Roped into a Fantasy

I see the package as I come up the stairs to the floor of our apartment. I'm not expecting anything so I figure it must be Hannah's. I scoop down to pick it up as I pull out my key and open our front door.

"Delivery for you," I call out as I enter. Hannah has her headphones on, the big expensive ones, so she doesn't hear me over Kate Bush. She probably didn't hear the delivery guy earlier. I hoof the package at her.

It wobbles in the air. I'd assumed that whatever was in there was clothes but instead, it seems to move in the air. It hadn't been heavy but if I had realized it was that lopsided, I wouldn't have been tossing it around. It ends up way off target, hitting halfway between the sofa and the wall and mercifully just missing Albert's glass case. The miss is enough to finally get Hannah's attention, though.

"Hey, you," she says, rolling onto her front and giving me one of her smiles. "Friday. Fucking finally."

"Amen. What have you got planned?" I ask indicating the package. It's a fair bet that the contents are going to involve me in one way or another, even if it is just taking the pictures.

Instead of answering, Hannah picks up the package, takes it out of its outer layer, and starts to rip it apart. The blue plastic stretches but doesn't give. "Just a second," she says and attacks a corner with her teeth. Once she's made a small tear the rest of the sheet comes apart easily. She reaches in and proudly holds aloft her new prize.

"Da-da-da-dah." Once it looks like she's in, I hum the Zelda treasure chest opening music. Finally, I get to see what all the fuss is about. "What? Ezaria going mountain climbing?" I ask.

Hannah is a fantasy artist. I'm not going to go on about how great she is -- we both know her boyfriend is expected to rave about her, and we all both know you're going to be skeptical regardless - but she's pretty good. Good enough to work with people who are also commonly agreed to be pretty good or, indeed, excellent. Good enough that she gets the occasional commission from the Internet, and not just the porn ones. Good enough that her big break has to be coming soon. We hope.

And while she was good before, she's gotten a whole lot better this past year since adopting the principle of 'lived verisimilitude' - to use a phrase she admits is overly pretentious. When she was starting out, she'd look for inspiration on the Internet. If she wanted to draw a picture of a sword, a longship, or an oak tree, she'd head straight to Google Images and try to copy whatever popped up without a second thought. Then, one day while sketching her mother's cat, she suddenly had the revelation that drawing as much from her real life as possible made her art better. She has to hold things in her hands, feel their weight and texture, and arrange and compose them exactly as she wants. If that means her hero ends up wielding a bread-knife rather than a morning star, then the plot has to change to fit what's possible.

Ezaria is the main character of her story and the artist's self-insert. She looks exactly like Hannah but with a little extra everywhere and blond hair replacing black. Don't call her an elf. She's a nymph. I occasionally call her a halfling, but only when I want to start a play-fight. It shows Hannah's commitment to this lived verisimilitude that, however touchy is about the subject of her own height, Ezaria has indeed shrunk nearly half a foot since the first issues to better match the perspective we actually get from the photographs involving Hannah.

The way it works is if the plot requires Ezaria to climb a mountain, several meters of rope are ordered, we find an appropriately rocky area, and off and up Hannah goes, with me clicking photographs or taking video. She may add in a crystalline cloud palace in the background or a dragon swooping down past the heroine, but the essential poses and expressions all come from real life. That dragon, by the way, is played by Albert, our pet gecko.

Except, it turns out that Ezaria is not going rock climbing this evening.

"Na-ah," Hannah replies. "Guess again."

I look at the ropes and think back to what Ezaria has been up to recently. Hannah has spent the last month going through and working up panels based on the photos we had taken on holiday last month. Most couples go to, say, Spain on holiday because the flights are cheap and the sun is hot. We went to Iceland because Ezaria was seeking an alliance with the Snow Trolls. Art took up a lot of her time even before, but now it's pretty much her exclusive hobby and, by extension, practically mine as well. I don't mind -- in a weird way it gives a certain structure to our lives and, in fairness, we barely wasted a moment in Reykjavik. It turns out hot springs are revitalizing for nymphs and database analysts alike. Hannah pays her way, in case you're wondering. We've not just got nerdy hobbies, but nerdy jobs as well, and between us we don't have too much trouble financing her various flights of fancy.

After Ezaria had visited the mystical hot-springs, she'd traveled across the Barren Wastes in a dog sled, and then the last book of sketches I'd seen had her being surrounded by an Inuit-like tribe of dubious alignment and quick temper (her father in a parka had done sterling work here). I'd assumed that Ezaria and her companions were about to kick ass again, albeit non-fatally and in a way that would win over the isolated and distrustful peoples' respect.

As I look at the ropes, Hannah holds up her tablet and shows me a picture.

"I want you to do this," she says.

The picture is in fact two pictures. One from the front and one from the back. They have been taken in such a way that even the most puritanical judge could not declare them pornographic, however much the mind can't avoid going there. The subject, who is female but faceless above the nose, is wearing a neutral white T-shirt and shorts. From the front, she has a series of diamond patterns woven in rope across her body. A few passes of rope gag her mouth and also link down to the ropes at her shoulders, locking her head in place. From behind, her hands are bound, not just at the wrists but all the way down from her elbows, and, again, the restraints are cross-linked with those around her waist. Apart from this, she has no expression and no body language. She apparently has no opinion, positive or negative, of being bound.

I take the pad off her and stare at it wordlessly.

"There's a video," Hannah says helpfully.

I click the link and start it playing. "Shit, this is nearly two hours long," I say. "I can't do this."

"Sure you can," she replies. "You're good at this kind of thing."

For the record, I was never a Boy Scout. What she probably means is that I'm able to solve Rubik's Cubes, Chinese finger traps, and the like. I'm good at figuring things out. Geek smart, in other words. In fairness, the bindings do resemble a particularly convoluted puzzle. I guess I'm going to have to treat this like a variant sudoku, and attack it logically and step-by-step.

I let the video play for a second then immediately stop it. "Look, there's a warning. You can seriously hurt yourself if you get this wrong. IfI get this wrong."

"Yeah, well," says Hannah somewhat sulkily. "They have to put that there. It's no big deal. I trust you. We'll take it slow. We've got all weekend."

I click off the video and back to the main page of the website again. There's a little blurb about how Shibari bondage is an ancient form of Japanese art.

Art generally takes more than a weekend to learn.

Still, the sooner I start, the sooner I'll be able to convince Hannah that she's dreaming. I flop down into my seat. "Takeaway?" I ask.

"Sure," she says. "I'll phone it and collect and you get cracking."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An hour later and when she returns with a plastic bag full of Chinese I've just about gotten the hand of the overhead knot, one of apparently twelve basic knots that I will need. After that I will need to move on to basic or single-column ties, but not before I've clarified in my own head what the difference between a knot and a tie is.

I get up and go to the bathroom to wash my hands.

"It's freezing in here," I tell her. "You left a window open."

It's the middle of January.

"Don't you dare shut it," she yells back. A moment later she's by my side. She pulls off her duffle coat to reveal her Anor Londo Archery Club T-shirt and shakes her hair free. It resolutely fails to move.

"Jesus," I say. "Did you go out with wet hair? It's frozen solid."

"Yep," she says proudly. "Camera and quickly."

I grab my phone as she slips her T-shirt off and trousers off. Hannah is a great believer in verisimilitude in drawing but also believes that fantasy should be fantasy. As such, she doesn't have much issue with boob plate armour, as long as it's sexy as hell. She's found a way to be able to model it around her Marks and Spenser's bikini. Ezaria has been suitably clothed for the Arctic in the story so far, but not so much anymore, I guess.

"The food will get cold," I say.

"And my hair will melt," she replies. She gets into the shower, turns the heat all the way down, and gives her body a full blast of cold water. She takes a step back and says "God," but then works the shower head from her legs up to her neck. She avoids her hair, even this cold, the strength of the flow risks dislodging the ice from her hair.

She's naked and shivering. The second of these is setting off my natural protection instinct, but I have to quash it. I don't need another lecture about how she's a grown-up woman. But that leaves just the first one and I need to avoid that too. I'll get relentlessly teased about it if I start to pitch a tent here and now.

She sees me looking and simply says, "Hop to."

This shakes me out of myself and I go and get my camera. When I return, she's sitting in the corner of the shower legs around her chest. I'm not going to ask her if she's okay. That's the pose. I take several shots of her from slightly different angles then she turns her head and I get a close-up of her frozen braids.

"Quick," I say finally. "Get the hot on and shower properly."

She insists on looking through the newly taken portfolio before she agrees, but I've grabbed what she wanted so she goes to shower.

I go into the kitchen and dish the food out onto two plates, sticking hers in the microwave and settling down to eat my own. About ten minutes later she wanders in wearing a dressing gown and with her hair wrapped in a towel. She sticks a YouTube interview with Brandon Sanderson on the main telly as we sit and eat our food, passing only occasional comment on the continued downward trend of the local Chow Mein.

Once she finishes, she sets her plate aside, picks up my practice knot, and gives it a pull. It comes apart.

"Is it supposed to do that?" she asks. I shrug. I haven't really gotten as far as what the things I'm tying are and aren't supposed to do yet.

"They are selling a course for four hundred dollars for what you want to do," I tell her.

Her eyes gleam for a second.

"I'm telling you this, just to point out that what you've asked me to do is four hundred dollars difficult. Not to get your credit card out."

I unlock the tablet and switch to a tab I'd previously saved.

"I can do this. Well, maybe. Take it or leave it," I say.

It's a simple wrist tie. Four goes round in an infinity symbol and then the rope threaded through so it can be further attached to something.

"Okay," she says, taking my empty plate from the coffee table. "And the same on my ankles." That was too easy. I realize that the overly complicated full-body harness with the unpronounceable Japanese name was just her opening bind. I've been played. Again.

"Where?" I ask.

She indicates the large doorway separating the kitchen from the dining room. For the first time, I notice the two hooks hanging down from the ceiling. They have a certain Fisher-Price quality to them.

"Tell me you didn't order a full baby swing just for two hooks."

"No, silly, Agnes from work gave them to me. Her Trevor is too old for it now."

Too heavy more like, I think to myself. I've never seen a more rotund toddler.

"What do you think?" she asks.

I undo the rest of my already failing knot and toss the middle of the rope over the two hooks. I balance the two ends, wrap them loosely around my arms several times, and take stock. I've not no idea if I've got enough rope or not. We'll just have to see. I can easily touch the hook, but they're just out of reach for Hannah. It should work.

"Fine. Go and do something for an hour or two," I tell her. I queue the video back and get back to work.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's around eleven o'clock when we finish.

It's not exactly like the model photograph but Hannah undeniably has her arms bound.

"How's that?" I ask.

"A good proof of concept," says Hannah. "Now, let's do it again, only properly tight."

She flexes her hand at the wrist and the ropes move.

"I didn't want to leave marks," I say. "I was worried about cutting off your circulation."

Her hand is already halfway out of the binds as I start to help unwind the rope.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's now past midnight. I've positioned the candles, but not yet lit them, and I've set up the cameras and phones to record from a few different of angles.

We're leaving the ankles for now. We'll do bottom half shots tomorrow night and she'll have to composite the images. That's my plan, anyway. She probably feels like tomorrow I should be good enough to do arms and legs in the same session.

Before we start she goes off for a bathroom break, one end of the rope trailing across the carpet into the little girls' room and preventing the door from closing completely. She's already in her Ezaria outfit. It's a loose white blouse with a series of red lines around the collar and buttons which indicate the positions of a series of ornaments to be drawn in later. Similarly, she has my belt around her waist, now with little strips of tape to indicate the position of various tools and weapons. She's barefoot, as nymphs are wont to be.

I'm not sure if this scene is taking place before or after what we photographed in the shower, so I'm not sure if she's lost or regained clothes. I'm sure I'll find out in due course.

"Ready?" she asks me as she comes out.

"Wait," I say. I find the scissors again. They're a heavy-duty pair and I've convinced myself that they will be able to cut through the rope in an emergency. I want to make sure they are always within arms reach.

"Top stuff," says Hannah. I look at her hands. It's dark so I can't see how they are getting on. I grab the torch and shine it on them.

"Quit it," she says. "I'm fine."

I reach out and touch her left hand to make sure. She suddenly winces in pain.

"I'm sorry, we can..." I start.

"I told you I'm fine," she says again. Despite the wince, her hands don't appear to be turning blue so I have to acquiesce.

I take the rope, loop it, and throw it over the hooks in the door. As I pull back, she has to step forward slightly, and then her hands start to rise into the air. Finally, they're perpendicular and she's having to stretch.

"More," she says.

I sigh and take another step back. Now she's on tip-toes.

"I bet you could get me off the floor," she says.

"No," I say immediately.

"Oh, come on, it would only be an inch."

"And if those hooks come out, we'd have ruined a whole evening's work," I reply.

She sticks her tongue out at me. We're going to have this argument again tomorrow evening and properly, I sense.

I'm left holding the two ends of the rope. I'll be needed elsewhere, but I haven't gotten as far as working out how to secure them. In the end, a hatstand, appropriately weighed down, ends up as a stand-in guard and holds the ropes firmly in place.

I turn the lights off and light the candles. I hit record for a few seconds and then play back the footage. It's still too dark. Leaving the bathroom light on helps a bit, but it's not until we place the lava lamp under the kitchen table that we get the effect we want. Change its red for blue and she could indeed be in a cave with an underground lake.

She's dried out with all the fuss, of course, so I need to spray her with the plant watering spray. Then we're ready to begin.

The first few minutes are her trying to break free. She's not supposed to succeed, but I'm worried as she thrashes about left and right that she's going to damage something. Herself, most likely.

We get the footage and I play it back to her. About ten seconds in she reminds me to move the hatstand slightly closer and the balls of her feet are again able to touch the ground. We pause the video every now and then and identify a few stills that would make good panels.

The next shot is easier. She hangs her head, tired and defeated and I photograph her.

The third shot is more experimental. While I was learning the art of the rope, she had fashioned a makeshift gag out of a rolling pin and some string. It's not a great success, and she has to bite down to keep it in her mouth. Even so, it falls out several times and it's comically oversized in any case. She'll have to edit it down to a reasonable size when she sketches, but I'm guessing the lines of her mouth against the bit is what she's after and she should be able to get that from what we've shot.

Finally, at nearly one in the morning, she says, "Right, we're done."

"Oh, we're done are we?" I reply, moving around behind her.

This is what I've been waiting for. Being involved in the process of artistic creation is fun and all, but it's understood that I also get more direct benefits when appropriate.

Hannah knows this, so she's playing as much as I am when she says, "What do you mean?"

"You may be done," I say. "But I've not even started."

I reach down and cup her breast. She's bra-less under the blouse and I can feel her nipple. It's hard and maybe not just because of the cold.

"Oh, no, whatever will I do?" she says in not quite mock horror.

We've role-played before after a shoot. This is the first time Hannah/Ezaria has been tied up. We haven't ever had a safeword before unless 'knock it off' counts.

I lean forward. "You've come to the wrong cave, nymph," I breath in her ear.

"The Horati are famous as a noble, honourable people," she replies.

"Well, there's always a few bad apples," I reply. "Unlucky for you..."

I can see by the look on her face that she wants to point out there would be no apples grown this far north. There was no way in hell I was going to saysardines though.

She tries to stamp on my foot. I have shoes and she doesn't and I barely feel it. Instead, I take the opportunity to spread her legs. This has the added advantage of lifting them slightly up again and she's once more balanced on the ends of her toes.

"Tell me, water elemental, does nymph cunt get wetter than human cunt?"

Hannah hates that word. That means I get to use it when I want to play the villain.

"I don't know. Does the cold here shrivel up your dick to nothing?"

"I like a girl with spirit," we both say together and suddenly we're laughing.

In an attempt to get things back on track, I release the zip on my trousers and let them fall to the floor. My cock springs forth from my boxers and I push it into the back of her shorts. I've been touching her body all evening, but somehow nothing highlights the difference in our body temperatures as the warmth in my loins pressing against the frozen terrain of her back.

"Wait," she says. "Knock it off. Are you still recording?"

"Of course not," I say. "This is...you know...our time."

"Well for god sake do," she says.

I look at her puzzled. Hannah likes to keep her work PG-13, for the most part.