Midnight Stroll in the Desert

My outdoor escapades had started on the night of an unusually cold storm the previous winter. The first snow in a couple of years was forecast and I had a sudden urge to expose myself to the weather. I ran down the quarter-mile drive through the sleet, put the house key in the mailbox, returned to the house and stripped down to my underwear. Then I thought of a way to add spice to the experience - I put on handcuffs before locking myself out of the house. The gusty wind rattled the leaves of the palm trees and the sleet grew heavier. Even in the shelter of the carport I felt cold and was reluctant to venture out. I began to regret my impulse but decided there was no point in waiting for the weather to improve. As I dashed down the hill for the key, sleet pelted my face and my bare feet splashed through cold puddles. The top of the mailbox was crusted with slush. My feet were numb. I grabbed the key, ran back up to the house and released myself. Standing in a hot shower, I was pleased with my adventure, even though I had cuts on my feet that bled into the water. I decided to try again as soon as I could, protecting my feet but making the bondage more severe.

The next chance I had was a night that was cool, dry and very dark. I wore sandals and a baby doll nightie. My hands were handcuffed behind me and my ankles chained with a short chain that halved my stride. Even before I reached the mailbox, my ankles were sore and, although I took care to avoid pulling the chain taut after that, one ankle was bleeding by the time I got back to the house.

I had repeated that adventure the following night with no ankle chain but with the addition of a bit gag I had made, a piece of welding rod bent in the shape of a W with loops at the end, covered with rubber tubing and padlocked on. Instead of handcuffs, I shackled my hands in front with a much more restrictive device I’d made from two U-bolts and a metal bar. That time, I didn’t bleed at all - the only problem was that the shackles were too big to fit into the mailbox and I had to find a stick to drag the keys out.

The escapade tonight would be an ambitious trek through the desert in restrictive bondage. I turned off all the house lights and stood outside the front door, barefoot, wearing a bathrobe over a pair of pink, lace-trimmed thong panties. It was a moonless spring night and the desert had cooled off nicely. From my vantage point at the top of a small hill, I could see over the neighborhood. There were no street lamps, just the porch lights of the widely-scattered homes; the landscape was lit dimly by light from the city. A perfect night for a stroll. My house-mate was sleeping soundly at the other end of the house; if I left the security system off and was careful not to slam any doors, I should not disturb her.

I went back into the house, took off my robe and gathered the equipment I needed. I sat on the bed and put on a pair of clunky work boots to protect my feet and ankles. No bleeding this time! I laced them up, leaving the top eyelets empty. They contrasted nicely with the feminine panties.

From my bag of gear I took a rope, chain about two feet long, the ankle chain I had used before and six small padlocks, identically keyed. One lock went through the top eyelets of each boot so I couldn’t possibly get them off. I put the rope around my waist, passing it through the waistband of the panties, knotted it tightly in front, brought the ends between my legs and tied it off at the back. I toyed with the bit gag but this expedition would be pushing far beyond my previous limits; it seemed safer to leave it for next time so I put it back with some regret.

I shackled my hands in front with the U-bolt device. It took a little dexterity to start the last nut and I dropped it several times before I succeeded. I tightened the nuts with a wrench to make sure the shackles could not be removed without tools They were much harder to put on than a pair of handcuffs but well worth the extra effort. My hands were held palm-to-palm, two inches apart. My elbows could not be separated by more than a few inches. I could lift my hands to my face but could reach nothing else above the waist. My little fingers could just touch the tight little reef knot near my navel but it would have been impossible to undo it even if the ends had not been tied off behind me. I locked the long chain to the center of the shackles and left the house, locking the door behind me and leaving the key on a shelf in the carport.

At this point, I paused to consider the dangers. Tonight, there was no risk that the bondage would injure me or that I would be unable to release myself. I had purposely not tested the ankle chain over the boots so I wasn’t quite sure how well I would be able to walk when it was fastened but the chain had not been very restrictive when I was in sandals. I didn’t expect the boots to affect this much. Although it would take more chain to go around my ankles over the boots, reducing the length between them, I could pull the chain taut without any danger of chafing my ankles so I expected to be just about as mobile. There were risks in exposing myself to the desert environment helpless and almost naked but these were not too great. I had seen rattlesnakes near the house occasionally but they normally try to warn people off rather than attack. Coyotes are shy; I would have more trouble from a stray dog that did not fear humans. I might be stung by a scorpion or spider, but that seemed unlikely on such a cool night.

The cactus might be more of a problem. The spines of prickly pear cactus can penetrate deeply and break off so I would need to stay clear of them. Some desert plants, such as cholla, spread by having a small, spiny segment break loose from the parent plant when an animal brushes against it. These are, by design, almost impossible to remove and if any became embedded in me they would dangle from my flesh until I reached home and pulled them loose with a comb. They are painful but would not really be a hazard unless I got too many - a couple of them might just add to the excitement.

Then there was the chance of discovery. The night was very dark and the neighborhood quiet. In the first phase of the escapade, if a car drove down the road, I would be able to run and hide. Later on, I would unable to move quickly enough to escape if spotted but by then I would be in the open desert, well away from roads and houses. The chance of being caught was minimal, just enough to add spice to the adventure.

I started off down the driveway, carrying the short chain and the three remaining locks in a plastic sack. As I strode down the hill I could see the neighbor’s porch light shining. Odd - it had been out earlier and I could see no lights inside the house. It was almost midnight and they were usually in bed much earlier than this. I decided to ignore it - anyone looking out of the windows certainly couldn’t see me at this distance.

By the time I reached the street a couple of minutes later the light was well behind me. I slung the long chain over my shoulder so it didn’t swing between my legs and walked briskly off down the street. About five minutes’ walk would take me to a bend in the road. I was confident that there would be no traffic in this first stage as the road is a dead end with only half a dozen houses but before I was half way I suddenly I saw the lights of a car coming round the bend! I dashed blindly off the road, my eyes not yet adapted to the dark, and crouched down behind some bushes. The car turned up a driveway just before it reached me and stopped a few yards away. I was close enough to hear conversation but invisible in the dark so I stood up again. My weight broke a twig noisily and I froze for a few moments until I was sure they hadn’t noticed. Then I made my way quietly back to the road and resumed my pace.

Once past the bend the road undulates, sometimes three feet deep in a cut with steep sides, sometimes that far above the surrounding land. I was striding along, my boots crunching on the loose gravel, when I began to feel that I was being followed. I stopped to listen but all I could hear was traffic on the distant main road. It seemed unlikely that anyone would go out so late but the feeling was so intense that I was unable to ignore it. I waited for a few seconds at the edge of the road. Suddenly, a pickup truck showed at the bend, moving slowly with its grumbling V8 barely audible. Luckily, the road was level with the surrounding terrain here and I had time to take a couple of long strides before the headlights swung towards me. The brightening light let me pick an area that seemed free of rocks and cactus. I threw myself flat and the truck drove slowly towards me. If they’d seen me dive off the road, they would be looking in my direction and must see me lying there. I decided that if the truck stopped I would leap up and run away through the brush. I held my breath as it approached but it continued slowly past, only a few feet away.

After that, I strode on past darkened houses without incident except that an approaching vehicle made me hesitate but turned off some distance away. Finally, I reached the point where the road crossed a dry wash. The first stage was over and the chance of discovery now less. I crunched downhill over the dry stream bed until I could see power lines over my head, then cast about for the footpath that ran along the utility easement. It was very dark in the shade of the trees growing along the edge of the wash but at last I found the path. The trees that I normally brush past without hesitation were barely visible and I couldn’t remember whether any of them had thorns. At one point, they grew together across the path and I held up my shackled hands to protect my face as I edged past, branches scratching across my naked skin. A little further on, I walked into a spider web stretched across the path; it tore away from the trees, stuck to my face and wrapped around my torso, tickling my side where I couldn’t reach.

As I progressed further from the wash, the vegetation became less dense, the light was slightly better and I walked faster. When I arrived at my next waypoint, a fallen tree, I sat down on it and let my breathing slow. From here, it’s normally fifteen minutes back to the house if I retrace my steps, five if I continue on. Now, I start to have second thoughts. If I go forward without making my bondage any more severe, the expedition will have been unique but only a little more challenging than I’d done previously. The shackles were more restrictive than handcuffs and I’d come closer to being seen than before, but the real challenge came from my plans for the extra locks I was carrying - my adventure so far was just a preamble. I could see the house from here, perched on its little hill - surely I’d be home in half an hour even if I kept to the original plan. If I skipped this final step, I might have to wait months for another perfect, moonless night.

It was easy to decide. I took the short chain and padlocked it onto my left ankle. Then I tried to padlock the other end to my right. This proved much more difficult than I expected. If I put my elbows outside my knees, the shackles prevented me from reaching my ankles. If I put them inside, my legs were forced apart and the chain didn’t reach. Finally, I found that I could reach if I put my right elbow between my knees but not the left. After three attempts, I had the hasp looped through and I snapped the lock with no hesitation. I sat back and tested the hobble - perfect.

I put my hands between my thighs and started to rub, then pulled back from the edge of satisfaction - I knew that a pent-up sexual excitement would make the escapade much more memorable. I bent forward and flipped the chain linked to the shackles around the back of my neck, snugged it up and padlocked it. Now my hands were held close to my face and couldn’t touch any part of myself below the neck. No point in waiting around. I bent forward and stood in a single motion without needing even a tiny hop to keep my balance. My pride in this gymnastic feat vanished when I tried to take a step. My first stride was aborted and followed by a kangaroo hop to avoid falling. The chain on my ankles, which had restricted me slightly when I wore sandals, reduced my stride to only a couple of inches with the clunky boots. I had expected that the ankle bondage might be slightly more severe because of the boots but had purposely failed to test it since a little extra uncertainty added to the excitement. Now I was literally hobbled; it took much more chain than I guessed to go around the boots and this left very little slack between them. Not only that - the boot soles were wide and hit against each other as I tried to step forward. I should have suspected a problem when I had so much trouble chaining my ankles but I was too intent on getting the job done.

I sat back down on the fallen tree and tried to break the flimsy-looking locks by pulling my ankles apart but they were too strong for me. I bent forward to try to unlace the boots in the hope of sliding them off despite the padlocks but there was no way to reach them with my hands. Nothing for it but to stick with the original scenario.

I stood up again and started hobbling as fast as I could, moving with tiny but rapid steps. The path was edged with a variety of plants. I circled warily around several cholla and reached a place where water had washed out the path, leaving a little gully that I normally step over without thinking. The sides were soft and I slipped as I edged into it, almost falling into a prickly pear cactus. In the gully, small rocks moved under my feet, threatening to upset my balance.

My exertions had snugged up the thong between my cheeks and my hardening nipples were rubbing on my forearms. By the time I reached the next power pole, I felt the need for relief. Although the pole was rough and weathered, I rubbed myself up against it. The shackles wouldn’t let me separate my elbows so my forearms held my chest away from the pole. My feet were kept so close together that, even if I turned my toes out, I couldn’t get my ankles far enough forward. I tried crouching with my knees on each side of the pole so I could press my crotch against it but the pressure on my arms overbalanced me and I almost fell backwards. The only effect of all this effort was to work the thong up even further. I had planned the bondage to deny me sexual relief until I reached the house and succeeded all too well.

I was desperate to reach a climax. I needed something narrower than the pole. The trunk of a small tree would be the right size but all the vegetation here has wicked spines - it would be no fun at all to rub against one. It was hopeless.

I looked back the way I had come; I seemed to have traveled no distance at all. My thighs were aching, I was sweating despite the chill in the air and I still had the toughest part to go - a steep climb with rocks, thorny scrub and cactus that wasn’t easy in daylight without chains. The difficulty the hobble had given me in the tiny gully convinced me that it would be dangerous to attempt that route. But retracing my steps was not enticing either. I wouldn’t be able to get off the road quickly if another car appeared, it would take hours to follow the long route back and if I didn’t get home before dawn I’d have to hide in the desert through the whole day. There was really no choice - I had to go forward.

I looked up at the hillside. The climb up to the neighbor’s house looked easier than my usual route. There was a risk that they would see me but the porch light was off again and the house was in total darkness. I hobbled off the path directly towards the house and immediately found that the scrub slowed my progress. I hadn’t gone twenty feet when I came up against a wire fence - I had forgotten their corral. There was no way I could climb the fence so I slowly made my way towards the nearest corner, only to find my route blocked by an impenetrable thicket of cholla that forced me almost all the way back to the path. Although the terrain looked easier after that, my route was still a zigzag with backtracking whenever I found that I’d reached a dead end. Desert weeds, short but tough, snagged my ankle chain. Pebbles rolled under my feet. My boots sank into the soft dirt where gophers had dug their burrows. I steered well clear of cactus; brushing against a cactus would be bad enough but falling onto one would embed spines deeply into my flesh.

By the time I reached the foot of the hill, I was so tired I could feel my leg muscles trembling. I’d have liked to rest, but couldn’t find a clear patch of ground to sit down on. I needed to pee but I couldn’t pull my panties down and the only position I could think of that wouldn’t fill my boots was kneeling. I decided I could wait. It was very quiet, the loudest sound being a police helicopter in the distance, circling with its spotlight directed at the ground, looking for some prowler. It occurred to me that, if someone looked out of a window and saw me, they might call the cops and I’d be standing in that beam myself in a few minutes.

I started up the hill and soon discovered why the slope was much less steep here: I was climbing soft sand. It was like walking on a treadmill. Each time I took a step, my foot would slide back downhill and lose most of the height I’d gained. When I was about six feet up the hillside, the sand gave way and I slid back a couple of feet, swaying. A few pebbles clattered noisily down into the thorns and cactus at the bottom of the slope. If I’d lost my balance, I’d have rolled all the way down into the spiny vegetation too. I stood still, wondering if anyone had been disturbed by the racket. A dog started barking nearby. I hoped the beast was tied up; if it found me, I could be in real trouble. The barking went on so long that it seemed impossible that the neighbors would sleep through it - I expected lights to go on at any moment.

Eventually, silence returned. I stood partway up the hill, considering my options. Climbing this section seemed impossible but the rockier parts of the hillside would be even more dangerous. One approach that would be sure to work was to sit down and inchworm my way up the hill, feet and butt. I decided to use that as a last resort - even on this soft section, there were enough rocks and weed to scratch me up thoroughly if I tried it. Instead, I tried a technique like a climber on snow: I turned sideways and hammered the edge of my boot against the ground until I’d packed down a foothold, then set my foot on it and did the same with the other foot. It was brutal and slow, but I made progress. When I reached the easier gradient near the house, I took a breather.

The night was totally still now. As I stood, my knees trembling with fatigue and tension, a shooting star flashed above the nearby mountains. I was almost home, safe, but I felt very exposed so close to the neighbor’s house. I began to move again; the crunch of my footsteps and clink of chains sounded loud in the silence. The house was dark, the blinds closed. I imagined a lamp going on, the blind lifted and light spilling out, freezing me there in full view. What would they do if they saw me?

I moved cautiously along next to a concrete patio, testing the ground for twigs that might crack and give me away. I was only about six feet from the house but I couldn’t go much further away because the house was at the edge of the slope. I considered climbing onto the patio and getting as close to the house as possible so that I could freeze against the wall, impossible to see from inside, if a light came on. I decided against it - that route led to a gate that might creak. Even if I could open it, I seemed to remember that it opened into a dog pen that was a dead end. I continued on slowly, quietly, squeezing between the rail at the edge of the patio and a group of thorny bushes, bypassing a tangle of low weeds that would have tripped me.

I began to relax as I reached the corner of the house and made my way across an unkempt section of the yard. I went faster, taking less care, tripped on the edge of a piece of rusty corrugated roofing lying hidden in the weeds and had to hop up onto it to keep my balance. The noise was like a dull drumbeat echoing through the night. I stood still; another sound could mean discovery. The house remained dark and I cautiously edged off the metal. Suddenly, as I was entering the line of trees that marks the edge of my driveway, the porch light went on. Unthinkingly, I turned my head but then realized my best chance was to remain motionless and hope that the screen of vegetation hid me.

A long pause. I waited for a blind to twitch, for the door to open and someone to stride towards me with a flashlight. The light stayed on but nothing disturbed the tableau. Thinking that I couldn’t stand here forever in case they’d called the cops, I hobbled very slowly away, slid and hopped down the steep slope to the paved drive and then struggled towards home in a panic.

I felt safer when I reached the dark carport but when I groped around for the key I couldn’t find it. I had a sinking feeling. Could someone have taken it and even now be standing in the shadows, struggling to suppress laughter? Surely it must be here! The shelves were too close together to get my head and shackled hands in very far. I scrabbled around desperately, the chains making a fearful racket on the metal shelves. I forced myself to slow down - if my house mate heard the noise and turned on the lights, the carport would become a brightly-lit stage instead of a darkened cave. As my panic diminished, I realized that I put the keys on a lower shelf. I grabbed them, then hobbled to the door and knelt down to try to get the key in the lock. The darkness and the awkward angle of my hands made it hard to get the key aligned. I dropped it and had to lie full length on the grubby concrete to pick it up. Then I had to to roll over and do a sit-up to rise to my feet. On the first try, I lost my balance and fell sideways but the second time I succeeded. I put the key in the lock and turned it; the lock released with a click.

As I begin to open the door, a paralyzing thought struck me: what if she had woken, noticed that the alarm was not armed and set it? I stood for a few moments holding the doorknob, trying to think of a plan to deal with that possibility. I could stay outside until she went to work but even if I could find a good hiding place in the scrubby vegetation, by the time she left the house it would be daylight and I would have to wait until dusk to leave my concealment. I would suffer over twelve hours outdoors, shackled and almost naked, without water or food, exposed to the desert sun. I decided it would be unbearable. I turned the knob and eased the door open. No alarm. In a moment I was in the house with the door locked behind me.

I hobbled into the bedroom. The alarm clock showed 2:45; I’ve been struggling through the desert in chains for almost three hours. I turned on the light and looked at myself in the mirror. I was grubby all down the front from the power pole and the car-port floor, my hair was in a tangle, my legs scratched. I turned and looked over my shoulder: The rope drew in my waist tightly, the thong had disappeared from view between my cheeks

I turned back around: a nipple peeked from the crook of each arm. Suddenly, all the suppressed sexual tension rose in me. I glanced at the keys on the bed but it would take too long to free myself. I knew right away what to do - almost as if I had been planning the climax of the evening from the start. I hobbled into the bathroom. The basin has a rounded corner at just the right height. I began to rub against it and almost at once exploded in an orgasm that left me leaning forward over the basin, dizzy and gasping for breath.

After the climax, the anti-climax. My bladder suddenly reasserted its need for relief, even more urgently than before. If I sat on the toilet right away with my panties on I would have to hobble back to the bedroom, dripping, to get the keys. Instead, I stood still until the pain subsided, then went to release myself. First the neck chain came off, then the wrist shackles. Carrying the keys, I hobbled back to the bathroom, loosening the knot in the small of my back. I sat on the toilet, picking at the knot near my navel, leaning forward to ease the pressure on my bladder. I couldn't pull the panties down without removing the rope but the knot had tightened with every move I’d made in the last few hours and was impossible to shift. At last I remembered that I’d tied a reef knot - I held my stomach in, pushed on the ends and it was loose. I pulled down my panties and let go in a flood, a marvelous relief.

I sat for a moment, totally spent, doubled over, my hands brushing the floor. Now, off with the ankle chains and boots, into the shower still wearing the panties. The water ran cold at first, then deliciously hot. I dropped the panties on the floor and reveled in the hot shower.

It felt so good ...

10.10.06 updated 13.09.09