I tugged my hands again; they weren't going anywhere.I tugged my hands again; they weren't going anywhere. I could, I suppose, have rubbed my blindfold free, but that would have been cheating in a sense. If I wanted out, I could simply ask; if I didn't, I should play by the rules. A blindfold like that is almost more a symbol than a reality. I had one in the toybox that was real, that I couldn't have pushed off. It was more like a tight-fitting ski mask that left my nose and mouth free, but locked behind my neck. A taut elastic band went down from the built-in eyepieces to the lock, so that I couldn't push it up off of my eyes. It even had loops for a pair of straps that would go down across my cheeks and fasten to the neckband in front, for use when I didn't need my mouth -- times like right now. That blindfold was much less comfortable; I left the cur- rent one alone. (Not, of course, that it would have slipped off easily; the strap in back was broad, elastic, and quite taut.) Alone in the dark, I vaguely remembered a conversation Roger and I had had a few months ago. I didn't remember it well, because it took place late on a night when we were both very drunk. We were also chained to each other at each extremity, face to face, which made love-making quite a challenge, especially when that drunk. But in the aftermath and afterglow, we suddenly waxed philosophical. Two points stuck with me, among all the world's problems we tried to solve that night. First, we discussed the question of identity. Who, really, was a person? Was it their body? Their mind? The two together? What was the status of an agent with no free will of its own? (Imagine a robot for that last, if you will.) What about organizations? Did a corporation have a will, as opposed to the wills of the people running it? I don't recall that we came to any conclusions, but it certainly seemed to bear on my current situation. The other relevant point was rather more immediate and personal. Was our relationship inherently monogamous, and would we ever want to play with other individuals or couples? To the former, I told Roger that I was, at least for now, content with him, but didn't mind if he had occasional encounters elsewhere. |