The Lives
Copyright© 2026 by R. E. Bounds
Chapter 12: The Waitress
Put on the clothes.
Doll yourself up.
Slip into the cuffs. In front.
I’ll be home at five.
I dropped the note back onto the bed and reached for the suit—the brown one he liked.
I hated it.
It was fitted. Too fitted. The jacket clung where it shouldn’t, the skirt narrowing my stride into something careful, something that made me wiggle. It didn’t look bad on me. That was the problem. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to. Provocative.
To make matters worse, it was all leather. But not the soft, forgiving kind—the stiff, unyielding sort that creaked with every movement, announcing each step like a warning or, more fittingly, an invitation. It never allowed me to forget that I was wearing it.
Then the pantyhose. Nude. Not invisible, not elegant. The kind that very clearly screamed PANTYHOSE. The kind that smoothed and sealed my skin into something polished and impersonal.
And the shoes.
Brown leather court stilettos. Pointed toes. Five inches, single sole. The kind that promised pain and delivered it slowly. After a while my toes would go numb, a dull ache blooming upward—but I couldn’t take them off. Once off, they wouldn’t go back on. Not without effort. Not without struggle. And not without a lot more pain. So, they stayed on. All day. Until I was done with them. Or rather when he said I was.
As if that weren’t enough, the heel tips were metal, not plastic. They didn’t wear down—but they made me loud. Each step clicked sharply against the floor, impossible to soften, impossible to ignore.
Between the creaking leather suit, the plasticky hose, and the painful and noisy stilettos, the outfit demanded attention. People stared. I could feel their eyes pause, assess, linger. And judge.
I just felt on display when I wore this outfit. It made me feel cheap.
It wasn’t the suit itself. I can’t imagine how much this thing cost.
But it was how it made me feel ... like an object. Some kind of prize being shown for his amusement.
Given the choice, I would never have dressed like this. Not once.
But I wore it for him.
I picked up the cuffs.
I hated these too. More than the suit.
They were hinged. Real. Heavy in the hand, unforgiving at the wrists.
Not like the chain ones—the kind that draped, yielded, and pretended to be functional, despite being handcuffs. Those at least offered the illusion of movement. But I haven’t worn those in a long time. Not since the mansion. I’m not even sure where they went.
These didn’t pretend. Cold metal, precise, engineered to halt motion entirely—and made no apology for it.
But that was exactly why he liked them. That—along with the clothes.
I’m always in a skirt, hosiery, and heels for him. Ever since we left the mansion.
There was a new wardrobe waiting for me. He had his assistant go shopping that weekend. And replace all my clothes. When we got home, everything I owned was gone. Replaced by all new outfits.
The wardrobe was beautiful. Impeccably arranged. Thoughtful.
Georgina had good taste. I just remember her apologizing to me sometime later, how bad she felt about it, what she had been asked to do. She was referring to having to pull out all my clothes. Throw them out.
And the fact that there wasn’t a single pair of pants. No jeans. No shorts. Only skirts. Dresses. Tailored suits. Blouses. Fitted dress shirts. Jackets. Clothes designed to be worn a certain way—to hold a body in place, to present it, to leave nothing to chance.
I wasn’t angry at her. I told her that. I knew she was only doing what she’d been told. I understand that better than anyone.
And then there were the cuffs. They were waiting, too. That wasn’t Georgina’s doing. At least he hadn’t told her to get those. Though, honestly, she probably would’ve chosen something softer if she had.
He surprised me with them.
They were presented beautifully—nestled in a velvet-lined jewelry case, the kind meant for something precious. Something delicate.
I really thought it was jewelry. A necklace. A bracelet.
Maybe ... even ... a ring.
He had money. Lots of it. So naturally, that’s where my mind went.
Towards something ornamental. Something symbolic. A marker of our new beginning. After that weekend. A way to celebrate what we were becoming—what I thought we were—closer.
And it was ornamental. Just not the way I had envisioned.
I remember opening the lid. Seeing the cuffs instead, resting there as if they belonged. And how my stomach dropped.
Even then, I understood—even before I saw the engraving.
Responds to Vixen on one cuff.
If found, return to—followed by his cell number on the other.
I had become his. I belonged to him. Emotionally, physically, literally.
I picked up the note and read the first part again.
I have a surprise.
I sighed. The last big surprise—no, really big surprise—had me being whisked away to a mansion for a weekend retreat ... for bondage. And then being brought home ... in cuffs.
And as soon as we were, I was on my knees. I remember the strain in my neck, and the way I’d stared up at him and focused on swallowing, on breathing, on not letting my body betray how overwhelmed it was.
He said it was my fault—that it had built up from all the teasing on the trip home. Maybe he was right. But it wasn’t intentional.
My wrists were cuffed behind me the entire way. And between the skirt and the heels, my walk was exaggerated. It made the sway of my hips impossible to hide. I also knew it pushed out my chest too, especially in what I was wearing.
And all of that was a turn-on for him. But then again, it was probably a turn-on for any man.
The fidgeting didn’t help either. But it was hard not to. I was painfully self-conscious about what I was wearing, and the cuffs, of course, only made it impossibly worse.
He’d chartered a flight home—a private plane, which was something he often did. He didn’t like flying with others.
Still, sitting there on a private flight with my hands cuffed behind me felt unbearable to ignore. The pilot just stared as I stumbled up the stairs, as did the flight attendant.
It was my first time in public while cuffed—being displayed like that in front of others.
I just told myself they’d seen stranger things. Worse things. They had to have. Rich people were ... weird. Sorry—eccentric.
And it didn’t take long for the flight attendant to prove that. Kind of.
Not long into the flight, she mentioned—almost casually—that she’d once been cuffed herself on a flight, by an agent or someone, while transporting another woman in prison restraints. At the other woman’s request.
I think she was trying to make me feel better. She knew I wasn’t a criminal—just some pretty thing with a rich guy who had a thing for a thing. And in his case, it was bondage.
I know she was doing her best to normalize it, but it didn’t help.
It really didn’t. But I nodded anyway, folding the discomfort inward the way I’d been learning to do that whole weekend.
I remember him framing it like physiology—me on my knees, that is, doing my best not to choke as it all shot down my throat.
Like it was cause and effect—as if it really were my fault he came home hard. Swollen. Which I didn’t understand how.
I’d spent the entire weekend, the nights, cuffed to that bed. Dolled up for him. With him deep inside me.
But the part of me—the part that wanted to be reasonable, that always wanted to please him—agreed. Maybe I was being a tease.
I dropped the note back onto the bed, opened the cuffs, and laid them out carefully. Oriented. Aligned. That way, I knew they’d go on the right way.
He never left the keys. He always had them. Something he’d learned that weekend.
Well, he did once. And I didn’t touch them. He had been testing me. To see. To see how obedient I had become. It was shortly after the mansion.
Because even putting them on incorrectly—the keyholes facing the wrong way, the engravings upside down, or not tightened exactly right—there would be no way to fix it. No adjustment. No undoing. Just metal closed where it wasn’t meant to be, and me stuck with it until he saw it.
I did that once. And I learned never to do it again.
So, I didn’t touch the keys that one time. I just didn’t.
I pulled a lace bra and panties from the drawer and walked into the bathroom. The tiles just felt abnormally cold under my feet.
I needed to shave, I told myself. I needed to be smooth. Soft. Ready for later tonight. He hated any kind of stubble.
And I still hadn’t scheduled the electrolysis like he’d been asking. I kept putting it off. Not because I didn’t understand why he wanted it—but because I wasn’t ready to face having it done everywhere. My legs, my arms...
It was the butt that stopped me.
The thought of it made my stomach tighten.
So, I shaved. Dried and styled my hair the way he liked it. Then I did my face.
Heavy glam—just like the pantyhose, it had to look like I was wearing makeup. Exaggerated eyes. Arched brows. Long lashes. Full lips. Especially when I was dressed up for him.
I got dressed carefully, making sure everything was exactly where it needed to be before slipping into the cuffs.
I looked in the mirror, turning sideways. My hands draped in front of me.
Four fifty-eight, the clock read. Any second now, the garage door would open. He would come in, drop his bag in the study, and come into the bedroom, to check that I had followed every instruction.
If anything, he was consistent. He liked routine.
And exactly as I expected, it happened. Five o’clock on the dot. The bedroom door opened, and he stepped inside.
I walked to him, the skirt forcing me to wiggle. Leather creaked with every shift. My heels clicked sharply as I stepped off the rug onto the hardwood, short, careful steps, the arch of my foot vertical, practiced.
I raised my cuffed hands to his face and kissed him, then stepped back. He examined me, as he always did. Made sure I was exactly as he wanted.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said, eyes still scanning me. Then a small smile—approval. I had passed.
He reached into his pocket. I stepped forward slightly, lifting my wrists just so. The handcuff key appeared. He double-locked the cuffs and tucked the key away. No words. No thought. Just the rhythm we’d followed a hundred times before.
“What’s the surprise?” I asked, turning and pointing with both hands toward his note on the bed, smiling as I did.
He loved that. The way even the smallest movement—any pointing, any gesture—meant my wrists stayed close together.
The clothes. The cuffs. The quiet rules wrapped around them.
“Trip,” he said, already turning away. He disappeared into the walk-in and came back with a small black canvas bag. Plain. Unremarkable. The kind you don’t register. Probably why I hadn’t seen it before. God knows how long it had been sitting in there.
He set it on the bed and unzipped it. The sound came first—the dull, unmistakable clink of metal, heavy and finishing, before I saw what was inside.
He didn’t explain. He never did.
Which was why I was just as surprised as the other three women that weekend, when we learned we were being trained—methodically, deliberately—to live restrained.
He simply reached in and began taking things out, one by one, and putting them on me. Methodical. Efficient. He adjusted me as needed, guiding my body where it had to be, so everything aligned properly, so it all sat the way he wanted. Each lock closed with a finality that made correction impossible. Not without him.
I didn’t resist. I didn’t ask questions. I stood where he placed me and let it happen.
By the time he fastened the cuffs around my ankles, I understood exactly what he was doing.
I’d seen this setup before. Not with him—but at the mansion. Yvette, I think—or that was the name she used.
She was in something like this too—punishment for disobeying those two sisters, from what I could remember.
I told myself this was the same.
The last time he took me out, I wasn’t cooperative. His company holiday party. A big thing. He always sunk money into it, always found a big, glamorous place. All catered. Everyone would come, all dressed up.
And I was no different. Sheer hose. Elegant dress. Five-inch stilettos. Which wasn’t the issue.
Everyone was used to seeing me dressed. Honestly, I don’t think they’d ever seen me in pants. Or bare-legged.
But he had cuffed me. Thought it would just be there. Back. Taken off when we got there.
He did that a lot. I always seemed to be cuffed when in the car. But he didn’t take them off.
And I didn’t want to go in. Not like that. I’d gotten past the humiliation—or at least, I convinced myself I had. But it was always someplace where people didn’t know us.
But everyone knew me here. Everyone would talk.
“Does anything hurt?” he asked, stepping back to look me over.
The black cover closed over the handcuffs at my waist, turning them into a solid block. The belly chain pulled my wrists tight against me, elbows bent and pinned close, my arms rendered decorative more than functional. There was no comfortable way to stand like that—only ways that were less uncomfortable than others.
“No,” I said.
It was true. Nothing hurt. Not exactly.
But comfort didn’t seem to be the goal here. He’d made sure of that—of how little room there was to move, to adjust, to act on impulse.
Whatever this trip was, wherever we were going, he needed to know I couldn’t act out. Not like I did in December.
He wanted to make sure I couldn’t reach. Couldn’t interfere. Couldn’t decide otherwise once we were underway.
Even though, in the end, I spent that evening with my hands cuffed behind me. People smiling politely, nodding. Some commenting on them in jest—trying, I think, to make me feel better.
He disappeared back into the walk-in, and I crossed the room back to the floor mirror.
I had to admit it. I looked sexy.
But standing there, taking myself in, this wasn’t the kind of sexy I liked.
At least the long chain running down from the box at my waist helped support the leg restraints when I moved. It kept the chain from just hanging down on its own, keeping the cuffs from dragging. Though, realistically, they wouldn’t have touched the floor anyway I don’t think—not in these heels.
The leg cuffs themselves looked shorter than the ones I’d seen before. Less slack. Less allowance.
Then again, that told me exactly what he wanted. He wanted to make sure walking fast was no longer an option.
Something he’d realized in December, at the holiday party. He learned that I could walk remarkably fast in five-inch stilettos, even in that dress, with my hands bound behind me.
He had called for a car. A luxury sedan. It was almost always an SUV, but it would be difficult to get into one restrained like this. So, I figured that was why.
And the driver, of course, helped me inside—chains and all. But he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look at me. To him, I was just luggage. A suitcase or a bag he was loading into the back seat.
He drove us to an airstrip, which is exactly what I’d expected. We were going somewhere out of state.
I was taken out, and I hobbled beside him toward the plane. That was when I truly realized how crippling the restraints were. It had been one thing to struggle down the stairs, leaning gently against the wall and gripping the rail as best I could, since I couldn’t use my hands. Even getting out to the car and navigating the front steps had been difficult—but manageable.
This, though? This was something entirely different.
Out in the open, exposed and unsteady, I had to hobble what felt like an endless stretch of asphalt toward a plane that seemed to drift farther away with every step. The short chain between my ankles forced my stride into tiny, shuffling movements—careful, measured, more drag than step. I couldn’t lengthen my gait, couldn’t steady myself the way I normally would. Every few inches felt precarious.
Climbing the stairs into the aircraft was harder still. With the short chain limiting each step, I had to move slowly, placing one foot carefully, then bringing the other up to meet it. There was no rhythm to it, no smooth motion—just concentration and effort.
And the pilot. The flight attendant.
They just stared.
The flight itself was short—an hour and a half at most. Not that it mattered. I couldn’t get comfortable. Not with the restraints biting into my wrists, not with the constant sway of the aircraft.
And then there was the flight attendant.
She tried not to be obvious about it, but she kept staring. When she wasn’t staring outright, she was sneaking glances over her shoulder. Checking. Watching. Every few minutes, her eyes flicked back to me, like I might vanish—or lunge—if she looked away too long. Like I was something volatile that needed monitoring.
I could see the discomfort on her face. The tight smile. The careful distance. I couldn’t even blame her. God only knows what she’d been told about me—why I was in chains. Or worse, maybe she hadn’t been told anything at all. Maybe she was left to fill in the blanks herself.
And whatever she imagined, it was enough to make her watch me like I wasn’t a passenger at all. Not someone who had chosen to be there. Not someone free.
I wasn’t traveling—I was being transported.
Escorted. Delivered.
The kind of person who doesn’t board a plane, but is put on one.
When we disembarked, we stepped straight into another car. This time it came to us—rolling up across the tarmac like something out of a movie, a sleek black vehicle waiting as if I were important.
Like before, the driver helped me inside.
But this time it was a woman.
And she looked at me. Really looked at me. Not past me. Not through me. At me.
For a split second, I almost felt human again.
Then I saw it in her expression.
Her eyes moved over me slowly—taking in the restraints, the way I stood, the way I had to be guided. Her mouth tightened. There was something hard there. Something sharp.
Disgust, almost.
Not fear. Not pity.
Judgment.
She looked at me like I’d chosen this. Like I was advertising myself. Like I was some kind of woman who sold access and called it glamour. The kind of woman people shake their heads at and pretend not to see in daylight.
She helped me into the car gently enough.
But the way she held the door, the way she avoided touching me any more than necessary—it felt like she thought I was dirty.
Like I had put a price on myself.
And that was worse than being treated like luggage.
The drive felt endless. Maybe it wasn’t—but without a phone, without a clock, without anything that belonged to me, time stretched and warped until it barely felt real. It was already dark when we arrived. Ten. Maybe eleven. I had no way of knowing.
I wasn’t allowed to have my phone when I was with him. I owned one, technically. It sat at home in my purse, useless. When I was with him, I had nothing. No contact. No proof of myself. Just identification—like an item being checked in and claimed later.
The driver stepped out and helped me from the car.
Then she left.
No lingering glance. No hesitation. She drove away and disappeared into the dark, leaving me standing in the entrance of the hotel like something that had just been delivered.
I stood there in restraints. Under the lights. In full view.
The hotel was nearly empty. A few people lingered in the lobby, but not many—probably because it was so late, and because it was such a small place. Still, it was charming. Not quite four-star luxury, but pleasant and welcoming all the same.
Of those around, they stared openly, eyes dragging over me as if I were part of the décor. A spectacle. Something to whisper about later.
Others barely reacted at all. A quick glance. A flicker of recognition. Then indifference. As if seeing someone in restraints, being handled, was commonplace.
That might have been worse.
Because it meant I blended into something ugly and expected.
I wasn’t hiding how I felt. I know I wasn’t. It was written all over me—the humiliation, the shock, the small, creeping panic. He saw it. Of course he did.
I had frozen.
Not dramatically. Not loudly.
Just that quiet, involuntary freeze. The kind that happens when fear overrides everything else. When your body stops responding because your mind can’t process what’s happening fast enough. When you realize you’re on display and there is nowhere to go.
I stood there, stiff and exposed, waiting to be moved again.
And that’s exactly what happened.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t signal. He just grabbed the chain that ran from the box at my wrists down to my ankles and yanked.
Hard.
My body lurched forward on instinct. I moved because the alternative was worse—tripping, collapsing, hitting the polished ground face-first while the chains snapped tight in front of an audience.
So, I followed.
Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.
I focused on the mechanics of it. On surviving it.
Heel down.
Then foot.
Pause for the pull of metal.
Repeat.
Never stretch beyond what the cuffs allowed. Never forget the limit. The short, humiliating radius of my own movement. Each step measured by iron instead of choice.
The chains were loud. Obscenely loud. They clanked as if announcing me—like a bell before an execution. Every shift of my weight sent another metallic echo through the lobby.
That’s how we entered.
Not walking. Not arriving.
Dragged.
Shuffling through the lobby while conversations dipped and eyes turned. I could feel it—the heat of their stares crawling over my skin. Some curious. Some amused. Some uncomfortable. All of them aware.
I wasn’t moving like a person.
I was moving like prisoners do.
Small steps. Restricted gait. Head slightly lowered to keep balance. Body reacting to someone else’s grip.
Exposed.
Controlled.
Utterly powerless.
And the worst part wasn’t the chains.
It was knowing I was performing my own helplessness in front of a room full of strangers—and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
When we reached the counter, the young woman behind it looked up our reservation.
She was polite. Impeccably professional. Her smile never faltered.
But her eyes did.
They lifted to my face first—searching, assessing—then drifted down to my restrained hands. They lingered there a second too long before returning to my eyes. There it was again. That flicker. Curiosity. Discomfort. A careful, trained neutrality fighting something more human underneath.
She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t need to.
She handed him the key cards. Confirmed our stay through Sunday morning. Ten-o’clock checkout. Her voice was steady, almost cheerful. She pointed toward the elevators and wished us a pleasant stay, as though there were nothing unusual about the woman standing in front of her in restraints.
As though other women had been checking in like this all night.
I could have died right there.
Not from fear. From shame.
From the unbearable normalcy of it. The way it was processed, documented, filed away under “guest experience” without a single raised voice.
But I didn’t have time to collapse under it.
He grabbed the chain again.
No pause. No acknowledgment of the transaction that had just reduced me to a transaction with a room number.
Just the sharp tug at my restraints and I stumbled forward, forced to follow.
The cuffs dictated my stride, and I obeyed. The chains continued to clink, loud enough to cut through the lobby’s low murmur.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and we stepped inside.
Pressed toward the back stood a woman who looked like she belonged exactly where she was. Composed. Beautiful in a deliberate, sharpened way. She wore a tailored suit that hugged her frame, sheer hose, high heels that made her posture even more commanding. Every detail intentional. Every line controlled.
She turned as we entered. And she smiled at me. Not kindly. Not cruelly. Appraising.
Like she recognized what was happening. Like she’d seen it all before.
Beside her stood a man who looked less polished. His hair fell into that awkward in-between length—too long to look neat, too short to tie back. He watched quietly, observant, comfortable in the background.
“Here for the event?” she asked, voice smooth. Casual. Certain.
Event.
The word lodged somewhere deep in my chest.
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do.
She gave a soft laugh. Low. Knowing.
“Of course you are,” she said. “Unless you broke out of a maximum-security prison.”
Her eyes traveled over me slowly. From my face. Down the line of my restrained wrists. Lower. Taking in the chain, the limits of my stance, the way I stood slightly off-balance because I had no choice.
“Well, you look great in them,” she added, tilting her head.
She stepped a little closer—not touching me, just slipping into the narrow circle my restraints allowed. The small pocket of space I was permitted to occupy. The space I couldn’t defend.
“We thought about wearing those,” she went on smoothly. “But decided against it. Though now, seeing you...” A faint smile touched her lips. “I almost wish I had. It looks like it would’ve been fun.”
She made it sound like I’d chosen this.
Like the chains weren’t something fastened onto me—but something I’d fastened onto myself. An accessory.
The elevator chimed again. The doors slid open.
They stepped out together.
And as she turned, I saw it—her hands cuffed neatly behind her back. Polished metal. She walked effortlessly despite them, practiced and poised, as if the restraints were jewelry.
She wore them like power.
I wore mine like punishment.
The doors closed.
We rode up to our floor in silence.
I stood there, staring at my reflection in the mirrored wall—at the rigid posture, the shortened stance, the chain that dictated how far I could move. And my mind raced.
When the doors opened, he didn’t wait.
The chain snapped tight, and I was dragged—half-shuffled—out of the elevator, ankles locked, forced into motion before I could find my balance. The carpet muffled the sound of the heels, but I could still hear the metal clanking with every shortened step.
Our room was at the far end of the hallway. Of course it was.
A long, endless stretch of corridor with identical doors lining both sides. Anyone stepping out would see us—see me. There was no hiding the way I moved. No disguising the unnatural rhythm of my stride.
Each step reminded me how little control I had. How small my world had become. Measured in inches of chain.
I found myself hoping—absurdly—that the room would feel different.
Private. Contained.
Like once the door shut, the humiliation would quiet. Like it would transform from spectacle into something manageable.
But it didn’t.
The moment we stepped inside, I knew.
Someone had already been there.
Toiletries and makeup were arranged with precision on the bathroom counter, visible through the half-open door. Everything staged. Everything prepared.
He had done this before.
He hated luggage. Hated packing. Hated inconvenience. So, he never carried bags. Things were simply purchased ahead of time. Delivered. Arranged. Waiting.
The same way I was.
In the closet I could see women’s clothing—carefully selected outfits, hung with intention. On the floor sat boxes of shoes. Expensive ones, judging by the labels. Heels tall enough to make walking in restraints even harder.
They weren’t gifts. They were costumes. Uniforms.
Proof that my presence here had been anticipated down to the smallest detail. My size known. My role assumed. My compliance expected.
This room wasn’t a refuge.
It wasn’t an escape from the dragging, the staring, the chains echoing through car rides, flights, lobbies, and hallways.
It was the stage.
Everything had been arranged in advance—not for comfort—but for continuation.
The hallway had been the walk of shame. This was where the performance would resume.
Because there it was. My eyes drifted across the room.
In the center, like a grotesque piece of modern art, stood the leather swing.