On one of my visits to Robbie’s this summer, we built a sex swing. Robbie is good with his hands. He took a piece of cargo netting and tied it to two beams that just happen to be lodged in the ceiling of his living room.

The cargo net was about five feet wide and seven feet long, and he suspended it from each corner by a piece of bright yellow nylon rope. I watched while Robbie lined up the ropes, looped and tied them, adjusted the height of the netting. Then he got into the swing and tested the strength of the contraption. He raised his legs in the air, against the ropes, and held his hands up, as if he were restrained hand and foot. He had the meditative, speculative, thoughtful look he gets on his face when doing anything with rope and a submissive woman.

“Okay,” he said, when he was satisfied with the swing’s setup. “Come on.” He unbuckled his shorts and pulled out his cock, motioning for me to get on hands and knees and get to work with my mouth.

After several seconds he stopped me. “Get in the swing,” he said. “Hurry up, get goin’.”

I pulled off my clothes and climbed in. I put my arms and legs up, just like he had done, arranging them as if they were cuffed and clipped to the chain we planned to substitute for the rope, eventually. The swing was amazingly comfortable—I was thrilled.

Then I watched as Robbie dropped his shorts and started to nose his fat-headed cock around my pussy.

“Wait!” I squealed in protest. “I’m not ready!” I thought back to the notable absence of foreplay–from my perspective. Any arousal I felt was a result of watching Robbie throw, drop, tie, and knot ropes—which, I admit, has a powerful effect on me.

“Not ready!” he said, but his eyes were kind and loving. “You silly goose. Is anyone fucking you? Is anyone’s cock in your cunt?”

“No . . . “ I acknowledged, as he continued to swirl his dick around my vulva in luscious circles.

“Sopping wet and she says she’s not ready,” he said, and shook his head in mock exasperation.

And as I calmed down and my muscles relaxed, welcoming him, he eased into me naturally.

“Not ready,” he grunted, as he pushed in and began to thrust. “I’ll tell you when you are ready.”

This is what I love about BDSM—the game of it. Robbie can tell me when I am ready, because he knows me better than any lover has—knows when I am hurting, aroused, scared, tender . . . he reads my body like a book, and I his. Even when his words say, “I don’t care about you one bit, you are unimportant,” his body tells me the opposite—that I am his most precious thing, that I am cherished. And the contrast fills me with a kind of awe.

Alyssa Bound, by Lochai.