Just back from a fabulous two months at their mountain cottage, Sam
sits at his computer to go through the mail. Trish is resting upstairs
since she'd had a rather rough time of it. Scrolling down the listing,
he sees a couple of messages from his buddy Peter. Sam clicks on these
first.

The cottage and the surrounding land had been in Sam's family for
generations. Situated in the mountanous area of central Pennsylvania,
the cottage was located in a sheltered valley and surrounded on three
sides by rugged hills. There was only one access road, disguised to
look like an overgrown driveway to a small property off the main road.

Indeed, the access road began as a driveway leading to a long abandoned
farm. However if you knew the path around the tumbledown barn and
rusted machinery, across the shallow stream and around the forest,
you'd find the access road that led to the valley. After a few very
rough miles, the road evened out for another ten miles to end up at the
cottage.

Sam thought himself to be a mountain man at heart. Since family had
either moved away or were now too old to bother with the cabin, Sam and
his wife Trish had become the guardians of the property. Seven thousand
acres it encompassed, though, "Mostly the sides of mountains", as his
grandfather use to say. While out hiking several years ago, Sam had
stumbled across "the cave".

In Peter's first message he tells about a contest being hosted by the
adult oriented cable network, Home Showcase. It seemed that they were
putting on a kind of Survivor take off where dominant and submissive
couples would vie for a million dollar prize.

"Ten couples," the quoted text read, "stranded on a south seas island,
left there to survive. Your submissive will be chained in inescapable
bondage during the forty days and competitions will determine the
eventual winner."

"Chained for forty days," snorted Sam. "Trish could do that standing on
her head."

Sam let his mind wander back over the previous two months.

The cave system he'd discovered several years ago had it's entrance
almost directly across the valley from the cottage. He'd trained a
telescope on it from the balcony, now that he knew where to look. From
the entrance, the cave went into the mountain some hundred yards and
then branched. The whole system of tunnels and caverns could be
navigated fairly easily and there were relatively few really dangerous
areas.

When Sam had first found the cave he'd explored inside a short ways.
The main tunnel branched and then branched again. Sam soon became dis-
oriented and he almost had a hard time in finding his way out again.

The next day, armed with lanterns, food, and spools of string, Sam
explored the cave system further. Three days later he emerged into the
sunlight, awed by the wonders he'd discovered deep within the mountain.
Over the course of that summer Sam visited the cave a few more times,
and eventually he'd mapped out all of the passageways and caverns that
he'd been able to squeeze himself into.

One chamber deep within the mountain's core was the size of a house
inside. Sam had slithered through a narrow, low passageway, inching
along on his belly through the solid rock to reach it. Emerging from
the claustrophobic siphon he stood up, then shone his torch around the
cavernous area. Quartz, embedded in the walls, twinkled.

Sam met Trish the following year at the Museum of Natural Sciences in
Boston. He was standing before an exhibit of photos from inside a cave
when he noticed a pretty girl standing next to him and trying not to
look like she was checking him out. "Are you interested in caving?"
he'd asked, and that was all it took. Over a lunch of hot dogs in a
nearby park, Sam told Trish about the family property and the cave he'd
discovered.

Trish was quite fascinated in hearing of the isolated nature of the
cabin in the valley, and of the cave system on the property. "It's
sometimes so nice to just get away from everything and everyone for a
while," she'd said.

What began as a chance meeting in a museum, blossomed into a heavy
romance. Sam took Trish up to his cottage a few months later.

Trish, it seemed, enjoyed being tied up as much as Sam liked tying her
up and the more helpless she was, the more she loved it. She came with
her own set of chains and locks, the keys to which she handed to Sam
that first day after arriving at his log cabin in the valley. After
they'd settled in, she asked him to chain her hands together.

Two short chains with links that were flat and fit close around each
wrist, one brass padlock to join the ends of the chains, and Trish was
right where she wanted to be. Miles from nowhere, hands chained in
front of her and at the mercy of someone else. Although she had worn
these chains many times before, almost every night in fact, having the
keys close at hand just wasn't the same as having them in the
possession of another person.

Trish's passions began to grow, reaching a peak when Sam told her he'd
stashed her keys someplace inside the cabin. That evening Trish brought
her ankle chains to Sam asking that he put them on her. Sam was more
than happy to oblige, and later on in the cozy bed came a night of
lovemaking that neither of them would soon forget.

Trish and Sam were married the following Spring, on the tenth of May.
She moved into his home in Belleville, which was about a two hour drive
from the cottage and the valley.

Early one summer's morning on a weekend at the cottage, Sam took Trish
across the valley to visit the caves. They'd packed a lunch and Trish
brought along her chains. She wanted Sam to chain her deep within the
cave, then leave her alone for a time. Helpless and alone. Sam took his
wife into the mountain, through twists and turns, to a narrow tunnel
that dead ended at a small chamber. There was barely enough room for
them both inside the rock tomb as Sam had Trish take off her clothes.
He then chained her wrists and her ankles closely together.

Trish stretched out on the cool stone floor of the chamber. She tested
her bonds. Her hands were chained close together in front of her and
her feet were similarly locked together, making walking almost
impossible.

Sam picked up his wife's clothing and then, taking the lantern, he
eased himself up into the tight opening and moved along the narrow
passageway. Trish saw the light get dimmer and dimmer inside her tiny
prison, winking out abruptly when Sam rounded a bend. Darkness
enveloped her like a thick shroud.

Sam had not gone very far when he sat down and extinguished the
lantern. Echoing from down the tunnel he heard his wife's trembling
moan as her sight was cut off. There was no other sound. Then he heard
a scrape of steel against rock, the tinkling of a chain. He smiled to
himself.

Trish tried to sit up, immediately bumping her head on the hard stone
roof of the tiny chamber. Using her outstretched hands she began to
blindly explore the confines of her tomb. The entranceway to her
chamber was above a rock ledge and in moments she became disoriented in
the inky blackness which closed in on her from all sides. Trish felt
along the walls around her but could not locate the way out. She also
knew that even if she had found the passageway, it was doubtful that
she'd be able to manage that first steep slope, chained as she was.

Trish's first orgasm, the first of many that day, took her completely
by surprise and had her writhing in ecstasy on the chamber floor,
moaning loudly in her need, and grinding her thighs tightly together.
She fought the steel chains that held her hands and feet as her cum
blasted through her body. Her mind filled with the vision of tones of
solid rock closing in from above and all around her.

Sam, sitting a mere thirty feet along the narrow passageway, heard his
wife's chains frantically rattling against the stone and listened to
her cries. She was not calling out in distress. Holding his small
flashlight directly over his watch, he flicked it briefly on and off to
charge the radium dial. Then he opened his eyes again to check the
time. Less than five minutes had passed since he'd left his wife alone
in her darkened tomb. They'd both agreed on her spending an hour alone
in the dark. It was going to be a long hour for her.

Trish opened her eyes and saw nothing. The only sound around her was
that of her laboured breathing which she began to get under control.
Once she'd calmed herself down, she began to explore the rock chamber
once more with her outstretched chained hands.

She found the rock ledge again and she raised herself up onto it.
Feeling above her head she discovered the edges of the passageway that
led out. When descending into the chamber they'd had to use hands and
feet to brace themselves against the smooth sides of the tight
passageway. Trish quickly found out that with her hands and her feet
chained together, there was no way to wedge herself in the sloping
tunnel and inch herself upwards at the same time. Although she could
get herself wedged up inside the passageway, each time she relaxed her
legs to scrabble her toes a few inches higher, she'd slide back down
into the chamber again. The rock walls were smooth against her bare
skin so she wasn't getting scratched up, but she wasn't making any sort
of progress either.

As Trish eased herself back down into her stone prison her legs folded
up beneath her and her pussy made contact with the edge of her right
foot. She brought her hands downward, brushing her arms against her
erect nipples, and that, combined with the pressure of her foot on her
clit, shot a bolt of pleasure throughout her body. She began to rock
herself, rubbing her nether regions against the edge of the foot under
her whilst stroking, then pinching and tugging on her nipples. She was
soon vocalizing her feelings about the whole situation she was in.

Sam peered at his watch and could barely make out the faint glow of the
minute hand. Seventeen minutes had passed. He smiled, then shifted
around a bit to gain better comfort. Trish's cries of passion echoed
around him.

Trish was now caught up in a seemingly endless series of powerful
orgasms which threatened to drive her mind over the brink. She eased
herself down with her back pressed against the stone floor and grabbed
hold of her ankle chain. She pulled up her foot to press the heel
tightly against her most sensitive spot while bucking her hips up and
down, frantically rubbing herself against her foot. Her bum made
squishing noises in the puddle of her juices that had gathered there
and her feet were getting soaked. Her cum peaked, and held, the force
of it nearly pushing her into unconsciousness before the intensity
began to wane.

Trish let go of the chain around her ankles, letting her feet slip away
from her clit to be replaced by her much more nimble fingers. Wildly
stroking herself, right there, she brought herself to a crashingly
powerful cum. Toes curled, wrists and ankles straining against the
unyielding chains that bound them, Trish lost herself in that sweet,
sweet place that she knew so well.

There had been lots of noise coming from the end of the passageway but
now things were silent once more. Too silent. Sam closed his eyes and
flicked his flashlight on and off against his watch, then looked at it.
Fifteen minutes left. Sam strained to hear, and then, the clink of a
chain, a soft moan. Then, nothing for long minutes.

Feeling for the Coleman lantern he readied it. Turning the valve to on,
he lit a match. The match flaired to brightness nearly blinding him
and as he held it under the lantern, the gas caught with a deafening
whoosh. Sam was blinded again by the intensity of the light as the
burning gas heated the mantle to incandescence.

Trish heard the scrape of the match and the hiss of the gas lantern.
Suddenly the passageway materialized before her as light flooded down
into her little rock chamber.

"Sam?" she called

"I'm here Trish. Had enough?"

Trish took a few breathes to steady herself. With a giggle she said,
"Yeah, I think so."


Last spring Sam and Trish both lost their jobs at the same time, since
they'd both worked at the same plant that was owned by one of those
multi-national companies. The handwriting had been on the washroom
walls for some time, and Sam had prepared for the day that they'd be
looking for new jobs. Though with the big plant closed down, work
became scarce in the small town they lived in so Sam and Trish
retreated to the little cabin in the valley for a couple months to
regroup. The extended holiday also meant that Trish could try something
that they'd both talked about since her time alone, back in the cave.

Sam had shown his wife most of the cave system by now and she'd
suggested that she would like to try something a bit longer term
sometime. Something on the lines of her being chained up somehow and
then left to find her own way out of the caves. With no light, only by
feel.

"How long a time frame are we thinking about here?" Sam had asked.

"Well," she'd said, "it takes three days to reach the deepest section.
I was thinking maybe I'd get left there and if I don't make it out in a
week or two, you come find me."

"There's some dangerous drop offs in there you know," Sam cautioned.

"Only the three deep ones. We could mark them in some way so I wouldn't
go there."

"You really want to do this, don't you." Sam already knew the answer.

"Yes, I do," Trish stated with an uneasy conviction.

A few days later, Sam set out alone to mark out the dangerous parts of
the cave. He carried coils of rope and a cordless drill. In his
backpack, along with food, water and lights, was a package of anchor
bolts. Four days later he returned to the cabin and Trish and they sat
together, going over the maps of the caves.

"I've fixed ropes across the tunnels leading to the drop offs," Sam
explained. "In the big cavern here," he pointed to a cavern with a path
around one side and a deep drop at the other, "there's two ropes. One
to follow the path and another at the edge. Now, what about your
bondage?"

Trish looked up from the map into her husband's dark brown eyes.
"Eight inch hobble and just the lock between my wrists," she stated.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You don't want to make it easy, do you." Again,
he knew the answer before she spoke it.

"No." Trish smiled to herself.

That night in bed, the two made torrid love together. Trish's passions
reached a fever pitch, driven by her thoughts of spending the next
several days chained and alone in the bowels of the big mountain just
outside their bedroom window. In the early mornings light, loaded down
with heavy backpacks, the couple set out to place the plan into action.

It was a lovely warm day and Trish walked barefoot, as she liked to do.
She wore a short cotton skirt with a plaid flannel shirt which she
removed after they'd gone but half ways to the cave. At the cave's
entrance, Sam pointed out the flag she was to raise when, and if, she
made it out of the cave.

"If I don't see that flag up after twelve days I'm coming to get you,"
Sam said. "If you find your way out before then, I'll see it and come
for you."

"Ok."

Trish left her clothing at the cave's entrance and Sam unloaded a few
water bottles and some food for her. He also told her that he'd leave
a set of keys to her locks there so she could free herself when she got
out. Along the way into the mountain, whenever the tunnels narrowed,
Sam left two more bottles of water for her and some packages of food.
Trish had food and water in her backpack, along with the chains and
locks she'd be wearing during her time in the caves.

Through caverns big and small, tunnels that went straight or twisted
and turned, dividing again and again, the couple made their way deeper
and deeper into the mountain. They'd stop to rest, have a quick bite to
eat, then press on. Time began to loose any meaning as the two walked,
or crawled at times through narrow passageways. They were just two tiny
people, moving through the big mountain in a pool of flickering light,
cast by the gas lantern that Sam carried.

The lantern would run out of fuel and plunge the couple into a darkness
so complete you'd think that the world had ended. Then, one of them
would find a flashlight and switch it on. Sam would fill the lantern
and light it up once more.

One time, while sitting in a big cavern eating, the light went out.

"Trish," Sam softly said into the pitch darkness. "You're never going
to find your way out of here not being able to see anything."

"You may be right," she mused. "You may be right."

"Do you still want to go through with this?"

"Samual, my darling. Yes, I do."

Sam switched on his flashlight. His wife's eyes sparkled in the gloom
and he knew. Something that he doubted he would have the courage to do,
she would treasure the memory of this time in the caves forever.

The two reached the mid point of their journey later that day, ending
in one of the larger caverns deep within the mountain. Sam and Trish
sat together on the floor in the center of the vast chamber and
listened to their heartbeats echoing back to them from the high vaulted
ceiling above. They held each other for a while; Trish steeling herself
with the warmth and the strength of her husband against the trial to
come. Then, it was time to begin.

Sam dug his wife's chains from her pack and began to lock them on her.
Her ankle chains went on first, a little tight against her skin to
prevent excessive rubbing, but not so tight as to be uncomfortable.
Comfortably tight. Fastened with two locks, joined together by the
eight inch long chain between.

The two chains around her slender wrists were next. Not so tight these,
but she would not be able to slip them off over her hands. The four end
links were all connected together with a single lock.

The only concession to clothing that Trish would agree to was a pair of
thin knee pads that Sam now buckled on her legs. She would have to do a
lot of crawling through the tight, low passageways. Much more than on
the way in, with her ankles now chained closely together.

Sam watched as Trish awkwardly struggled to get her backpack closed and
onto her back by reaching over her shoulders with both hands to catch
the straps, and then buckle them in front of her. The two stood up and
embraced each other tenderly. Sam brushed the hair from his wife's
face.

"I'm going to miss you, Trish," he said.

"I'll miss you too darling."

"No you won't," he said with mock seriousness.

Trish laughed, the echo rolling brightly around the cavern. She hugged
him tighter.

"Thank you, Sam. For giving this time to me."

Sam held his wife at arms length, his hands on her wrist chains. "Be
careful Trish," he told her. "You have enough food and water. If you
get into trouble, don't try and push yourself. Wait for me to come for
you. All right?"

"I will," she said. "And don't worry, I'll be alright."

Sam moved to lift his pack and the lantern from the floor. He turned to
Trish. She looked small to him in the empty expanse of the cavern. Like
a little, lost, chained girl. One who would soon be alone and blind,
feeling her way through miles of twisting and turning passageways.

Trish stood watching her husband watching her. She gave him a small
smile, hoping it didn't look too forced. But deep inside, she was
trembling with barely suppressed excitement. Ever since they'd begun
discussing her doing something like this, the idea of it had fueled her
fantasies. Now, here she was, about to be left alone. Chained and
helpless in the dark with miles of twisting paths to try and follow.
Trish felt her stomach flutter and her clit twitch. She moved her legs
closer together to hide the slick wetness that she felt was growing and
threatening to run down her leg. She smiled again and raised her hands
to wave at Sam.

Sam turned and crossed the chamber, pausing at the exit to glance back
at Trish. Then, mentally shaking his head in wonderment, he moved into
the tunnel and was gone.

It only took Sam a day and a half to reach the entrance to the caves.
There, he rigged a rope between two trees and hung the flag up. He tied
the flag to the trunk of one of the trees so Trish would only have to
pull on the rope to center the flag between them. The flag had
reflective tape on it so Sam would be able to see it at night by
shining a spotlight across the valley. Assuming Trish ever made it out
of the caverns on her own.

As he made his way down the mountain side and into the valley, Sam
wondered again why anyone would want to put themselves through what his
wife was now going through. He'd marked out the hazardous parts of the
caves with ropes, so he knew Trish wasn't in any real danger in there.
But to stumble around, chained hand and foot, in the dark, it really
didn't seem to make any sense. Yet, even on those times when he knew
Trish was having doubts about doing it, he'd seen that spark of life
burning brightly in her eyes and he knew that it was something that
she really wanted to try.

Sam got started the next day in painting the bedroom of the cottage.
That job occupied two days. Then he emptied out the big china cabinet
and separated the two halves. These he dragged out to the shed to begin
stripping off the many layers of paint. Once the old finish was removed
and the wood sanded down, Sam saw the beauty of the old wood shining
through. He stained the piece and varnished it and, when it was dry, he
hauled the parts back inside and assembled it again.

Each time Sam passed by the telescope in the front window, he'd stop
and look for the flag Trish would raise when she got out. Sam would
look perhaps twenty times a day and at night, he'd wake up, go to the
window, and switch on the powerful spotlight to search for the sign
that his wife had made it out Ok.

Days passed; five days, eight. Ten. Still no flag. Two more days and
he would go after her.

In bed that night, Sam heard a voice calling to him. A happy woman's
voice, whooping and hollering out in joy. "Damn teenagers from town,"
he thought. Sam sat bolt upright in bed and strained to hear. Grabbing
a robe, he ran to the cabin door and flung it open. He looked across
the valley to see a bonfire on the ledge before the cave.

"Whooo hawww!" the voice called out. It was Trish.

"Trish-aaa!" Sam called back across the dark.

"Sam! I made it!" the voice echoed back to him.

"Stay there, I'm coming!"

Sam hurriedly dressed and then grabbed a lantern and the pack he'd
prepared. Into the pack went a bottle of wine and some cheeses from
the fridge. Then he headed out into the darkness to see his beloved.

Trish was a sorry sight when Sam reached the rocky ledge outside the
cave. She was covered in bruises from head to toe and scraped up in
many places as well. She had nasty looking cuts on her forehead and her
hair was matted and crusty in places with dried blood.

Yet it was her eyes that told the true tale. They shone brightly with
an inner glow of life, spilling over.

Her face lit up when she saw Sam and she ran to him, her chains
tinkling brightly and still binding her hands and feet. Trish threw
herself against her husband and, dispite Sam's shock on seeing her
physical condition, he felt the inner fire of the vibrant life within
her.

"Did you have a nice time, my pet?" Sam asked, jokingly keeping his
voice even.

Trish couldn't answer. She clung tightly to him, trembling with
uncontrolled passions. Sam had thoughtfully brought along a blanket and
the two made hot wild love, right there on the rocky ledge by the
firelight. They drank the wine and ate the cheese with crackers while
watching dawn's light spill over the hills and into the valley. They
made love again, even more passionately than before. Then, sated
finally, Sam unlocked Trish's chains and led her back down through the
valley to their little cabin.

Three weeks later, Trish's bruised and wounded body all but healed,
they drove out of the mountains and back to their apartment in town.
Trish has never spoken of her experiences alone in the caves, and Sam
has not pressed for details. He knows that when she's ready, she will
tell him of her time alone in the dark caverns. But there is no denying
that the experience had etched a warm healthy glow upon her soul. Trish
now has a bit more spring in her step, and at times, for no real
reason, her lips will twist into a bright smile. A glowing calm will
envelope her as she reminisces on some aspect of her time alone in the
caves.

   Hey Sam:

Peter's second letter starts,

   I knew you wouldn't be back before the deadline for entering the
   contest so I filled out a form for you and Trish. Hope you don't
   mind. You can always say no if they call you. Sue and I have entered
   it. Might be fun.

   Hope you two had fun in the mountains. Tell me all about it
   sometime.

   Peter.


Sam clicked over to the Home Showcase website and followed the link for
the Surviver Contest. "Yes," Sam thought as he read, "it could be fun.
A million dollars would be nice too."

   _________________________________________________________