The Clerk
Copyright© 2026 by R. E. Bounds
Chapter 7: Can’t Do This Alone
“Was it the fuse?” Susan asked really loud, as she heard me close the door to the basement.
“No,” I yelled out from the storage room.
The sound of chains rattling in the front of the store caught my attention. I assumed it was Susan, but as I turned, I saw Bambi, bent over, looking out the window.
She was breathtaking—her legs long, smooth, and impossibly perfect in the hose. She stood tall in the heels, moving with the ease and grace of someone who had worn them for years.
The leg cuffs fit snugly, their ends almost touching, with a delicate chain suspended between them, just above the ground. The waist chain traced her curves, accentuating her figure, while the connecting chain draped down the front of her body, disappearing between her legs to meet the cuffs below.
The rain had eased, still falling but far less intense than before. I quickly redirected my focus, trying to push Bambi from my thoughts.
She turned toward me and hobbled over, her eyes locking with mine. Her hands were outstretched, as if reaching for something—instinctively seeking balance or support. Her body wasn’t used to moving like that yet.
Susan had done the same thing at first—reaching out unconsciously, as if trying to grab hold of something. At least until her body adjusted to the cuffs. I knew the same would happen with Bambi.
Eventually, she’d learn to walk just fine in them, even with the shorter chain. She’d keep her wrists relaxed in front of her, like she was carrying a clutch purse at an evening event.
Again, I caught myself—drifting into thoughts that didn’t make much sense.
“I think the power’s out on the whole street,” Bambi said. “The other side went out just as I walked up. One second it was on, then ... nothing.”
I glanced out the window.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Looks like no power tonight.”
Just then, Jennifer and Trix walked up, with Susan following behind them.
Susan looked outside and saw the power was out.
“There’s a break,” she said, holding up her phone. “The storms are over those neighborhoods, about twenty minutes away. But more rain’s coming.”
Jennifer chimed in, glancing at her own phone. “It’s almost eleven,” she said. She looked at Trix. “If we leave now, we’ll be back on campus before one.”
Trix nodded.
“You all drove together?” I asked.
“I bummed a ride from Jen,” Trix replied. “Bams drove herself—lives off-campus, in the apartments.”
I checked my phone. “Okay,” I nodded. “Looks like we’ll need to rain-check the rest of that story,” I said to Trix, glancing at her.
She smiled, not saying anything, though I could tell she was glad.
“Don’t forget your coats, purses, phones, all that stuff,” I added, gesturing toward the table where they’d left their things when they arrived.
I walked over to the counter and grabbed a handcuff key from the box.
“Let me take those off of you,” I said to Trix.
She seemed to take a second to realize she was still cuffed.
“Oh. Right,” she chuckled. “Yeah.”
Susan smiled. “Someone once told me that if you wear them long enough, you forget you’re even in them.”
“I thought they were just messing with me. Like, there’s no way that’s real. But they were right. Most of the time, I forget I’m even like this—until I try to do something and can’t.”
“I thought I’d hate these,” Trix began, holding up her hands, “but honestly, they don’t hurt at all.”
“Are they for sale?” Bambi asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, the cuffs and the chokers back there.”
Bambi hobbled over to her purse and pulled out a credit card, holding it out as far as she could. She bit her lip, then said, “Ring me up? No need for a bag.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling as I walked over to the register.
Trix just stared at Bambi.
“Really, Bams?” she told her.
“Yeah,” Bambi replied, shrugging, “I think you need those.”
I rang them up. I’d started to hand her the receipt, but then thought—.
“I’ll put the receipt in your purse,” I told her.
“I need to grab the keys too. They’re on the table,” I said. “Those, you’ll really need,” smiling at the comment she made about Trix needing the cuffs.
I looked up at her. “They use standard keys, so they’re easy to replace if you lose them. Just keep one on your keychain or something—just in case.”
She smiled at me.
“I can just get them,” Jennifer said.
As she headed to the back, Bambi called after her, “Can you grab my blazer too?”
She nodded as Bambi walked up to me. I was putting the receipt in the side compartment of her purse, thinking to myself, her purse costs more than I make in a month at the department store.
She held out her hand. “Can I borrow the key?” she asked, pointing to the handcuff key on the counter—the one I’d grabbed earlier.
“You can’t get to the keyhole—not with the box on,” I reminded her.
“I know,” she said. “I know I can’t get out of these. The key’s not for me.”
I gave it to her and she hobbled over to Trix and gestured for her hands. Susan and I watched as she uncuffed one side, knowing exactly how to do it with them being double-locked, then told her to turn around.
“Bams!” she said. “You’re not cuffing me from behind.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sure, I am,” she said just looking at her. “Come on. Turn around.”
“Fine!” she replied—not upset, but not exactly happy either.
That’s when Trix turned around, Bambi never letting go of the cuff she’d undone. Trix put her other hand behind her, and Bambi reached out as best she could, stepping and leaning forward to slip her wrist into the cuff. She then gently closed it, making sure no ratchets were showing—just like I had done earlier. Finally, she double-locked it.
“There,” she said.
She then looked over at me and smiled.
“Can you slip them off?” she asked.
Trix pulled at the cuffs.
“No,” she said simply.
Jennifer had already come back and was watching.
“Do you have the keys?” Bambi asked.
She held them up while placing Bambi’s blazer on the table next to her purse.
“Okay,” Bambi remarked.
Jennifer just looked at Trix, her hands cuffed now from behind.
Bambi nodded.
Like they’d had a conversation about it.
There was something going on between them—something Susan and I weren’t privy to. Whatever it was, they were having fun with it. Well, maybe except for Trix.
“Let me get those off,” I then told Bambi.
Then it hit me. “I ... I need to get the padlock key. Get that off first—”
Another sharp clap of thunder rolled through the air. But this one was right over us. I caught Susan silently counting under her breath—storms always made her uneasy.
“I think the next one’s about six miles away,” she said quietly. “It’ll be here soon.”
“Okay,” I said looking at Jennifer and Trix. “You two should head out. Susan and I will get Bambi out of those so she can get home safe, too.”
I looked down at Trix’s heels, reminding myself she was wearing the five-inch ones.
She looked absolutely stunning. The suit hugged her curves perfectly, the sheer hose tracing the lines of her legs. The way her foot arched forward in those stilettos was almost hypnotic. Her fitted shirt already revealed the shape of her breasts, but with her arms forced back behind her, the position accentuated them even more—pushing them forward in a way that invited every glance.
“Make sure you hold her arm—on the inside, like I did earlier with Bambi. Okay?” I told Jennifer. “So that you can steady her. So, she doesn’t fall. She can’t brace herself cuffed like that.”
“And you know how to remove them?” I asked her. “They’re double-locked, so you need to gently turn the key both ways—first to release the double lock, then to undo the cuff. If turning it one way doesn’t open it, don’t freak out. Just try the other way gently until you hear the click.”
Jennifer nodded and slipped her hand behind Trix’s arm to steady her. I walked over to the door and unlocked it.
“Be careful walking out there. Everything’s wet,” I warned. “Watch those heels.”
They both nodded, and we said our goodbyes.
“Thanks for the dessert and night,” Jennifer said.
“Yeah,” Susan replied. “This was fun. If you have any other questions about the stuff we were talking about, just text.”
She nodded and they headed out into the night. I stepped out and watched them head down the street. The sidewalk was empty, a few people stepping out from the coffee place across the street, likely using the opportunity to get home.
I wasn’t worried that anyone would notice Trix cuffed. And even if they did, given how they were dressed, folks would probably just assume she’d been arrested. That Jennifer was just another agent or something.
Then again, Susan had been out in her restraints before, so the local shops were kind of used to it. Not to mention our little celebrity up the street at the museum.
I stepped back in and closed the door.
“Let me get that key,” I told Bambi.
She nodded. “That service...” she began as she started to follow
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about for a second, but then, yeah—the thing Becca was talking about. It sounded like Bambi thought it was actually a thing.
“That woman—Becca, was it?—does she normally treat clients like prisoners when she takes them out?” she asked. “Or ... was that something you just asked for with Susan?”
I wasn’t sure what she was asking exactly.
“Uh, no,” I said. “Not ... not like inmates. Like actual prisoners, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“They’re dressed like you are now,” I told her, trying to recall what Becca had said that night. “You know, all dolled up—dresses, hose, heels. That sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I remember her saying that part,” she replied. “About having to dress a certain way.”
She paused, clearly trying to gather her thoughts.
“I mean ... what I’m trying to say is ... are they treated, like, really like prisoners? Like once you’re in the restraints, that’s it—you stay in them. You can’t just take them off. Not until the whole thing’s over.”
She looked between us.
“Like ... like a real prisoner being taken to court, right? I mean, the women—they’re allowed to dress up, professionally, like in a suit or whatever. But they still have to stay cuffed the whole time. No one’s asking if they’re comfortable, or if they want them off. They just stay locked up ... no matter what they want.”
She gave a gentle tug at her cuffed hands, then added softly,
“That you’re just ... in these. That someone else decides when you come out. And you can’t do anything about it.”
“You guys said earlier tonight that Susan was pulled by the chain? To the restaurant?” She reached down, gripping the connecting chain in her hand, and looked at me. “You pulled her along? That’s how you got her there?”
“Yeah,” Susan replied. “I—I wasn’t exactly cooperating.”
“I wanted it. I agreed to it.” She glanced at me. “I mean ... I want it.”
“But then, when it was actually happening—when it hit me that I was really going out in public like this...” She paused, the memory flickering behind her eyes.
“Well ... Becca showed Anne how to use the chain.”
“And you didn’t have a choice, right?” she asked—like she needed confirmation. Like she wanted to hear that Susan couldn’t choose.
But I could see it wasn’t just that. She was trying to process everything we were telling her, working through it in real time.
“I guess what I’m asking is ... once you sign up for the service, you don’t really have a choice anymore. Right?”
She looked at Susan. “Like what happened to you? People say they want it, but then they back out—decide they don’t want to go through with it?”
She paused, thinking it through, her expression shifting as the weight of it settled in.
“To make you follow through. That’s why you need the service in the first place—because otherwise, you’d just be able to do it on your own?”
Again, I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s consensual,” Susan said quietly. “I mean ... yeah, you don’t have a choice.”
I just stared at her. Hearing her say that out loud—that part—hit differently.
In my head, it had always felt ... controlled. Clean. Safe.
But spoken aloud, to someone else, it suddenly sounded ... wrong.
And after what I’d learned earlier tonight—about Susan watching prison documentaries, studying them, trying to understand what it felt like to be one of those women, those inmates—it all landed differently.
It was like ... she was equating giving herself to me with committing some kind of crime.
Like she’d done something wrong, and now this—these restraints, this control—was the price.
And she didn’t get to choose anymore. Not until something had been paid. A debt. A sentence. A promise.
She had offered herself fully.
And now she was bound to the consequences.
I did my best to explain it. I had to. I needed to wrap my head around it, because it made sense—I knew it did.
“You give yourself to someone you love. Someone who loves you back. Someone you know won’t hurt you, but will do what you need.”
I paused, looking at her.
“It’s what Becca said that night—about giving yourself to your sister. And yeah, from that moment on, she’d keep you cuffed, using the chain whenever she needed.”
“So, what happens if you want the service but don’t have anyone to give yourself to?” she asked. “What if it’s just the person?”
“Uh,” I began, unsure how to answer. The thoughts raced through my head. It’d just be bondage then—nothing more than a physical thing. No emotion, no love, no real commitment. No giving yourself completely. No trust, no connection. Just you ... tied up, and that’s it.
Then Susan chimed in.
“The idea is that you’re giving yourself to someone. Completely. You trust them without question. Because being in the restraints—it’s not just a want. It’s a need. Like a drug you crave, something your body and mind can’t do without. Like I said before, you’re only calm when you’re in them. You feel better—clearer, more focused. You realize you function best like this, like you’re finally where you’re meant to be.”
She pulled gently at her cuffs and smiled.
“And you can’t do this alone. You need someone to take care of you.”
“So ... it’s really not the kind of thing you’d do by yourself,” she said softly.
Susan walked up to Bambi and took her cuffed hands in hers. Her voice dropped lower, steadier.
“Like right now. You’re completely helpless. Like I am. And you’re here. With us. Do you feel safe? Do you feel like we’re judging you for being like this? Or do you feel like you could just wear these here and be perfectly fine, like it’s completely natural?”
Bambi hesitated. I could see it settle over her—the realization that she really was helpless, chained up here with us.
“I ... I feel really safe with you guys,” she said quietly.