Bound by Tradition (8 page)

“I’d take you to the shibari center and tie you in a suspension.”

“A suspension? Like hanging in the air?” The thought made me crazed. Scared. And fear was unacceptable. I’d have to face it, tame it. “Maybe. Someday.”

He leaned toward me to kiss me when I opened the door. “Don’t wait too long for someday, beautiful. While you’re not paying attention, your life might pass you by.”

Chapter Seven

Why does everything Shiro say to me have to keep wrapping through my brain on a slow rewind wheel, like a really bad pop song stuck in my head?
Five hours later, I wanted to shout, “My life isn’t passing me by!” but the truth was, even if it wasn’t passing me by, I was too busy to enjoy it. I raced from campus to work and then from work, home. Rushed to change, promised I’d eat after, and ran across the yard to the dojo. Of course, class had already started.

I released a long-held breath as I bowed onto the deck, and every eye turned toward me. Nothing like living under a microscope.

“Nice for you to join us, Miss Ricci,” my father announced from in front of the class. He didn’t meet my gaze.

“Sorry I’m late,
sensei
. Permission to join the class.”

“Fifty push-ups.”

I dropped and pumped out fifty, then hurried to my place. The class stood at attention. Announcements would be read as to how our class had performed at the competition. There would be no end to the ribbing I would take for two second-place medals.

After all the names and places were read, I realized he wasn’t going to read my scores, and I knew it wasn’t an oversight on his part. It was as if I hadn’t even competed.

By the end of four grueling hours, made worse by forced push-ups every time I turned around for doing something incorrectly—I lost count at three hundred—I was ready to never step foot on a karate deck again. I even vowed it, silently of course. Sad thing was, it wasn’t the first time I’d made such a vow. I must have loved the punishment, because I always went back.

* * * *

Back in my room, after my shower, and after staring at a bowl of brown rice and stir-fried veggies I hadn’t touched, I called Shiro. I shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t, and not because it was after midnight, but because I was seeking a partner in crime, not a true crime, just a little rebellion, and I knew he’d be more than willing to accommodate.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, I was reading. What’s up?”

“I have classes and work today, but what if I skipped the dojo tonight? Could we do it then?”

“Hell yeah! You’ll skip karate to get tied up in my rope?”

I thought about that. I’d never skipped a karate class, let alone an entire night’s responsibilities. “You said I was responsible for my own happiness, right?”

He murmured affirmatively.

“And the way I look at it, if I go to the dojo, I’m going to be miserable, but if I go with you…I might find that mindless bliss like I found in the desert the other day. That seems like the wiser choice.”

“Wisdom is it, grasshopper?”

I made a face he couldn’t see. “Do not ever call me grasshopper again.”

He laughed out loud. “Never again, if you promise not to renege on me. Should I pick you up at the campus again?”

“Please. That would be awesome.”

“No, awesome is knowing I get to set you free from your gilded cage.”

“I’m not in a gilded cage. I love my father and respect him, but I’m not a prisoner.”

“Tell me that after you tell him you won’t be at the dojo, and he’s really pissed off.”

* * * *

If Shiro had guessed my father wasn’t going to take the news well when I told him I wouldn’t be at the dojo at all, he would have only gotten it half right. If he’d have said livid, or furious, he might have been closer, but the part about feeling like a prisoner, he was 100 percent on target; but then, how else could I feel when my father screamed, “If you aren’t going to be at the dojo, don’t come home at all.”

Really? It was only one night, and he had to pull out the big threat?

Shiro sensed my mood as soon as I climbed into his Jeep, but didn’t push for details. He just let me simmer in silence beside him. By the time we arrived at the center, I was still irritated, still trapped by my own thoughts, but for the life of me couldn’t have identified who I was mad at. Myself, for failing my father. Or my father, for failing me.

* * * *

“Ready, Stephanie?” he asked, and I nodded, not willing to acknowledge I was shaking, or terrified, or self-conscious. I hadn’t realized there would be a crowd—technically students, but still. I never considered he might use me as one of the subjects. I should have been clued in when he handed me a spaghetti-strapped black unitard and said, “This one should fit,” and didn’t seem at all sexually or romantically interested in helping me out of my clothes and into the leotard.

I went into the main salon with him and only then realized. Seeing how many people had shown up for the night’s demonstration, I balked.
Oh shit
. I turned into his chest and whispered, “I don’t think I can do this.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said, kissing me on top of my head. I met his gaze, and he did that thing he was so able to do: making me feel like I was the only one in the room, the only woman in the world.

My hair was in a long ponytail, and he drew his hand down the length of it, stretching it out, pulling it to make me look up at him. “Think of this as your opportunity to allow yourself to see that the cage door has always been open, and you just needed to be brave enough to fly through it. The life ahead of you is full of opportunity. Maybe that future includes karate; maybe it includes shibari. Both are sacred journeys; both are honorable paths. There is always room in your life for both if you take both in moderation—”

I pushed my fingertips to his lips. “Do not call me grasshopper.”

Chuckling, he took my hand and led me to the center of a platform. This seemed so impossible. I’d come to think of the rope itself as erotic, and I saw no way of him binding me without touching me intimately—in front of a roomful of strangers. He promised he wouldn’t make me orgasm on purpose.
What does that mean?

I stood before him, panting, not sure what to expect, only knowing that one of the couples in the front row were old enough to be my grandparents: her hair snow-white, his hair still brown, but his face wizened with deep wrinkles. That made me feel strange, almost undone with embarrassment. Did they suspect Shiro and I had already done this? In the privacy of our own space? That he tied me and fucked me, and that I screamed like a cat in heat?

Another couple stood near the first, younger, but not by much, probably my dad’s age.
Okay, this isn’t helping. I do not need to think about my dad right now.

Shiro winked.

Had he guessed my thoughts? Does he know I’m scared shitless?

Of course not. I had my game face on. If eighteen years of perfect katas, perfect kumite matches hadn’t prepared me to face this crowd, nothing would have. I hid myself deeper in my mind. I stopped looking at the faces in front of the small stage. I lifted my chin a little higher and pretended I was wearing my hoodie and shades. I wished for my iPod and earbuds.

I would not let anyone see my vulnerability. No one gets to see that, not even my father ever has.
That’s a lie
. Shiro has seen me vulnerable. He has seen me open. I worry he will bring that out of me tonight. Is that what he meant by opening the door of the gilded cage?

With a look he asked if I was okay?
Ready? Can anyone ever be ready for this? I think of the girls in his portfolio. They stood here. Some of them stood in this same spot completely naked.

I’m no less brave than they were.

I nodded, giving him permission to begin. He uncoiled the rope, letting it fall with a hiss. He started wrapping with a loop over my neck that knotted between my breasts. The rope seemed as textured as before, but different. I realized it was heavier, and then the thought came:
to support my weight
. My brain stalled on the thought. I knew he planned to suspend me, but somehow I hadn’t really thought it through. That seemed to be happening to me around Shiro a lot.

“The harness I’m creating on my beautiful model, Stephanie, is called a diamond harness. I’m using an eight-millimeter rope, though you may be more comfortable using a six millimeter. Your partner will definitely be more comfortable if you avoid a four-millimeter rope.”

He explained as he tied, “I’m going to start by tying a series of overhand knots directly between her breasts. This is a more time-consuming pattern than others I’ve shown you in the past. In the interest of time, and if you are very sure of your partner’s size, you could tie these first knots in advance.”

He created a web around my torso that separated my breasts and would provide the main support structure for the suspension. He drew the rope between my legs, and when it pulled snug with a knot behind me, trapped my clit between bone and rope.
This is such a bad idea
and
thank God for the unitard
. I couldn’t imagine the rough rope against my naked flesh. But the minute I thought about not imagining it, that’s exactly what I was doing. I suddenly wanted the fiber against my flesh. It would hurt some. It would feel amazing. In that moment my need shot through the roof.

Holy mother of God, how can I be turned on in front of a roomful of strangers?

I imagined the rope indentations left around my wrists the day before everywhere rope had crossed bare skin. Crisscrossing my breasts. Around my waist. Over my shaved mons.

My mind was completely in the gutter. I imagined myself as one of his nude models, just me and him and a few dozen onlookers. I imagined myself screaming in orgasm.

I have lost my mind.

Maybe I had, because the peace that descended on my brain in the desert returned tenfold. I could hear the seconds ticking by on a clock a room away. It matched my heartbeat, and Shiro’s breath. If there were others still in the room, they faded into the walls, no longer a distraction.

I felt my feet leave the ground as he pulled me into an arching backbend. I was flying—several feet off the ground at any rate—feet and head high, my belly sagging. He tied my ponytail into the configuration of knots so that my face couldn’t drop forward even if I wanted to hide. Maybe that was the idea. My back felt the first twinge of ache, as did my shoulders, elbows, and ankles. I might have been a flexible pretzel girl, but this was a new sensation, and my body wasn’t 100 percent sure it was happy about it. My muscles burned, a screaming heat, but when he asked me if the position felt okay, I answered, “Yes.”

Do I feel okay?

How long could I comfortably stay this way? I didn’t know. I wasn’t so sure I was comfortable then, but I wasn’t complaining. It was no worse than hundreds of push-ups.

I should be at karate.

I felt horrible knowing my father was watching the clock, counting down the minutes until I was late, counting down the minutes until I was so unacceptably late I was no longer welcome under his roof.

Funny, before the weekend of enlightenment—that’s how I’d come to look at my moment in the desert—I’d thought of the house I’d grown up in as my home, but now I see it was always his house, his rules, and though I’d always jokingly acknowledged both, I never really felt like I didn’t have a home. I felt that now. A home should be a sanctuary away from the people who make you feel like crap during your day, away from all the demands and judgments.

I felt sorry for my dad, not guilty.

I knew if he had his way, I would be so guilt- and remorse-filled I would be racing home this instant to beg forgiveness. I’d been conditioned to only be happy if he was happy. He’d always wrapped his love for me in conditions, bound to traditions and rules that weren’t even based on his own legacy, but forged in the philosophy of others whom he hoped to emulate. I wondered if he was still trying to win Rumiko’s love, thinking if he could just be Japanese enough? Or whether that was just my own imagination, filling in the gaps about that which I knew little.

Or was he just a bully, using words like
tradition
and
honor
and
commitment
as excuses.

The clock ticked with my heartbeat, until my heartbeat started moving faster than the clock. What was I thinking? If I didn’t go to karate, I couldn’t go home tonight. Where in the hell am I going to go if I don’t go home?
I feel like I am going to hyperventilate. Ohgodohgodohgod!

“Breathe!” Shiro commanded. I thought I was.

He spun me in a circle so that I was facing away from the crowd, looking solely at him. He was still the same. Patient. Kind. Happy.

I want to be happy.

“Allow yourself to be happy,” he said, and I thought, did I say that out loud?

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said in a whispered rush. “I can’t go home.”

“Sure you can. This session won’t last past your bedtime.”

“No, when I left, he said not to come back. Where will I sleep tonight?”

Shiro didn’t ask for details; he only asked, “Where do you want to sleep?”

I knew his voice was hushed, but I wondered if the old couple in the front row could hear everything.

“I’d like to sleep with you tonight.”

He cradled my face in his hands and kissed me. “Then you sleep with me tonight. Fill your heart with joy, little bird, and fly free.”

Little bird? Oh hell, he’s killing me with the pet names. At least he didn’t call me grasshopper…

He walked away from me and started addressing the class. Instructing. I didn’t pay attention. I was too lost in my own thoughts.

“You’ll want to check your model’s circulation often. Make sure she’s comfortable. Make sure she knows that if she experiences any unusual pain to tell you. And above all, recognize the signs of distress. Who can tell me the piece of equipment you always have on hand?”