OCTOBER—It started raining some time during Intro to Art History. Kira had been at Harkness College for six weeks and for six weeks it had rained every day in the late afternoon. Or if not exactly rain every day, then something, a pervasive dampness, or a cool mist that floated down and beaded on her eyelashes.
Art history was taught in an annex off the museum, a low building in the neoclassical style, as she had just learned. Kira liked it there, but it was way off campus and she was soaked by the time she got to the dorm. She met Johanna at the door, on her way out as Kira was going in. Johanna fussed over Kira for a few moments and kissed her wet cheek and floated off gracefully towards the library.
Kira liked Johanna. She'd gotten lucky with her roommate, more or less. Johanna was a odd and European but she was friendly, a little goofy even. Quick to laugh. They'd been friends since the first day, though there was some distance between them. Kira didn't think they'd be best friends.
It was nice to have the little room to herself for a while. Kira thought about calling Neil, decided not to. She took a shower in the big communal bathroom down the hall and then sat in her bathrobe with the lights off and had a cigarette, watching the sky change color through the window. She put her feet up and let the bathrobe fall open in the front, enjoying the way her body looked in the grey sideways light.
When her cigarette was done Kira opened Johanna's desk drawer and pulled out a spool of dark red raffia. Johanna had bought it to wrap a birthday present she'd mailed to her brother.
Kira shed her robe and sat cross-legged on the thin carpet, naked except for a pair of socks, and pulled several yards of ribbon off the spool. It was cheap-looking stuff, slick and glossy but also rough like twine. It was a big spool and she knew Johanna wouldn't know if she took some.
Kira got up and rooted through the room looking for a pair of scissors or a knife, but found nothing. She had a nail clipper in her toiletry bag, but that was in the bathroom down the hall. She didn't feel like getting it so she used her last match to burn through it. The natural fibers burned easily. She blew out the tiny flames.
Kira checked to make sure the door was locked and then sat back down on the floor and made a loop in one end of the raffia. She passed the ribbon through the loop to make a kind of self-tightening noose, which she put around her ankles, binding them together. She passed the cord several times around her ankles and then tied a knot.
Next she looped the remainder several times around her left wrist, then her right. By twisting her hand around she was able to bind her hands together reasonably well. Holding the stuff in her teeth, she pulled tight a knot and wrapped it around her wrists several times until it felt secure. Now her hands and feet were both bound together, connected by a length of ribbon only a foot long.
Lately she had returned to her childhood habit of tying herself up and fantasizing. She had various strategies for tying herself up. If she looped the cords around her wrists and ankles enough times, it would feel realistic enough to pretend. She never really worried about untying herself. She found that if she was patient she could always unwind the cords and unpick the knots. She didn't think it was really possible to herself up and not be able to get out. Not without handcuffs or whatever.
Her mother had found her like that in her room once when she was in kindergarten. Even then Kira had known it was wrong, or dirty, and was ashamed and embarrassed. Ever since, she kept her fantasies totally secret, even from Neil. She didn't think he'd want to tie her up, or know what to do.
Besides, Neil was a thousand miles away. She was finding out firsthand what random people were always telling her: long distance relationships suck. She wondered, for the hundredth time, whether it had been the right choice to stay together after high school.
Stretching her arms out, she managed to pull her hands down and past her feet. She wanted her wrists behind her, but she had trouble squeezing her forearms past her hips. She wriggled on the floor, falling over onto her side. With some effort she squirmed her arms past her hips.
Kira now found herself with hands and feet both bound behind her. She tried to raise herself to a kneeling position but she discovered she couldn't straighten her body. The length of ribbon that connected her wrists to her ankles was short, and it doubled her over and forcing her into a humiliating position. She squirmed again and felt the cord tighten around her wrists.
In her imagination she was bound in compromising positions, not by Neil, but by mysterious kidnappers who gently impaled her with their huge cocks. Now she imagined that she was a maid in a big house, being punished by a rich gentleman for some transgression. The rich gentleman would leave her there in his salon, or his drawing room or whatever, naked and bound, to reflect upon her inability to polish the silver. Then he would return to find her as she was now, naked and doubled over, her hands tied to her ankles behind her back.
She imagined that she was helpless and exposed, and that perhaps it wasn't the aristocratic gentleman but his son. The son would be surprised to find the maid like this. Perhaps he would take advantage of her. She was only a maid, after all.
She fitted various cute boys from around campus into the role of the son until she found one that fit and then she allowed the fantasy to continue, the boy touching her between her legs, she unable to prevent him.
Kira shifted around fruitlessly. Her pussy felt hot and wet and there was no way to touch herself without undoing all the knots and ruining the fantasy of helplessness. She felt the urgent need to rub against something. Her pillow was on the floor nearby. Shuffling on her knees, she moved closer to it, hoping to straddle it and rub against it, but she found that her ankles were bound together so tightly that she couldn't spread her knees apart.
Kira fell on her side again and wiggled her feet until she could cross her ankles. The ribbon was much tighter around her ankles now, but the socks cushioned her so it was okay. With her ankles crossed she could now flip over onto her stomach and flatten her crotch against the pillow. Face pressed against the carpet, hands and feet still tied behind her, she hunched her pussy ineffectively against the pillow, imagining that this was the only form of relief allowed by her captor.
A knock on the door jerked her out of her reverie.
"Johanna?" a boy's voice called out. It sounded like Mitchell, a friend of Johanna's.
More knocking. "Johanna? Kira? Anybody home?"
Kira lay still, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for him to go away. She reminded herself the door was safely locked and if she was quiet and didn't move, he would think no one was home.
Then she heard a terrifying sound: the sound of a key turning in a lock. Almost at once, the door swung open. Kira struggled with her bindings, but the ribbon only dug in tighter. Panicking, she managed to lift herself off the pillow, but only succeeded in falling over again with a thump.
Mitchell stood in the doorway.
"Kira? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine. I'm fine. I'm okay. Thanks!"
Mitchell hesitated in the doorway. Kira could hear voices in the hall, coming closer.
"God, I told you I'm okay! This is my room! How did you unlock the door?"
"I just needed to borrow a book. I thought you were out. Johanna gave me the key-"
"Well come back later, okay?"
Instead of leaving, Mitchell took a few steps inside the room and closed the door behind him.
"Do you need some help?"
"Look, Mitchell, this is super embarrassing, but I'm really okay."
"Okay. It's just- are you alone in here? Is someone coming to untie you? Is Johanna..."
"No! Look, I tied myself up. I was just fooling around. I can get out. I was just bored, you know?"
"Yeah, that's cool."
Kira was facing away from Mitchell, and she had to turn her head over her shoulder to see him. Mitchell was standing by the door, looking shocked and nervous.
There was an awkward pause as neither of them knew what to say. Why was he still in the room? Kira had never been so embarrassed in her life. She tried to think of some way to explain why she was tied up naked on the floor. Why did it have to be Mitchell? He was sort of cute and he was going to think she was the biggest weirdo ever.
"Now that you've got a good look you can go, okay?"
"Look, Kira, I'll leave if you want me to, but those knots look pretty tight. Are you sure you can get out?"
"Of course, see?"
Kira wiggled and strained but the ribbon was stronger than it looked. It had worked itself into knots that she couldn't easily pull out. How had it gotten so tight? She realized she'd have to pull her arms back under her legs and pick at the knots. It might take a while.
