FRIDAY

It starts when Mr Right says “I bought a new chair.”

What could I do but bring my rope and tie him to it as soon as possible.  Especially since it was that brand of sparse Swedish furniture that practically begs to be taken advantage of thusly. Much like he all but called out to be used, ass in the air, arms tied to the back arms of the chair, kneeling on the seat of it as I teased and spanked his available and willing flesh.

It isn’t the most tie-able chair as it turns out but after as we lay sweaty, giggling and exhausted in his bed we count it as a success nonetheless.

SATURDAY

The next day after the beach, a picnic, and much cooing at cute dogs I practice on him to prepare for teaching in the upcoming days.  It’s time to part ways. I should put my clothes on and get ready for my evening plans but seeing him vulnerable and smiling in my bed is irresistible.  So our mouths on each other starts a cascade of lust I don’t want to stifle. 

After I look down at his smug grin and say, “You’re a trouble maker.”

“Me? That was all you, I just went with it.  I was surprised. You’re the one that has to ride a bike naked all night long after this.”

“Fair enough.”  And we spoon in swoony happiness until I absolutely have to get up and meet a friend, sad to send away Mr Right.

Hours later at a city park full of naked people I tie my friend Victor into a chest harness and then myself into some semblance of decorative rope as drunk idiots hit us with their bikes.

We pedal down streets free of cars, naked and elated.  Protesting our city’s dependence on cars.  But in the weeks after a cavalcade of ugly news and a shooting that has our queer hearts hurting, this freedom and chance to be literally naked and sharing space with my chosen extended family of weirdoes meant more than it had in past years.

I passed out that night exhausted, bruised, and sore while smiling at the friendships and love I have in my life. 

TUESDAY

Later that week I teach a class and my love shows up to be my stunt bottom, smiling and sassy. No drama, no fear, just fun and kisses.

THURSDAY

Another night and I’m at a lover’s house.  We flirt over a magnificent meal and drinks.  Hedonistically full of mouth watering sensations we move from the table to the floor where I tie him cruelly, tease him endlessly and he fights me until my hands are rope burned and bruised.  More brat than switch.  I appreciate the play, the power given and taken but I don’t love how much my hands hurt that I have to work so hard to be on top when he keeps asking for me to top him.

We tussle in bed but the chemistry that we’ve shared during play isn’t there when the rope is put away.  It all feels flat and forced.  Literally forced, I say yes but still feel used.  And not in the sexy way. No one did anything wrong but I don’t feel right. I go home wholly dissatisfied and feeling off center.

My pleasure wasn’t on the menu at all.  I didn’t feel seen or honored or wanted as an individual.  I felt like a rope vending machine.  And intimacy was nowhere to be found, that blessed closeness I’ve been reveling in recently with Mr Right. Maybe casual sex doesn’t thrill me like it used to.  When I’ve found someone that fills me with so much joy, there’s little need or room for meaningless (truly utterly meaningless) fucking.

FRIDAY

I feel empty and vaguely tarnished.  But I don’t cancel on C.  It’s been too long since we’ve shared space. And he’s one of the truly good men.  Someone I always feel 100% safe, honored, seen and cared for as an equal. No worries about his intentions or boundaries.  He’s very clear about his own and endlessly communicates with me about mine.

He texts me a list of desires for the evening.  My sadist boner grows at “spanking, caning…”  I smile at “include something green…”  And I cry to read “your orgasm…”  C is a stark contrast to the man from the evening before.  He gives a shit.  He wants me there in the moment with him, both of us enjoying and playing off the other.  He looks me in the eye when I’m hurting or pleasuring him, connected by the experience and enjoying it because the other is, making space for the other to get what they need.

By the time he arrives I’m hungry for human touch.  I tickle him until we’re both giddy with happy energy.  This is what play should be, light hearted and connective.  Now I’m out of my head and in the game with him, forgetting the night before.

I tie him to a chair. I tie him to my bed.  I tie myself to him and straddle his back as I come.  Though I trust him I don’t trust myself to be ready to be vulnerable enough for him to help me cross over into pleasure.  So instead I tease him by undulating on his hips as he moans face down into the bed, helpless.  I spank him periodically when I’m not 100% distracted by my orgasm. 

When I release him I return the favor, blown away by his ability to be so vulnerable as to ask for exactly what he wants and to lose himself in his orgasm.  It’s a beautiful moment of bliss to provide the touch he needs, as I stroke him my hands feel like my own again, healed from the bruises of the day before.

As we come down to earth I realize how happy I am to have a handful of friends that remind me that pleasure is wonderful. A basic human right too often denied us.  It’s not casual lust that’s a problem, it’s the lack of affection and closeness that made the night before hurt.

SATURDAY

The next night I’m finally with Mr Right again, exhausted with aching hands and a heart longing for his tenderness and kisses.  That night I’m glad he’s not a switch, that there is no struggle for control.  That with him at least the roles are set, even if finding the right activities to perform takes a moment.  But he communicates his desire, that gets easier every time as we settle into a comfort with the body of the other.

I experiment with sensations, enjoying his gasps, moans, sighs, the sharp surprised intake of breath that can either end with a smile or a “that’s too much.”  Then our bodies together.  Oh our bodies together.  Rarely have I been able to let go and enjoy pleasure so easily and consistently.  This is good, he is good, life is good.

MONDAY

While fireworks go off in the mid-day Portland gloom Sock Girl and I close the curtains, drink rose’, flatter her cat, and experiment with rope. Giggling and snarking as we take turns folding the other over with helpless laughter.

“What a week.  If you’re too tired we can go sit in the yard.  We don’t have to do rope.”

“Shut your mouth!  I didn’t come over here with rope to not use it on you.  I haven’t tied you up in forever!”

Shrugging her acquiescence to her fate Sock Girl allows me to put her in some truly fucked up ties. Ones that no one else would ever dream of letting me tie, let alone ask for.  So even though it’s “just practice” we’re both flushed with rope happy by the time I follow my apparent chair obsession by tying her to a lovely vintage metal chair.

TUESDAY

I’m too tired to even think of rope or power exchange.  So luckily Mr Right takes the lead.  In the end I ask, “What would you like?”

“This but restrained.” He says.

I don’t even bother moving my body from his.  With him still inside me I reach for the cheesy velco restraints on my headboard and strap him down.  He smiles that smug smile of his and we both proceed to get exactly what we want.

In my rope people laugh and come, they often toss me sarcasm and sigh through pleasure or pain, once I even heard the word “red” but I’d never had anyone cry.  Just goes to show no one and nothing can prepare you for the reactions a person will have in rope.

Often the person who is bold and brash, who never stops bossing in life are the first to bow their head in deference, shocked into silence at the first touch of rope, so grateful to no longer have to be in charge that they melt into the experience.  And sometimes the person who can barely ask to be bound gets a naughty glint in the eye as soon as they’re wrapped up in rope, only to start saying the filthiest things now that they’re safe. Others are exactly themselves when tied up, the only difference is the pleased smile on their face as they banter, carrying on as if nothing were out of the norm while I tangle them up in rope.

I don’t know E well so I didn’t know what to expect.  Hell, I didn’t even know we were on a date until he picked up the check and said with a laugh, “This is going well, I don’t know why I don’t go on more dates!” We cuddled up on his couch as I tried to calibrate my expectations and what to do with him.  Suddenly this was more than me casually tying up a friend of a friend who wanted to experience seriously being bound by someone who knew what she’s doing. Suddenly I needed to factor in intimacy and tenderness and that look in his dark eyes. 

“You intimidate me a little.”  He confesses, as I opened my knees to straddle his back as he leaned it against my chest. I pulled his hair hard, warmed by his sigh, unable to catch his breath for a moment as I hugged him against me tightly.  When I released him he looked at me like I’d offended him, and for a moment I was worried I went too far.  He used this moment of weakness to return the favor, pulling my hair and pulling me close, mouth on my throat.

This is shocking, not because it’s unwelcome but because it’s so unexpected.  I’ve calibrated myself to be in charge, to take the lead, to make things happen.  Even after years of topping it never comes totally naturally. People want to get tied up by me? Me?  The silly goofy girl who trips over her own two feet?  Intimidating?  E, have you ever met me?

When he lets go and we lock eyes, his have changed.  His brow is furrowed, animalistic.  I grab a handful of him, testing him.  He sighs and gasps as I dole out pain.  But when I release him, he gives as good as he got.  And it’s myturn to groan or yelp. This goes on for a while, teeth bared, nails run down flesh, mouth on mouth, fingers everywhere.  Until I pull away and push him down with a look that says, ”Stay.”  And he does.

“What?”  He asks with a boyish gleam, smiling at me as if he’s innocent.

“Do you want to get tied up now, or what, mister?”

“Yes but I like this too.”

I roughly move him into a kneeling position as I reclaim my place, thigh wrapped around his, arms around his chest to pull him to me, his hands folded in the small of his back.  I breathe him in for a few beats, catching my breath, growling into his ear.

“Me too, but that’s for later….maybe.  You have to behave, at least a little, at least for now.  It would be too easy for you to knock me onto the other side of the power dynamic.  Bottoming comes more naturally for me.”  I say binding his arms, keeping him as close as possible while tying.  “No one tops me these days.”  That comes out wrong and he raises his eyebrow. “I mean, it’s rare to meet someone that I feel that way about, someone that will top me. “

I send a loop of rope around his chest, quickly and suddenly, it knocks him off balance and he careens into me, breathless.  The desired effect.  “So thank you,”  the bottom in me whispers in his ear.   A taunt, a tease, a dare, a seed planted for later.  As the top in me tightens the rope and expertly ties off the start of a box tie. Womanhandling him around, I seat the cinches and knots.  My mouth at his ear, listening to his breathing and Etta James in the background.  The smell of red wine and sweat on his skin.

When he’s bound, decorated in my rope, I crawl to the front of him to take him in.  The defiance and Puckish sexiness he normally oozes is gone. He’s compliant and all mine.  I could have anything, do anything.  It’s a heady moment and one I’ve learned to be in awe and respect of.  I pull his head back by the hair and expose his neck, silent and unmoving for a few beats before I grab a nipple in my other hand until he cries out.

“Yes!”  He whispers and I know I don’t have to be careful. He’s hungry for this, for anything and everything.  And I trust his promise to tell me when to stop. He’s a practiced enough slut that I know he will.

I wrap him into a ball of rope, slapping and biting and scratching until I decide to give his shoulders a break, slowly untying him.  Stopping periodically to enjoy a piece of his skin or tease him with the nearness of my mouth.  I feel the energy of him change, he’s slumped in on himself instead of anxious and alert.

“Don’t worry, just because I’m untying this doesn’t mean I’m done tying you.”

“Oh thank goodness.”  Like a cat he lolls his head into me with gratitude.

“I’m nowhere near done with you.”

He practically pants as I speed up the untying to release his arms back into his control, massaging the muscles.  My kindness a calculated contrast to the cruelty I’ve just doled out.  We nuzzle, he lets himself go, relaxing so he’s caught off guard when I take his hands which I’ve quietly and gently tied together and wrench them behind his head and in the same swift movement bind him into a sadistic chest harness so he can’t move his arms anywhere to protect himself.

Again he looks like I’ve wronged him.  “Oh don’t give me that face, I’m not buying it.”  He grins, all teeth revealing his true nature and I slap his thigh. “I don’t know you well, but I know well enough to not believe you’re innocent for a second.  I’ve heard too many stories.”

He bows his head and I push him back on a pillow, wasting no time in frogging his leg up against itself and lay myself on it, his foot between my thighs so he can feel the warm there. I raise my eyebrow at him as he registers the nearness of my cunt.  I have his leg bound up, exposing him further, contracting his bareness to my being fully clothed, before he’s had time to process how exposed he is.  The loops or rope and cinches of this tie are second nature to me, it takes no thought, I could do it in the dark but his mouth is agape, in awe.

Now I grin.  “Holy shit, your competence is sexy.”  He sighs. I trace fingers along his firm chest at the compliment, not breaking eye contact as I lift my dress over my head to expose my bra and panties to him.  I sit at arm’s length, looking at him.  Impatient he leans in trying to get a mouth full, trying to touch though his hands are bound.

I tsk my tongue at him and push him back down, but this time he fights me.  “Oh really?”  There’s his feline smile again.  “I see.  If it’s going to be like that I’ll stop being nice.”  We wrestle and though I have the upper hand he’s still much stronger than me.  He gets a few mouthfuls of my chest before I’m able to bite and pinch him into some semblance of submission and take his free leg between mine.

Turning away from him I take out my horrible scratchy and painful at the best of times/too sadistic to be believed at the worst of times coconut rope outand start a terrible tie, looping rope very tightly up his leg as he thrashes between my thighs.  “I told you I was mean.  I was being nice but you’ve pretty much asked for this.”

I fold this leg on itself as well, the loops of scratchy rope now trapped between the soft flesh of his calf and thigh.  He cries out, eye pinched shut but his body lets me know he’s till thoroughly enjoying himself.  I lay on the leg, rubbing in how much it hurts, putting my weight on the tie while lean in to kiss him.  Through that kiss I feel the intensity of his experience, his racing heart and fast breath until I pull away giving him reprieve.

And when I do finally decide to untie him, to bring the rope to an end…for now, he’s a puddle, no longer fighting me, he lies peacefully looking at me with reverence that I’m not sure I deserve.  There’s no smile or sass, just him, the fully naked, fully himself version of E there under my control. I’m having a hard time breathing and the room goes a little chilly though I’m sweating.  It’s rare to go this deep, for me to play or push this hard on a first go round with someone new.  I’m a little dizzy with the experience.

Then his eyes go funny in a way I don’t understand.  I continue untying and the next time I look up there are tears.  But I know they aren’t bad, I’m not bad, no one has done anything wrong.  So I say the words he wants to hear, pull him to my chest and kiss his forehead.  I feel his lips bend to the beginning of a smile as I lean over him to untie his arms. But I leave his hands bound together as I pull him to me for a cuddle, understanding he isn’t ready to come back to earth completely yet.

Soon sassy E is back. The deep intimacy we’ve just shared, a closeness and tenderness that goes above and beyond sex is still there at the edges of his eyes.  And I’m surprised at how well this is going, that I’m taking this all in without breaking down myself. I feel no guilt or pain, just joy.

It’s all okay, we’ve enjoyed getting what we needed from one another which were different things for each of us. And soon enough I’ll untie his arms and we’ll tussle some more, back on equal ground, volleying back and forth for power until we’re both exhausted and covered in marks. But for now we sit in the quietness of the moment, taking one another in and purring to take in the length of one another’s flesh, chests rising and falling in tune to “Sunday Kinda Love."