Cuffing Kate Read online

  When Jules ordered his coffee the next morning, my hands were trembling slightly. I wondered if he noticed. Luckily I didn’t spill any of the precious dark liquid, but I came close. Could he tell that I’d come the previous night while thinking of him? Jules put money down on the counter, and then he reached for a napkin. Not a fresh one from the stack, but the one I’d been drawing on. I hadn’t realized he’d noticed.

  “Nice cuffs, Red.”

  There were handcuffs in the picture.

  Dan stopped going through the tip jar looking for wheat-back pennies. (He was on a quest for the 1909 S-VDB—I’ve heard about the penny often enough to have those numbers and letters embroiled in my brain. This particular wheatback is worth an astonishing $550. “It would make the fact that some schmuck put a penny into the tip jar so much more satisfying,” he was fond of saying.) But the word “cuffs” clearly caught his interest. My picture had both wrists and cuffs. My wrists and cuffs.

  “But you got one thing wrong,” Jules said softly, eyebrows uplifted as he regarded the picture, and then looked at me. “You forgot the keyholes.”

  I stared down at the sketch, embarrassed, realizing he was right.

  He leaned across the counter. I could feel how close we were. “How will anyone set you free if there aren’t any holes for the keys?”

  I blushed hot. Dan snickered behind me. I’d never seen a pair of handcuffs up close before.

  Jules left a five-dollar tip in the jar, and he took the napkin with him. “Do a little research,” he said over his shoulder.

  * * *

  I knew where the store was, a dark hole-in-the-wall type of place. These stores are never well-lit on the outside. You have to push through the dimness to find the glitter, the neon, the glow. How do I know? I had to buy my trusty vibrator somewhere. I couldn’t risk having my roommate opening a delivery box from a kinky specialty catalog. I didn’t know where Sonia stood on sex toys, but the thought of receiving a lecture on my pleasure wasn’t something I ever hoped to experience.

  Now, I wanted handcuffs. At least, I thought I did.

  The shop clerk glanced up at me, gave me a quick once-over with obvious disinterest then returned to his book. He was reading at the counter, surrounded by some of the largest dildos I’d ever seen. I stared at him, the blue spiky hair, inky ribbons of tribal tattoos on his biceps. I tried to look nonchalant, but there was no way I could pull off a jaded expression. I wanted to explore everything. I wanted to touch all the toys. I wanted Jules.

  “Do you have cuffs?” I asked, working for blasé, but channeling Minnie Mouse squeaky instead. Minnie Mouse on helium. Only dogs could hear me.

  “Fur-lined? Regulation? Solo use?” He might have been ticking off different brands of laundry detergent. He sounded so indifferent.

  I had no idea handcuffs came in multiple styles. I wished I’d paid more attention to Sonia’s diary. Had she spelled out what Jules had wanted to do to her? No, she’d only said “handcuffs.”

  “What does ‘solo use’ mean?”

  There was suddenly a hint of curiosity in the clerk’s eyes and he closed his book. His eyes were ringed by dark kohl outlines, smudged and blurred. “You can’t figure that out for yourself?” He nodded to my sweatshirt with the University logo on the center. “College girl like you?”

  “I mean, how do they work?” I tried to sound like an investigative reporter. This information wasn’t for me. I was simply gathering up the facts for a paper on…on…

  “Ice in the lock. When the ice melts, the lock opens. You can be bound down for one hour, two, three. Depending on how much water you add to the lock, and how long you want to be immobilized.” He appraised me for a moment. “But I don’t believe you really can’t find anyone to bind you to a bed.” His apparent attraction was growing by the second.

  “How do you know the cuffs are for me?” Could I trot out the line about the research paper now? Maybe I was doing a term paper on bondage devices in the twenty-first century. Or on kinky co-eds. Or on sneaky coffee vixens who read their roommates’ diaries.

  He smirked.

  “I mean, why wouldn’t you think I wanted to bind someone else down?” Right, because I have pro-domme written all over my face. Where was this coming from? Why was I even talking to the guy?

  “You have a look,” he said. I thought of Sonia. Men seemed to think that she had a look. What kind of look did I have? “Novice, neophyte, ingénue,” he continued, as if reading my mind.

  “What’s that you’re reading?” I asked, feeling sarcastic. “Roget’s Thesaurus?”

  “You don’t have to be a college boy to have a big dick-tionary.”

  “Give me all of them,” I said, feeling anger rise inside of me. “Fur, regulation, solo. I want them all.”

  Did I? No. But I didn’t want to walk out of the place empty-handed, either. The smug expression didn’t leave the clerk’s face as he rang up my purchases. When he handed me my change, he also handed me a card from the store. “If you can’t find anyone to do the tying, angel, give me a call.”

  I didn’t make it home before I had to come. I pulled over to the rear of a generic grocery store parking lot and shoved one hand down the front of my jeans. The need was so intense I didn’t even worry about being caught. Fuck the foreplay, I crushed my fingers against my clit and rocked my hips. The pleasure was instant. I felt the wetness all over my fingertips. I took a deep breath and pressed harder still.

  So I had the look of a novice. That wasn’t an insult. It was the truth. But I could learn. I could be taught. I could walk up to Jules with the handcuffs in the glistening black Mylar bag and say, “Use these on me. Bind me down. Find out what I have to say.”

  What would I have to say?

  I couldn’t be sure, but I had a few ideas. I thought I might say, “Fuck me, Jules. Please fuck me.” Or maybe, “Do me, baby. Oil me up and take me. Anyway you want. Anyway you like.” I’d never talked like that in my life, but the thought of the cuffs unlocked a new wave of passion inside me.

  A battered blue station wagon pulled next to mine, and I stopped what I was doing, frozen. Should I pull my hand out of my jeans or stay still and pretend I didn’t exist? I removed my hand and reached for my satchel, rummaging through the bag as if looking for something. Something like my sanity.

  What sort of rabbit hole had I fallen down? I’d walked into a sex toy store and been offered bondage. I was now in a very public location fantasizing to images of myself being cuffed by my roommate’s date. A date she’d classified as too kinky. I had to stop. I had to get myself under control. I had to…

  The middle-aged blonde driver of the car in the next spot locked her car. She had a bad dye job, I thought meanly. And her acid-washed jeans were too tight. She would never go to a sex toy store and buy three sets of handcuffs, would she? But was that an insult or praise? I watched in my rearview mirror as the woman walked toward the grocery store. I relaxed and immediately slid my hand back down my jeans. I didn’t care if I was stroking myself to fantasies about Sonia’s sex life. She didn’t deserve a man as hot as Jules.

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight and thought about the handcuffs. Thought about Jules. Wondered what he’d say if I showed up at his apartment with all three sets in the bag and asked, “Which one is right? Which one do you want?”

  The problem with my fantasies was that I didn’t know Jules’s dialogue. I had to put words in his mouth. But I could do that.

  “Let’s try each one,” the fantasy Jules said. “We’ll start with the steel. Cold metal on your skin. We’ll bind you down, and then we’ll see. I want to watch you come, Kate. I want to see your body change.”

  Oh, fuck, I wanted that, too.

  “And then we’ll try the ice lock,” he continued. “I’ll do my work in the other room, leave you all by yourself with your own dirty fantasies. And when I come back, you’ll have to tell me each naughty one. If you don’t, I’ll have to punish you.” A laugh. I’d heard him laugh before.
But this was different. Darker. “And maybe I’ll punish you anyway.”

  What would that mean for him? I knew what the word meant for me.

  “I’ll put you over my lap,” Jules promised. “I’ll spank you on the bare. I’m sure a spanking will make you wet. Am I right, Kate? Am I right?”

  Yes. Yes, he was right.

  “I’ll use my hand first, and then my belt. I’ll make you cry hot tears, and then I’ll fuck you so hard, so fast.”

  My head back against the seat, my body trembling, I let the wave of pleasure slam through me and recede before I even thought about turning on the car once more.

  * * *

  At home, I spread out my new prizes on the bed. I started to manhandle each one, to stroke my fingers around the curves of the steel, to pet the fabric of the faux-fur-lined set, to investigate the ice lock. Jules had wanted to handcuff Sonia. I wanted Jules to handcuff me. But I wanted to know what handcuffs would feel like first. What if I couldn’t stand the sensation of being bound down? Or what if I loved the feeling so much I never wanted any other kind of sex again?

  Either way, I didn’t need three pairs of cuffs. Did I?

  Slowly I ran my hands over the pink, leopard-print set. These were silly—a gag gift for a bachelorette party. I would feel ridiculous wearing them. I held the steel ones. They had a good, solid weight. The keys were sweet and small. I wished I could put the cuffs on, but I was scared. What if I couldn’t make the key work while my hands were bound? I put on one cuff and let the other hang loose. I liked the weight.

  God, why had Jules asked Sonia out? Why hadn’t he asked me?

  The sound of the front door opening made me start. Quickly I tried to undo the cuff with the key, but my fingers were slippery. I climbed off my bed and kicked the door closed, the sound of soldiers marching in my head. Leaning my body weight against the door, I fumbled with the key some more. My breathing was ragged, as if I’d been running. What if Sonia came in? What if she figured out that I’d read her diary and that I wanted what she didn’t want? Finally I got the key in the hole, turned the right way, released myself.

  Jesus.

  I shoved all the cuffs and the packaging into the bottom drawer of my battered dresser and then went out to greet Sonia. She was on the sofa, reading the rules for her next debate. “Seven minutes. First affirmative construction…”

  * * *

  “A shot in the dark.”

  When Jules bought his coffee the next day, he put his hand out.

  I’d already given him his change.

  “Sketch?” he asked.

  Blush was apparently the new hue for me. I handed him the napkin. The cuffs had keyholes now.

  “Good girl,” he said before walking away. If my co-worker, Dan, hadn’t been standing behind me, I would have sunk to the floor in a puddle of arousal and shame. As it was, I stared after him, hearing the words reverberate in my mind: good girl, good girl, good girl.

  * * *

  When Sonia went out the next night, I locked myself up once more. I’d been impatiently waiting for her departure for hours. In fact, I’d been so nervous and jumpy that she’d given me two separate lectures on the poison of caffeine. How could I tell her that coffee wasn’t to blame for my excitable state—her diary was the culprit?

  The clerk had said the ice lock would take an hour to three hours to melt depending on how much water you’d frozen. I’d gone with one hour—hiding the cuffs in the freezer behind a bag of frozen peas. I hoped I’d gone with one hour. I couldn’t be entirely sure. As soon as Sonia left, I stripped off my clothes and climbed onto my bed. I fastened one cuff easily on my left wrist, and through some fairly simple maneuvers, threaded the chain through the brass curls on my headboard before attaching the other cuff to my right. Why did I get naked? Because Jules would have wanted me like that. Why did I bind myself to the headboard? That seemed the appropriately kinky thing to do.I craved knowing how this would feel—every second, every sensation. Could I come while my wrists were like this? I didn’t know. So far, every time I’d tried, I’d cheated. This would keep me from giving in.

  Sonia was supposed to be at a debate club meeting. I ought to have the apartment all to myself until at least midnight.

  That was the plan, anyway. But plans often go astray, especially when you are totally nude, in your bedroom, cuffed to your bed, and your roommate enters your apartment with a guest four freaking hours before you expect her home.

  Holy fuck. Holy fucking fuck.

  For a second, I think my heart actually stopped. Then my brain began to race with questions. Well, with the same question over and over: What to do? What to do? What to do? Deep down, I knew that there was nothing to do. I was cuffed—naked and cuffed. The chain ran through the curlicues of brass of my headboard. My heart pounded so hard I was sure Sonia could hear the throb in the living room. “What’s that drum beat?” she might be asking her friend. “Is someone playing Led Zeppelin on eleven?”

  Maybe she had forgotten something. She and whomever she was with would simply grab the missing item—jacket, or purse, or note cards, or Wesson Oil, whatever the fuck they’d forgotten—and be on their way. But if that was the case, then what was that sound? I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to recognize the echo of footsteps approaching down the hall, growing closer by the second.

  Oh, God, why had I done this? Why hadn’t I been comfortable enough with putting a single cuff on my wrist? Why had I needed to try something different?

  Desperately I attempted to get free. I rattled the chain, to no avail. Maybe the heat of my cheeks would melt the ice quicker than the expected time. Nope. I bucked against the mattress.

  My mind exploded with dirty words.

  Sonia never knocked. Not ever. How could I not have locked the door? Simple. This was my maybe not-so-bright backup plan. I had worried that I might need assistance. What if I’d done something wrong? What if the lock got stuck? The firemen could easily open the door and find me. They wouldn’t have to break down the door.

  So what could I do now? Could I somehow drag the whole fucking bed through the room so I could block the door? Not likely.

  The voices grew louder.

  No hunky firemen were in my future. Right when I realized that I ought to simply shout out, “Don’t come in!” Sonia and Eleanor, a friend of hers from the debate team, entered my bedroom. They were talking to each other, so they did not notice me right away. That is, they didn’t notice what I looked like. Then Sonia sucked in her breath, her friend looked aghast, and I bit my lip and tried hard not to cry.

  The other woman politely backed out of the room—I’m sure Emily Post would have approved—but Sonia stood in the doorway, staring. Another person than I am might have been indignant. A different kind of girl might have appropriated a what the fuck do you think you’re looking at? attitude. But that chick wasn’t me.

  “Are you okay?” she finally asked, her voice trembling.

  “Well…” I said, thinking, “Hell, I’ve been better.”

  “Did someone do this to you?”

  Sigh. Yeah. I did. I did because I read your fucking diary, you nitwit. I did because I wanted to know what it would feel like to be handcuffed, without having to go through the whole thing of finding a boyfriend and begging him to use bondage tools on me. Men don’t offer things up like this to me every day. I’m not you.

  I shook my head.

  “Do you want me to unlock you or leave you alone?”

  Did I really have to explain to her about the ice lock? I took a deep breath. “Don’t worry about me,” I said, before adding, “but maybe you could cover me up.” She looked as if she didn’t want to step too close to me. I wanted to tell her that I wouldn’t bite, and she didn’t have to worry anyway, not with me bound down. Reluctantly she came close enough to spread the quilt over my body. Then she sat at the foot of my bed and stared at me. I saw confusion in her eyes. At least, that was better than pity.

  “I wanted to know
,” I said, as she seemed to expect some type of explanation.

  “Know what?”

  “What being bound would feel like.”

  Had she made the mathematical mental connection? Her diary plus my fantasies equaled intense orgasms.

  “Well, what does it feel like?”

  Wow, for once Sonia wasn’t spouting platitudes at me. She wasn’t telling me I should get in my light and do my work. She wasn’t explaining the dangers of kinky sex. Instead she looked truly interested in what I had to say.

  I stammered, “I like the sensation.” I’d have liked it a whole lot better if Jules had been between my thighs, but I kept that part to myself.

  * * *

  Nothing happened after that. I waited until I could free myself, and then I freed myself. There was no way I was going to get off tonight. I was so mortified that I didn’t even leave my bedroom until I was sure that Sonia’s guest had departed and Sonia had gone to sleep. Except, as I was brushing my teeth, I thought I heard soft noises from Sonia’s room. Noises I’d never heard before. These weren’t the sounds of a heated debate.

  Not unless a heated debate sounds a lot like fucking.

  “Oh, God,” I heard in a stagelike whisper, then louder, “Oh, my, God!”

  I paused, and then realized my electric toothbrush was still running. Quickly I pressed the button to turn off the brush. I wanted to hear everything I possibly could. Sonia’s normally recognizable voice sounded extremely unrecognizable. There was lust, passion, arousal in her moans.

  Should I come closer? Press myself up to her door and try to peek? No. I’d been caught by her already today. I didn’t want to flip the situation and catch her. Still, I couldn’t wait to read her diary the next day.

  But when I went to look in the morning, the book wasn’t there.

  * * *

  Jules strolled up to the coffee bar as usual. I started trembling when he approached the counter to order. “Shot in the dark, right?”

  He reached out and put a hand on top of mine, holding me still, calming me down. Was he going to ask to see more of my sketches? I had a stack behind the counter. Was he going to tell me he’d only threatened Sonia with cuffs as a joke?