Author's Note: Have you ever desired something so much that you'll go to any lengths to achieve your goal, even if the way ahead is fraught with dangers?

That's what Amy was forced to do in her quest for the fulfilment of her dream.

But when she turned to blackmail in an effort to reach her personal Nirvana, it turned out that she may have bitten off more than she could chew.

Or had she?




Part 1 - Will you help me into this please?

Amy turned the parcel over in her hands and smiled. The package, bearing only her name, address and postage stamps on an otherwise bare, manila surface, gave no clues as to the goods contained therein. But Amy knew what secret the anonymous wrapping held, and with hands noticeably trembling with anticipation she began to tear away the outer layers to reveal her purchase. For several seconds she fought with the paper, then the inner polythene bag in which her purchase was sealed. Finally, after much fumbling, she was able to unfurl and unveil the garment of her dreams.

All black and manufactured from soft yet extremely durable and hard-wearing leather, Amy held the jacket out to examine it in detail. It was, she soon decided with a shiver of pleasure, exactly what her heart desired. Hanging from the main body of the garment there were straps attached at strategic points, without which the whole outfit would have been of no use to Amy whatsoever, as it would have failed to live up to its purpose. Amy grabbed one of the sleeves and studied it. What would have been the open end at the wrist on any normal item of clothing, on this garment was enclosed and stitched up into a padded a cul-de-sac from which no hand could exit. Instead, dangling loosely from each of these dead-ends was a thin yet strong belt-like strap of leather with several holes punched along its length. Similarly, from the open back - through which the wearer entered the costume - five leather belts hung limply from the right hand side, spaced at intervals from the collar down to the waistband, with the securing metal buckles - their counterparts - situated on the left of the opening.

Having scrutinised the straps, and satisfied herself that they had all been stitched securely in place and couldn't be removed by brute force, Amy turned her attention to the front of her new outfit. Compared to the back, there were only minimal adornments. Across the chest area, a vertical strap had been fixed in place at both ends, forming a loop. And on the hem at the bottom, one final strap had been fitted - probably the most important part of the whole rigging, to Amy's mind - which for now hung freely downwards, betraying its intended purpose.

Amy was in love with of every facet of her newly procured item, and simply couldn't bear to take her eyes off it. She tested each of the straps and buckles to make sure they all functioned properly, then released them all again.

Now it was time to find out how restrictive - and therefore amazing - her new straitjacket really was.

But there were problems... as she had known there would be. Slipping her arms into the thin sleeves and pulling the heavy garment around her shoulders and up to her neck, Amy found that she could take things no further. With her hands now cocooned in mittens of cushioned leather, her fingers were no longer able to be of service to her. And it was her hands and fingers that she so desperately needed now to complete her encasement. For without them, there was no way she could do up the collar strap or any of the others that would, once secured, have enclosed her in a tight embrace. Nor could she thread her arms through the strap on her chest, wrap her arms around her body, then buckle the belts on the sleeves in their rightful positions, to make certain that her arms remained trapped and inescapable. And likewise the fastening of the strap that was intended to pass between her legs, in order to guarantee that she couldn't remove the whole garment by lifting it up over her head, was also frustratingly beyond her capabilities at the moment.

Amy sighed deeply with regret. She'd known all along that this impasse was going to surface, but had until now put off taking steps to remedy the situation. For she knew that, without the assistance of someone to help her, there was no way she could utilise her new most treasured possession to its fullest potential. And there lay her dilemma. For Amy knew of no one within her circle of friends that she would feel comfortable with asking for help.

Amy had been fascinated by bondage ever since she could remember. But she had no interest in the binding and imprisoning of anybody else. No, the person Amy had always fantasised about being tied up was herself. The trouble was that, being shy and lacking in confidence when it came to expressing her desires and dreams, she had never been able to pluck up the courage to tell another living soul about her obsession. And therefore, up until now, her hobby had remained a solitary vice; a pastime restricted to, at first the bedroom of her family home, and now the flat she'd rented since flying the nest more than a year ago. In other words, the twenty year old, slim, attractive blonde had been forced to resort to self-bondage.

Over the course of time, Amy had experimented with, and become something of an expert at, tying herself up in every conceivable way, using every available medium she could lay her hands on. There had been several close calls too, when her enthusiasm had got the better of her and she'd found herself in a situation from which extricating herself was almost impossible. But that didn't worry Amy in the least. For wasn't the whole point of being tied up supposed to be that you couldn't escape? The more she diced with danger, the better. As long as it remained almost impossible to get out, but didn't cross that invisible line into totally impossible, then everything was just fine with her. Just so long as nobody else found out, that was her biggest fear; bigger even than getting stuck and having to remain helplessly trapped for hours on end. For the ridicule and embarrassment that the revealing of her secret would cause, if friends or family caught her in some tight dilemma of her own making, would be difficult for her to live down; especially if her strange little games were subject to whispers and rumours, and thus became common knowledge.

Amy pulled the straitjacket around her and gazed in the mirror. With her arms held tightly across her chest, she could almost believe that she really was all nicely strapped and secured into the gorgeously sensual leather encumbrance. But of course she wasn't; a fact confirmed when she turned around, looked over her shoulder and gazed at the open back of the garment with its straps drooping lifelessly downwards. And this detail had been a source of much soul-searching as she sought a way to overcome the problem.

But maybe there was light at the end of the tunnel after all. For the seeds of a solution had been planted in her mind the other day, and since that time she'd been mentally focussing on the pros and cons of this daring scheme, in the hope that she could fine tune the details, and with any luck bring her plan to fruition.

She needed an accomplice. That was the crux of the matter, pure and simple; someone who would help her into the straitjacket, pull all the straps tight, buckle them securely, then leave her trapped and tied that way for a few hours. But asking any of her friends was anathema to her, just in case, when they discovered her kinky side, they decided to shun her and - even worse - began to spread the word about her strange tendencies and turned her into a pariah of sorts; someone who everybody avoided, and who, when her back was turned, they would snigger and gossip about. For several days, Amy had been wrestling with this conundrum, racking her brain to try to come up with an alternative candidate; someone who wouldn't spread her secret to everybody and their dog. And finally, she thought she'd come up with the perfect confidante.

Jenny wasn't really a friend. She just happened to work for the same firm as Amy. In truth, they worked in separate offices, and had very little contact with each other on a day to day basis. In fact, they probably hadn't exchanged more than a few words with each other in the year or so since Amy had started her apprenticeship at the company. The two were roughly the same age, but other than this Amy had no clue as to Jenny's interests, hobbies, friends, or virtually anything else about her.

There were, of course, many employees of around the same age as Amy working in the huge complex of offices in which the multi-national organisation had its headquarters, so why had Amy singled out this Jenny character from the other possible contenders? Well it was quite simple; she needed someone who wouldn't spill the beans regarding her strange pursuits, and she thought that she'd hit upon the perfect reason why her prime candidate would be in no rush to break this confidence.

Just over a week ago, Amy - who worked in the finance team - had come across some irregularities in relation to petty cash payments and the receipts that accompanied certain purchases. Digging deeper, she found Jenny's signature kept cropping up on what at first appeared to be legitimate expenses, but which under further scrutiny seemed slightly more dubious. Nothing was clear cut, and she had no concrete proof that Jenny was on the take. But the more she looked into the matter, the more she realised that something underhand was going on. So what should she do? Should she report her suspicions to the powers-that-be? Under normal circumstances, that would have been the sensible course of action to take. But having already ordered the straitjacket from the mail-order company, and knowing that she needed an assistant if she was going to reap the full benefits from her purchase, Amy had begun to hatch a plot that would give her work colleague little choice in cooperating, if she wanted to keep her job. Or put another way, Jenny was ripe for blackmail. Not that Amy would use that word when she broached the subject with her would-be helper. A favour, that's what she decided to call it; a case of one good turn being repaid with another. Although whether Jenny would see it that way remained to be seen.

There were, of course, grave dangers involved in this undertaking. What if Jenny, having secured Amy nice and snugly in her leather restraint, then refused to let her out? Or simply abandoned her like that? Amy had thought these things through and realised that she was walking a proverbial tightrope without a safety net, and that the dangers were many and varied. But hadn't she always wanted to be kept in inescapable helplessness for long periods of time? And didn't she crave the uncertainty that went with not knowing when - or even if - she was going to be set free? Yes there were many rational objections that could easily be put forward against reckless actions such as she was planning now. But Amy was desperate...and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Although not over-familiar with her proposed, still unsuspecting collaborator in this weird venture, one of the few things Amy did know for certain about Jenny was where she lived, as it was only a stone's throw from her own apartment. And it was also only a short distance away from the venue which Amy had chosen as the location for her incarceration; for didn't captivity deserve a fittingly isolated and dramatic setting for it to truly create the desired atmosphere and ambience?

Amy slipped her arms out of the sleeves and laid her treasured straitjacket on the bed. Walking over to her bedroom window, she looked out into the gathering gloom. Tomorrow was Saturday, and she resolved there and then that this was going to be her big day...providing she could get Jenny to assist, of course.

Amy spent much of the night in sleepless anticipation of what she hoped would be a momentous occasion. Once daylight arrived, she rose and pottered about her flat, going over her plans what seemed like a thousand times in her mind, checking and rechecking that she hadn't missed some crucial detail which could scupper her scheme before it had even begun. There were unknowable elements of course, such as what if, when she reached Jenny's place, she found her to be out or unavailable for some reason? Or what if she refused to play along? The main problem, as far as Amy could foresee, was getting her would-be associate to visit the rather unusual location that she'd earmarked. She would, she decided, have to be slightly vague about their destination and the nature of the business in hand, and use the fact that the situation was urgent and couldn't be discussed anywhere else as a means to hopefully intrigue Jenny and arouse her curiosity as to why they needed to meet in secret. She was keen to get on with things, but knew that she had to reign herself in. It was Saturday, after all, and people didn't always appreciate being disturbed that early on a non-working day. And the last thing she wanted to do was annoy Jenny by turning up on her doorstep at too early an hour. That would not augur well for the arrangements Amy had all mapped out for the rest of the day, and in fact might render the whole mission dead-in-the-water before it had even commenced.

By ten o'clock, however, Amy decided that she could wait no longer. She was on tenterhooks as she left her flat, the straitjacket and a few other essential items packed into a holdall bag. En route, she deposited the bag at the site she'd selected for this day's uniquely significant events, before making her way quickly to Jenny's apartment.

Amy knocked on the door with more than a little trepidation. "This is it girl", she told herself, "you've come too far to back out now". For several seconds there was no sound from within, and Amy's heart began to sink. Jenny must have gone out already. But just as she was about to knock again, she heard a chain sliding back, and the catch on the lock click. A second later, the door opened an inch or two and Jenny's face peered out, squinting into the bright sunlight. At first it didn't seem to register with her who Amy was. But then, suddenly, a mixture of recognition and puzzlement simultaneously engraved themselves on her features. In a slightly groggy, half-asleep voice, she greeted her visitor.

"It's Amy, isn't it? What are you doing here?"

Amy had been rehearsing exactly what she was going to say - and in what order - all morning. Yet now she was confronted by the person who she hoped would help her attain one of her most cherished goals, she found herself flustered, and began talking much too fast and babbling in unfathomable riddles.

"Look, I need to speak to you urgently...it's about something that's cropped up at work... and it can't wait until Monday."

Jenny gestured for Amy to slow down.

"What are you talking about? You're not making any sense."

Amy was into her stride now and desperately wanted to get on with things. But she knew that she had to lure Jenny to the site she had all set up, otherwise the whole scheme would flounder before it had even begun.

"It concerns a matter that we need to discuss, the outcome of which could be beneficial to both of us."

Jenny opened the door and beckoned her unexpected guest to enter.

"I suppose you'd better come in then."

Being invited in wasn't part of the plan, of course.

"Not here. We need to meet up somewhere private where no one will overhear us. I've got a proposition for you that I think you'll be very interested in hearing."

Jenny raised her eyebrows and looked Amy up and down, as if trying to appraise whether her visitor was genuine, or if this whole thing was some kind of a wind-up. From Amy's serious demeanour, she seemed to deduce the former.

"OK, I'll go along with your little game... for now at least. I'll need a while to get washed and dressed first though. Where do you want to meet?"

When Amy named the place she had in mind, Jenny's sense of incredulity ratcheted up a notch.

"Are you serious? Why on Earth do you want to meet there?"

Amy managed to force a smile that she hoped didn't betray her edginess.

"You'll find out when we get there."

Jenny shook her head, gave a resigned smile and looked Amy directly in the eye.

"Very mysterious. This had better be good!"

They agreed to rendezvous at the given location at midday.

The old abandoned factory looked bleak and uninviting, even in the midday sunshine. Amy arrived a few minutes early and made her way around to the back of the fenced off premises, to the spot where she'd arranged to meet Jenny. Razor wire still adorned the high fences and corrugated metal panels that sealed off the area, even though it was several years since the company that had previously owned the building had gone out of business. Notices telling the public to keep out, and explaining that security guards frequently patrolled the site, were posted at regular intervals around the perimeter. Amy knew that this was untrue, however. Nobody ever came to check the place out, and no one had been inside for years...except her. Amy knew this because, when she'd been checking out various old buildings to see if they met the criteria for use as a dungeon, she'd stumbled upon this place. At first, the outer fences had seemed impenetrable. But Amy had scrutinised the periphery in detail, and had found a panel that could be shifted - admittedly with some difficulty - to one side, thus allowing someone slim and supple like herself to wriggle through.

Right on time, Jenny appeared, looking slightly jittery, as if she feared that she was walking into a trap of some description. And her apprehension showed no sign of abating in any way when Amy pulled the metal sheet aside and gestured for her workmate to step through the gap. Amy did her best to allay the worst of her invited guest's fears, but the anxiety she herself was experiencing must have been evident in her voice, and she was sure her explanation must have come across as a fairly lame one.

"Don't worry. I just want to make sure that we aren't observed discussing the matter in hand."

Miraculously, Jenny appeared to accept this reason for the cloak-and-dagger secrecy, and Amy found herself leading the way onto the old abandoned site. Wrenching the boarding away from one of the supposedly sealed doors, Amy made her entrance through the pre-planned route that she'd mapped out in advance. Down ill-lit corridors she led her perplexed colleague in silence; their footsteps on the concrete flooring and metal stairways being the only soundtrack to this strange procession. Finally they arrived in the vast space that had once been one of the factory's workshops, and which Amy had selected for this, her special assignment. In the gloom, boarded up windows were just visible - high up, probably ten feet from the floor - along one wall. One of these dirt-encrusted panes, however, had been stripped of its covering, and offered the only source of light within the otherwise dark, squalid space. Below this window, Amy could just make out the bag she'd deposited there earlier. Her heart raced at the thought of what would - hopefully - be her fate in only a few minutes time.

There were several avenues open to Amy regarding the way she went about informing Jenny of the rationale behind asking her to come here today, and all had been carefully considered over the past few days. But when it came down to it, most of these were simply variations on a theme. Because, when she thought about it, Amy really only had two choices available to her. Option one was to confront Jenny with her suspicions concerning the fraudulent transactions that she'd uncovered and then reveal her bondage fixation and how the two subjects dovetailed together. Or she could reverse the order by dropping the bombshell about the straitjacket first, before revealing how she knew about the financial irregularities, then explaining how these two seemingly unrelated issues coalesced.

In the end, she chose the latter, for no other reason than that the straitjacket was uppermost in her mind, and she was eager to wrap herself within its folds. As soon as the pair reached the spot where the bag had been left, therefore, Amy was taking off her long coat, to reveal that beneath she wore nothing more than a form-fitting black spandex cat-suit; her standard attire during her - usually solitary - bondage sessions. With the coat quickly discarded, and before Jenny had any time to react or speak, she had lifted up her new plaything, dexterously slipped her arms into the sleeves and pulled the body of the garment up around her shoulders. She turned sheepishly to look at Jenny, half expecting her hoped-for associate to either be laughing hysterically, or else bolting for the door. Instead she was met with an open-mouthed, extremely confused young woman, who was struggling to come to terms with the scene she'd just witnessed. So Amy was left with no other option than to take the initiative. And that initiative took the form of a request.

"Will you help me into this please?"

For several seconds, Jenny's jaw moved but no words emerged. And when she did recover her capacity for speech, it turned out that Amy's question was answered by several of her own.

"Why?...What's this all about?...What are you wearing?... "

Amy's answers to these questions, and several others which she assumed Jenny was trying to formulate, had all been thought out in advance. But now that she came to articulate them, they came out in a rushed, rather embarrassed, half-whisper; as if she wanted to get her story out as quickly as possible, but was scared - irrationally given the location - that someone might overhear her.

"Because Jenny, I like the idea of being tied up and left in helpless bondage... and I've got no one else to turn to. Anyone else, if they got wind of my secret, would tell all my other friends and I'd end up a laughing stock. And then, if this whole thing got back to my family, I'd never live it down. So I need you to buckle all the straps and render me helpless, as you're the only person I know that won't tell anybody else about this."

Jenny continued to stare wide-eyed at the semi-suited Amy. But after a few seconds she seemed to gather her thoughts.

"So you enjoy being tied up, do you? Well well, I'd never have thought that prim and proper Amy from the finance team was such a kinky little mare! You are a dark horse, aren't you?"

Jenny's first non-rhetorical questions, however, concerned matters which Amy, in her flustered state, had temporarily forgotten to address.

"So what makes you think I won't tell anyone about this little perversion of yours? And what exactly has this got to do with work?"

Amy took a deep breath and blurted out - in the same harassed, agitated state that she'd revealed her passion for bondage - the assertion that she knew Jenny to be siphoning off money from the firm they both worked for, and that really she should have gone to her line manager with her concerns, but had decided that there were other ways that the situation could be resolved to their mutual advantage.

Jenny glared at her.

"Are you trying to blackmail me? Because if you are..."

Amy didn't wait for the threat to leave Jenny's mouth, and quickly sought to clarify her proposed solution.

"Blackmail? No, not blackmail. More like one good turn deserving another. I do you a favour, and you do one for me in return. In other words, you tie me up in this straitjacket and leave me here for four hours or so, and if you don't tell anyone about it, I promise not to spill the beans concerning your little - what shall we call them? - money making activities."

Jenny studied her accuser with a look of contempt written all over her face, and for a second or two Amy expected the deal to be rejected. However, it seemed that after briefly mulling the pact over, Jenny came to recognise that this scheme - hare-brained as it might at first appear - was the best way out of a sticky situation for her, insofar as otherwise she might lose her job, or even worse, be prosecuted for stealing from her employer.

"So I do you this one favour, and then we're quits, right?"

"Absolutely. We need never mention the subject again."

Suddenly the hint of a smile played at the corners of Jenny's lips.

"Ok, I'll go along with your little games..."

Jenny walked around to Amy's back and began, without the need for further encouragement, to pull the leather jacket tighter around the now excited young woman. As she started to fasten the straps into the corresponding buckles which would seal her willing victim within the all encompassing sheath, however, she whispered - softly but with an undercurrent of menace - into Amy's left ear.

"But if you ever try anything like this again, you will regret it!"

Amy, however, was so delighted with the sensation of the ever constricting leather around her, that she barely took on board this threat.

With much encouragement from the gradually more encumbered but delighted Amy, and with badgering pleas to make everything as tight as possible, Jenny stretched the straps to their limits of their endurance in order to seal her enthusiastic captive into the constraining garment up to - and indeed, beyond - the point of no return. As each belt intensified the feeling of helplessness, Amy became more and more excited by the prospect of being kept this way without hope of escape, and shivers of indescribable pleasure rushed unabated through her entire being as she became ever more irredeemably trapped. Her leather encased arms being threaded through the strap on her chest, then forced around her body and fixed firmly so she was unable to move, was one of the highlights of the whole procedure, as was the passing between her legs of the crotch strap, the severe hoisting of the same in an upward direction, and the stringent fastening of the buckle to seal this most important of ligatures in place.

With all the strapping irreversibly sealed from Amy's perspective, she was now able to test her most precious of outfits for the first time. She had deliberately bought the smallest size of straitjacket that the manufacturer produced, simply to ensure the snuggest fit possible. And it was with utter, unconfined joy that she discovered that this wonderful garment not only met, but exceeded in every possible way, the criteria she craved. For it was, she found, far more constrictive and therefore inescapable than she could ever have imagined in her wildest dreams; the tightly clinging leather leaving her very little room for manoeuvre within its strict, all-enveloping embrace.

For a few seconds, Amy lost herself within the sheer joy of the moment, and it was only Jenny's voice, echoing around the high, empty room, that brought her back to reality. When she looked across at her rigger, she noticed that she was standing a few feet away, a bemused smile on her face.

"So you want to be left like that for a few hours, do you?"

Amy bit her lip. She knew she was pushing her luck, but decided to go for it anyway. "Actually, just before you go, could you do me a couple more small favours?"

Amy gestured with a nod of her head in the direction of the holdall.

"Could you tie my legs together and gag me, please?"

Luckily, Jenny seemed amenable and willing - with hindsight possibly too willing, in fact - to consent to her request.

Sitting Amy down on the bare concrete floor, Jenny wrapped lengths of rope that she'd retrieved from the bag, as specified by her increasingly immobile detainee, around the ankles and either side of her knee joints. The ball-gag was large and fitted tightly into Amy's willingly opened mouth, and was soon strapped irremovably in place.

For a few seconds, Jenny stood back to admire - or was it gloat at? - her creation. She still seemed slightly confused by the fact that Amy found this severe state of bondage a situation to be sought out and willingly experienced, but she now appeared far more at ease with the nature of the project she'd been tasked with. Or was that smile actually a sneer; a knowing smirk that spoke of power and dominance over her now completely subjugated prisoner? If it was, then Amy failed to read the signs at this time; so engrossed was she in her world of bondage fantasies.

"So, I believe you mentioned being left here for around four hours, is that correct?"

Amy nodded and tried to articulate the fact that, if it turned out to be a bit longer than this, she wouldn't be too unhappy. Such were her powers of speech muffled and stymied at that moment, however, that she wasn't certain that her accomplice had understood.

But whether she comprehended or not, Jenny wasn't going to ask for a repeat of her mumbled response. For almost immediately, she was heading for the exit, a shouted "See you later then. Have fun!" her final farewell as she disappeared into the darkness. The sound of a stout metal door crashing shut left Amy in no doubt that she was now on her own.


Part 2 - Will you help me out of this please?

At this time of year, sunset occurred at around seven o'clock each evening. And the decreasing brightness through the grimy window pane that was her only connection to the world outside, informed Amy that Jenny had left her in solitary helplessness for far longer than the agreed four hours.

But Amy wasn't particularly worried by the lateness of her captor's return. For wasn't bondage much more scintillating and fascinating when a certain amount of ambiguity as to when you were going to be released was involved? And besides, Amy had been having far too much fun to worry about trivial things such as freedom.

After being left to her own devices, Amy had really started investigating just how restrictive and restraining her jacket could be. And she was delighted to find that every avenue of exploration she ventured along turned out to be a dead end, and ticked all the right boxes in her desire for complete captivity.

For a start, the collar of the jacket fit tightly around her neck, and gave her no scope to wriggle her shoulders out. And the leather body of the outfit, held in place by the straps and buckles at her back, offered very little room for slippage. Then there was the short strap on her chest, through which her arms had been passed, that forced her into an incessant hugging of her body, and allowed no leeway to move her limbs in any direction; not up towards her head, or down in the direction of her waist; not to the left or right, or indeed outwards away from her torso. Last but not least, of course, was the crotch strap, which not only negated any exploits designed to pull the whole garment up over her head, but also sent unspeakably wonderful sensations coursing through her entire body every time she pulled the unyielding strip of leather upwards into the most sensitive part of her anatomy. Amy sighed with satisfaction. The straitjacket had most definitely been a worthwhile addition to her bondage paraphernalia. In fact, as she basked in the glory associated with her absolute inability to disrobe from its uncompromising clutches, she decided that this just had to be her greatest purchase ever.

The hindrances to her mobility, or course, didn't end with this newly acquired leather impediment. For the jacket was ably supplemented by the bonds around her legs; fetters which, it transpired, Jenny had tied ultra-tightly to avoid their removal. And of course the gag - although strictly unnecessary as a muffler of sound to one whose imprisonment was willingly endured - served as an essential part of any good bondage session and acted as a reminder of the utter isolation of her internment. And Amy revelled in the magnificent uncertainty and vulnerability of it all.

That said, the lengthening of the shadows and the darkening of her immediate environment did begin to play on Amy's thoughts. What if Jenny didn't come back? How long would it be before anybody found her? Was there - she already knew that this question could only be answered in the negative, but asked it anyway - any chance at all that she could escape if she really had been abandoned here for good?

The clanking of a metal panel, followed by the sound of footsteps which slowly became louder, brought Amy out of her solitary reveries, as she waited with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation for the maker of this commotion to appear. Seconds later the door opened and a torch beam briefly bobbed and flitted around the walls and high ceiling, before steadying and pinpointing the trussed up woman sitting in one corner of the vast space. As the figure approached, Amy was temporarily blinded, and the first solid clue she received that this was Jenny returning and not some random intruder, came when her visitor spoke.

"Well Amy, how are you doing? Still enjoying your captivity, are you? It looks like that straitjacket really is escape-proof."

She crouched down beside the totally trapped woman, and Amy noticed that her rigger was smiling broadly. But far from being a friendly greeting, this caused a cold shiver to shoot up her spine, as there appeared to be little goodwill inherent in the newly returned woman's facial expression. Jenny placed the torch on the floor, and Amy noticed that the only other thing she seemed to have brought with her was a large bottle of mineral water. Standing this next to the torch, Jenny pulled Amy's head towards her and began unbuckling the strap that held the rubber ball in place behind her teeth. With the speech inhibitor teased out, Amy worked her aching jaw muscles for a few seconds, while her potential liberator retrieved the bottle and began unscrewing the top. It took a few seconds to grasp the implications of this action, but just as the neck of the bottle was within an inch of her lips, Amy suddenly had a rather disconcerting thought. Why, she wondered, if Jenny had come to set her free, didn't she simply let her out of the straitjacket and allow her to hold the bottle for herself? For a few seconds, the idea that release wasn't on Jenny's agenda crossed her mind. But she quickly jettisoned this notion. They had a deal, after all, and Amy was sure that Jenny wouldn't renege on her side of the bargain...would she?

The water was cool and refreshing on Amy's sandpaper tongue and parched throat, and Jenny allowed her to drink her fill. Silence reigned during this period, with Jenny simply holding the bottle and scrutinising the slim, bound woman before her; that devious smile never dissipating for a second. Once her thirst was quenched, it was therefore left to Amy to initiate communication once more.

"Will you help me out of this please?"

She lifted her arms as best she could, just in case Jenny had somehow forgotten the circumstances in which she languished, and needed her memory jogged as to what Amy was alluding to. Jenny, of course, needed no such reminder. But when she finally spoke, there was no hint of her being in any way disposed to grant Amy's request.

"Let you out? I don't think so somehow. Why would I want to do that?"

The smile, if anything, got broader and more evil in nature as she spoke these words. Amy shifted restlessly.

"But we had an agreement...I thought..."

That was as far as she got, before the ball-gag shot back up towards her face, and a split second later was being thrust forcibly back into the cavity which it had occupied all afternoon. Amy screamed and tried to halt the reinsertion of the rubber sphere, but in her powerless state she found preventing the process impossible. And seconds later, the strap and buckle had once more been fastened at the rear of her head, and spitting out the sound suppressor was once again beyond her means.

"An agreement? Is that what you call it? I call it blackmail. And do you know what? I detest blackmailers."

Amy squirmed and writhed in her leather encasement as Jenny spat out these words with venom, and for the first time her struggles stemmed from a genuine desire to break free. Jenny seemed oblivious to the grief her actions were causing, however. Or perhaps she simply didn't care.

"And anyway, if we did have a deal, I seem to recall that it was something along the lines of "one good turn deserves another". Well that means that we're already quits in my book. Because I kept my side of the bargain by tying you up, and you promised in return to keep quiet about my little underhand dealings at work. But letting you out again? That would be a second favour. And as far as I'm aware, I don't owe you another."

Jenny stood up to her full height and paced across to where Amy's bag of bondage equipment lay. Inserting her hand, she retrieved one of the unused items, although in the dim conditions Amy at first couldn't make out exactly what it was that had been picked out. As Jenny strode back across the room again, Amy witnessed a look that spoke of devious revenge etched in her opposite number's eyes.

"And as I just said, I find blackmailers despicable. So I've decided to teach you a lesson you won't forget in a hurry."

As the salvaged object suddenly appeared before her eyes, Amy shrieked and did her best to relocate her encased body and useless limbs away from the spot on which she sat, as the implications of what was about to transpire hit her. As with the gag, however, she was incapable of outmanoeuvring someone unimpeded in the use of their hands, and within no more than five seconds her eyes gazed impotently into a field of pitch blackness, and the smell of rubber filled her nostrils.

The contour hugging latex hood that Jenny slipped over her adversary's head and pulled down as far as the neck, was one of Amy's most prized items in her self-bondage armoury. With no outlets for eyes, ears or mouth, the strong, durable stretch material had been manufactured with only two small openings in its otherwise featureless surface, and these were little more than pin-pricks in the soft fabric, designed to align with the wearer's nostrils and thus alleviate the threat of suffocation. Amy had worn this many times in her solitary tie-up sessions, and knew the feel and fragrance of the hood intimately. She also - normally - welcomed its stifling, sensory depriving qualities into her strange little tie-up scenarios. But now, with the ability to remove the all encompassing mask at a time of her own choosing being denied to her, the idea of spending countless hours thus burdened didn't generate quite the same level of appeal.

From somewhere seemingly far away, her voice dulled by the masking rubber, Jenny explained how she envisioned the next few days unfolding.

"So, this is what's going to happen. When I get home tonight I'll be writing out a letter to the police - anonymously, of course - explaining where you are and that you're a bit tied up at the moment - if you'll pardon the pun."

Jenny's footsteps echoed on the hard floor, and her voice kept rising and decreasing in volume as she strode up and down.

"Then, first thing Monday morning, I'll put it in my local pillar box. I'll put a second class stamp on it, of course - first class is far too expensive, and lowlife blackmailers like you are really not worth that sort of money."

She paused at this point, as Amy let out a distraught squeal of complaint. But this cut no ice with her seemingly cool, calm and collected antagonist.

"Don't worry though, I will come back to visit you after I've posted the letter - about thirty six hours from now - to let you have some more water and make sure you're alright. After that though, you'll be on your own."

This information elicited another long, drawn out screech from the gagged mouth of the increasingly bemused detainee. But still Jenny showed no sign of compassion. If anything, in fact, her tone became more sarcastic and mocking.

"What's the matter Amy? I would have assumed that a bondage loving girl like you would relish the prospect of several days in unalleviated captivity. As far as I can see, I'm doing you a favour by not letting you go!"

Amy thought she heard a faint, malicious chuckle as Jenny uttered this taunt.

"Anyway, if the Royal Mail live up to their promise of delivering second class post in two days, my letter should reach the police station on Wednesday morning. So, if they take the message seriously and act immediately - and there's no guarantee they will, given how overstretched they always claim they are, resource-wise - you could well be free by Wednesday evening. I do hope so for your sake..."

The sound of Jenny's footsteps ceased for a few seconds, and the clearness of her voice suggested that she was now standing right in front of her prone prisoner.

"...And with any luck, I'll see you back at work on Thursday morning."

Jenny laughed wickedly for a second or two, but suddenly, her tone became deadly serious.

"Oh, by the way, two more points that you might like to mull over during your time here. Firstly, when you do eventually get out, remember our pact. If you tell the authorities that I was the one that left you here, then I'll start spreading the word to all and sundry about your odd little bondage habits. And that's something I believe you wanted to avoid at all costs..."

The footsteps recommenced, only now, instead of reducing then increasing in volume, they continued to fade slowly away. Jenny's voice also receded, until Amy could only just make out the gist of her words.

"...And secondly, with regard to your accusations of my unlawful removal of company funds, I have to tell you that I've covered my tracks thoroughly, so there won't be any paper-trail or damning evidence that will point the finger of blame at me. So you can tell whoever you like - go right to the top of the management chain if you want - but you'll never prove that I was defrauding or swindling the firm."

Then, with the serious business out of the way, Jenny exited the scene with one final teasing remark, barely audible to Amy as a result of the rubber that concealed her ears.

"So, I'll leave you to enjoy yourself. Have a great time."


Part 3 - Things are not always what they seem.

The knowledge that Jenny was about to leave the premises caused Amy to fight for her freedom like she'd never fought in a bondage situation before. Pulling on straps that refused to give way, she simultaneously screamed through her gag and the smothering latex, in an effort to make her tormentor comprehend that she was not at all happy with the way events had panned out.

But were things all quite as they seemed? Had Amy's heavenly dream coat suddenly transformed into the nightmare tunic from hell? Was the realisation that, instead of four hours her sentence had just increased to four whole days, the catalyst for this show of near hysteria?

Well, actually no.

For Amy's defiant attempts to escape, and her calls for leniency from her departing jailer, were all just a sham. And this charade was enacted simply to dupe Jenny into thinking she was unhappy with the way things had turned out.

For Amy's reasoning revolved around the fact that, should Jenny get even the hint of a suspicion that her prisoner was content with her lot, then she might decide to let her go after all...purely out of spite. Hence this show of mock displeasure. After only a minute or so however, once the door had slammed shut and Amy was quite certain that Jenny was out of earshot and wasn't coming back, she ceased her terrified damsel-in-distress performance and began to relax; a sigh of deep contentment issuing from her sealed but satisfied mouth.

Because despite her initial shock - and indeed genuine fear - when Jenny had reinserted her gag, then seemingly multiplied her woes with the addition of the skull-hugging, visually and aurally depriving hood, Amy soon came to appreciate that this state of increased vulnerability was actually, far from being abhorrent, an experience to be relished. Here was a situation, she soon came to comprehend, that possibly only came around once in a lifetime; a celebration of her bondage-nature that needed to be cherished and nurtured, as good fortune such as this may never again come her way.

For wasn't this precisely what she'd always craved? Tight, inescapable bondage from which she could never free herself, and in circumstances where no one was around to rescue or release her? Hadn't the notion of days on end of unrelenting inability to move, see or speak always held an intense fascination for her; the very thought of which would send shivers of delight shooting throughout her whole body? And if, as she hoped would someday come to pass, she managed to get involved with a crowd of like-minded individuals who enjoyed and practiced bondage for the sheer joy of it, wouldn't she then be able to boast that she, out of all of them, was the only one who really understood exactly what it was like to be held in long term, incessant internment, content in the knowledge that release was only going to come after many days of unalterable solitary confinement? Wouldn't these as yet still unmet friends be awestruck and envious of her, and hold her in the highest possible regard?

Amy settled back on the floor and began wriggling and twisting in her beautiful straitjacket. Hugging herself as tightly as she could, her arms glided gently across her breasts, causing her nipples to stand erect with the pure joy of perceived confinement. And pulling provocatively on the immaculately placed crotch strap, the first hints of a pleasurable tingling sensation began to well up in her pelvic cavity, which within seconds caused intense bolts of lightning to rip through her.

The next four days would be, Amy was going to make absolutely certain, the most wonderful time of her life.