Tied Up in Knots

Chapter 7 - Saturday, October 1st

Creeping into my apartment in the middle of the night was something I hadn't done in a while. Anna was probably asleep, so I shut the door gently behind me. I shucked off my shoes and tried to make my way to my room as silently and respectfully as possible.

"Where have you been?" Anna screeched. "Movies are not that long, Y/N!"

Clearly she was not asleep, and my attempts to avoid waking her were futile.

"You've been in FiDi for hours, and the theater was definitely not in FiDi!" Anna pointed her phone screen at me for emphasis. She'd been able to see my location for years, as a precaution, and it was clear she'd been watching my little bubble since I'd left the apartment hours ago.

"I was at Sebastian's," I admitted as I flopped onto the couch.

"Next time, tell me you're going back to his place so I don't panic!" Anna whined as she plopped down next to me. The thing was, I usually did. I had nothing to hide from Anna. But I'd just gotten so caught up in it that texting her had totally slipped my mind. We sat for a moment in silence.

"So he's clearly not a murderer if you're back in one piece." Anna turned to me with a mischievous smile on her face. "You know I'm dying to know how it was. Did you bone? Was it good? Was it bad? I can't imagine it was bad, not when he looks like that. But what if he's just been coasting on good looks? Oh no, it was terrible wasn't it?" Anna took a breath.

"He's a lawyer."

"Ooookay... that tells me nothing. Are lawyers better in bed or worse?" Anna paused to ponder it.

"No, I just didn't know that. It's weird, I usually know more about the dudes I go home with before I go home with them, you know?" Normally I was more careful than this. There was a vetting process for new sexual partners, pro and con lists drawn up, careful consideration. Skipping that crucial step never turned out well for me. But good sense had flown right out the window with Sebastian.

"I do know, which is why I thought you'd been murdered! I'm the one who hops into bed with them, not you." Anna hit me lightly on the arm. "Anyway, was it good?"

The sex had been phenomenal. Afterward had felt strange though. Maybe it was because everything had been so intense. Without anticipation clouding my mind, it had started to race down an infinite number of pathways that all led towards panic. Like I said to Anna, I barely knew Sebastian. Self preservation had kicked back in once the afterglow had receded. I sure as hell wasn't going to spend the night. The second I was able to move all of my limbs, I'd reclothed and dashed out of there with barely a 'thanks, I'll text you.'

"Yeah, it was good," I told Anna. "Really good."

"I need more details! We talked about this - I'm vicariously living the ups and downs of a new relationship through you! How am I supposed to do that without any of the details?"

Kissing-and-telling was not my strong suit. I wasn't sure exactly how to put into words what happened. "He's kind of a dom?"

"What does 'kind of' mean?" Anna asked. The glee was evident on her face. "Like he wanted you to be all soft and demure or whatever?"

"No, he tied me up," I confessed.

"You let a virtual stranger tie you up?" Anna was obviously torn between her role as my protective friend and her role as my partner-in-gossip. "That seems ill-advised."

"It was a necktie, I could have escaped whenever," I said defensively. Maybe not as easily as I was making it seem, but I was still confident I could have gotten free if I really had to. Was I just trying to convince myself?