Sound of Bubbles bondage story | pool, helmet, cuffs

They were ranged along the wall - one big, one small and one in between. "Like a row of zombies," I giggled.

And, at that, it wasn't a bad description. Shapeless canvas bodies, enormous clumsy-looking boots, a belt that looked as though it had been borrowed from Rambo, copper-coloured spherical heads with a single large eye in the front. Yes, I recognised them vaguely as deep-sea diving suits but... what on earth were they doing there?

"D'you collect these things?"

"Well, yes and no. Actually we use them... in the pool. It's a strange world down there."

I stared out at the swimming pool all spotted with the falling rain. At least, it occurred to me, down the bottom of that lot it could make little difference whether it was raining, snowing or... ah! Freezing would be a different matter?

"Looks grey and cold," I ventured. "Last time I was here it looked so blue and inviting."

"Yeah. Last time the sun was shining and we had a clear blue sky. What you see from the surface of the water is the reflection of the sky. Today the sky is not so inviting. Down the bottom though it always looks a kind of ghostly greeny-blue."

"But the pool is tiled in white."

"You can't see very far under water and the colour... but this isn't the time for a physics lesson. Why don't you try it for yourself? Can't do much else except play with water on an afternoon like this."

"You mean...?" I hesitated; I could swim - well enough - but the thought of going right down to the bottom in one of those things...

"Oh, it's safe enough. The suits have been down there so often they should know their own way by now. And anyway, it's only a few feet under."

But I was hooked. Had he been offering me a dive from the deck of a boat into the deep blue sea the answer would have been a definite and absolute NO. But here... I would, so to speak, hardly leave terra firma.

He pulled forward the small suit and began to help me into it. And what a palaver. He explained that, although most women just about float and most men just about sink, if you put either into a suit and fill it with air then they shoot to the surface like a bubble. Hence those big boots are made very heavy so that they keep the diver on the bottom and also keep him (or her) head up. Heavy was the word - I could hardly move in them. He fixed that Rambo-like belt around my waist - it carried yet more weights!

Finally we came to the helmet which locked with a twist into the collar of my suit. "Now," he said, "we'll try a dummy run because it's a strange feeling at first." He pulled out a long rubber hose which snaked away to some hidden lair, connected it to my helmet and then pressed a button on the wall nearby. A cool blast of air began to wash over me and brought with it a soft humming noise which I took to be the air pump.

"Now, the face piece." He screwed in my 'port-hole' and I had to agree about the strange sensation. I felt locked away from the real world; even had I the need it was now impossible to scratch - or blow - my nose. My world was bounded by that copper sphere and filled with the noise of the air pump. I could barely move my feet and my hands and arms, though not constrained, were just as clumsy in operation. I realised that, once under water, all this weight... well most of it... would disappear but at that moment, it was more an act of faith than of belief.

Added to that I seemed to be no longer master of my universe. In fact this could be construed as the absolute in bondage - helplessness without being bound? John was pulling me forward and, willy-nilly, I could only shuffle my feet and move with him. He pulled me to the edge of the pool and I heard the rain pattering on my helmet. He disappeared for a moment and then I felt him fiddling at my back and soon a tugging sensation suggested that he had attached me to some kind of hoist. Well, at least he wasn't going to THROW me to the fishes!

Next he came to my front and began to fiddle with my weight belt. He pulled my right arm forward and then my left. It took a few seconds for me to realise that, over the canvas sleeves, he had handcuffed me with the cuffs threaded through the weight belt. I was truly helpless; with feet anchored by heavy boots, head encased in a copper sphere in which looking down produced only a view of the inside of that sphere, my hands cuffed to my belt and... that tugging sensation increased and I found myself rising up to swing out over the water.

Then down, inexorably down. There was simply nothing that I could do about it. The water rose up to meet me, swirled up past my hips, my chest and then appeared in front of my little glass window. Then, as it continued up, I became aware of that sound of bubbles.

What he had said was true; this watery world was greeny-blue and of very limited extent. Hardly had I taken that on board when my feet struck the bottom and the feel of the hoist ceased. Tentatively I tried a step; yes, the boots were now much lighter but walking was very cumbersome and it was not going to be easy to move. Then the tugging re-started; I was still on the hoist and this was restricting the range over which I could move.

In my strange state of seeming weightlessness - every movement seemed like floating - that check from the hoist-rope caused me to lean back and I began to overbalance. Normally, of course, such a situation is easily and quickly rectified by taking a short step to the rear but... my feet were not keen on moving in any direction. I swayed back and then, strangest yet, the sky - the water surface - came into view and it was just a bright circle. Protruding in from the edge of this circle was a strangely distorted silhouette of a man; I took this to be John checking on me and it certainly was good to think that I was not entirely alone. Then came a stronger tug on that rope and I was restored to the upright position.

But I had experienced enough new sensations for that afternoon and called to John to pull me up. As well talk to the Moon; I was not only helpless in this watery world but very effectively gagged too if you consider that gagging is but the denial of communication?

I just stood there swaying a little in a green-coloured world that was drowning in the sound of bubbles. I wasn't pulled back to the surface and I wasn't able to pull myself up - without these damn handcuffs I might well have taken advantage of the buoyancy and climbed either the hoist-rope or the air-line. In fact I suspected that, had I dropped the weight belt, climbing may not have been necessary. Only then did it hit me - damn the man - he was playing bondage games! I was stuck on the bottom of his swimming pool with my hands cuffed to my belt, unable to swim or to move or to help myself in any way. I couldn't see much and my whole world seemed to be centered on the noise of bubbles. An endless stream of bubbles which drowned out the endless stream of invective and descriptive verbiage centered on John's ancestry.

Then the greeny-blue wavering light darkened. Peering upward through my porthole I discerned a shape coming to me from that circle of light and then the face of my captor was peering in at me. It was John, free-swimming, a thin stream of bubbles issuing from his mouth; at least he was keeping a check on me. He fashioned an O with his finger and thumb pressed against my window-on-the-world and was gone again.

I can't recall that I have ever felt so lonely. Of course, I knew that I was safe enough; John's dive had shown that I was being cared for. But this was an entirely strange environment, nothing to see - even a passing tadpole would have been welcomed, without the feel of wind or warmth but peopled with a variety of noises. I learned that day what an excellent conductor of sound water can be.

How long I stood there I know not. When I tired of describing John's ancestry I passed a little time in trying to wriggle my hands free of the manacles but the time would have been better spent trying to drink the pool into an arid state! Bound hand and foot had nothing on this. My feet, despite help from the water, were firmly screwed to the bottom of the pool. I've learned since that he had deliberately over-weighted my belt. My nose was itching! That was likely happening simply because, even without the cuffs, I was unable to scratch but such realisation would have been of little comfort.

I was gagged as effectively as any size of ball would have done the job - simply put, all forms of communication were denied me. As far as my mouth was concerned it was certainly the most comfortable gag that I have ever experienced and it allowed me to continue with my recital of John's better character-points! Apart from that the world - my world - seemed to consist only of that wavering green-blue light, a steadily encroaching coolness and the endless sound of bubbles which over-rode even the occasional crashes of sound which reached me from the surface.

At last came the tug on my shoulders and I began to float upward. The light grew brighter and whiter and then my helmet broke the surface. As I lifted clear of the water so I was swung over to the dry land ... and then all activity ceased. He left me suspended helplessly, swinging back and forward with the sound of rain that pattered on my helmet now replacing the noise of bubbles.

I was getting truly furious by the time he lowered me back to mother-earth and then, with a rope he had tied about my middle, he commenced towing me back inside. As before on the way out I had only the one option - shuffle along behind him feeling more like the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk than a delectable young girl who should have been cherished.

He stripped off his wet T-shirt and shorts and then, starkers, unlocked my helmet and removed it. If you are the decent sort I take you for you should be expecting a recital of just exactly what I said to him. Clearly he was certainly expecting it because, the moment I opened my mouth, he shoved in a ball-gag which he was holding in readiness.

I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow account of how he extracted me from that suit - and all my clothes - and contrived to leave me wearing only a pair of cuffs behind me and another pair of cuffs on my ankles. Still with the ball-gag, of course! Then he shouldered me and carried me, silently fuming, upstairs to his bedroom. As he turned around I could see that the bed was laid out with four chains radiating out to its corners each of which terminated in a leather cuff. When he had me stretched out in a full spread-eagle he bent down, kissed me lovingly on each eye, and said, "I owe you an apology, honey. I said that there wasn't much else we could do on a wet afternoon like this? I was wrong... and I'm sorry. There is ALWAYS one other thing?"

I still can't believe that, under the stress of that dive, I had forgotten my safe-word!