Even now, even as I am enjoying his hug, I am watching the clock, seeing the minute hand drop past the nadir of the dial and begin to climb back up toward the top; toward the minute that I will be untied and let free to climb the stairs out of the basement and get on with my day.
I hate that I am thinking about getting away instead of reveling in the intimacy that my husband is pressing on me, but that does not change my thoughts. When someone asks you not to think about crocodiles, then you cannot stop thinking about them. When I have a clock in front of me, I cannot stop thinking about the time, waiting for the time to pass and the hand reach the twelve. Would it be different if I were facing the other way? If I could not see the clock? No. It would be worse because then I would be wondering if the hour had already passed and wondering if my husband, my loving husband, were abusing my trust and keeping me prisoner for longer than we agreed. I have to see the clock to know that I should not be fretting about the time passing. It is a conundrum with no answer.
He has hugged me long enough to satisfy himself. He steps back and puts his hands on either side of my face. For the first time since he told me that he loves me a quarter hour ago, he speaks again. He says the same thing. “I love you.” And he says it with the same sincere tone as last time. I believe that he still means it.
“I love you,” I reply. The statement comes automatically because I cannot leave his love hanging in the air between us without giving it back. But that does not make my words false. I do love him. Deeply. Maybe more now than I did before he tied me up. That conundrum might have an answer but I don’t think that I’m clever enough to find it.
Because I am distracted.
He kisses me now. Brushes his lips against mine, sucks lightly on my lower lip, and then slides his tongue slowly along the edges of my teeth as I relax my mouth to admit him. He kisses me for a long time, standing apart from me and leaning forward so that the only parts of us that touch are his hands on my cheeks and his mouth on my mouth. I part my teeth to allow his tongue to enter deeper if he wants, but he does not push inside. I give him the tip of my tongue and we taste each other. I have not tasted my husband in a long time. He tastes good and I want more. I push into his mouth, wishing that I could hold his head, too, but my arms are held fast to the frame, held away from his face by his velvet ropes.
We kiss and then we kiss more. I had forgotten how much I liked being kissed and kissing back. I want to keep kissing but he breaks free of my mouth to slide his face downward. I hate having my neck tickled and, when his lips slide over that tender skin, squirm as far away as the ropes allow. I want to tell him to stop. I would but he keeps moving down and the tickling ends before I have to speak. As his lips pass my collarbone, I am glad that I did not object. It’s his hour. It would be unfair for me to object to anything reasonable. We both understand that that is the real gift that I’m giving him: that I will not object unless he does something that I can’t tolerate. And I can tolerate having my neck kissed for a second. Not for much longer than that, but for that one second, okay.
I have never understood a man’s fascination with a woman’s breasts. They’re just little sacks of skin filled with fat and glands, no different than any other bit of skin on the body. Except after the children were born and I was breastfeeding them. Then they were milk dispensers. During that time, they became special to me and stopped being special for him. I was surprised to find that Bert lost interest in my boobs when I was nursing. The first time that I suckled a baby, I wondered if he would want to suck from my teat, too. Only a few weeks earlier, he had been all over my big pregnant-woman boobs whenever I let him near me. But, as soon as the baby was born, he seemed to stop caring about them. Then, after the baby was weaned and they dried up, he was all over them again. The same thing happened with the second child. When they dried up the second time and become nothing special to me again, Bert reacted like they were long-lost treasures, annoying me to no end by pawing at me, night and day. I had to keep pushing him off me.
Now, with my hands lashed far apart and high above my head, he is free to paw and lick and suck my boobs to his hearts content. I can’t push him away, so he goes to town on them. Slowly and gently, but with undeniable enthusiasm, he spends minute after minute working on first one and then the other, then the first one again. It’s laughable, but I restrain from expressing disdain. It’s his hour and, if he wants to spend it worshiping my chest, then so be it.
My nipples are not cold and dead, I can feel his ministrations and they are enjoyable enough as long as he is gentle and loving. Despite whatever disdainful thoughts cross my mind, my nipples ignore my brain, thicken, thrust themselves out, and darken in response to his stimulation. Traitorous things, these nipples, they tingle and throb of their own accord. They feel good. I remember eager boys working on my breasts in the front seat of their cars before walking me to my father’s front porch. I am reminded of what it felt like to be young and I want to grab his head and push him hard against my tits to get more. To get as much as I can. But I cannot. His ropes hold my arms far away from my chest. I can neither protect my tits from his attention nor make him work them harder. All I can do is arch my back and push them forward for him to use as he will. Which is what I am doing when he abandons them and slides his mouth further south.
The clock is pushing toward two when his fingers begin probing between my legs, finding the moist, plump lips and pulling my hips close. With my legs spread far by the ropes attached to his frame, my options are limited. I rotate my pelvis upward because that is all that I can do to give his tongue easier access. I’ve never liked any man chewing and sucking on my clit – it’s too sensitive – but this is the last few minutes of his hour and I’m prepared to give him what he wants even if it does not feel as good as proper love making.
He takes less than I expect from my sex, a few slow licks, long gentle caresses with his tongue that part plump lips from one end to the other, tasting me rather than stimulating me, and then he stands once more, holding me and pressing the full length of his body against my spread-eagled form. I feel his rigid prick pressing the front of his pants against my damp crotch and wonder if he is going to honor his promise to release me at the end of the hour. I’m almost hoping that he’ll go into overtime, pull off his clothes, and penetrate me while I’m tied in his frame in this vulnerable position. Almost. My arms are aching and my legs feel weak and tired. As much as I would like him to make love to me here and now, I want to be released into his arms more.
He whispers softly into my ear, “Thank you. This has been the most wonderful gift you have ever given to me,” then he kneels and frees me. His knots are magical. A couple of gentle tugs and a quick unwinding and I am free to bring my legs under my body to support my weight properly again; another couple of gentle tugs and quick unwindings and I can lower my arms and wrap them around his body.
To my surprise, I have no interest in watching television this afternoon. Or doing the laundry. After spending all that time being hugged, kissed, and caressed, I want to hug, kiss, and caress him back. As I hold him, I ask him if he wants to go up to the bedroom and make love to me. Feeling his erection still pressing through his pants against me, I am not surprised that he wants to do exactly that. I smile at his eagerness.
Later, after making love, I ask him what he intends to do with his frame. He shrugs and says that he supposes that he will dismantle it. I ask him to leave it up for a while. The children won’t be back from university until Christmas and I would not mind if he wanted to frame me again for an hour. He enjoyed it so. Maybe as soon as next Sunday he would like to do it again.
After all, twenty one years of marriage deserves a better gift than an hour only once.
And maybe there’s something in this for me, too.
When I recall standing in the frame, my limbs stretched like Leonardo’s Vituperative Man, being ogled by my husband, I have to accept that, maybe, when he says that he likes looking at me, he is being honest. After
all, no one was forcing him to spend so much of his hour looking. The only possible reason that he did it was because he wanted to. I’m not beautiful. I will never believe that lie. But I am a woman and he is a man, so maybe he does like to look as much as he claims. And, if he keeps looking, maybe some day I’ll be able to look into the mirror with his eyes instead of my own. Maybe some day I’ll see the sexy woman that he claims to see.
And, maybe when the kids come home for Christmas, we can find some way to hide the frame away instead of dismantling it. It would be a pity if Bert had to make a brand new one after they went back to university.
Because, maybe if I get tied up often enough and hugged for long enough, I’ll start wanting to be hugged even when I am not restrained.
Maybe.
I’ve been told that stranger things have happened.
THE END
Afterword
These are works of fiction. Readers have often asked if I have experienced scenes like these in real life and I have to disappoint them by telling them that I have not. There is a caution in this. Nothing that I have described here has been tested in practice. The activities in these stories may not be as safe in reality as in my fantasies. If you’re going to play, then play safe, sane, and, above all, consensual.
I enjoy hearing how readers react to my writing. If you wish to comment, favorably or not, I can be reached at: [email protected].
If you wish to use my writing for commercial purposes, please write to me rather than waiting for my lawyer to contact you. I guarantee that you will find my terms more favorable than my lawyer’s.
Ashley Zacharias, 2010
A Bestiary of Unnatural Women Page 25