James' bedroom was not big and just had a double bed and a night stand. The wardrobe was built in the wall with slide doors fully covered with mirrors. If he did not put a tatami at the top of the carpenter between the bed and the wardrobe, it was almost a minimalist style room. The most outstanding thing to Hannah were obviously the four shining metal hanging hooks on the roof - the advantage to own a house. Actually they are Bow or "D" shackles, the German girl found of the name by recalling her memory about installation art works, with closed circles rather than opened hooks. Two of them were above the bed and the other two above the tatami.
"Are you ready for a Shibari session?" James opened a slide door behind which hung his rope collections.
The carabiners and other metal things which Hannah could not name under the ropes must be for rock climbing. She pushed the door open wider, revealing shackles, chains and a riding crop at the corner of the wardrobe.
"Are you looking for more tools for impact play?"
"Do you have any kimonos?"
"Only the male one." He pushed open another slide door behind which all the clothes were obvious all for himself. He did have suits and Hannah wondered why he did not wear them in the first meeting. James picked out the bath robe like Japanese clothes with the hanger and asked, "Do you want me to wear it or you want to try?"
"It will be hilarious." She took the kimono from him and held it between the mirror and herself. It was dark blue, just like the one she had seen in his videos. She would give it a try if it was not so big, so she put it back and made sure no colourful female kimono was hanging at the same bar. "My nightie is in my bag. Do you want me to put it on now?"
"Is it black, sexy, translucent... with laces?" James put his arms around her from behind and started kissing her.
"How do you know?"
"You like black Gothic style. Very predictable."
He was teasing her with his facial hair on her neck rounded with a black lace choker with a red gem in the centre while unbuttoning her shirt which was also black and thin enough to see her underwear which had been opened from front already. From the very first night, Hannah had been captivated by his big hands and long fingers. Now, from the mirror's reflection, she watched them move subtly beneath the fabric.
"You were not so gentle during the first night?"
"Well, a client is very different from a girlfriend and you reached out for the pain not for the boyfriend experience, didn't you?"
"I know you have many tricks up your sleeves. Just show me the rope, Mr. J." Since the dungeon night, they had dated vanilla-ish-ly when James went to London and did not do anything particularly hardcore. The Oriental style from the tatami, kimono, white paper moon light shade and the fish skin pattern deep blue curtains he just pulled on was just right for a Shibari mood. "You are really 'The Japanese'."
James put on the kimono and fully released Hannah's body from her clothes while keeping the choker. This time he picked a climbing rope and made the chest harness with fewer columns which were strong enough to hold her whole body weight. The rope rounded her upper body from the top of her breast then the bottom of them. All the columns were under her arms so her hands could move freely at this moment. After tight wrapping her torso, he ran the rope from left armpit to the back of her neck then back to right armpit to make the Fuji Mount pattern which was often called "Takate Kote" (lower hands) in many English tutorials but actually did not require any bondage on arms.
After finishing the chest harness, James picked a long rigging plate from his climbing gears and connected it to one of the hanging points at the top of the bed with a swivel. If it was in the dungeon or a Shibari show, a bamboo pole was always used as the horizontal bar to match it "authentic Japanese". However under Britain's wet weather, the porous nature of bamboo could make it lose strength gradually and requires regular tests for security. It often became mouldy for the organic things staying in the tube. For personal activities, he had developed a set of methods for low-maintenance bondages like replacing bamboo with the aluminium climbing gear which lasted forever without the risk of deterioration and using climbing ropes for heavy lifting. He also had a metal pull up bar for exercising during the Covid lockdown and it worked perfectly in suspension for its quality.
Knowing Hannah's reaction to suspension, he designed a routing just for her. He guided her to stand on his bed where her head was very close to the roof. When she tried to lower her body, Hannah felt the rope was already tied to the rigging plate and the space she could move was already limited.
"Now let's do the 'futomomo'. It refers to a whole class of ties that bind the thigh and calf together. Like many Japanese words, nowadays it has been used with English like 'spiral futomomo'. Which rope do you like? Red cotton rope or natural hemp one?"
Hannah had tried both and she liked the tight grip from the hemp rope but in front of the mirrors she picked the cotton one for the red colour. The cotton rope also required less maintenance and could be chunked into the washing machine after use. Her left foot was lifted and could only support her body with right leg and the rope tied her back to the roof. James ties the left ankle with a new rope, then folded it to her thigh and started making a spiral wrap around the thigh and calf.
"You got a perfect leg-to-body ratio." Her long leg could take more spiral wraps, ending up two more round up the leg than Yoko's. Of course, James was not stupid to speak it out. He turned her left side to the mirrors, allowing her to see the lovely patterns dedicated to her. When the rope reached the knee, he pulled it back while making Munter hitches - friction knots cross each line at the outside of the leg in 90 degrees to wrap the whole limb. When both sides were done with this pattern, the left leg was like a ham in a net. He had measured the length of the rope he already tied to the roof, so when he put the extra rope through a hole at the rigging plate and pulled, Hannah's body was semi suspended flat with only right foot on the sheet. James fixed the end of the rope back to her left leg but left her right foot free before he tied her hands together behind her back. Without any direct connection to the suspension rope, the hands' constraint would not be tightened by tension from the body weight.
When he finished, Hannah was not far from fully restrained because she had to keep right leg in station in place to support her body and feel safe. James could touch anywhere of her full naked body he wanted without any resistance and started tickling two sides of her abdomen. To dodge his fingers from reaching her sensitive skin, Hannah vibrated and made tiny hops with one leg on the bed and inevitably let the ropes take some weight when she lost balance. When his fingers moved to the back of her right knee, she had to call a "stop".
James stopped tickling and surprised her with a bigger move. He lifted her right foot away from the bed by grabbing her ankle and fully suspended her body in the air. Hannah struggled as usual but could do nothing but shake her body because none of her limbs could reach any leverage this time. Her heart bounced fast but there was less fear there than in the dungeon. Like learning swimming, after the first experience it was not difficult to overcome the fear, especially since deeper trust and emotional connection between her and the rigger had been built these days.
Soon she stopped struggling and could focus on her feelings. Different from impact play which delivered instant pain, the suspension built predicaments gradually. This time James did not set up the mechanism to torture her breasts. However the climbing rope gave her direct raw biting concentrated at the fewer strings around the chest and the pressure squeezing the rib cage made the pulses in veins clear following each breath. Hannah did not suffer at the beginning thanks to her high pain threshold and fairly strong muscles could sustain the position in the air for a while. Her hair was not tied this time either, so she could move head freely and watch the whole scene through the mirror.
Watching her cease struggling, James gently pulled her leg up higher and turned her right side toward the mirror. "Look at the lines of your muscles. You look like a sculpture."
According to the British standard, Hannah's BMI was below the average and the edges of her muscles on limbs could be seen when they were rippling. The ropes had already kept her whole body in tense, such a move cost extra exertions from her right hip to calf. She felt that James was working on installation art like an artist.
However his manoeuvre did not end there - he slowly spun her body 360 degrees, tilted to various directions and let her view herself in the mirrors as if she was on the stage. Hannah felt the daily yoga since the first suspension, which reminded her to exercise more, paying off. Today's bondage did not have waist harness or crotch rope, so her body between the leverages tied to upper body and leg could move, mainly up and down. Some of the poses were clearly to highlight her body curves and now she was capable of bending more voluptuously and stayed in the twisted positions longer.
