Back-to-back, hair-to-hair, elbows-to-elbows (and both of us had elbows nearly together). Partial-suspension, near-strapado. Quite a few hyphenates to use to describe this gallery with Angelene but it's a co-bottoming set: hyphenates are par for the course!

Seriously, though, I really enjoyed co-bottoming with Angelene. Her stamina reinforced mine and her hunger for rope fed my own. I loved the way we played a little tug-of-war with our hands, even as we strained to maintain our balance. That's the thing about co-bottoming: you can torment as well as support each other. There's something about testing yourself against a tie, straining until the very last moment before you have to call it, that's attractive to us rope players. It's not a contest -- Angelene and I weren't competing against each other. I think, though, that we were challenging ourselves and our limits within the tie.

I would share rope again with Angelene in a hot second. Each time we shoot or play, she proves just how special she is and I'm grateful and thankful for her sharing that part of herself with me and Michele.

In this set, I think Angelene really started to relax into how I work on my site and in my rope life. She didn't have to behave in a certain way or react in a certain way to please a specific market. She started to understand that this was our time in rope, despite the fact that Michele was snapping away. And Michele's way of working, with little or no directions to us, keeps things honest and open between me and and my rope partners so she gets what she wants as well. I love it when everyone walks away happy!

~Z~'s rope skills haven't atrophied in the years(!) it's been since we've played and shot. She's inventive and intense and I hope she'll decide to do on-camera work again soon; capturing the interaction I have with my rope tops is one of the things I live for. We'll see what the future hold for all of us.