Crimson Strings and a Boy Named Sunny

Published in Mythulu Magazine: Steam Vs. Substance

Since I was a little kid, as young as the age of five, I’ve wanted to be captured by the boys. To dance atop the grassy hills, spinning and twirling, my little white dress flowing in the sunlight and to giggle as the boys would try to chase us girls all afternoon. The dance and the chase, this is what it truly means to play… but not all games end as innocently as they begin.

As we spun ourselves silly amongst those grassy hill tops, finally free from the confines of our newly encountered Kindergarten classes, there was a boy watching us twirl. This boy’s name was Sunny. Sunny was quiet and kind, had sandy blonde hair and was just a year or two older than us girls.

One afternoon, it came upon us young children (or more, myself in particular), the clever idea to ask Sunny to tie all of us up to a giant oak tree, which stood at the center of the fields at our community apartment complex. We wanted him to tie us up with a big ball of crimson-red yarn. Why? Truly, only God knows. The idea just seemed too fun to resist.

Sunny, laughing and a little confused, finally agreed to help us out. All of us girls lined up, still giggling away against the grand giant Oak tree and waited excitedly as he wrapped the crimson yarn around and around. At last, we were sufficiently captured. What fun.

When Sunny’s mother had seen what he had done, she came down her apartment stairs in a wild flurry. What would possess her well-behaved 7 year old son to do such a thing to a bunch of innocent little girls? Scared of being scolded, we remained silent as Sunny took the brunt of her reprimand, which was only caused by our mischievous idea in the first place.

“Did you do this?” Sunny's mother demanded an answer from him.

“Yes! He tied us up to a tree.” I found myself blurting out.

To this day, I can’t explain why I lied. Why I asked Sunny to tie us up only to let him take the fall and if I am to be completely honest, it has haunted me for years. I am ashamed to admit that I never said a word in Sunny’s defense or ever came out with the truth. I often wonder if he got into too much trouble. Would Sunny’s mother ever really believe we were only playing a game? I was simply too afraid to speak up and admit to what I had wanted, because it was apparently, very clearly wrong.

I still have a scar from the yarn I was tied with on my left hand. It serves as a reminder to me of the ever burning desire to dance around like flickering flames and the thrill of being caught. More than anything though, my scar reminds me that playing with fire can indeed get you burned. It’s easy to play a role when you’re immersed with other players, but coming out about your own fantasies in full honesty to yourself and to those around you can be a much more daunting task, frightening even and withholding the truth is indeed no game.

Throughout my life I’ve worked to remain as transparent as I can be about my deepest desires, fantasies and fears both in my relationships and in my writing. I feel it my duty, maybe partly on behalf of Sunny and all those like him, to be as brutally, crystal clear and honest about the games I very much enjoy playing. Perhaps in openly expressing myself I can help untie someone else who may be bound by isolated shame surrounding their natural desires.

Just as certain games were condemned then, shadows damned and cast out to remain in the dark, to be hidden and never spoken of, even today we still hide truths that are publicly deemed as ‘bad’. We suffocate our desires, making sure they are never heard and shame ourselves when they pop their innocent heads.

How do we openly admit to the strange, seemingly dark fantasies we dream up? How do we express to the press which acts as the screen between the sinner and the priest at the confession booth, all that we truly, authentically love to be and play? Is wanting what I want, which is to play with those who play like me, a sin? Where is the redemption in coming clean with the dirty secrets that I keep, tucked away safely in my head?

Anyone attacking the often intense and ongoing games that you may like to play are surely forgetting what it's like to be completely lost in imagination, to be free and truly childlike. Do you remember the near sinister games you used to play as a child? The monsters you’d battle? The prisons you’d escape? The foes you’d kill? The lovers you’d rescue and capture?

When you played in secret hideouts with your friends, under blanket forts and password protected club houses, there was no censorship in your games. No boundaries, no lines you couldn’t cross and ironically, it was at this time of free-for-all imagination that you were at your most innocent… even when your role was to play, “the malicious bad guy” or the “helpless victim”.

It’s all about the blatant agreement between two individuals that allows such slim access to substantial bliss, balancing on a razor blade to make sure both parties are still enjoying themselves and not getting lost too deep in the game. We can be as free as we’d like to be in our expressions of sexual sensuality and passion, even if complete freedom to you means choosing to pretend to be the master of a bound slave or to be tied up in crimson red strings.

True power lies within the embracing of your fantasies and in the glorious unison of being with someone who plays honestly and in the same steamy way you do. Indeed, we never stopped being children, we just got bigger- and that’s the fun part. Now we have the mental bandwidth and conscious ability to consent to sensual playing ...and isn’t that fun.

On the wild games go as we twirl and dance and beckon and chase and capture and sometimes narrowly escape in all of our free, colorful expressions of being. The fantasies never die but continue throughout adulthood and the freedom to express yourself in an authentic and enjoyable way is truly, forever yours.

Unless you’ve completely smothered the embers inside by denying to ever look at your deepest desires or by shaming yourself profusely to the point of a near fractured identity split, a burning fire as natural and mischievous and as wild as when your ideas of play were first conceived still dances brilliantly inside. Fan the flames! Allow yourself to be whatever you feel in the moment when you are immersed in “adult” play.

As a writer I aim to shatter the walls that we put up as a social front to protect ourselves from our own shadows. I do so hiding safely behind the shield of a pen name and wielding the sword of a keyboard. I’m working to build a bridge between our deeper innermost thoughts and what we are “allowed” to display to the world, shouting with a furious war cry: Down with the illusions! Away with the facades and condemnation and shame! Indeed, Let Us Play!