The major relationship of my life had just crashed and burned, blown up in my face. My ex-boyfriend, hitherto known as That Cunt, had cheated on me and then dumped me for some teenage blonde bimbo. I was, of course, dealing with it like the intelligent, mature woman I was - I was getting rip-roaringly, mind-bogglingly drunk. Luckily, I had my best friend Carla to look after me.

"Five yearsh!" I slurred, my head in my hands, "five fucking years of my life wasted on that stupid, ungrateful cunt!"

"Don't let him get to you, Annie, he's not worth it," Carla said for the umpteenth time, trying forlornly to make me get some perspective on the situation.

"I know he's not worth it!" I barked, "but why did it me take five years to realise that?! Oh, I've been so blind! He's probably been cheating on me the whole time! Shagging any little floozy who smiled at him! And now I'm left high and dry! Abandoned! On the shelf!" My mood was swinging wildly between anger and self-pity with every swig of the drink in front of me.

"You're only twenty-six, for Christ's sake Annie, you're not an old maid yet." Carla put an arm around my shoulders, trying to comfort me, but also trying to keep from losing her temper at my pathetic, self-absorbed whining. Clearly preferring the Angry Drunk version of me, she pushed me back in that direction.

"So, we've established that he was a complete shit," she went on patiently, "but was he actually any good in bed?" Normally, I would have been shocked by such a question, even from Carla, because I never talked about that kind of thing. But, as I’ve already mentioned, I was completely pissed.

"Nnnnnno he washn't!" I replied furiously, "he was soooo boring! Strictly Mishter Mishunary Posishun! Never wanted to try anything different, never even ashked me what I might want!"

"Oh yeah?" Carla responded with a smirk, "you’d have probably jumped a mile if he’d tried anything different."

"Well, that'sh where you're wrong, missee" I blurted drunkenly, tapping the side of my nose conspiratorially, "I'm a woman of… myshtery! You'd be shocked!"

"I doubt it," Carla said scornfully, "I've known you since we were thirteen, and you've never shown any interest in anything vaguely out of the ordinary when it comes to relationships. You always make out you’re shocked and offended whenever I try to talk about sex."

"A shuttle roooz to throw you off the shent," I replied, trying to pick up one of the two drinks in front of me but always seeming to choose the imaginary one instead of the real one, "shtill watersh run deep, don'cha know."

"Go on then, surprise me," she responded disbelievingly. In my extremely drunken state, my natural inhibitions had been suppressed to the point of obliteration, and I was becoming increasingly irritated by her sceptical attitude. I guess that's why I broke the habit of a lifetime and let my mouth run away with me.

"Alright then, I will," I said, rising to her challenge and just barely catching my balance before I fell off my barstool, before leaning forward and speaking in a whisper. "One time… I asked that cunt to tie me to the bed and fuck my brains out!" I leaned back and smiled triumphantly at Carla, enjoying the look on her face as her eyebrows shot up.

"My, my!" she exclaimed, "and what did he say?"

"Told me ‘no way!’," I replied bitterly, "said it was kinky and disgusting, and I should be ashamed of myself! What a total cunt! Who turns their girlfriend down when she asks to be fucked?! As you can imagine, I never brought the subject up again. I did feel ashamed too - that cunt managed to make me feel bad about myself for wanting sex!"

"So, what are you saying, Annie?" Carla asked, "are you into bondage, or was this just a one-off?"

I think it was at this point that my head finally slumped down onto the bar, and I don't remember anything after that. I may have passed out, I don't know, but the next thing I do remember is waking up in my own bed with sunlight blazing down through the open curtains.

Quite reasonably, I had the mother and father of all hangovers, and I slid under the duvet, putting my hands to my throbbing head. How had I got home? How had I, apparently, taken off my clothes and crawled into bed, naked? I had no answers, but another, more pressing problem had occurred to me. I emerged from underneath the covers and, taking my hands away from my aching head, looked at my wrists.

What the fuck?! I stared dumbly at the handcuffs holding my wrists together, the bright sunlight glinting off the metallic surface as I slowly twisted my arms, testing the strength of the two links of chain holding the cuffs close, feeling the metal edges digging into my skin. After a few moments, I began to try to pull my hands apart, tugging more and more frantically, but to no avail. I was handcuffed. Properly handcuffed.

Who had brought me home? Who had taken off my clothes and put me to bed? Who had handcuffed me? The answers had to be Carla, Carla and Carla, but that just raised another bunch of questions, ones to which I didn't have the answer - how come she even owns a pair of handcuffs? And did she bring them out with her on our night out? Does she always carry handcuffs? And what the hell is it with the handcuffs?!

Giving in to the inevitable, I dragged my sorry arse out of bed and found my mobile, dialling my friend’s number. It immediately went to voice mail, indicating that the phone was switched off, and I recorded an irate message.

"Carla? What the fuck?! Call me back immediately and get your butt over here! I don't appreciate waking up in handcuffs, not my idea of a joke!"

Having vented some of my anger, I went downstairs and filled up on hot, sweet, black coffee and about a gallon of water plus some paracetamol to attack my hangover, then got myself into a hot shower.

As the water ran down my body and I soaped myself awkwardly with my cuffed wrists, a strange feeling began to come over me. I vaguely remembered some of my embarrassing confessions of the previous evening and decided that Carla must have actually done this as a joke. I started to see the funny side but then, as I washed my breasts, I felt my nipples standing proud, and realised that this was something else. I found a fantasy developing in my mind, unbidden, of me in the prison shower, being watched by the guards as I clean myself. Almost unconsciously, my hands worked their way down my body, and soon I was leaning back against the tiles, my fingers between my spread thighs, working away as the water sprayed into my face and my open mouth…

My knees were trembling as I staggered out of the now-cold shower, astonished by the intensity of the orgasm I had just experienced. It was the first time I had masturbated for years and, as I dried myself, I began to understand what I had been missing. I hadn't experienced anything that exciting during the years I'd wasted with The Cunt, but I didn't find it depressing that I had lost all that time, more elated that I had discovered, or rediscovered, my mojo. Was it simply the act of bringing myself off? Was it the vivid fantasy? Or was it the sensation of the steel restraints? I didn't know, but I was eager to find out.

It was only when I went to get dressed that I realised that I had another problem. Pulling on my panties and then my jeans which, due to the fashion at that time were skinny and form-fitting, was awkward but achievable. It was when I got to my top half that I saw the real difficulty. With my hands cuffed together, I couldn't wear anything with straps, which ruled out every bra I owned and virtually all my tops. In the end, I had to put on a sparkly boob tube that I'd never worn in daylight, and not at all since I'd been a student. I couldn't go out like this! I had to get Carla.

"Hi, it's me again. Okay, I'll admit it, it was a good joke, and I probably deserved it. But, come on! I need to do some shopping this afternoon, and I can't go out wearing these things! So, call me, soon, please?!"

I felt rather trapped in the flat, as I could hardly go out in handcuffs, and spent the afternoon hanging around waiting for Carla to call back, trying her on numerous occasions and leaving increasingly desperate messages. Just after lunch, I noticed that the phone was no longer going straight through to voicemail, but still she didn't answer, it just rang and rang until it diverted to voicemail Why didn't she pick up? She had to know why I was calling, why wouldn't she talk to me? I gradually became more and more worried about what this all meant.

Eventually, I couldn't take just sit around waiting, I had to do something, and I decided to clean the flat. It felt really weird to be pushing the vacuum cleaner around in handcuffs, to be dusting in handcuffs, and to be wiping down the surfaces. In handcuffs. Just as earlier in the shower, I started to fantasise. I was a maid, forced to work in these restraints, fearful that if I didn't do a good job, my employer would punish me. I imagined him watching me with a critical eye, noting every tiny mistake for later. Later, when he would discipline me, coldly, harshly, ignoring my pleas for mercy…

Almost immediately, I was rubbing the front of my jeans, then unfastening them and slipping my hands down inside my panties, rolling and pinching my clitoris as I gasped for breath. My fingers became wet, and I knew my panties were soaked, but I couldn't stop myself. I wanted another orgasm like the one I’d had earlier. I deserved it. I needed it. I-

My onanistic bliss was interrupted by the ringtone of my phone. Carla!

"Hello, darling," she said breezily, "how's your head?"

"It's fine now," I replied, "but Carla! These handcuffs! What the fuck?!"

"I thought you might enjoy them," she responded, and I could hear the smile on her voice, "after all, you're all into bondage, aren't you?"

"Okay, ha ha, very funny, now how about letting me out of them?"

"Sure. Why don't you pop round? I've got something I want to talk to you about."

"Pop round?! I can't ‘pop round’! Carla, you need to come and- Hello? Hello?!" The line had gone dead because she'd rung off. I immediately called her back, but her phone was switched off again. What the fuck was she doing?!

"Carla! For fuck’s sake, don't do this to me! You need to come and unlock these damn things! Carla! Please!" I left the message, but deep down I knew there was no point. She was doing this deliberately, but why? To teach me a lesson? Had I said or done something the previous night to annoy her? Whatever had happened, it was clear that she was not coming to my aid. I would have to go to her.

As I thought about what I was going to have to do, that funny feeling began to creep over me again. I was going to have to travel across the city with my wrists cuffed, trying to hide them under a coat or something, trying to conceal my bondage from the strangers who would be surrounding me, possibly staring at me because of my odd choice of clothes and wondering why I was carrying something over my hands. I could feel that tingling between my legs, the one I had felt in the shower and whilst cleaning. I knew this was turning me on!

Stifling my burgeoning arousal and fastening my jeans again, I picked out a jacket which I could hang over the cuffs and spread out a little to hide the bracelets. Wanting to take a taxi over to Carla's place but knowing I really couldn't afford it, I picked up my Oyster card and, taking a deep breath, walked out of the flat. I felt incredibly nervous, and my heart was pounding in my chest, but I also felt more excited than I had done for a long time. This was an adventure! As I headed off down the road to the tube station, I started to think of myself as a damsel in distress, forced to travel across London in bondage by some cruel pervert with a secret hold on me. When I came to think about it, this wasn't far from the truth!

Although I was terribly self-conscious, I didn't really attract that much attention from the many travelers - certainly no more attention than any reasonably attractive young woman in a sparkly boob tube and showing plenty of flesh would expect. My clothes weren't particularly outlandish, even though they were rather more revealing than I would have liked. I manaaged use my Oyster card without displaying the handcuffs, and made it onto the train. Luckily, I found a seat and sat quietly, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone, which was only normal behaviour on the underground. I could feel eyes staring at me, though, and I know it wasn't just my imagination.

I had to change trains as I went north and, to my dismay, I found the station full of football fans leaving the game. There were large groups of rowdy, drunken men on the platform, and I became frightened when I heard them shouting comments at me. People crowded around me and, when the train arrived, I was swept up into the carriage whether I wanted to get on or not.

For the next fifteen minutes, I was forced to stand, crushed in a crowd of sweaty men singing filthy terrace chants. I was scared out of my wits, but nothing actually happened, and the crowd gradually thinned, until I got off. I realised that I was now sweating myself and, when I reached the streets, the cool breeze quickly chilled me.

Carla lived about half a mile from the station and, when I reached her place, I had the same thoughts as I always did when I visited her. How had our lives taken such different directions? After school, I had trained as a teacher, and now worked in an inner London primary school, earning a pittance and living in a tiny flat south of the river. Meanwhile, she had trained as an accountant and now worked in the City as a futures trader. Now, she could afford this large house in the leafy suburbia.

Shrugging my shoulders, I pressed the doorbell and waited. That was the other thing. The door was opened by Georgina, Carla's personal maid - who the hell has a personal maid in this day and age?! Georgina was a tall and elegant blonde, and she made the maid’s uniform that she wore look ultra-sexy.

"Oh, hi, Annie," she smiled pleasantly as she ushered me inside, "here, let me take your jacket." Before I had a chance to move to stop her, or to say anything, she had which the coat out of my arms and, in doing so, revealed the handcuffs. I blushed a deep, deep red.

But she didn't bat an eyelid, she just turned and led me down the hallway to one of the reception rooms. She opened the door and went in.

"Annie is here to see you, Carla," she announced and, after I had entered the room, backed away and closed the door.

"Hi there, honey," Carla smiled, "I'm glad you came over. You got here without any trouble?" I stood and gaped at her, because she was dressed like I had never seen her before.

Carla was a riot of red and black, leather and latex, smooth and shiny, tight and revealing, sensuous and sexy. The black leather corset which cinched her waist to waspish proportions thrust her already-ample breasts up and out, making them strain against the red latex dress, with its deep, revealing cleavage, while her nipples showed hard and erect through the thin rubber. The latex extended down her arms, with the sleeves hooked over her middle finger, and the short pleated skirt fell from her waist to cover her hips and buttocks, but not much else. The bare flesh of her thighs gave way to the black, laced-up boots which came to just below her knee. She was about my height but, as she stood in front of me, legs akimbo and hands on hips, the stiletto heels made her tower over me, leaving me more than a little intimidated.

Her silky black hair was pulled back away from her face into a tight ponytail. Her eyes were hooded by the coal-black eyeshadow and dramatic eyelashes, while her lips glistened a deep red in her otherwise pale face. The overall image was completed by the spiked leather collar around her neck, which spoke of power and veiled threat, rather than suggesting any hint of submission.

"Carla?! W-what are you wearing?!" I asked in astonishment, taking in the image before me.

"Oh this?" She said nonchalantly, "just work clothes."

"Work clothes?!" I exclaimed. "Have you stopped working in the City and become a call girl?!"

"No, silly, this is for my weekend job which, incidentally, is what I wanted to talk to you about. But before we get onto that, tell me about your day. Did you enjoy it?"

I was struggling to get any handle on what was going on here. My best friend had a weekend job which involved her, apparently, dressing as a tart?! I just spent all day in handcuffs and she was asking me whether I enjoyed it?! Her maid had expected me to be in some kind of bondage when I turned up?! My mind was in turmoil, and I didn't find it any easier when I saw the calm, confident smile on Carla's face.

"What? Did I what? Enjoy it? My whole Saturday was thrown into disarray! I was supposed to get my food for the week, and I needed some clothes. What do you think?!" I wanted to sound angry and affronted, but it just came out as a whine.

"Well, I think you probably did enjoy it. A lot. Did you make yourself cum?"

"I beg your pardon?!" I gasped, "how can you… that's just not… That's none of your business!"

"I'll take that as a ‘yes’, then," she smirked. I looked at her furiously, but I couldn't help feeling so totally not in control of this situation. I decided I needed to get back on topic.

"Would you please take these damn things off me?" I said, holding out my wrists in as uncompromising a way as I could manage.

"Sure, Annie, no problem." She reached into her cleavage and pulled out a small silver key, then held one of my wrists as she put the key in the lock.

It happened so fast, I didn't realise what was going on until it was over. One moment, Carla was rubbing the red mark on my free wrist as if she was concerned, the next my arms were both behind my back and the cuffs were back in place, preventing me from bringing them forward again. I twisted to one side and looked at my wrists. There they were, close together, once more adorned by the shiny bracelets, and now utterly useless.

"Carla?! What the fuck?!" I shouted. "This is way beyond a joke now, it's not funny! Fucking let me go!!"

In response, Carla just smiled and moved a stray bit of hair out of my face.

"Maybe we need to talk now," she said quietly, but in a firm voice, "you see, my weekend job isn't as a call girl, or a prostitute or a whore, whatever you want to call it. I’m a Dominatrix. People pay me money to treat them in a very controlled and controlling way. Luckily, it not only pays well, it's my hobby, my special area of interest, and my fetish. I've always been a bossy cow, as you know from school, and now I've found a way to monetise it!"

"A-are you kidding me?" I exclaimed in disbelief, "how come you never told me before?"

"How come you never told me that you were deeply submissive and fantasised about bondage?" she countered, "I've always had a sneaking suspicion about you, Annie, but didn't want to risk our friendship by making assumptions."

"I have to tell you, this is starting to risk our friendship!" I said threateningly, "oh, and what do you mean about me being submissive? How do you work that out? I've always stood up for myself! I don't let anybody walk all over me!"

"Don't get upset, Annie," she chided gently, stroking my cheek, "being a submissive doesn't mean you're a doormat. It just means that you have sexual fantasies about submitting to the control of another. You do have those, don't you, Annie? That's why you played with yourself in the handcuffs. That's why you agreed to come across town with them on."

"Agreed?!" I squealed, "I never agreed! I had to do that to get these damn cuffs off!"

"Really?" Carla said with a sceptical look, "you can’t think of any other thing you could have done? You couldn't have broken the chain with a hammer or something? You couldn't have tried to get one of these oh-so-simple universal keys anywhere? You couldn't have called a locksmith? The truth is, you never even considered any other option, because this one played into your fantasy. Am I right?" Dammit, I knew she was right! Maybe those ideas wouldn't have worked out, but they hadn't even crossed my mind. I had imagined myself being forced to go out in public, with the possibility that I might be discovered, and that had become what I wanted to do. Jesus, how fucked up was I?!

"So… what… what happens now?" I asked nervously, looking up into her face.

"Now, my dear Annie, we have some fun."