Submission: An Erotic Journey...

"I'm not. Have I ever even suggested to you anything of that type?"

"She listened to his words and considered them. After a moment she replied, "There was that time at the lake. You know, when I tied you up. Do you remember?"

Did he remember! That night of passion ten years ago had been the most exciting night of his life. They had rented a cottage on a northern lake and made love as only men and women in their mid-twenties can -- often. They had rented the cottage for a week and after three days they began to tire of the endless love making. They had been married for four years before that but this had been their first opportunity to take a mutual vacation from their professions. With nothing to do and a lot of time to do it, they had fallen madly in love over the three days and couldn't keep their eyes or hands off each other.

That night Catherine had taken one of her knee socks off and thrown in on the bed. Alan looked at it and began to throw it on the floor with the other dirty clothes. With a gleam in her eye she stopped him and told him to turn around. He felt the soft material close over his eyes and the world became dark. He felt her lips touch his and he responded instantly. She kissed him softly at first and then harder.

Trying to return the passion he moved toward her. She stopped him and without a word pushed him onto his back in the middle of the bed. His excitement grew as he felt another sock, still warm from her body, being tightened around his wrist. Involuntarily he moved his arm toward the corner of the bed and she deftly tied the sock to the bedpost. She glanced around the room and found their robes hanging on the closet door. Retrieving the belts from them she moved to the other side of the bed and tied his other wrist. He stretched his legs toward the corners and his efforts were rewarded with the tightening of another belt from the robes. Leaving only his left leg free to kick, he moved it toward the other corner. As he lay in the darkness with three limbs stretched and tied to the corners of the bed: he knew ecstasy.

Suddenly he heard the clang from the buckle of the belt on his jeans and guessed what was coming next. As he felt the stiff leather and cold buckle on his ankle he nearly ejaculated. She pulled it tight and somehow fastened it to the other bedpost. Reaching down she took her thumbs and placed them under the band of his jockey shorts and slowly moved them down his hips. When she could only get so far, she left him alone: bound and helpless.

The next sensation he could feel was the coldness of the scissors as they slid up the outside of his thigh. Every sound seemed amplified in the silence and he could hear the snip of each thread of cotton as she cut through the underwear. She stretched her body over his and repeated the action on the other side of his body. Her breasts lightly brushed his penis and he groaned. Even bound and blindfolded, he could identify their soft weight.

As he sat on the floor he felt his penis harden and he groaned. "I remember that night. Did I suggest that you tie me up?"

"No. I guess not. I just don't get it. What are you doing in that room after midnight?"

"Open the door and we can talk about it."

The silence dragged on until finally he saw the door move slowly open. She peeked out of the slightly open door and looked at him. Her face was puffy and she had a look of being hurt he would never forget. "I'm sorry, Catherine. It's my fault. I won't do it again."

"But, I don't understand why you did it in the first place. What is wrong with me?"

"Nothing. You are absolutely perfect. The fault is mine. For some reason pictures like those excite me."

"Why?"

"I honestly don't know. I think there is something deep-seated in all of us that begs for either domination or submission -- or maybe even both."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. All of our lives we are placed in competition with others -- whether we want to be or not. Sometimes don't you just wish you could let all of those things go? The respon-

sibility of deciding what to do? The need to think about your actions? The responsibility of owning up to what you have done? Bondage removes these encumbrances from us. If we are bound and helpless -- we have little control over what happens. We can do things we otherwise would never do without fear of reprisal. When we are bound, it's simply not our fault. I find this intoxicating."

"But, you were looking at pictures of women. I don't get it."

"Would you rather I looked at pictures of naked men? For better or worse I am a hetero sexual. I love women. But I find bondage interesting and therefore I would rather look at pictures of bound women. Do you see?"

"But what about the other side -- the domination side?"

"Are you going to tell me that you have never been in a position where you wanted -- but did not have -- power. I don't mean knowledge for they are not the same thing. Knowledge re-

quires responsibility -- power is its own keeper. If one has power, one does need knowledge. They are quite different. That night at the lake, when you tied me to the bed, what did you feel? Was it power?"

"I don't know. I suppose it might have been. I never thought about it afterwards. It was an interesting game for that night but that was about the extent of it. I guess I didn't see it as anything other than a romantic game on a romantic vacation."

"Would you believe I think of that night every time we make love? Haven't you ever seen me stretch my hands toward the corners of the bed and grab the bedposts?"

"Yes, I guess I have. I just didn't think too much about it. After all, we all have our own little idiosyncracies."

"Well, when I do that I was thinking of that night. It helps me to perform. Catherine, I can get an erection just imagining what you looked like that night. Your breasts shining in the reflected moonlight. Your lips touching me everywhere. It was the single most perfect night of my life."

"Well, why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't know how you would react. I think it is has been proven beyond a doubt that my instincts were correct on this one."

For the first time since before she went to bed, she smiled. "I guess you were right. The problem is, what are we going to do about it. I don't want you spending your nights looking at dirty pictures -- I just don't think it is healthy."

Three

"Alan, I am going to bed . . . alone. I hope you don't mind, but I would rather you slept on the couch or something. Okay?"

"Is everything going to work out for us?"

"I don't know. I'm going to have to think about this for a long time. There is something very evil about what you have been dealing with. Let me think for a while."

"Goodnight, Catherine, I love you."

He waited to hear the customary response of, "I love you too," but all he heard was the rush of air into the hall forced by the closing of the door. As if the accentuate the point, the locked clicked. Even more threatening was her obvious placing of a chair against the door to block his entry -- if he used the key in his hand.

His thoughts jumbled over one another and he stood in the hallway and considered which way to go. The couch and sleep were downstairs, the computer room and glimpses of passion the other.

Reluctantly he went down the stairs his soft footsteps padding in the silence. At that moment his senses were alive. He knew he had hurt her badly -- at least in her mind -- and he needed a way to rectify the situation.

Sleep came in fits and starts. Although he knew there was nothing he could do that night, he still wanted a plan for the morning. He watched the clock on the VCR change from 3:40 to 4:00 before he finally started to relax enough for sleep. Even in his confusion he realized that it might not be the relaxation that was claiming him but rather the sheer effects of sleeplessness. For whatever reason, merciful sleep claimed him and he slept until the tendrils of the morning sun's rays caressed his leg and caused him to shift his position on the couch. In that brief moment, just before he hit the floor, he realized it was morning. He woke with a start and proceeded to the bathroom.

The door was closed and he could hear the shower running. He turned the handle -- it was locked. He knocked on the door but after five or six knocks gave up and went to the bathroom downstairs. By the door being locked he realized that she was still mad at him. In their fourteen years of marriage that was the first time they had slept apart from each other. It did not feel good. He stepped into the shower and tried to let the warm water ease his troubling thoughts.

Catherine stepped out of the shower and blindly reached for her towel. Her long brown hair dripped water over her body and she quickly ran the towel over her face and then her hair. After fastening the towel over her hair she reached for the soft terry cloth robe and cinched it tightly around her trim waist.

She had heard the knocking on the door but was still not in the mood to confront her husband. The images from last evening were etched in her mind and she couldn't seem to forget them. With a sigh, she reached for her toothbrush and maliciously brushed her teeth. It seemed there was a bad taste in her mouth and if brushing harder could remove it, she certainly would try.

The steam from the shower was starting to lift and she examined herself in the mirror. Her breasts, moderately sized but exquisitely formed, dripped tiny droplets onto the floor. She removed the towel from her hair and carelessly dropped it by her feet. Moving them to the towel helped to absorb the extra moisture and she reached for her hair dryer.

Alan heard the howling of the hair dryer and finished shaving. It was a Thursday and he had a lot of work to do. As he thought about the rigors of the day's schedule he wished he had managed more sleep. He knew he was dead tired and he sincerely wanted to go back to bed. But, with times being what they were, he knew work came first. First over anything -- including his own personal comfort.

He rushed up the stairs clad only in his bathrobe and retreated to the bedroom to get his clothes. Throwing the towel on the side of the folding door on the closet he bounded across the cold wood floor to the dresser. Though modesty would seem to dictate that he put on his underwear first, his feet were cold so he put on his socks first.

He was just buckling the belt on his suit trousers when she walked into the bedroom. "Good morning, Catherine, what is on your agenda for the day?"

"I have to take Billy and Seely to school -- then I am pretty much free. Are you going to have a busy day?'

"Looks that way. Seems that every Thursday is like that. The old man schedules every meeting imaginable for Thursday. His reasoning is that with the coming of summer -- people will be off on vacation on Friday and Monday. Tuesday is too soon in the week to identify the problem and Wednesday is just not comfortable for him. I think it has something to do with his scheduled golf game. At any rate, Thursdays are a mess. I might not be home until around 7:00, is that okay?"

"I guess. What did you want for supper?"

"Whatever you feel like making will be fine. I am just looking forward to sleeping tonight. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. How about you?"

She didn't answer but simply stared at him. Her lips were drawn and the look in her eyes told him to drop the subject -- he did. She stood with her arms crossed in front of her and made no motion to remove her robe and get dressed. The silence continued for several seconds before Alan shrugged and said, "Well, I'm going to look in on the kids before I get going."

She watched him walk down the hall to the kid's room. The thoughts in her mind were still troubled. The problem was, and it was a big problem, he was a good man: kind to his children and kind to her. She was still deeply in love with him. She knew that somehow and yet the bedrock of her belief system had just been assaulted and she felt herself reeling from the impact.

In the time they had been married he had never done anything that severely disappointed her. That was worth something, wasn't it? It seemed the question of his worth was being measured against his actions in the balance scale of her mind. She knew it was good to have the day to herself today -- there was much to be sorted through.

After dropping the children off to some of the last days of school, she returned home. It seemed there was much to do but she didn't know where to start. In desperation she retrieved a bottle of soda from the refrigerator and sat on the deck feeling the early June sun warm her.

She rose, and with a look of resolve, entered the computer room. The act of doing this was very difficult for her. As she had sat on the deck and felt the sun on her skin, she knew she needed more information in order to make a decision and the computer room was where this information was being kept.

Easing into the chair by the computer she turned the machine on. Repeating the steps of last night, she quickly connected to the service and waited for the cursor to change from an hourglass to the customary arrow. Once this was accomplished she decided she would do a net search using one of the search engines the service provided. The first word she typed was BONDAGE. The screen remained unchanged for several minutes before the search engine's logo appeared. The site match listed 40,000 documents that used that word. She ran the scroll bar down the list and copied some of the more common terms: BD, BDSM, RESTRAINTS, LEATH-

ER, and others.

Returning to the search menu she altered her search to some of the more common terms. When she tried + B D, she was amazed to find nearly 400,000 documents. She perused the list and felt the walls of her world crumbling.

Choosing one of the sites that looked interesting, she moved the arrow to the correct position and double-clicked on the highlighted letters.

As she sat and waited for the document to be loaded she thought about what she was seeing. 400,000 documents! What did that mean? Was the entire world into this sort of thing? If they were, where was she when it suddenly had become popular?

When her stomach growled for the sixteenth time that minute, she looked at the clock on the wall. 2:45! That simply couldn't be!, she thought. She bounded from the chair and ran into the bedroom to retrieve her watch. Not only was it quarter to three -- it was actually 2:53! The kids would be dismissed in seven minutes and she had about a ten minute drive to get to the school. She ran out of the house, hopped into the car, and drove as quickly as her conscience would allow. The trip to the school passed in a blur.

She made it on time to retrieve the children and she welcomed them as they hopped into the car. It seemed such a blessed relief for the children to not be concerned with coats and hats. She smiled as she looked at them in their shorts and tee shirts. It was good to be a child with summer coming on.

Alan finished his supper and rose to rinse the dishes and place them in the dishwasher. While he was up he retrieved her dishes and repeated the activity. Conversation had regained a patina of the normality it had always had before last night. She no longer looked at him with a cold stare -- as if he were an animal. Instead he sensed that she was less upset this evening than she had been that morning. Still, there was a coldness in the room that was hard to trace.

The children, Billy -- 8 and Seely -- 6, ran away from the table to meet friends. There was still hours of daylight left and they wanted to use it to their advantage. Both parents smiled as the children ran out of the room.

"So, Alan, how was your day?"

"Better than I expected. I guess the thing is that when you get so tired, it seems to take longer for everything to happen. The day never seemed so long. I kept looking at my watch and gasping that so little time had passed. How about yours?"

"I don't think I want to talk about that for now. I guess I better get the dishes done. Alan, I have thought about this all day and I have decided that, if you want, we can try a scene this weekend. Maybe I have been too quick to judge. Would you like to try it?"

There was a question fraught with contradictions and Alan felt as if he had just stepped into a mine field. His senses stretched toward her and tried to determine what she was thinking. He replied, "I don't know. It really isn't that important to me. . . But if you think it would help you to understand, I am willing."

"Let me think about it a little more. I guess the problem I have with it is that it seems to make a mockery of love. Love, at least to me, means that we give each other freely. This seems to be the opposite."

"I know what you mean. I guess my answer is not all that simple either. For some strange reason our society had confused sex and love until the lines between gratification and romantic love have been blurred. Listen to the television or the movies and hear the characters talk about making love. Whenever they do that I cringe. Love is understanding and realizing that without the other person, you would be much less than you are together. Love is doing the little things for the other person without being asked. The touching, the presence you have in my mind, the part of me that you have become: these things have little to do with sex."

She stared at him and never knew he thought that way. Again, he surprised her and she mumbled something incoherent as she started running the water for the dishes.

Sitting at the table watching her fuss over the dishes was a pleasant experience for him. He still was very deeply in love with her and nothing she could say or do would, or could, alter those feelings. He went to watch television and relax a while before bed. Outside he could see the children involved in their game and he smiled once more. The feeling that everything was going to work out was strong and, at least for now, that was enough.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Catherine?"

"No. No, I am not sure. I will try it. That is all I can promise. If I don't like it. We'll just have to quit. Is that understood?"

"Yes. Well, I suppose we should get started." He said with obvious pleasure showing through his smile. He was freshly showered and sitting on the couch clad only in his underwear.

"Alan, I want you to close your eyes -- tightly."

With as little noise as she could possibly make she moved closer to him. With just a hint of a smile she kissed him lightly on the lips. He started to say something but she hushed him by putting her fingers to his lips. "Not now, Alan. I will do all of the talking for both of us.

Without a signal Alan felt something soft and smooth cover his eyes. He started to move to allow her to tie the blindfold on from behind but she pushed him back onto the couch. She tightened the scarf around his eyes and knotted it at the side.

She reached for his hand and pulled gently -- he followed. She put her hands on his hips from behind and said, "Listen, I want you to walk. I will guide you by pressure on either side. If I want you to move to the left -- I will tighten my hand on that side. Nod if you understand."

He slowly nodded his head and she began pushing him gently from behind. When they reached the stairway she took his hand and placed it on the bannister. He took a step up. The feeling of having his vision removed was powerful. His penis was fully engorged and it obscenely stuck out his underwear. When they reached the top of the stairs she resumed the gentle pressure on his hips. After what seemed to be a long journey, he felt her reach her hands around his front and pull back. He stopped.