Tales of Carrion Mansion

Chapter 29

Dusty Perils

by Skytower

Clara Fallingtree loved dust. Not the dust in her home or the dust in her cramped university office. Clara loved the dust of the ages. Her love of dust had been kindled when the then 7-year-old Clara had found a trunk in her grandmother's attic. The trunk had been a treasure trove of pictures and clothes, some of them dating back nearly a hundred years. With those pictures and clothes had come her grandmothers in-exhaustible tales of growing up in a world that had no electricity, no television or radio. As she had grown up Clara's love of history had grown into an all-consuming passion. She delved deeper and deeper into the past of not only her own Cherokee people but of all peoples. In the dusty ruins of cities long since abandoned, Clara looked upon languages that had not been spoken in millennia. She reveled in solving their puzzles, re-discovering secrets long lost. Her passion for history was a fanatical obsession, costing her a marriage and many serious relationships. It also propelled her to the top of her profession.

But for all her passion for history Clara was limited by money. As a professor of history at Nevada State University, Clara had money enough to live comfortably, but money to finance an archeological dig was another matter. For that money Clara had to play the society game, trading her name and prestige, and even her heritage at times, to gain enough money for a dig. She never liked doing it, but she did it in the way a person will eat a sour fruit to get to the tasty insides.

This dig was different. The rarest of all finds, a Babylonian tomb located 90 miles from the ancient city of Khorsabad. The Babylonians were not known for leaving tombs. That this one was semi-Egyptian in design only made the mystery that much sweeter. Pure luck had led Clara to find it. Luck and her benefactor, Lady Cynthia Fitzgivens. It was Lady Fitzgivens who had sought Clara out. She had found an old family relic, a diary from a Knight Templar. It told of finding a lost tomb of a most evil magician and gave clues to its location. Lady Fitzgivens was a bored socialite looking for a thrill. She was willing to finance an expedition in return for much of the credit and her choice of any "trinkets" found.

Clara had no trouble deciphering the knight's clues once she realized he had used the heavens for a guide. A few hours with an astronomy professor had given her rough longitude and latitude co-ordinates. After that, the proper forms had been filled out, permission given, and the dig organized with an almost obscene haste. Then the real fun had begun. Within a month of arriving, Clara had the tomb found and its entrance unearthed. She and Lady Fitztgivens broke the seal together and were the first into the tomb.

It was a magnificent place. Far more so than an ordinary tomb. A long spiral corridor had been tunneled into the earth and as it descended room upon room was revealed at the center of the spiral. It was as if someone had built a tower with a ramp around it and then buried it. Seven rooms were found from the top of the tomb to the lowest chamber. The lowest chamber was a circle with four tombs set on the outer rim of each chamber. Each one was aligned with a compass point. It was a dark cramped place, with low ceilings and beautifully carved inscriptions. In the first tomb they found a king, in the second his queen. In the third tomb lay an unknown man whose rank was a complete mystery. This tomb was different also in that there were curses carved upon the walls, not blessing and directions to the afterlife. In the fourth tomb, the tomb of a young woman, they found something extraordinary. A sarcophagus no more than 35 centimeters long placed next to the young queen's sarcophagus. At first Clara thought it a doll, but then x-rays revealed a skeletal structure. It was a person. Not a child as was done in some cultures. This was the body of a fully-grown woman no more than 30 centimeters tall.

The discovery galvanized Clara as nothing else in her life had. For the next month Clara worked on the tombs and learned a story that was more fantasy than history, and one she wouldn't have believed if not for the small coffin and the body within it. She spent her days and nights in the lowest chamber and deciphered the inscriptions on the walls. In the harsh fluorescent worklight she dragged the secrets from the carvings. The more she read, the more she had to read. Clara was six feet six inches tall and not at all slim. All of her teenage and adult life had been spent dealing with that fact. She was, Clara knew, a stereotypical 'Indian' maiden with dark copper colored skin. She had the type of body that screamed at men from the covers of romance novels. Even at 50, Clara still had problems, despite the lines in her face and the iron grey that had edged into her long black hair. Yanae must have had similar problems in her own life and Clara felt a kinship with the woman.

The woman in the small coffin was Yanae, who lived as Princess, Queen ,and finally plaything. Born into the royal family Yanae grew to be abnormally tall and strong. How tall and strong was a complete mystery to Clara at first, and for nearly a week she translated and re-translated that section of the story. There was no way the small woman in the sarcophagus was tall and strong. Yanae's height was given beside her name in Babylonian numerals. For two days Clara cursed the sexagesimal numbers and the Babylonian's base 60-no-zero mathematics. They could not have made a mistake, Clara was sure of that. The Babylonians were excellent mathematicians. But whoever had carved the numerals into the stone had used an obscure "royal cubit" as his standard of measurement. Only the fact that the unknown carver made reference to the king's height gave Clara any hope of figuring it out at all. Still she emailed her figures to three different mathematics professors and compared the results. All of them agreed. Yanae stood nearly 2.4 meters tall (around 8 feet). That would have made her a giant at a time when most men barely reached 1.5 meters.

Puzzled Clara agreed with Lady Cynthia and kept on translating.

Yanae was smart and ambitious; she lusted for power and threw down her brother Anae, the rightful king. He escaped imprisonment and sought help from Clenak, a mystic from a far land. The land was named on the walls' inscription but Clara was never able to decipher it. All that she got was "Valley of the Dark Hills". He brewed a potion that Yanae was tricked into drinking, and within a night she was reduced to 30 centimeters. Clenak kept her as a pet for years, treating her harshly. When he tired of Yanae, he gave her to the young princess Anead. But in truth his real goal was the kingdom itself. Still under his orders, Yanae fed Anead a potion that caused her to love Clenak and then he ordered Anead to poison her parents.

Upon their deaths Clenak ascended to the throne and ruled cruelly for many years. In the end, Yanae and Anead poisoned him, but the potions they used killed them as well. His granddaughter, Anead's daughter Neada, had built the tomb and into it had thrown all of Clenak's instruments of magic. She also placed the whole family into the tomb, having apparently grown to hate them all.

When she had finished translating, Clara had sat and stared at the small sarcophagus. She was sitting there when Lady Cynthia found her one afternoon.

"It's all impossible." Clara said looking up. "Even with the body there is no way anyone will believe this."

"It does sound like something Rider Haggard would cook up," Cynthia said helping Clara up and guiding her over to the table. Clara sat in reflective silence as Cynthia poured her a cup of tea. Clara had learned to tell time by their daily cup of tea. Each day at 2 in the afternoon Lady Cynthia made her stop and drink with her. Aside from exhaustion it was the only thing that had dragged her away from her translating. Though she did not tell Cynthia ,Clara's dreams were filled with Yanae.

Cynthia had been with her through most of the translation, sitting quietly with her laptop tapping away as Clara talked. She didn't put in all the hours Clara did, concerning herself with the other chambers in the tomb, but she was there with food when Clara needed it.

Lady Cynthia Fitzgibbons was almost as tall as Clara was, but her body was very different. She was slim with very large breasts and long red hair. That hair framed a thin face with hazel eyes. Her skin was pale white that never tanned or burned. She wore a pair of jeans with a T-shirt and no bra. Men in the dig stared at her as she walked by and Cynthia seemed to enjoy the attention. Clara wore jeans as well, but she wore a loose vest as well as a T-shirt and a bra.

"Only you would bring up his name." Clara said. "I keep thinking of Swift."

"Swift." Lady Cynthia laughed. "That old misogynistic fool."

"Its just if its true can you imagine what it was like for her? In one night, one night, she went from being a queen to being a Barbie doll."

"Jealous?" Lady Cynthia asked ,leaning back and putting her arms behind her head. The action caused her breasts to stand out and Clara looked down at her notes. Cynthia had come on to her once and Clara had turned her down as gracefully as possible. Gracefully but not forcefully as Clara didn't want to endanger her money supply. "But come Clara, you have nothing to be worried about. At the very least all someone will have to do is try the shrinking potion. The ingredients weren't that hard to find."

"Weren't that hard to find?" Clara asked looking up at her. The potion given to Yanae had been described in minute detail by a scroll in Clenak's sarcophagus. There had been six other scrolls as well but Clara had only translated the first one.

"Not at all." Cynthia said smiling. "Tell me, how does you tea taste?"

"You didn't!" Clara said in shock dropping the teacup. It landed on the table with a loud clatter.

"I couldn't resist." Cynthia said laughing. "And now that I know the whole story I have to know if it works."

"You..." Clara started to stand but found her legs too weak. Her body started to tremble. "You poisoned..."

"We'll find that out tomorrow." Lady Cynthia said and the smile she gave Clara was positively mischievous.

"Why?" Clara asked, collapsing to the floor of the tomb. The stone was hard but warm and dust tickled her nose.

"Do you have any idea what a discovery like this could mean to someone in my line of work?" Lady Cynthia asked sipping her tea."

"Work?"

"My dear you don't really know me do you?"

"References checked out..." Clara whispered as her breathing became labored.

"I'm a very good actor." Lady Cynthia said getting up and walking over to her. She sat down and began to unlace Clara's boot.

"Why..." Clara whispered.

"To tell you the truth dear I just needed a place to hide for a while. I never dreamed that old book would lead you to this place. But your ex said that any old tomb would get you going..."

"Roger!" Clara was angry enough to sit up, but Cynthia easily pushed her down. Her boots off Cynthia undid the top of Clara's jeans.

"I can tell why you dropped him." Cynthia said. "He is a snake. But he needed money and this old book was just sitting there in the museum..."

She pulled Clara's jeans and underwear off revealing a pair of long copper colored legs and a wild tangle of black hair between her legs.

"Stop..." Clara moaned her legs trembling as she tried to kick her away.

"Not on your life." Cynthia said pulling Clara up to get the vest off of her. "What's really surprising, Clara, is the way you completely ignored the shrinking potion. I thought for sure once you translated it you'd at least be curious."

"Can't work." Clara groaned as Cynthia pulled off her T-shirt.

"It worked on Yanae." Cynthia pointed out. She pulled off Clara's bra and a pair of large breastss fell out. Clara lay nude on the floor. Cynthia stood up and took a sip from her tea. She gazed at Clara and there was more in her gaze than lust. There was greed, an almost limitless greed.

Clara felt her body go numb even as it started to feel hot. A vague feeling of ecstasy enveloped her, leaving the woman dizzy. She was aroused Clara realized. It was as if Cynthia had slipped her an aphrodisiac or a straight shot of rum. As the world slipped through her fingers Clara wondered if this was how Yanae had felt. Was this how it felt to be turned into a doll?

Clara was aware through it all. Not asleep, but not awake, she drifted between the two states like a ship on a storm tossed sea. Closer to the awake shore she could perceive Cynthia talking on a cell phone and taking pictures. Closer to the sleeping shore Clara perceived her surroundings as if she was in a dimly lit room full of sweet smelling fog. At times she dreamed of Yanae and thought she talked with the dead queen. Her body was thrown into constant chaos. Her muscles spasmed wildly, her skin seemed to crawl with invisible bugs. Her senses of smell, sight, and hearing were scrambled. She saw flashes of light and, when they faded, colors were different. Objects had aura's that were multicolored and seemed more solid than the objects themselves. Clara could hear the earth moving beneath her body, the stones of the tomb grinding as they shifted on the earth.

Through it all there was Cynthia. Her voice, her fingers on Clara's body, the woman was the only solid presence in Clara's universe. As the night went on she seemed to grow in stature and importance. Becoming terrible and God-like. Even though she was the cause of what was happening, Clara was scared whenever Lady Cynthia wasn't there.

Gradually Clara's body began to subside. Her muscles stopped trying to tear her body apart, her sight returned to normal, the sounds she heard receded into a background of normalcy. When she pulled herself from the miasma of her nightmare Clara knew she had changed.

She lay on a rough warm surface. Her body felt lighter, more energetic than it had in years. The smell of dust was more powerful than Clara had ever known. Clara opened her eyes. The view she had was of the wall she had spent the past two weeks staring at. But it was a far larger wall than before. She was lying on the table, on a sheet of notepaper. She was still nude, her long black hair still done in a ponytail. Clara sat up and looked at the paper, at her precise handwriting and noticed for the first time how sloppy it could be. She could see where the ink had run or where her hand had not been as steady as it should have been. She could see the indentation left by the pen on the paper. She could see the rough pattern left on the paper by the printing press that had put lines on it. On the table was her compass, now nearly as big as a suitcase. The needle pointed north as it was supposed to. There was also Lady Cynthia's ruler. Clara stood up and lifted it beside her. Holding it in front of her the professor marked the top of her head and then stood back. One on side of the ruler was English inches, on the other side centimeters. Her hand was at 11 and 7/8ths inches or about 28 centimeters.

"How many cubits am I?" Clara whispered ,amazed that her voice sounded normal to her own ears.

Clara stared at the impossibly large numbers on the ruler as her mind accepted the facts. There was no shock. Shock had been stolen from her during the ordeal of the night before.

"Ullo love." Cynthia said emerging from the ramp. She walked over to the table and set a box down on it and a cage onto the floor.

"You witch." Clara whispered as anger started to surge through her.

"Now let's have none of that." Cynthia said taking the ruler from the desk. She opened the box and a scorpion trotted out.

From anger Clara went to terror. The scorpion was as large as a dog and it's claws opened and closed as it came toward her. Its stinger was tensed and ready with venom dripping from it. Clara ran but when she got to the edge of the table a drop that seemed bottomless confronted her. She ran again but the scorpion was a born hunter and soon was upon her. Clara fell and screamed, covering her head with her arms.

For a few seconds Clara huddled on the table sobbing in terror. Then she opened her eyes. Cynthia had put on a special glove and was holding the scorpion. Clara watched but didn't breathe again until the creature was back into its box and the box was put on the floor.

"That's lesson one pet." Cynthia said. "I'm the only thing that stands between you and the big bad world."

"I'm not..." Clara started to stand only to be knocked down again when Cynthia slammed her palm onto the table. The table shook and fresh terror rushed through Clara's soul.

"You don't talk unless I tell you it's ok pet." Cynthia said staring at her. Clara stared into the impossibly large face; into the eyes that bored into her mind, and felt her spirit collapse. She actually felt her willpower, her ego, fall from her into a deep dark pit. It gave one last cry of rage and frustration before it went silent.

"Stay there." Cynthia ordered turning away from her. Clara didn't move a muscle.

Without emotion reason has no power. Clara had never realized that before. Cynthia brought a birdcage over to the table and opened it. When she ordered Clara into it Clara walked in without protest. Once she was in Cynthia closed the door and locked it. Then she proceeded to make sure that Professor Clara Fallingtree fell off of the face of the planet. The dig workers were sent home with full pay. Cynthia told them there were permit problems, but that they were such a good group she was keeping them on a retainer. She and Clara would wait for the government officials. Using Clara's laptop Cynthia typed a quick message that the dig would be going on for at least another year, so the University would have to give her that time.

Clara watched in shock and realized that with those two steps Cynthia had taken her out of the world. She had no friends that would question her staying at a dig, and the workers were all local with no international ties. The dig itself was not big enough to attract any press coverage. As long as Cynthia kept feeding back bi-monthly reports, the university wouldn't miss her. Clara knew for a fact that the reports were never read, so accuracy wasn't something Cynthia had to worry about.

It took less than a day. When it was done Cynthia came over to the table and stared at her. Clara desperately wanted to say something, to ask Cynthia why she had done it, at the very least to ask for food or water. But she didn't. The impulse formed in her mind but died before she could say anything. Each time she tried to speak Cynthia's orders to stay silent stopped her. Try as she might Clara couldn't bring herself to disobey. All she could do was stand there, meekly trying to cover her self with her hands.

"Look at me pet." Cynthia ordered. "Drop your hands to your side."

Clara dropped her arms and looked at Cynthia. Cold heartless eyes caught her brown ones and held them.

"You can't have any secrets from me pet. It's not possible."

It wasn't. Clara realized that as Cynthia said the words, even as that part of her that could think and reason denied it.

"Come out of there." Cynthia said opening the cage door. Clara walked out and stood very still. From under the table Cynthia picked up a small scale and put it next to her. It was the same scale Clara had used on many an ancient trinket in her career. A small box with a flat metal plate on top and red LED readouts on the face.

"Get on." Lady Cynthia ordered.

Clara climbed onto weighing plate and sat down.

"Ninety nine grams." Cynthia said and Clara gasped. In one night she'd gone from 88 kilograms to 99 grams.

"Ninety nine" Cynthia said doing some internal calculations. She picked up Clara and put her on the table again. Then she picked up a stone and put it on the scale. Without telling Clara the weight she put the stone in front of her. "Lift it."

Clara looked at the stone. It was a chunk of sandstone, only about 5 centimeters around. But to her it was the size of a beach ball. Still the order was impossible to disobey. She took hold of it, bending at the knees and lifted it. To her surprise it wasn't heavy.

"Very good." Cynthia said putting another rock in front of her. This was one larger. "Now this one."

For the next few hours Cynthia tested Clara's strength and speed. When she was done Clara found that she could lift up to 1.5 kilograms and run at about 5 meters per 30 seconds.

"Well your going to have to get into shape." Cynthia said looking down at her. Clara lay on the table exhausted. She was sweating from the tests and taking in great gulps of air. "We'll start that tomorrow."

Cynthia picked her up and Clara found the room whirling about her as she was carried to the edge of the table. Cynthia let her drop and Clara screamed before she hit the water. Submerged only for a moment Clara broke the surface and realized that Cynthia had dropped her into a bucket. Again Clara wanted to scream in protest, to rage against her captor. But again there was no rage to be found. Instead she treaded water and waited.

Cynthia laughed as she reached into the bucket. In one hand she took Clara, in the other she had a large sponge. The tiny woman was scrubbed and dunked clean then scrubbed again. All through the process Clara knew only fear and a curious lust that erupted in her as Cynthia washed her breasts and between her legs. It was the first real emotion besides fear Clara had tasted all morning and she reveled in it. She moaned and took hold of the sponge when Cynthia tried to pull it away.

"You're getting off on this!" Cynthia squealed.

Clara nodded and kept hold of the sponge.

"Well this wasn't mentioned in the scroll." Cynthia said. She took the sponge away from Clara and lifted the shrunken woman onto the table, laying her on a towel. Holding Clara's arms above her head Cynthia began to run her fingers over the small woman's body. Clara moaned and squirmed the water on her body glistening in the light.

Giggling Cynthia ran her fingers up and down the inside of Clara's legs and found more moisture between the shrunken woman's legs. She teased Clara's pussy, pressing her little finger into the opening. Clara screamed in pure lustful agony and arched her back.

"Well, you're a randy little bunny now aren't you?" Cynthia taunted moving her finger in and out. She flipped Clara on her back and ran her fingernails up and down the woman's spine, easing into the crack in her ass. Clara responded with a wild frenzy of moaning and fought to free her hands. Suddenly Cynthia let go and Clara rolled over onto her back, her hands thrusting between her legs as she sought her own sex. It only took her a few moments to masturbate herself into an orgasm.

Lady Cynthia watched enthralled as Clara played with herself. It took five orgasms for the shrunken woman to play herself out. While Clara was playing with her new body Cynthia put the sponge in a bucket of ice water. When Clara was finally done Cynthia took the sponge and squeezed it out over her tiny pet. Clara gasped and sat up, her eyes darting wildly as if seeking a place to escape. Then she saw that Cynthia was doing it and stood still.

"Here are the rules, pet." Lady Cynthia said as she used to towel to dry Clara off. She was surprisingly gentle about it, holding Clara like a doll in one hand and wielding the towel in the other. Her fingers traced over every part of Clara's body but this time there was no awakening of lust. "When I am present you may speak, but only to ask me for food, or water or to answer my questions. When you do speak to me you will call me Mistress Melandria. You may never ask me why I do anything, or question my orders to you in anyway. If I tell you do something, you will do it. Do you understand pet?"

"Yes Mistress Melandria." Clara said. As Lady Cynthia had spoken her rules Clara had felt them being chiseled into her soul letter by letter. Reason told her she should rebel, try to find a way to full size once more, but reason could only tell her what she already knew. The emotion that could drive her was silent. Clara sensed that she could still feel anger, but not at Cynthia. Clara couldn't feel anything about Cynthia she could only obey her.

For the next few weeks they stayed at the dig. Clara's days were filled with physical exercise and translating the rest of the scrolls. The translation was easier now she could read the smallest inscription with ease. At night she would be put into her cage with food, water and a small tray filled with sand.

"Bury it deep." Lady Cynthia had ordered about the makeshift toilet. Clara found that even this humiliation could not drive her to rebel. Time after time she thought of ways to escape, but each plan was a daydream that vanished when she wanted to put it into action.

The exercises soon had an effect on her body. Clara had never worked out. As a child she had been a bit of a tomboy and as an adult her lifestyle of archeological digs had kept her in shape enough to suit her. But under Cynthia's exercise regime Clara found her body acquiring a hard toned look. By the time they left the site Clara was a small bundle of rock hard muscle. She could now lift 2.5 kilograms. One day Clara saw herself in the metallic reflection of the small fridge Cynthia had brought down. The sight stunned her. There was no longer any grey in her hair the lines around her eyes had faded. Her breasts were firm against her chest. She was young again. She looked no more than 25 years old.

They left the dig a few weeks after Clara had taken the potion. Lady Cynthia sealed it and buried the entrance. Clara watched as the only key to her possible return to normalcy was covered over. There were other secrets in the tomb Clara had translated many of them. But the morning they left Cynthia had ordered her to forget them all.

And Clara had.

Lady Cynthia had ordered her to forget where the tomb was.

And Clara had.

As the sands covered the entrance Clara found the last bit of emotion left in her. She cried silently, not saying a word as the tears ran down her face.

"Come on pet." Lady Cynthia said setting the birdcage on the seat beside her. "We have places to be."

The tunnel was as cold, dark and dusty as any tomb Clara had ever known. But it wasn't a tomb. She walked through not an ancient temple or long lost city. She was in London, walking in an air conditioning duct in the New Scotland Yard building. Further along was an office with certain papers in a locked safe. Without those papers one of London's elite criminals would go free. Mistress Melandria had ordered Clara to steal those papers.

Clara had always loved London. The city was rich in history and culture. She loved the energy, the politeness of the English people, so different from Americans in so many ways. But that was then. At just under two meters tall, Clara loved the city. At barely a meter, she found it terrifying. Mistress Melandria (Clara found it impossible to think of Cynthia as anything else now, indeed it was only with reluctance that she could leave off the word "Mistress" from the title, even in her thoughts) rented a room in one of the more fashionable neighborhoods. She had money enough. She and Clara had spent nearly a month in France. With Clara's help Melandria had gotten access to dozens of bank managers computer passwords. It would take years for the banks to even realize they had been robbed.

The time in France had been training time for Clara. She learned how to break into buildings using air-ducts, cracks in walls or just being smuggled in Melandria's handbag. Clara became the world's smallest and most accomplished thief. At the same time Mistress Melandria continued to extend her domination of the former archeological professor. Now in London it was time for what Melandria termed a final test. The man they would be setting free was a monster. In graphic detail Mistress Melandria had described his crimes. He would do horrible things if Clara stole those papers and he went free.

Certain that Clara understood that, that this would be a far worse crime than robbery, Mistress Melandria had walked into the ladies room, opened the air conditioning vent and placed Clara inside. Then she had left. Tomorrow she would be waiting in that same ladies room.

Naked but for a harness that contained coiled strings, hooks, and a needle, Clara walked down the tunnel. The harness went over both shoulders and between her breasts. Clara had made it herself from one of her Mistresses blue silk scarves. She shivered slightly, even thought it was winter and the air blowing through the duct was warm. Clara wore cloths only when Mistress Melandria allowed it, usually for some disguise. The needle was her only protection against rats, mice and large insects. Clara had become quite good with it. In her hand was an ultra small flashlight, a combination of an LED with a watch battery. She turned a corner and found the vent into the office. A streetlight streaming in from a window gave the place an un-holy pallor. The office contained a single desk, a few chairs, a file cabinet and a safe. She put down her flashlight. Carefully Clara opened the vent, pulling it up and bracing the snap-down bar. Then she tied her string off and tossed it down. The edge landed on the desk and Clara climbed slowly down. The small red telltale lights of motion and heat sensors blinked on and off, but neither detected her. Landing on the desk she walked over to the edge and looked down. The blue white floor tile looked almost like a storm tossed sea. She picked up a pencil from the desk.

For a moment Clara held the pencil over the edge of the desk. All she had to do was drop it and the alarm would sound. She took a deep breath to steady herself but between the time she took the breath in and the time she let it out her resolve faded.

She tied the pencil to a string, lowering it slowly down to the floor. Using another string Clara climbed down to the floor. The safe stood like a small building on the far wall. It was a small office safe, grey metal in color with a single large wheel full of numbers. Clara had spent a week's time in the air conditioning vent, watching the man who nearly lived in this office. She knew the combination better than he did. Using the eraser on the edge of the pencil she slowly turned the wheel.

All I have to do to be free is stay here tonight, Clara thought as she turned the wheel. He is a good man, he would help me. Mistress Melandria would never know...

But even as those thoughts ran though the back of Clara's mind she finished the combination. The sound of the safe lock clicking open was shattering in the dead silence of the room. The safe door opened slightly. With a well-practiced slowness Clara swung the door open. It took an hour for her to swing the door wide enough to get into the safe. Clara was careful to move it too slowly to set off the motion detectors.

There were no shelves on the inside of the safe, just a stack of envelopes. Clara found the one she was looking for and slowly pulled it out. All her work out sessions had prepared her for this so the envelope wasn't heavy at all. Dragging it along the floor she got to the desk and attached it to the string she had used to climb down, spearing it and passing the string through the hole. Then she climbed up to the top of the desk and dragged the envelope after her. On the top of the desk she rolled the envelope up and tied it tightly.

I could leave a note, Clara thought desperately. They would read it and know where to find us.

Clara coiled her spare string and tucked it into her harness. Then she tied the bottom of her first string to the envelope and then climbed up the string. The idea of the note stayed with her, rambling about through her mind looking for a way out. She'd forgotten about it when she reached the vent entrance. Once inside she braced herself and slowly pulled the rolled up envelope up into the vent. Once it was in the duct with her she closed the vent. Coiling her string the diminutive thief hefted the envelope to her shoulder and started down the air conditioning duct.

Mistress Melandria lay in her tub. It was a large sunken marble tub with solid gold fixtures. The sound of a heavy metal band played on a built in stereo. The mistress laughed softly, her breasts jiggling and causing large ripples in the water. Clara, swimming in circles above Melandria's submerged legs, handled the ripples with ease. Swimming was part of her training.

"You did well pet." Mistress Melandria said. "My new friend is very, very happy not to be going to prison. Giving us this place was only the start." She lifted her leg out of the water, catching Clara mid-stroke. Clara grabbed the ankle and held on, dangling over the surface of water. Mistress Melandria held her leg steady while Clara climbed onto her ankle. "Of course this first little favor was free, something else he appreciates. Tomorrow night will be paid for." Clara found herself sliding down as Melandria raised her leg high. Unable to stop herself she fell into the water and bounced onto Mistress Melandria's sunken pussy. Laughing Melandria picked her up and set Clara on her chest. She stood there as her mistress ran her fingers up and down Clara's body. "It's very simple pet." Melandria said running her thumb up and down Clara's stomach while the fingers on the same hand rubbed her but. Clara moaned as the lust started to build within her. "It seems our friend has a girlfriend who's an undercover copper! The very one who turned him in! He's not a forgiving bloke this man. So tomorrow night we're going to teach this bitch a new way of looking at things. Give her a 'smaller' perspective on things."

"Yes Mistress Melandria." Clara whispered.

"You're going to be in her room tomorrow night pet." Mistress Melandria said. "You're going to wait until she's asleep and then pour the potion into her mouth. Then when she wakes up you're going to tie her up and bring her to me."

"Yes Mistress Melandria." Clara said. Clara hung her head and reached deep inside herself for guilt. She felt it, but no tears reached her eyes.

Smiling Mistress Melandria picked Clara up and placed the shrunken woman onto her breast. Her large nipple vanished between Clara's legs and again Clara let out a moan. This time her mistress joined her.

...End.

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