During the summer of 1977, when I was twelve years old, I spent three weeks at my Aunt Jean's house. I played tie up games with my cousins Donna (13), Shirley (11), and George (7; who mainly watched). We also roped in the neighboring kids Becca (14), her brother Jim (12) and Karen (13), the little girl who lives down the street.
The Tuesday of the final week of my stay was a rainy day, and we all hung out at my Aunt Jean's house. Donna, Karen, and Shirley were all huddled before the TV set. While the TV was on, they weren't really watching it, but chatting up a storm instead. Outside, my oldest cousin Keith (16) hung out on the front steps with his girlfriend Lori (also 16) and Peter (16, too), who was Keith's best friend and fellow high school football team member. My Aunt Jean was out visiting a neighbor.
George, Jim and I were on our way to the cellar rec room for some reason when I saw this gaggle of girls and had a mad flash of inspiration. It occurred to me that I never got revenge on Shirley for that creepy little tie up game she sprung on me last week (see "Shirley Strikes!" either here or on my site). I stopped dead in my tracks, spun around, and gestured for Jim and George to follow me back into the bedroom.
Once we were gathered in privacy, I told them about how I wanted vengeance against Shirley, but since all of these girls were right outside, why don't we grab them all in a mass kidnapping?
Whatever we had originally planned to do was quickly forgotten as we quickly retrieved the bondage bag and some water pistols. The bondage bag was a small brown paper bag which contained rope, a roll of tape and even a pair of toy handcuffs (a good captor must be ready for anything).
Armed with our water pistols, the three of us went back outside to confront our victims. The girls sat in a semi-circle around the TV, chatting away, as we crept up silently on them.
Shirley was the first to notice us. Clad in one of her bright summer dresses and barefoot, Shirley stared at us with wide eyes as she cried, "Oh no....!"
The conversation ceased as Jim, George and I aimed our water pistols at the girls. "Don't nobody move!" I snarled.
Donna stared at us in mock horror. Barefoot, she was clad in jeans with a short sleeved blouse (I recall Donna's blouse was pink--but in a recent e-mail to me, after she read this story, Donna remembered that her blouse was actually more of a multicolored-colored design). Karen was also barefoot, and more casually clad in cut-off denim shorts with a green top. Karen glanced at me with a slight smile on her face as she held her hands up in surrender.
"We can't just have a normal conversation," Shirley muttered darkly as Jim began binding her hands behind her back. I bound Donna's wrists while George kept a water pistol on Karen. Once Donna's hands were securely tied behind her back, I moved over to Karen, who promptly crossed her wrists behind her back for me. I knelt down and tied her wrists together. She sat crossed-legged on the floor, and while I tied her wrist, Karen abruptly uncrossed her legs and leaned against me. When I lifted her back into a sitting position, I saw Donna staring at Karen with a disgusted shake of her head.
"What's wrong?" I asked, sincerely concerned. "You don't feel like playing?"
"No, no, I want to play," Donna assured me. When I asked why did she look so annoyed at Karen, Donna flashed a knowing glance at Karen and muttered, "Nothing."
I gave Jim a puzzled look and he just shrugged back at me. "Are we gonna just tie them up here?" he asked.
I realized it would be best to stash our captives in a safe, secure place. So I suggested that we finish binding them in the boys' bedroom that I shared with George. After gagging our captives with tape, we escorted the girls into our 'hiding place'.
Since this crazy scheme was my idea to begin with, George and Jim deferred to me as to the placement of our captives. I placed the sisters together on George's bed, while Karen would be on my bed (writing this now, and looking back in retrospect, I can't help but wonder if this arrangement wasn't somehow deliberate on my part. Make no mistake, I was very innocent then, but I wonder now if my subconscious had realized the true nature of Karen's affection for me before I actually did. In any event, considering that Karen is now my wife, this was very ironic).
Jim bound Donna's ankles together, while I tied Shirley's. George stood guard over Karen so she wouldn't run away on us. Once the sisters were securely bound, Jim went over to bind Karen's ankles. But Karen abruptly started writhing around and kicking her feet at him.
"Hey, hey!" George shouted as he waved the water pistol at her.
But Karen wouldn't stop struggling until I came over and held her feet down. Jim gave me the rope and I bound her ankles together. When they were securely tied, I glanced up at Jim--
--only to see him staring with his mouth hanging open at the door.
Peter, Lori and Keith all stood crowded in the doorway, staring at us with huge grins on their faces.
"Jeez, " Peter said, "what some guys have to do to get a date!"
"At least they have dates," Lori shot back as she stared at Peter.
This caused Keith is burst out laughing--while, over on the other bed, Donna let out these rollicking giggles under her gag. There was no love lost between Donna and Peter, and she always rejoiced in a moment whenever he got ridiculed.
"Yeah, yeah, ha, ha," Peter muttered with an annoyed look.
Lori turned on me and said, "And just what do you think you're doing, young man?"
"Tying up the girls," I said, which was stating the obvious, but I didn't have any witty comebacks available.
Lori was casually clad in shorts and a halter top. She had worn shoes when she first arrived, but had removed them and was now barefoot. She stood before me with her hands on her hips. "And may I ask why?"
I was at a lost for that one. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open--just like Jim--until George came to my rescue. "For ransom," he blurted out. "For a million dollars each!"
Keith and Peter exchanged an incredulous look. "Damn, for that kind of money, I'd abduct Lori," Keith said.
Peter smiled at him. "You wanna?"
When they both stared at Lori with these predatory looks, she held up her hands and started saying, "No, no, no, no....."
Lori let out a high-pitched squeal when Keith grabbed her and half-tickled/half-wrestled her to the floor. When Keith asked for some rope, George happily provided it for him. Keith bound Lori's hands together at the wrist in front of her.
In-between her hysterical giggling, Lori stared up at me and said, "You see what you've done, now? This is all your fault, Doug!"
Keith hauled Lori to her feet and placed her on the bed next to Karen. Keith then took more rope and secured Lori's bound wrists to the headboard. I'll never forget the funny way Karen glanced up at me with those wide brown eyes of hers over her gag while Lori writhed and screamed on the bed right next to her. Being bound hand and foot, Karen was helplessly tossed and shaken around with every frantic movement Lori made to get free.
"You are going to pay for this," Lori said in a good natured manner. "All of you!"
Keith bound her ankles together, but he didn't secure them down to the bed. When Keith made a motion to gag her with the tape, Lori said, "You wouldn't dare!"
But he dared. Keith gently placed the tape over his girlfriend's mouth, while she glared up at him. Then he kissed her on the forehead. Lori shook her head at him in a resolute manner that said very bad things would happen very soon.
"Now that the women are properly tied down," Peter said, "it's time for the men to celebrate!" (Was it any wonder this idiot couldn't get a date when he kept saying things like this?)
Jim, George and I fell into place behind Keith and Peter as they strode out of the room--until Peter abruptly turned and waved his finger in our faces. "I said the men will go celebrate. You boys are not invited!"
That was a slap in the face if there ever was one, but we really couldn't do anything about it because they were bigger than us. So we sulked back to the bedroom and consoled ourselves with watching Lori's fine performance as a struggling damsel. I can remember feeling a little awed and very impressed at having Lori participate in our games (even though we didn't actually tie her up ourselves). This was no slight to Karen, Donna and Shirley, but at 16 years of age, Lori was the first woman (at least in our pre-teen eyes), to get tied up in our games.
One thing I thought was funny: Lori's tied hands were easily within reach of the knot that bound her wrists to the headboard. She was working up quite a sweat writhing around (which wasn't an unpleasant sight for a trio of young boys to watch, I must admit), when all she had to do was reach up with her bound hands and pull the knot loose. Then she could either untie her feet, or untie Karen's hands and then have Karen untie her hands.
Finally, Lori laid back with a I give up expression in her eyes. I also noticed that Donna and Shirley, being the old tie-up game pros that they were, laid with their backs up against each other and their bound hands working furiously behind them. Shirley kept staring nervously at me, as if to say, Don't look! Don't notice us! Don't look!
When I approached the bed, both Karen and Lori stared at me apprehensively over their gags. I reached up and pulled loose the knot that bound Lori's hands to the headboard. The first thing she did was tear off her gag and whisper, "Bless you, Doug. You're not a total fink after all."
Karen found this very funny. She laid there shaking her shoulders in laughter as I untied Lori's wrists.
"Won't the guys be mad?" Jim asked.
"*%# the guys," Lori muttered. I believe George learned a new word that day.
When Lori's hands were free, she sat up and untied her ankles. I went around and untied Karen. While I did this, Shirley pulled her hands free of the rope, then sat up, pulled off her tape gag, and went to work untying her sister. I always thought Donna and Shirley missed their true calling; they would have made millions as a sibling escape artist act in Las Vegas.
Once all of the girls were free, there were some mutterings about "getting back at the boys" but nothing came of that. I was disappointed, because I was eager to see what kind of a captor Lori would have made. Alas, I never found out. That was the first and only tie up game of ours that Lori was involved in. She and Keith would break up during that coming school year, so I never saw her again ever after that summer. Becca wasn't involved in this little excursion because she was out with her mom that day. But she would soon find herself "abducted", along with her brother Jim. That story is next. As always, thanks for reading.