Michelle (Witchie) Murrin, 32, looked out her living room window at the early spring countryside of eastern Prince Edward Island that April weekend and nearly wept.

CBC Radio 2 was playing Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, live from the Metropolitan Opera at New York City's Lincoln Center, and the gorgeous arias of La Boheme had swept her imagination off to Paris and Christmas Eve, 1830, as she listened to poet Rodolfo (Luciano Pavarotti) sing his way into poor, consumptive Mimi's (Renee Flemming's) heart at the end of Act. 1.

" Che gelida manina ," (This little hand is frozen) he sings softly to her, holding Mimi's hand gently in the delicate, first contact of the two ill-fated lovers. " Se la lasci ricoldar" (Let me warm it here in mine).

In the Puccini opera, Mimi and Rodolfo are getting acquainted fast. Outside, Rodolfo's friends call him to join them. He would rather stay with Mimi but she shyly suggests they all go out together. "Tell me you love me," he pleads. She holds back, at first, but as this duet ends, they sing together for the first time and their first word is "Love."

"How can anything be so beautiful?" Michelle asked the window, listening to the soaring, heart-warming arias. "How could Mimi not fall in love with him?" Not getting any reply, her fractious mind tended back nine months to her breakup with her ex-, Graham Crocker.

After that breakup, which she had taken gracefully much to his chagrin and disgust Michelle had gotten herself into a couple of online relationships where she assumed, for the first time in her life, a submissive's role.

She wasn't terribly happy with her choice but a guy she had settled on, Derek, in St. John's Nfld., had made her happy, to a limited degree. He gets a seven, she thought.

Then, a week or so later, along came this other guy, Philip, a Briton from Portsmouth, England, whose sometimes funny, infrequently serious but always engrossing, little bondage stories, held her interest. Not only was he a pretty good writer, she thought early on in the long string of correspondence and notes he had sent her in March, he seemed inordinately interested in her.

In fact, they had collaborated in writing a small piece of fiction for a story contest and Philip had sent it along with an earnest, well-written covering letter. That same day, she had had a discussion with Kelli, her housemate, about this guy and his writings and they had both agreed he seemed to be an honorable, trustworthy sort and his stories were at times funny and sexy.

For her part, Michelle, a curvy, bright, university-educated young mom, had particularly liked seeing her name in the first of a series of 40 short stories he had sent her, describing her kidnap and bondage outside her Prince Edward Island home and her transport to a life of sex and servitude to men and women of a drug cartel in Ecuador.

But these were only words; this day, she wanted something more. She wanted to be loved again but the word struck anxiety in her heart, just as it did when her ex- had begun courting her at York University years ago in Toronto.

But at 3 p.m., that rainy, cool April, things started to happen that would lead to Michelle's first-ever bondage experience - in New York City - with her newfound confidante and co-author, Sailor , a guy she had met but never known.

"Riiing," the phone rang.

"Ding-dong," the front doorbell sounded at exactly the same time.

"Yeh, right," Michelle said, turning towards the door. "Never rains but it pours; no calls or visitors all friggin' week and here, Saturday afternoon, everyone wants me."

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

"Witchie," as she was known to her online pals, chose to answer the door first. She got up and walked quickly to the front door, ignoring the ringing telephone for the moment. Opening the door, she was greeted by an cold draught from the PEI spring and a young, bundled-up UPS courier, shivering in the grey afternoon dampness.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Murrin? Packages for you; UPS, please sign here," the skinny, pale courier said, showing her his clipboard with a mittened hand.

"Really? What are these?" she asked, trying to ignore the ringing phone in the living room.

"Dunno, ma'am, I just delivers," he said, turning over a large, saran-wrapped bouquet of 12 long-stemmed roses, a little note, a carton that suggested a bottle of wine inside as well as a securely-wrapped, one-cubic-foot UPS cardboard box.

Michelle penned her neat signature on the pink form and brought her packages into the living room, thanked the young man and closed her door, hurrying to the telephone as she pulled her sweater more closely around her.

"Who on earth would be sending me flowers, a card and stuff? It's 'way after St. Valentine's Day," she said aloud as she ran to pick up the receiver after the16th ring.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Michelle, Philip here," came the assured, young British voice.

Oh no, she thought. It's like I know this guy so well yet I don't know him at all.

"Philip who?" she asked, curiosity replacing her usually cautious manner.

" Sailor , your co-author pal; 'member me?"

Michelle's blue eyes widened in surprise and she looked out the window at Duncan wandering in the front yard to gather her thoughts. How'd he get my number and what's on his alleged mind, anyway?

"Yes, of course, sailor, er, Philip," Michelle said, sitting to rally her thoughts. "It's just that I've never heard your voice before and you really caught me off guard. And how on earth did you get my phone number?"

"Did you get the flowers and things yet?" he replied, evading the latter question.

"Yes, they just arrived; thank you if they are from you."

"Uh-huh," she heard him reply.

"Would you like to open them? The packages that is? I'll wait."

"OK, it's your quarter, sailor."

Michelle set the phone down, sniffed the gentle bouquet of the long-stemmed roses, found a jar and plunked them in with a little water. She next read the card whose typewritten message said, simply, "To 'Witchie,' from a favourite admirer of your candor and warm humanity. Your Sailor."

"Awww, how sweet," Michelle said, putting the card on the table beside the flowers. She then grappled with the box and opened it, pulling out a pair of shiny, new, chrome-plated handcuffs, with no key, she noticed, and a long, light-blue nightgown.

"Wow, what has this guy got in mind, anyway?" Michelle said aloud as her housemate, Kelli, wandered in.

She then quickly turned to the wine-bottle-shaped package, unwrapped it and saw a 750 mL bottle of her favorite Ontario Reisling, Henry of Pelham Botris Affected .

"Sailor, is all this from you?" Michelle said, returning to the phone while Philip waited patiently at the other end.

"Uh-huh. S'mee."

"Well thank you very much; I hardly know where to begin. Goodness, roses, Reisling and things in early spring. I'm impressed. But we're way, way after St. Valentines."

"You're quite welcome, 'Witchie,'" he replied, his baritone voice giving her a small flood of images of what this guy looked like.

"What're you doing April 16 - 18?"

"Dunno. You?"

"How about a weekend in New York City. Ever been there?"

"Er, no, but I've heard it's a pretty fast-paced place - faster 'n' a New York minute, like? You've been there?"

"Yeh," Philip replied. "I was there last in 1976 aboard HMS Bacchante for the bicentennial naval review; we anchored in the Hudson River at the foot of 57 th Street and I was one among 10,000 sailors in town that July 3 - 4.

"Anyroad, I was just wonderin', hopin', if you would like to fly down for a performance of La Boheme at the Met? And in our time off, we, umm, might exchange some story ideas in the first-person and take in the sights if we get a mo'.

"Can I think about this, please?"

"Sure, take all the time you want; but I would like to hear your decision by the time we ring off."

Is this guy British or what, she thought. Ring off?

"But let me tell you what I have, or soon will, arrange: if you say yes, today, I will book a flight for you from Charlottetown airport to Halifax International and on to JFK in New York, on Air Canada.

"The onboard service from Halifax to JFK is great, the movies are mostly current and the flight is only about two hours now."

Michelle was caught off-guard but her imagination was sparked by the invitation of a fun-filled weekend with a guy she barely knew in New York City. She was tiring of life in rural Prince Edward Island and a weekend fling in springtime New York might be just the tonic for her cabin fever.

"Are you listening, Michelle?"

"Yes, go on; I'm here."

"Well, you'd depart Charlottetown 1030, Friday, April 16; arrive YHX at 1110; depart Halifax at 1200 and arrive JFK at 1500 local. The weekend's on me. Just expect to be tied up that weekend." She heard a small chuckle.

:"I suspect you mean that quite literally, Philip," Michelle replied, visions of her fictitious frogtie in a van crossing her mind quickly as a small smile tickled across her lips.

"Uh-huh," he replied. "A lot of it depends on you, though, dear heart."

"Hmmm, let me think about this," Michelle dithered as she tried to focus. 'Think straight, think true, Michelle, think,' she said to herself as she looked out her living-room window.

"Gosh, this is all so sudden: I'll need identification, money, clothes and stuff. . . . "

"That can all be arranged in time," Philip replied assertively.

"How will I know it's you if I decide to go and when I get there?" she asked, a little doubt creeping in. "I don't even know what you look like and I certainly didn't recognize your voice. And where'll I meet you?"

"Michelle, here's what I want you to do. Write it down if you want: use the money I will send you and buy a grey, three-piece business suit with a white silk blouse. Shoes your choice. Underthings optional but not absolutely necessary.

"Snap both handcuffs on your right wrist and pin a little handcuff brooch I will send you shortly onto your jacket at Halifax International Airport. Meet me at Tim Horton's in the departures area and I'll look for you.

"I'll be there well before you and I will look for a 32-year-old woman, in a grey business suit with a pair of handcuffs on her right wrist, a little brooch on her jacket, seated in a prominent table at the coffee shop. Order a medium and leave the rest up to me. It'll be too simple.

"What will you do if I say yes?" Michelle blurted, looking once again at the expensive gifts she had just received in the past few minutes - a prelude to her extraordinary invitation.

"Well, I'll probably smile and do nothing; nearly everything's arranged now," Philip replied. "Will you come? Pardon the double-entendre ."

"Yes, I will, but help me with a few details?" Michelle replied; thinking, hoping, this could be one of the most amorous, adventurous weekends of her year, maybe her recent lifetime.