All Tied Up With Nowhere To Go

Photographs are from a couple years ago by my good friend @poptart_anarachy on Instagram.

I answered a modeling call for "Seeking Old Hollywood Glamour Model", clearly a perfect fit for myself. I was happy to read that it paid $200 and it was all lingerie, no nudity. We set a date for the shoot and the photographer booked a hotel in Palo Alto, in an ritzy neighborhood almost 2 hours from me. I packed my rolling suitcase filled with lingerie and high heels and arm length gloves. I found the room and knocked on the door. The man introduced himself and was immediately taken with thre look of my eyes. He called me "Bambi" in a mocking tone, as if he already had assessed that he would be mentally dominant over me. I played the part, to please his needy, dependent ego, and he made many jokes about me which he imagined went over my head. He told me to tie my hair up right on top of my head, not a good look for me.. Then he added some unattractive sunglasses. This was not glamorous, and I had the feeling he had me had placed the ad so that he could get a beautiful young girl and make her ugly, and most importantly, uglier than him. He wasn't physically unattractive, but his demeanor would have disgusted any conscious woman, who would of course have rejected him. He was bitter, and trying to be proud of it. Im already feeling highly suspicious of this man, and then, he pulls out his phone and starts taking pictures.. Not even a camera. We shot around the hotel room and he purposely asked me to assume increasingly unflattering poses and faces. I just did whatever he said with a smile, refusing to smolder down to his level. This infuriated him. He was trying to make me feel vulnerable and I just didn't. This was a job, I was a performer, I was here to get paid and if the photos were ugly, so what, I won't use them. Frustrated by my unsinkable sunny disposition, he came up with a new plan. "Take off all your clothes". He announced. Fine, I usually do nudes anyways. Im perfectly comfortable being naked, so I still wasn't nervous. He brings out bushels of white nylon rope and says, "We're going to do some Shibari rope art." He smiled deviously as he whipped out a butterfly knife with a little finger twirl show and sliced the packaging from the ropes. I just kept a pleasant smile and said, "Oh how fun, I love trying new things". I had actually done Shibari a couple times before and found it to be a really unattractive way to mutilate my curves, but whatever. He started by wrapping rope tightly around my chest, squeezing my breasts uncomfortably and in a really unattractive way. As he was tying me up he went into a long monologue about being a Marine, his sexual exploits with desperate hookers overseas, including fucking a pregnant woman in front of her older son. He was trying to scare me, he wanted to feel powerful like a predator, but I'm nobody's prey. I didn't react. His stories became more gruesome about killing people, and then he said he had learned that he was the necessary balance of darkness in the world, during an Ayahuasca trip in Peru. He had a hallucination of finding a giant snake that ate villages whole and then he cut into the snake, crawled inside and became the terrible beast. He pushed people into expansion and gratitude by way of fear of losing their lives. He cleared excess human filth from a suffering earth raped for her finite resources. And on, and on with his nihilistic fantasy that did not impress me one bit. I entirely disagreed with him and made the mistake of making my own point. "I think the future will see renewable, recyclable resources replace there primitive non-renewable ones, and robots will build and farm and costs will go down being that labor can be reserved only for willing artisans, and inflation will halt and everyone can have enough of everything. We'll even find more land on other planets, or make them. Don't worry, it's going to be fine. We'll get our contrast from much more interesting problems like how to create new materials, explore space, and the tired old primitive issues of humans judging humans for this and that will fall away. I don't think evil is necessary, except for those who are blinded by their anger at themselves for not being smart enough to resolve problems without resorting to a "destroy and restart in my vision" dictator mentality." I was a "little" riled up internally and had this speech down because I used it on my pessimistic mom like every week. He laughed maniacally and pinched my chin and said, "it must be such a sweet little existence to be so naieve. You're still a little girl, you'll learn". And he intended to teach me what? That I should be bitter and miserable and fail at life like him? No thanks, I'll take the logic that is optimism. He is finished with the chest harness and starts another line of rope around my waist, squeezing me, and aggressively wraps the rope between my legs, yanking up. I just stay calm, but I'm starting to wonder where this is going to end. He creates a "hip harness" with handles at each hip, which I immediately feel suspicious about. The whole time he's going on about the role of fear in humanity and I try to tune him out, thinking my own, happy thoughts. When he's done he says we're going to take pictures outside in there courtyard. There are people walking about out there. Unsuspecting hotel guests are about to get a Shibari show. I had my favourite dress on, the "underboob" dress, which I no longer have and is actually quite a story of how it found a new home that maybe I will tell one day.. ;^) It showed some rope around the underside of my chest, and when we reached the courtyard he simply said, "lift your dress up". A foreign father and son stood in the doorway of the courtyard, appalled and intrigued. They watched for a minute before leaving. I had a bad feeling about it. Other people passed by as I flashed and bent over, no unders, just rope. He continues taking pictures with his phone. Then someone yells out to me, "Are you okay?" And the "photographer" replies "She's fine thank you. Come on, let's go back to the room". I got the feeling he was just trying to publically humiliate me, which I am officially immune to. In the hotel room he has me pose over a kitchenette sink and pretend the sink is me peeing? Im not sure what that was about. It gets pretty ugly honestly and finally he has me lie down on the table. He wants to tie a few more ropes, and when he's finished, he says, "now arch your back so only your butt and head are touching the table". I realize, too late, that I can't. In fact, I'm tied up in such a way that I'm completely immobilized. He's getting a boner in his khaki shorts and now I feel incredibly stupid for letting him tie me up. "I can't.." He just smiles and says, "Stay right there, I'll be right back". I start to feel very sick, and I try to fight the panic of being completely helpless. He returns after a few minutes, something behind his back. "I have a surprise for you!" He says it teasingly like you might say to a child. I keep a pleasant face. He pulls out a giant pink dildo in one hand and has his butterfly knife in the other. "Im going to fuck you". He says it darkly like he's The Emperor. I don't react like the fearful prey he wants me to be, I just calmly say, "No thank you". He jeers the knife towards my face and whacks the dildo between my legs. "Aren't you afraid?" He says it with a sneer and, as I often have with men, I imagine him as a dog. One of my first jobs was a dog trainer. No matter the circumstance, I must remain in control of myself. I'm alpha here. "No, I'm just not interested." I say it simply and calmly, raising my eyebrows and scrunching my lips down to one side, I shrug, like oh well, sorry just not feeling it guy. He looks confused. He jeers the knife towards my face once more, and I just say, "You'd better not.." like a mother to a child. I keep the upper hand, and he rolls his eyes and says, "Well you're no fucking fun". He takes his knife and plunges it towards my stomach, miraculously missing my skin and slicing through the rope. I don't flinch, I just keep staring directly at his face, expression unceasingly pleasant. He does this over and over again, clearly an expert, until I'm free. I still need to be paid, so I have to remain friendly, even after all that. "Sorry, our times up, I have to go to my next appointment." He's simply sitting in a chair watching me get dressed. "Too bad, you're such a fuckable girl. Your body was made for it. You would have loved it to, those hip handles really help me get deep inside you. You're the only girl who didn't get it, you're really missing out". Then he reaches for his laptop and brings up pictures of another girl, all in ropes, just like mine, getting fucked by him. And another, and he's grinning about it. "See? Look how fucking wet she is." Im absolutely disgusted and I wonder what choice these other girls had. "Yeah, I'm just really not into that, it doesn't turn me on at all, actually". I'm starting to get angry and if I don't leave soon Im probably going to let him have it with a shame on your creep self speech that surely won't be well recieved. "I've really got to go, I can't be late". He guffaws at me in irritation and reaches for his wallet. He holds out two $100 Bill's and wiggles them in the air. I walk over to him and he pulls them away as I reach for them. He laughs. I smile. I hold out my hand, look him in his snake eyes and say, "please?" In a calm tone. I'm no fun. He slaps the money in my hand and I leave, my rolling backpack of lingerie in tow. I walk quickly down the stairway, down the hallway, and a woman yells, "STOP!" I turn my head and a lady in a uniform is running after me! I run to the end of the hallway and out the door, a family gasps as im wearing a sheer dress, nothing on under, and my rolling pack of lingerie screams like thunder across the pavement. I throw the pack in my car and hop in. The woman, now joined by another hotel person thuds against my door and bangs on my window. "GET OUT! WHAT ROOM WERE YOU IN?" I imagine she thinks I'm a prostitute and I want no part of this drama. "THE POLICE ARE ON THE WAY!" At that, I start my engine and put the car in reverse. She grabs my door but I've locked it. "STOP HER!" She yells to her lackey who stands directly behind my car. Do they want me to run them over? I verrrryyy slowly back up so that they have to move with the car but im also not hurting them. The distraught woman, who I assume is the hotel manager yells out, "HELP! TAKE DOWN HER LICENSE PLATE!" All this because I was trotting around nudeish in the courtyard? Looking back away the situation now, I wonder if she knew about this evil guy in there and just wanted me to report him? Perhaps other girls hadn't been so lucky as to get away and had reported him? Maybe if I had stayed he would have been arrested.. I'll never know, because at the time I was terrified that I was in trouble, and as usual, it's likely that I had no current license, registration and insurance, not because I didn't want those things, but because I usually couldn't afford them. Horses are big $$$, and I had no help caring for them. I couldn't be having the police impound my car or arresting me for assumed prostitution. So I kept creeping backwards, pushing the ladies carefully. When I was finally able, I shifted to drive and peeled out of there into oncoming traffic and sped away. I stopped at a smoothie shop for a treat and drove home listening to Lana on the two hour drive. By the tone I got home and checked my emails to line up my next gig, I had an email from the "photographer" I had just worked with. It had several pictures from our 'shoot' which i still have, and just said, "Too bad." 

  So anyways, I don't do Shibari anymore. I don't even like looking at it. I was also never contacted by the police. I never really thought the whole incident through even. I just kept doing whatever it took to make more money.