Trapped in Bed
Rita Woods
The soft clink of the keys dropping to the hardwood floor was the most terrifying sound I’d heard in my life.
I twisted on the bed, my silk sheet sliding seductively over my bare curves. It didn’t even register. I was too freaked out about reaching the keys. It was hopeless, of course. The handcuffs were looped around the iron bars of my headboard, impossibly far from the floor. Stupid? Maybe, but here I was.
Shit! Now what?
I had to keep it together. Forcing my muscles to unclench and my body to ease back onto the bed, I breathed deeply, trying to calm my racing heart. Maybe I could roll to pick them up with my feet, which were unbound. It didn’t take much figuring to realize that’d never work. The barred headboard, which I’d asked for specifically for cuffing myself to, even if my parents didn‘ t realize it, was in the way. I was limber, but a girl had her limits.
Some other harebrained plans came to me and were tossed aside just as fast. I was stuck. Trapped. Royally fucked. All I could do was wait for someone to come home and call to them for help. Then try to explain what the hell I was up to.
Shit!
Ever since I was little, I’d loved being tied up. If we played cowboys and indians, I was the captured squaw, the kidnapped farm girl. In cops and robbers, the hostage, the imprisoned burglar. My friends loved it since they didn’t want to be the ones trapped, and I loved it because
I did.
We got older, and suddenly wanting to be tied up was weird. There were some really awkward moments before I figured that out. We just didn’t play like that anymore, so without anyone to turn to, I did it myself. Nothing I couldn’t get out of. Ropes around my legs, or one wrist to my bed. Just something wound around my torso to help me feel safe at night. I didn’t really understand it yet, but that came with time.
So here I was, eighteen, heading to college in the fall, having to figure out how to hide this from my future roommate. I’d never shown anyone. My mom had no idea, my stepfather never caught on, not even my best friends knew. It was private and something I’d managed just fine on my own. Until now.
I couldn’t believe I’d been so sloppy. The key’d never fallen before. Did I shake the bed? I didn’t think so, but something made those keys fall. The sound as they rattled against the headboard before hitting the floor played over and over in my head.
