Page 112 of The Menagerie
“You wanna do any more?” Mal asks Rowan as Camilla continues her walk around the room.
“Nah, I think I’m good. I’m sure some of these are gonna be different in an actual rig.”
“Yeah. Free tying is good to get the basics down, but when you’ve got someone underneath it, everything changes.” For a beat, Mal meets his eyes before his gaze shifts to the coils of rope still on the table. “Ah, fuck.”
“What?”
“Forgot to bring my rope for you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Next week’s fine. Probably wouldn’t want to do any tying for a bit anyway till I can practice more.”
Mal nods and pulls out his phone, probably to set a reminder for himself.
Back at the front, Camilla clicks over to a new slide showing a chest harness on a female model in four varying patterns. “We’ll be doing a chest harness today,” she says. “It may seem a little advanced, but it comes together fairly easily and incorporates the ties you’ve just practiced. I’ll give some modifications along the way for anyone not as flexible or comfortable with the position.”
Rowan’s mouth waters at the thought of getting Mal into the harness.
Camilla turns Rory around, guiding his arms into position. “The person being tied should fold their arms behind their back and hold their forearms, with the wrists turned inward. This will avoid the major nerves and veins in the wrist. If you’re not quite there yet, you can simply clasp your hands together.”
Next to him, Rowan sees Mal effortlessly clasp his forearms, wrists already turned inward. He’s so transfixed by the sharp cut of his shoulder blades and the swell of his triceps that he misses the first step of the harness entirely.
“Cold feet, Campbell?” Mal asks, turning back with a grin that nearly knocks Rowan on his ass.
“You know I run hot, Savaryn,” he replies, not nearly as slick in his mind as the words suggest.
But it earns him another dazzling grin and atchbefore Mal’s once again turning his back to him. Trusting.
Rowan draws the folded rope over Mal’s arms, the deep red color a pleasing pop against his skin, and coils it around twice more, forming six neat strands. A quick bowline knot tightens the strands around his arms and leaves the bight exposed to allow for quick release if necessary.
“Draw the tail over the left deltoid, just below the shoulder,” Camilla instructs. “Be careful to avoid the dip in the arm between the deltoid and the bicep—there are several nerves below that we want to avoid. Now draw the rope around the chest, above the breastbone.”
The rope curves around Mal’s bare arm and cinches the fabric of his black tank top above his pecs. Rowan’s drawn in by the wrinkles in the fabric, but wishes they could do this with him shirtless. Someday, he reminds himself.
With the rope wrapping around Mal’s other shoulder, Camilla announces, “Have your partner periodically squeeze your fingers to ensure they haven’t lost sensation or strength in their arms.”
Dutifully, Rowan slips two of his fingers into Mal’s relaxed hand, feeling him squeeze tightly and hoping that Mal can’t feel the hammering of his pulse in his fingertips.
“Good?”
“Mmm.”
Step by step, Rowan draws the rope across Mal’s body exactly where and how Camilla instructs. But the pattern emerges in Rowan’s head even before Camilla’s words reach his ears. Over, under, pull, tighten, tie. He has to take a second to flip over the pamphlet to double-check how to do the first X-friction, but Mal’s talking before Rowan even gets to the correct page.
“Pull the tail through the center line.”
Rowan drops the pamphlet in favor of listening to Mal.
“Under?”
“Yeah. Pull it up to my right shoulder… farther… good. Now pull it under all the strands and down toward my right elbow.”
“The center line’s not straight,” Rowan notes.
Mal rolls his shoulders slightly, creating a tiny bit of slack for Rowan to tug the knot closer to the center.
“Thanks. Now up to the left shoulder, right?”
“Yep, then—”
