I don't know how I got into this position, but I can't say I'm complaining.

We made it out of that town. I still don't know how we managed to survive, but we did. We managed to both pass the test for the GED and get accepted to a college in the Midwest. I got a pretty decent science scholarship and all Max had to do was submit a portfolio to get a full ride in the art still hasn't been coping well. She buries everything in her schoolwork and her art. I still catch her up at night, nose bleeding onto the desk and I can tell she's been awake for 5 hours even though I've only been asleep for two.

I haven't been wanting to pressure her. She went through more than I could imagine trying to keep us safe. Sure, there were moments when she was trying to save us that I thought there could be something between us, but with the destruction in our path, it hasn't seemed right to try to pursue anything. She's my best friend and I just want her to be okay again. Besides, I've tried to go down that road with a best friend before… it's taken a lot to accept that Rachel's gone, but as weird as it sounds, it's harder for me to accept that she kept a whole facet of her life from me. I know better now than to assume feelings are mutual when you kiss someone in the heat of the moment.

Lately, Max has been doing research into shibari. She says it's for a project for class, but I can see in her eyes that it's personal. She's been looking at these pictures of people that have beautifully tied harnesses and I can tell it's kind of a coping mechanism for her. She had to see Jefferson destroy photography for her, to turn her medium into something twisted. Seeing other people tied up but fully coherent and enjoying themselves has helped her take part of that back and reclaim it.

I don't know why I was oblivious to her actually wanting to put this into practice until I see her come home one day with a bright red bundle of rope.

"Come on, Chloe! It'll be super simple, I promise! I just want to test this out a bit before I actually have to turn in my project."

"... you know I'm usually nothing but supportive, but shouldn't you be practicing with, you know, actual models? Ones that are trained to do the poses you want them to and aren't going to end up needing to pee halfway through some complicated setup?"

"It's really not going to be as intricate as the stuff I've shown you, and I don't need a photography model to practice the tying portion on necessarily. I just want to do some simple knots to see how they're going to look on camera. If anything, I'll be taking pictures of the knots themselves, not of you."

"Well then," I scoffed, "consider me hella flattered that you're using me as a test dummy."

"You're my roommate and neither of us have had a bunch of time to make outside friends. I'd have to pay a model for their time even if I wasn't going to photograph them, so unless you can snag me a mannequin, I don't have a lot of options."

"Well, there is that one in the student union that they use to display the hoodies…"

"Chloe I swear to god if I have to leave class one more time to rewind and get you out of a shoplifting charge…"

"I was kidding!... mostly… unless you already rewound from me doing that… in that case, sorry. When were you even wanting to do this?"

"Probably Sunday after I get back from working the gallery. Does that work for you too?"

"I guess I can take time off from my heavy course load of procrastination to be of service."

Shit. Shit shit shit. How do I always manage to end up like this for cute girls? Oh, that's right. The useless lesbian thing. How could I forget?

I tried everything I could to get out of this moment. Everything except for actually stealing the mannequin, which, let's be honest, I probably at least attempted that one too in an alternate timeline. I looked at some of the pictures that she was using for reference and honestly, they seemed pretty hot, not as strictly artsy as most of her other projects. That kinda reinforces the fact in my mind that she's using this as more of a personal project than a school one. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not into the whole bondage thing, but if anything, that just makes me more nervous about the whole ordeal. I don't want to blur the lines more between us in my head, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep my cool during this whole thing.

I'm just going to act natural, totally natural. Normal clothes, normal Chloe. Now if only I could get myself to stop shaking… Damn, I wish Max wasn't as strict about me keeping weed in our apartment! I wouldn't be half this wound up all the time.

I hear the front door slam and I try to act like I was sitting there playing games on my phone instead of trying to crawl out of my own skin. Apparently work was hell for her so she decided to go take a bubble bath to relax before we start in on more work, which leaves me with my own thoughts again. Greeeeaaatt. She finally comes out of her room after what seems like hours.

"So, are you ready to get started?"

"Sure, but don't you need to get your tripod set up?"

"It's already set up in here, you coming?"

I don't know why I thought this was just going to be a 'Hey I'll just casually tie you up in the living room' scenario but I'll be damned if that idea didn't get shot to shit really fast.

"Can't we just do it in here? I don't wanna moooovveee" I feign my best ragdoll and hope that my humor overrides my nervousness.

"There's not the same amount of lighting in here as there will be for my other subjects." I feel a small pang of jealousy, but I was the one who wanted her to use the school models in the first place so I guess I'll just have to bear it.

She's managed to recreate a lot of the same feel as her dorm room in Arcadia Bay, even though most of her stuff got destroyed. It's comforting to have something that reminds me of there.

What is NOT comforting in this scenario though is the whole array of lights pointing at the bed that make me feel like I am literally about to take my first steps into a porno.

"So…" I try to come up with a joke to break the tension but I can't even think straight. "What exactly are you going to be doing to me?"

"Still trying to figure that out. Are you sure you don't need to pee first?" she teases. She hasn't even looked at me since I entered the room. She's looking at the bed and the rope, trying to piece together the picture before the subject even becomes involved. Finally, she gestures for me to sit on the bed

"Now, I'm going to warn you, this is the first real-world practice I've had with this. I have scissors in case I tie anything wrong and I need to cut it loose, but other than that it's just going to be me playing around with knots. Oh, and…" she says as she playfully plucks my phone from my hand, "I'm going to be needing this. The hand, not the phone."

She sits on the desk chair in front of me and starts to work on… something on my wrist. I'm not too sure what she's trying to accomplish with it yet, but I've never seen her this focused on something, not even when she's taking pictures. Whatever it is though, she seems to get it right on the first try (at least, from MY point of view it was her first try) and has a smug smile after giving it a few tugs from different angles.

"Okay, now lay at the end of the bed with both arms above your head."

I lay down as she instructed and I can feel her tugging on the tie from the end of the bed. "This would be SO much easier if we had headboards!" she grumbles as she continues coiling the long rope around the end of the bedframe. I look up at her occasionally and I can tell she is back in her zone again. It's honestly pretty sexy. I honestly need to not be having these thoughts right now. She finally finds her way to my other wrist and ties it in the same fashion as the first. She looks a bit more confident with it now though.

"Does everything feel okay? Nothing's pinching or anything, right?"

I struggle to find words after being entranced by watching her work "N… nah everything's fine!"

She raises a bit of an eyebrow at my stutter. Fuck.

She takes a few pictures of the ties but something seems… different from how she normally works. She seemed way more invested in the knots themselves than taking the pictures. She sits the camera down on the desk and turns to me. "Do you want me to let you out now?"

"Nah it's hella comfy. I could honestly sleep like this." I joke.

"But what am I supposed to do now that I have you all tied up? I'm not going to just leave you here…" she says as she walks over to where I'm standing. She gives the ropes restraining me a firm pull and makes sure nothing's sliding out of place. She starts to trace a fingernail lightly from my wrist down my arm, across my collarbone and then lets a hand rest on the side of my face. I honestly don't know what's coming next but I'm averting my gaze, afraid to let her see how turned on I'm getting.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

I turn my face back towards her and meet her gaze. "Yeah."

"Are you okay with what I'm doing right now?"

"I am… very okay."

"Alright. Just to make sure that you're all here right now, what color is the rope?"

"Red"

"Okay, just making sure…" She slides her hand from my face and down the side of my body and under my tank top. I gasp as she makes contact with my bare skin "Say 'red' if you want me to stop."