"How do you feel?" I asked.
We had both been interested in exploring bondage play for a long time. And now, the moment had finally come. With the snowstorm raging around our small home and a roaring heat emanating from the nearby fireplace, my fiancée knelt upon the floor, a large quilt providing her knees with blessed relief from the cool, polished, hardwood floor. She was completely naked, fully exposed to my loving gaze with only a black fur-lined blindfold to provide her with any semblance of "coverage." The recently-purchased handcuffs ensured her dainty wrists remained secured behind her back, enhancing a psychological feeling of vulnerability even though only I could see her in such a compromising position. Unable to cover her feminine anatomy due to the handcuffs, she still blushed as she had some fifteen minutes earlier when she began to undress for me at my command.
Clearly, my fiancée was considering my question. In most cases, "How do you feel?" would be a simple question with a simple response: "Tired," "Happy," "Overworked," "Hungry," "Sick," and numerous other single-world answers would suffice as a response. But this was the first time that she was so vulnerable for me – for anyone – since her high school boyfriend had sexually assaulted her because she would not give him what he wanted: her body. The fact that she was willing to do this – despite the seven years she and I had known each other, despite the three years of dating and the nearly seven months of living together – made me think, although clearly not as much as she was thinking at that very moment, analyzing her situation, testing the true strength of the handcuffs, attempting to twist an arm into a position to somehow cover at least one of her still-scarred breasts.
I did not press her for an answer. Instead, I stood still before her, waiting patiently, practically able to hear the gears churning in her head as her brain gathered all the available information to process a response. Her head turned tardily from side to side, as if watching a tennis match in slow motion. Her back arched a few times as she squirmed, attempting to become accustomed to being so relatively confined. Her lips were parted involuntarily to ensure her lungs were receiving ample oxygen.
At last, she tipped her head upward toward me, her sightless eyes undoubtedly aimed at where she thought my face would be before her. "I'm a little scared and nervous," she admitted, "but I know that you won't go beyond the limits we discussed earlier. Even if I didn't love you, I'd still trust you with my life, and that's how I can be so relatively calm like this in front of you."
