A Moment of Madness

If you were to ask Sophie what her hobbies were, she would probably tell you that she enjoyed playing tennis, horse riding, reading, going to the cinema & socializing with friends. In fact, when the question of spare time activities cropped up on surveys or job application forms, these were the things she always wrote down.

But there was one hobby that she would never allow prospective employers - or indeed virtually anyone else - know about. For Sophie’s favourite pastime was a form of pleasure neither understood nor appreciated by the vast majority of the population. In fact, if she was ever to reveal her carefully concealed secret to the outside world, she would, she felt certain, be labeled weird, kinky, perverted, or even worse. Therefore she kept her ultimate passion to herself.

There were two or three people who had, in the past, been allowed a degree of insight into her secret world. But these were men who were no longer part of her life. The fact that she’d seen fit to open up to her former boyfriends had been a means to an end, inasmuch as having a partner to help her live out her wildest fantasies ensured that she could take her obsession further than if she had been forced to practice alone.

So what was the name of this mysterious hobby? Bondage. Basically Sophie enjoyed the sensation of being tied up as tightly & securely as possible. Of course, the reason that her boyfriends had been privileged enough to be allowed into her strange little world revolved around sex. Sophie loved the concept of being held prisoner by, dominated by, & ultimately made love to by her partner whilst she was in no position to resist. There had been numerous occasions when she’d been kept totally restrained all night while her lover did as he pleased with her. And these sessions were now recalled with a great deal of fondness by Sophie.

But although finding sex in bondage a wonderful experience, the sexual element was only part of the attraction for the rope loving twenty two year old. For as well as this, Sophie also loved bondage for its own sake. Although the sex act was a welcome bonus, the actual feeling of being helpless – the tight ropes, the gags, the blindfolds, the futile struggling, the sensation of being unable to use her limbs etc - also held great appeal for Sophie. In fact, she simply couldn’t get enough of the ecstatic sensation that being bound up helplessly & inescapably brought with it. There had been times with her former boyfriends when she’d begged to be left bound, gagged & helpless for long periods after their nights of passion. Indeed, on several occasions she’d managed to convince her man to leave her bound up all day whilst he went out to work, which meant that she was forced to remain, all alone, in whatever position he’d tied her up in for at least nine or ten hours.

The pinnacle of these lengthy periods of captivity had come when, after much pleading on her part - & reluctance on his – she’d managed to convince her partner to leave her bound up when he had to go away for the night on a business trip. From six o’clock Wednesday evening, right through until around the same time on Thursday, Sophie had been left in complete solitude. With her wrists handcuffed behind her back, a rope harness lashing her arms to her body, & masses of rope holding her legs together from ankle to thigh, Sophie had then been placed into a spandex body sheath. With a ball-gag filling her mouth & a tight rubber hood covering her entire head except for her nostrils, she had been left lying on the bed in her apartment, without a hope in hell of escaping even if she’d wanted to. It had been complete & utter bondage heaven.

Unfortunately, this relationship, just like several others in the past, had eventually run its course; her lovers becoming increasingly tired of her obsession with spending every available second in a state of complete immobility. Although saddened & distressed by these break-ups, Sophie knew that any man who wasn’t prepared to help her live out her bondage fantasies to the full was not what she really required in a life partner. She would simply have to be patient & search for someone who was on the exact same wavelength as herself. And if that took a while, then so be it. In the meantime, she could still indulge in self bondage in the privacy of her own home.

Self bondage, however, had one major drawback for which there was really no solution. With a partner, Sophie could experience real, inescapable bondage, safe in the knowledge that at some point - however far in the future that might be - she would be released from captivity. With self bondage, of course, this safety outlet no longer existed. Put simply, self bondage had to be escapable, & however much she enjoyed the feeling of restraint, she knew that there had to come a time when she needed to be able to get free. The knowledge that she couldn’t bind herself as securely as she wanted was, to a woman who had become accustomed to the strictest, tightest fetters imaginable, a grave disappointment.

Even when she tied herself to within a fraction of a degree of the point of no return, the knowledge that there still had to be an escape route available ensured that her pleasure was somewhat diluted. Timer locks & keys frozen in blocks of ice went some way to getting around this sticking point, but even they eventually had to allow this bondage obsessed female to get herself loose. Moreover, in self bondage, Sophie was also incapable of trussing herself up to the same high standards that she always demanded from a partner; some of the more stringent body rope webbing & upper arm restraints being impossible to attain on her own. And furthermore, several of her more treasured items of bondage equipment, such as her single sleeve arm binder, her leather straitjacket & her sleep sack were useless to her without a partner to help her into & then secure.

Then one day, the frustration at her inability to find the soul-mate that she craved to render her totally helpless, caused all reason & logic to temporarily desert her. It was only a brief moment of madness, but the repercussions would be felt for a long time afterwards.

*****

Having had an extremely stressful week at work, Sophie arrived home to her flat on Friday evening needing to unwind & relax. And the best method of achieving that goal, as far as she was concerned, was in inescapable bondage – or at least as close as she dared get to that Holy Grail. With a sigh, she began preparing for the process of tying herself up, knowing that, although a great deal of pleasure could be derived from the experience, her deepest desires would, unless she was utterly reckless, remain unfulfilled.

Firstly, Sophie placed all the equipment needed on her bed. The ball-gag, the hood, the two belts, the handcuffs & several lengths of rope, were all laid out neatly for inspection. This was done primarily to make sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything, as there was nothing worse, in her experience, than after taking several minutes to tie her legs & strap herself to the bed frame, to then realize that the hood wasn’t to hand, or that the handcuffs were out of reach. But on this occasion, everything was in place, & she could now begin the process of creative self bondage.

Her next task was to remove the key from the lock on the handcuffs & place it in the top drawer of her dressing table; approximately twelve feet away on the other side of the room from where she intended to tether herself. Okay, so she couldn’t actually cross the line of inescapability, but that didn’t mean that she had to make things easy for herself, & the best way of ensuring that she had to work hard for her freedom was to put space between her mooring post & the key to her wrist shackles. Shutting the drawer, Sophie sat down on the bed & began to create a work of art she called “the bound & helpless female”.

She had already attired herself in her best fetish outfit; having first ensconced her legs in a pair of black tights, she had then poured herself into a cat-suit of clinging latex which covered her from neck to ankle. The shiny black skin-tight costume glistened in the light as Sophie sat on the bed & began winding a long piece of rope several times around her ankles, before tightening the ligature by cinching the rope between her legs & knotting it as securely as she could. Two similar bonds followed higher up her legs, one just below, the other just above her knees. A fourth length of cord soon found its way around Sophie’s thighs; completing the restraint of her legs & making walking impossible.

Now Sophie set to work on her body. Sitting up at the head of the bed with one of the stout brass bedposts behind her, she firstly wrapped one of the broad leather belts around both her waist & the post. The second strap was then made to perform a similar constraining function above her breasts, just below her armpits. These belts were then pulled tight & buckled securely on her stomach & breasts respectively, to make sure that, once her hands were manacled behind her back, they would be extremely difficult to wriggle out of or remove; effectively mooring her torso to the frame of the bed.

Before this final shackling procedure could take place, however, Sophie still had to deny her mouth & eyes their right to speak or see. To this end, she thrust the familiar tooth-marked rubber ball into her waiting mouth & buckled the attending straps at the back of her head, making it impossible to remove without the use of her hands. Then, ensuring that she knew exactly where the handcuffs lay on the bed, she wasted no time in pulling the all-covering black latex hood over her head & aligning her nostrils with the two tiny holes that would allow her to breathe. Satisfied that she had these - the only two apertures in the otherwise claustrophobic fabric - perfectly positioned, she blindly reached around to the back of her head & pulled the laces tighter & tighter until the rubber mask constricted to form a second skin over the contours of her face.

The knot that followed was designed to ensure that the hood wouldn’t slip or move even a fraction of an inch. This was not only to ensure that the wearer had no way of removing this claustrophobic inhibitor of incoming sound & light, as well as a muffler of outgoing noise, but also a necessity to make absolutely certain that the person whose sensory deprivation was being sought wouldn’t suffocate. There was a buckle too at the neck which ensured, when fastened, that the hood wouldn’t ride up.

All that remained now was for the manacling process to take place. Sophie’s aim tonight had been to now simply handcuff her wrists behind her back & enjoy a few uninterrupted hours of bondage before taking the necessary steps to release herself. The main sticking point would be the two leather belts, which held her securely to the bedpost. She would, she knew from experience, eventually be able to work the buckles around to her back with her hands & release herself, but it was a process that required a great deal of struggle before this could be achieved. Once released from the bedpost, she would then need to hop over to the drawer – no small achievement when she was in complete darkness - & retrieve the key to the cuffs. At least this had been the plan up until now.

Placing one bracelet around her left wrist, she listened to the clicking of the ratchet as the ring of steel slowly tightened its grip until it could go no further. Placing both hands behind her back, she was now ready to complete her bondage.

*****

It was at this point, however, that all her dreams, desires & frustrations suddenly got the better of her &, for a few brief seconds, all sense of reason deserted her. As she fumbled behind her back to get her right wrist into the awaiting cuff, the spontaneous notion took hold of her to place her hands behind the bedpost. That way she would have no way of moving from the bed, no chance of retrieving the key, & therefore leave herself without any means of escape whatsoever. Her more rational self knew that this was total madness, & that in the long run she would regret being so reckless, but the urge to render herself one hundred percent helpless was, at that precise moment, just too strong to resist. Stretching around behind the pole, she hurriedly encircled her wrist in the waiting bracelet & closed the cuff to the point where it hugged her wrist in a caress of cold, unbreakable steel.

For a while, the gravity of the situation failed to sink in, & the familiar feel-good reaction to every move she tried to make put her under a spell of high excitement, during which the cares of the world simply seemed to melt away. However, after maybe half an hour of complete abandon, reality began to creep back into her thinking & a nagging question began to haunt her. Had she really done what she thought she had? A quick tug on the handcuffs confirmed her suspicions; her hands were now trapped behind the stout metal pole. Even so, at this early stage, Sophie wasn’t too phased by the complete inescapability of her captivity. She had spent long periods in bondage before, so the thought of remaining like this for the next few hours presented no problem for her. She could still relax & enjoy herself for the time being.

The only trouble was that, as the night wore on, the seeds of the conundrum as to how she would eventually get herself out of this self-made predicament, gradually grew until she could think of very little else. She was all alone in a locked flat, the walls of which allowed very little sound to penetrate through to neighbouring apartments. But worse than this, as far as she knew, nobody would be calling this weekend; either in person or by phone. The prospect of being trapped like this for several days loomed in front of her.

The telephone! Of course that was her lifeline! Although she couldn’t see it, she knew that it was close at hand on the bedside table. When she was ready to get free – which wasn’t going to be for a while yet - she could call someone for assistance.

But how exactly was she to reach the phone, lift the handset from its cradle, dial a number, then explain through her gag who she was & what had happened to her? It took her a few minutes, but soon she had the basic outline of a plan in place. Although she couldn’t actually get to the phone with her hands, she was sure that she could, with a bit of careful manoeuvring, bring the phone onto the bed with her feet. Whether she could then get the phone into a position where her fingers could do the dialing, or whether this would have to be done with her toes, Sophie at this point hadn’t considered.

The part about explaining her plight whilst gagged took slightly longer to fathom out, until, after a few minutes, she came up with the idea of phoning her former boyfriend. She was confident she could tap out his number on the keypad, even in total blindness. Then, once he heard her stifled pleas for help, she was certain he would recognize her voice, work out what had happened & be around in a few minutes to set her free. This way, she would be spared all the hassle of trying to communicate her address to some complete stranger, then deal with the acute embarrassment of explaining how she came to be in this mess. The fact that her ex still retained a key to her apartment was also a bonus, as it negated the need for someone breaking in to rescue her. With these comforting details now clear in her mind, Sophie could relax & get back to the business of enjoying her bondage situation once more.

*****

Sophie’s solitary sightless celebration of captivity carried on all night. At eight o’clock the following morning her radio alarm kicked in, to inform her that it was now daylight. Should she seek release straight away, or wait a few more hours? She quickly decided on the latter, as she was in no rush to get out &, after the initial scare, she found that she’d enjoyed herself to a far greater degree knowing that she couldn’t get free, than if escape had still been an option. Perhaps later this morning would be a good time to seek assistance, or possibly this afternoon. Or maybe, if she was still in the mood, she’d break her own endurance record & leave it until tomorrow morning. After all, long stretches of imprisonment were nothing new to this fearless bondage-loving young woman.

After an hour, the radio turned itself off as instantly as it had commenced, & Sophie was once more left in a world of silence. There was no way of keeping track of time until the radio came back on in twenty three hours time – if she was still tied up then. Although traffic from the nearby road could normally be heard from her flat, the hood conspired to make all but the loudest of sounds inaudible.

It must, by her estimation, have been about three o’clock in the afternoon when Sophie decided that she’d had enough & that it was time to set the wheels in motion on the long road to salvation. Although a part of her still wanted to wait until she had completed twenty four hours in captivity, several factors intervened to make her change her mind. Firstly, there was the discomfort that sitting in the same position for hour after hour had brought about. Another factor was the uncertainty surrounding her method of calling for assistance. What if, whilst lifting the phone from the table with her feet, she dropped it on the floor & was unable to retrieve it? What if it then broke when it hit the floor? What if, as she clumsily tried to part the handset from the cradle, she inadvertently pulled the line out of the wall socket & rendered the whole set useless?

Any of these scenarios would immediately scupper her plans & leave her stranded & helpless. What if, when she rung his number, her former boyfriend was out? That was easier to answer, insofar as she would simply have to try again later. What if he’d changed his number since they’d parted company? Then she would have to try to phone someone else. What if, when she did make contact with someone, she couldn’t make that person understand her? If they thought that the incoherent sounds were merely the result of someone messing around, would they hang up on her? These types of ‘what if’ questions, many without a readily available answer, seemed to be multiplying at such a fast pace that Sophie decided to stop thinking & just get on with it. If anything went wrong, she decided, she would just have to assess the situation & adjust her plans accordingly…if that were at all possible. Worrying about what might or might not happen was getting her nowhere. It was time for action.

****

Sophie’s first concern had to be getting the phone onto the bed & into a position that she could dial out from. Normally in her bondage games, ridding herself of the straps that held her torso firmly to the bedpost had been difficult but ultimately achievable. With her hands fettered behind the post, however, it soon became apparent that it was now impossible to pull either strap around to her back & undo the buckle. She cursed herself for lashing herself so tightly to the pole, but try as she might, she couldn’t rotate the lower belt around into a position where her stretching fingers could grasp the buckle. And without the belt at her waist loosened, the chances of success in removing the other, higher belt were non-existent. For probably half an hour she struggled & wriggled in a concerted effort to rid herself of these straps that severely hampered her, but all to no avail. It was no good, she would just have to get to the phone with the belts still an encumbrance.

Although held rigidly in place from waist to shoulder, Sophie’s legs, despite being bound together in four places, still retained a relative amount of freedom, insofar she was still able to swing them over the side of the bed. Tentatively, so as not to knock the phone off the bedside table with clumsy movements, she sightlessly swung her feet towards her right hand side. All of a sudden, her foot hit something solid, which was followed a split second later by the sound of some heavy object crashing to the floor. Sophie froze. The sound of a light-bulb shattering, however, told her that she had knocked the bedside lamp over, & therefore her plans had suffered no setback. Quite the opposite, in fact, inasmuch as, knowing the position that the lamp had been in relation to the phone, she could tell that she was slightly off course & that a small change of direction to the left would lead to her planned goal. And this proved an accurate assumption, as within seconds her toes touched the plastic casing of the telephone.

With her ankles bound so tightly to one another, lifting the receiver from its cradle was no easy task. For several minutes she struggled in vain to grasp the surprisingly slippery handset with her pantyhose-clad toes. Eventually, however, she had the handset wedged between her feet in a grip that she hoped & prayed she could maintain long enough to avoid dropping her precious cargo en-route. At a snail’s pace, she gingerly manoeuvred her feet back in the direction of the bed.

For some reason, the image in her mind, as her feet made the short but perilous journey, was that of the machines popular in seaside amusement arcades, from which, if you were extremely fortunate, a cuddly toy could be lifted with a mechanical crane controlled by levers, & then extracted by dropping it through a chute. As was commonplace with these fairground attractions, Sophie was almost certain that the phone was about to slip from her feet/crane, but by some miracle she managed to land the phone on the bed, albeit upside down.

Righting it proved no problem, however, although now she faced the dilemma of how best to make what was probably the most important phone call of her life. The easiest way to dial out would be if she could get the handset within reach of her fingers. That way, even in her blindness, she was confident that she would be able to press a specific combination of numbers without too much trouble. The problem with this scenario was, however, that with her hands chained behind the post, getting the phone into a position whereby her fingers could punch the correct digits would mean that she would have to be virtually sitting on it.

Moreover, this would involve the phone being placed perilously close to the edge of the bed; one wrong move being enough to send it plummeting to the floor & out of her despairing reach. The only other alternative was to use her toes to make the call, but this also had severe drawbacks. For a start, it would be far more difficult, Sophie imagined, to punch specific buttons with her toes, especially through the mesh of her tights. But also of concern was the fact that, using her feet meant that the handset would be that much further away from her face if & when she managed to contact a would-be saviour.

It was going to be hard enough making herself understood through the ball-gag & latex hood if her mouth was within an inch or two of the phone, but how would she sound if her muffled attempts at communication came from three or four feet away? It seemed that at every turn, new quandaries & obstacles reared their ugly heads, none of which could be satisfactorily resolved. Of necessity, it simply had to be a case of Sophie weighing up her limited options & hoping that the decision she plumped for was the best one.

Despite misgivings, Sophie decided that the option of using her toes rather than her fingers was the safer of the two. At least that way, the danger of the phone tumbling to the floor was removed. Now all she had to do was try to punch in her ex boyfriend’s number. Using her left foot, Sophie felt around on the keypad until she was reasonably certain that her big toe was hovering over the first number that she required. Exerting downward pressure on the required key, however, was far more difficult than she had expected, as instead of just the button depressing, the entire handset of the phone simply sunk down into the soft mattress.

After several failed attempts, & with mounting concern, finally a faint ‘bleep’ - barely audible - informed her that the first digit had been successfully pressed. It took a great deal of effort & patience, but after a few attempts Sophie seemed to eventually get the knack of punching the numbers, & after a few minutes a series of bleeps informed her that she was close to having dialed a complete phone number. Leaning forward as far as her bonds would allow, Sophie strained to listen. Almost immediately, a faint, somewhat mechanical sounding voice could be heard coming from the receiver, but it took all her powers of concentration to make out the words of what was, it seemed, a repeated message:

“The number you have dialed has not been recognized. Please try again”

Sophie screamed in frustration into her gag. She’d obviously punched in the wrong number. This was no surprise really, as feeling the keypad with her feet whilst the handset refused to remain stationary in the soft bedding made it almost impossible to know which key she was pressing. After several fumbled attempts to disconnect this first call, Sophie finally found the stop button & the faint drone of the dialing tone could just be made out once again.

Sophie’s next attempt at communicating with the outside world proved no more successful than the first, as this time she didn’t even get a recorded message, but simply a monotonous high pitched tone that suggested a dead line. A third attempt yielded a similar result. On her fourth try, the sound of a ringing phone could just be heard, & her hopes rose that she would finally get to speak to another human being. But that was all it did; simply ring & ring for several minutes, until Sophie finally realized that nobody was going to answer it. By this stage, it had dawned on her that trying to dial her ex boyfriend’s number – or any other specific combination for that matter – was almost impossible.

Instead she had no option but to simply punch numbers in at random in the hope that she would, eventually, get one right. If she pressed six buttons, she figured, eventually she would get through to a local number. Should she perhaps try dialing 999? Although she was beginning to get panicky, she baulked at the idea of getting the police involved, as the embarrassment at having to explain her self-bondage predicament was still something she wanted to avoid if at all possible. A couple more tries at contacting her ex boyfriend, she decided, then, as a last resort, she would be left with no option than to ring the Emergency Services to get her out of this mess.

Sophie’s pressed her big toe down six times on the keypad, making sure that she didn’t hit the same digit each time, as 111111 or something similar would have got her nowhere. Then she listened. After a second or two, she faintly heard the ring tone. For twenty seconds or so this sound continued, & Sophie was just beginning to think that she’d drawn another blank. Then the ringing abruptly ceased:

“Hello?”

The sound of a human voice took Sophie almost by surprise. Although she’d had ample time to plan her opening line, now that she’d made this breakthrough, she found herself lost for words for a second or two.

“Hello? ….Who’s there?”

Although barely audible, Sophie could tell that it was a man’s voice on the other end of the line. For a split second she baulked at the thought of trying to communicate her problem to a complete stranger. But she quickly realized that she was in no position to be selective as to whom she asked for help. She was in too much of a predicament to worry about such things.

“Hello? ....Is there anyone there?”

The voice was beginning to sound impatient, & it was obvious that she had to make her presence known before he hung up.

Sophie’s filled & sealed mouth shrieked as loudly as it was capable, although the sound that emerged was neither loud nor anything remotely resembling coherent speech.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you very well. The line must be bad. Could you speak up a bit?”

Sophie leant forward to get her face as near to the phone as she could; the straps that held her in check straining to their limits & digging painfully into her flesh, even through her latex suit.

“HELP ME! I’M BOUND & GAGGED, PLEASE HELP ME!!”

That was the message she attempted to convey to the unsuspecting man on the other end of the line, although even she didn’t really recognize her words as being in any way comprehensible, so how could anyone else be expected to understand?

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Sophie let out a scream that hopefully answered this question in the affirmative.

“Are you ill? Do you need an ambulance?”

Although she knew that it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t immediately comprehended the nature of the drama that this man – whoever he might be – had just unwittingly become embroiled in, Sophie found herself becoming a little bit annoyed by his inability to evaluate her circumstances.

“I’M GAGGED YOU IDIOT. HELP GET ME OUT OF THIS MESS!”

For the first time, Sophie was glad her words hadn’t come out with more clarity. Luckily, however, her insult had come out no clearer than the rest of her SOS message.

“Look, if this is some kind of a joke…”

Sophie sobbed helplessly & as loudly as she could, in an effort to make him realize that she was deadly serious, & that she was in need of someone to save her.

“I still can’t understand you. Are you gagged or something? Give me one sound for yes or two for no”

The one sound that Sophie let out went on for several seconds before finally petering out.

“Was that a ‘yes’?”

This time Sophie managed a short, controlled burst of noise to indicate that he’d finally cottoned on.

“Okay, where are you?”

Even as she began to speak her address, she knew that her gag would make it impossible for him to understand.

“If I’m going to help you, we’ll need to work out some sort of code. Are you indoors? One sound for yes remember”

Sophie moaned once.

“Okay, so you’re inside a building. Do you know the address?”

Another muffled moan.

“That’s good. Now here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll call out letters & numbers. When I get to the correct one, you make a sound to let me know. Have you got that?”

Sophie’s replied that she had.

“Now, do you want to start with letters or numbers? One sound for letters…….”

Sophie’s answers were almost running ahead of his questions by this point, as she grasped the concept that he’d formulated. It was, she had to admit, an excellent way for him to pinpoint her location, if a little slow going.

“A..B..C..D..E..F..”

Sophie’s told him to stop.

“Is that an ‘F’?”

She confirmed that it was.

“Do you want me to go back to the beginning of the alphabet?”

Sophie answered in the negative.

“G..H..I……”

This time Sophie stopped him at ‘L’

“Are you spelling flat? Is that the first word?”

With rising enthusiasm, Sophie assured him that he’d guessed correctly.

“Great, you’re doing fine. Now, letters or numbers next?”

And so it went on, until her potential liberator had fathomed out her complete address. With this information secured, the man promised to get over to her as quickly as he could.

****

It must, Sophie guessed, have been getting on for around twenty hours now since she’d shut the handcuffs around her wrists, & she was now desperate for release. Now hopeful of a relatively speedy resolution to her self-made crisis, however, she relaxed slightly, although a few nagging questions did still float around in her head. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more bizarre the whole scenario seemed. For a start, at no time had her would-be saviour mentioned calling the police, which would have seemed a logical thing to do under the circumstances. Nor had he made any enquiries about how she’d happened to get into this bound up state in the first place, or whether whoever had done this to her was still on the scene.

He couldn’t possibly have known that all her woes were self-inflicted, therefore his failure to ask a few basic questions seemed somewhat odd. Still, she supposed, it wasn’t every day that some helpless female phoned up out of the blue to ask for his help in getting out of a tight spot, so maybe the strangeness of the whole scenario had got to him. And anyway, communicating anything but the most basic details had been difficult, given her vocal restrictions. Whatever the reason for his actions - or lack of them - there was no turning back now; either he turned up or he didn’t.

The realization that he might have been teasing her, briefly flashed across her mind. How long should she wait before attempting to locate an alternative knight in shining armour? But if he had no intention of helping, then why go through the whole performance of getting her address? No, he would come, she was certain. After all, he had sounded concerned & caring on the phone, so she had no reason to believe he wouldn’t show up.

Another dilemma was the question of how he was going to get into her home. With the front door locked, the only way in was through a window. Luckily she occupied the basement flat, otherwise, if she’d been on the first floor or above, any rescuer’s task would have been impossible without a ladder.

Although realizing that time always passes much slower when you’re eager for something to happen, after what must have been well over an hour Sophie began to get restless. Had he been unable to find her address? Maybe he had been bluffing after all. Suddenly, the distant sound of breaking glass made the immobilized woman prick up her ears. Was that the sound of someone breaking in, or just some unrelated noise from outside which, in her anxious state, her mind had interpreted in a way more favourable to her needs?

The faint sound of footsteps in the next room served to dispel this latter fear & caused an involuntary squeal to escape from behind her gag. This stemmed partly from a sense of relief that she’d been found & was – she hoped – on the point of being released, but also partly through fear; a sense of disquiet surrounding the fact that she had no idea who this person that had just broken into her flat might be.

The bedroom door creaked slowly open. For some reason, Sophie found herself thrashing about in her bonds at this point, as if fearing that, without some movement on her part, he might somehow miss the fact that she was there. Then the familiar voice of the man she’d spoken to on the phone filled the air.

“Well, well, you are in a bit of a bind, aren’t you?......If you’ll pardon the pun”

Sophie felt a pair of hands grasp her shoulders & gently push her slightly to one side; in order, she assumed, for him to see exactly how she was bound.

“Handcuff’s eh? Any idea where the key might be?”

Although he was right beside her, Sophie found herself shouting as loudly as she could into her gag that it was in the top drawer of the dressing table. She hoped the high volume would increase her chances of being understood, & in this regard it seemed that she was successful.

At this point Sophie was just happy that someone had come to her aid, although looking back on it later, she realized that the tell-tale signs that everything wasn’t quite as she had hoped, should already have set alarm bells ringing. For a start, he seemed to be exhibiting no real sense of urgency in setting her free; the gap in time from him leaving the bed to the point where she heard the drawer open being, even by her impatient estimate, a good thirty seconds or more. Then there was the fact that he hadn’t removed the hood from her head. Surely anyone with an ounce of compassion would, on discovery of a captive in such a parlous state, immediately remove any impediment to that trussed up person’s face. Not only could they then better determine what state the person was in, but it would also make communication between prisoner & rescuer a great deal easier. Yet he had taken no steps to either restore her sight, or allow her to speak with greater clarity.

Also rather weird, when she looked back on it, was the fact that, instead of releasing the two straps that held her in check to the bedpost, he had decided to push her to one side to take stock of her bonds. The buckles of the straps were situated in full view & easily undone, yet still she remained fettered by both as he took his leisurely stroll across the room in search of the key. The significance of these oversights on his part weren’t, however, seen as having any sinister undertones at the time they occurred, although the first real seeds of doubt as to his motives were about to be sown.

At first, things seemed to take a turn for the better, as he finally began to release the buckle, then the tight lacing on the rear of her hood. Gradually, the constricting pressure that she’d endured for so long on her face & head eased, & seconds later she felt the latex slowly being pulled upwards. After such an extended period in a world of complete darkness, the intense light proved temporarily blinding, & caused Sophie to squint into the unfamiliar brightness. Shaking her head, her long blonde hair - damp & matted after having been cooped up under the hood - fell limply around her shoulders. Slowly, as her day vision returned, the image of her liberator came into focus before her. He was tall & thin, that much she could make out, although she was denied closer scrutiny of his features by dark glasses & a hooded top which covered his hair & most of his head, save for his face. He was holding the key to the handcuffs in front of him; swinging it tantalizingly, only a couple of feet away from her. When he began to speak, Sophie thought she could detect a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“You know, when I got your call, I really thought that someone had either kidnapped you, or you’d been left tied up by burglars or something like that. So I hurried over here as quickly as I could. I contemplated phoning the cops, but then I thought, what if this is all a hoax? Will I be made to look a fool & get charged with wasting police time? So I decided to come over to check this out before getting the law involved”

He paused momentarily as he began pacing across the room.

“But now, after cancelling all my plans for this afternoon & evening, what do I find when I get here? Do I find someone who’s been assaulted & left tied up?”

He turned & faced her again, before answering his own question.

“No, what I find is some kinky woman who’s plight is entirely self inflicted; some woman who gets her kicks from tying herself up, but then, when she gets into a fix & can’t get out, expects someone else to drop everything to come to her rescue”

Sophie screamed as loudly as she could into her gag, & writhed within her bonds as violently as they permitted, in an effort to show how badly she wanted him to release her. Part of her wanted to believe that he was simply playing mind games with her, & that in a moment or two he’d break out into a big smile & begin untying her. But from the serious look on his face, this didn’t seem a strong possibility.

“So” he continued, “I’ve a good mind to leave you here just the way I found you. After all, you obviously enjoy being tied up, otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble” He gestured at the ropes around her legs & the belts that strapped her to the post.

He seemed to just be on the point of speaking again when something on the other side of the room caught his eye & momentarily drew his attention away from her. Sophie gazed on in bewilderment as he swiftly walked over & picked up her briefcase from where it was sitting in the corner. Laying it on the foot of the bed, he quickly pressed the two catches & opened the case. Sophie protested as he did so; partly because the contents were private & none of his business, & partly because this wasn’t in any way relevant to restoring her freedom. He looked up at her & for the first time the hint of a grin appeared on his face. It was not a pleasant smile, however, more a devious smirk that suggested that, whatever he had in mind, it was going to be detrimental to the bound & gagged woman in front of him.

Slowly, he turned the case around to allow Sophie to look inside at the jumble of papers & folders pertaining to her work, together with the pens, calculator & various other sundry items of stationery that she kept there. Then, almost in slow motion to heighten the dramatic effect of what he had planned, he held up the key to the handcuffs & dropped it into the case from a height of several inches. No sooner had it found a resting place amongst the contents, than he spun the case around away from her again, pulled the lid down & snapped the catches shut. Sophie, who had watched these latest developments in her ongoing bondage saga with a sense of dread, couldn’t actually see what he was doing after the case had been shut, but she didn’t need to. It was clear, from the way he was way he was adjusting something on the front of the case, together with the soft clicking sounds that accompanied this, that he was scrambling the combination locks.

Sophie’s briefcase secured with two, four digit combination locks, which she had customized to her date of birth; 6th April 1992. Therefore the lock on the left hand side opened when set to 0604, whilst the one on the right released when aligned to 1992. When at home she always left the combinations set to the correct numbers, as there was nothing particularly secret stashed in the case & she’d had no reason to think that anyone would be interested in the contents. As she watched him move the dials randomly, it began to dawn on her what it was that he was planning; a scenario that he was soon to confirm.

“Okay, so this is what’s going to happen. As you can see, I’ve locked the key to the handcuffs in here” He tapped on the top of the case, just to emphasize exactly where he meant by “here”.

“With you all strapped & tied like that, I would imagine that it will take you quite a while to unscramble the combinations & retrieve the key. Still, as you love putting yourself into such perilous situations, an hour or two of trying to open the case shouldn’t be anything more than a minor inconvenience to you”

He slid the briefcase across the bed until it lay parallel to & touching her left, latex clad thigh; the side with the combinations still pointing away from, & therefore invisible to her.

Although a torrent of pleading emerged from her still gagged mouth, Sophie now saw that the end of her dilemma was in sight. He obviously planned to leave her to retrieve the key herself, but he seemed to be wildly underestimating her powers of opening the case. After all, she knew the combination, & she was sure that, although it wouldn’t be easy, she would be able to manoeuvre the case around & push it with her legs into a position where she could use her fingers to release the locks. She hadn’t taken into account, however, that he had one more important adjustment to make before leaving her to her own devices.

For it soon became clear that he had no intention of making things easy for her, & that he planned to leave her here in exactly the same state of bondage as when he’d found her. So focused was she on working out how to turn the briefcase around, that she failed to see him pick up the latex hood from the bed. She was so eager to start on her voyage to freedom that she didn’t even register that he had now edged around to the right hand side of the bed & was now standing directly over her. The moment that she realized that she wasn’t going to be allowed to view the combination locks to find out what they’d been set to, was the instant that he began sliding the hood down over her head once more. So unexpected were his actions, & so swiftly done, that Sophie hardly had any time to shake her head in resistance before the latex - still retaining the sweat & smell of her previous encasement – was being pulled down over her face & the laces being secured in an all too familiar claustrophobic tightness. Mercifully, he knew to ensure that the two breathing apertures were correctly aligned with her nostrils.

Sophie bucked & strained at her bonds as the full ramifications of this latest setback hit her. For although she had the briefcase by her side, with the dials set randomly it could take hours of painstaking work to unlock the case. For a second or two she feared things were about to get even worse, as briefly she felt the case being moved away from her thigh. Thankfully, the sensation of the case touching her leg soon returned, only now she could feel the handle of the case digging into her leg; he’d obviously turned it around now that she was blind, so the locks were facing towards her & thus easier to reach. But that was the nearest he would come to anything even closely resembling an act of kindness.

“As you enjoy bondage so much you can spend the next hour or two figuring out the combinations on the locks. I know you think I’m a complete bastard for doing this, but I really am a pissed off with you for making me drop everything & come to your aid, when all the time it was your own stupidity that got you into this mess in the first place. Just think yourself lucky that I’ve given you a fighting chance of escaping. I could have simply put the key back where it was & left you here to rot”

Through the latex of her hood, Sophie could just make out footsteps as he crossed the floor.

“Now, I’m going to salvage what’s left of the rest of this day. Good luck with the numbers”

And with this parting shot, she heard the bedroom door slam shut. Seconds later, another slamming door, this one fainter than the last, informed her that he had left her apartment. She was once more alone.

*****

For ten minutes or more, Sophie screamed into her gag, even though she knew only too well that her cries would go unheard. Once she had screamed herself hoarse, she managed to calm herself down somewhat & began to assess the situation. She was tied & hooded exactly how she had been prior to her ‘rescuer’ turning up, but at least now the key to the handcuffs was at her side, not in a closed drawer on the other side of the room. That was a plus point. On the negative side, however, was the fact that the key was sealed in her briefcase, with the combination scrambled so that she had no idea which numbers were currently lined up. Each lock had four dials, so that meant a total of ten thousand possible combinations. Two locks meant that this could be doubled to twenty thousand. Although she would have to be extremely unlucky if it took her the complete twenty thousand attempts before she chanced on the correct codes, the fact that she couldn’t see meant that it would be a case of complete trial & error, & the more she thought about it, the more daunting the task appeared.

Working in blindness & behind her back, she estimated that it would take at least three seconds – possibly even more - for her fingers to move one dial by a single digit, then test the catch to see if she’d hit the jackpot or not. 3 seconds times 20,000 combinations equated to 60,000 seconds which, if Sophie’s mental arithmetic was correct, amounted to somewhere between sixteen & seventeen hours. And that was if she worked at it continually, without a break! For a minute or two, she contemplated trying her luck with the phone again, as this seemed like a far less time consuming task. Maybe getting the police involved was her best bet after all. However, her bound feet’s sweep of the mattress encountered no solid objects within their range, & she was forced to conclude that the phone was no longer there; whether he’d moved it out of her reach or it had fallen to the floor, she wasn’t certain. She was therefore left with no alternative; it was the briefcase or nothing.

Firstly, however, she had to manoeuvre the case close enough to the bedpost so that her fingers could get to work on the dials. And the fact that her torso was so strictly strapped to, & her wrists shackled behind, the post, all conspired to reduce the surface area of the bed that she could reach with her hands to a very small area indeed. Bending her knees so that her feet doubled back towards her bound body, Sophie found that she could, with some difficulty, push the briefcase up towards the head of the bed. It took a few minutes, but finally a metallic thud told her that it had hit the bed-frame.

Straining her hands to her left, however, she found that the tips of her fingers could just about touch the leather of the case, but would not allow her to grasp hold of it & give her the necessary control to slide the dials & push the catches on the locks. She stretched & stretched her wrists against the unforgiving steel bracelets for several minutes, desperately trying to find some purchase on any part of the case that would allow her to pull it that fraction of an inch closer, but it proved impossible. There had to be another way. Then she suddenly hit on a plan.

Awkwardly, she hoisted her bound legs up & to the right, over the side of the bed, & tried to turn her torso, so that the case was now directly behind her. The straps around her chest & stomach did their best to thwart her movement, but after a concerted struggle her feet hit the floor. Tentatively she reached her hands out behind her as far as she could stretch, simultaneously saying a silent prayer to any deity that might be listening; “please, please, please let the case be within reach”.

With a sigh of relief, she found the fingers of her left hand touch the leather of the case. Grasping as tightly as she could, she pulled the case – which was heavier than she’d expected it to be - towards her. Her fingers now explored the surface, until the soft warmth of the leather gave way to a colder, hard metallic section with a raised button, that she knew to be the small catch that opened the left hand lock on the case. Immediately adjacent to this were the four small rotating dials that she now needed to methodically move if she was to have any chance at all of escaping.

Sophie pushed the catch on the lock, in the remote hope that he hadn’t scrambled the locks at all, & that the correct combination was already in position. No such luck. For the purposes of counting off the numbers, she decided that she needed to assume that the dials were set to 0000. Feeling with the index finger of her right hand, Sophie located the right hand dial & pushed it gently upwards. Then she pushed the catch again. It still failed to release. That, in her mind, was 0001. Once more she turned the wheel one digit & pushed the button; 0002. And again; 0003. Once she reached 0009, she set the first counter back to 0, then pushed the dial immediately to the left up one place; 0010. Then she returned to the right hand dial; 0011. And so it went on….

Sophie knew that she would have to concentrate at all times, of course. Otherwise the chances were that she’d miscount the number of turns &, conceivably, miss the vital combination that would open the lock. She also discovered, that without the aid of sight, how extremely difficult it was to move the dials one digit, & one digit only. Several times her fingers slipped, & she found herself wondering whether she’d pushed the dial too far…. or maybe not far enough. There was no way of knowing, but if she went one number back & tried again, she would get hopelessly confused.

As it happened, after only a few minutes, she had already lost count. Was she on 0136 or 0137? In her frustration she screamed out once more for help, but from the silence that greeted her it was clear that there was no other way out & that she would have to persevere. She was hot, tired, hungry, thirsty & by now more than a little panicky, but she had no alternative than to carry on, however futile it all seemed. She decided to take a break & try to calm herself down, before continuing on with this mammoth undertaking.

But this brief period of inactivity only served to set her troubled mind in motion, & with every second that passed, the obstacles that confronted her seemed to multiple. Although it would be a long way off in the future – several hours at least – Sophie’s thoughts raced ahead to the time she would eventually –hopefully - have both the locks open. How, with her wrists cuffed & her body bound the way it was, would she be able to lift the lid of the case & rummage around inside? And even if she did get the lid to stay open, how would she then be able to find the key? All the stuff she kept inside the case – all the papers, notebooks, folders, stationery etc – wasn’t exactly tidy, so how was she supposed to locate one tiny sliver of metal amongst all that muddle? She could always try to tip the case over, so that all the contents emptied onto the bed, of course, but would that make the key easier to locate? Or would it fall onto an area of the bed that she couldn’t reach? The more she analyzed the situation, the more the insurmountable problems seemed to multiply.

****

But that was all a long way off in the distant future. Sophie cursed the man that had refused to let her out of her bonds & left her with this unenviable conundrum. She cursed the handcuffs, the straps that moored her to the bedpost, the ropes that bound her legs, the gag & the hood. But mostly she cursed herself for that moment of madness when she’d inescapably shackled herself to an immovable object. By now she’d been tied up, at a guess, for twenty four hours or more, & it looked like it would be many more hours before she would finally get loose. As she once more began moving the dials one digit at a time & then expectantly pushing the release button, she vowed to herself that she would never again get herself in a situation like this.

Well… at least not until her next self bondage session!

You can also leave feedback & comments for this story on the Plaza Forum

16.09.14