The Case of the Mad Scientist

Chapter 12: Things Look Promising

Chapter 12: Things Look Promising

“Mark’s not here,” I told her, “so if you need someone to help you practice, I’ll be happy to stand in for him.”

“Oh, would you!? That would be great!”

I had trouble not grinning from ear to ear.

The way her breasts were pushing against that blouse was not helping me keep calm.

“I’m sure Stella will loan us some of her ropes.”

There is a God in Heaven!

Just then, Stella hopped down from the stage and came up to us. I noticed that the Japanese males sitting not far off were keeping their eyes on her. Understandable, when you consider how very fine that body is and how it was shown off in the leotards she was wearing right then. It was so skin-tight that I was certain there were no panty lines, which meant no panties. No bra shape under the stretch material, either. This case was getting better and better.

“I’ll do a quick rehearsal this afternoon,” she told us in that honey-dripping, husky, come-to-the- bedroom voice of hers. “To make sure the equipment is properly set up. You two can watch, if you like.”

Blaze smiled and added, “Then we’ll go out to dinner afterwards and make plans for finding this Sorren guy. I’ll check with Mr. Grudge back at the company to see if there is any new information.”

I hoped the dinner was better than the lunch. The restaurant we went to had the funniest stuff, like bowls of noodles with weird things floating among them. I watched Stella and Tara picking up pieces of raw fish and dipping them in sauces before eating them. Ugh! I prefer my fish well cooked, thank you.

The afternoon rehearsal went smoothly. It began with the assistants filling the tank with water. Then Stella came back on stage, having switched her leotards for a tiny bikini that left damned little to the imagination. Oh, and a pair of high heels that matched her bikini - both black. She lifted her arms as if there were an audience, then walked over to where Tara awaited. A small table had been set up next to the tank and on that were several coils of rope. After showing off that gorgeous body to the non- existent audience, she turned her back to the seats and Tara stepped up with the first coil of rope. Stella spread her feet apart and put her arms together behind her. With those high heels, it was a rather erotic sight, I can tell you. Nice legs. Nice ass. I was getting pretty horny. It has been sooooo long since the day Linda Goodbody dumped me.

I’ve been around some kinky people and have seen plenty women being tied up. In fact, there was this one sister at Alpha Alpha Alpha who… Well, never mind. I know good bondage when I see it. And the ropes Tara was putting on were well done. They were tightly applied, cinched down and knotted not once but several times and where the fingers could never reach.

When her arms were tightly bound, both at wrists and elbows, she turned around and braced her bound arms and bottom against the side of the tank. She put her legs together and Tara knelt to begin binding the ankles. When she finished with that, she bound her legs higher up, both above and below the knees. It was a pretty nice, neat job and obviously tightly applied. She would have a lot of difficulty wiggling out of those ropes.

Tara helped ease Stella down to the stage floor where she sat with her legs bent to show off their nice shape. From overhead I heard a hum and that hoist was lowering the steel cable. Tara took it in her hands and guided it down to Stella’s ankles. It stopped so she could bind the ankles to the hook at the end of the cable. She wound the rope numerous times around the ropes on the ankles and the hook. There was no question that there were enough to take Stella’s weight without the slightest chance of breaking.

I expected the hoist to start up again, but instead Tara took something off the table and walked around behind Stella. I was surprised to see that it was a ball gag! She put it in front of Stella’s face, who, obligingly, opened her mouth to accept the rubber ball. Tara strapped it tightly in place, you could tell by the way the leather straps cut into the sides of her mouth. I had seen enough girls gagged to know that she would not be pushing this one out.

Then the hoist began to take up the cable. Tara knelt by Stella as her legs were lifted, then helped ease her down so that she would not fall back. In a minute, the lovely young woman was being lifted by her ankles higher and higher. When her head was just a little bit above the top of the tank, the hoist began to move back on its rail. Stella moved over until she was suspended directly over the tank. Her lovely, long golden hair was hanging straight down; the end could be seen spreading out in the water. Then she was going down.

No, I don’t mean that way. She was being lowered into the water, head first. I watched as her head appeared beneath the top edge, then her breasts came into view. Lower she went until her bound ankles were visible in the water. At that point the hoist stopped. For a brief few seconds, nothing happened. Stella was totally under the water, head down, and tightly bound. And gagged. The tank was not much wider than her body, and I had to wonder, even if she could free herself from the ropes, how could she move around enough to get her head above water? Her long hair spread out like a halo around her head.

Then Tara pulled a curtain across the front of the tank. She walked to the side of the stage and brought out a large clock set on a table with rollers. There were only two hands on the face, one for minutes and one for seconds. The second hand was already half way around one circuit and the minute hand moving off the top notch and slowly creeping down. The clock face was unusual in that it was not divided into twelve numbers but only five. It would take five minutes for the slower hand to complete one revolution.Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

You could feel the tension in the air. There were only a few of us watching, but everyone was on edge, both afraid and excited by this challenge to death. I could see no way that Stella could possibly escape from certain drowning. She might be good, but no woman tied as tightly and well as she was could free herself. Not to mention being hung upside down underwater.

The steel cable above the tank moved a bit, as if she were struggling at the end of it. It shook a couple times, and swayed a little. Then it went still. The minute hand kept creeping along. There were five marks along the edge of the clock, one for each minute that had passed. It was nearing the three- minute mark when I began to wonder if something had gone wrong. I know that some people can hold their breath for over two minutes, but while upside down in water and struggling? As the hand neared four minutes, I began to wonder if someone shouldn’t go up there and pull that curtain aside to see if she was in trouble. But the only person near the curtain was Tara and she was making no move to touch it.

Four minutes and a handful of seconds. Then four and a half. As the hand neared the top of the face and five full minutes, I was ready to jump up and run up onto the stage. Something had to have gone wrong! The cable had not moved or shaken for a long time. I could just imagine her body hanging down in that water, lungs filled with water and lifeless eyes on that gorgeous face.

I started to rise from my seat when Blaze put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “She’s a professional. She knows what she’s doing.”

Amazingly, Blaze did not seem concerned at all. I know I was, and the men sitting to our right looked rather nervous. Even Tara had concern in her eyes, even though she was still smiling. Why didn’t she pull that curtain away?

All kinds of idea flashed into my mind. If something was wrong, why was Tara waiting so long? Seemed to me that a reasonable precaution would have been to have a time limit. If Stella was not out by that limit, go and save her!

Blaze’s advice or no, I was on my feet and about to vault onto that stage when Tara finally moved. With maddeningly slow movements, she walked to the edge of the curtain, took it in her hand, and pulled it dramatically open.

Where I had expected to see a dead body, there was Stella, pushing the last of the ropes away from her ankles. She was upright in the tank and no longer attached to the hook. As soon as she was free of that last bit of rope, she kicked her legs and lifted her head above the top of the tank. She tilted her head back and gasped for air. It was then I saw that the ball gag was still in her mouth. At that point, the hoist began to rise again and she reached behind her head with one hand while hanging onto the top of the tank with the other, and unbuckled the gag.

The gag came out and she sucked in much-needed air. She put her foot in the hook as it came to that level and took hold of the cable with her hands. The hoist lifted her out of the water, over, and, dripping water on the stage, down to where Tara was standing. She stepped off the hook and it rose behind her. Stella took a bow, arms lifted high, and struck a pose with one leg shifted forward and chest thrust out. She held that for a few moments. I could just imagine that she was accepting the applause of the audience. Then she walked off the stage, high heels clicking on the wooden floor.

That was quite a show! I had no idea how she managed to free herself from those ropes. Nor how she managed to hold her breath for so long. I could see what Blaze meant when she said that the crowds loved her shows. Hell, just seeing her in a bikini was worth the price of admission.

A while later, she and Tara came back, dressed now in less revealing clothing but still looking good. I was dying to ask her how she did it, but had to put it off since we were heading out for dinner.

I tell you, these Japanese people eat funny things. And you should have seen the look the waitress gave me when I asked for Chicken Chow Mein. Shessh! Stella finally recommended some dish with chicken chunks in a rather good teriyaki sauce. The salad they served before was rather small and very

tart. It didn’t even have any lettuce in it at all. Stella and Tara were digging into that raw fish stuff. Almost enough to turn your stomach!

When the meal was over and we were sitting there on the floor (another barbaric practice they have), drinking some funny tasting rice wine, we finally got down to business. Making sure that the waitress was not around, Blaze told us what she had heard from the U.S.

“They have tracked several encrypted emails between Dr. Sorren and a Japanese business man named Janichi Watanabe. He owns, among other things, a pharmaceutical company called ‘Koriyama Pharmaceutics’. So far, they have not been able to decrypt those emails.”

“Is this company located in the city of Koriyama?” asked Stella.

“According to what Mr. Grudge said, yes. He gave me some addresses. I think that out first move should be to check them out.”

Sounded like good logic to me.

I was surprised to find it was a little hard to get to my feet. And I only had a dozen or so tiny cups of that rice wine stuff.