All About Control · Part 1

All About Control · Part 1 (1/2)
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The Wall Carol stared at the items displayed on the walls. “Wow! I’ve never seen a collection like this. Truth is I’ve never even seen a real pair of handcuffs. I had no idea there were so many different types.”

“Not just handcuffs, all kinds of restraints.” Pete pointed to what looked like a pair of padded gloves. “These cover your hands. The padding is stiff, so you can’t use your fingers to grab or hold onto anything. They’re used with extremely dangerous prisoners.”

Carol looked up at Pete, standing next to her. “Okay, here I am. You convinced me I’m in the right place for a firsthand bondage experience. I’ve read all the websites on the Internet, so I guess I’m as prepared as I can be. What happens next?” She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and crossed a mental line. “Should I take my clothes off before we start?”

“Slow down!” Pete held up his hands. “I think we’ll begin with something simple. You know, learn to swim before jumping off the high dive tower into the deep end of the pool.” He reached up and took a pair of metallic handcuffs off the wall. “How about we go through a little roleplay game, where Officer Pete has to arrest Carol for a DUI?”

She couldn’t take her eyes off the pair of cuffs in his hand. They must be real; she’d seen something very like them on those reality TV shows. She looked up at him, trying her best to pretend she was drunk. “Honestly, officer, I only drank six glasses of wine tonight,” she slurred her speech.

Pete laughed. “Well, starting with a confession does simplify the process. Let me show you how these things work first, so you’ll know exactly what’s going on.” Using his thumb, he pushed open one of the cuffs. “You can see why they’re called bracelets. It’s very simple, close the cuff until it won’t slip off your wrist. That clicking sound? It’s what’s called a ratchet; the cuff can close but won’t go backwards. You need a key to open them.”

Carol nodded to show she understood. “Easy to put on, not so easy to take off. I guess that makes sense. Do they have to be a tight fit? Does it hurt?”

“No and no, if used the right way. That’s why metallic handcuffs are better than rope or zip-ties. It is a close fit, but not so tight it cuts off circulation. As long as you can’t wiggle your hands out of them that’s good enough.”

“Okay then, Officer. Maybe I was weaving back there but I’m sure there was a tree in the middle of the intersection…”

“Six glasses, eh? And how many bottles before that? Here we go, just relax and do as I say. Hold still.” Pete walked around until he was behind Carol. “Okay, I’m going to cuff your hands behind your back. It’s purely for your own protection.” He took hold of her left wrist and gently pulled it behind her back. She felt the cool steel touch her skin, followed by the sound of the ratchet closing. “And now, you’re right.” He repeated the procedure, this time fastening the other cuff around her right wrist.

“That’s it. One more detail to check. See if you can slip your hand through the cuff, like when you take off a real bracelet. I don’t think you can, but if it looks like you’re able I’ll have to adjust the fit.”

Carol tried to pull her hands apart. The handcuffs did their job well; she was stuck with her hands bound behind her back. She tried to slip the cuffs off but her hands were too wide. This is the real deal; now I know what it’s like to be taken into custody. The TV shows did get one part right. Pete could easily handle her once she was restrained.

“No luck slipping out of these things.” Carol tried to reach around, to her right. Looking down, the shiny steel cuffs were plainly visible, along with the short connecting chain separating her wrists. “I can see why these are so common. Even if I managed to get away, I don’t think I’d get far running down the street with my hands tied like this.”

“You’d probably fall down. You’d be surprised how hard it is to run without using your arms for balance.” He took hold of the chain between her hands. “I have to double lock the handcuffs so they won’t tighten any further.” Carol felt him do something with each cuff but couldn’t see.

Pete let go, placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “That’s all. Congratulations,” he told her. “You passed your first day in class for Bondage 101. We’ll take a minute or two for you to get used to the change. On rare occasions people have been known to freak out when handcuffed. It’s a panic attack triggered by loss of freedom. Let me know if you feel something like that coming on.”

All the Other Stuff Carol reached to the left, right, up, and down, trying to figure out how much range of motion she had. Pete watched but said nothing. Finally, she leaned over and tried to slip her bound hands down past her hips. At that point Pete stopped her by grabbing hold of the connecting chain.

“You have long arms, so you might just succeed in what you’re attempting. Or you might pull a muscle from too much strain. I’m not going to let you go that far.” Carol stood up straight, giving up on the attempt.

“What’s to stop me from trying when you’re not looking?” Carol looked up at him with an innocent expression. “I bet I can manage a lot more with my hands in front.”

Pete nodded, in a way that told her he had all the answers. “You’re right, with your hands in front, even with the cuffs still on, you have quite a bit more freedom of movement. There are several cases where a woman was able to slip her hands over her hips, climb into the front seat of the police car and drive off, still wearing the handcuffs. You can imagine how embarrassing that is to a cop.”

It was Carol’s turn to laugh. “Wow, that’s really something. And how would she get away? Driving a patrol car with handcuffs on isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”

“They don’t get very far, but the damage is done. So, there are a few ways to prevent it from happening. That’s one of the reasons there’s all that other stuff hanging on the walls.” Pete reached up and took down a wide leather belt. There was a large metal ring stitched into the leather about half way down. There was an odd-looking belt buckle at one end.

“This goes around your waist, above your hips.” He reached behind her to grab one end of the belt. Pulling it snug, but not too tight, he pushed on a button on top of the buckle. “It locks. Nothing fancy but if you can’t reach it a high security lock isn’t needed.” Her fingers brushed against the belt ring in the center of her lower back. It was obvious what was coming next.

“Let me guess.” Carol turned to one side. “One end of the handcuffs fits through that ring. The belt is an anchor, so there’s no way to work my hands around front. I get it. As long as I have the cuffs on, I can’t slip one end through the belt ring. My hands are limited to the small of my back?”

Pete grinned. “Exactly. It’s sort of a technology race. Someone figures out how to defeat restraints, word gets out, and a company comes up with a way to prevent it. Only I don’t have to open one of the cuffs. Hold still and I’ll demonstrate.”

She couldn’t see what he was doing but she did hear that familiar ratchet sound, which was odd because he hadn’t freed one of her wrists. There was a tug on the belt, and then the puzzle was solved.

By now she was familiar with how cuffs felt on her wrists. What she didn’t expect was the addition of a second pair. Pete moved fast, closing the second cuffs to the same diameter. “There, see how that works.”

This time she had almost no freedom of movement. No matter what direction she tried to reach, the belt brought her up short. “It works quite well,” she said. Carol strained, with all her strength, in an attempt to free herself. “Please, don’t lose the keys,” she begged while glancing up at Pete.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Not to worry, they’re in a safe place. We do have to deal with one more issue though. You might try to run away if I’m not watching you.”

Carol looked around the room. Her theoretical escape route would be to somehow open the door to the room, climb up the stairs from the basement, and then dash out the front door to the street, all with her hands secured behind her back. “You’ll have to go into more detail about how I’m supposed to make my getaway. I doubt I’d make it out of this room.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t say you’d succeed, only that you might try. So far, you can’t fight back. I have to ensure you don’t try to flee as well. That’s one of the rules of a good bondage session: no fight or flight.”

I did ask for it, she thought. “Okay, so what’s going to stop me from attempting some stupid stunt?”

Pete shook his head. “Not stupid, more like desperate.” He took hold of her arm. “Come over here and I’ll show you how we prevent foolish behavior.” He led her to the next wall where more restraints hung from pegs.

Slow Motion “Essentially these are oversize handcuffs with a longer connecting chain. It should be obvious how they work. One end goes around each ankle, limiting how fast and how far you can walk. On all of them the chain is too short to permit running. You can see they come in several lengths, from almost normal walking stride to what I call slow motion, where you need a lot of patience to get from point A to point B. By the way, the police term is leg irons.”

Carol looked over the various models in Pete’s collection. One caught her attention. “Why is this one so much shorter than the others?” Without thinking she started to point to one particular item. For a moment she’d forgotten her wrists were fastened behind her back.

Pete took the leg irons off the wall. “In the U. S. there’s a national regulation that determines what’s approved for length. If a prisoner has to walk the chain is required to be fourteen inches long. It has to do with excessive force and liability. You can see most of the ones on the wall are about that size, at least the ones made in America.”

“But that one’s only about…what? Looks like half the normal length.” Look at me, now I’m becoming an expert on police restraints, Carol thought.

“Yeah, these can’t be used to limit walking. They are only six inches apart, used in transport vans. A prisoner is seated, these go on, and the chain is padlocked to the van floor. Think of it as crowd control.”

Carol stared at Pete’s hand. “That’s scary. It reminds me of those old movie scenes where the villain has the hero chained to the wall in some dark dungeon.”

“We don’t have to worry about legal niceties. Don’t move; this will only take a minute.”

“Wait,” Carol almost shouted. “I was only curious. I didn’t mean…”

Before she finished Pete had the shackles fastened around her ankles. “Be careful. It’s very easy to trip and fall with the short leg irons on. Don’t try to walk unless I’m holding your arm. You don’t want to wind up on the floor with a broken nose.”

Pete had one hand wrapped around her upper left arm. Glancing down Carol slowly widened her stance until the chain was taut. The cuffs around her ankles were close but not too tight. Fortunately, she had picked out some low-heeled pumps to go with the modest length skirt and blouse. The last thing she needed to worry about was tottering on four-inch heels when she could barely stand.

“Let’s go sit down and talk for a while. There’s a couple of chairs in that corner. Take it slow, and try to limit your step to a little less than the chain. Jerking tight against the leg irons can cause bruising and leave you off balance. Try a couple of steps to start. Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.”

Slowly she moved her right foot forward. She stopped when the cuff began to tug on her leg. Too much, so she backed off and tried again with her left foot, halting before she reached the limit. It felt clumsy, but she now had some idea of what to do. Slow motion, he said, that’s the secret.

Carol was making progress towards the chair, though it was agonizingly slow. “Sorry”, she apologized, raising her eyes from the floor to face Pete. That wasn’t a good idea, since she stumbled and almost fell when the leg irons suddenly grabbed hold of her ankles. Off balance and unable to use her arms she started to go down.

Pete caught her before she actually fell onto the floor. “Don’t apologize when you did nothing wrong. Concentrate on keeping your balance instead of being concerned about me.” There was a certain insistence behind his voice, something she hadn’t heard from him up to now.

The chairs weren’t so far away now. Carol had a newfound appreciation for the term “snail’s pace”, based on firsthand experience. Slow and steady wins this race, do what he tells me, stay focused, one foot in front of the other. I can manage this.

And then they arrived. Turning her head Carol looked back to her starting point. Normally it would take her under two seconds to cover that distance. Now it felt like hours had passed, though she knew it couldn’t have been that long. Ironically, she felt very proud of her accomplishment, and said as much to Pete.

“I made it! I bet with some practice I could cover the same distance in half the time.”

Pete shook his head. “No, you can’t go any faster. That’s the point in chaining your ankles together. It’s a hard, physical limitation that all the practice in the world won’t change. You did do well, much better than I expected.”

Pete took hold of her other arm so he could turn Carol to face him. “That’s not idle praise. You were forced to overcome a significant disability, practically learning to walk again. You picked it up quickly, working within the restrictions instead of fighting against them. You didn’t panic, or lash out in anger. You have every right to take pride in your accomplishment.”

Her intuition, his expression, the tone of his voice all confirmed to Carol he was being honest. Those were not empty words solely for her benefit. For some reason she couldn’t explain, his approval meant the world to her.

Behind Carol was a wooden straight back chair. The lower half was open, to provide room for her hands. “I want you to sit down in this chair. Don’t try to stand up on your own. Here, I’ll help.” Backing up until the back of her knees touched the edge, she dropped down while he held onto her arm.

When she tried to slide back to rest against the chair her skirt rode up her legs. Frowning, she reflexively started to reach down to straighten it, except she couldn’t. Pete saw the problem immediately. “Lean forward and raise up a bit,” he ordered in that certain tone of voice again.

Bending at the waist she managed to lift herself up enough for him to pull down her skirt while tucking it in at the sides. “Is that better?” he asked.

Settling back into the chair again she answered. “Thanks, Pete. I hate when that happens.” Carol began to cross her legs but was quickly brought up short. That’s not going to work, she thought. What did work was going back to basics. Keep your knees together, both feet on the floor; that I can manage. Geez, this feels like my mother lecturing me about my first school dance.

When she looked up Pete was watching her closely. He saw it all, she realized, feeling slightly embarrassed. She felt better when he nodded and told her, “Good choice; I like that.”

Carol watched while he went over to a stack of chairs in the corner. He pulled one off the top and headed back towards her. Curious, she leaned over the side of her chair to check if it was the same kind. That’s when she noticed her chair was bolted to the floor.

Pete dropped his chair in front of her. “Stop that.” He didn’t sound angry but she sensed something was wrong. He came close, almost touching her legs. She had to lean her head back to see him.

“This is what’s going to happen next. First, you will sit up straight. Don’t fidget; you are being judged. You will sit there quietly. I will talk; you will listen. Don’t be afraid. There’s a reason for all this. I’m going to explain it now. I don’t want to be interrupted.”

He never raised his voice, yet there was a sense of the steel fist wrapped in the velvet glove as he delivered those short, succinct commands. Maybe it had something to do with the chains locked on her body, imposing his will in a manner Carol could not resist. He had her undivided attention.

The Other Side “First of all, I’d like to say I appreciate the amount of faith you have in me. This bondage game,” he made a sweeping motion with his arms toward her, “does carry some risk. Those true crime shows are filled with lurid stories about meetings gone wrong. Don’t be anxious, that’s not going to happen. If you start to feel uncomfortable just say the word and we’ll stop. I think, if you are patient and hear me out, you’ll understand why you’re in no danger.”

“I’m not worried…” Carol began.

Pete quickly interrupted. “Sorry, but you have to remain silent, as I ordered. Once you are, umm, let’s say in custody there are certain rules you need to follow. Remember I said sit quietly? Once you are under my control you are obligated to obey me, to the best of your ability. There are no exceptions, unless you are in distress. Since you’re a beginner I’m asking nicely, otherwise I’d be more insistent in enforcing my orders. You must wait for permission to speak. Nod if you wish to continue. If what I ask is too much, we’ll end it here.”

His tone of voice was level, non-threatening, but Carol could hear that hint of firm conviction behind it. Something in the way he spoke drew her in, compelling her to keep going. She nodded in agreement.

“Good! We’ll get into some of the other customary requirements later. Now then, you are not as isolated in your desire to be here as you might think. There are women much like you who are drawn to what might be termed a return to older, gender-specific roles. By that I refer to the old cliché about the macho kind of guy who likes to be in charge, along with his woman who’s content to let him take on the responsibility that comes with being the leader.”

Carol didn’t say anything but his explanation did give her pause to think. Her first reaction was to dismiss his claim as outdated and self-serving. She was a modern, independent woman who didn’t have to rely on men to run her life. Except, if that’s true, what am I doing here? Her fingers brushed against the handcuffs encircling her wrists. Why is it I don’t want him to take these things off?

Pete leaned forward. “Now I’m not the macho stereotype. I have nothing to prove. I like to think I’m a decent guy, but I do have this one little quirk. To sum it up, I’m an unrepentant control freak. Without sounding too conceited, my way is the right way. Not just right, but the only way. You’ve placed yourself in my hands, for your own reasons. I make no apologies for taking advantage of that trust, in whatever manner I see fit.”

Pete held up his hands. “Don’t take that the wrong way. I do have a moral code regarding how you should be treated during a bondage session.”

Carol suddenly realized how precarious her situation was, given the degree of physical control this man now had over her. It could all go very bad in seconds. For some reason she wasn’t scared. Quite the contrary, there was a certain thrill of excitement in the way she submitted to his dominating presence.

“Being right doesn’t mean I have a monopoly on wisdom. I make mistakes, and I learn from them. I listen to what other people say. I may not agree, in fact that’s my usual attitude unless there’s some persuasive argument to the contrary. In the end, I have confidence in what I believe. There’s no room for doubt or uncertainty. My approach to life is to consider the options, add in my due diligence to foresee consequences, and finally to act based on the best information I have at the time. Whatever the results, good or bad, I am content with the knowledge I acted in an honorable way.”

I give him credit for being honest. Pete’ revelations into his personality, and his willingness to open up, captured Carol’s interest. The Internet had plenty of information on bondage in general, along with articles on domination and submission. Though there were numerous views on submission, Carol was frustrated to f

All About Control · Part 1 (1/2)
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