Finding Out

I slept restrained last night.

It was the first time Mr. Tungsten had ever done this. He came into our room at bedtime, plucked the iPad out of my grip and said. “Give me your hands.”

I was surprised — mildly. He was holding our set of wrist cuffs. They are wide and made of fine-grained leather softened by years of use. I’ve often remarked on how they’re so comfortable, with those handy D-rings that can be linked together. They were like when he came in. A heavy lock secured them.

It was later than we usually played, but Mr. Tungsten had warned me things were changing. Even before that, I didn’t doubt e what he said.

“You’ll be sleeping in these,” he informed me as he tightened the straps. My surprise grew.

We’d been to a party that night and each had lots of caffeine. “But what if I’m not tired?”

“Well, then you’ll have a lot of time,” his voice was even, ” to reflect on things. And just to make sure you don’t take these off ….” he revealed a new pair of locks. They were brass.  Their hasps went through the holes in the end of each prong on the buckle of each wrist restraint. They had been designed this way.

We had never used that particular feature before last night.

He said, “With things like this it’s important to set the right tone at the start.”

I knew what “this” was. This circumstance. This path towards establishing a new way of things.

Mr. Tungsten joined me after changing. He had on boxers and long-sleeved t-shirt he often wears to bed. He turned out the lights and instructed me to lie any way I was comfortable. He was on his back so I went supine with the back of my head on his shoulder and my body at an angle to his. Crossing hands over my chest worked fine. There was enough space between the D-rings that my elbows could touch the bed on either side. The metal clinked as I settled in.

An unintended side-effect of taking away iPad with its addictive bubble-shooting game was that we talked. He didn’t act particularly domly; we discussed everyday things. He asked if the restraints were comfortable and they were. I didn’t know if I could fall asleep like that, but it seemed reasonable.

At one point his tone did darken. “Oh and by the way, the key ring for that middle lock that used to be in the toy chest?”

“Yes?”

“I moved it. You won’t be needing to worry about that for awhile.”

“Oh,” I said. Inside, it felt like saying eep.

I asked, “what if there’s a fire?”

“Then we’ll run outside and you’ll be embarrassed. But we’ll be safe.”

I imagined our building manager cutting through the leather cuffs with one of the tools from his garage and inwardly I flinched. However, should such a thing ever happen, I’ll inform you all right now, that the manager has seen us go to play parties. He even approached me one night as I was going to Hollywood for a kinky night out, arrayed in vinyl and stompy boots and said “hi” with a knowing look. Hell, he’s even replaced our water heater, which is in the same closet I store all my fetish clothes. He’d be the last person in our building to be shocked by what the man and I do at night.

“Would you go back in and save the iPad?”

“No,” mi marido said with heat. “I’d save you, I’d save the dog, but that thing could burn.”

“And you’d be happy about it.”

“Hell yeah.”

We laughed together. It’s one of his pet peeves that I spend way too much time with my device.

We continued in that tone for awhile, laughing and talking like years ago, when we were first finding out about each other. I got up a couple of times to go to the bathroom and it was okay, with just a few extra motions like pulling up my cherry red underwear on one side at a time. I slept well too. I usually doze off on my side, with one hand flat under the pillow and the other curled up near my chin. The cuffs allowed this.

I did wake up around 4:30 with a scratchy throat, a last gasp from the cold a few nights ago, but I settled back in. There were unusually vivid dreams about finding furniture at a swap meet for my 6th scale Breaking Bad figurines.  A couple of times the dreams involved wrestling or feeling frustrated because I couldn’t move freely. It was minor, though.

In the morning we slept in. Mr. Tungsten stayed in bed reading his Kindle, but I didn’t go for the iPad first thing. Instead, I leaned over and kissed him. He told me he’d gotten his wish. To see me wake up with my wrists bound. I smiled. It felt lovely to lie curled against his side in my silky grey shift and sassy red panties with him so obviously so at ease. At one point I knelt up to pet kinkster pup — she was confused about why I didn’t just stick a hand out of my side of the bed like normal — and afterwards stayed kneeling with my legs folded under me. I thought about Gor and 9 1/2 Weeks. He thought the same.

“Tell me again about the Gor novels and formative kink.”

Mr. Tungsten reads my blog. I stole “formative kink” from him as well.

I chatted gaily and at length about Slave Girl of Gor, about the sleepovers where my friends and I read that book aloud. As I knelt there, conscious of my posture I recalled being fascinated by John Norman’s vision of a long-haired, long-limbed woman in a torn cloth too brief to be called a dress who served the men of her camp with elegance and grace. I explained how visceral Norman’s writing was, even though the actual mechanics of sex were never described. I recalled feeling baffled about why anyone would trade freedom for anything else.

“You’re much more open about kink-related things when you’re like this,” Mr. Tungsten observed, brushing the cuffs and my hands inside them.

“Really?”

“Yes. And you look beautiful like that.”

“I feel beautiful. Very feminine.”

“Maybe there’s something to this Gor stuff after all. I may have to read some of the books.”

“I have Slave Girl. But it’s down in the garage, I’d have to dig it out.”

“Not like that.”

I laughed. “No.”

“You know what else?”

‘What?”

“You haven’t once yet asked me to be let out of them.”

It was true. “I know they’ll come off at some point, I just . . . like this for now. I like the newness. I like finding things out.”

“You seem very natural. Content.” Mr. Tungsten is also a writer, so he knows lots of adjectives.

“I am. I like being this way.”

He smiled. “So do I.”

Featured image by Scott Fraser at Deviantart