"Sure, we got time," Ben said a little more uneasily than the others. Of the two of them, he was less sure of Kevin's judgement now.

"Oh please, no, no," Candy said in a tiny voice, shaking her head from side to side.

"Hold 'er," Kevin said, looking through the pile and finding two metal bands connected by a sixteen-inch link of chain. The girl cried out when she felt Kevin fit one cuff snugly around her left ankle. She jerked from side to side, terrified of every move he made. The cold iron made her flesh crawl as the young man fastened the second cuff around her other ankle. There was a frightening finality when Candy heard the clicking of those bonds! She was being used to play out a psychological drama, Kevin's way of dealing with a horrible past. The chains around her legs now were just the start of that drama.

"Come on, honey, try walkin' a little. My old man used to make us climb those stairs in 'em, playin' with himself while laughin'," Kevin said, his voice growing thick and hard.

Candy whimpered. It was a strange, humiliating sensation. Her first two steps were a stumble. The young woman pushed her hands out in front of her, fighting for balance as she shuffled first her right foot out, then the left. The clanging sounds of the chains rang in her ears, making her brain spin around.

"Not bad. Should make her run up and down the steps. Okay, the hands."

Other links were dragged from the pile of iron on the floor, attached to cuffs around her wrists fastened there first, then linked together. Candy couldn't believe this was happening. It was as if she were in prison. Ben and Jack seemed to be getting into this little bit of psychodrama, laughing and breathing harder and more unevenly as they bound her body up in chains.

"Try walkin' now."

It was more difficult with her arms fastened behind her. She pitched forward twice and would have fallen on her face if Ben hadn't caught her in his arms.