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“It would be Wimbledon to flaaaaayyy you. Absolute... bliss. Like sitting court-side. Strawberries and ….goddamned cream….”
Moriarty was mumbling every third word as he tugged and tested the ropes he'd already tied around her waist, her hips, her ankles - as if he were talking to himself as much as for her ears. It wouldn’t have surprised her if he were, a psychopath lacking at least a sociopath’s moderate store of empathy.
“I could, still, you know? Kill you. They all think you’re dead anyway…”
Irene felt a jolt of fear run from spine to her scalp; cortisol setting her nerves alight. Lord, what had she been thinking by not running? In agreeing..... letting him do this? But... maybe he’d be placated. Would take it, as promised, for repayment in full. If he did, she might be getting off cheap.
He drew the next long strand of hemp toward her, fastening it to the one he’d most recently put around her waist. Irene knew how to play her part; she relaxed into the wooden table she was lying on, breathed deep as he began winding it. Then she let go into the rope as he twisted it under her thigh, up her side, around and then over her shoulder.
Back down around her side, hip, thigh again. Around again, and tighter. Like one side of a frame.
Like a twisted cage bar.
The dozens of knots he’d made in it, hard as rocks, pressed deeply into sinew as he worked it taut– each spaced perfectly to hit Shiatsu points; the place where her inner thigh met lower pelvic girdle, where shoulder blade met muscle.
Her pulse started pounding like an alarm system as he tugged and tugged and the fibers contracted. She wanted to shout with frustration, claustrophobia, but kept it to a gasp - then growled in frustration at having made a sound so soon.
Giving in. She was giving in to fear, and he was only getting started.
“This is not Wimbledon," he went back to his grousing. "Thiiiiissssss is ping pong in comparison to that. Ping...."
A flick to her breast…
“….pong….” her ass-cheek lifted with one hand, slapped with the other.
“That answers that,” she gritted out.
“Answers what, 'he asked even though he did not care?'”
“What you have a taste for; you enjoying my body. Didn’t think you went in for my kind.”
Jim chewed his gum and gave her a wink with a sparkle. Then he went back to binding her limbs, eyes going dead again so fast...
Irene shivered, and not with pleasure.
“Pity you might be of some use someday,” he said. “Shame I can’t skin you. I meant it, you know. Still want to. So much. Can you feel it, me wanting to cut you to screaming, begging death?”
The fact she at one point actually had the photos was irrelevant. That she hadn’t utilized them to their full potential is what had earned her this: a bill due for his services rendered and then underutilized.
“Relaaax….” he hissed as she twitched, then he started in on tying her right side down as elaborately has he had her left.
“You know the rules,” She fought to control her voice, and only when the words came out did she hear how close to going off the rails she was.
“Oh, yes,” his own tone went very pedantic. “Rules of Shibari. Not to cause physical injury. Not to cause mental injury. Not to leave you limping and sobbing and bloodied, boo hoo hoo. Must not make you scream and beg, must be artful and not cruel….”
As angry as he sounded at the constraints he’d agreed on and as unbalanced as he was, this was a relief. He might be a stone’s throw from insane, but he stuck to his word.
“The results? They will be beautiful to look at, I promise you that….” he lifted the next strand of jute he would work with so that she could see it, stretched it wide with both his arms. “White rope against your pale body. Indigo rope that echoes your hair. Rough texture on soft skin. This will be artful, and oh, yes, it will get seen.”
Irene would be first to admit she didn’t have an insider’s full esoteric appreciation for Kinbaku, but she knew the ropes were not being drawn around her randomly. They and the ones to come would be used to both immobilize and showcase her most useful assets - her arms, her feet, her figure.
“Did you know that when Kinbaku was used in warfare, the nobler captives were never actually restrained at all?”
His voice was suddenly milder, contemplative. It was the first time he’d addressed her as anything like an equal in so very long that it took a moment to realize he was waiting for a response.
“Where they not?” She managed to drawl it almost disinterestedly.
"Ummmnnnn. Not kidding. A man of rank would be adorned but the ropes left loose. Because a noble man, he wouldn’t flee, would he? Wouldn’t stoop. Which is why neither you nor I will ever be given that honor. Nothing noble about us, my leather doll. We are the first rats off the ship.”
She’d recognized the warehouse/theater/occasional movie set he’d driven her to, knew a director with certain predilections who rented it often. So it was no surprise when he left her lying there and hit the lights to see several wall to ceiling backdrops appear, along with ropes and pulleys for hanging and displaying …things in front of them.
What was on the backdrops made the blood slam to her head.
"Oh, you bastard...." she shouted and he giggled; high-pitched and lilting, very pleased with himself. "What are you going to do with them?"
"You know me. Well…. you know what I like," He sat her up none too gently. "I'm going to make trouble with them. The photos I’ll snap. At the very least...they will make it that much harder to pretend you are dead, no?”
The two of them barely talked after that. There was no reason to. She was exhausted by the time it was over – drained and dehydrated from the hours (a dozen?) he’d spent arranging and re-arranging her - upside down, twisted, supplicating, prostrate.
The dominatrix rendered not just submissive – but positively diminutive.
When they started appearing online and in the mailboxes physical and electronic of her clients, enemies, her own….it had been almost as bad as she’d feared: Her dangling over famous landmarks, in front of an audience at the O2, in front of a blank canvas with a single, huge word in ten foot font.
TOOL!
Bad enough, but the one of her appearing to be flat out, face down in a frog-pose, palms and nose and chest to the floor on Baker Street at Sherlock’s feet as he sat in his chair…..
How did Moriarty even get that image?
The damn things were everywhere for a while. Practically turned into an international frigging meme.
Eventually, when it all shook out and she didn’t need to be ‘dead’ anymore she turned them into a promotional tool. The one with her in mid-air, body shaped and adorned to look like an actual whip was perfect on her cards and web site.