suspended 01
The stallholder’s exit, you keep to yourself: I’m out of the house. You make a pamper session of it, taking a glass of wine you’d already started, and lighting the scented candles. Music plays as you murder your toilet bowl.
Say one thing for German cooking, and apparently the Germans themselves: they are physically dense. It feels like shovelling slabs of nearly-set concrete from your bowels. Each new log slaps the surface of the water like a belly-flop; tears come to your eyes once or twice. The aftermath is heavenly: sweat-sheened, your entire large intestine breathes a sigh of relief as deep muscles relax.
After that and a shower, you feel light—as light as you can—and ready for a snack. You saunter on your way to the kitchen, humming a song… and then remember the collar.
Strange how it warms to skin temperature and becomes intangible.
The fridge streams cold air down your legs, over your toes. You could always make yourself something small and just not tell me. I wouldn’t even be mad. Just, maybe, disappointed.
You promised me. If you broke your promise… If you broke your promise I would forgive you with the radical adoration and acceptance I have for you. But it would break something. It would burst the soap-bubble fragile relationship that allowed me, your prey, to allow you, my predator, to safely give away control. If that were gone, it would be a step closer to simply devouring me.
“Do I want that?” you ask yourself. Deep down inside yourself, with the voice that has spoken to you since the age of four, you get your answer in a flood of red, salivating urgency: “Yes”.
But not yet. You’re not ready to give up the pampering and the adoration and the occasional challenge. You’re not ready to stop teasing yourself, holding my life in your jaws and daring yourself to take another swallow of my essence. The echo of memories so deeply buried they resemble mere fantasy tells you that you have had a thousand such toys in the past; your work in the occult hints that you will have a thousand more. But right now, I am one of a very small number of toys you allow yourself.
Your toes are freezing. You release a long, slow sigh and close the fridge door.
You bash the controller into my chest. “What the fuck? You teleported through the wall?!”
I laugh maniacally. “It’s a glitch. I told you, I played Sonic and Knuckles Time Trial every lunchtime with friends. For a whole fucking year. I know all the shortcuts, even the ones that aren’t there.”
The laughter continues even as you continue pummelling me with the controller, me expertly protecting myself so you get to go to town. Till you huff and cross your arms over your chest: a gesture that sends waves through tits and belly.
I smile as I make a peace offering.“You clearly worked hard on these sprites. You look amazing.”
“I’m going to make some new ones for you. You can be a big fat dump.”
I grin and lean in for a kiss. You endure it with bad grace. Then, your expression shifts to preoccupation.
At your glance, I know precisely what’s happening. My grin softens into something tender. “Go. Empty yourself out. You’ve done well not to snack or anything. When you’re done, we’ll drive to mine. Bring a change of clothes and anything to help you meditate while bound for the next day or so. But you’ll be naked while I have you.”
My old office: now a place you remember mainly from being tied to the floor. Having never had a reason to go in there you don’t have many other associations with it.
Two floor lamps illuminate the space as you walk inside. I close the door behind us. The walls seem to fade away in the gentle light. The floor is host to a beautiful new golden blanket, plush and demanding to be touched. Rope in individual bolts cluster nearby. Quite a lot of it. Far more than usual.
A bamboo frame, rectangular and about as long as you are tall, rests against a wall.
“Raven,” I begin. Immediately your stomach gurgles in an accusatory hollow whine. Your lips tighten into a straight line and I smile. “You must be starving.”
“I haven’t eaten in what, sixteen, seventeen hours?” You can’t get the edge of testiness out of your voice. Unaccustomed hunger gnaws at the insides of your ribs and makes your temples hurt. “It’s been months since I’ve not feasted every ten hours at most.”
“I know, I know. I appreciate it. I really do. Thank you.” My expression as I clasp your hand between my own is naked sincerity.
You hold my gaze. “So what are we doing?”
I hook a finger through the loop on the front of your collar and tension it. Having a person even take a grip makes it come alive. It’s impossible to ignore the weight, the way it guides your chin a little higher.
“You are going to kneel, and I am going to tie you.” With gentle pressure I indicate my will that you do so now. My hand on your cheek is gentle: an unspoken reminder of how deeply I care about you.
The lovely golden blanket feels soft and comfortable under your knees. My gentle hand on your cheek lingers as I walk around you to retrieve the first bolt of rope.
I tie your body first. A simple hip harness, something I have put on you dozens of times, mutates and slowly winds its way up your body. The tie is intricate, frequently locking off behind your back and criss-crossing across your belly. I take pains to tension the rope to lift your smooth, pale curves into such place as pleases me. It’s not terribly tight but in no time you’re decorated with diamonds made entirely from indentations in your fat.
So much rope. It’s like I’m creating fishnet tights for your whole body. But your head lolls as you follow the sensation, voluntarily closing your eyes. There’s something affirming about the way I bind your body. My hands know you so well. “Here is the widest part of my love’s belly,” says the subtle release of tension as I tie at the height of your belly button. The incongruous slack further up says, “Here is her deadly, capacious stomach, lying in wait.”
By the time I’m done you’re netted and comfortable and covered in diamonds up to your tits.
“Stand for me,” I murmur. You do, heavily and thick with relaxation. Your body feels so good, every roll cupped and treasured.
I lash the rectangular frame to one hard point installed in the ceiling and guide you by your shoulders to stand in front of it. Then begins some technical work you perceive as progressive tightening up and down your form. The extra complicated knots I tied on your back are revealed to be attachment points for the framework. Before long you are lashed to it. When you shift your hips, the bamboo frame moves with you. I go back and tie your arms individually to it, out to the sides and right-angled up like you’re fixed in a victory pose. It’s vulnerable, not being able to protect your belly.
A big, mysterious sequence of bows turns out to be me running rope again and again through the frame by your feet and a second attachment point in the ceiling. You are put in mind of a pulley.
That’s exactly what it is. I begin to draw rope through my hands and the frame begins to rise. There is a moment where you totter on your feet, convinced you are about to topple onto your face, but then the frame and your feet come off the ground and the rope takes your weight. All of it. As your attitude increments towards the horizontal your body settles comfortably into the diamond harness that cups you from collarbones to backside. It’s an inversion of the normal order: instead of your fat hanging from your body, your body presses into and is supported by your fat.
You’re suspended, looking serenely down at the rumpled golden blanket. From your point of view you notice it has a faint mandala pattern to it. Calm. Despite your hunger, you feel calm.
My hand on your shoulder brings your attention out of your body and sets you rocking back and forth slightly. Rope creaks above you, many lines sharing your enormous weight. “Green?”
“Mmn,” you confirm. Your hair streams down in front of you.
“Good. My dear Raven. This will seem like torture, but I will starve you a few hours more. Later, when it is full evening, I will bring you prey.” My finger under your chin brings your face up to note my stern expression. It seems out of place compared to the rough bliss of being bound and suspended. “You must not make a sound. I will play soft music to cover your rumbling stomach, but I want you to be a surprise to her. Can you do that for me?”
You manage a nod. I kiss your forehead and then lower your head. “Call out if you need me. Microphone. I will hear you.” My next words come from right by your ear.
“Relax. Starve for me. Become ravenous. I’ll feed you soon enough.”