A Knot for Two - 2
The Workshop
Previously
2
The week leading up to the workshop felt long. Meera felt every hour passing slowly. It was in the afternoon of Wednesday when she received an email, from Vikram. It looked like an email that went to all participants. Meera was at work when it happened. It didn’t have pictures, but she went to the ladies room to read the email.
Hello there!
I am excited to welcome you to this workshop. You are receiving this email, because we have verified your payment. I will also take this opportunity to tell you more about the two-day workshop.
I will be your instructor, but do not think of me as a professor of sorts. I love shibari and everything it represents. This workshop is my way of sharing with you my enthusiasm in this elegant, yet erotic performance art. I will, of course, speak about it, at length in the workshop, but here’s the itinerary for the workshop:
Day 1:
Morning Session:
9:00 am - 9:30 am: Registration and introduction to the workshop
9:30 am - 10:00 am: Brief history of Shibari and its cultural significance
10:00 am - 10:30 am: Understanding consent, safety, and communication in Shibari practice
10:30 am - 11:00 am: Tea break
11:00 am - 1:00 pm: Basic knots and rope handling techniques
Afternoon Session:
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Lunch break (not included in the workshop fee)
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Introduction to floor Shibari techniques and patterns
4:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Tea break
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm: Practicing floor Shibari techniques with a partner
Day 2:
Morning Session:
9:00 am - 9:30 am: Recap of Day 1 and addressing queries
9:30 am - 11:00 am: Introduction to basic suspension Shibari techniques
11:00 am - 11:30 am: Tea break
11:30 am - 1:00 pm: Practicing suspension Shibari techniques with a partner
Afternoon Session:
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Lunch break (not included in the workshop fee)
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm: Exploring the emotional and psychological aspects of Shibari
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm: Tea break
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm: Creative Shibari session and photo opportunities
Attendee Expectations:
Participants should wear comfortable, form-fitting clothing (e.g., yoga pants, leggings, fitted t-shirts) to ensure ease of movement and prevent rope entanglement.
All necessary equipment (ropes, carabiners, etc.) will be provided. However, attendees are welcome to bring their own.
No prior experience is required, but a basic understanding of bondage is expected.
At the start of workshop, you will be paired with a partner of opposite gender. You would be given some time to be familiar with the partner, since Shibari is all about trust and vulnerability.
While the mainstream Shibari involves women being tied up in the knots, I will be more than glad to have men who are willing to indulge in being tied up. And for women, who want to learn how to tie someone up, you always have me as a volunteer.
While the organizers needed your official IDs to verify your age and gender, we will not reveal your identity to other participants. You can also attend the entire workshop while wearing a mask, if you choose to do so.
Please note that this workshop, offers a unique experience that stands out even amidst the Bombay's diverse offerings. Participants should come with an open mind, ready to learn and engage in a respectful and safe environment. By the end of the workshop, attendees will have gained a solid foundation in the art of Shibari, creating a strong basis for further exploration and practice, in their privacy.
So, see you on Saturday? I will send you the address by 7 AM on Saturday.
Tied up,
Vikram
Meera finished reading the email, and came out of the water closet. As she washed her face and hand, she realized that she was wet inside her panty, even while reading a fairly bland curriculum. She quickly looked up what floor shibari and suspension shibari techniques were.
Seeing the women, tied in intricate knots, their hands and legs restrained, with men standing around and looking at them, made Meera want to touch herself. She had made up her mind to spend some more time in the ladies room, when she got three texts from Zoya in quick succession, asking where she was. Meera looked at the images one last time, before heading out, telling herself that the run-up to Saturday was going to be difficult.
Meera didn’t lie to her dad. Not technically.
“I have this workshop this weekend. I will be —” Meera broached the topic on Thursday, during dinner.
“What workshop?” Rajeev interrupted her.
“It’s related to work. I will be away from 8 AM to 6 PM or so. For both Saturday and Sunday,” Meera said, in between bites.
“Oh, alright, that should be fine. Only the Sunday thing, Polly would be alone for a while,” he said.
And that was that.
On Saturday, Meera was awake by 6 AM, more out of excitement than punctuality. She made herself a cup of coffee, watered the plants, and by 7 AM, she was in the shower.
She had just turned on the shower and wet her body when her phone buzzed twice. Expecting that it would be the address, she walked to the phone, wiped her hands, and checked her phone.
Naked and wet, Meera stood in her bathroom, reading the location. There was a WhatsApp message from an unsaved number. The man in the profile picture was unmistakably Vikram. He was standing against a wall, looking away, the sun hitting his face and creating irregular shadows. It was a pose, something that was rare among men, at least the men in her contact list.
The location? It was walkable from her house. She re-checked the address and Googled it to be sure. It was in a society that she had walked past multiple times. It was a residential place. But societies like that invariably have an auditorium. How did this guy manage to book his society's auditorium for a Shibari workshop?
Meera should have been more excited. Until she received that message, she had a doubt that the entire workshop was a con, that the entire workshop was simply a way of taking the money. How hard was it for them to simply email that the workshop is canceled? Switch off the number and that's it. Who would go and file an FIR for a canceled Shibari workshop? The police would laugh the person away, especially for that small sum of money.
And yet, when the location finally came, she was a little sad too. The location seemed a little too open. She was expecting an intimate workshop. The whole allure of this was to see someone being tied up, to see a girl, maybe herself, on the floor, kneeling, with her hands tied behind her back, with the entire room watching her.
But an auditorium, in broad daylight, in the middle of a society? It would be a tame workshop, probably a PowerPoint presentation. Meera sighed and put the phone away. The water on her naked body had dried up, and she was feeling chilly. She was about to walk away when the phone buzzed again.
The auditorium will be locked after 0930 AM, and can only be unlocked from inside. So, be there on time!“Oh,” Meera said in a low voice to herself.
She put the phone away and went back to showering. She cleaned herself more thoroughly than she usually would. It was a clothed event, and she was going there in a white tee shirt and black leggings. Of course, she would leave the house wearing a kurta, with the tight-fitting tee shirt underneath her kurta.
Taking off her kurta before reaching the privacy of the auditorium was not possible. It excited her, the idea of taking off her kurta while inside the auditorium, the possibility of strangers wondering what the girl was doing, taking off her clothes, only to be seen in a fitting white tee shirt underneath. The tee shirt was a size smaller than what she usually wore. She didn’t wear it outside, except for the really difficult evenings when she wanted to feel sexy in the sanctuary of her bedroom. The material of the tee shirt cupped her breasts, making it more than obvious to others as to how round and full they were.
The tee shirt had short sleeves. She shaved her armpits. She looked at her crotch and decided that her bush didn’t need trimming that morning. She cleaned her pubis. While doing that, she felt that she should touch herself. But that would invariably make her less sensitive to what the workshop had in store.
After the shower, she came to her room and decided to stay naked until it was time to get ready. She lay in the bed and read the emails from Vikram again. She had never talked with the guy; she didn’t even know how he sounded like, but the way the emails were written, the almost pedantic approach to something as sexual as bondage, made her want to meet him.
She was caressing herself when her hand found its way to her clit. She circled it before deciding that she wouldn't know when to stop. She was fresh from the shower, and she wanted to go to the workshop with an oversensitive pussy. In fact, she hadn’t touched herself for two evenings before that.
And, she hadn’t cried too. She would study, and when her mind wandered, she looked at all the content she could find on Shibari. There was, of course, porn, but there were performance art videos too. It showed women, mostly Asian, slender and short, with their hands tied behind their back, sometimes in front of them. She focused on the deadpan expression on their faces and the slightly scary part when the final knot was tightened. She looked at the men tying these women, the deftness of their hands, the confidence they had with each knot they constructed.
While watching these, she would often find herself fighting against the urge to touch herself, to let her mind wander, to see herself in the place of those women. But she wanted to be surprised; she wanted to be a novice even to thinking about what it would feel like to be tied up like a decorative bound woman. The conflict kept the clock ticking during the evenings. She hadn’t touched herself all that time, and she didn’t want to lose to the temptation just an hour before the actual thing.
She left her home 10 minutes before 9 AM. It was drizzling. Meera could have opened her umbrella, but she kept it firmly clutched in her hands. She liked a little rain. The drizzle, hitting her face, was a sensation after all. And when you spend a lot of your time trying not to feel things, those little sensations matter a lot.
She reached the venue gate a minute before 9 AM. The security guards already had her name, so she was simply let in. It didn’t take her long to find the auditorium.
She was the first to arrive. She reached the door to the auditorium and peered inside. It was dark, except for a large panel of LED screens. On the dais was a man, whom she quickly recognized as Vikram. He was skimming through his presentation while explaining something to the woman beside him.
The woman was leaning over his shoulder, her breast casually squashed against his shoulder. She had long straight hair and a cleft chin. She was tall and slender. Her skin was so fair that even in the dimly lit auditorium, her skin managed to give off light. She wore a white tee shirt and a pair of black yoga pants.
She had small breasts and slender hips, which complemented her overall slender frame. Meera felt a tap on her shoulder. It almost startled her.
Behind her were a couple. It was the girl who had tapped her shoulder.
“Is this the workshop?” she said, her voice low, almost scandalous.
“Yes,” Meera said, with a smile.
The couple didn’t look much older than Meera. The guy had a backpack and a head full of curly hair, which made Meera’s hair look straight in comparison. He had thick stubble and wore thick glasses. He smiled at her and then said to his girlfriend, “Let’s go in.”
The girl smiled at her. She too, like Meera, was wearing a top and yoga pants. Meera watched them walk inside, with the guy placing his hand on his girlfriend’s back.
“Hello!”
It was the first time Meera heard Vikram’s voice. It wasn’t a shout, but it had a gravitas that made all three in the room look at him.
He stood up from his chair and came forward on the dais. There weren’t special lights there, just a yellow stage light, falling on his face.
Vikram stood tall, his shoulders broad and his forearms veiny and muscular. He wore a pair of jeans and a blue linen shirt. The shirt’s buttons strained against his chest, leaving a pocket whenever he would push his shoulders back.
“Welcome! Please find a seat. This auditorium is quite large for the audience we want, so please sit in the front rows,” he said, looking at Meera.
Meera’s heart skipped a bit when he looked at her. He had clasped his hands while speaking. His eyes shone with the yellow light, deep and mischievous at the same time. And his voice. Vikram’s voice had a resonant deep bass to it. He spoke only a few words, but each of those words had an emotional range to it. He didn’t raise his voice, and yet, every word he said made it to Meera’s ears. She never really thought about someone’s voice as much as she thought about Vikram’s when she was walking to the chair in the front row. After all, Vikram had told her to do so.
The couple that came with her sat a couple of seats away from her. Meera made herself comfortable, keeping her umbrella below her seat, her phone and wallet in her lap.
Oh no, she thought, noticing that she was still in her kurta. And now she was in the front row, with Vikram sitting only a few feet away from her. How was she supposed to stand up and take off her kurta in front of Vikram? She should have done it when nobody had noticed her. Instead, she spent the time watching the tall slender girl on the dais, leaning over Vikram’s shoulders, observing how she had dressed, and wondering whether Vikram and she were intimate.
Meera sighed and checked the time on her phone. It was close to 9:25 AM, and it was just the three of them, the entire list of participants. She looked to her side, and the couple was deep in conversation. The guy had his arm around the girl and would chuckle now and then.
She wondered if Vijay would have liked this workshop. But then again, coming to this workshop would have been a waste of her time. She would be worried whether he would go for a kiss when she was tied up. She wouldn’t be able to raise her hands to stop him. That momentary thought made her pussy tingle. She shook her head and looked at the dais, wondering how sensitive her pussy was to tingle at the thought of even Vijay going to kiss her.
The door opened once more, and another couple walked in. Meera checked the time, and it was 9:31 AM. Did she misread the post? Was this a couple’s workshop? It said it was non-sexual, but after all, it’s about binding your partner, running the rope between her breasts and between her legs. It seemed natural that it would attract couples. She had come to the workshop to forget that she was alone, and here were two other couples, and Meera, all alone. She sighed and touched her nose pin. She looked at her phone, tapping apps for no particular reason.
Vikram got up from his chair again. Meera looked up when she heard his chair move. From where she was sitting, she noticed the squeaky white pair of Nikes he was wearing.
He said something to the woman with him. When she started getting off the dais, he announced, “It seems everybody else is a no-show. We will be locking the doors now and begin.”
He walked back to the computer on the little desk on the stage. Meera heard the thud of the door behind her. She turned around to see the woman lock the door and make her way back to the stage. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but the woman with Vikram, wasn’t wearing any shoes. Just a pair of beige-colored socks. She walked past Meera, and she was climbing steps to the stage, Meera saw her slender hips, moving gracefully, almost like gazelle.
Vikram came to the center of the stage and began speaking.
“Hello!” Vikram said, wringing his hand together.
“I am Vikram,” he started, “first of all, thank you for showing for this. The last time I had done this, only 2 guys showed up. It was still fun,” he looked over at the woman on the stage beside her. They both exchanged a smile.
“Okay,” Vikram looked at the crowd (it’s an overstatement, but, well, five’s a crowd), “how many of you knew about Shibari before you read about this workshop and Googled it?”
Meera looked around the auditorium. She was expecting a show of hands. Nobody raised their hands or made a move. Meera knew about it, which is why she was browsing that community. She wondered how the other couples knew about this, if they didn’t know what Shibari is.
Vikram smiled. There was awkward silence in the audi. He showed the first slide.
Meera had seen glimpses of other slides, when she had come in, but not that one.
The slide showed the woman beside Vikram. The picture seemed to have been taken in his living room. Meera looked at her on stage, and then back to the picture. She adjusted herself in the seat. The picture made her nervous.
“Well, if it isn’t obvious, this is Anjali in the picture,” Vikram spoke. He pointed to the woman. She smiled, almost blushing.
“I show this as the first picture, because I want you to understand that Shibari is more than just kinky foreplay,” Vikram said. He brushed over those words, with the same ease as he spoke the rest.
Meera exhaled deeply. She looked at others in the auditorium. Everyone's eyes were transfixed on the image, studying it.
The image showed Anjali, tied up and hung from a horizontal rod. She wasn't naked, but what she wore was suggestive enough. Anjali's long, fair legs looked sinewy in her gym shorts, her thighs slender but shapely. The ropes, in intricate knots and patterns, bent one of her legs, her knee and thigh tied in a way that they would stay bent, as if she was taking a jump.
The rope strained against Anjali's skin, reddening it and squishing it together. The picture showed her from the side, her neck arched because the rope went against her throat too. It made her hold the position, close to a yoga stretch.
She was wearing a white tank top. The ropes went around her breasts, circling them and squeezing them in the process. Her breasts, though small, looked perky, her nipple poking through the shirt, making it all too obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra.
Her hair was let down, straight, and it fell, hiding most of her face, except for her recognizable cleft chin.
There was silence in the auditorium, everybody looking and studying the photo.
Meera looked at Anjali, who rested her backside against the tabletop, her arms crossed, and looked at the picture—a picture of her, bound and hung up. The picture looked almost like a work of art, with the subject being Anjali.
Vikram changed the slide. It showed Anjali again, but this time, in a more suggestive pose.
She was on the floor, kneeling. Her hands were tied behind her back, the ropes squeezing her breasts, her nipples poking and looking straight into the camera. The picture had Vikram too, at least his lower body. Vikram, wearing casual trousers, was beside Anjali, who hung her head down. He had his hand on her shoulder. Meera noticed something in the photo, something that she was sure others noticed too—a bulge in Vikram's pants.
After letting the picture settle in the minds of his audience, Vikram spoke, "What you see here isn't just a bound woman kneeling on the floor and a man standing beside her. She's helpless, her hands tied behind her back, her ankles restrained. If you see the previous picture," he went back, "there's a rope that runs between her legs, over the most sensitive part of her body."
Vikram paused and exhaled, "She's vulnerable and at the complete mercy of whoever else is in the room. And yet, being bound, she's free."
Vikram skipped to a slide with text.
"What you saw in the pictures is the end product. But before that, you go through a process of learning these knots, these patterns, these ways of binding your partner in a way that she can be hung and left that way for hours, without any injury to her," Vikram paused for the murmur among the couples to settle down.
Meera didn't have anyone to talk to, and yet, she too wondered about that—hours. What would it be like to be left like that for hours? What would she be feeling if she was in place of Anjali, a bound woman in Vikram's bedroom, bound and in the air? Meera clasped her hands together and placed them near her crotch. She had started feeling wet and warm too because of the two layers of clothes.
"Yes, for hours. Shibari is a sweet punishment, a punishment that promises rewards to those who participate in it," Vikram said.
"Today is all about the second picture," he went back to the picture of Anjali kneeling on the floor, "Let's begin with the simplest of knots."
For the next hour, Vikram showed Meera and four others the basics, using Anjali as a model. Anjali stood on the dais, submissively, letting herself be bound the way Vikram wanted. Meera tried to read her face, searching for an iota of shyness or anxiety. But there was a cold lust in her expression. It wasn't a sultry look; it was a look that exuded the knowledge of what was going to happen and the certainty that she would like it.
Vikram showed them a series of simple knots, each one building on the last, creating an intricate network of ropes that wound around Anjali's body like a lover's embrace. As he worked, Vikram explained the importance of tension and balance, the need to ensure that the ropes were snug without being too tight, allowing for circulation while still providing the necessary restraint.
Meera watched, captivated, as Anjali's body transformed before her eyes. The ropes seemed to accentuate her natural curves, drawing attention to the swell of her breasts and the gentle arch of her back. It was a mesmerizing dance between the two of them, each movement deliberate, each knot placed with precision and care. As she watched, Meera couldn't help but imagine herself in Anjali's place, her own body bound and vulnerable, the ropes both a constraint and a release.
As the morning turned to afternoon, the participants took a break for lunch, the conversation animated and excited. Meera sat alone, her thoughts swirling around the images of Anjali, the feel of the ropes, and the anticipation of experiencing such intimacy and surrender. The butterflies in her stomach grew, a mixture of excitement and anxiety, the knowledge that she was here alone, without a partner to share in this journey.
When the workshop resumed, Vikram continued to demonstrate more complex patterns and techniques on Anjali. Meera observed how the ropes seemed to caress her body, each loop and knot hugging her skin, leaving indentations as they went. The delicate interplay of power and submission was palpable in the room, a tension that was both arousing and unsettling.
Vikram checked his watch; it was around 5 PM when he said, "Alright, that would be all the demonstration." He moved toward Anjali, who was on the floor, kneeling and bound. She had been that way for a couple of hours by then, but her face showed no signs of exertion or discomfort. Vikram started untying her and said, "We are running late, but we have plenty of time for practice." He pulled at the ropes as expertly as he had tied them, each loop coming undone, leaving creases on Anjali's t-shirt and indents on her bare forearms.
After a Good Date is a reader supported publication. I do not take ads, and almost all the content here is free. Writing and generating the art take time and resources. The only way I can keep doing this is with your support. There are plenty of ways to support this publication, in whatever capacity you deem fit.
Meera exhaled deeply, knowing that she wouldn't be able to practice, because she had nobody who would tie her up.
"I want you all to come on the dais," Vikram said, finally setting Anjali free. She got up on her feet and said something to Vikram in a low voice. He nodded.
The couples got up, the men before the women. The older couple were the first on stage.
Vikram got off the stage and walked to Meera. She saw him walking toward her, knowing full well what the conversation would be about.
"Hi," he said, extending his hand.
Meera stood up and offered her hand for a handshake. Vikram squeezed her hand; his touch, though gentle and fleeting, left Meera wanting more. In that short moment, she noted how veiny his palm was, and the fingers, the fingers that would manipulate ropes and a woman's body in the way she had been seeing the entire day.
"Hello," she said, remembering that she didn't respond with words while shaking his hand.
"I am really sorry, we don't have an even number of attendees," he said, checking her out. Meera felt his gaze linger on her breasts and then quickly move down to her legs and her bottom-heavy body.
"It's alright. I —"
"Anjali had an idea. We can let these guys practice. And once they are done, she would love to practice on you?" Vikram had lowered his head a little to compensate for the height difference between the two.
“Oh,” Meera said, not fully understanding what it all meant. She was in awe, with Vikram, who was standing in front of her, someone she had been looking for so long on the stage.
“Yeah, so, all this ends at 6 PM. After that, maybe you can come with us to my place. We can find you something comfortable to wear, and —”
“I am wearing a tee shirt underneath this. I just didn’t get the chance to take it off,” Meera said. As she was saying it, she realized that she must have sounded like an idiot, telling Vikram about her tee shirt underneath.
Vikram paused, smiled, and said, “Perfect then. So, just hang back for an hour after the workshop?” Vikram said.
Meera’s ears were burning. She should have said no. But she couldn’t.
She nodded, almost involuntarily.
It was only after Vikram got back to the stage that she realized what she had agreed to. She would be “at his place”, with Anjali practicing her knots on her. She would be in the same living room, where Anjali’s pictures were from. Vikram would be watching her being tied, and she would be in front of two strangers, bound and vulnerable.
Meera was staring at the stage, as the two couples fumbled through the ropes, the women on their knees, their men trying to figure out how to bind them. She was only looking at them, her mind though, was somewhere else, a place she had never been to, with only anticipation and lust as her guides. In a long time, she touched her nose pin, not in sadness, but in excitement.
To Be Continued
After a Good Date is a reader supported publication. I do not take ads, and almost all the content here is free. Writing and generating the art take time and resources. The only way I can keep doing this is with your support. There are plenty of ways to support this publication, in whatever capacity you deem fit.