Cuffing Kate Read Online Free

she
figured out that I’d read her diary and that I wanted what she didn’t want?
Finally I got the key in the hole, turned the right way, released myself.
    Jesus.
    I shoved all the cuffs and the packaging into the bottom drawer
of my battered dresser and then went out to greet Sonia. She was on the sofa,
reading the rules for her next debate. “Seven minutes. First affirmative
construction…”
    * * *
    “A shot in the dark.”
    When Jules bought his coffee the next day, he put his hand
out.
    I’d already given him his change.
    “Sketch?” he asked.
    Blush was apparently the new hue for me. I handed him the
napkin. The cuffs had keyholes now.
    “Good girl,” he said before walking away. If my co-worker, Dan,
hadn’t been standing behind me, I would have sunk to the floor in a puddle of
arousal and shame. As it was, I stared after him, hearing the words reverberate
in my mind: good girl, good girl, good girl.
    * * *
    When Sonia went out the next night, I locked myself up
once more. I’d been impatiently waiting for her departure for hours. In fact,
I’d been so nervous and jumpy that she’d given me two separate lectures on the
poison of caffeine. How could I tell her that coffee wasn’t to blame for my
excitable state—her diary was the culprit?
    The clerk had said the ice lock would take an hour to three
hours to melt depending on how much water you’d frozen. I’d gone with one
hour—hiding the cuffs in the freezer behind a bag of frozen peas. I hoped I’d
gone with one hour. I couldn’t be entirely sure. As soon as Sonia left, I
stripped off my clothes and climbed onto my bed. I fastened one cuff easily on
my left wrist, and through some fairly simple maneuvers, threaded the chain
through the brass curls on my headboard before attaching the other cuff to my
right. Why did I get naked? Because Jules would have wanted me like that. Why
did I bind myself to the headboard? That seemed the appropriately kinky thing to
do.I craved knowing how this would feel—every second, every sensation. Could I
come while my wrists were like this? I didn’t know. So far, every time I’d
tried, I’d cheated. This would keep me from giving in.
    Sonia was supposed to be at a debate club meeting. I ought to
have the apartment all to myself until at least midnight.
    That was the plan, anyway. But plans often go astray,
especially when you are totally nude, in your bedroom, cuffed to your bed, and
your roommate enters your apartment with a guest four freaking hours before you
expect her home.
    Holy fuck. Holy fucking fuck.
    For a second, I think my heart actually stopped. Then my brain
began to race with questions. Well, with the same question over and over: What to do? What to do? What to do? Deep down, I knew
that there was nothing to do. I was cuffed— naked and
cuffed. The chain ran through the curlicues of brass of my headboard. My heart
pounded so hard I was sure Sonia could hear the throb in the living room.
“What’s that drum beat?” she might be asking her friend. “Is someone playing Led
Zeppelin on eleven?”
    Maybe she had forgotten something. She and whomever she was
with would simply grab the missing item—jacket, or purse, or note cards, or
Wesson Oil, whatever the fuck they’d forgotten—and be on their way. But if that
was the case, then what was that sound? I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist
to recognize the echo of footsteps approaching down the hall, growing closer by
the second.
    Oh, God, why had I done this? Why hadn’t I been comfortable
enough with putting a single cuff on my wrist? Why had I needed to try something
different?
    Desperately I attempted to get free. I rattled the chain, to no
avail. Maybe the heat of my cheeks would melt the ice quicker than the expected
time. Nope. I bucked against the mattress.
    My mind exploded with dirty words.
    Sonia never knocked. Not ever. How could I not have locked the
door? Simple. This was my maybe not-so-bright backup plan. I had worried that