Joanne couldn't believe how a short conversation can change your life so deeply.

-Why do you like it? Hope you don't mind me asking.- Asked the ghost sitting next to her on the hotel bed, while she wrote on the laptop to finish her report, that winter afternoon.

-I like what?

-Well... The collar, the belt...

-I...- She shrugged she shoulders. She didn't have a good answer at that moment, rather focusing her attention on her part time job in the magazine. The salary of a college assistant teacher could use a bit of extra cash.- I like how they look and feel on my skin.

-It's not that. I've been in your head as much as you've been in mine. You were enjoying what I hated. Why?- She stopped writing.

-I... I don't have a good answer. It's just... Something makes me lean that way. I don't know.- She had just started exploring her recently found interests. Mostly reading in the internet she had found parts of herself unknown so far. First she bought a small leather collar with a steel ring on its base at the front. Fitting it around her neck felt good to the touch, but most importantly, she thought she looked great on the mirror. Two months later the custom made chastity belt felt even better on both fronts. If the purpose of that tool was to calm the wearer's urgencies, in her case it did the opposite. Wearing it was great, but removing it and taking care of her lust was amazing. She had been wearing it for longer periods each time, only to find herself even more aroused.

-And the chains, the immobility?- Just going over the experience once again ignited her flames. Involuntarily a hand reached down and rubbed the shield of the belt through the fabric of the trousers.- See? You like that.

-I don't know, Marmara, I truly don't. I'll think about it.

Along the next weeks she started to surf the internet to look for pictures, fictional tales, real anecdotes, videos, shop catalogs, and anything that could help her understand her own desires. Fortunately she found a lot. Unfortunately, some of her intererests were expensive. Yet she was single and young and had two jobs. With a bit of money and a bit of inventiveness she would be able to sort it out.

When she asked Marmara to enter again in her body and show her again her memories of her imprisonment and torture. Knowing what was to be expected she paid less attention to Marmara's agony and more to her own feelings and bodily reactions. She liked the most, the bondage, specially the moment when it was being applied, not so much the constant muscular cramps due to immobilization, and, of course, the chastity. To her own surprise, she liked the less the part of the third guard, the one Marmara preferred because he had been the kindest and less painful, while still being a rapist. Joanne was shocked when she realized that she preferred uncomfortable sex, but that kind of explained her lack of interest in regular sex, in general. To put it simple, it was boring. She most certainly was not into pain, though, but rather the humilliation, the defenselessness, the vulnerability, the uncertainty, the fear, the unfairness, and the weakness.

Among the things she could afford, perhaps the less expensive one, a dungeon. Her appartment already had a spare bedroom, so small that a bed and a closet filled 80% of the space. See just paid a locksmith to assemble a pair of bolts on the door, one to close it from the outside, the other from the inside. In addition to that she bought a pair of thick black curtains that would block any light, and prevent curious eyes, while still allowing fresh air to enter. At last she emptied the room from any kind of furniture. All the stuff she was going to buy would be kept there instead.

A few days after emptying the room she installed her first contraption. A simple wooden table, placed on the floor, with four iron cuffs bolted to its surface, and two thick chains. Along the last two weeks she had been sleeping there, on the hard wood, completely naked. With the door closed, the thick curtains and the blinds, plus a small heater, the winter's cold was not an issue.

She fitted around her waist the chastity belt, sealing her pussy for a few days minimum. The key was inside a wad of solid wax, in the bottom of a water filled bucket, in her freezer. As soon as the water were solid ice, she could put the bucket somewhere in her kitchen. The ice would melt, and then the water would evaporate completely, a process that would take a week, perhaps. Plus a few minutes to melt the wax with a lighter.

It wasn't perfect, as she could easily retrieve the key as soon as the ice were off, but that was the best system she had found so far not to be in complete control of her sex. She had discarded the idea of using a friend's help, as she wasn't ready to make public that part of herself.

Like every night she laid on the table. As the naked wood was too uncomfortable she had put a blanket for her back, and another one folded twice below her nape. The two cuffs from her ankles left her legs wide spread like a V. A chain around her waist and the other around her neck pinned her to the table. At her sides, next to her hips, the other two cuff would encircle her wrists, but not yet.

Then she checked her release system, the weighing scales. It had two pans hanging at it sides. On one pan, the keys to the cuffs and the padlocks on her neck and waist. On the other, a glass with a bit of water. Through trial and error, she had learn to calculate how much time needed the water to evaporate. As the water started to disappear, the arm with the glass would go up slowly while the one with the keys would go down. She arranged it so the keys would need around three hours to fall to the floor, where her hand, that couldn't be raised more than a couple of inches, due to the short chain between the cuff and the wood, would be able to reach them easily. Three hours were more than enough to fall asleep, or in any case, to give her a good taste of helplessness and bondage.

At last, she programmed the alarm clock, that was on the floor, next to the table, plugged to a socket on the wall. It would wake her up in time to go to work the next morning. Checking that the weighing scales were where they musted, so the pan with the keys would fall within her hand's reach, she closed her cuffs. Closing the cuffs and padlocks always had the desired effect. The tingling in her pussy, goosebumps, erect nipples and the blushed heat on her check confirmed what she already knew.

For the rest she had to use her imagination. She pretended that she had been kidnapped by a random band of slavers and they were going to take turns raping her in a relatively gentle, not-too-painfull, way. They wanted to sold her, and the goods should not be damaged. They were just giving her a taste of her future, softening her spirit, scaring the shit out of her, and, of course, humiliating her with all kind of expletives, making her feel lesser. Hours of that fantasy, every night, along a week in chastity. The experience was worth the money invested. Not only the strong orgasms, when she finally was allowed to masturbate, but the process itself. The wait, the need, the frustration, the lack of control, again, the helplessness.

-You know is not true, right? You still have full control.- Marmara again insisted on being a buzzkill. Annoying, but the poor thing had been seven hundred years in a box, and Joanne was the only person with whom she could talk.

-Yes, Mar, I know. Do you have a better idea?- For Joanne that was good enough for the moment.

-Actualy...- She said no more. She just shrugged her shoulders and waited for a better moment to speak.

The next day the alarm awoke Joanne. The pan was already in its place so she reached over and opened the cuff around her right wrist, and then the rest. She stretched a bit. A single blanket was still uncomfortable but she wanted it to be challenging.

She went to her old bedroom after locking the dungeon's door. She made sure that the bedding was undone and a pair of drawings open, with their contents untidy. That way, in case some visitors came, they would assume that she had been sleeping there. She went straight to the shower. After cleaning herself she went to the sink to dry and comb her hair. She screamed when she saw what the water steam had revealed on her mirror. The words “I DO” written with something the size of a finger.