As the tension increased, Francesca’s body
was drawn down tighter and tighter by the ropes, her head sinking
as her spine folded down over her knees. Her golden hair fell and
draped her face, brushing her legs as her forehead finally came to
rest on the carpet. Her breathing was deep and slow, the relaxed
pace belying the tension revealed in her arms as the silver
bindings held them straight and long against the curve of her
back.
When she was all the way down, Brian felt
the connection between them diminish, but it did not worry him. She
was deep in trance now, and was working, he knew, to entwine
herself with Jonathan Allenton’s psyche, to bring him into the
connection. Brian simply maintained his own measured breathing, his
own flow, knowing that he was still a part of her strength and
providing the support and grounding she would need to find her way
back.
The repressors tried to
hit them again, this time with a more direct assault, a barrage of
images and sensations cascading against them both. Francesca was
too deep to even register it, and it broke like a helpless frothy
wave against her trance state. Brian caught some of it, though, a
series of twisted, banal sexual images trying to insinuate their
way into his awareness of his own sex, a grinding litany of voices
and suggested desires
don’t you want that
cunt tits would be so nice bigger rounder mouth sucks cock take it
harder
trying to break his
connection.
This time he felt no fear,
no chance of losing his connection. His awareness of the joyful
sharing now was so much better than any of the hinted debaucheries
that they were helpless before it. He stood for a moment with the
tails held up over her tightly bound form, basking in the shared
breaths of pleasure that flowed between them, and actually laughed
aloud at the now-pitiful attacks, and even was able to glimpse for
a moment the poor drugged-out emitters the repressors were using to
fuel their attack. He took a moment to send a pulse of the joy he
had to them, a quick burst across the conduit they’d unknowingly
created (
just a taste, don’t worry, plenty
more where that came from, just kick that habit,
buddy
) and then slammed the connection
down firmly and irrevocably.
He had work to do.
His movements were quicker
now, but still smooth and deliberate, as he drew the rest of the
rope in and around her curled form to seal the binding and give
Francesca the reserves of power she would need to change the boy’s
(
Man,
he reminded
himself,
if he were a boy he would not be
so dangerous
) sexual awareness.
He drew the tails up over her trapezii
again, laying them down along either side of the knots securing the
bindings of her arms, and looped them down through the cleft in her
buttocks, tying them to the bindings on her thighs and drawing them
tight, knowing that the feeling of her glutes being divided would
arouse her further and lend her more power, while the energies
flowing down and across her spine would continue to circulate and
feed back into her work. He quickly drew the tails of the rope up
again along her side and began the final sealing of the ritual,
winding the ropes into themselves in tight coils that gave no exits
to the energy involved.
He pulled the final coil
tight into itself, and sat back in
seiza
, back where he’d started,
hands this time cupped in his lap, his thumbs touching, and simply
concentrated on providing a grounding support as she did her
part.
Francesca was still in trance, still
breathing, and her mind was twenty-three miles east, where a man,
barely twenty, was sitting at a party, looking into the depths of a
lousy beer and only half aware of the flirty babble of the woman
next to him. She continued to join his awareness until she could
feel everything from the chill condensation on the plastic cup he
held to the smell of the patchouli on the woman next to him. She
knew the faint aftertaste of the Ethiopian food he’d had for
dinner, she knew the hard pressure of the bar on his elbows. She
went deeper, feeling his ennui, his boredom at the ease with which
he did the few things expected of him, and felt his hidden despair
at the knowledge that his father and the machine he was part of had
his future all planned out. She knew, along with him, that he might
as well enjoy the woman next to him, let her feed on him as well,
she as hungry for a taste of the entity he was part of as he was
bored with it.
Francesca felt all that, and fed into it.
She gave him more of the trapped feeling, more of the feeling of
being bound, of being held helpless and without the possibility of
movement. She let him feel her own body, overlapping it on his
subconscious as a mirror to his feelings of being trapped, and
amplified it, until he found his eyes beginning to fill with
tears.
Then, when he was on the verge of giving in
to the overwhelming feelings of despair, when his tears were just
about to flow, when the thoughts of mindless sex with the woman
were beginning to be replaced with images of the gun he had in the
case back home… just at that point, she began to move.
It was a tiny movement, a
soft flexing against the ropes that bound her, but he could feel
it. He could feel the resistance of her body against the ties that
wrapped her, the seeming hopeless struggle. At first that was all
she could do, flex her muscles against the ropes, in some cases
feeling the knots even more hopelessly tighten.
Yes, feel this. The struggle. The need to be free. The
hopelessness of realizing that not only have you been entangled far
more than you knew… but that you have let it happen to you, even
encouraged it.
He felt it, and the woman cooed happily as she felt
his bicep tighten under his jacket where she hung on his arm.
Jonathan didn’t hear her, his thoughts deep within. He flexed again
involuntarily as Francesca increased her blending with him and
intensified her struggle.
Brian watched her hands
writhing in the bonds before him, fingers twisting like sea
anemones as her arms tried to flex up and down. Her back began to
arch, shoulders pushing forward and back, and slowly her muscles
began to find tiny places in the loops and strands where they could
slip under, change position, small pockets of slack created here
and there.
There is hope. There is a point
to the struggle. You are life, within this binding, and you have
the advantage of being able to improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
Suddenly a loop came off of one wrist, and
Francesca let out a long, slow breath as her body found a release.
At the bar, Jonathan also let out a slow breath, but still ignored
the bustle around him. The woman had left in search of more
susceptible prey, finally realizing that her charms were not being
seen at all. The young man continued to stare at the surface of the
bar, the rich wood grain seeming to draw his gaze and shift into a
liquid flow as he continued to sense something growing
inside.
Francesca’s torso was
twisting violently from side to side now, her wrists freed up to
the elbows from the
drakenfly
binding. She had lifted her torso up halfway, but
was drawn back down by the ropes across her shoulders, which slid
partway down with every twist, but refused to go further. Her
breathing was ragged, now, still deep but punctuated with the
effort and force of her struggle. She felt a moment when it seemed
that a particularly emphatic twist almost had the loop off, and she
added a shake of her shoulder to try and send it further… and lost
her balance, feeling again that moment of panic as she realized
there was nothing to catch her as she fell to the side, her head
about to hit the floor—
--until Brian’s warm hands
caught her shoulder and cradled the side of her head, his movement
so sudden that she had not heard even the rustle as he’d slid over
to her on his knees. He lowered her to the ground, gently, on her
side, resting his hand there a bit longer to reinforce the
connection, and brushing the hair back gently from her face before
resuming
seiza
.
She sent out a wave of gratitude to him, awareness expanded to
include him again, and went back to her silent blending with
Jonathan.
You will fall. No matter.
There are friends to catch you.
She began
twisting her legs as well, contracting and arching and rolling,
arms drawing around to the side, trying to find knots, trying to
reach through coils and exploit any tiny opening, any portion of
the binding that might give any part of her skin escape. The robe
had slid into disarray, and one breast pressed bare against the
rope, the added sensation fueling the connection even more.
The struggle is necessary. The struggle is hard.
The struggle is exciting. The struggle is Pleasure.
She pulled and twisted and fought the
isometric battle until the loops of rope were pooled around her on
the floor, evidence of dozens of tiny victories by her body over
the binding, the assertion of her own power. She continued to move
until she was slipping against her own limbs with the sweat of the
exertion. Jonathan’s forehead also showed a sheen of exhaustion,
belying his relaxed lean against the bar, and his eyes were
completely unfocused, the beer now warm and forgotten in the cup in
his hand.
The struggle is
hopeless.
He gave a little shudder as he
felt, unconsciously, the exhaustion in her body finally give in to
the pressure of the ropes. Her muscles shook with the effort, and
she felt the tears in her own eyes, simply from the intensity of
the exertion, as she lay there, gasping, her legs still tightly
bound together around her aroused vulva, arms still pulled back
harshly by the ropes, no longer in neat and kind loops but tangled
and harsh and, finally, unyeilding across her joints and muscles.
Her breath was in shudders.
Though he could feel none of the actual
physical sensation, Jonathan had no choice but to share in the
final desperation of Francesca’s fruitless struggle. There was no
stopping the tears that came then, to him, even had he been aware
of them. This strange excitement he’d felt suddenly, this wave of
hope and empowerment that had so briefly bubbled up from somewhere,
it had finally been revealed in brutal honesty for the inadequacy
that it was, and the loss of the hope brought into sharp focus the
gun, a Ruger his Dad had bought him four years before, and the
inclination to load it, just like Mr. Heston himself had taught
him, and lift it, looking down the barrel…
The struggle is not
all.
He suddenly gasped as he felt
something further come into this strange half-awareness, a sudden
relief to the despair, like a bright and glowing line traveling off
into the uncertain darkness.
Brian had reached out and moved the hair
from Francesca’s cheek, before lowering his hands to the hollow
between her shoulder blades. There was a tiny square knot there,
the rope twining back and through and over itself, which though
pulled tighter and tighter by her struggles quickly loosened under
his fingers. Her shoulders were moved forward a tiny bit by the
change, and her soft sigh of release was echoed in the bar by
Jonathan, though he had no idea why.
Brian continued to draw the tails around
and through the coils and bindings, gently letting them caress her
even as they freed her, loop by loop. Occasionally he would rest
his hand against the planes of her body, a hip, the small of her
back, letting her feel the warmth of his hand, letting the strength
of his grounding flow into her shuddering releases until the breath
calmed. Her legs came free, finally, and the joy at their extension
and release traveled through the connection to Jonathan who let out
a sudden barking laugh at the pleasurable wave.
As the bindings loosened, though, so did
the energy dissipate and the connection begin to dim. Jonathan had
no idea where the feelings had originated, where the ideas were
coming from, but he clearly got the final message before he was
snapped back into his body, aware that his cheeks were damp, his
beer was warm, and his face had a huge smile.
The struggle is not alone. So get to it,
Man.
He looked at his beer, shrugging and
setting it on the bar in front of him. Suddenly he didn’t feel much
like drinking. In fact, he felt the same sort of endorphin rush
that he felt after a good run at that club, come to think of it.
Always better than that synthetic trash his friend Boyd
occasionally pushed on him.
He looked around and saw her. Denise
McCallister was the daughter of one of the lobbyists for the Sierra
Club, a lobbyist Jonathan had often heard his father deride in the
pool room and saunas they’d shared. She was about his age, and he’d
once inadvertently been seated next to her at an awards banquet.
He’d been surprised at how much he’d enjoyed talking with her, a
genuine conversation developing between them until his date had
found him, and he’d reverted to his role as Heir Apparent to his
father. He could still remember her look of disappointment, and the
way it had stung… until he’d buried it in a snide comment and laugh
to his date as they walked away from the table.
Now she looked profoundly
uncomfortable at this party, standing against the wall, watching
the hoi polloi bustle around her, obviously abandoned by whatever
well-meaning friends had dragged her here. Jonathan stood straight,
adjusting his jacket and grounding his feet (
grounding my feet? What was that? Where did that come
from?
) before walking over to talk to
her.