The leather cuffs are soft but implacable.
They don't lock, but they don't have to either, because I can't reach the buckles no matter how much I stretch or twist my fingers. I'm hanging by my wrists in my boyfriend Robert's garage, midway between a bench press and a scattered set of free weights. With a huge effort, I could just barely touch the floor with my toes, or the lanyard hook that I'm hanging from with the tip of my middle finger. The thing I can't do is release myself. There are also cuffs around my ankles and a chain linking them to the floor, to prevent me from drawing my legs up.
I'm feeling a cool breeze on my naked skin, and I'm wondering how in hell I ever let myself get into this situation. Again.
Robert and I were born on the same day, and we went to the same schools. We had always been friends, even in the grades when boys and girls aren't supposed to like one another. Then he developed an interest in bodybuilding around the same time I developed an interest in boys, and I promptly got a hopeless crush on him. By the time we were going to the same college, he was a Big Man On Campus, always surrounded by a flock of girls much prettier than me, and I filed the desire I felt for him in away, along with all those dreams that kids eventually have to give up on.
Then we were both out of school and working, and Robert was married after a whirlwind affair and divorced by his new wife the very same year. Somehow I wound up at his place trying to comfort him the best I could. We sat on his couch, drank his wine, and talked for hours. Finally, in a low, hoarse voice, he made his confession to me.
"The thing I really long to do," he said, "is to whip. To whip a girl, to make her squirm with pain, to crush all the resistance out of her. To make her know that she is feeling my power. To make her suffer as Darlene made me suffer." He deliberately lightened his tone. "Is that some sick shit or what?" But I knew he meant it, meant it with everything in him.
Silently, all my muscles trembling, I forced myself up from the couch. I turned my back on Robert and lowered my maroon skirt and matching thong to my ankles and stepped out of them. I imagine he blinked.
"Allie, are you sure?" he asked. I nodded, not because I was sure at all, not about being whipped. But I was sure I wanted to please him more than anything in the world, and if he needed me to be in pain, I would be in pain for him.
That first time, he just slapped my ass. The sting surprised me, as did the warmth that followed it. It hurt, yes, but it was also the culmination of years of fantasies. Robert was being physical with me for the first time. and the pain made it clear that this time it wasn't all just my imagination. I knew that the inevitable follow-up to Robert spanking my ass would be Robert fucking my cunt.