It is 8 o'clock. I call his number again and once more listen his voice, his recorded voice. 'I trust you have been faithful to me. I trust you. Today I allow you to be unfaithful. As soon as this message is complete, I want you to blindfold yourself and remain blindfolded until you wake up tomorrow. Look for the blindfold in the drawer of this table. You are free to do as you please. You will receive a visit today. Whether I will be among the visitors, you will not know, maybe never. You are not to ask questions of your visitors, but may answer theirs, if you please. Have a good day, my dear.'
His words upset me. Unfaithful! Would I want to be unfaithful? Why does he say this? Does he want me to defend my honour? Does he want me to waste myself and like it? Or dislike it? Will I ever know? Confusion reigns. I should not crack under the stress he imposes upon me!

I find the blindfold where told. Before I put it on, I take a last look at the room and at the world outside, which have been my universe. The world I knew, back in the city, is but a distant memory, so distant that I do not even long for it. I have burned my bridges behind me and I know it. And then there is utter darkness.

So there I am, deprived of my vision. And of any tasks. I simply sit and think for long periods. I sing to myself. This keeps my other sense, the hearing, occupied and helps to stop brooding over him and my predicament. The visitors! He may be among their number, but I will not know. I am painfully aware of naked vulnerability. I gladly put myself into that state for him, my love. I would love him to see and touch me and do as he pleases, as I trust him. Yet he is also the one that exposes me to others, whom I don't know or trust. Rape is what I am afraid of. What alternative do I have but to trust him and believe his mysterious ways are just and that he will ultimately protect me from the worst? I have nowhere to go and am defenseless.
I move about slowly. Occasionally I bump into a piece of furniture or a wall, hurting my foot or my calf, but I know this place so well that the collisions are minor. The exception is when I start after seeming to hear something. As I step back I fall over a stool, roll over in the dark and smack flat on my chest on the floor. My breasts with their tied nipple hurt so much that I cry and scream and lie there for ten or fifteen full minutes, unwilling to get up.

Eventually I muster up the strength to get up. I decide to go outside. Being blind, my sensations of sound, smell and feeling are heightened. The gentlest of winds is blowing and soothes the morning's warmth. It strokes my naked body and totally pacifies me. I stand there for what may be half an hour and gradually float away and lose myself.
I wake up to reality from the sensation of a spider that traverses my bare groin. I brush it away. My hands remain there and stroke my pubic area. Gradually they find my love spot and tickle, tickle, tickle it. The heightened sensation of feeling, the ever present tension on my nipples, the stroking of the winds, my nibble hands ... I explode with a primal scream and sink to the ground and lie there, oblivious again, but happily so.

The lake is cool. I have gone there to cool off. An element of danger exists in entering the water. Dare lose contact with the bottom and float freely? I am drawn to doing so. Now I am really floating, with heightened sensations, and this time I am actually weightless. My breasts in particular cherish this feeling. I swim about carefully and digress not too far from the shore, though I should easily make it across. It is water now that strokes my body. I am in heaven. I need no one now, no one, not him. I have been naked like a fish for almost two days now and I feel absolutely free.

And then, when I least expect it, the sound of cars disturb the peace. I hear a car, two, three cars coming up the drive. I am torn back to reality, my heart skips a beat, I am trapped. I frantically swim towards where I assume the shore is.
Voices, advancing fast. I am aimless. It does not occur to me that I could remove my blindfold. I know myself as a sightless person. (In what way would sight have helped me anyway?) Feet splashing, men shouting, people diving and swimming towards me. Strong arms grab hold of me, they muscle me to the shore, they drag me on the dry, they make me stand up. My dripping defenceless self, naked and vulnerable, shivering from the cold, not yet warmed by the warm air and the heat of the sun.

A number of male voices.
'Who is she?'
'What is her name? Where does she come from?
'Who cares. She is ... (his), but consider her yours, if you want'.
A hand touches my nipples -'Well, perky breasts'- and pulls on the chain between them.
Hands stroke the cheeks of my face, my lips - 'sweet, sweet lips'.
Hands tug his ring -'sweeter lips yet, who can turn them down.'
They slap the cheeks of my buttocks -'and a good bottom, why would ... (he) want to share this woman?'
'Perhaps he does not, perhaps he does, perhaps he was not asked.'
'Perhaps he is tired of her.'
'Perhaps she is too dependent upon him'.

I am too dependent upon him. Him that drummed these men up. Him that may be among them. He had not seen me yet. He may have gotten curious and come to see me, no strings attached, shielded by this hired band. I am blindfolded and would not recognise him. I would recognise his voice, but have not heard it.

One pair of arms scoop me up and carry me to the porch. I see no use in resisting, so I relax, insofar as I can. They lay me down. A multitude of hands, fingers touch me and play with me. I am being thoroughly inspected. With all my might I concentrate on the free-est, most relaxed episode in my life. The episode in the lake, a mere moment ago. With all my might I imagine I am floating still.

I will not describe how they raped me. They were not too bad really, for rapists. (Was it rape, these shadows of men may argue, as I did not resist, was hardly even present!) They were not too bad, except that they did not ask me whether I consented to it, wanted it, liked it. They did not care whether I came (I did not). Their foreplay was less than stimulating. The afterplay was no more than the next guy coming on. No afterplay after the last one. They left as suddenly as they had arrived, leaving me lying there on the porch of the house, covered in their slime. I have blanked my mind, aided by my blindness, and did not resist. My body was at their mercy, not my mind.

They have left and I get up, sore and beat. I leave my blindfold on. I do not want to see this day. I make my way to the bath, fill it with hot water, get in and soak up the heat. All evil spirits will be steamed out. Disillusioned? No, I had no illusions. He is far, far away. But I have not been unfaithful, to him, nor myself.

What went before - To be continued

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