Bondage in a story, need advice

[wistan]

I'm writing a story in which a woman is holding a man prisoner in her house, and I want her to confine him whilst she leaves the house for a long period - 12 to 15 hours is what I have in mind, though that's flexible.

I have been mulling over having her put him into some sort of bondage, but this is an area I don't know a lot about. I've only depicted it once in a story, and got an email pointing out that as described, the guy would probably have died within a few minutes!

I gather that in real life it's very inadvisable to put somebody in bondage and leave them unsupervised. In the story the woman isn't particularly bothered about the man's health as such (it's a very non-consensual situation with a very sadistic woman), but she also wouldn't want to get back and find a dead body on her hands, given her long term plans for doing various nasty things to the guy.

So my questions are

How practical is this scenario? Is there some way of tying people up so that it is safe to leave them alone for extended periods? As much detail as possible of safe equipment and methods, if they exist, would be appreciated.

Can this be done in such a way that the man is in physical discomfort, but not danger?

If this is just an impossible scenario I could simply have her imprison the guy in a room or something, but that lacks a certain appeal!

Grateful in advance for any advice those experienced in this sort of thing can offer...

[maddie]

Well, based on what little I know, you wouldn't want to leave a person standing with their arms stretched out to their side for an extended period of time, as that would mess with their blood flow. And you certainly don't want to leave a person gagged while unattended.

I think your best bet is having him stretched out on a bed and tied down to that somehow. I read a delightful story not long ago about a man who asks a female friend to show him what she's into and she has him lie down, doesn't tie him down, and then tells him to get comfortable. When she's sure he's comfortable, she tells him not to move. There's a fair amount of psychological stuff to the story, but the longer he lies on the bed, the more uncomfortable it becomes.

So yeah. I think even a sadistic person could inflict a fair amount of discomfort on someone who starts out in a relatively comfortable position and leaves them there for hours and hours. You could even make that part of that woman's sadistic streak -- he's comfortable at first, but not so much after several hours in one position.

[wistan]

I was thinking of the bed thing actually - believe it or not, I was flashing back to the movie Terminator 2, where they tie Sarah Connor down to the bed in the hospital with some sort of padded restraints. Maybe something like that could work.

You don't remember the name of that story by any chance? It sounds interesting.

[maddie]

It's called "Moving" and the author is listed as M. Christian. I found it in an anthology called "Best Bondage Erotica", edited by Alison Tyler.

[Timberwolf]

How about a straight jacket? Takes care of the arms anyway. I don't know much about exactly how long they are really used for but I gather they are designed for longer term use.

Straight jacket, plus cuffed at the ankle(s) to the bed, or wherever? I might not mind that myself some time.

[wistan]

Ooo, nice idea. Those are certainly used for long term confinement, and overnight too IIRC so no apparent problems with leaving people unsupervised. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Ozme52]

...not to mention cages, including steamer trunks. Remember "The Gimp" from Pulp Fiction?

If your lady had some bucks, she can mortar up the basement windows and put a steel door (and frame) at the top of the stairs... can even hide it behind a faux basement door...

[pttwyn]

I'm not into writing about males in any of my stories, but....
How about this, using some sort of a locking steel ring that she can secure tightly around his scrotum above his testes. It would have a chain long enough he could use the toilet and she wouldn't have to worry about cleaning up a mess when she got home. Take my word for it, no man would be able to pull away from that. The best types of bondage are the simple ones. Now that I've said it, it even scares me

[gagged_Louise]

One image I've felt to be intriguing since I was a kid - I don't think I'd seen it in this form, it just entered my mind, so it's an early bdsm fantasy - could be used in a countryside setting:

The captive/slave is brought to a house with a water mill, and a powerful upright wheel (of at least six-seven feet radius), the classic kind that's got a brook running down over it and into a millpond. He/she gets hands tied at the back, is gagged, knees and feet are bound and then the feet are secured by a strong chain to one of the "shelves" of the water wheel, so hanging bolt upside down from this shelf and trailed along as the wheel is moving round and round, constantly with the head downwards and dunked into the water once for each turn of the wheel. Wonderful!

Of course, this presupposes first, that the water can be led off and the wheel stayed long enough to fasten the slave to it, and second, that this slave has some sort of protection for his/her head. And you couldn't remotely do it for more than an hour, not even in a story where it's OK to stretch the physical limits a bit. Of course the wheel doesn't go so deep into the pond that the victim would get under for half the time or more in every lap, let's say it goes two feet deep, that's just enough.

[Deepsepia]

Practical? The great thing about writing is that "practical" considerations go out the window. . . no, its not safe to leave tied people alone. You can check the various regulations about mental patients-- people in restraint have to be supervised, continuously.

But that shouldn't stop you. Gagged_Louise' post (just above this) has that lovely image of the waterwheel dunking. Its not at all practical (and is reminiscent of the not-so-lyrical practice of "waterboarding") but its a wonderful idea.

So put your wonderful ideas in writing, and don't worry that they wouldn't work in reality. Lots of fiction wouldn't. . .

[gagged_Louise]

I'm not bothered a bit by the practical bickering with this watermill fantasy, sure it has real poetic force to anyone who's turned on by the sweet experience of being bound and silenced, or seeing someone going through that (anything involving full upside-down suspension is a turn-on to me...).

I'm not sure how far I would let it go on within a story without remission, but then it wouldn't be to make the story real but to keep things moving.