Morgan’s Defining Moment
By atfirstdawn

*Mature content warning
*© Keira Morrison/ atfirstdawn 2013


It had been a night like any other; an enjoyable but forgettable social gathering of friends. Forgettable, as house parties often are, because of the sheer amount of alcohol being consumed by any and all who had been invited.

There had been no special occasion, other than it had been a Saturday night. Friends of my friends and friends of their friends had all made an appearance that night, thus making it so that I only knew a handful of people out of the dozens present, with only a select few being vaguely familiar to me at best.

Had you told me back then, that my life would change in a way I could never have imagined, I wouldn’t have believed you. As enjoyable as the night was, with laughter and the forging of new friendships, it had still been a mundane one. I had never found it difficult to make friends and that night had been no exception. As I often did at social-get-togethers, I had tried to make time for everyone, moving through the rooms of the house and introducing myself to those I didn’t know and to those who were brave or hammered enough to give conversation in return. Yet of all the people I had managed to speak to that night, no one had been able to hold my interest, for most of them the party seemed to begin and end and be relative to how much alcohol they held in their hands.

There was one girl though, slender, a little on the short side (when compared to me), blonde and attached (in every way you can think of) to a skinny guy in tight jeans with a floppy fringe. At certain points throughout the night I had noticed them walking around together, back and forth between the people, always using the same path, it hadn’t been until later in the night that I had realised where they had kept going; the toilet. At first I thought her bedraggled blonde hair had merely been her style, but then having seen her a few times more it was obvious to tell that her hair had become messier each time, vague attempts had been made to fix it but the evidence had been too hard to cover up. As the night drew on, their little missions back and forth to the toilet had become hushed discussion for most groups dotted around the rooms of the house, some had even timed them, and if they were doing what we all thought they were doing, then damn, they’re quick (which, if she was in control of the relationship, I could see why she’d want it so much, two minutes wouldn’t satisfy anyone).

Like everyone else, my attention had become completely focused on the young rampant couple. The night was tired and so too were those present, most had left barely leaving double figures to see the night together. Some were already sleeping and the host was almost unconscious himself. The party had slowed hours ago and the couple, who were friends of the host, had long since retreated to the guest bedroom, leaving the rest of us to watch terribly crude comedies that less than half of us seemed to like, (I’ll never like Jack Black). It hadn’t been until the floppy fringed guy had returned from the guest bedroom, alone, to watch the remainder of the film with us that conversation had started again. In-jokes were shared at his expense in regards to his constant toilet breaks and about how he was unable to go anywhere alone, though the jokes ran thin pretty quickly and soon only I remained awake and, by now, rather drunk.

I had dozed off a couple of times and the title menu of the DVD had been perpetually playing for what had seemed like hours after it had finished making me realise the passage of time and how tired I really was, unable to get comfortable on the crowded sofa, thinking only of myself and completely forgetting that the guest bedroom was occupied, I made my light-headed way upstairs.

It took me a while to find my way in the moonlit darkness, doors felt like walls and walls felt like dead spaces I could fall into. Eventually I found the familiar door; I had been to this house numerous times in the past and crashed in the same bed before, surely I’d be welcome to again. I opened the door and stepped inside on unsure feet…

I don’t know how long I stood there staring at her…

The room was lit enough by the light of the streetlight outside pouring through the curtains for me to see clearly enough without having to switch the bedroom’s light on, the dull amber light outlined her perfectly, I could see her facial features, the generous layers of tape over her mouth and the curves of her body as she lay bound on the bed.

She was sleeping; I could see her breathing, which gave me time to process the thoughts in my head.

I don’t know why, but upon seeing her I no longer felt like myself, or I still did feel like myself but different, not enhanced per say but there was something new, something had been added to me, attached or built on to me. There was a deep space within me that I had never noticed before until the seconds it had begun to fill with a surge of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. I was scared, not of what I saw but of what was happening to me; I couldn’t think beyond that single moment, I couldn’t recall anything from my past that would explain what I was feeling at the time and I couldn’t think forward, I couldn’t think about helping her or leaving her, all I knew was that the moment was endless and I couldn’t move forward or back from it.

I continued to stare, my eyes were wide, my mind was racing and my core was swelling with an intense heat which reached up through my throat and dried my mouth. I was seeing all of her and every part of her on their own all at once; I saw the tape around her crossed ankles and I saw them again in context of her entire body as she lay motionless on the bed. I saw her hands bound to the bars of the headboard as if they were the only parts of her which existed, and then I saw them again and drank in her helpless and unmoving form. I licked my own lips with my dry tongue at the sight of her taped mouth, knowing that she couldn’t, and that one simple action somehow made me feel like I was something more than I’d ever thought of myself. I could do what she couldn’t, I could give her what she wanted when she couldn’t; would she want to be kissed or touched, I could oblige, would she want to be hurt or released, I could do that for her. I could control her body, her mind and her sensations.

All of these thought which were suddenly accosting me scared me. I had never wanted to control anyone, I had never wanted anyone to be completely dependent on me and I had never thought that I’d have such a reaction to such a sight. I tried to convince myself that I had just been taken by shock at the image of a young woman bound and gagged in the guest bedroom of a friend’s house; I tried to will myself to wake her and untie her, she may have needed my help, her floppy haired boyfriend may have been punishing her after an argument, forcing her to miss the rest of the party and wake up embarrassed towards the person who found her, or maybe, they were into that kind of thing. I couldn’t be sure and was too confused to interfere. All I could do was continue to watch and hope she wouldn’t wake up until I knew what my mind and body were trying to tell me about myself.

I needed to know why I had never felt this way before and why I had never thought of it before, it all made so much sense. As confused and as scared as I had felt while staring at her in her bound state I also had felt comfortable, I had felt in control, and I had felt totally indebted to her, I’d never harm her, I’d never do anything untoward to her, she wasn’t the most attractive girl I had ever seen but lying there with her ankles, thighs and arms taped and her mouth gagged made me struggle to think of an image that I found more stimulating in every way possible. I felt like crying at having not known of the hole within me for so long which was now filling with so many thoughts, feelings and sensations. I wanted to cry at the sight of her being so perfectly beautiful in that situation…

My legs had frozen and I realised that I could barely feel them, my chest was tight and was barely able to expand with the breaths that I needed to take, I felt faint and it wasn’t the fault of the alcohol I had drank previously that night. I felt hot and flushed yet cold and trembling. I backed up against the door that I had closed behind me on the way in and slid down to the floor.    

I hadn’t realised it but my eyes were wet and as soon as I had noticed the tears on my cheeks I felt my heart sink and an emotion take over me which forced quiet sobs from me. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t happy, I was still confused but what I also felt was a sense of completion, it was more so a feeling of relief that had washed over me, like I had reached the end of something, as if things had become clearer, as if my body and mind were trying to recalibrate to a new lease of life or way of living, as difficult as it was to persevere through, it was also ultimately uplifting. I cried quietly at the door for a few minutes more until I was finally able to pull myself together.

Drying my eyes I looked back at the girl on the bed with a smile.

She was looking back at me.

“Hey” I said weakly with the last vestige of tears clearing from my voice “do you need me to untie you?”

The girl didn’t seem to be frightened of my presence or in distress at her situation; instead she had nodded at me with a confused expression.

I picked myself up from the floor and walked over to her, kneeling by the side of the bed I took the corner of one of the strips of tape between my finger tips and slowly pulled it free from her mouth.

“Are you alright?” she asked me with a calm half-asleep-voice after licking her lips.

“Me? I’m fine. Do you want me to let you go?”

“No, he likes me like this. I want him to find me like this in the morning like he said he would.”

Her soft tone and obviously playful relationship brought a smile to my face. Until then I thought I had simply fought against my nature and lost the battle to reject something which was ultimately wrong, but almost as if I she were the one I was meant to meet to get me through those important moments, in one sentence she had relieved me and put my mind and soul to rest that what I had become wasn’t something profoundly evil.

It took me a while to find the words for my reply but I eventually found them and asked her; “Would you like me to re-gag you then?”

She nodded and we both smiled; I a little more deeply than her.