The Perils of Veronica Kingston Part 3 (M/F)

[ver987]

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Suddenly I was saved by the technological shortcomings of the vintage equipment.
‘I need to fix the camera boss. The film has got jammed!’ interrupted the cameraman. The spell was at last broken and the more considerate Jack Satan re-emerged from the dark shadows of his psyche.
‘Had enough little lady?’ he laughed in his natural amiable voice as he tenderly stroked my hair. I laid my head down on the mattress and moaned softly with intense relief as I tried to put myself back together.

I looked at the rushes with horrified fascination at my reaction to being tickled out of my mind! The footage ran out and the lights came up in the small projection room.
‘How about letting me go now? No harm has been done and I’ve really quite enjoyed it!’ I admitted as I flashed my sweetest smile at my captor. I was quite serious as I could see Jack Satan was a man haunted by his past with a personality that shifted between a natural charm and a demonic incarnation of his screen persona. As he considered my request his face darkened over.
‘Sometimes I find that I am watching myself do things that don’t seem to be done by me at all! Like it was something else inside me! Something malevolent!’ he groaned and bit his hand to control his emotions. I shifted myself around in the chair in which I sat firmly bound and tried to talk him into setting me loose.
‘You need help. Let me go and maybe we could talk to someone about this!’ I implored him in my warmest sympathetic tone.
‘I think it killed Virginia! Not me but this Mr Hyde lurking inside me! Maybe if I could relive that moment I could beat my demon!’ he hopefully declared but I was feeling distinctly nervous about where all this was leading. Then his face became painfully contorted in a fiendish grin as diabolical laughter spewed from his lips.
‘Yes! Yes! Jack! You must restage the sequence in which you let Virginia die exactly the way it happened!’ he rasped in the harsh voice of his evil alter ego.
‘No! No! Please!’ I begged him as he departed to make preparations for a final act which I knew would place me in serious peril!

‘Mmmpppfff! Mmmppfff!’ I screamed as I gazed up at the block of granite that was suspended over my head! A long metal spike had been driven through it which would impale me through the throat if it fell! Jack Satan was dressed up as an old woman with a grey wig and a pair of round spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He encouraged his two associates to tie me very securely to a camp bed while he wrapped a large scarf around my mouth to keep me quiet. Then he ordered them out as he gleefully tightened the web of ropes binding me to the canvas sheet stretched across the bed frame. I struggled around to test the bindings but I soon conceded that I was quite helpless! I violently rocked back and forth on the bed which creaked loudly but shifted barely an inch as a result of my strenuous efforts. My eyes followed the rope suspending the block which was tied off to an iron radiator. Jack made for the opposite corner of the set where an old piano was waiting for him.
‘How about a little music my pretty?’ croaked Satan in his most marrow chilling voice. He began to maniacally improvise some silent movie style chase music which provided an appropriate accompaniment to my desperate struggles.
‘Mmmpppfff! Mmmppfff!’ I continued to cry from behind the gag as I tore my body from side to side in a futile attempt to loosen the ropes! His hands galloped up and down the keys reaching a thundering crescendo and then concluded on a jolting discord.
Jack cackled to himself as he rose from the piano stool. He bent himself double to portray the illusion of age then leaning on a gnarled walking stick tottered over to a small table pushed up against the radiator. There was a candle resting on it which he lit before giving me a villainous backward glance. He carefully pushed it into a position where it would quickly burn through the rope! I twisted around on the bed wide eyed with horror!
‘Mmmpppfff! Mmmpppfff!’ I screamed as I saw that the rope was already blackening from the heat of the flame! I looked at the block above me and struggled in the ropes with a renewed desperation! In a rare moment my guard slipped and I felt the icy touch of fear raise the hairs on the back of my neck! I continually heaved myself up and down although I realised that it would take too long to shuffle myself completely out of the path of the suspended rock. Satan walked over to me cackling while he rubbed his hands together and I knew that I was cooked if the malevolent side of his personality had taken over. He knelt by the bed for a moment doubtless to check that I was completely helpless. I glanced over at the table and saw that half of the rope strands had already been burned through by the candle flame!
‘Mmmpppfff! Mmmpppfff!’ I screamed and pleaded with my eyes now wide with terror as they followed Jack towards the door of the set. With a last gloating look Jack Satan left me to my dreadful fate! I twisted around flexing my muscles against the restraints in the hope of somehow loosening them and saving myself from a fearful end! The stone block dropped slightly and I glared at the candle which had burned through all but a thin fibre of the rope. This was now heavily smoking and set to give way at any moment!
‘Mmmpppfff! Mmmpppfff!’ I shrieked from behind the stifling gag! Then I went crazy and bucked wildly on the bed pitting all my strength against the ropes holding me a helpless captive!
‘Mmmpppfff! Mmmpppfff!’ I screamed as suddenly the cords attaching the canvas to the frame snapped and quickly unravelled. My body fell straight through the metal frame of the bed and slipped sideways just as the candle finally burned through the last of the rope. I rolled myself over to fully clear the danger as the block crashed down a split second later! I pulled off the scarf gag and struggled free of the ropes. I took a few moments to straighten up my suit and allowed myself to calm down. I couldn’t believe that I had that much good luck so I carefully checked the remains of the bed to figure out what had actually happened.

I walked back into the projection room and found Jack Satan sitting in his chair gazing at the screen. He was watching footage from a silent serial in which a beautiful woman was tied to a bed struggling to get free as a candle burned through a rope holding a heavy block of stone above her. I recognised her as Virginia Veilstrom in the serial peril that had ended her life so tragically. Jack looked at me then turned back to the film image several times as he became increasingly disorientated.
‘Virginia! Virginia!’ he finally sobbed then fell silent. I shook him by the shoulder but quickly realised that Jack had retired into the shrouded memories of his silent movie days! At least he had ensured that the stunt had worked as intended so the bed collapsed under me in the nick of time! The real Jack had held on long enough to rescue me from the clutches of the devil on his back! The old serial footage had run out so I switched off the projector. Whatever was left of Jack Satan, a former movie star with ‘the face of a thousand’, sat calmly staring at the empty white screen. I walked out into the real world to find a telephone.

[Emma]

This is very good, but please, a little more spacing between paragraphs.

It's a very good story, and thankfully, easy to read at one time!

[ver987]

Many thanks for the feedback!