TRICKED, TRUSSED, AND MISTREATED

By Seiler

 

     You watch as Michael gets out of the car and heads into the pizza place to pick up the order.  This is the fifth time you’ve been out with him, the third time he’s taken you to the opera, and so far he’s done nothing more romantic than offer you pizza after the show.  Was it your fault? 

     You shift leftward and look into the rearview mirror.  Lips okay.  Eyes fine.  Hair, just as you’d like it.  Exasperated, you settle back into the passenger’s seat. 

     Outside, an eddy of dead leaves waltzes across the parking lot, vanishing into the dark space behind a trashcan.  Halloween was coming up.  So was your thirty-third birthday.  Thirty-three.  Your sister, Lauren, was married at twenty-three.  She and Robert had two adorable children now, little Robert in second grade already.  You feel the prick of tears.  You’ve always wanted children, at least one, but the way things were going…

     Was it your fault that graduate school lasted seven years?  That getting tenure took another four?  That you ended up teaching in a town where, it seemed, almost all your male peers were married already? 

     The lights of the pizza place are pouring through the windshield like the blare of a thousand trumpets.  Turning away from the annoying glare, you notice something in the backseat, a book of some kind. 

     As a professor of astrophysics with a gift for reading, Michael had tons of books and, often, one or two in the car en route to the library, but this one looks unusual.  Twisting around, you crawl up onto the front seat, knees on the cushion, and reach back for it.  Whatever it is, it’s quite large but not too heavy.  With its broad, embossed, hard cover, it looks and feels antiquarian.  You sit back around and set it on your lap.  Apparently, it’s a journal of some kind but not old.  In fact, it seems quite new, most of the pages still blank. 

     You look into the pizzeria.  Three chefs are twirling pizza dough on their fingers.  A girl with a blond ponytail is at the cash register waiting on a customer.  But there’s no sign of Michael.  He must be in the back checking out the wines.  Next to science, he loved wine more than anything. 

     You return to the curious find.  The initials, M.B.—Michael’s initials—appear in large print on the inside of the front cover.  There, too, inscribed in fancy calligraphy, appears what looks like the title:  FANTASIES. 

     Fantasies?  What kind of fantasies?  You page forward, landing on the most recent entry.

 

     I so yearn to tell her, to divulge the feelings I’ve been suppressing for weeks, months, years even.  Sometimes I feel I’m going to explode, like one of those red supergiant stars… 

     But what would she say if she learned of my “crazy” fixation?  How could I explain it?  Alas, I can’t.  Not even to myself. 

     So our relationship is stuck:  Not off, but definitely not on.  And I’m afraid that, soon, she’ll have had enough of my “reserve” and be gone—gone to find real passion…

           

     Stunned, you read the entry over again.  “Yearn to tell”?  “Alas, I can’t”?  “Real passion”?  Michael’s never spoken like that to you.  How much more has he been hiding?

     You look into the pizza place.  Approaching the counter, he’s gripping a bottle of wine by the neck.  He sees you watching and smiles.  You smile back and wave.  He certainly is cute when he smiles.

     Your hand runs over something upraised on the inside of the journal’s back cover, a pocket of some kind consisting of two flaps.  You lift the overlying one.  There are pieces of paper inside, each one folded down the center so that it fits neatly inside the pocket.  I shouldn’t, you think, I really shouldn’t.  But you do:  You pull out the top one and unfold it. 

     It’s a drawing, a pencil sketch depicting a woman sitting on a sofa.  Dressed in a business suit, she looks very professional—a lawyer, maybe, or a real estate agent.  Her shoes have been removed so that her feet, planted together at the foot of the sofa, appear in nylon stockings.  Perhaps she’s just gotten home from work, you think, and was dying to get out of her high heels.  What eclipses all details, though, is one overwhelming feature:  The woman is bound.  In fact, she’s quite thoroughly bound—bound and gagged. 

     You lift another paper out and lo, there’s another bound woman!  A third drawing shows another.  A fourth, yet another.  You cease looking.   

     You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  So this was the “crazy” fixation:  Sexual bondage.  Not that you’ve never heard of it before.  Not even that you see anything wrong with it, so long as it remained between consenting adults.  But who practiced that stuff?  Leather-jacketed bikers?  Freaks on the fringes of society?  As a distinguished teacher, researcher, devout Catholic, classical music aficionado, charitable, erudite, soft-spoken gentleman, Michael didn’t fit the appropriate schema—if there was one. 

     You glance up.  He’s approaching the car.  Hastily, you return the papers to the pocket and, with a quick body twist, toss the journal into the backseat.  He opens the door just as you reassume a sitting position.

     “Something catch your eye back there?” he smiles innocently.  

     On the verge of panic, you point to a motorbike tearing down the avenue.  Michael looks too.  A young woman is riding on back, her legs straddling the rear wheel.  You experience a ripple of envy as you note the way she’s embracing the back of the mustachioed hulk gripping the handlebars in his silver-studded, black leather jacket. 

     Michael laughs.  “They make such a racket, don’t they?”    

     “Such a racket!” you sigh wistfully, staring at the corner round which the bike disappears. 

     Pulling out of the parking space, he begins talking about wine and a horrifying realization dawns on you:  In your haste to put the journal back, you forgot the woman on the sofa.  She’s still out, wedged between you and the door.    

     “I’m developing a taste for Chianti, Donna…” Michael is rambling on.

     Heart pounding, you refold the drawing with one hand and, carefully, quietly, slip it into the inside of your jacket.  “Why don’t we eat the pizza down by the river?” you suggest.  “It’s such a beautiful night.”

     “Sounds great,” he says.  “Mind if we pick up the telescope first?”

     Must we? you think, suppressing a sigh. 

     He stops at his house for the telescope and, fifteen minutes later, you’re sitting by the river eating lukewarm pizza.  He doesn’t seem to mind.  You claim to be cold, excuse yourself, and return to the car to retrieve your jacket which, of course, you left there on purpose.  Now you can get Miss Bound-and-Gagged back where she belongs.  The only problem is:

     The backseat is empty. 

     Frantic, you search under it, in the glove compartment, even inside the trunk.  Michael must have taken the journal out when you stopped at the house, and that’s where it must be now:  At the house.  Stunned, you return to the riverbank.

     “Is everything all right, Donna?”  He looks concerned, enough concerned that he lays a slice of pizza down to study your face.  

     You snuggle up against him, rubbing your nyloned legs together.  “Isn’t this romantic?”

     He peers upward.  “The stars are certainly bright.” 

     You gaze down into the moon’s reflection, the glimmering orange globe gloating at you like a jack-o-lantern from the black surface of the river. 

     You feel trapped.  The disappearance of the drawing will certainly trouble him and you, the cause of it, will be unable to relieve his distress without inflicting even more—by disclosing that you were the one who took it.    

     Why not just say nothing?  Sometimes saying nothing was the best thing to do.  But if you kept quiet, he’d suspect you anyway, wouldn’t he?  Who else was in the car at the time the picture disappeared?  And although he couldn’t prove you a thief or demonstrate you’d been snooping, the suspicion would persist, lodged between the two of you like a cold shadow.      

     You lie in bed that night, unable to sleep, until at last you realize that you must tell the truth.  You must tell him what happened.  And if he ends the relationship, so be it.   

     Next morning, though, a wholly different idea springs to mind, seizing you with the force of a fighting creed:  Instead of merely returning what you’ve taken, why not give it back with a bonus?  Like the oyster that takes in an irritating grain of sand and yields up a pearl, you’ll return the vexatious sketch plus more, much more. 

     Feeling inspired, you find the day’s routines unusually tedious—a nine-o’clock lecture you give on pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures; the graduate seminar in the Cornwall Library; lunch with fellow anthropology professors; another graduate seminar on statistical methodologies; and an undergraduate class, “Up from the Neolithic:  The Agricultural Revolution”.  Finally, you breathe a sigh of relief, the day is done.  Now…

     On to the hardware store. 

     “May I help you, ma’am?”  A shaggy-haired clerk with a splotch of acne on his face spots you in aisle 3.

     Turning around to face him, you find your stomach aflutter.  “Can you tell me where the rope is?” 

     Hardware stores did carry rope, didn’t they?  Last time you checked, they did.  It’s been eons, though, since you’ve been in a hardware store. 

     “Aisle 5, ma’am.  Would you like me to show you?”

     “Well, I…”
     “No problem.” 

     The boy plunges forward in his sneakers.  You follow, your high heels clopping across the floorboards as on the deck of an old sailing ship.  Passing garden hoses, power tools, and work gloves, you inhale the smell of cut wood, varnish, rubber and leather.  It sure has been a while since you’ve been in a hardware store!

     Around a corner appears the rope display.  Most of the items are bundled, packaged, and hanging on hooks, but some—the coils of brown, hempen rope—are wound up on big spools, to be cut into desired lengths. 

     “What’s the rope for?” the boy asks.

     “Oh…” you begin.  What should you say?  “A friend and I are going camping, maybe sailing too.” 

     “That’s good for sailing,” the boy points to a bundle of white rope with an attractive weave to it.  “Nylon.  A quarter of an inch thick.”

     You recall the ropes on Miss Bound-and-Gagged.  “Do you have anything a…a little thicker?”

     “Right here, ma’am.”  He lifts a packet from a hook.  “Three-eighths of an inch thick.  Anything else?” 

     Duct tape.  That might come in handy.  But how would you look buying just rope and duct tape?  Kidnapping someone, Professor?

     “I’d like some flower seeds, some garden gloves, and some…”  What else did one find in hardware stores?  “A screw driver and…oh, yes, some duct tape.”

     “No problem, ma’am.” 

     Approaching the front desk, you feel that peculiar flutter again in the pit of your stomach.  The man behind the counter eyes your selections. 

     “What’s all the rope for, ma’am?”

     “A friend and I are going camping.  Maybe sailing too.  He’s got a cabin in Wisconsin.”

     He?  You feel a prick.  Did you tell the boy your friend was a he or a she, or did you specify? 

     “That’s good stuff,” the man rings up one of the packets of nylon rope.  “Supple.  Tough.  What’s the hemp for?”

     Must he be so nosy?  “I just thought I’d…try it out.”  You give him a big, dumb, phony smile.

     Chilled, he looks away, and his stubby fingers attack the buttons on the cash register, ringing up the sale.  He stuffs the receipt in the bag and hands it to you.  “Have a good evening, ma’am.”

     “You too.” 

     You hurry out the door, feeling his eyes on your back as the lintel bells jingle behind you.  Now, for the next step:  Call Michael and arrange a date for Halloween night.

     “I’m stumped,” he declares, eyeing you in his living room.  “You didn’t want to go to the Tchaikovsky concert.  Or a movie.  Or the river.  Just my house.  And yet you come dressed for…”  He fumbles around for an appropriate word.

     “For Halloween?” you suggest, a wry twinkle in your eye.

     You like Michael’s house, an older, three-story, stone building that looked like a castle in the front.  He’s renting out the attic to a pair of visiting professors, but since they’re gone for the weekend, you’ve got the whole place to yourselves tonight.

     “Is that your costume?” he teases, running his eyes over you for the tenth time. 

     You’re sitting on the loveseat, ladylike, legs slanted off to the side, ankles crossed.  So far, he’s shown no sign of having missed the drawing.  Perhaps he hasn’t missed it.  After all, less than a week has passed.  Anyway, he’s smiling, and that’s the important thing. 

     Sitting in an armchair in front of you, he’s obviously enchanted by the lengths to which you’ve gone.  The smoky-brown nylons; the shiny, black high heels; the black-satin evening gown with the daring collar—they’re working their magic all right. 

     You like what you see too.  Tall, gangly, always a little nervous, like a giraffe in a kitchen afraid of knocking the porcelain off the shelves, Michael had a way about him that charmed you at first sight.  His gay-hearted, boyish ebullience combined with his endearing awkwardness set him apart from the stiltedness of so many of your peers.   

     “I get it,” he says with the air of a detective having just cracked a mystery.  “We’re going trick-or-treating.” 

     You giggle in deference to his sense of humor.  The night’s plan, though, calls for a sharp turn at this point. 

     “Michael,” you put on a grave face, “we need to talk.”

     This has the intended effect.  His smile vanishes.  “What do you mean, Donna?”

     “I’ve been thinking.”  You lower your eyes.

     “Thinking?  About what?”

     “About our relationship.”

     He gapes at you.  “Our…re…re—LAYSH—on-ship?” 

     You look up, meeting his eyes.  “I believe that in a relationship—I’m talking here about a mature relationship—a man and a woman both have rights.”

     “Oh, definitely,” he nods.  “Both of them do.”

     “And both of them,” you wet your lips, “have obligations.”   

     “Oh, definitely, definitely,” he nods.  “Obligations.”

     “What I’m saying, Michael, is that, just as both have a right to be gratified, so do they each have an obligation to gratify the other.”

     He looks somewhat confused now.  Better cut to the chase. 

     “Specifically, I believe that each is obligated to gratify the other with regard to…”  You give him a significant look.  “…their fantasies.” 

     He’s staring at you now as if you had just metamorphosed into a horseman of the Apocalypse—not exactly what you planned on, but at least you have his attention. 

     Keeping your eyes on him, you reach down into the plastic shopping bag you’ve lugged into his living room and pull out a bundle of rope.  Puzzled, he looks at you, at the rope, and then at you again. 

     Fantasies.  Rope.  His journal.  You can feel his mental gears turning, making the connections. 

     “Wow, Donna.  You mean you’re…you’re into bondage?”

     Leaning forward, you peer into his eyes.  “I’m into romance.” 

     In fact, though, you’ve never felt sexier in your life.  The prospect of being tied up is having the effect of an aphrodisiac. 

     “Mind if I take these off?”  You indicate your shoes.

     “Not at all,” he says, looking nonetheless mystified, an uninitiated visitor at some strange, heathen ritual. 

     You stand up in your stockinged feet and face the loveseat, crossing your wrists behind your back.  “Go ahead,” you wink at him over your shoulder.  “Tie me up!”

     Your heart is pounding like a madman inside your breast.  Will he accept your invitation?

     You feel him wrapping rope around your wrists.  He’s begun to tie you up.  Yet he ties slowly, haltingly, as if he were unsure of himself, as if he knew not how to do it.  How can this be? 

     He must be stunned, incredulous, even shocked out of his mind:  Here you are, the woman of his dreams, pearl of his fantasies, Miss Bound-and-Gagged in the flesh.  No wonder if he couldn’t perform!  And how ironic!  There’s only one remedy for this:  You must persuade him that he’s doing you a favor, that he’s gratifying you.

     “Oh, Michael,” you murmur, “I’ve wanted this for so long!  You can’t begin to imagine what I’ve endured—the turmoil, the frustration, the anguish.  You’re the first man who’s ever gratified me in…in this way.”  Glancing over your shoulder, you flash him a smile of encouragement. 

     “I…I’m not sure what to say, Donna.”

     “Then don’t say anything.”  Your eyes are dewdrops on violets.  “Just tie me up!”

     An hour later, after some exasperating experimentation and a multitude of missteps, he’s managed, with your guidance, to render you pretty much as the lady in the picture appeared minus the gag.  Before that can go on, you have something very important to say. 

     “Michael,” you peer into his eyes.  He’s standing in front of you looking tuckered out.  “I have a confession to make.”

     “A confession?”

     “Remember when we stopped at that pizza place Saturday night?  Well, when you were inside, I…” you wet your lips and swallow.  Was there any way to cushion this?  To soften it?  To sweeten it?  No, there wasn’t.  Just tell the truth, Donna.  “I found your journal.”  You lower your eyes.

     “My journal?” he says.

     “It was in the backseat.  I read part of it, just a short passage.  I know it was wrong of me to do that, to violate your privacy like that, but…” 

     You bite your lip.  How was he taking it?  He must feel stark naked, his secret exposed, the tabernacle torn open, its treasured contents spilled out on the floor.  You look up. 

     The puzzlement in his face has deepened.  His brows are furrowed now.  Then suddenly, like a thundercloud dispersing in a burst of sunlight, perplexity disappears and his eyes light up.

     “What is it?” you ask.

     “I understand now,” he says.  “That wasn’t my journal.  It was Maryanne’s.”

     Your jaw drops.  “Ma—Ma—Mary-ANNE?”

     “My sister.”

     “You have a sister?”

     He nods.  “She left her journal in my car last week, when I picked her up at the bus stop.  I remember it now.  She’s kind of a strange cookie, Maryanne is.  She doesn’t come by here often.  She’s got her own place, an apartment in the city, which she shares with a lady friend.”

     “A…a lady friend?”

     “They’re sharing a two-bedroom.  The rent’s cheaper.”  He looks at you, concerned.  “Are you all right, Donna?” 

     You force a smile.  The convolutions of rope hugging your legs and arms, embracing you from shoulders to ankles, seem to tighten their grip, like a giant constrictor snake out of a witch’s curse.  “Of course I’m all right.  Why wouldn’t I be?”

     “Would you like to try the gag?” he asks.

     You glance at the materials beside you—spongy ball, white neckerchief, roll of silver duct tape.  Why not?  You’ve paid for the stuff.  Besides, a bud of curiosity has opened.  Truth be told, you kind of like being tied up and are more than curious to know what it’s like to be gagged as well as bound. 

     “Might as well try it,” you say, feigning reluctance.

     When he finishes with the gag, you sit stock-still a moment, savoring the feel of it.  He’s sitting beside you, watching anxiously, like a chef who’s just presented a new dish and awaits the customer’s reaction.  You turn and peer into his eyes. 

     “Oh, Donna!” he whispers.  “You’re so beautiful right now!”

     You close your eyes, moaning in a display of ecstasy.  It’s worked!  He’s fallen in love!

     A bell rings. 

     You jump, eyes open now—wide open.  He gets up to answer the door.  You follow him out with your eyes.  Unseen, in the vestibule, the door opens.  You hear a key in the lock and then footsteps in the driveway.  He’s running down the driveway, and then… 

     Silence.

     You look at the clock on the wall.  A minute passes.  You wait, Miss Bound-and-Gagged on the loveseat.  Surely, he couldn’t leave you like this. 

     Yet five more minutes pass.  You start twisting about, straining against the ropes, making no progress.  You’ve seen people tied up on TV before.  Often, they wiggled free within a minute or two.  Maybe you could…

     You swing your legs up onto the loveseat, lie down lengthwise, and resume your struggles.  The kitchen phone rings.  You freeze.  Once.  Twice.  Three times more the ring sounds.  And then the answering machine clicks on. 

     “Donna?  Donna, listen to me.  I’m at the emergency room.  The neighbor’s boy swallowed some bad Halloween candy.  At least that’s what his mom thinks.  The docs aren’t sure.  Anyway, it was his mom at the back door.  I followed her out.  The kid was having an allergic reaction or something, so I drove him here.  He’s doing a lot better now, thank God.  I hope you’re all right.”  He sounds worried.  “Just hang on a little longer.  I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”

     You try to respond, moaning absurdly into the gag.  In fact, he can’t hear a thing from your end and, even if he could, what would a pathetic moan tell him? 

     Sobering up, you swing your legs down and lurch back into a sitting position.  A car pulls into the driveway.  Michael?  Already? 

     Footsteps sound on the walkway.  There’s a key in the lock.  You settle back on the sofa and give your head a shake.  Clearing a strand of hair from your eyes, you turn toward the vestibule. 

     A woman enters.  One of Michael’s tenants?  Dressed in a tennis outfit, she trots right past you into the hallway, on to the kitchen.  You hear the refrigerator door open.  A glass touches the tabletop.  There’s the sound of some beverage pouring into it. 

     Heart thumping, you glance at the closet.  Could you hide in there?  Possibly.  You’d have to hop there first, of course, without crashing to the floor.  If you made it, you might be able to spin around and open the door.  Of course, you’d have to do that with hands tied behind your back, but if you did do it, you could then fall gently sideways, ideally under the coat rack, and… 

     Break your neck. 

     Oh, Donna, think!  There was nothing to do now but prepare to soften the shock that would hit the woman when she emerged from the kitchen and found you roped up in the living room.

     A car pulls into the driveway.  You turn toward the vestibule.  Steps sound from behind.  You turn around.  In the hallway, a glass of orange juice in her hand, the tennis player stands frozen, mouth open, eyes bugging out.

     “Maryanne!” Michael bursts in from the vestibule.  “I can explain.”

     The woman looks at him, gaping.  He turns to you.  “Donna, this is my sister, Maryanne.” 

     You can’t exactly greet her, but you hope your eyes convey benevolent sentiments.  

     “Maryanne, this is my…my girlfriend, Professor Donna McClure.”

     She eyes you curiously. 

     You turn to Michael.  Did he plan to remove your muzzle before Christmas or what?

     “I’m Michael’s twin sister,” she says.

     You turn back to her, determined to be polite.

     “Close as we are, I never knew that…that he was…” 

     “That I was into bondage?” he laughs.  “I’m not, actually.”

     “Oh!” she exclaims in a burst of astonishment.  “Then the idea must have come from…”  She turns to you.

     You roll your eyes and turn back to Michael.  Get this gag off, you dunderhead! 

     But if he’s a bit slow, his sister seems telepathic.  “Hold still, dear,” she’s at your side in a flash.  “I’ll have this thing off in a jiffy.”

     “Well!” Michael concludes.  “Now that we’re all introduced, what do you say we order a pizza?”

     “A pizza!” says Maryanne.  “Are you treating?”

     “I sure am.”