Ever since I saw a girl handcuffed in high school, I've been a manacle maniac. Granted, the schoolgirl wasn't cuffed for sex, even though she took it that way. She was just locked for display; as part of a police demo when the teacher was away and the last thing anyone wanted to do was study. I was just sitting there, minding my own doodles, when the son of a cop slapped the steel on the girl. At first, she'd just wanted to "see what they felt like." But soon, when she realized she couldn't get loose, she knew she would have to submit to whatever anyone wanted. She knew it because she rattled her chains and said, "I guess anyone can do whatever they want to me now."

After that, the sweetest eye candy I could imagine was the sight of a woman in bracelets. This treat, however, was not easy to find. I was always on the lookout for a street bust, for a routine check gone bad, and a female perp in cuffs. Sometimes, she'd just be standing there-her wrists locked together behind her back-while a female officer comforted her by saying things like, "Don't worry, we won't put you in a cage filled with fierce offenders. We'll just cuff you to a bench for the rest of the night." Yes, those were the kinds of scenes I'd walk miles for.

But voyeurism was never enough. I had to amass my own collection of hardware. I acquired many kinds of handcuffs: nickel-plated, matte black, generic brand, Smith & Wesson, two-link, three-link, single-locking, double-locking, rigid, loose, fur-lined, hard-edged, sawtoothed, toy plastic, detective grade, antique finished and totally rusty. All of these manacles, if placed end to end, would reach from my apartment to the police station.

The problem was finding someone to use them on. Most of my dates did not want to be locked into a relationship. Others wanted to lock me up and throw away the key. No one wanted to play cops and robbers in my bachelor detention center. No one understood the romance of irreversible restraint.

So I practiced on my radiator. The jingle of metal and the hissing of steam lulled me to sleep on many a lonely night.