by Van ©2022
		Chapter 4

Dinner on the night of The Great Pillory and Stocks Research Experiment happened out on the deck that was attached to the main house, just off the kitchen.  Most of the meal prep happened in the kitchen itself, of course, and the main course was... food.  It might have been marinated chicken roasted on the grill, but Scotti wasn't entirely sure.  Her mind was preoccupied with the events of the day: her first ever box-tie, her introduction to the sinister furnishings of Storeroom #1, the way Amy had used said furnishings to tease and/or torment both Iris and her innocent and unsuspecting self, how Sybil had used the pillory to punish Amy for the aforementioned teasing and/or tormenting, and above all, how the experience had thrust her squarely into the middle of the apparently long established DuPont family dynamic of teasing and/or tormenting each other, whether Scotti wanted to play or not!  It was a lot to think about!

Yes, Scotti was a now a full blown player in Iris and Amy's tit-for-tat games, and she didn't have anything even approaching a firm lock on the rules and/or limits of said game.  That meant that, at least for now, Scotti was squarely stuck on the defensive, and who knew what might happen at any second?  And what about Sybil, the DuPont's statuesque, beautiful matriarch?  What was her role in all of this?  Umpire?  Referee?  Spectator?  Player?  Yes, it was a lot to think about, and Scotti did... meaning think.

As for what actually did happen during the meal (with respect to the game), that would be nothing.  There was zero discussion of the pillory/stocks/rope-bondage events of the day, not even on the level of winking, nudging, and/or whispered comments, snarky or otherwise.  Nothing.

Scotti helped with the cleanup.  Chicken!  The main course was definitely chicken!  She remembered the miscellaneous marinated pieces sizzling on the grill.  Then, finally, Scotti wished everyone goodnight and retired to The Cottage.  It wasn't quite time for bed, so she put the finishing touches on her moving in, all the while continuing to think about the momentous events of the afternoon... and listening for the sound of the door latch clicking and the hinges squealing, which would be the signal that Amy or Iris (or Sybil?) was barging in to tie her up (or something).  It didn't happen, neither the barging nor the binding.  However, Scotti did finish arranging the last of her possessions to her immediate (albeit preliminary) satisfaction.  She also compiled a shopping list.  Scotti had sufficient work clothes to help in the gardens and the workshop, but lacked a proper pair of steel-toed work boots for the shop.  In the morning she'd consult with Iris for a recommended source, either online, in town, or nearby... assuming a suitable store even existed that qualified as "nearby."  The DuPont Compound was pretty isolated.  Scotti also needed a pair of moccasins suitable for outdoor use, like protecting her feet while she streaked on the trail down to and up from the swimming hole/pond.  She could probably fulfill both footwear orders at the same time.

Anyway, nothing happened for the rest of the night (other than Scotti suffering the exquisite suspense of a damsel contemplating hypothetical hijinks).  She stripped to her panties and the tank-top she'd worn all day, climbed into bed, turned out the lights, and waited.

Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Eventually... she dozed off.

Nothing happened for the next few days either, other than Scotti getting truly settled in and being made totally welcome by the DuPonts.  Okay, that was definitely something, but there were no "gaming activities," meaning no pouncing (stylized of actual) and no bondage (rope or otherwise).  Scotti helped Iris in the gardens, watched Amy cut, shape, and join wood in the workshop (which was amazing), and did various minor chores for Sybil in the main house—and she did indeed have plenty of time to write, as promised.  She hadn't yet actually started serious work on her long awaited first novel, but the ideas were churning and she was almost ready to begin reorganizing her journal ideas into a preliminary and tentative Formal Plot Outline and set of Character Notes.

Anyway, Scotti couldn't be happier.  The Cottage was like a dream come true and the DuPonts couldn't be nicer.  Unconventional?  Yes.  Maybe even a little... kinky?  Yes!  But apparently Iris' warning that Scotti was now knee deep in the family's reciprocal bondage pastime had been a bit of an exaggeration, maybe even a teasing lie, Iris' closing gibe in the Day Two Shenanigans with the pillory, stocks, and messenger bag full of neatly coiled bundles of coffee-stained, conditioned, cotton clothesline.  Anyway...  Happy.  Scotti was happy.

And then, the evening of Day Six rolled around and... it finally happened.

Scotti was just about to get ready for bed when...  Click!  Creee...  The cottage door opened and The Dupont Sisters entered.

Amy was wearing the same boots, jeans, faded Western shirt, and (presumably) underwear she'd been wearing all day; however (ominously), slung over her right shoulder was the natural canvas messenger bag that had been the source of the Day #2 bondage supplies!  Also, the smile curling the oldest DuPont sister's lips was... sinister?  It was certainly attention-getting.

Iris was a step behind her big sister, and (oh-by-the-way) was naked, or nearly so, and padding along on a rope leash!  Also, the clothes she'd worn during the day were missing, all the clothes, and in their place were several feet of the coffee-stained and conditioned clothesline that (supposedly) was the DuPont's go-to gaming material.  Specifically, the firm, smooth, pale skin of Iris' upper body was dimpled by a tight box-tie, but it was more elaborate than the simple box-tie Scotti had experienced on the infamous Day #2.  Multiple horizontal, doubled strands of rope not only passed above and below Iris' breasts, pinning her arms to her sides, and with additional doubled strands yoking her shoulders, but rope formed a complicated and symmetrical upper-body cat's-cradle/web that passed between her breasts and pinched the horizontal ropes into an "X."  There were also several strands around her waist, anchoring the box-tie pattern both above and below by diving between her legs and bisecting her pubic bush and lady bits!  It was a box-tie with pretensions of macramé!

It would seem Iris' warning that at some point Amy would be coming for revenge hadn't been a prank after all.  So, what to do?  How to respond?  Running for it was out of the question.  Not only would fleeing be cowardly, but also impractical.  The DuPont sisters were between her and the door.  There being no escape, subterfuge was the obvious strategy.

"Iris warned me you were a psycho," Scotti groused, frowning at Amy in disapproval.  "But taking revenge on me for being forced to involuntarily watch you get punished by your mother by making me involuntarily watch you take revenge on poor Iris is... not very nice.  I'm very disappointed."

"Too bad, Ginger Beer," Amy laughed.  "You watched, you're guilty.  Also, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't help you with your research?"

She has a point, Scotti was forced to admit.  The DuPont sisters had started calling Scotti "Ginger Beer" something like three days ago, and much to her chagrin, she'd failed to nip the practice in the bud.

Amy gave her bound sister a rude shove towards the middle of the cabin.  (Okay, it wasn't all that rude, but it was definitely a shove.)  In the process, Iris executed a semi-stumble/half-turn-with-a-twist and Scotti was able to see that the younger DuPont sister's wrists were crossed and raised a few degrees above the horizontal.  Scotti's Day #2 standard box-tie had been less stringent (and elaborate).  Her forearms had been horizontal.  Iris' forearms and hands were forming another "X," like the boob-pinching/torso-hugging section of interwoven ropes in front.

By the way, if Iris had an opinion on what was happening, it was largely moot.  Her lower face was covered by a wide, tightly adhered strip of some sort of off-white medical tape, from ear-to-ear and nose-to chin, and it had obviously been stretched as it was applied!  The strip hugged Iris' mouth without wrinkles, and her lips stood out in three dimensions.  She was tape-gagged!  And thankfully, if there was any stuffing under the tape, it wasn't very voluminous.  Iris's cheeks weren't bulging like a chipmunk hoarding nuts.

Amy eased the messenger bag off her shoulder, reached inside, and pulled out a medium-size coil of rope.  "Tonight's lesson is... 'Our Friend, the Hogtie.'  Pay attention.  All of this will be on the final exam."  She pointed to the floor and Iris sadly rolled her big brown doe eyes, heaved a truly heartbreaking sigh, then settled down onto the big oval rug that was more-or-less in the middle of the room and midway between the fireplace and the bed.

"You, Ginger Beer, sit!" Amy ordered, and Scotti quickly sat on the end of the bed (where she had a good view of the action).  Even though she was being dragged (metaphorically) into watching Amy take horrible rope revenge on the unfortunate and very naked Iris, she might as well learn something, right?

Amy knelt next to Iris, grabbed her naked sibling's ankles, crossed them, and began binding them with the doubled rope.  "This is the 'X' or 'crossed' version of the hogtie," Amy lectured as she added rope linking Iris' now permanently crossed ankles to the nexus of the raised-hands-box-tie ropes, pulled out the slack until Iris' back was arched and her heels hovering over her white butt!  It was a stringent hogtie.  Amy also looped the ropes through Iris' crotch-rope, adding additional tension to the arrangement.  Tightening the hogtie required a great deal of pulling the long free ends of the doubled rope back and forth and through various cinches or hitches, taking out more and more slack and increasing the tension, then doing it again, gaining mechanical advantage with each iteration and causing more of that vibratory slithering Scotti found so, uh, instructive.

Scotti stared and blinked as Amy tied the final knots, well away from Iris' crossed and bound hands and fluttering fingers... then pulled more rope from the bag.  "W-what else are ya gonna do?" Scotti demanded (in a nervous whine).  "She's hogtied."

"She is indeed, Ginger Beer," Amy chuckled, "but aesthetics are important.  I got artistic with her upper body, so I gotta do the same with her legs."

Scotti nodded.  That made sense.  She watched (and blinked) as Amy used the additional rope to bind each of Iris' already folded legs in a tight, redundant, and totally unnecessary frog-tie.  Amy even anchored the frog-tie-ropes through Iris' box-tie and crotch-ropes!  Scotti had to admit the end result was symmetrical, balanced (more-or-less) and elaborate from one end of her naked ex-roommate's rope-yoked shoulders to her widely splayed knees.  It was impressive... and intimidating.

Amy's final act was to deliver a resounding slap to what little of her kid sister's left butt-cheek was available.

Obviously, that was Iris' signal to begin her Courtesy Struggle, and she did... sort of.  Her escape efforts were more like shuddering and shivering than bona fide squirming and wiggling.

Amy grabbed hold of her sister and rolled her onto her left side, giving Scotti a good view of her hogtied friend's thighs, rope-cleaved lady bits and tummy, torso, and gagged face.  Iris was not happy.

"T-that looks... tight," Scotti gasped.

"It is," Amy confirmed as she rolled Iris back onto her thighs, stomach, and boobs.  "Now, that's the 'X' hogtie," she explained (unnecessarily).  "There's also the 'linear' or 'straight' hogtie, which I'll demonstrate next."

"You're gonna untie her and tie her up again?" Scotti demanded, pointing at poor Iris.  "Isn't that a tad... excessive?"

"Don't be silly, Ginger Beer," Amy chuckled, then focused her best gloating/domineering/predatory grin on the obviously flustered Scotti.  "Strip!" she commanded.

Scotti's green eyes popped wide (meaning wider) and she resumed blinking (of course).  She had only one last card to play.  "I wasn't naked when I watched your mother lock you in the pillory, so I shouldn't be naked now.  Aesthetics, remember?  Symmetry!  Symmetry is important!"

"Nice try," Amy chuckled, "but you were clothed while I was naked, so you should be naked while I'm clothed.  There's your symmetry.  Also, you're captured.  Strip."

"I'm not captured!" Scotti objected.

"Sure you are," Amy countered, then smiled and nodded in the direction of her naked, stringently hogtied, and tape-gagged little sister.  The sinister nature of her smile was now dialed up to eleven.  "Also, Pipsqueak is my hostage, so you have no choice but to obey.  Who knows what despicable things I might do to her if you don't acquiesce to my perfectly reasonable requests?"

Reasonable, Scotti mused as she stared at her naked, bound, and gagged ex-roommate, the "Pipsqueak" in question.  She then heaved a deep, sad sigh... and began unbuttoning her shirt.  Leaving Iris to suffer her sister's vengeful wrath alone would be despicable in its own right.  Besides... research, she reasoned.  Whatever Amy has in mind will be instructive... probably.

As previously mentioned, Scotti had done extensive scholastic research on the topics of bondage-in-general and the damsel-in-distress.  It was practical experience she was lacking, so while this might be her initial hands-on introduction to the hogtie, the technique was hardly unknown territory.  She was also aware that while the term was generally thought of as tying the damsel's wrists together behind her back, tying her ankles together, then linking the wrist-bonds to the ankle-bonds (with varying degrees of proximity), "hogtie" actually meant tying the recipient's forelimbs and hind limbs together, period.  She knew of no widely recognized term for tying a damsel's wrists and ankles together in front, in the manner a pig, goat, or calf was tied prior to being taken to market—Pike-tie?—but wrists-behind-the-back and knees-bent-back was generally recognized as the arrangement.  As for recognized categories of the hogtie—like the supposed "X" or "crossed" hogtie—that was new, and she suspected Amy might be making the jargon up, being a know-it-all-smarty-pants... with a bag full of rope.

Anyway, in a surprisingly short time, Scotti was naked and hogtied.  That is, she'd removed her clothes (all of her clothes), placed them in her dirty clothes hamper, then allowed Amy to tie her wrists together behind her back, palm-to-palm... ease her down onto the rug, stomach down and about four feet from Iris... then tie her ankles together, not crossed.  And now, Amy was in the process of enhancing and/or elaborating her condition.  Rope tightened around Scotti's lower legs, midway between her ankles and knees, just above and just below her bent knees, and around her mid-thighs.  Next, her elbows were lashed together until they touched (not counting the inch or so of rope cinched between.  Her arms were also pinned to her body, above and below her boobs and around her forearms and waist, and more rope yoked her shoulders, presumably for stability.

All of that required a great deal of doubled clothesline tightening around Scotti's limbs and body, of course, with Amy rolling her on and off her stomach and onto her sides as required, and more of that interesting vibratory slithering Scotti was becoming increasingly familiar with as the long free ends of the various ropes were pulled through the various cinches and hitches.  Needless to say, Scotti had never been handled like this before, like a bundle of naked goods being thoroughly trussed.  Maybe when she was an infant and her mother had, uh, swaddled her, but certainly not in recent memory.  And all the while, Amy was doing the crooked-fingers-sliding-under-the-ropes thing to straighten the strands and test the tension.  Amy was being quite, uh, professional about the whole thing.  Groping and griping?  Yes, but it was professional and not gratuitous groping and griping.

"A lot of this would have been easier if I'd done it before putting you in the actual hogtie," Amy said as she looped rope around Scotti's waist, cinched it tight, and tied a knot over her bellybutton.

"Then why didn't you?" Scotti inquired.  (It was only natural she'd be interested in her captor's reasons for making procedural choices.)

"It would be too easy to misjudge the tightness of the various bindings and wind up with a hogtie that's too tight," Amy explained.  "I do want a nice tight composition, even a strict composition, but with good circulation and no cramping of blood-starved muscles.  I'm not into rope torture.  That's yucky."

Scotti blinked several times in agreement.  "Yes.  Yucky.  Very yucky."

And then, Scotti's forearms-and-waist-rope became the anchor for a crotch-rope!

"Eep!"  That was Scotti, of course.  Doubled rope had slithered between her pussy-lips and butt-cheeks!  And it was tightening!  "Amy!" she whined.

"Hush," Amy purred.  "It's necessary.  How else am I going to anchor the upper-body-harness to the leg-bindings with uniform tension throughout the entire system?  It's simple engineering."

She has a point, Scotti thought, then, No!  Wait!  No she doesn't!  She could bypass my pussy and go for a... crotch-framing-harness?  "Oh!  Hey!"  Amy had threaded the crotch-rope through Scotti's wrist and ankle junction and removed sufficient slack for her heels to press into her butt-cheeks!  And now she was tying a final complex and redundant knot somewhere in the vicinity of her shoulder-blades and bound elbows and hopelessly out of reach of her fluttering fingers!  "Amy!" Scotti reiterated.  "Eep!"

Amy had hauled Scotti's hogtied body onto her lap (her head and rope-yoked shoulders, anyway) which had caused the crotch-rope to momentarily tighten.  "This is mean," Scotti whined.  (She'd been trying for an angry accusation, but what came out was a whining observation).

"I told you to hush," Amy purred as she rummaged in the messenger bag.

Scotti's green eyes popped to their maximum width as she realized her captor had pulled out a wide roll of the same kind of wide, off-white medical tape that was currently silencing her ex-roommate, as well as a pair of chrome-steel nurse's bandage scissors!  Her intentions were clear!

"I don't want to be gagged!" Scotti whined.  (Again with the whining.  As much as Scotti wanted to present an attitude less lily-livered and more assertive than that of a whimpering damsel, she didn't seem to be able to do anything but whine.)

"Of course you don't, Ginger Beer," Amy chuckled as she stretched a six to seven inch strip of tape from the roll and used the scissors to snip it free.  "But the villainess always gags the damsel, am I right?  Now... lips together."

"Huh?  What?  Mmmmpfh!"  Amy had stretched the tape between her two hands and pressed it home, expertly taking advantage of a fleeting moment when Scotti's lips were, indeed, together.  And now she was smoothing the strip, making sure the adhesive was well-adhered to Scotti's lips and and lower face.

"Microfoam is far and away the best tape for gagging damsels," Amy purred as she straightened Scotti's ginger bangs.

Scotti wiggled, squirmed, and—"Mrrrf!"—mewled through her tape-gag as Amy returned the Microfoam roll to the messenger bag, then pulled out a small, neatly wound ball of thin brown cord.  She watched (with growing apprehension) as Amy pulled a few inches of cord from the roll and snipped it free with the scissors.  And then Amy proceeded to tie Scotti's big toes together!  "Mrrrkmfh!"  And then, despite the close proximity of Scotti's wrists, heels, and butt, Amy somehow managed to use more cord to bind Scotti's thumbs together, loop a few tight turns around her hands, and tie the end off somewhere on the hogtie junction!

Scotti began struggling in earnest, and courtesy had nothing to do with it.  "Mrrrrrm!"  She twisted and squirmed and bucked, all to no avail.  The ropes tightened here and loosened there, but never very much in either case and none of the bands or doubled strands shifted or slid more than a fraction of an inch!  Scotti Hunter was well and truly hogtied!  In fact, she was bundled and ready for shipment!  "Mrrrf!"

After a non-determined period of strenuous effort, Scotti was forced to take a breather.  Her nostrils flared as she panted for breath and her heart was tripping like the proverbial hammer.  She was tied up!  Naked!  And tied up!  And naked!  And both of the DuPont sisters were watching her efforts to escape, the equally naked and X-hogtied Iris and the grinning, gloating, and villainous Amy.  Iris was relaxed in her incredible bonds and gazing at her naked, hogtied, and tape-gagged friend with her big brown eyes.  Amy, on the other hand, was sitting cross-legged with her hands in her lap and gazing at Scotti with her big brown eyes, her lips curled in a wicked smile.

Seconds turned into a minute... then two... with Scotti occasionally rolling her rope-yoked shoulders, attempting to twist her hips, or flexing her big-toe and ankle-tied feet.  She didn't bother attempting to voice any more verbal commentary.  The single wide strip of what Amy had called "Microfoam" was hardly the most effective of possible gags... but it was enough.  I wonder if my lips are standing out in 3D, she mused, like Iris.  Probably.

"Well," Amy said as she scrambled to her feet, apparently tired of watching The Iris and Scotti Show.  "Have fun."

"Mrrrf?" Scotti inquired.

"And good luck untying each other," Amy added as she strolled to the cottage door and—Click!  Creee...  Click!—made her exit.

"Mrrrf!" Scotti reiterated, and this time it wasn't a question.

Iris simply heaved a tape-gagged sigh.

Amy had left the lights as she'd found them when she arrived at The Cottage with her naked, bound, and gagged kid sister in tow, so between the reading lamp on the bedside table and the very pretty Tiffany-style floor lamp next to the loveseat, Scotti had plenty of light to allow examination of Iris' bondage (and pale, smooth, naked, hogtied body).  And she was well aware that her bondage and her own semi-pale (with freckles) body was also on full display.  Anyway, she was concentrating on analyzing Iris' bondage, hoping to discover a weakness that might be replicated in her bondage and therefore exploited for escape purposes.  The fact that her friend was a rope-bundled and tape-silenced naked damsel-in-distress was entirely secondary (or so Scotti kept telling herself as Iris weakly struggled against her ropes).

Scotti resumed her own systematic wiggling and writhing, further examining her own bondage from within.  It was a pointless waste of time, meaning her quest for weaknesses in the two similar-but-different coffee-stained, cotton, conditioned clothesline cocoons Amy had crafted to restrain and immobilize their naked bodies.

Amy had tossed Scotti into the middle of a primo research opportunity—but after careful consideration and a lot of fruitless squirming, Scotti decided she'd just as soon have passed.

The next hour crawled by with glacial slowness... and was awkward, meaning socially awkward.  Their hogtie situations were depressingly stable.  Maybe, with maximum effort, Scotti could roll over onto her side, but what good would that do?  And as for Iris, rolling onto her side appeared to be very iffy.  Also, their restrictive predicaments were becoming increasingly uncomfortable.  Being lashed into a tight bundle got old fast.  Who knew?  And that was true even if the rigger/villainess knew her stuff (like Amy) and all the ropes were soft, uniformly tight, but not too tight.  Go figure.  Scotti squirmed and wiggled and flexed her pinioned muscles inside her elaborate, restrictive, coffee-stained clothesline cocoon... and made absolutely no progress towards escaping her bonds.

At one point Scotti decided she had no choice but to will her nascent telekinetic super-powers to blossom forth, magically unravel all of Amy's knots and hitches, burst forth in freckled, green-eyed, naked freedom, and fulfill her destiny as Ginger Streak, the next Marvel Avenger.  It didn't happen.  What also didn't happen was Scotti whimpering, whining, and otherwise begging her fellow hogtie victim for assistance.  In the first place, Iris was just as helpless (and naked) as she was, and in the second place... while Iris had arrived at The Cottage already sans clothing, box-tied, and tape-gagged, Scotti was convinced that everything that was happening was at least half her fault!  She was positive about it.  Obviously, the thing to do was to ignore Iris completely (including her pale, firm, rope-dimpled skin, tape-covered pouting lips, and big brown eyes).  And Iris seemed to be largely ignoring Scotti as well (at least when Scotti was watching her).

Scotti would also have liked to make a show of ignoring Amy as well, but seeing as how the gloating villainess with the wicked rope skills and wicked brown eyes wasn't present, giving her the cold (rope-yoked) shoulder wasn't possible.

Okay, now and then, Scotti did let her eyes dart to the side and note the way Iris' boobs were squashed into the rug... and the pale brunette's muscles flexed as she struggled to free herself from her older sibling's perfidious ropes... and how she heaved the occasional tape-silenced sigh of tragic ennui and blinked her big brown eyes... but that was for research purposes, of course, not prurient interest.

Finally—Click!  Creee...  "Ow-ow-ow-ow-Mother!"—it happened.

The Cottage Door opened and Sybil and her notorious/evil daughter entered, with Sybil towing the daughter in question by her right ear.  "That hurts!" Amy whined.  Sybil closed the door behind them—Creee...  Click!—then led Amy to the proximity of her hogtied and virtuous and/or innocent victims and/or playmates.  "Ow-ow-ow-ow..."  Sybil was wearing the same clothes and boots she'd worn all day, and that was still the case with Amy as well.

Sybil released Amy's ear, gazed down at the naked, hogtied victims at her feet, and heaved a deep sigh.  "Get them onto the bed," she ordered, "and be gentle."

"Yes, Mother," Amy muttered, rubbing her ear.  She then stooped, picked up her rope-bundled little sister, carried her to the bed, and more or less dropped her.

"Mrrrfh!"  (That was Iris.)

"I said gently," Sybil huffed.

"Yes, Mother," Amy reiterated, then lifted and carried Scotti to the bed, but this time she did, indeed, deposit her on the neatly made covers... gently.  Scotti appreciated being off the rug and on the bed, but Amy had taken a firm grip on her (meaning Scotti's) right boob during the trip!  And the saucy smirk she'd given Scotti while her back was to her mother had spoken volumes.  A saucy smirk!  The very idea!

"Untie Scotti," was Sybil's next order.

"But Mother," Amy objected, "that'll ruin her research!"

Sybil's only response was an angry, disapproving, uncompromising stare.  To Scotti's surprise, Amy neither melted nor burst into flame.  Instead, she scrambled to begin the long, involved process of untying and unraveling the "straight" or "linear" hogtie masterpiece binding poor, naked Scotti Hunter.  It took a while.

Iris watched (as best she could) with wide-eyed, naked, "X" or "crossed" hogtied interest.

Meanwhile, Sybil watched with a maternal where-did-I-go-wrong? expression on her sad, beautiful face, and with her arms crossed under her breasts.

Amy had to retrieve the bandage scissors from the messenger bag to sever Scotti's big-toe and thumb/hand cord-bondage, but finally, the demolition of her masterpiece was accomplished.  Scotti was free... and naked.

"Leave all that," Sybil ordered as she strolled towards the bed.  Obviously, she'd been referring to the scattered tangle of coffee-stained clothesline on the floor at Amy's booted feet.  "And as for you," she continued, staring at her blushing eldest daughter, "go to your room and get ready for bed.  I'll be along to tuck you in."

"Yes, Mother," Amy sighed, then scampered away, opened the cottage door—Click!  Cree...—and made her exit—Creee...  Click!—closing the door behind her.

Sybil turned back to the bed, sighed, and strolled forward.

Naked and still tape-gagged, Scotti watched her approach with (you guessed it) wide green eyes.

Sybil leaned forward, took a firm but gentle hold of Scotti's head between her two hands, then planted a gentle kiss squarely on her tape-gagged lips.  "We have to stop meeting like this," she purred, then released her hold, turned, and strolled across the cottage to the door.  Click!  Creee...  She smiled from the threshold.  "We'll talk in the morning, darling," she promised, then—Creee...  Click!—was gone.

Still naked and comfortably sprawled on the bed next to the naked and elaborately X-hogtied Iris, Scotti stared at the closed door... and blinked.  For the moment, she'd forgotten her tape-gag.

I definitely need to hunt down a can of WD-40, she mused.  Probably somewhere in the shop.  Those hinges really do need oiling.