The Wolf and Seven Little Goats

Sam found it difficult to find the word to describe how she felt, the closest she could get was unsettled, somewhere between bemused and anxious.  She tried to remember a time in her life as bizarre as this moment.  She failed.  She kept getting flashes before realising they were moments from books or films. Strange moments like this happened in stories then, if the author was any good, the strange moment fitted into a normal life.  A normal life like Sam’s.   

Sam found herself in this situation because she was a good friend.  Alice had called her asking if she would be able to take her place on a fantasy weekend, when Sam had heard the frustration and anxiety in Alice’s voice she had, without hesitation, said she would do it.  She hadn’t asked any probing questions.  She hadn’t asked any questions at all.  She had simply told Alice, Alice could count on her.  Now she was sitting in an, admittedly very lovely, sitting room with six other middle aged women wearing little goat horns listening to the ‘Nanny Goat’ warning them about the dangers of the ‘Big Bad Wolf’ and how to recognise him with his furry paws and his gruff voice.  The other women were playing along as if they believed every word.  As if it held for them the excitement of the new, not the tedium of a hackneyed, rehashed fairy tale.

Sam tried to fake enthusiastic listening as she was, after all, pretending to be Alice.  Alice might get barred from these things if she was not a convincing ‘Alice’, if she was a bad Alice.  Bad Alice, Sam could not contain her smile as she thought the words, more likely mad Alice. She could not imagine Alice acting out fairy tales.  She made a mental note to have a serious chat with Alice when she got back to London.  

Sam was beginning to doubt her assumption that this was a murder mystery weekend, but there was no reason the murder mystery should not be played out in a fairy tale setting.  Alice had told her it was a ‘fantasy weekend’, she told Sam to dress sexy and sultry.  Their conversation had been interrupted by Sam’s boyfriend dropping off the information pack for the weekend.  Sam had been hoping for twenties with sweeping art décor furnishings, men in hats smoking cigars and women in simple cut dresses of frivolous colours.  Sam would have liked the time to have a long bath to get into the right mood but Alice had only given her enough time to change, throw spare clothes, knickers and her makeup bag in an overnight bag and run to the underground station.   

Sam should have read the information pack on the tube or on the train from Kings Cross but she had something better to do with her spare time.  She was writing a story about a man riding his bicycle in a desert searching for meaning in his life culminating in a mysterious orgy of carnal pleasures.  She had got the idea from a story, a story of a woman arriving at a shack after a long coastal hike.  The story starts as the woman rounds an outcrop of rocks to see a man standing in front of a small cottage, steaming cup of tea in his hand as he looked out at the sea crashing against the rocks below the cliffs.  As the woman neared the man he asked her only one question: “May I?”, accompanied by a gesture offering to help the woman remove her backpack.  Then with a smile and her backpack in hand he leads her into the cottage and to the single bedroom where he puts down the backpack.  Again, with nothing more than a smile he leads her to the bathroom where he offers her a thick white towel.  The door has no lock and the woman is a little surprised the man enters the bathroom while she is showering, he removes her clothes, she guesses to wash them so she continues to bathe.  The water washes over her body stripping away the dirt and sweat of the hike leaving her with a sense of wellbeing and calm; a serenity often felt when on the verge of exhaustion.  Wrapped in only a towel she returns to the bedroom.  She does not see her bag where it was earlier but instead of looking for it she slips into the bed and falls asleep.

She wakes after a few hours finding her arms and legs handcuffed to the bed.  Her pulling and rattling results in the man entering the room, his soft footsteps falling closer and closer to her until he lights a pair of candles on the bedside table.  In the flickering light she watches him lather up an old shaving brush, watches him spread the foam on her pubic hair, watches him sharpen his cut-throat razor, watches the blade approach her snatch.  She tries not to wriggle as the blade scrapes along her skin removing her hair, slowly shaving her.  But he is not careful enough and knicks her outer labia, he wipes her down, admires his work, admires her pussy.  He takes the drop of blood from her pussy lip and brings it to his mouth.  He smiles as he leaves the room with the bowl of water and shaving equipment.

He returns almost immediately with a small wicker basket from which he takes a bulbous object which takes her a while to recognise as a butt plug.  He lubricates the plug and presses it into her arse.  He is gentle as he presses it into her arse, the pain gradually increases until for a moment it is unbearable as the thickest part slips into her leaving her feeling a warm sensation, a full warm and quite enjoyable sensation.

The man lights an aromatherapy oil warmer next to the bed and starts to massage her, the warm oil and his strong hands working the lactic acids from her muscles, warming and relaxing her more than the shower had.  He took his time working first one leg then the other, one arm then the other, lulling her until she started responding to his touch.  He undid the handcuffs on one hand then one leg and she let him turn her over and cuff her again and spent half an hour massaging her neck, her back, her bottom and her legs.  He let his fingers linger on her inner thighs, he let his fingers brush against the groove between her thighs but he did not touch the plug.  He turned her over again releasing and fastening her spread eagled on the bed without protest.  His hands wandering over her boobs as they lay like spreading fried eggs, he enjoyed them although they were not pert.  He teased her nipples until the large brown areola pulled together tight and proud.  His fingers eventually found their way to her pussy.  His approach was tantric, his strokes on her outer labia were slow and measured.  His probing into her vagina was deep and slow, repeated again and again.  He rubbed and slowly twisted her clitoris.  Gradually bringing her closer to orgasm.  He did not speed up as her body started to buckle with her orgasm, he continued to probe and caress her as her orgasm faded, built again, exploded again, faded again.

In a state of bliss he turned her again, this time he did not replace the handcuffs when he removed them.  She did not notice him disrobing during her massage, she only realised he was naked when he straddled her legs his penis pressing against her vagina.  She raised her hips slightly to help him slip into her well lubricated pussy.  His cock was not large but with the plug in her bum he filled her, bumping against her g-spot with every stroke, she orgasmed again, a deep, warm orgasm radiating out from deep within her body, deep within her soul.  

The woman fell asleep again, her body spent, her mind exhausted.  Her sleep was deep and restful and when she woke in the morning she was not cuffed and her clothes were neatly folded on the chair next to her bed, next to her backpack.  She dressed and stepped out into the kitchen to find a warm pot of coffee, some croissants and a still warm baguette.  She spread butter and jam on the baguette, it was delicious washed down with the strong coffee.

When she had eaten her fill she pulled on her backpack and left the cottage.  The man was walking up the path from the beach.  When they reached each other she kissed him passionately before saying:  “Wow, that was so hot last night, you have outdone yourself, love.  See you at home.”  The man said nothing but smiled as he watched his wife walk down the coastal path.  She turned to wave to him before she rounded a corner and went out of view.

Sam had copied out the key points in the plot and was working on the introduction chapters.  The chapters that would provide a scenario so the reader would believe the exhausted traveller would go along with this silent entrapment.  She wanted it not to matter to the reader if it were a role play game between partners or a bizarre sexual encounter with a stranger.

Sam should have read the information pack on the half hour taxi ride but the little country roads had been so pretty in the gentle light of the end of a long summer’s day.  The air was dusty and the clouds high but the single lane road as it wound through hedgerows and thick trees still felt lush.  She had stared out the window occasionally glimpsing farm houses across fields.  Sam spotted a kestrel over one of the fields, or it may have been a kite.  She didn’t care about for the bird’s name, what excited Sam was the gracefulness of its flight, its purposefulness, its beauty.  First the bird hovered as if it had been painted on the sky.  Then it swooped like a rollercoaster, Sam imagined the thrill of such a flight.  She wondered if it had caught its prey.

Sam had been the last to arrive, she saw the women in the sitting room before she was shown through to her room and asked if she could join them in five minutes.  She had seen the strange scene she was about to enter, middle aged women wearing little horns dressed, well, as a hen party gone wrong.  She needed Alice’s help in working this out but when she got out her phone to call Alice she found she had no signal, and nearly no battery.  She would need to ask the manager if they had phone chargers.

All the women were watching her when Sam came back to the sitting room, she forced an uneasy smile onto her face.  The Nanny Goat handed her a clipboard asking: “Sorry about this but could you sign the consent forms while we get on with the evening, it is only a printout of the forms we emailed you.  We were expecting you on the half six train.”

“Sure, no worries, I was just,” Sam tried to think of an excuse but failed, “yeah, I should have called but my phone was all out of battery.  One disaster after another.  Yeah, carry on and I will do this thing while listening.”  Sam was pleased with her answer as she had done the groundwork for seeking out a charger later.

Sam put on her goat horns and sat on a two seater next to a woman dressed most unsuitably for her age.  She was wearing denim dungarees over a plain red tee shirt and red All Stars, she was slim with small breasts so everything fitted flatteringly.  Her hair was done in pigtails, two thin plaits coming down the sides of her head.  She would have got points for effort in a fancy dress party as the outfit certainly held together well, although Sam could not quite work out who she was trying to dress as.  What was decidedly off putting was the outfit belonged on a teen or even a prepubescent, certainly not on a woman even older than Sam herself.  Mutton was the word that sprang to mind.

“Hi, I’m Janice.”  The woman said in a raspy voice when Sam sat down.

“Alice,” Sam was pleased the name slipped out so easily.  Playing Alice might be easier than she had anticipated.  

Sam could hear the excitable voice of the Nanny Goat setting the scene for the weekend but the words did not penetrate as she was too busy assessing the women in the room trying to work out how much fun the weekend would be.  If Alice had been expecting sexy she would have been disappointed.  The closest to sexy was the dark haired woman sitting directly opposite her in the eponymous little black dress, although her outfit would have been more suited to an office party than a soireé.  Her hair was neatly pulled back into a ponytail and her makeup subtle.  She was about Sam’s age, slim, pretty and definitely sophisticated.  Sam thought she would seek out camaraderie from Little Black Dress if the entertainment was as boring as the Nanny Goat’s speech.  Little Black Dress smiled at her and Sam felt they were sharing a moment, an ironic smile at the Nanny Goat’s enthusiasm.

The only other person to have tried to be sexy was the weekend Goth.  She was far too tanned to actually be a Goth but she showed commitment to her look.  She would still have the dyed black hair on Monday when she went to work.  Her outfit was more modelled on a black and white picture of Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan than an actual Goth.  Still she wore it well.  Unlike Mutton Janice she suited her outfit.  She was also about Sam’s age so she probably had chosen her outfit based on a memory of the sexy Madonna from when she had first seen the film.  Sam decided Weekend Goth would be fun, she would have a laugh with her at some point this weekend.

Next to Weekend Goth sat a woman who looked strangely comfortable in teenage fashion.  She was younger than Sam but just as chubby as her.  She wore very short shorts over sheer purple tights.  She was sitting with one leg tucked underneath her and leaning back, between her legs the strip of shorts was so thin it was clear she was wearing a g-string or nothing at all for the little bulges of her bum were clear beneath her tights.  She wore a long sleeve tee shirt above and comfortable Uggs below.  Sam decided she must be wearing some support underneath her tee shirt as she was smoothly curved although thick waisted, not bulging as chubbiness would naturally be.  Sam thought she would enjoy a chat with the woman who could so easily and comfortably slip from her own style into this teen fashion, changing her appearance like a chameleon.  She decided Chameleon would be easy to talk to.

The two women sitting on the other two seater were younger than her.  They looked like they had come together as their outfits were coordinated.  She thought she would call them Tweedledum and Tweedledee because their clothes were too tight and their makeup too unnatural.  Their makeup was too bright, like you would expect from girls who were just experimenting with makeup for the first time.  They were both wearing short summer dresses, nice simple cotton dresses with simple designs that would have looked sexy if they had been slimmer.  Sam was always disappointed when women made the mistake of thinking they could only look good if they were waifs or prostitutes.  Sam regularly got onto her soap box to berate the way women were expected to look.  She complained passionately that women did not need to look like a supermodel to be beautiful or dress as a porn star to be sexy.  Her argument was simple.  Sex had nothing to do with porn and sexy had nothing to do with pornstars, models or film stars.   Sex was all about ravishing, enjoying, consuming, delighting in and, of course, pleasing the person you were with.  Porn, adverts and movies were about performance, just performance, nothing more than a show.  Sexiness was all about feeling comfortable in yourself and about anticipating the ravishment, anticipating the enjoyment, anticipating the excitement, the consumption, the delight and, of course, the pleasure.  Charades was the game of pretending to be film stars, or models, or even pornstars.  Sam did not go out on a Saturday night to play charades, she went out to get lucky, as the song goes.  She dressed on a saturday night the same way she dressed for this fantasy weekend.  She wore a figure hugging dress that showed off her round bottom but provided more shape to her waist than was naturally there.  Her skirt was always short to display her womanly legs but she wore tights to smoothen out the imperfections, or her trousers were tight.  She wore shirts which she could unbutton enough to show her ample cleavage, or a round-necked tee for the same effect.  She wore quite a lot of makeup because she was realistic about her age but she aimed for a natural look, a look that says you can ravish me as I am a real person.  I am not a porcelain doll.  She would tie her hair quite high to make her neck available to a gentle touch or even a soft kiss.  Her neck was the best place to get her going.

She certainly did not dress like Dum and Dee in their tight clothes and excessive makeup.

“Thank you, Alice, have you signed the third page?”

Sam realised with a jolt she had been caught up in her own reverie and not been listening.  Flustered, she flicked over to the third page and started she normal signature.  Halfway through signing she realised she should be signing as Alice.  She changed the surname to Cook and looked at it, what a mess.  She hoped they would not examine it closely.  She handed the clipboard back.

“Right, my little ones, so you all know what to do.  Before we go I would like to wish you all the best and hope you all enjoy your Wolf and the Seven Little Goats weekend.”

Mutton Janice stood, smiled at Sam said: “Well, I will see more of you when we are allowed out to play.  I am very excited, are you?”

Sam thought this a strange thing to say but no more strange than everything else that had happened since she arrived at the hotel.

“Yes, very.”

Weekend Goth started walking towards Sam but Little Black Dress stood up between them: “I love what you wearing.  Lace is so enticing, revealing and disguising at the same time.”

“Yes, but nothing works quite as well as the little black number.  Number one for me every time.”

“Black is where it is at this weekend,” Chameleon stepped between them linking arms.  

“Mmn, but I think you have it spot on, not like Janice…” The three wandered through the door and down their corridor.

Dum waved to her as she and Dee left the room hand in hand, giggling.

Sam sat in an empty room.  She sighed, stood up and walked slowly back to her room.

She looked about the room.  It was dominated by the four poster bed in the centre of the room.  Sam had never slept in a four poster bed and was looking forward to the decadence of all the unnecessary and elaborate carvings and drapes.

“Little goat, little goat, it’s your mother.  Let me in.”  A deep throaty voice called at her door.

“No it isn’t!”  Sam rolled her eyes even though she was in the room alone.  Fairytale role play was so banal, she would simply lock her door, read her book and pretend in the morning that she had fallen asleep.  She would ask Little Black Dress to fill her in on what she had missed.  She looked about the room again, it was fantastic having the four poster bed but there was no mini bar, no bedside table, no room service menu and no telephone.  Sam dithered, she wanted to complain, she wanted to vent her frustration at the Nanny Goat but she was worried about burning bridges for Alice.  More than anything she needed to have a chat with Alice, but she couldn’t ask to use the office phone as it wouldn’t be private.  She pulled the information pack out of her bag hoping it would give her some clues about the facilities.  In the envelop was a slim leather bound A4 book with ‘The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats’ in gold ye olde style writing along with the ‘Fairytale Fantasies’.  She opened it and began to read: “Once upon a time a nanny called all her little goats to her and told them she had to go to out but first I must warn you…”

She skipped on until the bit where the wolf called through the door.  “…the wolf then swallowed the chalk and went back to the room calling: ‘it is your mother open the door.’ But the little goat called out show me your paws and the wolf showed his black paws the little goat said…”

She tossed book on the bed.  It was just a story, a poorly written version of a fairytale in which, if she recalled correctly, the wolf eats the little goats but they are rescued by the Nanny who replaces them with stones.  Or that might have been a version of Little Red Ridinghood.  

No room service lists, no lists of local taxis.  She decided to go find the Nanny Goat to ask for a phone charger and something to eat but before she could do anything a falsetto voice called through the door: “It’s your mother, let me in!”

“Show me your hands!” sighed Sam.  She noticed a little hatch in the door she had not seen before, she crossed to the door and opened the little hatch.  A hand with what looked like a wolf glove rested in the little hole.  “You are not my mother!”  Sam peeped through the little hole.  She saw the back of a large man wearing a wolf cloak walking away.  The cloak flowed down from what must be a wolf headpiece all the way to the ground.  Sam waited until the ‘wolf’ had turned the corner.  She would have to avoid the ‘wolf’ or goodness knows what might happen, although it might be nice to be the first victim.  But, she guessed, the victim would be a plant so the paying guests got the full enjoyment of the mystery experience.  

She decided she would come back to the story that was obviously her role and read it when she had organised the charger and a snack.

She slipped out of the room, she could hear nothing.  Her plan was to return to the sitting room and to look for an office up the stairs the Nanny Goat had used. She walked silently down the corridor, ahead of her was a bedroom door that was slightly ajar.  She heard a squeal from the room and smiled to herself, in that room was the first victim, she would have a little peek and then when they were all gathered in the sitting room for their Agatha Christie moment she could solve the crime.  Sam was surprised to see Mutton Janice standing in the corner, she seemed too poorly turned out to be part of the setup.  Mutton Janice was certainly playing the part well, she looked scared.  There was a great crash in the room, a vase thrown against the mirror perhaps.  Mutton Janice looked terrified.  The the man in the wolfsuit she had seen in the corridor stepped towards Mutton Janice, his back to Sam.  Sam smiled, the man in the wolfsuit was taller than anyone she had seen so far, when the Agatha Christie moment came it would be easy to work out where to point her finger.  The Wolf reached for Mutton Janice, he grabbed the front of her dungarees pulling it downwards so quickly the buttons popped off.  The dungarees dropped down so they hung on her hips.  She wasn’t sure how the Wolf did it but with a swish he ripped Mutton Janice’s tee shirt down the front.  Sam was shocked and Mutton Janice looked in pain, her small breasts fully exposed.  Sam stared at Mutton Janice’s stomach, red scratch marks had appeared.  Sam looked at her face, her eyes were filling with tears.  The Wolf grabbed hold of Mutton Janice’s right nipple and pulled her by the nipple, leading her as if she was on a chain.  He dragged her away from the bit of the room Sam could see.  She heard the sound of Mutton Janice being thrown onto the bed.  She heard Mutton Janice quietly say the single word no, then nothing.  She stood there uncertain.  It could possibly, conceivably, have been part of the murder mystery role play but it was wrong.  Mutton Janice seemed too scared.  The pain was all too real.  The marks on her skin were real.  But Sam had no idea what kind of people came to these role play weekends.  Anyone coming here would have to be a little weird and some of them were probably a bit psycho.

Sam heard the unmistakable sound of bedsprings.  This was taking it too far!  Sam put her hand on the door ready to push it open.  This was rape, she had heard the no.  No is no!  Sam would step into the room and tell the fucker to stop.  All she had to do was step in the room, but she didn’t.  Sam was too scared to push the door open.  Sam stood listening to the bedsprings squeaking.   Listening to the headboard banging.  She felt tears well in her eyes and her breathing got difficult and she fled.

Sam stopped before she got to the sitting room door, she peered round the door frame and saw the gang.  There were two or three of them, all dressed in the same wolfsuits.  The suit was just a cape, as she had thought, but she was shocked to see the men were wearing nothing underneath, they were naked, their cocks dangling casually as they stood laughing.  Their faces were covered by wolf masks, black ominous gaping holes for eyes over the threatening snout leaving a space below for their sneers and jeers.  Sam was terrified, it was just her luck to be here on the weekend some gang decided to terrorise the women on their weekend break.  Sam felt sickened by how calculating the gang was, they must have known the weekend up to be a fairytale fantasy.  They must have known it was just women here, they must have watched them being dropped off one victim after another.  Jesus, her taxi driver was probably one of the men.  Sam felt her jaw clamping tight, she needed to breath, she needed to think.  

A sound behind her spurred her into action.  Someone was coming along the corridor.  Across from the door to the sitting room was a recess with a large urn holding a miniature tree, Sam jumped into the open for a moment and squeezed behind the urn.  She could see into the sitting room, none of the men were looking at her.  She sat perfectly still making sure her breathing was quiet.

Dum and Dee were marched passed Sam into the sitting room.  They were handcuffed and prodded along by another man in an identical wolfsuit.  They stopped in the middle of the room.  The man who had brought them grabbed Dee’s hands, unlocked the handcuffs, spun her about and pushed her down on the two seater before locking her to the armrest.  He did the same to Dum, locking her to the other armrest.  From her hiding place Sam could see both the women but only one of the men who stepped out of view when he finished securing the women.  Sam was impressed with the women, they were clearly made out of sterner stuff than she had imagined.  They were taking the degradation in their stride.  Sam nearly gasped out loud when one of the men stepped into view with a knife in his hand, a hunting knife with a massive blade glinting sharp on one side and with bumpy bits at the back.  The man stuck the knife under the skirt of Dee’s dress between Dee’s legs and pulled up until the knife poked a hole in the dress.  He pulled it towards himself ripping the dress down to the hem.  He then did the same to Dum, cutting a tear in her dress.  He put the knife on the table next to the chair.  Sam imagined herself rushing across the sitting room grabbing the knife and rescuing the women.   She imagined it but she didn’t move.

The man grabbed each side of the tear in Dee’s dress and slowly pulled apart, the tear running up to the hem at her neck.  He then did the same to Dum, so the two were naked from in front.  They were naked, neither of them had anything under their dresses.  That did not surprise Sam, she knew it was bad to categorise people, but people so seldom surprise her with hidden depths.  She already thought of them as shameless.  Jesus, it was not the time to categorise,  she was not concerned about the women’s morality.  What was happening in front of her was only about a gang of men who knew where they could find vulnerable women.  Sam was cross with herself for freezing in panic.  She had to think of a way out of this.  In front of her the man picked up the knife and cut the hem at the neck of first Dee then Dum.  He stepped away from them disappearing from Sam’s view.  Dee and Dum’s legs remained spread as the man stepped away from them.  Sam felt like she was watching a porn movie, she felt like she was the camera filming the girls.  She was the one taking the closeups between their legs: hairy dark vaginas open to her as if in a moment she would be the one putting her penis in.  She was the one who would be holding onto their tits as she fucked them as they lay back in their seats.  She felt dirty watching; she felt dirty, nauseous and terrified.  Unable to stand up and unable to look away.  Tears were running down her cheeks, she concentrated hard on keeping the tears silent.  Two men stepped in front of the women, each placing a cushion on the floor between their legs.  It was obvious what they were going to do.  She could only see the women’s legs, and occasionally a shoulder, and, of course, their hands cuffed to the chair arms as their bodies were hidden by the men in their wolfsuits.   Soon it was obvious the men were fucking, the women were whimpering and the men were fucking.  Sam slumped slightly as if deflated.

Two other men in wolfsuits left the room walking along the corridor, for a moment Sam thought one of them looked at her, looked directly at her almost as if he knew she was there.  For a moment she thought he would come and drag her out of her hiding place but he didn’t.  She told herself he must have been looking at the tree and that she was in the shadow but she was uneasy.  She felt he was toying with her.  She somehow knew he was the man who had knocked at her door earlier, he must be on his way to check her room and when he didn’t find her there he would come back and look for her behind the tree.  

She decided to move.  The men in the sitting room were looking the other way.  She stood, looked down the corridor in the direction the men had not gone.  There were more doors the other way, the rooms of the other girls.  She had to go warn them.  She started tiptoeing along the corridor.  She put her ear to the first door and listened.  There was no sound from inside the room.  She opened the door.  It was completely dark, she thought the curtains must be closed or maybe the night was very dark as they were in the countryside.  She stepped in closing the door slowly behind her.  When the door was almost shut she heard the men return, she heard their voices talking quietly but she could not hear what they were saying.  She stepped away from the door, keeping her hand on the wall and shuffling her feet so she didn’t knock anything over.  Her hand came to a rack, she realised she was in a store room.  There would be no getting out of this room, she had to hope the men did not come in and find her.  She kept retreating and could hear the men getting closer.  She was sure their footsteps stopped at her previous hiding place.  The men flicked a switch filling the corridor with light.  They stopped again when they were at her door and pushed it open, the light from the corridor fell on the shelves of household supplies but the light did not reach as far back as Sam.  She had escaped detection for the moment.  The men turned to door across the corridor from her, they knocked, the one man called out in a false voice: “Open up it is mother dearest!”  Sam felt like she was slowly sinking into a hole, she felt like the hole was slowly covering her and soon she would suffocate.  The men were getting another victim.  She prayed the woman behind the door would find a clever way to keep the door closed, perhaps the woman would be reading a book pretending to be asleep.  Oh god, how she wished she had stuck to her plan.  She heard a woman’s voice but she could not hear her words.  She was not sure which of the women it was.  One of the men stepped to the side of the door, his back to the wall while the other held his hand to the little window that had appeared in the door.  Suddenly the door opened and the man at the door rushed in, dragging Weekend Goth to the bed.  The door’s momentum caused it to swing nearly shut.  The man next to the door with his back to the wall was now playing with his penis.  Sam thought the man was looking directly at her.  She held her breath.  His cock was now hard as his hand stroked up and down.  It looked massive, it looked like a weapon to bludgeon her, not the source of a pleasure she sought on a Saturday night.  She realised the man wasn’t looking at her, he was listening to what was happening in the room.  She realised this when he gently pushed open the door to look in.  With the door open she could see in too.  The man was still wanking as he watched his friend stripping Weekend Goth, her clothes shredding as if they were made of paper.  Sam breathed as quietly as she could while watching the man watching his friend.  Like the other women, Weekend Goth didn’t cry out.  Sam could see exactly what was happening in the room.  It appeared to be very far away and very close at the same time, like the Weekend Goth’s room was at the end of a dark tunnel.  She could see Weekend Goth on all fours on the bed.  She could see the the man in the wolfsuit behind her, his hips jerking back and forward.  He looked like a dog the way he was fucking her, not because of the position but because he was not touching her, he was not caressing her, he was not loving her.  He was just fucking her, his arms pinning her down and fucking her.  He was an animal, a brutal animal abusing his victim.

The man at the door stopped watching giving Sam a broader view of his friend.  She heard the man knock on another door.  She heard his muffled talking.  She crept forward sticking to the dark side of the storeroom.  At the door she braved a look down the corridor to the man at the door just in time to see the Chameleon get dragged back to her bed.  Both the beds were in a clear line of her sight through the different doors.  In both these rooms the bed dominated the room just as it had in her room, but now the dominant beds were sinister.  She stood transfixed as the man undressed the Chameleon more gently than any of the other men in the gang had been.  Sam thought for a moment she was watching a couple make love rather than a gangster raping a victim.  It was too much for Sam, she did not understand how she felt.  She did not understand what was happening.  She wanted to go home.  More than anything she wanted to go home.

Suddenly there was a sound very near to her, she realised only just in time it was the door to the room adjacent the storeroom opening.  She stepped back into the shadows moving behind the storeroom door.  Through the crack between the door frame and the door she watched Little Black Dress get led from the room.  Her hair was all over the place, her clothes were torn and her face was expressionless.  

From her hiding place Sam watched both the Chameleon and Weekend Goth get taken away in similar states of distress.  She wriggled back finding a painting sheet that she pulled over herself.  She felt safe in her hiding place between the shelf and the door.   Exhaustion overwhelmed her and she fell into unconsciousness.  She may have dreamt it or she may have heard men coming into the room, switching on the light, talking about Alice and leaving again.  

The next thing she remembered was hearing the woman in charge calling Alie.  She cautiously peered out, she saw Nanny Goat.  She stood slowly, she was a little groggy, a little confused, a little stiff and still completely exhausted.

“Oh, my little one, it seems everything went wrong!”

“The wolf,” Sam managed to say, “the wolves have taken everyone.  It is all wrong.  It shouldn’t happen.  I need to call the police but my battery is flat.  Do you have a charger for my iPhone?”  Sam collapsed into the arms of the Nanny Goat.  She sobbed and sobbed until she was drained.

“My little one, you must come with me and you don’t need to worry about any wolf any more as I will make it all right again.  I will make everything right.  Let’s go clean you up and then we can find the others.”  She led Sam back to her unused room.  As Sam washed her face the Nanny Goat carried on talking.

“Our fantasy weekends can be overwhelming, some people, like you, panic and don’t remember the warnings in the literature, which is why we repeat everything at the beginning of the first evening.  Yes, you will have read the warnings, I am sure, about how different enactment is from fantasy.  You think you will be able to cope but then you find it all too much.  I am sure that is why you didn’t use the safe word, although to be honest if you ever were to say stop we would check if it were fantasy or real.

“Anyway, you said you needed to charge your phone?  I can do that.  And we have a cab coming that can take you home – that is, I assume you feel it best to go today rather than stay another night?”

“Yes,” Sam’s reply was flat.  She was confused by how calm the Nanny Goat sounded.  She did not understand what she was saying.

“You will have enough time to have breakfast with the girls, I think it is best for you to come have a cup of tea.  I will get one of the boys to come pack your things for you.”

“Okay,” she gave her phone to the Nanny Goat.

Sam was led to the dining room where all the women were sitting about a large table talking as if they were sharing a secret.  All of them were friends with each other.  All of them were happy.  Sam tried to return their smiles but she was confused.  Mutton Janice smiled at her: “You alright, love, we didn’t see you last night.”

“Yes, fine thanks.  You.  Okay?”

“I couldn’t be better, I’d have to say it was the best night of my life.  Better than my wedding night, you lot won’t believe but I saved myself for my wedding night then my Jack went and passed out on me before half ten.”

“On my wedding night we got to the hotel room, both pissed as coots, I fall asleep on the bed straight out.  Next thing I know I am being pulled about as he tries to get my dress off.  So I says to him I never knew you were into the necrophilia or nothing and I rolled over.  But it didn’t stop him and I was so sore the next day as he had just gone and stuck it up my arse while I slept.  I said like what the fuck was he doing and he told me I had asked him to do it when I pulled down my pants and showed him my bum.  I had said necrophilia and he thought I said anal, get it?  Well, I let him do me there every now and again as he gets just like a little boy with his new Christmas toys.” Little Black Dress replied and everyone laughed.

“Oh, I had a boyfriend, once he was beautiful like a younger Jeremy Guscott, you know who I mean?  Well one day he rammed it into my arse, and he was a big boy so I really felt it.  He said it had gone there by mistake and for the longest of time I thought he was really telling the truth, I even asked a male friend of mine if he thought it could have happened by mistake.”  Chameleon added.

“I have had boys ram it in before and it always hurt, then one time I am on top of this guy and I don’t have a condom and I want him so I squatted on him and slipped my arsehole over his dick, no lube or nothing and bizarrely it was the only time I have enjoyed anal.  You should try it that way once, I tell you it is different when you are on top.”  Weekend Goth contributed.

Sam listened to the women exchange anecdotes about their sexual histories.  The morning was stranger than any fairytale, stranger than wolves being cut open by goats and being filled with stones only to wake in the morning unawares.  She sat quietly enjoying the relief that all the women were alright.  She felt numb, unable to work anything out but not worried either.  The Nanny Goat came quietly to her side and told her the taxi was waiting.  To the others she said that unfortunately Alice would be leaving, that Alice had to get home unexpectedly.

As she walked her to the taxi she gave her her phone saying: “It is only half an hour charge but it will let you check your messages.  Well, it sometimes happens this way, sorry it didn’t work out for you.”

In the taxi Sam tried to work it out.  She tried to understand the Nanny Goats words.  She tried to figure out why the women had all been so happy.  She tried to remember if she had eaten anything that could have been bad.  Or if there had been any time something could have been put in her drink.  She turned on her phone.  She noticed fourteen missed calls, all Alice.  She looked out the window watching the trees whizzing by.  Her phone rang.  Alice.

“Hey.”

“Oh my god, I have got you.  Are you ok?  Are you coping?  When did you work it out?  I am so sorry I tried to get you.  You see, it was when Tom found the Fairytale Fantasy thing of mine, he read the story I wrote about being fucked by a wolf man and he looked up online and found it was a sexual role play weekend.  I am so sorry, the only thing I could think of was to say it was your fantasy and I had collected it for you.  It was supposed to be my naughty little secret, my dirty weekend but I didn’t want to lose Tom when he worked it out.  I panicked and said it was all yours, then I couldn’t get hold of you to explain.  Tell me it is ok, tell me you maybe are have fun.”

It suddenly made sense.  The women weren’t terrorised because they had come to the hotel to play out their own fantasies.  The women would be alright. They would be more than alright, they would be fantastic just like they were at breakfast.  And she would be ok too.  

“Sam, are you there? Are you ok?”

“Yes, sorry, the reception is bad.  No it was a fabulous x-rated evening.  I will tell you all about it tomorrow. Listen, can’t talk now.  Love you.”

“Love you too.”