Once upon a time Emily Angelica Fairport slept peacefully in the century old white four poster canopy bed surrounded by its sheer lacy curtains nestled deep between the heavy pink eyelet duvet and the several inches deep feather bed. Every detail of her boudoir serving to further magnify the image of an innocent southern belle, amplified with a sweet as tea nature that hung in the air anytime she was present and dripped from her tongue every time she spoke. A magazine feature existence that was about to experience a sudden shift of angle.It was a Halloween like any other, dozens of children visiting the porch of the Fairport Estate to good naturedly threaten their tricks in order to obtain a small treat, Emily had dutifully donned the complete antebellum ensemble that had been passed down for several generations and played her annual spooky role of the ghost of a Confederate Soldier’s wife waiting for the return of one long lost to the ages. As the church bells rang across the town to signal an end to the festivities, Emily picked up the baskets from the porch and pushed the wide hoops of her skirt through the narrow door, before she could maneuver her outfit out of the way to close the door a gust of wind knocked over the now empty baskets and startled Emily’s feet right out from under her resulting in an outburst of profanity laced unhappiness coming from an unceremonious heap of crinoline on the floor. Before she could regain her composure, the door slammed shut and the inconsistent circuit breakers in the old house left the room in inky darkness.As Emily gathered herself together and searched for the flashlight she knew was nearby, she swore that she could hear laughter echoing quietly in the room. Shaking her head, she chalked it up to the teens who always took a few extra minutes wandering through cross-lots before heading home after spending the evening with friends and simply set about her frequent trek to the breaker box. Once the power was restored Emily locked up and headed for the shower to remove the ghostly residue of the evening fully expecting to fall fast asleep once her head hit the pillow after all the excitement of the evening.Fate would have other plans as more than a few dry leaves blew in with that gust of wind…. In the Darkness Reaching out from under the covers, Emily pulled the chain on her bedside lamp extinguishing it’s light, the warm glow of the sconces lining the hallway, peeking out from under her door, was a familiar comfort since childhood. But just as her eyelids succumbed to their own weight, she saw the lights had gone out again, caught between exhaustion and concern she convinced herself to deal with it in the morning. Her eyes flickered open once more and as she drifted off to sleep she felt the duvet falling away from the bed.”Yes, this will do, this will do quite well” a voice stated with a deep but crisp matter of fact nature about it, “What great fortune to encounter one who exists such as this, dwelling on both sides of the veil.” Emily was not sure if she was dreaming or hallucinating and was confused enough regardless of her mental state, the house having been left to her as the last remaining Fairport heir had always been a source of strange experiences but this was the first time she had ever heard someone speaking in coherent phrases. Searching the darkness for an image she could not see the form that had moved within inches of her bed and she would not have been sure of a presence except for the movement of the lace curtains against her arm as she reached out grasping for the missing duvet. Sinking back toward the middle of the bed she felt the sheet slipping away as well, although she tried to pull it back over her hips it was removed by an invisible force.The air was cool against her naked flesh and the combination of the chill and confused fear made her skin extra aware of all sensations. Sitting up caused her to feel dizzy and disoriented, she was unable to see anything and the pounding of her own heart drowned out any other sounds. Always one to focus on the logical explanation, Emily decided to try stretching out into a few simple yoga poses to calm her mind, she was clearly over anxious from the night’s spooky activities… Taking a few deep breaths she leaned over her knees in child’s pose, after slowly rolling back up and leaning back on her heels she paused for a moment to listen, her heart had calmed and she could hear the breeze moving the branches outside her window. Still kneeling in the center of the bed she strained to see the window, but the moonless sky was just as black as the walls of her room.Was it her imagination or did a hand just brush the hair away from her face? She did not have to wonder long as fingers wound their way into her hair from behind tilting her head back exposing her neck and causing her body to arch backwards her breasts forced forward, her mind racing in an assuredly failed attempt to explain her current predicament, her body succumbing to an as of yet unfamiliar instinctual response – one in which she experienced both the urge to struggle against the unwelcome control over her position and an unmistakable ache begin to build between her thighs.”How did you get in here?” a quiet question she begged the darkness to answer.”I have been here all along.” was the clear reply, “I have been waiting for you to let me in and tonight I took the first opportunity.”Emily’s hair fell back against her shoulders as the fingers released their grip, although she was sure that all the windows had been secured a cold wave of air washed over her body and she felt herself being pushed forward until she was laying prone on the bed her face was buried in the bedding allowing only the softest “unf” sound to escape her lips as she landed.Feeling a weight on top of her she could not move or even turn her head but right into her ear were spoken very clear and plain:”We will do this slowly, but make no mistake now that I am here we will do this. I will not rest again until we are finished. I will see to it night after night until you are ready.”Her mind raced, unable to speak the question aloud, ‘ready for what?’ echoed with loud futility inside her thoughts.”That is right, there is nothing to fear, We will get you ready in time, I am sure of that.” the voice continued in it’s vague discourse, almanbahis delivering this threat, or perhaps it was a promise of some yet unknown desire, in her confused state Emily’s mind and body were playing tricks on her, keeping her frozen in the same curiosity that surely resulted in the demise of many a feline.And as the clanging alarm clock began its dance across her night table Emily found herself even further confused as she stretched out her limbs from underneath the sheet and duvet that felt as if it had been tucked in along both sides of her sleeping body. Reaching out to silence the alarm she looked toward her bedroom door, and with the sky still dark it was clear, the glowing light of the hallway sconces seeped into her room and cast their glow across the floor. Awakening Without having a restful night’s sleep, Emily moved through the next day in and out of wandering thoughts, only minimally distracted by her obligations the question still ringing in her mind was “ready for what?” “There really wasn’t anything else in life for me to be ready for” she thought to herself, ticking off the list of realities that made her life feel as if everything was perfectly in order.Having lost her parents in a tragic car accident at the age of 16 Emily had spent the last 20 years operating as a fully emancipated human, her parents had set her up to be quite comfortable, she had been able to easily retain the estate’s entire day staff, she studied whatever she had wanted in college, her life’s work could be for love instead of money, she traveled as much and as often as she liked, her daily routines were set and she felt happy and fulfilled.By noon, having convinced herself that the previous night’s experience was simply a late night candy fueled dream she attempted to focus on eliminating any potential explanations for anything that might have triggered her subconscious into action. The electrician was scheduled to arrive at 3:00 pm to replace the faulty breaker box, the home security company was going to update the system with new cameras, and finally, she had a contractor coming to begin remodeling the master suite. Emily had continued to use her own bedroom instead of moving into what once was the suite of rooms occupied by her late parents, but now at 36 years old she had decided that it was time to give up the room of a little girl and move into a more sophisticated surrounding. Unfortunately, in a home as old as the Fairport Estate enshrining the suite for two decades left it in need of significant updating.When evening rolled around on November 1, Emily was certain she was more than tired enough to sleep through the night without interruption but she stayed up an extra hour or so just to be sure, watching a lighthearted romantic comedy and laughing to herself at the nearly obnoxious naivete of the ingenue. Well after midnight, she climbed the stairs, walked down the hall flipping on the wall sconces that were sure to stay lit tonight thanks to the skilled electrician who expertly installed not just a new breaker box but a state of the art electrical system that she barely understood other than that it was now connected to a solar, battery, and natural gas backup generator. As she climbed into bed she could see the green light on the new security camera in the corner and as she pulled the chain on her bedside lamp she saw the red grid light up on the camera indicating that night vision was activated. Feeling safe and secure she stretched out under her covers and fell asleep as soon as her head made contact with the fluffy down of the pillows.In what felt like mere moments later, she was startled awake by her own shivering, sitting up in the darkness the duvet and sheet were both missing again from the bed and her body had cooled to the point that she had curled up into such a tight ball that her joints ached. Looking around the room she noticed that it was again pitch black, no glowing light coming from under the door but the power must be on because the faint red glow of the night vision camera was visible from across the room but did not light up anything else. Before she could process another thought she felt a hand reach around from behind her to cover her mouth, as if her screams would elicit any reaction in the otherwise empty dwelling, the cold fingers dug into her face for a moment and then the hand fell away as a voice brushed past her ears…”Get on your knees like you were last night girl.”Emily felt her limbs respond to the demand, it was as if her mind was just following along to the automatic movements of her body, unable to stop the action but fully aware of it. As soon as her hindquarters had settled in on her heels “Spread your legs apart” was the next instruction, her knees just parted with her mind racing, trying to catch up to the situation. She felt the fingers wind their way through her hair again and tilt her head backward, her back arched and she could no longer reach the bed to steady herself “They are not mine to have so I can not take them, but you will take your fingers and pinch your nipples now.” The hands that had been hanging limply by her sides were now animated by a force beyond her understanding, her fingers finding the hot pink protrusions currently pointed toward the ceiling by the angle of her body captured the sensitive bits between her thumb and forefinger and followed the instruction to pinch until a small yelp escaped her throat.”Now pull on them, that’s it, Good Girl!” the voice in her ear had grown deeper, almost a growl and then her body collapsed forward as the grip on her hair was released. “You are not mine so I can not take what I want, but you will follow my instructions until you are ready.” Icy cold fingers stroked down the length of her spine pausing a moment over her tailbone setting off a series of lightning strikes inside her body, the sensation of electricity was outlining the curve of her hips and sliding along just under the ridge where her thighs emerged from her buttocks.Emily was again pushed forward, face down onto the bed, a pressure across her shoulders shoving her face deep into the bedding until she could barely breathe. “Your body clearly knows more about you than your memories do dear girl, it knows exactly what you are supposed to do, I can see that your flower is dripping with almanbahis yeni giriş honey, you are not mine so I can not touch your secret places, you will have to prove me correct in my assessment.””NOW”And just as the voice predicted her body responded before her mind could capture control of her movements, her hand slid between her body and the bedding and her fingers discovered the accuracy of his words as they became slippery with her own fluids, she could nearly imagine steam rising into the chilly night air from what felt like a boiling tea pot ready to scream it’s readiness to the world.”Slowly, this is something that must happen slowly…You are not ready yet” And the pressure on her shoulders was gone leaving her able to move freely in the bed her hand still tucked underneath her body fingers dipping dangerously close to the source of the heat.Legs shaking and head reeling Emily reached down by the side of the bed and pulled the sheet and duvet back up covering her shivering body, and within moments the alarm clock was again stirring it’s urgent racket on the bedside table.She wondering if they were just dreams, maybe she was simply repressed and her subconscious seeking an outlet for natural sexual desire? Has a dark force invaded her home? An Unexpected Discovery For days on end the cycle continued, with Emily feeling much like an Ambien addict who doesn’t know if they are awake, sleepwalking or dreaming, except that she could remember the events in all of their potentially mortifying details.She checked the footage from the security cameras and found that the angle left her bed blurry and the curtains around the canopy further obscured the view, but it did look like she was perhaps moving around in the bed during the night.Every morning she checked her skin looking for evidence of the cold fingers that she had felt grabbing her wrists, sliding around her throat and pushing her into various positions. Even more confusing was the vague information that had been filtering into her “dreams” why would she dream about a man controlling her, and why would the man make her do sexual things, and if she were having some kind of sexualized dream why did he keep saying that she wasn’t for him?Despite feeling rather tired each morning her daily life needed to continue moving forward which included the remodeling of the Master Suite. The contractor was coming this morning and Emily was feeling very emotional about the idea of tearing apart her parent’s bedroom, she had hired movers to remove all of the contents of the rooms and store them in the spacious attic, but she herself had not even gone into the room for more than a few moments since it had been sealed up twentyh years in the past. The contractor had asked for some measurements and she had been unable to obtain them for him so she was pacing outside the suite’s door willing herself to open it as she heard the doorbell chime. “Saved by the bell so to speak” she thought to herself as she hurried down the center staircase to open the front door.”Charles A. Willingham – the third if you don’t count the blanks – at your service” was the boisterous greeting as the tall man strode into the room, his dark blue eyes flashing a hint of irony as he was clearly one to take control of any situation. His light drawl and casual wink might have been considered charming, but in Emily’s current state she did not respond with even a polite smile, instead she looked Charles square in his beard covered chin to avoid eye contact and said “You know, for what I’m paying you, you really should take care of getting your own measurements, the room is up those stairs at the end of the hall on the left, I have other things to do, please come find me when you have a plan.”Charles watched her disappear behind the staircase with a perplexed furrow in his brow, “Well this is certainly going to be entertaining,” he thought to himself as he bounded up the stairs taking them two at a time. As he reached the suite, he discovered that the door was stuck, not one to waste much time or effort he pulled the screw driver out of his tool belt and with two swift movements popped the pins out of the hinges and pulled the door away from the frame that had expanded in the humidity as if the house was reluctant to release it’s grip on the door. Charles could relate to the impulse. Once inside he discovered that the room looked much smaller than the dimensions of the house would suggest from looking at it on the outside. The bedroom was 14 X 14, the dressing room 10 X 10, the bathroom 8 X 8 and the walk in closet 6 X 6. “Well,” he thought to himself, “there must be a lot of wasted space between these rooms” since as he drew the dimensions on his graph paper they simply did not add up.Noticing a piece of ancient wall paper drooping from the corner of the dressing room and knowing that the entire space was about to be taken down to the studs, he grabbed the corner and pulled it away from the wall revealing a seam that would not have been normal in a house that had not been built with wallboard. Thinking to himself that perhaps the wall had been damaged and repaired he poked at the seam to see if the wall was secure behind it, his action revealed that the wall was not a wall at all but a hinged cupboard door that swung into the space behind the wall and had just been taped and painted over to blend in with the rest of the wall.”That explains the odd dimensions” he thought as he grabbed a flashlight to look into the hole that had now been opened in the wall with no way to close it again since the door handle had been removed and the hole where it had been filled in. The cupboard contained a locked box that looked like it was over 100 years old, not an entirely surprising find in a home of this advanced age, however something he thought he should bring to the attention of the owner. With the measurements taken and the discovery that there might be more to the room than meets the eye, Charles knew that the one hour appointment Emily had scheduled would not be adequate to fully prepare the plans for the remodeling project, anticipating her displeasure at this information he was steeling himself for a negative response as he headed back toward the staircase. However when he reached the top of the stairs he heard Emily yelling out and he was confident almanbahis giriş it had nothing to do with him but he wasted no time getting down the stairs to see what was going on.”AAAGHH, For all that is holy, Get me out of here!!!” was the somewhat muffled shout coming from under the stairs, as Charles rounded the corner all he could see were two smallish tennis shoes sticking up out of the floorboards.”What happened here?” He asked doing his best to mask the amusement in his voice, he was lucky that Emily could not see the laughter welling up behind his sparkling eyes since she was already quite upset.”Who’s there?” she yelled out seeming startled by the presence of another person even though the house was full of staff by this time in the morning.”It’s Charles Wellingham, the contractor, for the bedroom situation, I have tools that might be able to get you out if you can give me a hint as to why your feet are the only part of you visible at the moment.”Emily became remarkably calm for a person completely stuck under her own floor, but she felt as if Charles was probably right so she tried to explain what had just happened. “Well, the floor board was loose so I picked it up to see if I needed to have someone come take a look at it, and it came right up and the one next to it, there seemed to be a tunnel of some sort under it so I thought I’d find out how far it went, well it doesn’t go very far..””I’d guess about five feet and an inch or so huh?” Charles blurted out as he cut into her explanation, “So you are horizontal under there? Not in any danger of falling on your head right?””I think so,” she replied as he was already prying up the rest of the floor boards although, if he were honest, he was quite tempted to leave her to her own devices after that greeting she had given that morning. He figured that her embarrassing moment of karma was probably punishment enough this time.Once he could see her entire form he couldn’t believe how tightly she had gotten herself wedged under there, “What on earth possessed you to climb in there?” he asked, enjoying the view he had of her trapped form, this time not even attempting to hide his response to the humorous nature of the predicament she had created for herself “Darlin’ you are aware that curiosity is what killed the cat right?”Allowing Charles to extract her from the tight spot between the floor joists Emily was too embarrassed to admit her appreciation for his assistance. “Well, I guess I’ll need you to add this to your estimate then…” she said as if a handsome man had not just lifted her straight up out of the floor.Shaking his head a bit Charles played along and got back down to the business at hand “I’ll be sure to jot that down when I get back to my truck, speaking of my estimate, I am going to have to come back tomorrow for at least 4 hours to get a better look at that room, did you know there were cupboard in the walls under the wallpaper?”Emily had not known and now stood there looking at Charles unable to process the information completely, “what do you mean cupboards?” she asked.”Well, I do not know the extent of it yet, however I did find this box” he replied while handing her the box, “it looks like you might need a locksmith to get that off, not sure how old that thing is, but it’s heavy so there’s definitely something in it.””Thank you.” Emily said staring at the large metal box in her hands.”I’ll see you again tomorrow morning Darlin’ stay out of the floor until then ok?””OK””That’s a Good Girl”Shrugging his shoulders, Charles headed back out the front door leaving Emily to discover what was in the box. All Locked Up With the day behind her, Emily sat on her bed with the metal box between her legs, sitting next to her bent knee was a large key ring that she had found in her father’s desk shortly after her parent’s death. After determining which keys opened the doors and separating those onto a new ring, she had left all of the “mystery” keys in the drawer, now there was a lock that needed a key so she set about testing each one in the old clunky lock. She spun the keys around the ring looking for one that seemed to be the right size for the lock and decided to start there, after trying about five keys she began to wonder if it was worth opening the box at all, “sometimes things from the past are meant to stay in the past,” she thought to herself.Then, as if fate heard her silent question, the very next key turned in the lock and the clasp swung open unlatching the lid. Her hands were almost trembling as she ran her fingers around the edge of the box looking for a the least rusty place to pry it open and then with a burst of effort she pulled the lid away revealing the contents inside. Instantly she could see why the box was so heavy, laying on top of a pile of papers were a set of what appeared to be prison shackles, they were old but not as rusty as one might expect from what may have been a centuries old item, they reminded her of the cuffs and chains that criminals are shown wearing as they are transferred to court, except in addition to the four sets of hinged semi-circle pairs, there was a larger one attached to the chain as well. Picking the entire contraption up out of the box by the larger hinged pair the chain hung down in front of her with the smallest set branching out and the larger set resting on the bottom of the box with chain still coiled around them. There were locking pins that slid through the place where the semicircles met when closed to form a cuff on all five items.The same curiosity that got Emily stuck under her floorboards was overwhelming as she placed the largest set up to her neck, the chain hung down in front of her chest and she had to reach behind her head to match up the edges and slide the locking pin into place, the metal was cool and heavy against her skin and her imagination wandered back in time wondering what happened when the soldiers came through town clearing out the confederate sympathizers, did they arrest everyone? Even the women and drag them off in chains such as these?As her mind wandered she pulled the medium sized set from the box and placed them around her ankles, there was a little slack in the chain allowing her to stretch her feet out in front of her but not enough to move freely, the sensation of the restriction was a bit frightening, however her curiosity had the best of her and she didn’t think about the consequences of continuing her exploration, sliding two more locking pins into place she was too caught up in her own fascination with historical things.