I just finished tying the last knot when I glanced at the clock on the dresser.

"Hey, it's late. I got to get going," I told her. "Are you comfortable and secure?"

She nodded her head, and then looked with her eyes to the bedroom door, her only way of telling me to go ahead and leave her.

I gave a final, quick visual going over of my roommate and best friend, Colleen. What I saw was a young woman, only nineteen years old, in fact, the same age as myself. She was lying out on her bed, flat on her stomach, legs together and head resting on a pillow. Her hands were tied together in a crossed position behind her, resting on her lower back just above her bare ass. Her legs were also bound together, once at the ankles and again just above her knees. She wore no clothing, but since it was a warm summer night in Southern California, you could sleep without covers and suffer no discomfort.

Well, at least not from the temperature of the air. Her bound condition would be uncomfortable, but she put up with that for the greater good.

Oh, I forgot to mention that in addition to being tied, she was also secured down to the bed so that there was no possible way for her to get off and go searching for scissors or a knife to cut the ropes. There was a two-inch wide, thick leather strap going across the bed at the level of her waist. Where it passed down and under the sides of the bed, the ends were solidly bolted to the bed frame. The strap passed under her body and had another leather strap riveted to it in the middle. That second strap, also of wide and thick leather, passed around her waist like a belt. At the small of her back, it was joined together by a hasp and a small padlock. Even had she been free of the ropes, she could not have gotten up from the bed.

From the ropes around her ankles, another rope went down and under the end of the bed. It was tied there to a ring bolted into the bed frame. That rope pulled firmly on her ankles and held her legs stretched out.

I had secured her mouth with the usual gag. It was comfortable - relatively so - but effective at keeping her sound emissions to a minimum. Actually, the gag was the first thing put on here. As Colleen stood there, waiting for me to prepare her for bed, I had rolled up a washrag and shoved it into her wide-open mouth. Then I wrapped an elastic bandage around her head, covering the area from her nose down to her chin completely. And fairly tightly, also. Then came a wrapping of duct tape - you know, the two and a half inch wide, gray colored tape that is super sticky and very, very strong. Four wrappings of that around her head over the elastic bandage secured the gag in place. We knew from experience that there was no way she could possibly push the tape off and get the rag out of her mouth. That prevented her from talking. In fact, any noise she made would have to come through her nose at a greatly reduced level. Only after she was gagged did I bind her hands behind her and her legs together. Then she stretched herself out on the bed for the rest of the restraints.

That was the way I secured Colleen for bed every night. She was totally helpless, fairly comfortable, and we were both sure that she would be exactly in the same position when I came to release her in the morning. This nightly ritual had been performed every night for nine months now, ever since her mother died.

I know you're thinking that this is a crazy way of being prepared for sleep, but it was absolutely necessary. Colleen insisted upon it and, when she explained the reason to me, I agreed to be the one to secure her each night.