Tying the Knot

The forecast called for sunny skies, smooth seas, and high vis. But some storms you can’t see from shore. At first, the wakes rocked the boat, sending the landscaping swaying like a seesaw. Then, the whiteout came. Complete and utter obstruction, my hand barely visible directly in front of my face.

“Smooth seas don’t make strong sailors, son.” Dad always spoke in aphorisms as if he were a walking fortune cookie.

“Today you become a man”.

Through an act of magic, a hank of checkered polyester rope appeared in my vision. I felt the rough calluses of Dad’s hand graze my palm as he passed it over.

“It’s called reefing”.

“Reefer? Dad, I know what that is! And this isn’t exactly the—“

“Reefing!” “Here!”

The wind whipped violently, keeping tempo with the rhythm of his hands as he secured the knots, folding the sails down.

The reef knot was the first one I ever learned. It taught me stability, balance, control. We weathered the storm.

Today, my relationship with rope is more one of surrender. Quiet ritual. But it still always begins with the reef. Each night, we drift off to sea.

He always waits patiently, kneeling like a humble communicant waiting for the wafer.

Today, there’s wine. And beside it, a note:

“I left it breathing for you.”

“Good, my pet.” “But are *you* breathing?”

His belly rose, then fell again, each breath accentuating the highlights around his ribcage.

“Inhale, one—two—three—four, hold.”

The scent of vanilla lay heavy in my nostrils.

“Exhale, one—two—three—four.”

The candlelight flickered, revealing the curves of his spine in the shadows on the wall.

The tension in his upper neck and jaw visibly relaxed. A pool of dribble began to collect at the corners of mouth before spilling onto the floor. He was gagged, but not yet bound.

The hank of jute waited patiently for me by his knees, like it did every night.

“With this sea of spit you’ve made, I think we need to make you a mermaid.” “What do you think?”

“Mhmmmph” was all he managed to mutter in between the rubber and his teeth. He resembled an obedient horse, with only

a slightly smaller snout.

I gathered the jute between my hands, with the familiar glide of rope against my palms, before gently grasping his ankle and wrapping twice around the curve jut above it, and pulling through to secure.

The reef knot was where I found both my control and surrender.

I wrapped him delicately, like a prized gift to be placed under the tree. He lay his legs out straight, patiently waiting as I wrapped circles around his legs until they were trussed like a Christmas roast.

The last wrap didn’t tighten, just settled against the fleshy part of his upper thigh. Rope does that when you stop pulling. It finds its own balance. The fibers aligned and went still beneath my hands.

His breathing slowed first. That was always how I knew it worked.

Outside, the apartment hummed with ordinary night sounds: plumbing in the walls, a passing car, someone laughing two floors down. No whiteout, no spray, no shouting over wind. Just a steady rise and fall beneath the rope.

When I was a child I thought reefing meant securing the sail, but it was about asking the boat to carry less.

In the storm I remember clinging to the cockpit rail, certain the mast would snap. But after I tied the reef, the boat didn’t fight the waves anymore. It moved with them. Slower. Smaller, but certain.

“See?” he’d said, not looking at me, only at the water. “Now she can breathe.”

The knot lay flat against his legs. It held the shape of the moment so nothing inside it had to struggle.

His shoulders lowered another inch.

The breath left him in a long exhale he didn’t try to control.

We weren’t weathering anything anymore.