Kathy by and large enjoyed her life. Her husband Mike was supportive and loving, her daughter Amy was a regular angel. Kathy knew that she was better off than many of her friends. Oh, Mike might not be as romantic as he once was, but he was a good a husband as a woman could want. Kathy wondered if something were lacking in her own soul. Being a mother should have been more satisfying. Her job held enough interest, and she certainly liked being a wife and making love to Mike, but Kathy felt some unidentifiable something was missing.
Kathy was not sure what her need really was, perhaps it was just a desire to have something of her own that she did not have to share with her husband, her daughter, her friends or her boss. Over the past year Kathy felt that she had indeed found part of what she was missing. His name was "Greg" and he was her internet lover. Kathy had discovered "Greg" in an internet chatroom and they had hit it off from the beginning. "Greg" was someone she could confide in and chat with in a completely nonjudgmental way. He seemed to understand her in ways that Mike simply did not.
Kathy knew that Mike loved her. He took great delight in his wife's beauty. Kathy was not vain but she knew that she was more attractive than most women. Her long brown hair fell to the middle of her back. Her dark eyes matched her hair color. Her skin was flawless and she had a nice sized bust and what Mike described as "killer legs." Make delighted in two pictures taped to the bedroom mirror. One was taken when Kathy and Mike were on their honeymoon, the other had been taken last year at the beach. Both photos showed Kathy in a bikini. One had to pore intently over the second picture to discern that Kathy had given birth since the first picture had been taken. For Kathy, however, while Mike's love was a often a comfort, to be honest, she often took it and her husband for granted.
"Greg"' was effusive in his praise of Kathy in ways that Mike at his most romantic and tender could not hope to match. "Greg" wrote her love sonnets and sincere poetry. In the ten months that they had been secretly conversing on line, Kathy felt supremely loved and desired. Was it really a sin to keep the existence of "Greg" from Mike? Her husband would no doubt not understand Kathy need for a secret, platonic lover and confidant. Mike was loving and understanding, but Kathy somehow knew that he would loudly object to Kathy's clandestine internet relationship. Keeping her husband in the dark was really for his protection, she reasoned. It was not like she was making passes at Mike's friends or coworkers.
Kathy loved the fact that, even after all this time, the two had never even exchanged photographs. True "Greg" did seem to know a lot more about Kathy than she did about him. Where other women might have been troubled by the dearth of knowledge about the person they were pouring their heart out to, Kathy rationalized it. He, and Kathy was sure that "Greg" was a man, was probably trapped in a loveless marriage. Perhaps he was grieving widower or a man married to an alcoholic or a junkie, or a mad woman. Such a man as that was entitled to his privacy. "I'm probably giving him as much good as he is giving me." she told herself. Of late Kathy had been revealing more and more of her inner desires to her phantom lover. She told him the deep longing of her heart that her husband could not meet. She told him her raunchiest and deepest fantasies. And always, when she stepped away from the keyboard she felt invigorated. It was, in its own way as intense as the best sex with Mike, with none of the mess, vulnerability, or sweat. Kathy felt only a slight tinge of guilt, imagining that Mike was actually "Greg" when they did make love. "A little fantasy is good for a marriage." She told herself.
A Friday afternoon some time later, Kathy was making her way to her car in the parking garage. It had been a frustrating week at work. Things had not gone well with her new supervisor. It seemed as though the woman expected the impossible fro her. All she wanted was to go home and take a long hot bubble bath. An empty house awaited her. Amy and Mike would be already be at her mother in-laws. Kathy and Mike's mother were like fire and ice. Tina had mellowed a great deal since Amy had been born but she still treated Kathy shabbily. Mike had long tired of being the peacemaker between the two most significant women in his life so he suggested that Kathy spend the weekend alone.
"You can catch up on your sleep or go see a movie or spend time with your friends. I know how hard your new boss is riding you. The last thing you need is to face the fury of my mother on top of that."
"Mike can really be understanding, sometimes." thought Kathy as she stepped behind a van to get to her car.
The blackness was sudden and total. Something was forced into Kathy's mouth to prevent her from crying out. There was a prick of a needle in her neck an then an even deeper blackness.
Consciousness came slowly. At last the fog of the anesthetic and of disorientation left her. Kathy was panicked for a moment by the fact that she could not see. After an interval of desperation, she deduced that she had been blindfolded in some way. Carefully Kathy preformed a mental inventory. She was naked for one thing, and between the sheets of a large seeming bed. Kathy tugged with all of her might, but her hands and ankles remained in their restraints. Kathy wanted to scream out, but something in her mouth caused her to emit only the softest of squeaks.
"Ah you are awake." said an authoritative voice from somewhere in the darkness. After an agonizing moment Kathy heard the voice again. "I'll take the gag out of your mouth now but if you scream it goes right back in. Understand me?"
Kathy nodded her head vociferously.
Kathy felt strange fingers reach behind her head and loose her gag. Kathy did not know how much time passed before she asked softly "Where am I? Who are you?"
"You mean you can't guess, Kathy?"
"No. Please! We don't have much money, but my husband will..."
"Quiet down Kathy or I gag you again."
Kathy amazed herself by getting a hold of her emotions. She tried to slow her panicked breathing and succeeded. The darkness that held her vision captive had lost a bit of its terror. She was sure now that she had not been permanently blinded.
"I'm surprised you couldn't guess, Kathy. I am Greg and this is our love nest for the next week or so."
"Greg?" uttered Kathy in stunned realization. "From the internet?"
"Of course, dummy! I have gone to considerable effort to bring you here so we can make our mutual fantasy a reality."
"Oh no! Greg, I didn't mean..."
