This was so stupid, this absurdity made real. Why am I watching and waiting on this pointless predicament? Colleen fumed to herself. She had been sitting and stewing here for far too long. She tried again to distract herself with her phone, but inevitably her thoughts turned back to rage and frustration. Her eyes drifted to her trussed up friend, Amber. The two had been friends for years, helping each other indulge in their predicament bondage and escape games.
It hadn’t started that way, though. They were randomly assigned as roommates in college, and at first, they had hated each other in every regard. That was until Amber had stumbled in on Colleen during a self-bondage escape challenge. Colleen had been mortified, but to her surprise Amber hadn’t latched onto it as yet another thing to find disgusting about her. Instead, she had looked down at Colleen writhing on the floor of their dorm and smiled. Weirdly self-bondage, more precisely escaping it, had become their point of shared ground that transformed their relationship. Since then, they had become a unique pair of friends, indulging in their favorite hobby of predicament bondage escapes.
Their arrangement was simple from the start; they would act as a safety to the other when that person tried a self-bondage escape scenario. If the one in bondage failed to escape or had to tap out, which never happened as they shared being exceedingly stubborn to a fault, the other would be allowed to choose a punishment. That could mean doing something humiliating; being forced to do chores for the other, run errands, or occasionally a good spanking or caning. At the heart of their game was the idea that they could try tough self-bondage escapes, but they would have a safety to ensure things didn’t go too far. In fact, that was a key element of the deal. Whoever was the safety would review the escapee’s plan and make sure there weren’t any life-threatening issues, and occasionally even make suggestions to add to the fun as well.
Colleen’s thoughts were interrupted by a small whimper from Amber. She looked up. Technically, today didn’t officially break their rule of no life-threatening situations, but it also was practically impossible for Amber to win. While the idea had always been to make it increasingly difficult to succeed, this was essentially unwinnable. Well, technically,there was that word again, Amber’s predicament was beatable. It was just so hard there wasn’t really a damn chance the idiot would succeed despite her skill and experience at this point.
Colleen shook her head, watching Amber. She was in her signature blue latex outfit, a favorite for these games. Colleen preferred to be in the nude for her own escapes, but to each their own. Besides, it was a good color on her, and the way it clung to her body made Colleen jealous. Right now, though, that was the least of her concerns. Her eyes drifted over today’s scenario. Amber stood teetering on two small blocks of ice made into little pyramids about shoulder width apart. The tips were rounded and stayed that way as the ice melted underfoot. They had been at it for a little while now as a puddle of water at the bases attested. Amber’s feet had to be hurting from the hard ice and the chill. She was shifting from one foot to the other. A dangerous dance, as one slip and she would hang from her neck.
A rope ran from an anchor point in the ceiling of Colleen’s basement down and connected to the back of a yellow posture collar on Amber.The yellow accented the blue latex wonderfully, she thought absently for a brief moment before returning to her evaluation of the predicament. If Amber slipped or failed her escape before the ice platforms melted, then she would hang and suffocate. Of course, before that happened, Colleen would be the reasonable adult in the room and cut the rope, which kept this from breaching their no life-threatening rule. Though maybe Colleen would let the breath play run its course for a second as a punishment for putting her through this pointless exercise.
As she reviewed the situation, Amber lifted a leg to relieve the cold and ache. It was a graceful move. Amber’s leg arched and bent, trying to relieve the strain it had suffered.Thank god she’s got great balance. I’d be fucked by now, Colleen thought. It frankly wasn’t fair how dexterous and flexible the former ballet dancer was. It meant she could pull off some crazy positions and ties that Colleen couldn’t hope to replicate in her own self-bondage escapes. It was part of how she had allowed herself to be convinced into giving her consent to this stupid scenario. What made this such a ridiculous escape attempt in Colleen’s mind, though?
Well, that would be the method of escape itself. Dangling from a second anchor point directly above Amber’s head was a thin string with a handcuff key attached to the end in a thin layer of ice. The idea, as Amber had told it, was that once the ice release melted, the key would simply drop and she would catch it. Saying it that way, it seemed reasonable. After all, both of them had done set-ups that required them to catch falling keys. The issue was how Amber would catch the key this time around. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and to a waist chain that left them next to no movement.
So how then might the agile dancing bondage escape artist catch the key? Well, the fool Colleen called her friend had stated it matter-of-factly, with her mouth, of course.Of course! She thought to herself. Amber might have a silver tongue talking her into this madness, but there was essentially zero chance she could catch a falling key with her mouth even before one factored in the rigid posture collar getting in the way. At first Colleen had resisted this set-up, but Amber had a way of worming herself into your brain, and eventually Colleen had admitted that technically,again that word, she might be able to catch the key.
Why did I agree to the dumb idea? Colleen asked herself. She was more frustrated and angrier than ever with herself and with Amber. The truth was, this farce of an escape attempt was the crowning jewel in a series of asinine escape ideas that Amber started concocting about six months earlier. Colleen had thought it the product of boredom that they often found when their game plateaued. She had tried to keep pace accordingly with her own escapes at first, but as the ideas became more bonkers, she had backed off in an attempt to get Amber to join her in deescalating like they had in the past.
As today proved, that hadn’t worked. So instead, she had tried using punishments lately meant to make Amber want to escape instead of face a failure. That had backfired. It only seemed to fuel the fire in Amber for more extreme escapes.
Colleen clenched her fists tight enough to hurt her palms. Amber was being reckless and betraying their sacred agreement. She was incensed at her friend. At that moment, the limber woman set her raised leg back down and raised the other, a few whimpers escaping tightly clenched lips during the transfer.Those measured moves are really impressive, she admitted begrudgingly again.
Colleen rocked back in the chair and crossed her arms. She started tapping with her foot, trying to channel her anger somewhere. Simmering in her thoughts, something new registered with her.Why should I be so upset? Was it really any skin off my back if Amber failed or succeeded? Sure, I’ll have to do a little more work, but I’d be sitting here watching either way. And while Amber might have abused the intent of their verbal agreements, she was following the letter of the law, so to speak. This was actually escapable if everything went perfectly. Besides, Amber was the one who had to suffer through the agony and the punishment when she inevitably lost.It’s just so stupid, Colleen thought as she ground her teeth.
Despite enjoying the bragging rights and occasionally seeing Amber doing dishes or dusting in naught but the most risque of attire, Colleen was genuinely worried about her friend. She actually cared about her, and if this continued to progress the way it was, Amber would end up doing something that actually caused herself harm. Worse yet, Colleen wasn’t convinced when that moment came that she would actually be able to tell Amber no.
Suddenly, Amber slipped when trying to transition between legs again. Colleen’s breath caught. She sat bolt upright, readying to sprint to release the neck rope. Amber swung suspended only by her neck, eyes wide, mouth agape, trying to suck in air while legs and feet scraped for purchase.Come on, Colleen rooted for her friend. She should be rushing to the rope, but wasn’t.Why?
Amber’s right foot made contact with one of the icy pyramids, her toes slipping off the wet surface.Damn, Colleen thought, rising and taking a few steps forward. Her legs turned to lead, though for some unknown reason. Amber’s left foot found the other ice pedestal, her toes flexing around it. She spun for a moment before sliding off again.Almost, Colleen thought despairingly. She should be rushing to the rope, again why wasn’t she?
Another glancing attempt.Come on Amber! The left foot finally snagged one of the ice stands. Colleen held her breath, and somehow the foot held this time, followed by the second shortly after. Colleen let out a long sigh and slumped back into the chair. It took Amber longer to recover her exhausted breath, but eventually she shot Colleen a wry smile. “That was an adventure. Told you I could handle this, though!”
Colleen rolled her eyes. She was just about to retort with some smart remark of her own when she and Amber both froze. A metallic glint of light fell towards the floor. A lightting, ting, ting coming as the key bounced across the floor. Amber and Colleen both stared at where the key rested. Then, slowly, in unison, they looked up at each other.
“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen.” Amber stated with the faintest hint of a nervous chuckle.
Colleen let out an angry, mirthless laugh. Amber’s eyes said she recognized the tone. “Looks like I was right.” The words had a curt bluntness to them. Intentional on Colleen’s part. A signal to her friend she was not happy.
“Now hold on, if I hadn’t been distracted, I could have made that.” Amber seemed to stumble through the words hurriedly, trying to cast her doomed escape attempt in a positive light.
“But you didn’t and now it’s time for me to pick a punishment.” Colleen approached with solemnity. Her eyes wandered up and down, considering her options. There was a strange flash in Amber’s eyes, accompanied by a giddy shiver at Colleen’s last word.Wait, is she looking forward to a punishment? Was that why? No, it couldn’t be…could it?Suddenly, the anger simmering inside came raging back up. She felt duped and manipulated. She needed to ensure the punishment was severe enough to make Amber regret this fool’s errand of an escape attempt, and to learn once more to dread failure.
But what? Just humiliating her or giving her a whipping had zero effect in recent months, and now it looked like she may have wanted those all along.What would actually be a punishment then? And suddenly it hit her.The box. She set her face into a grimace to steady herself against the protests soon to sprout from Amber’s once cocky lips.
She looked directly into Amber’s awaiting eyes and said the two simple words, “The box.”
Her friend’s eyes grew with shock and an undertone of fear. “Now, wait a minute.”
Colleen cut her off with a glare. “You know the rules. If you fail, I get to set a punishment, and I’ve decided. Four hours in the box.”
Amber whimpered and nodded meekly. A pitiful, “fine,” was all she could muster.
Colleen’s resolve wavered. She knew all too well how harsh the box could be. It had originally been a design for one of her own escapes.This is necessary, she tried to tell herself.
A half hour later…
This really backfired, Amber whined to herself. She was hunched over in the horrible box meant originally for Colleen. Her hands tightly bound behind her back in a reverse prayer; a ball gag wedged in her mouth, and a blindfold wrapped around her eyes. Otherwise, she was nude. That was clearly by design. The box’s terrible torment was most effective against bare skin. The interior walls, floor, and roof of the small metal box were lined with rubber padding, but also hard plastic nubs and rubber spikes at random intervals.
Sitting on the floor of the box would drive those painful nubs and spikes into soft skin. Lean against the side wall for relief? Again, you get to feel the bite of the plastic and hardened rubber. It forced its occupant up onto the balls of their feet in a bent squat to minimize painful contact, and eventually as a person’s feet could take no more of the punishing protrusions, the person would begin a weird sort of dance in a pathetic attempt to create some relief. For Amber, this predicament was doubled by the ache already in her feet and legs from her own little bondage escape scenario.
She’d meant to fail today, hoping to get a precious punishment from Colleen, but this was most definitely not what she wanted. Colleen had seemed so upset.Had she figured out her little ploy? Amber wondered. If so, she couldn’t blame her friend for being upset. Setting out to fail went against the spirit of their bondage game. It was a sort of betrayal the bound woman had to admit, but she couldn’t help herself.
At some point in the last year, Amber had recognized a shift in herself. The adrenaline rush and pleasure of trying to escape from bondage remained, but it had been eclipsed by something darker, deeper in her. With each failure, the humiliating or painful punishments became alluring to her. Not necessarily because of what specifically was done to her, though she had often enjoyed those, but that it was Colleen doing it. That epiphany that she desired Colleen personally degrading and/or hurting her, had sent shockwaves through Amber’s psyche. A watershed of self-discovery that, to be truthful, she continued to wrestle with.
She hadn’t shared this new hunger with Colleen. Instead, she kept her friend in the dark, and manipulated the situation to get the outcome she wanted. She didn’t want to risk upsetting Colleen or driving her away in disgust. It seemed simpler to keep up the façade of their game over confessing these desires she hadn’t fully reconciled herself.
It appeared though that Colleen finally and gleaned some version of what was happening and devised this punishment for her. The pain and predicament themselves weren’t exactly unwelcome. Amber had known for a very long time that she had a real masochistic streak in her. Even so, it was a lot to endure the box after her own self-made torment, but the real punishment came from the fact that Colleen wasn’t there personally administering the penalty.
She’d locked Amber up and walked away. The door closed with a finality that shattered a part of Amber’s heart. What she wanted was to feel Colleen’s presence. To know she was watching and inflicting each humiliation or torture herself. Of course, while Amber had realized this yearning for her friend to administer her penance personally, Amber remained unsure of what to make of the root of the craving. Or at least she claimed to herself she didn’t.
The bound woman moved slightly to shift the exact points of pressure from the spikes. Her legs really fucking hurt after having spent so long standing upon ice and on tiptoes and now squatting on hard plastic and rubber. The painful little protrusions were inescapable, it seemed.Why had they filled the interior with so many, and why hadn’t they done so with some kind of discernable pattern? Without her vision, she had no way to locate any less covered spaces without trial and error. It caused her to do a strange dance in a futile attempt to find a position that wasn’t too painful. Colleen really was the more devious in her design, Amber mused, her toes gingerly finding a spot with only a few painful spikes alongside a cool, smooth metallic surface.
Amber, lost in her misery, didn’t fully clock the shift in material before it was too late. A sudden electric shock arced through her toes, up her foot and out to the rest of her body. She shrieked into her ball gag and stumbled to the side, slamming into the padded wall. Rubber spikes driving excruciatingly into her shoulder, side, and hip. She dropped to a knee, again feeling the bite of the plastic nubs and rubber spikes. Instinctively, she slid her knee until it hit a smooth surface, but to Amber’s horror, it was another patch of exposed copper.
For an ephemeral moment, electricity did not lance into her. Desperately she scrambled to pull herself back up into a squat to avoid the wretched metal and its random electric kisses. Her arms and hands strained uselessly against rough rope. Her legs and core would have to do all the work, but before she could right herself, the copper she was touching activated and sent a terrible shock through her. She slammed her back against the interior of the box lid, more pricks of pain, and then she collapsed onto her side.
She endured another series of shocks across different points of her spread out body. Her electricity induced spasms causing her to grind parts of her body into the many spikes and nubs in a vicious cycle. By a miracle, Amber eventually pushed through the alternating agonies to pull herself back up into a hunched squat. She panted around her ball gag from the exertion. Tears streaked down under her blindfold induced by the physical toll and the mental torture.Why did I agree to this hell? She asked herself rhetorically. She knew full well this was part of their game, their pledge to one another.
To deny it would have been to break the verbal contract that had first bound her and Colleen. Failing to endure this chosen torment could lead to the dissolution of their game and even perhaps the friendship built upon it. That frightened her more than any electric shocks. The thought of Colleen leaving her life caused panic and untold sorrow to her soul. She was fully crying at the prospect. She struggled to breathe between the sobs wracking her body and the snot clogging her nose. She whimpered into her gag, trying to find the resolve to press on, to survive this mad box, to preserve her treasured friendship.
It was so fucking hard, though. Her legs were already cramping and causing her to shift again. Her efforts to relieve the pain caused her to slip onto the terrifying copper, earning another, though thankfully weaker, shock. She recoiled before another zap could hit her. Four hours she would have to last. It seemed impossible. She didn’t think she could take another four minutes at this rate. How had Colleen lasted long enough to untie herself when she had escaped the box? It didn’t seem possible in retrospect. It was demoralizing to Amber, but worse, remembering the original use of the box caused Amber to think about how alone she was. She didn’t even have Colleen’s soothing presence to reassure her, to cling to in her marathon of anguish.
Another fidget and her foot grazed a copper plate, electricity pulsing torturously through her. A scream of frustration followed. Spit and snot bubbling out across her face. A broken Amber made a resolution to herself. When she escaped this awful box, she would come clean with Colleen despite the potential consequences. She’d tell her that while she wanted to continue their bondage escape games, she also now needed Colleen to humiliate her, to sadistically torment her, even if that meant confronting the mess of emotions and implications that such an admission would bring.
…
Another echoing string of garbled screams and sobs emanated from the box. Colleen’s nails bit into the tender flesh of her arms as she tried to resist charging to Amber’s rescue.She needs to learn a lesson, Colleen tried to reassure herself. She knew how grueling the box could be. The dueling agonies of the random electric shocks through the copper plates and the slowly mounting pressure of the spikes. It was a cruel invention from her wicked mind.
Perhaps was this too harsh? Colleen shook her head. No, Amber was flirting with crossing the threshold into dangerous territory with her bondage escapes, and more than that, she seemed to want the former “punishments” in a betrayal of the spirit of their shared pastime. That latter part left Colleen hurt and fearful. She couldn’t believe after all these years Amber wouldn’t be honest with her.
And if she no longer wanted to continue these games, but wanted something else, what did that mean for the both of them? What if Colleen couldn’t give her what she wanted? Would that be the end of their time together? Would she find someone else to play out these new desires with? Someone more adequate and suited to Amber’s needs?
It made her sick, angry, and jealous all at once, but why exactly? Friends come and go, she told herself. So, what if Amber finally moves on? She instantly knew she wouldn’t survive losing Amber. Then suddenly, deeper, unspoken thoughts and emotions hit the fore of her mind. Things swirled in her that she hadn’t realized were there until this moment. Things that she needed to share with her friend, even if they shattered their friendship.
Another burst of muffled screams. Her very soul burned now. It had only been thirty minutes in the box, but she strode to it, unplugging the electricity, and then flung open the lid. Amber looked up with covered eyes. A surprised look hidden beneath gag and blindfold. She helped the nude woman out of the contraption. Soon the gag and blindfold were gone. The two staring expectantly at each other. Both were ready to say their hidden, barely understood truths. Who would take the first plunge into the unknown?