Last spring I received an email from a friend. It read as follows:
Dear Trane,
You and I have known each other now for over three years. We met long ago on the internet but have thankfully had the chance to meet in person and look each other in the eye. (I had no idea that your smile was so nice. Until that day I had no way of knowing.) The lunch we had that day was one of the most exciting things I have ever done. To have felt that I knew you, but not really know you, to finally have the chance to meet you. But when I finally sat there across the table from you, I felt I had known you for ages. And perhaps I had. You already knew more about me than even my husband. So, I feel comfortable saying that you and I have come to trust each other. Accordingly, I am writing you to ask a favor, a special request.
I have a friend, Trane, a woman friend. She and I have become quite close, so close she and I have shared our fears, our thrills, even our fantasies, particularly our sexual fantasies. She has a special fantasy and I have suggested you to be the person to fulfill it for her. I know you, and she trusts me to only suggest someone she can trust.
If you agree, I will mail you a key and an address. On an agreed upon day you will go to the address, use the key for the front door, and find my friend in her bedroom. She will be blindfolded and tied to her bed. I will do the honors of tying her myself before I leave to allow you two to meet. (She and I have agreed that I will come back three hours after your meeting time in case you don’t show up for some reason.)
My friend only asks that you not hurt her or abuse her, that you not remove her blindfold, and that you honor her request if she should at any point ask you to leave.
Obviously, she lives in the same city as I do, so I am hoping your travel schedule puts you back here sometime soon.
Please consider my request and trust me to not ask this of you if there was any risk to you.
My love,
Suzette
I waited a couple of days before I emailed her back and agreed.
* * * * *
The address and key came in the mail a few weeks later. Arrangements had been made by email with Suzette. I was to be in New Orleans for four days. I was staying over an extra day to meet Suzette’s friend on a Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.
I thought a great deal about what I might be getting into. I also thought a great deal about what I knew of Suzette, how stable I considered her to be, how trustworthy. I finally decided to trust her and go with the plan.
Trust aside, I decided to be cautious. On the designated day, I arrived early, several hours early, and drove the neighborhood. It was a suburban cookie-cutter neighborhood in Metarie. Expensive brick houses with fenced yards and very few trees. I drove by the house with the designated address several times, each time looking more closely for anything out of the ordinary. There was no car in the driveway. The garage doors were closed. A children’s swing set was in the backyard. A doghouse near the back corner of the house, a small doghouse, I was relieved to see. The lawn had been treated by Chem-Lawn recently, so said the little sign in the yard. The house looked well-kept, just like all the others on the street with it.
I parked the rental car two blocks away, left my wallet and identification under the seat, and began to walk up the street. I had dressed casually, khakis and a white shirt, old running shoes, and I carried a canvas briefcase on a strap over my shoulder. Inside the briefcase were a few emergency items along with a few pleasure items I had picked up in town the day before. The can of pepper spray and Oriental fighting stick, a kubaton, were the emergency items. The bottle of lubricant and brand-new black vibrator were the pleasure items.
I tried to be relaxed as I walked up the sidewalk toward the front door. The key was in my hand before I stepped onto the porch. The key worked without a hitch when I turned it in the lock at exactly 2:00 p.m.
The house was quiet, completely still. From the foyer I could see a stairwell leading upward. On each of the steps was a small glass with a candle inside. Suzette had lit the way.
I began to slowly move up the stairs, listening hard for any clue of trouble. I had the pepper spray in my left hand, the blunt fighting stick in my right. I made no sound, I heard no sound. Moving slowly down the hall I followed the line of candles. They ended or entered a doorway I had seen from the top of the stairs. I eased myself into position to look inside the door.
Lying there on the bed with the curtains drawn was a woman. Her hands and feet were tied with cotton cord to each corner of the bed. I stepped into the room and stood beside the bed. She had black shoulder length hair. A black silk sash was tied around her head, across her eyes. She looked to be maybe 5’5” or so, average build, maybe mid-thirties in age. She wore a black negligee, its spaghetti straps already sliding down over the corners of her shoulders. With her ankles tied as they were, her legs spread, I could see she was wearing black lace panties.
“Hello,” I said evenly. “I’m Trane.”
She flinched slightly at my voice although I had thought she knew I was in the room.
“Suzette told me you would come,” she said with a slight quiver in her voice.
