Best Bondage Erotica 2014

Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Foreword copyright © 2013 by Laura Antoniou.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Cleis Press, Inc.,

2246 Sixth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.

Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink

Cover photograph: Celesta Danger

Text design: Frank Wiedemann

First Edition.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-025-4

CONTENTS

Foreword: No Bondage Please, I'm Kinky
• L
AURA
A
NTONIOU

Introduction: Cruel to Be Kind, and Vice Versa

Rope Dancer
• K
ATHLEEN
T
UDOR

Behind the Door
• K
AY
J
AYBEE

My Own Device
• R
AZIEL
M
OORE

The Neckcloth
• A
NNABEL
J
OSEPH

Anyway
• S
OMMER
M
ARSDEN

Eel
• A
NNABETH
L
EONG

No Strings Attached
• J
AMES
M
C
A
RTHUR

Roping the Cowboy
• T
ERESA
N
OELLE
R
OBERTS

Meeting
• L. C. S
POERING

The Snake
• J
ACQUELINE
B
ROCKER

Clipped
• L
UCY
F
ELTHOUSE

Tart Cherry
• K
ATHLEEN
D
ELANEY
-A
DAMS

Ring of Fire
• M
ICHELLE
A
UGELLO
-P
AGE

Belted In
• R
OXANNA
C
ROSS

Pegged
• E
MILY
B
INGHAM

Tight-Rope Walker
• T
ILLY
H
UNTER

An Appreciation for Beautiful Things
• G
ISELLE
R
ENARDE

Mind Fuck
• K
ISSA
S
TARLING

Wearing Purple
• E
LIZABETH
C
OLDWELL

Dual Mastery
• R
ACHEL
K
RAMER
B
USSEL

About the Authors

About the Editor

FOREWORD: NO BONDAGE PLEASE, I'M KINKY

Here's a secret.

It's a big one, so please, please, don't go telling anyone, but just between you and me and this thing you're holding—printed pages or backlit device—if we could just keep this hush-hush...

I'm not that into bondage.

No, wait, wait, come back, don't just turn the page in annoyance! I know what you're thinking. “What the hell, Laura? This is a book of bondage stories and you want to tell me why it's not hot? I already think it's hot, that's why I got the book!”

You think I'm insulting your taste. I get it. But really—stick with me a moment.

Bondage is the most basic building block of kinky sex, isn't it? Ask any random (consenting adult) person on the street what kinky sex is, and they'll conjure up images of someone tied to a bed, maybe blindfolded, while someone else waves a riding crop around or intones dire threats concerning recent naughty behavior. It's the very definition of Kink, the
B
in BDSM, the
edgy sex act most likely to wind up illustrating an article on spicing up your sex life.

But it's much more than that. The sensuous feel of soft fabric as it winds along your forearm, the sturdy security of a stiff leather band buckled around an ankle, the icy rigidity of steel around your throat. These aren't just tools, toys or tokens.

These are signifiers.

Just look at the array of constricting tales before you—from hesitant experimentation to the long-plotted capture of an erotic trophy. Sinuous rope-play contrasts with a struggle between the human body and...a really tight jacket.

No, not that kind. But my point is, the bondage isn't just a method, it isn't just a kink—it is a definer of power, time and space, teasing ecstasy and agony. Here you have taunting, withholding tops, dominant and sneering in their superior position of freedom. But over there is the careful artist weaving a performance of pleasure, an act of worship or service cleverly disguised as control. The privacy of a bedroom or the empty, echoing hallways of a workplace are backdrops to a theater of captivity and torment or romance with a side order of discipline.

And yet, I tell you, I am not that into it. It's a shameful secret, really. Because it's so basic, so vital, so important, people travel all over the world to learn the secrets of bondage, whether they look to the Western cowboy styles or the Far East for Japanese techniques. They spend hours designing and testing restraints for the most wily escape artist and the most delicate of carpal-tunnel-endangered wrists. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat down your door? Build a better chastity device and they'll come charging with credit cards in hand.

But you see, amid all my kinks, the supreme one for me is that of authority and obedience. So in my twisted, delightful fantasies, telling someone to hold still is all the bondage one
should need. Or, as I like to joke, I use bondage just to make sure they won't run away when I hit them. Or worse. Cue rim shot!

And yet, I was delighted to read this collection—and many, many other stories containing physical bondage. And not just because I am a person of many tastes in reading.

You see, even though you won't find high-tech bondage equipment in my closet (no room) or a manual on how to tie some knot I can't pronounce on my shelves, I do love—and value—one vital aspect of restraint. And that's the freedom it entails.

Yes, freedom. The freedom to let everything
go
and just know there is no way to escape the dastardly plans of the villainous noble/spy/kidnapper/inquisitor/masked intruder. The freedom to stand apart from my loves and whisper from behind them, and keep them in suspense until I am good and ready. The sheer luxury of relaxing into the velvet padding or straining against the suede straps and allowing the pure emotions and drives to come out to play.

This is why so many of the stories have a fantasy flavor to them, whether acknowledged or not. Sure, some of the characters will break out of their hot bondage-fueled beatings and sex, kiss and shower and head back to mundane lives and you will read exactly that. But in others, the question hovers...was this real? Or a pure fantasy? Would someone really want that, do that? Did they? Ever? Really?

Should you?

And in between all the careful, loving partners checking in with each other, issuing safewords and kisses of reassurance, there are the harder edges that dance on precipices like coercion and humiliation, threats of abandonment or debauchery and maybe those stories sound less real, and yet...

They are made possible because of the bondage. Because...
what could you do? What could anyone do, if he or she were helplessly tied up, secured to that infernal device?

That's the freedom bondage offers. And you will find it here. Freedom to enjoy the romance of longtime lovers familiar with their drives and desires, or newfound playmates negotiating surrender and force in a dance of seduction. In privacy or with an audience, even virtual bondage gets a turn in this something-for-everyone tasting menu of all things constricting.

So, don't pity me, because I only know two knots and one of them laces my sneakers and the other arranges my necktie. Just enjoy the delicious freedom of restraint offered in this book and indulge yourself in some vicarious pleasure, as I did.

What you do next is entirely up to you. Unless someone ties you down first.

Laura Antoniou

INTRODUCTION: CRUEL TO BE KIND, AND VICE VERSA

One of the joys of editing erotic anthologies is marveling at the diversity of the authors' imaginations. While this is my fourth year editing the
Best Bondage Erotica
series, it's always a surprise to me when I start reading stories and seeing just how many ways someone can be tied up, strung up or otherwise restrained.

What you'll read in
Best Bondage Erotica 2014
isn't a how-to manual, but rather a taste of twenty hot bondage tales that don't skimp on the sadism, masochism or sexiness of the encounters. These writers show and tell exactly what it means to wield the special power of being in charge of someone else. In “Pegged,” Emily Bingham writes, “It's his turn to be small and defenseless for an evening. I want to be so kind to him that it becomes cruel.” Sometimes pop culture portrays kinksters and bondage fans as all cruel, without a shred of kindness. The dirty little secret is that these characters are, in fact, both; they manipulate rope, handcuffs, leather straps, a St. Andrew's cross, a chair, and, in Raziel Moore's “My Own Device,” a special contraption
crafted just for bondage, with the ultimate aim of pleasing their partners—when they're done having their fun, teasing them, hurting them, screwing them and generally making them writhe, squirm and indulge in the delight of helplessness.

I'm delighted to present this latest edition of
Best Bondage Erotica
, which I hope will delight those who know exactly what it feels like to be at someone else's mercy (or have someone else at your mercy) as well as those who simply want to picture the joys of being bound in vivid, elaborate, beautiful, cruel and kind detail.

Rachel Kramer Bussel

New York City

ROPE DANCER