Episode One: Valerie and the Anti-kinkshaming Act
It was 4pm on a cool Friday afternoon in Wellsville, a sleepy college town on the eastern outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Valerie Chang, a young Asian-American woman studying journalism at Wellsville Central College, sat on the black leather couch inside of her student apartment. She was tapping away at her laptop, counting down the minutes before an interview she had scheduled that afternoon with a high-ranking member of the student council. Valerie was a reporter for her campus’s student newspaper, The Daily Target, and for the moment, her editor had assigned her to the campus politics beat. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting subject in the world, but Valerie, a budding professional, took all her reporting work seriously. Adjusting her reading glasses for comfort, the young Asian reporter went for another round going over her notes and meeting minutes. Her subject should be arriving any minute now.
Now if only Valerie’s roommate, Cassie, would stop breaking her concentration.
“So, an interview, huh? Who’s the lucky guy, or gal?” Cassie said, as she washed the two roommates’ dishes in the kitchen sink.
“Speaker for the student council. An art school senior named Matt Liu. You’ve probably never heard of him,” replied the young Asian reporter.
“Ooh, sounds like an Asian guy. Are you two going out to dinner?” Cassie said, giggling.
“Actually, we’re going to discuss some campus legislation he had a hand in passing. It’s called the Anti-kinkshaming Act, or ‘AKA’,” said Valerie, matter-of-factly. “It forbids campus administration from prosecuting acts that the participants say were connected with sexual activities.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” said Cassie, rolling her eyes. “As exciting as your campus politics beat is, Val, I think your time would be better spent meeting some cute boys.”
The young Asian reporter looked up from her laptop and turned toward Cassie. “Cassie, didn’t you say you were going to run your errands this afternoon?” Valerie said, brushing her long black hair out of her face.
“Fine, I’m out of here,” Cassie said, giggling again. She shut off the sink, picked up her purse and car keys, and headed for the door. “Need anything at the store?”
“No, I’m good,” said Valerie, who was now back to staring at her laptop. Cassie left the apartment and shut the door.
Valerie shook her head. Cassie, an all-American blonde, was a good roommate and a very nice girl, but she had no idea how difficult it was to build a career as a young adult. Cassie’s father worked in the agriculture business scene of the Central Valley, and there was probably a cushy job waiting for Cassie as soon as she finished up her little adventure in the Bay Area. But Valerie was from an immigrant family with no connections to anyone noteable. She had spent so many afternoons behind the register of the family laundromat, buried underneath SAT prep books, to get here, Central College—even if it was no UC Berkeley, just a dumpy little CSU campus. Valerie knew that she would have to keep working hard to get ahead, especially in a field as competitive and chaotic as journalism.
A few minutes later, Valerie heard the doorbell. She set aside her laptop, got up from the couch, and opened the door. Her visitor—no surprise—was Matt, a young Asian man sharply dressed in black trousers with a brown shirt and tie. Valerie was wearing her usual reporter attire: skinny jeans and a white shirt with a dark brown vest.
“Valerie Chang, Daily Target?” said Matt, with a big smile.
“Yep, I’m Valerie. Please come in, Matt,” said Valerie. Matt obliged, and Valerie closed the door behind him. They both sat down on the apartment couch.
“Well, let’s jump into it,” said the young Asian reporter. “Tell me why students should care about this Anti-kinkshaming Act that the student council just passed.”
“We here in student government want Central College to be the most inclusive, most welcoming institution for students of all sexual orientations and preferences,” said Matt. “We think nobody should feel unwelcome because of the kinks and fetishes they were born with. With this legislation, our college’s code of conduct will reflect our diversity of interests. In my time as speaker for the student council, this is the achievement I’m personally most proud of.”
Valerie clicked on a story on her laptop. “Well, mainstream news thinks our student government has gone crazy, to say the least. National Review, Wall Street Journal: California college creates ‘safe space’ for sexual deviants, freaks…”
“The great thing about student government,” Matt said, laughing, “is that we don’t have to worry about what a bunch of middle-aged, cynical newspaper editors think.”
“Can you give me an example of a scenario that your AKA seeks to address?”
“Sure. I’m personally aware of many cases in which this legislation would have helped,” said Matt. “We have one student legislator—I’m not going to name names—who was caught paddling her girlfriend during a surprise RA inspection. Campus police wanted to have her charged with battery, even though everything was entirely consensual. The administration finally dropped the case when her parents’ lawyers got involved.”
“Wait, paddling? Like, spanking? That’s a fetish?” Valerie asked.
“Yeah, there are a lot of people who like that,” Matt laughed.
“I had no idea,” Valerie said. She eyed Matt for a moment, and then continued, “Can I ask you a personal question, speaker Matt?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“You’re quite proud that you were able to pass the AKA. Is there any possibility that that might be because you yourself are, um, kinky?”
“Maybe,” laughed Matt. “Okay, yes, guilty as charged. But really, who isn’t? That’s why this bill is such a big deal!”
“What’s your, uhm, thing, if I may ask?” asked Valerie.
“It’s called bondage. I like to tie girls up, turn them into damsels in distress. Just like in the cartoons and movies.”
“This is a completely new world to me,” said Valerie. “I don’t think I can report on a story like this if I don’t even know what a fetish is. You said you tie girls up? Do you think you could do that to me, just so I can get a feel?”
“You brought me here for an interview, and now you want me to
tie you up?” Matt laughed.
“A good reporter always gets the story,” Valerie said, shrugging her shoulders.
“As luck would have it, Miss Valerie, I have a bundle of ropes in my car,” said Matt. “So I think I can arrange for a little bondage session for you.”
***
And that was how Valerie, several minutes later, found herself face-down on her living room carpet, hands crossed behind her back, her wrists being wrapped with white cotton rope by Matt. She felt him complete several loops with the rope, then switch directions and create a perpendicular cinch with several more loops. As he knotted off the ends and lifted himself up to grab more rope, Valerie rocked and tugged her hands experimentally. The rope was not uncomfortably tight, but it also had no slack, and Valerie didn’t think she had any chance of pulling her hands out. Her fingers felt around for a knot, but there was none to be found; just ropes tightly wound around and through each other.
Now Matt had Valerie’s feet together and was working on her ankles, first looping several ropes around them, then cinching several more loops in between. Valerie turned her head and glanced at Matt as he worked. He was utterly engrossed in his task—very efficient, very methodical.
“Have you ever been tied up before, Valerie?” asked Matt.
“Lots of times. I’ve been a babysitter, and I have a big family with lots of evil cousins.”
“Childhood games! How fun,” said Matt. “But I guess this is your first time getting tied up by a pro. I’m trying to keep you comfortable, but I’m also making sure that you can’t escape.”
Valerie gave her hands another tug—and indeed this felt far more secure than anything her mischievous cousins ever did to her. “You seem to be doing a good job, so far,” she said.
Now Valerie felt Matt tying another rope around her legs; he then grabbed that rope and used it to lift her feet into the air and place them next to her hands. Valerie could already guess what Matt was up to—and, sure enough, he tied this connecting rope around the bonds for her hands, locking them to her feet and forcing Valerie into a hogtie. After finishing that connecting rope with one last knot, Matt got back to his feet and stepped away from Valerie.
“Are you done?” Valerie said. “When I get tied up, I can always get out. Are you ready for me to do that now?” she said, sticking out her tongue.
“Well, you can try,” Matt grinned.
Valerie rocked herself from side to side, tipping her body left and right, once again shaking her hands and wiggling her fingers in every direction she could manage. She fought as hard as she always had whenever she had been under somebody else’s control. But this time, there was no give in her cotton bonds, no knots she could try to undo.
“Not very many girls struggle as energetically as you do,” Matt chuckled. “I’m impressed. But I don’t think you’re going anywhere."
Valerie kicked her legs one last time, but only succeeded in forcing her hands to move in sync with them. “Yeah, I think you’re right,” she said, with an air of annoyance. Just then, it was like some switch inside of Valerie’s brain had flipped, and she found herself closing her eyes, resting her head, and letting her limbs relax inside of their bonds. Valerie could feel her clothes getting wrinkled and drenched in sweat from all her struggling, but for the moment, she didn’t care. Time slowed down, and Valerie entered a sort of tied-up trance—a meditation in ropes—that lasted for several minutes, though it felt like but a brief moment to Valerie.
Eventually, that trance was broken by Matt’s voice: “Enjoying yourself?” he said.
“Well, I wish I could get out, but I can’t. You’re good,” said Valerie. “I don’t know if I’m sold on the whole fetish thing, but I’ll admit there’s something oddly relaxing about being helpless like this.”
Suddenly, the room was filled with a loud buzz echoing from the surface of the coffee table; someone was calling Valerie’s iPhone. Matt picked it up and glanced at the caller ID. “Cassie?” he said.
“That’s my roommate. She just went to the store, but if she’s not texting, it’s urgent. Can you put it on speaker?”
But Matt took no action. He just narrowed his eyes and glanced at Valerie, then back at her phone, and then back to Valerie. Valerie’s phone vibrated for a few more seconds before running out of rings. The call screen disappeared, and a missed call notification appeared in its place.
“Do you not know how to use a phone, Mr. Neanderthal?” Valerie teased. “I’ll call her back. Could you, uh, get me out of this?” she said, looking directly at Matt and playfully wiggling her fingers.
Matt knelt down on the floor in front of the young Asian reporter. “Miss Valerie,” he said, “I have to hand it to you. You’re a very passionate reporter. And a very beautiful one, I might add.”
“Thank you, Matt,” Valerie said, now blushing as she held out her hands toward him.
“I kind of feel bad about what I have to do now,” Matt added.
Valerie’s eyes widened. “Um, what does that mean?”
“You see,” Matt lectured, “you’re a little too good at your job. Some members of the student council—again, I’m not naming any names—are not very happy about all of the stories you’ve been writing about them lately. Too many secrets being spilled, too many agreements being pushed into the public spotlight.”
“Well, I’m just doing my job,” retorted Valerie. “It’s not my fault you guys get around with practically every student org on campus—no offense.”
“Be that is it may,” Matt said dryly, “the job falls to me to, uh, teach you a lesson. They found out I had an interview scheduled with you, and they knew I could tie a person up. I was worried about how I was going to trick you into ropes—I came up with so many elaborate scenarios. And then you turned out to be such a bondage-curious reporter that you did my entire job for me! I really appreciate that,” Matt said, patting Valerie on the head.
“Wait, so you’re not going to let me out?” said Valerie, a quizzical look on her face.
“Listen, we’re not going to hurt you or anything. But you need to learn to back off and mind your own business.”
“Matt, untie me right now,” said Valerie, slowly, trying to keep her calm, “or I’m going to call for help.”
“I’m not very happy about this situation either, Valerie. Please don’t make things any harder than they have to be,” Matt said. Now he was digging through the pockets of his backpack, and he soon pulled out the object he was looking for: a pink rubber ball with a strap running through it. Valerie’s eyes widened again: a ball gag! Matt brought the gag up to Valerie’s face. “Now I have to put this on you, so that you… you know,” he said.
Valerie whipped her head defiantly, back and forth, trying to keep away from Matt and his evil device. She struggled frantically again to get free, twisting her body every which way. “Matt, untie me right now! Fuck, isn’t there supposed to be a… safe word! Safe word!
Safe word!” Valerie screamed.
Eventually, Matt had the ball pressed directly against Valerie’s mouth. Valerie clamped it shut, refusing to give in—so Matt pinched Valerie’s nose, and didn’t let go. Valerie held her breath for as long as she could, but after some 25 seconds, she was blue in the face and needed air, badly. The moment she opened her mouth, the bastard shoved the pink ball directly inside and tightened the ball’s strap behind her head. Valerie screamed into the gag as loud as she could, but it just came out as a muffled
mmmmph! incomprehensible to anyone but herself.
“Much better,” Matt beamed.
Suddenly, there was the sound of keys tumbling in the locks to the apartment door. The door opened, and into the apartment ran Cassie! “Hey Val, I tried to call; I was looking for my Safeway gift card and I think I left it at home—oh, hey! What’s going on here? Is this your interview?” Cassie exclaimed, upon seeing her young Asian roommate tied up on the floor with a pink ball inside her mouth, and a young Asian man towering over her.
“Oh, she’s kinky,” Matt chuckled. “She found out I was into bondage and she wanted me to do this to her.”
For a second, Valerie just stared at Matt, not believing that he could be that cocky, that that throwaway line could possibly get him out of this situation. Then she thrashed around in her ropes and shook her head with all her might—anything to let Cassie know that this was far from a consensual activity! But try as Valerie did, her desperate cries of
mmmph mmmph mmmmmph! couldn’t get the message through her roommate’s thick skull. “Wow, I didn’t know that about Valerie—okay, sorry I interrupted, I’m in a hurry, bye!” Cassie said, fetching the gift card from the kitchen drawer and then running back out of the apartment door, closing it behind her. As fast as she had entered, Cassie was gone again.
That left Valerie, still in bondage, alone with Matt. The young Asian reporter dropped her head in defeat and made one last, loud, frustrated grunt into her gag.
“Well, you said your roommate was going to the store?” Matt said. “She should be back within the hour. She can release you then, after you’ve learned your lesson. That should satisfy my guys.”
Valerie just stayed still and stared daggers at Matt.
Matt grabbed one more rope out of his backpack and made an overhand knot in the middle of its length. He rolled Valerie onto her side, then anchored this rope around her waist and fed the free ends down between her legs. “Come on, Valerie,” he said. “I know this isn’t all bad for you—I can tell when a girl likes getting tied up. In fact, I’ll leave you a little something to enjoy yourself,” he said, as he tightened up the new crotch rope against Valerie’s body.
Valerie shook her head and struggled some more. But this time, as she did so, she felt the newly tied knot pushing up against her… private parts, making her cry out in surprise. “Have fun,” Matt laughed, now at the door, stealing one last look at the young Asian reporter before leaving the apartment for good.
***
Valerie had been tied up for almost an hour, and any pretensions of this experience being enjoyable for her were now long gone. Her limbs ached from being contorted into a hogtie; the ball forced into her mouth was making her drool uncontrollably; the ropes rubbed against her ankles and wrists, and Valerie was certain they were going to leave marks. For some time, Valerie had been twisting and turning her body, searching like mad for any slack in her bonds, any knot she could pick at with her fingers. She failed at this plan of attack—though certainly not for lack of trying—and was now working on a new angle: to get to the kitchen, where, perhaps, she could find a tool or utensil she could use to cut her way out of the ropes.
By arching and rocking her body back and forth—and doing her best to ignore the little gift Matt had left her, the one that pressed against her naughty parts as she moved—Valerie had managed to place herself next to the kitchen cabinets. The silver handles for the drawers and cabinets were now just above Valerie’s head, but to the young Asian reporter’s immense frustration, she could not bring her hogtied hands high enough to reach or manipulate any of them.
Valerie was ready to give up, and grunted loudly into her gag to that effect, when she noticed a silver blade sticking out over the edge of the countertop, next to the sink.
A pair of scissors! Cassie must have washed them with the rest of the dishes and left them out to dry. Valerie began bashing her body against the cabinets, hoping she could get the cheap faux wood countertops to vibrate and thereby move the scissors. The strategy was a crapshoot, but to Valerie’s amazement, it actually seemed to work: Slowly, but surely, the scissor blades were moving closer and closer to the edge of the countertop!
Suddenly, Valerie heard the clang of metal dropping inside of metal. She looked back up toward the countertop: no scissor blades! Her heart sank—the scissors had fallen off of the countertop… and into the sink.
Mmmmph! No! This can’t be happening now! The young Asian reporter shook her head in denial and screamed obscenities into the pink rubber ball that filled her mouth.
***
Some time later, Valerie, still very much secure in bondage, was back to resting on the living room carpet (as it was softer than the hard kitchen tile). Suddenly, she heard keys tumbling once again in the locks to the apartment’s door. Valerie’s head perked up and she caught sight of her blonde roommate Cassie entering the apartment, decked out in her wannabe cowgirl attire, balancing several brown paper grocery bags in both of her hands.
Cassie caught a brief glance of Valerie as she brought the groceries into the kitchen. “Hey Val,” she said to the bound and gagged young Asian woman, as she turned to lower her Safeway bags onto the kitchen counter. Otherwise, Cassie completely ignored Valerie and turned her attention toward unloading her haul—frozen meals, vegetables, milk—while Valerie, still eyeing Cassie through the kitchen doorway, gave her roommate what might have been the most murderous death stare of her life. Once Cassie had put away all the perishables and started taking rice and cereal out of the bags, Valerie grunted. Very loudly. Several times.
“What?” Cassie giggled. “You want to tell me all about your interview that escalated into a hot bondage date? I could figure that out myself.”
Let me out. Mmmph mmmph mmmmmmmph, Valerie grunted again.
“I didn’t want to interrupt your fun, but I guess you have something important to say,” Cassie laughed. She reached down to Valerie’s head and unhooked the strap securing Valerie’s ball gag. The young Asian reporter spit out the pink rubber ball as fast as she could, worked some feeling back into her jaw, and then shouted, “Cassie, what the hell? Why did you leave me tied up alone in our apartment?”
“You weren’t alone,” Cassie replied. “You had your cute date.”
“For the last freaking time: That was not a date. That was an interview for a story.”
“He tied you up for an article? Val, come on, it’s okay to be kinky, even if you’re a shy, nerdy Asian girl like yourself…”
“We were talking about kinks, so I just asked if he could show me what it was like to be kinky, since I am very much
not,” said Valerie. “Then he left me tied up as some kind of punishment. He said some people in the student council had put him up to it.”
“That’s horrible! Leaving you in bondage against your will is neither S-S-C, nor R-A-C-K. Are you going to call campus police?”
“I suppose I should… wait, the new AKA law! All Matt has to do is say that tying me up was a fetish of his, and the campus police won’t do anything,” Valerie said. She thought to herself for a moment, then continued: “I guess he didn’t actually hurt me, and he didn’t really want to be the one to punish me. I’ll let this go, but I’ll keep reporting, the same as I always have.”
“Well I, for one, would feel so embarrassed having to explain this to the campus police,” said Cassie.
“I guess I’m glad I won’t have to do that; I’ll save my powers of description for my stories. Now,” Valerie said, turning her head toward Cassie, “will you
please untie me? I’ve been stuck like this for over an hour. There’s a knot inside of my crotch.”
“There’s a… oh, you mean
this,” Cassie said, running her fingers over the rope that was running between Valerie’s legs. Valerie winced as Cassie inadvertently tugged on it.
“Yes,
that one. Please don’t touch it. Get me out of this,” Valerie said, holding her bound hands up toward Cassie.
***
As Cassie undid the last knot securing Valerie’s wrists, she had to admire its handiwork—the perfect balance between being secure and being easy to undo. “Wow, this Matt guy really knows how to tie somebody up,” she said.
As soon as Valerie’s hands were free of the white cotton ropes, the young Asian reporter brought them back to her front and started to massage the rope marks out of her wrists. “Yeah, I know,” Valerie said. “I struggled as hard as I could and I could not get out for the life of me.”
“Sounds like fun,” Cassie grinned, as she pulled the last ropes off of Valerie’s body. Suddenly, Cassie felt Valerie’s arms wrapping around her, pinning her arms to her body, and Valerie, holding Cassie in a bear hug, toppled both girls onto the floor.
“If that’s your idea of fun,” Valerie taunted, “then I guess you’ll enjoy what I’m about to do.” The young Asian reporter then reached over for the white ropes that Cassie had just removed.
“Oh, so you’re going to tie me up now?” Cassie laughed. “Why? What did I do?”
“You didn’t release me when you came back for your stupid gift card! It’s your fault I was stuck here like this.”
“Well, do your worst,” Cassie grinned. “I grew up on a farm with three older brothers. I can escape anything you put me in, Val.”
“And I had a big Asian family with a dozen cousins, all of whom liked to tie up their little cousin Valerie,” Valerie replied. “I learned a thing or two from them, too.”
There, six strands, three loops; now to switch directions, make the cinch between her hands…
It didn’t take long until Valerie had Cassie in the same position Matt had left her—on the ground, resting on her stomach, wrists and ankles bound behind her back and connected by another rope that completed the hogtie, plus a crotch rope through Cassie’s legs. Once Valerie had secured the last knot, she looked around the floor for that ball gag that Matt had used on her.
“Any last words?” Valerie taunted Cassie, holding the pink rubber ball up in front of her face.
As Valerie had done when she was bound, Cassie was waving her fingers around, tugging her hands, probing for any weak points in her cotton restraints—but failing to find any. “Yeah,” Cassie grimaced. “For a girl who says she’s not into bondage, you sure do know how to do bondage.”
Without a word, Valerie shoved the ball into Cassie’s mouth and then moved behind her head to lock the strap of the ball gag in place.
Ah, peace and quiet. Now I can get some work done. Valerie retrieved her laptop from her bedroom, put on her reading glasses, and sat back down on the black couch, feet up on the coffee table, just the way that Valerie liked to write. Valerie spent the rest of the evening tapping away at her keyboard, glancing up every now and then to check up on her roommate Cassie, who in spite of all her efforts to escape, was going to remain hogtied on their living room floor until such time as Valerie decided.
***
The End
