Friday night.  Jack at the sink, washing a plate, thinking about his next carpentry project.  Was it time to tackle the kitchen cabinets?  Or should he let them slide for another year and do built-in bookshelves in the living room instead?
Then he noticed something strange at his neighbor's house.
 That he saw something strange was strange in itself.  Jack lived in a green, peaceful suburb where nothing ever happened.  Even the burned-out city cops who moved there for safer work got bored.
Gazing out into the quiet moonlit night, he saw his neighbor Margaret on her deck.  Nothing strange about that; he saw her there several times a day.  Calling her cat, say, or putting Diet Coke bottles in the recycling barrel.  Margaret was a plump woman in her 40s, with reddish blonde hair and large boobs.  Her eyes were green and her smallish mouth wore a perpetual half-smile.  When she worked in her garden Jack enjoyed watching her jiggle around.
What was strange tonight was that she seemed to be nude.
He turned off his kitchen lights.  He'd been trying to see the International Space Station the night before, so his binoculars were sitting on the window sill.  Thanks to their wide optics and superior light-gathering powers, he was able to see that she was wearing panties.  White, so they blended with her pale skin.  But those dots on her chest were nipples; she definitely was topless.  Even odder, she was holding her arms together behind her back.  She turned her back toward him, and he saw that her wrists were fastened together.   She turned again, and he saw that she was gagged with tape of some sort.  What in the world?
Margaret looked around desperately, then backed up to the house.  He couldn't see what her hands were doing, but he figured she was fumbling with the door knob and trying to get back into the house.  The door, it seemed, wasn't cooperating.
 Jack held the binoculars to his face, letting the wonderful images flow through his retinas and excite his brain.
He had been a bondage fanatic all his life, and every few years he managed to locate a like-minded female for fun and games with rope.  But he always had to go into the city to find partners.  Gallery openings and publishing parties were his usual hunting grounds.  He'd never dreamed his square neighbor was into self-bondage games.  In public Margaret was a prim and proper schoolteacher.  Once in a while she appeared in shorts, but they were always the long-legged kind that went down to the knee, not the crotch-skimming short shorts her high-school students pranced around in.  He'd never seen her at the municipal pool, much less at a bar.
 He thought it over.  Margaret was older and a bit fatter than he liked, but if she was roaming around her yard in bondage...  Like him, she lived alone, so...  He rearranged his leer into a mask of neighborly concern and stepped out into the dark yard.  He slid through the gap in the shrubbery, crossed the driveway, and stepped up onto her deck.
 "Margaret?  Is that you?  Are you all right?"
 She cowered, embarrassed, but what could she do?  Run into the street and hail a cop?  No, a schoolteacher in a conservative town was not about to present herself in public in her current condition.  She circled her head and mumbled urgently.
 "Don't worry.  I'll call the police."
 "NNNNMMMM!  NNNNMMMM!" she wailed, shaking her head franticly.
 "You don't want me to call the police?" he asked ingenuously.
 She nodded vigorously.
 "Gosh, I don't understand.  Hey, let's get that gag off."
 He cupped her jaw with one hand and peeled off the duct tape.  A rubber ball jammed her mouth.  "No wonder you didn't scream for help," Jack said, keeping his expression scrupulously neutral as he extracted the wet ball.  "Who did this to you?" he asked, in a tone of shocked concern, although he'd already guessed the answer.  Her wrists were handcuffed.  Perfect!
 "It's a long story," his neighbor sighed.  Her face was a spooky blur in the moonlight, but he had the impression she was ashamed to meet his eyes.  "Do you still have my key?"  That would be the house key she'd given him so he could take care of her cat when she was away.
 "Someplace.  Come inside while I search.  Someone might spot you out here."
 He took her arm and aimed her toward his house.  Obediently she accompanied him across the driveway and into his kitchen.
The real reason Jack wanted her inside was to lure her into the light and get a better look at her nearly nude body.  He knew exactly where her spare key was, but he opened the junk drawer and pretended to search.
Margaret stood in the middle of the kitchen, unsure of what to do.  When she moved, her big boobs bobbed, and that seemed to embarrass her.  She turned her back, but that just gave him a fine view of her wide ass.  Finally she hooked a chair with her foot and pulled it out and sat down.  She crossed her legs primly, a gesture of modesty that was hilarious, given her present condition.
 Jack abandoned the fake search.  "I can't find the key.  Either I gave it back to you, or it's lost."
 "Great.  I'm locked out."  She looked ready to cry.
 "Hey, relax.  It's OK.  Uh, I'm not sure what the etiquette is for a situation like this, but would you like a drink or something?"
 She sighed and flipped her red hair.  "What do you have?"
 "I have a decent Merlot and some Italian table white."
 "I'll take the white."
He poured them each a glass, and put a straw in hers.  He sat down facing her and studied her big breasts and bare legs and panties without bothering to conceal his interest.  "I'm looking forward to a good story.  Life has been boring lately.  Now here's my pretty neighbor running around in handcuffs and underwear.  Are you auditioning for a kinky Haines commercial?"
 "I suppose you'd like an explanation," she mused.  She took another sip of wine and gazed at his refrigerator as if one of the magnets had the answer.  He had the impression she was trying to think up a good cover story, but was having trouble organizing her thoughts.  Finally she sighed.  "I was reading a scene in a novel, and decided to act it out," she said.
 "I thought you taught English, not drama."
 "Very funny.  Jack, it was a lark.  I was bored too."
 "Some lark," he said, enjoying the view of her pink nipples, her veiny boobs.
"A gentleman would offer me a robe," she snorted.
"So go door to door until you find a gentleman."
"Not even a towel?"
"Better view this way."
She rolled her eyes and bent to her wine.  The fluid level dropped an inch in one long sip.  When she straightened up again she quit hunching her shoulders and gazed at him defiantly.  She uncrossed her legs, giving him a splendid view of the expanse of white cotton over her pussy.  Either she trimmed, or she had tucked her pubic hair in when she dressed.  That was good.  He liked the clean look of a crotch with no hair hanging out.  She watched him watching, and let her knees drift wider.
OK.  Jack decided his strategy should be to act normal and coax her to let down her guard.  Act as if he had near-nude women handcuffed in his kitchen every day.  So he walked back to the dish rack and put away the dishes he'd washed earlier.  Then he took a towel and wiped down the counter.  He hung the towel on the oven door.  "Can I refill your drink?"
"Please."
He topped off her drink.
"You're not trying to get me drunk, are you?"
"Why, you have to work tomorrow?  It's Saturday."
"Maybe I have some papers to grade."
"How come you weren't working on them tonight?"
She snorted and took a sip of wine.
 In his dealings with women, Jack had learned that no matter how horny they got they never said "Let's do it."  Even the staunchest feminist expected the man to take the initiative.  So he put down his glass and strolled around behind her.  As a test, he squeezed her warm shoulders.  She didn't flinch or pull away.  To his delight, she sighed and leaned back, resting her head on his stomach.  He squeezed her shoulders again, enjoying the view of her freckled chest, and began massaging her back with his thumbs.  Just a nice neighborly backrub.
 "What was the novel that inspired this amazing behavior?"
 "I'd rather not say."
 "Because it was pornographic?"
 "Because it was lowbrow trash, formulaically written, with atrocious grammar."
 "How dreadful.  Still, the author seems to have gotten a message across to you.  Isn't that what great literature is supposed to do?  Communicate with the reader?"
  "Ha ha."
 Jack slid his hands down from her shoulders and over her breasts.  She sighed contentedly as he cupped them in his hands and fondled her nipples.
 "What was the novel?"
 "I'm not going to tell you."
 "I bet I could make you."
 "You wouldn't dare."
"Sounds like a challenge."
"That's up to you, Jack."
"All right then.  Stand up."
 Margaret complied, smiling shyly.  She pretended to stumble, as if tipsy from the alcohol.
Jack took some 5/16-inch cotton sash rope from the pantry and tied one end around her waist.  He tied it so the knot was at the small of her back, and the free end hung down in back, like a tail between her big buttocks.  Then he guided the rope between her legs and pulled it up in front.  He tugged on the leash, and it sank into her vagina.  Margaret made a small sound and took an involuntary step forward.
 "That's right.  Just follow me."  Tugging on the leash, he guided her out of the kitchen.
 Margaret huffed contemptuously, but followed.  "Where are you taking me?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out."
The truth was, he didn't know; he was improvising.  Besides, he enjoyed the power of tugging her around by a rope attached to the most sensitive part of her body.  He was an erotic puppet master.  Every few steps she halted and dug in her heels and made him yank; he assumed that was because she wanted to tighten the rope and heighten the sensation.  He dragged her upstairs to the bathroom and selected an Ace bandage from the medicine cabinet.  Margaret stood quietly as he wound it around her eyes to blindfold her.
"Aren't you going to gag me?" she taunted him.
"Would you like that?"  He stroked her lips with his fingers.
"It makes me more of an object.  That's a turn-on."
"All in good time.  I have other uses for that mouth."
He took her back down to the living room, turning out the lights as he went.  His house was far enough back from the road that the chances of anyone peeking in the windows were remote, but he didn't want to trigger her fear of being seen.
 In the dark living room he had her sit on the coffee table.  He tied her ankles to one end.  Then got out his keychain, which just happened to have a handcuff key on it, and pretended to fumble with her cuffs.  "They say you can undo these with a paper clip," he said, taking his time.  Finally he freed her.  "Got it!"  He gave her a moment to massage her wrists, then made her lie back.  He tied her hands together in front, and brought them over her head and tied them to the top of the coffee table.  In two minutes she was securely laid out.  He sat back on the couch, admiring his prisoner.
 Margaret stretched and tested her bonds.  "I never realized what a sex fiend I had for a neighbor," she muttered darkly.  "I bet you're registered with the Police Department."
 "You ain't seen nothing yet."  Jack reached down and gently tweaked her right nipple, already puffed up with horniness.  "Tell me about this scene you were acting out," he commanded.
 "It was in a thriller.  Airport trash.  The protagonist was a detective named Melody.  She was hunting for a sex criminal, only she screwed up, and he captured her.  He stripped her down to her panties and handcuffed and gagged her.  She managed to escape, and was trying to hide from him in the woods."
 "And you just happened to have a pair of handcuffs lying around the house."
 "Uh-huh.  I don't know what came over me.  I gagged myself and put on the cuffs.  I left the key on the dining room table where I could reach it.  I thought I could run around the yard in the dark and no one would see me.  But the wind blew the damn door shut.  It locked and I couldn't get back in."
 "Tsk tsk.  What sort of thoughts did you have while you were out there?"
 "I'd rather not say."
 He squeezed her nipple harder.  She winced.  He kneaded it between thumb and forefinger, and squashed the breast a little, and she gasped and squirmed on the coffee table.
 "You know, Margaret, I'm getting the idea you want me to torture you.  Would you like to play a little game like that?  Nothing too heavy.  Just a little neighborly S&M."
 She nodded, and licked her lips.
 "All right, Melody.  What a beautiful name.  Now it's time for you to sing."
 "Sing?"
 "Tell me where you hid your case notes."
 "Never."
 "You know I can make you talk," he said, twiddling both nipples between thumb and forefinger.
 "Help!  Help!" she yelled.  (But not loud enough to be heard outside.)
 "Time to plug that noisy mouth," Jack said, removing his shorts.
 The next half hour was serious fun.  First he made her suck his cock.  Then he cut off her panties and ate her out.  He played with her big boobs for a long time, and finally couldn't stand to wait any longer, so he plunged in and fucked her.  She thrashed around so much he was afraid they'd break the coffee table.  Finally they subsided, panting.
 "Thanks," he said.  "If you hadn't needed a rescue I would have had to watch a Farscape rerun."
 "You're welcome," she sighed, wiggling under him.  She stretched and wiggled her fingers plaintively.  "Not that this is much of a rescue, so far.  More like out of the frying pan and into the fire."
 He released her arms and let her sit up on the coffee table.  When he told her to put her hands together behind her back, she obeyed immediately.  He cuffed her wrists again, then untied her ankles and helped her stand up.  "Want me to take off the blindfold?" he asked.
 "No.  It helps me fantasize.  I'm not in a suburban living room playing with my neighbor.  I'm a captured detective on a dangerous case."
 "I really need to read this guy," Jack said.  He put manacles on her ankles to increase the fetish quotient.  Margaret was delighted by the jingle and weight of the chain.  He guided her upstairs again, this time to the master bedroom, touching her big pink bottom whenever he pleased.  Whipping wasn't one of his fetishes, but those big soft buttocks suggested it could become one.
 Jack's king-size bed was one of his carpentry projects, built with bondage games in mind, so both the headboard and footboard had sturdy vertical slats.  Settings, from his point of view.  He removed Margaret's handcuffs and let her shuffle to the bathroom with her ankles still manacled.
When she emerged he had her lie face-up on one side of the bed and extend her hands to the headboard.  He cuffed her in that position, then removed the manacle from one ankle so he could thread the chain through the footboard.  This left her secured to the bed, but with enough slack to maneuver a little.
 "As sex criminals go you're pretty timid," she sneered.  "The last guy who captured me kept me tied up and gagged in a locked trunk.  He only took me out to fuck me."
 "All that unpacking is a hassle," Jack said, climbing on her.  She was still wet, and he went in easily.  He clamped his hand over her provocative mouth.  Margaret gasped and wiggled her hips with delight.
*   *   *
 The next morning Jack freed Margaret so she could take a shower and generally clean up.
She put on one of his kimonos and made him breakfast.  They sat in his kitchen drinking coffee and chatting about the au pair scandal at the Carsons'.  Artificially casual.  It was like the day after a hurricane, when everyone is pretending things are normal.
Jack was thinking: was last night a fluke?  Or will she play some more?  Playing with a stranger you met in the city was one thing.  Women could be pretty wild when they knew they'd never see you again.  But a neighbor in a small town...
 Finally Margaret sighed.  "I should go home.  But I don't have any clothes.  I can't go traipsing through the back yard in your kimono.  If Barbara or Celeste sees me it'll be all over town."
 Jack peered out the window, checking the houses on the other side of the back fence.  He didn't see anyone, but both Barbara Harper and Celeste Demain were early risers.  "I guess you're trapped here," he said happily.
 "I guess," she shrugged.  "Fortunately it's Saturday, and I don't have any pressing engagements.  Gee, what shall we do?"
 "For starters we could explore your fantasies of being a sex object."
 "That sounds promising."
 After they did the dishes he made her a little slave costume: a kimono sash for a belt, a white rag hanging down in front.  Margaret modeled it, turning around so he could see her bare bottom.  "Is this what you do with all your captives?"
 "You bet."  He handcuffed her wrists behind her back, pleased by how quickly she became submissive at the touch of steel.  "Now, let's give you an introductory tour of the dungeon."
 The basement was cool and dark and private.  Perfect for what he had in mind.  Jack blindfolded her with a kimono sash before he took her down to make it more mysterious.
 He removed her cuffs and tied her wrists in front with clothesline.  Then he raised them over her head with a rope to a ceiling beam.  He left her a little slack so she could raise and lower her arms slightly to keep them from cramping.  Then he found a sturdy dowel rod and tied her ankles to it, forcing her legs apart.  Margaret submitted to this treatment passively.  She licked her lips now and then, but said nothing.
 When she was helplessly suspended, he silently circled his captive.  He reached under her loincloth and stroked her vagina, catching her by surprise and making her flinch.  Unable to close her legs, she was wide open for his curious fingers.  He slid two fingers in, which was easy, given her wetness.  "Are you feeling like an object yet?" he teased her.
 "Yes," she gasped, thrusting her pelvis forward to drive the fingers in deeper.  "Oh god yes."
 Jack toyed with her for a while, then pulled out his fingers and wiped them dry on her loincloth.  He backed up a few steps and sat down on the couch to admire the view.
The blindfold was a plus, he decided.  He'd never been into blindfolds per se, but now he saw that by concealing her identifying features it made her more generic, more anonymously female.  Blanking out half her face also emphasized her mouth, and the things it was useful for.
She wiggled her hips.  "Who are you?  Why have you brought me here?" she demanded.
"My name is not important.  Let's say I'm the agent for a wealthy man with certain tastes that are difficult to satisfy within the bounds of a traditional relationship.  He posted an ad on the Internet seeking a consenting adult to be his bondage sex slave for the summer.  As a teacher, you have the summer free, so you responded.  My employer has sent me to interview you and see if you're suitable."
 "Well, I don't know," she smiled.  "How much is he offering for my services?"
 "$10,000 a month for three months.  Paid in cash, so you don't have to worry about taxes."
 "That's all?  $30,000 for the entire summer?  Suppose I want to go somewhere?"
 "My employer is willing to make it a two-month contract.  Anything less than that and there's not enough time for proper training."
 "How about $30,000 for two months?"
 "You know, you're not the only applicant for this job," Jack frowned.  "Besides, there's a test you have to pass."
 "What kind of test?"
 "Allow me to demonstrate."
 To simplify the negotiation, he tore up a T-shirt and used the pieces to pack her mouth.  When her cheeks were bulging like a chipmunk's, he plastered duct tape over her lower face.  Margaret moaned appreciatively.  Jack loved working with duct tape.  It gave the woman that authentic captured-by-sex-maniac look.
He tested her gag by whipping her big tempting bottom with a length of clothesline.  At first she tried to be stoic; after a few more whacks she tried to scream.  Only little squeals were audible.  A passer-by wouldn't be able to hear her in the kitchen, much less from outside the house.  He whipped her until her white buttocks were striped with pink lines and she was panting through her nose.
 "Excellent," he said, fondling her cunt. Talk about wet.  She really was a masochist!  What a great find.  "Now for the real test."
 Jack removed her blindfold so she could watch his preparations.  First he did the leash thing again: tying a rope around her waist and running it through her crotch from behind.  This time he looped the free end of the rope through an eyebolt on the ceiling and let it hang down in front of her.  He tied a plastic bucket to the free end.  Margaret watched, frowning, trying to figure out where this was going.
 Next to the washer and dryer sat an old wash basin.  Jack fetched a hose from the garage and screwed it onto the faucet.  Next, he ran the hose up to the ceiling and threaded it from beam to beam over to where Margaret was standing.  Finally he brought the end of the hose down into the bucket.  Her eyes widened.  "NNUUUHH!  NNNUUUHHH!" she protested, shaking her head desperately.
 "You said I was being too soft on you," he reminded her.  With that, he turned on the faucet.  Margaret could follow the water's approach by the way the hose sagged from its weight, until it emerged from the end and gushed into the bucket.  Jack turned the faucet until it was almost off, and only a trickle of water came out of the end of the hose and fell into the bucket.  He carefully adjusted the flow until it was barely dripping.  Plonk.  Pause.  Plonk.  Pause.  Plonk.
Margaret stared at the bucket, gloomily calculating how fast it would get heavy, how deeply it would pull the rope into her cunt.  He stroked her between the legs, making sure the rope exactly bisected her.  She was already dripping with anticipation.  He fondled her cunt familarly, savoring its rubbery solidity.
 "If I were a real sex criminal I could make this even more interesting.  I'd have a bomb underneath the bucket, and as the bucket sagged lower it would eventually set off the bomb."
 She moaned and pleaded with her eyes.
 "Or I could attach it to your nipples."  He grabbed her left tit and kneaded it roughly.  "A pair of clothespins.  Wouldn't that be something, hmm?"
 Margaret mmmd helplessly.
 "Now, you're probably thinking: if you moan enough, I'll take pity and let you go.  But just to make sure that doesn't happen, I'm going shopping.  You're going to be trapped here for several hours, that bucket getting heavier and heavier."
Margaret moaned pitifully.
"Nice try.  I'll be back in a few hours.  Enjoy your fantasies while I'm gone."  He patted her bottom and caressed her along the rope again.
 He got his keys and stomped up the stairs. Her remark last night about being packed in a trunk still echoed in his ears.  The big question was: Did he want to spend the time and energy building a personalized Margaret container in the basement? Or should he just go to Home Depot and buy a suitable storage box and put her in that?
It would be fun to build an innocent-looking "storage chest" that was actually a sturdy little soundproof cell. Against the basement wall near his workbench, say.  It would be great fun to be working on a project and know that when he was ready to take a break he had a naked woman tied up and ready to serve him.
Would she appreciate the time and effort involved?  Or would she find a homemade structure coarse and inferior?  From his perspective, going the do-it-yourself route showed that he cared enough to spend time on her.  But if she was one of those Martha Stewart types who expected a lot of frills and flourishes...
If he simply bought a storage box he could have her tucked away by lunchtime.  One of those big plastic jobbies that people used to store the Christmas stuff, say.  He could tie her up in a Gwendoline ball, a nice tight wad of woman, and pop her in.  Her bound and contorted body would be visible through the translucent plastic.  It would also be mobile, so he could put her in the attic, the trunk of his car, etc.  Then he could really make that captured detective fantasy come to life.  Have to drill airholes, of course.  He hated taking the easy route, but if the alternative was several days of construction...
He locked the kitchen door and walked out into the back yard and peeked in the basement window.  Margaret was moving her pelvis forward and back, trying to make the bucket swing so the end of the hose would pull out and the water would fall on the floor instead of into the bucket.  Smart lady.  Unfortunately he'd thought of that, which was why he'd fastened the hose to the bucket handle with a twist-tie.  So the bucket would inexorably get heavier and heavier...
Jack walked to his car, whistling.  Decisions, decisions.

END