The Big Book of Bondage

by Alison Tyler

  I rubbed my palm against the leather covering the rigid fixture in the front of my jeans and my cock twitched, making me shudder. I was contemplating the wisdom of pulling it out for a quick tease when a sound from around the corner brought me back down to earth in a wonderfully scared-out-of-your-pants kind of way. I pressed myself against the wall and peeked around the corner, my heart in my throat. Nothing. Must have been my imagination.

  The hand that grabbed my wrist and wrenched my arm behind my back till I was on the tips of my toes came out of nowhere, seriously. I let out an incredibly un-macho squeak, and there she was, her hot little body pressed tightly against my back, shoving me roughly into the cold brick. She smelled like jasmine. Not tall enough for her lips to reach my ear, she settled for growling into my shoulder:

  “I’m disappointed, you know, I really had hoped that you’d make this much, much harder.”

  She gave my arm another wrench, and I yelped, sure she was going to pop my shoulder out of joint. Somehow, I managed to find my voice, breathless as it was.

  “Oh, honey. Don’t be disappointed…yet!”

  I stomped down hard on her left instep, and her grip loosened enough that I was able to pull my arm free. I looked to see her partly doubled over from the surprise pain in her foot. If I were fighting someone else, the obvious next move would be to smash an elbow into that unguarded face. Post-feminist egalitarianism hadn’t gotten us that far yet, though. It might be acceptable, in some cases like this one, to fight back, but if you ever wanted to be in a woman’s good books again you never, ever touched the face. I settled for the slower and less elegant solution of going into a deep crouch and landing a shoulder in her gut on the way up and past. It wouldn’t slow her up for long, though, and this time a jog wouldn’t do it. I broke into a flat-out run. A low, pained chuckle followed me down the street.

  “Oh, you are so going to pay for that!”

  I sure as hell hoped so.

  Fortunately, in a city this size, downtown was fairly small, and on a Friday night it was pretty much foot traffic only. That meant I could as good as ignore the traffic lights as I hopped from alleyway to parking lot toward my next destination. When I’d outrun her by a corner, I popped behind a Dumpster in the back lot of a Subway, and waited till she kept on past me before making a dash perpendicular to her direction—hightailing it straight for the park. I knew she’d see me, of course, but hopefully I’d at least gained a few paces. Jia was faster than I was in an out-and-out speed footrace, but I had more stamina, so if I could start to get her tired I might outrun her yet.

  Technically, the park closed to visitors at sundown each night, but the arboretum trail—the place I was desperately sprinting for—had tiny paths worn through the forest floor toward it from every few feet of the park’s perimeter. One of those was right ahead of me. A quick look over my shoulder told me she was only a few steps behind me, but the only light in the park came from those little solar lamps every few meters along the trail. Plenty dark enough for me to hide and buy some time.

  Then again, the best laid plans of mice and men, as they say… I was barely a few dozen paces into the woods when my boot caught a protruding root and I went down, landing on my knees and scraping them and my palms into a lovely bleeding mess. The shock through my shoulders, especially the newly sore one, was enough to make me yell out.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  Another crunch of footsteps through the brush and she was behind me. I cringed, and braced myself for whatever she had planned for me. This wasn’t what I had in mind at all, one clumsy move and I’d ruined it all!

  Instead of a punch or a kick or a fist in my hair, though, she asked me if I was all right. I was stunned silent for a minute; I mean, I was far more all right than if she’d started in on me, wasn’t I? But of course, she didn’t know that, and it just wasn’t the same if she wasn’t the one deliberately making me scream.

  “Yeah, nothing injured…nothing but my pride.”

  I swear to god she cackled.

  “Good.”

  That was when my world exploded in the pain I’d been expecting heartbeats earlier. Her boot connected with my tailbone so hard I could have sworn she’d taken a running leap to land on me. I went down on my face, and it felt like I was bruised right through the bone and halfway up my spine. She couldn’t have jumped on me, though, because that was what she did next, landing knees-first onto the small of my back and knocking what little air I had left out of my lungs. I was still so stunned from the impact that I couldn’t even feel what she was doing to my wrists—in fact, I heard the click before I noticed anything at all. She’d fastened them together (using the cuffs and rings I was so gracious to have provided) and anchored them to another one of those evil loops of root just like the one I’d tripped on, high above my head.

  Jia let up the pressure on my back to roll me over. I didn’t resist—I was looking for a respite that she wasn’t ready to give me yet. As soon as I was on my back, she bore her full weight down on me again. This time, those wicked, bony knees landed one each onto the sensitive inner part of my upper thighs, forcing them further apart. I grunted and tried to shake away the tears of pain that had sprung to the corner of my eyes.

  If I craned my neck enough I could see what she was doing to my legs, not that it mattered much since I didn’t have the leverage I needed to fight her off. Once for each ankle, she clipped a length of chain off her belt and snapped the loop shut through the ring in my boot and yet another of those roots. Damn, I hated those things! Once I was secured enough for her satisfaction, she lifted her weight off my legs and turned to face me, ultimately ending up straddling me on her knees, positioned so that sitting back just a little bit more would seat her right on my cock, which was still very strongly protesting its incarceration in my jeans. I groaned and thrust my hips up at her, but I was stretched out pretty far; there really wasn’t much farther I could go.

  “So…” She was breathless as she talked, and I wished that there was more light so I could see the flush I was sure was in her cheeks.

  “The woods at night, huh? I mean, it’s a bit clichéd, but I guess I can work with it.”

  She reached down and undid my jeans, and having my cock and balls free again felt so fucking good I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t come right then and there. When she wrapped her hot, tiny hand around my shaft and started pumping, my whole world contracted until nothing existed except that sensation. God, I wanted this, I wanted it so much! She started to jerk me off faster and I moaned. The pain in my back, my shoulder, my ass—they all disappeared. There was nothing but the blissful sensation of her, bringing me so close to coming that I wasn’t going to be able to hold out much more… well, nothing but that and the nagging thought that this wasn’t supposed to be how the night ended.

  “Jia, please.” It was barely a whisper, so quiet that even I wasn’t sure I had actually said it. She squeezed my cock and I groaned again.

  “No, wait… please, Jia. Please stop.”

  Much to my disappointment, she did. When her hand left my cock, so close to getting me off, I missed it so strongly it felt like grief. She let out a derisive grunt.

  “Let me get this straight. You’ve been running from me all night—haven’t stopped even once to make sure I was keeping up—until you fell on your ass here, and you want me to stop for you now? Why should I?”

  She stood up and paced over to lean against a nearby tree, and my moan when she left me sounded to my own ears like a cry of bereavement. At least I had fewer distractions while I tried to explain. I said I’d made some special arrangements for her tonight, and that though the run through the park was part of my design, being caught wasn’t. That was the design of the stupid roots and nothing else. I’m not proud to say it, but I begged for her to let me go now, and take her where I was planning on taking her all along. Eventually, she agreed, but only on two conditions.

  “Anything,” I said, flooded with relief.

  She ch
uckled. “Okay, I’ll take that for condition number one. The second one is that I’m done with the running. The chase was fun, don’t get me wrong, but I’m getting tired and we haven’t even played yet. Tell me where we’re going and I’ll meet you there.”

  I was disappointed, sure. The way I’d pictured it she was chasing me the whole way back, but it was a concession I was more than happy to make at that point. Eventually we agreed that she’d me meet me at the house in a half hour—we really were pretty damn close already.

  She bent over me and took a long, slow lick around the outside of my ear. I shuddered. Then I heard a click and she stood up and walked away. If I twisted just right I could see that my wrists were being held together with a padlock. She’d put the key in the lock and turned it, then left me there to figure out how to get free. I figured it really shouldn’t be getting me this hot, but apparently no one told my body that.

  It took a serious amount of squirming and a good ten minutes for me to get myself loose and ready to head home, and even after all that it was a chore to force my dick back into the tight leather jeans. I marveled, not for the first time, that the little brain in my pants really did have less than zero common sense.

  All told, there were fewer than ten minutes before Jia was due to arrive by the time I got inside. Just enough time to wash the worst of the grime out of the abrasions in my hands and knees and get my jeans back on. The boots were a sacrifice that had to be made—they took ten minutes to lace all by themselves. Besides, maybe she had sinister intentions toward my feet that me being bootless might encourage.

  I had scarcely made it up to the bedroom and shut the door behind me when I heard the front door open. Round about the time I imagined her finding the orchid vase and note beckoning her upstairs on the table, I turned on the stereo and hit the lights. I leaned against the back wall of the room and listened for her steps up the stairs. They were loud, meaning she’d obviously kept her boots on. The thought made me grin.

  The steps stopped in front of the door, but she didn’t open it. Good, that meant she’d seen the note on the front of the door and was reading it. I hoped she’d be willing to play along. Fact was that if we wanted to do anything really fun in public, we’d probably finish up the night by getting arrested. Here, though—here, we could do anything. This is what was on the second note:

  You chase me through most of downtown. When you finally catch me, I’ve led you back into that first nightclub. The music is loud, and everyone on the dance floor is worked up and sweaty, so at first no one notices us. By the time you get me to my knees, though, the crowd has parted to watch us. Someone leaves, maybe just because they don’t want to see, or maybe because they want to call the cops, but we don’t care. We have the dance floor to ourselves, and you have me at your mercy.

  The door opened and my heart skipped a beat. She was looking right at me, on my knees in the middle of the room as advertised. There was violence and passion in her eyes, and as hackneyed as it might sound, I was hypnotized by it. I could hear a strange rumbling noise over the din of the music, and it took me a moment to realize that Jia was growling.

  “Hell of a long way to lead me on a chase only to end up all the way back where we started, isn’t it?”

  She quirked a bemused smile and took in the rest of the room. I had covered the walls on either side of her with a photo panorama of the nightclub on a crowded Friday night. (Technically, they were taken on a Wednesday, but the idea was the same.)

  “Huh. I’ve never done it with an audience before, but… I guess I can work with that, too.”

  She’d paused just long enough to plant a vicious, hold-nothing-back kick in my diaphragm. As a result, by the time she was done talking I was on my side, curled into a ball on the floor at her feet. A nudge with her boot was all it took to roll me onto a half curl on my stomach, and a knee in the lower back flattened me out all the way.

  She reached for my right wrist, but I wasn’t letting her get me pinned so quickly, not this time. I’d gotten my breath back—finally—and I echoed her growl, yanked my hand back when she made to immobilize it. I might not be able to get out from underneath her, but I still had more upper-body strength than her by far. I’d gotten my arm away from her three times before she decided to do something about it.

  Sharp, crushing pain stabbed into both sides of the back of my neck—she’d clamped her jaws down on me like a lioness felling a steer. I panicked and bucked her off my back, but her teeth held firm, digging deeper into muscle. It wasn’t like any kind of pain I’d ever felt. It felt like my neck was white-hot, and it shrank my world to the single feeling of that one point of blazing pain. Then the strangest thing happened. The pain didn’t go away, but all of a sudden it was mixed with a kind of euphoria. She hadn’t done anything different, she was still pinning me to the floor with nothing but her teeth, but… I can’t explain it except to say that I was okay with that. My whole body relaxed, and all I wanted to do was bathe in the sensation. If the reason the antelope on the nature channel went all limp when the tiger caught it just like this was anything close to my current crazy blissed-out sexual high, I had developed a whole new appreciation for natural selection. Wow.

  “Mmm…I like it when you behave for me.” She purred the words right next to my ear, but they sounded a million miles away.

  I was vaguely aware that she was doing something to secure my ankles and forearms to the floor, but I didn’t put up the least bit of resistance. I was worried that if I moved at all, it would break the spell of this new high.

  “In fact, I like it so much, I think I’m going to make sure you’re very, very still for me tonight. You’re okay with that, right, pet?”

  She bit down hard on my earlobe and I came reluctantly down to Earth.

  “Ow!”

  I tried to pull away from those sharp teeth that all of a sudden I didn’t like nearly as much, and in doing so pulled at the bonds holding my wrists. Ouch, fuck! They were sharp! I looked over and my arm was tied down, about two inches up from my wrist, to the ring in the floor with picture-hanging wire, of all things. If I struggled at all, I could very well cut myself quite handsomely. A trickle of fear ran down my spine and I shuddered. She chuckled. I guess she saw that I’d figured out my predicament.

  Something metal, sharp and very, very cold traced a painful line down my back, and I heard the sound of stitches ripping. She flashed the knife where I could see it before she put it away with a mischievous grin. It didn’t look bloodied; at least that was something. When she stepped out in front of me, I craned my neck to see her. She was still fully (and magnificently) dressed, but she had strapped a thick, veiny dildo the same color of her lipstick to the front of her jeans.

  “I want that lovely ass that you’ve been teasing me with all night. And since you offered me anything, I think I’ll take it without any of that inconvenient lube.”

  She brushed the tatters of my pants off my back and parted my cheeks, pressing the tip of the purple cock against my hole. Her first thrust made me scream, and somehow I knew I’d be hoarse by the end of the night. Of course, I also knew I didn’t want it any other way.

  IN CHARGE

  ADR Forte

  Carter’s as cold as a December night in Wisconsin. Colder. But he’s smart and efficient. He can “walk the talk,” as they say. So I respect him, even if I don’t like him. And I don’t like him.

  I miss our old boss. His witticisms and wispy gray hair and those heavenly cookies his wife sent by the dozens over the years. A glaring contrast to Carter with his power suit and Franklin planner, his icy smiles and gel-slicked hair.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll give credit where credit’s due. Carter gets things done. He creates order and he inspires following. But just as there are no soft edges to his starched jacket, there are no soft edges to his psyche.

  He can dazzle like the morning light caught by icicles on a winter-stripped branch, and he’s just as desolate. I’ve tried to like him, but I can�
�t.

  The one good thing about Carter’s reign has been the fact he’s based out of headquarters and only flies up here once or twice a month. We work together just fine long-distance.

  The downside to that is I’m his right-hand girl. So like it or not, when the annual summit comes around I’ll be getting packed off to headquarters for a week to provide representation. With him. I think I’d rather be shot in the foot.

  Then, two days before I’m due to leave, Tina stops by my desk, tells me she’s going, too. I think there’s got to be a god after all.

  “That’s awesome,” I say, grinning at her.

  She wrinkles her nose and smiles back. “Glad you don’t mind me tagging along. Although I can think of a lotta things I’d rather be doin’ than going to that summit.”

  “I’m with ya,” I say. She has no idea.

  My elation lasts all the way to the West Coast, right up until the point where we’re getting settled into our temporary cubicles.

  “Tina, Alexa. How was your trip?”

  Le sigh. I look up and force a smile and then let Tina answer him. I stay busy trying to hook up my computer and figure out why he makes me so uncomfortable. I find myself wishing I hadn’t worn this sweater and jeans to travel. I feel frumpy.