Thoughts of Bondage - The First Step

She supposed her fascination with bondage began in childhood. Where the thoughts came from, to a 12 year old, shy, inexperienced and naive girl, she had no idea, but from a young age she had had images in her head of being in control of men bound and ready to submit to anything she wanted.

She didn't admit to herself, even years later, that she liked these images. She carefully hid them in the back of her mind and rarely took them out to consider how she felt about them.

It wasn't until she reached her mid 40s and happened upon an anonymous man online that the idea took hold in her mind that this was something that might turn her on. This man offered her a connection to an underground world of websites and links to view her childhood fantasies in a more realistic setting.

She opened the videos in secret, of course, a furtive glance at short clips that she found more erotic than any porn she had ever seen. Porn did nothing for her. Intricate knots and lengths of rope enclosing a body hoisted into the air—did. What happened once the body—man or woman—was suspended was irrelevant. The act of seeing someone helpless and under control of another wasn't.

She imagined herself confined, wrists bound, arms constricted, at the mercy of anyone. Vulnerable, it felt. Out of her control. Ready to be used in any way, possibly. She couldn't say what she thought she might like to happen.

She wasn't sure she could do that, the thought of being unable to escape made her catch her breath in a way that was definitely not comfortable.

Still, she was drawn back again and again to view the ropes being woven together into a design more artistic than anything she had ever seen.

She met Mark through an online dating site, one of the free ones that advertised loving connections with eligible singles in her area. Outwardly, he seemed the type she was interested in...a younger man, dark hair, funny, interesting to chat with from the first. Though conversation started out so very general, he didn't bore her to tears the way most men she talked with did.

An hour into their back and forth messaging, talk turned a bit away from giggles about ex's and where they had grown up, the basic hellos of online dating beginnings.

"What's the wildest thing you've done?" Mark asked.

She hemmed and hawed, and turned the tables on him.

"I'll admit to mine if you go first," she responded.

He told her the best way to do that was to send a picture. He was wearing shorts, he assured her, so she sent her phone number and checked Whatsapp.

What did she expect? A threesome? Him with another man? Maybe swimming with sharks—he said he was wearing shorts after all, or skydiving; wildness, after all, didn't have to be sexual.

Her hands shook a bit as she enlarged the image in front of her as much as she could on the small screen of her phone. There it was.

A muscular, dark haired man, well tattooed, arms pulled behind him in a net of knots, hanging at an angle, head down.

She couldn't think of anything to say.

"WOW," she responded.

"Too much for you?" he asked.

She was not the kind who could lie. Even online, typing, to a man she wouldn't recognize on the street if she saw him.

"I like it," she admitted. "A lot."

The tingle she felt grew a bit.

A few days later, they texted again.

And a few days after that.

She found herself thinking of the picture now imbedded in her head more and more often.

One day she found herself feeling bold.

"I'd like to meet you," she said.

"Me too," he answered. "Date in a dungeon?"

The tingling grew to a throbbing feeling.

He lived a distance away. Not a great distance, just enough to be very annoying.

"Paul," she texted to one of her best friends. "You'll never guess what I've found."

Paul was the male half of a couple she'd met online. They told each other most of what was going on in their lives, good and bad, and this was one thing she had to share.

Paul was one who accepted anything she said. If she said she wanted a night of random sex with a complete stranger, he told her to have fun, just be careful (and be sure to text him after so he knew she was safe). If she said she was going to walk naked across Millenium Bridge in central London, he asked for a picture.

"OMG," he responded. "Lose the freak."

Freak? NOOOOOOO. She was shocked that Paul didn't know this about her yet...it seemed they had told each other everything.

Paul took in anything she said, thought it through and came back with a witty response. Usually. For the first time, she found him at a loss for words.

Was bondage an extreme kink? She didn't think so—in her mind, if it was something that you liked and wanted it was all just fun, not kinky.

"So, a dungeon," he finally answered. "Send pics. Of you, not him."

Several days later, she was again chatting with Mark. They might end up meeting. Timing, as usual, was all. But, she rather hoped.