Better Knot

This is a true story - it happened to me just yesterday.

I decided to have a short session of self-bondage. I froze string near both ends into a small ice cube, and even melted down the ice cube to a smaller size by running it under the tap. I then attached the handcuff key to one end of the string, and tied the other end to a fixture above the stairwell of our house. My wife was at work, it was 1:00, and she wouldn't be home until 6pm at the earliest - probably later. With the size of the ice cube, I was expecting to be free in less than an hour. My wife definitely doesn't know I play these games from time to time.

I checked out the positioning of the key, making sure that when the ice melted the string would hang where my hands could reach it. And so I proceeded to tie myself standing against the metal railing at the corner of the stairs - there's a spot where my back can be right up against a vertical post, and there's a lower post to attach my legs to.

I started with a rather elaborate chest harness that I learned from Two Knotty Boys - over my shoulders, down between my legs, up my back, and then all across my torso. Then leather cuffs around my ankles, which I then tied together and to the corner of the railing with rope. I tied another rope around my legs above my knees - four loops, very tight - the rope wasn't long enough to cinch it tight, so I yanked on it harder to make sure that it would be tight enough. I then finished off the chest harness by tying the last of that rope around and around the vertical post of the railing, firmly attaching my chest to the post.

Then came the ball gag - it's one that I made out of an old 80s black skinny tie and a plastic golf ball with holes in it. I tied it tight, and then another loop of the tie over top of the ball to keep it in.

Again, I looked up at the key, which at this point was dripping periodically on my shoulder, and everything looked good to go. So I put on one of my wife's black satin opera gloves - I don't particularly think of it as cross-dressing, I just like the feel of it, and it protects my wrists slightly from the handcuffs - and then put on a handcuff around that wrist. click. click. click. and then one more... I realized after I did that last one that that was probably one click too far, but there was nothing I could do about that at this point. I could either continue or give up - so I continued as planned. It wasn't that tight, and besides, the ice will be melted pretty soon.

I checked over the other items and planned the order of the last few elements. Next was the other opera glove, followed by a scarf blindfold - folded into a band, tied tight over my eyes. Then I have a mesh bag that is just the right size to work as a hood. Pulled down over the blindfold and gag, it helps to hold them in place as well - I had actually never used the blindfold/gag/hood all together before, this was a first, and it felt both safe and secure.

And now, the point of no return. I stood with my hands behind my back for a minute, just feeling the position, thinking through the details of what I had done, that I was safely going to be able to get out. My left wrist was definitely feeling the snugness of the handcuff, but there was no danger of losing circulation or anything. If I could have released it and re-cuffed it at that point, I would have. But the key was 6 feet above my head, so no chance of that. And so, I reached behind the metal post for the handcuff, and placed it around my wrist - but before clicking it into place, I think again about if I've done everything I can to be methodical and safe about this. I think again about the left cuff's tightness, but there's nothing to be done, so I click the right cuff on, making sure to not go as far as the left cuff.

And so it's done, I am very securely bound, standing in the stairwell, basically naked except for the gloves and the hood and the rope harness that feels like clothing with 50 feet of thick white rope around me. Everything feels spectacularly good, actually (well, except the left cuff).

And I know there's really no way I can get out until the key falls. The drops are still falling on my shoulder, and I think about how slowly the drops are coming, and how many drops actually make up an ice cube. I'm glad I didn't leave the ice cube as big as it was, but at the same time I hope it doesn't fall in a matter of minutes, as I want to stay this way for a while.

Nothing much to tell you until the big moment, when the key drops. I listen intently to the horrifyingly long clatter of the key hitting the railing, then other thumps and clicks - the key has fallen, and I'm pretty damn sure it fell much further than it should have!!! I reach around with my arms to feel for the string hanging there and I feel nothing. I'm going over and over in my mind the sounds I just heard, and I'm pretty sure the key has fallen all the way down our stairwell - we live in a 3 level house, and I'm tied in between the 2nd and 3rd floors. I'm pretty sure that my only means of escape is now 1.5 floors below me, and there's absolutely no way I can get there!

I don't quite panic, but I immediately know that I'm going to be here a long time. And I'm going to have some explaining to do when my wife gets home. And she might not get home for hours and hours. Even if she calls, I won't be able to answer, and so she probably won't rush home and will stay working - my best guess is that she'll probably get home at 7:30 or so. I don't know what time it is now - probably about 2:00. I think of the stories I've read on this site where people get stuck, and unbelievably it has happened to me. I'm one of those people. And my mind is racing and I struggle trying to find the key. But I know it's not there. I heard it. But I'm not going to panic. I'm going to be alright, I'm just going to be stuck here for a long time. How long can I stay standing in this position? I'm worried about my left wrist, but so far it's no problem. I'm worried about how long will it be until I need to pee... Will I eventually have to give in and piss all over our carpeted stairs?

I reach around again and again, trying to see if the string is actually hanging there, but no. nothing. It confirms what my ears told me. I keep trying to remember exactly what the sounds were, and I'm not 100% sure that I heard the key land on wood (which would mean it's 1.5 floors below), or if it was just the sound of the key landing on carpet, which would mean it's somewhere on the stairs. Either way, I'm screwed, since it was supposed to be hanging behind me, easily within reach.

I turn my attention to trying to get out. First I start working on the ball gag, which is fairly easy to pop out of my mouth, but it takes me about 5 minutes of concerted effort to get it to drop down below my chin. Next I can reach fairly easily the ropes from the chest harness that go around and around the metal post, and I undo the knot and release that part of my bondage - my mind thinks both "I need to do a better job of that next time" and "there will never be a next time, idiot!"

Next I start to try to work my knees free - for once I'm glad that I didn't cinch off that rope around my knees, but it's still very tight and it seems like it's really not going anywhere. It's around now that I'm really breathing heavily and working up a bit of a sweat - part from exertion in my struggles, and part from the fact that I am freaking out. I am going to be stuck like this for a very very long time, and it just keeps sinking in further and further. How will I know how much time has passed? I think of stories on this site of people tied for long periods, having no sense of time passing - and so I start to count seconds out loud. It has a slight calming effect. All I need to do is focus on counting, and trying to get my knees free, and not worry about anything else. And I continue wiggling my knees, and the rope seems like it has moved down a bit, but not really much. And I can feel the burn of the rope against my skin, but at this point I don't care about rope burns, I just want to get out.

I try to rub my head against the post, to dislodge the bag on my head, but it just won't budge. Just keep counting. And I know it's pointless to worry about trying to get my knees free, since there's no way I'll get my ankles free, and there's no way I'll get this bag/blindfold off my head, and there's definitely no way I'll be able to get those handcuffs off. Even if somehow I manage to get everything else undone, the handcuffs are there to stay. But at least trying to get my knees free gives me something specific to focus on.

I'm trying not to freak out about my left wrist. If my wrist wasn't that tight, I probably would have been much less worried about my situation. I can barely turn my wrist at all in the cuff, and I explore trying to relieve the pressure on the spot it has been clamped around. And now that my chest isn't tied to the post, I reach around some more in search of the string, which I know isn't there, but if I'm going to be here for hours I may as well continue searching for any possible chance. And still I know that my ears heard what they heard. The key is not hanging behind me. Did the string break under the weight of the key? Or the weight of the key plus whatever ice was still attached to the string??

I'm still counting - as I get to 600 I realize that's only about 10 minutes. How many seconds in an hour? I count up to 1000 before I stop for a break. As I've been counting out loud, my lips are getting slightly chaffed from rubbing against the mesh bag. I'll count some more, but for now I'm taking a break.

Ok, ok, just remember I'm not going to die. So far my wrist is not a problem, my fingers don't feel numb at all. I think of people who die doing this and I think of how scary it must be to be tied inescapably and know that you're seriously in trouble. My current predicament is bad enough, but at least the gag is out of my mouth, there's nothing tied around my neck, and my wife will eventually let me out. I once tied myself in this exact position while my wife was out of town for a long weekend - I imagine how scary this would be if she wasn't expected home for days rather than hours.

And of course, I go over that conversation in my mind over and over - when she does get home, what should I say, how will she react? Will she be furious, will this come up in our divorce, will she give me a blow job?

I then figure that it might help to get the glove off my left arm - it's only a small amount of fabric, but maybe it will make the cuff seem less tight on my wrist. So I struggled for quite a while to yank the glove off despite the cuff being so tight.

Ahh, if only I had left my phone within reach! I can't really call out for help - the neighbours most likely won't hear that. I can't even bang on the walls for the neighbours to hear - I can't reach any wall to bang on!

Let me clarify - my wrists are locked behind the metal post, and just below where my wrists are attached, the same metal bar bends and slopes down the stairs. So I can't simply crouch down and undo my legs. Believe me, I tried. I can't reach the rope at my knees to try to get the rope to drop below my knees. What I can do is manoeuvre my arms a bit, which allows me to rotate my body around the post a bit. And I realize that I can turn to my right and slightly kneel down on the stairs - it makes the ropes around my legs much tighter, and definitely doesn't allow me to reach the rope. And it definitely is causing more strain on my left wrist, so I reach with my right hand to try to adjust the position of the cuff so it's not always digging into the same spot on my wrist.

And as my right hand closed down on the cuff to adjust the position, it managed to click the handcuff one click tighter!!! I cannot believe that just happened, and again I have moments of near panic, as I picture myself stuck here for hours, my left hand getting blue. I stand up again and assess situation that is worse rather than better. I cannot believe that just happened, I say out loud. I cannot believe that just happened. The cuff is definitely a lot tighter, and I can't move it at all from its position. How can that have happened?? The number one thing that I was worried about just got much worse.

I get back to wiggling my knees, trying to get the ropes to fall - they're almost touching my left kneecap now, but I really can't tell if it has moved very far at all. And then I started to sing, just to give my brain something to think about, rather than panicking. But before long I'm starting to get lightheaded. So then I go back to my kneeling position, just to explore what range of motion I have, to see if there's added benefits of being there. I can't reach any of the ropes, that is clear. But taking the weight off of my feet feels good. I'm going to need to know this if I'm going to be stuck here for the whole day. But while I'm semi-kneeling on the step, I realize that I can reach the steps with my head, and that's the trick to getting this bag off my head! And so I proceed with rubbing my head rather frantically against the carpeted stairs, and after several minutes of trying, the bag came off. Then the same trick allowed the blindfold to drop down around my neck. And so finally I could see my predicament.

I stand up again, and immediately look over my left shoulder to see if I can see the key. And there, five stairs below the landing I'm standing on, is the key!!! The string is draped over the railing, and the key is just down there! Even if I get my legs free, I don't know if I can reach the key, but I'm now hell-bent on getting my legs free. Now that I can see the ropes around my knees, I can see that I'm close to getting them to fall below my knees, but it still takes probably ten minutes of seriously struggling to finally get the ropes below my knees. But they didn't just fall to my ankles, they then were wrapped around my calves, so it still took more struggling to get the ropes down to my feet, and to lift my feet out of that loop of rope. Now I'm working frantically, as if racing the clock, as if I need to get out this very second or my chance of freedom will be lost. I kneel down again, and if I lift up my legs I can almost reach the strap of the ankle cuff. I try again and again, and finally my hand grabs the strap, and with some difficulty (and definitely some damage to the skin of my left wrist) I manage to release my right ankle cuff!

I scramble to free my feet of the various tangled ropes. I do more damage to my left wrist so that I can undo the knot tying my ankle cuffs to the railing. And incredibly, my legs are free! And now the moment of truth. I reach down with my right leg, and I can reach it! I can reach the string that is so perfectly hanging on the railing! If the string had fallen to where the key had fallen, I couldn't possibly have reached it. The key itself was definitely not within reach. But I was able to loop the string around my toes, get a firm hold (believe me, I understood how careful I had to be at this point), and I was overjoyed to be pulling the key up the stairs to me. It was complicated to get the key up to my hand (again being careful that it didn't fall down behind me 1.5 floors!), but soon I was released!

-----

As I ran up the stairs, the first thing I wanted to know was the time. It was 3:45, so I'd been tied like that for about 2.5 hrs. But probably 1.5 hours of it spent thinking I was going to be stuck until I was discovered. Next I checked my wrists, which were both rather badly marked (the marks were gone by the evening, though the skin is very raw on my left wrist). In all, a spectacularly great sense of relief came across me, of course. I had escaped when I thought I was absolutely stuck. It was a unique thrill, of course, to be unintentionally stuck like that. It was even more of a thrill to escape.

I checked out the string, and it hadn't broken. I assume it was just me tying a lousy knot to attach it to the fixture above me - it was a simple double knot, but I don't see any other explanation. I'd never used that string before - kitchen string like the butchers use - and I won't again.

In the end, my wife didn't even phone me until almost 7pm and that was because I had called her. She didn't get home until 9:50pm! I could have been stuck there for 8.5 hrs!

As for will I do self bondage again... part of me thinks it will probably be a while... but part of me wants to do the exact same position again today, just to re-live the excitement of yesterday. Just to re-visit what it felt like, to re-enact the same position. But this time, different string, and a better knot.

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05.03.14