'I never did ask you why you came back,' said Melanie, in a voice that reflected the relief and refreshment she felt.
The time was now six in the evening and Brendan had just removed the gag from his captive's mouth. Melanie had been comparatively comfortable throughout the afternoon, lying on her side and enjoying the luxury of having no pain in wrists or ankles. The gag itched and made her drool as usual, and her mouth felt dry. But, although she knew that with a lot of effort she could probably have worked it loose one way or another, she had not attempted to. She had instead followed Brendan's advice - he had haltingly told her his first name - managing to sleep for a couple of hours, listening to the soft sounds made by the old house in between its silences. The sounds had soothed her to sleep. She had not tried to call for help once.
'I left you tied too tight,' Brendan explained, 'and I worried that something might happen, that you'd choke or lose the use of your hands if the circulation was completely cut off. I couldn't afford to forget you, didn't want to become a murderer, didn't want any serious harm to befall you. That would have stayed on my conscience.' Brendan too was refreshed from sleeping on the living room lounge and his mood was more open towards Melanie. Not to mention that the recurrent bulge in his jeans continued to distract him.
'Well you did come in the nick of time,' Melanie agreed. 'I felt so hot and faint, and I think I blacked out a few times when I was struggling.'
'To be accurate, you whited out,' said Brendan. 'The blood didn't rush to your face like with a blackout.'
'All I know is, I was so relieved when I felt you untying me,' Melanie continued, 'that I thought foolish things. I felt you were sort of a hero come to rescue me. I enjoyed being rescued.'
'More than the feeling of being tied up?' countered Brendan.
'How can you expect me to like that?' the young woman asked in surprise.
'There's an SAS survival book in there on the coffee table, bookmarked at an interesting page.'
'Oh that.' Melanie felt herself blushing. 'I'm writing a novel, a sort of romantic thriller, and I'm putting my heroine into a dangerous situation. You see, the housekeeper and her husband are operating a drug ring and my heroine finds out about it. But before she can warn her boyfriend the detective she's seized and kept bound and gagged in the attic.'
'Doesn't sound very original, if you don't mind me saying.'
'Oh it isn't,' Melanie went on. 'The idea is to write a parody of the genre. I was reading that safety manual to find out a little about being bound and gagged. Getting to know the technical ropes. Only now that I've experienced it at first hand I don't think being gagged and tied is especially funny.' Melanie grimaced and lifted her wrists expressively, still secured firmly behind her back by the strip of bedsheet. 'I guess I've learnt my lesson,' she went on. 'I was even fantasising about being tied up when I came into this bedroom and found you waiting for me.'
'You'd better get used to it,' said Brendan. 'I'm out of here in another couple of hours when it's darker, and I have to prevent you from calling the cops until I've had a chance to get well away.'
Melanie's face grew pale and her lower lip trembled momentarily.
'Don't worry, I won't rope you up like before,'Brendan added hastily. 'I've learnt my lesson too. You'll be well secured, but I'll set you up so that you can get free after working an hour or two on it.'
'You'll use the roll of tape you've got in that bag, won't you?' Melanie could not hide the quaver of apprehension in her voice.
Brendan nodded. 'Compare two hours at the most against spending a whole night trussed up, more or less. It won't be so bad.'
Melanie shrugged and looked down at her bound ankles and then across her shoulder at her fastened wrists. 'I don't have much choice, have I?'
'None.'
The young woman sighed. Then she lifted her head bravely to face him and said, 'Can I use the bathroom again, and have another drink of water?'
'You can have more than that,' said Brendan. 'What about preparing us both some dinner? It's a good way of putting off the inevitable, for a little while anyway.'
*
An hour later Melanie and Brendan were sitting at the dinner table in the small room attached to the living area. The empty plates in front of them had recently held spaghetti bolognaise made expertly by Melanie. A depleted wine bottle stood on the table between them. The nearly empty glasses in their hands had contained red wine.
The svelte young woman dabbed her lips with a snow-white table napkin of fine linen and sat back in her chair. She had used the bathroom, showered, and changed into a narrow ankle-length satiny skirt slit to one thigh. The skirt was blue, contrasting nicely with a pink blouse of almost sheer silk that was tucked into it at the waist and held by a wide black satin sash. Although it was an evening meal at home with her burglar, as she found herself calling Brendan in her thoughts, Melanie had taken the trouble to wear sheer black stockings and black high-heeled shoes. Her hair was brushed out so that it framed her face, coming to just above her shoulders and the wide lapels of the blouse. A judicious application of makeup - Melanie did not believe in doing more than subtly enhancing her naturally fresh complexion - completed her self-presentation.
Brendan had not been able to take his eyes off her all evening. He felt wet and unconmfortable. Melanie knew the impression she was having on him and was wickedly enjoying the situation. The tables were turned. Melanie was no longer the captive, temporarily at any rate.
They had talked about a lot of things, to the extent that it seemed incongruous to Melanie that she would find herself trussed up again when Brendan chose shortly to leave. In a way, she did not want Brendan to go, but she couldn't show that she was interested in him too easily. Perhaps there was another way of sorting this out.
'Have you ever thought of going straight?' she asked suddenly.
It was Brendan's turn to grow pale. 'Wh ... what?' he stammered.
'I mean,' said Melanie sweetly, 'over your second glass of wine you were saying how you didn't really steal much of any value from the houses you visited. You selected the houses for your victims, because - and let's be frank about it - you enjoy tying up women. Pretending to be a burglar gives you a sort of excuse, a pretty flimsy one in my opinion, to pursue your hobby. I'm right aren't I?'
Bendan nodded unhappily as Melanie continued.
'So let me be frank too. I like you, Brendan whatever-your-other-name is. You're too nice a guy to spend time in prison. And they'll catch up with you one day. You can't be lucky all the time. Or one day you'll tie someone up just that extra bit too tight and they'll be badly hurt, or worse. It almost happened with me, and you know how badly you felt about that. So I'm going to suggest something to you. When you go, truss me up as thoroughly as you like, but arrange it so I can get free the way you were saying earlier. I won't tell the police. Instead, I'll be here - after my two week's holiday - and when you feel that you want to tie up a woman, come to me. Surprise me in my room again, or in the hallway. I live alone. There won't be anyone around. But you'll 'case the joint' anyway. I won't know when I might be seized from behind or open a door and find you there, masked, with a piece of rope in your hands.'
'Would you like that?' asked Brendan with growing comprehension.
Melanie lowered her gaze, which had been fixed sternly on Brendan's eyes all the while, and blushed prettily. She nodded her head, and with a deep breath admitted, 'I think I would. But only provided that I can feel safe, that I know nothing bad is really going to happen to me.'
'How do you know you can trust me?'
'I know!' Melanie said firmly. 'If you were a really mean person it would have happened a long time ago. I'd be well and truly raped by now. I wouldn't have had those luxuries of a shower and a change of clothes. I wouldn't have been looked after, the way you looked after me when I fainted from the ropes. Massaged. Kissed ...'
'That was EAR ...'
Melanie shook her head decisively. 'I know a kiss when I'm given one. You might have started out to give me the breath of life - and I'm deeply indebted to you for that - but don't think I didn't notice when you went on just a litle longer than was really necessary to make sure I was breathing properly. I know first aid too.'
'Okay,' said Brendan thoughtfully, 'I might just try that.' He lifted his head, 'I like you, you know.'
'I know,' she said. 'That's why I feel safe with you.'
'So where do we go from here?' asked Brendan.
Malanie looked across the rooms to the kitchen clock. It was almost 9.30. 'Leave the dishes. I'll do them in the morning. I think perhaps you'd better have a shower yourself, and freshen up before you go. You can use the en suite off my bedroom. I'll get you a towel.'
Melanie caught up with Brendan, a towel in her hands, as he reached the bedroom door. Physically, the guest burglar felt sweaty and itchy under his shirt, which he had not taken off since the day before. Mentally, he was in a confused state and hardly knew what he was doing. The shower would do him good, might clear his head a little.
As he was about to enter the bathroom, Melanie put her hand on Brendan's arm and said, 'Aren't you forgetting something?'
'I, uhh, dunno ...' he began.
Melanie walked to the bed, picked up a piece of cord about a yard in length, and returned to her burglar. As though making a temple offering, she raised both hands and held the cotton ligature out to him. Brendan took it without thinking. Melanie turned and brought her arms behind her, crossing her wrists. 'Tie me tight.' Mechanically, his mind in greater turmoil than ever, Brendan bound Melanie's slim wrists together.
His brain might not have been thinking straight, but Brendan's hands were as sure as ever. The cord was turned twice around the woman's wrists horizontally, snugged tight, and tied off with a hard double knot. The translucent cuffs of Melanie's long-sleeved blouse served to cushion the bite of the fibres a little. There was still plenty of length available, and two more turns were made around the captive's wrists, this time vertically, so that Melanie's hands were fastened in an inescapeable criss-cross. Still there remained loose ends of rope. Brendan used them up by passing the two ends in opposite directions between Melanie's wrists, cinching the ties that were already in place. The last knot was pulled tight to the accompaniment of a soft intake of breath on the girl's part.
Melanie tested the bonds. She was well and truly tied. Turning to Brendan, she said, 'Let's make it a chair this time.'
A single chair with arm-rests and a tall, narrow back stood by one wall. Brendan placed it in the middle of the room, then lifted Melanie into it, raising her arms up and looping them over the back of the chair. Once in the seat, her arms fitted comfortably. Kneeling, Brendan bound and cinched slender ankles, thinking to remind himself that he must buy Melanie a new pair of stockings if the bonds ruined these. The woman's long satin skirt took the pressure of the cords that were now wound tightly around her legs, above and below the knees. More cord across her thighs over the seat of the chair, around her waist and the slats that made up the center part of the chair-back. Ankles fastened by a short cord to the central strut connecting the chair legs. Brendan's erection was throbbing. It had been wonderful to touch, and occasionally stroke those shapely calves and to feel the pretty woman's strong rounded thighs as he applied the ropes.
Now came another part he enjoyed doing. Brendan looped several coils of cord over Melanie's head and snugged them in place around her body below her breasts. The new satiny bra that Melanie was wearing could be seen clearly through the material of the blouse. It was a wonder to tighten the rope and watch as the young woman's back was pressed hard against the chair, her breasts raised and straining against the expensive sheer silk fabric of the blouse. It looked even better when a second set of coils were secured around Melanie above her breasts. The young woman strained energetically against the bindings but it was soon evident that she was totally helpless.
Brendan stood above her, his hands on his hips, and watched her useless struggles. 'You're helpless now,' he crowed in a good imitation of a music-hall villain, 'There's no escape my lovely.'
'You beast!' cried Melanie, joining in the game, 'Unhand me at once!'
'Much better for you to be 'unhammed' my dear,' Brendan punned atrociously.
'No, never will I be unhammed,' she exclaimed with a flirt of the head that was so pretty that it was all Brendan could do to stop himself from seizing Melanie straightway and stifling her with kisses.
Melanie continued, enjoying the game. 'You may have bound me, you villain, but I can still scream for help.' She added in an undertone, 'There's a clean table napkin in the dining room ... mmmph,' not finishing her sentence as Brendan thoughtfully stuffed a plain white silk scarf into her mouth.
He returned quickly from the dining room, a large square table napkin of fine linen in his hand, now folded into a narrow bandage with a knot tied in the center. Melanie was sitting with her head bowed, playing the role of a wilting heroine, the scarf still in place. But, as Brendan approached, she lifted her head and with a quick movement pushed the silk wad out of her mouth with her tongue.
'Before you put the gag on, there's something I'd like you to do for me.'
'What's that?'
'I'll have to whisper, it's kind of personal,' said Melanie, a twinkle in her eyes.
As Brendan knelt beside Melanie and brought his face close to hers, the sweet woman tilted her head back, showing a snowy expanse of throat. Her lips parted and found Brendan's before he understood what she was doing. After that first soft melting contact his response was no longer hesitant. Brendan took the exquisite, silken, yielding woman in his arms and kissed her long and deeply. There was little sound in the room aside from the digital clock on the bedside table, clicking off the seconds unendingly.
When their mouths drew apart at last, Melanie whispered breathlessly, 'Gag me. Tightly. And when you come out, fresh and sweet-smelling, take me to bed and split me in two. But untie me then. I'll try it later, while bound. But not right away.'
Brendan stuffed the white silk wedge between Melanie's jaws again, and followed it with the table napkin. The knot that filled the front of the young woman's mouth was almost the same texture against her lips as that of a silk scarf, if one had been used instead. Melanie watched as her burglar disappeared into the bathroom.
She bit down on the gags, the soft wadding and the hard linen knot, and felt entirely helpless. She was now experiencing a range of feelings different from those she had laboured under the night before. Then, she was terrified and struggling against bonds that were slow torture. Now, she felt exquisitely feminine in her helplessness, and impatient for Brendan's return. She was wet and horny, and the constriction of her bonds only heightened these facts. Unable to move or speak, she couldn't 'talk dirty' to the man she wanted for her lover. She could not call for him to come to her but had to wait impatiently. The suspense was excruciating. Every nerve in her was crying out for Brendan's attentions.
*
'My god that was wonderful.'
'You're wonderful,' Brendan replied sleepily. 'I'll have to clean up again.'
'You and me both.'
Brendan and Melanie lay intertwined beneath the satin sheets of the large bed, exhausted, and sated for the moment. Their love-making had been nothing short of incredible. Both had come many times. During the last two sessions Melanie had been tied, first spread-eagled across the bed, wrists and ankles fastened to the iron bed-posts, her sweet mouth gagged tightly with a scarf tied over her lips and face, her silken-lashed eyes blndfolded. The time after that, she remained gagged and blindfolded but with only her hands secured hehind her. The suspense of not knowing what Brendan was going to do next, because of her blindfold, and the feeliing of helplesness and vulnerability imparted by having her arms bound behind her, were surprisingly erotic experiences.
The clock showed 1.00 pm. 'Time to move,' said Brendan reluctantly. They showered together, savouring the last moments of their physical communion by soaping each other thoroughly, finishing off with quick body massages using real sponges with roughened surfaces so that their skin glowed.
In preparation for the stringent binding that was soon to follow, Melanie dressed in a pair of light-weight jeans and a smart white silk blouse, but one that was not as delicate or as expensive as the pink filmy number she had worn during dinner.
Brendan took great care with the taping. Melanie's ankles, crossed and taped together securely, were protected by the black sheer stockings she still wore. There would be less chance of losing skin when the tape was removed. Melanie's legs above and below the knees, and the young woman's thighs, were neatly bound under three or four layers of tape. Having them locked together in this way, so tightly from thighs to ankles, gave Melanie a delicious sense of impending helplessness. Her wrists were taped in such a way that it was as though they were held in sticky handcuffs. Once again, four layers of the tape went around, but the cinching allowed a gap of about two inches of tape between her wrists. Brendan explained that he would set up something from the tool kit, found stored in a laundry cupboard, on which Melanie could slowly saw the bonds apart. Arms and body above and below Melanie's neat uplifted breasts were wrapped in four layers. It was going to be hard to get out of this, she realised, even when she had succeeded in sawing through the wrist tapes.
She lay on the bedroom floor waiting for Brendan to return from the laundry, the knot of the almost silky linen napkin gag between her teeth as a temporary measure. They had agreed that she would have to be kept silent whenever Brendan was out of the room. When he re-entered, Brendan showed how he had wedged a broken piece of a saw blade into a wooden block. This he now jammed into the lower drawer of Melanie's dresser, taping the drawer in such a way that it could not be pulled open. This prevented the block with the saw blade from falling and perhaps going out of reach. 'Make sure you get the blade against the tape between your wrists, and saw gently,' he admonished Melanie. 'Don't go cutting your hands or wrists, okay?' The final touches now had to be made for the young woman's complete helplessness.
Brendan folded one of Melanie's plain silk squares into a triangle and gently tied it over her head in a Grace Kelly scarf style, wrapping the ends lightly across her throat and knotting them at the back of her neck. The scarf was left purposely loose. Next, after giving Melanie an especially long parting kiss, Bendan carefully wrapped layers of tape across her mouth and her lower face, around and around four times, smoothing and moulding the sticky material lovingly over the girl's lips, mouth and cheeks. The scarf, now drawn taut by the wrappings, protected the back and sides of Melanie's neck from the tape. The young woman had sensibly tied her hair up in a short pony tail with a blue ribbon to make this easier.
Melanie found that her lips were so firmly stuck together by the tape that it defied the trick of moistening them to loosen it. Nothing had been stuffed into her mouth this time - it was too risky to do such a thing - but Melanie found that she could make very little noise all the same, with her lips so tightly sealed together and her jaw firmly immobilised by the sticky wrappjngs. The experimental sounds she made so excited Brendan that for a moment he debated whether to remove Melanie's leg bindings and take her just once more. But there was really no time left. He had to get well away before first light.
Brendan made one final survey of the situation. Carefully he checked that the silk head scarf was loose at Melanie's throat so that it would not cause choking. 'Don't leave it too long before you start getting yourself free, dear love.' Melanie nodded in silent agreement to Brendan's exhortation. 'Can you breathe okay through your nose?' As she nodded affirmatively, Melanie's eyes were large above the gag, looking at Brendan in that unfathomable way which had so disturbed his equanimity at the beginning of it all. 'I'll never be too far away from you, Melanie.' Brendan held up the house key that he had been given earlier. 'You'll never know when I will strike next,' he added, slipping into the role of gothic villain. Shedding that role just as quickly as he had adopted it, Brendan took Melanie's head in his hands and kissed her on both temples. Then with silent cat-like movements he was gone, leaving the bedroom door ajar as another safety precaution.
Melanie lay in the sticky unyielding confinement for more than an hour, savouring her predicament. She found that if she struggled enough she could bring on a very satisfying orgasm, and this made her reluctant to begin work on effecting her own release. However, the growing flush of heat in her face from the combined occlusion of the head scarf and the tape was a warning signal that she would ignore at her peril, she knew, so she set about to free herself from the wrist bonds. She was soon rewarded by feeling the tape linking her wrists begin to part. Half an hour later Melanie was taking a luxurious early morning bath, getting the stiffness out of her arms, legs and shoulders, and sponging from her face the traces of adhesive left by the shiny gaffer's tape.
Now that Brendan had entered into her life, it would never be the same. And that had to apply to Bendan too, she thought. It had all started with a burglar and his luscious woman victim. But within the space of twenty-four hours they had become lovers and friends instead of captor and captive.
End.