But he had fouled it up.  Big time.  She got soaked when she fell in the wet grass, they couldn't get through the crowd with her still tied up, and the tape left uncomfortable, ugly marks on her face when he tried to remove it.  He still felt embarrassed about it, over a year later.  But she had not yelled at him, or demanded that he take her home.  She only said that she expected a bandit to come find her soon; then she gave him a silk scarf, a coil of rope, and a handcuff key.

A handcuff key.  He still had it, wore it on a silver chain around his neck.  They explored the erotic pleasures of their mutual fantasies about bondage, and by the next morning they'd found out a lot about each other, and about untangling twisted ropes, cutting free stuck knots, and translating the gag-muffled Japanese words for "too tight".

"I wish I'd told you I love you," he said aloud as he thought about her.  But he hadn't.  Tomoko had left to visit her brother, then flown home to Japan; he'd never gotten another chance to speak to her face to face.

He remembered best the little things about her: the flowery smell of her perfume, the beautiful oval shape of her eyes, the sweet way her Japanese accent made Robert sound like 'Lobelt'.  He missed her a lot.

And then she'd sent him her homemade bondage videotape; when he saw the Japanese postmark on the travel worn package, he literally danced out of the post office.  The moment he got home he read her brief letter, all her letters were short, and then slipped the tape into his VCR.  There was static, then a blue screen, filled with Japanese characters scrolling upwards; he wondered if it was Japanese for "The unlawful duplication of this videotape is prohibited under law".  Then it faded out, and in again, and out once more, replaced by a sight that made him gasp in surprise.

Tomoko was kneeling on a grey couch, facing away from the camera but looking over her shoulder at him, moaning loudly as the camera pulled down and began a slow, long pan back upwards from her shoes.  She was wearing an outfit that looked like something from The Avengers: a shiny black leather mini-dress, sleeveless, backless, and very short in the skirt.  Kneeling as she was, he could see up along her red stockings to her panties.  But if her clothing was not traditionally Japanese, her bondage was: several loops of rope were wound about her chest and her waist, with her arms pulled up behind her back and anchored between them.

He was amazed.  She was wearing glossy black leather pumps with heels easily five inches high!  And when the camera panned up to focus on her face, he saw why her moans were so loud: a very wide strip of shiny black tape completely covered her mouth, sealing her rose-petal lips shut.  He looked at the screen into her doe-like eyes and knew that he was still in love.  But seeing her choice in attire, it was a far cry from the kimono he'd expected, and the way she struggled so prettily in it, he began to have his first real doubts that he understood modern Japan.

Or the modern female in general.  As he watched Tomoko struggling on the couch, moaning prettily for the camera, he remembered her more recent letters: she had joined a bondage club in Tokyo; she'd met several local men who were into bondage; she'd begun considering becoming a bondage model full time.

Tomoko rolled off the couch onto the floor and lay there a minute or two, trying in vain to reach the knots that held her wrists behind her back, her gloved hands straining to find a loose cord.

He'd been taken back by the knowledge that she was becoming so "oriented" to bondage.  She was modeling for other men now, not just him.  But did he really have any say in it?  Did it even matter?  It wasn't like they were attached or anything.  And she was so beautiful when she was tied and gagged, he could understand why other men would be attracted to her.

Tomoko worked her way up to a sitting position on the floor and tried to get her tape gag off by rubbing it against the ropes around her knees.  It didn't work, but she put some noisy effort into the task before squirming her way, still tied and tape-gagged, off camera.

He'd never told her how he really felt, that he was in love with her.  And now, to read that she had 'three boyfriends' who helped make her 'original bondage video', it bothered him.  Just jealous, he eventually said to himself.  You had your chance, gave it your best shot, and now she's in Tokyo, wrapped up in somebody else's ropes.  He sighed.  Did she even know how he felt?  Well, she still wrote occasionally; each letter was like ice water in the heat of the desert to him.  She was still his friend.

And now her latest letter.  She was coming to the States to visit her brother in New York again.  "Could I come to see you again?" she wrote.  But it would not be as long this time; she would only have a single day and night to spend in Pittsburgh.  Yes, she's coming, he reminded himself.  This time it'll be different.

---

She was smiling when he met her at the gate; she wore a black silk skirt and ruffled white blouse, a black leather jacket and knee-high leather boots.  She's even more beautiful then the first time I saw her; that was right here, over a year ago.  He bowed to her and she bowed back, then she stuck her hand out and he shook it.  Their few words were simple and halting, and they made only small talk as they picked up her suitcase.

"So you only have 24 hours?" he asked plaintively over the roar of a 757 passing over the parking lot as they walked to his car.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"Well, is there anything particular you wanted to do?" He unlocked the hatch-back of his Citation and tossed her bag in.  The cold wind of winter cut into them both and heralded a coming snowstorm.

"No," she said pleasantly as he opened the car door for her.  "I would like to do whatever you wish to do: She bent in and paused, expecting him to shove her inside, the way he did the first time they had ever played with bondage.  But he did nothing.  Feeling embarrassed at making the wrong assumption, she got in.  He leaned in as she reached for the seat belt.

"You know, Tomoko-san, you might be tied up by some evil bandit," he said over the rising chill wind.

"That might happen, yes."  Her voice tingled with anticipation.

"What would you do about it?"

"Nothing," she said with meaning.

"I was hoping you would say that." He closed the door for her.  It was dark inside the car now and everything was so cold; she could see her breath steam before her.  It's not like this in Tokyo, she thought.  Everything seems so different here.  And Robert...  She smiled at the memories.  The other door opened and Robert got in, wearing a black ski mask.  Tomoko gaped in surprise at him and tried not to giggle.  He looks so silly.  I know it is him.

"This has all been part of a very clever plan to take you away, my dear," he said to her.

" Ah, so desu ka," she said softly.  Is that so?

"Hai.  Please be so kind as to permit this humble bandit to tie your hands behind your back." He produced a coil of rope from beside the seat and motioned for her to slide forward.  She smiled and did so.  He has become more forward, she thought agreeably.  But I see a flaw in his plan!  It amused her that she'd seen the obvious problem so quickly.  Should I tell him?  She crossed her wrists behind her back and turned to the side so that Robert could tie them without too much trouble.

He tied her hands behind her back, then started winding the rope around her body, over and under her breasts, pinning her arms down to her sides.  Then he anchored her tied wrists with a cord pulled up taut between her shoulder blades, Japanese-style, forcing her arms up behind her so that she was securely held.  He tied off the cord around her arms above the elbows, out of the reach of her nimble fingertips.  He continued to tie her, working on her legs, and just finished cinching up the ropes around her ankles when she cleared her throat in the manner her teacher told her Westerners used when they wanted to get your attention about something important.

"Yes?" he asked, knotting the ropes firmly.

"There is a problem in your plan, Robert-san."

"Bandit-san, if you please.  And what would that be?"

"To leave the parking lot, you must pay, yes?"

"Hai," he agreed.

"When you open your window to pay, will the operator not become suspicious when a bound woman he sees?"

"Not at all, my pretty," Robert said.  "You see, you won't be in here"

She looked at him, surprised.  Where was she going to be?  On the roof?  He reached around behind him and pulled on a small handle next to the rear seat.  It unlatched and the seat came forward, revealing the covered "trunk" area where he'd tossed Tomoko's suitcase.  The trunk of a car, she realized.

Before she could see what was happening, he pulled the release and Tomoko's seat dropped backwards, leaving her lying flat on her back, her tied arms pinned beneath her.

"You're going to be packed away, my dear.  No one will see you locked in there." He looked at her appraisingly.

"I am at your mercy... bandit," she whispered.  "What will you do with me?"

"Keep you silent until we get where we're going."  He pulled out a red rubber ball and held it in front of her eyes.  "This should keep you quiet."  She opened her mouth in submission and he pushed it in so that it was wedged between her jaws, her lips pursed over it, firmly held in place.  Taking a black scarf, he tied it neatly over her mouth and nose.  She moaned appreciatively.

"That's one of the differences between us," he said.  "A lot of Japanese gags are tied over the mouth and nose.  Americans never tie it that way.  But since you are my guest tonight, he tightened the knot.  Tomoko was effectively silenced.

He is doing this for me!  She wondered at him, pleased.

"Just wait," Robert said, seemingly reading her mind.  He wound several lengths of rope over the scarf, then tied a final knot.  "There.  I think this will keep you quiet for the trip," he said.  "This is called a bandit gag, isn't it?" Tomoko nodded mutely.  "Very Japanese," he continued.  He grinned behind the ski mask.  "Just want to make sure you're not going to go anywhere...  or make any loud noises"  With that he slid her back into the open trunk.

"Comfy?" he asked when he finished getting her inside, looking deep into her dark brown eyes over her gag.  She nodded dreamily.  "Good.  You've fogged up these windows something awful, and I've just got to be going."  He reached for a large piece of cardboard behind his seat.  "It's all right if you make lots of noise, no one will hear you.  And remember: if you need anything, just whistle."  He carefully arranged the cardboard panel against the cubby and pushed it into place.  Everything went dark.

Tomoko struggled in oblivion.  She lay within the black, lightless confines of what was nothing more than a large, carpeted box.  She knew she was his now.  The ride from the Pittsburgh Airport to Robert's apartment would take about 15 minutes, she remembered.  She began straining in her bonds.  Tomoko had always fantasized about being a 'damsel in distress' taken away by a handsome stranger and held in his bonds, at his pleasure.  She trembled on the edge of delicious apprehension, she could never have done this to herself, not without help, and none of her boyfriends in Tokyo had ever taken her away like this.  The ache between her legs increased and she tried to rub her thighs together, as much as her tied ankles would permit.  What would he do next?  And where would he keep her?  In the bedroom?  In a closet?  She had long pondered a lustful fantasy about being tied and gagged and locked in a steamer trunk.  She squirmed in erotic frustration and wished now that she had put the Ben-Wa balls in, instead of deciding to leave them in her purse before she got off the plane.  But she knew that her imprisonment would only be for a few short minutes; once he was off the highway, they would soon be at his apartment.  I wonder how he will get me inside, she thought.  I'll find out in only a few minutes.

But they did not stop.  Tomoko waited and waited, but the car continued rolling on at what she was sure was highway speed, Americans drove very fast, where was he going?  She tested the tightness of his bonds, but was unable to find any slack.  The ache in her loins became unbearable and she began writhing about in the small space, bumping repeatedly into her suitcase, moaning loudly through her gag as she tried to climax.

When the car finally stopped, after a dizzying series of turns and twists that rolled Tomoko back and forth in her dark world, she waited silently.  Her panties were sopping and she could feel the wet spot spreading across the black silk of her skirt.  She wanted Robert so badly now!  She waited for him to open the hatchback, to gaze upon her lying there in his ropes, waited for him to reach in and caress her, push her over the edge of the orgasm rising inside her.

But he didn't.  She waited, and waited, but still he didn't open the trunk.  A car went by; then she heard footsteps approach.  She wiggled around to face the rear of the car and waited in the darkness, ready to 'moan pretty' for him.

But he didn't come.  Tomoko was left in the darkness further still.  Where is he?  she wondered.  Am I to stay out here all night?  That thought made her shiver in happy anticipation of a night of bondage, but then again, it was cold as well.

There were footsteps again, and she waited breathlessly.  The car door opened and someone got in and started the engine.  Tomoko groaned in sexual frustration but the car continued to move, and then she was bounced around as they drove over a series of speed bumps.  When the car finally did stop again, just a minute later, she was surprised at the shortness of the trip.  The door opened and closed and footsteps approached.  The hatchback opened; she squinted up and saw Robert standing over her.  He no longer wore his ski mask.

"We've arrived," he said.  "Feeling secure?"

She nodded and arched her back, thrusting her breasts toward him.  Her nipples stood out against the soft fabric and her eyes begged for sexual fulfillment.

All Tomoko could do was moan softly as Robert gently tweaked her erect nipples through the softness of her blouse.

"I'm afraid you'1l have to wait a few minutes longer, Tomoko-san," he said, caressing her with his voice.  She groaned and shook her head.  He felt the heat of her need as her eyes held his.  Her beauty, and her need, were overwhelming.  "Tomoko-san... "

He took her suitcase from the trunk and slammed the hatchback down, locking her in again.  She cried out through her gag in disbelief!  How could he just leave her like this?

The car door opened and Robert got in; then the cardboard panel was suddenly removed, so that he was now behind her.  She tried to roll over to face him but he pushed her back.

"Lay still," he said, and she did.  He pulled her skirt up over her hips and she sighed lusciously as his hands ran up along the inside of her stockinged thighs.  She felt the ropes tug slightly at her ankles as he undid the knot.  In another moment her panties, now thoroughly soaked and fragrant, were pulled down.  She gasped softly through her gag as the hot, wet fabric was pulled away and cold air caressed her naked, wet sex.  She bent herself to expose herself even further to him.

"Too bad your mouth is already full, Tomoko-san.  In America we like to gag a woman with her own panties, especially," he added, holding hers up, "if they are as wet as these are."  He sniffed their musky fragrance and stuffed them into his pocket.  "By the way, do you know where we get the word dildo from?"

Dildo?

He thrust the rubber phallus into her from behind and she whimpered through her gag as its fullness pressed against her, pushing her over the crest of the orgasm she had been riding for the past half hour.  She bucked in ecstasy as the climax exploded and filled her bound body.

"Dildo comes from the Italian word for delight," Robert whispered.  He grinned happily at Tomoko's delight as she began moving noisily against her new toy.

---

Tomoko was tied to a big wooden chair in the middle of one of the most beautiful rooms she had ever seen.  Every room in Japan was either very modern, all steel and plastic, or else it was washitsu, a traditional Japanese-style room with tatami mats, a zabuton floor cushion and fusuma sliding partitions.

But this!  The room she was sitting in was something totally foreign to her.  The walls were all of heavy, squared wooden logs; the ceiling, a series of stout wooden planks held up by dark wooden beams that could just as easily hold her suspended weight, she realized.  Will he suspend me from one?  she asked herself.

To one side was a huge fireplace of grey fieldstone with a roaring fire crackling away, pushing it's heat into the room and warming her back.  The furniture was all just as massively constructed, with all the simplicity but none of the lightness of Japanese furniture.  A normal Japanese chair would have been small and lightweight; the chair she was tied to was heavy and solid, and she knew she could struggle all night without turning it over.  It was as though she'd been magically transported to the wilderness hideout that she'd always seen in American movies and television shows.

And the size of everything!  In Japan, rooms are measured by the number of tatami mats that will cover the foor, in her own apartment in Tokyo, she had yojohan, four-mat rooms.  This huge chamber, she judged, was easily ju-jo, ten mats in size; five tsubo, perhaps more.  This was not Robert's apartment, that much she could tell; she wondered how much it cost him to obtain a place of this size and quality.  In Tokyo, the cost for such a place would be astronomical.

Robert looked at her as she sat in wonder before him.  "Like it, Tomokosan?" Robert asked, waving expansively at the room.  "A real log cabin in the middle of nowhere...  with a snowstorm raging outside.  We, my lady, are now totally alone."  His eyes grew soft.  "I hope that it meets with your approval," he said tenderly.  Tomoko crooned at him.  It was everything that she'd ever dreamed of in her deepest fantasy: a lonely cabin in the woods, the smell of the fire behind her, the sound of wind whipping snow against the window panes, the total feeling of isolation it conveyed, as though they were the only two people alive that night.  She looked contentedly at him over her gag and murmured his name in bondage-silenced love.

He watched her as she struggled, her achingly beautiful eyes half-closed in pleasure as she moaned in her bondage.  "Then you agree with my choice of a hideout?"

She nodded softly, trembling as another orgasm began building deep inside her, making her move rhythmically over the dildo within her.

"Good," he replied.  He sat in a chair opposite her.  "I know how much you enjoy being a bondage model, Tomokosan; having yourself photographed while you are tied up, having the video camera pan across you as you struggle and moan.  I...  I know that we live too far apart to become," He stopped himself.  Lovers?  Did he dare tell her how he felt about her?  Is it fair, since she has so many other boyfriends?  Should I say I love her?  He sighed.  No.  She isn't yours.  But you CAN love her from afar!  Nearby was a small table with several things on it, covered by a large white cloth.  He looked at it before gazing longingly on Tomoko's bound form.

"Well, I thought about taking some pictures of you myself, or renting a camcorder and doing my own videotape of you.  But that wouldn't say what I want to say, about the way that I feel about you."  He pulled the table over to his side and tapped it with his fingertips.  "Instead, I plan to remember this night through the passing of time that it takes for me to see your beauty in the tightness of my ropes, and immortalize it on canvas." He whipped the cloth away from the table, revealing a canvas, a prepared palette and several brushes.

Tomoko was stunned.  No one had ever told her that she looked beautiful, certainly not while she was tied up and now she was to be the subject of a painting!

"May I?" Robert asked gently, lifting his palette and a brush.  Tomoko bowed her head to him, and began struggling gently as he watched her and started applying paint to the canvas.

---

"So what's been going on, Rob?  Found a job yet?"

"No, not yet," Robert said as he sat down at the table.  "I've... been busy." He put the package on the floor.  Edwin had the waitress bring him a drink.

"Where were you last Friday?  I tried to get hold of you but there was no answer."

"I was staying down at Wilson Lodge."

"In Wheeling?"

" ...Doing a portrait.  Private job."

"Well, since you just sold a painting..." he looked at Robert.  "You haven't sold it yet?"

"Nope.  It was... a gift.  I'm not going to sell it, ever."

"So?"

"So, what?" Robert asked, taking the drink.

"So, how did you afford a room at Wilson Lodge, then?"

"It wasn't a room, it was a cabin."

"A cabin?"  Robert nodded.  "You rented a whole cabin in mid-season?  Rob, how could you afford that?  You told me last week that you could barely pay your rent!"

"I... I sold my computer."

"You what?"

"I had to, Ed.  Wasn't any other way to raise enough money to rent a whole cabin in Olgebay.  I, well, I needed the right atmosphere."

"How the hell could you sell your computer, Rob?  I know how long it took for you to put that damn thing together, hell, you use it every day!  You said so yourself.  How do you expect to be able to finish that damn project without it?"

"I looked before I leaped." Edwin stared at him and just shook his head.

"You are certifiably nuts!  You sold off all of your computer stuff?"

"Had to.  And the VCR, too."

"For crying out loud!  Why?"

Robert patted the package next to him.  "It costs a bit to get a painting like this professionally framed."

Edwin shook his head and looked down the bar at the video music machine.  "You must be crazy.  Who did you do the painting of?"

"A very close friend."

"You're nuts.  What are you going to do for rent money?"

"Haven't figured that out yet."

"Damn.  You really are crazy." Edwin downed his glass and looked at his friend.  "Well, was it all worth it?"

Robert remembered the joy in Tomoko's eyes when he turned the finished picture around for her to look at.

"Yeah.  It was definitely worth it."