Bondage

Bondage. Discipline. Sadism. Masochism.

On my laptop, the screen filled with images of beautiful women tied with black rope. With red rope. And placed into positions that compromised their movement. It held them. It kept them from moving, walking, or running away. I wanted to be them. I wanted to feel the rope on my skin. And more than anything in the world, I wanted to fight against it.

Richard hadn’t tied me up, so to speak. If anything, our encounter had been vanilla. I wanted more. He said he was a dominant man, why hadn’t he shown me that side of himself?

In life I felt restricted. By my family and by rules. By the law. By the life I’d made. That was the reason I tombstoned. Because facing the risk head-on freed me from the restrictions of life. Of my life.

Could bondage free me in ways that tombstoning could not? I wondered. Could fighting against rope metaphorically untie me from guilt and shame? What if letting Richard call the shots—take control—could absolve me? I needed