One Friday, once I had finished class, I decided to pay Anita a surprise visit over at her dorm with some flowers I had bought at a local shop near our university. Her dorm this year was an upgrade over last year's since she now had her own bedroom and a bathroom she only had to share with Kate, who stayed on as her dorm mate. They also shared a kitchen and living room together.
Once I got to her dorm room, I found that the door was open and let myself in, leaving my sneakers at the doorway (they had adopted the Asian custom of leaving shoes at the door to keep their floors clean). For descriptive purposes, I was wearing a black T-shirt with a hoodie over it and blue jeans. Anyways, once I got to Anita's bedroom, I found that it was locked.
"Hey Anita, it's me. Are you busy?" I asked, wondering.
"Oh, hey! I didn't expect you to come. Ugh, I know this'll sound weird, but can you look under the door for me? I'm gonna try to slip you my room keys so you can get in."
"Uhhh...ok, why can't you just unlock the door yourself?"
"You'll see...hehe," she said with a nervous giggle. "Just wait there, and see if you can reach the keys."
I think I waited beside the door for like 3 minutes before I saw a pair of bare feet and a pair of keys moving closer towards me.
"Can you get them now?" she asked.
"I think so...", I replied, managing to get my index finger on the key ring that held her keys (her dorm key and her room key).
Once I unlocked her door, I found Anita standing with her hands behind her back and a blue sash from a bathrobe around her waist. Her hair had been tied in a ponytail and she was wearing a bright blue T-shirt and a pair of black leggings. I also noticed that a key was hanging from a string around her neck, almost like a necklace.
"Hey! Are those flowers for me?" she said, with a huge grin on her face.
"Yeah...I bought these for you as a surprise." I said, putting her keys and the flowers down on top of her dresser. As I went to give her a hug and kiss on the cheek, I looked down and noticed that she was handcuffed with the handcuffs I had bought her (as a gag gift) for her birthday and that the sash around her waist was tied to the handcuff chain. "But I guess I'm the one more surprised. What happened?"
"Yeah...me and Kate got bored so we decided to have an escape challenge. Basically, we would tie each other up and be locked in our room, and if we could get out of our room by 30 minutes, that counted as an escape. But you had to at least make it possible for the person to escape. So that explains why there's a key around my neck and why I'm in handcuffs."
"Hehe...that's pretty funny. So why couldn't you just unlock the door?" I asked.
"I couldn't reach the latch with my hands. I had tried it earlier before you got here. So, I just got my keys off my drawer and pushed it towards you with my feet."
"Wait, so even if you got out earlier, that still counts as an escape?" I questioned.
"Yeah, that's just the rules we came up with. Kate was able to escape earlier when I handcuffed her and tied her feet together with the sash. She was able to unlock her door and just hopped on out," Anita replied. "Hey! Shouldn't you be releasing me now? Like a sweet prince would?" she said, playfully kicking me in the leg with her bare foot.
"Hehe...I wanted to see if you could escape," I said, jokingly.
"You...ass", she said, giggling and trying to kick my butt with her foot, as I easily dodged her. It was fun watching her try to do this, even while she still had her hands cuffed behind her. After a couple of minutes, she got tired and sat back down on her bed, crossing her legs Indian-style.
"Whew...hehe. So can you uncuff me now? My hands are kinda getting tired," she said, putting a sad, pouty look on her face.
"Aww, poor dear," I said, giving her a quick kiss on her lips. "Lemme get that for you."
I then removed the key from around her neck and started to unlock the handcuffs. Once she was free, she rubbed her wrists a bit as I untied the sash from the handcuffs and removed it from her waist.
"So, where's Kate?" I asked. "What if you weren't able to get out in 30 minutes?"
"Oh! She just headed out to buy more um...stuff to use. All we had were these handcuffs and the bathrobe sash," she replied.
After a couple of minutes had passed, we heard Kate came in. Once she got to Anita's room, she seemed a bit surprised to have found her door open, as I noticed she was holding Anita's spare room key in one hand and a plastic bag with stuff in it in the other hand. She was dressed in a red long sleeve shirt and blue jeans. She was also in her socks, as I assumed she had also left her shoes by the door.
"Wow, how'd you get free?" she asked Anita.
"I had a little help," Anita said, smiling and giving me a hug. "Actually, I don't think I would've got out if he didn't come by. I was stuck in the handcuffs and couldn't reach the door latch with my hands. But I was able to get my keys to K.C. and he let me out of the handcuffs."
"So I guess we're tied 1-1 then."
"Yep...so what'd you get?" Anita asked, also noticing the plastic bag of Kate's.
"Oh, I just bought some ropes from the sporting goods store nearby and got some duct tape and a pair of safety scissors from CVS. The guy at the sporting goods store gave me a weird look as I was buying the ropes," Kate said.
"Really? Hehe, well, I guess it IS a little suspicious," Anita said, laughing. "Ok, well I guess now it's your turn again."
To be continued...