If I stayed low enough, nobody could see me. So I crawled out onto the balcony and knelt beside My Sir.

He leashed me to one of the iron straps. He converted my wrist cuffs and collar to a narrow portable stocks by connecting them rigidly using very short bars. He fed me potato chips and apple slices. We chatted.

I told him then that it turned me on when I had to look up at him like that. He said "Hmmmm", and looked at the sky for a few moments, and made some notes on his handheld. He probably did not realize that detail about my personality before. I did not know where that would lead. I would soon learn.

A thick, black cloud appeared on the horizon and began to move toward us. Lightning flashes were visible within that cloud. My Sir took no apparent notice.

As the cloud moved closer, I began to hear thunder. Years before, my daddy had taught me to count the seconds between the flash and the sound. fzt . . . . rumble, rumble, rumble. It was still far off.

fzt. Bang, rumble, rumble. I could see a curtain of water falling into the sea just outside Noumea Ville harbor. My Sir kept talking about something completely unrelated to the approaching storm. I wasn't paying much attention to him. A cool breeze began to blow restlessly through the lathe work of the balcony railing.

fzt, BAM, bang, rumble. The falling curtain of water reached the inner harbor shoreline. The cool breeze blew harder. My Sir picked up his plate and handheld, walked into the bedroom, and closed the balcony door. The dirty rat-fink had left me still leashed, shackled, kneeling naked on the balcony. I was about to get very wet.

fzt BAM Bang Bang, Rumble. The rain reached me. It felt like somebody was dumping bucket after bucket of cold water on top of me. I huddled down and wished I could put my fingers in my ears.

fztBAAM!! I became one of the few people who has ever seen the flash and heard the thunder at the same time, and lived to tell about it. The flash was bright enough to be seen right through my closed eyelids, and it took several hours afterward for my hearing to recover. I am not sure that it has ever completely come back.

The storm moved on. The rain eased off to an intense sprinkle. My Sir finally came out, and unleashed me, and wrapped me in a big warm fluffy towel, and carried me inside. He stretched me out on the bed and lay on top of me, giving me his body heat and stopping me from shivering. He can be a dirty rat-fink at times, but at least he is always a caring dirty rat-fink.

Our cottage is located right next to the Tongan embassy, which has a tall aluminum flagpole. We soon learned that the nylon rope which holds the Tongan flag had been melted and converted to a solid nylon bar by the lightning bolt which hit so close.

- - 3 - -

Maybe I shouldn't have told My Sir that I am turned on by looking up at him. That knowledge inspired him to change some of his plans for remodeling the cottage.

He has told me that he had planned to put in a system of girl rails in the basement rooms and down the centers of the garden paths. That plan was modified. The system that was finally built starts with girl rails just inside the basement door leading out onto the back porch. Loops left and right from the door cover the porch. The girl rails in the garden go down both sides of each path, spaced about six inches into the garden on each side.

My Sir has a seven-foot chain that he can use to attach me to the girl rails, but he doesn't use it very often. My usual chain length for gardening is two and a half feet. If he just wants me to join him when he goes for a stroll through the garden, he will use a two-foot connecting chain. He hooks it to my collar, not to my ankle.

So I crawl. I can't stand up when my neck is linked to a girl rail by a chain only two or two and a half feet long.

Fortunately My Sir is always a caring dirty rat-fink. He has given me tough but comfortable gloves, and a well-padded set of strap-on knee pads to wear when I must crawl long distances, and a low wagon that I can pull to carry plants and fertilizer and gardening tools. I can't use a wheelbarrow when I am crawling.

- - 4 - -

He put in an entirely different system when he remodeled the basement lounge. A little chair, like a bar stool with a back, sits on a metal pin less than one foot long. The chair has a seat belt that goes around my waist, and a strap for ankles that goes across under the seat. When the ankle strap is adjusted and locked, it holds my legs with knees sharply bent. I can just touch the floor with my toes and the balls of my feet.

The chair is mounted on a loop of track around the basement lounge, entirely separate from the girl rails. Along the right-hand wall, as seen from the door to the porch and garden, the track passes between a low counter with microwave and burners, and a low island counter that can be used for food preparation. The chair spins freely, so I can face either the wall counter or the island counter at will.

Continuing around, the back wall has food and kitchen utensil cabinets, plus a fridge and a freezer. The opposite side wall is where My Sir often sits in a comfortable recliner, with a convenient small table alongside. Then the loop of track comes back to the door to the porch and garden.

My Sir usually gags me while I am cooking for us in that lounge. The pin on the inside of the gag doesn't have to be very big, since the primary purpose of the gag is to keep me from sampling what I am cooking. I can't speak anyway, because my collar is usually set to silence me.

When the food is ready to eat, I put it all on one large plate and carry it over to My Sir. He locks my wrists to the back of my little chair and feeds me. He usually switches the collar silencing mode off, so we can talk.


The Coral Sea Queen Now (added: 2013/12/18)

My cottage isn't the only place where you might find Cindy and me in this part of the world. A large part of our new life is being spent back aboard the Coral Sea Queen.

The Noumean judges awarded ownership of the vessel to the victims of Captain Marie's crimes. To handle this, a corporation was set up, and the corporation issued 36,000 shares of stock. Each victim was given 1200 shares. With that total, it was easy to split up the ownership evenly among each victim's heirs. Fortunately none of the victims had seven, nine, or eleven heirs, which would have been awkward.

A total of 27 victims were identified, 21 from previous trips and the six from the voyage I took. The last 3600 shares of stock are held in a trust administered by the Noumean government to cover the possibility that more claimants might turn up. None ever have. Considering the way the financing has worked out, it is unlikely that any ever will.

The most important financier for the ship is a Japanese billionaire named Saburo Tanaka. He inherited control of over ten billion (new) yen before he was 30 years old. He got 400 shares of Coral Sea Queen stock when his oldest brother was identified as one of Captain Marie's victims. Saburo decided to become a BDSM cruise ship captain.

He announced an offer of 10,000 yen per share for Coral Sea Queen stock, this offer to remain open until he had obtained majority control with at least 18,001 shares. I decided not to sell. After meeting and speaking with him, I was willing to become his junior partner in this venture. It might not make as much money as some of my other ventures, but it could be much more fun.

I knew that he would treat me well, because I had Cindy. He has two gorgeous girlfriends of his own, but neither of them had been an original Coral Sea Queen girl. Cindy would add to the unique appeal of the ship. Cindy's name, and mine, were known worldwide by people who read gossip websites. Our trial, and its outcome, had received international publicity.

Saburo quit buying stock when his final purchase brought his total to 18,900 shares. That opened the way for me to offer 6000 yen per share to any other owners who had missed their chance with Saburo. I accumulated 5500 shares, enough to become the second-place shareholder with over 15% ownership.

Saburo didn't let me get away with acquiring my ownership rights cheaply. At the first annual meeting of the corporation, the majority of the shares were voted (by Saburo, naturally) in favor of assessments on the share owners to build working capital. Anybody who claims those last 3600 shares still held by the government would have to pay the assessments.

He spent the assessment money well. The ship has been completely remodeled. The original 19th-century-style sail rig has been replaced by a modern B9 Energy Corporation PowerFurl fully motorized and computerized suite of sails. It's one of the very few times that this technology has been used on a fore-and-aft rig. Most of the ordinary cargo ships with PowerFurl sail suites have square rigs. Coral Sea Queen is still a schooner.

The whole ship can now be operated from a U-shaped control console installed on the afterdeck. That includes sails, diesel motors, rudder, navigation computers, radars, sonars, and lookout cameras at the top of the mainmast. There are backups for everything critical, of course, and provisions for human seamen to take over if desired or if the automation fails. If all of this equipment had been on the ship when I captured it, I would have been able to sail it back to Australia by myself.

Since it really takes only one person to operate the ship, most of our crew are on board primarily to deal with the passengers. We are a charter operation. We adjust our crew to match the requirements of each charter. Saburo's girlfriend Tomiko is a registered nurse. His other girl Jane is an excellent chef. Cindy has become an expert short-order cook and bartender. We have sailed for short trips with just those three, plus Saburo and myself of course. We can supplement with additional watchkeeping seamen and system maintenance technicians for longer cruises, plus housekeeping maids, more kitchen staff, waiters and/or waitresses, live musicians and/or dancers, skin diving instructors if the destination is the Great Barrier Reef, BDSM ropework teachers, etc.

But one set of rules is ironclad, no matter who we have on board as crew. Those rules are very different from the way Captain Marie ran the ship. Our slogan on those rules is "BYOB. We'll supply the alcohol." In our context the abbreviation stands for "Bring Your Own Babe", or "Bring Your Own Broad", or occasionally "Bring Your Own Buddy" for an all-homosexual cruise.

Passengers are absolutely not allowed to play sex games of any type with anybody except people who came on board as their partners. We don't do singles-bar cruises. If group sex is wanted, all of the members of the group have to agree before we go. Crew people are absolutely not allowed to play sex games with passengers. We favor beautiful women as crew, if they can meet the requirements of their individual jobs. But we have hired one rather ugly guy several times because he has been the best available skin diving instructor.

As you might imagine given our ship's reputation, most of our cruises are BDSM oriented. Each prospective passenger on such a cruise has to sign a contract acknowledging and accepting BDSM activities and giving the names of the partner or partners with whom they will be playing. Each prospective passenger has an opportunity to include any limitations that they wish to have on sexual activities, written right into these contracts.

We don't want any passengers feeling pressured to sign by their prospective partners. To try to avoid this problem, partners are not allowed to be in the same room with each other when signing. Nor should anyone sign without reading and thinking carefully.

I usually have Cindy with me when I present a contract for signature. She is strapped on her two-wheel cart, totally helpless again, as an example of what could happen. One or two women have canceled their cruising plans when they saw her that way. A few others have taken one look, started breathing deeply, and rushed to sign without paying any attention to the words printed on their contracts.

It has all been fun for me. I have seen and worked with some very pretty women tied in ropes, or wearing straps or chains, and often not wearing much else.

I sometimes catch come-hither looks from these women, and I smile back, but things have never gone very far beyond that. For one thing, the rules about crew not playing with the passengers apply to me also. For another, none of the passengers has ever been completely under my control, dependent on me for permission to take another breath of air. My control over Cindy is a powerful aphrodisiac. An affair with any other woman would feel flat in comparison.


My Life on the Coral Sea Queen (added: 2013/12/18)

My Sir has ordered me to write about the kind of life I live when we are at sea.

As I write this, we are in My Sir's cottage at Noumea Ville. My Sir has locked me into the copper-and-nickel-finish chastity belt which is part of the set that he bought on the day that I was given to him. I am in my basement slave cell, which is just long enough for a cot and a toilet. The cell is no more than a foot wider than the cot. The walls are gray cinder block. The ceiling is no more than a few inches over my head when I am standing, and as you already know, I am rather short.

The only window is two feet high and five feet wide, covered by closely-spaced bars. It looks out into the basement lounge. Anybody in that lounge can see me on exhibit in here through that window. I've got nothing in here except the laptop computer that I am using to write this. If I ever want to get the chastity belt off, have clothes again, avoid punishment, and get back out into that large, comfortable basement lounge, I am going to have to follow My Sir's orders and write.

I suppose that the best way to do that will be to describe one ordinary day at sea. Last Thursday will do. That was the last full day at sea during our most recent cruise.

My Sir and I are frequently awake all night, so we sleep during the mornings. Last Thursday My Sir woke up first, shortly before lunch. He got dressed and took a shower. Then he got a cup of ice water from the galley, put a straw into the cup, put a finger over the top of the straw to trap some of that ice water, and then used the straw to dribble some of the water onto my forehead. I wake up very quickly when he does that.

I woke up, but I couldn't jump up. I had been sleeping as I usually do, on my back, with my arms over my head chained to the headboard. My Sir kissed me on the forehead where the cold water had splashed, said "That will warm your skin back up again", and pushed some wristwatch/controller buttons to release me from the bed. Then he added his usual morning greeting to me, based on his legal authority to carry out my death sentence: "A final decision on your fate has been postponed for at least twenty-four hours."

Releasing me from the bed didn't mean I was free, of course. The remodeling of the ship included a special area where I am kept confined. Most of my area is one deck below the open main deck, near the starboard side close to the stern.

There is a girl rail to keep me in my area. Most of the rail runs along the top of the bulkheads there, but there is a spur down to bed-top height so I can sleep without having my neck pulled toward the overhead. My collar is attached to that rail by about four feet of chain when I am with My Sir at sea. I have spent as much as six weeks continuously within the allowance of that rail and chain when the ship had several charter cruises in rapid sequence.

Our cabin is at the aft limit of my territory. It's a small space, of course; there are no large cabins on a ship the size of the Queen. But I still can't quite reach the other door, the one that My Sir uses. Anyway, his door is always locked, except when he enters or leaves. His girl controller/wristwatch trips the lock and lets him go through freely. Nobody else uses that door.

My door leads out to a narrow corridor forward of our cabin. A branch of the girl rail goes into the back door of a compact head and shower stall that I share with My Sir, and Mr. Saburo, and Mr. Saburo's two girlfriends. The others who use it go in through the front door. Both doors lock, and the locks are interconnected; each person who uses that head has to leave by the same door as was used for entering. I could not escape through the head even if I could get loose from my girl rail and chain.

I took my shower, handled the rest of my morning essentials, and returned to our cabin still naked. My Sir had laid out my clothing for the day on the bed. I would be wearing a safety-orange bikini, lettered "PRIS" in black ink around the top of my right breast and "ONER" around the top on the left. The Coral Sea Queen is unique among cruise ships - even BDSM cruise ships - in having on board a woman who is a convicted prisoner, legally sentenced to death due to her previous actions on the ship, now completely at the mercy of her guard. Convicts in all sorts of prisons commonly wear safety orange clothing with black lettering. I have never heard of any other convicts who are routinely dressed in bikinis, though.

After putting my bikini on, I went forward along my girl rail, going straight past the head and shower this time. Next forward from the head is my narrow edge of the galley. This area is divided fore-and-aft from the rest of the galley by a stripe of bright-red paint which runs across the overhead, down the bulkhead, and across the middle of a stove top and counter. I sometimes make food from my side of this counter, usually fast food like sandwiches and hamburgers. My girl-rail chain isn't long enough to allow me to cross the red stripe, and if I did manage to cross, my collar would go 'bleep' and then shock me. Our other cooks can make fancier food either on my counter, sometimes working from the other side of my red stripe, or by using counter space in the rest of the galley.

For this cruise, we hired a woman named Martha as a waitress and an assistant cook. Last Thursday Jane and Martha handled breakfast. When I entered the galley, they gave me a hot breakfast sandwich and continued preparing Italian-style food for lunch. I would be assigned to take the completed dishes of food to one of the pass-throughs to the main cabin, where passengers usually eat. I would also be pouring and mixing the passenger's drinks myself, and passing them out too.

When I go out to the main cabin through my narrow galley edge, I enter the exhibit area, which is ten feet wide and three feet deep against the bulkhead, surrounded by bars. When My Sir wants to show me off to the paying customers, it wouldn't be proper for a prisoner to be seen in any other manner than behind bars.

Most of the supplies that are needed to tend bar come from the bulkhead which makes up the back of the exhibit space. Foster's beer, Coca-Cola soft drinks, and orange juice (popular at breakfast) are on tap. There are also hot taps to supply coffee, decaf, or hot water for tea. An inset counter provides the space to assemble drinks. Shelves above the inset can hold frequently-used bottles.

I may be the only short-order cook and bartender in the world who always works surrounded by bars. There is no bar in the other sense of the word, just pass-throughs with small shelves to allow food and the drinks that I make to be distributed. The confining bars run from floor to ceiling. All of me can be seen, and also of course whatever I am assigned to wear. What I wear usually matches more-or-less what the women passengers are wearing, so if you are a guy who wants to see me exhibited naked, your best bet is to have your woman naked herself.

For breakfast, Jane had been on exhibit, passing out food. Like many cooks, she wore a bib apron. Unlike most cooks, she wasn't wearing anything else beneath it. Her large boobs kept peeking out from the sides of the bib top as she moved.

I am the one on exhibit most times when alcoholic beverages are being served. I have become quite an expert bartender. I didn't have much choice about that. When I can't find a bottle that I need quickly, or when I get an order wrong, My Sir straps me to my two-wheel cart for up to four hours for each mistake, blindfolded with sound-canceling headphones over my ears. My only sensory inputs then come from my muscles as they get stiffer and stiffer and more and more cramped. It's a horrible experience, much worse than any whipping could be, especially if I have made more than one mistake. I have been on that damned cart for as much as twelve hours continuously.

An ultimate sort of super-lazy-Susan arrangement occupies the other side of my galley edge, opposite from the counter where I make sandwiches. Conveyor belts of shelves squeeze much more storage capacity into that volume than a simple rotating pivot could. The shelves contain a selection of excellent wines, and distilled spirits, and specialty beers from all over the world. We have run out of individual wines on longer cruises when those wines turned out to be great favorites of the passengers and we weren't warned to stock up in advance. But we have never run out of alcohol.

Last Thursday we had a full passenger count. I was kept busy serving luncheon food and beverages.

As remodeled, the Coral Sea Queen can accommodate nine couples as passengers. On this cruise, eight couples were members of the SSBSS, the South Seas Bondage and Swapping Society. They came from all over the world, and they knew each other via Internet connection before the cruise. The motto of the SSBSS is "What happens in the South Seas, stays in the South Seas." I understand that most SSBSS members are perfectly respectable monogamous couples when they are in their widely-scattered home towns.

The ninth couple, Robert Zimmerman and Mary Jane, was a last-minute addition to our passenger list. Their cruise was a tenth-anniversary gift from Many Jane to Robert. We had to make some special allowances for them.

Every morning on this cruise at 0900, the pairings from he previous day's swap session were ended. Mr. Saburo and My Sir collected the men and brought them topside onto the main deck. Mr. Saburo's other girlfriend Tomiko worked with Martha to collect the women and bring them to the main cabin. Tomiko wore her special outfit for interacting with submissive women: a traditional nurse's cap, a white blouse with short sleeves and a conservative neckline, a red and white badge on her left chest marked with a medical caduceus and "R.N.", a close-fitting white over-corset from just below her breasts down to her hips, a mid-thigh-length white skirt, three-inch heels, and a whip on a belt at her waist. She manages to project both "domme" and "registered nurse" in that outfit.

The women had a break from confinement until lunch. They could sit at tables, drink coffee, and chat; take showers; and change clothes into the uniform of the day, which was topless with short shorts or bikini bottoms. They were well advised to use the heads as much as possible to get rid of body wastes before the next bondage session began, when they would probably need to beg for special permission to do so. I supplied coffee, sweet rolls from Jane's galley, soft drinks, and fruit juices on demand.

I'm not sure what the men were up to. My Sir has mentioned whale watching, fishing using fishing poles, card games, and lessons in knotwork as things that have been done at one time or another. But whatever it was, was done abovedecks. I was in my exhibit space one deck down and never saw how they spent most of their time. Occasionally one of them would come down to my exhibit area and order coffee or some other beverage.

The women ate lunch first. Jane supplied me with large bowls of spaghetti, meat sauce, and tossed salad. I separated the food into individual bowls and served it to the women cafeteria style. Tomiko and Martha strapped the women into bolted-down chairs at their table, using seat belts. As the women began to eat, Tomiko, Martha and I worked together to distribute glasses of chianti.

At this point the men came down from the upper deck in a group. Each of them took a nifty bondage tool called a charlotte from a storage area at the forward end of the main cabin. These charlottes were positioned in a circle around the women's table. No matter which way the women looked while eating lunch, bondage was waiting.

I have seen a very old video of Charlotte, the namesake of the charlotte, getting herself installed on the very first one. It was of all-welded construction, not adjustable, awkward to get into, designed to fit her perfectly once she was on. It had no wheels, so Charlotte wasn't very portable when she was on it. The ones we have on the Coral Sea Queen come in seven pieces: a base plate which does have wheels at the back, a sturdy pole that mounts vertically, and five locking clamps. When a woman is standing on a charlotte, the clamps hold her at her ankles, her thighs, her wrists behind her back and behind the pole, her elbows ditto, and her neck. The charlottes can be adjusted to fit any woman (even little old me!). When all of the adjustments are locked in place, our charlottes become as rigid as Charlotte's all-welded original.

My Sir distributed instruction sheets to the men. Each sheet had the name of a woman and a set of measurements. Each man used the measurements to adjust a charlotte for the named woman. The men came over by the exhibit area, picked up lunch menus and coffee cups from me, and sat down at a smaller side table, separate from the women. Martha took their lunch orders and went into the kitchen to help Jane.

As the women finished their spaghetti, My Sir and Mr. Saburo released them one by one from their chairs. One by one, they were installed on the charlottes that had been adjusted for them. Martha and Tomiko cleaned the large table, and the men moved over to it.

Unlike the women, the men had choices, all Italian style: veal parmigiana, chicken cacciatore, calamari, tagliatelle with prosciutto, probably some others too. The men enjoyed a long, leisurely, European style multi-course luncheon, stretching well into the afternoon. No matter which way they looked, women were standing locked onto charlottes, topless and helpless. I stayed busy passing out coffee, chianti, Italian and Australian wines by the bottle, and also some Coca-Cola. Coke is now so international that it is as common in Italy as it is in the USA.

Finally the men finished their tiramisu and dessert wines. It was time for a new pairing. I dumped nine slips of paper with the names of the men into a black derby, and nine more slips with the names of the women into a white derby. I shook the hats vigorously, and then I drew names from the two hats alternately.

We had used the hats also on the first afternoon of the cruise. We had paired off the men and the women on later afternoons in several other ways. None of them were completely random, although several of them seemed to be. For one thing, Robert Zimmerman and Mary Jane weren't members of the South Seas Bondage and Swapping Society; we had to rig things so that they were always with each other. Also, we wanted each of the SSBSS men to have a night with all of the SSBSS women in turn, and vice versa.

It was quickly obvious that this "random" drawing wasn't random at all. I was actually ignoring the piles of slips in the bottom of the hats and pulling carefully pre-arranged slips from under the hatbands. On this last night of the cruise, every man was paired with his own wife or girlfriend.

Each man adjusted the bondage of his partner to his own taste. They scattered around the ship, with some moving to individual cabins, and some to other spaces. We have lots of bondage furniture and appliances in various parts of the ship. Mr. Saburo had rigged a pulley that could lift a woman safely up to the open main deck while she was still confined on a charlotte. Several guys took advantage of that pulley.

Some women were being kept in severe bondage. One woman was left in her charlotte in the main cabin, but with a blindfold and earphones added. The earphones had been set for noise cancellation. If she had been left alone, that confinement would have been worse than my punishment times. Her shoulders and arms were pinned back into a much more strained position than I am in when I am on my two-wheel cart. But she wasn't left alone for more than two or three minutes. Her guy would kiss her breasts, or tickle her ribs, or massage her crotch, or otherwise give her some sensory input at frequent intervals. At one point he switched her earphones from noise cancellation to the climax of the 1812 Overture, and then he slapped her butt every time a cannon fired as part of the music. After that he spent about five minutes caressing her to the rhythm of a very romantic piece that I didn't recognize.

My Sir toured the ship, making sure that all of the couples in public spaces were having fun. He obviously did not interrupt the privacy of couples in individual cabins. From time to time he smiled at me; he does that often when he is mingling with the paying passengers during events like that afternoon. He is obviously proud of me. He clearly thinks that I am prettier than any other woman on this ship, even when the other women include beauty queens and famous actresses. His smiles do wonderful things to me. They are great rewards to me for doing my job well, and they are powerful promises about what will happen when he gets me alone again in our cabin. In the words of an old song: "Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile. To know him is to love him, and I do."

We closed the bar and the restaurant service for about an hour so that the staff could eat. Jane made some submarine sandwiches, and I had left-over spaghetti and a meatball. We had our food while sitting on stools in the galley.

After eating, I re-opened the bar as a bar and grill, working with Martha. Supper was very casual, all fast food to order, eaten wherever the men had parked their women. Mr. Saburo, Jane, and Tomiko went into their cabin together and closed the door. I have never known exactly how their threesome operates at times like that, and I have never asked. I'm curious, but I don't think that it is any of my business.

At 2000 hours (8:00 PM to landlubbers) Mr. Saburo came out from his cabin and took over from My Sir as emcee, making sure that all of the couples in public spaces were having fun. My Sir had the First Watch at the ship's control station on the poop deck. That watch runs until midnight.

My Sir called me up to keep him company during his navigation watch. Visits to the deck are a rare treat for me, especially appreciated during good weather. When My Sir has a daytime watch, I am usually too busy serving food and drinks to join him.

I do have a personal hatch to the poop deck, which nobody else uses. It's at the top of a ladder which is bolted to the forward bulkhead of our cabin. It's flush with the poop deck, except when I am using it. When My Sir called me up I climbed the ladder, went topside through the hatch, and knelt on the main deck by the control console. I can't stand on the deck when I go topside. My girl rail doesn't go up through my hatch, and my collar chain is too short.

There is a ring recessed into the deck that My Sir can use as an attachment point. He used it to secure my ankles and my wrists behind my back while I was kneeling. He fed me a sandwich for supper. He didn't use my collar to silence me, but we didn't talk much. We just enjoyed being together. I don't know of anything prettier than a tropic sky full of stars, moonlight making the sails glow white, My Sir silhouetted against the lights of the control panel, and a row of indicator LEDs all glowing green to indicate "no problems, all systems working well."

I wasn't the only woman enjoying myself on the deck. Looking forward, I noticed Robert Zimmerman and Mary Jane, side by side, arms around each other, by the ship's rail. He had freed her completely from her charlotte and from all other confinement. They were enjoying a very romantic vanilla tropical evening together. Our cruises are not always rigid bondage events for everybody.

At midnight, eight bells of the First Watch, Mr. Saburo came up to relieve My Sir, who released me from my anchor point. I climbed back down through the hatch to our cabin, and I stretched out on the queen-size bed which is against the starboard bulkhead. I can climb into it easily, but as you might imagine, I can't always climb back out after he joins me in the cabin. I usually sleep stretched out with both wrists and one ankle cuffed to the bed frame, open to whatever he feels like doing to me. Sometimes he is in the mood to have me do something to him instead.

I'm not always allowed into the bed. Sometimes I spend time locked into a small cage underneath it, or cuffed standing to pulleys on the ceiling. I really enjoy his having complete access to me while I am kept however he wishes.

Thursday night he used a set of straps to connect all of my cuffs and confine me in a hogtie on the bed. The ankle straps to that set hold my ankles at right angles, which keeps my crotch wide open. He only uses that set of straps when he plans to tickle my feet and make me squirm. He left me there while he took a shower. The anticipation was almost more fun than having him there with me. I started squirming long before he came back. I almost reached an orgasm while I was still alone in the room.

Then he came back. He added one more strap, to connect my ankles to the bottom of the bed. I could hardly wiggle my feet at all after that. Then he faked me out by concentrating his tickling on my ribs and on my thighs, almost leaving my feet alone. He did a thorough job.

My orange bikini has zippers on the outside of both hips, and of course the top is held on with bow ties. My Sir was able to strip me naked without releasing me from bondage. He picked me up and rearranged us, with him on the bottom on his back, me on top, and him inside me. Neither of us was anxious to press on toward orgasm. I was so relaxed and so content that I may actually have taken a short nap.

Have you ever been brought back to full alertness by a man who is under you and in you when he starts to bounce you with hip thrusts? I thrust back. We climaxed. He held me, and kissed me, and undid the straps which hogtied me. He chained by hands to the headboard to put me in my usual sleeping position. He rolled me away from him and he spooned onto and around me. I fell asleep totally confident of his love, his protection, and his passion for me.

And that will give you some idea of what life is like for me on board the Coral Sea Queen.

Now I need some attention from My Sir. I have written what I was asked to write. Please, Sir, would you be so kind as to release me from this bondage cell and chastity belt?

I didn't turn her loose. She has called me a caring dirty rat-fink, and that is the way I decided to treat her. I left her in her cell. I had her kneel on the cot and stretch her arms wide across the window between her cell and the lounge. I handcuffed her outstretched wrists to the window bars. And then I fed her supper, one bite at a time, through those bars. She will stay in the chastity belt until I am ready to enjoy her body again.


Cindy's Clothing (added: 2013/12/18)

I enjoy seeing all of Cindy, of course, kneeling arms outstretched in a bondage cell or in any other way I please. But I don't want to keep her most extraordinary feature, her 22-inch waist, only for my private viewing. With only a few exceptions, that waist is on display no matter what she wears in the South Pacific. Her wardrobe there is bare-midriff designs. She has bikini tops made of two small triangles of cloth and some string. She also has long-sleeve tops with turtlenecks, and other tops with every degree of coverage in between. Many of them end just below her breasts. She has hip-hugger denim jeans, and capri pants, and bermuda shorts, and short shorts, and bikini bottoms. Many of them end just above the widest part of her hips. Even her most conservative outfits leave two inches of bare skin between the top and the bottom.

Her usual clothing color scheme is safety orange with black stenciled lettering, as is customary for prisoner's garments. She looks cute in the bikini she described, the one that is stenciled "PRIS" around the top of her right breast, and "ONER" on the left. I generally put her in outfits with coverage which match more or less what the paying passengers are wearing.

Her Noumea Ville on-shore wardrobe includes a bolero-styled bare-midriff straitjacket, and a wrist-to-elbow across-the-back armbinder, and an elbow-length singleglove, and a pencil skirt that fits very snugly at the knees, and a long skirt that fits snugly at the ankles. All were made to order for exact fit in her safety orange color scheme. She can't wear these more confining clothing items at sea, because she can't make sandwiches or tend bar while she's unable to use her hands. Besides, she would have trouble keeping her balance on a rolling deck while wearing a pencil skirt.

These days even such out-of-the-way places as Noumea Ville have shops with laser body measuring booths coupled to programmed knitting machines to make clothing directly from yarn to a person's exact size. I buy most of Cindy's wardrobe in those shops. In recent years some of the fancy French designers have shown collections of old-fashioned loose-fitting garments with deliberately sloppy fit, made in number-coded sizes. My Cindy does not often wear any of that kind of clothing at sea or in Noumea.

However, she does have a sailor suit. It is white with prisoner-orange trim, a sort of soft canvas fabric, loose-fitting, with bell-bottom pants and one of those traditional sailor hats that looks like a beanie with a turned-up rim all the way around. Cindy wears this sailor suit when all of the passengers are guys, because of course then all of the passengers are gays. The top is still short enough to show off her 22-inch waist.

I am very proud of her, and she knows it. Nothing is more enjoyable than watching her move while realizing that all of that feminine beauty is mine to use however I wish. The best part of the situation is that I am confident Cindy wouldn't want to live her life any other way.


Planning a Trip Home (added: 2013/12/18)

A very old rule requires holders of US passports to be in US territory at least once every five years. I still have one of those passports. I do not want to give it up. I also did not want to leave my Cindy behind, under somebody else's control, while I visited home. So I contacted my lawyer back in Chicago and asked for suggestions.

The situation wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. The world has been reasonably peaceful lately, so travel restrictions have been eased. Passports and visas are not needed for Australians or Noumeans to visit the USA. Cindy would be able to make the trip using her Noumean ID with the "CONVICT. Prisoner" overprint.

Besides that, there is a relevant treaty between the Republic of Noumea and the United States of America. It seems that a few people have been sued in the USA, and have been able to evade the judgments which were entered against them. The defendants in these cases moved to obscure islands in the South Pacific, islands which are beyond the reach of the US legal system. The US government did not wish to allow anybody to flee from a judgment or conviction and wind up in a relatively civilized place like Noumea. So a treaty was negotiated which requires mutual acceptance of legal decisions. A judgment or conviction entered in a US court will be enforced by the courts in Noumea.

But that works the other way, too. Cindy's conviction and sentence, entered in a Noumean court, must be respected in the USA. My status as her guard falls in the same category.

Another advantage of living in the mid 21st century is the current more liberal attitude toward sexual kinks such as BDSM. A series of court decisions have taken the fundamental principle of BDSM into the legal system: anything that is safe, sane, and consensual is also presumed be legal. Anything between spouses which appears to be safe and sane must also be presumed to be consensual, unless one of the spouses makes a legal complaint of spousal abuse or files for divorce.

This offered a way around the Mann Act and certain other US laws. The Mann Act forbids transporting women across state lines, or into or out of the USA, for immoral purposes. The law was written to criminalize recruiting women across state lines for houses of prostitution. After some abuse, "immoral purposes" was defined more tightly as "things you could get arrested for doing", such as rape. The Mann Act could apply between a legally-unrelated man and woman, or between a prisoner and her guard. But it does not apply when the only people involved are a husband and wife.

So I married Cindy.

I will let her tell the story of one of the honeymoon trips that we went on together.

Final (added: 2014/03/19)

Cindy writes: I have been on two honeymoons with My Sir. One of them was His and mine, obviously. I need to tell you about the other one. It was quite different from ours.

An Example of the Extremes among Coral Sea Queen cruises; the Amy Grandborough Wedding Charter

I have had the honor of becoming quite friendly with Amy Grandborough. She was on the Coral Sea Queen for her wedding and honeymoon events. That one charter included examples of two extremes in the nature of our cruises.

Yes, I am discussing the real Amy Grandborough, the guitarist, singer, songwriter, international beauty, and double-A-list celebrity. There might be a few people in the world who haven't heard of her. In case you are one of them, I can summarize her status very simply: when a gossip webzine has a headline like "What Dress will Amy Wear to the Oscars", Amy Grandborough is the one they are writing about.

Her wedding to a young Australian cattle station owner took place at 9:00 am one Saturday, in an intimate little chapel. It was covered by a professional camera crew and broadcast live on the Internet using the very insecure security code "Amy". Several million people watched the ceremony. I was one of them. My Sir had the wall screen in the cottage living room tuned to that webcast.

The next step in the celebration was a Grand Reception for over a thousand of Amy's closest friends. She and her bridegroom walked the tables, and gave welcoming and thank-you speeches from the head table, and danced the traditional wedding dance. They never got a chance to sit down at that event and eat lunch with the guests.

The Grand Reception wasn't covered by the webcast. During the reception, My Sir ordered me to get dressed, non-kinky style. I put on a blouse and jeans over bra and panties, a totally ordinary outfit except for the safety orange color and the two-inch bared-waist gap between the blouse and jeans. My Sir chained me into a sirik, transferred me to the Coral Sea Queen, undid the sirik, and locked me onto the girl rail in my special space. I kept my non-kinky outfit on.

Amy, her bridegroom, their immediate families, the members of the wedding party, and a few other genuine friends boarded the ship after attending the Grand Reception. There were about 50 in the party, which included children as young as age 4. Tables and chairs were set up on the main deck and in the main cabin one deck down. An excellent meal was catered by one of the best restaurants in Sydney.

I was responsible for supplying the wedding champagne, wine, and other beverages to the restaurant's waiters and waitresses; the beverages were chilling on the special storage shelves used for alcohol on the Queen. A wedding is supposed to be a special celebration for the bride, so I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Of course that wasn't easy; I was working in my display cage area and wearing safety orange, which is even easier to notice than bridal white. My Sir helped by setting my collar to silence me.

We cruised Sydney harbor, giving the guests excellent views of the Opera House, the bridge, the Royal Australian Navy ships at anchor, and other famous sights on our shoreline. The weather was superb. There was hardly any wind, so we raised the sails mainly for decoration. Almost all of the propulsion came from the diesel engines.

When we got back to the dock, the families, friends, waiters, and waitresses left the ship. The tables and chairs went ashore also. When we left again we were down to just six crewmembers - Mr. Saburo, My Sir, the usual three women, and one extra watch-keeping seaman named Olaf Svennson - plus the bridegroom and Amy.

The bridegroom brought Amy over by the exhibit area where I work. He took a pair of handcuffs out of a tuxedo pocket; he must have been carrying them all through the day's ceremonies. He cuffed her behind her back to one of the exhibit cage bars. He kissed her. Then he left her there in a white wedding dress and steel cuffs while he went to get more bondage supplies.

Mr. Saburo helped with the next step. He pulled some chain from a winch mounted on the starboard bulkhead and threaded it through pulleys which he attached to the overhead. Soon he had two snap hooks dangling about two feet apart.

Amy's bridegroom passed me a handcuff key and said "Undo her." I gave her hand a quick squeeze, trying to signal "Be brave", and then I followed the order. The bridegroom put suspension cuffs on Amy's wrists, clipped those cuffs to the waiting overhead chains, turned to Mr. Saburo, and said "Please start cranking, slowly."

Her bridegroom kissed her once again. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back until the slowly-tightening overhead chains pulled her hands away. The bridegroom did not tell Mr. Saburo "enough" until Amy's feet were dangling about four inches over the deck. She swayed back and forth as the ship moved through the waves.

Amy was wearing a strapless bridal gown, with a hemline just a bit longer than knee-length. Her bridegroom began to strip her slowly. The first items were her dressy but low-heel shoes. He reached up under her gown and pulled her half-slip, and then both of her petticoats off, one by one. Each of these items was put into a waiting suitcase.

At the slow tempo he was using, it must have taken him at least a minute just to pull down the zipper of her gown while he kissed her backbone, rib by rib. He continued to kiss newly-bared flesh as the gown came off. The gown was carefully hung in a garment bag.

Her bra and panties were very feminine, with lots of lace for decoration. But these garments were full-cut and had no see-through panels, so they weren't super-erotic. The sexiest thing that Amy was still wearing was the sturdy golden chain padlocked around her waist. I don't know who had had the key to that padlock at the beginning of the wedding celebration. I was reasonably confident that her bridegroom had it by this late in the game.

My Sir had been standing just outside one end of the exhibit area. At this point he told me to "Come here." I pulled my collar chain along the overhead girl rail and followed his order. More orders followed: "Face the bulkhead. Lean your back against the cage bars." He reached around me, undid my blouse and jeans, and peeled my clothing off me. I was then wearing nothing but a bikini-cut safety orange bra and panties. My Sir turned to Amy's bridegroom and said "More?"

Amy's bridegroom said "Yes", and he began to remove her bra. My Sir did the same to me. Soon Amy and I were both naked.

Amy Grandborough was confined naked and helpless continuously for the next two weeks on her honeymoon cruise. At various times she wore portable stocks, a fiddle, a straitjacket with a cut-out baring her breasts, shackles behind her back, shackles in front attached to a belt, a singleglove, and perhaps a few other types of restraints that I can't remember right now. When she wasn't wearing bondage gear, she was spreadeagled, or attached to an X-frame, or a whipping post, or a spanking bench, or a charlotte, or she was tucked tightly in a small cage. Her bridegroom fed her all of her food one mouthful at a time. He tended to her needs in the bathroom. He gave her showers, either belowdecks in a bathroom or on deck with a hose while she was suspended by her wrists from the mainmast boom. She never had any control over what would happen to her next.

I stayed just as naked as she was, and I wore more chains than usual. I was more loosely confined than Amy, because I still had to prepare food and drinks as requested. I found that I could do my job almost as efficiently as normal while wearing ten-inch chains between my wrist cuffs and also between my ankle cuffs. Of course as a matter of routine My Sir did keep me on my girl rail at all times, and he chained me to our bed at night.


An Important Conversation

On the next-last night of this cruise, I had an opportunity to chat with Amy. It wasn't a really balanced conversation, because My Sir had set my collar to silence me. But we were able to communicate.

It seems that Mr. Saburo had gotten into a vigorous discussion with Amy's bridegroom about who was the better poker player. They decided to settle the question in a poker tournament, to be held on the ship's main deck. My Sir and our extra seaman Olaf Svennson were brought in to make the game more interesting. They played for table stakes, with everybody starting even, so the differences in personal wealth would not be significant.

Jane was busy in the kitchen, cleaning up after supper and baking breakfast rolls and pastries for the next day. Mr. Saburo's other girlfriend Tomiko had been training on the ship's control console, and she was serving as navigating watchkeeper. I helped Jane mix pastry dough in the kitchen, and I supplied chips, pretzels, nuts, and beer to the poker players who came over to the exhibit space when they were thirsty or hungry. My Sir unchained my wrists and ankles so that I could get back and forth faster while doing these two jobs at once. In between requests for help or food, I spent some of my time sitting on a chair that folded down from the starboard side of the hull, right at the end of the exhibit space.

About half an hour into the game, Amy's bridegroom brought Amy over to me. She wore only leg shackles, and wrist cuffs which were chained to opposite shoulders so that her forearms were parallel across her back. A chain across her upper chest kept the straps around her shoulders from slipping down her arms. He tossed a pillow onto the deck just outside the exhibit space and ordered "Sit. Fold your knees to your chest." Then he added a chain and a single padlock to link her ankle cuffs together and connect them to the chain across her chest. That put Amy into an instant seated semi-ball tie. He asked me for a beer, I pulled a Foster's from the tap for him, and he returned to the game.

When I sat down again on my folding chair, Amy turned to me and said "He's decided he can't keep me with him while he's playing serious poker. He thinks that I am a distraction, or perhaps I'm just simple bad luck." I nodded.

She asked "How long have you been doing this sort of thing?" I tapped my collar with my right hand and pinched my lips together with left finger and thumb to indicate that I was silenced. Then I shivered in an imaginary cold breeze, wiped imaginary sweat off my brow under an imaginary hot sun, and repeated the shivering and brow wiping.

She didn't catch on at first. She asked "Can't you talk?" I shook my head, tapped my collar again, and pinched my lips again. "You can't talk while wearing the collar?" I nodded. "I have noticed that you don't talk much. What would happen?" I winced and flinched. "Electric shock?" I nodded.

"So I guess you can't tell me how long you have been doing this." I repeated shivering and wiping my brow, twice. "Oh, I get it. Winter, summer, winter, summer. Two years?" I nodded.

"How did you get started?" I put my left forearm over my right forearm in front of me, palms down and flat, to suggest a judge's bench. I looked imperiously down and pronounced a totally silent legal sentencing. I whacked the nonexistent bench with an equally imaginary gavel. Then I turned away from Amy, pulled my hair aside, and let her read the "CONVICT. Prisoner" tag on the back of my collar. "Oh, that's right. You kind of came with the ship, didn't you?" I gave one quick short nod, to indicate 'Yes, kind of'.

She began to ask me a series of questions which could all be answered either Yes or No. She played this game well, and she soon had a good idea of my background. Eventually she asked "Were you really guilty as charged?" I gave her a rueful expression and nodded Yes once again.

My honesty inspired her to open up about her own background. Her father was a househusband, cleaning and cooking and acting as his wife's business manager. Her mother was a well-paid artist and interior decorator. They moved from project to project while Amy was growing up, so she had never had a long-term family home. Both of her parents were talented amateur musicians who played in bands and sang in choruses. She had known from early childhood that she would want to make a career of music herself. She hit the big time with her first song release, before she had her twentieth birthday.

Then she got down to the real nitty gritty. "I'm not exactly a volunteer for this kind of thing, either," she said, shaking her ankles to make the connecting padlock and chains jingle. "I'm an addict, to tobacco and to alcohol. After the money started rolling in, I could buy all of the booze that I wanted. I had invitations to lots of parties. When I had trouble writing a song, I paced the floor and smoked, a pack at a time, lighting the next cigarette from the butt of the last one. The tobacco was ruining my lungs and my voice. When I needed to get over my nervousness before a concert, I chugged a couple of shots of whatever was available. The concerts didn't go so well anymore. I was getting poor reviews, and drinking more to drown my disappointment in myself.

"I knew that I could do better, if only I could quit drinking. But I couldn't do it alone. And I was Amy Grandborough, the superstar. Nobody was willing to get on my case and stop me.

"And then I met My True Love. His seat was reserved next to mine in a first-class compartment on a crowded train carriage. He was not impressed at all about my being a superstar; as a matter of fact, he didn't even recognize me. He didn't care I'm six-feet-one. I've always been tall, and very pretty, and it always frightened the boys away, all through school. They felt outclassed. They didn't want to date somebody who was taller than they were. And once I became rich and famous and all it really frightened most men away. The ones who came on to me anyway were usually too stuck up to be worth my time. My True Love is different. I'm about an inch taller than he is, and I've got a lot more money, and he doesn't give a damn.

"He doesn't smoke. He hardly drinks. He won't let me have any alcohol when we are out together. I had had a few before one of our early dates, trying to deal with my nervousness. At the end of that date, he warned me that he would spank me if I had alcohol on my breath at the start of the next date. And I did, and he did. He flipped me over his knee and whacked away, and I couldn't do a thing to stop him. He's strong, in more than one sense of the word. And he cares! He cares for me! He wants me, the person, not the superstar. We never went out that night. We stayed in my flat, and I cried, and we talked, and I confessed, and I said that I would turn myself over to him without reservation if he would help me.

"And now it's official. I said 'love, honor, and obey' during my wedding, with millions of people listening. If he wants to keep me in chains, I am pledged to say yes. And I'm scared. I'm not going to have my tobacco and alcohol, my crutches, to lean on ever again.

"Tell me, are you happy? Can you be happy, leading a life in chains?"

That was a very big question. I am not very good at introspection. I hadn't really thought about my own happiness before. I stared up at the bulkhead, and I thought. If I had a time machine, and I could go back and give advice to my younger self, what would I tell myself to do to make my life come out differently?

I could have stayed on my parents' sheep farm. But I had had some bad experiences with the local boys, and I hadn't been very happy there in the first place. That was why I had left.

I could have kept my job as a sales clerk, for a pineapple a day. But that hadn't been a happy time either.

I could have turned down Captain Marie's offer of a sailing job. But then where would I have gone? And how would I ever have met My Sir? Would he have looked twice at me, if I hadn't been given to him by the judge? He had an active sex life before he got me. Since then he still had an active sex life, but he had lost all interest in other women. Would I still have the same attraction for him, if I didn't have his collar inescapably sealed around my neck?

One cruise with Captain Marie had put such dark stains on my soul that I needed to be punished. My Sir knew just how hard to punish me. I wouldn't be as happy living with anyone else.

If I wouldn't be as happy with anyone else, then I must be happy. Didn't that follow logically?

Most men and women can't enjoy sex 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But wearing My Sir's chains is a full-time act of foreplay for me. Seeing me in those chains seems to have about the same effect on him. How could either of us do any better than that?

I must have stared at the bulkhead for about a minute, thinking about all of these things. I would bet that a smile was growing on my face the whole time. Then I turned to Amy with my smile full force, and I nodded my head very firmly. Yes, I wanted to tell her, you can be happy, leading a life in chains, if you are lucky enough to find the right man for you. I have found the right man for me. I think that your new husband is the right man for you.

She said "Really?" I nodded and tried to look convincing while still smiling. Then I tried to think of a way to explain something important to her.

I reached off to my left, and I picked up an imaginary cigarette and matchbook. I lit the cigarette and took a puff. Then I shook my head and traced a circle and diagonal slash in the air, the international symbol for "not allowed". I stubbed the cigarette out in an imaginary ashtray and pushed it away to my right.

I reached again to my left, and I picked up an imaginary glass and bottle. I poured a drink and took a sip. Then I traced another circle and diagonal slash, and I dumped the rest of my imaginary drink into a real sink (which was set into the bulkhead right behind me; why not use it?). I pushed the glass and bottle away to my right.

I reached again to my left, and I picked up an imaginary set of bondage chains. I used the chains to lock myself stretched out in an X, with my feet spread and my hands above my head. I humped the chair I was sitting in for a few seconds, and then I relaxed and gave an enormous sigh. And then I grinned at Amy.

"So you are saying no cigarettes and no drinks, but you're getting really great sex now to make up for missing them?" I gave a quick nod, but she still didn't have the entire thought. I twirled my hands to indicate forward motion, 'Don't stop there', and I traced a big heart in the air with both hands to show her the direction her thoughts should follow. She asked "Are you saying 'My bighearted man loves me'? And he'll be there to help me?" I nodded much more enthusiastically and gave her a broad smile. She said "You know, I think you are right. Thank you, Cindy. I'm really glad I got this chance to talk with you."

Several hours later My Sir and Amy's husband both came down from the main deck to retrieve us for the night. I faced My Sir, pulled an imaginary gag from my mouth, and tossed it aside; I used my best puppy-dog eyes and put my hands together in front as if in prayer, to signal "please". My Sir punched a button on his combined wristwatch and collar controller. My collar signaled "blurp". Then I could finally really talk with Amy.

I told her "Thank you too. I might never have realized some important things about myself if you hadn't asked me such good questions."


Afterwards

My Sir ordered me to go back to the cabin. He joined me there and chained me to the bed, stretched out in an X, for real. I asked him how he had done in the poker game. Who won, Mr. Saburo or Amy's husband? Neither had won. Olaf Svennson had cleaned both of them out, besides taking over a hundred dollars from My Sir.

Amy and her husband went to his station in the outback a few days later when their honeymoon cruise ended. I don't know how he treats her out there. I do know that he still treats her the same whenever they're on the ship. They have been on several cruises, usually after long and strenuous concert tours, and she still spends all of her time in chains while at sea.

She wrote a new album, called "Amy Sings Love Songs". Many music critics have called it her best work in years. It went right to the top of the charts. The no-booze, no-cigarettes, lots-of-love-and-moral-support policy has apparently been a big success.

Unless there is a divorce, she will never be as big in the gossip webzines as she used to be. Before her marriage, the webzines covered her showing up at all of the parties with the other A-list people and getting at least a little bit drunk. The headlines used to read "Whose husband is Amy hitting on now?", and "Yet another DUI for Amy", and "Photos of Amy in Her Newest Reveal-All Dress". Now when she goes on tour or to big events like awards ceremonies, she is more likely to stay with her husband in their hotel room instead of going to parties. He has become her business manager, and he travels with her on tour. He is always there for her backstage, helping her deal with her stage fright just before she performs. I expect that she drinks only what he gives her. She probably wears even more revealing outfits, but her husband is the only one who sees her in them.


A Short Comment by My Sir

I have seen only one other woman who has ever worn the expression that was on Amy's face when she looked at her bridegroom as they went ashore after her honeymoon. The expression said: You own me. I am helplessly in love with you. You can treat me however you wish, and I will still love you. Please be kind.

Our Own Wedding and Honeymoon

Robert Harris writes: I'll tell this one myself.

The ceremony took place in the same courtroom where Cindy and I had been tried. One of the same judges presided. The result was a legal document issued by a Noumean court of law. The treaty about mutual acceptance of legal decisions ensured that nobody in the USA could challenge the legitimacy of our marriage.

I still treasure my memory of Cindy's expression when she looked at me on our wedding night. She was chained spread-eagled on the bed at the time. She was the other woman whose expression said: You own me. I am helplessly in love with you. You can treat me however you wish, and I will still love you. Please be kind.

I told her "I love you enough that I would have married you anyway." Then I kissed her, very gently, and then I tickled her to total exhaustion. I hugged her until she caught her breath, and then I began caressing her. Her body always seems to be more sensitive to my caresses if she is well-tickled first.

She has since told me that the night of passion as my bride was the greatest thrill of her life.


Our Honeymoon Journey

We went to Chicago, my hometown in the USA. I have sold my old place in Florida. When it is winter in Chicago, you will find us either at the cottage in Noumea City, or else on board the Coral Sea Queen.

Cindy started the journey wearing one of her usual safety orange outfits. It left her bare from just below her breasts to a bit above her hips. The cabin temperature in an airplane can be cool, so I let her have long sleeves, and a close-fitting neckline, and ankle-length pants. She wore her usual cuffs with the bright copper and nickel finish. The wrist cuffs were linked to her collar by a foot-long rod that converted the assembly into a fiddle. Her ankle cuffs were connected together by a 14-inch chain.

I changed her to USA style during our stopover in Kwajalein. Most transpacific flights stop there now. Ever since the lagoon was converted into the world's largest solar biocrude pond and the refineries were built, fuel has been less expensive there than anywhere else.

Her USA-service safety-orange prisoner suit fits more loosely than most of her clothing. It covers everything from neck to ankles, with no bare waist. Instead of her usual bondage cuffs, I put her in a regulation US-made prisoner transport kit: steel handcuffs attached in front to a leather belt, and ankle shackles with a half-meter chain. My lawyer warned me that self-appointed legal busybodies would be watching every move that I made. Nobody could accuse me of cruel and unusual punishment if the convict that I was transporting wore the exact-same transport kit as thousands of other prisoners in the USA.

We took the direct flight from Kwajalein to Los Angeles, the one with no stopover in Hawaii. The airline saves money by not burning fuel to land, taxi around an airport, and then take off and climb back to altitude, so the air fare is the same either way. Of course it does mean several more hours of being squeezed continuously into cramped seats together with 598 other people who all have little chance of getting up and walking around.

Owing to FAA safety regulations, I had to take Cindy's handcuffs and leg shackles off once the airplane door was closed on the flight to the USA. I wasn't allowed to hamper her ability to escape from the burning or sinking wreckage in case the airplane crashed. Like any official US police prisoner, she flew in a window seat so that she would have to climb over her guard - me, of course - in order to go anywhere. I thought that she would enjoy the freedom from shackles. I was wrong. Her actual reaction was "Freedom? What freedom? The slave cage in our cottage allows me more room."

On arrival in Los Angeles, I had to argue my way past Customs, and Immigration, and Transportation Security.

Customs was easy. The only unusual items I was bringing in were Cindy's restraints, and I had been careful to pick restraints that were made in the USA and hence were duty-free on re-importation.

The Immigration inspector shunted me away from the regular entry lines and called his boss, who called his boss, who called the US Embassy in Noumea, before finally accepting that Cindy's prisoner card was a valid government-issued ID from a nation on the US favored-treatment list. The process took several hours.

I had to show my prisoner-guard badge to an upper-level official in Transportation Security to convince him that I was authorized to keep Cindy in transport restraints. My lawyer had warned me that US authorities like to see badges. I didn't tell that official that Noumean prison guards don't have badges, only uniforms and ID cards. I did have a valid ID card, issued by order of the Noumean court which sentenced Cindy. But my badge had no official status at all. It was made to order for me by the same 3D printing company in Noumea Ville that had made Cindy's collar.

We took the train for the last leg of our journey, from Los Angeles to Chicago. I had had enough of being squashed into an airplane seat for a while. Besides, it gave Cindy a chance to see the scenery of the American West. It also gave both of us a better opportunity to re-set our internal clocks to Chicago time.


Chicago

Soon after I became rich, I put some money into a start-up real-estate operating company which has since built several multi-use residential/shopping/office complexes. The deal included about half a per cent of the company's stock shares, and ownership of an apartment in one of the complexes. Since I own the apartment, I can remodel it however I please.

An important part of the deal for me is that my apartment is within the security perimeter of the complex. Video cameras feed images of the apartment entrance to a station where guards are on duty 24/7/365. I had expected to spend my winters in Florida, and I didn't want vandals trashing my apartment while I was away. Now, of course, I have a more important reason to have full-time guards watching my apartment.

When we arrived at the apartment, Cindy was of course still wearing her USA-style coverall and transport chains. I took her on a quick tour of the place, a tour that ended by the door of the back bedroom.

There was a fancy electronic control panel alongside that door. Most residential controls today are inexpensive flat tablets which can be programmed to look like dozens of different real panels. On those panels, virtual switches can be set by poking or sliding fingers across the display. My new panel was the latest deluxe model, with real touch-feedback buttons and levers that each do just one thing.

The unusual panel caught Cindy's attention. I explained "It controls your new cell. Like all cell controllers, it is completely hardwired. There are no portable keys that could be stolen, and no radio signals that could be intercepted, analyzed, and duplicated." I pressed my thumb against one corner of the panel. After a few seconds, the panel beeped and a green LED lit up to signal that my thumbprint had been recognized and accepted.

I opened the ordinary bedroom door. Three feet inward was a wall, apparently solid metal, with a black and tan enamel finish and a shelf sticking out at waist height from the middle. I flipped a switch on the control panel. Whir whir whirr . . thump. The middle of the wall was a remote-controlled sliding door, and it slid out of the way to the right.

I took Cindy into the cell. We looked around. The entire room was a single tan metallic-looking molded hollow space, and that included almost everything in it. There were no crevices, cabinets, drawers, or other hiding places where prisoners could keep contraband. Nothing could be broken off to be used as a weapon.

The left front had a table or desk area against the wall, with a bench to sit on while that area was being used. The left wall had some shelves. A very small shower stall occupied the left rear corner. The commode and sink were on the back wall. The right rear corner had bench seating against the wall; above that bench, some windows looked out across my outdoor patio space which is on the complex roof, with a typical cityscape beyond. All of these features were normal options for prefabricated cells like this one. But the right front corner was unique. The cell company salesman told me that it was the only queen-sized bed that had ever been molded into one of their prison cells. The only separate object in the room was the mattress for that queen-sized bed.

I ordered "Stay here." I stepped out of the room and flipped the door switch back. Whir whir whirr . . clink, and Cindy was locked in. Another switch on the control panel caused a bzzzzip, and two narrow horizontal hatches opened in the door. When she followed my next order to "Come to the door", I was able to reach in and undo her ankle shackles through the hatch near the floor, and then her waist belt and handcuffs through the waist-level hatch.

I said "Take your clothes off and pile them on the door shelf". She followed that order and I took the clothes away. Then I stepped back to the control panel and turned a knob. The black color of the panel that made up the top half of the door faded until the door was transparent. It had looked like enameled metal, but it obviously wasn't. Cindy was revealed standing naked on the other side of the door. I gave her an evil grin. She gave me her very best oh-I-am-shocked expression and used her hands to cover her breasts and crotch.

The storage closets for my apartment are right across the corridor from the bedroom that had become Cindy's cell. I transferred sheets, blankets, towels, pillows, toilet paper, a washcloth, soap, and shampoo from those storage closets to the door shelf, and I ordered "Make the bed and take a shower. You are allowed to wrap yourself in one of the bath towels." Then I left, closing the ordinary bedroom door behind me.

I was back about an hour later, carrying a small tray of cookies. The time was almost midnight. My hair was still wet from my own shower. I wore nothing but a bathrobe. Whir whir whirr . . thump. I walked into the cell.

Whir whir whirr . . clink.

Cindy was on the bed, covered as I had suggested by a bath towel. I stood and grinned at her, and I waited for her reaction.

Her expression became puzzled. What was I waiting for? And then it hit her. She said "Didn't you say that the cell was controlled entirely by that panel on the corridor wall? Now that you are in here, how are you going to open the door?"

I answered "I'm not. I can't. This cell is now in total lock-down. There is no way to get out. I'll admit that there is a panic button on that wall to declare an emergency, but if either of us does that, the apartment will soon be filled with security patrolmen from the complex, and cops from the city, and firefighters and EMTs and complex managers. There better be a real emergency. If not, then I will take a serious kick in the wallet, and I might have to spend some time in another jail cell downtown. If it's your fault then I will see to it that you regret having done it. If you push that button, it better be because I am having a heart attack and I can't push it myself."

"So how does this lock-down end?"

"The main panel in the security office is also connected to this door by hardwire. The complex security staff is authorized to open this door during the day between seven a.m. and midnight, if I ask over the intercom on that wall and if I give the guard my security phrase. The phrase is in French; you could never say it well enough, at a low enough pitch, to convince the voice recognition software that you are me. At night between midnight and seven a.m., nobody is authorized to open that door. It was open at midnight, so they shut it."

"So now I am trapped in a jail cell with a raving sadistic sex fiend." Cindy grinned at me.

I answered "A raving sadistic torturing sex fiend. Let's try a few tortures. I will crush you under heavy weight." I jumped up on the bed, pushed her down on her back, and stretched my body so that all of my weight was on top of her. "Next comes interfering with your normal breathing." My lips clamped down on hers.

I held that position for at least a minute. Then I backed off and asked "Are you in agony yet?"

Cindy wriggled one leg out from under me. She bent that knee, pushed down with her foot, pushed up on one of my shoulders while pulling down on the other side, and she managed to roll us both over until she was on top. I didn't fight her very hard. She said "Let's see how you like having your breathing interfered with", and her lips clamped down on mine.

That was the start of the first of many wonderful nights of passion on a queen-size bed while we are locked up together in a cell. It feels very different from passion between a man who is free and a woman who is chained to the bed. The bed is wide enough so that we can both be comfortable, but narrow enough to keep us touching each other. I am not sure whether one flavor of passion is better or worse than the other. I like them both.


Inspection

My lawyer had warned me that self-appointed legal busybodies would be watching me. Soon after I arrived, they sicced a couple of Department of Prisons inspectors on me. My facilities, and my treatment of Cindy, had to be up to contemporary standards.

The inspectors got into the only elevator that can be used to reach my apartment. It went up to halfway between floors, and stopped. I ordered the inspectors to "Show your badges and ID cards to the camera in the roof of the car. Hold them closer. Wait a short while." I phoned the Department of Prisons to confirm that the inspectors were legitimate before allowing the elevator to complete its journey. When I greeted them, I observed that "If a phony inspector, or any other unauthorized person, were to try to reach this apartment, the elevator would have gone back down without ever reaching my place, and they would be arrested for trespassing by the building security patrol." The inspectors couldn't fault me for insufficient perimeter protection.

There is a Department of Justice Standard on Design and Construction of Prefabricated Semi-Permanent Prison Facilities. The usual locations for these facilities are in boom towns where new permanent jails haven't been built yet, or in boom towns that are expected to become bust towns when a construction project such as a big bridge is finished. I didn't want anything to be installed that couldn't be taken back out again if I ever wanted to sell my apartment, which is why I had ordered my special semi-permanent cell from a regular supplier of that type of equipment. Of course my supplier makes sure that their products comply with the DOJ standard. The inspectors couldn't fault my holding facilities.

There is a textbook on Proper Treatment of Prisoners, written for guards and prison administrators, that collects and summarizes the decisions of the courts on the rights of prisoners in the USA. I had read it, and I supplied Cindy with access so that she could read it.

-- Three square meals a day: check.

-- Proper clothing, bath towels, etc. laundered once a day: check.

-- Minimum space per prisoner: check, Cindy has more than required.

-- Access to entertainment, which could be censored: check, her cell has a book reader and a video screen on the wall.

-- Opportunity to learn an honest trade: check, Cindy did most of the cooking. She was supposed to be improving her skills as a short-order cook. Allowing her out of her cell while I guarded her did not cause a risk of her escaping. She wore her leg shackles in the kitchen, I had high-security locks on the main entry door to the apartment, and I had a secure door installed between the front hall and the rest of the place.

-- Daily exercise: check, I took her for walks in the mall on the ground floor of the complex each evening after the stores closed. Of course she took these walks in full police-model restraints.

-- Restraints used only as appropriate, check: I used only standard police-model cuffs and belt on her, and I did not keep her in these cuffs when she was locked in her cell.

-- Same-sex guards, NO check: but that regulation obviously would not apply when the only close guard who watched her was also married to her. That variance had been approved by the court which sentenced Cindy. The inspectors hemmed and hawed, and read the copies of the legal documents from the court in Noumea. One of them finally asked Cindy "Do you want to be married to this man?"

Cindy answered "Yes, for three reasons. One, I love him. Two, he loves me. Three, a divorce would probably mean extradition back to Noumea to face a death sentence there."

The inspectors finally accepted that Cindy's circumstances in this respect were unusual, even unique. They turned in a report which silenced the legal busybodies. We haven't been bothered since.


Since Our Honeymoon

The Noumea Maritime Patrol no longer owns their own sail training ship. Instead they take over the Coral Sea Queen for six weeks every autumn, according to their calendar, which is every spring in Chicago or in Japan. The Patrol switches off and dismantles all of the automation on the ship, and their cadets handle the sails and rigging the old-fashioned way.

Saburo was delighted to make this arrangement with the Patrol. He and his women need vacation time, just like everybody else. They travel back to Japan.

As far as Cindy and I are concerned, our first trip to Chicago was a honeymoon. We have been back, on vacation, during the Patrol sail training interlude every year since.

These trips are a vacation for Cindy from the kinds of close confinement that she lives in while in Noumea Ville or on the Coral Sea Queen. There are no girl rails, no slave cages, no shackles hanging from the ceiling, no two-foot-long floor chains requiring her to crawl, no exhibitions of nudity or near-nudity in front of anybody else but me.

She slept very poorly during her first few nights in her Chicago cell. She finally asked me to strap her to the bed each night after the passion faded, since that is the way she has slept ever since the court assigned her to me. I bought a set of beginner's-bondage straps, which she could escape from if she really wanted to. Legal busybodies would have no grounds to challenge me if they ever found out about those straps. She wears them most nights, and she sleeps soundly while wearing them, and she still waits for me to release her each morning.

So she is my prisoner, and she is my lover, and she is my wife. What is the most important thing that she is to me? I wondered about that. I think that a first-year legal student working for the Census Bureau identified the best answer.

We were in Chicago a few years back at the time of the decennial census. I hadn't filled out any Census Bureau forms, since I was busy at sea until past the deadline for returning them. A young part-time agent came to ask me the relevant questions in person. The agent arrived just as we got back from our evening walk. Cindy was wearing her prisoner coverall, handcuffs, waist belt, and ankle shackles, in the living room of my apartment.

The agent listened to our descriptions of our life together, watched our behavior, and exclaimed "You are treating her as if she were your slave."

I answered "That might reasonably be argued. So what? Do you know the Thirteenth Amendment?" I had long since memorized it against the possibility that a discussion like this might occur. I quoted " 'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' "

I continued "Cindy committed some crimes. She has been duly convicted. So the Thirteenth Amendment does not apply in her case."

The agent thought about that for a few moments. Then he said "I will definitely have to use the Remarks area of the form for this one."

He must have done a great job of writing those remarks. Nobody argued with his conclusion, all the way up to the federal level.

Seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are allocated to the states based on population. In 1787, when the Constitution was written, the southern states wanted slaves to be included in the official population totals. The northern states wanted slaves to be ignored. The drafters compromised and decided to include all of the free people plus a fraction of the slaves.

That provision hadn't been applied since the Thirteenth Amendment went into force. There weren't any slaves to apply it to. But it is still in the Constitution. It was re-activated when the Thirty-Fifth Amendment was passed to limit the ability of the courts to use the Fourteenth Amendment to re-organize American society. That almost certainly was not an intended effect of the Thirty-Fifth Amendment, but the authors of that amendment were a bit sloppy in their wording.

Today the official population of the USA is 496,218,759.6. That's right. My Cindy is the ".6" .


Remarks by the Author:

The "very old video" of Charlotte being put onto the first charlotte really exists. You can find it at .

Several items mentioned in this story may be seen as far-future Star-Trek-era gadgetry by the people who read it soon after it is written. I disagree. I remind you that the communicators which Kirk, Spock, and McCoy carried on their belts are now in most people's pockets and pocketbooks. We call them "cell phones" now.

This story was written in winter 2012-13. If you found it in a ten-year-old online archive, you may wonder why I mention 3D printing in this context. As of spring 2013, it still seemed that everything was being made in China, in large production lots. I believe that this will no longer be true in ten years. The revolution is that close.

Shima Seiki knitting machines can now convert yarn to gloves in one step, under computer control, with no intermediate cutting and sewing. These machines are too narrow to make blouses or shirts, but making wider knitting machines should not be a major technical challenge. If an enlarged Shima Seiki machine were installed in a mall store, and if it were properly coupled to a laser measuring system that could obtain the exact dimensions of anything, then that mall store would be able to make garments direct from yarn to exact fit while the intended wearer ate a snack. If somebody at JCPenney is paying attention to the possibility, they may yet be able to save the company.

B9 Energy is a real company. They operate wind farms in the UK. They are sponsoring research toward the building of a 21st-century commercial sailing ship, working with Scottish universities in wind tunnels and ship model tanks. They are drawing on experience with commercial motor vessels and also with racing sail yachts. If they decide to licence their technology, "PowerFurl" would be a good trademark for them. I hereby donate the idea.

ExxonMobil has a current long-term research program on obtaining crude biofuel from algae. They are still a long way from being able to scale that up to the size of the Kwajalein lagoon, or any other lagoons in that area. If such an action were seriously proposed, I suspect that half of the eco-freaks would scream in agony at the loss of biodiversity in the lagoons, while the other half would demand quick action to suppress global warming. The natives of Kwajalein might get the last word. I have assumed that they would generally prefer to be as rich as Arab oil sheiks, and would therefore approve the proposal.

We know for certain that it will take more than sixty years from first mention in science fiction until fuel really is made from algae and other plant life beneath the sun on South Pacific islands. But we know that only because the prediction is already more than sixty years old. Needle, by Hal Clement, was published in 1949 as a serial in Astounding Science Fiction. It's still available as a paperback through Amazon.com. It's a good story even though it is not at all erotic.