“Help! Someone help!”

The woman's muffled plea was coming from a neighboring apartment as I was unlocking my own apartment door. I turned around and found it was coming from the apartment across from mine. I banged on the locked door. “Are you okay?”

“My boyfriend is having a seizure. Please call 911,” she shouted.

“I'd ask why you can't but I assume there are reasons.”

“Yes, reasons,” she said softly. “There's a key under the plant.”

As I dialed the phone I searched the plant.

“911, what is the emergency?”

“Medical, a man is having a seizure according to his girlfriend.”

“How old is he?”

“I have no idea. She called for help and I'm still outside of the apartment. Ah, there's the key.”

“I need you to confirm your location.”

“424 Lexington Ave. Apartment 603.” I said as I opened the door. “Okay, I'm inside. The man, late 20s, is lying on a sofa shaking.”

She walked me through some simple first aid. I did not mention that he was naked and fully erect and had apparently been pleasured orally rather recently. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

Another neighbor poked her head in the room and gasped.

“I'm on the phone with 911. Go downstairs and hold the door open when the ambulance arrives.”

“Okay,” she said and seemed happy to leave me and the naked man alone. I covered him with the blanket that was draped across the back of the sofa.

“Can you help me?” a voice called from the hallway to the bedroom.

I looked over there and saw my neighbor. I think her name was Tiffany. She was naked. Her arms were pinned behind her back. Her legs were locked together somehow. And there was drool on her face. She hopped forward, her breasts bouncing as she did.

“Can you unlock my arms?” She asked as she hopped in place, turning around.

Two hooks seemed to protrude from her wrists and a padlock held them together. I walked over to her and turned the padlock toward me.

“It's right 33, left 17, right 45.”

I opened the padlock and unhooked it from the rings. The two rings recessed back into her wrist. “That's a neat trick.”

She immediately wiped her chin on her forearm. “I can't reach the knob when it's locked.” She said matter-of-factly. She then reached down to her outer thighs and undid a butterfly nut that was attached to a long bolt that ran through both her thighs, locking them against one another. I saw there was another one of these bolts by her calves.

“Need help with the lower screw?”

“Could you? Thanks.”

I just wanted to examine the hardware embedded in her leg closely. There was a hex head nut on the outside of her left leg. A wingnut was holding a threaded screw in place on the outside of her right leg. The bolt apparently went through both legs holding them together. Once I removed the wingnut and pulled the long bolt out, her legs were no longer held together. There was a plastic channel that went through her legs where the long bolt had been. I also noticed she had d-rings in her ankles similar to the ones in her wrists.

As soon as she was free, she ran into the bedroom with a quick, “Thanks.” I checked on the boyfriend and he was still stable. The 911 operator got my attention and I told her there had been no changes. My neighbor emerged from the bedroom wearing a blouse and skirt that did not go together. “Is he alright?”

“You should probably tell 911 his name and stuff.” I said, handing her my phone.

She was telling 911 his name and age when the paramedics arrived and asked all the same questions. Maybe ten minutes later the man, who had stopped shaking by then, was strapped to a board and they were carrying him to the ambulance. At some point a police officer arrived and I told him how I heard the cries for help. I left out the bondage play.

He spent most of his time asking her questions and she admitted she was tied up, so to speak.

Eventually the police left and she gave a perfunctory thanks as she looked toward the open door. Taking the hint I said, “I hope Donnie will be alright.”

“Thanks,” she said as she closed the door behind me. A few moments later, I saw her leave the apartment, properly dressed. I guessed she was going to the hospital.

* * *

A few days later, I saw her entering the building as I was leaving. “How's he doing?” I said as I held the door for her.

“What? Oh, yeah, he's been home since yesterday. Thanks again for the... help,” she said as she continued to walk.

I just nodded and watched her walk away. She was wearing long sleeves and long pants so I could not see if she was still modified.

It was a week later when we both happened to be leaving our apartments at the same time. I had not seen her boyfriend around since the incident.

“Hi,” I said.

“Oh, hi,” she said. She eyes the stairwell as we stood waiting for the elevator. She sighed as she decided against walking down seven flights of stairs. “About the other day...”

“No worries,” I said. “I thought it was kind of cool. Venn Machine?”

She looked at me with an arched brow. “Of course. Do you Venn?”

“Occasionally. Nothing like... you know.”

She just nodded.

“How's Donnie?”

“We, um, we broke up.”

“Really?”

“It was going to happen soon anyway.” She said. “He can be very controlling and he was embarrassed by being seen so out of control.”

“By you? Did you know he had a medical issue?”

“No, he never said.”

There are a silent pause and I could not help but smirk.

“What's so funny?”

“You said he could be controlling. You didn't seem to mind that about him.”

She blushed. “I--”

“You don't have to say anything. I shouldn't have said that.”

“No, I like being restrained,” she said. “But not controlled.”

“Since my foot is already in my mouth, who's idea was it to put holes in your limbs?”

“Mine,” she said and paused before adding, “I've had fantasies about stuff like that since I was young. Donnie suggested handcuffs one night and I asked if he wanted to try something more. He was a natural at getting the Venn Machine to do what was needed.”

The elevator opened and we got on. There were other people from a higher floor on the elevator as we entered and Tiffany fell silent. As we reached the lobby and there were but a few feet before we would part ways on the streets outside, I said, “Would you like to get a coffee sometime and talk about this? I love hearing Venn stories.”

She stopped walking and gave me a cool stare before nodding and saying, “I don't even know your name.”

“Michael.” I shook her hand.

“Tiffany. Okay. How about ten A.M. on Saturday?”

“Works for me. I'll make the long trip from my place to your place and pick you before ten.” I made air quotes when I said “pick you up”.

She laughed and said goodbye.

* * *

On Saturday, I knocked on her door a moment or two after ten. The door opened shortly and she was standing there wearing jeans and a black concert t-shirt for some metal band.

“Ready?” I said.

“Let's go.” She locked her apartment door and we headed to a café a couple places away. She steered the conversation toward music and we were talking about the band on her shirt when we got to the café.

After we ordered, the conversation paused and after a moment she said, “Aren't you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“About...” she said pull the sleeve back on her right arm so I could see her wrist still had the hardware ring embedded in it.

“I wasn't going to say anything unless you did.”

“Well, I did.”

“So you did,” I said. “When did you first discover you liked having your movement restricted?”

“Oh, god, I must have been nine. I had always paid closer attention to TV shows when someone got tied up. When I was nine, I remember taking a sash off one of my dresses and trying to loop it around my wrists. I moved on to belts around my ankles and figured out how to tie my wrists behind my back. As I got older, I bought handcuffs and similar stuff. But I always hated how the stuff chaffed against my skin.”

“Then the Venn machines arrived.”

“Yes, but I was still in the closet, so to speak. I told maybe one boyfriend in high school. He liked to blindfold me. I wasn't really into that but he got a kick out of it. As an adult, finding a guy who's into bondage but not into dom/sub stuff is hard. Donnie wanted me to sub. That's why I said we were probably going to break up anyway.”

“I've never had that kind of relationship,” I said. “I find the idea of adapting your kink, I can say kink right?” She nodded. “Adapting it to the Venn machines intrigues me. But it seems like you don't want a top so much as you want a spotter.”

She laughed. “Yeah, a spotter would be cool. I'd like to be bound up and then just binge watch a couple episodes of a cool show.”

“I could be down with that. Aside from the padlock, how much of your current, um, hardware can you do to yourself?”

“Most of it. I can even lock the padlock. I just can't get out afterward. The best thing about the so-called hardware is it doesn't cause muscle fatigue or vascular restriction. So I can spend hours locked in place.”

We were nearly finished with our coffee and pastries. “So is being a spotter a first date or a second date kind of thing?”

“We could do something today. This Venn ends tomorrow night. It was a month long Venn.”

“Oh, so you want to do something this afternoon?” I said.

“Are you interested in watching a baseball game later?”

“I was going to watch it alone. Let's meet say half an hour before the game maybe?”

“That would be perfect. I have a few errands to run before the game so I'll meet you back at my place after twelve.”

“So, that's a second date.”

“I suppose so.”

We parted ways at the coffee shop. I had to stop at a convenience store to get some snacks before heading home. She left in a different direction.

I headed over to her place with a six-pack and some chips and salsa. She opened the door dressed normally. “Come in. You can set that down on the kitchen counter.”

The television was on playing the pregame show for the baseball game.

“So, um, how's this going to work?”

“I'm going to start my restraints and then tell you what to do to finish them. Step-by-step I'll explain how to undo it all, just in case.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“I'm going to slip into something more accessible,” she said with a wink.

I sat on the sofa. When she returned she was wearing a cutoff T-shirt and short-shorts. She was holding a bunch of rods and box of wingnuts. She set the hardware down on the sofa next to me and grabbed a beer. “You want one? I'll put the rest in the fridge.”

“Okay.”

She opened the two bottles and handed me one. After taking a swig, she set the bottle down on the coffee table. She picked up a rod with a hoop on one end and screw threadings along the entire shaft. She placed it between her thighs. She took another rod and slipped it through the holes in her mid-thigh and through the loop of the other rod and out the side of her other thigh. She attached wingnuts to either end of the rod going through her thighs and spun them inward without tightening them. She did the same thing through her calves without the additional rod in between her calves. She then tightened all four nuts. With a few hops she sat on the sofa, her legs locked tightly together. She lifted the rod trapped on the rod between her thighs so that it was pointing at the ceiling. She ran a wingnut down that rod until it was about eight inches above her thighs.

“I'll need your help now,” she said handing me a wingnut. She placed her left wrist face up on the vertical rod and slide her arm down so the rod was through her wrist. She then slid her right wrist down onto the rod, her arms forming a cross. “Okay, lock my arms down.”

I put the wingnut on the rod and spun it down until it was flush against her upper wrist. “Comfy.”

She pulled on the rods. “This is perfect. Could you give me a drink?”

“Certainly,” I said, grabbing her beer and helping her drink it.

The game came on shortly after that. Throughout the game we talked about this and that and the game itself. We were both rooting for the home team luckily. Every now and then she'd ask me to feed her a chip or her beer. It was a very intimate date considering I had to feed her, or wipe her chin with a napkin if some salsa dripped. As the game ended, we were talking about our jobs.

She said, “Beer, please.”

“Coming right up,” I said grabbing the beer. The bottle was half full as I raised it to her lips.

“All of it.”

“All of it?”

She just nodded and opened her mouth. I held it to her lips and as she chugged it down, I tipped the end of the bottle higher and higher until it was basically gone. She tilted her head up like a baby bird and said, “let it drip into my mouth.”

I held the bottle over her mouth and it dripped into her mouth. She closed her mouth as the last drops landed on her lips.

“Could you get those drops on my face?”

“I don't have a napkin,” I said looking around.

“Improvise,” she said.

I leaned in and licked her face around her mouth. Her mouth opened and we kissed.

Several moments passed before I broke the kiss.

“That was nice,” she said. “I'm a bit tipsy. Could you undo the restraints?”

“Sure,” I said. I placed my hand on the back of her wrist and then leaned down and undid the wingnut attached to the rod holding her calves together.

She giggled. “I was going to do that myself.”

“Obviously, you can't. So, I have to do it.”

I undid the thigh rod next. “I can't really remove the rod with you sitting.” I stood in front of her and picked her up from under her arms so she was on her feet leaning forward to accommodate her arms. I pulled the calf level rod out and then the thigh rod.

“There you go. You can walk around now.”

“That's so much better but I think I need a little more help.”

“Did I miss something?” I said.

She held her arms out.

“Properly done, those would be behind you.”

“Maybe next time.”

I finally started spinning the wingnut off the top of her wrist and she was free.

She dropped the rod on the sofa and grabbed my shirt, pulling me into a kiss that included a bit of groping. She broke the embrace and said, “I had a good time. We should do this again.”

“Certainly,” I said. “How about dinner tomorrow?”

“My venn ends around three tomorrow.”

“Are we exclusively doing venn restraints or can't we go on a normal dinner date?”

“I suppose one dinner only date wouldn't hurt.”

“And we could hit a venn machine after dinner. How about I pick you up at seven?”

“It's a date.”

We kissed one more time at the door to her apartment. I stepped out into the hall and unlocked my apartment door. I tuned and waved. We both said, “Good night.”