Out of Darkness

... "Why do they always speak of Dungeons?"

That was my wife Jules. We often got into this discussion when we were looking for erotica or trying to define our relationship with a cookie cutter mold. At this point I had my sweetheart tied up with the beginnings of a chest harness and was reading her a story of bondage.

"You know sweetie, most stories are written for men by men. Very few of the stories written on these sites are written for women. Also, when we read about shibari, the easiest way to reconcile tying someone up is the trite Master/Slave, Dominant/Submissive Scenario. It is far, far harder to reconcile a relationship where bondage is taken out of the darkness and brought into the light that you and I call shibari. Making it about celebrating the ropes and your body rather than making it dark, and dungeony."

I put a blindfold on her and reached for some more rope.

"Jules, Who is your Master?"

"You know you are, Roman."

"Jules, you call me master, and we as a couple accept that...have you ever considered why I won't call you my slave?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

Jules laid in bed naked, except for the harness that I had tied on her earlier and the blindfold. Her fair skin was starting to flush from the excitement of being tied - her light pink nipples darkening before I even touched them. I laid down next to her, gathered her in my arms and placed my mouth next to her ear so she could hear me whisper and began to explain why we never gave her that label.

"Because, you will never be less than me, when you call me master, you are giving me a gift. That gift entails three major elements."

I slowly let my right hand play in Jules' hair while I talked.

"One, I know you as a very powerful business woman. You're a woman who can and does what she wants. I know that you are a truly modern woman, capable of running a multi-million dollar business. You like to have control. You need to have control. The relationship we have...where you belong to me... where I tie you up and honor your body...that time and space where you give up control and just "feel" is a release. It is something we chose to do. The first thing you give me is control. I know it is given; it is not something I take."

My body was pressed up against hers. One of the reasons she trusted me was that we had walked this path many times before. I knew that when she was blindfolded at first, she needed to know where I was. With my body pressed up against hers, I removed my hand from her hair. I kept it raised away from her. Her body started to squirm. She knew where I was but not my hand. It was little bit of exquisite torture for her. Finally after a few minutes, Jules whispered:

" Touch me."

"I am touching you. Can't you feel my body pressed up against yours?"

Frustrated, she continued to move, pressing herself more and more into my body. Finally, my right hand came down gently on the bottom of her left rib cage and pressed in slightly causing her to breathe sharply, and a small moan to escape her lips.

"Number 2 - you give me your trust."

I parted from her and grabbed a length of rope and started to bind her wrists together. One, two, three wraps of the rope around her wrists then slide the bite through and tie it off. I performed a quick check to ensure Jules' circulation.

"You need to trust me completely - more than any act of making love; this shibari is about trust. Right now you're helpless. I could do whatever I wanted and you could do nothing to stop me. It's frightening for you...it's liberating for you. It's about control but before it can be about liberating you from control, it's about trust."

I start to repeat the tie on her ankles. With her ankles and wrists bound, her harness about her chest, and a blindfold on, Jules' breath was raspy. I took a moment and leaned in to check in with her...

"Sam, are you ok?"

Sam, my wife of two years, responds with a "yes." This is how we've handled the safe word conundrum. Not Unicorn or Elephant, but rather, we've given each other names. More than names...they are personalities. Jules was born "Sam," and still bears the legal name "Sam." I am legally "Dan" but to Jules I am "Roman." Our intimate names are protagonists from a novel. Even outside of our play we use Jules and Roman. When we are on vacation...when we are out and about...those names and those personalities just fit better somehow. Sometimes I feel more like Roman than Dan. When I ask her a question using Sam as her name we know that we are performing a safety check.

When we are at our most intimate we are wholeheartedly "Jules" and "Roman." This type of intimacy is a funny thing. Jules is indeed tied up and helpless and that brings on emotions - lots and lots of emotions. Sometimes the emotions go in a funny direction and suddenly Jules is not ok. Sometimes, my emotions do funny things and I am not ok. It is an ebb and flow. It requires incredible amounts of bi-directional trust and intimacy. This is why we check in. I read Jules and she seemed to be heading inside of herself, giving up the day's planning and the tomorrow's to do list. This promised to be a good session.

I took her wrists, tied as they were, one on top of the other and tied them to her harness at the back. This immobilized her torso completely. Now that she was tied, and couldn't do anything about it, I started to caress her body. This is where she feels most vulnerable. I turned her over so she was face down on the bed. I placed a pillow under her hips so she was more comfortable. I caressed her backside. There is a spot right at the top of her buttocks where the crack of her bottom turns into her back. As I pressed hard on this spot, I am rewarded with a moan and a hip thrust.

"And three...the third thing you give me is responsibility. This is the part that truly brings our relationship out of the dungeon and into the light."

" Roman, I love you. I need you. I want you."

"Jules when we go to a restaurant and I order for you, what do you feel?"

"Like you are caring for me and showing the world I belong to you."

It was true, when we are out at restaurants, I always ordered for Jules. Sometimes, although not always, I would ask what she felt like, but in the end what I ordered for her was my choice. We got strange looks and sometimes even disgusted looks from our wait staff, but they, like most people, simply didn't understand.

"Jules - that is where the relationship comes into the light. "

A give her bottom a slight smack. It reddens with an imprint of my hand. I continue:

"The restaurant analogy is where the magic happens. That is where everything evens out...where I belong to you, as much as you belong to me...where our relationship is different from the relationships lived in dungeons."

Another smack to her bottom leaves another handprint. As I rub her bottom feeling the heat from my spanking her hips are gyrating, She is feeling. It is a time when her mind quiets and I can see she is releasing into a place of "feeling" and not "thinking." This is a place that is hard to describe if you've never been there or you've never taken anyone there. It is a place where Jules will do anything for me. It is a place where I could take advantage of her. As she is floating, I realize my soliloquy about dungeons and darkness and shibari is quickly turning into vapor.

I finish up the tie...a simple matter now of taking the last piece of rope and running it from the harness to her bound ankles. Once in place I tighten it. It brings her ankles and legs up behind her and places a slight arch in her back. This tie is one that she likes as it leaves her completely helpless. I reach underneath and place a hand on her upper thigh - simply on her upper thigh. She goes quiet. I feel her thigh slick from her vagina. I know she is feeling. I know she feels safe. I know she trusts me. She is wet down to her thighs because of the tie, my words, my control and her trust.

"You give me control. You give me your trust. You give me responsibility. The responsibility is to ensure you're safe, ensure you're pleased and ensure I don't violate that trust. It is in the restaurant analogy where I think our relationship deviates from the others that we find. You see with that granted responsibility, I believe I know you enough to order for you so that you will be pleased; more pleased than if you ordered yourself. I don't know if that is true, or even a consideration for other couples that attempt to find this."

This is indeed what it seemed to come down to. In anything we did as Jules and Roman, she gave me control, trust and responsibility. This was her love for me. Such was my love for her, that I did everything in my power to take that responsibility, trust and control and make decisions that were at least as pleasing to her as her own decisions would be.

There she is in all her beauty, my wife, Sam/Jules, bound and blindfolded. I've done this for me, but also for her. As I gaze on her like this, I wonder to myself, who is the master?

With her hips on the pillow, her legs drawn up towards her back, I find I can rest a vibrator at the space where her legs meet her pubic mound at the pillow. Her vagina and clitoris are far enough forward on her body that she will feel the vibration but I don't think she'll be able to.....

"unnnnhhhhhnnnhhh"