Having It All

by Jurgen von Stuka

  The hood went on easily. She wore it so often that it was actually molded to her head's shape and thus was instantly comfortable. She closed the laces, pulling them tight until the edges of the hood met, then tied them off and pulled the zippers shut. Inside the hood, Sandy experienced a combination of fear and excitement. This feeling was, she thought, much like the kind of feeling people said they experienced when they were enclosed in a full body bag, emulating a return to the womb.

  The smell of leather mixed with the faint tar-like aroma of the hemp rope were incredibly seductive and Sandy rushed the last few stages in order to get to the enjoyment that came from drifting off to sleep totally restrained in rope and leather. The double dildoes appropriately buzzed their vibes and Sandy worked up a sweat as she forced her arms down along each side until the rope loops held them tight. Her final move was to insert her hands into the fixed rope loops at the base of her spine. The size of the fixed loops was correct and once her hands were inside their grip, it would take a conscious effort on Sandy's part to free them.

  At their assigned time, the house lights went out. Sandy was already immersed in her role-play with the dildoes buzzing now and then and the pleasant, secure tension of many yards of hemp rope holding every part of her figure enclosed, her limbs restrained, no longer able to respond to her commands. Sandy went through several different versions of her fantasy, but with each one, the unpredictable vibrations of the artificial pricks up her ass and cunt functioned as interrupters that, in her mind, signaled yet another stranger taking her, using her for their own sexual purposes. Her mind/body reactions to this intense game brought her the orgasms she worshipped. This was the rationale for her unusual fetish and behavior. She knew it was addictive, but she had not ever experienced anything else as intense and overwhelming. This was why she persisted in the nightly games. This was her reason for living. Nothing else really mattered.

  ***

  She was late for work because she had spent too much time trying to cover up her bruises and scars. The mark around her neck was easily hidden by the fashionable turtleneck sweater and its long cuffs did a good job of hiding the bluish indentations on each wrist. Since it was winter, her boots sufficed to hide the marks on her ankles and lower legs and the long skirt did the same for the marks just above her knees where the rope made indentations that lasted longer than she expected them to. It was the deep impressions at the corners of her pretty mouth, the long horizontal stripes from the hood that went from her mouth to the back of her head, that she was unable to camouflage completely with make-up and a revised hairstyle. So, she spent most of her day avoiding any of her associates and certainly not meeting anyone else's curious eyes.

  When Jill, her associate who helped plan for new exhibits and handled most of Sandy's schedule, asked her if there was anything wrong, Sandy said that she had slept badly and, pointing to the marks on her face, said that she had new bed linens which she didn't like and which tended to wrinkle too much.

  “I know what you mean,” Jill said brightly. “I sleep with my hand under my cheek and sometimes I get this deep pit on my skin from my rings or bracelets. I always forget to take that stuff off and in the morning there are these deep gouges in my skin.”

  “Really?” Sandy asked. She had never noticed this with Jill, so she wasn’t sure if her friend was trying to make her feel better or if maybe she was too self-conscious about her own marks.

  “Not to worry,” Jill said. “Want me to slap you around? That will get rid of one mark and leave you with another.” Jill laughed.

  “No thanks. I know where I can get whacked if I want it,” Sandy said, referring to the more or less well known fact that only a few months ago she showed up at work with a black eye. She told everyone the truth, that her girlfriend Liz's boyfriend, Stan, showed up uninvited at her apartment and punched her out of anger about Sandy's talking the woman out of their engagement. Sandy declined to file charges, but Stan insisted on giving her $10,000 and a letter of confession and apology as compensation. Sandy endorsed the check over to the museum.

  As the two women walked through the second floor exhibits, taking written notes about where a new display would go, Sandy saw a man she thought she knew sitting in front of the Pell Helicopter on display as an example of modern technology and functional design. There was something about this man that drew her to him and before she even thought about it, she was standing in front of him, offering him a brochure.

  “Can I help you?” Sandy asked, smiling her best smile and bending over slightly so that she was looking into his dark brown eyes. Subconsciously, Sandy wished she was wearing something with a low cut neck line.

  “Ah, no. I don't think so,” he said, returning her gaze and doing the usual male thing of running his eyes quickly from her eyes down to her chest and further, then quickly standing up and smiling at her. “You work here?” he asked lamely, seeing the nametag on her sweater.

  “No. They just let me roam around, checking on great looking guys who have a thing for helicopters. I'm Sandy,” she added, extending her warm hand.”I'm sorry, but I thought you looked familiar. I don't mean to interrupt.”

  “You're not interrupting. I was just enjoying the quiet. I'm Jim. Jim Pell,” he said, carefully taking and holding her hand in his while still checking out her chest and pretending to read the brass nametag. “This, by the way, is my family,” he said, nodding at the helicopter.

  “You're James Pell?” Sandy asked, looking astonished.

  “Ah, yes, I am. And I was wondering if you'd have dinner with me tonight.”

  Sandy blushed as she had not blushed in years.

  “Why, of course, Mister Pell,” she said impulsively without missing a beat. “I would be pleased to. Where and when? I'll be there with an armed guard, just in case I need a chaperone.”

  “Jim,” he said, softly, so as not to disturb the library-like atmosphere of the museum.

  ***

  At dinner, he asked her about herself and said that he was not in the habit of asking women he didn't know out to dinner.

  “I'm not inclined to impulsively accept either,” Sandy replied, reaching for her water glass.

  He noticed the bruise on her right wrist. The one on the left arm was camouflaged by her wide watchband, but as the cuffs on her blouse and jacket slipped upwards a bit when she reached for the glass, the circular marks on the right wrist became the topic of a light query.

  “What happened there?” he asked, nodding to her raised hand.

  “I…ah…had a small accident,” Sandy said slowly, not wanting to break the fairyland beauty and excitement of the evening with this gorgeous man. Unconsciously she pulled her sleeve down just as he reached across the table, took her left hand in his and pushed up the sleeve on that arm.

  “Sandy,” he said. “I am a pretty good judge of people and if this offends you kick me in the shin, hard, but I suspect you may be into BDSM. Am I right?”

  She kicked him lightly and lowered her head. Her smile was gone.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly, releasing her hand.”It's just that I may be able to help you…if you'll let me.”

  “BDS…M?” she said. “I'm not sure I know what you mean.”

  “I'm probably going to regret this,” Jim said. “But it means Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism. Ever heard of it?”

  “Ah, yes,” she said hesitantly, wondering if she could possibly let this stranger into her fantasy/fetish world. “I know. Maybe that's the right term for it. I have dreams about it…” she said slowly, not looking at him. “I fantasize a lot and sometimes get personally involved.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes. No one else knows.”

  “Are you comfortable with this?”

  “I see a shrink, I go to SA meetings, but it's not helping with the guilt.”

  “SA?”

  “Submissives Anon,” Sandy said quietly. “I feel guilty even talking about it.”

  “What's there to feel gu
ilty about? You tie yourself up. Right. Who or what are you hurting?”

  “It's an addiction. I'd like to curb it…somehow. I'm afraid I may take it too far.”

  “And hurt yourself more than bruised wrists?”

  “Yes. I just bruise too easily and sometimes I get carried away.”

  “And on your neck too? I noted the turtleneck.”

  “Yes. I read somewhere that it could lead to suicide.”

  “That's crap. Bondage and….” He lowered his voice in the already quiet restaurant. “B&D activities seldom go in that direction, especially if you've been at it for a long time.”

  “As far back as I can remember.”

  “Cowboys and Indians. Cops and robbers, yeh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me too,” he confessed, smiling.”I loved being able to tie up the others, especially the girls.”

  “I enjoyed it until it got nasty. When the boys tried to cop a feel while they were doing it.”

  “Every activity has its dark side.”

  The rest of the meal and later on that night in a quiet bar in a nearby hotel, they talked about their shared interest. He took her home, kissed her goodnight and said he'd phone to get her up in time for work. For the first time in weeks, Sandy was in the museum office ten minutes early that morning.

  They met again for dinner and that night she stayed at his place. They had anxious but normal sex. Over the next few weeks, they saw a lot of each other and although they talked about the BDSM scene as though they were observers rather than participants, they limited their play to soft bondage with a few silk scarves and her panty hose. A month later, she moved in and within a few months they were searching for a house of their own.

  Chapter Three

  Discovery

  Jim watched her lovingly as she slept. He was totally infatuated with Sandy, the lush, beautifully built brunette he met in the museum late that afternoon months ago. They seemed to hit it off at once and one thing led to another. As soon as she moved in with him, it was clear that they shared a great deal more than just an interest in BDSM and self-bondage. Sandy, always a bit uncomfortable about her eroticisms, was slow to allow Jim into her confusing and unique life, but as Jim introduced her to others in the scene, Sandy began to make immediate progress towards accepting her own predilections as well as those of others. Their personal erotic sex life remained low key, mostly because neither partner wanted to damage the relationship by going too far, too fast. When she agreed, he'd bind and gag her with a few silk scarves, making sure she was comfortable with each stage of the restraint. Sandy accepted this new partnership element in her erotic life and even began to make modifications or request additions as they moved upward from one level to the next. Three months more, in a buyers' market, they went house hunting together, seeking more space, some privacy and a place of their own.

  Over time, Jim noticed that Sandy was a deep sleeper, but that she tossed and turned a lot. She often seemed to be struggling as though she was being held to the bed by some invisible, outside force. Sometimes she would stretch out on her back, arms and legs extended towards the four corners of the bed and then toss her head back and forth, making unintelligible sounds and becoming quite animated. Occasionally, she woke Jim with her struggles and muffled cries. She slept on her side of the bed with her back to him, but he saw that she had her thin, white arms outstretched and wrapped around her king-sized pillow. Her knees were drawn up on either side of the pillow as well and she had her face pressed into the pillow's softness, muttering strange sounds as though she were gagged. He had no idea, yet, that she had seen herself in the dream as prisoner of the Vikings, but if he had known, it might have given him more insight to the complex sexuality of his new mate.

  At other times, she put her hands behind her back, wrists crossed as though they were bound there. She slowly flexed her legs, keeping the knees pressed tightly together. Again, it seemed to Jim, it was as though she were bound and trying to escape.

  When asked about these episodes, she at first denied they even happened, suggesting that Jim, not she, was dreaming. Sandy said she had no idea what he was talking about and, in the interests of continued happy coexistence, he dropped the subject. But late at night when they were both in bed, Jim would prop himself up on one arm and try to decode the babblings and groans coming from Sandy's luscious, half open, red lipped mouth. She seemed to be fighting something or someone and inevitably, if Jim watched long enough, one of her soft hands descended to her sex and stayed there, moving slightly while she moaned and groaned the sounds of someone enjoying sex. On alternate occasions, her hands positioned themselves differently, with one on her full breast or massaging a buttock and the other between her legs. Jim was fascinated with his discovery, but decided not to intervene. Yet despite this, their lives remained more or less trouble free and they got along well enough. On a few occasions when they both agreed, Jim gagged her tightly and tied her spread-eagle, to the bed. They had wild, lengthy sex. This seemed to be the seminal event in their relationship. They both sensed it.

  One afternoon, while trying to make more space in the walk-in closet, Jim pulled a couple of shoe boxes down from the high shelf over Sandy's hanging wardrobe and one box that was quite heavy dropped to the carpeted floor, spilling out a shiny array of chains. There were several chain dog leashes with the original leather handles removed, a variety of chain dog collars, a dozen or more double-ended snap hooks and what Jim was very certain was a quite effective gag made with a chain dog collar pulled through the center of a soft, sponge rubber ball. Jim wasn't surprised, always assuming that he was not the only one in the house who had a private stash of toys and devices to assist in their interest in bondage, rope, chain and collars.

  “Well,” he muttered, after carefully inspecting the contents of the box before putting everything back and replacing the box on the shelf. “This could change everything.”

  Chapter Four

  Specifications

  “I really don't care what else it has, but it has to have a tub,” said Sandy to Jim as they drove to inspect yet another house.

  “I know, I know,” Jim said, “and this house meets the specification to a T. It has two of them, actually three, if you count the one in the maid's quarters. One upstairs and two down. They are old style, cast iron tubs with the claw feet and they are in beautiful shape…like you,” he added, smiling as he studied Sandy's perfect figure.

  So they bought the old house, using some of Jim's savings and a tiny fraction of Sandy’s recently acquired fortune left to her in her father's will. She told him early in the relationship that although she didn't need to work because she had an inheritance, the museum job was important to her. They needed no mortgage and so they were able to move in the next week. The one upstairs bath was not in very good condition, so they used the larger and more modern one downstairs while Jim renovated the upper one. He had other plans for the maid's quarters.

  “I'm going to do some really special things there,” he told Sandy as he reminded her to stay out of the maid's rooms and bath. He said that until he was finished, it was not only hazardous with the floors torn up and all the fixtures being moved around, but that he wanted to surprise her when it was completed. She agreed. Meanwhile, he and a plumber friend quickly went to work on the upstairs bath, first knocking out a wall to enlarge the room and then moving in what looked like tons of tile and new fixtures.

  “Well, honey,” Jim said on a rainy Saturday six months later. “It's done. Come on up and take a look.” Sandy mumbled to herself that she could have rebuilt the Roman Baths in the time it had taken to redo the room, but said nothing more and wore a big smile as she went up the stairs to the second floor and down the hall to the new bathroom.

  Jim opened the door, which Sandy noted was beautifully finished, with heavy, solid woodland polished brass bands reinforcing the entire door and frame. She stepped into the room.

  White. Nearly everything was brilliant white. The floor,
walls and ceiling were all covered in exquisite hand-made, hand-painted, glossy ceramic tile with gray accent bands on the white border of the tile around the baseboard and at the top of the walls. Each tile had tiny black drawings or Japanese characters. The sinks, toilet and built-in cabinets were also white with gold colored hardware fixtures. The recessed lighting in the ceiling gave off a uniform, brilliant white light. Jim showed her how the lighting could be adjusted to any level and reduced to a soft, somewhat eerie green glow.

  “That's for when you want to soak in the tub and contemplate your floating nipples,” he said laughing. They had kidded before while sharing a bath that Sandy's breasts floated high in the water and looking towards her feet, all she could see were her twin nips, looking like two perfectly rounded mounds of whipped cream with a cherry on top, sticking up through the soapy water.

  But the tub, the one thing that had originally brought about the renovation, was gone and in its place was a much larger, rectangular, Jacuzzi style, black enamel tub, set in a raised platform dais. Looking in wonder at this monster tub, Sandy noted casually that it seemed to have more odd features than she might have expected. Of course, it had zero resemblance to the antique cast iron tub she expected, but, unlike most Jacuzzis, it had no seats. Large, chromed, deep drains were set at each corner. These drains extended outward from the sides instead of just going down into the floor. On the floor adjacent to the tub were two small, handmade wooden stools, like those used in Japanese baths.

  “How elegant,” Sandy managed to say, leaning over and inspecting the curious drains and the magnificent ebony finish of the tub with its chromed brass fixtures and deep bottom. “The drains are a bit large, aren't they?”

  “Haven't you ever been annoyed at how long it takes a bathtub to drain?” Jim asked.

  “Well, yes. I suppose so. And I admit that contemporary designs always seem to have the same old slow drain at one end. These look much more efficient. I suppose the extra plumbing is one reason most tubs stick with the old way.”