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)--had "roped" their friend Becca (13) and her brother Jim (11) into their bondage games long before I had taken part. Becca quickly took to the games like a fish to water, inventing elaborate bondage traps which made it extremely hard for us to escape.
And, according to the rules, if a captive didn't escape from a game by the time it ended, then he or she remained a captive when the next game began.
The summer of '76 was only my second summer at playing these games with my cousins and their friends. And, in the first two games that I participated in so far, Becca had maintained her role as the captor, a role she had grown used to playing. In fact, during the previous winter, she even went so far as to create ransom notes for all of us. Instead of writing the words out by hand, they were formed from clippings of letters from various publications, just like a real ransom note. My note read, "We have Doug. No cops. We will call you." I have to admit that it always irked me that Becca never wrote up a ransom note for herself...so I decided to do it for her.
After playing Becca's latest game on Thursday of my first week, I spent the following weekend creating a ransom note for Becca. I clipped the letters out of old copies of the Sunday paper that were laying around and pasted them to a blank sheet of typing paper to spell out the statement: "We have Becca. No cops. We will call you." With my ransom note finished late Sunday night, I now had to plot the "kidnapping" of Becca.
I woke up late the next day, Monday, and discovered, thanks to my youngest cousin, George (6), that Donna and Shirley had already gone over to another friend's house, a girl named Karen (12). My Uncle Steve was at work as usual; my Aunt Jean was out visiting the neighbors, and we younger kids were left in the "care" of the oldest boy, Keith (15). Keith's approach to baby-sitting was to simply ignore us, and that suited me just fine. I realized that there would probably be no better time to kidnap Becca than now.
One unforeseen problem I had was that I had attracted the attention of George, who had walked in on me while I was working on my ransom note in the basement rec room last night. George allowed me to swear him to secrecy on the condition that I let him help me in my fiendish plot. I quickly agreed.
After a quick breakfast of cereal, during which George gave me an update on where Becca was at that moment, I went out to the back yard to confirm his last sighting of our quarry. Sure enough, I could see Becca a few doors down, casually hanging out in her own yard.
I remember getting butterflies in my stomach just then, because I realized that it was either now or never for my mad scheme. I glanced at George and said, "Let's do it."
When George and I entered Becca's back yard a minute later, we brought along a water pistol and my newly minted ransom note. Becca, clad in a two piece bathing suit, with her long blond hair spread over her shoulders, laid face down on a chaise lounge, lazily patting the edge of the cushion with one bare foot.
When she saw us, Becca pulled off her sunglasses and gave George and me a puzzled smile. "Hi, guys," she said. "What's up?"
In reply, I merely placed my ransom note in her hands. Becca read it once with a slight frown, then she quickly sat up and read it again--this time with such apparent shock that her mouth dropped open. She stared at me wide-eyed and asked, "Did you do this?"
My mouth was as dry as sandpaper, but I kept my voice firm and steady as I said, "Yes. I made it. We're kidnapping you. Now."
To my surprise and relief, Becca didn't break out in mocking laughter. If she did, that would have been the end of it. I wasn't about to force the game on her; it had to be just as much her choice as it had been mine whenever I allowed her to tie me up.
Instead, Becca simply asked, "It's just you two, isn't it?"
When I replied in the affirmative, adding that Donna and Shirley were over at Karen's, Becca calmly placed the ransom note down, then clasped her hands together behind her head. By doing this, she was indicating her desire to play without breaking the "reality" of the game. George promptly raised the water pistol at her.
"Come along with us quietly," I told her as I picked up the ransom note. "Any funny business, and you'll regret it. My partner here has an itchy trigger finger."
Becca couldn't hide her slight smile as she lowered her arms and quietly went with us over to my Aunt Jean's house. Once there, I stood outside the side door of the house, keeping the water pistol aimed at Becca's back while George ran inside to see where Keith was.
George returned and gave me some great news: Keith wasn't home. Apparently, he took off once George and I left earlier. We now had the entire house to ourselves.
Entering the house, I brought Becca to the bedroom that I temporarily shared with George whenever I visited Aunt Jean's. I told Becca to sit down on my bed, and then stood guard over her while George ran out to get his sisters' "bondage bag" from their bedroom. I was surprised at the high level of enthusiasm which Becca had for her role as an anxious kidnap victim. When George returned with the "bondage bag" (which contained clothesline rope and a roll of duct tape) Becca actually tensed up her body in a melodramatic fashion and asked, "You're not going to tie me up, are you?"
I pulled a strand of rope out of the bag and said, "What do you think?"
Becca let out a sharp gasp of mock terror as I sat next to her on the mattress and pulled her arms behind her back. I wrapped the rope snugly around her wrists four times before tying it off in a knot.
"How much ransom are you fiends asking for me?" she asked over her shoulder.
"A million," George replied without hesitation.
"Oh no," Becca moaned. Then she started a long, frantic speech about how her parents could not possibly raise that kind of money, because their bank in Switzerland was closed, etc, etc... She must have rehearsed this act just for this moment, when she became a captive. I gestured to George for the tape. When I pulled off a strip to gag her with, Becca babbled on about how her parents were out of touch, anyway, because they were sailing around the world on their private yacht. I patiently held the strip of tape in my hands
and waited until she paused for a breath, then I gagged her.
I gently pushed Becca's shoulder until she fell against the bed, lying on her right side. I pulled her feet up on the mattress, then got some more rope and tied her ankles together. When her ankles were securely bound, I thoughtfully stared at her bonds. I had originally considered hog-tying her, but I wasn't sure. I mean, bound as she was right now, it was obvious that Becca wasn't going anywhere. Becca laid with her back facing me, watching me carefully over her bare shoulder. After debating with myself
for a few seconds, I finally got another strand of rope and used it to bind Becca's knees. Just as I finished securing the knot which bound Becca's knees, a wild idea entered my mind.
A sly smile crossed my face as I casually sat down next to Becca--the very same Becca, who, whenever I was tied up, would reach down and tickle my bound feet.
"Becca," I said sweetly, "now that you're all tied up and everything, I was wondering if I could ask you something...."
She couldn't reply because of her gag, but Becca gave me a wary look, as if she knew she wasn't going to like whatever I was about to say.
"Are you ticklish?" I asked.
Becca let out an intense growl under her gag, and her nostrils actually flared to the point where I thought I was going to see fire sprout from them. She bent her legs in a futile gesture to keep her feet from my reach. But I simply grabbed the bonds around her ankles and held her feet in place while I tickled them. Becca's growls quickly turned into muffled giggles under her gag. I offered George a chance to tickle her, but he shyly declined.
Once I got my ticklish revenge, we left our captive alone in the bedroom and sought a snack in the kitchen. While George and I each ate a cupcake, I kept tabs on the time, not wanting to leave Becca bound any longer than the normal half hour limit.
Twenty minutes later, Donna and Shirley returned with Karen in tow. George and I exchanged a humorous, knowing look as the girls took seats next to us at the table.
For some reason, they were in a somber mood, and weren't too pleased to see George and me looking so cheerful. When the girls finally demanded to know what was so funny, I happily led them into the bedroom, where Donna, Shirley and Karen all gaped at the sight of Becca lying bound and gagged on the bed.
Then the girls' mood brightened considerably--especially Shirley, who practically squealed with delight. George and I roared with laughter when Shirley and Karen bent down by Becca's bound feet and started tickling them. Poor Becca just rolled her eyes in disgust at this.
Donna regarded George and me with renewed respect. It turned out that the gathering at Karen's house had turned into a discussion about what could be done concerning Becca's continuing dominance of the bondage games as a captor. Karen was chomping at the bit to be a captor in the next game, and they were trying to find some diplomatic way to get the point across to Becca that she had to eventually hand over control to somebody else. And the irony was, at about the same time this discussion was taking place, George and I "kidnapped" Becca, who willingly consented to be a captive.
I finally sat down next to Becca on the bed and started untying her. Both Shirley and Karen voiced a very loud protest at this. They wouldn't even listen to me when I said that I had Becca tied for well over the half hour limit, now. I undid the ropes binding her wrists, and Becca sat up, pulled off her gag, and sincerely said, "Thanks, Doug."
When Shirley tried to tickle her bound feet one last time, Becca snapped, "DO YOU MIND?!"
As Becca quickly bent over to untie her legs, Donna invited her and Karen to stay for a swim in our pool, to which they consented. "It'll be nice to finally take a swim, since Doug never gave me a chance to use my own pool," Becca jokingly said.
Donna and Shirley left the room to change into their bathing suits, while Karen had to run back home to put on her own. Becca, who was the only one already clad in a bathing suit, remained on the bed sitting in a cross-legged position while I put the rope I'd used on her back in the bondage bag.
"You know I'm going to get you back for this, Doug," she said calmly. "It'll be just you and me, and you'll never know where or when until it's too late."
I had been expecting some kind of threat like this from Becca. In fact, I was hoping she would swear vengeance. I simply shrugged and said, "Looking forward to it." I wonder if she ever knew just how much I meant it.
Little did we realize that the next bondage game would take place no sooner than later that night, with a big surprise for the both of us. However, that's a tale for another time. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.