Hold the Rail

Rosa put her wrists together and waited.

Carl looked at the scarf in his hand as if it might argue. Forty-four. She was thirty-six. They had done rough. They had not done tied. The bed had a rail that would take the weight, and she had tested it that afternoon while he was still at work, standing on the mattress in her socks, pulling, which she had not told him because the telling was this.

"Tight enough that I can't pretend," she said. "Not tight enough to go numb. If I say red, off. If I say yellow, loosen. I want you to fuck me while I can't use my hands."

"Say it once more so I know you're not performing brave."

"I want it. I've wanted it for a month. I thought about it in the queue at the post office, which is a stupid place to think about being tied to a bed. Tie me up and don't be gentle after."

He tied the scarf. The knot was careful and then firm. He ran two fingers under it, checked the colour of her hands, and bound the loose end to the rail. Rosa pulled. The pull went nowhere. The nowhere hit her cunt like a hand.

"Oh."

"Colour."

"Green. Very green."

Carl undressed her the rest of the way with the unfair advantage of having his hands. He sucked her nipples until she twisted and could not pull him closer. He liked that. She could see it. He went down on her and held her thighs open and licked her until she was begging, and the begging was different with her wrists above her head. She tried to reach for him and the scarf stopped her, and the stop made her wetter.

"Carl."

"I know. Stay."

She came with a sob she would have swallowed if she could have grabbed a pillow. He licked her through it and then lifted his mouth.

"Again. Not yet. You come when I'm in you. Hands stay up."

He pushed in. The stretch, and the rail, and the fact of not being able to touch him, turned the first thrusts into something close to too much. Rosa said his name. He fucked her harder because she had told him to. The bed moved. The scarf held. She wrapped her legs around him since her hands could not.

"Look at you," he said. "Tied to your own bed, taking it. This what you wanted?"

"Yes. Don't stop. Yellow if I need it. I don't."

He held her hip and the rail and drove into her until the headboard tapped. Rosa pulled at the scarf on purpose, to feel it fail her, and the failure went straight through her. He reached between them and rubbed her clit. The second orgasm hit while she was useless, perfect, mouth open. Carl swore and came inside her, hips flush, forehead on hers, still holding the rail with one hand as if he were tied too.

He undid the knot before he did anything else. Wrists. Fingers. A question with his eyes. He rubbed the marks. They were pink, not angry.

"Fine," she said. "Better than fine. My shoulders will complain. The rest of me won't."

Carl kissed the inside of one wrist.

"You tested it this afternoon," he said.

"How did you know?"

"The rail was warm when I got in. And you looked guilty at dinner."

Rosa laughed. "Next time the ankles as well. I want to find out if I still talk as much when I can't hook you in."

"You will," he said. "You'll just have to mean it more."

Later, when the marks had faded to a suggestion, Rosa had him tie the scarf again, looser, just to feel the decision. She kept her wrists up without being told and let him fuck her on her side, one leg hooked back, the rail ticking. It was slower. Meaner for being slow. She came with her face in the pillow and her hands still caught, and Carl stayed in her until the shaking stopped before he reached for the knot.

"Red still works if I say it half asleep," she said.

"It works whenever you say it."

She flexed her hands. They worked. She put them on his chest, because she could, and kept them there.

In the morning the scarf was on the chair. Rosa picked it up, folded it, and put it in the drawer under her good tights, which felt like the correct filing. Carl watched her do it from the bed.

"We're keeping it there," she said.

"Until the ankles."

"Until the ankles." She shut the drawer. "And if I change my mind, it stays a scarf. That's the deal."

"That's the deal."