What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Nina made another attempt to escape her cat's claws and was ruthlessly stopped once more. After that, she felt his tongue again, but luckily was spared his teeth; as it seemed, he couldn't find enough space to lock his jaws around her nose ring. With horror she imagined what she would have to deal with if against expectation he were to accomplish this feat: how he would push his paws against her face, then begin to pull with all of his considerable strength. He might even start tossing his head back and forth wildly, as lions do when they try to rip a bite-sized shred of meat from their prey. Enough! She would no longer allow herself to be terrorized by a megalomaniac house cat who was not even bright enough to keep his bushy tail away from a burning candle whereas she had graduated from university magna cum laude.

The next time she felt Christian's rough tongue, she did not try to pull her head back, but instead let it dart forward, until her forehead collided with his snout and he jumped back with a satisfyingly miserable squeak. Perhaps that would teach him to stay away from her, but she didn't have much hope; in the past, the tomcat had proved to be surprisingly slow-witted for a vertebrate -- better she stayed alert. She quickly rolled onto her other side and turned her back to him, not daring to think about what would happen if he discovered her nipple rings as new targets for his attacks! It was high time she released herself from bondage and put an end to her martyrdom once and for all. With her fingers trembling she fumbled for the key which had to be dangling from her wrist ... somewhere.

When she became aware of her fatal mistake it was already too late. A furry head lightly touched her hand, then she felt Christian begin to pull the hair band off of her wrist. She closed her hand in a flash to try and hold on to it, but caught just a corner with her fingertips. Christian snatched the band away from her after a short tug-of-war, then there was a thud when he jumped from the bed to get himself and his prize to safety; next, she heard him kicking the key across the parquet floor in the living room a couple of times as if he were a soccer star who had to dribble past the defenders of an imaginary opposing team before he knocked it down the basement stairs. She listened to the receding clinking of the key bouncing down the steps, then it became very quiet indeed.

Nina was paralysed with terror. Shit, shit, shit!

For a while, she couldn't and didn't want to believe what had just happened and what it meant for her. She was in deep trouble! Without that key, she stood zero chance of freeing herself and being bound, blindfolded and almost unable to move she would not able to recover it, not even if she had a hundred years and already knew the hiding place of Christian's hoard -- which she did not. Given how she had put on the blindfold, there was no way for her to get it off her head and in this regard she could rely on a rich treasure trove of pertinent experience. She would not be able to operate her smartphone in this state and the locked front door likewise represented an insurmountable obstacle. No one would miss her before Monday and so her only hope was that her parents, colleagues, neighbours or someone else would notice her disappearance and alert the authorities before she died of thirst. Or was it more likely for her to die because of an embolism first? Nina realised that she had begun to hyperventilate and with an effort brought her breathing back under control. Fainting was only a reasonable survival strategy if there was a dashing hero around ready to save the distressed damsel. With some considerable effort she pushed her fear aside and gave in to her rage and anger instead.

First of all, she was mad at herself. What on earth had she been thinking when she turned her back on Christian? Nothing much at all obviously! Otherwise, she would have been aware that the combination of her hair band and the twinkling key had to exert an irresistible attraction on Christian, much like a heroin shot would on a junkie or a tax haven would on a top earner. In addition, she had to thank her bloody overzealous rigour not only for escape-proof steel shackles, but also for the impenetrable blindfold and the huge gag causing her increasing discomfort. This was not to mention the very talented dildo that made itself felt within her loins again. Things did not bode well for the near future. When planning her self-bondage session, she had been looking for a challenge, albeit one in which she had to fight for her pleasure rather than survival. Should she have allowed for her idiot tomcat to act as a substitute master? If she got out of her predicament alive, she would have Christian's hide as a (miniature) bed rug!

But in the final analysis, Robert was to blame for everything. Without his excessive jealousy, she wouldn't have been forced to leave him, wouldn't have had to dabble in self-bondage in an attempt to address her sexual frustration, and so none of this would have happened. Moreover, it was his uncompromisingly dominant manner that had not only awakened in her the insatiable greed for submission responsible for her current predicament, but at the same time had ruined her for lesser relationships as well. That was why there was no other man around now to help her out of her predicament. Robert, Christian, her absent saviour - everything male had turned against her! Her bleak brooding was interrupted by the dildo that suddenly switched from reward to punishment mode once more and dished out another volley of unexpectedly violent electric shocks, making her thrash dementedly on the bed.

When Nina eventually got her twitching body under control again, she tried to blink back tears and cursed the day and hour she had met Robert for the first time. Yet, as she admitted to herself grudgingly, she would still give anything if he were here right now to save her. Alas, she would have to extricate herself from this mess on her own somehow. Without any real hope for success, more to establish the extent of her helplessness, she fought her restraints with all her strength, yanking at them and pushing her tongue uselessly against the huge ball gag, until she finally tired of her fruitless efforts and rested exhaustedly on her stomach, weeping helplessly in frustration and barely contained terror.

She considered her options carefully. That didn't take her long, as the list was depressingly short. Or more precisely, it was empty. Instead, she came up with lots of things she could not do: unlock her restraints, operate her smartphone, open the door lock and get outside. This list she could extend endlessly, but that probably was not really helpful. Think, Nina, frickin' think!

The electronic 'pling' Ana used to announce the arrival of new messages rang out from the living room and interrupted her frantic thoughts. Maybe another, insufferably smug message from Robert? If she were free to do what she wanted, she would send the bastard a voice mail and give him an earful! She was busy screaming a cannonade of choice swearwords into the gag (a pointless but strangely satisfying act) when suddenly an idea popped into her head: Maybe she could use Ana to make an emergency call! As far as she knew, the device featured such a function but to make use of it, she would first have to get into the living room.

Lying on her stomach, she laboriously worked her way to the edge of the bed and once she had arrived there, carefully swung her folded legs over the edge until she could touch the floor with her knees, then let herself sink slowly onto her chained lower legs. Finally kneeling beside the bed, she tried to get her bearings.

She reckoned she was now on the left side of the bed, which meant that the door to the living room was located in the wall behind her. It would probably be best if she made a beeline for the wall first, then moved along it until she reached the door. Since Robert loved to make her play fetch, with her in bondage (the son of a bitch should rather have gotten himself a dog!), she had long ago worked out the most efficient means of locomotion when bound in a hogtie. The fastest way to get anywhere was to slither sideways like a snake. Consequently, she bent over and let her upper body tilt to the side until she landed on her shoulder, then rolled onto her belly and began her arduous journey. Particularly remarkable about this type of grovelling motion - besides the inherent humiliation - was the fact that her nipples, which were especially sensitive due to her nipple rings, dragged on the parquet floor - something she might have considered arousing under other circumstances. Now though, the unwanted stimulation of her breasts and the ceaseless vibration of the dildo became just pesky distractions.

Inch by inch, she doggedly worked her way forward until she hit the wall, unfortunately quite literally head first, but given that her dildo regaled her with another series of electric shocks at the same time, another small bruise did not matter much. She simply shook her head dazedly and treated herself to a short break, then carried on. It was imperative that she approached the bedroom door most carefully. If she accidentally nudged it shut, she would face a serious problem. Her caution paid off; although her shoulder collided with the half-opened door, shortly afterwards she had passed through without further mishap.

Nina maintained her course until she bumped into the sofa, then turned right and continued to wiggle sideways. Her remaining strength sufficed for one small sigh of relief only when she - exhausted, frustrated and thoroughly irritated - finally reached the low sideboard where, next to the TV, the electronic miracle rested that was her only hope for rescue. She rolled onto her side to turn her face towards the device and cleared her throat, making an effort to get rid of the saliva that had accumulated in her mouth. Unfortunately, she had no idea what the voice command for the emergency call might be and now it was definitely too late to RTFM. She just hoped that the manufacturer had chosen a simple and obvious keyword; after all, the function was meant for a person in distress.

'Ana, help!' was what she had wanted to say, but what left her mouth sounded much more like 'Aha, heh!' and elicited no reaction. The damn gag once again proved to be devilishly effective in preventing her from speaking and reducing her utterances to unintelligible gibberish. Okay, next try.

"Aahaa, heeh!"

She waited eagerly for a reaction, but again nothing happened. Apparently, Ana didn't understand gag speak. Small wonder; after all, her speech recognition algorithms had never been trained for it. Robert had always been able to guess what Nina wanted, but of course he had benefited from ample opportunity to practice. Perhaps she would have more success if she proceeded in small steps using a more systematic approach and taking special care to articulate the vowels intelligibly, despite her blocked tongue and gaping jaws.

"Aahnaa"

Unfortunately, Ana signalled her willingness to accept a command with just a blinking LED on the casing, which did Nina a fat lot of good in her current circumstances. Consequently, Nina simply had to carry on and hope for the best.

"Heh!"

"I didn't understand the request."

Finally an answer, although not the one she longed for! But at least this time around, Ana had acknowledged her command, that was something she could build upon.

"Aahnaa: heehe!"

"Sorry, I didn't get that."

"Aahnaa: heeehhe!"

"Unfortunately, I didn't understand you", Ana insisted with fake regret in her voice.

Stupid cow! Nina realized that she was working herself into a frenzy, something that never proved particularly helpful when dealing with computers. She would do better trying to tackle the problem intellectually. Did the speech recognition fail because of her poor pronunciation or was 'Help!' simply not a valid command? Unfortunately, there was no way to decide this question except to try out other, probable commands in hope that she would eventually hit on the correct, 'magic' word, and also enunciate it in a sufficiently understandable way to boot.

During the next quarter of an hour, she tried all the eligible key words she could come up with, in all possible combinations, often several times in a row. Her task was further complicated by the ever increasing buzzing of the vibrator that she had to compete with despite her oversized gag.

"Aahnaa: hakh ehnehnehzy cah!"

"Sorry, I didn't understand."

"Aahnaa: Kah hohize!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that."

"Aahnaa: Kah... Aaiihhh!" Nina had been so absorbed by her task that the next volley of electric shocks hit her completely unprepared when the vibrator punished her once more for her own recklessness. Ana however was unfazed by her cry of pain and did not relent.

"Sorry, I didn't understand the request", she countered coolly.

No matter how hard Nina toiled, the result remained always the same, except for the fact that she gradually came to know and hate the dozens of different ways in which Ana responded to an unknown or incomprehensible command. When she caught herself making bets which variation she would hear next, she lost it. It was just too much! She was mentally and physically exhausted, sweat burned her eyes, drool ran out of her mouth and everything hurt. She was incredibly tired of having to argue with a simple-minded, digital disaster. Rightfully, in Ana's case the abbreviation AI could only stand for 'artificial idiocy'.

"Aahhaa: hukh hu!"

The reaction to her outburst of fury was completely unexpected. Instead of the woman's voice uttering one of her hated standard answers, there was loud laughter. Nina froze. She knew that laugh all too well.

"Nina, Nina Nina! What on earth are you doing? As soon as I leave you to your own devices, you go and get yourself into trouble."

It was undoubtedly Robert's voice coming from the not-so-smart speaker. In her mind's eye she could clearly picture the amused head shake that doubtlessly accompanied his words. Nina experienced an unprecedented emotional turmoil when her incredulous surprise abruptly gave way to unbridled joy. Robert was aware of her distress and her martyrdom would come to a happy ending after all! I'm safe! She let out a hoarse shriek of delight and began to sob with relief.

After an embarrassed moment of silence, Robert, who had perhaps only now - alarmed by her outburst of emotion - recognized the depth of her desperation hastened to give her solace with words of comfort. She felt her tense muscles relax while her panic slowly abated. After the first euphoria had passed, her critical mind reasserted itself and brought forth new worries. Robert wouldn't let her down, that she knew with absolute certainty, but what she did not know was what price he would demand for his help, after all she had walked out on him. Moreover, it seemed like a miracle that he was on the scene at the very moment of her greatest need, except that she - unlike Hollywood screenwriters -- did not believe in miracles. So how the hell had Robert managed to make his appearance as Deus ex Machina?

There was only one explanation: the son of a bitch had hacked into her home network and used Ana as a bugging device to spy on her. He was bound to be watching her even at this moment through the built-in camera. Now that he had revealed himself to her and thus laid at least some of his cards on the table, she wondered how she could have missed this obvious contingency all along, given that she was well aware of both his jealousy and his technical proficiency. Like detectives on television, she normally regarded motive and opportunity as ample proof to convict a perpetrator.

She felt her face burning with embarrassment when she considered what a spectacle she must have made of herself while he was looking on. Paradoxically, thinking about her humiliation caused a hot flush in her vagina of all places. How long had he been watching her? Perhaps the bastard had been gloating over her misfortune the whole time? She hoped for his sake that this was not the case, otherwise....

"It seems you've calmed down again. Are you alright?"

Dumb question! Of course she wasn't alright. But she knew that was not what he meant to ask anyway; actually, he was only interested in whether she was in danger from an imminently life-threatening condition. She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.

"Good! I'm watching today's recording in time lapse. Looks like the grey one has truly outdone himself this time. What can I say? Owning a cat is not all advantageous."

He paused, probably so she could appreciate his 'told you so' moment properly. In fact, he had never tired of pointing out the various disadvantages of living with a cat, e. g. when Christian, while on the wild hunt for a fly, had left scratches on his Le Corbusier armchair again.

However, as his words seemed to imply, Robert had not witnessed her self-bondage fiasco from the outset, but instead had become aware of her predicament only recently. Good for you! Bad for her was that he apparently now possessed a video of it. Despite their less than amicable breakup, he would never stoop so low as to upload it as revenge porn, of that she was sure. On the other hand, her involuntary appearance as bondage model would most probably serve him as visual masturbation aid in lonely hours. Yet why did she find this prospect not appalling, but exciting? She was done playing that role! Before she could come to grips with her conflicting feelings, he spoke again.

"Oh, you haven't really been nice to yourself I see. I'm just looking at the programming for the dildo and it appears that I've severely underestimated your lust for pain the whole time!"

"No, I nahe a nizhake", she protested ineffectually while a deep blush suffused her face. She fervently hoped that the gag harness and blindfold concealed her embarrassment.

"Anyway, my lovely little masochist, in light of what I've discovered today and what I've suffered at your whim in the past, we now have some important details as to your future life to sort out."

From a distance, soft keyclicks reached her ears, then the annoying vibration in her vagina stopped abruptly. What he had to say obviously did not tolerate any distraction.

"What will happen now? I could instruct Ana to alert the fire department. That's going to be an emergency call the boys will tell their grandchildren about."

He was trying hard to make his voice sound neutral, but she knew him too well not to spot the amused undertone he was trying to conceal. Nina could vividly imagine how her story would make the rounds. In no time at all, she would be the city's laughing stock. Nowadays, too, she also had to reckon on one of the 'helpers' recording events for posterity with his smartphone, which thanks to YouTube & Co. could mean that her worldwide fame would be assured as well. Then she would have to start thinking about a new career in the porn industry in earnest, since no other options would be open to her any more. As long as she had believed to be fighting for her life, she had had no choice but to take that risk. Now she was hoping for a better deal.

"No, honh hu zhah!"

"No? Of course, I could come myself. But if that's the option you chose, it will cost you. Your call, my dear."

"Hah hu hou hanh?"

"What do I want? But you already know that: you! And this time there'll be no reservations or half measures, Nina!"

Of course, she had suspected that this was what he was going to say. He had never made a secret of the fact that he considered their separation a mistake and wanted 'his little slave' back. He had even promised to wait until 'she saw reason' and returned to him of her own volition. Apparently, his confidence in her capacity for reason had recently taken a hit, or he just saw himself presented with a golden opportunity to shorten the waiting time by forcing her to choose: she could either give in or learn from failure.