Page 119 of Jax
I stayed still, letting her words settle into the air, into the rope, into me.
“Then I’ll keep going,” I said, reaching for the next coil. “Not because you need more restraint. But sometimes the body understands what the mind is still learning to believe.”
Her voice didn’t tremble when she said it.
“Yes, please.”
So I continued, not as her Dominant, not as her partner, but as the man who saw every frayed wire in her circuitry and chose to trace each one with reverence. Diamond patterns first, broad, deliberate, layered over her sternum and down her sides like armor made from breath. A softened variation oftakate kote. Less martial. More sacred. I wove slowly, letting the rope hug her ribcage in mirrored X’s that kissed each inhale, leaving space in all the right places. Art made from absence. Safety in suggestion.
“Most people think rope is about control. And it can be. But here, now, it’s about clarity. The body has a language. It speaks in pulses and pressure, in stress signals and relief. Rope just listens more closely than hands can. It traces what you’re too tired to say.”
She was still again. Not stiff, just settled. Her spine eased, shoulders softening like maybe, for the first time in hours, she wasn’t preparing to run.
“This tie,” I said, hands moving with quiet precision, “doesn’t just rest on your body. It syncs with it. Mirrors tension. Offers balance. Like a counterweight, so you don’t have to carry it alone.”
Her breath hitched, sharp and unguarded. I didn’t rush. Just paused long enough for the silence to register, then threaded the rope again, down her side, crosshatched and slow.
At the final pass, I eased back, fingertips tracing the outer edge of the harness, checking tension, space, breath. Her body shifted. Her eyes followed the lines across her chest, then downward, slowly tracking the form the rope gave her.
She didn’t speak at first. Just breathed, shallow, steady. Then, softer than sound, her voice slid between us.
“It’s beautiful.”
I closed the space between us, fingers resting beside her ribs, fabric only. No pressure. Just presence. Just proof.
“You are beautiful,” I said, not as comfort, but fact. “This only shows you what I already see.”
She exhaled, the sound breaking through like breath finally allowed. Not panic. Not performance. Just release. Like something in her had waited for permission to be witnessed. And finally was.
“After everything that happened, I just wanted to disappear,” she said, eyes still lowered. “I wanted to take up less space. Be less loud. Less noticeable. Safer.”
I nodded, the rope creaking softly as I adjusted it across her collarbones. “That’s what hypervigilance teaches you. That survival means shrinking.”
She swallowed. “But this... this feels like claiming space.”
“It is,” I said. “Structure that says, Here I am. Still here. Still whole.”
The final rope framed her sternum in a clean inverted triangle. I tucked the end beneath her ribs, visible, intentional, a quiet signature.
Shifting behind her, I knelt close, knees bracketing her hips as the warmth of my body met hers. She leaned back without prompting, her bound form instinctively seeking the shape Imade behind her. I placed my hands lightly at her waist, no pressure, just contact, and let her settle.
This wasn’t a scene. It was a ceremony. A ritual of return. And she let it hold her.
She softened in waves, tension ebbing from her limbs in slow, invisible pulses. Her breath no longer sounded like resistance; it sounded like survival. The rope didn’t confine her. It framed her. Like gravity. Constant. Quiet. Sure.
I stayed silent. Sometimes the body needs stillness before the mind can follow.
When her voice came, it didn’t cut; it bled. Low. Worn. Scraped raw from inside. “I want to help her so badly it burns.”
She didn’t look at me. I felt it in every point of contact; her breath against my chest, her spine a live wire beneath my hands. Her head tilted back just enough to graze my shoulder, not for comfort, but for proof. A signal that she was still in her body. Still here.
“I feel like I’m betraying her every second I don’t act,” she whispered, the admission raw enough to bruise. It wasn’t just guilt; it was the belief that stillness meant failure, a doctrine shaped by men who turned urgency into virtue.
I didn’t rush to fill the space between us. I let it stretch until it became something she could reach across, not something holding her back.
“Then help her the right way,” I said, voice low, deliberate.
She didn’t move, but the rope across her ribs shifted with the soft flex of her hands. Not resistance, but readiness. Her body responding before her words could catch up, reaching for something to hold that wasn’t just pain.
