by Holley Trent
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“All right, motherfuckers,” Clay called out. “The informal poll y’all took amongst yourselves like the trashy, ungrateful heathens y’all are suggested you wanted better entertainment here, and that you wanted to see Timmy do a rope trick.”
“Tie me up and spank me, Tim,” Stella shouted and wriggled her ass.
Behind her back, Carine pantomimed opening a switchblade, and made a Want me to? gesture to Valerie.
Fortunately, Leah wasn’t paying either of them any attention. Her focus was up front, so Valerie scrunched her nose at Carine and mouthed, “Not just yet.”
Carine nodded and put her invisible weapon away.
“Like we always say,” Clay continued, “Don’t try this shit at home without proper supervision and yadda yadda yadda. I don’t know why I tell y’all, because you motherfuckers are gonna do what you want. Go on and dislocate something but don’t come whining to me when you do. Remember—everything ain’t for every body, okay?”
The crowd muttered a collective assent.
“I said, okay?”
They said “Yes” a little louder.
“You hear me, Stella?”
“Yeah, yeah.” The woman pouted.
Valerie cut her gaze to Carine, who rolled her eyes.
“All right.” Clay rubbed his palms together. “Timmy, you get the rope. I’ll find you a volunteer.”
Oh, hell.
Valerie wished the floor would open up and swallow her because she had a good hunch who his “random” volunteer was going to be.
“What’s he going to do?” Leah asked.
“He’s probably going to demonstrate a couple of simple knots,” Carine said. “You never know what’s going to happen if the volunteer is feeling frisky, though. Sometimes, one thing leads to another and a demonstration about one thing will segue into another. The best blowjob demonstration we ever had happened after someone gave a little talk about strap-on harnesses and dildos.”
“Lord, have mercy,” Leah said.
“Intense, right?” Valerie said. “Ready to go? It’s okay if this is too much for you.” Please, be too much for you, Valerie pleaded silently.
Leah sucked her teeth. “Girl, shut up. Damn. You need to get yourself some dick. There’s gotta be someone here who’ll take one for the team and lay you.”
Carine pinched her lips together, but her laugh came through her nose, anyway, as a snort.
Valerie sighed. She needed better friends and a less scandalous sister.
Clay stood in front of them, rubbing his chin as if he had no earthly idea who to pick. “Eenie, meenie, miney…”
“Ho?” Stella suggested.
“Bitch, I will cut you,” Carine said.
“No need.” Clay took Valerie by the wrist and gave her a little pull to get her moving.
“Damn you, Clay,” she whispered.
“You could say no.”
“You’re a calculating, evil jackass.”
“Oh, honey, I’ve been called so much worse, and they’re usually coming when they’re saying it.”
He guided Valerie up to the stage and stationed her in front of Tim.
Tim crossed his arms over his chest and eyed her from neck to feet as if he’d never seen her up close before.
Good actor.
But she was better. She could pretend she had no idea what that rope was for.
“All right, folks,” Clay said. “Since Val’s never played with Timmy…”
She suppressed a snort.
“Let’s count off the things for her that Timmy doesn’t like. Say it with me, now. Number one—”
“Telling him how to do his job,” they said.
“Yeah, that topping from the bottom stuff ain’t gonna fly with him. Number two—”
“Taking without asking.”
“That’s right, Timmy likes his personal space. Don’t touch him unless he tells you to. And number three—”
“Not stopping at your limit.”
“Say it one more time for the folks in the back.”
“Not stopping at your limit.”
“Good job, boys and girls. We’re all about the safe, sane, and consensual play here. Don’t do more than your body says is okay, no matter what the jackass holding the whip would tell you.”
“Whip her!” came a voice that sounded suspiciously like Leah’s.
Valerie closed her eyes and tried not to roll them again. She and her little sister were going to have to have a nice chat later on.
“And now, without further ado, let’s get started,” Clay said. “You gonna talk them through it, Tim?”
“No, but if you want to narrate from the sidelines, I won’t stop you.”
“I could do that.” Clay stepped off the platform. “The stage is all yours.”
Here we go. Valerie drew in a long, cleansing breath and let it out slowly. The last time she’d been a part of a demonstration had been the beginning of the end of her relationship with her first dom. He’d been on a power trip and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and she’d been too naïve to know that wasn’t okay.
Tim unfurled the long black rope and skimmed the end of it along her jaw. Leaning in, he whispered, “Give me a word or phrase just in case.”
“Good neighbor,” she said without thinking.
“Funny.” He turned her so her back was to the room and pushed her hair over her shoulder, pausing to fondle one curly end. “Where’s your bun tonight?”
“One of my hair elastics broke during the ride over.”
“Your hair being down suits you better, anyway.”
“I’m sure it suits you, too.”
“I like what I like. I don’t apologize for that.” He grasped her left wrist and pulled across the small of her back, and then the other. He whispered, “Have you been tied up before?”
“Not by anyone who knew what he was doing.”
“Jesus.” He moved behind her and said into her other ear, “If I move your body in a specific way, hold it there. I don’t like to talk much when I’m working, but if it’ll make you more comfortable, I’ll explain everything as I’m doing it.”
She forced down a swallow and nodded. “I…I don’t believe you want to hurt me. I think you’ll do what you can to make sure I’m taken care of.”
“Too bad the same can’t be said for you regarding taking care of me.”
“Tim—”
“We’ll talk about it later. And we will talk about it. Perhaps it’s time we cleared the air.” He tucked the doubled-over rope beneath her wrists.
“I think Tim’s doing a beginner’s knot for y’all,” Clay said. “Notice he’s not looping the rope between the wrists and is tying off right in front. This is pretty basic. If you want to restrict your partner’s arms behind their back, that’s a good knot to start with. If they’re squirmy, though, and you need them to keep their hands still, you need also secure their arms to their torso to pin them.
Tim undid the rope, rubbed Valerie’s wrists, and adjusted her arms so the back of one hand pressed high up on her spine and against her bra strap. He made her hold onto her forearm with the other hand.
“Is that uncomfortable?” Tim whispered.
“There’s a pull in my right shoulder when I turn my wrist like that, but it doesn’t hurt.”
Yet.
She didn’t say it, but she really didn’t need to. He would have known better than anyone that adding the pressure of rope would increase the discomfort for a while, at least.
“With her arms secured in this position, Valerie’s upper body is completely secured. She can’t touch herself, can’t touch Tim, and she’s now more reliant on him for balance, should he need to move her, and also to have specific needs and wants met. If she wants something, she’s going to have to depend on Tim to give it to her…assuming he sees fit to do so. Sometimes, bondage is about control. Other times, it’s about comfort. Some people feel like the rope is hugging them and they i
magine that’s their partner.”
Tim tightened the ropes around her biceps and pulled her shoulders back a bit when he secured the knot. “Use that word if you need to,” he said.
“I’m fine.” The burn between her shoulder blades was annoying, but she’d endured worse—back when she didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to.
He pushed up an eyebrow but kept working.
“Sometimes, rope is used to satisfy a dominant’s visual cravings. Maybe he wants his partner to thrust out her breasts or arch her back in a certain way,” Clay said. He looked to Tim, who Valerie saw shaking his head in her periphery.
“No? All right. Sorry, folks. No titty show today.”
The peanut gallery snickered.
“And sometimes, the rope is just a reminder to a submissive that it’s time to be serious and that until her dom unties those knots, she needs to be in that headspace where she’s letting him control the situation and isn’t involuntarily trying to preempt or subvert him.”
Tim grabbed a knot behind her back and gave it the slightest tug downward.
Valerie knelt.
He tapped one knee and then the other, and she spread them.
Then he touched her chin, and she knelt up.
She wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending she didn’t know what she was doing, but she simply couldn’t resist him. She wanted to make Tim look good, not that that was such a chore.
Finally, he walked around and put his hands to her waist to help her stand.
He started tugging at his knots, and the tension in her shoulders began receding as Clay started talking again.
“Of course, there are other uses for rope. As far as I know, we don’t have anyone here who does suspensions, but naturally, a submissive would be bound for that. You could also use bondage in conjunction with other aspects of BDSM such as flogging, scarification, and all sorts of teasing I’m sure Valerie wouldn’t like to demonstrate in public.”
He looked at her.
Since the demonstration was over, she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Okay. Just making sure. I never like leaving any opportunity for kink on the table.”
Tim rubbed her arms and wrists and said to the folks on the floor, “If you have any specific questions about shibari and kinbaku, I can try to answer them for you. Remember, there are levels to everything you do. You don’t need to be a master to try it with your partner, but I would strongly suggest that in the beginning, you work with a buddy who’s forgiving of the occasional chafing or knot you can’t get out.”
“Are you offering private tutoring, Tim?” Stella asked.
“I’ll give you the same answer I always do,” he said.
“Which is what?” Valerie asked through clenched teeth.
He didn’t respond, so she stepped off the stage and tried to make a beeline for the front door, and found herself immediately flanked by Carine and Leah who started chatting a mile a minute at her, and before she could process any damn thing they’d said, Tim scooped Valerie up by the waist, folded her over his shoulder, and carried her through the crowd.
She gave his back an ineffectual scratch. “Put me down, you big oaf. The demonstration’s over.”
He didn’t set her down until he’d carried her off the porch and around to the back of the house. Even then, he grabbed her wrist and kept her moving.
“Let go of me.” She tugged her arm.
“Fine.” He did, but then got behind her and kept her moving along just by proximity. If she stopped walking, he’d bump her, and given he had quite a few pounds on her, a bump would have probably sent her tumbling to the ground and hard.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Not far. Just follow the path.”
Sighing, she walked faster to put some distance between them but realized there wasn’t all that far to go.
There was a little creek near the edge of the woods and it had a dock.
“Sit,” he said.
“I know you heard what I said. I said the demonstration is over. I don’t want to play with you.”
“You act like that, and yet the moment I lean in close”—which he did—“you’re suddenly sweet as pie.”
She sat, crossed her arms, and huffed. She was not going to sweet for him. The ropes were off, and no one was watching.
It didn’t matter that she wanted to be sweet. She wanted to hear that sound of satisfaction he made when he was having his way with her—when he was the one making the decisions.
“Why are you fighting this?” He knelt beside her, and even with the dim light from the dock she could see the furrowing of his brow and the tight set of his jaw.
“What, letting you be the dom?”
“You and I both know that’s just one component of my personality, which I suppress when I need to function in public. I turn it off unless I need to use it in the same way you don’t let just anyone give you instructions. Isn’t that right?”
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.
“We have a rare situation where we like each other outside of all the games. You do like me, don’t you pretty girl?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Because you’d have to say yes? Well, I’m not dancing on eggshells anymore. I’m going to ask you questions with the specific intent of hearing you tell me yes. I’ve been so concerned that you were going to flee, but I should have known you were going to do that anyway.”
“And I still plan to.”
“I understand that. And understanding that means I just have to adjust the way I treat you.”
“What does that mean? Do you skip right ahead to the end of the honeymoon period that turns you into that shitty dom who wants to put a collar on me? You want free rein to terrorize me in my private life?”
Having the woods at her back, she couldn’t be sure if there was some wild hungry beast behind her or if that growling sound was coming from Tim.
“I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences,” he said. “I’m sorry you wanted to quit the scene and that you stumbled back into it this way. And I’m sorry our association up to this point has been so convoluted. At work every day, I’m used to asking for what I want in clear terms, and I haven’t done that with you because I was afraid that you’d push me aside before you got the chance to know me.”
“What are you saying?”
“I want to remarry and have kids within the next couple of years. That’s what I’m pursuing you for.”
Her stomach sank. What he wanted—those weren’t temporary things.
Those were things she couldn’t have. Not yet, anyway.
“Those things aren’t negotiable for me,” he said. “The prospect has turned more than a few women away, and I never chased them back. I’m chasing you because I know we’d be good together.”
She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes as she pulled in a deep breath. “So, let me clarify something here. You’re saying being with you comes with the caveat that if I’m not looking for those things, we can’t associate.”
“That’s a pretty brutal way of putting it, but yeah. I guess that’s what it means. So, now you have it. We’ve come to a juncture where touching you drives me insane because I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep you.”
Oh no.
No no no.
That was attachment he was talking about. That man—that rare gem of a man—was talking about keeping her.
The Fates had sprung a trap on her. They were testing her. They were teasing her with something she’d be unlikely to ever find with any other man.
It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.
She scrambled to her feet, brushed the dirt off her ass, and started for the yard. She could wait in the car until Carine and Leah were ready to go, or just go and pick them up later.
“So, that’s that, huh?” he called after her.
Fuck Clay. Ought to maim him for calling Tim. She wanted to choke him—and scream while she did it for settin
g her up that way.
“I’m sorry, Tim. I can’t give you more than what I already have.”
“You can. You just don’t want to, and I think you’re being incredibly selfish.”
Valerie stopped in her tracks to process the garbage he’d just spewed, and turned. “Selfish? I’m selfish because I happen to know that ‘having it all’ is a myth for women that I’m not going to set myself up for?”
“I understand that your work is important to you,” Tim said.
“Obviously, you don’t, if you’d make that statement. I’m sorry if you feel like you’ve been led on, but I’ve always been clear that I didn’t want to be tied down. Not by you, not by anyone. It doesn’t matter how pretty the rope work is or how careful your knots are, the purpose is the same. It’s confining and I have to opt out. Again, I’m sorry.”
This time, when she turned and walked away, she didn’t stop. She fired off a Sorry to flake. Can you find a ride home? text to Carine while she was walking because she wanted to leave no room for another plea from Tim. She didn’t think she could take it—couldn’t keep refusing him, but she had to. He’d smother her. He’d do it lovingly, she was sure of that, but the result was going to be the same.
He’d put out her light or cut off her trajectory with a wedding ring.
She didn’t think he would run like her father did, but she’d still end up just like her mother—a woman who had so much potential that would, in the end, go unused.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Heidi, I’m fine. You don’t need to babysit me.” Tim swiped his wireless mouse across his desktop maybe a bit too aggressively, but anyone would have been agitated about the data in those quarterly productivity graphs. Compared to the last quarter and the one before it, his crews had actually gotten less work done. The productivity loss amounted to one entire small boat. It was no wonder he’d felt like they were always scrambling. Having the numbers in front of him, he understood why.
Heidi, in one of the armchairs on the other side of his desk, crossed her legs and drummed her fingertips on the chair arms. She ground her teeth and stared at him.
“Seriously,” he groused. “Go crunch numbers or print paychecks or something.”
