Brie
Copyright© 2026 by R. E. Bounds
Chapter 1: She’s Got the Jitters
“Hi, baby.”
He leaned in and kissed me.
“Everything’s pretty much done,” I said. “Just need to kill the lights and lock up, and we can go.”
“Sure.”
He stepped behind the bar and disappeared into the storage room. A second later, he came back with the bag and set it on the end of one of the tables, nudging aside one of the chairs stacked upside down on it.
He opened it and took out the cuffs.
“How was work?” I asked.
“Fine.” He came over and I held out my wrists, and he fastened the cuffs as casually as if he were helping me into a coat. “Busy, but nothing too exciting.”
He then reached for the box, making sure it was secured properly before reaching back into the bag for the waist and connecting chains.
“Here?” he asked.
I lifted my hands slightly to make things easier while he fitted the chain around my waist. He worked the connecting chain into place, and I shifted my wrists until the cuffs sat comfortably.
“How were things here?” he asked again, glancing at me with a smile.
“Huh?” I asked looking at him.
“Oh ... fine.” I shrugged. “The usual suspects. Nothing interesting, honestly.”
“Quiet, then?”
“As quiet as this place can be.” I smiled glancing down at the cuffs. “So, yeah. Pretty much.”
He moved behind me and secured the padlock. I felt the familiar little click.
“Jen stopped by,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She looked happy. She’s doing well at school. So that was nice.”
“Good.”
“There,” he then said, giving each cuff a quick check. “They’re secure. They shouldn’t twist around or anything. You should be fine in them until I take them off.”
“Thanks.”
He gathered the empty bag, folded it, and slipped the keys into his pocket.
I looked toward the front of the bar.
“Just need to get my purse.”
I shuffled over to the counter, picked it up, and hobbled back around. Tim was already heading toward the door.
He reached for the light switch.
The bar went dark.
The last part of closing was always the same. I stood there with my purse open while he took the keys, locked the door, and gave the handle a firm tug to make sure it had caught.
“Locked?”
“Locked.”
He then pulled a metal gate across it—one of those accordion-style ones—and snapped a padlock into place before dropping the keys back into my purse.
As we walked toward his car, Tim glanced over at the old antique sitting in the corner of the lot.
“You should get rid of that thing,” he remarked.
I shrugged.
“Yeah. It’s just that...” I glanced back at it with a sigh. “It came with the bar. It was Mom’s—kind of.”
“Anyway, you get it. It kind of has sentimental value. But yeah,” I added. “I’ll get rid of it.”
“You’ve been saying that for a while now.”
“I know. You know I don’t throw things out—not easily, anyway.”
“Yeah,” he replied.
The way he said it made it clear he knew exactly what I meant. Like he said, we’d had this conversation before.
I glanced over at him, but didn’t say anything.
He opened the passenger door for me and helped me inside, then reached across and pulled the seat belt into place before closing the door. A moment later, he walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and started the engine.
“Garry and Charlotte invited us over,” he said, glancing over at me as we pulled out of the lot and onto the road.
“Nice.” I looked across at him. “Just us?”
“No. Others—another couple they know.”
“Okay.” I settled back against the seat. “Special occasion?”
“No. Just a get-together.” He turned onto the main road. “It’s warming up, so they thought it’d be nice to enjoy the outdoors. Use that wraparound porch. And ... Garry apparently has something to show me.”
“Oh. Okay.” I smiled. “Charlotte give in again?”
He shrugged.
“Don’t know.”
“It sounds nice,” I added. “It’d be nice to just sit on their porch and enjoy the night.”
“Charlotte said maybe we’d roast some s’mores while there’s still a little nip in the air,” he continued. “Before the mosquitoes show up and ruin everything.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
“When?” I asked.
“Tonight,” he said, looking over at me briefly.
“Tonight?” I repeated.
“Yeah.” He nodded toward the road. “We’re heading there now.”
I nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
I let the word sit for a second. It wasn’t exactly hesitation, but there was something in the way I said it that made him glance over at me.
“Didn’t think it’d be a problem.”
“It’s not.”
“Good.”
He gave me another quick smile and turned his attention back to the road.
“You can pull over,” I said.
He glanced at me but kept his eyes on the road.
“Before we get there.” I lifted my wrists until the chain stopped them. “Take these off.”
“You’ll be okay in them,” he said.
Silence settled between us for a few seconds.
“They’re secure,” he added. “You should be fine in them until later tonight.”
“I’d just rather not be like this in front of our friends,” I said quietly.
He kept his eyes on the road.
“You’ve been wearing them out.”
I looked over at him.
“You wear them regularly now, to and from work. And it hasn’t been a problem.”
I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s not.”
I looked at him and managed a small smile.
“I’m perfectly fine with it. I’m the one who suggested it, remember?”
He glanced over.
“I said that it would be like me being transported to work like this.” I looked down briefly at the cuffs. “And then you started putting me in them on the way home, too.”
“I thought you’d be fine with it,” he said. “I didn’t think there was much difference between going and coming.”
“It’s fine.” I nodded. “Really. I’m perfectly fine being like this between our place and the bar.”
I looked down at my wrists again.
“These don’t bother me.” I smiled faintly. “I had to wear restraints like these before. You remember. Sometimes they had me in them when you came to visit. It just depended on who was working that day.”
He glanced over at me.
“Then what’s the issue?” he asked. “You’ve been in them when we’ve had to stop at places on the way home.”
“Yeah. It’s just...” I hesitated. “I’d stay in the car.”
He glanced over at me again. That wasn’t entirely true.
“There really wasn’t anyone around,” I then added. “And if there was, it was usually a stranger or something. They didn’t say anything. They just stared.”
“You said you didn’t care about people staring.”
“I don’t.” I looked out the window for a moment. “It doesn’t bother me. You get used to that.”
He said nothing.
“You know, when you’re locked up, you just can’t spend all your time worrying about people seeing you chained up.” I shrugged. “It kind of becomes normal.”
He glanced over at me again, his expression thoughtful now.
“Then what’s the problem?”
I looked down at my hands and let out a quiet breath.
“It’s just...” I searched for the words. “It’s different when it’s people we know.”
“How?”
“I don’t want Garry and Charlotte looking at me and wondering about it.”
“They already know you were in prison.”
“Knowing I was incarcerated and had to wear them is different from no longer being in prison and still wearing them.”
He was quiet.
“I don’t want to walk up to their house like this,” I said. “I don’t want to sit on their porch like this. I don’t want to have a normal conversation with them while I’m sitting there unable to move my hands.”
“They’re friends,” he remarked. “They won’t care.”
“I know ... but—”
“But what?”
I looked down at my wrists.
“I just don’t want to be like this in front of them tonight.”
He drove on for another few seconds. Then he reached over and rested his hand briefly on my knee.
“You’ve just got the jitters,” he said, turning his attention back to the road. “Once you’re there, you’ll be fine.”
“Tim.” My voice was quiet, but firmer this time. “I don’t want to be like this in front of our friends.”
“They already know.”
“I know they know.”
“No.” He glanced over at me. “I mean, they really know. I told them you’d be in those.”
I stared at him.
“You told them?”
“Yeah.”
“You told them I’d be wearing these?”
“Yeah.”
He kept his eyes on the road.
“Why would you do that? What did you say?”
“That you’d be in transport restraints.” He shrugged slightly. “I described them. Told them you wear them regularly now.”
I looked at him in disbelief.
“Why would you do that?”
“What’s the big deal?”
I didn’t answer.
“They know you were in prison,” he continued. “I told them you like it. That you enjoy it.” He paused. “And I like you that way.”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the seat.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything.
“What’s changed?” he asked eventually. “You said it was fun.”
“Yeah.” I nodded quietly, still looking down. “Fun at home.”
I swallowed.
“Fun in the bedroom.”
I looked at the cuffs.
“Fun being chained up for you. Being helpless for you.”
He was quiet.
I opened my eyes and looked over at him.
“But that’s ours.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Even the roleplay,” I added. “The prison rape fantasies. I’m okay with all of that.”
I rubbed my thumb against the edge of the cuff.
“But our friends seeing me like this is something else.”
He glanced at me, then back at the road.
“They’re not going to judge you.”
“I know.”
“Then—”
“That’s not the point.”
He fell quiet again.
I took a breath.
“I don’t want to sit on their porch tonight with my hands chained together while everyone knows exactly why.”
The car came to a slow stop at the beginning of their long driveway.
“They already know,” Tim reminded me, looking over at me. “They said it wasn’t a problem. They’ll be cool with it. There’ll probably be a lot of questions, though.”
Before I could answer, he took his foot off the brake and the car began rolling slowly up the driveway.
“It’ll be okay, babe,” he said reassuringly. “You’ve just got the jitters. That’s all.”
I sighed and looked out through the windshield.
The house grew bigger as we made our way up the drive. The porch was lit warmly against dark, and a fire was going in the pit on the front lawn. Everyone was sitting around the porch, talking and laughing.
Garry spotted us first.
He lifted a hand and waved.
A moment later, he got to his feet, and Charlotte stood with him.
“Looks like they’re coming down to greet us,” I murmured.
“Yep.”
Tim pulled up in front of the house and switched off the engine.
Then he reached over and undid my seat belt.
“Come on.”
He helped me out of the car, and I stood beside him while Garry and Charlotte watched from the steps. Tim had parked with the driver’s side facing the house, leaving us completely visible from the porch.
The others remained seated, but their attention had shifted toward us now that we’d arrived. I could see them looking over, and suddenly I was very aware of the cuffs.
Tim closed the car door and came up standing beside me.
For a second, I didn’t move.
I glanced toward the porch.
Everyone could see me.
Tim seemed to notice where I was looking.
“You’re okay,” he said quietly.
I nodded, though I didn’t take my eyes off the porch.
He rested a hand lightly against my back.
“Come on.”
We started toward the steps.
I shuffled beside him, the connecting chain swaying as I moved. Behind us, the car’s headlights finally went dark, leaving only the porch lights and the glow of the fire.