Best Bondage Erotica 2012

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  Hannah sighed dramatically, then crunched toast. “What’re you so scared of, anyway? I’m sure you two get up to much worse than she’s going to do in some club.” She rolled her dark eyes, and Nick wasn’t sure whether it was at what he got up to or what she suspected would go on at Strike, the BDSM club in question. Hannah had pried more details out of him than he’d ever admitted to anyone who wasn’t part of his sex life one late night about a year previously, and he knew even then that he’d never live it down. She kept what she knew to herself, or the friendship would have ended hideously, but no matter how vanilla his life looked on the surface—from his bookishness to his preference for what Hannah called his “uninspired” clothing style—he could no longer hide from her that the kink ran deep.

  Nick risked another sip of coffee as Hannah shrugged, rose and took her mug with her into the front room. She noisily flopped down with her laptop for her morning ritual of reading all the news fit for the Internet. Without turning around, she tossed her coup de grace over her shoulder: “If you’re jealous that she’ll be tying up some other boy, you could always take his place, you know.”

  The rush of guilt became the flush of embarrassment as Hannah’s arrow hit home. If he was slowly creeping around in his mind toward the possibility of loving Paolina, he was assiduously avoiding the possibility of being jealous that she was going to do a public bondage scene with another guy. A stranger at that, for the plan was to take a volunteer from the audience. No sex would be involved, Paolina had assured him; it wasn’t that kind of scene. And he was thrilled that she felt the desire to reassure him. But, if he was her lover and submissive, then why was he letting this chance go by? He didn’t have to immerse himself in the club scene; he didn’t have to care what any of the strangers watching would think. He could just be there, do this, for Paolina. For them both. Sudden resolve put a shiver through him. It was far from unpleasant. He grabbed his bag and headed for the door. He had a full day ahead behind the desk, editing copy for textbooks in which he rarely had real interest, and then he’d be headed home to change, find directions to Strike, and then off to an unsure but surely interesting night.

  As he navigated the empty streets, looking for the converted warehouse that was intentionally placed far from city lights and overmuch attention by sightseeing types, Nick saw in his mind’s eye the wide smile Hannah had given him as he left the house that night. Black T-shirt, tight jeans, black leather jacket and motorcycle boots: it was about as fetish as he got, but it was clear enough to Hannah where he was headed. “You look great,” she’d said, and he couldn’t help but flash a grin. Though they’d somehow managed to navigate a friendship without sex, they didn’t lack appreciation of each other’s attractiveness. And, passing a hand through his coffee-brown hair—short in back, wavy, messy bangs in front—he did feel attractive, if full of first-date-style jitters.

  He made his way into the private club, paid for a one-night membership and found his way to a little table in the back of the darkened main room with little fuss and eyes kept mostly to himself. Only when he was sipping a complimentary Coke (it was BYOB and he’d not remembered that, and he definitely could have used a stiff shot) did he begin to peek out at the crowd. There was a whole herd’s worth of leather, he noted, from jackets and miniskirts to chaps and bustiers. There were corsets and schoolgirl outfits and Lycra and more spike-heeled shoes and boots than he’d ever seen in one place. The men were far less decorative, on the whole, most going for leather and T-shirts or prim black suits with narrow ties. The majority paraded their submissive girlfriends or wives behind them or on ostentatious leashes. He could pick out the very few gay and lesbian couples easily enough, though there wasn’t a lot of difference in presentation. Both gender and role were on proud display. The few submissive men with their dominant women interested him most.

  He stared at one young-looking guy in nothing but a cock cage, head down, sitting at his mistress’s feet. She was heavily made up, trussed into a corset and long black skirt, and was stroking his shaggy head with long, red nails. A “hetfemdom” poster couple, Nick concluded. Mostly, he found himself wishing he were at home with Paolina, naked and exposed to her desires and demands. Too much here was for show, and that wasn’t what kink was about for him. How much did Paolina really get into this, he wondered, and would it prove too great a wedge between them?

  He didn’t catch even a glint of his lover before a particularly pompous master of ceremonies with shaved head and ample belly mounted the little stage and welcomed everyone to show night at Club Strike. He rushed through basic club rules and etiquette, explaining that after the show, the back playrooms would be open for everyone to enjoy scenes of his or her own using various equipment. Next, he read through the roster of the night’s events, which would include three acts: Sir Trebor and Titiletta, The Spider and the Fly, and a play piercing demonstration by Master Jashin and Lady Jedi. Nick frowned. Why was there no mention of Paolina? He was shifting in his chair, wondering if he should ask one of the bouncers or another patron, when he caught sight of her. Walking by the curtain at the back of the stage, Paolina passed in an instant, but he was entirely certain it was her, from the shoulder-length black hair with its funky blue streaks to the catsuit-clad curves of her ample hips and perfect peach of an ass. Even her little rounded belly and what another man might have called less-than-average breasts were perfect to him. Once more, the awareness that this must be love struck Nick, and hard.

  Clearly, she would be performing, and given that she was neither a “Titiletta” nor a “Lady Jedi,” he could only assume her act was The Spider and the Fly. He liked it. Though no less kitschy than silly or pretentious scene names, he could enjoy the thought of Paolina as a spider…and himself as the fly. Sadly, before he had his opportunity to swallow his fears and offer himself up publicly to his beautiful predator, he had to spend more than an hour watching the dreadfully clichéd flogging scene of Trebor (which he later learned was simply Robert with the letters reversed) and Titiletta. The leggy blonde with her perfect teeth and fake tits made the most absurd high whimpers and squeaks he’d ever heard a woman make. To be fair, it was obvious the two were enjoying themselves. He wielded his floggers with grace and style, if you liked that sort of thing. She made a pretty picture bound to the St. Andrew’s cross, her pert behind reddening nicely for the silent, appreciative crowd. But it was so performance driven, so focused on looking good. Competent Dom and decorative sub, but was there anything deeper going on?

  His thoughts shifted. Did he hope Paolina would offer more? If she simply put on a superficial show, he would be both disappointed and relieved. What they shared together was genuine, heartfelt, sometimes so intense they talked about it for days afterward, reliving and rejoicing in it over lunch, by phone or email. They both felt it, he was certain. If she could put a stranger through the physical and emotional pleasure and pain she gave him, what would it mean about them? His heart raced with unfamiliar insecurity. Paolina was the one who’d contacted him on the dating site, who’d asked him out. She’d taken the risk of telling him her erotic preferences and taken him to bed. She’d directly expressed her happiness at their compatibility. She made him moan and cry and come and beg for more. And she was the one who asked for sexual fidelity. How much more proof of her attraction did he need? Why was he terrified she’d come out and perform with some stranger and it’d be passionate and gripping? He’d always seen himself as fairly confident with women—an attractive, easygoing guy, comfortable taking the lead in a relationship even when he preferred sexual submissiveness when the partner was up to it. Wasn’t he still that guy?

  At last the flogging scene ended, and the aptly named Titiletta finished her titillation and took her tits offstage, followed by “Sir,” who was obviously so enamored of his submissive showpiece girlfriend that he could barely keep himself from drooling. But that was their game, and it just reinforced for Nick his awareness of the delightful dance everyone did around preferences and pl
easures. Who was he to judge? At the moment, he was wondering if he could steel the courage to do anything with all of these people watching. That Paolina was willing to take the stage and perform was suddenly a new and compelling reason to worship her.

  The twenty minutes between acts—as a huge wooden frame, crisscrossed with white nylon rope, was lowered from above and bolted to the stage—seemed far longer than the hour-plus of flogging as Nick grew increasingly nervous and did the will-I/ won’t-I? dance inside his troubled head. He ruminated in frantic patterns that didn’t seem logical even as they seemed inevitable. There were three likely outcomes here, he told himself as he looked longingly at the set that was obviously the web for Paolina’s fly. If he did not volunteer, he could secretly observe her with someone else and judge for himself whether fidelity meant to her what it did to him. He dubbed this the doomed-relationship option. A guy who played games like that was fooling himself more than his girlfriend. If he did volunteer, she could fail to see him or choose someone else intentionally. He dubbed this the hopelessly insecure option. He’d make sure she saw him, and why the hell wouldn’t she pick him? She’d asked him, quite directly, several times, to be part of the scene with her. And if she did pick him…he’d have to get on that stage. He swallowed hard. All those people, watching them together. It felt like such a breach of privacy, and yet, wasn’t it just another form of submission, just another way to please Paolina and grow closer to her? There really was no other choice.

  The introduction to Paolina’s act was simple and brief, but it seemed to Nick that the crowd had grown in size and energy as The Spider and the Fly was announced. The lights went down and then came up again in blue, and in the beautiful glow of the now silvery ropes, Paolina took the stage. Her thigh-high boots with their spiked heels clacked, and Nick was entranced, dismissing easily and entirely how he’d judged all the other women for wearing similar footwear. Her catsuit had a webbed design of straps and cutouts, and where it might have looked like Halloween finery on another woman, it was perfection on his Paolina.

  She toyed with a length of rope as she began to speak. “Good evening, everyone. I’m honored to perform for you tonight.” Her voice was soft yet commanding, and Nick was entirely under her spell before she’d truly begun to weave it. “Before I get to the physical part of the act, I hope you’ll indulge me in a little discourse on spiders.” She casually weaved some ornate form of slipknot and released it. “Is there anything more poetic than the way a spider builds its web from the very stuff of itself, with such loving symmetry, such lyrical perfection?” Her eyes fell upon various members of the audience, seeking agreement before she went on. “Then, having caught her prey, she binds it with such precision and speed, such dedication to her own satisfaction.” She passed the rope around and around her own wrist. “I think we Doms can relate to that, yes?” Nods came in reply from around the room.

  “Once the poor little submissive—I mean insect—has been wrapped up nice and tight, she gives the kiss of death, paralyzing and poisoning the prey so she can take its very lifeblood into herself. An exchange of power, however nonconsensual,” she concluded with a light laugh. The audience laughed with her. Nick smiled and scooted to the edge of his chair. Paolina had them all in the palm of her hand, wooing with word and graceful gesture. She was amazing. A star. His star. She let the rope slip from her wrist to coil at her feet. “But as I will allow my victim to leave with his life tonight,” she added, “this spider seeks a voluntary fly.”

  Nick didn’t wait for further cue, pushing his chair back with an audible scrape on the tiled floor and raising his hand like a schoolboy. He had no more doubts, nothing but adoration, the desire to please, to give his spider the eager prey she deserved. Paolina turned in surprise and blinked out over the lights at the sudden sound, but she quickly regained composure, smiling broadly and commenting on the pleasure of having such willing prey. The audience laughed again and some turned to gawk at the overeager volunteer. Nick approached the stage in even, deliberate steps, gazing up at Paolina as she gathered her rope until he finally saw recognition in her sparkling eyes. “Well, well,” she replied, not missing a beat. “Come into my parlor,” she enthused, tossing a loop around Nick’s shoulders and pulling it taut. He gasped at the unexpected advance, and she smiled in delight at the sound.

  Making his way up the steps at the side of the platform, Nick was entranced as Paolina murmured, “Yes, my prey, come to me,” and took up the slack of the rope as he neared. A hush fell over the audience; the spell was being woven so deftly. “Take off your clothes,” she commanded. Nick flushed from head to toe, or at least felt overheated and overwhelmed, but he could not disobey, not even for a moment. He stopped when he was standing before her clad only in olive boxers. Paolina tsked and shook her head. Surely she didn’t expect him to be stark naked in front of a room full of people? Before he knew what was happening, she’d pressed a knee to his back and had him on his knees. Her hands were all but a blur as she swiftly and neatly bound his wrists and ankles and laid him on his side. The crowd murmured approval as they watched the spider expertly immobilize her prey. Nick was gasping…and hard as a rock.

  Paolina stepped back a moment, admiring her catch. “What a fine meal I’ve caught myself. But he should be laid bare before he is bound and devoured, shouldn’t he?” There was more whispered approval that only grew when Paolina took a large, shiny knife out of a pouch tied to her waist and slit Nick’s boxers from his body. He made a sound he was quite sure he’d never made before as he felt cool metal touch his flesh and then cool air surround his now-exposed genitals: vulnerable balls and hard cock. “Quite a meal, that,” Paolina quipped, touching the tip of her blade to the tip of his cock. “I could devour him now,” she went on, talking about but not to him, eyes on the audience, “but we wouldn’t want to risk his escape, would we?” The audience tittered their disapproval of such a loss, unsure of whether their participation was truly desired but growing bolder at her encouragement. “I thought not. I’d better bind him well.”

  Nick felt a whirl of conflicting emotions: Embarrassment. Arousal. Shame. Delight. The complex and heady mixture touched the very heart of submission, and he gave himself up to it while Paolina retreated to the back of the stage to grab several more coils of white nylon rope. Nick watched her movements with rapt attention and bated breath. She bent forward and tipped Nick’s face up so he met her hungry gaze. “You won’t try to escape me, will you, little fly?”

  Nick shuddered, shook his head. He couldn’t speak. Though he knew this was a performance, the emotions he was feeling were genuine and powerful. “Good boy,” she said, words of praise she often used when they were alone. It did not keep him from being nervous, but it reassured him that this was still his Paolina, and he was safe. Licking her lips, Paolina released his chin. Then, with a studied precision, she crouched and began to bind her passive lover as a hundred pairs of eyes looked on. He could feel but not see her work, but he knew from experience that she was well trained in both Eastern and Western styles of rope bondage. He could not help but delight in her manipulation and control of him while feeling pride in what he knew must be the audience’s enjoyment.

  Paolina grew serious and silent as she worked her ornate artistry, entwining and cocooning, combining deftness and delicacy, precision and power. She caressed Nick’s flesh as she wrapped it, evincing small whimpers and moans from him as she moved up his body. He surrendered as entirely as he could, fighting to dismiss anything but the intimacy between them. The audience couldn’t matter when her hands were on him. From feet to shoulders, Paolina the Spider worked her way up Nick’s naked body. His legs, still bent at the knee, were wrapped precisely and practically, a mummy at its finest. The sensation was new, and a moment of claustrophobia washed over him. She pressed a hand to his hip and whispered, “Easy now,” calming the jitters instantly. Moving from predatory spider to animal tamer, she controlled him perfectly.

  His genitals were bound n
ext, and most delicately, cock and balls left provocatively half exposed as an openwork web radiated outward from his groin. He felt the brush of her fingertips and basked in her little sounds of pleasure as she worked. She loved that he was uncut, and loved to tell him how much she loved it, then watch his response. A guy didn’t get compliments on his cock all that often—or he didn’t, anyway—and he loved it. Her warm gaze on his body and thoughts of her warmer mouth and hot pussy kept him from being overwhelmed by self-consciousness.

  He gasped as Paolina pulled the rope upward hard between his legs, maneuvering his passive body with skill and sureness. She manipulated and toyed with her fly, up at last to his chest and shoulders, which she decorated with a honeycomb of ornate knots, his arms pinned tightly to his back. When she finished, she lifted her prize to a sitting position, and, with the assistance of two stagehands, bound him, upright, to the web at the back of the stage. The sensation of being carried, unable to move himself even if he were dropped, was both terrifying and exhilarating. This was Paolina’s game, and he had no choice but to trust her.

  Testing knots and his weight against the web, Paolina took the opportunity to press a kiss to Nick’s ear. Then, obviously pleased with her own handiwork, she turned back to the audience. “He looks good enough to eat, doesn’t he?” There was a smattering of applause, incongruous with the setting but, thought Nick, very much her due. He admired her back, silhouetted against the blue lights. This Paolina was his and yet not his, bold, proud, entirely in control. He embraced his discomfort, and admired openly the woman who gave him this gift.