OnlyIfItPleases

by Unknown

  “She’s not moving that fast, but oh yeah. Especially if I was using rougher rope, she could be quite abraded at the end. And that presents a safe sex danger too—once you have little cuts, you’re vulnerable to all sorts of things. I’m using virgin rope—no one has ever been tied up in this rope. I’ll throw it away when we’re done, or only use it with Vanessa.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you wet, dear?”

  She blushed crimson. She liked it when he was talking, it meant the attention was away from her. She was wet. The rope rubbed against her pussy in a mixture of irritation and arousal. It probably would have been more of the former and less of the latter if she hadn’t been kept so frustrated—another indication that Master Hart knew what he was doing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to come in front of all these people, especially not by rubbing herself on rope, but yes, she was wet. “Only if it pleases you, Master Hart.”

  He made a show of rubbing his finger on the rope she’d already traversed. “I’d say she’s telling the truth.”

  She blushed harder.

  “The biggest danger is this, actually, and this is true of most predicament bondage—the sub wants to succeed. You’re there with your safety shears, ready to get her down. You’re paying attention and making sure you can rescue her if something goes wrong. You’re all experienced Doms. But if that’s the way the scene ends, the sub will feel she’s failed unless you set it up so that she knows she’ll be honored, cherished and respected even if that happens. The danger in this scene is that if Vanessa can’t make it to the end of the rope, she’s going to feel bad. And there are two solutions to this—one, make sure that your sub can succeed, or two, make sure that your sub knows that it’s okay if she can’t.”

  Vanessa crept forward. Her limbs were straining, but she was sure she could succeed. Then she felt the knot ahead of her. She’d seen it coming, but hadn’t guessed how just that little bump would make advancing vastly more difficult. It rubbed right against her clit, which was distracting to say the least. She stretched farther with her feet. She knew now why he’d asked her to take off the heels. This would actually be easier in them. Sweat broke out on her forehead.

  “It’s okay if you can’t, Vanessa,” Hart whispered to her. “But I do enjoy seeing you try.”

  She lurched over the knot in a kind of a jump. The landing wasn’t pleasant, but she didn’t have to take it on her toes, because the rope bent just enough that she got a moment to touch her heels before she had to be up again.

  Hart laughed. “Another thing about predicament bondage. Your sub will try to figure out how to cheat. And if she does, that’s all part of the game. She’s figured out a clever solution and outsmarted you. Accept it gracefully.”

  “Actually, Master Hart—may I speak?” She wondered for a moment if she’d blown it by speaking without being spoken to.

  “Please. If you can let people know what you’re feeling, that will help them as tops. And that’s what we’re all about here.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I’ll be doing that again. It hurt. Although…if it’s what I need to do to get to the end…”

  “And why do you need to get to the end? I mean, you could just stay there, right, and obviously I’m not going to be able to keep you there forever.”

  “Because you told me to.”

  “I didn’t exactly, I simply told you that you’d be rewarded if you did. But reach deeper inside. Why do you want to get to the end?”

  “Because I want to please you. I want to make you proud of me.” The moment she said it, she realized that was true. Should she be feeling that so strongly for a one-weekend Dom? It didn’t seem healthy, but she felt it nonetheless.

  He smiled and turned back to the others. “So. Most important thing in predicament bondage, besides physical safety, is let the sub know that her effort is pleasing. Make sure she’s emotionally okay. Because it’s easy to feel like a failure, if you just can’t do what your Dom asks you to do. And a lot of predicament bondage is set up to fail…you create a tension between two different kinds of failure, and force the sub to see how long they can keep it in balance. When they don’t, they still need to be cherished. Got it?”

  Most of the Doms nodded.

  “So lots of ways you can do this. You can let them know that you don’t expect them to succeed, and that it’s just about how far they get. You can set up an amount of time for them to be in the situation, with success being defined as lasting out that time—but be ready to honor their effort even if they don’t make it.”

  Vanessa continued to make her way down the rope, slowly. The next knot, she noticed, was bigger than the others. Damn him. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get past it. She lost track of his voice somewhere as the rope rubbed against her pussy. It was starting to get sore, and that was making the journey less erotic. But she was still determined to move forward.

  She leaned forward, grabbed the rope just past the big knot, and pushed down on it. The rope was pretty taut, but it still had a little give. Enough to let her get over the big knot. She looked around to see if Hart noticed, but of course the other Doms had. They pointed, and one of them called out, “Your sub is cheating.”

  Hart shrugged. “She’s not cheating, she’s using her head. I didn’t tell her she couldn’t do that, and I didn’t stop her. I’m in charge of making the scene work. In some bondage scenes, you can expect your sub to cooperate, and not get loose when she has a chance. In predicament bondage, you need to set the rules and make sure your knots hold—and can’t be reached. Well done, little one.”

  Vanessa beamed.

  “Just one knot to go,” Hart observed. “Then we can move on to our next demo.”

  It wasn’t even a very big knot. I can do this. Using her hands, it would be easy.

  Hart reached over the line she was moving on and got a short length of rope. Suddenly, he grabbed her. In a few quick seconds her hands were tied tightly behind her back.

  “It’s still not cheating. But now you can’t do it.”

  She glared at him for a moment, and then remembered what he’d said about giving him dirty looks. Besides, she wasn’t upset with him. She just felt like pouting. She pushed out her lip in an exaggerated way and then smiled. “Yes, Master. Hart.” She had almost forgotten that too. Her brain had been addled by the constant pressure of the rope. But even without her hands, she could still do it. She moved forward, rubbed her clit over the knot, and got to the other end.

  Hart took out a pair of safety scissors from his pocket and cut the middle of the rope. All the tension went out of it. Vanessa gave herself a little shake to get her dress to hopefully slide down from where the rope had tugged it, and grinned. Success.

  Hart hugged her and then kissed her. His lips didn’t linger, but it was enough. “Good girl,” he whispered. “Ready for the next step, or need a rest?”

  “I’m okay, as long as… Well, my pussy could use a break from rope,” she whispered back. A thrill shivered through her at being in a conspiracy with him in front of all those Doms. The fact that he consulted with her was their secret.

  “Understood.” He raised his voice. “Go get a bottle of water and have a few sips, and then we’ll get started with the rest. Oh, your hands are tied. Jannah, could you help her with the water?”

  “Sure.” The dark-haired Domme got up. Hart answered questions from the audience while Jannah fetched Vanessa a bottle of water and held it to her lips as she took sips. For a moment, she thought Hart had told Jannah what to do because she was a woman, but then she realized it was probably just that he didn’t want a man with her. A little jealous, even of this? She hoped so. She listened as she sipped. He was a good teacher, she decided, patient and clear.

  Hart turned and smiled at her, signaling her forward, and then to twirl. Jannah smiled at her and returned to her seat. Hart untied her hands. “Now, take your dress off please.”

  Are you sure? she wanted to ask him. But she knew he was. Did he understand tha
t she wasn’t used to being naked in front of people? A Dom like him probably had naked subs before him all the time, but it made her blush. Still, she knew she’d do it, because she wanted to serve. She pulled the stretchy dress over her head in a hurry, before she lost her nerve. She shivered.

  “Hands back where I can bind them. Kevin, can we turn the heat up a bit? I don’t want her getting cold.”

  She put her hands behind her and Hart tied her wrists together again. She noticed Kevin get up, presumably to go adjust the thermostat. All those Doms, and yet Hart asked for it to be adjusted for me.

  “So we’re going to do a simple kind of predicament here,” said Hart. He gestured her forward, then moved behind her. She blushed more. His move left her with no kind of cover. On the other hand, he was playing with her hair while he talked, and that felt good. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation.

  She felt her hair being pulled upward. He moved in front of her, a rough-looking natural rope in hand. It took her a moment, but she realized he had braided it through her hair… and now had pulled it through the pulley and forward. He put the rope through a second O-ring attached to the ceiling a few feet ahead of her. Then he tugged down on the rope and her hair tugged at her scalp. She went up on her toes to try to relieve the pressure.

  “Perfect.” He tied the rope to his belt, keeping the tension. She found that she could relax just slightly and still be okay.

  He reached down and tweaked her nipples, softly at first, then moving up to pinching and tugging. They bunched up, hardened and extended. “Mmm, perfect.”

  “Thank you, Master Hart.” Being exposed wasn’t so bad if she was perfect. She smiled at him, and the corners of his mouth crinkled in approval.

  He fished out two clothespins from his pocket and attached one to each nipple. There was a chain running between the two clothespins, but they were otherwise ordinary plastic clothespins. She winced as they went on, but they were bearable. The chain tugged a little. It had a heavy O-shaped ring in the middle. Nothing beyond what she could stand, still. She took a deep breath.

  He knows I’m not into pain.

  “It’s worth a note here that Vanessa is not a pain slut. So she’s going to be working to minimize the pain, not to maximize it. I know a few subs who will try to make a predicament worse, rather than better—and you have to adjust if you’re playing with someone like that.” He unhooked the rope from his belt. For a moment it was loose, and Vanessa was able to rest all the way onto her heels.

  Then he threaded the rope through the O-ring between her breasts and pulled up. It tugged her hair and her breasts all at once, and she went back to tiptoes instinctively. He tied the rope off on the O-ring. He kissed her cheek lightly. “Use your safe word if you need to. Whenever you need to,” he said. He said it softly to her, but loud enough the audience could probably hear it too.

  That reminder made it easier. “Yes, Master Hart.” Her body strained, but she could take it—for a little while.

  “So she can stay up on her toes, but that’s going to be hard after a while, especially as she’s already done a fair amount of that.” Hart was turning to the audience again. “She can take the pain…a tug on her hair and a tug on her perky little nipples. But she’s got another choice.”

  Vanessa shifted her weight and took a step forward. The pull of the chain lessened a little, but the tug on her hair got worse. She preferred that.

  “She can decide where she wants the pain. And that’s the predicament, the choice. The longer she’s in the predicament, the more her feet, her scalp, and her breasts will be under stress. But she controls which is taking the stress, and can change positions to take it in whatever place is best. This gets her a variety of sensations, and exactly what sensation she most wants to deal with at the moment. From a menu I’ve chosen from, of course, which is the fun for me.”

  “If you used clover clamps, they’d tighten,” offered one of the Doms.

  “Yeah, clover clamps can make for great predicaments, but I wouldn’t use them here. We’ll see why in a bit. Be very careful, and think everything out. Always think what’s the worst that can happen, and assume it will.”

  Sure enough, as he said, eventually she got tired of the tug on her scalp, and she went to her toes. She couldn’t stay there forever, so she walked forward again, and thought better of it. A little tug on her nipples didn’t seem so bad anymore, so she took a step back, relieving the tug on her hair. Her nipples stretched toward the ceiling.

  If she pulled back far enough, she realized, the clothespins would come off entirely. It was tempting, but he’d just put them back on, and her limited experience with nipple clamps had shown her that they hurt worse coming off than they did staying on. And yet, they’d have to come off eventually, and the longer she waited, the more they’d hurt. Another predicament. Sweat broke out on her brow.

  He glanced back at her now and then, but went on with the lesson. The Doms raised their hands and came up with all sorts of ideas of predicaments to place subs in. One involved an anal hook. One involved an enema. Never playing with that Dom. It was hard to pay attention, because she had a more pressing concern—or more accurately, pulling concerns.

  The temptation to yank the clothespins off kept coming back in her mind, becoming more and more tempting. With them off, there’d be no tension on her hair either. But it had to be a kind of failure to do that. Still, even if he put them back, it might be worth it for a moment’s release. Tears started to flow down her cheeks. She never cried in front of other people, especially strangers and near strangers. And yet, when Hart touched her shoulder she felt as if something had released inside her. All the frustration of her too-big house and the problems paying for its upkeep that she’d been holding in had found an outlet. The tears kept flowing, faster now. She didn’t relish the pain, but she didn’t hate it. It had a purpose.

  “You know how to end it, don’t you?” he murmured.

  “Yes. Only if it pleases you. Figured it out a while back.”

  “And still you struggle on.”

  “Only if it pleases you.”

  The whole place had gotten quiet. Her eyes were too blurry to see clearly, but the Dominants seemed to her like parishioners, all neatly arranged in three rows. They were watching her, seeing when she would decide to give in. She knew she would soon. Each second brought more pain to her head, her feet, her nipples. And yet, she could do it. She could last another second. And another.

  “Some girls are too stubborn for their own good.” Hart pushed his hand between her legs. She hadn’t thought she’d be wet, but apparently she was. His fingers curled up inside her. His thumb rubbed her clit. She bit down on her lip. If she came, she’d not be able to maintain the delicate balance. One more predicament.

  But his fingers were insistent. And when he whispered, “Come, little one,” she did. Her knees weakened, but he was right there to support her. It didn’t stop the rope from pulling on her hair briefly, or the clothespins from tugging at her nipples for a moment before the rope yanked the pegs off entirely. The mix of sensations—his hands, the flood of blood back into the tips of her breasts, the pull and release on her hair—were too much to process. Instead she screamed and collapsed into his arms as her body shuddered. Her pussy squeezed and relaxed, the fire in her breasts feeding it somehow, making her orgasm go on and on.

  She felt as though she were floating. She would have fallen in a puddle to the floor, however, if he had not held her. There was a sound like clothespins snapping, and it took her a moment to realize what it was. Oh my god, I came in front of everyone. They’re clapping.

  He sank down to the floor, cradling her. The clothespins flew up, but the rope was just long enough that the pull on her hair when the pins and the knots holding them reached the ceiling was mild if not especially pleasant. His warm body, on the other hand, was very comforting. She tried to turn, to hide herself from the audience, but found it tugged her head too much. He took the scissors fr
om his pocket and cut the rope. She snuggled up to him, putting her head on his shoulder.

  “Thank you, Master,” she murmured.

  He didn’t correct her, but stroked her hair.

  “That was amazing,” said a Dom. She wasn’t sure who. She didn’t care. She just wanted to never be let go, ever.

  “See why I didn’t use clover clamps?” asked Hart, addressing the crowd. “When you have a girl—or a guy, with that much tension on their nipples, you want the clamps to come off rather than stay on if the tension gets too high. To avoid permanent damage. Now… Fifteen-minute break, and then we’ll brainstorm some ideas for predicaments.”

  Hart looked back down at her, squeezing her. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I wanted to drive that point through before they forgot.”

  Vanessa smiled at him. “It’s okay. I like healthy nipples too.” Hers still ached, although they were getting better. She wasn’t concerned they were damaged—it just took a while for the sting to go away after the blood rushed back into them, awakening all her nerves. Around her, people were getting up and stretching. Hart ignored them all, focusing on her. It was a bittersweet taste of what it might be like to have this man all to herself.

  “How are you?” Hart asked.

  “A little sore, but—I’m okay. You’re a sadist.”

  “You scream beautifully.”

  She pouted at him. “Now that you’ve heard it once, you don’t need to hear it again.”

  A dark cloud crossed his face, and she wondered if the same thing had happened to her. It might be worth screaming to have climaxes like that. To be with him more. And yet—no. She wasn’t the sharing type, and Hart wasn’t a one-woman man. To have a weekend fling with him was one thing. To have a relationship with him would be excruciating. She closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to stare into his.

  She stayed there with her eyes shut for several long moments. His arms were strong and gave her a sense of safety. But her heart was telling her to flee. Of course, she’d come in his car, and there was nowhere to flee to, not physically. That didn’t mean she couldn’t erect some barriers in her heart, however, before she got hurt. Or over her skin.