About ten years ago a group of guys tried to carjack me and my friend Mike in Venice, CA. They did not try hard enough. In retrospect it amazes me that they thought he would stop the vehicle. Mike was driving and a group of black men with blue bandannas pulled up halfway over their faces (Jesse James-style) came into the road from both sides of the street and tried to surround his truck as he and I drove near the intersection of Santa Clara and Electric Avenues early one morning around 2AM. One of the dudes on my side was pointing a gun at us. Presumably others in the group had guns too but I fixated on that one man and his gun. I can still picture him right now. Somehow I knew he had a lazy smile on his face underneath his bandanna, but I'm not quite sure why I thought that. The impression still persists.

"Go. Go. Are you going?! Don't stop!" I beseeched Mike from the passenger seat when I'd spotted the gun and then noticed that we weren't moving any faster. For an instant I thought that Mike had not registered what was happening.

"I'm trying! This truck just won't go that fast." he replied as he put even more weight on the gas pedal.

He tried to gun the engine but that old truck really wouldn't move very fast. We still escaped without any problems even in that low-speed vehicle. Afterward it seemed that it had all happened really slowly, but it probably had not. The guys had just seemed to drift into the road. In reality they must have attempted to surround us very quickly because nothing else would make sense. Still, I can recall thinking that those stupid fuckers were crazy if they thought Mike was not going to try and get away. Wouldn't anybody try to run them over rather than just stop and exit the vehicle in hostile territory? I know I'd rather be enclosed in a few tons of steel instead of running down the streets of Venice on foot in the middle of the night.

A similar incident occurred just the other week. I was leaving the Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles. My stay at the hotel had been freaky and I was eager to drive home. I had parked in a lot across the street and an older white man was walking slowly towards me as I threw my bags in the back and climbed into the driver's seat. It appeared that he was staring at me and I smiled a vague smile in his direction because we were the only people in the immediate vicinity and I felt compelled to acknowledge him. His demeanor struck me as kind of simpering and harmless. He made some type of gesture at me which I could not understand. Then he moved very quickly over to the passenger door of my car and tried the handle. Before that he had been walking with a pronounced limp and had seemed unwell. Lots of people in that area seem unwell. It was surprising how quickly he recovered his agility when he rushed at the car and took hold of the door handle. I shook my head at him and put the vehicle in motion. He had to let go or risk being pulled under the car as I accelerated. He opted to avoid getting run over. Why on Earth had he thought that I would not try to get away from him?

Instinct rules everyone even if sometimes they suppress it. I knew I could escape that time and I did. There have been other times in my life when the odds were stacked against me and I knew I could not depart so easily. There were yet other times when I just defeated myself. Sometimes people believe they are trapped even if they are not. I know I have degenerated to that level. A case in point occurred in Covina, CA a few weeks ago. I was at a bondage shoot and had started feeling unaccountably feverish, lightheaded, and clammy. Usually that overall state is a precursor to a full-blown panic attack. My wrists were already bound to iron railings and my emotions were starting to roil. The house next door was haunting me. Somebody had been hurt there and the legacy of their pain lingered in the air. Those damaged spirits occupied the dwelling even though the house stood vacant. Overgrown weeds surrounded it. I could not overcome my reaction to this former home of someone who had been grievously wronged. The pathos infected my soul. I was in the backyard of a neighboring property for the shoot and I had been tied up in a position where I was facing this house. When I look at the pic above I see the distress in my face. I was not in danger, but the vestige of someone else's terror had overtaken my senses. I began struggling frantically to escape the ropes, but they only seemed to get tighter...


Join my Playhouse to see the entire "Yellow Rope" gallery inside The Bondage Room now.


- XXOO Tanya