Bicycle

Chapter 4: Under water

I had put her in pain, but I hadn’t scared her. Hadn’t driven her right to the edge of panic. That would change.

“Let’s clean off your face.” I grabbed her by the hair, pulled her along the floor. She quickly got in to a crawl and came along. I had a metal tub, like that used for watering cattle, only smaller over at one side, it was half filled with water.

I picked up her head, pushed it over the side and plunged it into the water. My hand held her head firmly under water for a few seconds, then pulled her up. She came up gasping from the shock. I let her use her hands to rub off her face.

I took a pair of socks from the shelf. “Time to move into the next phase.” I had her put out her hands and I placed a sock over each hand, pulling them up past the wrists. Then I took a turn of duct tape and taped the upper end of each to hold it on her hands. I had her stand up and pulled her hands behind her back. Using more duct tape over the socks, I lashed her hands firmly together behind her back.

I sat her back down on the floor and used more duct tape around her knees and ankles. Then I took a blindfold and put that over her face, and snuggled it down tight. She had no idea what was coming. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have let me tie her so passively. Too bad for her.

Now, I took my helpless slave, turned her around, and once again threw her head into the water, holding it under. This time she couldn’t even fight me to get loose. I held her under until I could feel signs of distress and pulled her up. This time she blew a couple of big breaths in and out.

“You’re in pretty good shape, I’ve heard that a person should be able to hold their breath for two or three minutes and some can do five or more. Let’s see how long you can do it.”

And I pushed her under. I had brought over a stop watch and clicked it as she went under. She really was in good shape and she went over a minute before there was any sign of distress. I pulled her up at 1:30, let her gasp a breath or two and shoved her down again.

This time long about two minutes she started to wiggle a bit, and this being her second breath without full recovery time she wasn’t ready to go for a record.

I started pulling her up and down, letting her gasp a breath or two or three, pushing her under and pulling her out. I kept changing the rhythm, sometimes only keeping her under for a few seconds, sometimes longer. Likewise, I kept varying the time she was out of the water as well. This is really exhausting and after a few cycles of this she was starting to come close to hyperventilating when she was pulled up.

She didn’t know how long I’d hold her up, so she didn’t know how to breath. Sometimes I timed it so I’d shove her under before she could pull in much air. She was starting to panic now, no longer trusting her conditioning. She started wasting her breath on pleading with me, begging. God I love that.

One more time I pushed her under, held for a little while and brought her up. This time, I held her face inches from the water.

“All right dearie, you just have one more time under the water. Just one more. Only this time, it will be longer than you’ve done up to now. Longer than you can imagine in fact.” She shook her head a bit.

“Sorry, my dear, one more time, and this time – well, I hope you’re strong. It will be a good long time you’re under and, have you noticed, when you’re under I can’t hear you use a safe word.”

Actually I was stalling. I was watching her, letting her breathing come back under control, letting her recover, but keeping her on edge mentally.

“OK, dear, you get three warm-up breaths and then under you go, use them wisely.”

She vented her lungs, pulled in the air, once, twice, three times. When she’d inhaled the third time, I put her under. I pushed her farther down till my arm was wet to the elbow.

I’d clicked my stopwatch and was watching it with one eye. I stepped over her so I could press myself down on her back, not to cut off her breathing, but just to give that feeling that she couldn’t get back up.

One minute, no sign of trouble. 90 seconds, still going strong. Two minutes. Now I had to watch her carefully. Because she should be pushed to panic and just a tiny bit beyond; pushed to the point where her trust breaks and her emotions convince her that she is in the hands of someone who is going to harm her. Water does that, it’s a primal fear of death.

She was starting to move around, starting to fight, to panic. I had to give her no clue that I was about to pull her up, but be ready to do so. Her head was shaking and she was trashing hard now. I counted to three and ripped her out of the water, threw her over on the floor on her back and let her breath, choke, sputter and gasp. As her eyes came into focus, she saw me standing over her.

Spontaneously, she rolled over and began kissing my feet and sobbing out her devotion and thanks. Progress, progress, but it would have been better if she’d been fully broken. Ah, well, we had time.