Now, she tried to imagine something warm and soft tickling her tailbone. She focused on the knot, made a loop with the current, and pulled it gently through and up. It snaked through her spine, and her muscles seemed to pull gently away from the bones. She wound it through her bottom two vertebrae and then between her thighs. The heat pulsed and windmilled within her. She instinctively spread her legs and instantly she was back in the alley. This time it was very clearly she who was tied to the ladder, but now it was lowered to the ground, and she was bound hands and feet to the rungs. She opened her mouth and pressed her tongue against the cold metal of the ladder, and when she did, someone strong and rough pushed his fingers between her legs and then inside her. She gasped, and he reached around and pinched her nipple.

“Naughty girl.” He spoke softly. “Slut.”

She tried to turn to look at him, but when she did, he tangled his hand in her hair and held her head straight. “Stay,” he said. He took a step back, and she opened her eyes.

Her heart was racing and her mouth steamed with saliva. No, she thought; this is bad. Phillip lay next to her, gently breathing through his mouth, and she flushed first with guilt and then with the delicious haze of shame. She pulled the covers off slowly and crept to the bathroom. She locked the door, turned on the light, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her pupils looked enormous, and she could see her nipples hard beneath her thin T-shirt. She switched the light off and sat on the floor with her back against the tub. If she was going to do this, she needed it pitch black. She closed her eyes and pulled her panties around her ankles. She ran her hand down her belly, to her thighs, and between her legs.

The cuffs are still around her wrists and ankles, but now she is lashed so her back slopes against the ladder and her legs are spread. She looks down and sees the ground roll beneath her feet.

“Spread your legs,” the man says.

She pulls against the ankle cuffs, but it is difficult to open her thighs any more than they are. She hesitates, and the man pulls her knees apart so that her back digs into the metal, and she feels like she may lose her balance.