Melody felt a shock run through her as the suggestion left her mouth. Quickly, before Skip could respond, she added, “I mean, I think it would be good for the–you know. Our last chapter, the one where I showed you how the knots work, it was the best one we’ve done so far.”

She wasn’t quite clear on why she felt so defensive. It wasn’t as though she’d ever been bashful about sex, and this wasn’t even about sex, it was just about a demonstration of knots and restraints. And yet, even with that in mind, Melody was blushing.

She was blushing.

It was a godsend that Skip didn’t acknowledge the pinkness rising in her cheeks. “Oh, sure–I mean, we’d kind of already talked about that, hadn’t we?”

Melody’s heart rate settled, though confusion still kept her from relaxing completely. “Did we?”

“You wanted to take placeholder photos,” Skip pointed out. “And like…you can’t tie yourself up, so how else would we do that?”

“Oh! Right.” Melody nodded, relieved that the faux pas had passed. “Well, this would be a bit more than that. I would want to give you sort of…the ‘full experience’, so you can get the feelings down on paper as precisely as possible.”

Skip rubbed at their cheek, thinking for a moment. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah,” Melody assured them. “I just didn’t want you to feel weird about it, you know? I’m obviously not proposing anything sexual, but it is sex-adjacent. I’m obviously fine, I’m just confirming that you are.”

“I’m cool with it,” Skip replied immediately. “I mean, obviously depending on what the details are, but in a general sense? Absolutely.”

Sitting up, Melody swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat upright, walking to her closet. “I think we should start with a sort of suite of the basics–I have a bunch of restraints, and then there’s a million things we can do with rope. Do you want to make a list, and we’ll start just knocking them out one at a time?”

Skip produced their phone, nodding along. “Sure–I’ll make a list. Are we going to be documenting how to do all this safely? Focusing on how it feels?”

“Both,” Melody said, pulling out a plastic bin full of toys and scanning the contents. “Some of this is safer than others, like…it’s possible to use a pair of fuzzy handcuffs unsafely, but that’s really hard to do, while you can cut off blood flow with rope if you’re careless.”

“Gotcha,” Skip said. “I’ll add ‘tips and tricks’ to the list, too. How are we categorizing all this? Difficulty? Type?”

Melody glanced over her shoulder, standing in the closet doorway. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just making assumptions here, but it seems like there would be easy rope bondage, and hard rope bondage, and easy restraints and hard restraints. Do we want to group together different restraints by how hard they are to do, or by what materials you’re using?”

Melody tapped a finger on her lip, chewing on the question for a moment. “Both? We should have sections by type, because that tends to be a preference thing. Rope people really like rope, but some people just don’t want to mess with it. But we can tag stuff by difficulty.”

Smirking, Skip suggested, “What if we used rock climbing ratings? Scale from one to ten, with decimals and plus signs and stuff.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Melody looked back at them. “When did you ever go rock climbing?”

Skip shrugged, smile falling away. “It’s just an idea.”

“I think that works. We can workshop if and see if there’s a better fit, too,” Melody decided, looking into her closet. “Okay, so, rope–lots of rope stuff. For physical restraints, there’s cuffs, which kind of get used for everything. Collars, you can also do restraints around the waist or body. Gags are a big thing, and I’ve got a spreader bar, but besides that it’s mostly just about how you combine different elements. Handcuffs clipped to a bed are way different from handcuffs clipped to each other, or to a collar, or to your ankles. Add a hard point, and you’ve got even more variables.”

“Slow down,” Skip interjected, thumbs blurring as they took notes on their phone. “Let’s make a list first. Physical restraints–what do you have on hand, and is there anything you don’t have that we should at least mention?”

“Puh-lease.” Melody rolled her eyes, shooting them a cocky grin. “I have everything.”

Skip looked around the room and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see a St. Andrew’s Cross in here anywhere.”

“Everything that fits into my room,” Melody clarified, rolling her eyes. “If you want me to tie you to a cross, we can go to a club.”

“Okay, but that’s a good point–toy use at clubs! We could have a whole chapter on that. Club etiquette, how to find them, all that.”

Melody pursed her lips, falling quiet for a moment. “Yeah…that might be beyond the scope. I don’t want to spread out too much. This is a book for beginners and home hobbyists. Besides–clubs all have their own rules, so we’d never be able to make a comprehensive list of every possible thing you might encounter, if people want to go to a club they should just ask the club.”

“Alright,” Skip said, reading their note aloud as they made it. “Keep…it…in…the…bedroom.”

Scanning all the available toys in their closet, Melody again hesitated. “Okay, I’m just going to veto testing out impact play. I don’t think you’ll be interested in that, so I’m not going to ask.” Moving on, she looked down to her other toys, thinking–

“Hold up.”

Melody stepped out of her closet, turning to fully face Skip. “What?”

“Who says I won’t do impact toys?” Skip gave her an acute stare, challenging Melody to try and argue.

“Spankings–any impact play, really, it hurts. You wouldn’t enjoy it.” Melody shook her head. If Skip lacked a sex drive, they wouldn’t have any positive side effects to a sexy spanking. “And–”

“And I’d tie myself up just for fun? I do things I don’t like all the time, Melody.” Skip shrugged. “My day job isn’t something I enjoy, but I do it because it pays the bills. I’m doing things that aren’t ‘fun’ one way or another, so if I’m going to pick, I’d rather do something that’s at least creatively fulfilling.”

Melody looked back into her closet, then returned her gaze to Skip. “I’m not sure that’s a great attitude.”

Skip wobbled a hand in the air in a dismissive gesture. “Botanists probably don’t love sweating buckets in the rainforest, but they put up with it because they enjoy the research.”

“So, to you, sex is like an exotic fern?”

“More like one of those plants that’s interesting to look at but smells kinda gross.”

Melody snorted at the mental image that conjured. “Okay. You’re sure?”

“I never thought you’d be the one to question my sexuality,” Skip said, deadpan.

Shaking her head, Melody began to clarify. “I’m asking if you’re sure about trying a spanking.”

Skip rolled their eyes, unphased. “I’m messing with you–and I’m sure that I’m willing to try it. If you’ve got a stronger arm than I expected, I can back out then.”

The corner of Melody’s mouth turned up at the challenge. “Oh, trust me–it’s not a question of if I can make someone Red. I pull my punches.”

“If you say so,” Skip decided.

“If we’re doing impact toys, are we doing other pain stuff?” Melody asked. “I’ve got E-stim and clamps. I don’t really like needle play, so I don’t have anything for that.”

Skip continued to tap away at their notes. “Adding that to the list. Do you have a kneeling board?”

Melody found herself getting annoyed again. “Can I get through my list, please?”

“Okay, it just seemed like it would fit on the ‘pain toys’ list. Also, am I going to use any of this stuff on you? I need to write it both ways–how to take it, how to get it.”

Rolling her eyes, Melody said, “I’m not a sub.”

“Neither am I, I just need to be able to write about it.”

“Right. We’ll figure something out for that.”

Facing her closet, Melody was about to move on, when another question cut through her focus.

“Do we want to get Grace to help?”

“Why would we–” Melody began, but she got it pretty quickly. “Oh. You’re thinking about adding a chapter on diaper kink stuff?”

“Diaper kink and adult baby stuff. You don’t do that, do you?”

Melody shrugged. “I’ve been in a few scenes with that kind of play, but it’s never been my focus. The ba-ba goo-goo crap isn’t a turn on, if I wanted to babysit a dude I’d just start dating him full time.” Returning her tub of toys to its home, she added, “We’re never going to get to cover every single kink in the world.”

“No, but we’ve got…not an expert, but at least someone familiar with the interests,” Skip pointed out. “It could be worth exploring.”

Melody shook her head. “That sounds like we’d have too many cooks. I want this to just be written by us.”

“Cool.”

The response felt a little flat, and Melody turned her attention back on Skip. “Do you disagree?”

“Not about it just being us, I think that’s smart,” Skip said, eyes on their notes.

“So…you want to do baby goo-goo stuff?” Melody snorted, amused by the idea.

Skip looked up. “Is that what I said?”

Melody shook her head. “No, but…okay, I’ll just bite. What’s your point?”

“Well–forget the diapers for a minute. Pearce bought a bunch of stuff for Grace that sounds exactly like the stuff you have, just…‘goo-goo’. Is there a difference?” Skip asked. “I’m asking you to tell me here, because I don’t have a clue. If you’re gagged with a pacifier, that seems like it’s the same thing as being gagged with a rubber ball, or a dog bone, or whatever. Either way, my mouth is open and I can’t talk.”

Nodding a couple times, Melody thought it over. “Okay, I get it. You’re talking about the difference between the physical sensations and the headspace.”

“Maybe. What is the difference?”

“Well, let’s compare being handcuffed. The experience of having cuffs on you in the back of a police car is going to be way different than being handcuffed by your paramore, because you’ll be thinking about it differently.” Discarding the search of her closet for a moment, she continued, “Really, the headspace is more important than the implements a lot of the time. The point is not that you’re actually restrained, it’s that you feel restrained. And so a different gag might accomplish the same physical result, but it’s going to make you feel differently, because Grace will feel like a baby if you make her suck on a pacifier, but she won’t feel like a baby if it’s a dog toy.”

Setting aside their phone for a moment, Skip crossed their arms over their chest. “So…hold on. I thought the point was the feeling? You want to feel like you’re tied up.”

“No, no.” Melody shook her head. “You want to feel like you’re helpless. Or…well, there’s lots of ways you might want to feel, but that’s a big one. It’s a power exchange, not just a chance to feel what it’s like to have rope on your skin.”

Skip looked past Melody at the closet for a moment. “I guess I just don’t get it.”

“I can show you,” Melody confirmed. “That’s why we’re doing examples, right? Rope, cuffs, and we can add headspace stuff to the list.”

“How would you demonstrate a mental state?” Skip asked skeptically, tilting their head.

Melody didn’t need to think about an answer. “I actually have something for that, but I’ll need to prep a couple things. Want to plan for a little scene once you get back from work?”

“Sure,” Skip said, shrugging. “What are you thinking?”

“It’s simple,” Melody said, smiling as she considered the options. “I just need one thing from you.”

...

I swear there's going to be AB/DL content sooner or later - it's a slow burn on this one!

-Penn

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