I Chained Myself Up in a Desert Cave

I had been carrying this fantasy around for years, and at last I had an entire weekend to make it happen. I drove hundreds of kilometers to a remote area, a stretch of desert where the sun beat flatly down on the cracked earth and not a soul could be seen in any direction. I left the road and headed over the sand until I stopped near the exact spot I had studied for weeks on the map.

I got out of the car and the heat hit me at once. I went to the trunk and took out a backpack I had carefully packed the night before. Everything was inside. To begin with, I stripped right there beside the car, with no witnesses but the empty horizon.

I took off my T-shirt, my pants, my sneakers, and every last accessory, and left everything folded on the seat. I locked the car, slung the backpack over my shoulder, and put the car keys in the side pocket.

Naked, I set off toward some caves that opened in a rocky formation not too far away. Walking like that, with nothing on me, feeling the sun on my shoulders and the burn of the ground beneath the soles of my feet, was exactly the kind of exposure I was after. I’m thirty-four, with a slim body, small breasts, and black hair tied back in a ponytail. Nothing spectacular, but that morning I felt completely in command of myself.

The walk was long and the little stones dug into my feet, though that was part of the game too. At last I reached the cave entrance and made my way deep inside, to a cooler, sheltered area, where I dropped the backpack and began in earnest.

I had come to inspect the place months earlier and had left a steel eye bolt driven firmly into one of the rocks. I emptied the backpack: bags of food, several bottles of water, and, last, a full set of metal shackles, chains, and padlocks.

I sat on the rock beside the eye bolt and, piece by piece, fitted the shackles around my neck, wrists, and ankles, linking them together with prison-style chains. I snapped each padlock shut with a sharp click. A longer chain ran from the set to the wall anchor; when I closed that final padlock, I was fully secured.

To avoid temptation, I put the keys in the backpack and threw it far away, though not so far that I wouldn’t be able to reach it when everything was over.

The plan was simple: spend the whole weekend there, alone, in a bout of self-bondage as intense as I could stand. No one would bother me. The idea excited me so much that before long I had my hand between my legs, leaning back against the cold rock while the chains jingled with every movement and my thighs trembled. I stopped just before I got there, denying myself the finish. Denial was half the game.

***

The first afternoon passed. The air cooled, but I denied myself any comfort: I wanted the closest experience possible to real captivity. I drank a little water, ate half a sandwich, and tried to sleep on the stone, which proved harder than keeping my hand away from my cunt.

On the second day I invented a routine to kill the boredom: a bit of exercise, pacing the circle the chain allowed me, stretches lying on my back staring at the cave ceiling. I counted more than fifteen denials over the course of the day. My legs trembled from pure accumulated tension and I wanted to come with an aching urgency, but the rule was the rule.

Exhaustion and the weight of the metal had me beat before long that night, and I fell asleep almost without realizing it.

The third day dawned with deceptive normality. I was eating my last ration, feeling a little sorry that it was all ending, when something happened that was completely off script: I heard voices drawing near.

***

Panic closed my throat and I nearly choked. I sprang up to go for the keys, because the last thing I wanted was to be found like that. And then I saw my mistake.

When I threw the backpack, it had landed within reach, yes, but I had forgotten to close it. The keys were gleaming several meters away, outside the cave, on the sand. I yanked on the chain with all my strength, stretched my arm until the shackle cut my wrist, but they were too far away.

I had two options: stay still and pray they didn’t see me, or ask for help and deal with the consequences. I didn’t have time to decide. Footsteps echoed at the entrance and two figures were outlined against the light outside.

They were two men, around forty, with the look of hikers. They froze when they saw me: a naked woman, chained by her own hand to the wall of a cave. Then they noticed the backpack, the bottles, and the keys in the distance, along with the marks of my desperate attempt to reach them etched in the sand. They understood everything at once.

And, to my bad luck, the first thing they did was pick up the keys and put them in their pocket.

—Well, well —said the taller one, crouching to look me over closely—. And what do we do with you now?

If I wanted my freedom back, I depended on them. At first I resisted, begged them to just let me go. But when they threatened to leave and abandon me there, alone, without water or food for who knew how many days, I was the one who ended up begging them to stay and agreeing to whatever they wanted.

—If you want out of here —said the other one—, you’re going to behave like what you look like.

They ordered me to get on all fours on the stone. I obeyed reluctantly. One took position behind me, holding my hips; the other stood in front and grabbed my hair like reins. What followed was rough and nonstop: thrusts from front and back, my throat and the rest of my body pushed to the limit. They finished on top of me, praising how well I served them in obscene terms.

I asked for the keys between coughs. They laughed. They said that if I really wanted to be a good submissive, they would teach me themselves, and that they’d be back the next day.

That wasn’t in my plans. No matter how much I begged, they gathered the rest of my things and left with my only way out. I pulled on the chain until I was out of breath, but the anchor I myself had driven in held perfectly. My own work had turned against me.

***

That night the fear was real. I had no food left and could barely sleep, trembling from cold and hunger. When I woke, it was all at once: a gush of cold water poured over me. The two of them were standing in front of me, pulling ropes out of a huge bag.

—We’re moving you —said the taller one—. The easy way or the hard way.

I took it all back, too late. One of them pointed what looked like a toy gun at me, though at that moment I couldn’t know that, and the mere possibility drained my will. The other came up with the keyring and the ropes, methodical: each time he opened a padlock, he replaced it immediately with a knot. I brought my feet together, took my arms behind my back, let him bind my elbows.

Soon I was tied up like a package. Ankles together, knees too, a tight rope crossing my cunt like a belt, two turns cinching my breasts, another securing my shoulders and my arms behind my back, and one last around my neck like a leash. The slightest movement drove the ropes into my skin. To finish, they reinforced some of the knots with chains and padlocks on top.

—Walk fast or we’ll drag you —one of them said, pulling on the leash.

In that position I could only move in little hops. I hopped until I got out of the cave and then across the burning desert sand, through dry scrub, ignoring the pain in my feet. I was on the verge of passing out when their truck appeared. I arrived trembling with exhaustion, barely able to breathe.

They loosened the rope around my neck and gave me a minute to climb into the back. I tried with the little strength I had left, though they didn’t bother helping me either, and when the time was up a hard slap crossed my ass.

The ride was long. They drove slowly, almost considerate in their own way, and yet every bump drove into my bound body. We arrived at a half-built house, abandoned in the middle of nowhere. I had already accepted that begging was useless, so I limited myself to obeying and praying they’d get tired of me soon.

***

Inside there was a cooler, a water jug, chairs, and two cots. Between the two of them they lifted me and laid me on one so they could take turns. There were long stretches of thrusts, one after another, and in between they left me on the floor while they drank and talked as if I weren’t there.

I spent days like that. One went out for supplies and the other enjoyed himself at will. They twisted my nipples until I screamed, spanked me until my skin burned, pulled my hair. And, to my own shame, my body began to respond: I came more than once, which amused them enormously and humiliated me even more.

Until one morning they woke me differently. They gave me plenty of water, fed me, and took off the ropes, leaving me only the chains with their padlocks.

—We found your car days ago —said the taller one—. We left the padlock keys on the hood.

They pointed in a direction in the desert. One last slap on my ass, a shove toward the exit, and a “we hope to see you again” that sounded more like a promise than a farewell.

Under the sun and with my body wrecked, I walked in a straight line toward where they had pointed, as if I were still following an order. The heat was torture and every step weighed twice as much because of the chain on my ankles. I walked for what felt like an eternity until, far off, I made out my car. They hadn’t lied.

The keys were still on the hot hood. I barely cared about burning my fingers on the metal. I unlocked one padlock after another, hearing each click, and at last I felt my body free after days.

***

I opened the car and sat inside for a while, taking it all in, until I saw the folded note on the dashboard. It was a date, exactly one year from then, and the name of the cave.

I read it twice. I crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into the back seat. I got my clothes from the trunk, dressed with trembling hands, and started the engine.

As I drove back, body aching and mind blank, there was only one thought going round and round in my head, one I could barely admit even to myself. I wasn’t thinking about reporting them or explaining anything. I was thinking about how I would greet them the following year, about what they would come up with this time. After so long chasing a fantasy, I had finally found the experience I was after.

Let them be more creative next time, I told myself, and stepped on the gas toward home.