Kuroki-san's Slave

Chapter 2

On the elevator, Mistress Yuriko stared straight ahead, not turning to even acknowledge us. It was like she was in another world; her attention wholly facing inside her. There was a shield of calm around her. As we descended, people got on and off the elevator but one look at her face and no one said a word, no matter how boisterous they’d been before the elevator arrived. When the elevator finally stopped on the main floor, everyone stood back to allow her to exit first. She strode through the lobby, the crowd parting like the Red Sea to allow her past. We were right behind her. We followed her down a long hallway to the backstage of the hotel theater.

She walked onto the stage and looked around. Ropes hung from the ceiling and there was a microphone on a stand, but other than that, the entire stage was bare. Master Leonard, the president of this leather club and the host for the weekend, walked up to her. They shook hands and talked for a moment. She turned back to us.

“There are chairs backstage,” she said pointing to stage left. “Bring them on stage, over to the side, and sit and wait.”

We hurried to get the chairs and place them just inside the curtain line. Another oriental-looking man in yoga pants and a bare chest came onstage and bowed to her. He was thin, but quite muscular. She patted him on the shoulder and said something that made him smile. The younger man, Daisuke, was also there. He, too, had stripped his shirt off and was in yoga pants.

Mistress Yuriko went backstage.

We sat and watched as the audience filled up.

“I’m getting nervous,” Lace whispered.

“Why?” I asked. “You don’t have to do anything except what Mistress Yuriko tells you to do.”

“I know. But I don’t want to make her look bad.”

“Have you really looked at her?” Tex asked in a whisper. “I don’t think anyone can make her look bad.”

“She’s astonishing,” I added. “This will be the highlight of the weekend.”

“I hope so.”

The crowd was getting thicker and louder. I was glad I didn’t have to talk with them.

I saw Mistress Flair and Tracie walk in and find seats over to the side. I smiled at Tracie who whispered something to Mistress Flair. They both looked up and Mistress Flair nodded to me. Tracie waved.

Then the lights began to lower and Master Leonard walked out on stage as the crowd quieted down.

“Good evening,” he began, “I want to welcome you to what I know will be the highlight of the weekend. We have with us one of the foremost authorities on Japanese bondage in this country. We are very fortunate that she had this weekend free because I understand she’s being sought after to demonstrate and teach this beautiful skill all over the world. I think you’ll find a new appreciation and love for this ancient art. Ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome Mistress Yuriko Kuroki.”

He stepped back as Yuriko walked out onstage. She was still in the green kimono with her hair held up by the jeweled hair pins. The crowd broke into loud applause. Mistress Yuriko bowed to the audience with her palms together and waited humbly until they quieted down.

She took the microphone from its stand. “Japanese bondage started many centuries ago as a way to keep captives from escaping until they could be brought back to wherever they were going to be imprisoned. The Shogun developed ways to bind their captives without harming them either physically or mentally.

“Japanese bondage is not just tying someone up. It is an art form of Shibari which can be translated as Decorative Tying. The ways and styles varied from Shogun to Shogun and part of the art was in keeping the way you did something secret from not only the enemy, but also from your brother…or sister Shogun. You never told how you tied your knots or wound your rope.”

She looked around at the audience. “I see surprised faces. Yes, there were female warriors although they weren’t as publicized as the men, but that is understandable, isn’t it? We were the Onna-bugeisha, and were as fierce as our male counterparts, but that’s another whole lecture.” She smiled. “Tonight, I will show you the basics of Shibari, the tying of ropes.” She stepped to the side as she took a deep breath.

“After a time, Shibari morphed into Kinbaku-bi. Kinbaku-bi translates roughly to ‘the beauty of tight binding’ and as you’ll see, some of it can be extraordinary.

“Eventually this bondage…and the torture that could be done with it…became a staple in the b**m community.”

Daisuke walked out onto the stage and waited while she untied her waist band, then he helped her remove the kimono. Beneath it, she wore a tight black leather outfit that showed every curve of her dazzling body. A red and white dragon curved up her left leg to her waist. There were gasps and murmurs through the audience.

“Now, the first thing you think of is binding the wrists or ankles, and if all you want to do is keep your prisoner from moving around, that might work. Or, you’d tie him or her to a chair, or other immovable object, and that might work, too. If your prisoner can stand up, they can always hop somewhere or slide themselves across the floor. Tying just one part of the body still leaves other parts available. But…what about tying her to something else?” She looked out into her audience. Not one eye was looking elsewhere. “You’ve seen magicians like the great Houdini escape from ropes and handcuffs, even from chains, while they’re suspended hundreds of feet in the air. Some even escape from straitjackets, but I challenge anyone to escape from Kinbaku-bi, right here on the floor. It is not possible.” There was murmuring around the room.

“We’ll start with simple bondage. Lace? Bring your chair over with you.”

Lace got up, took her robe off, and carried her chair to the center of the stage. Yuriko whispered something to her and she turned it an eighth of the ways around so the audience could see two sides. “Slide forward to the edge of the chair,” she instructed Lace.

She stepped up beside Lace. “Now lean down and grasp your ankles.” She stepped back and Daisuke brought her a hank of rope. She took it and handed the microphone to him. He held it to catch her words as she started to work.

In just a few movements, Yuriko had wound the rope under Lace’s thighs and over her back, several times. The rope was taut and lined up neatly row after row. She wove the rope through the bindings and tied the ends into an intricate knot.

“Now, as you can see, her hands and feet are still unshackled.” She strode around the chair. “Can you get up?” she asked Lace. Lace tried to move everything. She could move her arms but couldn’t push herself up from the chair.

“I can’t move.”

The audience applauded.

“See? Something as simple as this can completely disable your captive. Now, if you want to incapacitate your prisoner more fully, then you tie their hands.”

She reached down, pulled Lace’s hands behind her waist, and wound a rope around her wrists.

“Now, your captive is helpless. But! What if you wanted to add torture?” She unwound the rope from her wrists, then brought Lace’s arms out to the side and back and wrapped the rope around her arms several times. The ropes went the length of her arms to her wrists, then crossed and were tied into intricate knots, several times. Yuriko held her end of the rope up for the audience to see.

“If this were your enemy, this could easily dislocate the shoulders with a quick yank forward.”

She moved as if to do that but stopped. She smiled. “This is not my enemy, just my captive.”

There was snickering from the audience. I could see Lace let out a sigh of relief.

Yuriko turned to us and beckoned to Tex. Tex took her robe off and walked forward.

“There are many things that can be bound together,” Yuriko continued. Daisuke placed the microphone back on the mic stand and moved it closer to her, then he started to unwind Lace’s body while Yuriko continued her narrative.

“Now, you’ve seen cow hands rope a steer and tie its legs together to hobble it. But consider this.”

She asked Tex to lie on her stomach on the floor.

“Can you reach back and grab your knee?”

Tex did. And in a few moves, Yuriko had her forearm wrapped to her calf; her hand on her knee, her foot at her elbow. Yuriko did that on the other side, then bound both sides together.

“Now she might be able to rock back and forth but I doubt she’d get very far and if she fell over onto her side, there’d be no way to right herself.” She pushed Tex over. Tex looked like she was struggling but wasn’t moving anywhere. The audience clapped and moaned.

Yuriko demonstrated other bindings, first with Lace and then again with Tex. It was a delicate pattern of ropes and knots, tying one part of the body to another. The crowd cheered as the tall man lifted them, still fully bound and carried them off stage, one by one.

“And now, I’ll show you another side of Kinbaku-bi.”

She beckoned to me. I stood, left my robe on the chair and walked to center stage.

Yuriko explained my bindings and turned me around several times so it all could be seen.

“We also use bamboo in Kinbaku-bi.” Daisuke walked onstage and handed her a five-foot pole of bamboo about one inch in diameter. Yuriko explained that because of its strength, resilience, and beauty, bamboo was the perfect addition to binding. “It will not break, like a similar sized piece of regular wood, and it is a lot lighter.” She held it up.

Yuriko placed the rod behind my shoulders. “Hold on to this with both hands,” she told me softly.

I stretched my arms out to the sides and grasped the bamboo. Yuriko made five slipknots into the rope and placed them over one of my arms. In a few moves, the knots were lined up my arm and she had pulled each tight, binding my arm securely to the bamboo. She went to the other side and did the same to that arm.

She turned me around with my back to the audience. She slipped the ends of the ropes under the ones around my shoulders, and then I felt her tying something behind my back. She stepped to the side and told me to turn around.

“Do any of the ropes feel loose?” she asked me loudly. I tried to bend my elbows, but couldn’t, and I shook my head. She stepped in back of me and I heard the sounds of the metal wheels of a pulley above my head turning. She was doing something with the ropes behind my shoulders.

“Takeo?” I heard her call and the tall, bare-chested man walked on stage. He reached for a rope that was hanging from the ceiling and I felt myself being lifted up. My waist was just above Mistress Yuriko’s head. She bent my right knee up and started wrapping the rope around it to bind my calf to my thigh.

“Do you feel any stretching in your knee?” she asked me.

“No, Ma’am,” I replied and then I felt my leg being pulled to the side. I had to turn my hips to the right to get my leg that high. It was tied to the end of the bamboo pole near my wrist.

Daisuke brought her a shorter bamboo pole and she wound it onto my left leg. It was tied to the other end of the long pole.

“Are you all right?” Yuriko whispered to me.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered.

“Look to the right,” she said. She smiled and turned to the audience. She held her hand out to me. “This pose is Chōyaku no shika: Leaping Deer. The beauty of Kinbaku-bi.” She spun me slowly around so the audience could see me from all sides. They went wild.

When they had quieted down, she said, “From there, however, we can take it in several different directions depending on your own fetishes and desires.”

“You can easily turn it into torture,” she said. She and Takeo tied ropes from the ceiling to each end of the long pole and adjusted other ropes. She stepped back. Takeo adjusted the rope tied to my back and I felt myself being flipped upside down.

She slowly spun me around. “As you can see, there are several places that have been left vulnerable. The breasts have been elongated and the n*****s are bare.” She brushed them gently, and then pinched them. The audience chuckled when my face showed surprise.

“The ass is accessible.” She turned me and gave me a hard slap on my rear. “In fact, the whole genital area is open and available. And gentlemen, you might find this rather interesting.” She turned me toward her, put her hands on my head and pulled me forward and back, my mouth level with her crotch. There was laughter and applause around the room.

“And there you have one example of the beauty, the pleasure, and the torture of Kinbaku-bi.” She bowed to the audience and then sent me spinning around and around.

I heard her say to the audience, “Are there any questions?”

I’m not sure what happened next but I felt the men around me as I was turned right-side up again. The ropes holding my legs apart were untied and I was lowered until I was standing on my own two feet. My arms were still tied to the bamboo which hadn’t been untied from the ceiling ropes. It was probably the only thing keeping me upright. The spinning had left me a little unstable.

Yuriko was in front of me. “How are you feeling, Micheleen?” she asked.

“A little dizzy but I’m fine. That was an incredible experience.”

“Good.” She patted my cheek. “Stay like that until the dizziness goes away.” Then she called. “Daisuke? Get her some water.”

Takeo stepped up to me. “You did extremely well,” he said softly.

I thanked him.

“She hasn’t done the entire demonstration in quite a while.”

Daisuke brought a bottle of water and held it to my mouth as I gulped from it.

Yuriko brought several people over to explain the ties and let them inspect them.

“Are you steady now?” Yuriko finally asked me as that group walked away. I nodded. “The rod can be released,” she announced and Daisuke and Takeo proceeded to untie me. Daisuke brought the robe and held it while I slipped it on. They started to roll the hanks of rope and get the rope and pulleys released from the ceiling.

“Wow. That looked incredible.” I turned around to see Lace and Tex standing there. They had robes on.

“How are you feeling?” I asked them.

“I’m great but I’m glad she chose you to do the suspension and not me,” Tex said, rolling her eyes.

“It was an experience,” I said. “I almost liked it.”

“Almost?” I looked over. Yuriko was standing there.

I smiled. “Yes. If I hadn’t gotten dizzy, I would have loved it.”

All three laughed with me.

“Thank you all. You were excellent.”

We thanked her in return.

“Good. Now, come on up to my room and get your clothes.”

Daisuke brought her the kimono and she slid into it and wound the sash around her waist. She turned and walked off the stage. We followed her.

Walking through the hotel lobby was hectic. Several people stopped her to tell her how much they had enjoyed the demonstration. A few came up to us to gush about our bondage. When we finally got onto the elevator, we were all silent, although other passengers were talking happily and everyone commented about the demonstration.

When we got to her suite, she undid the knots holding the ropes around my body, then simply said, “I’ll be right back.” She walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Lace picked up her clothes and started to put them on. Tex and I did, too. A few minutes later, Yuriko came out of the bedroom. She’d changed into a yoga-like outfit.

Yuriko said, “Thank you for helping me tonight.” She reached forward and gave each of us a hug.

“Thank you,” said Tex.

“Thank you for the opportunity,” Lace said.

“Yes, thank you so very much,” I added.

We smiled and left. Yes, being involved in a demonstration was much more informative than just watching, and it had felt wonderful.