I suppose that humanity expected it to happen someday. But when it finally came... it still came as a surprise. For me it all started in a polar field tent on a cold and lonely glacier.

"Tie me up, please," Melanie said.

"Here? Are you kidding?" not believing what I heard, "it's -30 degree outside! And it's barely above freezing inside the tent!"

"Paul! I want you to tie me up, now!" she insisted and started to undress despite the temperature, "I don't care about the cold. I still feel a little feverish, I guess."

   I didn't resist for long. Using a few spare ropes I tied my assistant Melanie into a hogtie. This was almost surrealistic. OK, Melanie always had had a kinky streak. But I mean, this was Greenland! In winter!

   We had been on the Helheim glacier for four days now. And the harvest of our short geological trip had been good. We had found numerous fragments of the meteoroid that had crashed here recently, even a few big chunks. But tomorrow the helicopter would come and collect us with our stony treasure. And take us back to civilization.

   The only negative had been that Melanie had been feeling ill the day before, with a high temperature fever. But strangely, it had lasted only a few hours. And didn't her sudden kinky mood indicate that she was quite cured now?

   So I pulled the ropes a little tighter. Melanie, despite the cold, smiled in delight.

* * *

   Three days later we were back at the Geophysical Institute. My colleagues and I had brought back thousands of meteorites from all over the world, the tiny residues of the impressive meteoroid shower the Earth had witnessed about a month ago. Next all these pieces had to be cataloged, weighted, measured and otherwise scientifically analyzed. Usually this was boring routine work, for which I hired half a dozen students.

   But these meteorites, they were all but boring. We quickly understood that they were different. They contained too much carbon and oxygen, and far too little silicon and iron. Wherever they had come from, these rocks had traveled far, over trillions of miles.

"Where are the others?" I asked, entering the big lab where only one student, going by the name of Paula, was at work with the spectrometer.

"Called in ill, all of them," was the answer, "too bad, I need Susan to help me, recalibrating this apparatus. I was just about to phone you about it, Professor."

"What's the problem then?"

"I keep getting readings for biological material on this batch, proteins mostly."

"Yeah, on a meteorite, that's pretty unlikely," I dismissed it.

   I sat down, intrigued nevertheless. And therefore I never noticed that the blond girl had tied herself to the chair she was sitting on.

* * *

   Well, everybody knows what happened next. That spectrometer had been functioning OK, and most of the stones from space were really infested by an alien virus. It took my assistant Melanie and me four more days to confirm this astonishing discovery.  

   By then... it was already far too late. Earth had been contaminated, infected by bugs from space. The virus spread like a wild fire. Soon half of Paris came down with the flu, then Europe. Within a month the virus from space provoked a worldwide epidemic. Stock markets crashed, governments fell. And I was fired...  

   Nevertheless, we seemed to have luck on our side. Although the virus from space turned out to be extremely contagious, it was also pretty benign. Strangely only women were affected. And there were only two symptoms: a sudden high fever, lasting only for a few hours, and... an irresistible desire to be tied up!

   It was no wonder that the virus became quickly known as the Bondage flu.

   Who was to complain? After the initial shock and outrage, no one of course. In less than a few weeks the Bondage virus had turned the world into a big kinky dream for men. And the women? Well, what is more pleasant than being enveloped, and caressed by soft, and tight, cotton rope? Humanity relaxed in ropes, thanks to the Bondage flu.  

* * *

   And that was when the space ships appeared.

   Within days after they had been sighted for the first time, the big, black ships towered over all the major cities of the world. It was like a live replay of Independence Day. Over the television and radio waves only one message was repeated over and over: "Give us your women! Or else!"

   No way, we thought. We the men of Earth, we were ready to battle to the death to save our damsels in distress from those bug-eyed monsters. And save our kinky paradise, of course.

   But alas, we never stood a chance. The same women that we wanted to defend so gallantly, they turned traitor on us, their white knights. But could we really blame them? Had we really counted on keeping our bondage crazy women happy with mere... rope?

   Of course we could not expect them to be satisfied with that. And so the women left the Earth, all of them preferring to be wrapped up by the titling tentacles of the Green Octopus Men from Sirius IV!