Bound or Free?
I was running.
I usually went jogging every morning, having inherited the 'sturdy peasant build' of my Germanic ancestors and it was only with continued discipline that I could keep my tone and figure.
Sure 48G-40-46 was on the opulent end of curvy, but the tendency to get chubby was one that I had fought since adolescence with relentless cardio, dance, martial arts and swimming.
I usually run with my Iphone piping inspirational music to my earbuds, but today I had forgotten. It didn't matter, my heart was hammering before I took my first step. I had once been caught by Yu Ka, my Chinese student boarder, captured by the twin sights of his painting, showing me bound and naked. Captured by the sight of him naked bathing in the moonlight, and worst and most humiliating of all, caught touching myself watching him.
Yu Ka. An artist, a dreamer. A quiet studious boy with short dark hair and eyes that were pools of blackness that I fell into, because I wasn't careful. Yu Ka of the golden skin, the quiet gentle movements, the almost serene stillness that gave a youth of half my age the air of a silent sage, while I felt like the chattering fool every time I tried to speak in his presence.
It was ridiculous. I was an Orthodontist, a sought after and very well-paid specialist. I was his landlady. I had been the best at everything I had done and had a wall of recognition that any professional would be proud to claim as her own, yet the sight of his golden skin made me blush, the thought of its taste...
I released a groan, my red hair tossing from side to side as I tried to deny my own reactions. I could feel the heat in my panties, feel the almost painful erection of my nipples. The mere thought of his name had my body falling all over itself to be ready for his eyes, his hands, his lips and his perfect golden cock. Yu Ka, his name was all the music I needed to run to. I was running away from the shame of him seeing me, the shame of seeing his depiction of me bound for sexual exploitation and knowing it spoke to the deepest needs in me. I was running away from him, and failing.
I stopped upon the trail, now back at the parking lot. It was time to go home and face Yu Ka, or take the cowards way and go get breakfast, or hit the gym to delay facing him. It was a Saturday, I didn't even have work to hide in. No. I may be many things, a bitch, control freak, and arrogant but no one had ever accused me of cowardice.
I stopped to pick up two drinks. My local coffee shop/new age book store had what Yu Ka and his friends liked to drink, so I stopped and got two large tieguanyin. I mentioned his name, and they knew how he took it, so I had two made the same way. If I was to apologize for my behaviour, I could at least pretend to be civilized at the same time.
Nerving myself up, I felt like a virgin awaiting her first date as I pressed the chime on the downstairs apartment, holding the coffee.
Yu Ka opened the door with a quiet bow and motioned me to enter. I was two steps in when I noticed his wince and noted the careful shoe rack on the door and remembered how carefully all his friends took off their shoes and put on slippers.
I stopped and blushed furiously.
"I am so sorry, Yu Ka. I brought this Tieguanyin for you to apologize for violating your privacy that way last night, and now I have violated your hospitality with my shoes. If I can just put your tea down, I can remove my shoes. Sorry I didn't bring any slippers."
I was gushing like an idiot and knew it. I was a trained dentist who owned multiple branches, was a paid speaker at a professional association gathering and this young Asian man had me blushing and gushing like a desperate fan girl with her boy band crush.
Smiling softly, Yu Ka waved at the shoe rack and spoke.
"Civilized folk brought slippers to wear in the house, barbarians went barefoot of course, but civilized folk understood their duty to train the barbarian in right behaviour so they too could earn a place among civilized folk."
His words should have stung, but before I could decide whether or not to be offended, his next sentence drew a whimper from me as my whole body shuddered in what felt like a mini orgasm.
"Barbarians had some redeeming features. They were frequently splendid animal specimens, full of passion and potential that needed only the right controlling hand to train to great usefulness."
His eyes.
Oh his eyes roamed over my body openly and slowly, making it clear I was to him such a barefoot barbarian animal, and the hunger in his eyes made it clear both that he found me a splendid animal specimen, and that I needed training.
Releasing me from my paralysis, he turned to walk into his studio, taking the teas with him. Placing one down on the table with his easel, he put the second on the low table behind.
"Come," he said, "I want to show you two of my works. I only really have it in me to pursue one series at a time, and I must choose which of these works will be the center of my focus in the coming months."
I was so grateful to be released from his piercing eyes, that I followed without thinking. My heart was racing, my nipples aching with need and my sex burning with heat that made the sweat from my run seem cool in comparison. Yu Ka gestured to two large canvasses.
The first showed me in white blouse and dark skirt, my hair up, my face in perfect makeup, looking every inch the cold controlled professional woman. Somehow, he had captured in still life the strut that let the world know I owned it, and wasn't much impressed with it.
"That is amazing Yu Ka, anyone who knows me will know this is a truer image than anything a camera could catch." I complimented it, and gods help me, I thought it was true until I looked at the second painting.
There I was, in a white floral kimono with red blossoms, my body naked beneath it. The kimono was open, showing my breasts again bound in scarlet cord against my white skin. My knees were parted, revealing my shaved sex and the ropes bound my ankles to my thighs and finally to my wrists, pinning me helplessly exposed and open.
My head was thrown back, my neck extended. One coil of my red hair had come loose as if from my violent thrashing, yet the look on my face was ecstasy— a perfect blend of passion, surrender and pleasure.
I whimpered and one hand went to my breast, the other my neck as I could not help but trace the line of shadow Yu Ka had left from nipple to neck, my own back arching and neck extending as my body overrode my mind to bend it to the will he had poured into this painting. I latched desperately onto his words like a drowning woman onto a line as he spoke again.
"This is in the style of Su Xiaoxiao, she was the most famous prostitute of the Southern Qi Dynasty. In a time when women were bound to the house and their husband, she chose to become a prostitute so her love could be shared with many. I see this as a vision of what you could become, this grace could be you. If you had the courage to accept the training to be more than a rude barbarian."
I fell to my knees. I could not speak. I could not answer. I could not even lift up my eyes to meet his. There was only one answer I could give.
Leaning forward, I put my lips to his foot and kissed the left first, then the right. With both my hands I caressed his foot as I kissed them. I stayed with my cheek pressed to his foot for almost a minute. My heart hammering, shame and fear warring within me. I was desperate to run, terrified of rejection.