By: Gus Vishnu

Things didn’t go as expected
when I said “Let me tie you up,”
and you said “Okay.”
And onwards we stumbled
“You are no good with rope”
“We need a safe word”
“How about ‘No’?”
you in nothing else
but your socks and handcuff knots
on the kitchen chair, playing
the ingenue, pouting your mouth,
wiggling your hands behind
your back, testing
my work, making sure you
can get out when you
want, and between your legs
me on the floor with my elbows
on your spread knees,
looking up to you looking down.
“Now are you going to do something,
or will you just watch me?”
I said “Tell me stories,
I am a story whore,” and
you drop the coquettish part
to warn “You are exhausting.
I am more than my
hormonal longings,
this boy or that girl, careful
or I will tell you things
that will make you not want me.”
“Think of all of them,
then start with the first.”
Things didn’t go
as you might have expected
in the kitchen scene
when neither one of us
said “No.”

Gus Vishnu is a graduate student at University of Toronto who calls Vancouver, BC, home. He spends all his time missing the rain too much.