Author's Note: When Anna decides to tie herself up and hide in a packing crate, her intention is to remain there for an hour or two at most....Falling asleep was not a good idea.


Anna sighed as she strolled around the living room of her soon to be vacated flat. She kept trying to envisage how it had been only days before with all her personal possessions still strewn around, but for some reason found herself unable to conjure up what should have been an all too familiar scene. Not only that, but the memories that this stirred up seemed to cause a wave of nostalgic sadness to well up in her. Dwelling on the past, she decided, was not a good idea. She checked her watch for what must have been the hundredth time today: half past eight.

The removal men had said they'd be around at half past ten, which left her with two hours to spare; a hundred and twenty minutes or so in which to kick her heels in a flat where all her worldly effects were packed away in crates. After a messy relationship breakup, she'd felt the need to get away for a while, and had decided to take a year off work to go travelling - solo - so all her stuff was going into storage in a warehouse until she returned. When she got back, she'd have to find somewhere else to live. She'd already said her goodbyes to friends and family, and later today - Friday - she would catch the train down to Kent, book into a B&B for a couple of nights, then take the ferry to France on Monday morning. Now, with everything done, she sat down on a crate to contemplate how she could best spend these two hours of free time. She needed something to occupy her mind.

It didn't take her long to decide how the remaining time in her old home would be spent; not that the term 'free time' could be said to apply any longer, once this choice had been made. It had, in truth, been a simple decision to make, as her intended course of action was also her number one all-consuming passion: self-bondage.

From out of one of her bags, Anna produced the equipment necessary to achieve her aim of tying herself up. This consisted of several lengths of rope, a ball-gag, a reel of strong adhesive tape, plus her most treasured possession; a set of handcuffs complete with key. Never one to make escape easy for herself, Anna placed the key on the otherwise bare mantelpiece. She was about to begin the process of rendering herself as helpless as she could, when an idea came into her head. One of the sturdy wooden packing crates was, at most, only half full. Slipping the lid off this particular box, she gazed inside, trying to gauge whether she could fit her slim frame into the available space. This question was soon answered in the affirmative, as the only items within were a few pairs of curtains and some cushions. Her second concern was that, once inside, she wouldn't be able to breathe if she decided to pull the lid back across the opening. This fear was soon allayed however, as she quickly discovered that each wall of the crate had a small ventilation hole bored out, approximately half an inch in diameter. With rising excitement, Anna made the decision to not only bind herself up, but to also hide herself away inside this makeshift incarceration chamber.

As was usual in her self-bondage sessions, Anna quickly discarded her outer garments, as she always found that loose, flapping clothing tended to be a hindrance when you wanted to tie yourself up as tightly as possible. The blouse she was wearing, plus her skirt, were therefore swiftly removed, leaving her clad in just her bra, panties and tights - all black in colour.

Climbing inside with all her equipment, Anna set to work to transform herself, as closely as she possibly could, into the helpless, damsel-in-distress, kidnap victim. Sitting on the rim, she wound the first piece of rope around her ankles, cinched and knotted it tightly, then proceeded to treat her knees to two similarly stringent ligatures - one just below the joint, the other just above - before finishing off her leg bondage by wrapping a further length around her thighs and securing it in identical fashion to the other three bonds. Inserting the well chewed ball into her mouth and buckling the attached straps at the rear of her head, she completed her layered gag by pressing the end of the duct tape over her lips, then wrapping it around her head and face several times until her mouth was well and truly sealed, before smoothing the whole thing down to ensure that it bonded securely to the flesh on her cheeks and chin. Next came the part that was crucial if her time in bondage was to be a deemed a success.

Wrapping another length of rope around her waist, finding the bight and creating reverse tension, she tightened this latest edition to her rope ensemble as strictly as she could, before threading the cord through her legs, bringing it up into her crotch as far as was humanly possible, and securing it at the front. With her rope bondage complete, she was ready to encase herself.

Holding onto the crate's heavy wooden lid, she sat down in the pile of soft materials; finding as she did so that there was less room than she'd imagined within the tight confines. Once she'd curled herself up into a ball, however, she was able to pull the lid back into position. The darkness that enveloped her, as the lid slammed into place, caused a ripple of delight to course through her. Anna didn't care what anybody else thought of her weird little games, this was the sort of situation that excited her more than anything else in the world. Fastening the first bracelet around her left wrist, she was just about to place her hands behind her back and seal her fate, when another idea came to her. Instead of lying on top of all these soft furnishings, perhaps she should wrap herself up inside them.

With very little room to manoeuvre, this proved to be a more difficult operation to put into practice than she'd anticipated. However, after a minute or two of wriggling about, she managed to pull one curtain around her body and over her head. With this feat accomplished, she swiftly and expertly completed her bondage by cuffing her hands behind her back; the ratchet clicking slowly shut causing a shiver of pleasure to surge up her spine.

For a while, Anna lay still in her self induced helplessness; soaking up the electrifying atmosphere that being imprisoned always evoked. She pulled tentatively on the crotch rope and felt herself becoming aroused almost immediately. Her original intention had been to pace herself and gradually work up to her orgasm, but the thrill that even the smallest tug on the rope induced, made her impatient to experience that wonderfully indescribable climatic moment as soon as she possibly could. Moaning with pleasure, her rhythmical thrusts became ever more intense, until the whole wooden packing case creaked and rocked in time with her motion. Finally, she groaned with sheer joy as the culmination of her endeavours exploded in her like a bolt of lightning. Breathing heavily and sweating profusely now in the enclosed space, her appetite sated - for the time being at least - she relaxed into the soft makeshift bedding.

Anna knew that she couldn't stay here too long, as she had to leave sufficient time to struggle out of the crate, hop across the floor, knock the key off the mantelpiece with her chin - as it was too high for her fettered hands to reach - and release herself before the removal men arrived. It was at this point too, that she suddenly realized that she'd left the front door unlocked, and she half contemplated beginning the process of liberation straight away. But the cushions made a lovely soft mattress and the curtain that covered her made her feel so warm and cosy, that she decided to wait just a few more minutes before stirring. It was this decision that was to prove her downfall.

The only explanation that Anna could come up with was that the removal men had knocked and, when they received no reply, tried the door. Then, having found it unlocked, they had decided to begin loading the lorry even though no one seemed to be about. This, however, was a theory that she had no way of either proving or disproving.

What Anna could fathom out with a fair degree of certainty, however, was that she'd fallen asleep in her makeshift jail; her exertions clearly allowing her to drift off into a deep, contented slumber. Although acutely embarrassing , under normal circumstances there would be very little damage done once she'd pushed open the lid of the box, revealed her presence, then set about explaining that the situation in which she'd been discovered had been both willingly entered into and all her own work . However, she wasn't to be given the opportunity to enlighten the workmen as to her whereabouts or the nature of her circumstances. As she slowly awoke, two vital coinciding events would conspire to shape the foreseeable future for the unfortunate twenty one year old.

Firstly, with the curtain over her head adding to the darkness of the crate's interior, Anna, in her still groggy state, forgot exactly where she was and attempted to sit up. At that precise moment one of the workmen decided to pick up the box in which she lay, found the lid unsecured, and allowed the wooden container to crash back heavily onto the floor. What exactly transpired next, Anna never found out, but the searing pain as her head collided with solid wood lasted but a moment, before she lapsed into a state of unconsciousness. Her final recollection, as she slipped into oblivion, was of a hammering sound pounding into her skull from just inches above, as the workman made certain that the casing was secure for uplifting and removal.

When she finally came to, Anna's head was both spinning and aching profusely. It took her several minutes to work out precisely where she was and what had happened, but the drone of an engine finally brought it home to her that she was in the back of the removal lorry. Having wrestled for several minutes to extricate her head and upper body from the curtain, the knowledge that the key to her handcuffs was now unavailable, plus the fact that, when she pushed upwards, the lid of her improvised prison cell failed to budge from its now secured position, set in motion a desperate period of struggling that she had no chance of winning. Still, she reasoned, when they reached the warehouse where her possessions were to be stored, she would be able to make her presence known. Despite the gags and tight bonds around her legs, she could still kick and scream loudly enough to draw attention to her plight. Or so she assumed.

After what seemed like an eternity, the lorry came to a halt and the rumble of the engine ceased. Not that Anna could actually discern that this droning sound had died away; her knowledge being gleaned from the fact that the constant vibration had stopped, plus the fact that there was no longer any sense of movement; no corners being negotiated, no jolts as the van stopped at road junctions. The reason that her ears had failed to confirm what her other senses were telling her, was that the volume of noise from outside the lorry had drowned out the relatively low hum of the engine. Now, through the walls of her confining crate, came the sound of heavy machinery; a sound that, she was soon to discover, emanated from a fleet of forklift trucks.

Above the din, Anna heard the doors of the van open. Although she yelled and screamed until she was hoarse, simultaneously kicking and banging to the point of exhaustion, for several minutes her crate lay undisturbed; a clear sign that her attempts at making contact weren't having the desired effect. Suddenly, an extremely narrow shaft of light pierced the gloom. With some difficulty, Anna wriggled into a position in which her eye and one of the tiny ventilation holes were aligned. The sight that greeted her was of a forklift truck descending the ramp from the lorry, having picked up the crate that must have been sitting adjacent to the one in which she languished; its removal being responsible for the sudden increase in light. Almost as soon as this first forklift had trundled down the slope, a second, identical vehicle ascended and picked up another of the crates.

Anna watched helplessly as this performance continued for several minutes. As the men driving the trucks were wearing ear protectors, Anna momentarily put on hold her bid to attract attention; watching in stunned silence as her packed up worldly goods were removed from the lorry and placed in three crate high stacks in her own private lockup section of this enormous warehouse. As one of the forklifts once more entered the lorry, Anna screamed ; not out of any forlorn hope of making herself heard, but because the truck was coming directly towards her.

As she felt herself being lifted upwards, Anna froze in sheer terror. Part of her wanted to rock the crate, in order to make her entombment apparent to the driver. But she knew that should the crate fall from the pallet on which it sat, the drop to the ground could cause her extreme injury, or even prove fatal if the forklift failed to stop in time and crushed her. From her spy hole, she could now look out on the unsuspecting driver. She found herself willing him to look up and their eyes to meet, but he was too engrossed in his work to glance at what he must have assumed to be a trunk full of somebody's inanimate possessions and bric-a-brac.

So intent was Anna on making eye contact that initially she failed to take note of her intended destination. However, as the crate began to descend and she turned her attention to her new surroundings, she realised that all the previously unloaded crates had already reached their height limit - for safety reasons - of three to a stack. Therefore, it stood to reason that she was going to be on the bottom of the next pile. Watching helplessly, she gazed out in the direction she was heading just in time to see her crate being lowered onto the floor in a corner of the storage area that she had hired for the next twelve months. This meant that on two sides her box would be in very close proximity to brick walls, whilst on another, her crate-cum-prison-cell was virtually touching another, almost identical, packing case.

With a bump, the load hit the concrete floor, causing Anna to shriek with terror. Once she'd recovered from this jolt and had again realigned her right eye with the only peephole that didn't now offer a view of either walls or packing crates, she watched as the forklift truck manoeuvred back towards the lorry. Two minutes later, a heavy crash from above coincided with the truck depositing its next load directly on top of her. Another similar time span elapsed before another thud shook the confines of her tomb, although this latter collision hit with less force than the previous one, due to the box directly overhead being sandwiched between the newly placed item and the one in which she lay helplessly trapped. Throughout this constant to-ing and fro-ing, Anna had kept up her frantic but ultimately futile attempts at attention grabbing. At first, she'd thought that she would be able to move the heavy box by continually kicking her feet against the sides, but found the momentum needed to shift the crate almost impossible to attain in her bound up state; although at one point a slight scrapping sound raised her hopes that she was meeting with some success. Unfortunately, the stacking of the next box on top of hers put paid to this premature optimism, and the third crate merely added insult to injury. With all that extra weight above her, there was no way on earth that she could shift the trunk even a fraction of an inch.

Anna peered out of the tiny hole; a mere spectator viewing an unfolding situation over which she had no control. As the next case was lowered into position directly in front of her, Anna screamed with utter despair at the catalogue of misfortunes that seemed to be endlessly befalling her. It was as if some higher power had decided that she was not going to get out of this self induced mess, and that this force was intentionally throwing more and more obstacles into her path to freedom. With the newly positioned crate came a severe curtailing of the light through the small opening; a situation that was made even worse only minutes later as another box was laid to rest on top of the one previously positioned.

Anna's entombment was now virtually complete. Bound, gagged and handcuffed, sealed in a solid wooden box, then walled in on all sides with obstructions that made escape impossible and discovery highly unlikely. Beneath her was a solid concrete floor, brick walls on two sides, with closely packed wooden boxes on the others, and above her, two more heavy containers.

Although the stacks were in close proximity to each other, Anna had noticed, prior to the latest additions to the pile plunging her into greater gloom, that there was at least an inch or so gap between her box and its neighbours, so at least she wouldn't suffocate. But was that such a good thing? At least death by suffocation would be reasonably quick. Now, however, with her chances of attracting attention diminished to virtually nil, the thought came to her that she might not be discovered until she had died of dehydration.

The grating sound of a heavy shutter being pulled across only served to confirm Anna's worst fears. She remembered vividly being shown around the facility at a time when she was tentatively checking out suitable places to store her possessions, prior to making her final decision. Each customer was allocated their own individual storage area or lockup within the main warehouse. Once the customer had deposited their belongings in this personally assigned space, heavy sliding doors were secured with a padlock to ensure none of the customer's property could go missing whilst they were away. One key to the padlock was then given to the client, whilst a second was kept in a secure place by the storage company. The customer was assured that this would be used to access the area only in emergencies.

What had happened to the key that should now be in her possession, Anna didn't know. But what she did know was that this was definitely an emergency which warranted the company using that spare key. The only problem was that they were oblivious to this crisis.

So that was it, she was now totally imprisoned. And as far as anyone knew she had left town and would soon be leaving the country. For a while she wondered whether the luggage that she had been taking with her might provide a clue that everything was not as it should have been. But then she realized, to her ever deepening dismay, that she'd left her bags on top of one of the packing crates. If the workmen had been as thorough in this respect as they had in every other aspect of their job, then these bags were, she was in little doubt, packed away with her other things no more than a few feet from the inescapable cubicle in which she remained entombed. The only thing, she thought grimly, that they'd probably overlooked, was the handcuff key lying on the mantelpiece, and even if they'd come across it, they would have had no reason to question its purpose or the significance of its placement there.

Anna changed position as best she could in the space available to her and wept uncontrollably. All she could do now was wait and hope for a miracle. Unless something of that nature occurred, it appeared that she was doomed. There was nothing to be done but wait for whatever fate had in store for her.

How long Anna actually lay there in the darkness of her sealed wooden incarceration chamber, it was difficult for her to tell, but at a guess it must have been at least five or six hours. During this time, the distant sound of rumbling forklift trucks and other machinery hummed in the background, creating a non-stop droning accompaniment to Anna's ever more desperate attempts at drawing attention to the fact that she was trapped and in mortal danger.

Finally, the noise of the constantly manoeuvring forklifts came to a halt. It must, Anna guessed, be about 5 o'clock and therefore the end of the working day. Soon everyone would be going home and the building would presumably be deserted for the night.

But no, not just for the night! It suddenly dawned on Anna that, being Friday, the facility would be shutting its doors for the weekend. In other words, it was imperative that she made her presence known within the next few minutes...or she would be trapped here until Monday morning at the earliest.

In sheer desperation and terror, Anna upped her wailing and screeching to a new level that she had previously thought would have been beyond her. But it did her no good whatsoever. In the distance she heard men's voices, laughing and joking as they left the building, their work over for another week. And then, suddenly, a far off door seemed to slam shut. And then there was only silence.

Anna knew that screaming was no longer likely to lead to her salvation. There was only one thing for it now, and that was to try to force her way out. The trouble was, as she had already deduced over the past few hours, that fighting her way out of a sturdy wooden crate with her wrists handcuffed behind her back and her legs tied, was a hopeless cause. That didn't stop her from trying however, as her ever bleaker prospects seemed to give her greater strength than she would have ever imagined that she possessed. But the tight fit of the cramped container allowed her no room to flex her bound up limbs to any significant degree, and this stifled any momentum she tried to build up in her endeavours to smash her feet into the walls of her prison cell. For what must have been two hours or more, she battered the solid panels that surrounded her, but to no avail. Finally, exhaustion and despair took their toll, and she found herself lapsing into a state of whimpering torpor. It was no good. She simply had no chance of getting out of this self-imposed nightmare. She was destined to rot here.

Or was she?

After several hours, during which no sound penetrated from the world outside into her compact jail, Anna's ears suddenly pricked up. What was that? Was it a door opening? That was certainly what it had sounded like. For several minutes she listened intently, not daring to even breathe, lest the sound of her own in- or exhalations caused her to miss the next telltale sign that there might be another human being in the vicinity. For a while she heard nothing, and the hope that had briefly flooded through her, once more began to drain away as she contemplated the fact that the source of the noise had probably been a natural occurrence - the building contracting as the heat of the day dissipated with the onset of darkness, or the breeze rattling a loose window or door - and that her increased optimism had in fact been merely wishful thinking. But then, as despondency again descended on the helpless young female, she heard another sound, or more accurately a medley of sounds. And this time there was nothing ambiguous about the noises that filtered through to her. The slow, plodding footsteps, the jangling of a metal chain - a key-ring, perhaps? - , plus the sound of someone whistling a tune, all told her that there was definitely somebody out there; and not too far away by the sound of it. And if she could hear him - and it definitely sounded like a him - then, Anna surmised, he should also be able to hear her.

Although her throat was hoarse from her earlier efforts, and despite the combined effect of the ball that filled her mouth and the tape that sealed her lips, Anna yelled with as much power as her aching lungs and parched vocal cords could muster. The man outside - whoever he was - might be gone within seconds, and the opportunity to get herself out of this life threatening situation might be gone for good. She supplemented her verbal cacophony by slamming her feet - bruised and sore from her earlier futile endeavours - against the side of her tomb. For thirty seconds or more, her attention grabbing antics built up to a crescendo. Then she stopped and listened. Had her efforts been a success?

For a few long seconds, as the echo of her endeavours rang around the cavernous warehouse and faded to nothing, she heard only silence and feared the worst. But then quickening footsteps could be heard approaching, and a man's enquiring voice called out.

"Hello?...Is there anyone there?"

The joy and relief that surged through Anna's trussed up body gave birth to a second wave of screaming, only this time the shrieks and squeals that emanated from the sealed wooden box were less those of desperation, but now also contained elements of delight, as the realisation that her life might not come to a lonely conclusion here suddenly took hold. Once more, her outburst lasted around half a minute, before she again fell silent.

To her utter delight, Anna heard the familiar sound of the door to her particular section of the building being pulled open, before the man's voice bounced off the high ceiling of the warehouse and reverberated through the wooden walls of her makeshift crypt.

"Who's there? I know you're in here. Come out now or I'll call the police."

Anna's next outburst not only strived to help her would-be rescuer pinpoint her exact location, but also aimed to make it perfectly clear, by the pathetic nature of her pleading sobs, that she had no way of showing herself without his assistance. Luckily, he seemed to recognise almost immediately her 'damsel-in -distress' style of melancholy wail.

"Hold on, I'll have you out of there in a tick."

Anna heard the sound of the heavy wooden crates in front of her being slowly moved away. Her rescuer grunted and breathed heavily as the boxes on the tops of the piles gradually slid off the one beneath.

"Where are you? Are you hurt? How did you get here?"

Anna's attempt to inform him that she was in the bottom crate in the left hand corner of the storage room was muffled and - she guessed - probably incomprehensible. But at least the sound acted as an aural guide to her place of incarceration. As more boxes were gradually pulled out of the way, Anna noticed a slight increase in the light entering the small hole in the wooden panel. He was close now, and she heard a grating sound as he laboured to remove the heavy obstacles from overhead. Finally, the box directly above hers was discarded and she could hear him trying to remove the lid only inches above her. In this task, however, he failed to make any headway.

"Hold on a minute. I'm going to have to get a crowbar or something to prise the lid off."

For what seemed an eternity, but was probably no more than three or four minutes, Anna waited for his return. She was now so close to freedom, and was anxious - impatient even - to get out of her cramped and stifling wooden place of confinement. But running through her mind was a dilemma for which she had not yet concocted a satisfactory solution: how was she going to explain her bound and handcuffed presence here? Telling the truth would be embarrassing, to say the least. But lying and saying that someone else had overpowered her and left her here could lead to serious repercussions if and when her dishonesty was discovered. If she said she'd been kidnapped, and her rescuer decided to call the police, she'd have no alternative but to continue embellishing the lie, with the potential for the situation to spiral out of control. Then, when this obvious falsification of the truth was discovered, she'd be charged with wasting police time. And at the end of it all, the humiliation would be as bad, if not worse, than if she came clean straight away. Maybe, she concluded, it was best to simply tell the truth and be done with it. That way, no one else need be involved and the discomfort and shame of the situation could be kept to a minimum.

Finally, the footsteps grew louder once again, and seconds later the sound of wood splintering, as the lid was prised off the box, coincided with the darkness that had surrounded her for the past few hours - both physically and metaphorically - being lifted. Anna gazed upwards. The neon lights high above brought only dim illumination to the interior of the box, compared with the bright torchlight that shone directly into her face from only inches away. Resting the flashlight on the rim of the now opened box, the man reached in and began stripping the duct tape away from Anna's face. As her vision returned to some semblance of normality, she was able to scrutinise the face of her saviour as he worked at gently easing the strongly bonded adhesive strips away from her flesh. He was a thin middle-aged man with greying hair and a worried expression on his face, who wore a dark blue uniform with the name of the security firm he worked for emblazoned on the breast pocket of his jacket.

"Don't worry, I'll have you out of there in a minute."

The tape had now been successfully - although rather painfully - peeled away from Anna's mouth and cheeks, and he was in the process of unbuckling the strap that held the ball in her mouth. Anna gasped as the rubber obstruction was finally removed, and gingerly worked her aching jaw for a few seconds.

"Who did this to you?... Who put you in here?... As soon as I get you out of here I'll call the police.... Who'd tie a poor girl up and leave them locked up like this?"

His questions came thick and fast, without so much as a second's pause between them for Anna to even begin to answer. As he spoke he reached around to try to untie her hands, until the realisation hit him that she was handcuffed and this wasn't viable. Not knowing quite what to do, he gazed down at her open mouthed; still bewildered and unable to take in the precise nature of his discovery. Again he repeated the question.

"Who did this to you?"

Anna started to speak - to tell him the truth about her incarceration - but her voice came out as a hoarse croak after all those hours of screaming and shouting for help. Instantly, however, he seemed to know what was required, as from his pocket he produced a half full bottle of mineral water.

"Here, drink this."

For several seconds, Anna gulped down the cool, refreshing liquid that was offered to her. Once she signalled that she'd had enough, however, she noticed him pull his phone from his pocket, and realised that she had to speak now before he could dial 999.

"Please, I'd rather you didn't get the police involved in this."

Startled, he stopped and looked at her, as if she were mad.

"Don't you want the bastard who did this to you caught and put away?"

Anna felt her face redden, and she took a big gulp of air before blurting out self-consciously.

"Well...actually...I sort of... did this...myself...."

If he had seemed a bit flustered before, his surprise at this latest revelation hit him like a bombshell. If the situation hadn't been so serious - and her embarrassment so acute - then Anna might have found the startled look on his face, as his brain computed this information, quite comical.

"You...did this to yourself?...Why?"

Anna squirmed uncomfortably within the tight confines of her makeshift prison and begun to explain how she enjoyed being tied up, and that she'd only meant to stay in the box an hour or two, but had fallen asleep and had then been unable to enlighten the removal men as to her whereabouts due to being knocked unconscious and the noise of the machinery all around her. She also found herself blurting out the reason for putting all of her stuff into storage, and that as she was leaving the country on Monday, if he hadn't found her no one would have raised the alarm. And of course she was meticulous in emphasizing where she'd left the key to the handcuffs, although whether it was still on the mantelpiece or not was unknown to her at that moment.

For the majority of the time, as Anna relayed her tale of woe, she was careful not to make eye contact with her liberator, as this seemed to in some way minimise the extreme humiliation that she felt in having to share her kidnap fantasies with a stranger. But as her story came to a conclusion, she stole a glance at his face, and at once realised that a change had come over him.

Gone was the look of confusion and puzzlement that had been so noticeable when he'd first unearthed her. In its place now, Anna saw him nod slightly, as if he grasped the nature of her plight, and maybe even understood the reasons behind her actions. As she watched, Anna was sure that she noticed a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"So you enjoy being tied up, do you?"

Anna could feel herself blushing profusely as she nodded to confirm that he'd understood the rationale behind her exploits.

"And you say you're not leaving the country until Monday?"

Anna nodded again, but she found herself wondering why this was of any great relevance. The answer, however, was soon forthcoming.

Standing up to his full height, the security guard examined Anna's ball-gag; the still clinging saliva glistening in the beam of his torch.

"So, if the idea of being kidnapped, kept tied up and locked away appeals to you so much, I've got a proposition for you. As you've got no plans for the weekend, how would you like to remain here all bound and helpless for another forty eight hours or so?"

Anna was so shocked by this completely unexpected suggestion, that for several seconds, although her lips moved, she found herself rendered speechless. He continued.

"This building is deserted during the daytime at weekends, but don't worry, I'll be on duty each night, so that I can bring you food and water, and make sure that you're alright."

Anna continued to look aghast at him, not really knowing whether his offer was genuine, or if he was merely mocking her. After a few seconds she finally found her voice.

"Are you serious?"

He gazed down at her, still absentmindedly playing with the straps of the ball-gag.

"Of course I'm serious. If that's what you enjoy, then I'm only too willing to help you out. It makes no difference to me."

After being tied and boxed up all day, Anna's initial reaction was to decline his kind offer and ask him to help her out of her bonds. But even as he had been speaking, she felt the first stirrings of arousal, as the option of being held captive here for the next two days sank in. After all, being imprisoned and unable to get out had always been something that she'd yearned for. And now, with the prospect of imminent death no longer a concern, her old bondage obsessions once again came to the fore, and she realised that this was just too good an opportunity to let slip through her fingers.

"You will let me out on Sunday though, won't you?"

The man smiled and assured her that he would.

"I'll go back to your flat tomorrow and look for the handcuff key. If it's not where you left it, I've got a set of bolt cutters that will soon get you out when the time comes. So do we have a deal?"

The more she mulled the idea over in her mind, the greater her enthusiasm for the project seemed to become. And a quick but discreet pull on her crotch rope confirmed to Anna's brain what her body was telling her; that yes, she would indeed like to take up his offer.

Quickly, before she had a chance to change her mind, Anna blurted out her acceptance of their pact.

He checked his watch.

"Right, that's settled then. I have to get back to work now. This is a big complex, and as I'm the only guard on duty, I've got a lot of ground to cover."

As he spoke, Anna saw her well chewed ball-gag once more coming towards her face. Willingly, she opened wide and accepted the familiar obstruction into her mouth. Reaching around behind her head, he buckled the strap tightly, so that there was no chance of her spitting it out again.

"Keep your head down now, while I secure this lid back on again."

Doing as she was requested, Anna found herself being once more plunged into almost complete darkness, save for the weak shaft of light that filtered through the tiny spy holes in the wooden walls of her tomb. Seconds later, the sound of the nails being hammered back into place reached her ears, and this was followed by loud thuds, as the boxes were stacked once more on top of hers. The sound of other crates being shunted back into the positions that they'd occupied prior to her discovery, coincided with the extinguishing of the dim light within her incarceration chamber.

"Well young lady, I hope you enjoy your stay here. I'll see you in about twenty four hours. Have fun!"

And with that parting shot, Anna heard the door to her own private storage unit close once more, followed immediately by the sound of a padlock being secured in place. Within seconds, retreating footsteps were replaced by silence.

Anna's mind was in a whirl as she curled up in the now familiar confines of her custodial coop. Only now, instead of the very real fear of death from dehydration or starvation haunting every second of her time, she felt elation and delight at how things had turned out. Had that really just happened to her? Had she really found someone who understood her need to be bound, gagged and shut away for extended periods of time? It appeared that she had. Anna once more struggled in her bonds, only now her efforts were no longer a frantic attempt to get free, but had instead become a means of working herself up into a frenzy of excitement. Every time she tried to move, the fact that she was restrained - both by the strict bonds and the enclosing walls - caused an ever greater surge of delight to rip through her being. And working the crotch rope - gently at first, then gradually building up to a climax - was simply the icing on the cake.

Anna moaned softly into her gag as the lightning bolt of her orgasm ripped through her. And the best thing about it was the knowledge that she could repeat this performance over and over again during the next two days.

All of a sudden, the thought of going travelling for a year lost some of its appeal. The world was a big place, and there were thousands of wonderful locations to visit and explore. But right now, the only world that Anna needed was made of wood and measured only a few feet square, and the only exploration she craved was that of her innermost fantasies.

Maybe, she thought, as she rested contentedly amongst the curtains and soft cushions , she could persuade her security guard - or jailer, as she now liked to think of him - to extend her stay here longer than just one weekend.