Captives of Cheyner Close Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Also by Adriana Arden

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Are you ready to be initiated into our society?’ Tara asked. The steel pressed deeper into Daniela’s flesh.

  ‘Yes I am,’ the girl said quickly.

  ‘Tell us what you hate?’

  Daniela recited the litany: ‘Slappers, style-freaks, crumbles, nerds and losers…’

  The privelaged girls of the exclusive Fernleigh Risa Estate, in England, look down with contempt on the residents of shappy Cheyner Close, and wage a secret war of vandalism and harassment against them. But they underestimate the ingenuity and determination of those they so despise. When the residents strike back, the girls find revenge is both sweet and very painful.

  Also by Adriana Arden:

  THE OBEDIENT ALICE

  ALICE IN CHAINS

  ABANDONED ALICE

  CAPTIVES OF

  CHEYNER CLOSE

  Adriana Arden

  ‘The truth is all this excites you, isn’t that it?’ he said.

  She was breathing faster now. ‘Y – yes, Master.’

  ‘Are you a masochist?’

  Gail took a deep breath, chewing her lip again in an innocently childish display of uncertainty. ‘I … I don’t know, Master. I never thought so before now. I was terribly afraid at first. But I can’t help getting excited and – coming, even when I’m being hurt. As long as it’s sexy as well.’

  ‘Is that what this is for you? A sex game?’

  ‘No – a bit, maybe … but I am really sorry for what I did, Master. I deserve to be punished.’

  He slipped a finger into the mouth of her sex. ‘You mean you want to be punished?’

  ‘Yes, Master!’ she gasped.

  ‘Then say it.’

  ‘Please punish me, Master! Do anything you like to me!’

  You’ll notice that we have introduced a set of symbols onto our book jackets, so that you can tell at a glance what fetishes each of our brand new novels contains. Here’s the key – enjoy!

  One

  TARA WAS THE first to be caned.

  They bent her over the sign, mounted on two short concrete posts, which rose from the grassy traffic island at the top of Cheyner Close. The edge of the plank which backed the metal strip bearing the raised lettering dug into Tara’s belly, but Roberta Pemberton, who had a hank of Tara’s hair coiled round her fist, would not let her shift to ease the pain. Tara could only stare at the grass in front of her face while her full bare breasts, their nipples painfully stiff, hung pendant and trembling in the cool night air.

  Tara pinched her lips tight. She was determined not to make a sound whatever they did to her. Even naked with her wrists bound behind her back, she would not give way to fear and shame before the people she loathed.

  Kneeling on either side of the sign, Jim Curry and Stan Jessop caught hold of her ankles and pulled her legs wide apart. The orange streetlight illuminated the twin moons of her buttocks and the softly furred mound that nestled at the base of their cleft. The full extent of her exposure made Tara’s stomach churn. Though there was little traffic on the Styenfold road at half past one in the morning, anybody who did pass could look up the Close and witness her humiliation.

  There were a few appreciative murmurs from her hateful audience at the helpless display of her private parts. They had probably never seen anyone so beautiful naked and live before them, Tara thought, her emotions swinging dizzily to perverse narcissism. They should feel privileged to have her like this.

  As Major Warwick took up position behind her and raised the length of garden bamboo, the cameras held by the other residents started flashing again.

  Swish … crack!

  Tara bit her lip to prevent herself yelling out loud. It was as though a red-hot wire had been laid across her buttocks. She had never been physically punished in any way, let alone caned. Blinking back tears she clamped her jaws together, making only a throaty squeak as the second blow fell a little lower than the first, lifting her buttocks even as the shockwave rippled through her flesh. It hurt even more than the first but she would not show it. As the remaining four blows fell she cherished their stinging pain and exulted in her self-control.

  They dragged her to her feet. Despite her burning bottom she held her head up proudly. These people would not break her.

  The rest of the girls, bound and naked as she was, watched her return to their line with mingled looks of horror and disbelief.

  ‘You said they wouldn’t really hurt us!’ Hazel wailed. ‘They can’t do this …’

  ‘You all agreed, remember?’ Jessop said, taking hold of Cassie and marching her over to the sign.

  Cassie looked daggers at both their captors and Tara before she was bent over, but at least she maintained her self-control, tossing back her blonde straight hair indolently and letting out only a few yips of pain as she was caned. Tara found herself unable to look away as the bamboo lashed across Cassie’s tight, firmly moulded buttocks, leaving stark red weals where it had landed. In the still night air the crack of bamboo on flesh reverberated round the Close. Despite everything she was fascinated. It seemed so intense and real. Exciting, even? Yes, in a twisted sense. Because this was their welcome to the unknown; their deliverance into the hands of others to do with as they wished.

  Walking awkwardly, lips firm but tears glistening in her eyes, Cassie was led back to the group and Sian put in her place. Her slight body trembled and her slender bottom looked too small to take such a beating, but she got one all the same. They could expect no mercy from their captors. Sian gave a little yelp as each stroke of the cane scored her flesh, the impact making her whole body jerk. She came back sniffling quietly with her head hung low.

  Gail went to the sign mumbling: ‘Sorry …’ over and over again, her melon-like breasts visibly wobbling as the tremors shook her. She cried quietly from first to last, punctuated by incredulous gasps as the cane marked her.

  Hazel disgraced herself by peeing in fear even before the first landed. Even though she was the youngest of the Elite, Tara had hoped she would have more control. As the stream of urine splashed over the sign and dripped to the grass, the onlookers laughed at her shameful display. Warwick held back until the last drops had fallen then brought down the bamboo across her pale bottom, still lightly padded by puppy fat.

  Daniela, sniffing and woebegone, went unresisting to her appointment with the cane and suffered her six strokes with feeble grunts and moans, as though already accepting this was her lot and the punishment justified.

  And then they were done and they all stood once more in a line; sore and chastened, uncertain of what would come next. Unexpectedly the residents led them down the Close to Number 2, with its tiny unkempt front garden and boarded ground floor windows. Roberta Pemberton produced the key and opened the door. They were herded into the living room, which was bare except for a worn fitted carpet. Evidently it had once been separate dining and sitting rooms, but these had been knocked together and the room now extended from front to back of the house.

  The girls were sat down in a row with their backs to the wall and their ankles were bound with more repair tape. The carpet felt like sandpaper to their sore bottoms and they squirmed unhappily. Warwick smiled down at them.r />
  ‘You shouldn’t be disturbed,’ he said. ‘Roberta promised the agent she’d keep an eye on it as there was so little interest in the property – thanks mainly to your activities. I hope you have a nice uncomfortable night. It might give you some idea what we’ve had to suffer in the past. But you’d better make the most of it, because this’ll be the only one you’ll spend alone for the next week.’

  Hazel whimpered and Gail bit her lip.

  Warwick and the other residents went out, switching off the light and closing the sitting room door. They heard the key turn in the lock. Then the front door shut and they were alone in the empty house. A faint orange glow from the streetlight filtered round the window boards, but otherwise the room was completely dark.

  ‘Oh … shit, shit, shit … that hurt!’ Cassie spat. ‘How the fuck did you get us into this, Tara?’

  ‘It was better than the alternative,’ Tara said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘You all agreed.’

  ‘You said they wouldn’t have the nerve to do anything very bad to us,’ Sian moaned. ‘My bum feels like it’s on fire.’

  ‘Just keep calm,’ Tara said. ‘We’ll get through this.’

  ‘I … don’t think I can take a week of this sort of thing,’ Hazel said in a small voice. ‘You said they … they’d rather use us for sex. That we could wear them out like that …’ Sian groaned at the idea. Hazel continued: ‘But they’re going to do just what they want with us. They’re so angry about the things we did to them –’

  ‘Shut up, Hazel!’ Tara snapped. ‘Get some sleep.’

  They lay quiet, trying to get as comfortable as possible. Thoughts tumbled though Tara’s mind.

  How could this have happened to her? It wasn’t fair. Yesterday she had been beautiful, rich and confidently in charge of her life. Today, and for the next week, only her beauty would count for anything. Was that a blessing or a curse?

  Fear and anger fought against mental and physical exhaustion and lost. Tara slipped into a restless half-sleep, troubled by transient dreams and fragments of memory …

  Cassie brushed the blade of her knife lightly across Daniela’s bare nipples, making the girl squirm helplessly at the touch of cold steel. Grinning, she let the knife rest against the smooth swell of Daniela’s left breast and glanced expectantly at Tara.

  ‘Are you ready to be initiated into our society?’ Tara asked.

  The tip of the knife pressed deeper into the side of Daniela’s naked breast, threatening to break the skin. The girl stifled a yelp of pain and said quickly: ‘Yes I am …’

  ‘Tell us what you hate.’

  Daniela recited the litany: ‘Slappers, style freaks, crumblies, nerds and losers …’

  Tara smiled in approval. At least Daniela had memorised the responses properly.

  ‘… the grey, the dull, the ordinary, the common,’ Daniela concluded.

  ‘And who are the Elite?’ Tara demanded.

  Daniela took a deep breath. ‘The young, the stylish, the elect, the quintessence, the crème de la crème, the nonpareil, the ne plus ultra, the winners.’

  Tara had plundered a thesaurus to compile the list, but she felt the effort had been worthwhile to hear them trip off the lips of a pretty young supplicant.

  ‘And how do the Elite treat common people?’

  ‘We keep them in their place by look, by word and by deed.’

  ‘Are you ready to prove your fitness?’

  ‘I am …’

  Tara jerked awake. The others lay still about her. The glow from the streetlight had gone, leaving only an outline of pale grey light in its place. Tara eased herself into a slightly less uncomfortable position.

  She had been dreaming about Daniela Hammond’s initiation into the Elite Society not three weeks ago. She could not have known then, but that had been the trigger of her downfall. But at first everything had gone so well …

  Tara’s laptop displayed a montage of snatched pictures taken over some months and in different weathers. They showed a dozen different people, their names and personal details added as captions, together with a double row of houses and gardens seen from various angles. The houses were basically boxes with a bay stuck on the front to try to make them seem more interesting. Some were rendered with pebble dash. In the middle of the last century they had been desirable middle-class dwellings. Now Tara hated them. They were situated less than fifteen minutes’ walk from her own home in Fernleigh Rise, but as far as Tara was concerned it was another world.

  The girls crowded round the screen, despite the fact that they had all seen the pictures many times before. Tonight the images took on a special significance.

  ‘These are the occupants of Cheyner Close,’ Tara told Daniela solemnly. ‘They’re everything we’re not. They get annoyed when you try to have innocent fun anywhere near them. They think they’re as good as we are. They need to be reminded that they’re not.’

  Tara froze the last image. It was a map of Cheyner Close showing a keyhole-shaped array of nine houses opening off the Styenfold road, with back gardens radiating out into fields crossed by a few hedgerows. Tara enlarged the map to show more detail. Beside each house, except for Number 2, was listed the names of its occupants. Another click and an image of Number 3 filled the screen. Inset was a slightly blurred picture showing the profile of a thin-faced man in his late twenties wearing glasses.

  ‘His name is Tom Fanning and he moved into the Close about a month ago. He bought privately from the Elliots …’ she grinned ‘… apparently it was the only way they could get a sale. Anyway, I heard that Fanning works in electronics. I don’t mean he owns a company or anything, he just makes electronic devices of some sort. He lives alone but I don’t think he’s gay because …’ she called up a full length shot of Tom Fanning ‘… he actually wears patched corduroy trousers in public.’

  The girls sniggered at the damning image.

  ‘So he’s a nerd and a loser and he hasn’t received a visit from us yet. That means he doesn’t know his place.’ Tara looked at Daniela. ‘Tonight you’re going to put that right.’

  Daniela gulped and then nodded …

  And Daniela had proved herself. Under cover of darkness she had made her way across the fields to the Close, scaled the back garden fence of Number 3 and put Fanning in his place. She recorded details of her raid for the rest of the Elite on a camera set up for flashless nighttime photography. There were views of number 3’s back door with FANNING IS A SAD WANKER spray-painted across it; a large X on the lawn formed out of cut flower heads; Daniela scattering the bag of slugs and snails that Tara had provided her with over the vegetable patch and, finally, close-ups of her squatting down and peeing over a row of lettuces.

  The raid was acclaimed a great success and Daniela was accepted as a full member of the Elite Society. It inspired Tara to conceive of a daring plan that would elevate her campaign against the Close to new heights. It would take a lot of organising but it would be such a thrill to carry out.

  And so, on Friday morning, Tara had waved goodbye to her parents as she steered a hired MPV, loaded with tents, backpacks and the rest of the Elite Society, away from Fernleigh Rise.

  Tara’s proposal that she should take the others to visit Katy Mitchell, an old school friend who had moved to the West Country a couple of years ago, had been welcomed by all their families. Of course all the girls would be going on holidays variously to Tuscany, Venice, California, Monaco, Fiji and the Seychelles later in the summer, but it was still reassuring to know they were not above spending ten days on a simple camping holiday exploring the modest delights of Cornwall.

  They had travelled less than two miles down the road, however, before Tara made a right turn into a small lane which led nowhere near Cornwall. A second turning off this became a meandering unpaved track into Manor Woods. They passed through a gate set in a tall hedge, beyond which was a small but neat cottage. Tara drove round the back, where its semi-wild garden merged with the woods, and parked under the
trees.

  As the girls piled out of the vehicle a young man in his late twenties emerged from the back door of the cottage.

  He was Simon Pye, big, strong and rather simple, with shaggy dark hair that tended to fall over his eyes. He gardened and did odd jobs around Fernleigh Rise, and reminded Tara of a shy, not too bright, but obedient dog.

  ‘Is everything ready?’ Tara asked.

  ‘Yes, Miss Tara,’ Simon said. ‘A letter came for you this morning, Miss …’

  She took the envelope from him. It bore Simon’s name and address but a small circled T had been written in one corner in red ink. ‘Get the tent up,’ Tara told him as she ripped it open.

  ‘Yes, Miss Tara,’ Simon said, hurrying off to obey.

  ‘It’s from Katy,’ Tara told the others as she read the letter. ‘She’s got the phones and credit cards we sent and promises not to spend more than we agreed or lose the pin numbers. She’ll send them all back in time for our “return”, with plenty of photos of beautiful Cornwall. She’ll send the texts you wrote spaced out over the next few days to seem natural. Any live calls we can make from here and they’ll go through her landline set back into our cells. Any problems contacting us we can blame on signal blackspots around her area. And she says remember that we promised to send her full pics and details of raiding the Close when we’re done.’

  Tara beamed at them. ‘So as from tonight we’re all in Cornwall, and we’ll have the phone records and card receipts to prove it. If the residents try to blame us for anything that happens over the next few days, they’re going to look very stupid indeed.’

  By evening the big tent had been set up under the trees, with smaller tents housing a portable shower and chemical toilet close by. An extension cable run out from the cottage powered lights, a portable television and CD radio. The girls lounged about, resting or talking idly.

  Gail, who had been walking through the woods as dusk fell, now appeared out of the gathering gloom and sat down on a folding chair. ‘I like it here,’ she announced. ‘We should have come before now. It’s so peaceful.’