Warning. This chapter and following chapters in its "thread" will contain some sexual situations, BDSM and other "kink". Nothing that outrageous, but there will be some.

***

He found it while exploring the woods one day.

He thought he heard voices. Between that and the twinges he was getting from his bondage he decided it was best to get off the trail.

He'd decided to try getting closer to the foot of the cliff. He couldn't be sure through the trees, but it looked like there wasn't a talus slope here.

It was odd, he'd have sworn there wasn't a place like that around here. He'd been digging through the local woods for years and surely he'd have noticed?

To his amazement, he suddenly stepped into a cleared area. Just some moss on the ground, then a bunch of waist high stones in a arc from the cliff. It was odd. Not only wasn't there a talus slope, but the stones weren't the basalt that all the local rock was.

He was just noticing the stones inside the arc and the large opening in the cliff when he heard the voices again.

"I'm sure I saw someone! And they were naked!"

Oh hell, he'd gotten spotted. In a panic he ran through the arc of stones and ducked into the opening in the cliff, praying that they wouldn't look there.

As soon as he crossed the arc of stones, his panic vanished. He still ducked into the cave or whatever it was. He was catching his breath as a feeling of safety came over him. He was still worried, but it was distant.

He still kept looking out to the woods frequently, but he felt safe enough to look around. He could see that the arc of stones continued into the cave. It seemed to be an oval.

Looking closer he could see shapes carved into the stones. Maybe some sort of writing? It didn't look like anything he'd seen before.

The shape of the cave was weird too. It was a smooth arc. Sort of like a quarter of a sphere, except stretched a bit to follow the oval.

There were several yards clearance between the stones and the wall. About the same as the clearance between them and the underbrush outside. Weird.

Then his attention was drawn to the elephant in the room. Well, not an elephant, but something that should have been just as obvious. But he'd only noticed them after entering the cave.

There were a number of roughly humanoid statues(?) carved out of the same stone. As well as some large low blocks of stone (his mind thought of them as altars) and some stone chairs. More like thrones.

Before he could take a closer look at anything he heard the voices again. He ducked behind one of the altars and peeked over the top. Only a moment later several people came out of the woods.

Oh, this was bad, he recognized a couple from school. Damn. If they spotted him, his life would be hell.

But to his surprise, they just looked around blankly. They didn't seem to see the clearing and stones!

One said, "Well, nothing here but a bunch of fallen rocks from the cliffs. If you weren't seeing things, he must have slipped by us."

And with that they turned around and walked away.

He slumped to the ground in relief. He didn't know how or why, but they'd missed him.

The feeling of safety swept over him again. Somehow he knew it was connected to what had happened. So he tried to send back a "thank you".

The safe feeling surged. Then there was a pause. And he had an urge? No, not that more of an impulse, Like he was thinking about something but with no pressure to decide one way or the other.

Without really knowing why, he unwound the painful bindings on his genitals. The returning circulation was only a bit more painful. Then he took a deep breath, then started rebinding things. But tighter. So tight it almost took his breath away. Tighter than he'd ever done before.

He had to breathe deeply for a couple minutes as he adjusted to the pain. It was still a "good" pain though.

Then he moved carefully to the top of the altar block he'd been hiding behind. He was not surprised to see that the top had a hollow shaped like a human carved into it. He worked himself into place so he was laying flat in it.

To his surprise, it was actually comfortable. Yet at the same time the pain seemed to intensify. Normally he'd have expected it to be decreasing as things got a bit numb. But it wasn't. It kept on throbbing through him.

He was getting aroused. Which just made things worse, given how tightly he was bound. He just laid there and endured it. Soon he was floating from the endorphins. Without thinking about it, his hands moved to his chest and started tweaking his nipples. Softly at first, then harder.

He kept switching from soft to hard and back again. His arousal grew, and finally as he squeezed and twisted as hard as he could, he orgasmed,

Bound as he was, this caused a new and quite intense pain.

He wasn't sure how long he laid there overwhelmed by the combination of pleasure and pain.

At last, he felt a sort of nudge and carefully sat up and worked his way off the altar stone.

Without knowing why, he walked to the back of the cave, where an idol that was both male and female at the same time stood. There were basins of water to either side of it. Water seemed to be bubbling up into them and then flowing off to the ground. Part of his mind went "so that's why there's moss."

He stood in front of one of them, and slowly unwrapped the bindings once more. He could see traces of blood where skin had gotten pinched between the windings. Once they were free, he dropped the bindings into the water without knowing why he did.

Then he reached out and took a handful of the water and wiped it over his body. It was very cold, but refreshing at the same time. As he got to where he'd been bound, he could see that not only the sweat and blood washed off, but the pain went away. And when he checked, he couldn't find anyplace where the blood had come from.

When he looked at the cord he'd used for binding, it looked different. He reached into the basin and lifted it out. It was clean. Not only of the blood but the dirt as well. And it looked like new.

He knew he should have been freaked by all this, but he just accepted it. And he could swear that there was a sort of thankfulness mixed in with the feelings of safety.

He wanted to explore this place further, but from the look of the shadows outside, it'd been an hour or more. Regretfully he tied the cord around his waist (easiest way to carry it and still have his hands free) and started back towards the woods and the trail.

He hesitated a long time before stepping into the woods. Every sense was alert. He didn't want to run into anybody. One close call was enough.

He worked his way back to the trail, and then after looking carefully both ways, he headed down it to where his clothes were hidden.

He ducked into the brush several times, but they were all false alarms. Soon enough he was dressed and headed for home.

When he got there, his brother Ronnie and Ronnie's friend, Dot were there. Playing with Ronnie's GI Joes again.

He felt sorry for both of them. He knew about their gender problems and had helped cover with the folks a few times.

He was a bit envious as well. At least they could pass. He'd managed to get a few things that fit, but he was obviously a guy in them. Puberty had sucked. Mind you it wasn't that he didn't want to be a boy. It was just that sometimes he wanted to be a girl for a while.

He'd not told the kids because he figured they wouldn't understand. It was pretty clear to everyone but their folks that the kids were 100% the opposite of the sex they were "supposed" to be.

Besides not understanding, he didn't want to remind either of them of what would probably happen when puberty hit. It'd be painful enough then.

He shook off the unpleasant thoughts and went to put the cord away with his stash of "toys". He stopped when he set it next to the other lengths that'd been cut from the same piece. It was clean and looking brand new next to the other pieces. But that was impossible.

He hid the stash and sat down in front of his computer to think. The whole thing was impossible, Wasn't it?

He thought some more about the strangeness of the stones and the cave. Y'know, it'd looked like they'd been there before basalt flows that made up the cliffs.

He fired up the computer and did some searching. Then sat back appalled. The Columbia River flood basalt formations were hundreds of thousands of years old!

Name: Donald "Don" Sutherland
Aliases: none
Code name: none
Ratings: normal human
Techniques: none
Weak vs.: normal human vulnerabilities
Backup/ Team affiliation: none

He's Ronald Sutherland (aka "Connie")'s older brother.

Note that things will probably get a bit more explicit in later installments of this branch of the stories.

I will note that this is not being done gratuitously, there are reasons why their is sex & BDSM involved in this story. And not necessarily the ones you think.