Tie Me Up

by Cathryn Cooper

  He presses his lips to hers, and she realises she’s never kissed him before without watching him lean closer and closer in anticipation of the impending kiss. But now, she doesn’t know what to expect, his lips are there and then they are elsewhere, and she doesn’t know how to react, how to plan. Instead, his lips light unexpected little fires wherever they land, as though he’s pressing fireflies to her skin. He is kissing the curve of her neck when he whispers, ‘undress for me’.

  She feels a jolt of panic. Get undressed? How? She can’t see anything. How will she know what she looks like? What if she does something stupid? But he is kissing her along the back of her ear, across the front of her shoulder blade, and she realises it doesn’t matter, that she’ll do as he asks because she wants to, because he wants her to.

  He helps her to stand, and then she hears him lie back down on the bed. The room around her feels too large, too empty, too alone, even though she knows it isn’t. She fights the urge to reach out for something, anything – the dresser, the edge of the bed, the closet door – and instead reaches down to find the tie of her robe. She unties it slowly, then slides it off her shoulders and lets it fall to the ground. Then, she takes a deep breath, and pulls her tank top slowly over her head and throws it over her shoulder. Her nipples are erect from the excitement and the cold air makes them pucker even more. Then she leans down, and drops her panties down over her feet, and stands back up.

  She hears Derek sigh, and tries to imagine where he is in the room, what’s he’s doing. Then his hands are on her, trailing down her hips and across her thighs, and she realises he’s sitting on the bed and she must be standing right in front of him. He takes her ass in his hands and pulls her toward him, them runs his tongue across her belly button, down her thighs.

  ‘Lie down,’ he says, and it doesn’t even sound like his voice. It’s gruffer somehow, more forceful. ‘Put your arms up,’ he says, and she does, feeling his strength as he holds both her hands above her with one of his own. Then she feels him slide the cuffs around her wrists, their furry softness caressing her skin, and then tightening and pulling just enough so that she can’t slide out. He hooks them to something – she’s not sure what – and suddenly she can’t move.

  ‘OK?’ he asks tenderly, and she can’t do anything but nod. She’s not sure what she feels – excitement, anticipation, fear, desire – she wants him to do whatever he wants to her. She would say yes to anything he asked.

  Suddenly she realises there is silence all around her. She can’t hear or feel Derek anywhere. Her skin comes alive, and she imagines this is what it’s like to be in a horror movie, where you know something’s coming for you, but you don’t know what it is or where it’s going to come from. Or like being prey – every nerve, every muscle twitching, ready to react with a flight or fight response. ‘Derek?’ she whispers. She’s afraid to break the silence, but she feels like she has to do something. ‘Derek?’

  She doesn’t hear anything. A pull on the cuffs only seems to draw them tighter around her wrists. Is he sitting there watching her? Did he leave her here? What if he’s taping her? She knows, of course, that he would never do any of these things, but the longer she waits the more the fear creeps in.

  Then, finally, she hears a noise. She pricks her ears in that direction, feeling like a wild animal. Is that him? Is it the cat? She can’t tell. She feels like her senses are deceiving her. Something cold brushes against her stomach, and she has a moment of near panic – she’s ready to rip the cuffs right off – but then she feels Derek’s tongue too, next to the coldness, and hears him crunching something in his teeth.

  He runs his tongue, along with the ice, up her stomach, leaving a tingling trail of heat and cold, until he reaches her chest and the ice melts. Her stomach does somersaults as he winds his cool tongue around one nipple and presses his palm firmly between her legs. She presses against the flat of his hand, willing him to touch her, stroke her, enter her. She has forgotten she is handcuffed to the bed that she cannot see. All of her senses are focused on just one spot – if he doesn’t split her open soon she will explode.

  ‘Please…’ she whispers, ‘please…’

  ‘Please what?’ Derek asks as he enters the bedroom, jolting her out of her fantasy. Her face is warm and prickly. She thinks about pretending she was asleep, then thinks better of it and hands the catalogue over to him.

  ‘Please…please buy me these,’ she says softly, pointing to the silk bonds with one tired, trembling finger.

  Tiger, Tiger

  by Paige Roberts

  They come for me in the dead of night. Dark-skinned hands out of the dark Indian night cover my mouth so I won’t cry out. There must be at least half a dozen people, all holding me. I cannot possibly fight them though at first I try. My frantically pounding heart is the only sound I hear. My wrists are securely bound with rough hemp rope, then my ankles. A wad of cloth is stuffed in my mouth and bound there with more rope that cuts hard into the corners of my mouth.

  All in silence, the villagers who I dined and chatted with the previous evening carry my bound and struggling nude body above their heads out of the remote Indian village and into the deeper darkness of the surrounding jungle.

  As they carry me deeper into the jungle gloom, with the sounds of night creatures and the scent of rich earth swallowing me, my panicked heart begins to slow down. I know that I am almost certain to die tonight, but I am utterly helpless to do anything about it. A resigned calm envelopes me as surely as the darkness which my eyes are slowly adjusting to. I came to this remote corner of the world seeking new experiences and adventure. Looks like I’m about to get what I came for, in spades.

  A solid stone platform about seven feet by four is my destination. It looks a little like a table or a bed, and the stone is worn smooth from years, perhaps centuries of use. There is a tree-trunk-sized post at the head and foot of the table.

  The villagers lay me down on the stone and attach my bound wrists and ankles to the posts, then withdraw, all but one. I’m a little surprised when I recognise in the moonlight the face of the kind elderly man whose home I was sleeping in. He bends over me with a sharp knife in his hand, and I can see the old puckered tiger claw scars on his face that clearly identify him.

  As he brings the blade toward my face, I have a moment of returning panic, but he only uses the knife to cut the rope that holds the gag in my mouth.

  When I can speak again, I ask him, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘You came here following the legend of the tiger goddess. Tonight, you will see her. It is a great honour, son. If you are alive in the morning, we will release you.’

  I can’t think of anything to say to that. It’s just too far outside of the realm of any kind of reality I know.

  ‘Listen,’ the dark-skinned wizened man says.

  And I do. In the distance, a tiger’s roar echoes, and the other night creatures go silent out of respect.

  ‘She comes.’ The old man disappears back up the trail.

  ‘Wait! Come back!’ I shout, but he is gone in a moment. My own shout echoes in the silence of the jungle.

  The tiger’s roar is my only answer.

  ‘Don’t leave me out here!’ I shout in futile rage as loud as I can at the old man who is long gone.

  And the tiger shouts back, closer now.

  I struggle against the ropes, working my wrists, trying desperately to get free. One wrist is a little looser than the other. I fight with it, wriggling and pulling. The rough ropes scrape my skin, but I am far from free.

  A low throaty rumble sounds from the trees to my right.

  I freeze, an instinct from generations past, as if stillness will keep the predator from noticing me.

  I can see the jungle foliage move as something large and quiet pushes through it. I catch a glimpse of ghostly white striped fur. A white tiger. The tiger goddess legend is about a white tiger. I could have gone to the zoo to see one, or watched Siegfried and Roy in Las Veg
as a few years back. I didn’t have to travel half way around the world just to end up as a white tiger’s dinner.

  Frustration and irritation briefly become stronger than fear. I struggle with the ropes again for a moment.

  Then I look over to see where the tiger is. A great cat’s eyes reflect the moonlight through the jungle greenery. I look at the tiger. And the tiger looks at me. It’s nothing like the zoo. This tiger is free and in its home. I am the one who does not belong. ‘Hello, tiger goddess. I’m sorry to intrude on your hunting. It was not my intention.’

  The tigress blinks, and the reflective eyes disappear. The big cat moves into the shadow of a tree. No plants between me and her now, but there is only enough light for me to see the shadowy silhouette of the magnificent animal, darker blackness in the deep shadow.

  And then something happens that must be a trick of the darkness and moonlight. The silhouette changes. One moment I’m looking at the dark outline of a big jungle cat, and the next the outline is smaller, more curvaceous. It becomes the outline of a woman, crouching in the leaf floor of the jungle.

  I blink, thinking the light must be playing tricks on me.

  A nude woman walks out of the shadow and into the light of the full moon in the clearing.

  She is tall and lean, magnificently muscled like an athlete in top condition, but with breasts and hips that are beautifully full and round. Her skin is paler white than mine, and her mane of shoulder length wavy hair is a strange silvery white blonde. Her eyes lock with mine in the same steady stare that the tiger’s eyes had.

  Her eyes are no more readable than the cat’s. Cold, distant, hungry. The eyes are human now, but the look on her face is not.

  Doubt fills my mind, just for a moment. It’s a trick the villagers are playing. It’s a stage illusion. There is no way I just saw a tiger turn into a woman.

  Then the woman’s head tilts slightly to the side, studying me as felines are wont to do, and the moonlight reflects in her eyes like a cat’s, and a trickle of rumbling growl comes from her throat.

  I swallow hard. It’s real. This is the legend I travelled halfway round the world to see, in the flesh. A sense of awe fills me. I am in the presence of a living myth.

  She approaches slowly, teeth bared in a snarl nothing like a human smile, hands up in a defensive position as if she fears I will attack her. She growls again and circles the stone table, so that I must strain my neck to keep watching her. She moves with an almost boneless grace, as if flowing barefoot across the uneven jungle ground were the most normal natural thing for anyone to do.

  She snarls and growls and makes aggressive swipes in the general direction of my bound body.

  I can do nothing either to defend myself or reassure her that I am not a threat.

  She leaps up onto the base of the stone table, near my feet. Crouched over me, she snarls and slaps my leg hard, making me jump and flinch.

  At my movement, that inhuman tiger growl rumbles impossibly from her chest.

  I freeze as still as possible.

  On hands and toes she crouches down and puts her face next to my leg, eyes watching warily. She sniffs my skin, barely touching my inner thigh with her nose.

  While I struggle to remain completely still, so as not to startle her, my body has a completely natural male reaction to a beautiful naked woman touching my thigh with her face.

  It catches her attention. She looks at my erection for a moment, looks back at my face and growls warningly, then sticks her face right in my crotch. It’s definitely not a human sort of thing to do, but I can’t help but have a very human reaction. I get harder, and feel chills of excitement up my spine.

  She inhales my scent deeply, and nuzzles her cheek against my balls a little.

  ‘Um, ma’am, I usually prefer to take a lady to dinner first,’ I comment, intensely embarrassed as well as excited.

  I should learn when to keep my mouth shut.

  She growls deep and loud, a tiger’s roar from a woman’s mouth, and pounces on top of me, attacking my chest and face with hard open handed slaps.

  I try to protect my face by raising my elbows on either side. My wrists bound to the post do not allow me to pull my arms down to protect anything else. I struggle frantically with the bonds, and am able to partially slip one hand down lower in the loop that holds it.

  The more I struggle to get free, and to protect myself, the angrier she gets. Her slaps become hard enough to bruise, and I hide my face behind my upper arms as best I can.

  She grabs my elbows and slams them down wide against the stone. My head and throat are unprotected. I fight against her, but she is too strong.

  My struggling excites her, making her growls louder, more intense.

  I stop for a moment when I realise that, and she stops, too, still holding my arms flat against the stone where I can barely move.

  Her face is above me, her silvery hair backlit by the moonlight. The curve of her cheek and full lips and nose are plain for me to see. They look like Indian features, but in shades of pale white and silver. I don’t think it’s a trick of the moonlight. Her skin really is nearly as pure white as the bleached linen sheets I slept on at the hotel in New Delhi. One eye is lit by the moon and looks normal and human, a light color, probably gray or blue. The other is in shadow, and reflects red, which is definitely not normal or human.

  The whole of her face is beautiful beyond anything as mundane as simple humanity. She is a goddess. I understand why the village elder said it was a great honour to be given to her. Even if I die tonight, to have been touched by this beauty out of legend is an experience worth all.

  As I study her, she studies me with the same curiosity and even a hint of the same desire.

  ‘Who are you?’ I whisper, as softly as I can, hoping not to frighten her into another attack.

  She blinks, and growls again. But her face comes closer to mine, close enough to touch my cheek with hers, very lightly. She inhales the scent of my skin, and I can feel her breath caressing me.

  Perhaps she cannot speak. Perhaps the mind behind the woman’s bright eyes is the mind of an animal. For some reason that thought disappoints me.

  ‘Nayana,’ she says, in a voice deep and breathy, like a whisky and cigarette singer.

  I blink in surprise.

  ‘I am Nayana,’ she says again, in accented English. Not only can she speak, but she speaks my language.

  ‘I’m David,’ I say.

  She growls again, that rumbling deep tiger growl that could not possibly come from a human throat. ‘I did not ask,’ she says.

  She releases one of my arms and uses that hand to pull my face to one side, baring my throat. I can no more fight her strength than I could the strength of the tigress she was a few moments ago.

  Her breath caresses along the sensitive skin of my bare neck and shoulder. She inhales deeply the scent of my skin.

  ‘You smell good,’ she comments.

  Her tongue darts out and licks lightly on my throat. ‘You taste good,’ she says. Her mouth closes on my flesh, not gently. I can feel her teeth hard on my skin and her mouth sucking as if she would taste my blood, but her teeth do not pierce.

  The feeling is intensely exciting, and considering the woman’s dual nature, also terrifying. I have no doubt judging by the strength of her hands that her teeth could easily close through my flesh and tear my throat out like her tigress counterpart. But I can do nothing about it. If she is going to kill me, then I will die. I am helpless against her.

  I lie very still in her arms, as a shiver of intense fear and excitement raises goose bumps over my entire body. My breath comes fast, and a small sound I do not recognise escapes my mouth. Fear or passion. I’m not sure which. Both, probably.

  She growls again through her teeth that still touch my flesh. Her body shifts, no longer on hands and knees over me, she brings her body down on top of me. I can feel her curves and firm body and silken skin over my chest and belly. Her sex is on top of my erection,
crushing it between us painfully.

  I make a small movement, trying to adjust to a less painful position, and her hands tighten hard on my arm and head.

  She growls right next to my ear. She takes a handful grip of my hair and yanks my head back further into a painful arch that completely exposes my throat.

  Her teeth fasten on the exposed flesh hard enough to leave marks. Her hips rock above mine, rubbing her very wet sex against mine.

  My breath comes fast and hard in panting gulps. I’ve never been so terrified or so excited in my life.

  ‘Oh, God,’ I mutter, eyes closed, as she releases my other arm and rakes her fingernails gently down my side, making me shiver. My whole body is trembling beneath her.

  She licks across the skin of my throat, tasting the salt of my fear’s sweat, and the hand that is not holding my head arched, with my neck exposed, wanders over my body.

  She shifts a little, so that she can reach my erection with her hand. She feels it, exploring its shape, strokes it, squeezes it hard. And another small whimpering sound escapes me.

  She growls and bites my throat again.

  ‘Please,’ I say softly.

  ‘Please, what?’ she asks, curiously.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

  She chuckles softly, and it is a dark sound. Nothing of cheer. Everything of hunger.

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’ I ask and open my eyes to look at her.

  She tilts her head to one side, considering. ‘I have not decided,’ she says. ‘I am hungry and your fear smells like food.’

  I close my eyes again as her tongue traces lines across my chest. She licks across a nipple and then sucks on it as it tightens, then bites on it lightly.