A Crossing of Paths

Chapter Four

By the time lunchtime had rolled around again, Melissa had made real progress getting most of her stuff unpacked and organized. She was getting tired of soup for lunch and decided it was time to head into town to stock up on groceries and familiarize herself with the area. So she climbed into some jeans and a modest top, got into her car and headed down the road. As she drove onto the better maintained surface of her neighbors drive, she automatically slowed down and scanned the property in hopes of catching a glimpse of her mystery man. Still, he was nowhere to be seen, although there was a car she'd not seen before parked in front of his cabin. Perhaps that meant he's not exactly a hermit, she thought to herself, if the car belonged to a visitor. But now she was well past the cabin, so she sped up and made the twenty minute drive into the small town of Sanity, Oregon, a strange name for a town if she'd ever heard one.
It was the classic small town you see allot on television, with about three main streets, a town hall with a pretty town square in front of it, complete with bandstand and a manicured lawn, and various stores and shops. The grocery store was on main street, nowhere near as large as the supermarkets she was familiar with, but much larger than the smaller groceries she had to settle for in the city. As she parked and walked around, it seemed that there was just about every-kind of business a person could ask for, for a small town. She was especially pleased to see that there were two pubs on main street, and only two churches, so the place didn't appear to be tyrannically conservative.
She made her way into the grocery and was pleased to see that a healthy variety of goods was available, as well as fresh veggies and nice lean meats in the butcher section. The employees seemed friendly enough, and the cashier didn't give her that "you're not from around here" look she was expecting. A nice young man was quick to help her load the car with her bags, and waved off her offer of a tip. "No Maam," he said, "We just want you to come back and not drive all the way over to Waverly to go to that Walmart." She laughed, "Oh, I don't think I'll miss that, so thank you."
On the way back to her house, she noticed the car that had been parked in front of her neighbor's cabin was gone, but another was in it's place, and this time she saw her first person, a middle aged woman waving goodbye towards his front door as she was approaching her car. The door closed before she got in line to catch a glimpse of him, thus seeing what he looked like was once again thwarted. The woman glanced up and waved at her as she opened the door to her car, and Melissa waved back, speeding back up as not to appear nosy.
She thought to herself as she started to haul the bags of food into the house. So, my mystery man seems to have lady visitors. Well, so what? Besides, she had no idea if the first car had borne a woman, so she would have been jumping to conclusions. She needed to stop thinking about it. By the time she'd put away her purchases, the sun was setting again and she decided a nice hot bath was in order. So she turned on some soft music, poured some bath powders in the tub, started the water, stripped off her clothes and headed to the kitchen for a glass of wine. She paused near the couch before heading back, staring at the large bank of windows in the great room, and wondered if she should concern herself with peeping toms. Oh, what the hell, if some young country bumpkin had made it all the way out here just to catch a glimpse of a naked woman, let him get his jollies. She laughed at the thought and returned to the bath, turned on the spa jets, and lowered herself into the hot relaxing turmoil of water.
The combination of bath and wine and soft music soon relaxed her to the point of drifting off, and suddenly Melissa found herself on her knees in front of the stranger in her dreams. She glanced down and realized that she had already donned the outfit he had provided her, a leather harness affair, with a tiny thong and bra that revealed her nipples, which, shockingly, were both pierced with gold rings. She reached up to find a wide leather collar, with metal rings embedded in it, was secured tightly around her neck. A shudder ran thru her body as she ran her hands over herself, never having ever worn such a racy and revealing outfit, especially in the presence of a stranger. Around her wrists were snugly secured leather cuffs, and she glanced back to confirm that her ankles were similarly adorned. My god, she thought to herself, he's got me dressed up like some sex slave! She looked up at him and saw that he had a leather leash in his hand, which was connected to a ring on the collar around her neck. She was not sure what was registering on her face, but he was not perturbed by it, and he turned around and walked towards the other end of the room, jerking her to her feet as the slack in the leash was taken up. Under any other circumstance she would be screaming something to the effect of "what in the fuck do you think you're doing?", but she found herself strangely with no desire to do so. She stumbled behind him, caught her balance to catch up, and suddenly stopped as he paused in front of what appeared to be a beam about waist high, mounted on two timbers sunk into the floor. There were rings at the base of each timber, and all manners of chains and things were hanging from the ceiling on the opposite side. He walked around the beam and pulled her towards him until her thighs came up against the beam, then her pulled down on the leash until the looped end reached a hook that was in the floor, effectively bending her over the beam so that her upper body was horizontal with the floor. With that, he walked around behind her and swept apart her feet with his boots, securing each ankle cuff to a timber. She was trying to hold her upper body up with her fingertips as he came back around, but he took each wrist and lifted it up to secure them to chains that were hanging from the ceiling, so that her arms were spread wide, the weight bearing on them pulling her arms up and backwards. She was already beginning to feel the discomfort of this awkward position, but he was not thru with her yet. She was watching him with wide eyes as he reached into a wooden crate and started sorting out little lead weights, small chains, clamps, and other paraphernalia when the cooling bath pulled her back from the dream. Once again, the dream faded before she the terror of what was happening to her could sink in. Still, as she rose from the bath and grabbed a towel, she was feeling a long dormant warmth in her belly, and giving into it, she retired to her bed and pleasured herself with her trusty vibrator she had just unpacked that day, falling into a deep sleep afterwards, with, strangely, no dreams at all.......just a peaceful oblivion.