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Xue Yang didn’t seem surprised to see him when he opened the door.
“I thought it’d be you.”
Song Lan didn’t really want to acknowledge that he was right. Xue Yang didn’t even sound that smug, but it was a little galling that he seemed so easy to predict.
“Long week,” he muttered instead, pushing past Xue Yang into his apartment.
Xue Yang trailed behind him. “Did you come straight from work? You smell like perfume.”
Song Lan grunted. “Like I said: long week.”
He was still in his suit, and when he got to Xue Yang’s living room where he practiced, he took off his suit jacket and carefully put it to the side.
Xue Yang, leaning against the doorway, watched him.
“Did you eat anything today?”
Song Lan was folding his sleeves up to his elbows. “Breakfast,” he said shortly.
“Which was what, twenty hours ago?” Xue Yang disappeared from the doorway. Song Lan took a deep breath. He hoped Xue Yang was just getting something quick like a protein bar. The faster Xue Yang deemed him ready, the faster he could turn off his brain, and so he got on his knees preemptively, the weave of the tatami mat digging slightly into his kneecaps.
Xue Yang reentered the room with a bowl in his hand. “Nuh-uh,” he said, pointing Song Lan up. “Go sit at the table and eat this first. I don’t need you passing out on me half-way.”
Song Lan knew better than to try and argue, but he didn’t have to pretend to be pleased about the delay.
He took the bowl of oatmeal rather roughly out of Xue Yang’s hands and didn’t sit down, instead shoveling it into his mouth mulishly standing.
“Would it kill you not to be an asshole for like one day,” Xue Yang complained, sinking into his sofa. “It’s for your benefit, dumbass.”
“Like you care,” Song Lan muttered, knowing he was being mean and rude, and well, an asshole. But he’d spent the whole day smiling and laughing and politely managing difficult clients; there was never much niceness left when he visited Xue Yang.
“I do, actually,” Xue Yang said, unbothered. “That’s why you come to me and not someone else.”
Song Lan pretended he didn’t hear that. He turned the bowl upside down, showing he’d finished everything.
“Am I ready now?”
Xue Yang pointed to a shelf next to him. “Drink half a water bottle and we’ll start, ok? Jesus.”
Song Lan unscrewed the top of the water bottle and chugged the whole thing down in under a minute until he crumpled the plastic into a ball.
“Such a fucking asshole,” Xue Yang said, more exasperated than upset. “If you piss your fancy pants later, don’t blame me.”
He got up from his seat and went right up to Song Lan, all up in his space. Didn’t matter that he had to look up to make eye contact with Song Lan, they both knew who called the shots in this room.
“Get down,” Xue Yang said lazily. Song Lan resisted for a second, before giving in and irritably getting on his knees. Xue Yang could’ve had him docile and better behaved if he’d just taken Song Lan when he’d been on his knees the first time.
“Let’s see if we can’t teach you some manners,” Xue Yang said.
Song Lan’s hands were in fists on his thighs. Xue Yang opened his cabinet and took out a long, coiled, smooth length of rope. It was dyed red; it’d show up well against Song Lan’s black shirt and pants.
Xue Yang stood behind him; the back of Song Lan’s neck prickled with the instinct to turn around. But he stayed still. There was a quiet hiss as Xue Yang uncoiled the rope and let it fall free.
“Starting,” he said, and then there was a hand on Song Lan’s back. It rested in the middle of his back, where his spine curved in. It didn’t move, just pressed against him, enough pressure for Song Lan to be hyperaware of Xue Yang’s presence.
Song Lan inhaled through his nose. Xue Yang always liked to start like this, he said it helped ground both the active and passive parties. Song Lan tolerated it, but he much preferred the touch of Xue Yang’s rope.
Eventually, finally, the hand went away, and then they really did begin.
“Arms out,” Xue Yang said, and Song Lan put his arms out parallel with the floor.
“Good.”
Song Lan kept his eyes ahead, not looking down at Xue Yang’s hands when a double looped length of rope was pulled high around and across his chest, right up against his armpits, pulling against his dress shirt at the top of his pecs. The rope tightened slightly, anchored itself in the middle of his back, and looped around his chest again.
Song Lan felt the press of the rope like it was right against his skin even though he was still fully clothed. He felt a knot being tied to secure the top rope, and then the rope came forward again, this time underneath his pecs. The design caused a slight swell in his chest; if he weren’t wearing an undershirt, the outline of his pecs and nipples would be pressed against the fabric of his dress shirt.
Without thinking, Song Lan had started to lean slightly forward, leaning into the bite of the rope. A hand on his shoulder gently pulled him back upright.
The rope came over one shoulder and nestled in between his pecs. Xue Yang came forward now and started securing the rope to lay flat down the middle of Song Lan’s chest. The rope looped through the bottom rope underneath Song Lan’s pecs and then went back over his other shoulder, separating the two bulges of his chest.
His chest was properly bound now; the top, bottom, and middle set apart by red rope, pulling tight enough against his muscle that his chest swelled and protruded.
Xue Yang went behind him again and pulled lightly on the excess rope. Song Lan let out a sharp exhale through his mouth, that might have been a gasp if he had not shut his mouth quickly afterward.
“Hands,” Xue Yang said, and Song Lan put his hands behind his back, his wrists pressed together, arms straight down. There was a light touch, rearranging his wrists to bear the strain of tied rope better.
The pressure of the rope started ringing around the top of his arms, and marched down the length of his arms, punctuated with a knot pressing into where his arms touched, until finally his arms were bound together down to his wrists.
Song Lan was beginning to feel drowsy, falling into that quiet, dazed space where he only existed within the restraint of the rope around his body. His eyes were half-lidded, and his tongue sat heavy in his mouth. If someone were to require speech from him, it would be difficult to summon.
For a while, no new sensation came from behind him. Song Lan knelt, leaning slightly forward again, and this time there was no correction. The tension around his upper body forced his whole mind to focus on the restriction of movement, to focus on keeping himself balanced, and all other thoughts were allowed to be held at bay.
He had started breathing only out of his mouth and his jaw hung open slightly, making quiet sounds as he made quick inhales and exhales.
After a few moments, Song Lan felt the pressure around his chest and arms start to tighten and then pull upwards, and his heart started pounding so quickly he thought he might pass out.
“Ah, no,” Song Lan managed to gasp out. “No suspen…sion today.”
A nail flicked him lightly on the back of his neck.
“You’re supposed to tell me stuff like that before I bind,” a distant voice said, but the rope loosened, and Song Lan felt the band of iron around his lungs expand into something manageable.
There was a movement around his waist, and then he faintly began to feel the tightening of rope wrapping around him again. It started around his hips, and then the rope was passed through between his legs and the pressure began to push into the space between his thigh and groin.
Song Lan was starting to feel a pleasant tingle in his toes and fingers. His head sagged forward, and he thought he let out a small moan as the rope pulled up tight against his crotch, but he was too far gone to tell. He was all floaty, spaced out, and feeling like he was melting into the floor, into the bite of the rope, into the calm hands that kept twisting the rope up tighter and tighter until he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“You get rope-drunk so easily.”
Xue Yang’s voice seemingly came from very far away. Song Lan could hear his own breathing in his head, like his ears were stopped up with wool.
His vision was hazy; the rope had stopped pulling, and Song Lan could focus on the strain of the ties around his body, looping around his chest, over his shoulders, snug around his hips, and finally squeezing tight in between his legs. His knees and ankles weren’t bound, and he felt oddly unbalanced, only being tight-bound from the knee up.
The sounds coming out of his mouth were loud to the point of embarrassment, but Song Lan was too muddled to notice or care.
He just sat there, slightly stupefied, on his knees, head down and panting like a dog. Arms pulled tight behind his back so his chest stuck out, even more accented by the ropes; knots strategically placed so that if he swayed a little here or there, the rope would pull and bite into him, reminding him it was better to stay still.
He felt like his brain was running out of his ears, so blissed out and thoughtless, that he no longer had any faculty over his physical body.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he tipped over, face forward.
“Woah, hey!”
Song Lan felt something soft catch him, but he had no willpower left to try and ease his weight off.
A faraway voice said, “Ah, fuck.”
The softness maneuvered him onto his side; the rope dug into him harder at this angle, but he didn’t care. He let air pass through his lungs like it was the only purpose in his life.
His cheek pressed up against something warm, and he was so content to leave it there.
Something hesitantly touched the back of his neck, a cool caress that readjusted his head. Song Lan let out a breathy sigh, his whole body unlocking and sinking into the feeling. The touch hurriedly went away.
It was easy there. It was simple and nice, and Song Lan had no defense against it; he let himself simmer in that trance until time slipped away, until he couldn’t feel his body anymore, until all sensation fell away except for the sound of his breathing, too quick to be called steady, in his head.
He couldn’t tell how long he was like that: clouds and white noise and cotton in his ears.
Eventually, he started waking up in his own body.
There was a soothing touch carding through his hair. Song Lan was so comfortable, he almost forgot where he was, who he was with. It just felt so good: the warmth, the gentle fingers, the relaxation of his muscles. He slowly opened his eyes, and then reality hit him like a baseball bat.
Song Lan stiffened, and the hand in his hair froze.
He suddenly realized where exactly he was resting his head.
Song Lan shot up out of Xue Yang’s lap onto his feet so fast he was instantly dizzy, and stumbled backwards.
“Hey,” Xue Yang said sharply. “It’s ok. Sit down.”
Song Lan’s mind was still fuzzy enough that the blunt order cut through him like butter, and he immediately sat onto the sofa behind him.
Xue Yang had gotten to his feet as well, almost warily watching Song Lan.
Song Lan looked down, avoiding Xue Yang’s gaze. He closed his mouth and tried to pull himself back together: breathing through his nose, slowly moving his fingers where the blood was starting to flow properly again. The fog was clearing from his head, and he realized the rope had been taken off him. Early enough that it hadn’t left any marks on him as he turned his wrists over to inspect.
“Here,” Xue Yang muttered, shoving a mug into Song Lan’s line of vision.
Song Lan hadn’t even noticed him leaving and returning. Numbly, he took the warm mug from Xue Yang. It was green tea and he sipped at it.
Xue Yang returned onto the floor, sitting crossed legged in front of Song Lan. His brow was furrowed slightly. “You ok?”
Song Lan put the mug down on the side-table.
“I’m fine,” he said stiffly. He weirdly felt like he should apologize, but he couldn’t find a rational reason to, and so they sat in awkward silence for a while.
Xue Yang scratched the back of his head, looking to the side. “You…you want something to eat? You probably shouldn’t drive for a while.”
Song Lan thought about it for a second, eating dinner with Xue Yang. What would they even talk about? The best they ever managed was sniping at each other in annoyance.
“No,” Song Lan said, and then tacked on a half-hearted, “thank you.” He stood up and found that he was marginally more steady this time.
Xue Yang frowned. “You really shouldn’t—”
“I’ll take the train,” Song Lan interrupted. “I can pick my car up tomorrow.”
Xue Yang snapped his mouth shut. He had a slightly displeased expression on his face—well, he always looked like that when he was with Song Lan.
Song Lan found his suit jacket and rummaged through it, pulling out his wallet.
Xue Yang was lighting a cigarette and waved the money away with a wisp of smoke.
“Forget it,” he said.
Song Lan frowned. It wasn’t like Xue Yang did this out of the kindness of his heart; he had a job and people paid him for it, just like people paid Song Lan. If this was Xue Yang being nice, Song Lan didn’t want it. It was too close to pity.
Additionally, he didn’t like feeling indebted to anyone, especially Xue Yang. And, well—his skin was still warm from the even pressure of the rope, the muscles in his back were loosened, and the persistent headache of the day had faded. It didn’t feel right not to pay for a service he’d received. His hand remained outstretched, hovering awkwardly between them.
“Why? You always take payment before.”
“Yes, yes,” Xue Yang said, surprisingly agreeable instead of shooting back a thorny insult. “I know, I’m a slut for money. You can pay me for the next session, ok?”
Song Lan didn’t like it, but he wasn’t going to argue with an extra hundred bucks in his hand for the week. He stuffed the money back into his wallet.
“Thanks then,” he said gruffly. He didn’t really know what else to say. He felt it would be rude to just walk out after that. Did Xue Yang really want him to stick around and chat, is that why he didn’t take the money? But Song Lan was terrible for conversation and worse for Xue Yang.
“You can leave now,” Xue Yang prompted.
“Ok,” Song Lan said, relieved, heading for the door. Before he walked out, he paused. “Thanks again,” he said.
Xue Yang shooed him out with another cloud of smoke and Song Lan closed the door in a mix of confusion and relief.