Marina’s jaw tightened. She was a successful architect. She designed skyscrapers that defied wind and gravity. The noise in her head was a constant, petty tyrant: You’re a fraud. You’ll fail. They’ll see. She’d never spoken it aloud.
It wasn’t the rope that held her. It was the head game.
Marina knelt in the center of the frame. Her world had shrunk to three things: the coarse weave of the jute rope biting into her wrists behind her back, the slow thrum of blood in her ears, and the voice. --- Real Time Bondage 2009 09 18 Head Games Marina
“Good,” he said. “Now. We’re going to tie that noise to a chair, and you’re going to watch it scream.”
The head game wasn’t his. It never had been. Marina’s jaw tightened
He smiled. It was a small, knowing thing. He picked up a length of rope—a thin, harsh line of hemp—and began to tie a single, intricate knot in the air before her eyes. A Celtic heart. A sailor’s fancy. Her mind, starved of distraction, latched onto the pattern. Loop. Twist. Pull.
“It says I’m not enough,” she finally breathed, the words scraping out of her throat. “It says I’m one mistake from being nothing.” The noise in her head was a constant,
He leaned forward and looped the knotted rope around her neck. Not a noose. Not a collar. Just a light, almost tender pressure against her carotid artery, right over the pulse that was hammering a frantic SOS.