Miranda sat at her computer, scanning the data on machine performance and looking for the tell-tale signs of impending issues. After a long day of programming, database maintenance, and control system recalibration, she always performed this check to help identify the machines that might break down in the next day or two. If she found anything, she’d schedule preventative maintenance to avoid the issue.

“Preventative maintenance,” she thought to herself. “I could use some of that.”

As she rolled through the reports and data, she did her best to ignore the flashing icon that indicated she had an instant message. The name on the icon told her all she needed to know – Bruce was looking to chat. She’d love to indulge him, to indulge herself in a lengthy conversation, but this simply wasn’t the time. Christmas was only two days away, and every elf was putting in as much time as they could to make sure every gift was selected, wrapped, and readied for delivery as rapidly as possible for Santa’s annual trip. Miranda wasn’t going to let the machines that she supported go down.

She stood to take a quick break, going to get a refill of cocoa from the machine just down the hall. Years ago, Santa had decided that the exploding population of the world meant that there was no possible way for the elves to keep up without significant help. When he’d started installing machines to help with select tasks, there’d nearly been a rebellion among his pointy-eared helpers. It just seemed wrong to them. Then he’d pulled out a chart showing population growth around the world, and everyone had calmed down.

Miranda had learned how to program early on, one of the first in elf school to do so. She’d found the work fascinating and demonstrated a true gift for it. Her hard work had resulted in amazingly efficient programs databases for list tracking, good and bad rating, inventory control, and machine control. Of course, it had been a group effort, but she was obviously great at what she did.

Unfortunately, the hours and the fact that most of the other elves had no idea what she did or how she did it left her largely isolated at the most isolated place in the world. While other elves preserved traditions of learning to sing, paint, carve wood, and other activities that required significant social interactions, Miranda found herself largely alone with her terminal and debugging window.

She sighed as she retrieved her cup and headed back to her desk and caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the glass front of the snack machine. She was tall for an elf, five feet four inches, and from what she’d seen on the Internet, she was a real catch in terms of looks. Her red hair and green eyes were relatively rare, even among the elves, and her proportions were quite pleasing to the eye. Full breasts that weren’t too large, shapely hips, well toned muscles from working out. Yes, she’d be quite a catch.

There was only one problem - her brains and work seemed to intimidate her fellow elves. The men seemed put off by someone who was almost obviously more intelligent than they were. And their free time (immediately after Christmas) was usually her busiest time as she and the other programmers sorted out improvements for the coming year. Combined, these factors kept her pretty much isolated to the other programmers, and none of them really caught her eye.

Which led her to Bruce. As she sat down at her computer, she switched to the blinking IM window, knowing what she’d find.

“I know you’re swamped,” he said, “but if you can find some time to play…”

She sighed, wishing she could do just that. She longed to chat with him for a few hours, then go tie herself up and fantasize until orgasms rocked her body. She’d discovered that she enjoyed bondage when she had been assigned the task of programming one of the first wrapping machines they’d received. It had conveyor belts, robotic arms, sensors, electronic eyes, and a complex interface to the gifts database to ensure that every present it wrapped was handled with the utmost care and appropriate to the recipient.

And it had given her fits. The sensors never seemed to size the package properly, the electronic eyes had gone blind for reasons nobody could explain, the robotic arms had occasionally grabbed tape instead of ribbon. In short, if it could go wrong, it did.

So Miranda had set her mind to fixing it in time to hit the deadline she’d been given. She’d nearly lived in the wrapping room for four straight days – writing code, testing, debugging, re-writing, and starting the whole process again. After three days, she’d noticed that one of the control units for a package of sensors had seemed to be providing inconsistent data. Of course, she’d discovered this at the end of fourteen straight hours of work, and didn’t think about turning the machine completely off as she climbed into the large opening where the gifts entered to gain access to the unit.

As she suspected, there was a loose connection to the unit that could very well have been the root cause of everything. While elves don’t curse, Miranda had come as close as any elf had ever come. Particularly when the machine had suddenly come to life, probably due to the computer performing an automatic reboot as its control unit was disconnected and reconnected.

The robotic arms had grabbed her, causing her to shriek in surprise (which no one heard as she was alone in the room at the time). She’d instantly understood what was going to happen, and fought as best she could against the machine. But Santa had ordered a machine with enormous strength since it needed to last a long, long time without service (tough to get a technician to the North Pole) and he occasionally wrapped massive presents for the very good girls and boys. Her struggles were for naught.

So she’d been very quickly attached to a cardboard sheet, secured with enough twist ties to make her completely immobile, place in a huge box, and wrapped in colored paper and ribbons.

She’d been surprised when she found the entire experience stimulating. As she struggled against her festive imprisonment, she’d found herself getting excited, even to the point of sexual release. She’d struggled until she’d finally exhausted herself completely with numerous orgasms. Then she’d drifted off to sleep, hanging in her box with a satisfied smile as she drifted off.

After the other elves had found her the next day, laughed after they’d discovered she was OK, and congratulated her on getting the machine working, she’d made a beeline for her computer and the Internet. She started exploring, found a site called Gromet’s Plaza, and had begun to explore her new turn-on. She’d learned all about self-bondage and had immediately begun fantasizing about finding some agreeable elf to share her new fetish with. But they were all dense – none of them had picked up on her hints.

So she’d promptly done two things. In the slow season when the wrapper wasn’t’ in use, she’d programmed it to tie her up, leaving her in bondage inside the machine where nobody would see her for hours at a time. She’d gotten clever with ribbon and bow, strong papers and tapes, twist-ties, and selecting different positions. Only she knew how to activate the “special wrapping” program, making it randomly tied her whenever she wished when the machine wasn’t in use.

Her second action had been to start visiting chat rooms – at first, just to listen and find suggestions. But this “BruceBD” had caught her attention. While everyone in the room was always focused on sharing their fetish, he always took time to get to know the others and always seemed to wait to make suggestions until he was sure what they liked and would please them. His public role-playing wasn’t selfish like some of the other doms and subs online.

So she’d launched private conversations with him. She learned that he was a widower and that he lived in a relatively remote part of Canada. He had few opportunities to meet anyone who shared his fetish as a result, and resorted to on-line interactions and self-bondage to indulge his passions. They’d immediately hit it off and begun “playing” as best they could. That had been six years ago. Now, Miranda knew him so well it was amazing. They’d exchanged pictures (hers edited to remove her pointy ears), and if it were possible to say they’d fallen in love over the Internet, then they had almost certainly done so.

Over that time, Bruce had given her more than a few interesting suggestions for positions and materials, and Miranda had nearly danced with joy when she was assigned to program the new leather working machine. She’d done so with gusto, modifying her gift wrapping program to work on the new machine to experience the joys of more strenuous restraints. Thus she’d been able to fashion cuffs, straps, straight jackets, sleep sacks, and binders. Yes, the slow season allowed her to talk to Bruce and then indulge her fantasies by using the robotic machines to bring their chats to life. All the while, she dreamed that the robotic arms binding her were Bruce’s, the electronic sensors were his eyes.

She shook her head to get herself focused on her work again. As much as she’d love to chat and play, Christmas was too close and there was too much to do. Bruce would understand, and in just a few days she’d be freer to engage in their fantasies. She knew it was hard on Bruce – the holidays made him miss his wife terribly, but now just wasn’t the right time.

As she reviewed the reports, her phone rang. It was Claude, the elf in charge of the leather shop. The leather goods machine she’d programmed was making a mess of stitching for reasons they couldn’t understand, and he wanted her to come help out. She sighed to herself as she agreed, wishing she could put the machine to other uses.

When she arrived on the shop floor, Claude showed her samples that confirmed his call – the stitching was horribly off, often a tangled mess. Either one of the eyes wasn’t tracking the material properly or a feed was jammed. But since Claude and his team had been unable to find the problem, the software or electronics just had to be involved somehow.

So she’d hit the master shut-down button and climbed inside. She examined the feed lines, the measuring sensors, and the needles. They all seemed to be just fine. She turned her attention to the sensors above, which required standing squarely in the middle of the machine.

And that’s when it had come to life. She’d shrieked as the arms grabbed her securely and pulled her into a spread eagle. Scissors cut her outfit from her body as she writhed against the steel grippers securing her. She called for Claude to shut the machine down, but this rapidly came to an end as the machine created a gag from deep green dyed leather, which was stuffed in her mouth and securely buckled. She was forced to watch, grunting in protest, as the machine appeared to execute her “special program” in front of everyone. Cutting arms and sewing tools went to work and she watched in horror as she realized that a mummy bag was being fashioned before her eyes. It was a “deluxe” model with internal sleeves, tit flaps, a rear access zipper in addition to the three-way heavy duty zipper in front.

The machine tooled up the internal sleeves and finished up the sack itself. D-rings were attached on the front and the nylon lacing rope threaded halfway up. Miranda squirmed as she was placed into the supple leather, the machine giving her no option but to comply. But her struggles were split between the anticipation of being bound (which had already caused her breath to quicken and pulse to rise), and the horror of having this happen in front of all of her colleagues. With incredible efficiency, her arms were forced into the internal sleeves, her legs positioned within the sack, and the zippers closed about her. The arms fairly flew before her eyes as the lacing was done up – perfectly snug and secure without being too tight or creating any pressure points.

She expected the machine to stop there, as it usually had, but as she writhed and grunted, it came to life again. First, a hood was fashioned from the same green leather as the gag. It had a blindfold that attached over the eyes with Velcro to completely block sight, a zipper over the mouth, holes for the nose, and a set of laces in back. The machine worked quickly (as always) held up the hood to place it on her head. Just before it did, it paused. Miranda thought for a moment that Claude had finally stopped the machine and stopped struggling to avoid the embarrassment of appearing turned on when he got her out of the machine and then the sack.

Unfortunately, no such thing happened. Instead, the machine took advantage of her stillness to fit earplugs in both ears simultaneously. These were followed by pads to further muffle her hearing, all appearing so quickly she couldn’t move her head before they were in position. And only then was the hood affixed. Blind and deaf, Miranda could only assume the machine had stopped its work as she felt the conveyor come to life beneath her.

Then something strange happened. Although she was sure she was out of the machine, she was not released. She felt herself being carried and laid on another conveyor – the feeling of the rollers under her was unmistakable. She thought she heard voices, giggling, but couldn’t be sure. She felt something moving around her, and thrashed as best she could, but whatever it was adapted to her movement perfectly and continued.

Finally, she gave in to her predicament and decided to enjoy it. She struggled mightily as she felt the movement of the conveyor. She imagined Bruce running his hands over her, opening zippers and pulling up tit flaps. She could see him approaching with vibrators, with nipple clamps, with feathers. She grunted and writhed and struggled, reaching release. And then, exhausted from her ordeal and long hours, she fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.

When she awoke, she knew instantly that something was different. The muted sounds of the workshop were gone, the hum seemed to run through her body into her bones missing. She could feel hands now, lowering her gently from a fireman’s carry, and felt a small increase in heat on her right side. She moaned softly into her gag to get the attention of whoever was carrying her…

…and nearly fainted when her blindfold was peeled carefully back to reveal her boss of bosses in his red suit and white beard himself. He was smiling, and gently held a finger up to his lips to indicate silence. She complied, confused, as she glanced around at an unfamiliar room. A fire burned off to her right, a large, decorated fir immediately to her left with a few small presents placed beneath.

When she looked down at herself, the second conveyor suddenly made sense. In addition to the belts, lacing, and zippers, she was wrapped in ribbon from shoulders to toe. Silver and green, it set off the red leather beautifully and enhanced the curves that you could see through the mummy bag. Bows adorned both breasts, enlarging them where the leather made them somewhat flatter than their natural size.

Despite his warning, Miranda grunted questioningly. Santa, with a gleam in his eye, did not speak, but held up a gift tag. “For Bruce,” it said, “Especially Prepared.” Dumbfounded, she watched as he affixed the large tag over her mouth, tying it to the zipper pull that closed the hood there. With a wink, he replaced the blindfold and she could barely hear him moving away.

Within her leather hood, she smiled, then began to struggle and writhe, hoping that the noise would wake her virtual lover sooner for the best Christmas gift he’d had in a long, long time…