gratified. Uncle Ned’s servants bring some refreshing lassi for you to drink. You look over Ned’s shoulder as Osgoode is handcuffed and led away to justice. You sigh, satisfied and content as you reflect on your adventures.

“They’ll never believe this back home,” you say to Uncle Ned.
FINIS

Emma and the Great Race - Chapter 5 -- India

2009-06-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

Long time friends will know that I do not require my fantasy damsels to be as over the top girly-girl as Emma. It si appropriate for this story, though. I may post a superheroine story or a spy girl story down the road. I don't in the least mind a feisty damsel. But I do like a stereotypically feminine heroine from time to time....

Chapter 5 – India
(When we last left Emma, she had been brusquely kidnapped at Chiang Mai airfield, her volunteer protector, Serge Hainault, left for dead in front of her aeroplane. Whisked off to the jungle, she was now tied up in a coracle heading straight for the deadly rocks of the Huai Kaew waterfall!)

Tightly tied in your fetching travel outfit of a brown cropped leather jacket, form fitting cream jodhpurs and sleek leather boots, you squirm and twist desperately, but helplessly, as the little boat drifts downstream to your doom. Your filthy cleave gag stifles any chance of calling for help; not that there is anyone in this wilderness to hear you anyway. You can only look up at the canopy of tall trees which recede as you float downriver. The sound of the waterfall getting louder is the only hint of the terrible danger you are in. Were it not for that, your situation would be surprisingly peaceful!

But somewhere, above your head, the rapids are approaching. You twist and turn in more futile efforts to escape, but the fiends have bound you far too tightly. Once again, you are in desperate peril! Your blue eyes well up with tears, turning them to sapphires of despair as you realize how hopeless it all is. Even Serge – poor Serge! – can’t save you now!

As the stream picks up the little flat-bottomed coracle starts to spin in the eddies of the increasingly turbulent stream. The boat spins 180 degrees, giving you a momentary look at the hellish, roiling waters no more than a hundred yards ahead of you! Then the boat spins back, giving you a view only of the peaceful river upstream. But now you can link the sound of the falls with the distance to them, making your exact state of peril abundantly clear and knowable!

You rock your shoulders to and fro, tugging at your wrist bonds, flexing your legs in more pointless efforts to loosen your fiendishly tight restraints. No use at all! Your boots squeak as you rub them in their close bonds, and the cords dig into your wrists as you strain with desperate efforts. But it’s absolutely hopeless!

The coracle starts to spin around more and more as you approach the falls, giving you a giddy view of the banks, the river, the nearing waterfall! The roar of the falling water is the only constant, as it grows in volume and menace! You are maybe 60 yards, then 50, then 40 with each turn of the little boat! You can’t help sobbing in frustration and fear as you writhe impotently, bound so helplessly in your sleek outfit in the drifting coracle!

It all looks hopeless now, You surrender to you fate, hoping it won’t hurt as much as it seems it might. The little boat starts rocking as well as turning as the stream turbulence mounts. The roar of the rapids is infernally loud now, drowning out even your own thoughts as you are petrified in pure mortal terror of you imminent destruction!

One more spin brings the sickening realization that you are now less than 30 yards from the rapids. The little coracles rocks, shot left and right by the swirling eddies as well as occasionally making terrifying accelerations and sudden decelerations toward gnashing rocks ahead! You think you’re going to be sick with all the queasy motions that are ever more erratic. Your chest heaves with a massive gasping sob at the…the….unfairness of it all!

At that moment, you hear a rough rasping sound at the bottom of the boat, as wood grates on rock. The rapids are almost upon you! You are spun around violently as one side of the coracle runs aground but the other is shot forward, spinning the keel-less craft like a top, careening wildly, As it spins it tilts downstream, giving you a horrifying view of the hellish maw of rocks that are now right in front of you! Then just as suddenly the boat bounces off a submerged rock in the stream, and is thrust like a slingshot off to the side, where the coracle is cast upon shallow shale near the bank. The coracle rolls and yaws, then…..stops! Miraculously, the boat has run aground just before the lip of the rapids! You can’t see it, but you can just imagine the flat bed of rock shimmering just under the surface of the water, holding you back, however tenuously, from your destruction!

You heave a sigh of relief, before you realize that your salvation is only temporary. The stream continues to tug the coracle away from the rocky shelf on which it now lies. The river is so turbulent, one false shift of weight at the wrong moment could send you back out into the main current of the river, and over the edge! You squirm gingerly in your tight bonds, unwilling to struggle too hard to free yourself in case your very exertions take the boat of its impromptu moorings! Oh, it’d just torture, not being able to really try to get free, but knowing that if you don’t, you still might be carried into the stream!

You wriggle as much as you dare while the coracle swings back and forth in the partial current. You shudder every time it seems that the boat is about to break free of the shale. But it’s hopeless: this is almost worse than just getting it over with and going over the edge to your demise!

You immediately try to recant that thought as a particularly strong swirl of current lifts the boat up a fraction of an inch too far – and you can feel the coracle start to grind its way off the river bed! You scream involuntarily into your gag, helpless at the end, as the boat is unclenched from the rock!

At that moment, when all seems lost, you hear something heavy and made of metal fall into your little boat, by your bound feet, with a firm clank sound, You are delirious with terror , but to your surprise, the boat is suddenly stopped in its tracks, held in place at the far end of the coracle. It takes you a moment to comprehend, under the circumstances, but the boat is being reeled to shore! The metal object was some sort of grappling hook thrown at the last second to save you!

You look up, and see Serge, of all people, his head roughly bandaged, pulling you to safety. His clothes are torn and bloodied. He staggers to the edge of the river bank once your boat is safely aground, and he kneels into the water to rip off your gag.

“Serge! Oh, thank you!” you stammer, unable to say any more, so overcome are you at your last minute reprieve from disaster!

Serge looks down at you, with labored panting as he smiles with as much aplomb as he can muster. He tries to doff his hat to you, but only rustles his bandage and winces with pain as he does so. He recovers quickly, and says “Apologies, mademoiselle, for being so late with your rescue. My injuries…..” he reels for a moment just thinking about them.

At that moment you see several Asian men coming up behind him. It might be the goons who kidnapped you! “Serge! Look out behind you!” you shout. Serge slowly gets up to his feet and wheels around in a parody of drunkenness brought on by shock and blood loss.

He chuckles. “My dear Miss Davies, these are a delegation from Sang Ka Lok Ceramics – the real delegation! May I present Mr Tirin Swamasrikreunbpata; Mr Kiet Coirayadaram, and Mr Daw Kruensridat.” The three lean but short men bow politely. Tirin seems oldest, with a face beginning to show lines from the sun. Kiet and Daw are junior, but smiling and seemingly unstressed despite the desperate race to save you. All three have kindly, honest faces.

You twist a little in your bonds. “I’d shake your hands, gentlemen, but….” The Thai men jump to your aid and immediately start untying you.

Serge says, “And now, my dear….if you will forgive my appalling manners, I must pass out now.” Exhausted, he crumbles to the ground as the Thais lift you out of the boat. You are unsteady on your feet for a moment but you rush over to Serge.

“We’ve got to get him to a hospital!” you exclaim.

“Yes, but he would not hear of it until you were rescued,” says Tirin, who guides you away from the river bank while the other two lift Serge up to his feet and walk him away from the river.

“But…how did you find me?” you ask.

“We arrived to find Monsieur Hainault lying on the ground. We bandaged him up and he said you were in great danger. So we followed the road and from a distance saw the bad men placing you in the boat. We immediately deduced their plans, but they were too many and far too heavily armed for us to challenge. We raced downstream to stop your boat before…..”

You are led to another large automobile. Serge is in a daze as Kiet and Daw place him in the back of the automobile. Tirin gently guides you into the seat in front of Serge. “We shall tend to him at the clinic next to the factory.”

You look worriedly at Serge, who is very pale from blood loss.

“Have no fear, Achara,” Tirin says. “He will be all right. But he will have to rest here for many days, perhaps weeks.”

You are reassured. “What did you call me?’ you ask innocently.

“Achara – it is a name for you, it means ‘pretty angel’,” Tirin says with a gracious smile that is meant to say, “you are safe now.”

You blush from the compliment. “Thank you,” you say softly.

“Mai ben rai,” says Tirin. “That’s a handy phrase in Thai by the way – it means anything from “don’t mention it” to “it’s OK” to “don’t worry about it”.”

“How do you say thank you?” you ask.

The Thais beam. “As a girl you say ‘khorb khun kaa’.”

“Then khorb khun kaa for finding me in time!” you say.

You drive by a huge Buddhist temple complex whose exterior is entirely covered in gold. It is a stupefying sight, with rows upon rows of statues around the perimeter of the main building. “That is Wat Doi Suthep,” Kiet explains from the back as your jaw nearly drops at the magnificence of it.

You head into town and every so often, between low rise buildings, another massive temple will suddenly emerge around a corner. One is exceedingly delicate, with ornately painted walls and a separate chedi of stone that sweeps up into a golden spire. You guides tell you this is Wat Chiang Men – the oldest temple in the city.

And then you see another beautiful temple, this one like waves of stone piled up to the sky. “Wat Chedi Luang,” observes Tirin. You soon cross a river – the Mae Ping – and head into a more modern and spread out part of the city.

You are soon at a huge complex that you quickly understand to be the Ceramics factory. Once inside the gates of the immense grounds, with soothing trees in lining the street and low buildings housing the ceramics works, the car heads to the left toward a white washed building that is clearly the factory infirmary. “Monsieur Hainault will have the best care here,” Tirin says as the car pulls up to the front of the infirmary. Kiet and Daw help orderlies get Serge onto a canvas stretcher; he is whisked into the inside of the building. “There is little you can do for your friend now. Perhaps I could give you the tour of Sang Ka Lok, as intended by your uncle, as a way of taking your mind off such a terrible event as occurred earlier?”

You smile, and despite it somehow seeming wrong to leave Serge, you realize it is best if you check on him after he has had rest and attention. You agree to a tour.

Tirin walks your through the impressive kilns and sculpting wheels, showing you the myriad varieties of wares for which the factory is justly renowned. Your mind is still on your ordeal, though. You ask Tirin, “Do you know who those men were who attacked us today?”

Tirin pauses. “Although Thailand is prosperous, times are hard nearby. Men from Laos and Cambodia come across the border, especially in the north where the terrain is more rugged and where the ethnicities are more mixed. Here in Chiang Mai all sorts can mix freely without scrutiny. The men who attacked you are known brigands – bad men, who will hire themselves out for bad work. The question you should ask is: who hired them?”

You puzzle over that question through the rest of the tour. Who would have a reason to eliminate you, especially in a way that would seem like an accident? The only thing you can think of that would be worth going to that trouble would be Uncle Ned’s fortune!

All of a sudden it dawns on you – it is so obvious: nearly being sold into slavery in Hong Kong, the horrible attempted sacrifice at Hue , and now this crude attempt at eliminating you. Someone else must be in line for the fortune! But it can’t be a family member – Uncle Ned has no other family, and….

Osgoode. It’s so obvious now. The perfidious lawyer is behind it all! You suddenly feel very vulnerable, out in the wilds of Asia , your only protector (whom you have known for all of 48 hours) hospitalized, and an enemy able to assault you from a thousand miles away through a network of henchmen and ruthless mercenaries.

You turn to Tirin. “I think I know who is behind this – Uncle Ned’s lawyer, Osgoode.”

“That is bad,” your gracious Thai host replies. “You should not stay here for long. Osgoode was always a problem for us – he has many servants here.”

Your heart sinks. “What can I do?”

“You are not far from India now – British territory, and farther away from Osgoode. I know that Edward-kun did not entrust his factories in India to Osgoode, but ran them directly. I think you will be safer there.”

“And Serge?” you ask hopefully.

“Monsieur Hainault will have to stay here. He cannot move. Emma-kun, you must be brave. We can escort you to the airfield and get you out of here. I was meant to tell you that your uncle meant you to go from here to Chittagong , in Burma , where his assistant, Aung-Hla, will guide you. Meet him at the Great Mosque!”

“Thank you, Tirin-kun,” you say, picking up on the honorifics. You are led to a spacious if Spartan room inside the factory grounds. At least it’s safe, with thick walls and loyal personnel guarding you as you rest.

You have a delicious Thai meal that night: tom kha gai (chicken and coconut soup) , hor muk (steamed fish in banana leaves; duck jungle curry with sticky rice, pad puk ruam mit (mixed vegetables in soy sauce) and khao neow mu-muang (mango with sweet rice) for dessert. You eat eagerly after your latest tribulations, but are impressed with the emphasis on presentation – the meal in that respect is to your mind almost European.

You sleep like a log in the cool and pleasant air of the highlands. Refreshed, you check in on Serge after the morning. You thank him again for his rescuing you – twice. “Think nothing of it, mademoiselle – someone so fair will always be rescued, the universe requires it.” Serge groans as even this required effort. “But cherie, I can no longer escort you. You must make your way to Burma , and then to India proper, as Tirin suggests. You will be safer under British law.”

The next morning, a large contingent of personnel from the ceramics factory guides you to the air strip. They examine every inch of the De Havilland to make sure it has not been sabotaged; satisfied, they allow you to board it. You are once again in your sleek and tight fitting flying outfit, and for all your justified trepidation, you want to see this through. By now you are worried about Uncle Ned – perhaps he is in trouble, too?

The propeller of the De Havilland Tiger Moth begins to spin as the engine sputters to life, then emits a healthy, happy droning sound. Your companions remove the blocks form the aeroplane’s wheels. You wave to them as you taxi to the end of the air strip, and take off into a clear blue morning. You have a spectacular and uneventful flight over the lush mountains of the Shan States that form the border between Siam and Burma . In a few hours you cross over the watershed, and are once again in British air space, deep valleys of glittering blue streams cutting into verdant sharp hills and uplands . You relax a little – you are now in the territory of the Raj – Osgoode would hardly dare assault you now!
You descend into the lush and humid valley of the Irrawaddy, toward the white city of Mandalay for refueling. You sweep gracefully over the huge white stupas of the Sandamani Paya, a startlingly beautiful Buddhist complex set amidst deep green trees on the Mandalay Hills. You touch down with ease on a crystal clear day, and relax as your plane is refueled for the next stage of your journey.

You soon are ready to take off again, and it’s another trip over steep hills, as your course changes from northwest to almost due west, toward the coast of the Bay of Bengal . After a few enjoyable hours of flying, the mountains give way to a spectacular view of the littoral. At the edge of visibility, in a pink afternoon haze, you can make out the buildings and minarets of a great city – Chittagong – against the light blue of the Indian Ocean .

You land at the airfield outside Chittagong , where a prim Bengali is standing ready to greet you. He dressed more for the London Stock Exchange than rumble-tumble Chittagong – charcoal grey pin-stripe business suit, vest, bowler hat, and, incongruously, a black umbrella. There is not a cloud in the sky – just the haze of a hot afternoon.

“Aung Hla at your service, Miss Davies!” said the Bengali man. “Mr Nesbitt -- your Uncle Edward -- sent me to greet you!”

You smile, taking off your leather flying helmet and letting your long black hair cascade around your face and down your back. The delightful day flying, and – for once – finding the contact you expected at the airfield – makes you a bit giddy with a sense of achievement.

“Thank you for coming to the airfield,” you say, smiling. “I was told you were going to meet me at the Grand Mosque!”

Aung Hla is diminuative, several inches shorter than you, but wiry, with quick black eyes and an easy smile. “Ah, yes, but after all your tribulations, Mr Nesbitt said we should take no chances and bring you safely to him.”

Your heart leaps up at the thought of finally meeting dear Uncle Ned. “Is Uncle Ned in Chittagong ? Please, take me to him!”

“That I shall, Miss Davies!” Aung Hla replies briskly. “Please, this way. I will send assistant to bring your bags later.”

You follow Aung Hla’s lead as he takes you to a waiting car, another big black saloon, but a modern, proper 1931 Alvis 12/50 saloon. Aung-Hla sits in the passenger area next to you, as a driver turns the ignition and begins the drive into Chittagong .

You marvel at the busy city, with its maze of low buildings, endless series of tiny markets for fish, produce, and goods. The car often has to slow down for pedestrian and bicycle traffic as you wind your way into the city.

You approach a giant building complex, with onion shaped spiraled domes and red walls. This must be the Grand Mosque! ”Are we meeting my uncle there?” you ask.

“No, Miss Davies, sadly, you cannot enter the mosque dressed for flying,” Aung Hla says. “We will see Mr Nesbitt in his hillside home.”

“Oh, all right,” you say, a little disappointed that you won’t be able to enjoy the splendour of the impressive mosque. Out of the corner of your eye , as you pass near one entrance to the mosque, you see a tall Westerner, grey-haired, so very familiar. It’s Uncle Ned!

“Oh!”you exclaim. “Wait! There he is!”

“You must be mistaken, Miss Davies,” Aung Hla says calmly. “Mr Nesbitt is waiting for us at home.”

You turn around and look out the back. Uncle Ned sees the car go by, recognizes it, and sees you in the back! He starts waving frantically and tries to chase after your car!

“No! I am sure it is him! He was waving at the car to stop!” you say, more insistent now.

You turn to look at Aung Hla to reason with him. You are shocked to see he is holding a gun pointed straight at you!

“What is the meaning of this?” you exclaim.
“Apologies, Miss Davies. My employer wishes to see you,” the Bengali says.

“Your employer? Uncle Ned is your employer!”

“Not any more!” says Aung Hla. “Someone is paying a higher wage!”

“I demand that you let me go!” you say, indignant and also increasingly afraid.

Aung Hla smiles slowly and crookedly as the driver accelerates through the crowds. “You are coming with us!” he says. “Turn your back to me now, Miss Davies, and put your hands behind your back!”

Aung Hla’s menacing proddings soon convince you that resistance would be foolhardy in the extreme. You comply reluctantly, putting your hands behind your back where the villain can easily bind them. You feel strong cords being looped around your wrists, your shoulders sagging as you realize that once again you have fallen into a trap.

“Uncle Ned will stop you!” you vow defiantly, twisting your wrists pointlessly, testing your bonds and finding them tight and unyielding.

“I doubt that!” says the Bengali, chuckling as the car drives up in front of a freight area in the rear of the Chittagong train station. Unlike the passenger entrance in front, which is chaotic enough but at least a public space, the freight stalls in back resemble little more than an enormous loading dock, with a vast, labyrinthine open air market in goods legal and illegal spreading out from the rail platforms.

“What are you doing?” you ask, your voice quavering with alarm. “I demand that you let me g—ummmppphhhhffff!” Your plea is cut short as Aung Hla stuffs a wad of cloth in your mouth, filling it up with a stale taste of rough hemp and dust. He thrusts a scarf between your teeth and pulls the ends into a tight cleave, sealing the gag in. You feel the corners of your mouth pulled back as he tightens the cleave mercilessly.

“Mmpphhfff!” you beg, now frightened at the sinister intentions of your new captor. You try to kick as the car comes to a halt, hoping to make a desperate bid for help from the car. But Aung Hla is too fast for you, and pulls your legs up hard on the seat, forcing you into an almost reclining position as he ties your booted ankles together.

“Heh heh heh, no more trouble from you, Miss Davies!” he hisses as he knots your ankle bonds. You squirm, desperately but hopelessly, but the ropes holding you are far to strong and tight for you to have even the slightest chance of escape!

The driver opens the rear door to the saloon and spreads a luxurious Persian Qom rug on the ground in front of the door. The driver and Aung Hla quickly carry you out of the automobile and place you athwart the carpet at one end. They then start to roll you up! In an instant you are wrapped up in the carpet, unable to move at all, barely able to breathe!

You feel yourself being lifted and carried. You hear the squawking of the vendors outside the train station, then the incomprehensibly vague calls on the speakers of the stationmasters, then you know you are being lifted into a train compartment. Suddenly the raucous and confusing sounds and smells are gone. All is quiet. You feel yourself being placed on a floor. Then, without warning, the carpet is unceremoniously unwound and you are flung, bound and gagged, onto the floor of what must be a private car on a train!

Your eyes adjust to the light, after having been in the dark rolled up in the carpet for some time. You are in a sumptuously decorated room, with brocaded drapery over the window and oak paneling on the walls. Nautically themed oil paintings combine with Hindu silk screen prints to give a bizarrely exotic, though culturally hybrid, feel to the room. It is all very overblown, very out of date Anglo-Indian style of the Diamond Jubilee – sleek Art Deco has not seen the light of day here yet!

You have little time to assess the retro taste of your captors, for Aung Hla and the driver pull you up and drag you by the arms to a heavy chair bolted down on one heavy central support to the floor. The fiends take up more ropes, and quickly tie your shoulders and waist to the back of the chair. They also take your bound ankles, pull them back savagely, and lash them to the chair support. You glare at them for all the indignities you have endured.

Aung Hla nods to the driver, who departs the room. The traitor then turns to you, leaning in toward you, his hands on the arms of the chair. “Your Uncle Ned won’t save you, pretty little Emma Davies! You want to know why?”

You hear a whistle and feel the train start to move. You eyes open wide with alarm. Where are the fiends taking you?

“That’s right,” Aung Hla says. “We’re going far away from your uncle. He won’t even know what city you’re in. My employer has a special fate prepared for you!” The Bengali’s exact but accented diction lends extra menace to his threat.

“Mmmpphhff!” you say, squirming in your tight and unbreakable bonds.

“Those nice men in Chiang Mai did not betray you, Emma!” the villain says smugly. “They really thought I was trustworthy. I was going to abduct you in the Grand Mosque, but your uncle announced that he would make a surprise appearance – it seems he had heard of your perils and had decided to make sure you were safe in Chittagong . That meant a change of plans for me – so I met you at the airfield instead.”

You squirm some more, already knowing that escape is impossible. You mew into your gag, hoping that Aung Hla can be convinced to rejoin your side. Aung Hla grins evilly as you struggle, but your sad, pleading eyes and pathetic writhing seem not to affect him.

“I will leave you here, Miss Davies. My employer will surely want to see you soon. Don’t go wandering…hah hah hah hah!”

You glower as Aung Hla leaves the room. You hear the door lock. You resume your desperate struggles, but all you do is make the ropes bite into your delicate wrists. Your leather boots squeak as you tug and twist with yoru legs in futile attempts to free your ankles.

The train is now chugging along nicely – although the curtains are drawn, you must be out of the city now – on your way to a dubious destination.

You’ve got to find a way out! You look around the room, but there is no implement that could possibly be used to cut your way free. You tug firmly at your bonds, and try to tip the chair over with your body weight – anything to give you some hope of freedom. Nothing works. You slump in your chair, defeated and as helpless as ever!

The train maintains a steady clackety clack over the ramshackle rails of the Raj. You start to sob, dejected and hopeless.

After some time miserably tied to the chair, you hear the door unlock. In steps a tall bony man with a thin mustache – a man you recognize from Hong Kong: Osgoode!

“Good day, Miss Davies!” Osgoode said, pouring himself a cognac into a snifter and sitting deftly in another chair, admiring you in your captivity. “I’d offer you a drink, but…” he let his sentence die with a mocking smile. “Don’t you enjoy the romance of trains? The thrill of unknown destinations, exotic locales….”

You look into his beady eyes and see nothing but evil, avarice, and despite in them. You are chilled to the bone – you are utterly in the clutches of this unspeakable fiend! You look away, fighting back the urge to cry.

Osgoode continues. “You’re going to die, Emma. You know that, I hope. You’ve been lucky so far, but now – I will make sure of it personally – you are going to die.”

You shoot a look of frustration and rage and him and thrash in your bonds, squealing through your gag . The lawyer laughs as you exhaust yourself.

“Emma, your last voyage, currently underway, is up the Ganges Plain, toward New Delhi . We are going a little beyond Delhi , where we have a special feast awaiting you! Now, I am afraid we want you refreshed for your final appearance, so I think now is about the right time for a nap, don’t you think?”

You moan and shake your head, but Osgoode has a white rag ready, along with a bottle of chloroform. He soaks the rag, and clamps it over your nose and mouth. You squirm, trying to avoid the soporific fumes, but bound as you are you cannot resist for long. Soon he has the rag over your nose and mouth, you inhale as you must, and immediately begin to feel sleepy. In a matter of moments, you slump, unconscious, in the chair.

…

Your eyes flutter as you begin to awaken. You are outdoors. A soft breeze wafts across your body as it reclines on wicker of some kind. Your clothes shift gently in the cool, pleasant zephyr….You realize you are no longer in your flying outfit. Your leather jacket, jodhurs, and boots are gone. You are wearing something silk, something layered, soft – tight across the uppers arms and chest, flowing elsewhere. You look down. You are dressed in a beautiful violet coloured sari.

You try to get up. At that moment the pleasantness is gone, for you realize you are tightly bound, your arms over your head, your ankles tied together and also lashed down to the wicker cot – or frame. You are barefoot, save for small bells strapped like a bracelet around your ankles. The sari is so diaphanous you feel almost naked in places– silly, as the violet silk is quite opaque and your clothing both sensuous and modest.

You try to call for help, but you are tightly cleave gagged, as before. You look around -- and are dumbstruck at the vision to your left.

A vast courtyard in white marble surrounds an elongated rectangular pool. On the far side of the esplanade is the most famous building in Asia – the white marble walls, the delicate, domed architecture. All of a sudden it hits you – the location, the wicker, the reason for the sari.

You are tied to a funeral pyre in front of the Taj Mahal.

You start to squirm desperately, hoping the wicker is soft enough to bend or break. But your efforts are in vain. You are inextricably tied on top of a pile of wicker, firewood, and other combustibles.

You look to the right and see Osgoode climbing the ziggurat of wood atop which you are trapped. “Ah Emma, I have arranged a special celebration for you. You may know that in some Hindu families, when the husband dies, the wife is burned alive as part of his funeral. Ah, you say, but you are not married? A mere technicality. You see, I found a family where the wife, reasonably not wanting to be immolated, fled to Nepal . The family felt that they were dishonoured unless someone would be willing to take the wife’s place. I volunteered you, my dear!”

You squeal in horror and arch your back helplessly in more attempts to find a weakness in your bonds. But there is none!
“No one can save you now, Emma. You’ll be happy to know, the family thinks you’re prettier than the girl who fled. So you are advancing their karma. And of course, with you dead, I’ll get Ned’s money, so in a way you’re going to advance my karma, too!”

You look at Osgoode with desperate, pleading eyes. But the greedy lawyer merely wants to savour his victory.

“Ah, I think the procession is coming. Enjoy this quaint heathen ceremony. I know I will!”

You see a large solemn procession of Indians, men in saffron shirts and white trousers, each bearing lit torches. Weeping and wailing women follow them, all heading toward you….

Is this the end? Is Emma doomed to be a Hindu sacrifice? Stay turned for the answers to these burning questions!

Emma Davies and the Great Race - Chapter 4: Chiang Mai

2009-06-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

You continue your fruitless struggles, lashed tightly to the pole, dressed in your fine white silk ao dai dress. You look on in horror as the two Vietnamese fiends who kidnapped you add more fuel to the fire under the pot they intend to boil you in alive. Gagged cruelly, you cannot even plead for your life, but moan pitiably in the cloth stuffed between your teeth.
The tall man looks you up and down with an evil leer on his face, then turns to the smaller man and says something incomprehensible in Vietnamese.

The tall man turns to you and says “Perhaps we let you sit down?” You nod sadly, terrified and unsuccessfully trying to suppress a sob, as the shorter man approaches you and unties your knees. You slump a little in your remaining bonds, weakened from the poor circulation afforded by being so tightly tied up for so long, then find you can slide down the pole a little. You sink until you are seated on the ground, your arms still painfully lashed behind your back and around the pole, your legs tucked under you and to the side, as demure as you can be under the horrifying circumstances. You are about to try to thank your evil captors through the gag when the smaller ones kneels down, yanks your feet cruelly behind you and ties your ankles savagely to the pole!

“We make you pose pretty for Crocodile God!” says the taller man, leering at you like one possessed. He looks into the large iron cistern. “Water almost boiling. We bring out crocodile now!” He jabbers at the smaller man in Vietnamese, and the smaller man walks over to a large pile of banana leaves at the edge of the clearing near the river. He pulls off the leaves to reveal an enormous bamboo cage, inside which is a huge crocodile that immediate lunges at the cage door, shaking the seemingly flimsy bars and making the smaller man recoil.

It’s all too horrible to be real, yet another test of your bonds reveals that you are not dreaming, but trapped and in very real peril. The taller man is dropping herbs and seasonings into the pot in some ghoulish and absurd culinary gesture. The crocodile opens and snaps its elongated jaws shut while it stares at you, as if it knows you are intended as its dinner! The tight and rough ropes are starting to crush the delicate fabric of your beautiful ao dai, You slump and sob pitiably as your terrible fate seems inevitable!

You twist a little in your bonds, not really in any serious attempt at escape, more to try to move one of your demonic captors to clemency. But they are busy finishing the unspeakable soup bouillon. Your terror rises as they finish their preparations and turn to you once more.

“Into soup you go now!” says the taller man. You shake your head furiously and moan “Nooo!” through your gag. The shorter man laughs and says something sounding harsh in Vietnamese, baring his teeth at you and making chomping gestures with his teeth in imitation of what the crocodile will do with your cooked flesh. You avert your gaze, turning your head away in horror, sobbing gently, your long black hair cascading over your face, wet from tears brought by the unbearable mix of anger, shame, and fear.

Both men approach you and start to untie those ropes that held you to the post. They leave your wrists and ankles firmly tied, despite the increasing discomfort of having your limbs so tightly bound, your circulation restricted for so long. Even if you could free yourself of the ropes, you would still be so weak and stiff you could not get far, let alone fight back.

They lift you up, the tall man taking you by the shoulders, the smaller man by the feet, and carry you toward the pot. Your eyes widen in horror as you are brought closer to the large iron bubbling pot! You flinch reflexively, twisting in vain in your bonds as they carry you to the brim of the pot.

They start to swing you in rhythm, clearly about to throw you into the boiling water! You try to scream, but the gag reduces your fearful cry to a muffled moan! You shut your eyes, terrified at what must come next….

“Put the girl down!” shouts a familiar voice. You open your eyes. It’s Serge Hainault, holding a pistol aimed at the taller man. Your two captors freeze, and no longer swing you toward the pot. The shorter man starts shouting at Serge – it sounds like swearing, even though it is Vietnamese you can’t understand. Serge takes one look at the shorter man, and without hesitating aims at him and shoots him between the eyes. The shorter man slumps, letting your feet drop to the ground as you recoil in fear form the gunshot.

“I said, put her down. Let her go, now!” Serge says to the taller man. Serge then yells at him in Vietnamese. The taller man, instead of obeying, grabs you and hold you in front of him with one hand around your slender waist, the other hand suddenly holding a sharp jungle knife at your throat!

“Drop gun or she die!” the taller man hisses.

“So help me -- you hurt her and I will subject you to more pain than is found in the death cults of Kali!” Serge retorts, still pointing the gun in your direction.

“Drop gun!” the taller man repeats, pushing the edge of the knife dangerously high and close to your windpipe. You sob and give the barest shake of your head, your eyes simply sayng “Save me!”

Serge hesitates, then lowers his gun to the ground. You sob in confusion and fear as your salvation seems to have been taken away again.

“Step away from gun!”

Serge complies, his hands in the air, then he says, “Now let her go!”

The taller man throws you roughly to the ground and lunges at Serge. A terrific struggle breaks out as Serge, unarmed, fights desperately to fend off the taller man’s knife attacks. You gasp as Serge is slashed savagely on the arm and narrowly avoids being stabbed in the gut. But you are helplessly tied and gagged, what can you do?

You crawl, as best you can, ruing the damage you are doing to the beautiful ao dai dress, toward the body of the small man. You are appalled by his corpse, but you fumble with your bound hands, suppressing your revulsion, until you get a hold of his knife, You start sawing frantically at your wrist bonds as the fight rages on.

You finally cut your wrists free, and grab the nkife in your hands to cut your ankles free. But you see a horrible development as the taller man has Serge on his back, about to slash his neck with his knife! Serge, hurt earlier by these thugs, seems to be losing! You cringe, afraid to get involved in this brutal contest. You hold the knife, paralyzed by fear and indecision.

Serge, with a last effort, gets his feet under his attacker and hurls him back. “Emma, the knife!” Serge springs toward you and grabs the knife from you as the taller man recovers and gets ready to pounce again. Serge throws his knife and scores a direct hit on your captor, felling him with a knife in the heart. You look away in horror at the gruesomeness of it all. Serge, realizing the man is dead, turns to you and tenderly removes your gag. “Emma!” he exclaims, caressing you sweetly, “are you all right?”

“I…I think so,:” you reply, burying your face in his shirt to conceal your shudders and tears.

“All right then, let’s get you out of here.” You look on as Serge gently unties your ankle bonds, freeing you at last. You put your arms around his neck for support as he lifts you to your feet. He seems to appreciate your trust, and your proximity, greatly. He gingerly helps you walk away from the clearing away from the site of your ordeal. You gradually regain circulation in your legs as you arrive at his car, parked a few hundred yards away.

“You came just in time,” you say as Serge helps you in the car.

“I shouldn’t have been out of your sight for a moment. I had no idea that the plot against you reached as far as here. Well, I can feel the lesson I have learned – ouch! – right here at the back of my skull!” Serge said, wincing as he felt the wound where he had been knocked out.

“Plot?” you say with a nervous gulp. “What plot?”

Serge looked up, his usual feline expression giving way to genuine concern for you. “It has to be more than coincidence that you have been attacked both in Hue and Hong Kong .” Serge starts the car and starts to drive back toward the tomb of Khai Dinh.You draw closer to Serge – he is your only clear friend on the far side of the world from home, with unknown enemies trying to do you in! “I suppose I should just go home,” you say dejectedly.

“I think that is unwise,” Serge replies. “You’d have to go back to Hong Kong , where we know for sure your enemies are waiting for you. I think you should continue – and I think I should come with you, at least part of the way, if you will have me as your…. protector.” You smile generously at Serge’s sweet offer and almost snuggle into him as he says he will protect you. “I would never let anything happen to you, Emma!” he says as he drives.

“All right, but where am I supposed to go next? I found Uncle Ned’s watch, but no clue where to go from here!” you exclaim.

“Edward would not abandon his favorite niece!” Serge says. “Try looking at the watch.”

You examine the watch – you haven’t had time to really look at it since your ordeal began. You open up the pocket watch, but there are no inscriptions or other clues at all on the inside cover. “Oh, it’s no use!” you say, still shaking from your close shave. You’re not really in the mood for puzzles right now.

“Don’t give up!” Serge says with a gentle prod with one hand as he steers with the other. “There should be a latch to open up the mechanism. All pocket watches have them; the manufacturer is usually engraved on the frame inside.”

You find the latch relatively quickly, and the body of the watch springs free from the back of the case. Your eye is caught by the intricate gears and wheels oscillating in the frame, but the golden frame is engraved as it is supposed to be: “Patek Philippe, Geneve, 1926 – pour Edouard Davies, cadeau de ses amis a Sang Ka Lok, Chiang Mai, Siam .”

You read the inscription to Serge. He whistles. “It was a gift to your uncle from friends at the famous Sang Ka Lok Ceramics Factory in Chiang Mai. A Patek Philippe special order – they must be good friends indeed! You don’t want to know how much that watch costs!”

You suddenly think the watch is heavier, now that you know how special it is. But that must be the next destination. “I think Uncle Ned wants me – wants us, I suppose – to go to Chiang Mai!” you say.

“Ah, a fascinating city up in the wilds of northern Thailand ! Now I am definitely coming with you!” Serge insists.

“That nice?” you ask.

“That dangerous,” Serge answers. “It is a frontier town. Smugglers and narcotics peddlers – although it is a very cultured place as well. But not a place for a young lady to be by herself. I know Edward, he must have planned for your being taken care of there. But given the other threats against you, I think we can’t be too careful from now on.”

You agree. But now, with the prospect of having a knowledgeable companion as a bodyguard, you feel your courage returning. By now Serge has cleared Khai Dihn and is you are well on your way back to Hue . Serge stops the car at a small, quaint building by a bend in the Huong River that sweeps close to the road. The building is painted green and red, with the distinctive sloping shingled roof of rustic Vietnamese architecture. A wide balustraded balcony leaning over the river gives away the secret that this is another restaurant. Serge gets out of the car, opens your door and helps you out and leads you inside. The hosts, lined up inside the front door, greet you with dignity, curious at your wearing of a traditional Vietnamese ao dai, but smiling.

You and Serge are seated at a table with a single red candle, overlooking a dreamy river sunset as wide-leaved banana trees and long-fronded bushes wave gently by the riverbank in the breeze. The menus come to you – all in incomprehensible Vietnamese.

“I will order for you!” Serge offers.

“No soup, please,” you joke, still shaken from your recent peril.

Serge smiles and agrees. “Vietnamese cuisine has a lot of soups in it – but under the circumstances….We’ll try some Cha Gio – those are Vietnamese spring rolls – and some Ga Xao Xa Ot – that’s a chicken and lemongrass curry….”

You start to realize you built up a bit of an appetite in your struggles today.

“Oh, and we’ll have to start with Cang Cua Bok Tom!” Serge exclaims excitedly.

“Of course!” you giggle with gentle sarcasm, not knowing what on earth he is talking about.

“Crab legs with shrimp stuffed in them, with garlic and chili seasoning.”

“Sounds delicious!”

“Always a – how do you say? – a crowd pleaser.”

You slowly start to relax as the courses are brought to you, along with a succulent Alsatian Gerwurtztraminer wine, whose sweet and almost spicy taste complements the Vietnamese meal. You and Serge talk about Uncle Ned, you recollections of him growing up, Serge’s partnerships with him, until it is time to go home. Serge takes you back to the car, and drives you back to Hue as night falls.

Once in Hue , Serge parks by the hotel and walks you back to your room. “No opening the door to strangers, d’accord?” Serge says, gently squeezing you by the shoulders to emphasize his point.

“All right…” you reply. Serge looks at you with devotion. You give him a peck on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“At your service, always, Mademoiselle…” he says, bowing elegantly and leaving you to undress and get a good night’s sleep.

You wake up the next morning, rested and ready for more flying. You get dressed once again in the smart flying kit you had before: brown leather jacket, tight white jodhpurs, and black knee boots. You pack and just as you finish you hear a knock at the door. “It’s me, Serge,” says the familiar voice through the door. You open it and Serge Haineault wheels in a full breakfast on a cart for the two of you into your room. You feast on the citrus fruit, the croissants and jam, and deep rich coffee as Serge lays out the trip for you.

“It is a little over 900 kilometres to Chiang Mai – that should take us under six hours of flying. We will have to refuel in Thakhek, on the Laotian/Siamese border, and then again in the colonial capital of Laos , Vientiane , and then on to Chiang Mai.” Serge pauses as he admires you in your tight-fitting flight gear. “You should consider a career as a pilot,” he says suggestively, as he looks you up and down in your tight jacket, form-fitting jodhpurs and boots.

You smile – Serge is back to normal, you think. “Well, we should be on our way,” you suggest. Serge agrees, and takes you to his car, in which he drives you back to the airstrip where you landed. The De Havilland is already out on the blocks on the airstrip, ready for you to take off. It is a slightly hazy day, but weather should still be fine up in the highlands over which you will fly.

Serge climbs in the front, allowing you to take the controls in the back. The Tiger Moth springs into action and takes off effortlessly from Hue . You fly up into the Laotian hills, their verdant rolling tapestry enthralling as you coast effortless above them. You refuel without incident at Thakhet, a very modest border town on the lazy Mekong River , far upriver from where it empties into the South China Sea below Saigon in Cochin , then proceed even further upland to Vientiane .

The latter is a major city, in many ways very un-Asian, monumentalist, like Paris in a weird, hinterland kind of way. Serge points out that the capital of Laos was sacked by the Siamese about a hundred years earlier, in 1828, and apart from the occasional temple most of the city’s architecture is decidedly French colonial. It is eerily quiet, and the silence is not content, but foreboding. There is something so wrecked about the place, something so broken in its spirit, that you want to get out as fast as you can. Serge concurs: “There is something disagreeable about this place. Chiang Mai has its dangers, but it is not so…alien.”

You take off from Vientiane as quickly as you can, heading now almost due west into the setting sun, over rugged hills which cast deep shadows into the lush valleys between them. You finally descend into a narrow valley of deep green vegetation, the tiny airstrip almost overrun by the waves of flowers and fragrant bushes.

“Chiang Mai is known for its flowers – the best in the world,” Serge offers. You think you are going to like this town after your recent troubles. The smells are indeed incredible, succulent beyond imagining, as if you could simply inhale and taste a mango or a tropical flower. You land easily enough in the clear mountain air, and steer the De Havilland for a perfect landing. You are really getting the hang of piloting, you think!
There is a large car waiting for you, an old-style 1925 Crossley, with its staid cylindrical carriage and narrow wheels on exposed shock absorbers. A delegation is waiting for you, several men dressed in clean work clothes, led by a man who, in his vest, bowler and top coat would not be out of place as a valet in an English country house “Miss Emma Davies?” the valet asks.

“Yes,” you answer suddenly, taken aback by the incongruity of it all. Serge comes up to you, carrying your and his suitcases.

“We are from Sang Ka Lok Ceramics. We are to escort you to a reception at the factory, where we would like to show you the most famous pottery in Indochina !”

It sounds good to you. Serge puts down his trunks and asks “How is Mr Long Na?”

“He is doing well, he hopes to see you,” says the valet.

“Ah, I see,” says Serge. “I think Miss Emma would like to be taken to her hotel room first, to freshen up…”

“So sorry, not possible, her uncle’s honourable friends have waited all day for her to arrive.”

You are puzzled by Serge’s tack. You feel fine, and it’s not like him to get sticky on protocol.

“J’insiste mon bon gars,” says Serge, as he pulls out a handgun and aims it over your shoulder straight at the valet.

“Serge!” you exclaim. “What is going on?”

“Long Na has been dead for a year,” Serge replies, not taking his eyes off the leader of this group of thugs. “N’est-ce pas, mes amis?” he calls to the group in front of you, who are raising their hands. You recede into Serge’s chest, horrified that you nearly fell into being kidnapped once again.

“Yes,” the valet hisses. “But you are no longer in Indochine, my French friend. In Thailand , you will find you have less privilege.”

“I have a gun. That is privilege enough.”

“So do we. We have more,” the valet responds. Then he calls out in Thai. Out of the trees come several more of his squad, all bearing rifles. “Now put down your weapon. We just want the girl.”

“You’ll have to kill me first!” Serge exclaims.

“As you wish,” the valet says, motioning with his finger and calling to the riflemen in Thai.

You hear the snick of rifle chambers locking. “No! Don’t shoot! Don’t hurt him!” You run forward, even as Serge says “Emma, no!” He is struck over the head with a rifle butt as the valet grabs you, spins you around, and quickly pins your arms behind your back.. You see Serge again on the ground, a nasty wound on the head in the exact same place as at Khai Dinh! “Oh Serge! Please!” you plead as you feel your wrists being tied behind your back. “Please don’t let him die!”

“I would worry more about your own future, dear little Emma!” the valet says with an evil hissing whisper in your ear. “Heh heh heh..” he starts to chuckle as he pulls the ropes tight. His goon squad also start to laugh at your helplessness.

“What? What are you going to do with me?” you ask with trepidation.

“Quiet, or I shoot you now!” says the valet. With more shouts in Thai they bundle you roughly into the old Crossley 25, then tie your booted ankles with savage tightness. Even protected by the leather, you feel the circulation being cut by their diabolical bonds.

“Help! Help!” you scream with all your breath in hopes of attracting attention , but soon one of the goons in the back of the Crossley handgags you, muffling your desperate cries! “I’m being kidna-mmffff!” is all you can say before a sweaty palm covers your mouth. One of the goons removes a sweaty necktie and cruelly stuffs it between your lips, almost making you retch, so far back doe sit force your tongue. “Mmmpphhffff!” you whimper, looking at your captors with sad eyes as the engine of the Crossley is cranked up, and you start a bone-jarring ride to an unknown destination.

“Pretty girl,” says one of the goons in the back in heavily accented English as he brushes your black hair away from your face. There is no mercy, only evil intent in his voice as he compliments you, and you look at him with impotent fury.

“Ha ha ha, she not like you U Nol!” says another goon as the car jostles across obviously pitted dirt roads. All you can see from the floor of the car are trees and hills – it is clear you are not going to Chiang Mai town. You are heading uphill, you know that.

“Maybe she like me better?” says the second goon, his fat unpleasant face suddenly intruding in your field of vision. U Nol pushes him back, and it is not clear whether they are joking or if they are about to fight over you.

“No matter!” says the valet from the front, in a commanding voice that tells them both to stop it. “Her dating career is at an end.”

Your blood curdles at his words. What horrible fate do these criminals have in store for you?

The villains eventually bring the rickety old car to a halt, and they pile out of it. Two carry you, one by your shoulders, one your bound ankles, and carry you from the car. You are in a wilderness of huge tangled trees and thick shrubs. You hear running water nearby. You look over your shoulder, and you see a fast moving river in a shallow, rocky ravine. There is a small canoe-like boat at the riverbank.

More shouts in Thai instruct the goons to place you in the coracle. You struggle as best you can but they tie you down to crossbeams in the boat, so that you can’t even sit up. All you can do is stare up at the sky, and see the deep green canopy of trees whose crowns are dozens of feet above you. You look with a mix of fear, anger and delicate hurt at the goons as they lash you tightly to the inside of the canoe. You writhe and fuss, twisting and turning, but soon you discover that you are quite inextricably bound.

“You are going to get a first hand view of Huai Kaew Waterfall, Emma Davies!” says the valet with a sneer. “They are not the tallest waterfalls in the world, but they are fast with deadly rocks in the middle of them. They will prove quite fatal to as delicate a flower as you!”

You start to sob, so stunned by the sudden reversal in your fortunes. You arch your back to make one more attempt to loosen your bonds, only to meet a derisive howl of laughter from the goons who bound you.

“Struggle all you want, Emma! This time there is no escape for you!” the valet says as the goons push the little boat into the stream. You shake your head “no!” but your protests are of no use! You are aimed headfirst downstream!

You see the goons by the riverbank recede as you are carried helplessly by the current. In the distance ahead of you, you begin to hear the sounds of rapids! You strain some more in your bonds, looking down at your leather jacket, now crisscrossed with brown scratchy hemp, strapping your torso down to the coracle, your skintight jodhpurs, more ropes digging into them above your knees, and your black leather boots, tied at the ankles. You tug at your wrists, but the ropes merely bite into your skin to remind you that escape is impossible!

The sounds of the rapids grow louder. In your current position, you can’t see how close the deadly waterfalls are, your thoughts of dread amplified by just not knowing when the end will come! You try to call out, but your filthy gag stifles your cry, even if there were anyone to hear you!

It looks hopeless!

Emma Davies and the Great Race - Chapter 3: Indochine

2009-06-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

(Thought I would add a few photos to give some sense of the settingof this ongoing story. The white dress on the woman is an ao dai, a traditional dress of Vietnam and to me one of the most graceful garments ever designed. The other phot is of Khai Dinh, near the city of Hue, and the locale for this chapter...)

A taxi arranged by the hotel conveys you to the airfield. You are already familiar with planes, so you know the De Havilland will not carry all your weighty trunks from the steamship. You have packed light – just one evening dress in case an occasion requires it, and more rugged clothes for solo air travel and possible trips outside of cities. You of course bring makeup – some things are essential even at the end of the earth!

You arrive at the airfield, and as promised your uncle has left a glorious new De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane, its wired wings taut when viewed head on, but the airfoils as shapely as lips in profile. The hanger staff help you load your bag into the front seat as you climb up to the pilot’s seat behind. You check your instruments as the personnel strap down your bags, kick the blocks from the tires, and start to pull your plane out into the sunlight. You find the maps promised on the side of the cockpit, by your knees,

Weather is forecast to be sunny and calm throughout your flight path today. It should be a glorious trip. The hangar crew point your aeroplane at the top of the new cement runway. You put on your goggles and give them a thumbs up. They reach up and spin the propeller as hard as they can, cranking up the 165 hp Gypsy 1C engine. The loud buzz of the engine thrills you as you embark on your first real international solo flight!

You accelerate down the runway until the wheels of the Tiger Moth leave the ground. Your soar into the azure morning sky and get the most glorious view of the necklace of little islands that grace the Hong Kong, Macao , and the estuary of the Si Kiang . You then bank and head west south-west, hugging the south China coast. Your plane only has a range of 275 miles, and this 800 mile flight is going to take you most of the day.

You have a jaunty flight, refueling at a lonely spot at the end of Kwangxi province, then across to Hainan island, refueling just before crossing the strait and then once again taking in all the fuel you can at the southwestern end of the island for the long ride across the Gulf of Tongking . With the sun shining, you have no trouble staying on course, the biggest danger in the crossing, for the distance to the coast of Vietnam is uncomfortably close to the maximum range of the plane.

But on such a good day, the risks are small. You fly smoothly over the Gulf, and catch sight of the lush coast of French Indochina – Viet Nam . You left Hong Kong at 7 AM sharp. It is now late in the afternoon. But at least you can get a wonderful cup of Vietnamese coffee in Hue tonight! The shore is lush fronds of palms, a deep green everywhere that makes the most beautiful gardens you’ve ever seen pale in comparison. For all the jungle-like flora, the land looks strangely fragile.

With the sun setting over the hills that rise up not too far from the coast, you approach a broad clearing with some oddly out-of place buildings clearly designed by French architects. You descend and land at the airfield at Hue .

A tall smartly dressed man in a light cloloured suit and a snap-brimmed hat greets your plane. He gallantly offers his hand as you clamber out of the cockpit and climb down to the ground – and not so gallantly looks you up and down quite audaciously, letting you know he likes what he sees.

“Bonsoir Mademoiselle Davies – I am Serge Hainault, I hope your uncle has spoken of me?” he says.

“He wrote of you, Monsieur Hainault. Thank you for greeting me.”

“Ah, the pleasure is mine. My, but you make pilot clothes quite fashionable,” he says saucily as he admires you in your tight fitting jacket, jodhpurs, and boots.

You wonder what your uncle was thinking by allowing this man to be your guide. But maybe he’s just French – suggestive but harmless. “How do you know Uncle Ned?” you ask, to find out a little more about him.

“Ah, Edward, he and I are partners in the tea business here,” Serge says as he gets up on the place, unstraps your bags and lifts them out of the plane to the ground. “Did your uncle ever mention East Asia Tea Exporters?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, that is our project together. But now I am supposed to show you Hue and be your guide. Please, come with me! I have already arranged for storage of your plane overnight.” Sure enough, airfield workers are busy taking the plane into a hanger and battening it down until you depart.

Serge guides you to a waiting black car with a driver. He opens your door and, after helping you in, puts your bag in the boot and then sits next to you. A louche he may be but he is polite, you think. The driver heads off over the broken dirt road. You are jostled slightly on the bumpy road but the ride is not too bad. You drive through thick tropical forest that alternate with marshes and rice paddies. The road improves as you come closer to a great river, the Huong. All the names of the towns are romantically exotic: Lam Mai, Quang Xuien, Phu Vang… You are heading into the hills inland, and as the land starts to undulate slightly it becomes clear you are getting closer to a major city.

When the car finally bursts into Hue, the sun has set and the city emerges as a galaxy of candle lights, coloured paper lanterns, their radiance bouncing off the tranquil waters of the bending, iridescent Huong River. Shadows are cast by venerable stone buildings, dark grey old pre-colonial Viet structures, and some flimsier, but no less grand, white wooden colonial palaces, with great verandas that encircle them. You occasionally pass by huge temples and ruins of old palaces.

“What do you think of Hue ?” Serge asks.

“It’s beautiful,” you answer.

“Yes, this was the capital of the Nguyens three hundred years ago. It remains Indochina ’s most beautiful city. Hue is renowned for its canals, its gracefulness, its balance.”

“It merits that,” you agree. As you pass you notice the people – men and women dressed traditionally, but elegantly, in fine silks. The women in particular are somehow—different – they seem not to walk but glide across the streets as if floating above the ground. You are fascinated by the exotic beauty of it all.

Serge notices your absorption. “ Hue also has a reputation for having the most beautiful women in Indochina ,” Serge offers just slightly salaciously. “As you can see they take that reputation quite proudly and seriously.” Then, with heretofore unseen humility, he says very softly. “I think you fit right in, if I may say it.”

You are pleased not just by his compliment but by the sudden kindness with which he offered it. “Why, thank you,” you say.

“Are you hungry for dinner?” Serge asks.

“I am famished!”

“Well, you are in French territory now, so you will eat well!”

“But I must change first!” you protest.

“Nonsense! I am client de la maison at a place nearby. They will not insist on evening dress, especially when I describe how far you have come!”

You agree and are taken to a lovely, quiet restaurant right on the embankments of the river. Little lights are hung all around the mahogany room. A delicious meal is offered, a split of French and Viet dishes, with not just the tastes you are used to but pungent coriander, ginger, and lemongrass. After your long day the meal is heavenly!

Serge explains over the meal that you have been given a room in the Dong Da Hotel right in the centre of the city. “You’ll get a good night’s rest then we’ll head out to the tomb of Khai Dihn tomorrow. It’s a popular place to visit.”

“Is it creepy?” you ask.

“No! Not at all – it is majestic!”

Serge takes you to your hotel, translates for you to get you registered, then has a porter bring your bags up to the room. “Good night, Mademoiselle Emma. I shall be here at a civilized hour tomorrow, say a lovely outdoor breakfast at 10?”

“That would be welcomed,” you smile, eager to catch some sleep. You get to your room, not noticing the two men in the shadows who are watching you in the lobby from behind their newspapers. You are too tired to notice such things right now -- your ordeal in Hong Kong a distant memory. In your room your windows are open to let in the soft night breeze. You are lulled by the tropical birds' songs and crickets’chirps, and you drift off to sleep quickly, looking forward to your adventure tomorrow.
+++

The next morning you are awakened by a knock on your door. You put on your robe and, more careful after your last misadventure, open the door only a crack with the latch still on. It is a smiling porter who says in accented but good English, “Gift from Mr Serge.”

You open the door, and the porter hands you a garment in a cloth bag. You open the bag and almost gasp at what is inside: a beautiful white ao dai dress, the national dress of Viet Nam, along with delicate white shoes to go with it. You pause but decide to try it on. It’s made of shimmering white silk, with a high but delicate collar, tapered at the waist, and then drops down to the ground. It looks beautiful on you!

You are met downstairs in the hotel breakfast room by Serge, immaculate as always in a white three piece suit. He is seated at the table; he sees you out of the corner of his eye, puts down his newspaper, stands as you approach, and doffs his hat elegantly before he helps you with your chair. You thank him with a slight tilt of your head in acknowledgement. Before you is a breakfast that would not be out of place in the centre of Paris : croissants, jam, coffee, and fresh rolls, on brilliantly bleached and pressed linens, served in fine china and meticulously polished silver.

“Ah, thank you for trying on the dress,” Serge says. You blush a little, less at his thanks than your inward embarrassment at accepting such a gift from a stranger! Serge notices your reluctance. “Ah, the dress is not my idea – it is your uncle’s.” he says. You relax a little, until Serge says, “This is my idea.” He reaches over and unpins your long black hair so that it cascades down your shoulders and back. You are appalled at his effrontery!
Serge is merely amused; he lifts his index finger to his lips as if to ask you not to judge so hastily.

“Vietnamese women with hair as beautiful as yours wear it long. The style is called toc the. It is appropriate for the dress….”

“Monsieur Hainault, I…I must object!” you sputter, still shocked at the liberty he has taken.

“Had I asked, you would have said no, and Hue would be less beautiful for it. So who is wrong?” Serge counters. Only he could turn such an outrage into a compliment. You stew a bit, until Serge pulls out a compact mirror from his vest and holds it up to you. You see how you look in the dress – beautiful with your hair loose in the ao dai.

“All right, but let this be the last presumption,” you say, simulating indignation. Serge chuckles and nods in agreement. He grins slyly as if to say he knows what you are thinking. This partially pleases and partially infuriates you as you have your breakfast.

“The tomb is not far from the city, and the roads are good there,” says Serge as you finish up. “My driver will take us there.”

Serge is right: the car ride to the tomb winds gently up into the hills surrounding Hue . Soon , on a wide expanse of land, is an ornate burial complex of Khai Dinh. The stone work is elaborate, with surprisingly delicate arches craning over broad steps that lead to the main chamber. The French influences on the architecture are unmistakable, yet this remains a very Vietnamese place. It’s only three years old, having been completed in 1931, yet it feels like it’s been here forever.

You tour the tomb, elaborately laid out in exquisite ceramics and gold, then you begin to wonder about your uncle’s cryptic clue. Where is the lion from whose mouth you must retrieve Uncle Ned’s pocket watch? Maybe Serge can think of something. You turn around to ask Serge if he has any ideas. But he is nowhere to be seen.

“Serge?” you ask, puzzled by his sudden absence. “Mr Haineault?” You begin to look for him, but he is not in the tomb itself. You walk outside, but cannot see him on the plaza outside the tomb. You begin to walk down the stairs, until suddenly the meaning of your uncle’s riddle becomes clear. You didn’t notice them earlier, so taken aback by the overall view, but now you notice that there are stone lions at the foot of the stairs leading to the tomb, their mouths wide open. You go to the one on the left side, and stick your hand in: sure enough, you feel a round metal object. You pull it out, and sure enough, it is the watch! It is still on its chain. Your traditional ao dai dress has no pockets, so you put the slender gold chain around your neck and tuck the watch under your dress.

Now to find Serge. You look around the base of the tomb, calling for your guide. You walk away from the stairs, to the right, onto the grounds surrounding the tomb. Lush trees and ferns hem the stonework closely. You brush leaves and branches aside gently, tiptoeing in your soft slippers and white dress as you search for Serge.

You round a corner, far from the populated parts of the tomb, when suddenly you see a figure in a suit lying face down on the ground. It’s Serge! You gasp as you rush toward him, wondering what has gone on here!

“Serge! What happened?” you ask, trying to rouse him. But he is unconscious, from what cause, you cannot tell.

At that moment, you hear a low but sing-song voice behind you say, “Excuse me, Miss?” You stand up and turn around and answer, “Yes?”

Two unfamiliar men stand before you, clad in traditional loose cloth Viet black clothes. “Come with us,” says the taller one.

“But my friend here may be hurt!” you protest.

“We know. We were the ones that hurt him!” says the taller one as the smaller one lunges toward you with unexpected agility. He clamps a gloved hand over your mouth before you can even let out a scream for help, and pins your arms to your sides with his other arm.. The taller man pulls some rope out of his pockets. Your eyes widen in terror at the realization that these men have knocked out Serge and are attempting to kidnap you!

“Mmpphhff!” you moan in muffled protest, squirming uselessly in the tight grip of your attacker. The taller man pulls your arms tightly behind your back; you fight in vain as he binds your wrists together with savage purpose. Once your arms are tied, the taller man pulls out two red hankerchiefs. The smaller man lets go of your mouth and the taller one forces one cloth into your mouth, then stuffs the other between your lips over the first. You feel the cloth being pulled taut into a tight cleave gag, your protests stifled, your arms hopelessly bound!

The two men start speaking in Vietnamese. You don’t understand a word. They hustle you into the trees. You struggle as best you can, and glare at your cruel captors as they force march you over the rough path, but you can do little to resist them. You come to a clearing where a small cart pulled by oxen awaits. The tall man lifts you up and throws you into the cart, despite your wriggling. He then jumps in the back. You start to kick as best you can , but he soon clamps down his hands on your slender legs and begins to tie those, too. The shorter man gets into the driver seat and prepares to leave.

You writhe and buck furiously as the taller one finished tying your ankles together. You struggle on, until the tall man pulls out a knife and says , “Quiet, or I will cut you up!” You freeze in terror at his threat, and start to sob softly. The taller man covers most of you with a sack cloth, mercifully leaving your head uncovered so at least you can breathe properly! But he leers at you in your helplessness, grinning and occasionally licking his knife blade salaciously as he stares at you. You look away in horror.

The shorter one starts the oxen, and you ride slowly down a bumpy forest trail into a narrow valley behind the tomb. You are roughly jolted in the ramshackle cart, unable to adjust to the ride, tied up as you are. You look around as best you can, trying to attract attention to your plight. But the trail is a lonesome country trail, and you see no one else.

After a long ride, the cart comes to a halt. The tall man pulls off the sack cloth covering you, jumps out and carries you off the cart in his arms. You see you are in a little clearing by a large river. There is a pole in the middle of the clearing and a large iron cistern next to it. The two kidnappers drag you to the pole and lash you to it savagely at the arms, waist, and knees. They chuckle evilly as you writhe helplessly, tied uncomfortably to the pole in your white dress.

The tall one pulls off your gag. “You have very important future,” he says. “Very brief, but very important!”

You gasp, “Wha…what do you mean? Let me go!”

“No, you are to be sacrificed to ancient river god – the crocodile!”

“No! Release me this instant! You can’t do this!”

The tall man smirks. “River god cannot be denied. Bad for harvest.”

“You can’t still believe that nonsense!” you say. “And what is that giant pot there for?”

You notice the smaller man gathering wood and placing it at the bottom of the cistern. Your heart sinks as you guess the answer to your question even before it is given to you.
“Ah, Crocodile God likes his flesh cooked,” says the tall one.

“No! That’s hideous! Let me go, I beg you!” you plead.

“Heh heh heh, river god gets an extra beautiful sacrifice today. The harvest will be good.”

“Help! Help! Somebody! Anybody! Please hel—mmppphhhffff!” you scream, until you are silenced by a re-administration of your hateful gag.

“Now we heat the water in the pot, then get you ready,” the taller man says, grinning insanely. You twist frantically in your restraints, all to no avail. The ropes are fiendishly tight and absolutely unbreakable!

“With good fire water will boil quickly,” your captor says as you look on with horror as they prepare to stew you alive!

End of Chapter 2 of "Emma and the Great Race"

2009-06-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

(When we last left our heroine, Emma Davies was trapped on the dingy wharfs of 1934 Hong Kong, about to be sold at an impromptu salve auction...)

You squirm impotently, now reduced to a lot in an underground slave auction. You fight the ropes and chains that bind you inextricably to the post in the decrepit shack of Pinkins and his infernal associates. “Why me?” you think to yourself, bemoaning your cruel fate at the hands of these hateful kidnappers. Little do you know that there is a sinister answer to your very question.

Pinkins harsh, guttural voice brings you back to the desperate here-and-now. “Say, gents, where shall ‘e biddin’ start? Do I 'ear 10 000 pounds sterlin’?” Several of the attendees are clearly put off by Pinkins’s enjoyment of his power over you; the room is silent.

“Come now, ‘ere ‘ere, it’s a high price but this one’s a stark ravin’ beauty! An English rose if ever I seen one,” Perkins says. “Oh, now I fink I know why you are so reluctant to bid – you ‘aven’t seen all o’ ‘er yet!” He mounts the crude auction stage on which you have been placed. He gathers your hair in one fist and roughly grabs the collar of your white silk dress roughly in the other. He yanks back your head uncomfortably, exposing your neck. “Nice white neck, she ‘as…” he grunts. “Annat’s no’ aw!” he says with his tongue anging out of his mouth. You cringe in horror and shock as he appears about to rip the dress to expose your body to these…these outlaws!

“No need for that Pinkins-san,: says the Japanese bidder. “We can see her virtues well enough. Be so kind, do not spoil the merchandise!”

“All right, I’ll bid 10 000 pounds,” says the emissary from Johor. “Only please leave her alone. Your behavior is quite uncalled for.”

Your eyes well up and you try to say “thank you” to the Johor bidder for even this small mercy in your degrading helplessness. Pinkins’s face degenerates into a snarl as he looks at you, then roughly lets go of your dress, robbed of his chance to violate your dignity again.

“11 000,” says the man from Mao’s camp.

You notice that Pinkin’s rough treatment of you has slightly loosened your stifling gag. You try to work on it more, pushing with your tongue and moving your head as best you can to try to force it out from between your now dry lips.

“12 000,” the Japanese aide-de-camp says.

Pinkins turns to the Westerner. “You know she’s worth a lo’ more, don’t you, sir? Aren’t you going to place a bid, too?”

“In a moment,” the Westerner says in a soft Welsh lilt but without betraying any emotion in his face.

“15 000,” the man from Johor bids.

You finally succeed in pushing the gag out of your mouth! The wad drops from your mouth as you gasp out your last plea for mercy to the bidders. You can expect no clemency from the vicious Pinkins. “Please, please, what are you doing? You can’t buy a person! It’s….it’s…”

“Uncivilized?” the Welshman interrupts.

“Cruel!” you reply. “Horribly, unspeakably cruel!”

“Eh, missie, ‘oo said you were allowed to speak?” Pinkins says, as he walks up the auction stage again.

“I beg you, tell this fiend Pinkins to let me go! He can’t get away with this! There will be an inquiry into my disappearance! Please I beg yo –mmphhfff!” Your last plea is truncated as Pinkins stuffs the wad, now moist from your spit and dirty from being on the floor, back in your mouth. You start to cry again, miserable as your last bid for freedom has failed!

The Welshman, at the rear of the audience, pulls out a large pistol from inside his jacket, raises his voice, and says, “The lady is quite right. You won’t get away with this!”

You look up, eyes wide with amazement and joy at the sudden possibility of salvation after all hope had gone!

Everyone turns around and freezes. “Please disarm yourselves, and place any weapons on the floor right now,” the Welshman says. “My name is Norris. I represent a very special client – HM George V! And he is quite possessive about all his subjects, even in the most remote of his dominions.”

Pinkins tries to play his last card. He speaks to the others. “Now, gents, I fink you oughta let this taffy know who’s boss ‘round ‘ere? You wanna do porridge for an honest transaction? You wanna rot in the bucket and pail an' explain ‘at to your bosses when you get out?”

The Welshman looks straight at Pinkins and smiles. “No, these dignitaries may not be aware of British law, and I am sure –“ he smiles at the other bidders for a moment – “that none of them is aware that this ‘merchandise’ is in fact the victim of a kidnapping! So I think they should just leave quietly and we can consider the matter closed for them.”

The other three bidders start to slink out of the shack, relieved not to be under arrest. "As for you, Mr Pinkins,” the Welshman continues, “you are fully aware of the law and penalties for illegal auctions, kidnapping, fraud, and a host of other offences connected with this sordid affair.” He turns to face the two Chinese assistants of Pinkins, but it seems they too have slipped away from the shack. “All right, Pinkins, untie her – now!”

Pinkins, his head low in defeat and suppressed rage, does as he is told, unchaining you from the pole, then untying your hands from behind your back. You rip off your gag and then start to rub your sore, red wrists. “Thank you, thank you,” you say to your rescuer.

“Keep your hands up please,” says Norris to your abductor. Pinkins scowls as he stands next to you. You are overcome with indignant fury as you recover from your ordeal. You stand before Pinkins and slap him across the face. “Shame on you!” is all you can say.

Pinkins glowers. Norris says, “I believe the appropriate East End phrase is ‘It’s a fair cop, guv!’ But what would a Taffy know?” He walks up to the auction stage, handcuffs Pinkins, and turns to you. “I have to take this man in for questioning. The police station is a short walk from here , and I can arrange to take you home from there if tht will be all right.”

“Yes, and thank you. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if you had not been here!” you say.

You accompany Norris to the police station and then are escorted back to the Mandarin Hotel. This time there is no one waiting to jump you in your suite, and you can enjoy a luxurious bath in your room. You are still unsettled by the day’s events, but you still want to continue with the adventure Uncle Ned suggested in the documents he left with his lawyer, Osgoode. After all, it’s not as if Uncle Ned’s eccentric ideas could subject you to more peril than you have already been through, could they?

You lounge in the hotel’s bathrobe on your bed, refreshed and cleaned up, ready to look over the packet from Uncle Ned left on a table in the sitting room. There is a single sheet of paper on it, in Uncle Ned’s handwriting.

“Your aeroplane is waiting at the airfield. Maps are in the cockpit seat. First trip is a relatively short one – a warm up. You have to make your way to the city of Hue , south west of Hong Kong , in French Indochina. One of my colleagues, Serge Hainault, will greet you there and escort you. You must collect a special token that belongs to me that I have placed at the tomb of Khai Dihn, who passed away in 1925. The challenge is this: you will have to retrieve my pocket watch from the mouth of a lion! I am sure you are equal to the task. You will like Hue – it is the Venice of Asia. Good luck! Affectionately, your Uncle Ned.”

“My goodness!” you think to yourself. “After today I am not sure I want to tangle with lions!” But you know Uncle Ned – there has to be a trick – that is the point of his eccentric puzzles. When you get there, you feel confident, you will know what to do!

You lapse into a well deserved slumber. The next morning, you rise, wondering what you may have packed for an adventure. Luckily, you brought clothes for flying, so proud you are of your pilots’ licence. Finally a girl gets to do something they usually let only boys do! You think of your upcoming adventure as a way of showing that women should have their freedom, too – or else it’s all too easy to be treated like chattel, as you were yesterday!

You don the crisp white blouse, tight white jodhpurs, and form fitting brown leather jacket, that make up your flying kit. You pull on the snug black boots that go with the ensemble, then throw a brown cashmere scarf around your neck with flair. Finally you sweep your hair up under a leather flying cap and perch the goggles on your forehead. You are ready for adventure!

Emma Davies and the Great Race -- Chapter 2

2009-06-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

(Before I even release this post, let me offer the now necessary disclaimer: This is set in East Asia in 1934. Some of the characters use offensively derogatory - but true-to-the-period - racial terms. Similarly, some of the Chinese characters speak the sort of pidgin English found only in 1930s movies. I DO NOT adhere to these stereotypes; you will note only the villains speak thusly. I was merely trying to recreate a world, with both its good and thankfully obsolete points...but we left poor Emma as she had been abducted.)

Chapter 2 - Britons never, never, never will be slaves?

At first, all you can see is a blurry point of light….try to concentrate, you say to yourself, as your head is still spinning from the effect of the chloroform. You hear a voice, tinny, Chinese: “Eh, boss-man, she awakens…”

Dark shapes moving in front of you. You can’t make them out. “Wha…?” is all you can say, gulping to keep back the nausea.

Another voice, deep, harsh, east-end London . “Right, you li’uhl devils. You nearly offed ‘er for good wiv the dose you gave ‘er. Easy onna poison next time, lads, aw right? We wants ‘em alive, or no profit – you unnastand profit, don’t you lads?”

A wave of drug-induced miasma washes over you, and your eyes roll up into your head as you start to pass out again. The last thing you hear is the Cockney voice grumbling out: “Lovely, well done, we’re landed, chaps.” Then you black out again.

You wake once more, exhausted, but the chloroform has worn off a bit more. You don’t know how long you’ve been out. The fuzzy point of light you can now see is a gas lamp in this dreary room you now realize you are in. Your limbs ache. You try to move them….you can’t!
The awful truth dawns on you: you feel your wrists firmly tied behind your back. You are seated in a wooden chair, your slender ankles also bound together. You try to move your legs but find your ankles are not only tied together but also pulled back and tied to the legs of the chair. You try to cry out, but your mouth is stuffed up this time – you feel a tight cloth gag filling your mouth and tied around your cheeks. All that emerges is a feeble “mmpphhff!”

“Oi, she’s back in the realm of the livin’!” you hear the guttural east end voice exclaim. You look to your left: a large man dressed like a stevedore, his tongue lalling out of his mouth, shuffles up to you and looks you over with hideously unwelcome attention. In the background, ahead of you but at the far end of this…this shack in which you ar being held captive, are two Chinese.

You look with helpless terror at the English man. He doffs his dusty bowler. “ Arfur Pinkins, at your service, your ladyship. I believe you have already made the acquaintance of Lester and Chong-Li.” You squint a bit to focus – yes, those are the two bellhops who abducted you from the hotel! Now they are dressed as coolies, undistinguishable from countless teeming thousands in the colony.

“They picked your outfit, as you might guess,” the odious Pinkins says. You wonder what he is taking about…until you look down at your dress. Gone are your fashionable clothes from London . Instead, you are wearing a light white silk dress, with short sleeves and a collar of shorts….a Suzy Wong dress, the dress style worn by….

A wave of red hot indignation rises up and clears your head. How dare they! Undressing you while you were unconscious, and dressing you like a…a…fallen woman! The nerve! You struggle against your bonds with obstinate fury, so angry are you at their impudence. But Arthur Pinkins just laughs as you exhaust yourself, straining futilely against the ropes lashing you to the chair.

“There, there, duckie, no need to get yer knickers in a twist…and quite lovely knickers they are, I might add!”

You lunge at him, but the ropes yank you back to the chair. You start to sob, frustrated, frightened, still dazed from having been so brazenly kidnapped.

From the back, Lester speaks up in his thickly accented English. “Hey, bossman, make her stop crying! Red face no good for sale. Clients want good girl, no problems!

What? You mind reels at the implications of what he said. But Arthur speaks to you before you have a chance to think. “You don’t have to cry, Emma. We’ll be right gentlemen from now on. If you stop crying, I’ll take the gag off. No tears innose lovely mince pies, aw right?” You nod miserably, and he unties your hateful gag. You gasp and cough as you can breathe fully again. Your mouth is dry as the Sahara .

“You horrible, horrible fiends!” you say softly. “Let me go!”

“Now, fiend is no’ a word I fink I like, “Arthur says. “An’ ‘ere I was, about to offer you some water…”

“No, please! Let me have some water!” you say.

“Now a lucky toff like you ought to know ‘ow to be polite, ask fer it nice-like!” Arthur says.

“Please, I would like some water.”

“Better!” Arthur pours some water out of a flagon into a dented pewter cup and lifts it to your lips. You drink in – it’s lukewarm and foul, but you desperately need it.

“Please let me go – what is it you want with me?” you ask, twisting slightly in your bonds.

“Oh, there is a rising market for refined European girls out ‘ere,” Arthur says. “Too bad you isn’t blonde, the slanties love ‘em blonde…”

“You don’t mean….?”

“Course I do, lamb. I ‘ave been in a bit o’ whatcha might call low water for a while, so I intend to rectify my situation with a bit of traffic onna side – namely, selling you to a wealfy whatcha call ‘em?

“Sultan,” says Lester.

“Yeah, Sull-‘han, down in Malay-land, where you’ll be his personal love-slave!”

“No! You can’t do this! It’s barbaric, it’s….inhuman!”

“Yes I certainly can, Emma. An look a’ it this way: you’ll still be livin’ be’er than most of the poor blighters there – at least, until the Sull-’han wears you out…heh heh heh…An’ with the coin I get from you I’ll move back to the Smoke an’ be livin in Belgravia, an’ every night onna tiles!”

“No! You dastardly monster!” You panic and start to scream for help. It might be your last chance! “Help! Somebody help me! I’ve been kidnapped! Please, somebody help – mmppphhffff!”

“Enuff ovvat!” Arthur sneers as he stuffs your mouth with the gag and stars to tie it back.. “Oh Lester, why is it all ‘e ‘igh-class bints always scream?”

“Don’t know bossman,” is the Chinese’s laconic reply. "Don't know what means bint."

"Yeah, right, well it's the King's English for bird." The Chinese look even more confused.
"No' worf the bovver, you two," Arthur mutters. Then he turns to you.

“Let’s make you a bit more salable merchandise,” Arthur says, as he reaches to the top of yoru had and pulls out the hairpin keeping your back tresses swept up. Your long black hair cascades down around your shoulders. For a moment Arthur is taken aback by your beauty. Then he hardens again. “Yeah, yeah, she’ll fetch a mint, this one will…”

You writhe as best you can, but you are trapped in this hideous nightmare, bound and gagged in some vile kidnapper’s lair, about to be sold into white slavery, maybe never to see home again!

Part 2

You squirm helplessly in your white silk courtesan’s dress and white pumps. You notice that although the dress appears to be modest enough, with a hem below the knee, there is a slit cut on one side up to a perfectly scandalous level, exposing your leg whenver you struggle a bit too hard. Arthur Pinkins ogles you every time the dress shows a bit of your leg; you try as best you can to deny him his crude enjoyments.

“Yes, my dear, you make a very fetchin’ prize, you do,” he says as he eyes your shapely form under the close fitting dress.

“I demand you release me right now!” you try to insist, but through the gag it comes out, “I weman hoo weweese me wight ow!”

“Whazzat, duckie? Pickin up a li’ul ovvat pidgin Pekinese? Oi, Lester my ol’ Dutch, she makin’ sense to you?”

“No bossman,” says Lester, not even looking up from his whittling.

Pinkins turns back to you, and says sotto voce, “Chinamans all ‘ave ‘er limitations, see? ’E calls me bossman coz ‘e can’t pronounce Arfur.”

“Neither can you, you swine!” you think to yourself. How to get out of this terrible plight? You cannot get the ropes to budge at all, and these desperate criminals are planning to sell you! You tug reflexively at the thought of being sold into slavery.

Pinkins chuckles as you writhe in the ropes. “Go ahead, girlie, struggle all you want. I got you tied up good n’ tight. You isn’t gettin’ away!”

You notice the sawdust on the floor and old grease-covered lamps on the walls – along with the wooden tables the whole building is an exercise in fire hazards. You shudder as you think the only reason this shack hasn’t burned down already is the fetid dampness of the wood – you must still be close to the harbour.

Pinkins turns to the two Chinese by the doorway at the far end of the dilapidated wooden building in which you are being held prisoner. “Eh, pigtails, any sign of our visitors?”

Lester impassively ignores the insult and says, “Two customers coming now.”

Chong-Li, the other Chinese, opens the door a little to allow two visitors in. One has an elaborate turban on his head and is clothed in purple silk. “The emissary from the Temenggong of Johor” Lester announces with a deep bow.

“Teme-what?” asks Arthur.

“The son of the Sultan and the prime minister of one of the seven sultans of the Malay peninsula ,” Lester explains.

“’Oo’s ‘e uvver one?” Arthur asks, pointing rudely at the second guest, a Japanese man who is more modestly dressed in modern clothes: top hat and tails.

“The aide de camp of the military governor of Manchukuo ,” Lester explains.

Arthur leans over to you and whispers, “Oh, Emma, you better ‘ope that Jap doesn’t buy you – the general has his pick from the lands he’s conquered in Manchuria . You’d have stiff competition wif all ‘em Chinese birds. An’ if you don’t satisfy the General…” Arthur makes a motion with his finger across his neck. You cringe in horror as his meaning sinks in.

Arthur straightens up and calls out to the Japanese. “Ah, welcome, welcome to our li’ul auction. A speshoo ‘onna to see you ‘ere. You’s doing a splennid job taking over from these Chinamen. Can’t wait til you runs the whole country – ‘cept ‘Ong Kong, of course. That’s part o’ the big red Empire, it is!”

The two guests look with displeasure at Pinkins and his blissfully ignorant chauvinism. In less than seven years, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Burma, and the rest of the the British Empire in the Far East would all be under Japanese occupation, though Pinkins could not know that now.

“Ah, you must be wantin’ to see the merchandise! Step righ’ up, don’t be shy…she’s a beauty, as I promised!” The two step closer and start to look you over. You wince as they lift your head by the chin to get a good look at your face, cringe as they admire your feminine curves under the dress, and try to make yourself as modest as possible as they look you up and down as if you were an animal. You start to cry at the degradation and horror of it all.

“Oi. Duckie, stop that! Customers don’t like it!” Pinkins says, rushing toward you.

“Leave the young lady alone, for heaven’s sake,” says the emissary from Johor in impeccable English. “Just stop badgering us all!”

The Japanese, in a thicker accent, says, “Yes, with respect, may we think about when the auction might proceed?”

“Eh, yeah, right, then let’s go!” says Pinkins.

“Wait, bossman, two more bidders come as I told you,” says Lester. Chong-Li admits two new men, one Chinese and dressed like a peasant, the other, surprisingly, a Westerner in a leather jacket and jodhpurs. “The assistant of a warlord in Jiangxi Province ,” Lester says, indicating the Chinese, “and the representative of a businessman in Rangoon ,” he continues, indicating the Westerner.

Arthur looks the Chinese newcomer up and down. “You must be one of them Liberation Army types – what’s that chap’s name, Zhou En-lai?”

“I work for Mao Zedong,” the Chinese man says.

“OK, from Communists I accept cash only. You lot are no good for credit. No respect for profit, you lot.” Arthur sounds indignant as he looks the People’s Liberation Army types up and down with suspicion. “Well, since we’re aw ‘ere, we can get the biddin’ star’ed!”

You look on with helpless horror – what a choice, to be sold to a Communist warlord, or a Japanese general, or maybe worse!

“Get ‘er up on ‘e auction block, boys!”

Lester and Chong-Li walk over to you, unite your feet , then lift you painfully out of the chair, and walk you to a small raised platform nailed together around one of the poles supporting the shack roof. They push you roughly against the pole, despite your eyes pleading for mercy. They show none as they force your back against the post.

“Go on, tie her!” Arthur snaps. The two henchmen cruelly chain you to the post, firm metal links are wrapped around your waist and across your chest, lashing you to the post. Meanwhile, Arthur sets up four seats for the bidders to ogle you from slightly below. You shift your body to reveal as little as possible, despite your slightly vulnerable position. Your hair cascades over one eye as you start to weep in fear and disgust at the degrading spectacle Pinkins is making of you. Lester pulls back your long black hair and then steps down.

“Let’s begin the bidding, shall we?” Arthur says.

Beginning of a story

2009-06-10T18:59:00.001-07:00

I thought I might share the occasional story I've written. This is not as easy as it sounds as I try to write personalized stories, and even if there is nothing particularly explicit in them, they still have (to me at least) a sense of intimacy I usually would rather not betray. However, this one, which I wrote a few years ago, was near the beginning of an online correspondence. I didn't know the person behind the character very well, so there is a lot less to betray. I changed the name of the character in this version.

The story below is set in the Far East of 1934. It's written, like many of the personalized stories I write, in the second person, and from the perspective of the heroine. I like this story as it gives some idea of the fairly extensive research some of my stories can require. I hope you enjoy it as I roll out subsequent chapters.

Emma Davies and the Great Race

Chapter 1 - Hong Kong

The great horn of the luxury liner Orient bellows as the steamship docks in the rugged harbour of Hong Kong . You take a last look at the decks and halls of the cruise ship, decorated lavishly in the streamlined, art deco style, full of long-lined elegance. The Orient has been your home for two weeks as you sailed to meet your uncle here in Hong King, half-way around the world from England .

You are dressed in the latest styles of the New Year, 1934. For the first time since the stock market crash, fashion is losing its droopy, wilted look. Your new dress is cut to mid shins, matched with a fitted jacket with shoulder pads. Over it was a long dark red coat – appropriate for chilly winter in England , but heavy for the delightfully cool and dry weather of Hong Kong this time of year. Your shoes are heeled lace ups, a little too much like those of a governess for your tastes but good for walking in the hilly streets of the colony. Your long black hair is swept up under a white wide-brow hat that sweeps seductively over one eye. Dressed so impeccably fashionably, you turn approving heads as you walk by admiring fellow travellers.

You have been invited by your uncle, dear, fabulously wealthy Uncle Ned, who has no children of his own and so has always said he would make you his heiress. No doubt he has invited you to his home overlooking this exotic city to formalize these arrangements.

You are delighted to be on such a grand adventure. In fact you love adventures -- with Uncle Ned’s encouragement, and despite your parents’ dismay, you took up flying lessons, and are now a qualified pilot. You have already flown across the Channel – although that was with an instructor!

You wonder what Uncle Ned will look like – you haven’t seen him in years! You are one of the first off the boat, porters carrying your trunks down the gangway. Immediately you are assaulted by the sounds, crowds, and smells of Hong Kong . Everybody seems to be in a frenzy of activity: stevedores unloading the ship; fishermen with wide conical hats jumping on and off junks with the catch of the day; vendors selling everything imaginable from spices to livestock – and all cheek by jowl, jostling like a bees’ nest in the bustling, bruising daily life of Hong Kong.

You wonder how you are going to get to your uncle – you don’t read Chinese, the port is packed with people, and there is no observable organization to anything! Just before you start to worry, a smiling, beefy English face comes up to greet you. Doffing his bowler ever so crisply, the tall, rotund man says, “Miss Emma Davies, I hope? Your uncle Edward sent me to meet your ship. My name is Carruthers.”

Yes, you look just like a Carruthers, you think with an inward smile. But right now a friendly face in this bedlam of commerce is exactly what you’d like to see. “Pleasure to meet you, Carruthers.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Your uncle has provided you with lodging at the Mandarin Hotel – the finest in Hong Kong . But first I’m to take you to your uncle’s offices, Miss Davies.”

“Very well,” you say. “Is Uncle Ned there?”

“No, Miss. He is away. But all will be explained in his offices, I assure you. No need to worry. Please direct me to your bags.”

You indicate the two trunks full of clothes. Carruthers orders the porters to load them onto a rickshaw, then helps you in. You and he ride up the winding, chaotic streets of Hong Kong, with its slanting overhanging roofs and narrow alleyways zigzagging every which way. More jostling, fruit sellers by stalls that barely seem to avoid sliding downhill; small groups of workers cooking lunch in the street – all these foreign sights and pungent smells of coriander and ginger fill your senses. Occasionally children stop and gawk at you, so obviously foreign to them.

As you ascend the hill, the pandemonium subsides like a receding tide; the buildings get bigger, more imposing, more….colonial, in a word. Your rickshaw stops at one of them, and indeed you recognize it as your uncle’s office building from pictures he has shown you. It is a regal stone edifice from the 1890s, with a wrought iron gate sealing off a small garden which separates the front door from the street.

A valet, dressed in morning suit with tails and gloves, approaches the rickshaw, and helps you out. Carruthers instructs the driver to take your luggage to the hotel. You walk with the valet in front and Carruthers behind you, into the building.

Inside, marble floors and alabaster moldings dominate an opulent reception hall. Wide corridors extend left and right, and a majestic curved staircase leads up to the next floor. You have hardly lived poorly yourself, but this office seems more like a palace than a place of work! Uncle Ned has done very well for himself.

A tall thin, impeccably dressed man with a thin mustache greets you in the entry hall. “Ah, Miss Davies – may I call you Emma? I feel I know you after all the many times your uncle has talked about you. Allow me to introduce myself – Clive Osgoode, your uncle’s solicitor. Please, come with me to your uncle’s chambers – there is no need for alarm, all will be explained there.”

Osgoode extends his thin, bony hand to the heavy mahogany doors of the study. You enter a mahogany paneled library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with tomes. Osgoode offers you a seat in a large leather chair opposite a wide desk. You note with some distaste that Osgoode himself sits behind the desk – you feel only your Uncle Ned should sit there.

“Now, Emma,” Osgoode begins, “My employer, Edward Nesbitt, has instructed me to tell you that he is prepared to name you his sole heiress to his vast fortune. But he needs to make sure that you are capable of such a responsibility. He has therefore set up a sporting challenge for you – one that he hopes will be an enjoyable adventure for you. Completion of this challenge will entitle you to inherit his estate.”

You swallow hard. Uncle Ned was a bit eccentric – this kind of idea was not at all beyond him. But you want to know more about what he has in mind. “Excuse me, Mr Osgoode, but could you tell me where Uncle Ned is? And what his challenge is supposed to be?”

“Why certainly,” Osgoode says cheerily. “First, you will find your uncle at the end of this challenge. He intends to send you on a treasure hunt. You will have to figure out several clues along the way to reach the next destination. You are to be given all the resources you need – clothes, money….and, as you are an aviatrix, a beautiful brand new De Havilland DH82 Tiger Moth – a state of the art biplane which is waiting for you at the airfield!”

Your breath is almost taken away! You don’t know how to react, it’s all so sudden!

Osgoode senses your hesitation. “Don’t worry my dear, your Uncle Ned is not sending you into any danger. He has people to keep an eye on you every step of the way, as I am here to guide you while you are in Hong Kong . No, he simply wants to see how resourceful you are as proof that you are fit to run his many business concerns after he departs from this earth.”

Well, you think, that doesn’t sound quite so risky. “All right, what do I do next?” you ask.

“I have a document for you to sign, acknowledging Mr Nesbitt’s challenge.” He shows you a document on the table. You read it; it merely says you accept the challenge wherever it leads you. You sign it with an elegantly thin fountain pen.

“Very good,” says Osgoode. “Now, your first clue is waiting at your hotel room.” Osgoode smiles weakly.

“Then I shall go there presently!” you say jauntily, beginning to warm up to this adventure!

“The valet will show you out,” Osgoode concludes. “Good day, and a pleasure meeting you, Emma.”

You are led out to the waiting rickshaw. Osgoode watches your departure through a front window. The valet returns to the house and asks the lawyer, “So, we are just going to let her go?”

“No,” says Osgoode. “I am going to let her check into the hotel. You see? We have her signature that she was here, then the hotel check-in will show that we delivered her safely to the Mandarin Hotel, after which, she passed out of our care and knowledge. But of course,” Osgood takes out a pocket watch as if thinking of a timetable, “shortly thereafter she shall disappear….forever!”

Part 2
You ride in the rickshaw, unaware of Osgoode‘s foul plot against you, but arrive in high spirits at the Mandarin Hotel. Dozens of Chinese porters and staff bustle around the enormous lobby as the Western managers look after the guests. You stride up to the registration desk and announce yourself. An elderly Englishman smiles from behind the desk. “Ah, Miss Davies, we have been expecting you. Your uncle must be very fond of you, for he has reserved the Pearl Suite for you. Shall I have your luggage taken there?”

“Please.” You look around – the hotel lobby is a swirl of white alabaster balustrades, huge ferms and palms in potted in marble urns, and a huge window on one side that looks out over the bay. It’s well into the afternoon already. You think you might like to freshen up in your room before dinner..

The receptionist holds the room key out for you. “You’ll find the Pearl Suite quite secluded and relaxing.” He motions for one of the Chinese porters to escort you to your room. You wave him off, indicating you are content to find your room yourself.

“Very well,” the receptionist says. “You can take the centre elevator to the top floor; turn left once out of the elevator and walk straight to the end of the hall.”

“Thank you,” you say with a demure smile, then walk toward the gilt-decorated elevators. The wide, modern elevators carry you softly up to the 10th floor of the hotel. The doors open, and a sign says “Pearl Suite” with an arrow to the left. You walk down the carpeted hallway, the corridor silent, but opulent. You finally get to the Suite, insert your key, and open the door.

An enormous suite lies behind the door. Your trunks have already been brought up and have been placed on stands at the far side of the room. You walk down a small hallway into the sitting room of the suite, mesmerized by the splendid view you have from the window – a window that opens up to a small breakfast balcony. Next to the sittogn room, off to the right, is a beautiful bedroom piled high with pillows and linens.

You are so entranced by your suite that you do not notice at first that there are two figures in the sitting room to the left, around the corner from the hallway you have just come through.

“Miss Emma Davies?” asks one in a thick Cantonese accent. You are startled at first, but then you relax. They are two Chinese bellboys, in red jackets braided with gold, black pants and pillbox caps – like something out of a Chinese version of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

“Yes?” you respond. Maybe they are waiting for a tip. Ah, some conventions are universal, you think to yourself. You open your purse to give them something.

“No, no, Miss Emma. We do not want for your money!” says one bellboy, approaching you and smiling while he waves a white-gloved hand in a gesture of refusal.

“Ah, yes, well, then, what do you want?” you ask.

“You,” says the bellboy as his cohort rushes toward you and clamps a heavy white cloth over your nose and mouth.

“What? What is the meaning of thi…mmppphhfff!” you exclaim as the second, taller bellboy grabs you and holds the cloth over your face. Ughh! The cloth is wet, and it smells sickly sweet. You struggle, kicking wildly to get free, but both bellboys and holding you fast, as you breathe in the noxious fumes from the cloth. You start to feel funny, disoriented, weak.

“Don’t fight or it will be worse for you,” says the smaller bellboy as he holds you and keeps you from fighting off the one holding the cloth over you.

“Mmpphhfff!” is all you can exclaim as they hold you. You become confused, dazed; you start to feel sleepy.

“She is weakening!” says the smaller bellboy, who lets go of you. You are now so weak and dazed that you can’t fight off even the one still holding you. You eyes can barely focus but you see the small bellboy pulling some ropes out of his jacket pocket.

“No!” you want to say, but are too intoxicated by the fumes to say or do anything. You think, this must be what chloroform smells li…..

You pass out before you can complete the thought, slumping into the arms of your two kidnappers.

A/S/L

2009-06-09T06:20:00.000-07:00

Some of you will know this is a repeat - since I had to cut and paste most of my old blog I am going to shamelessly weave some summer reruns into the mix in this new blog. Hope old friends indulge me...

I do engage in role play from time to time. I don't have as much time as I would like, but who does? At any rate, a recent conversation with a good friend touched on the perennial topic of just how much "truthiness" is a good thing online, and what are the ethics of dissembling a little. I don't have the answers, perhaps a game show host does, but it did get me thinking to what I react well and badly to regarding the classic A/S/L (age, sex, location) issues as it pertains to RP.

Age: I don't really care about your exact age, assuming you're over 21. Again, 21 isn't my idea, I just don't think a grown man should be discussing peril themes with someone underage, and 21 is more or less the standard, arbitrary as it may be. I do think I deserve to know roughly how old you are, and not for purely selfish reasons of my perverted little fantasies involving your online persona, some rope, and a pendulum. No, the reason is that it helps me to get a handle on a correspondent's cultural assumptions and emotional expectations. By this I mean, to take just one angle: a 20-something simply is not likely to be as emotionally astute as a 30-something or a 40-something. It would be odd if they were. OK, I'll speak for myself -- I have learned a lot since I graduated college. I like people in their 20s as well as in their 40s (or older) but my reactions and observations are different depending on your age.
I know this is rough - particularly if you're a woman there is a huge leap of faith. So many men are interested only in a fantasy figure, and are delusional enough to respond better to you if you say you are "22, 5'10" and a C cup" than if you are honest. Or alternatively, if you are just tired of that and want to hide behind something less "attractive" there is a temptation to dissemble down the fanciability curve, too.
But it works in the other direction as well: I am slightly over 40 myself, and I note with far more wry amusement than regret the profiles of women saying "no men over (pick an age)." Ladies, your wish is granted. I have no need to elevate a mindless ball of pretty fluff if that's all you are. Life is too short for you, too.
I am not for a moment suggesting that people should not be up front about their preferences -- I just observe a tone of "you're not worth it" in most of those prohibitions. In my case, you don't know what you're missing, and you wouldn't value it if you did, but that's your loss, not mine. Believe it or not, you can be 40, still have all your hair, not have a pot belly, and not listen to Kenny G. ( Side note: I once received a birthday card with a dinosaur in a party hat on the front. Inside the caption was "You're only as extinct as you feel.")
I for one had a pretty miserable time in most of my 20s -- unloved by and large, even when I had a girlfriend -- underpaid, skinny, and so boyish looking that I have a photo of myself at age 27 and I look like I am 12. I still look about 10 years younger than I am, but now I have (a) surrendered to my villainous deviousness - no tired anti-hero cliches here, and (b) the cash to make it a really, really good party.
On a more serious note, I finally feel integrated. The combination of my antiquarian impulses and being near the midpoint of life do not make me morbid and do not make me anticipate decline. I feel so connected to everything -- past, present and future. It's exhilarating to be alive. And even more exhilarating when you have a damsel squirming helplessly in her bonds on a conveyor belt below you, heading toward the shredding machine...but I digress...

Sex: I may just be hung up on this one, but I do think it's only fair to be honest on whether you are a man or a woman. I give full points to those men who are straight up about saying so even if they enjoy playing the damsel in distress in RP. Someone like Stan Teriaca, for example, is doing global karma a favour by being open and honest about who he is. Were that everyone on the net was as nice and decent a guy as he is.
Frankly, I think it becomes pretty obvious after a while whether you're a boy or a girl. I might be wrong, and perhaps some of the women I speak to are really men in disguise. But I doubt it. The men who are faking it are usually easy to tell: they tend to bore me. Some women bore me too, but usually for the opposite reason: with them I am getting too little, whereas wwith the men fakers, it's always too much.
Sexual preference is nice to know, but not essential - it does help me understand you a little more quickly if I know. I have had a lot of fun talking to women who were more interested sexually in other women than men. As long as you don't mind being imperilled by a guy, it's OK by me. I will just adjust my expectations of the kind of response I will get accordingly.
I guess if all I were interested in were a fantasy for myself alone, it would matter less to me if I were talking to a man or a woman - let's just play the game (and I mean that in a pleasant, literal way). But I am interested in more than that. I want to affect the person deep down, I want to give that person the thrill of having been discovered, for lack of a better term. I don't want you revealed as in "undressed", I want you revealed as in "vulnerable."

Location: This is the most problematic as far as privacy goes. Luckily (for me), it's the least important for me. I am interested in your location only insofar as it gives me a better handle on what you're like, what events might be uppermost on your mind, etc. It's certainly not to stalk you.
At the same time, I understand the need to keep weirdos at bay. I take zero umbrage at people's being vague about location. For me, I am satisfied with general area -- "north of England", "California", "Catalunya" - that's specific enough to get an idea of what perspectives have shaped you, and allows me to get to know you sooner.

So, in the spirit of disclosure, here is mine: I'm in my early 40s. I am male, preposterously heterosexual (by that I don't mean all tough guy or macho -- I mean, my interest in women is unmitigated by any interest whatsoever in usual guy things: team sports, mechanical tinkering, lousy beer or electronic toys. Could not care less.) I am 6'3", 200 lbs, reasonably athletic (I enjoy being active, I just don't watch sports or participate in weekend warrior basketball nonsense). Skiing is the closest thing I have to religion. I live in a suburb of New York City. At any given time I speak with about a half dozen people on a regular basis (not all at once!). I am happily married, and I am not stupid enough to screw up a good thing. I am not on the net to pick you up, but to get you going. I want to put you in peril. I want to adore you.

A Yahoo Refugee

2009-06-02T06:01:00.000-07:00

Hi there. This blog will investigate the theme of the "damsel in distress" in media and literature. By damsel in distress I mean a heroine in peril. Think: Pauline tied to the railroad tracks. Spy girl tied to the table with the laser closing in. Superheroine in rococo Batman-esque death trap. If that excites you, you've come to the right place. If that confuses you, well, maybe you'll be less confused after reading. If you think that's sick, well, I won't try to argue with you.

Many of you will know me from Yahoo . I finally gave up on Yahoo because of their ridiculous opening and closing of content venues (today: is it Mash? 360? Groups?). Their new "profile" sucks the big one, and I finally had enough.

Anyway, a new start. When I started my Yahell blog it was about more than just damsels in distress. I also had musings of whatever value on things I hapen to like outside of the narrow world of villainy: fine wine, literature, movies, etc. I may bring some of that back.

I am also going to archive my old Yahoo blog here. I hope I don't have to move it again.