In Another Life   Pairing/warning/rating: Fraser/Kowalski, bondage, NC-17 Disclaimer: they're not mine, they are Alliance's, and no copyright infringement is intended -- though many other infringements are gleefully described. Summary: The continuation of my F/K bondage series, Another Life. This is a sequel to Where To Begin, though some days have passed since the events in WTB. Fraser is feeling out of his depth and frightened -- yet compelled to continue. Thanks to J Hardin and Maxine for reading and discussing and thinking aloud. Thanks go to Maxine for finally giving a name to this series: Another Life.       In Another Life     I do not want to think about it. It is unnatural. Things... other things we do... are unnatural as well. But that unnatural-ness seems to come to each of us... naturally. This doesn't. Or it shouldn't. But it does come naturally. To me. I'm going in circles with these thoughts. It must stop. Ray. My Ray. Ray Kowalski. It feels like he and I are on a road circling up the side of a mountain. We look down from it at the sheer drop below, a drop which no one could survive. This road is the direction our relationship has taken in the past several weeks. There are no guard rails to provide even an illusion of security. The road continues to climb up the side of the mountain, to a peak shrouded in mist -- a peak we can not see, a height we can not judge. As we ascend, the drop becomes higher, the fall either or both of us could take becomes farther. And we don't know where we are going or where it may end. Oh, he doesn't need to do it "that way" all the time. He made that very clear. That he could live without it. That I should never feel compelled by obligation to make love to him "that way". But the compulsion in me isn't merely obligation. And it isn't love, at least it is not solely love. I don't know what is motivating it. And I am afraid to keep allowing it free rein. But-- but-- The past week and a half in a row -- using the neckties -- I have restrained him and had my way with him every night. And he loves it. And I can't stop. Whenever I think of him in a sexual way now, it's no longer lying back on his bed, naked and lovely and giving me that wry but hungry look. It's no longer how he smiles at me in the car, when he knows that the minute we get inside his apartment, he is going to remove my clothing as quickly as possible and take me into his mouth. No. Now, whenever I think of him in a sexual way, he's bound. Restrained. Some way. Any way. Mostly to his bed. But in other ways... locations... ways I have never bound him... perverse and thrilling ways. I wish I could stop. But I can't. Night after night, I wordlessly lead him to wherever I've decided to restrain him. And he complies of his own free will. And I take first one wrist and then the other and I tie them. Sometimes I tie his ankles too. And he watches me. He watches and says nothing. I feel his eyes on me all the time I am doing it. I fear he knows. Knows I'm not doing it because he likes it, although he does and that was why I continued doing it, initially. Knows I am not doing it because I love him, although I do and that is why I've continued to do it this way. Knows that now, I can not stop. Knows I simply must do it. And his eyes -- though he says nothing, and his expression is carefully neutral -- his eyes are intent on me. They are wide-pupilled yet focused on me, with the unblinking knowledge that I now need and want this more than he does. With the knowledge that it is bigger than his wants, bigger than my love for him. That it is a part of me, this need to restrain him, control him, manipulate him (physically or mentally, in the "heat of the moment" as they say -- though "moments" would be more apt in our case). His eyes are wise and when I look at them I know that he knows that I need to have absolute control over every part of him, to know that he is all mine, absolutely mine, and will give me everything he has to give. Even if he thinks he can't. Because I will make him. And he will let me. But there'd be nothing to "let" me do, if I didn't already want to do it to him. So I have taken to blindfolding him first, before I do anything else, the past few days. And then his wise eyes are hidden while I do what I must to recapture that blissful, soothing feeling of... of... the way that he is so completely mine, mine, fettered, bound for me, bound by me, bound to me. That gladdening feeling of my power over him. My absolute power -- because he will do anything and everything I ask of him. "Red light". I keep waiting for him to say "red light". But he hasn't yet. No, no, no. I am imagining things. His eyes do not see what I think they see in me. They aren't wise and intent and knowing. I imagine that because I feel guilty about all I've done to him. Because I still carry that fear that I'm an utter deviant, a pervert, sick. If I could shake that secret fear -- if only I could -- I wouldn't see what I think I've seen in his eyes. We don't talk about it. We... talk around it. He tells me how it feels, how it felt, how good it was, how much he loves it. How much he loves me. Approximately one fifth of the talking about "it" is done by me. Approximately four fifths of the talking we do about "it" is by Ray. Which is not to give an impression that we actually talk about it that much... we don't. Certainly not like we should. And we don't talk about what is really going on. Which is how thrilled I am to enter the bedroom and let the real world fall away and know that I own him. That I can make him do things. That I can make his body do things, whether he wants it to or not. That I possess him. That he has not refused anything I've asked of him yet. I should not, perhaps, credit myself so much. After all, it is consensual: he is doing it of his own free will. Or is he? If he wanted to stop, and I wanted to continue, and he continued because I wanted to, not because he wanted to -- how free is his will then? Some would say, well, he still makes a choice to do what you want to do. He chooses to do what he knows will please you. The days when I would passively accept his advances on the couch, enjoy his caresses and acts and reciprocate dutifully and joyfully -- I know that chronologically they are still recent. But they feel like they were years ago, almost in another life. I can't believe I was ever so passive. I can't believe I was so docile. I can't believe I was so undemanding. I am aggressive, headstrong, and demanding now. And, no matter how extreme my demands, Ray obeys every last one. It is frightening. I feel I could lock him in his room, tied to his bed, for days on end -- and he would let me. I have even fantasized that much -- that he is chained to the bed while I am at the Consulate during the day. That he is waiting for me to come home and make use of him. That he can not do anything without my permission. That he exists there, in that room, chained to that bed, solely for me and my pleasure. Of course, I am startled from this daydream half a dozen times a day, knowing that he is at the 27th precinct, doing his job, being a detective, and that we work well together at solving cases. But... that other Ray, the one who exists solely for me and my pleasure, whose pleasure is mine to give or take away -- that Ray is never completely out of my mind. Work at the Consulate, which used to be so often dreary and boring, has become the only sane part of my life. Its mundane simplicity and trivial frustrations seem part and parcel of a world I no longer inhabit. And our work together on cases, with or without help and support from the other detectives at the 27th precinct, is so utterly detached from the way we are together when we are alone. It is so ..."normal." But these are all part of a world I'm only visiting, while my "real world" waits in Ray's bedroom, in his bed... And yet it is the daily visits to the "normal" world that give our private world meaning. I am afraid to think what I might do if we didn't have jobs to go to every day... if we both took our vacation time at the same time... would he ever leave his bedroom? Would I let him? Lately, we may be caught up in the particulars of a case or evidence... and all he has to do is look at me. And when I see his expression shift, I know that he is no longer seeing Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP. His eyes change slightly. They become calm, and he becomes very still and composed for a moment or two. And then I know he does not see his partner in red Serge. I know then that he sees a man whose mouth says it loves him -- and whose body invades his in every way possible. A man whose body he is required to pleasure and serve in any and every way the man deems desirable. And when that happens, when his eyes change that way, I no longer see Detective First Grade Raymond Kowalski of the 27th Precinct of the Chicago Police Department. I see my Ray, on his knees at my feet. Or bent over the ottoman or the coffee table. Or bound to his bed frame. With far too much love and wisdom in his eyes.     end       Verushka appreciates feedback.