Handcuffs for Two
Story index at the bottom
By Jon (McA)
Dudalb's story about Aunt Judith triggered my recollection of this incident. I'm not sure why, because there really aren't that many points of similarity.
The story dates from 1968 or 69. It's after Gillian and her family had moved away, but probably not long after. I don't remember anything to pin the date down more accurately.
I need to start with a technical note on handcuffs. The finest toy handcuffs you could get at the time were (I think) made by Lone Star. They consisted of a pair of D shaped cuffs made in diecast zinc alloy joined with a short steel chain. Because of the construction, the cuffs were not adjustable; the straight part of the D was a hinged bar which snapped into place. The cuffs could be unlocked with a key or by pressing a button on the end of the bar. I think it was handcuffs of this type that appeared in Gillian's story 'Peter and Paul', where the boys had disabled the buttons with glue. My friend Kevin and I had a more sophisticated approach to the problem. There was an oiling hole close to the button on each cuff and we discovered that it could be drilled out and a small self-tapping screw inserted, neatly jamming the button.
Because of the lack of adjustment, the weakness of these cuffs was their inability to hold anyone with small hands, who could simply wriggle out of them.
Now, on with the story. My friend Kevin was about the same age as me and in the same class at grammar school. He lived about a mile away from my house, so we often spent time together. We were both 12 at that time and Kevin's sister, Anne (all bogus names of course) was 14. She quite often joined in our cops and robbers games. Our problem was that she had quite small hands (smaller than mine) and was effectively un-cuffable.
Kevin and I engaged in some serious thought and research and realised that to pull free from the cuffs, the arms had to bend. A little rope round the victim's arms and body, and no escape!
At the next opportunity, we inveigled Anne into a game where she would end up in handcuffs. We were playing in the garage of Kevin's house and I think we cast Anne as a hostage of some kind. She knew that she could get free from the handcuffs and allowed herself to be cuffed with her hands behind her back. Having cuffed her, we produced some rope. (Our local hardware shop sold cotton sash cord in handy pre-cut lengths for use as skipping ropes; we also had other uses.) Anne still felt she could escape at will and offered no resistance to being bound. We tied two lengths of rope quite tightly round her arms and body; one at waist level, pinning her forearms to her back and the other just above her elbows, stopping her arms from bending.
It was at this point that Anne realised she was trapped and started to look worried. We had her at our mercy and decided that a gag would be a good move in case she protested too loudly. A handkerchief in her mouth with another used as a cleave gag silenced her quite effectively.
We finished off by tying Anne's ankles and knees with more rope. We were very pleased with the results and enjoyed watching her struggle while we enjoyed a snack that Kevin had brought from the kitchen. The rules of our games were that the handcuff key had to be somewhere the victim might reasonably be able to get it; I think we left it on a table, which would actually be almost impossible for her to get to with her legs tied. After about half an hour, Anne was still helpless and Kevin was so pleased that he wanted to show his mother how effectively we had tied her. We helped her get to her feet and steered her hopping (still with bound legs) into the kitchen. We helped her sit down on a chair and Kevin fetched his mother.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but Kevin and Anne's mother wasn't at all upset at what we had been doing. She chided Anne, saying that half an hour was more than enough time to escape from that situation. She added that she was sure she could escape. We offered to let her try and (joy!) she agreed.
We fetched more rope and a second pair of cuffs (one pair was Kevin's and the other was mine). We cuffed Kevin's Mum and roped her arms in the same way that we had tied Anne. We didn't bother tying her legs and the gag we used (a teatowel) was more symbolic than practical. The handcuff key was placed on one of the kitchen worktops. Kevin announced that his Mum had half an hour to get free and that if she did so she and Anne could cuff us and tie us up. Meanwhile, I was beginning to get the feeling that Kevin's Mum was well ahead of us and knew exactly what she was doing.
Kevin's Mum set to work with blinding speed. She could talk quite well through the gag and told Anne to turn her back towards her. With her own back towards Anne, she reached behind her, grabbed Anne's cuffs and simply pulled them off Anne's wrists (which Anne couldn't do herself). She then told Anne to work her hands round to the front and untie the ropes round her arms and body. Once Anne's arms were free, she was able to un-gag herself and her Mum, then use the handcuff key to free her Mum's hands. They were then both able to finish untying themselves. I don't think the whole process took more than about three minutes.
Kevin's Mum told us to come back in five minutes so she and Anne could decide what to do with us. We spent the time hurriedly agreeing on a set of signals we could use to help us free each other.
When we returned to the kitchen, Kevin's Mum and sister were ready for us. They had reorganised the equipment into two neat piles. I was delighted to notice that each pair of handcuffs now had a length of string attached to its chain. Kevin and I had tried that as a means of making the cuffs more secure, but found that it merely anchored the cuffs, making it easier to pull the hands out (or so I thought).
The binding followed the same pattern as we had used on Anne. Firstly our wrists were cuffed behind our backs, then ropes were tied round our arms and bodies at waist level and above the elbows. Next our legs were bound at ankles and knees.
Lastly, the string attached to the cuffs were used. The string was taken upwards, between the ropes round our arms at waist level and our bodies and then tied off to the ropes round our arms and bodies at chest level. The cuffs were being held up, so that they couldn't readily be pulled down over the hands. Simple and effective, and a technique we hadn't thought of at all.
To finish off, Anne gagged each of us with two handkerchiefs in the same way that we had gagged her. (The only difference was that she wet the ends of the handkerchiefs used as cleave gags before knotting them.) Anne helped us to sit on two kitchen chairs so we wouldn't topple over.
Kevin and Anne's Mum held up the handcuff key for us to see and put it down on a kitchen worktop, then told us that she didn't want us to be pressed for time so we had a whole hour to escape. She set the kitchen timer for an hour, then she and Anne settled down to watch the fun.
The string on the cuffs worked as had apparently been planned; neither Kevin nor I could pull the other's cuffs off. We tried working on the knots securing each others' ropes, but to no avail. I remember examining the knots carefully; they weren't reef knots (what we call square knots) or anything else I recognised and I couldn't work out how to budge them at all. We tried pulling each others' gags down, but they were too tightly tied and with the knots wet, we couldn't untie them either.
After about fifteen minutes we were exhausted and had made no progress whatever. We had one or two more token attempts at struggling, but basically just waited out the rest of the time. Anne got bored after a while, but her Mum sat and kept an eye on us while she read the paper.
At the end of the hour, Anne heard the kitchen timer ringing and came back. She and her Mum untied us (with some difficulty, using a teaspoon handle to work the knots undone) and unlocked our handcuffs.
I don't think I have ever been quite so comprehensively or quickly outmanoeuvred as on that occasion.
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Jon (McA)'s stories
- Tying Up Jill (mmF/f)
- Tying Bob’s Mum (mm/F)
- Ambushing Mum (McA) (mff/F)
- Jill’s Revenge (Ff/mm)
- Retribution (F/mmf)
- Ambuhing Jill (mmF/f)
- Games with Janet (mm/ff)
- A Knotty Problem (mff/self)
- Pot Boiler (f/m)
- Burglars (mf/mf)
- Babysitting à la Mode (f/m)
- An Evening With Susan and Karen (mf/f)
- Susan gets her own back (f/fm)
- Revenge all round (ff/m, m/ff)
- Handcuffs for Two (mm/fF, Ff/mm)