Bob Eastbrook paced impatiently around his bedroom, going over each step of the instructions in his head. It felt strange to be home in the middle of a weekday afternoon, with the sun streaming into the quiet, empty house. Finally he heard his wife's car pull into the driveway, and he stood cautiously at the edge of window and watched her get out and walk into the garage. Corine looked the same as she always did, the same elegant, pretty woman he had been married to for ten years, but he couldn't help seeing her in a different light now. You think you know someone ... When he heard her open the back door and come into the kitchen, he tiptoed into position behind the bedroom door.

It was five long, fidgety minutes before she came upstairs. His erection was pressing uncomfortably against the front of his slacks, his palms were sweaty, and the new cologne he was wearing was irritating his neck. Finally he heard her on the stairs, and to his relief she came straight into the bedroom, passing within inches of him as she brushed past the doorjamb.

When her back came into view he quickly moved behind her and slapped the strip of duct tape over her mouth. She stiffened with surprise and let out a high-pitched grunt. Before she could turn around, he pulled the cloth hood down over her head. She elbowed him in the ribs and reached up to try to take off the hood, but he pushed her face-down onto the bed and secured her wrists behind her back with a short length of nylon cord.

Her instructions clearly stated that she would put up a realistic struggle, so he was ready when she started bucking and kicking violently. He sat on her back, using his weight to pin her on her stomach. Working as efficiently as possible, he used longer lengths of cord to bind her ankles to her upper thighs, forcing her knees to remain bent. She kicked back at him a few times, loosening the cords before they were secured, but he kept at it and finally managed to get everything tight. Then he untied her wrists and retied each one to one of her ankles, leaving her in a kneeling position with her face pressed into the bed and her ass in the air. She was completely helpless now, and he could relax a little.

Being careful to remain out of her sight, he removed the hood and replaced it with a blindfold, letting her breathe more easily. Bob was a very meticulous man, and before going any further he took the sheets of paper with their neatly-typed instructions out of his pocket and reviewed his progress. So far, so good.

He went to his closet and took out the box with the other equipment.

Dave Halleran poured a little more oil into his hand and then continued massaging his wife's right calf, working his fingers deep into the muscles.

"Mmmm," said Sally. "That's very good."

"Almost done," he said. He had been massaging her for almost an hour, starting with her neck and working his way down, and his arms and shoulders ached.

"Remember, you have to spend plenty of time on my feet," said Sally. "It's in my instructions."

"I'm going to be so stiff tomorrow morning I'll need a massage myself," he complained. "I'm almost looking forward to moving onto the next part, if you can believe that."

His eyes strayed to the three black leather straps that were the only adornment on his wife's naked, gleaming body. One around her waist, and one around each thigh, just below her crotch. She was lying on her stomach on the bed, a beach towel beneath her to catch the excess oil, and she hadn't let him see what was on the other side of those straps. But he knew.

"Getting nervous?"

"Getting? I've been nervous for two days."

She chuckled. "That'll teach you menfolk to start boasting about your perverted sexual fantasies."

It had all started last week, when their good friends Bob and Corine Eastbrook had invited them over for dinner. Bob had opened two bottles of a terrific Merlot, and both men had overappreciated its charms. As was often the case when inhibitions were eased by alcohol, the conversation had drifted around to sex. He didn't remember how it had started, but a good-natured argument had developed over sexual fantasies. Specifically, whether women had dark, secret fantasies like men did.

"How did we get on that subject the other night, anyway?" he asked.

"You mumbled something implying that all men had secret sexual fantasies they never talked about. Then Corine - or maybe it was me, it doesn't matter since Corine and I were in perfect agreement - said that women did too."

"Uh huh. And it was Bob who insisted that men would always be happy to hear about their wives fantasies, but not vice versa. Bob's the one who really got me in trouble."

"I seem to remember you agreeing with him all the way," said Sally with a smile.

Bob took a pair of scissors out of the box and lifted up his wife's short cotton dress. To his surprise, she wasn't wearing any panties. He chuckled to himself - that was Corine for you. Why ruin a perfectly good pair of panties just because you're scouring the deepest recesses of your sexual psyche? He lifted the dress all the way up over her waist and bunched it under her shoulders. Her bra unhooked in the back, but he had a perverse urge to use the scissors instead. Why else would she have included them in the instructions?

She flinched and whimpered as the cold steel blade slid under the strap. The scissors made a satisfying tearing sound as they sliced though the taut cotton and elastic, and the bra sprang loose. He cut away the shoulder straps for good measure, and the ruined garment slithered down onto the bed. Then he stood behind his wife and spent a few seconds admiring the firm white globes of her buttocks and the little crescent of darker flesh and hair between them. Even tied up with her naked ass in the air, Corine exuded a certain feminine elegance. He suddenly realized he was rubbing his erection through his slacks.

He reached into the box and pulled out the next item: a flexible leather paddle. He sniffed it, savoring the new-leather smell, and then swung it through the air a few times, testing its weight and balance.