I recently made the acquaintance of a young woman at an introductory rope event. She’d watched the instructor perform an exercise by tying a single column tie around my wrist and then spending the next two minutes wrapping the rope around me without knots. The purpose of the exercise was to allow for more free-form and feeling in the tie, rather than the strict following of a specific pattern. After some encouragement, the young woman agreed to try doing it herself. I was offered up as the bottom for her to work with.
This young woman was what a very high percentage of the population would call “hot.” I couldn’t describe her to you in detail now if I tried, but to say that she had long straight hair, a young, lithe figure, and big soulful eyes. She was a very attractive person.
She could not stop apologizing.
For everything. From the moment she began tying the single column tie on my wrist until the timer went off after 2 minutes it was a constant sea of “I’m sorry. Sorry. Oh. Sorry.” After two or three times of telling her she had nothing to be sorry about I gave up.
I could tell she was really bright. Like, there was plenty going on underneath the remarkably pretty surface, but it was masked so much by insecurity. I asked her why she wanted to learn to tie, thinking if I could understand her motivation, I might be able to adapt my bottoming technique to make it easier for her to achieve her goal.
Her answer was that she just liked to learn things.
Of all the reasons I’ve heard riggers talk about why they tie, that’d previously not been one of them. There are elements of control, connection, creativity, exploration, expression…. but not just “I wanted to learn for the sake of learning.”
It’s not a wrong answer by any means, but I realized that as a bottom, there was nothing more I could do for her. She could as easily have the experience by tying the leg of a dining room chair, and she’d be less likely to continually apologize to it.
This was a little while back now, and over the few weeks that followed that evening, I thought of her a few times. Truth be told, I think of her in terms of “girl” because she so didn’t yet embody what “woman” means to me.
What made me think of her today was a different woman.
Having finally gotten fed up with the jerk-around Home Depot has been giving me with regard to my appliances purchased the week before Thanksgiving and now delayed for delivery TWICE, I decided to show them my cards. I don’t like being one of those customers that threatens to cancel an order unless I mean it…
…so I went to Best Buy. There were two associates working in the appliance department, but one seemed rather newish and the other was handling three different customers at once. Once I stated my business, the newish one asked me if I could wait because it’d have to be be the other one (department manager, as it turns out) to help me.
I’ve already waited over a month with the Home Depot clowns, so I figured I could give Best Buy a little leeway here. When the department manager finally was able to help me, I was really floored, and very pleased, with her level of professionalism and knowledge about the products and procedures on how to price match my order. She knew her way around that Point of Sale system like I know my Doxy in the dark.
I couldn’t tell you how old she is. She mentioned having a granddaughter, but honestly, she looked way too young for that. I’d have pegged her at about my age.
She did not have the most fortunate genetics when it came to physical appearance. She was overweight with quite a bit of dark facial hair, oily skin, and stained teeth.
But this woman had confidence, at least in this environment. She was good at her job – even managed to upsell me on a dishwasher and cooktop while saving me money on the range hood. The whole time, she was answering questions from her colleagues on everything from how to swap the way the door swings open on a washing machine, to how high a pedestal had to be for a dryer, to how to run a price check for a warehouse only item. I began to relax and trust that my needs would be met and my wants would be addressed. She made me feel comfortable, like I was in good, capable hands.
It’s the way I want to feel when I’m being tied.
Bottom line – looks matter for shit when you want to feel safe. Or something like that.
polyammering 