Susan peeked out from behind the tree line, looking down Stockhouse Boulevard, ready, as always, to retreat as soon as she saw headlights approaching. The lights of her apartment building had drawn steadily closer in the minutes she had been hopping after leaving behind the houses on the creek. They were probably a hundred yards away now.

She had, as she had so many times over these days in the woods, a decision to make.

Added to the hunger, the thirst, the cold, and the effects of lack of sufficient sleep, the pain and muscle fatigue in her legs had been joined by a throbbing in her lower back from the slightly bent-forward posture needed to keep her balance while hopping, and a growing ache in her unsupported breasts from all the bouncing. Yet Susan felt mentally energized, with her goal now so close, and to a sufficient extent the energy had flowed out into her body, battling against all of the physical discomforts. She knew that she probably shouldn't be able to stand upright, let alone hop forward, without collapsing, yet somehow she did. The internal mandate to get home, to safety from observation, from the disaster she had managed to avoid for nearly sixty hours now, somehow sustained her. There were limits. She wasn't able to stand still for any length of time. Her legs couldn't hold her, standing in place, without locking her knees and leaning against a tree, and such inactivity allowed the cold to bite once more. She couldn't afford to sit on the ground to rest, because she was sure she would fall asleep, and even if she were somehow to avoid that, the effort to rise back to a standing position was probably beyond her. So she had to make her decision quickly.

When she had first reached the street after passing the creek and was able to get a look at the western sky unblocked by trees, she saw that the moon was just reaching the horizon, and 4 o'clock had been her best guess for the time of moonset. She thought she might have spent ten minutes making slow progress down the street since then: she wasn't able to go any faster, with the near-absence of moonlight and the relative rarity of streetlights this far out of town. So it should be a bit past 4 now. In another sixty or seventy minutes, the sky would start lightening.

She had not, until after she'd passed the creek that had occupied so much of her attention, thought about getting back into the woods adjacent to her apartment building, from where this whole adventure had begun and where she now knew her means of releasing herself from bondage lay. She would have to get past the building itself, either in front of it or behind it, and neither course was acceptable. Passing in front, across its frontage on Stockhouse, was obviously impossible: it was well-lit by streetlights, with windows looking out on it from apartments, some of whose occupants might well be waking up by now.

But passing behind the building was just as problematic. The parking lot was even more well illuminated than the front side, had an equal number of windows looking out on it, and she couldn't retreat farther into the woods beyond its illumination because of the ravine that angled in to the very corner of the lot at its far end: at that point the area of safety from observation available to her pinched off to nothing. And it was more than a matter of crossing through a brightly lit area knowing there were people around to observe through windows as a naked bound girl went hopping past. It was her own apartment building, in which people would not only see the astonishing sight she was presenting to them, they would know who she was!

There seemed only to be one other option. And Susan hated it. At a time when her fuel tank was running far beyond empty, it would add still more intense physical effort to the trip home.

She could hop back across Stockhouse, retreat into the woods for the remaining distance to her apartment and beyond, then hop back across the street once more.

She was coming up on Banner Street, the one side street between her present position and her apartment, from which cars occasionally emerged onto Stockhouse. The street, like all the other side streets, didn't continue past Stockhouse, to the undeveloped side of it. If she crossed Stockhouse now, then at least she wouldn't have Banner to deal with. If she delayed her decision to cross Stockhouse, she then had that one further additional street to cross.

She couldn't stand here long deciding. Every minute closer to dawn brought her closer to the increase in traffic that the onset of the morning rush would bring.

There's no other way, she told herself, and she closed her eyes, trying to summon up her last reserves of energy and courage one more time.

The last time she'd crossed Stockhouse, she'd nearly fallen, and she'd lost all her remaining bottled water. Remembering that didn't help.

She looked left, and right, then left again. Then right again. There were no headlights.

Chanting Go! Go! Go! in her mind, she hopped out into the street. Once she reached the street, it was hard to look to either side, because it took away from the concentration needed for maintaining the physical effort to keep herself from collapsing. Only when she was across, and reached the tree line, and stopped to lean against a tree, her heart pounding from exertion and fear, did she finally look back down the length of the street and see that there was an approaching car just now appearing atop a slight rise about a half-mile away. She retreated a little farther behind the trees, safely hidden from view by the time the car passed.

Minutes later -- she assumed, since it was hard maintaining any time sense in her current state -- she stopped just short of the bridge where Stockhouse crossed over ravine, some distance beyond her building. This is it! thought Susan. Almost there! Susan, leaning against a tree, looked once more for traffic coming from either direction.

She hadn't been sure she could get this far. Her mental exhaustion approached the level of her physical depletion. Even the concentration required to complete a hop was, in itself, a drain on her mental resources, in a way it would never be if she were wide awake and rested. Several times she nearly forgot to tighten her leg muscles to receive her weight at the end of a hop, only catching herself at the last instant as her legs began to fold on impact.

Suddenly Susan, looking straight ahead, saw shadowy tree branches before her eyes that hadn't been there a second ago. Without any awareness of a transition, she realized she was on the ground, looking straight up. She had the sensation of waking up from sleep. Her left shoulder hurt. She couldn't remember why.

I did fall asleep! she told herself in astonishment. I was standing, and I fell asleep! And I hit my shoulder when I fell!

She hadn't simply fainted -- she hadn't experienced any lightheadedness before it happened. Somehow she had just nodded off while watching for cars.

A car was coming now, with Susan on the ground in front of the trees. She rolled quickly to her right, farther into the woods.

How long was I out? What time is it now?

It was still dark. She had no way to be sure, but sensed somehow she had only been out a few seconds.

She labored to sit up. Backing herself up against a tree, she brought her feet towards her, and tried to let her hands walk up the trunk behind her as she pushed down with her feet, tensing her legs, trying to get standing.

Her thigh muscles quaked. They seemed to be able to push only for a fraction of a second, give out, resume their tension, give out again.

This isn't working, she told herself. Try it the old way.

She rolled onto her stomach, pushed down with her forehead and knees, walking her knees towards her as her midsection rose from the ground. She could rise only so far and no higher. Her muscles gave out again, and she collapsed on the ground.

She gritted her teeth. No! she shouted at herself. I can't get this close and then not make it. I just have to get across the street. I can't be stuck on this side at dawn. I'll have to stay here all day! And I can't make it across if I can't get standing! There's no other way I can move fast enough!

Try it again!

She rolled back onto her stomach, pressed down again with her forehead and knees. Before her body could give out again, she gave one extra hard push with her forehead, throwing enough of her weight behind her knees that she was able to remain standing on her knees.

She worried that the muscle cramp in her lower leg would return, but it seemed the kink must have worked itself out, for the time being -- she was feeling only a modest amount of residual soreness by now.

One more step, she told herself. And this better work on the first try. I can't make it this far again if I fall over and have to start over.

She counted One, Two, Three and heaved her weight back, pivoting on the front of her feet and up into a standing position. She felt herself overbalancing, and hopped backward a couple of small steps before managing to regain equilibrium.

Let's get across now, before I fall asleep again, she exhorted herself. She looked left and right along the street. Seeing no cars, she immediately hopped into the street, risking a quick look both ways after the first few hops, hoping she wouldn't have to turn and go back. Just past the halfway point, a car turned onto Stockhouse from Banner Avenue, but she was across and into the woods before it became a threat.

She felt a sudden burst of adrenaline, which she certainly could have used earlier, accompanying the joy of reaching a point where there were no longer any hard parts left. And she suddenly realized that in her mental focus on all of the decisions involved in the task of getting to one particular place within this narrow triangle of land next to her apartment building, the place where her briefcase was hidden, she'd completely forgotten what else was here. Something far more important, just now, than freeing herself from her chains and cuffs. She wondered how she could have forgotten, but a lot had happened in the two-and-a-half days since she'd left it behind, and she hadn't realized how important it would be at the time.

She began hopping forward excitedly, in the direction towards her building, feeling frustrated at being slowed by the need to plan her hops carefully, always being alert for obstructions. There was less light here than at any point since she'd left the creek behind, just small amounts of it finding its way through the trees from the sparse streetlamps and the lights around the building ahead. She slowed still more when she came to the right area, looking to see exactly where it was -- she'd spent considerable time in it Friday night, but most of it blindfolded.

There!! She hopped ahead a few feet more, and dropped to her knees beside the water bottles, the three full ones she had left behind here, unable to take them with her in her hurry to vacate the area before sunrise Saturday morning.

With practiced motions, she lowered her butt down far enough to reach one of the bottles, twisted off its cap, set it upright on the ground behind her, turned and picked it up by the neck with her teeth. Tilting her head back to upend the bottle, she let the water flow into her mouth. She forced herself to drink slowly rather than letting it pour down her throat at full speed, unsure what her stomach would make of having water inside it after such a long time without it. She didn't pause until she had drained the full bottle.

She dropped the empty bottle, then fell forward heavily onto the ground next to the pile of trail mix. She decided it didn't matter that it had sat here for days and survived a torrential rain that had left its lowest level caked in drying mud. She buried her face in the pile, gulping down mouthful after mouthful, barely stopping to chew.

She felt better. She felt alive again!

With her body's most basic needs finally met, to a minimal extent, she recognized sleep stealing towards her. She fought it off. Not yet! she said to herself firmly. I can't let myself fall asleep here! I still have one more thing to do.

She got herself standing again -- easier than it had been a few minutes ago, with the renewal of some of her energy -- and began hopping away from the building once more, angling towards the ravine, to a point some distance short of where it met and went under Stockhouse Boulevard. She was looking for a particular configuration of bushes... there!

Susan recognized the place, despite the near-darkness, or perhaps because of it -- it had been like that before. She remembered being here. Or that is, Suzy had been here, and it was the memory of this place, as the hiding place for the briefcase, that Suzy had given Susan as her reward for hogtying herself with the chains in the park.

There were the three large bushes, grown so close that there was no longer a gap between them, the three forming a wide V as seen from above. The edge of the ravine ran a short distance behind the bushes.

Susan rounded the end of the trio of bushes, and dropped to her knees behind them, within the V. There, covered by loose dirt and brush to the point of near-invisibility, lay a rope stretched out along the ground, running to and over the edge of the ravine. It was anchored to the bushes, snaking through the root system of the middle one and tied to one of the roots.

Susan dropped to a sitting position, and carefully butt-walked back to the point where the rope went over the edge of the ravine -- she could more or less see the edge, but was still wary of the possibility of falling into the ravine. There at the edge, with her back to the rope, she grabbed hold of it with her hands and pulled upward on it. With a crunching, scraping sound, the rope pulled its burden up over the edge of the ravine: the briefcase.

Even in daylight, with all of the entire triangle of woods bounded by the street, the ravine, and the building to search through, Susan didn't think she would ever have found this rope, or the briefcase it held onto out of sight just over the ravine's edge, if she hadn't known they were there, and certainly not in the very few minutes of darkness she'd had left to her on Saturday morning. She had made the right decision, at that time, in abandoning this piece of land for the wider woods across Stockhouse, where she was far safer from being seen during daytime.

She pulled the briefcase onto the flat ground, laid it on its side, and fumbled with her hands behind her to open it. She slid her clothes out onto the ground: her jeans, her shirt, her bra, panties, shoes. In the right front pocket of the jeans, closed up within a handkerchief with an easily untied knot, were all the keys she needed.

Heaving a sigh of relief, she took the padlock key and unlocked the one between her wrist cuffs, that had held them together and to her waist chain. With hands free for the first time since Saturday night, she shook her arms to accustom them to movements they had forgotten they could do and to loosen up stiff joints, especially in her shoulders.

Her glance fell on the rope, which had held the briefcase, like a ripe fruit, hanging into the ravine over the weekend. Her eyes froze on it, and a mental image flashed through her mind and flooded her entire being with need, with compulsion so powerful it was immune to any resistance. It was that same inner drive to experience the ultimate in bondage that had nearly led Susan to trap herself in her shelter by the park Sunday night, after she'd already spent nearly a full day there -- she would still be there now, waiting for daylight to make it possible to escape, if she had closed that padlock. She had been unable to stop herself, unable to reason with her inner demon, unable to make her arguments heard against it, and she had required Suzy's help to stop her from doing it.

That same compulsion had her in its grip now. That familiar tingling began between her legs.

I'll need the knife, she thought. And the string. They're right over there. And I ought to bring the water back with me too, for after. Oh! And the gag and the blindfold!

Still holding the padlock key, Susan quickly unlocked the one holding her ankle cuffs. She crawled, on hands and knees -- it felt so strange to have that much physical freedom! -- towards the tree where she had spent Friday night. It was about fifty feet closer to the building. There was no activity in the parking lot at present, nor around the building, and no apartment windows facing this direction, and it was almost certainly still too dark for anyone to see her, but it came naturally to her to be careful -- she would have been still more so if she had been more likely to be visible. She gathered up the required articles and crawled back to the bushes.

As she reached the bushes, where she was close enough to the ravine that overhead trees didn't interfere with her view of the eastern sky, Susan saw that the sky was purpling. Dawn's getting started, she thought. She marveled at how close she had cut it, how arriving at that point where she could cross Stockhouse to get here had so very nearly come too late.

She checked the rope that had held the briefcase. She couldn't quite see, in the still-dim light, how it was anchored to the bushes, so she got down on her stomach to trace the rope with her fingers. She found that the rope was woven through the base of the root system near the front of the ravine side of the central bush. She found the knot, and decided she wouldn't be able to reach it to untie it when her hands were cuffed behind her back. She untied the other end from the handle of the briefcase, and dropped it on the ground for the moment. She tied all of the keys back up in the handkerchief, restored the hanky to the pocket of her pants, slid her clothes back into the briefcase and closed it, then pushed the briefcase far enough away to be out of reach from where she would be, yet still protected from view by the triangle of bushes.

Susan became aware of a clamor in her head. She identified it as Shy Susan weighing in, arguing with Bondage Susan against her present plan. You need to get the cuffs off, get dressed and get inside your apartment! You don't want to be out here in daylight!

Bondage Susan had her counterarguments ready. There's no problem with daylight, she pointed out to Shy Susan. I have everything I need here, including my clothes, in the briefcase. And nobody can see me, or the briefcase, behind these bushes no matter where they are! They cut off the view from the building, the parking lot, from the street, from anywhere anyone is going to be! And I've got the ravine right behind me. Nobody can come at me from that direction. At any hour of the day I can get the briefcase, unlock all this bondage gear, get dressed, all without anyone seeing me, and then walk into the building without causing anyone who's around a second thought. This is safe!

The internal argument subsided. As much as Shy Susan disliked being seen in daylight, even fully dressed and doing nothing to attract undue attention, she couldn't muster any continued objection more weighty than a plea to get home, safe, and out of sight, as she always wanted to be.

Bondage Susan, ignoring the plea, had gone on with her preparations as the argument had proceeded.

She was a little concerned about the string; it could easily have gotten tangled during her earlier use of it a few nights ago. If so, it wouldn't interfere with her escape from her upcoming bondage, other than to make it a little easier than she wanted it to be -- if it was tangled she would be able to pull a knotted glob of it to her faster than if the entire 400 foot length was free. Though it was in an unruly pile on the ground, it appeared all of it would come loose when pulled.

She checked to make sure the far end of the string was still tied to the ring in the handle of the knife, then she tossed the knife some distance away, far enough that she wouldn't be able to reach it except by reeling in the string.

Susan's excitement built as she came closer to finishing her task. She barely felt the cold anymore -- all her focus now was on her internal need, the craving for sexual release she had suppressed all through the night in her fear of not being able to get home.

Preparations were nearly done now, and Susan's breathing and heart rates both increased as her anticipation built. Looking to the east, the glow in the sky was increasing, taking on an orange tinge. It occurred to her she had gone without sleep through the night all the way to daybreak, yet right now she didn't feel tired at all. Only excited.

She picked up the loose end of the anchor rope, and sat with it a moment, considering just how she wanted to use it. She realized she couldn't use this single rope alone for everything she wanted. She quickly crawled back to Friday's site, untied one of the ropes that had held her ankle cuffs, and returned with it.

She was barely able to breathe now: preparations were done, and it was time to get started.

She found the padlock that had held her ankle cuffs together, and restored it to its place. She picked up the gag, and examined it as well as she could in the dim light. It was a little muddy, but she decided it be all right to use if she cleaned it first. Pouring a small amount of bottled water into her cupped palm, she rolled the gag ball around in it until she'd washed off the surface all the way around, then repeated the process with a fresh palmful of water to rinse it. She drank the rest of the water in the bottle, leaving herself with one final full bottle. Her residual thirst satisfied, she inserted the ball into her mouth and fastened the straps to secure it in place. There was a renewed wave of tingling between her legs.

She lay on her left side, facing the bushes about a foot in front of her, and picked up the rope she'd retrieved from Friday's tree. Passing it through the ring of the padlock holding her ankle cuffs together, she pulled it through until there were equal lengths, passed both ends behind her waist chain from above, and pulled them through, drawing her feet towards her butt. She continued pulling until her heels were as close to her butt as she could get them, gritted her teeth and pulled still harder, wanting to take away her ability to unbend her legs at all. She then pulled both ends of the rope through her crotch, and tied them in a knot around the front of her waist chain.

She pulled the other rope, her anchor to the bushes, between her legs, looped it around the hogtie rope, pulled it forward between her legs again, and pushed it in among the roots of the central bush and around one of them, well within the bush. She pulled the end back towards her, taking the slack out of the rope, and wriggled up against the bush, pressing the front of her body against it. She continued pulling on the rope, making it pull her still closer to the bush, unable to back away. Satisfied, she tied the end of the rope to another root, well out of her reach.

She tied the free end of the string around her right wrist. Don't want to forget about this, she said to herself. It's my only way of getting free.

The blindfold! She'd nearly forgotten! She picked it up, rubbed the inner sides of the leather eye coverings against her arm to remove any remaining grit and mud, put them over her eyes, adjusting their distance slightly.

She became aware of a slight feeling of unease, a vague sense that she might still be forgetting something. She paused, her fingers holding the straps of the blindfold, and did a mental inventory. Got the string tied to my wrist, she told herself, starting the inventory. Other end still tied to the knife. Pull the knife to me, and I can cut the hogtie rope. The anchor rope is looped around the hogtie rope. Not secured to me in any other way. As soon as I cut the hogtie rope, I'm not anchored here anymore. Briefcase is over there... Susan pushed the blindfold away, raised her head, nodded when she saw the briefcase. Briefcase, she went on, has all the keys in it, clothes, everything.

She looked again at the briefcase. Yes, she told herself, location is okay. It's still, like me right now, in a place that can't be seen from the building, parking lot, or street. I'm fine.

She put the blindfold back in place. The feeling on unease returned. It's Shy Susan again, she told herself. She won't give up.

Susan buckled the blindfold tightly in place. The unease became something like an alarm bell.

It's natural to feel like I'm forgetting something, Susan told herself. But everything is in place. To be certain, she went through it all in her head one more time, all of the steps required to free herself, get dressed, get home. Everything was where it needed to be. She forcefully thrust the alarm down, out of her awareness. I'm doing this, she told herself, almost defiantly. I want this!

Patting the ground behind her, she found the free padlock she'd retrieved from Friday's tree, and picked it up -- and her fingers, shaking from excitement, lost their grip, and she had to pick it up again -- and threaded its shackle through the D-rings of her wrist cuffs, then through one of the links at the back of the waist chain.

Her excitement nearing a peak, she stopped to savor her last moment of freedom before locking herself in an inescapable hogtie, anchored to the bush. She would not, once she clicked the padlock closed, be able to untie either the hogtie rope or the anchor rope -- the hogtie rope was knotted only at her stomach, and both ends of the anchor rope were tied to roots of the bush, all of these knots impossible for her to reach.

The alarm bell pushed back into her consciousness again. It angered her. It was diluting her excitement. She gave herself fully to the excitement once more. Her whole body was trembling.

With a squeak that represented only the barest trace of the thrill flooding through her body, as she ignored a sudden pain in her fingers, Susan firmly clicked the padlock closed.

Instantly her entire being was flooded with awareness of her bondage. Every movement, every slightest wiggle, focused her consciousness on the chains, the ropes, the locks, her inability to separate her feet, to straighten her legs, to pull her joined hands from the small of her back, to move away from the bush in front of her, whose tiny twigs were tickling her stomach and breasts intimately, her inability to speak, to see. She felt the rope through her crotch, so much more responsive to her movements than ever before, every movement of her legs pulling it tight against her most sensitive place. And hovering over all, she had an intense awareness of how long it would take, once she began trying, to free herself.

She fought to remember the need to stay quiet, to keep from making noises that could be heard by her neighbors, and discovered something new: that the effort to bottle up the sounds of her heightened excitement added still further arousal, like a tea kettle prevented from whistling as the pressure within built higher and higher. She allowed herself only the slightest grunts of effort as her muscles strained ever harder. And as the orgasm exploded within her and consumed her in a flash of fire, she held back the scream that wanted to tear her apart, and it stayed inside her and became part of the climax, making it stretch out longer than ever before. Until at last it spent itself, and left her a burnt ash from the furnace settling slowly, slowly to the ground.

Smiling around her gag, Susan drifted into sleep.

Susan awoke. For the first time, she didn't experience any disorientation. She expected to be naked and bound outdoors, as she had been for nearly three days. She almost laughed, wondering if she would be totally confused the next time she woke up in her own bed.

She did try to stretch automatically, and discovered, before specifically remembering it, that she was hogtied. At once the excitement of being bound in her favorite position flared up again. She had never actually experienced a hogtie before last weekend, but she had so often fantasized about it that the degree of restraint involved came automatically loaded with a high sexual charge.

She wondered how long she had slept. Probably hours, she told herself. She did recall dreaming, though not the specific content. Wait, no, one dream did come back to her, vaguely, of having a holiday dinner with her parents and her grandmother. Nana had died five years ago, but in the dream that hadn't struck Susan as odd. She'd been uncomfortable during the dream dinner, feeling sure somehow Nana would read her mind and be shocked by Susan's inner fantasy life.

Susan's jaw ached from encompassing the gag -- another suggestion that hours had gone by. She was also very hungry and thirsty again. She told herself that she could take care of all those discomforts soon. Her legs ached from overuse as well. That would take longer to recover from, probably several days. At least at the moment it didn't feel as though a muscle cramp was imminent.

She had no way to judge the time of day -- the blindfold, as before, let absolutely no light in -- but knew it had to be broad daylight, perhaps around noon, based on traffic sounds and the renewed warmth that daytime brought. She hadn't anticipated being found in her hideaway, but was still relieved to find she hadn't been.

Actually there was one way to judge the passage of time. She needed badly to pee. Susan sighed. Unable to move any distance forward or backward, with the anchor rope holding her against the bush, and with a certainty she wouldn't be able to hold it during the time it was going to take to free herself, she knew she had to let go. She didn't really care for this part of prolonged outdoor bondage, but it was unavoidable. She couldn't change the laws of biology. She released the warm liquid, feeling it jet out between her squeezed-together thighs and down the front and back to pool on the ground under her.

At least, she thought, it's nearly over. She was eager to get home and safe. The thrill of bondage remained undiminished, but the constant fear of discovery was getting very old.

That it was daytime was acceptable. Susan knew how invisible she must be, lying where she was. It felt safer than the park had. She did hear the back door of her building open, followed by footsteps heading for the parking lot, which did make her tense up, but the standard sounds of a car door opening and slamming shut, engine starting, and car driving away told her that particular danger had passed. None of the sounds had been as close as the joggers or tennis players in the park. There was traffic along Stockhouse Boulevard as well. Not heavy -- it was never heavy -- but cars were passing far more frequently than during the night. Susan knew she was out of their sight as well.

All she needed to do was to reel in the knife, use it to cut the hogtie rope, the breaking of which would also free her from being anchored to the bush in front of her, and use her increased freedom of movement to retrieve the briefcase.

That first step would take some time. Four hundred feet of string.

As always, the physical feeling of restraint, in that favorite position that had always been the most frequent focus of her fantasies, coupled with the awareness that getting free involved a lot of upcoming work, made her arousal flare up again, and it was intensified immediately, as she began wriggling with excitement, by the crotch rope, much more directly related to her movements than usual, rubbing her intimately and insistently. She forced herself to distance herself from the feeling, freezing every muscle, waiting for the tingling to die down. Now was not a good time. She had managed to stay quiet during her last orgasm, but she recalled clearly how much conscious effort that had required, and wasn't completely sure she could repeat it. Though invisible, she wasn't inaudible at the distance where foot traffic in and out of the building was passing by, especially if she made as much noise as she probably would. She told herself she had had enough climaxes this weekend, every one of them of unimaginable intensity compared with any she had ever had before her bondage adventures. And she could have more the next time she let Suzy take over. She would have to settle for whatever relief she could give herself after returning to her apartment, barely adequate though she knew that would be.

She felt around her right wrist with the fingers of her left hand. She felt a pang of worry for a moment when she couldn't locate the string instantly, but then found it. She began reeling in the string. It went a bit faster than it had Friday night, as she was able to use both hands more easily. As before, she had to pause frequently to brush the recovered string away to keep it from piling up underneath her hands. Her sex was still tingling intensely.

The tickling of the leaves of the bush against her stomach and breasts reminded her once more how helpless she was to move away from her present position, or to escape the restriction of movement forced on her by the hogtie. The sensation of being bound flared into the forefront of her consciousness, along with the knowledge she was just getting started freeing herself. Long way to go. Her hips twitched, her feet kicking outward against the hogtie rope, pulling the crotch rope tight against her sex once more.

Her resolve to postpone sexual release evaporated. She wriggled breathlessly on the ground, testing every bond, making her intensely conscious of how tightly she was bound, how inescapable the bondage was.

As the convulsions overtook her, she held, barely, to enough of her rational mind to remind herself: no noise! No noise! She clamped down against the scream seeking to tear its way out of her throat.

The orgasm hit her, as intense as ever, waves of heat radiating from between her legs rushing outward to every extremity and reflecting back. She felt her body bouncing on the ground. She held her breath, clamping down on her throat, and felt, as before, the effort taking her to a still higher level of ecstasy.

Calming then, the wave spending itself and washing away, leaving her bathed in sweat, her side against the ground caked in mud she had created herself. Breathing again at last, deeply, trying not to faint.

Her thirst, inevitably, had intensified. It was another of those sensations on her list of "non-favorite parts of prolonged outdoor bondage," but, like the need to urinate periodically, she found it tolerable in the pursuit of the sexual satisfaction that she knew would be part of her life from now on.

She felt with her fingers, making sure the string was still in her hand. Somehow she hadn't lost hold of it in the throes of orgasm. She resumed pulling it in.

After a seemingly endless, almost hypnotic interval, Susan finally felt the sudden slight resistance that told her she had finished taking the slack out of the string, and that it was now pulling the knife towards her. Minutes later she had the knife in her hand.

She opened out the knife blade very carefully, and began sawing at the hogtie rope, wishing again for one of those Hollywood ropes that seemed, on film, to burst apart the instant a knife touched them. She had to stop, periodically, to wriggle her fingers to ward off cramps, and each time would feel the rope with her finger to determine progress. She decided she would need to sharpen the knife as soon as she could -- it seemed almost to make no headway against the smooth fibers. And each time she drew the knife across the rope, the part of it that continued on between her legs was drawn tight against her sex, and she fought off the tingling of sexual arousal once more.

It must have been half an hour before the rope finally parted and her feet, released of their hold, kicked outward, sending a bolt of agony through her legs after being held bent so long. She finished straightening them more carefully, breathing in small sips until the pain let go at last.

The breaking of the hogtie rope released the anchor rope as well, and Susan backed away from the bush and, with some effort, sat up. Now, she told herself, just get a drink, then the briefcase, and get out of here.

She shook her head irritably in sudden exasperation. She thought her meticulous planning of the hogtie had been perfect -- arranging the hogtie, with the knife to release herself from it, arranging it so the anchor rope would automatically lose its hold on her as soon as the hogtie rope was cut, leaving her free to move to the extent her cuffed ankles and wrists locked behind her to the waist chain would allow her, which was more than enough freedom to retrieve the briefcase. She had somehow -- she didn't know why -- visualized her release from the hogtie/anchor combination as including the loss of the gag and blindfold. Yet she still had no way to untie either one, until after she'd got the briefcase and could use the keys in it to unlock the wrist cuffs.

At first Susan focused her annoyance exclusively on the gag. There was one last water bottle here, easily within reach, but with the gag in her mouth she had no way to drink.

As she began thinking past the water bottle to the task of getting to the briefcase, she suddenly thought: Oh, no, no, no...

She shivered with fear. Of all the dangerous situations she had found herself in during the last few days, this, she thought, might be the worst.

She knew exactly where the briefcase was, from where she sat now. It was perhaps fifteen feet away, in a place that would still be safe from observation by anyone walking to the parking lot or driving by on the street.

But, unable to remove the blindfold, unable to see anything at all, with all of the ground between here and there feeling the same, no tiny landmarks to guide her, Susan knew she would lose her orientation, lose any sense of where she was and exactly what direction she was going, as soon as she moved away from the bushes she was currently sitting against. She could start squirming along the ground -- blind, she wasn't about to start hopping, with obstacles all around that would send her sprawling and the ravine a short distance away -- but she couldn't hope to maintain a steady direction of travel. If she got off the track by even a few feet as she traveled those fifteen feet or so to the briefcase, she would miss it. She could be just inches away and not know it, and as she twisted this way and that trying to find it, the last shred of any sense of her location would leave her -- permanently. Any bush she brushed against might be among the ones that had been protecting her from being seen, or might be a different one, more isolated, offering little or no cover. She wouldn't know when she emerged into plain sight from the building, and had no way to prevent it happening, no way to know whether she was being watched by some astonished resident of her building. And her chance of accidentally finding the briefcase, once she had lost her sense of location and direction, was nearly zero.

And, of course, there was still the ravine to consider. She wouldn't know how close to the edge of it she was, and no matter how carefully she moved, she could still easily fall into it.

Why didn't I stop and think, Susan screamed at herself, that I still couldn't take off the blindfold after I'd cut the rope? In all the time she had spent going over her plan of release, making sure everything was where it needed to be, she had forgotten to think of whether anything was where it didn't need to be.

She suddenly remembered that discomfort, that alarm, that had begun at just the time she had been putting on the blindfold, and the pain in her fingers at the moment she'd started closing the padlock, which had been, this time, too little and too late to stop her. It was Suzy! she realized. Again! When I start to do something that's too dangerous, she warns me, and I keep ignoring her!

It was so hard, Susan saw, for Suzy to get messages through to her. At least when their shared body was sober. Suzy can't really talk to me even when I'm drunk, Susan saw, but she can take over control when I'm that far out of it. Other than that, she can restore memories she's hidden from me. But speak to me? No.

Susan was more aware than ever, now, of just how separate a person Suzy was. The times when Bondage Susan had argued with Shy Susan, Susan had been fully aware of the argument, had heard both sides clearly. Both sides are me, both are Susan, she realized. But I can't hear Suzy in the same way.

I have to stop tying myself up on my own, Susan told herself. I promise to let only Suzy do it, or do it myself by her instructions. I'm not careful like she is.

I don't know if I can keep this promise to myself, Susan admitted. I get so caught up in wanting the bondage, I can't stop myself. But I have to listen for Suzy's warnings, she vowed. I have to recognize them for what they are.

Suzy can't help me now, Susan observed. She can't see any better than I can. I have to get rid of this blindfold!

Susan spent several minutes, increasingly frustrated, rubbing her shoulders, first her right, then her left, against the strap along the side of her head securing the blindfold, remembering that all her attempts Friday night had failed. At least, she told herself, I have a little bit more freedom of movement than I did then.

The rubbing accomplished nothing. The strap, though she could move it a few millimeters, always settled back where it had been.

She thought about finding a tree, backing up against it and rubbing the back of her head against it. But she knew that that, in particular, wouldn't work any better than it had Friday, and the search for a tree would definitely get her lost. After failing to remove the blindfold that way, she would have thrown away any chance of finding the briefcase, or finding her way back to her shelter. She would probably end up in full view from the building.

The fear that had been gnawing at her since she had discovered the problem billowed inside her, threatening to overwhelm her. Last night, she reminded herself, trying to get across the creek was terrifying, but I knew the whole time how to do it, as dangerous as it was. Now I'm stuck here and have no idea what to do at all. I know where I have to get to, but as soon as I start moving in that direction I'm doomed.

I have to try it, she told herself. I don't have any choice.

She backed up against the bush, her legs straight along the ground, pointed in the direction she was fairly sure the briefcase was. Her butt felt something underneath it. She realized it was the anchor rope.

She groaned, thinking of the amount of work she had done to leave herself, unwittingly, in the situation she was in now. The anchor rope had originally stretched all the way from where she sat now to the ravine, holding the briefcase there. If she had left it as it was after untying the handle of the briefcase, she'd be able to use it now to keep from getting lost: she could hold onto it, letting it slip through her fingers as she moved, and by feeling it, she would always know the direction back to the bush. She could use it to find her way back to her starting point, if she needed to, and even without that, holding the rope would enable her to keep her sense of direction.

But she'd made the rope double back into the bush, so that only a couple of feet of rope came out of the bush. Totally useless, now, for what she could have used it for otherwise. And she'd made sure she couldn't untie it.

She gasped. The string!! I can use it that same way!

Her heart pounding, she patted her palms on the ground beside either hip. Finding nothing, she pushed her butt outward a few inches from the bush and tried again. There! Found the knife.

Holding the knife, she backed up against the bush once more. She looped the knife, the end of the string still knotted to the ring in its handle, around the nearest root, and knotted the string around the root. Holding the string lightly, letting it slip through her fingers as she moved while keeping it taut from her fingers to the root, she began butt-walking outward from the bush.

She felt calm, not having to worry about her blindness getting her hopelessly lost in the woods. When she thought she had gone the right distance, not yet finding the briefcase, she felt with her legs in both directions. A few feet to her right, her lower leg bumped against something made of leather.

Susan sat rubbing her wrists and ankles, free of the metal cuffs for the first time in three days. She worked her jaw, gradually easing the pain caused by the gag over the hours. She looked up at the sun, winking down through the leaves above her. It was early afternoon, as she'd suspected. She had probably slept for about six hours, after that huge orgasm near dawn.

She grabbed the water bottle, twisted off the cap and quickly downed several swallows before she stopped herself. I can get all the water I want as soon as I get back to my apartment, she told herself firmly. Right now there's something else I need the water for.

She dressed quickly -- as she'd anticipated, it felt very strange to be wearing clothes after three days of constant nudity -- and looked at her arms, not covered by cloth. They were caked with grime. She was sure her face was as well. She knew she couldn't walk into her building looking this way. She was aware that her phobia of attracting attention was unjustifiable at most times, but anyone who passed her in the hall looking the way she did now would definitely look twice.

Rationing the water to make sure she could finish the job, she poured some down her right arm, rubbed the dirt away and rinsed it with more water, then repeated the process on her left arm. She cupped water in her palm and used it to wash her face as well as she could, using up the last of the water to rinse some of the mud out of her hair. I have no idea what I look like right now, she told herself, but I must be a lot more presentable than I was.

She looked around her. I'll pick up all this stuff later, she decided. Closing her hand firmly around her apartment key, that elusive article she had spent three days trying to retrieve, she worked up her courage -- the last three days of terror at the idea of being seen had accentuated her usual degree of fear -- and emerged from behind the bushes and walked to her building.

As luck would have it, no one happened to be on the stairs or in the hallway as she walked, trembling, to her apartment.

Closing her apartment door behind her, Susan felt relief wash over her with nearly the same degree of intensity as her orgasms over the past weekend. She hurried directly to the kitchen and downed two full glasses of water, followed by a hastily-assembled sandwich.

Her most basic needs taken care of, she walked into her living room, held her arms up in the air and turned several slow circles, telling herself triumphantly, No one can see me! No one can see me! She had never felt so safe, so protected! It was like the pleasure of being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold morning. She had always appreciated her solitude, but never so much as now, after fighting so hard for it! Suzy had given her so much more than just physical pleasures to a degree she had never known before. Suzy had given her this!

Susan peeled off her clothes and threw them in the laundry hamper, took a quick shower to rinse off the grime that had been under her clothes, then filled the tub for a long, hot bath.

She looked over her body as she bathed. It was covered in scrapes and bruises, the worst of them around her wrists that had worn the cuffs for three days, but none would show in the clothes she would be wearing at work.

Not doing this again for a while, she told herself. Independence Day weekend coming up in five weeks, with July 4 falling on a Monday this year. Plenty of time to let Suzy plan for it. And I'll be healed before then.

As she soaked, she tried, without success, to massage the pain out of her legs. She tried the same with her breasts, telling herself that wearing a bra would at least help ease the ache in that area over the next few days. As she rubbed them, the tingling returned between her legs, and increased as she thought ahead to the possibilities of the Independence Day weekend. What, she wondered, will Suzy come up with in that amount of time? Memories of her favorite parts of this past weekend -- skipping past the scary parts -- flashed through her mind. She rubbed herself to a mini-orgasm. All of the climaxes I've ever had in my life until these past two weekends have been mini-orgasms, she told herself, and I never realized it until I felt the real thing. But this will do for now.

After dressing in her pajamas, she watched some television, drowsing on the couch, made herself dinner, with a couple of extras of the cookies she used for dessert, and went to bed. She slept for thirteen unbroken hours until her alarm sounded.