The Rope Corset by Angela Matlin

Morning comes and I awaken, reveling in last night's memory, breathing deeply; inhaling deeply, blowing out a breath that, if visible, would reach the ceiling, dispersed by the slowly-tuning fan until whatever poisons lie within me are diluted to intoxicity and inconsequence. What a luxury it seems!

Last night when we were done you removed the rope corset and I could breathe again, dragging air into my lungs to make up for the many moments of constriction, the pain long past but the memory present, current, still with me, now. It had not been painful, particularly, the corset; strand after strand united into a single band, holding without cutting.

"I can still breathe," I sniped dryly as you finished tightening the ropes. So you added two more spines and I held my tongue.

My heart raced but anxiety was absent. Rationally I knew how different this would be, how much I depended upon controlled breathing to enjoy or even survive our games. My brain knew but my body was blissful in its ignorance. The long warm-up should have tipped me off, the way you prepared me so carefully, the way you delayed what you knew would be difficult.

That first and every subsequent swat rang me like a bell. Unable to gasp, to pant, to channel the pain, to absorb it or disperse it or block it, I could do nothing but have it fill me, fill me to bursting, unable to explode, powerless to escape. It went on and on and on too long, it was too much, it was more than I could bear.

***

I roll onto my knees, giggling. If you were here you would spank me and I would like that. You would see everything and I would like that, too. No one else sees, has ever seen, the sides of me I let you see, that you seek to see. Yet that which I must keep hidden from the world you see without shock, or criticism, or comment, not even for my own good, not to demand that I be shunned nor to suggest that I hide these things to keep from being shunned. You see me, me as I am, me just being me, and pronounce it good.

A plume rises, is dispersed, inconsequential. Harmless, unthreatening.

All my life I have worn this corset, strand after strand uniting into a single constricting band. I let it support me, let it hide me, let it contain me within myself until I would want to explode, until it was more than I could bear. It went on and on and on too long. When I spoke of it they just added another spine or two - did you know they're called "stays?" Stay good, stay safe, stay quiet. Stay inside, all you thoughts that can't be thought, all you desires that can't be desired, all you ways that can't be my ways, can't be anybody's ways. Stay inside.

Another plume rises.

Last night you took off the corset.

This is a nice imaginative story of a girl's affinity to her rope corset and how it is integral to the relationship with her lover.  Very lyrical and dreamy in places about herself and how much she is prepared to expose to the world. Very nice.

Wow!  This story transcended the spanking genre into literature.  It was extremely well-written, thoughtful, thought-provoking and entrancing.  I haven't read a spanking story this well done in years and years.  Excellent work.

Not sure if this is an Edge story, but it's very good.  The liberation we feel at doing what we need for our own emotional fulfillment is expressed eloquently.  Getting what we need and realizing that society had held us restrained our whole lives, convincing us that we need to fit in, to be "normal".  Being free of that is a wonderful feeling, and it definitely comes through in this story.

I think this would have fitted equally well into the object fetish category, but of course it's more than that. What's especially good here is the layering, which gives the piece significant depth: on the larger scale, the central metaphor works wonderfully; on a smaller scale, the double meaning of 'stay' is clever and apt. I might quibble here and there that the writing gets a little too elaborate for its own good ('My heart raced but anxiety was absent'); I think there's something to be said for the power of simple prose. Also, one or two more specific details of the characters' lives would have made things even richer. The writing is very good, but character is so often revealed by the specific, even the apparently inconsequential, which suggests the realities of life.