The Medway Runs cold.

Back in the house that had once been hers, Eleanor moved with a chilling sense of purpose. The air was thick with the symmetry of her revenge. She and Roger had prepared the stage, laying out their instruments with ritualistic care. On the coffee table, like trophies waiting to be claimed, lay the tools of their trade: a thick canvas straitjacket, heavy lengths of chain, and, most satisfying of all, the heavy punishment collar that Linda had once locked around Eleanor's neck. They didn't wait long. The front door opened, and Linda strode in, her voice sharp with irritation.

"Clara? Mark? Where the hell are you?"

She stopped dead in the middle of the living room, her face a picture of disbelief. Eleanor sat in her own armchair, the very seat of her power, sipping a glass of wine as if she had never left.

The shock was momentary, quickly replaced by a flash of pure, incandescent fury. "You!" Linda snarled, then launched herself across the room.

It was a catfight, raw and vicious. There was no technique, only a primal clash between two dominant females fighting for supremacy. They clawed and scratched, tearing at each other's clothes and hair, a whirlwind of grunts and curses. Linda was stronger, but Eleanor was fuelled by a colder, deeper rage. She fought with a calculated ferocity, weathering Linda's initial onslaught before finding her opening. With a sharp, brutal twist, she used Linda's own momentum against her, flipping Linda onto the floor. A knee pressed into Linda's back, a hand tangled in her hair, slamming Linda's face against the floorboards. It was over.

Roger, who had watched with stoic readiness, stepped in. Together, they stripped a dazed, struggling Linda, her expensive suit becoming just another pile of discarded cloth on the floor. They forced her arms into the straitjacket's sleeves, pulling the canvas tight around her torso. Roger wrapped the heavy straps, one by one, pulling them taut and buckling them behind her back, pinning her arms in a restrictive embrace. They weren't finished. They wrapped lengths of heavy chain around her body, over her shoulders, across her chest, and around her waist, padlocking them in place with heavy, definitive clicks. Each lock was a nail in the coffin of her power.

A large ring gag was forced into her mouth, prying her jaw open and robbing her of speech, reducing her furious protests to a series of choked, guttural sounds. The final touch was the heavy collar. Roger fastened it around Linda's neck, and the cold, familiar weight made her flinch as she heard the padlock snap shut. They dragged her to her knees in the centre of the room, a defeated, trussed statue.

Just then there was a light, hesitant tap on the front door. Eleanor's expression didn't change. She walked calmly to the door and opened it. Shelly stood on the doorstep, surprised.

"I'm looking for Linda," Shelly said, her voice timid.

"Come in," Eleanor said, her voice flat.

Shelly stepped inside, and her eyes widened in horror as she saw Linda, kneeling and chained, a broken toy. For a split second, she froze. Then, with the survival instinct of a cornered rat, she changed tactics. She fell to her knees before Eleanor, head bowed. "Mistress," she whimpered, kissing Eleanor's feet. "They told me about you. I had hoped you would come back."

Eleanor looked down at her, her expression utterly devoid of emotion. She listened to the pathetic, manipulative babble in silence. When Shelly paused for breath, Eleanor simply turned, walked to the sideboard, and retrieved a set of leather manacles, the same ones she had stored there when she lived in the house. She moved with swift, silent efficiency, hogtying the sobbing, pleading Shelly with the leather straps and gagging her with a ball gag. She pushed the writhing girl into a corner, out of the way. A problem to be dealt with later.

Eleanor turned back to Linda. "Stand," she commanded.

Roger helped the heavily restrained Linda to her feet. They led her to the space under the stairs, to the familiar metal hatch in the floor.

"Remember this?" Eleanor said, her voice a low, venomous whisper. "Remember what you did to me here?"

Roger opened the hatch, revealing the dark, narrow hole.

Without another word, Eleanor pushed Linda. She fell with a heavy, muffled thud, her chains clanging as she landed in the cellar's darkness. Roger slammed the hatch shut, the sound echoing through the house like the final seal on a tomb. Eleanor stood over it, her face a mask of cold satisfaction. Linda now faced the same punishment she had so gleefully inflicted on her. The circle was complete.