I was wearing only the tank top and the panties that I had slept in. My wrists and my ankles were cuffed with metal handcuffs that had already dug into my skin. My elbows were tied together, quite painfully, behind my back. I could see only blackness in the tight leather hood. Which was tied to the ceiling somehow, making me stand on my toes in order to choke less on the tight strap around my neck. The big gag in my mouth was making me nauseous and was hurting my jaw and my teeth, and was making my breathing difficult. The small nose holes in the hood were making my breathing even more difficult. I was very thirsty, and needed to pee. I was completely unable to speak. I was freshly kidnapped by a man whom I knew quite well. And I knew he was a cruel psycho. He had just explained to me that I wouldn't be able to escape, that nobody would look for me, and that I wouldn't be able to manipulate him, and I believed all of that to be most probably true.

So, there and then, in that quite painful and stressful situation, I took a brave decision. I needed to take some decision, in order to stay sane! And so I decided the following. He wanted to make me a good person, right? That is what he claimed with a lot of conviction. And my mother did, too. Did I want to be bad? Of course not! Nobody wants to be bad! It just happens because of circumstances!

So, in order to be out of this as soon as possible, I had to become good. To play along with what he wanted, with his teaching or whatever. And that's it! He wanted obedience and respect, so be it, he would get them. Not as if he deserved any respect with his bad smell and his cruelty, but whatever, he would get it. And if he has brilliant ideas how to make me good, let's see them. I'd play along and try my best to change. And then we'll see! If that is really what he wanted, he should let me go then! And who knows, maaaybe an opportunity to escape would present itself before that. You never know.

He expected me to fight him, to lie, to manipulate, to protest. But I wouldn't! I would sincerely try to change! I would take his teaching seriously, whatever it might be! That would surely get him off guard. He wouldn't expect that from me. But he didn't know me! And my mother didn't know me either! They didn't understand why I had been so not serious about my life lately.

Taking this decision, coming up with this "strategy", gave me a little bit of inner comfort, inner strength, that I needed so badly in my predicament. I wished I could share all this with my captor. But I couldn't. He had made me unable to speak anything other than mmm mmm and mmm mmm mmm. And those two only worked when he asked me a question.

I decided to show my decision by standing as still as possible. But it's not as if I could really control that. Sometimes I'd lean a bit to one side or another involuntarily, but other than that, I couldn't really move anyway. So there was probably no visible difference in my posture.

"I gotta leave you alone to take care of some business. But I don't want you to get muscle cramps, choke and pass out. So let me lower the hook a bit. There. Now can you stand on the balls of your feet without choking?"

"Mmm mmm mmm."

"No? Perfect. I want you to be able to stand on the balls of your feet, but just for short periods of time. So that you have to switch between standing on your tippy toes and taking a bit of a break. It's called 'predicament bondage'. It's gonna teach you one very big and important lesson, since you've been such a lazy bitch, refusing to get a job. You see, predicament bondage is just like work. You wanna be somewhere else, anywhere else, but you cannot, you gotta stay at work. You wanna let your mind wonder. But you cannot, you gotta stay focused. And you gotta repeat the same pointless thing over and over again. That is what work is. But we all gotta do it. And that is exactly what you'll experience now with the predicament bondage. You gonna become an absolute expert at it in the times to come. Anyway, gotta take care of some stuff now. We'll get to more serious business when I get back down here."

And he walked away, just like that. I heard him close some metal door behind him. Leaving me completely alone. Not just in complete blackness, but also in complete silence, aside from my strenuous breathing.

Well, I got to "work". Standing on my toes for as long as I could, but without my leg muscles getting too weird. Then trying to take as deep of a breath as I could. Then standing on the balls of my feet. Because of the complete blackness, I couldn't even see if the world was getting hazy, if I was getting dizzy from choking. So I decided to just count until ten, and then get back up on my toes. And then again stand on my toes, as long as I could, but not too long. Again try hard to take a deep breath. Again count until ten. And again. And again.

This was an absolute nightmare. I had to stay completely focused on it, as he'd said. Didn't even have time to cry. If only I could see, at least. Or if this gag was not killing my jaw. Was kind of worried for my hands too, because the cuffs were making them feel weird. If only it was easier to take a deep breath, would have made things better.

In the meanwhile, a small part of my brain was trying to find something positive to cling on to. Anything. Any realistic hope, any silver lining. My decision to faithfully follow his teaching had given me a boost before. But it was no longer enough. I needed something more.

And then I had the weirdest "positive" thought. That this hood was absolutely horrible, but at least it had impeded me from insulting him. Without it, I would have told him so many horrible things by now! And if this is how he'd treat me when I didn't, imagine how he'd treat me if I did! I did not insult him in the slightest. I was answering nicely to his questions. So this hood sucked now, but was going to make things better for the future.

A part of me was surprised that such a thought brought me a bit of solace. But most of me was just super busy with standing on tippy toes, taking deep breath, counting.

And then finally the metal door opened! He was back! Such a relief!

I wanted to say a long "Mmmmmmmmmmm" to express how tough this had been, and how I couldn't stand it anymore. But I stopped myself from doing that. It would just upset him. Mmm mmm was yes, mmm mmm mmm was no, and that was it. I knew I shouldn't deviate from that simple formula. And I wasn't asked any question yet.

"I'm back. How was it? Did it teach you something about what it's like to not be a lazy bitch, and to actually work?"

"Mmm mmm."

"Good. There will be many more lessons on that topic. But now we need to turn to something else. As I said, you should be punished for the bad things you've done in the past. Sounds to me like a logical place to start, right?"

"Mmm mmm."

"I think there are five main things. You being very rude to your mother and hurting her a lot. Stealing from her. Fucking around like a cheap whore. Being a lazy bitch and refusing to get a job. And being rude to me too, back when I was living with your mother and with you. Do you agree with all of these?"

"Mmm mmm."

"Do you think there were others too?"

I hesitated for a moment. If I said no, he could get upset because he had more in mind. And if I said yes, he could remove the hood to ask me what they were.

"Mmm mmm."

"Yeah, there are many more. But let's start with the worst ones. So, I wanted to find a fitting punishment for each of them. Let's begin with you being rude towards your mother. You came out of her pussy. Then you fed from her breasts. She gave you life and food. By being rude to her and hurting her, you spit on those selfless gifts. You hurt her where she is most sensitive. You hurt her life-giving ability. So I decided that the most fitting punishment would be to beat the shit out of your pussy and breasts, so you see what it's like. Without any regard for your pain. So you can walk in her shoes, for a moment. So you can feel what you did to her. Take a good moment to REALLY think about it. And then tell me if you understand."

He lowered the hood quite a bit, and now I could stand normally without choking, although the strap was still kind of tight around my neck. Then he uncuffed my wrists and untied my elbows, placing my arms in much less cruel restraints that felt like some sort of a bag. One of my hands could massage the wrist of the other. My elbows were still close together in the new restraint, as much as I could tell, but not tightly pressed together anymore. The relief was incredible. But there was now a very painful tingling in my hands, as the blood was returning into them.

He also uncuffed my ankles, which was also a great relief. He spread my legs open, and tied my ankles again in that new position, but with something much softer.

While he was doing those things, and blood, as well as a feeling of relief, was rushing into my extremities, I tried my best to think about what he had said. Was he sincere? Did he really want to teach me a lesson? Or was it just an excuse to be cruel with me?

From my time living together with JD, I remembered him as a deeply un-creative individual. Some of his favorite phrases were "I don't care" and "either way is the same to me" and "I wanna do it cause I wanna do it" and "I don't wanna do it cause I don't wanna and that's it." He didn't make things up for the sake of it. Here, he was the ultimate king, he could do to me anything he wanted without any repercussions. So, if he was saying the things he was saying, crazy as it seemed, he probably meant them. He probably really thought that predicament bondage would teach me a lesson about work and laziness. And that beating my most tender parts would teach me a lesson about how I hurt my mother.

But was he right? Of course not! This was insane medieval torture! The whole thing was batshit crazy!

But then a weird thought struck me. What if somebody told me this story about somebody else? A girl who had been doing the things I'd been doing. And then somebody decided to teach her these cruel lessons.

I'd say something like: "Ha! What a bitch! So nothing could get to her? Well, I guess those painful lessons made sense, to get her to understand. Did they work, did she understand?"

If it was about some other girl, I'd think that JD was CLEVER to think of predicament bondage as a punishment for laziness, and of pussy and breasts beating as a punishment for hurting one's mother. Yes, CLEVER. Something I had never thought about him before.

Well, I had firmly decided to follow JD's education, right? Since that was the only sure way out. So, to see it as clever, and not as some crazy medieval torture, I had to imagine that it was happening to some other girl like me. That would be like an exercise in empathy, right? Everybody was always saying that I was lacking empathy.

I reached that conclusion when JD was finishing retying my spread apart ankles. I remembered the question he had asked me.

"Mmm mmm," I said, as firmly and confidently as I could, given the circumstances.