“I think I’m ready to tell you one of my secrets,” she said, a blush creeping up her cheeks. This was it! We had been dating for over a month now and she was finally going to open up to me. I mean, I’m not one of those ‘touchy-feely’ guys who needs to have a good cry every few days to stay connected with his feelings. But up until now, Vanessa had been a virtual Ice Princess. She was great in bed – hot, aggressive, almost like a tigress. And she was a knock-out. I’d never dated anyone who could turn heads just by walking into the bar. And she dressed to kill – stilettos seemed to be her shoe of choice (which suited me fine – I was naturally taller than her but when she was wearing those 4 inchers, she was actually a tad taller than me). Tight leather skirts, silk blouses – she was the complete package.

And she was nice too. Not the bitch type that always went hand in hand with the looks that she had. Honestly, I still didn’t know why she even dated me. She was far and away the sexiest, prettiest girl I had ever taken out. But I knew little about her. We had our deep discussions, sure. But they were always about me – where did I come from (two states away – I’m a transplant), how close was I to my family (not very close), whether I liked my job or not (I don’t and would jump at another opportunity if it came up, no questions asked). Never any deep discussion about her. She would always blush a little, sexily look away (and that, in itself, was usually enough to make me stop thinking about the question I’d just asked her and instead want to discover what she was wearing under that silk top) and then murmur that she didn’t want to tell me her secrets just yet. That I might be scared away.

But tonight was different. And I could almost feel it before she’d said that she wanted to tell me one of her secrets. She’d met me at the door of her smallish house (she rented from a distant uncle) dressed in the flimsy black teddy that meant only one thing – fucking time was coming. She already had a martini in each hand, sipping from hers as I took mine.

“This is going to be a special night, Marty,” she said, that familiar blush rising across her cheeks. I took a sip from my martini – dry gin, the good stuff – and took her hand as she led me immediately to the back bedroom. She kept her house immaculately. Almost Spartan. Everything had a place and that’s where everything was. Even though it was only 6:30 and the sun was still blazing, Vanessa had all the shades pulled and she’d lit candles everywhere. Enya played softly from the stereo and a patchouli haze gave her place a mellow tone. Yes, indeed, this was already starting to feel pretty damn special.

Her bedroom, a place in which I wasn’t exactly a stranger, was almost pitch black, save for the two candles lit on each nightstand. She led me in and turning, took my martini with a smile, placing both drinks on the dresser top, now only a quivering black shape in the flickering candle light. She pressed close to me, her heels bringing her lips to me easily, and her kiss was gentle, almost tentative. I let my hands roam to the small of her back and squeezed her soft and creamy ass cheeks, bare below the boning of the leather teddy. She moaned into my mouth and suddenly her tongue plunged in, pushing mine back, taking control of my mouth, and I pressed her body tightly to mine.

The kiss went on for a long time – wonderful bliss that was two bodies, hot for each other, joining at one of the two intimate places. The other joining was sure to follow. But she pulled away, and her eyes dancing in the flickering candlelight, she whispered, “I think I’m ready to tell you one of my secrets.”

“Are you sure-“ I started, but she placed a finger to my lips. Even in this low light, I could see the color filling her face. Drawing her finger down past my lips and chin, she started un-buttoning my shirt. When half the buttons were off, she pulled my shirt down over my shoulders so that it bunched at my elbows. Her lips pressed against the skin of my chest, her teeth finding each nipple and playfully biting. I sucked in air and closed my eyes. I wasn’t even sure I needed to hear her secret – if it meant diverting her attention from where it was focused now, to hell with her secret. She could tell me over coffee tomorrow morning.

Her lips were off me then, and when I opened my eyes, she was gone. I turned my head and felt her breath in my ear. “If I tell you one of my secrets, do you promise not to tell anyone else?” This was followed by her tongue licking around the flesh of my earlobe, her breath hot on my skin. I nodded. Tell anyone else – who the fuck cared? Just don’t stop.

Then her arms were around me from behind and I felt her naked breasts pressing into my back. Her lips were on my neck, sometimes kissing and sucking, sometimes biting. Her hands dropped to my belt buckle and in seconds the belt was undone as well as the buttons of my pants. Her voice was again in my ears. “It’s a little like a gag order. In fact, gag is the best word.”

I sucked in air as her hands dove between the flesh of my hips and the cotton of my briefs and then the cool air of her bedroom drew goose bumps along the skin of my legs as both my pants and undies slid to the floor. Now, it was just the shirt bunched around my elbows and my shoes and socks. Somewhere, deep in my mind, I told myself that Friday’s didn’t get any better.

“So here is my first little secret”, she purred in my ear. “I like to tie up guys. Is that ok with you?” Her hands curled around my hips and found the skin of my inner thighs. The smell of her hair was in my nose, her breasts were pressed against my back, her breath was on my neck, her fingers were getting closer and closer to my balls and throbbing dick – she could have told me she fucks bulls in the wee hours of every Thursday after midnight bowling and I wouldn’t have given a fuck, so long as she kept touching me.

I nodded. “Fine,” I moaned. She giggled from behind me and pressed her entire body into me, her hands finding my balls and cupping them warmly.

“Oh, thank you, Marty! My last two boyfriends freaked when they heard that. Tommy and Mikey. Remember I told you about them?”

I leaned my head back onto her shoulder, eyes again closed, her fingers caressing my balls the only thing in my world. “Fuck them.”

Her fingers squeezed firmly and a shudder raced through me. Then it was her breath in my ear and her voice following. “Would you let me tie you up? Just once?”

I was going to cum if her fingers kept going and that cumming wasn’t so bad – no, not bad at all. In fact, it was going to be fucking great. One big great fucking cum. But then she stopped and my eyes opened again.

“Would you let me tie you up, Marty? Just this once?” Her fingers were just sitting there, cupping my balls, my throbbing dick poised to unleash hell on her command – but she’d stopped too early. Oh yeah, there would be a special delivery coming, but it was still a few streets away. She’d asked me a question, a question, what the fuck was it? Tie me up or something. Why not?

“Sure, Vanessa.”

She shuddered against me and her fingers resumed their gently teasing. “Oh, thank you, Marty. You’ll love it.” She kissed my neck again and then she was gone – smell of hair, hot flesh pressed against me, fingers stroking my balls – all gone. Fuck!

I turned and she was standing there, a few feet from me, looking intently into my eyes. “Marty. I’m serious. This is very important to me.” She seemed on the verge of tears. She looked so fucking vulnerable and so fucking sexy. “I have to ask you again, without me touching you.” She spoke slowly and precisely. “Will you let me tie you up? Make you helpless. Put you at my mercy.”

She shuddered as she spoke the last, and I could tell she really got off on this. Man, all I wanted to do right then was give her a huge hug, wrap her in my arms, and hold her all night long. But that wasn’t what she wanted. I could see that in her eyes. This was about something more than fucking. I could see that now. She was opening up to me. She was telling me something that she knew could drive me away, maybe forever. And she trusted me. That was the biggest thing that hit me then, standing in her room with my pants around my ankles and my shirt hanging from my waist. She wanted me enough to trust me with something that hurt to reveal. Fuck. I was so into her.

“Vanessa, you can do whatever you want with me. Tie me up, spank me, ride me like a dog around the front room – if that’s what you want.” I smiled. Actually, the spanking part didn’t appeal to me, or the being ridden like a dog part, but I doubted that she would take things that far. I had a pretty good idea that I would spend the night handcuffed to the bed while she did her best to lord over me, and in the morning, maybe she would let me handcuff her to the bed. That would be kind of cool.

She flashed a smile that seemed to stop at her eyes. “Thank you, Marty. You don’t know how happy this makes me. Now, turn around.” Her voice had sunken a little, become a little icy. I guessed this fit with the whole scene. Feeling the grin on my face a bit forced, I turned my back to her. Next, I would hear the clink of handcuffs as they came out from under the panties in her drawer – their usual hiding spot. Next to the big knobbed vibrator. Now my grin was real. Why did I think she would keep the cuffs hidden next to a vibrator? Because that was how my porn stash had survived my teen years at home, that’s how. Intelligent minds think alike.

But I didn’t hear the clink of handcuffs. In fact, I didn’t hear much of anything. The swish of air as she moved about behind me and odd scraping sounds. On the one occasion when I started to turn, she had scolded me coolly and told me that bad boys did get spanked. Then her voice had softened and she said that she was feeling like she might tell me another of her secrets, things were going so well.

Wow, two secrets in one night. I could hardly contain myself. Actually, her room was getting a little chill and the mysterious noises behind me were making me just a little curious and uneasy. I did hear the clinking of metal once and what sounded like something being flopped on the floor. But I decided to play this one out. She had opened up to me, after all. We were beyond making progress – I was on the inside with this girl, this fucking beautiful girl. What had the two dweeb boyfriends, Mikey and Tommy, been thinking? So what if she likes a little kinky play?

Something dropped over my head and for a second I thought, snakes! But then, it was about my neck and being tightened. “Wha-“ I gurgled, then my throat was painfully scrunched.

Her voice in my ear, a whisper, but not the soft and gentle whispers of earlier. This was hard and cold. “Don’t move. I’ve placed a rope about your neck that will tighten if you move even the slightest. It’s threaded through a pulley in the ceiling and one good pull from me will take you off your feet and may break your neck. Understand? Marty?” She bit into the back of my shoulder blade and when I flinched from the pain I felt the rope tighten. I could hear my heart beating in my ears and my head felt overly warm.

“Now, dear Marty, put your hands behind your back.” What the fuck was happening? Who the fuck was this bitch? “Not fast enough, Marty.” I felt the rope tighten even more about my neck and I hurriedly clasped my hands together behind my back.

“Thank you, Marty. You’re being just great about this.” Neutral voice. Fuck! This was some intense shit! Her secrets weren’t secrets at all – they were sound bites from the loony bin.

My shirt was ripped the rest of the way off my back and then she went to work on tying my wrists together with what seemed like miles of rope. Around and around she went, looping and coiling and finding another way to loop and coil. Then she walked the ropes up my arms, pulling and tightening until there was rope wrapped around me all the way to my shoulders. And it was killing me. It fucking hurt! It took her a full ten minutes of tugging and tying before she was satisfied and came around in front of me.

Unlike the image that had gotten into my mind, she hadn’t turned into a demon. She was still just Vanessa, beautiful, knock-out Vanessa, who, by the way, liked to hang guys in her bedroom until they were wrapped up like flies in a spider web. She seemed hot – her bangs were plastered to her forehead with sweat and little beads of sweat stood out on her skin. I didn’t give a shit – I was almost blacking out from lack of air.

“How are you doing, Marty? Are you into this?” This time she didn’t bother to wait for a reply. Instead she smirked and checked the rope that was digging into my neck. “My, that got tight didn’t it? And you weren’t even struggling.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “Do you want me to loosen it? Should I let you breath a little, Marty?”

Fuck yes! God damn! I nodded.

She smiled, eyes icy. “Can you beg me, Marty? Can you whimper like a dog? Whimper for some air?”

What the fuck…

She suddenly reached over my head and pulled the rope tight. I saw stars and blackness approaching. I heard myself whimpering, then howling, then begging in gibberish to loosen the rope. Distantly I heard her asking me questions – did I want to hear another secret? Would I suffer some more to hear another secret? I didn’t know and didn’t care what she was saying – I was agreeing to everything. Death is something you really only want to face when you are old and shitting little turds into a wheel-chair at a nursing home. Not naked and tied up in your girlfriend’s bedroom with your pants around your ankles.

Her eyes filled my vision and it was many moments before the stars went away. She was kissing me softly on numb lips and again I smelled her hair. This time I wanted to vomit. She had my pants and shoes and socks off me and had wrapped rope about my knees. I still stood almost on tip toes to keep the little flow of air coming into me so I didn’t really notice when she attached a loop of cord around my balls. I felt it a few seconds later when she pulled the other end and pain sizzled deep in my belly.

Now. A guy’s balls are not made to be fucked with. All guys know this fact. Fucking with a guy’s balls can result in some serious damage. Catching a baseball in the nuts leaves a guy limping for a week. Get your nuts caught in your undies and it doesn’t matter what restaurant you are in – you’re digging those babies out right now. They protect themselves from cold by crawling deep into your body. They are not made to be looped by a noose and yanked. Which is what Vanessa was doing right now.

In fact, she was yanking so hard that I was unconsciously making the choice of cutting off my air supply just to move in a way that didn’t hurt my balls any more than they were being hurt. “Poor baby,” Vanessa cooed. “Pulled by your balls and tied at your neck. What a horrible position to be in.”

She was in front of me, eyes only inches from mine. “I’m ready to tell you another of my secrets. First, we have to go someplace.”

The pressure on my balls was gone, but they were still trapped in that tight noose and I could feel them getting cold. When Vanessa let the rope about my neck go slack, I fell to the floor. But I wasn’t able to break the fall with my hands – they were lost to five miles of rope behind me. My head hit hard and thundering buzzing lead the curtain of darkness. Gradually, I became aware of soft hands caressing my cheeks and forehead, lips brushing mine. She kneeled next to me, holding my head on her thighs, and stroked my hair.

“I’m sorry, Marty. I didn’t know you were going to fall that fast. That’s the first time that happened.”

I tried to pull my head out of her hands but she held me fast. “Please, Vanessa, let’s stop this. I’m not ready for this. OK?”

“Ohhh, Marty. I love it when you beg like that. You don’t know what that does for me. Keep begging.”

This was some piece of work. My head hurt like shit. My balls felt like two cold slabs of sausage, my arms were going numb. “Vanessa, this is bullshit. Let me up.”

“Say please, Marty.” Her hands had stopped caressing my face gently. Now they just held my head against her thighs.

“Vanessa…”

I hadn’t known she had the other end of the cord that bound my balls in her hands. Otherwise, I may have said at least one ‘please’. Without warning, she pulled, hard, and I screamed. “Fuck! Oh - fuck!”

“Marty.” She loosened her grip. “You should pretty much do what I ask. Now, beg.”

I took a deep breath. Hopes of this relationship surviving this one were dropping by the second. “Vanessa, would you please untie me? Please?”

She pulled again, harder, and I screamed again, louder. “Why would I release you before you heard my second little secret?” She pulled again and now a cauldron of burning lead was being poured all over the fleshy tissue of my large intestines.

“OK! OK! Fuck!” I drew in breath, trying to ignore the agony. “Please tell me your second secret. Please, Vanessa, oh pretty fucking please.”

She sat up and my head thumped to the floor. “Very well, as long as you are so strongly wanting to hear my secret. But I have to show you something first.”

She now stood over me, a beautiful goddess in heels and a leather teddy, probably the quintessential late night fantasy of every man. But this goddess had my balls in a rope and was sardonically pulling me to my feet with excruciating little tugs. It was no small feet, to stand up, when you were tied the way I was. And she didn’t help me either. After much screaming and thrashing, by me, and laughing, by her, I stood before her. She was much taller than me now that my shoes were off. For the first time, I felt a ripple of terror race through me. Where was this going, exactly? Obviously, I didn’t know this woman at all. And now I was helpless to her towering form. She’d told me one secret and look where that had got me. Could I afford to hear any more?

With a smile and a tug to my balls, she led me back through her house. Candles still burned, incense still smoldered. Outside, normal people still lived their happy, safe lives. Here, in Loonyville, I was naked and tied and being led by the balls to my girlfriend’s basement door. I’d never been in Vanessa’s basement – never had the need to go there. “I suppose this is where you keep your dungeon?”

She met my sarcasm with a firm tug on my ball-leash, opened the door to the basement, flicked on the light, and led me down, down down. It was damp and smelled like every other basement – a mixture of dust and molding cardboard and mouse shit. And it was no dungeon.

She led me to the back room, a room that was lined with shelves filled with boxes and bags and everything that would be stored in a basement. She turned towards me and kissed me full on the lips. Then pulled back. “Mikey didn’t like to be tied. Remember I told you we worked together? Well, after I tied him up, he decided to tell everyone at work that I was a dominatrix.” Her eyes flared and even in the weak light from the overhead bulb, I could see she was furious. “Do you know how hard it is to go to work and hear people make whipping noises behind your back? Or to sit in a meeting and have to listen to ‘whip me, beat me, wrap me in chains’ jokes? Or how about having a reference to your personal life brought up in a performance review – as in, ‘Vanessa should try harder to keep her personal life out of the workplace.’” She pulled viciously on my balls and I grunted, too tired to scream. “No. You don’t. Neither did Mikey.” Then she smiled. “But Mikey got his.”

The touch of terror that I’d felt before was now a flood to my system. This wasn’t good. Not at all. Vanessa wasn’t all there. How far gone, I didn’t know. But she was calling the shots. And that was the not good part.

Vanessa looped the end of the cord binding my balls to a nail that was stuck in a wooden beam, effectively making sure I wouldn’t make a run for it. Like I had any chance in hell of getting back up those stairs tied the way I was – getting down without falling was a miracle in itself. Turning, she walked over to one of the shelves and I caught myself watching the creamy skin of her ass as she moved. Man, what the fuck went wrong?

“Tommy – he was different than Mikey. I met him at a bar, like you. He was into the bondage thing. Except he wanted to tie me up. Can you believe that? Let a guy tie me up?” She laughed and the sound chilled me to the bone. She was working one of the sections of shelves away from the wall and I realized that it was actually on wheels. Loaded as it was and small as she was, it still rolled away rather effortlessly, revealing a small half-door in the wall. There was a heavy-duty latch and lock on the door.

“Tommy liked to spank me when I was tied. I don’t like to be spanked. Not at all. For one thing, it hurts. For another,” she stood on tiptoes and slid a key off the top of one of the shelves, “it is demeaning. A little girl gets spanked for being bad.” She glanced back at me as she unlocked the heavy padlock, a sly smile on her beautiful face. “A naughty boy – well, he deserves to be spanked.” She straightened and brushed the bangs out of her eyes. “But not a woman. A woman should never be tied, nor spanked. Tommy got his.”

With a loud groan, she opened the half-door. Suddenly, I felt myself needing to pee. Then she disappeared in the darkness beyond the little door. I was fucked. Seriously. Whatever that room had been before Vanessa had rented the house, a root cellar, a crawl space, I sure the fuck didn’t want to go in there. Not when she hid it behind shelves. Not when she locked it with a big padlock. Whatever went on in that room was bad. Very very bad.

I tried to even move a muscle in my arms and couldn’t – they were already numb, my fingers nothing more than cool slabs of meat. My legs were tied at the knees and it would take some gymnastics to get up the stairs. Oh yeah, and my balls were tied to a beam. I wasn’t going anywhere. Except in that room. That fucking room.

A light suddenly came through the door and Vanessa followed shortly, strands of cobwebs stuck in her hair, a glowing smile on her face. She walked over and undid the nut-leash, then winked at me. “I’m ready to tell you my second secret.”

I tried to back away. “No, Vanessa. I don’t want to hear any more secrets. Listen, why don’t we stop telling secrets and go back upstairs – OWWWWCH”

She had given my balls a solid tug. “Oh no, Marty. You’re inside now. Once you hear the first secret, you have to hear all three.” With a not-so-gentle pull, she led me to the small door.

Three secrets! Would I be alive to even hear the second?

It was a root cellar. Or it had been. Standard dirt floor, walls carved out of the bedrock and dirt that the rest of the house sat on. But it was no longer a root cellar. Vanessa, my darling girlfriend, had done some re-decorating. Whips and straps and crops and canes and ropes and chains and gags and harnesses and spikes and numerous other devices that I didn’t have a name for had been hung from hooks in the walls. But that wasn’t the part that caused me to finally void my bladder on the dirt floor. It wasn’t the chairs with spikes sticking out of the seat and it wasn’t the wooden X with straps and buckles and it wasn’t the bench that looked suspiciously like a stretching rack. It was the cages. Two of them. Both were filled.

Vanessa slid behind me and rubbed her hands up and down my chest, ignoring the smell of piss that came from the hot puddle I’d just left on her floor. Hours ago, I would have welcomed her touch. Minutes ago, I would have flinched away from it. Now, I barely felt her.

In one cage crouched a soiled and whimpering man. He looked out at me through the bars, his mangled lips sown together.

“That’s Mikey,” Vanessa cooed. “Remember, he was the one who talked about me too much at work?”

The other figure wasn’t even able to crouch. His arms and legs seemed like they were one – what looked like incredibly thin wire bound his arms together in front of him as well as his legs and both sets looked as if gangrene had set in.

“Tommy. He was always into the total immobility thing. I spank him sometimes just to keep his circulation going, but it looks like he’s overdue.”

“Vanessa,” I whispered. It was all I could do.

She came around in front of me and kissed my unmoving lips. “And this is my second secret. I never actually stopped seeing my other boyfriends, Mikey and Tommy. In fact, I can see them whenever I want.”

The one with the sown lips – Mikey – looked at me and a mixture of rage and pain flooded his face. A single tear squeezed out of one eye. Tommy merely regarded me with dull eyes. It came to me that he was already insane.

I turned to look at Vanessa. She smiled at me, eyes dancing. She was insane too. And there was nothing I could do about it. “Vanessa, let me go. I haven’t done anything. Please, please…” Panic raced through me and suddenly I was crying. I had thought that getting tied up was feeling helpless. That was nothing compared to this.

Vanessa wiped the tears from my face, softly cooing. “Now, now, Marty. You still have one secret to hear.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s the last one and it’s the most important. Are you ready?”

I nodded my head. What did it matter now?

She leaned in and gave me a wonderful kiss. “The third secret is this: You haven’t done anything to hurt me, Marty. Yet.”

I looked at her, not understanding. She sighed heavily and suddenly the back of her hand smashed against my face. The buzz was back and a trickle of blood ran down my chin. “You haven’t hurt me yet, Marty, but you will. It’s only a matter of time. Just like every other man I’ve dated and loved.” She looked around the room at Mikey and Tommy. “You think these are the only men who have fucked me over?” She smiled at me and wiped blood from my lips. “I’ve got a boneyard in the back, Marty,” she whispered.

She straightened, gave me a quick kiss and tied the end of the ball-tether to a hook in the wall. Then she went to the door, fingers on the little light switch. “By the way, I do love you, Marty. That’s why you’re here.”

With a quick flick of her fingers, the light was gone. The moan of the door swinging shut was followed by the padlock snapping closed, though that sound was muffled. I imagined I could hear the sound of shelves being slid back into place. But it didn’t matter. In fact, nothing much mattered now.