Her room was a bit of a surprise. It was larger than she expected, given the age of the house. Perhaps some remodeling had been done. Her guess was that it was a good fifteen feet in each dimension. And it had its own bathroom, which pleased Rebecca very much. The drapes were dark blue and the bedspread was quilted with dozens of different material and colored squares. The bed was not what she would have expected, either. Something old fashioned, maybe wrought iron or craved wood would have seemed proper. Instead, there was a very functional bed of tubular metal that looked like chrome. Rebecca put her hand on the foot rail and found it to be very solid. In fact, she pushed a bit and found that it did not move at all.

"If you will step to the window, there should be enough twilight left for you to see the view. Dark Mountain is quite pretty and still has some of the winter snow on it."

Rebecca stepped over to the window. The snow-clad peak was not white but glowing a deep red in the last of the sun's rays. It was a beautiful sight. As far as she could see, the pine forest covered the hills. She was surprised that no other houses were visible. She was about to comment on that when she sensed someone coming up behind her.

Suddenly, her right wrist was grabbed and she felt something hard strike it. There was a loud click. Looking down, she saw her hand being pulled behind her and on the wrist was a shiny steel handcuff.

"What...!" Her reactions were too slow to prevent the other wrist from being locked in the second cuff. With the bracelets locked in place, rather tightly too, Sabrina backed away.

"What is going on?" Rebecca asked as she pulled her hands around her side to stare at the metal cuffs. She pulled and twisted her wrist but the metal was locked quite tightly in place. Turning, she blurted out, "These are real handcuffs!"

"Yes, dear, they are," was Sabrina's calm reply.

"Why are they on me? Is this some kind of joke?"

"No, dear, it not a joke. Your hands will stay secured for the night."

Just as she was saying that, Conrad came in with a length of chain in his hands.

"Please sit down on the bed, dear," Sabrina said. "This will just take a second."

"I don't know..." Rebecca backed up until she touched the wall. "Why are you doing this?"

"It is for your own good, dear. Now please sit down."

"What if I don't want to sit down?" Rebecca said, raising her voice. "What is he going to do with that chain?"

"If you do not sit down, Conrad will have to force you to do so."

"What!"

Conrad put the chain and two padlocks down on the quilt bedspread. Then he took a step towards Rebecca.

"This has got to be a joke, right? You think it's funny to lock me up. In the morning you'll take these off and we'll all have a big laugh about it, right?"

Rebecca hoped she was right. Those cuffs were very tight on her wrists.

"Conrad, make her sit on the bed."

Conrad took another step in Rebecca's direction. He was almost within reaching distance. The girl looked up at his emotionless expression and knew she did not want him forcing her to do anything. She did not want his hands on her body at all.

"All right," she quickly said. "I'll go along with the joke."

She sat on the bed quickly, before he could make her do it. "You do know that you got these handcuffs awfully tight on my wrists, don't you?" she said.

"They are supposed to be tight, dear. That's so you can't pull your hands through them."

As she was saying that, Conrad was kneeling down and taking Rebecca's foot in his big hands. In disbelief, she watched as he looped one end of the chain around her ankle and locked it on. Then he took the other end and locked it to a metal ring in the floor, a ring she had not noticed before.

"Okay, you've got me all chained up now. Will you tell me what the joke is so I can have a laugh too?"

Conrad rose to his full height, turned and left the room. Sabrina stepped forward until she was standing right over Rebecca. She reached out and took Rebecca's chin in her hand, tilted her head so they were looking eye to eye, and told her, "This is the beginning of your training."

"What?" was all Rebecca could manage. Things were happening too fast for her to catch up.

Sabrina sat down on the bed and smiled at her. "I'll explain more fully tomorrow," she said. "But for now, you get some sleep. It will be a busy day tomorrow."

"Am I supposed to sleep chained up like this?" Rebecca asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Yes. You'll find it isn't too hard."

"The hell I will." The girl was becoming worried and more than a little bit angry. "This is not comfortable. You can't be serious about making me sleep like this. How can I get dressed for bed? What if I have to go to the bathroom during the night?"

"Your chain will reach to the bathroom, dear. With a little effort you can get those jeans off. I'll take that tank top off, if you wish. Or you can just wear it."

"You can't mean this! This isn't funny!"

Inside, she was hoping that this was still some kind of joke. A perverted joke, to be sure, but still just a joke. Sabrina would tease her for a while, get a good laugh out of her protests, and then take the shackles off before the real bedtime. It had to be that.

Sabrina rose from the bed, patting Rebecca on the knee as she did. "Get some sleep. You have a lot to do tomorrow."

She was heading for the door when Rebecca called out, "Wait! You can't leave me like this. Come back here."

The woman in black continued to the door without pause. She went through and closed it behind her.

In stunned disbelief, Rebecca called out, "Damn it! Come back here! Unlock these!"

There was no reply and the door remained closed.

"Sabrina!" she called louder. Nothing. Then she tried, "Sabrina, come here!"

"Shit!" she spat out. "Bitch!"

It took only a few minutes to convince her that the handcuffs were on to stay. And uncomfortably tight, too. Then she explored the limits of her captivity. She could, indeed, go into the bathroom. She could stand at the window and look out into the increasing darkness. But she could not reach the door.

Tugging on the chain only demonstrated that she could not pull out the ring, nor could she slip her foot out of the chain loop. She considered finding soap in the bathroom and soaping down her ankle, but a little experimenting showed her that even wet and slippery, her foot could not come back through the chain.

For a while she sat on the bed, considering what might happen if she were to yell at the top of her lungs for help. Would any neighbors hear? She did not recall any houses around as she pulled up. There had to be some, but probably not within hollering range.