By Louetta

Tied out in the cold.



A practice run. Me bound naked to the pole which held up our main
porch. December. My body covered with goosebumps, the moonlight
shining on bare skin. They had made me wet my hair before I was
stripped and bound. The cold always felt colder early in the
season. But not as cold as I'd face when we did this for real.
Just above freezing. Cold enough to snow. And as I struggled in
my ropes, the snow started. After fifteen minutes it snowed
harder. I felt the flakes land on my feet and, poetically enough,
on my nose. Then touching lightly on my breasts and falling.

As my hour progressed it got harder. My feet were freezing
against the concrete slab beneath them. My whole body was a
little bit numb. My nipples screamed in pain. The metal pole I
was bound to was as cold as when I was first put aginst it. My
ropes, soaked with water, had not stiffened as we thought but
they were tied tightly enough to hurt. My wet hair fell against
my shoulders and down the tops of my boobs and soon it felt like
the skin was freezing.

A few minutes more and my hands and feet began to go numb. My
goosebumps gave way to shivers. Some wind came. Wind, the enemy
of bare skin in the cold. I closed my eyes and leaned my head
back against the pole.

I thought about the winter to come. I thought about the bare
wooden pole that waited for me on the little hill above the
river. I thought about what ten degrees might feel like. What a
twenty mile an hour wind might feel like. What three hours might
feel like.

And I started softly to cry.

louetta_keene@yahoo.com


