My Neighbor’s Wife?

by Rich Moreland, July 2013

This is the second installment of Bound by Desire from Smash Pictures. The films are best viewed as a package.

Bound by Desire, Part 2 continues the tale of lust, love, and bondage presented in the original episode. The viewer meets three women whose friendships are bound up, pun intended, in a neighborly wife-swapping bondage club. The girls are the toys of their husbands and lovers, or so it seems, because these dominant/submissive relationships are not always what they appear to be.

The story introduces Elexis Monroe and Chanel Preston, both connected to Evan Stone. Elexis is his slutty neighborhood playmate who, despite her resigning manner, enjoys his attention. Chanel is Evan’s demanding wife. She gets off watching hubby flog and skewer Elexis like a freight train racing through a tunnel. Though Chanel holds center stage among the guys, is she really the best whore in the cul-de-sac?

Next is Allie Haze. Though she’s out to remake her man into a less fetish-minded lover, she inevitably slips into the group’s bondage tentacles. Her man, Ryan Driller, wants to move their sexcapades into high gear via his personal netherworld of BDSM delights. Allie confesses to her friend and the third girl in this saga, Casey Calvert, that she’s scared. Whips and chains don’t do much for her, or do they?

Casey advises Allie to back off with Ryan, but it’s too late for that now. She’s already been seduced and is in too deep. “It’s weird,” Allie says, “but I want him to tie me up and have his way with me. . . I just don’t want any scars.”

In the fetish community she means “marks,” but despite that brief stumble, Allie reveals the film’s underlying mission: educate the viewer about the BDSM lifestyle. More on that shortly.

Casey’s desires are a swirl of confusion. Part One puts her on hold, but in this episode Casey upstages Chanel with a sex performance par excellence. A pile driving Evan works to keep up with this voracious tramp in the film’s conclusion. No wonder Casey Calvert is a hot commodity in porn today as is Chanel Preston, who is signed as a host for the upcoming 2014 Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

The Deal

Bound by Desire offers a sexual cornucopia that entertains on various levels. The film has none of the repetition of straight gonzo. The action is never a yawner because each scene offers a different interpretation of what it means to be sexual. Rather than rely on the standard porn formulas—girl/girl, anal, and DPs—the script maintains a couples-friendly mood with how-tos for bondage enthusiasts.

The hardcore fan will relish in the rough and tumble sex that spices up the film’s BDSM play. Exploring shadowy desires that are beyond “normal” can be daunting for bondage newbies, as Allie and Casey are destined to discover.

Self-deception is all over this film. Though Evan reminds a reluctant Casey, “Women need discipline,” it’s the neighborhood men who are obliging their housewives and lovers.

Casey wants love and trust but must prepare herself to please her husband, Richie Calhoun. Eventually she yields, devouring the carnality of ball gags and floggers with a vigor that is stunning. Is this really what she wants or is she fooling herself?

On the other hand, Allie is convinced Ryan is becoming more “normal” while she is unwittingly drifting in the opposite direction. Will she admit to herself that she loves the bondage scene?

Meanwhile, the experienced Chanel is ever demanding, letting Evan know who is boss. “I really enjoy watching you beat these women for me,” she tells him. But she’s a prisoner of her desire to self-pleasure. She loves watching tapes of her husband working over Elexis.

Chanel later insists that Evan persuade Richie to tie her up and whip her. “Have him fuck me,” she insists, implying that she is short on patience. “I want you to do anything I tell you to do. That was the deal.”  Bottom line? Chanel cannot find gratification without Evan’s willingness to follow her orders.

But the triumph of this story is Casey. Her sex with Evan is the best in the film. Manhandled like a trussed-up rag doll, she’s a screamer who drives the scene. There is no doubt that Casey Calvert pushes down and dirty to a new level in the neighborhood.

Easier Said than Done

The story deconstructs myths surrounding the bondage fetish. In conversation with an emotionally stressed Casey, Chanel relates what all BDSMers know.

“A dom is nothing without a good sub,” she says. The sub has the control and the power. “That’s what makes for a wonderful relationship.”

Chanel doesn’t stop there. The “façade” of BDSM play, she reminds Casey, is that the sub always dictates the show. It’s an applause moment for every BDSM aficionado who knows the game and a revelation for anyone contemplating a taste of ball gags and restrains in his or her personal life.

Casey’s education gets another lesson. The element of trust in a BDSM relationship is vital and Allie steps up to carry on the conversation. She tells Casey that the playroom scene will serve her needs and take care of her in a loving protective way. But good doms are rare, Allie implies, and submissives must trust another person completely because “our safety and well-being, physical and mental,” depend on it. Then you can “let yourself go” and enjoy your fun. But, Allie warns, “It’s easier said than done.”

Allie admits the play scene with Ryan is getting better because she is learning how to assume the role of his sub for her own pleasure. In allowing Ryan to flog her, Allie says in a voice over, she “became more aware of his need for my love.” In return, she’s found sexual excitement in the fetish, something they now share.

Bound by Desire communicates that BDSM is not violence and pain forced on helpless victims by sadistic perverts. It’s a consenting sexual experience. A dom’s task is to enhance the sub’s pleasure and the sub can always end an uncomfortable scene.

Footprint 

A Jim Powers’ movie offers cinematic notables, artistic images that are as good as it gets in adult film.

In one scene, Richie flogs Teal Conrad, a willing sub Ryan offers him. She’s attached to a St. Andrew’s Cross in Ryan’s playroom.

Before they get into each other sexually, Richie releases her from her cuffs, something not all BDSMers would do, incidentally. As if intuitively knowing that, Teal quickly grabs the straps above her head, creating a visual simulation of restraint as Richie orally satisfies her. An overhead shot focuses on Teal’s ecstasy as she looks upward toward the camera.

Powers is a master at capturing the female expression in the throes of frenzied pleasure, one of the reasons his work is so appealing. Once Richie digs into Teal’s body, there’s hair pulling and a flogger wrapped around Teals’ neck as a makeshift collar to control her, all effective BDSM elements that add an erotic touch.

Two classic images standout in the film. First, a nude Casey is tied to her chair in the dining room while the others enjoy their meal. It’s a glimpse into her personal fantasy of where her desires are leading her. Nobody seems to notice her confinement because it’s a well-placed dream element. Of course, being bound and naked in front of a clothed audience is not unusual in BDSM play.

During Chanel’s masturbation scene, the computer screen showing Evan and Elexis sits on a table beside Casey who is tied spreadeagled to the bed. Chanel has slipped into her solo world, watching one woman being penetrated while fantasizing about the other.

But there is a twist here which Powers captures with a blended overlay of the three women. As Chanel vigorously stimulates herself, Elexis’s rapture on the computer screen appears behind her. The camera angle is from Casey’s perspective so that her cuffed foot becomes the predominant image in the montage. The cinematographic moment is Casey’s immobile foot covering Chanel’s crotch with her big toe solidly between Chanel’s boobs.

The image sends the message that Casey’s “footprint” is all over this story. Is she stamping out the competition for top community slut?

Normal will Bore You

For anyone who tries BDSM, he or she experiences the same excitement, fear, and enticement that characterize an adolescent’s sexual awakening. When relationships are formed, predictable results emerge.

Allie and Ryan cuddle, showing mutual respect with an almost sophomoric touch. Of course, sex compliments their affection but what if the sex revolves around a fetish? They appear to make it work, a valuable lesson for bondage neophytes.

Their scenes are a contrast to what the other couples offer. The internal cum shot, virtually unheard of in today’s pornography, is a nice touch for a woman-friendly film. Throw in a bit of nestling afterward and tenderness moves the moment.

Casey is much like a teenager falling in love for the first time with an older, more experienced boy. She is reticent and confused, not quite comfortable about love with Richie, trying to reconcile it with her expectations. As the movie winds down, Richie reveals the truth to Casey, “Normal would bore you and you’d be gone.” Is it a sign she’s into the scene? Can she meld her love for Richie with this newly discovered fondness for rough sex?

Chanel and Evan are in an older relationship that is a bit jaded, seeming at times more like an arrangement. Each uses the other for sexual variety especially when introducing like-minded friends into their playpen. What can we do when we get bored with each other? Put sex on tape, of course!

The conclusion of Part 2 dovetails back to the beginning of Part 1. The viewer senses there’s competition for the neighborhood’s hottest bondage tramp . As Evan pounds away at Casey in the final scene, the camera that recorded his previous adventures must be surreptitiously rolling in the background. Chanel will take a look at her rivals making Bound by Desire a film within a film.