Tina: Seven Days Bound
Copyright© 2026 by Vinca Marel
Chapter 1
Day 0 - 8:00 PM Tina propped her phone against the bathroom mirror, checked the angle twice, and hit record.
She was already in what she slept in: a pink cami, washed thin and almost see-through, so that the light from the glass wall went straight through it. She wore no bra, and you could see her skin and the two short gold barbells through her nipples, both horizontal, the left one capped white at both ends and the right one capped green. All four points showed. One strap had slipped off her shoulder. The matching shorts sat low under her hip bones and rode up when she perched on the sink. She was barefoot on the marble, with a gold bar at her navel, a nose ring catching the light, a small gold bar through one eyebrow, and her honey-blonde hair still done from the announcement shoot.
That was the frame. Not the apartment. Her.
‘Okay guys, so tomorrow morning is THE DAY.’ She said it the way she said everything for the camera, bright and a little breathless, as if the sentence itself were exciting. ‘CINCH arrives at nine sharp to install everything. And I mean everything.’ She bit her lower lip, caught herself doing it, and let the smile widen instead.
Behind her, the floor-to-ceiling glass held the last of the light over the water: white marble, gold fixtures, a view her followers liked to argue she hadn’t earned. Tonight she barely noticed it. She was watching her face in the small rectangle of the screen, checking whether the nerves showed.
They showed.
‘They’re making me wear just this during installation.’ She held up a folded white towel from the counter, small enough to look almost like a joke next to the cami. ‘So basically this, then that, while they put the hardware on. Livestream, on my channel and theirs. Two hundred thousand people watching me get... ‘ She laughed, high and a little too fast. ‘ ... fitted.’ She ran a hand through her hair and felt her pulse in her throat.
‘I’m freaking out a little. A lot. But I’m also excited? This is the craziest thing I’ve ever agreed to.’ The smile wavered at the edges. ‘Seven days. I can’t take anything off. I can’t shower alone. I can’t dress myself. I can’t do anything without help.’ She glanced off camera, then back.
‘And on Saturday I’ve already said yes to the lake. Dad’s other house, family weekend, two days. CINCH said the week doesn’t pause for that. So if you’re watching, be normal. Please be normal.’ For one unguarded second the influencer dropped away, and it was just Tina, twenty-six, standing in her bathroom and being honest with a camera that would show it to strangers.
‘Why am I doing this? Not because I need the cheque. I can hear you typing it, and I really have no need of it. I need something that’s mine. I’ve spent three years building this from nothing while everybody still introduces me as someone’s daughter. Half the comments said I couldn’t do it. That’s closer to the reason than the number.’ The smile came back on cue.
‘Okay. I’m going to try to sleep. Wish me luck. Love you guys.’ She blew a kiss, her full lips pursed, and cut the recording before her hand could shake enough to notice.
10:30 PM She lay in bed with the lights off, the glow of her phone the only light on her face, scrolling through the comments already piling up under the announcement.
You’re so brave omg.
I could never.
This is either genius or insane.
Daddy’s paying for the chains lol.
Iconic. You’re making history.
She read the fourth one twice, then set the phone face down and stared at the ceiling.
‘What the fuck am I doing?’ she said quietly, to no one.
Then, more firmly: ‘No. You’ve got this. Seven days. You can do anything for seven days.’ She closed her eyes. Tomorrow the hardware would go on. On Saturday the lake house would see it. She was not going to think about who would be standing in the kitchen when she walked in.
Day 1 - 7:30 AM The alarm went off, and her hand found it before she was fully awake.
She sat up in the big white bed. The cami had slipped off one shoulder in the night, and in daylight it was just as see-through as it had been in the evening light, showing her skin and the barbells. She wore no makeup, and her hair was a wreck from sleep. The face underneath was the one nobody paid to see: heavy-lashed even bare, her mouth soft, the bored camera expression nowhere in sight yet.
She stretched with her arms overhead, arching her spine, so that her flat stomach pulled tight between the cami and the low waistband of the shorts. Her small breasts lifted the thin pink. Her hip bones showed, and the gold bar at her navel.
‘Last normal morning for a week,’ she told the empty room, and meant it two different ways at once.
There were ninety minutes until they arrived.
8:00 AM - Last normal shower She stripped, stepped into the glass shower, turned the water hot enough to fog the room, and stood under it longer than she needed to.
Water ran down her honey-blonde hair, turning it dark and heavy, over her shoulders and down the long clean line of her back. She was tanned all over, with no lines anywhere. She had a narrow waist, a high, neat ass, and small-to-medium breasts that looked fuller because there was so little else of her. The barbells caught the water every time she turned. She had long legs, not runway length, just clean and well proportioned on a body of five foot eight that had been built for the bikini shots that made her name. There was the nose ring, the small gold bar through one eyebrow, and a septum ring, long healed, that was simply part of her face now.
Lower down, where nobody else was invited, there was a thick gold ring through the hood and a thin chain hanging from it. It was short, and always a little in the way.
She used to catch it with the razor every time she shaved down there. That was over now; she’d had the hair lasered off months ago, and there was nothing left to shave, thank God. The chain just lay against bare skin and knocked when she walked, or when she sat the wrong way, or when she forgot it was there and then remembered.
She had meant to have it taken off at the shop before the week started, but she had never found the hour. Some nights she pinched the chain between two fingers anyway, idly, privately, and lifted it just enough to feel the ring pull before she let it drop.
That was hers, and it stayed hers.
She washed her hair slowly, savouring the ordinary luxury of doing it herself. The soap ran over the ring, and the chain clicked against her fingers once, and she left it alone. She ran her hands over her skin as if she were memorising the feeling of belonging to nobody.
After today, someone else would wash it. Someone else would watch. She would need help with everything.
She turned the water off while it was still hot. She had been in there twenty-six minutes. She had checked.
8:30 AM - Getting ready She blew her hair out straight, then curled it loosely with the iron until it fell in that expensive, effortless-looking wave that took forty minutes to fake. She kept the makeup minimal: mascara, a slick of nude gloss, and a little bronzer along cheekbones that didn’t really need it. No foundation. Her skin had never needed it.
She put on a thin white cropped tank with no bra, so that her stomach and the navel bar showed and the barbells printed through the cotton for anyone close enough to see. Then low pink sweatpants, with her hip bones just visible above the waistband, and nothing on her feet.
She walked to the closet on the balls of her feet, because that was how she walked: calves tight, toes pointed. Three years of posing had put it there and never taken it out. She hadn’t thought about it in a long time. It was just how she stood.
She checked the mirror. There was determination in her jaw and the real smile, not the practice one.
‘You look good. You’ve got this.’ 8:40 AM - Last normal shot She propped the phone on the kitchen counter, framed herself against the white cabinets and the ocean light, and hit record one more time.
‘Hey guys! Twenty minutes. They’re going to be here in twenty minutes.’ She bit her lip, caught it, and let it go. ‘I’m nervous. So nervous. But also kind of ready? This is actually happening.’ She ran a hand through her hair again. It was the tell she had never managed to train out.
‘Okay, so the plan: handler in five, team at nine, and the hardware goes on while I’m livestreaming in a towel the size of a napkin. Then I do this for a week.’ She gave a short, too-fast laugh. ‘And I still have the lake on Saturday, with the family. So if my aunt finds this first, somebody lie to her. She thinks it’s jewellery, and I didn’t correct her.’ She looked straight into the lens.
‘See you on the other side.’ She blew the kiss and cut the feed.
Her phone buzzed before she had even put it down. It was Preston, her manager: Numbers on the announcement just crossed 40K shares overnight. Sponsors are calling ME. Do NOT screw this up. And then: Proud of you. Seriously. And no explaining the cheque on stream. You already did last night.
Underneath was a message from Nadia: I still think you’ve lost your entire mind, but I love you and I’m watching every second. Your aunt texted me. Jewellery. I didn’t correct her either. You’re welcome.
She smiled at both, typed nothing, and set the phone down as the buzzer went.
8:45 AM - Colt The buzzer went, and she actually jumped.
She crossed the marble barefoot, her toes finding that same lifted line even now, and opened the door.
The first thing she noticed was how much space he took up. He was six foot something and built the way the job required, with a dark buzzcut and a tattoo sleeve climbing one forearm out from under a fitted black T-shirt. He carried a heavy silver case with CINCH stamped small on the lid. He had a clean, hard face that would photograph well from any angle, which she noticed instantly, professionally.
‘You’re Colt?’ ‘Tina Sterling?’ His voice was calm and low, and he was already sizing up the room behind her.
‘Tina’s fine. Come in. Do you want water or anything?’ He stepped past her, set the case down on the marble with a heavy thunk, and turned to face her properly.
‘The team’s here in fifteen. Are you ready?’ She crossed her arms without quite meaning to, and had to tip her chin up to hold his eyes. Five foot eight barefoot, and she was still looking up.
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’ He knelt and opened the case. Inside were wrist cuffs, ankle cuffs, wider thigh bands, a thick collar, coiled chains, small padlocks, tools, and the tiny folded white towel lying on top like a punchline.
She stared longest at the collar.
‘For seven days,’ said Colt, without looking up. ‘You signed it. Nothing comes off except in a genuine emergency. Saturday is not an emergency. We go with you, and the hardware stays.’ ‘Yes. I understand.’ Her throat had gone a little tight.
‘Let’s do this,’ she said, and meant it, mostly.
8:50 AM - The towel He stood up and unfolded the towel from the case. It looked worse in his hands than in the video. It was a square - not a wrap, not a robe.
‘Change into this before the team gets here. It’s protocol, and it makes the fitting easier.’ ‘That’s not a towel. That’s a napkin with ambition.’ ‘It’s what you agreed to be measured in. The bathroom’s yours.’ She took it in, closed the door, and held it up against her body in the mirror.
‘You can do this,’ she told her reflection, and pulled the tank over her head.
In the glass were her small breasts, the barbells, her tight waist and the gold bar at her navel. She stepped out of the sweatpants and wrapped the towel round herself. It barely closed. One hand had to hold it shut at her chest, and from mid-thigh down she was simply bare and tanned. If she let go, the whole thing would drop. That was the design.
She looked at herself for a long moment. Then she opened the door.
Colt glanced over once and looked away, professional, giving her nothing to work with.
She crossed to the couch on the balls of her feet in small, careful steps, one hand locked on the towel, with the same walk as always: calves tight, toes pointed. She sat down slowly, so that the towel wouldn’t ride up.
It rode up anyway. She felt the cool air of the room on the underside of her ass. She tugged at it, and there was nothing to tug.
‘This is happening,’ she said to the tripod in the corner. ‘I’m sitting here in a napkin, waiting for strangers to put a collar on me. Why did I think this was a good idea?’ A nervous laugh escaped before she could stop it.
Colt checked his watch. ‘Two minutes.’ ‘How many people have you done this for?’ ‘You’re my third.’ ‘Do they all make it through the week?’ There was a pause, just long enough to notice.
‘Not all of them.’ 9:00 AM - The install The team arrived at nine exactly, four of them, with cameras already up and a laptop on her dining table showing a livestream counter that was climbing before she had even stood up from the couch. She caught the number once - five digits already - and made herself stop looking at it.
A woman with a headset said, ‘Tina, we’re live on both channels. You can talk if you want. You needn’t.’ ‘Hi,’ said Tina, too brightly, one hand still on the towel. ‘So this is the part I said I wasn’t going to chicken out of. Please be nice. Or not. You’re going to watch either way.’ Someone on the team smiled into a monitor and didn’t answer her.
‘Stand up. Centre of the rug. Feet apart. You can keep the towel until the collar’s on. After that we’ll tell you.’ She stood. The towel slipped half an inch, and she caught it as the cameras adjusted.
Measurements came first: wrists, ankles, throat, the width of her hips. The woman with the tape didn’t ask her to drop the towel. She simply worked around the hand that was holding it, the tape cold on bare skin, calling out numbers in a shorthand Tina couldn’t follow.
‘Swallow,’ said Colt, when he came over with the collar.
She swallowed nothing, just to feel her throat move.
The cool metal settled against it. He adjusted it with two fingers until it sat exactly where he wanted, not choking but not polite either. She would feel every swallow for a week. A small padlock clicked shut at the back, and the sound was louder than it should have been in her living room.
The counter in the corner jumped.
‘How is it?’ he asked.
‘It’s a collar,’ she said. ‘It feels like a collar. I haven’t got a prettier sentence.’ ‘Good. Wrists.’ She had to let go of the towel with one hand to give him her arm, and the square opened at the side. She caught the front against her chest with her forearm just in time, so that the towel twisted instead of dropping. It was close - close enough that the camera on the left must have caught the barbells for a second. Heat climbed her throat and settled under the new metal.
‘Sorry... ‘ ‘No need to apologise to the lens. Other wrist.’ She did the second one more slowly, and the towel stayed, just. The wrist cuffs locked on, with no chain between them yet, so both her hands were still hers.
The ankles came next. She had to look down, and the towel rode up again. She felt air on the top of her ass and couldn’t fix it without using both hands on the towel at once.
She left it, her face hot.
He fitted wider cuffs around her ankle bones, with a three-inch chain between them, and made her take a step to test it before he locked the last click. The step was ugly. She had to catch herself, and the towel jumped, and she made a sound she would later claim was a laugh.
‘Again,’ he said.
She did it again, shorter this time, and the chain answered. Three inches wasn’t a walk. Three inches was a decision somebody else had made about her feet.