Elena felt something gently touch her cheek, and she stirred from sleep in the darkness.
It was a hand, a warm soft hand.
She murmured and nuzzled it and it caressed her cheek and neck. She'd been dreaming. Was she still dreaming? She was lying in her big comfortable bed...
Alone.
Alone because her husband was away on a business trip.
She started, rousing herself from the fuzziness of sleep; and saw that there was a man standing in her bedroom.
She switched on the light next to the bed and the stranger said, "Good evening, Elena, sorry to disturb you."
She shrieked and clutched the covers around herself, an instinctive but useless gesture.
The man smiled down at her. He was young - in his mid-twenties - and had sandy hair and green eyes. He wore jeans and a black hoody over a black t-shirt.
"Who the fuck are you! Get the fuck out of here!" she screamed.
He held his finger to his lips. "Shhhhh," he said. "Don't scream, okay? I mean, there's not any chance anybody's going to hear you, around here, but... " he said, putting his hand in his pocket.
Did he have a gun? A knife? She began hyperventilating with terror, her eyes filling with tears.
"Shhhh," he said. "Shhhh, calm down. Just calm down. I'm just a thief. A burglar. I'm here to rob you. That's all. I'm not going to hurt you. Okay?"
She nodded her head, her breath still whistling raggedly and rapidly through her nose.
"Okay? Say that you understand I'm not going to hurt you."
"I understand that you're not going to hurt me," she said quickly. But did she believe it? He certainly didn't look violent, but the news was full of pictures of men who didn't look violent. "How did you get in here?"
"Shit, the kitchen door wasn't even locked."
"I mean, past the gate?"
"These gated communities are amazingly easy to get into. And if you're young and white, it's unlikely anybody will even ask you a question. Those rent-a-cops are probably sleeping anyway."
"What do you want?" she asked again.
"I'm robbing you, I told you. I didn't know you were here - I knew your husband was away on a business trip, and I thought you went with him."
"I wasn't feeling well," she said.
"I just need to tie you up, and then I'm going to take some stuff, and I'll leave."
"Tie me up?" she said in a small voice, and pulled the covers around her again.
"Yeah," he said, patiently. "I'm just going to tie you up, so you don't call anybody, and sort through some things and then I'll be gone."
She looked around; could she make a run for it? Could she make it to her phone, and out of the room?
"Don't try it," he said, again patiently, but with a cold confidence that suggested she wouldn't have much of a chance of escaping if she ran.
"How are you going to tie me up?" she asked, timidly.
"To the bed posts," he said. "Just right there; you can lie there comfortably while I look around. Go back to sleep, even."
"But... I'll... how long will I be tied up?"
"Look, relax. Before I leave, I'll untie one of your arms. By the time you untie yourself, I'll be long gone."
She looked at him, her huge blue eyes wide. "Do you promise you won't hurt me?" she said in a small voice.
"Of course," he said, warmly. "I already promised I wouldn't hurt you."
He pulled a coil of thin green rope from his coat pocket. "Nylon paracord. Tie the end to your left ankle."
She looked fearfully at it, flinching as if he'd thrown a snake on the bed.
"Come on," he said, putting his hand in his coat pocket again. "Do it," he said, a little more firmly.
"Okay!" she said hurriedly. "I will... but, I, I'm only wearing my nightie... can I, can I get dressed?" she asked weakly.
He grabbed the covers and pulled them off her, throwing the heavy duvet on the floor. She shrieked again and pulled her legs up and grabbed them, instinctively curling into a ball. She was wearing nothing but a short, mint green spaghetti-strap camisole and a pair of white cotton panties.
"Look," he said. "I've seen plenty of pictures of you in underwear and bikinis in magazines and on the internet. I want to get out of here quickly, okay? So, let's get moving here. Tie that cord around your ankle, now." He was speaking more crisply and firmly now, gazing down at her steadily.
"Okay! All right!" she said. "Okay, I'll do it, just... okay, hold on."
She unraveled the green cord; her hands were shaking. There was about five feet of it. She wrapped one end of it around her slim pale ankle.
"Wrap it around twice, and then tie a knot."
"I don't... I don't know how," she whined, and felt tears rolling down her face.
"You're doing fine," he said. "I'm sure you at least tie your own shoes occasionally," he mocked.
She tied a knot in the cord and he quickly moved forward and grabbed the other end of it, and pulled it taut and wrapped the other end around the bedpost.
"Nooo," she whined, starting to sniffle and cry. "I don't want to be tied up," she said weakly, as her leg stretched out straight towards the bedpost.
"Okay, now the other ankle," he said. He tossed another small coil of paracord down on the bed.
"No," she said petulantly. "One ankle is enough!"
"Let me show you what I found already," he said, and removed his hand from his pocket. In it was a black plastic square that she recognized: her stun gun. She'd always carried it in her purse; the two electrodes could administer 50,000 volts, which would immediately incapacitate anyone unfortunate enough to touch them.
She sobbed and wrapped the second length of paracord around her other ankle.
He quickly grabbed the other end and stretched it to the other bedpost, pulling her legs apart; she instinctively screamed as her legs spread, covering her crotch with her hands and trying to pull her leg back; but he pulled the paracord taut and tied it firmly to the other bedpost.
"Shhh," he said. "It'll be okay. Almost there." He bent and checked the knots. "Doesn't hurt? Not too tight?" He checked the knots, and seemed pleased with them.
"No, it doesn't hurt," she sniffled. Not yet, anyway. "I... just, okay, just get your stuff and go, okay?"
"I haven't tied your hands yet," he said patiently.
"No, don't tie my hands! Please! Look, I'm tied up enough! I can't get out of these knots without an hour of picking at them with my fingernails! And I can barely reach them!" she pleaded.
He didn't respond, just grabbed her left wrist and wrapped a loop of paracord around it. She screamed again and started to try to twist free of his grasp, and this time he slapped a hand over her mouth.
"Look," he said coldly. "I told you not to scream." He was sitting on the bed now, over her, imposing, his fingers digging into the side of her face. "Just let me tie you up and soon this will all be over. I said I wouldn't hurt you. So don't make me do that, okay?" He was staring down at her now without any of the good humor she'd seen in his eyes before.
She nodded her head and made an affirmative sound, muffled by his hand. Her blonde hair was falling in her eyes now.
His grip was firm but rather gentle - he had strong hands but they were very soft - and wrapped her left wrist with the paracord, then tied it to the headboard of the bed. He took her right wrist and did the same, and now she was tied spread-eagled on the bed.
She started sobbing again, feeling completely helpless. Without the duvet the air conditioning seemed too high; it was chilly in the room. She was aware her nipples were hard and her skin was buzzing with gooseflesh.
It wasn't the first time she'd ever felt helpless and vulnerable, but it was the first time in many years.
"There," he said, and stepped back and looked down at her; he was smiling again. "Okay. Going to go do some work now. I'll be back to check on you shortly."
Thirty minutes later, he returned into the room.
She'd tried to escape from the cord; but the more she struggled, the more it seemed to bite into her flesh, and on her back with her limbs spread, she seemed to lack the leverage to pull strongly in any direction.
She lay in the dark thinking and crying for a while, shuddering with fear.
He was now carrying two of her husband's expensive suitcases. One of them seemed to be full; she assumed it was now filled with some of her husband's expensive things.
"So," he said. "Now the hardest part for you. I'm going to steal some of your stuff."
She made a whimpering noise.
"Are you okay? Do you want something to drink?" he asked. He looked honestly concerned. Such a nice, cute, innocent-looking guy.
She considered it. "No," she finally said. She didn't know how long she'd be here and didn't want to need to use the bathroom. "But, please, do you have to steal my things? My husband has plenty of things here for you to take, very valuable things!"
He looked at her, looking bemused. "Oh, poor little rich girl doesn't want to lose her things? Well, your husband will buy you more, won't he."
She started to speak, and then stopped.
"Oh?" said the stranger, looking at her, amused. "He won't buy you more stuff?"
She looked away, turning her face to her arm.
"Hmmm," said the stranger. "Some kind of trouble in paradise? The life of a trophy wife not all it's cracked up to be? Your fat rich husband turns out to be a stingy bastard, after all?"
She closed her eyes and said, "The economic crisis affected all of us."
"Hmf," he said, opening her walk-in closet, and looking critically at all the expensive designer clothes and shoes. "Yeah, I can see that. This closet is bigger than some apartments I've lived in."
"So that gives you a right to tie people up and steal their stuff?" she said, finding some anger burning beneath the helpless vulnerability she felt.
"Hmm, no, of course it doesn't," he said absently. "No right about it. Just like you don't have any right to all this stuff. He just gave you all this shit, right?"
"They were gifts!" she said.
"Well, easy come, easy go," he said casually.
He removed some handfuls of clothes and tossed them on the floor.
"You know it's not the first time I've been in here," he said. "I've been in here twice before."
She just looked at him. She thought she had noticed a few things missing recently - some jewelry, some clothes - but she had so much stuff, it was actually hard to keep track of it all. She'd assumed that her mother or visiting friends had borrowed the things.
He opened the drawer that contained all her underwear and she said, "Hey! No!"
He came back towards the bed, carrying a big double handful of her underwear. "Are you kidding? This is the best part."
She looked at him, eyes wide with terror, as he dropped the underwear on the bed and began sorting through it. He selected a few panties - he seemed to prefer the light colors - and tossed them in the heap of clothes he was collecting. He then chose a few bras, and threw them in the growing pile.
She bit her lips. What was he going to do with those? Somehow she didn't think he was going to sell them on eBay.
He seemed to read her thoughts and turned to her, smiling. "Just souvenirs. Of course, I've seen you in underwear many times in magazines and stuff, but it is a real treat to see you live and in person," he said, now beginning to sort through her jewelry.
