This is what is so fucking appealing to me about rope. The process of it, the intricacy of it, the intimacy of it, the fact that while cuffs may be convenient for time or general restraint purposes, when you consider rope…
I want to feel his fingertips pulling and twisting and gliding over every inch of me, while simultaneously taking away my freedom of mobility. I want that time leading up to the end result, to know exactly what is coming and to have that anticipation impact every single bit of my body and mind. I want to willingly offer myself for such helplessness and enjoy whatever process he allows me.
“Look, you can just come right out and complain if you want to.” It’s been a very long week. You managed to down three glasses of wine while getting into your PJs, and your feet hurt, and again: this fucking week. You’re sure as hell going to take it out on someone, and well, that’s what roommates are for, right? “So I leave a few of my makeup things lying around on the sink. You know what? You moved in with a girl, that’s what you’re going to live with, homeboy.”
He looks up from his tablet and blinks at you. He still hasn’t said anything, which is blatantly unfair when you’re trying to start a fight.
“And you know what else? Yeah, I leave dishes out! Biiig fucking deal, you don’t have to just like… passive-aggressively wash them. Which you DO. I would get to them if you’d leave them. And so sue me if my bedsprings are a little loud, okay?” He’s studying your flushed face and you get the feeling he’s not really listening. “Hey! What? Is this the silent treatment?” You laugh a little too loudly. “Because if that’s the kind of thing you think is going to get to me–”
There’s a soft tap on your wrist. You look down.
Now where did he get that?
“I mean, I can… talk for both of us just fine if…” you hesitate.
He’s just holding it there, a loose knot in a length of white nylon rope, pressed lightly to your arm. You watch as he takes the short end and passes it through the knot, once, twice, three times, then cinches the knot. Now your wrist is held in a firm loop, wide enough not to burn, tight enough to hold but not cinched.
“Do you just… keep that under your chair?” you offer weakly, before he runs the long end under his foot and stands on it.
It’s shorter than you thought and the sudden shift in weight makes you bend at the waist. This is not normal roommate behavior. It’s so far outside the bounds of what you expected that you’re still trying to figure out what to say when he takes one step around you, deftly catches the hem of your threadbare t-shirt, and flips it over your head.
I mean, he’s seen you topless before: the occasional dropped towel, the hot tub party last month, whatever. They’re just boobs. He’s pulling your shirt off, over your arms and down the rope to the floor, and you have no idea why you’re making excuses for him.
He just took your shirt off. He’s wrapping the rope just below your breasts.
“I must have missed this on the house rules board,” you say. “Do we not know each other well enough to talk? Sir?” It’s supposed to come out sarcastic. It really, really doesn’t.
The rope is doubled and split now, between your breasts and back up over your shoulders: a second wrap, above them this time. His fingers have barely touched your skin: only the rope. There’s no actual restraint to it–no hindrance of movement–but for some reason with each turn you feel tightened, anchored, contained.
A doubled loop of rope touches the hollow of your throat, and his thumb touches the tag at the back of your loose shorts. For the first time all night, he’s asking you a question.
You don’t have any words left, but you nod.
He winds the rope around your neck five times: loose, careful, but undeniably present, and each time he passes it by you can feel the pulse bob under your skin. Then he’s threading the last few feet down, under your soft white harness, over your navel–
He tugs a string, and your shorts fall to your ankles.
You stand with your feet just a little apart because you know instinctively that you should. The rope is passing between your legs, then back up behind you, and when he begins to tighten it upward you let out a sound like a kitten.
“If you want to,” he murmurs in your ear, finally taking your new collar in his fist, “go ahead and complain.”