The Trade - F/f

[noyoyo]

My manager was waiting for me when I came in through the kitchen entrance. He glanced purposefully at his watch.

“Sorry I’m late, Tom,” I apologized.

“What is that, your family motto?” Tom quipped. He was a nice guy, but we both knew this was starting to become a problem. I opened my mouth to explain, but he held his hand up. “Tell it to Chef, Allison. The meeting already started.”

I followed Tom into the dining room. The wait staff were sitting at the tables, scribbling on their note pads as Chef Oliver ran through the night’s specials. Most of them were turned to the opposite direction of the kitchen, facing Chef, as Tom and I slipped behind everyone to stand in the back of the room.

Chef spared me one short, fierce glance, but did not slow his words. I knew better than to confuse that for mercy. Tom would be getting an earful from him later. As the general manager, Tom was the shield for the front-of-the-house staff against Chef Oliver’s tantrums. I felt bad about how often he was having to stand in there for me.

“We’re also running a special of John Dory, wrapped in pancetta over a celery root puree, with poached chestnuts, chives, and tarragon. We have sixteen portions. Try to push the John Dory tonight, I don’t want those fish to go to waste.” He glanced towards the back of the room, and I braced for one of his infamous dressing downs. Instead, “Tom, you got anything?”

“Yes Chef. Two things folks. First of all, the flower centerpieces on all the tables. At then end of the night they need to be collected and stored in the number four walk-in. Don’t put them in second or third walk-in refrigerators, they are set at a cooler temperature. Obviously the first walk-in is the freezer, so keep them out of there.”

“Second, we have a server in training tonight. Zoey, would you raise your hand?” I looked to see a new woman, with thick black glasses, raise her hand. She was a fairly pretty blonde, probably in her mid to late thirties. For my part, I could have done with a tall, chiseled college boy with dark hair and light eyes. When was Tom going to hire one of those? “Zoey will be shadowing Adam tonight, but if anyone sees her looking lost, please step in and give her a hand. Questions?” There were none. “That’s it for me, Chef.”

“That’s it.” Chef dismissed us. “Tom, a word.”

Tom glanced at me sideways before following Chef into the kitchen. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. I desperately wanted to keep this job. Being the hostess at an expensive restaurant had been the best job I had had in four years of high school. I got to dress up for work every night, which I loved. Tonight I was wearing a navy blue sleeveless cocktail dress with a gorgeous pair of silver open toe heels. And the money was pretty good. For the work. My parents were very well off, but it was nice having my own money. I wanted to have a little savings for when I started college in September.

I made my way through the dining room to the hostess podium in the front of the restaurant. I started running through my pre-service duties. It was Saturday night, and we had two full seatings booked. It was going to be a very long night.

Tom eventually emerged from the kitchen. After inspecting the staff, he made his way over to the podium.

“May I see the reservations?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, pulling up the list and times of arrival on the computer.

“Yes,” Tom corrected me. “Of course. Absolutely. Right away.” He looked at me. “Never ‘sure’.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered, somewhat sheepishly. Which he knew wasn’t like me.

“ ‘Sir’ is a nice touch. And befits a boss with as much dignity and bearing as myself,” he said dryly. I smiled, and he took pity on me. “Relax. You’re not getting fired. Not half an hour before dinner service on a Saturday. But you’ve got to stop being late. This is the fourth time by Chef’s count. You and I know it’s closer to eight.”

“I know Tom,” I assured him. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“Put the Lassiters on table 4 at 7:00. Its their anniversary. And switch the DiGregorios to table 16 at 8:15. We’re not giving prime placement to the cheapest tippers in town.”

“Right away, sir,” I answered, with just a twinge of dryness.

“Ah, Zoey,” he called as I was making the changes. The new server came over to the podium. “Have you met our hostess, Allison?”

“Not yet,” the woman answered. “Nice to meet you Allison.”

Seeing her up close, she was tall. I was 5’6, probably 5’9 in heels, but she still had at least an inch or two on me. The server’s uniform was a white dress shirt with a black vest and burgundy ascot with black trousers. Her uniform was filled out, but shapely. In that outfit, though, it was hard to tell her build for sure. Her face, however, was angular with a strong jawline, and my guess was that she spent some time at the gym. Like most of the servers, she chose to wear her golden blonde hair back in a ponytail. The thick frames of her glasses disguised a pair of sapphire blue eyes which, up close, were very pretty.

I nodded politely, “Nice to meet you too.”

“Did anyone show you the POS system?” Tom asked her.

“Yes, sir,” Zoey answered confidently. “Adam and I went over it before the meeting.”

“Yes ‘sir’,” Tom repeated, throwing me an exaggerated look. “Have you had a chance to familiarize yourself with the wine list yet?”

“I only had a chance to learn the house pours,” she replied.

“Alright, lets take a look at that then. Thank you Allison,” Tom said, as he steered Zoey towards the bar.

The dinner-service began twenty minutes later, and didn’t let up until after ten. At a couple of especially busy points in the evening Tom pulled me to help deliver plates to tables. As the tables cleared out, and the closing chores were completed, Tom started sending staff home. I was allowed to leave as soon as the last customers left, which usually meant I’d be among the first to go home. Tonight, however, we had a pair of love birds on table 2 that were still seated. By 10:30 even Chef Oliver was out of the kitchen and sitting at the bar with Tom and Silvio, one of the bartenders.

Adam and Zoey were the last two servers in the building, charged with clearing the last table, all of the candles, and the flowers. The rest of the kitchen staff were long gone. Adam had joined Chef, Tom, and Silvio in the bar while I waited impatiently at the podium. Adam flirted with me a little bit and I chided him for leaving the new girl to polish silver while he had a drink with the bosses. But I knew that’s how it usually went with new people.

Finally, after Zoey blew out all of the candles, the last two diners got the hint and left. The guys asked me if I wanted a juice or a soft drink, but I was pretty sure they were just being polite. I told them I had been on my feet for almost six hours in heels and I was ready to go home.

I grabbed my handbag and headed toward the kitchen. Zoey was collecting the flower centerpieces off the last few tables.

“Good night,” I waved as I passed her.

“Good night,” she answered. “Nice meeting you.”

“You too.” I entered the kitchen and I was about halfway out the door when Zoey came in behind me with the flowers.

“Excuse me, Allison?” she called me. “Can you do me a small favor?”

“Sure,” I answered, trying not to sound exasperated. We’d both had a long night, and hers was probably harder.

“Can you bring this small tray of flowers down stairs with me?” Zoey asked, gesturing towards a larger tray of centerpieces already on one of the chef’s stations. “I’ll take the larger one. I don’t remember which walk-in fridge they go in.”

“Yea, sure,” I agreed. “I can take the big tray.”

“That’s alright, I’ll get it,” Zoey insisted, handing me the small one.

There were four walk-in refrigerators in the basement of the restaurant. I carefully followed Zoey down the steps in my heels, holding the banister with my left hand and balancing the tray of centerpieces in my right.

“So how was your first night?” I asked conversationally.

“Pretty good, I think,” she replied. “I didn’t spill any drinks on the customers, so that was good.”

“Always a plus,” I laughed. When we reached the bottom of the stairs she paused to let me go ahead of her. “They flowers go in the number 4 walk-in on the end,” I said, leading the way.

“Thank you for this,” Zoey said as I pulled the heavy door open for her. “I’m ready to go home.”

“I know,” I agreed. “I’m so tired.”

The walk-in refrigerators were the same size as a walk-in closet. Zoey quickly dropped the tray on one of the shelves. Then she reached over me to keep the door propped open. I thanked her as I ducked under her arm to enter the walk-in myself. I found an open shelf in the back and gently placed the tray down.

I had no time to react to the change in lighting in the small space as the fridge door closed behind us.

Before I had a chance to turn around, an arm whipped around from my left and wrapped my neck in a chokehold. At the same time, a body pressed against mine from behind as my attacker reached over me to snap a handcuff on my right wrist.

“What the fuck!” I screamed. But my attacker only kneed me in the back of my right knee. As my leg buckled, I was spun right as I fell to the ground. I was able to brace my fall by landing on my knee, but my right arm was pulled violently behind me by the other end of the handcuff on my wrist. My attacker released the hold on my neck in order to seize my left wrist, twisting it behind my back, and using their weight to push me flat to the floor. I yelped in pain. Now lying flat on the floor, I turned around to face my attacker.

It was Zoey.

I had enough strength to pull my left wrist away from her first try to snap the other cuff on my wrist. But she had me in a hammerlock, and easily pinned and cuffed me on her second attempt. She took her weight off me and I screamed as she flipped me on to my back.

“What the fuck are you doing you psycho?” I shouted.

But she gave me no response. She had removed her glasses and was staring me right in the face with a cold, menacing look. She grabbed a rag that was already waiting on a bottom shelf, next to a roll of duct tape.

I knew where this was going. I let out the deepest screech I could muster with her full weight on my stomach.

“Aaaaargh! HELP ME!”

I barely finished before she crammed the rag into my open mouth.

“Shut the fuck up, girl,” she said calmly. “There’s no way they’re going to hear you from in here.”

She was probably right. The fridges weren’t designed to be soundproof, but they pretty much were. Between the insulation, the heavy door, and the generator it was unlikely my loudest shriek could be heard from just outside the door, let alone the other side of the building.

That didn’t mean I had to like it. I tried to spit the rag out while Zoey readied the tape. She reached down to me and roughly prodded the fabric back into my mouth. At the same time she used her teeth to peel the end off the roll of tape. Finding it, she pressed the end down hard over my mouth, sealing the rag inside. She then aggressively, and tightly, wound the tape around my face. Some of my hair got caught in her wraps, but she paid no attention to it.

Zoey had me pinned under her, straddling my body in a tight hold. I realized, even as she continued to wrap the tape around my mouth, that shouting was a waste of effort. I tried to kick her, but she was out of reach of any meaningful hits. My wild attempts cost me my shoes, which went flying harmlessly into the air. I tried to spin my body away from her, but her full weight kept me pinioned to the floor.

Once she finished taping my mouth, she stood up. I tried to push away from her, only for her to seize my legs by the calves and pull me hard between her legs. She stepped over me to spin me back on to my stomach before sitting on the back of my shins. I was completely immobilized. I paused my wild struggle to try and think clearly for a moment about how to fight back.

But I couldn’t think of anything. Meanwhile, Zoey had begun taping my ankles together. I felt the sharp pinches as she brutally wrapped the duct tape around my bare skin. My breathing had gotten very heavy as I struggled against her, but at this point all I could do was flop like a fish. I wailed as loudly as I could, but that was only out of frustration.

Instead of biting off the end of the tape, she hopped off my legs to kneel beside me. Using the tape and her free hand, she forced my ankles backward toward my butt. Before I could figure what she was doing, she began to weave the tape back and forth between the chain connecting my wrists and back around my ankles. When she was done I rolled away from her.

Between the shock, the fear, the frustration, and the physical manhandling of my body, I started to cry. I looked up at her to see her silently watching me. I screamed at her to tell me what was going on, but she just stepped on my face, holding my head to the cold tile floor.

“Alright, baby doll,” she finally said, taking her hard shoe off my face, “I think that ought to hold you for a while.” She got down on the ground to reach under the shelves for my handbag. One of us must have kicked it under there during the struggle. Against my vigorous protest, she started rifling around my bag. She pulled out my car keys.

“I don’t know how long you’re going to have to stay in here, but it could be a while.” She grabbed some balled up, dirty tablecloths that were also hidden on the bottom shelf and carelessly tossed them over me. “It gets cold in here, so I wouldn’t struggle too much or those tablecloths will fall right off.”

I watched her fish her glasses out of her pocket and carefully slip them back on. She gave me one last glance before opening the walk-in door. I screamed as loud as I could, but she only cracked the door wide enough to slip out before quickly shutting it. From outside, I heard her lock the door. Then she switched off the lights.

The sudden darkness in the cold fridge scared me and I screamed again. But nothing happened. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the impenetrable darkness, which of course they didn’t. I squirmed against my restraints, but I found no give anywhere. And for a moment I just lay there, listening to my rapid heartbeat, my loud, uneven breathing, and the quiet hum of the refrigerator.

[Trickster]

Exciting and fantastic start! I really enjoyed it a lot.

[Caesar73]

Really good start!

[Cali Callie]

Sounds like a good beginning and very well written

[Dpsiic]

Great start

[RopingRingers]

As a guy who DESPISES the cold, that's bloody terrifying that boy is in trouble lol

[Driverman]

Very strong start to this story, I love the slow build up and character development. She is in for hopefully not too long a night in there before someone comes to take her to wherever her future punishment lays!

[Ducttapelover93]

Absolutely fantastic story so far! Hope to hear more soon! Great character development and sense of mystery with Zoey.

[Lost_the_keys]

Great start! Hope you keep going.

[slackywacky]

I can hear the chants.... more, more, more
Please?

[brashieel]

This was an excellent first part!

[Samantha38]

Nice start.i enjoyed!.Thanks!

[Tieup1]

A good start, look forward to more.

[Boundcurious]

Looking forward to more, what’s the motive?!?

[RopingRingers]

Looking forward to more, what’s the motive?!?

Probably something to do with her tardiness lol

[noyoyo]

The whole thing was an overload to my system. The emotions.

Confusion, over what exactly the hell just happened. And why? The “why” gave way to anxiety.

Desperation, trying to think of a way to make myself heard to the men upstairs.

Anger, at having been manhandled by some pyscho bitch.

Frustration, I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move.

Fear, that she would come back. Fear that she wouldn’t. I’d be trapped in here until Monday, the restaurant was closed on Sundays.

Then there was the physical overload. First of all, I was freezing. This may have been the warmest of the four refrigerators, but it was still a refrigerator. The pile of table clothes Zoey had thrown over me was covering my upper body, but my bare shoulders were pressed against the cold tile floor. I had worked up a sweat during the short struggle with Zoey. Now every bead of sweat sent shivers through my bones.

I could still feel the pressure on my throat from when she first grabbed me. My knees ached from when I fell down on them, and the extra chill I felt all but confirmed I was bleeding from the scrape. The cuffs on my wrists were locked tightly, so tightly I couldn’t shift the position my wrists were in. I had strands of hair all over my face, which I tried to brush away using the cold floor. Some of them were basically locked into place by the duct tape wrapped around my head. It was a constant irritation, made worse when my small movements somehow pulled my hair. I tried to find a comfortable position, or at least one that hurt the least.

I couldn’t breathe through my mouth at all. I had tried, mostly as a means of trying to work the rag out of my mouth so I could scream. I was also afraid that between the cold and my frustrated sobbing that my nose could clog up and I would suffocate. I felt as though my bodyweight against the floor was compressing my lungs, making it even harder to inhale. But each time I tried to roll over I could feel the tablecloths sliding off my shoulders, so I tried to shimmy around as best I could to keep from losing that one, small comfort.

The steady groan of the refrigerator motor was all I could hear, apart from my labored breathing and the heavy pounding of my heart. Each thump of my heart seemed to radiate all the way up into my head.

Finally, there was the dark. All consuming, pitch black darkness.

I wanted to thrash, scream, and fight as hard as I possibly could to escape my situation… but in truth there was very little I could do. With my ankles attached to the handcuffs, it was a great effort just to roll over. So first, I tried to calm myself down. Again I tried to focus on just getting my breathing down to a normal pace. I had to think. There was no chance the men were going to hear me from inside the refrigerator, so unless one of them randomly decided to check the walk-ins before locking up, I was trapped.

For a flicker of a moment I thought I might be saved. I thought one of them would see my car still in the lot and get curious as to where I was. But then I remembered Zoey taking my keys from my purse before she left me. Maybe that’s what this was about? She was stealing my car? In any case, she probably moved the car to make sure the guys wouldn’t see it, and so assume that I had gone home. Damn.

On the other hand, maybe my parents would call the police tonight. They usually were in bed by the time I got home on a Saturday night, but maybe I’d get lucky. If not, they would certainly notice if I wasn’t home in the morning. If the police contacted Chef Oliver or Tom, maybe they’d search the restaurant for me.

Even as I considered this “best case scenario,” the discomfort of my binds brought me back to the present. I couldn’t stay like this all night, let alone all weekend. It already felt like an hour since Zoey had left me here. Maybe two. I began feeling out the tape that attached my ankles to my wrists. Whatever Zoey had done, it felt like a thick piece of duct tape rope. I tried picking at it with my nails for a while. I figured if I could just get out of this position, then maybe I could free my ankles entirely. At least then I could kick at the door… someone might hear that if they were in the building.

I tried picking at the tape for a while but it seemed hopeless. My nails were too small, maybe too soft. I thought about the shelving units against the walls. I thought I could remember short legs on the shelves that elevated the bottom shelf a couple of inches from the floor. They might not have been sharp, but maybe if I could run the tape against one of those legs for a while I could wear out the tape.

Of course, I couldn’t see anything. I rolled over, abandoning the table cloths. I was committing to this idea. With every part of my body – feet, fingers, head – I felt around, trying to find a shelf in the dark. I rolled over again, with some difficulty and discomfort, and found one of the shelving units - with my forehead. Shaking off the pain, I wriggled myself onto my side and began to feel around for one of the shelves’ legs. This took quite a bit of time, and I had to slide forward and backward a couple times before I suddenly found one. Grabbing onto it with my hand, I was able to pull my body just slightly closer before I had to resume shimmying my body an inch at a time.

After what felt like forever, I finally got the tape in a position to saw it against the shelf leg. This hurt a lot, because I had to press my wrists against the metal cuffs in order to create enough force to wear down the tape. I almost quit after a few minutes. My wrists got sore quickly, and I couldn’t discern any effect against the tape. But on my last, frustrated jerk, I felt the tape tear a little. I couldn’t hear it, but I felt it. I continued to saw intermittently, taking more and more frequent breaks as I went on. Even though I could barely move, I felt more exhausted than I did after an hour on the treadmill.

After a while I could feel with my finger tips that the tape was indeed ripping. I began to mix in some harsh tugging of my ankles and wrists in between bouts of sawing against the shelf’s leg. This hurt worse that the sawing action on my wrists, but I powered through it now because I knew it was working. I went through periods of hopelessness - thinking I was just deluding myself into believing this was working - to the teasing sensation that I was almost there – about 20 times.

Suddenly, and at a moment I was not expecting, my feet snapped the tape free of my ankles and crashed hard into a plastic container on another shelf. I let out a long, and heavily muffled, shriek of pain. But I also briefly enjoyed the rush of relief in my cramped legs as I stretched them out in the darkness. Now I wanted to give my aching chest and shoulders a rest too.

Rolling onto my back proved a bad idea, with my increasingly tender wrists cuffed behind me. Instead I forced myself to sit up. I tried to lean back and prop myself against the shelf, but as I leaned backward I found no support. Once again I had become utterly disoriented in the pitch blackness. As I tried to catch myself before I fell all the way onto my back again, I got a painful cramp in my abs. Whatever contortion I had twisted myself into in that refrigerator, it wasn’t something we did in yoga.

After catching my breath, and breathing out the cramp, I slid myself across the freezing floor back to one of the shelves. Brining my ankles close to me, and supporting myself against the shelf, I slowly tried to stand up. I felt my frigid feet slip against the grimy refrigerator floor, which was just a little disgusting. I moved slowly, newly reminded of how tender my body was. I also felt incredibly dizzy and off balance, but I think that may have mostly been caused by the darkness.

At last I was standing, albeit on a pair of wobbly legs. In addition to being cramped from being taped for however long to my wrists, my legs were quivering from the cold. I pressed legs against each other for warmth. I also tried to roll my sore shoulders, but the action allowed a chill to go down my dress and I shivered involuntarily. I took a moment to catch my breath, and for a brief moment I considered how much better even this felt to being stuck on the floor.

Suddenly there was a quick rap at the door. I threw my head in the direction I thought I heard the noise come from, not sure if I had heard what I thought I had. The rattling of the lock confirmed someone was outside.

I let out a long moan, as loud as I could manage. My moan turned into a shriek as the door was flung open, bathing my dark prison with a blinding light.

I moaned again but there was no response. I tried to squint and see who had opened the door, but it was still too bright. I felt a sinking feeling, by the person’s silence, that I knew who it was anyway.

I let my eyes adjust to the light by looking down instead. I saw the inside of the refrigerator for the first time since I was locked in. I was surprised to see that I was now on the opposite side of the small space, having blindly worked my way over to the back of the walk-in. I saw the table cloths scattered just a few feet away from my bare toes. I also saw that, at some point in my struggles, I had knocked some plastic tupperware off the shelves and onto the floor. Lucky for me they hadn’t opened up, or I might have been drenched in chicken stock or something.

“Well,” came a low, unfriendly female voice. I tried again to look at the figure in the doorway. I could vaguely make out the features on Zoey’s face. She had taken off her glasses again, and I could tell she was glaring at me.

I moaned again, but softly this time. It had all been for nothing. I hung my head in disbelief.

Zoey strode into the walk-in. Without my heals, she towered over me. My head snapped up to meet her gaze as she wrapped her arm around my waist. “Come on now, girl,” she said menacingly. “Let’s get you out of here.”

[Boundcurious]

It's just as good, if not better. Please don't make us wait another 8 months

[smooth_talker45]

Lovveddd, really hoping to hear more

[Lost_the_keys]

Keep it going!

[brashieel]

Excellent continuation!

[Roboticrobin20]

Damn, Zoey might look hot and adorable but she's not to be triffled with.
I love this story though the refrigerator part kinda freaks me out. I'm excited to read more though.

[jumanjipr]

looking good

[Gagfan]

Great first two parts, I hope you continue to add to this!

[bindngag]

Awesome

[Damsel-Dilara-Dee]

Love this story, so hot!