The Dungeon | keys and cellar bondage story

At the height of the cold war, my Father, bless him, was seriously concerned for the safety and future of his family. For their preservation, he spent a vast amount of money on the construction of a nuclear shelter. Accessed from the cellar, the concrete bunker was 10 feet below the cellar floor underneath the rear garden. There was also a secondary escape via a tunnel and air lock to a steel-covered hatch thirty yards beyond. Equipped with running water, its own reservoir, sanitation, generator and food-storage, it was an impossible-to-imagine folly.

But he meant well.

But to my girlfriend of later years, long after his departure, it was a personal paradise. Ellie was neither petite nor robust, not tall nor short, not beautiful but with a beautiful mind, pretty in her ways and mannerisms... to me - adorable.

Ellie was clever with her hands, highly creative, imaginative beyond imagining and her life was ruled by her fantasies in bondage. She ran the whole gamut from poor little peasant girl, held in bondage by the rich Lord of the Castle, to the beautiful daughter of a rich nobleman captured on the high seas by a villainous pirate or stolen away by a desert sheik, ravished in chains or sold in the market place. She was waylaid or molested in the woods and, occasionally, rescued by some dashing swain or brave footman. To her that shelter was an obvious dungeon and she cajoled me into equipping it with the necessitous tools and fruits of her adventures.

Upstairs the room she had commandeered as her workroom was filled with the costumes she created for these endless games. Her industry was prodigious; she ran a full-time job, ran my house, looked after me and indulged her dreams and always had several hours each day - at times several days on end - to be spirited away sometimes in rags, occasionally (and only for me) in her birthday suit or, at the other extreme, in elaborate period costumes of exquisite gowns with many lacy petticoats. Ellie never really belonged to anyone although, without doubt, I was number-one on her list. But neither did she make use of me; she gave more than good measure, was a great companion and, as the days passed into weeks, months and years, so she steadily enslaved me.

Never can I forget that terrible day when a police car pulled up at the front of my house and a tactful but embarrassed policeman broke the news that Ellie's car had been forced off the road by a skidding lorry. She was gone!

For two years the place resembled a tomb; it was silent, grey, poorly looked after.

Then came a day when, my mind on other things, I wandered by mistake into her workroom.

It looked as though she had just popped out to the loo or to bring me a cup of coffee. My heart climbed up into my throat and I turned and fled. I locked the door behind me but have no idea at all why I left the key in place. But it did serve to remind me how I had let myself drift, how disreputable I had become, how disreputable my house had become. I felt ashamed at the manner in which I had let down my Ellie and spent the next two days in a furious bout of spring-cleaning.

Then, a steaming mug of coffee in hand, it occurred to me that it was more than two years since I had carried out any maintenance work on the shelter. The damp would have rusted all of the hinges and door-locks. The generator engine must be in need of an oil-change, the water and sewage pumps should be checked, the air-ducts and filters too! The reservoir was probably a static heaven for slimes and bugs. Once again came that guilty feeling for it was as much, if not more, Ellie's stamping ground as mine.

I descended on that underground bunker like a hurricane. It smelt musty and needed airing; I threw open the emergency exit and set the fans roaring. I cleaned and polished; I went berserk. Then I shut it all down and collapsed exhausted on my recently tidied bed.

Ellie had been resurrected. A week later in a sweeter - much less bitter – mood, I was drawn back to the "dungeon" perhaps because it was a good place to hide myself and remember her in all her daftest enterprises that had so enthralled me. As I descended to the cellar, I knew there was something amiss; the draught that flowed past me should not have been. When I had shut it all down on my last frenzied visit, I had forgotten to close the emergency hatch.

Access to the emergency tunnel was from the main living area on the opposite side to the entrance from the house cellar. Off the main room were three smaller rooms - bedrooms we named them - a food storage compartment, the bathroom/toilet, the machine room and a cubby hole that Father had optimistically equipped with radio gear and, of all things, a now-antique television set. As it happened it was just perfect for Ellie's games and she had often spent two or three days down there in captivity.

But as I negotiated the tunnel, there was more wrong than the draught. There was a light in the main room and a faint aroma...? Someone must have entered via the emergency hatch and was violating Ellie's memory. My temper climbed to boiling point; I took a couple of deep breaths but it made little difference. I stormed in ready to perform miracles of murder... and was stopped in my tracks.

For one horrifying moment I thought it was Ellie. The intruder was not unlike her in build and dressed in a long skirt she did resemble Ellie. The girl stood over against the far wall in the attitude of a trapped animal. "Just what the hell ... are you doing here?"

She remained silent. "Who are you?"

She swallowed: "My... name is Elkie."

For a moment I thought she was taking the...

"Well, Elkie whatever. This is private property. You're trespassing and I'd be more than obliged if you took yourself to some more suitable place like Hell." Inexcusably rude of me but then... she WAS trespassing on hallowed ground and she had shaken me up more than a little. And when it came to the name... ?

She lifted her nose slightly and said, with deserved coldness, "Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Such boorishness would accelerate any departure but for..."

"Well? Finish it and go."

She looked at me steadily for a full ten seconds and then, pointing at the table. "The keys don't fit."

Now, with both arms raised to point, I saw that she was in handcuffs. "How come... ?" I looked beyond to see that Ellie's bondage cupboard stood open. "You've got a bloody nerve..."

I came on into the room. Now I could see that she had gone further than just trying on Ellie's handcuffs. Peeping out from under that long skirt was a loop of chain and that, unmistakably, belonged to leg irons. Then, around her waist, she was sporting the waist-belt that had been my last gift to Ellie. Had she done the job properly and anchored that belt to the wall? Now my attention turned to the keys on the table. They were my bunch of household keys that I must have left there after my assault on the dungeon. Perhaps Ellie had left her keys up in her workroom. There was only one way to find out though.

For such a long time it seemed I had had nothing whatever to laugh about and now, as it welled inside me, I could not stifle it. It came as a giggle - no other word for it - doubled and then quadrupled until finally I fell into a chair helpless with it. Elkie began to glower and, really, I could not blame her. After my aggressive rudeness to then laughing at her like an idiot when she was so helpless was unpardonable behaviour whatever her transgression.

I wrestled for control and started to make my apologies but now it was her turn to wax aggressive and abrasive. For perhaps a full minute we stood hurling loud abuse at each other. I took a step forward and she hastily retreated.

Jubilantly I took another step and again she moved back - now silent. Seeing the apprehension in her face, I took a demonic delight in advancing yet again. This time she hit the buffers - the wall. I reached out and snapped the neck ring into place. She let out a small shriek as her hands flew up. I stooped and snapped the ankle ring into place.

This had been one of Ellie's prize possessions. She had seen something like it in a bondage magazine and pestered me until I made one for her. It was a succession of hinged rings down the wall that closed with spring hooks to make effectively a shaped cage that held its victim to the wall. With both arms encased a victim lacked the movement necessary for self-release. In less than a minute, I had Elkie caged and childishly triumphant, I stormed out.

By the time I exited from the cellar I had begun to cool down and indeed, a certain amount of apprehension was now my lot. That act was illegal - I had deliberately imprisoned, illegally imprisoned mind you, a young girl entirely unknown to me. What would the police, the public, the courts make of that? Kidnap, intended rape?

Hardly, surely?

She had come unbidden and uninvited into my domain, she had rifled through cupboards and drawers for what purpose? Did that make her a thief? Not really because there was no evidence that she had tried - or intended - to remove any item. But she, none other, had locked herself into those irons and it was not my fault that she had relied on a false set of keys. It would be hard to propose, let alone prove, entrapment on my part. But I HAD deliberately locked her, still ironed, in a cage and so prevented rather than helped her departure.

If one thing was clear it was the necessity to find Ellie's keys. They were indeed where I had surmised, lying on the worktable of her sewing machine. How long Elkie had been trapped down there I did not know but I reckoned a little longer would do her no harm.

If nothing else, it might make her think twice about entering uninvited through accidentally opened doors? And I was coming to realise that Ellie had taught me too to find pleasure in bondage. Thus, keys in my pocket, I went to the kitchen and made a large pot of coffee. With two mugs, the sugar pot, cream jug and the biscuit-tin all on a tray, I then descended with expectation to the house of fright and despair.

When I entered she was still upright in her cage - alive and conscious then - but she remained silent and still. "I come bearing gifts and the biggest olive branch I could find. Afraid though it's too small to see."

Setting the tray on the table, I poured coffee and took it to her, mug in one hand, biscuit tin in the other. At first she hesitated but perhaps if only because there was no alternative, she reached to the bars. I tucked the tin under my arm while I released the rung that held her arms to her sides. If she was to raise the mug to her lips it was necessary to release the one above too. Although I found pleasure in watching the contest between neck and well-fitting band as she tried to drink, it was also clear that that too must go.

I pushed forward the opened tin. "Don't stop at one," I said. Daintily she took another and it was accompanied by the musical tingle of chain. "If only to make conversation," I began, "How long have you been stuck here?"

She concentrated heavily on biting into a biscuit then colouring. "I came in yesterday afternoon."

"Won't somebody have missed you?"

The answer, when it came, certainly explained her hesitation. "I live alone."

"So," I said, "with nobody to miss you and all alone, you chained yourself up in here. Suppose this house had been unoccupied?"

She gave a little shudder. "I investigated that passage. It led only to a locked cellar. To judge by its state, the place was unoccupied."

"And yet you... ?"

"I thought I had the keys. I expected to be able to unlock myself."

"Ah," sententiously. "Blessed be he who expecteth nothing for verily he shall receive it every bloody time."

"Just what sort of rotten bastard are you? Isn't it enough that you have me doubly helpless without constantly mocking me as well! I haven't done any harm either to you or your precious toys and I certainly have no intention to cause any. Why can't you just let me go and enjoy your macho humour later at my expense?"

I fought back that temper that was rising again. She did have a point; I was goading her and she was powerless to do anything.

But then, I hadn't - truly hadn't - meant to be other than joking. "Look, I didn't mean to put you down. I just have that kind of humour. But, if it's an explanation, these things down here are not specifically mine. They all belonged to a past girl friend; she was crazy about bondage. She died two years ago in a car accident and you... well... You see you knocked me right off kilter because you... at first sight, I thought for a moment that you were her... then again... Her name was... Ellie."

"Oh, my God. I am so sorry. What can I say? I'm so very sorry."

"Don't let it worry you. I'm over it, really. It was just that..."

"No please. It's me who should apologise. But then, you see, bondage turns me on too. Although I was growing afraid - and the more so when I heard you coming - I was in fact having a whale of a time because it was for real. I couldn't escape and, worse - or better? - I couldn't see any way out."

For a long moment, I sat there numb with the realisation of my brutal self-pity. Then I held out the tin again. "Seems to me you must be in need of more? Let me have your mug."

When I brought back the coffee, she was appraising her prison. "This is really something. Ellie's idea or yours?"

"Oh, it was practically all Ellie. She had the most vivid imagination. She would get me to lock her up and then leave her here - on one occasion she spent two whole days locked up." I reached up and sprang open the remaining bars. "She loved everything. The cage. Manacles. Chain. Rope. If she was to be alone, I wouldn't let her wear a gag but she owned several and often... " I tailed off.

There was a little tinkling sound and a small hand rested lightly on my shoulder. "I'm really sorry. No, I'm appalled at what I did. Could I ask if you found the keys to these cuffs and things?"

"Why, yes. Certainly. I found them on her worktable where she must have left them before.... Look. I know it is cheeky of me to even ask but... would you buy your freedom by having dinner with me tonight? I mean still in Ellie's chains. These last few days she has been sort of ... with me again. Daft, I agree but she so often served up dinner dressed in all sorts of her costumes and adorned... no over-adorned... in her steel finery. She loved it. "

"And obviously you loved her. If it will help to lay the ghost I've stirred up... of course I agree."

"Do you want to hold the keys?"

She grinned. "I guess their usual place was in your pocket. If that's where they are now then, in the mood of the moment, let them stay there." With rising colour and falling eyes she shyly added, "After all, I like being a prisoner too."

I unhitched her from the wall and, captive and captor, we tinkled our way above stairs. I showed her the bathroom but refrained from chaining her to the towel-rail.

When she re-appeared in the dining-room doorway, I heard her voice, "Hope I haven't dropped another boo-boo but I thought that, if I hid my face...?"

As I turned, I caught my breath. She had found Ellie's workroom and, although she couldn't remove the clothes in which she stood, she had adopted the headgear of Ellie's harem costume.

My first and immediate reaction was once again that unreasoning anger. How dare she...

But Ellie had not enjoyed those things for two years, had been unable even to enter that room. Should I continue to mourn her image, her unique person? Must I let her creations, like Miss Havisham's wedding breakfast, crumble into dust?

I had asked... and Elkie was trying to make her live again for me - if only for one evening.

"That's a wonderful idea," I breathed. "Ellie-two. I simply have to... " Taking her in my arms I kissed the only bit of her that I could see. I could sense the stirring within me; I was coming back to life. With my best impersonation of a waiter I formally drew out her chair.

When she was comfortably settled... I chained her to it.

END