by Cara McKenna
Except suddenly, her hand was in his. She coaxed his fingers from around his mug, closing them in her cool ones. He met her eyes, half-believing she really did have the power to read his darkest thoughts as easily as if they were printed across his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, throat dry and aching. “About last night.”
“Was it . . . you know. Because of what I said?”
He was frozen. Merry’s thumb rubbed his knuckles, telling him she could wait as long as he needed. That she sensed he was struggling himself to understand.
“It was,” he finally managed. “About what you said.” And the words dried up yet again, his throat tight as a wrung dishcloth.
“About wanting to be tied up?”
He nodded.
“Because it offended you, or because it’s true?”
Both.
Just tell her. Just drill your bloody skull open and tell her. He swallowed, and the words slipped free. “It’s true.”
She pursed her lips, then a soft smile blossomed. “I sort of figured, the way you were twisting that blanket. But I wasn’t trying to make fun of you or anything.”
“That’s not why I . . . It’s complicated.”
“Did I trigger a bad memory?”
“No.” More like she’d taken a bat and bashed in the walls he kept around his desires, exposing everything—his needs and secrets, everything he hated and never wanted aired. Ten thousand fantasies, none of them welcome. That’s what she’d triggered.
Merry dropped his hand and set both their mugs aside. He felt his brow furrow but obeyed nonetheless when she took his wrist, coaxing him to rise. Across the worn old floorboards and through the threshold to his dim bedroom.
“Lie down,” she said.
Too blindsided to protest, Rob lay across the covers, heart pounding. He heard the first ping of heavy raindrops hitting the stove’s steel pipe and rustling the thatch. Merry sat cross-legged next to him, resting a hand on his ribs. It felt as though he were submitting to a psychiatric session, led by a doctor with questionable boundaries.
“I’d explain, if I knew how.” Some way aside from saying the words out loud.
“You don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything. Just know that I wasn’t mocking you, or judging you.”
“That wasn’t why I ran off. I was just upset you could even tell. Like you’d read my mind.”
“I could tell, yeah.”
Fucking fantastic. So his most private thoughts had never been private at all.
“Are you into that? Bondage and that kind of thing?”
He shut his eyes tightly, but he couldn’t hide from the question. “I suppose.”
“That doesn’t bother me.”
When he opened his eyes, he found her smiling down at him, the gesture seeming to brighten the space between them, though he couldn’t feel its warmth. Not yet.
“That nearly comes standard, these days,” she offered lightly.
“It’s not that I’m into it. It’s not that I just like it. It’s . . .”
She lay down and wrapped her arm around his middle, taking his hand and holding it at his heart. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so perfectly suspended between comforted and disturbed.
She squeezed his fingers. “It’s what?”
“It’s the only thing I like, nearly.” The admission tumbled out like a rock, juddering up through his throat and lodging itself between them. But once it cleared, he found the depth of his lungs, the relief of a full breath, the ability to swallow.
“Like a fetish?” she asked.
How he hated that word . . . but a spade was a spade. “Yeah. Like that.”
“How interesting.”
He laughed sadly. “No, it’s really not.” It was limiting, and isolating. A burden.
Her lips were at his neck, and he felt the warm breath carrying each of her words. “Would you tell me more, if I asked you?”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me,” she whispered, “if you could have exactly what you wanted, anything you’ve ever fantasized about. What does it look like?”
His face blazed but his cock flushed as well, so magnetic was the desire to visualize and share these thoughts . . . as magnetic as his fear of ridicule was repulsive. But you want that too, don’t you? The ridicule. Christ, his fucking brain. His fucking convoluted sexuality, that neurological rat’s nest.
Merry stroked his arm—first gently with her fingertips, until inspiration seemed to strike. “Close your eyes.”
He did, excitement and nerves an indistinguishable, thrilling blur. He felt a tugging as she pushed the sleeve of his jumper up to his elbow.
Something coarse was drawn across his wrist—the wool throw. Not as rough as hemp, but close enough to set his body tingling, buzzing, crackling with fear and arousal. “Oh.”
She trailed it from his elbow to his knuckles, again, again, again. He gulped back a groan, shocked by how he was reacting—as potently as if he were alone. He’d always imagined a witness would shut him down, but the desire and shame seemed to mix, creating a high he could never find at the bottom of a bottle. A lust so deep and sharp it hurt.
She propped herself at his side. “Take your sweater off.”
He obeyed, stripping to his undershirt before reclining once more.
“Shut your eyes.”
He did. Her orders lit him as brightly as the friction had.
The rough caresses returned, spurring a pleasure so intense Rob’s spine arched from the mattress. Bloody hell.
“Is it because it’s scratchy? Like rope?”
A tight nod.
“Imagine that’s what I’m touching you with.”
He already was.
“What is it about the rope?” Her tone was warm with curiosity, void of skepticism.
He considered it. “The texture.”
“So it’s not just the bondage, then? You couldn’t get what you wanted from handcuffs or something?”
“No. It has to be rope.” The wool teased the soft skin of his inner forearm. “Oh God.”
“But do your fantasies usually involve people being tied up?”
“Nearly always.”
“Them, or you? Or both?”
He swallowed. “Only me.”
“Your wrists?” She drew the imaginary rope against each such spot in turn.
Rob shuddered, forcing a nod. He could sense her looming above him, her body heat like a hearth. “Yeah,” he managed.
“Where else?”
“Anywhere. My ankles. My legs and arms. My throat.”
He’d never shared these thoughts aloud before, heard the words in his own voice. He told Merry as much as he dared.
“I like to feel like I’m a captive, I suppose. Like I’m helpless. Being used, or objectified.”
“Should I touch you?”
“What you do . . .” Here he faltered, shamed by how his desires marginalized any person kind enough to indulge them. “It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as I feel like . . . like it’s for you.”
“How so? What are some things you imagine having done to you?”
The words felt thick, but he forced them out all the same. “Being teased. Physically. Almost like you’re . . . This sounds terrible.”
“What?”
“Almost like you’re . . . taking advantage of me. Abusing me.” How like confession this was, only with Merry there was no condemnation, no penance.
“Like against your will?”
He nodded.
“Okay. What else?”
Bloody hell, she was difficult to scandalize.
“Maybe like you’re using me. For my . . . cock.” Like it’s special, he th
ought, but it felt far too stupid to articulate. “Or my come.”
Christ, you sound like a fucking mentaller.
She wants to hear, though. She asked to. She wants . . .
She wanted to know him. But these confessions were so twisted—if not disturbing, then at the very least laughable.
Merry traced warm fingers up the inside of his thigh, making him tremble and sigh.
“What else?”
He swallowed and let the truth flow from deep in his mind and body. “You . . . you want to force me to come, maybe. Because you want to humiliate me for being excited.”
Scary as this was . . . telling her these things was like a bloodletting. The initial cut hurt like hell, but with it done he could feel the toxins escaping, making room for relief. And all at once he wanted to give in. With a blinding bolt of understanding, he realized he’d had it all wrong, blaming his fetish all this time, thinking of it as some twisted, fucked-up force that lived inside him. A thing to be drowned in liquor, glass by glass, night by night, year after year after year. It wasn’t his desire that had poisoned him. It was his shame.
Merry drew the pantomime rope against his skin, making him crave a different relief entirely. Not wanting to wreck the illusion, he stole just the briefest glimpse of her face. Of this woman he’d only ever dreamed of, offering the things that had consumed him for as long as he could remember. Beautiful. He shut his eyes. He felt her shift, and her words were close enough to warm his ear.
“You like it tight?”
“Yes, tight.”
He felt the heat of her thighs and her comforting weight as she straddled his hips. Coaxing his wrists together, she wound the blanket around them. His cock was hard, screaming hot, a crazed and frightening creature in thrall. Trapped by Merry, it pounded along the crease of his thigh and hip, but the restriction was as hot as any caress.
He heard his breath, raw and desperate, nearly gasping. He’d felt this before, of course. But always alone, never with another person in control of the tension or bearing witness to how it affected him.
“Wow.” She said it nearly too softly to detect, and there was no mistaking the persuasion of surprise—it was awe. Awe at what this did to him, at the power she held over his body. This thing that left Rob so frustrated and weak did something different to her. Excited her in a way that had nothing to do with shame.
“Do you have any?” she whispered. “Any rope?”
He nodded, opening his eyes as the pressure around his wrists disappeared.
“Where?”
He urged her aside, got to his knees and leaned over the edge of the bed. The incriminating cardboard box scraped against the floor as he slid it out. Merry cast him a questioning look as he handed it over, and when she lifted the lid it was as though she were opening a secret door into his head.
Inside were two identical ropes, rough hemp, a centimeter thick. She took one out, winding it around her palm. His belly tightened with every loop.
“So is this like your stash?” she asked, smiling.
He smiled back, face hot with embarrassment—though at this moment, it was difficult to care. “Yeah.”
“A lot simpler than a motorized rubber dick,” she offered. “And just about every woman I know has one of those stashed under her bras.”
Rob lay back against the covers, arousal spiking as he registered how close he was to experiencing this thing he coveted so completely. It was terrifying. Exhilarating. A free fall.
“Can I . . . ?” She strung the rope between her hands.
He nodded. “Anything.”
Merry set the box on the floor and settled beside him again. “Give me your wrists.”
Oh, those words. Straight out of his well-worn mental script.
He turned onto his side, offering his arms as though praying. Perhaps he was. Pleading in his mind and body, Please, do it. Let me experience this with another human being. He could feel his own heartbeat at his temples, hear the blood coursing in his ears, feel it pounding in his cock.
Merry granted his wish, winding the rope around and around, loose loops to start but promising so, so much. Whatever she deigned to give him. With each scrape of the fibers his cock stiffened, harder and bigger and hotter until he thought he might burst, his body swollen too-tight with need. She met his eyes, biting back a grin.
He laughed, the tiniest huff of disbelief. “I can’t believe I’m letting you see me this way. I can’t believe you’d want to.”
“Of course I do. It’s fascinating, seeing what it does to you.” She tugged softly, pinning his wrists so that a moan fled his lungs. “Is this tight enough?”
He caught his breath and murmured, “Tighter is better.”
“When it’s your throat . . . ?”
“Tight. But not enough that I can’t breathe. Just enough to feel . . .”
“Dangerous?”
“Maybe. Or just . . . collared.”
“Like you’re helpless.”
“Yes. I want . . .”
“What do you want?” she coaxed.
He swallowed and let the truth rush out. “I want . . . The rope has to be rough. The rougher the better. I want to feel it between my fingers and around the backs of my knees, my neck, the insides of my thighs. In my mouth, like a gag. Anywhere soft, that might chafe.” The words suddenly ran dry, but still Merry showed no signs of fleeing. Instead she dragged the tail of the rope along the crease of his elbow, coarse grain scraping delicate skin and vulnerable pulse points. Arousal surged like a head rush.
“And is that all you want? Or do you want that, plus sex?”
“The rope is enough, sometimes. But I want more, too.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . Like a narrative. Like some sense that I’ve been tied down for a reason.”
“For sex?”
“Yes. Or like I’m being held hostage. Or punished.” Or exploited. When Rob had hit puberty, he’d done as most lads surely did and measured himself when he was hard. The discovery that he was bigger than the alleged average had instantly wedged new barbs into his already elaborate fantasy life. He’d entertained a thousand variations on the theme, a strange duality wherein his cock was coveted, the rest of him belittled and mocked. The scenarios ranged from the simple—rousing from a stupor to discover he’d been drugged and bound by an assailant—to the whimsically complex—that he was taken hostage by a race of beings bent on harvesting his come for some ritualistic ceremony. But all the narratives boiled down to a single truth.
“I just want to feel used,” he whispered.
“By a woman or a man, or does it not matter?”
“When it’s my fantasy, it’s always a woman.” But that preference had never stopped him from settling for most any porn he could find that showcased these scenarios, the gender of the participants secondary to the rope, to the image of it pressing and binding flesh, to pale skin burned pink from the friction.
“And you indulge all these thoughts by yourself?” she asked.
“Not often. Not anymore.” This fixation had brought him nothing but scorn and isolation since he’d been a kid. It was easier for him to simply shut off his sexual side, for days or weeks at a time. As long as he could hold out, ignoring that telltale box beating beneath his bed.
“I usually just want it over with,” he said. “So the desire will go away again. But I do, now and then.” He met Merry’s dark eyes. “I’ve never told anyone this stuff before. No one in real life.” A few people online, before his exile, but most of them men. A woman might indulge him to a point, but when it became clear that the rope wasn’t some one-time accessory, but as essential an element as she was . . . rather understandably, she felt incidental—that the rope was his lover, and she the prop. And sad as it was, sometimes Rob had seen it that wa
y, too. Though not always, and certainly not with Merry.
“You’ve never asked any girlfriends to do those things?”
“Not the way I’m telling you.”
“I’m guessing whatever you did ask for, it didn’t go well?”
He felt his cock wilt, remembering the night his wife had indulged him. Though indulged was too generous. Even tolerated was a stretch. The thing he’d wanted forever, in reality a depressing, half-arsed charade, the hope of it shot dead inside ten minutes.
“It wasn’t encouraged,” he told Merry. “It was never encouraged. Not from when I was a little kid, even.”
“You had a thing for being tied up, even when you were little?”
“Always. As long as I can remember. If there was any kind of scene in a cartoon or a movie where someone got tied up by pirates, or to railroad tracks, or to a pyre . . . it mesmerized me.”
“Wow.”
He searched her expression for pity or alarm, but all he found was that eager curiosity. Acceptance, where he’d been taught to expect rejection.
He’d unnerved his mother with the games he played, got caught too many times with some manky old rope in his mouth or wound too-tight around his fingers. She’d sent him to therapy. Your father’s not to know. No one’s to know. Six years old and made to keep secrets like those before he even understood what that magnetism was, that dizzying pressure in his belly when he’d imagined those things from the cartoons and films. That the shameful thing he felt was sexual, or what that even meant. At that age, he’d only known it felt good, and exciting. And soon after, he’d realized that he must be bad, to feel those things.
“Have you met anybody with . . . with what I have?” he asked.
She smiled, letting the rope around his wrists go slack. “You don’t have to make it sound like a disease. I think it’s kind of cool.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sure a lot of people with fetishes wish they were just vanilla and it would make things easier, but I think it’s sort of . . . magical.” She blinked. “That’s probably rude or naive of me to even say. But if I was with someone who had a fetish—a realizable one like yours—and there was a place for me in it, and it wasn’t something that scared me . . . that sounds awesome. Like some secret trick I knew about that could drive them crazy.”
