Last Thursday he gave me a length of his own rope to wear around my wrist.
When he is around, I request for him to put it on and take it off. It is his rope that he has given to me to look out for. For me, it’s a symbol of us, yes, but also there is a sense that it is also a symbol of “him.” Like his heart, he has given it to me and only me. When I see it, I feel a rush, a quiet, understated strength like a strong undertow, coming into me, into the middle of my chest from the rope. Filling me up at once like water and air. It floods me, it blows through me.
It calls to mind the feeling of him, how I feel about him. There is the pull that I feel towards him, the happiness I feel when I think about us together, the need to pull him into me and wrap him up with my love and my care and my strength, the way he cares for me and is strong for me, the way he tries, the way he applies himself to our relationship. I feel a mixture of these things when I look at my rope. Sometimes I can pull apart the feeling into its separate parts but usually it’s just that quick, wonderful rush, an emotional reminder of what he means to me that leaves me smiling.
When I shower or sleep and he removes it from me, I like that there are usually only two places my rope can go: on his person or on the bed near his rope. These symbols of us and what we mean to each other, he keeps them close, he safeguards them. I love that so much. I love seeing his rope on him and my rope on him when he needs to hold it for me. They are claims of what we mean to each other and claims of possession.
When I wake up in bed and lift my wrist up in the morning for him to tie the knot, I feel as though the ritual reiterates how he feels for me, all those things that the rope means to me becomes affirmed every morning as if silently he says, “Yes. Today you will wear my rope because I want you to. Because all the things it makes you feel are yours to have today. Because I allow it, because I give it to you. Again, I am choosing you today.” So when I see my rope I feel that joy, my submission, his dominance, and our love for each other. And the ritual of him tying me fills me with that confidence and that love all over again.
I am his and he is mine.