“I’m sure all of you know me, at least you should, but I’m Camilla, and I’ll be your instructor tonight.” She gestures to the man next to her, “And this is Rory, my demonstration partner. I know we have a mix of experience levels in here tonight, so I’ll be as detailed as possible without making everything overwhelmingly technical for the newbies.”

She grabs a small remote from the table, and with the press of a button, a projector on the ceiling that Rowan hadn’t noticed lights up and displays a large PowerPoint type collage of people tied in all sorts of positions.

“Don’t worry, this won’t be a lecture,” Camilla assures with a laugh. “This’ll mostly be for showing different types of rigs and knots rather than have you all crowded around up here.”

She launches into a brief but informative history of shibari, and Rowan admits he’s only half listening. This is all stuff he’s read from various sources already, so he lets himself zone out a bit and finds his gaze drawn to Mal’s profile.

The sharp peak of his nose, the cut of his jaw, the pink of his lips—lips that Rowan has felt against his own, if only for a feverish, fleeting moment.

God, he’s such a fucking pussy. Jay would drag him to hell and back if he found out Rowan was mooning this hard over a guy he’s only known a couple of months, fucked half a dozen times, and accidentally got kissed by once.

A shift in Camilla’s voice snaps him out of his self-deprecation.

“Like with any kind of kink play,” she says seriously, “the mantra safe, sane, and consensual is paramount in shibari. It’s incredibly easy to tie a rope too tight or in the wrong way and cut off blood circulation or even cause nerve damage. The comfort and safety of the person being tied should come before all else.”

She walks to one end of the table, pointing out a box and a stack of pamphlets next to the coils of rope.

“This is a basic guide to some of the knots we’ll be using tonight, as well as a few different types of ties for nearly every body part,” she says, holding up one of the pamphlets. Next she moves to the box and picks up a familiar tool. “There’s also a pair of medical shears for each duo. With any kind of rope bondage, they should be accessible at all times in case you need to get your partner out of their binds quickly. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to untie something quickly enough. It doesn’t matter if you’re using gold-and-diamond studded silk rope—no rope is worth your partner’s safety.”

Rowan has never had to respond to an incident involving ropes in his time as a paramedic, but he has had to use shears on more than one occasion to quickly defibrillate a patient or access an injury hidden behind clothing. While Mal may be experienced with this, there’s always a chance Rowan will fuck something up and have to cut him free. He hopes that doesn’t turn out to be true.