In the summer of 1976, when I was eleven years old, I spent three weeks with my cousins at my Aunt Jean's house. My cousins--Donna (12) and Shirley (10)--played a series of bondage games between themselves and the neighboring kids: Becca (13) and her brother Jim (11), as well as Karen (12). On Tuesday of the final week of my stay, Donna and Shirley were out shopping with my aunt, while I hung out with my cousins Keith (15) and George (6) at my aunt's home. George and I decided it was
time for a swim in the pool.
However, after changing into my bathing suit, I discovered that a bad thunderstorm we suffered yesterday had blown some leaves and other debris into the pool. I asked my oldest cousin Keith if they had anything I could use to remove the debris with, and he replied, "Just dive in and grab it with your teeth!"
While George and I scowled at Keith from the deck, Becca casually strolled into the yard, clad in cut-offs and a typically fashionable blouse. Once he saw her, Keith shouted, "Look out, Doug, your girlfriend's here!" Becca promptly shot him an icy, imperious glare which said: "Die, peasant!" We had just played a major bondage game at Karen's house only yesterday, so I could honestly say I wasn't expecting to play another game so soon.
But Becca--God bless her devious little heart--had other plans.
"I just want to warn you that I'm playing a bondage game at my house today," Becca said, as she absently ran a toe across an imaginary line on the ground. She further informed me that I had better not do anything foolish--like, say, try to rescue Karen and Jim--or else I would get captured and tied up, as well. "So don't go sneaking around my house, all right, Doug?" she added, with a wink. "Do we understand each other?"
Oh, I understood, all right. It was Becca's way of inviting me to come on over and play. I waited until Becca left before I started over her house, which was just a few doors down from us. George was so excited he could burst--he was practically dancing every step of the way. Only six, he was too young to get tied up, but that didn't stop him from being a willing observer to these weird games we played.
Once we arrived at Becca's house, I saw that her mother's car was gone from the driveway; which usually meant she was gone for at least a few hours, leaving us the run of the house in the meantime. I decided to enter the house through the side door, which--to nobody's surprise--was left unlocked. With all of the shades drawn, the interior was dark and gloomy. George followed me like a shadow...until I decided to go downstairs to the basement rec room. He balked because that part of the house was even more darker than the upstairs. But I explained that the basement was the usual place where Becca kept her captives.
"It's also where Becca captures everybody," George fearfully muttered.
But this was not a problem for me. As it was, I was already slipping into the spirit of the game by pretending to be looking for my captured friends. I imagined myself as Jonny Quest searching for a couple of missing "local kids" (namely Jim and Karen) who got caught up in my latest mystery. I tried to act as if I didn't know what happened to them; yet I bravely descended into the darkness by placing a bare foot
over the threshold. George wisely stayed behind on the staircase. He only followed once he saw I had
not been instantly attacked.
Karen and Jim's basement was more elaborately furnished than my aunt's; they had a small hallway leading from their rec room to several smaller rooms. There wasn't anybody in the darkened rec room, so I decided to tip toe down the short hallway. I didn't have far to go. On my right was a small guest bedroom. And lying on the narrow, single bed was Karen, bound hand and foot and gagged.
Barefoot, and clad in a one piece bathing suit, Karen lay on her back with her wrists tied together above her head to the headboard. Although her legs were tied together at the knees and ankles, they weren't secured to the bed like her hands. I turned to tell George something...when I discovered that was still meekly standing over by the basement door.
I mouthed the words "She's in here" to him, then I slowly stepped into the mini-guest room to free Karen. Karen glanced up at me with a wide-eyed expression of terror as I entered the room. She started shouting something at me, but with a tape gag covering the lower half of her face, I could only hear desperate grunts. But it didn't really matter, for it was already pretty obvious to me that I was doomed to join her
in bondage (not that I minded too much).
I turned around just in time to see both Becca and Jim sneaking up from behind me. These sinister siblings of sin had been hiding in the meager closet until I entered the room. I was actually surprised, because Becca had led me to believe that her brother was one of her captives, when in fact he was an accomplice. But before I could protest, Becca tackled me onto the bed--and right on top of poor bound
Karen, who let out an indignant grunt.
Becca, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, pulled out a roll of tape and gagged me with a couple of strips. Karen, despite her bonds, tried awkwardly to kick Becca with her bound feet. But tied as she was, Karen merely flopped around on the bed like a fish out of water until Jim came over and held her tied ankles down. "Stop that," he chasised her mildly, as if Karen was a naughty student.
Becca, still giving me this insane grin, helped me to my feet and led me over to the closet, which was empty. The closet had a lone wooden pole running horizontally across where clothes would normally hung from. Becca shoved back the bare hangers on one end to make room for me, then tied my hands above my head to the pole. It wasn't that high; I was still able to stand flat-footed. I have to say this was yet another surprise: I had been expecting to get tied down to the bed with Karen (in fact, I was kind of looking forward to it). But I guess Becca was determined to avoid any escape attempts by not keeping us too close together this time. Just when I thought Becca was finished with me, she bent down and bound my
ankles together.
Satisfied that I wasn't going anywhere, Becca leaned close to me and asked, "Are you ticklish, Doug?"
I just let out a low groan under my gag as she wiggled her fingers just millimeters over my bare stomach and sides. She never actually touched me, though. Becca was merely indulging in some good clean psychological torture. She stopped when Jim nervously said, "Wait! Did you hear that? Is that mom?"
"It's just George," Becca muttered with a disgusted look. She sighed heavily when her brother anxiously left the room. "Come back here!"
I faintly heard Jim reply, but he sounded too far away for his words to be properly understood. "Don't go anywhere," Becca jokingly told me as she ran after her brother.
As soon as we were left alone, Karen started twisting and writhing around on the bed. She even threw in a few good helpless grunts under her gag for good measure. Transfixed at her performance, I happily watched--until Karen abruptly stopped and glared at me, as if to say, "Well, don't just stand there!"
Of course, I immediately felt contrite; because, in a situation like this, Jonny Quest would have already been trying to free himself. What kind of superhero was I? I tried to examine the knots binding my wrists to the pole, but it was hard to see any details. My hands had been secured so that they were beneath the pole, and out of reach of the knot, which was on top. However, I quickly discovered that I could slide my hands back and forth along the length of the pole, although I wasn't sure what good that would do me. In frustration, I pushed against the bottom of the pole with my tied hands, and it lifted right up easily.
The pole rested in twin 'U'-shaped slots on opposite ends which were cut into boards that were nailed onto the wall. These 'U'-shaped slots provided the option of easily removing the pole for whatever reason--but they would also provide me with a method of escape. I was able to grab the pole between my bound hands and pull it loose of the slots. I cringed when all of the hangers slid off the opposite end of the pole and crashed to the floor behind me (I forgot all about them!). Then I cringed again when I banged the pole sharply into the wall while trying to set it down in front of me.
Once I had the pole set down vertically in front of me, I simply slid my bound hands up the pole and over the end. My hands were still tied together, but they were no longer secured to the pole. Placing the pole in the corner of the closet, I reached up and pulled off my gag. It was now Karen's turn to stare wide-eyed at me while I hopped out of the closet on my bound feet. There wasn't enough room in there for me to free my ankles. As soon as I was in the open, I bent over and untied my ankles.
With my feet free, I walked over to Karen and started working on the rope binding her wrists to the headboard. She kept glancing at me, and then at the doorway, but I stayed focused on freeing her hands, which I eventually did. Karen then sat up and started untying her legs--without even removing her gag!
My hands were still tied together in front of me, but I waited until Karen untied her legs and removed her tape gag before I asked her to help me. She knelt down on the bed and started to examine my bound wrists, when we both heard talking coming from outside the room. "Are they coming back down?" I whispered.
"I dunno," she replied. "C'mon!" As she got off the bed, Karen actually grabbed me by my bound hands and pulled me out of the room. We both paused in the hallway when we heard the voices getting louder--it sounded like a bunch of people descending the stairs.
Karen bounced up and down frantically as she searched for a place to hide. I saw the laundry room, which was directly across the hall from our "dungeon", and pointed to it with my tied hands. "In here..." I whispered.
Once inside the laundry room, Karen and I shut the doors and ducked under the folding table. Karen started untying my hands while we listened to what was happening outside. The flimsy doors had shutters which allowed us to hear the casual conversation Becca was having with Donna and Shirley. I actually heard Becca say, "Well, here they--" Then she stopped. This silence was followed by: "WHAT THE HELL?!"
"Whoa! They're gone!" Jim exclaimed. Laughter followed--sounding like it was from my cousins--as Becca let out what sounded like a low screech of frustration. It wasn't thirty seconds later when the laundry room doors flew open and a pair of bare feet strode in and stood in front of the table Karen and I were hiding under.
Karen had just finished untying my hands. She took the rope, threw it out on the floor in front of Becca, and said, "Try and do a better job next time, ok?"
Ooooooo! I cringed again. I couldn't help it; this was the verbal equivalent of Karen slapping Becca across the face with a gauntlet. Now Becca simply had to tie us up in such a way that even Houdini would be hard-pressed to escape from. As Karen and I were escorted back into the guest room, I tried to act grim at having been recaptured (after all, it's what Jonny Quest would do), but inwardly, I couldn't wait to see what she had in mind for us this time.
Neither could Becca, because she immediately tarted binding my hands behind my back as soon as we entered the room. I tried to remind her that it was Karen who made the dare, but she shushed me by gripping my shoulder and shoving me down until I sat on the edge of the bed.
Now that I was secure for the time being, Becca happily turned her attention to Karen. But before she could, Jim tried to stop her by saying that since he originally tied Karen, he should be the one to tie her up again.
"These two are mine," Becca said, with an edge of finality in her voice that made any argument impossible. "Go tie up Donna, if you want."
Jim glanced hopefully at my cousin Donna, and she merely rolled her eyes. Donna and Shirley were still clad in the same shorts and T-shirts they wore while shopping with my Aunt Jean, yet now they were barefoot, having removed their sneakers once they came home. They, George, and now even Jim all watched like an enthralled audience as Becca ordered Karen to put her hands behind her back.
"Doug was actually the one who got us freed," Karen said as she nervously offered her hands behind her back to Becca. Perhaps now she was beginning to regret her earlier snide comment.
"I know," Becca replied calmly as she tied Karen's hands behind her back. "But neither of you will escape this time."
Once Karen's hands were tied, she was made to lie on her side across the bed, with her back facing the headboard. Her ankles were tied together, then they were hog-tied to her wrists. As if this wasn't enough, Becca then secured Karen's hog-tied wrists and ankles to the headboard with another strand of rope. As soon as she was satisfied that Karen was securely bound, Becca sarcastically asked, "Is that 'better', Karen?"
Even though Karen wasn't gagged, she didn't bother to reply. She quietly laid there until Becca turned her attention to me. As I was made to get off the bed and take a seat in a hard back chair, I saw Karen had started to discreetly test her bonds once the spotlight was off of her. But Karen quickly found out what I already knew: she wasn't going anywhere.
For my part, Becca secured my torso to the back of the chair with an extra long length of rope. She wrapped this around my body several times, the rope resting just above my elbows. While Becca searched for some more rope to bind my feet, I noticed that Jim was tying Shirley's hands behind her back while Donna watched with a bemused look.
Becca found some more rope and used it to bind my ankles together. Then, she sat down on the floor so she could secure my bound ankles by tying a vertical knot over the original bond, then running the strand of rope under my seat and up the back of the chair, where it was knotted to the same rope which bound my torso to the chair.
This took a good few minutes, and while Becca labored, I watched as Jim brought Shirley over to the end of the bed and made her sit on the edge. Once she was seated, Jim proceeded to bind Shirley's bare legs at the ankles and knees. He was so intent on tying up Shirley that Jim never saw Donna slowly walking up behind him, a length of rope pulled out taunt in her hands. Becca was finished binding me to the chair and she, too, watched with amusement as Donna crept up on her unwary brother.
Jim was kneeling before Shirley when he finished binding her legs, and when Donna was close enough, she slung the rope around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides.
He let out a surprised yell as he stood up--or tried to. Donna briefly wound up riding him like a horse as they both fell together to the floor in laughter. Jim, sitting on the floor, grabbed the rope from Donna and was about to lasso her with it until Becca abruptly charged over and helped Donna to bind Jim's hands behind his back.
"Remember when you and Doug tickled me when I was tied up at Donna's house?" Becca asked her brother. "Huh? Remember?"
Jim merely stared back at her defiantly while Donna bound his legs at the ankles and knees. "Where did you tickle me?" Becca asked. "Oh, I think it was right HERE!"
Jim's stoic expression crumbled into giggles as both Becca and Donna tickled him mercilessly. Then Becca came over and tickled my sides, making me shout "No! No! No!" impulsively as I collapsed into laughter.
"No, no, no," Becca mimicked me, as she affectionately tousled my hair. Then, just as Donna started to get up from her torture of Jim, Becca ran over and grabbed her friend from behind.
Caught completely off guard, Donna let out a rip-roaring shriek as she and Becca wrestled each other onto the floor. As Becca bear-hugged Donna from behind, pinning my cousin's arms down, she said, "It's my game and my house, Donna. Today everybody's a captive!"
"All right," Donna conceded, "just get off me."
Becca pulled Donna's hands behind her back and tied them together at the wrists. Then, after binding Donna's ankles and knees together, Becca stood up and surveyed her collection of captives: Karen laid hog-tied to the headboard on the bed while Shirley sat bound on the opposite end; Donna and Jim sat bound hand and foot on the floor, and I was tied to the chair.
"Um, how long are you gonna keep us like this?" Karen asked.
"As long as you kept me tied up at your house yesterday," Becca smugly replied.
"You didn't gag them," George helpfully reminded Becca.
Becca spent the next ten minutes or so gagging each one of us with a strip of tape. Then, when she was finished, Becca turned to George and asked, "You happy, now?"
George, grinning broadly, nodded shyly.
I figured this would be the beginning of another epic bondage game. But after being bound and gagged for the better part of an hour--all while Becca casually read a magazine on the floor as Donna and Jim writhed next to her--we were grateful when Becca untied us and called an end to the game. Perhaps it was because we had played a game only yesterday that caused us to call it quits early, but I think a main factor was that the guest room was beginning to feel very warm and claustrophobic with all of us in it together.
While we still hung out together and had fun doing other things the rest of the week, this was the last bondage game I played while staying at Aunt Jean's that summer. When I went home with my parents that Friday, I figured it wouldn't be until next summer when I got tied up again. But I would soon discover that, when it came to bondage, there was no place like home. You'll see what I mean in my next post. As always, thanks for reading.