In It — Rusty Cuffs

I tried to be cool when I did it, but I did it fast. I put her in it fast, because I didn’t want to mess around—adjust things, lose the keys, lose my cool. After all, she had asked me to put her in it. “You can put me in it,” she’d said, “if you want.”

And I said, “No problem” and sorted through my hardware. I saw wrist bracelets that were nickel-plated, matte black, brand-name, generic, two-link, three-link, single-locking, double-locking, rigid, swiveling, fur-lined, hard-edged, sawtoothed, toy plastic, detective grade, antique-finished and totally rusty. All of these manacles, if placed end to end, would reach from my apartment to the local police station.

I chose a two-link, double-locking pair. I’d bought them from my local Army and Navy store before the shop was shut down for selling weapons of mass restriction.

I clicked the cuffs shut and pushed in the safety catch with the key nub. The rings wouldn’t go tighter and wouldn’t go looser; they fit snugly, yet they jingled merrily.

After I’d put her in it, I relaxed. But I wasn’t really relaxed; I was excited. I could feel it—and I could see it, when I looked to check. Yes, there it was: a state of penile excitement, pointing outward and upward, free of restriction.

I didn’t know if she knew it, though, because she didn’t look to see. I guessed she didn’t want to know. She was in a predicament, after all. She wasn’t getting out of it, and she didn’t seem to want to know what was happening with me.

But I had to know, so I asked, “Have you noticed anything?”

“I’ve noticed you’re getting off on this.”

I realized then that she knew completely. The fact worried me a little, because I didn’t want my motivation known. If my reasons were revealed, the disclosure would be a sign of intimacy, a sign that a barrier had fallen. I wanted proximity, but I had a problem with it. I couldn’t permit it. I had to show self-restraint and not remove her restraints. All I had to do was wait, and the desire for intimacy would go away.

But I couldn’t wait, because I was bothered—hot and bothered, but mainly bothered. Was what I was doing right? It seemed all right, as long as I paid attention. If I forgot what I was doing—if I fell asleep, for example—that would be wrong. It would be cruel, like mistreating an inmate in a third-world prison. It would be like using weapons of mass restriction for purposes other than fun. It could get me in trouble, not with the law, but with my conscience, with the man upstairs.

But the man downstairs was in control. The man downstairs wanted to remain in a state of excitement. He wanted to think with the lizard part of his brain. He wanted to bask on a sunlit rock, feel his blood temperature rise, bob his head in time with his pulse. He wanted to snooze off while she was in it, and check on her in the morning.

I tried not to be bothered. I tried to take it easy. I stretched out beside her on the torture Futon and kicked back.

I was able to keep quiet, but I wasn’t able to keep my hands to myself. I was getting off, after all. So I reached over. But before I made contact, I had to ask, “Is this okay?”

Then I realized the absurdity of the question. I’d put her in it. I was on top, and she was on the bottom. Actually, her bottom was on the top, bare but for a brief piece of fabric.

So I just reached over. I expected resistance: a turning away, a curling up, a fetalization. But I didn’t get any of those responses. What I got was compliance. That was when I realized I was not the only one getting off.

I wrapped my arms around her arms. Though she could not wrap back, I hugged with sincerity. I grabbed and gripped, then went in for a kiss. In response, a leg came up and over mine.

This was the way it was meant to be. This was the way it had been since we’d met. Maybe what I’d heard was true—all couples had their fetishes. In our case, we had mine.

We both knew it. But what was it that we both knew? Hell if I knew. Hell if she knew, either, because she offered no explanation. We could talk from hell to breakfast and still wouldn’t be able to figure it out.

“This was what I was born to do,” I said, as if in revelation. But that wasn’t true. That was something I’d heard uttered by someone else, by a husband living in Janesville, Wisconsin. I’d corresponded with him in my single days, when I wanted to network with other kinksters. He might have been an auto worker, employed in a Janesville assembly plant before the industry went bust; I didn’t know. All I knew was that his pathology was genetic. It was in his DNA to strip, rope and cinch his spouse. He proved his claim by sending me photos. The shots showed a hemped wife in what looked like a hotel room. Her elbows were well connected, her breasts well encircled. There was a subtle smile on her face. This was what happened when dominant XY chromosomes met submissive XX, I thought. We were hard-wired to do it.

Befuddled, I went after my partner’s feet. The reptile part of my brain had more manacling in mind. I clicked on one leg iron, ran its connecting chain around the attached wrist irons, and fastened the other leg ring, so that her feet were up to her hands behind her.

I realized I was out of control. I’d had one sip, one taste, and I was going on a bender. I wouldn’t be able to stop. Who knew how far I would go? I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out.

“Fetish is my friend,” I said. “It’s something I can understand.”

“It’s a good hogtie,” she said.

I looked at the clock. Yes, our chamber had a clock. I checked the time and turned off the light.

I turned the light back on. I couldn’t take the sensory deprivation. I wanted to see what I was doing. I wasn’t doing much except restraining myself, mentally. Quite a bit of time had passed, and she was still in it. She was locked, and I was loaded.

I didn’t know what to say, but I felt less disconnected—from her, from myself, from the world. I felt confident, not bothered at all, a little hot, definitely lizard-like. I felt like a sex king, or at least a sex knight, or a sex squire. With my subject in it, I would rule.

I de-briefed her. “Tell me what you know,” I said as I rolled down the last piece of fabric between us.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you like silk?”

“I have nothing against silk,” I said. “In fact, the thought of silkworms chewing makes me sticky.”

I reached past the fabric and touched. She squirmed, then made a sound, an exhalation, that signaled something like familiarity. I touched again, and the squirming became a writhing. The intimacy barrier had been breached. We were on the brink of losing our sense of personal space.

The frotteur in me came out. I rubbed, massaged and nudged, and she arched, torqued and scissored.

Fortunately, when we were finished, she was still in it. In fact, in all of the times she had been in it, she had never gotten out of it.

I was in no hurry. Sooner or later, I would get back to her. There was plenty of time on our chamber clock. I lay back on the torture Futon and relaxed.

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Rusty Cuffs is the author of Sex Fiend Monologues, available from Renaissance E Books, www.renebooks.com. His monologues have appeared in Clean Sheets, Oysters & Chocolate, Blue Food and elsewhere.  Visit Rusty at www.thaddeusrutkowski.com