Synergy

Open and Closed

Two weeks later and we were back in my basement. We had stayed in contact after her first visit, though she was hesitant to meet up again. I didn’t press the matter. If she needed time to work through what had happened, I was willing to be patient. Keeping our developing relationship low key turned out to be the right approach. Here she was once more, ready to explore the use, or misuse, of the various items in my collection.

There was a change in her attitude. Although I couldn’t point to anything specific, she appeared to be more self-assured. Maybe she’d come to some conclusion during the last two weeks, either about me or her own desires.

“Before we start, there’s something I need to do.” She reached into her purse and took out a small box. “Please, hold onto this for me. Don’t look, it’s a surprise. I can’t explain right now, but you’ll see for yourself how important it is in a few minutes.”

I took it from her outstretched hand. The box rattled when I shook it. “Uh, is it breakable?” She’d caught my attention with her bit of mystery.

“Don’t worry about that. One other thing,” she started to ask, pointing toward the door to my Treasure Room. “Would you mind if I use that wardrobe in the anteroom? I need to change for our evening activities.”

This was unexpected. Change? I had no idea where she was going. I was supposed to be the one in charge, yet it felt as if I were starting out as a bystander. No harm in seeing where it would go, though. “Sure, help yourself. The door isn’t locked.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” she added while opening the door. She paused, looking over her shoulder. “I promise, you won’t be disappointed. And whatever you do, don’t lose that box!”

Okay, I was hooked. I stood there wracking my brain, trying to figure out what she meant. Change into what? She didn’t bring along a bag or suitcase, so exactly where did she come up with a costume?

When the door opened and she strode out the mystery was solved. “Open the box,” she suggested.

Inside were two tubular keys, on a simple wire keyring. Ace keys, the kind that would fit the round lock in the center of the waistband fastened above her hips. Descending from the belt was a metal plate that tapered as it narrowed between her legs into a strap up the back, ending at the rear of the waistband. There was no mistaking the function. This was a real chastity belt, designed for the female anatomy.

“Those are the only two keys that open it,” she explained. “This belt is a snug fit. There’s no way I can get out of it unless it’s unlocked. In case you have any doubts, it really works.” She put her hands on either side of the front shield. “No access. Countless times I’ve tried without success.”

The chastity belt was impressive. I couldn’t help but stare at it. Its appeal was enhanced by the fact the belt was all she wore. Her “change” was into her birthday suit, completely nude except for the steel topless bikini.

Sex was definitely off the table now. She was literally armored against any sexual contact. Then I remembered the keys in my hand. No, I had it all wrong. The belt wasn’t there to keep me out; rather it was designed to keep her in.

She made a pointed glance toward the room with my collection. “I’m ready when you are,” she announced.

Get On Board

“I have something special for you tonight. I didn’t anticipate your, uh, choice of costume but it should work out.” I slipped on a white medical jacket, to get into character. “In fact, my diagnosis as an eminently unqualified psychiatrist is you are afflicted with some mental problems. You might even become violent if provoked. Therefore, we need to take some precautionary steps.”

She looked at me like I was the one who was crazy, but said nothing. I went to one of the drawers and took out a plastic-wrapped jacket. “This should be a good fit. You might catch a chill, so I have a coat to keep you warm.” I shook out the full-length straitjacket.

“Hold out your arms and I’ll help you on with it.” A gentleman always helps a lady with her coat. I prided myself on my manners. The heavy cotton denim easily slid over her arms. The sleeves ended in sealed, stiff leather tubes that covered the hands, with stout belts hanging from the tips.

I began to cinch the straps in the back of the jacket. “This won’t take a minute,” I assured her. I pulled the jacket tight against her torso, from below the neck down to the waist. Reaching down I grasped the two belts sewn into the bottom front of the jacket. They ran between her legs, over the chastity belt, to buckles in the back. Slipping out of the jacket over her head would require a minor miracle with those bottom straps in place.

“Now then, let’s see what we can do about those arms. Letting them flap around just won’t do.” The front of the jacket had a wide, open pouch sewn into the front, large enough to accommodate both arms. I guided the left through the pocket first, followed by the right. Behind her back I took up the two belts on the sleeve ends and threaded them through the buckles. I was careful not to overtighten them, since prolonged use did stress the shoulders and make it more difficult to breathe.

Her arms formed into a snug embrace below her breasts. I took a moment to admire my work, purely for clinical reasons, of course. “There, that should do it. Try it out, see if it’s working properly.”

She frowned. “I’m not exactly an expert on straitjackets, you know.” She started by trying to pull out her arms, an effort which ended quickly. Next, she twisted back and forth, again making no measurable progress. Her struggles became ever more vigorous, even to the point of bending over, though I failed to see what that would accomplish.

Breathing heavily, she finally gave up. “Okay, I’m stuck. This jacket is ten times worse than handcuffs. My arms, my hands are totally useless. How do magicians get out of these things?”

“They’re rigged,” I explained. “They don’t use ones with the pocket in front, and the sleeves are loose. That way they can slip an arm over their head, and after that work a hand out to reach under the bottom and loosen the retaining straps.”

She went through a few more futile twists before tacitly conceding she had no hope of escape. “I assume you don’t have any of the trick jackets lying around?”

“Oh, no,” I answered. “What would be the point? Besides, I like watching you thrashing around in vain. Admit it, wouldn’t you be disappointed if you somehow managed to overcome being the damsel in distress all on your own?”

She didn’t answer, though there was an undecipherable expression I hadn’t seen before I went to another drawer along the wall. “I almost forgot.” I held up the molded fiberglass muzzle, with the barred mouthguard. “Wasn’t this one of your favorites from our last time together?”

This time her disapproving expression was all too clear, at least until I held the mask over her face while fastening the straps. “Feel free to take it off if it doesn’t suit you.”

“Thank you,” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You are always so considerate.” How she would manage to remove it without hands, much less arms, wasn’t my concern.

“I’m starting to feel like the character in that movie again. What was it?” she asked.

“Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector. It was the inspiration for tonight, by the way. Remember the scene where he was delivered, nicely wrapped up in muzzle and straitjacket? Guess what?”

I went over to the closet, opened the door, and wheeled out the wooden bodyboard, mounted on a steel framed cart. I definitely surprised her with that one. “Hold still while I line this up. If you think the straitjacket is bad, wait until you spend some time on this thing.”

I positioned the wheeled board behind her back. I was fitted with a steel plate on the bottom where she could stand. Once in place I began with the leather belts, working down from the top. A belt around her arms, one around her waist, thigh, knee, calf, ankle, and to finish off a sort of sandal arrangement to keep her feet in place.

She leaned her head forward, trying to compare herself to the movie scene. “Oh, that’s not allowed,” I warned. From behind the board, I took out the loop that went across her forehead, with the chinstrap to keep it from slipping off. Once it was pulled tight, she couldn’t move her head, depriving her of that last bit of freedom.

Whole New Level

“This is…intense,” she admitted. “It’s a whole new level of helpless. There’s no way I could ever get out of this on my own.” She stared at me, lifting her eyes up to mine while I towered over her, standing close in front. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

The tinge of distress in her plea was obvious to my ears. She’s not playacting, I realized. Her extreme vulnerability was affecting her at some deep emotional level. Instinctively, I knew what to do.

I placed my hands on either side of her head. Crouching down, I locked my eyes to hers. “I will never harm you. Don’t ever doubt me. I want what I see in your eyes, that’s true. I will win it through your trust, not your fear.” Reassurance, that’s what she needed to hear.

This was a test, albeit a risky one. If she placed herself entirely in my hands, as she had just done, could she rely on me to do right, whatever that might be? I suspected she had no actual idea of what to expect, other than she’d know if I failed.

I backed up to arm’s length, keeping my hands on her shoulders. Physical contact, she seems to welcome it. At least that was my impression, though I’d be first to recognize it as self-serving rationalization. I moved a hand to lift up her chin, pushing up on the muzzle.

“Don’t ask me to release you,” I advised her. “At the moment I’m extremely reluctant to let you go. If pressed, I’m not sure if I’d be willing to release you, no matter how much you pleaded. It would be better if you don’t force me past the line of consent.” Why did I say that? It hadn’t been a conscious decision; I just blurted it out. Too late to take it back. Great, now she has a real reason to be scared.

It was one of those moments when I could not have been more wrong in misjudging her response. “We’re long past consent issues,” she whispered softly. “You are in control. Whatever you wish from me, take it. Do whatever it takes to make sure I can’t stop you.”

Primal Urge

Between handing over both keys to her chastity belt, stripping down to nothing, and now encouraging me to “take it”, there wasn’t much chance I was misinterpreting her sexual invitation. Sweeping my eyes up and down I took in all the cues that advertised to me she was most definitely a mature female, and best of all both willing and available.

My problem is that she was also nicely wrapped up in such a way as to frustrate my giving into the human male’s baser instincts. There she was, staring at me, waiting for…what? Did I free her, so we could consummate the evening?

Or was this a test of my willpower? Given her situation, she had reached the limit of her ability to seduce me. If I gave in, would she respect me in the morning? It was all I could do not to laugh at the irony of my dilemma.

The core issue had been her own words, about her need for “total loss of control” and all it implied. The more I thought about it, the more I leaned toward the test theory. If I freed her then she had effectively influenced me, which in a sense put her in charge.

What separates humans from other animals? Intelligence, specifically the ability to use reason to overcome instinct, our primal urges. So maybe I was delving into the philosophical, yet it did provide an answer. Enlightened selfishness, that was my path to pass her test, even if it meant sacrificing immediate gratification.

“No talking,” I ordered, perhaps a bit too harshly but I had to regain dominance quickly. “Not a sound from you! One word and I’ll replace that muzzle with a gag.” I caught the way her eyes widened in surprise at my sudden ferocity.

I walked around to the back of the bodyboard, out of her sight. Grasping the handles I tilted her back and wheeled her out of the collection room. I stopped in the middle of the basement floor, with her facing the stairs at the far end. Let her speculate on what I’m planning. Impress on her just how effective bondage can be in accentuating that feeling that comes with loss of freedom.

Behind her back I pretended to engage in some mysterious, frenzied activity. I opened the Treasure Room door, and then proceeded to cross between it and the collection room several times. She could hear my footsteps, along with ominous metallic sounds, which came from my carrying some old-style iron shackles back and forth.

It was all for show. When all the mind has to go on are sound effects, the imagination can run wild with all kinds of scenarios, good and bad. At one point I halted the play acting and approached her, taking hold of her upper arms, through the straitjacket, in my hands. “Curious as to what’s happening?” I whispered in one ear. “Think of it as taking what I wish,” I finished.

Next, I leaned in to her other side. “You must be bursting with curiosity. That’s too bad, because I’m not going to enlighten you about my activities.” I spoke softly, barely audible, so she had to strain to make out what I was saying. “When you need to know, then and only then will you find out.” The interlude would reinforce her sense of being powerless.

I went back to making more noise. Once I dropped some shackles on the floor with a loud crash. I muttered some incoherent curses, loud enough for her to hear but not understand. In reality I was just carrying clanking chains between the two rooms.

I wondered what horrific image was forming in her mind. No matter how much she trusted me, there must be some small seed of doubt growing as time went on. Of course, she was as safe as could be in my hands, though she didn’t know it. It was the unknown, the spice that livens up our everyday lives.

After a long, quiet pause I came up behind her again. “It occurred to me you haven’t had a chance to compare yourself to the movie scene.” I turned her around and headed to the Treasure Room. In the anteroom I took her over to the wardrobe. Inside, her clothes were neatly hung on the rack, with shoes at the bottom and her purse on the overhead shelf.

I positioned her in front of the full-length mirror mounted on the wardrobe door. “There you go. You have my permission to speak.”

Being on the tall side I looked over the top of her head at the reflection. I thought it was a good reproduction of the scene from the movie, with the straitjacket, the muzzle over her mouth, and the backboard holding her upright.

“That isn’t me,” was her first response. “All I see is a stranger; maybe not even that, more a thing, an inanimate object. It’s an eerie feeling. I haven’t lost touch with reality; it is me, yet in another sense I can’t identify with who, or what I see in the mirror. It’s difficult to describe.”

I could understand her point of view. It was the mask covering the lower half of her face. The effect of those bars across the mouth was dehumanizing. It drew the eye to one detail; a distraction from those features left uncovered. It’s a form of synergy, I realized, a small addition that renders the whole effect greater than the sum of the parts.

“One…two…three...” she counted. “I can’t see my mouth move. It’s like sound coming out of a speaker. You know, if I had a gag in my mouth, even though whatever I tried to say would be garbled I’d know it was me. With this mask the words come out fine, but they aren’t mine.”

I loosened the strap across her forehead and removed it. Reaching behind her neck I unfastened the muzzle and took it off. She immediately stuck out her tongue at her reflection. “Just making sure it’s me,” she explained.

She turned her head from side to side. “That feels wonderful. You have no idea how boring the scene becomes when you can’t move your head.”

“You must be getting sore from being strapped to that board. Hold still while I get you out of that thing.” I worked from the bottom up, unbuckling the board’s leather belts that confined her so effectively. She bent her head forward to watch my progress.

When I finished, I helped her step away from the backboard. “What’s that cliché, absence makes the heart grow fonder? Tied to that board I lost every bit of freedom. I could talk, or blink my eyes. That was about the limit of movement. If that’s not extreme bondage then I’d sure like to find out what could be worse.”

“Careful what you wish for. It may come true.”

She started to twist around in the straitjacket again. “Maybe I spoke too soon,” she added. To stretch her legs, she lifted one at a time, bending at the knee. “At least I can walk again.” She yanked against the front of the jacket, where her arms were crossed.

“Ahh yes, the jacket.” I pretended to forget about it. “We should do something about that. Turn around, face the wall.”

I’m sure she was eager to be rid of the straitjacket too. After she turned, I roughly forced her against the wall, pressing against her with my body. “I’m tempted to leave you in that straitjacket all night. Wouldn’t that be fun? I even have a special place for you.”

With those words ringing in her ears, I spun her around, crouched down and, wrapping one arm around her legs, hoisted her up and over my shoulder. “What are you doing!?” she cried out.

“I’m taking what I want,” was my fitting reply. I took the opportunity to run the palm of my hand up and down the smooth skin of one of her legs. It was every bit as pleasant as I had imagined. When she started to twist around, even attempting a kick, I put a stop to it with a stinging slap on her exposed buttock. “We’ll have none of that,” I warned her. It was enough to put an end to her struggles.

Winding Down

Keeping one arm across her legs, I carried her over to the cell block door, slid back the bar, and opened it with a key using my spare hand. Inside I carried her into the tiny jail cell that I like to think of as my Treasure Room.

“You were so enthusiastic about the accommodations last time I figured you’d like a return visit.” With that I deposited her on the bare concrete floor.

“That wasn’t the most dignified way to arrive,” she observed. “Couldn’t I have just walked in?”

I feigned a perplexed expression. “Sorry, but I can’t recall offering you a menu of travel options.”

“You spanked me!” She all but yelled indignantly.

“And you were acting like a child. I trust you’ll remember you’ll pay the same price for similar behavior in the future.”

Stepping around behind her I began to unbuckle the jacket. It didn’t take long before she could pull out her arms. Stretching over her head she sighed in relief. “Oh, that feels so good.” She spun her arms around in circles. “It wouldn’t take much for me to develop a real hatred for that thing.” She pointed at the empty straitjacket in my hand.

“I will make a note of that. Loves to dress up like Hannibal Lector, jacket and mask. Why don’t you have a seat while I put this away.” I gestured to the wooden bench mounted against the cell wall.

When she turned to look, I quickly stepped backward and slammed shut the cell door. A turn of the key and it was securely locked in place. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.” I loved saying that line.

I saw her grasping the bars of the cell door as I crossed the threshold into the anteroom. I pushed shut the cell block door, cutting off whatever she was about to say. Draping the jacket over the bodyboard I wheeled it all back to the collections room. It would keep until I cleaned it later.

There was one more issue for the night I had to resolve. Reaching into my pocket I pulled out the pair of keys to her chastity belt. They were identical in appearance, the original and a spare. Crossing the basement to my safe I spun the dial to open it. Taking out a tag, I made a note of its purpose, attached to the key, and dropped it into a plastic tray separated into compartments. Closing the safe door I spun the dial, stopping at zero. I was positive she would be relieved to hear the spare was in a safe place, pun intended.

I stood next to the safe, leaning against it, watching the closed door to my Treasure Room. A dream come true; it was finally fulfilling its purpose, to protect and shelter my most valuable possession. I saw no harm in savoring the moment, standing there for several minutes while she patiently waited for my return. Fortune had indeed smiled on me when she came into my life.

But I was neglecting my duties as a host for the evening. When I pushed open the cell block door she jumped to her feet and approached the bars. “Did you forget about this?” she asked, her hands on the waistband of the chastity belt.

“It’s not something I can ignore,” I answered, with an exaggerated leer. I took out the key, the single key that would release her from the relentless embrace of steel.

She frowned. “Where’s the other one?”

“It’s in my possession; that’s all you need to know. We will not discuss it further.” How simple life can be when I don’t have to explain myself.

“I’d like to get dressed now, without the belt.” She was careful not to actually ask me to unlock it. One of our bondage ground rules was a prohibition against directly asking me to remove any type of restraint. I was pleased to see she kept her promise.

“Yes, about that. If you recall, you told me to take whatever I want, without asking. Having second thoughts?”

That made her pause. After a moment she replied with, “no, no second thoughts. I meant what I said.”

“In that case, you don’t need to get dressed.” It took all of about one second for her to figure out what that implied. “However, we still have the belt to deal with.”

She gave me a quizzical look. “We can’t do much while I have it on,” she pointed out the obvious.

“As I see it, the best solution would be for you to convince me to use this key,” I held it up. “Otherwise, I really don’t have any motivation to unlock the cell door, much less your belt.”

Suffice to say her enthusiasm in persuading me was sufficient for the night to end in a much more comfortable setting upstairs, in the bedroom.