All Tied Up

Penny Harris stood before the full length mirror stark naked, trailing her fingers sensuously over her C-cup breasts, down her taut stomach and across her excited, recently trimmed pussy. She smiled at her reflection. 'Not bad for 42,' she thought. 'Not bad at all.' Then she slid her hands back to her breasts, caressing them like no other hands had done since her husband David's death 18 years earlier.

But the sexual loneliness had been her own choice, and she considered it a small price to pay when compared to the love and attention she was able to give to her 19 year-old twins, Michael and Michelle. But now things were different. Now the twins were attending a college two hours down the road, and she, for all intents and purposes, was an empty nester.

Her first week alone had been tough. The emptiness left behind by their departure was more than she'd expected. Way more. She'd found herself constantly reminded of their absence by the smallest things. But somehow she'd managed to grit her teeth and fight through the loneliness, gradually even starting to focus on herself.

It was partway through her second week alone when she first caught her mind drifting back to the days when it was just her and David. And she couldn't help but smile as she thought about the transformation he'd brought out in her.

Before him, she'd been a bit on the conservative side. That's not to say she wasn't curious, she just lacked the confidence to explore the things that so frequently occupied her thoughts and dreams. But David had sensed the wild side hiding just beneath her surface, and he'd set his mind to bringing it out. And bring it out he did, ultimately teaching her everything from the joys of flirting and teasing to the dark, hungry lust of bondage and submission. And Penny took everything he taught her and then asked for more. And now it was all coming back.

She shook her head, bringing her mind back to the present and the naked, hungry image in the mirror before her. Then she took a deep breath, turned and picked up the short, silky robe she'd purchased the day before and slid it on. Finally, she made her way out of the bedroom and began working her way to the basement, and the adventure she'd been looking forward to all week.

* * * Two Days Earlier ***

Penny Harris opened the door separating the finished portion of the basement from the back room -- the room nobody but family was ever allowed to see. She took in the mess that cluttered the unfinished room; the boxes, bags, and various piles of no longer wanted crap that had managed to accumulate in the 21 years she'd lived there. Then she shook her head and sighed.

"Oh, well. No time like the present, I guess," the 42 year-old woman said out loud. And with that, she turned to the wall on her left and began the task she was certain was going to take at least a lifetime to complete -- dejunking!

* * *

It was 4:00 PM and she was nearly ready to call it a day. She looked around the room, taking stock in her effort to date.

'Not bad,' she thought. And in truth, it had been a good day's effort. Not only did she have a large pile of trash occupying half of the garage, but the wall she'd started on was now completely cleared away, as was half of the cubby-hole under the stairs.

"Now, if I can just finish clearing out this area," she said under her breath. And with that, she dove back into the secluded storage spot, grabbed the closest box and pulled it free.

That's when she saw it, that old black sea-chest with the brass hinges and handles and the old combination Yale lock hanging from the front.

"Oh, my God!" she gasped, instinctively taking a step backwards, turning in panic to make sure no one was watching. And of course no one was. After all, Michelle and Michael were attending college two hours away and her husband had been dead for all but one of their 19 years.

Once her mind came to grips with the reality that she was, in fact, alone, she relaxed enough to refocus her attention on the box; the very box her husband had sworn he'd get rid of almost 20 years ago when they first found out she was pregnant.

Truth be told, they hadn't been trying to start a family. But in spite their lack of intention, the young couple had been ecstatic when they found out they were going to become parents, so much so that there was very little discussion before they agreed that certain parts of their life needed to change; specifically the kinky sex games.

Yet as Penny stood there looking at the box, she didn't for an instant delude herself into thinking that her husband might have gotten rid of the contents and kept the box. After all, if he'd done that, why would the box be hidden like it was, and why would it still be locked?

In hindsight, Penny couldn't really claim to be all that surprised. The contents of that box, while not the central part of their marriage and certainly not the only reason they'd gotten together, were nonetheless a special part of their relationship. But even at that, the fact was that they'd discussed it together and both agreed; certain things just weren't appropriate when you were starting a family. The contents of the box, special as they were, simply had to go.

"Oh, David," she sighed out loud. And she couldn't help the little tear that slipped from the corner of her eye as she thought of the man she still worshiped, and of the life they could have shared together.

She took several steps backwards, leaned up against the washing machine and let herself drift back to their early years together, before the twins, and before the tragic car accident that took his life. And for several minutes she just stood there, remembering. And then, from out of nowhere, a thought flashed through her mind and she pushed herself away from the washer and stood bolt upright.

"47-13-24," she yelled out. And with that she shot across the floor, ducked into the small cubby-hole, grabbed the handle of the trunk and began pulling it free. Once it was in the middle of the room, she knelt down, took hold of the lock and began turning the dial -- right two times past zero to 47, left once past zero to 13, right to 24. Then she pulled, and the lock came free.

"Well, what do you know," she said shaking her head in amazement. But she didn't pause to wonder how she'd managed to remember those numbers after all these years. Instead she pulled the lock from the box, opened the clasp and lifted the lid. And then she looked inside, seeing for the first time in nearly two decades the whips, ball gags, masks, floggers, wrist cuffs, ankle restraints and spreader bars, not to mention the various dildos, vibrators, nipple clamps, ass plugs, ropes and other miscellaneous items that made up her husband's play chest.

And a small shiver shot through her body as she reached inside, grabbed one of the dildos and pulled it out.

Penny spent the next several minutes pulling out one item after another, taking time to look each item over and relive a special memory or two that concerned it. And although each item brought back at least one memory, some of the memories were stronger than others.

Like the nipple clamps, and how he'd tied her to the bed one night, then put the clamps on and tickled her with a feather duster until she didn't know whether to cry or laugh -- or both.

Or the flogger, and how one night he forced her to undress in the kitchen, then bend over the sink and present her ass for punishment because dinner was unacceptably late.

So many toys, so many memories. And she kept going through them, one item after another until she reached the bottom of the box. Then she sighed deeply and set about putting all the toys back into the box before heading up to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of wine and took a seat at the kitchen table. And then she sat there, dreaming of what she and David had had together

But she didn't just dream of the kinky games they played when they felt the need to push their relationship to the edge, but of the many soft, tender times they'd shared together as well. Just how long she sat there, thinking, she couldn't say. All she knew was that when she finally headed up to bed, it was well past nine and she'd completely forgotten about dinner.

* * *

It was an uneasy sleep that Penny finally settled into that night, a sleep filled with dreams of her full-time lover, part-time Master. Yet of all the dreams that filled her head that night, it was the one that woke her midway through the night that she remembered, the one where he stripped her naked and chained her wrists to an eye-bolt in the ceiling, before leaving her alone for two agonizing, lust-filled hours with a hood on her head, a ball gag in her mouth and an ass plug crammed up her anus.

When she woke the next morning, the dream came immediately to mind. She remembered the circumstances of the dream clearly. And while it wasn't the first time David had bound and tied her, it was the first time he'd left her alone in that condition. Even so, it was what grew out of that first time that really made things interesting.

* * *

To say that David had been turned on by the thought of his wife being bound and tied, then left alone, would have been an understatement of colossal proportions. The thought fascinated him, soon driving him to devise ways to 'improve' the experience, both for him and for her.

His first step was to purchase an electric vibrator, then attach it to an extendable hollow tube which the cord would run through. After that he made a spreader bar, drilling a hole through the middle that would hold the hollow tube snugly inside. Then he bought an electric timer and an ice-lock with a pair of wrist cuffs attached.

He modified the restraint setup that he'd previously set up in the basement by removing the eye-bolt from the ceiling bean, then building an extension to lower it to a level that would allow Penny -- while already secured in the spreader bar and handcuffs -- to stretch onto her tiptoes and slip the cuffs through the hinged eye-bolt, yet would still be high enough to keep her for holding the hinge open with one hand so the other hand could slip the cuffs free.

And he did all that without letting Penny know what he was up to. At least not until he called her from work one afternoon, told her to strip naked, grab the ice-lock wrist cuffs he'd hidden behind the ice cubes in the freezer, and then go downstairs and call him back on the speakerphone.

After she'd done as instructed, he proceeded to walk her through the process of setting everything up. By the time he was finished the timer was set, the spreader bar was securely fastened between her legs, the special vibrator was crammed up her pussy, her wrists were fastened in the wrist cuffs, and the ball gag and hood were securely in place. Then he had her snare the ice-lock wrist cuffs in the eye-bolt over her head.

From that point on, Penny's self-bondage became a regular part of their games. Sometimes he would call and tell her to ensnare herself, much as he had that first time. Other times Penny would take the liberty herself, knowing that, should anything unexpected delay him, she could count on the ice-lock to free her, but not until after her body had been wracked with orgasms.

But all that was many years in the past. Many, many years.

* * *

Penny went about her business the next day, trying to put her discovery and the flood of memories and emotions that came with it behind her. But it turned out that some memories are just too strong to be put aside easily, even ones thought to be long buried.

She tried returning to the basement to continue the task she'd started the day before, but try as she might, she couldn't keep her eyes from straying to the black sea-chest in the cubby-hole under the stairs.

She gave up on that within a half hour, choosing instead to break out the vacuum cleaner and take her mixed emotions out on the carpet. But again, she couldn't get that damn black sea-chest off her mind.

After that she forced herself into the shower, then into a clean change of clothes and took off for the mall. But despite herself, she couldn't seem to avoid the sections of the stores that featured the sexy nighties and undergarments. And when she found herself unable to resist the store with the risque games and naughty toys for consenting adults, she knew something had to give.

That's when her mind drifted back to last night's dream. And that's when she realized what she had to do.

From that moment on, a strange calmness seemed to engulf her. She not only knew exactly what she had to do, but she knew she could do it tomorrow, Thursday, a day when she had almost no chance of unwanted interruptions. She also knew she had everything she needed in the sea-chest back home and that only two things could prevent her from putting her plan into action -- if her husband had actually taken down the restraining system, and if the ice lock wasn't frozen.

The ice-lock was an obvious no brainer; get it in the freezer sometime this afternoon and it would be good to go when she needed it. As far as the restraining system went, since her husband hadn't even been able to part with the bondage toys, there was no way he'd have gotten around to that. And a shiver of excitement shot through her as she realized that she was, indeed, going to relive one of her and her husband's favorite scenes.

Now that she'd settled on her plan, she found she was not only able, but eager to continue her shopping spree. She moved from store to store about the mall, picking up some nice candles, then splurging on her favorite perfume and a couple bottles of wine. Then she headed for Victoria's Secret and purchased a short, sexy, silk robe and some bath oils. And then she returned home.

Once home, she went straight for the basement, stepping into the back room to grab a step-stool, then carrying it out to the finished rec room and depositing it on the floor. She moved to the brown recliner, grabbed the back it and pulled it around to the far wall, then grabbed the coffee table and pulled it off to the side. Then, with everything but the over-stuffed black chair now up against a wall, she positioned the step-stool under the center tile in the drop-down ceiling, stepped onto the stool and proceeded to remove the tile, revealing a rather ordinary looking wood beam, complete with dust and cobwebs.

But it wasn't the beam that interested Penny, nor was it the beam that brought a smile to her face. Rather, it was the two eight-inch long bolts extending through it, the first being about three inches from the top of the beam, the other roughly five-inches directly below the first. Both were held securely in place with washers and nuts, with wing nuts screwed a few rotations around the shaft of each.

With a curt nod of the head, she hopped off the stool and headed to the back room. She grabbed the sea-chest's handle and dragged it into the rec room, easing it alongside the coffee table. Then she opened it and began rummaging through it, quickly finding what she was looking for -- a 2X4 roughly eighteen-inches long that had two holes drilled through the wide side that were spaced to mirror the bolts in the ceiling in the rec room. There was also a three-inch diameter eye-bolt with a hinged opening screwed securely into one end of the piece of lumber.

She hopped back onto the stool, removed the wing nuts and slid the two holes in the 2X4 over the two bolts in the ceiling beam. And when the board slid easily onto the bolts, a wide grin spread across her face. Now nothing short of a power outage or a malfunctioning freezer could foil her plans. And with that, she threaded the wing nuts onto each bolt, threading them as tightly as she could before hopping off the stool, returning to the sea-chest and grabbing the ice-lock wrist cuffs. A minute later she was standing in the kitchen and the lock was in the freezer, and a minute after that she was opening a bottle of wine.

She took her glass of wine into the living room, turned on some light jazz and sat back. There was no hurry now. After all, it was still early afternoon. It would be almost noon tomorrow before she actually set things in motion. Now was the time to kick back, relax and let the anticipation take over.

* * *

Surprisingly, Penny slept late the next morning. When she finally did make it out of bed, the easy serenity that had surrounded her during the night quickly gave way to a very uneasy anxiousness -- or was it nervousness?

Her first thought was a shower. Maybe that would relax her. But any peace she might have felt as the warm water cascaded over her naked body disappeared the moment she stepped out of the tub.

After she toweled off, she threw on a tee-shirt and a pair of comfortable old jeans, then headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, a bowl of yogurt and the morning paper. But not even the familiarity of her morning routine could lessen her nervous anticipation.

Once she finished the paper she slipped on her tennis shoes and went for a long walk. It was a walk that normally would calm her, even bring a smile to her face as she took in the fresh air and sunshine. But not today. Today, not even that could control the knot that was rapidly taking over her stomach.

So it was no surprise that when she finally returned home and looked at the clock -- 11:30 -- she sighed. "Close enough," she said out loud. And with that she turned and headed for the master bedroom.

* * * Present Time * * *

Dressed in nothing but her new silk robe, Penny slipped out the bedroom door and headed straight for the kitchen, where she retrieved the ice-lock wrist cuffs from the freezer and wrapped them in a towel. Then she made her way purposefully towards the basement.

As bad as the anticipation had been up until then, it wasn't until she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into the rec room that it really hit her. That's when she realized that after all these years, it really was going to happen, she really was going to go through with it. She reached for the wall to steady herself as a momentary weakness shot through her legs. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath, before easing them open to survey the room.

Everything was just like she'd left it the night before. The over-stuffed black chair still occupied it's normal spot near the entrance, well clear of the space she'd need in the center of the room, while the rest of the furnishings were all pushed off to the side. The black sea-chest was still wide open beside the coffee table and the eye-bolt was still securely fastened to the overhead beam.

There was nothing left to do but do it! And with a practiced experience that 20 years couldn't erase, Penny began the process of enslaving herself.

First, she set the wrist cuffs down on the coffee table, then went to the closet, pulled out an old TV tray and set it up near, but not precisely under, the eye-bolt in the ceiling. Then she moved the wrist cuffs from the coffee table to the TV tray, before turning to the sea-chest to get the hood and ball-gag and place them on the tray with the other items. Then, almost as an afterthought, she retrieved the envelope that held the keys to the wrist cuffs themselves from the sea-chest and placed it on the coffee table.

Next was the timer, which she placed a few feet behind where she'd be standing. At that point she paused, looking around to make sure everything was the just way it should be. Satisfied, she plugged the timer in, then set it to turn on in ten minutes. Then she stopped.

'No, not ten, twenty,' she thought. 'More anticipation, more build up.' And with that, she changed the timer to twenty, stood up, shed her robe and tossed it aside, leaving her as naked as the day she was born. A slight shiver shot through her center as she slid her hands between her legs, rubbed her fingers lightly over her clit and eased them into her already moist pussy.