Chapter 21
When morning arrives, it’s Joe who comes down to unlock the chain tying me to my bed. He has also brought some breakfast, and sits down to eat with me.
“You look funny,” he tells me. “What’s up?”
“I guess I was expecting Jackie.”
“He’s still untying himself. We didn’t want to make you wait more than half an hour.” He laughs, and I join in, and can think of only commenting,
“Good thing he didn’t hurt himself sleepwalking.”
Breakfast goes uneventfully, and then I have to say, “I want to know what would have happened if I had chosen to tie myself to the chair instead of begin taken outside again yesterday afternoon.”
Joe smiles. “Okay, wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
He takes the breakfast stuff upstairs, and comes back with the same items from yesterday: the gag, blindfold, and handcuffs. His next words are very predictable. “If you want to find out what would have happened, put these on, and we’ll be back soon.”
He goes back upstairs, and I don’t think I have a choice. I sit down, put on the gag, and remember to wait until I hear someone coming downstairs before putting on the blindfold and handcuffs. At least this time I don’t have to wait long. Pretty soon I feel duct tape wrapping around my lower legs and the front legs of the chair, and then more tape around my thighs and the chair seat. I’m expecting more tape around my body and the back of the chair, but instead I hear my electric toothbrush go on, and feel it brush against my stomach.
The usual happens. I roar into the gag and try to move away, but the handcuffs and tape are plenty to keep me from jumping in any direction. A couple minutes is enough to convince them I have no hope of escaping. Then I hear footsteps going away and up the stairs, and the door lock shut.
I wonder what the gang is planning next, but I have a long wait. After an hour of sitting there not being able to see or hear anything, I decide that this alternative is just to leave me here until it’s lunchtime. This is really boring. While there is no hope of my escaping, I wriggle what I can, which is very little, just to experience something. It looks like I made the right choice yesterday – all that ice was a shock, but feeling something that wasn’t too terrible beats this nothingness. I kind of hope that ice gets dumped on me again, but there’s nothing for four hours.
Finally I hear someone come down and unlock the handcuffs.
“I’m sure you’d like to do the rest yourself.” It is Jackie’s voice. I take off my blindfold first, and see that he is in his loincloth, which probably has something to do with those silly bets. Next I undo the gag, and can finally talk.
“That was boring!”
“Joe said you wanted to know what would have happened if you picked this option yesterday, so you got it.”
I unwind the tape around my legs, which doesn’t hurt too much.
“You didn’t have to gag and blindfold me if I was going to be tied up inside.”
“We didn’t gag and blindfold you, you did that yourself.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Whatever, you wanna have lunch?”
I accept that offer before it is taken away. When we are done I remember to ask, “How long did it take to untie yourself this morning?”
Jackie groans. “Forty-five minutes. Not my best time. Now as for you, ready to be tied up again?”
“Can it not be so boring this time?”
Jackie considers, and responds, “I think we can arrange that. Wash up while you have the chance.”
I do, and a few minutes later he comes down with a roll of duct tape. “We had a meeting, and decided that if you want this afternoon to be more interesting, tape yourself to the chair and then handcuff yourself. You don’t have to put on the gag and blindfold unless you want to.” He grins and goes back upstairs.
My curiosity easily wins out as I really don’t want to be bored even more. I sit in the chair and start taping my lower legs to the chair legs, but turn the sticky side of the tape outwards. It won’t hurt so much when it’s taken off, and it still holds me tightly. I proceed to tape my thighs to the chair seat, and then my stomach and chest to the chair back. This way all the ticklish spots on my upper body are covered, and about all they will be able to get are my feet. I keep going until I run out of tape.
There is some satisfaction in that I did a real good job. When I hear the basement door open, I snap on the handcuffs behind the chair back as before. A thrill tingles through me as I await my fate.
On this occasion all four of them come down. Like Joe, Mickey and Farina are just wearing shorts. As soon as they reach the basement, Jackie proclaims,
“You lose, Farina!”
“Oohh,” but Farina doesn’t sound terribly disappointed.
Mickey, who is holding a rope, takes charge. “Okay, we’re going to … what did you do? The sticky part is on the outside.”
“You never said I had to have the sticky side against my skin.”
Mickey thinks for a second, and then says, “Fine, it doesn’t matter. Alright guys, let’s do this.”
They push my chair along the floor, careful to avoid the tape, until I’m under one of the hooks in the ceiling. Then they tie one end of the rope around the top center bar of the back of my chair, and loop the other end around the hook. Farina drags another chair next to mine and stands on it. Then Joe and Mickey lift my chair up off the floor and Farina ties a knot around the hook. When Joe and Mickey lower me, my chair is tipping forward with the front legs a couple inches above the floor. Farina moves the second chair safely out of range.
Somehow Jackie gets a feather and tickles my feet for a minute, and it is clear I can’t break loose. If they’re going to leave me hanging here I’ve clearly made the right choice.
“You comfortable?” asks Jackie.
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
The way he says that I know something is up. Sure enough, he grabs one of the chair legs, and spins the chair. The others are only too eager to help, and pretty soon it feels like the chair has been wound fifty times. The feet of the chair are definitely farther from the floor than before. At least I know what is going to happen. I’m going to be rapidly spun around like Farina and Jackie were a few days ago, but secured to this chair and not hanging by my ankles or in a suspended hogtie. To tell the truth, I’m kind of looking forward to this.
“You sure you can handle this?” asks Jackie.
That deserves a comeback. “You sure you can spin me without hurting yourself?”
“What?”
Mickey, Joe, and Farina laugh, and then Jackie spins me as hard as he can. Apparently he doesn’t hurt himself, and then the room is spinning too fast for me to comprehend anything. I’m vaguely aware that the spinning slows down and stops, and then I’m spinning in the opposite direction. This is going to go on for a long time, but I have nothing better to do. And this is definitely not boring like this morning.
The gang watches and laughs at me for maybe fifteen minutes, and then goes about some other business. It might be another fifteen minutes when Joe comes down and work out on the universal weight machine. He ignores me, and there is no point in trying to talk to him now. Maybe he’s making sure that I’m okay. He works out for an hour or so, and then leaves without saying anything. By now my chair is spinning slowly, but I’m hopelessly dizzy.
A couple minutes later the gang comes down and manages to get me down. Once my chair is on the floor, my vision starts to focus. This time I expect Farina to be back in his loincloth because of his bet with Jackie, and I am right, although Jackie never bothered to change out of his.
“How you doing?” asks Jackie.
“I – I’m fine but a little dizzy. Better not untie me yet because I’d fall off this chair.”
“Sure thing. See you at dinner.” Then to Mickey, “See, he’s fine. Next time it can be more intense.”
“Okay,” agrees Mickey, and they all go upstairs.
It must be another two hours before Farina comes down to unlock my handcuffs. By now I‘m feeling well enough to stand, but I really needed the rest. Naturally he leaves me to untape myself, and I did such a good job before it takes me half an hour.
Dinner with the gang goes fine, including a quick phone call with my parents, and I get some time in the basement to work on my writing assignment. Then Jackie comes down, handcuffs me, and takes me up to the second floor.
“Time to settle the bet. Farina’s in the bathroom and will be out in a minute.”
Summer Writing Assignment (self/m, mmmm/m)
Chapter 22
It looks like Farina has just finished a shower as he emerges from the bathroom. He goes down the hall, opens the door to his room and casually tosses his towel on the back of a chair, but what grabs my attention is the setup on his bed.
At each corner of his bed is a rope tied at one end around a bed leg while the other end is a small loop that encloses the half-oval shackle of a combination padlock resting on the bed. Near each padlock is a leather cuff with a buckle and a short chain, about six inches long, with a metal ring on the end.
Farina sees me trying to figure out how the setup works, and says, “I have to show you how this works. First I open the locks to make sure I remember the combinations.” He does so, puts the open padlocks next to the ends of the ropes, and then hops onto the bed. “Now I buckle these onto my wrists.” He puts the cuffs on and buckles them as indicated. Next he takes the padlocks and pushes the curved shackle of each through the last link of the chain attached to each cuff. He lies down on his back with his hands out to the sides near the ropes. I expected him to do the same with his feet, but have to wait for the explanation.
Farina takes a deep breath and then reaches out with his left hand, grasps the adjacent padlock, and manages to close it around the loop at the end of the nearby rope. Of course he then does the same with his right hand. With an air of satisfaction, he announces, “There, I trapped myself. This is how I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“Can you get out of that yourself?”
“It depends. What I like to do is chain myself like this when there’s enough light to see what I’m doing. Then wait until it’s too dark to see the numbers on the combination locks, and I’m stuck here till morning or till someone turns on the light. There’s still enough light now, so watch.”
Farina turns his head to his right and reaches the lock with his right hand. He carefully dials the combination. It is a bit awkward, but he clearly has had practice. When he had dialed the combo, he pushes the shackle up with a finger and gets it loose from the loop in the rope connected to the bed leg. Then he repeats the process with his left hand.
“Why don’t you roll over and use your right hand? I ask. You’re right-handed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s important to be able to use either hand, in case you can get only one hand free. There!”
Farina has freed both hands and sits up on the bed.
I have to comment, “I thought you were going to use those ropes and locks by your feet, too.”
“Sometimes I lock my hands, and sometime my feet. Depends on how I feel.”
“Do you ever do all four of them at the same time?”
“Once in a while. Two is enough really.”
“Can you get out of all four?”
“Of course, but … actually, since I lost the bet, I have to show you since you asked.” Farina looks at the locks again, and says, “Better turn on the light. It’s getting dark.”
He gets up, turns on the light switch by the door, and jumps back on the bed. He tests the combinations on the locks by his feet, and then positions all the devices carefully so he can reach them. He locks his feet into the corresponding cuffs as he did with his hands before. Then he scoots up the bed as far as he can and is just able to lock his hands as previously. This leaves him in a rather tight spread-eagle, and doing it by himself is actually quite impressive.
Farina lies there for a minute with a look on his face indicating that he is finding the experience thoroughly enjoyable. Then he turns his head and reaches for the padlock dial with his right hand. While he turns the dial, a slow process since he can only spin the dial a small amount at a time, I realize I can walk over to the light switch and turn it off with my head. This is too good an opportunity to miss, whatever the consequences. It looks like Farina has just dialed the first number of the combination when I push the light switch down with my forehead.
Farina gasps, and then shouts, “Hey, it’s too dark to read the numbers. Turn that light back on!”
I walked back over to the bed, and it’s my turn to laugh. “No way.”
“I’m going to get you for this.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
Farina raises his voice. “Hey guys, Scooter here turned off the light and won’t turn it back on!”
Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come into the room. It doesn’t take them long so they were probably listening just outside the door. They can’t help but laugh at their spread-eagled friend. After a minute, Mickey asks me,
“Is Farina telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess we have to do something about this.”
Similar to yesterday, this time it is Jackie who unlocks my handcuffs and hands me a feather. Farina shouts at me, “Hey, you have to do what I say, remember?”
Jackie counters, “Not when you’re paying off the bet.” Then Jackie tells me, “Go for it.”
I walk over and hold the feather to Farina’s throat. Grinning as evilly as I can, I state, “I don’t know if that setup of yours is strong enough to hold you. I think we better find out for sure. And besides, there’s your rule about tied up boys with no shirt or shoes must be tickled.”
Farina displays dread on his face, or at least he tries to. It doesn’t look completely genuine, as if he deliberately got into this situation but wants to pretend he’s terrified. No matter, pretty soon I’ll have the truth out of him. “N-n-no you don’t have to. I promise you I can’t get out of this.”
I slowly drag the feather from his throat down to his bellybutton. Instantly he is howling in laughter while he strains against his bonds. I tickle all over his upper body and then his feet, but it doesn’t matter as he is ticklish everywhere. After three minutes he is gasping for breath and appears to be on the verge of passing out, so I stop. I do want to ask him some questions, and a couple minutes later I can see that his heartbeat has slowed down a lot and he is almost breathing normally so he is able to talk. It still looks like he is more than enjoying the experience, so I comment,
“Looks like you are really enjoying this.”
“I can’t help that. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I did what I was supposed to from the bet. Now it’s time to turn on the light and go.”
The room is light enough for me to see that Farina’s heart suddenly starts beating faster again, which I take as an indication that he is lying.
“Looks to me like you’re lying.”
“No I’m not. You think you’re some kind of lie detector?”
“Some guys’ pulse races when they lie. Your heart is beating faster, see?” I hold the tip of the feather on his chest where I can see his heart beating.
Farina lifts his head all he can. “No, I … Ha ha ha … !” I repeat the tickling routine, and Farina is quickly in hysterics. When I glance at the door, the rest of the gang is peeking in with big grins, so I’m sure this is what they want me to do.
After another couple minutes I stop when it looks like he’s about to pass out, and ask, “Are you going to tell me the truth this time?”
He can’t speak right away as his chest is heaving too much, but in another minute he croaks out, “Yes.”
“Okay then, you really like this, don’t you?”
Farina takes a deep breath and answers,
“Yes. Actually this has gone perfectly. I wanted you to ask me to spread-eagle myself, and then I hoped you would turn off the light when you did. It’s a lot more fun and exciting to pretend to be tricked into doing this and then getting you to get me stuck for real.”
So Farina used me to act out his fantasy. Well, it was still a good experience for me.
“What about the tickling? Looked like you had all you could handle.”
“It’s fun seeing how long I can last before I have to talk. You did a great job.”
“Uh, thank you, but you didn’t last very long.”
“Yeah. I’ll try to do better next time.”
“So there’s going to be a next time?”
“If I lose another bet.”
“It looks like you and Jackie have this deal that if one of you loses a bet, the other loses the next one.”
Farina admits, “That’s pretty much it.” He continues, “But of course, I’m still going to get you for this tomorrow.”
At this point Mickey comes in and says, “Okay, that’s enough, time for bed.”
“Good,” says Farina. Then to me, “Okay, it’s been fun, but that’s enough. Now please turn the light on.”
He can’t possibly think that I will, and I come up with,
“I’ll let your friends release you when they think it’s time. How long do they usually leave you like tied down that before they turn on the light?”
Farina sighs and admits, “They’ve never turned on the light.”
The thought of Farina tied down all night like I’ve been so often is quite satisfying.
Joe and Jackie take me downstairs and Joe tells me, “Why don’t you chain yourself to bed tonight? Keep your wrists and ankles in good shape.”
The chain and padlock from last night are nearby. I know I don’t have a choice, but try, “Okay. Hey, can I have a combination lock like Farina instead of one that uses a key?”
Jackie replies, “Sorry, Farina is using all the combination locks.”
Joe adds, “Yeah. We’d give you one but we’d have to turn on the light in Farina’s room, and we don’t want to waste electricity.”
“Oh, okay then.” I didn’t think that would work. I obediently wrap the chain around my bed and my waist, make it tight enough so I can’t wriggle through, and snap the padlock shut. When Joe and Jackie are satisfied I’ve trapped myself, they leave, naturally turning off the basement lights. I feel something of the same thrill that Farina expressed. My last thoughts before I fall asleep are wondering what Farina meant by saying he’s going to get me tomorrow.
It looks like Farina has just finished a shower as he emerges from the bathroom. He goes down the hall, opens the door to his room and casually tosses his towel on the back of a chair, but what grabs my attention is the setup on his bed.
At each corner of his bed is a rope tied at one end around a bed leg while the other end is a small loop that encloses the half-oval shackle of a combination padlock resting on the bed. Near each padlock is a leather cuff with a buckle and a short chain, about six inches long, with a metal ring on the end.
Farina sees me trying to figure out how the setup works, and says, “I have to show you how this works. First I open the locks to make sure I remember the combinations.” He does so, puts the open padlocks next to the ends of the ropes, and then hops onto the bed. “Now I buckle these onto my wrists.” He puts the cuffs on and buckles them as indicated. Next he takes the padlocks and pushes the curved shackle of each through the last link of the chain attached to each cuff. He lies down on his back with his hands out to the sides near the ropes. I expected him to do the same with his feet, but have to wait for the explanation.
Farina takes a deep breath and then reaches out with his left hand, grasps the adjacent padlock, and manages to close it around the loop at the end of the nearby rope. Of course he then does the same with his right hand. With an air of satisfaction, he announces, “There, I trapped myself. This is how I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“Can you get out of that yourself?”
“It depends. What I like to do is chain myself like this when there’s enough light to see what I’m doing. Then wait until it’s too dark to see the numbers on the combination locks, and I’m stuck here till morning or till someone turns on the light. There’s still enough light now, so watch.”
Farina turns his head to his right and reaches the lock with his right hand. He carefully dials the combination. It is a bit awkward, but he clearly has had practice. When he had dialed the combo, he pushes the shackle up with a finger and gets it loose from the loop in the rope connected to the bed leg. Then he repeats the process with his left hand.
“Why don’t you roll over and use your right hand? I ask. You’re right-handed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s important to be able to use either hand, in case you can get only one hand free. There!”
Farina has freed both hands and sits up on the bed.
I have to comment, “I thought you were going to use those ropes and locks by your feet, too.”
“Sometimes I lock my hands, and sometime my feet. Depends on how I feel.”
“Do you ever do all four of them at the same time?”
“Once in a while. Two is enough really.”
“Can you get out of all four?”
“Of course, but … actually, since I lost the bet, I have to show you since you asked.” Farina looks at the locks again, and says, “Better turn on the light. It’s getting dark.”
He gets up, turns on the light switch by the door, and jumps back on the bed. He tests the combinations on the locks by his feet, and then positions all the devices carefully so he can reach them. He locks his feet into the corresponding cuffs as he did with his hands before. Then he scoots up the bed as far as he can and is just able to lock his hands as previously. This leaves him in a rather tight spread-eagle, and doing it by himself is actually quite impressive.
Farina lies there for a minute with a look on his face indicating that he is finding the experience thoroughly enjoyable. Then he turns his head and reaches for the padlock dial with his right hand. While he turns the dial, a slow process since he can only spin the dial a small amount at a time, I realize I can walk over to the light switch and turn it off with my head. This is too good an opportunity to miss, whatever the consequences. It looks like Farina has just dialed the first number of the combination when I push the light switch down with my forehead.
Farina gasps, and then shouts, “Hey, it’s too dark to read the numbers. Turn that light back on!”
I walked back over to the bed, and it’s my turn to laugh. “No way.”
“I’m going to get you for this.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
Farina raises his voice. “Hey guys, Scooter here turned off the light and won’t turn it back on!”
Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come into the room. It doesn’t take them long so they were probably listening just outside the door. They can’t help but laugh at their spread-eagled friend. After a minute, Mickey asks me,
“Is Farina telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess we have to do something about this.”
Similar to yesterday, this time it is Jackie who unlocks my handcuffs and hands me a feather. Farina shouts at me, “Hey, you have to do what I say, remember?”
Jackie counters, “Not when you’re paying off the bet.” Then Jackie tells me, “Go for it.”
I walk over and hold the feather to Farina’s throat. Grinning as evilly as I can, I state, “I don’t know if that setup of yours is strong enough to hold you. I think we better find out for sure. And besides, there’s your rule about tied up boys with no shirt or shoes must be tickled.”
Farina displays dread on his face, or at least he tries to. It doesn’t look completely genuine, as if he deliberately got into this situation but wants to pretend he’s terrified. No matter, pretty soon I’ll have the truth out of him. “N-n-no you don’t have to. I promise you I can’t get out of this.”
I slowly drag the feather from his throat down to his bellybutton. Instantly he is howling in laughter while he strains against his bonds. I tickle all over his upper body and then his feet, but it doesn’t matter as he is ticklish everywhere. After three minutes he is gasping for breath and appears to be on the verge of passing out, so I stop. I do want to ask him some questions, and a couple minutes later I can see that his heartbeat has slowed down a lot and he is almost breathing normally so he is able to talk. It still looks like he is more than enjoying the experience, so I comment,
“Looks like you are really enjoying this.”
“I can’t help that. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I did what I was supposed to from the bet. Now it’s time to turn on the light and go.”
The room is light enough for me to see that Farina’s heart suddenly starts beating faster again, which I take as an indication that he is lying.
“Looks to me like you’re lying.”
“No I’m not. You think you’re some kind of lie detector?”
“Some guys’ pulse races when they lie. Your heart is beating faster, see?” I hold the tip of the feather on his chest where I can see his heart beating.
Farina lifts his head all he can. “No, I … Ha ha ha … !” I repeat the tickling routine, and Farina is quickly in hysterics. When I glance at the door, the rest of the gang is peeking in with big grins, so I’m sure this is what they want me to do.
After another couple minutes I stop when it looks like he’s about to pass out, and ask, “Are you going to tell me the truth this time?”
He can’t speak right away as his chest is heaving too much, but in another minute he croaks out, “Yes.”
“Okay then, you really like this, don’t you?”
Farina takes a deep breath and answers,
“Yes. Actually this has gone perfectly. I wanted you to ask me to spread-eagle myself, and then I hoped you would turn off the light when you did. It’s a lot more fun and exciting to pretend to be tricked into doing this and then getting you to get me stuck for real.”
So Farina used me to act out his fantasy. Well, it was still a good experience for me.
“What about the tickling? Looked like you had all you could handle.”
“It’s fun seeing how long I can last before I have to talk. You did a great job.”
“Uh, thank you, but you didn’t last very long.”
“Yeah. I’ll try to do better next time.”
“So there’s going to be a next time?”
“If I lose another bet.”
“It looks like you and Jackie have this deal that if one of you loses a bet, the other loses the next one.”
Farina admits, “That’s pretty much it.” He continues, “But of course, I’m still going to get you for this tomorrow.”
At this point Mickey comes in and says, “Okay, that’s enough, time for bed.”
“Good,” says Farina. Then to me, “Okay, it’s been fun, but that’s enough. Now please turn the light on.”
He can’t possibly think that I will, and I come up with,
“I’ll let your friends release you when they think it’s time. How long do they usually leave you like tied down that before they turn on the light?”
Farina sighs and admits, “They’ve never turned on the light.”
The thought of Farina tied down all night like I’ve been so often is quite satisfying.
Joe and Jackie take me downstairs and Joe tells me, “Why don’t you chain yourself to bed tonight? Keep your wrists and ankles in good shape.”
The chain and padlock from last night are nearby. I know I don’t have a choice, but try, “Okay. Hey, can I have a combination lock like Farina instead of one that uses a key?”
Jackie replies, “Sorry, Farina is using all the combination locks.”
Joe adds, “Yeah. We’d give you one but we’d have to turn on the light in Farina’s room, and we don’t want to waste electricity.”
“Oh, okay then.” I didn’t think that would work. I obediently wrap the chain around my bed and my waist, make it tight enough so I can’t wriggle through, and snap the padlock shut. When Joe and Jackie are satisfied I’ve trapped myself, they leave, naturally turning off the basement lights. I feel something of the same thrill that Farina expressed. My last thoughts before I fall asleep are wondering what Farina meant by saying he’s going to get me tomorrow.
-
lepangolin
- Forum Contributer
- Posts: 38
- Joined: 6 years ago
Awesome story, i love where it goes!
Love it.
Hope there's going to be a lot more.
Hope there's going to be a lot more.
Thanks for the encouragement. I have ideas for a few more chapters, but due to my work schedule will be fortunate to get off a chapter a month.
Chapter 23
The next morning it’s Joe again who comes down to unchain me from my bed. Breakfast is routine, and soon it’s time for me to learn today’s fate. Joe takes the breakfast stuff away and returns with Mickey, both of them in just shorts like yesterday, and a bunch of ropes. A minute later the other two come down the steps, and this time Jackie are Farina are both in their loincloths. Joe notices me making that observation, and explains,
“One of them is going to be tied up somehow today. And congratulations on being a trendsetter. We’ve decided that from now on their loincloths are the only things they’re allowed to wear when they get tied up. Gags and blindfolds aren’t real clothes.”
“Did they make another goofy bet?”
“They might have. And to save time they’re both dressed like that so the loser can get tied up right away.”
“They should always dress like that.”
Joe chuckles. “Good idea, but we all have to go out sometimes, and that wouldn’t work.”
“Then at least inside the house.”
“That might happen.” Then Joe asks me, “Who do you hope loses?”
“I hope they both lose!”
But before that is decided I am going to lose. The four of them tie ropes around my wrists and ankles and set me on the floor.
“You can put up a fight,” instructs Mickey.
It’s too late for that and as always it’s hopeless against the four of them, but I put up some resistance before they slowly straighten my arms and then tie my arms and feet to four posts that form a rectangle. There is some satisfaction in delaying by several seconds getting spread-eagled on the floor on my back. So far it isn’t so bad. I expect to get tickled, but didn’t expect how they were going to do it this time.
Farina ties the rope around the feather duster, and then gets up on a chair next to me and ties the other end of the rope around an eyebolt set into a rafter directly above my stomach. I gulp as I get an idea of what is about to happen.
Jackie notices my gulp and asks, “You got this figured out?”
“I know this story. You’re going to swing that like a pendulum, and it’s going to get lower and lower and eventually tickle me. Either that or you plan to cut me in two.”
“Close,” says Farina, “but it’s too hard to get a pendulum to do that.” He adjusts the rope so that the tip of a feather just touches the bottom of my bellybutton. Then he pulls the duster to the side, and lets it go.
The feathers just scrape my stomach, which maximizes the tickling sensation. I try sucking in my stomach, but can’t hold it for too long, and soon am laughing too hard to talk. Fortunately friction causes the feather duster to stop swinging after a couple minutes, and I get a chance to catch my breath. Unfortunately, the gang is not satisfied with this result.
“I know what to do,” pipes up Joe. “We need to put a heavy weight on the rope. I’ll go get one.”
Joe quickly goes over to the far corner and takes one of the ten-pound barbell weights. “We can tie the rope around the hole in the middle of the weight.”
“Yeah, it will work best if the weight is at the end,” comments Mickey.
It takes them a few minutes to get that set up, but regrettably they get the physics right. Farina holds the end of the rope to the side again as high as he can reach, and lets go.
It works far too well. The feathers barely scrape my belly, which not only maximizes the tickling sensation but minimizes the friction, so the pendulum is going to swing for a long time. This is very frustrating. There is a second or two between sweeps, which is enough time for me to recover initially, but after a couple minutes I lose it and am laughing continuously, harder during the instants when the feathers brush against me.
The gang watches me for several minutes, laughing at my predicament, and then leave. I wish I could lose consciousness and wake up when this is over, but the breaks between contact with the duster are long enough to keep me from doing so. In a moment of lucidity after about fifteen minutes I observe that the length of the arc the pendulum makes has barely decreased, which confirms this isn’t ending any time soon. A little while later I think I become delirious and lose sense of time.
Eventually the pendulum stops, and the gang returns. I am breathing heavily when Mickey announces,
“That’s two hours. That’s enough for now.”
That sounds like there’s more to come later. Mickey continues,
“We better let him rest. Set him in that chair and make sure he doesn’t fall off and hurt himself.”
Farina and Jackie untie me from the floor while Joe holds the pendulum contraption out of the way, and the former two are only too happy to tie me securely to the chair. At this point I don’t mind; this has to be better than that pendulum.
While I have been tied to the chair for a few minutes, I realize the gang is having a discussion.
“I think I figured out how to make a falling pendulum,” claims Mickey. “Tie a carton of water to the end of the rope, and then make a small hole in it. The water will drip out slowly, and then the weight will fall on the other end. We need to thread the rope through another ring so the carton doesn’t get in the way of the pendulum.”
“That sounds great,” agrees Joe. “We have to test it out, though.”
“Yeah, we have to measure things and stuff. And we need a longer rope. Let’s get started.”
After a little while, the device is mostly set up, when Joe says, “We need someone to lie down under it so we know it’s the right length.”
“Scooter needs to rest a few hours. Can you do that, Jackie?” asks Mickey.
“Sure.” Jackie lies down under the eyebolt with his arms at his sides.
“I think he should be in the same position that Scooter will be in,” suggests Joe. “Hold your arms and legs out.”
“I think it would be better if he was stretched out in a line,” recommends Farina.
“No, spread-eagle is better,” claims Jackie, who promptly extends his limbs.
Mickey wonders out loud, “Is that good enough? Maybe Jackie should be tied like Scooter will be.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” opines Jackie.
“I think it is,” counters Joe.
“Me, too,” adds Farina.
Quickly Joe and Farina tie Jackie’s hands to the posts mine were tied to earlier.
“I think you moved him too far that way,” says Mickey.
“I think it’s okay,” offers Jackie, but his opinion gets ignored.
“We can fix that by tying his feet,” suggests Farina.
Joe obviously has the same idea, and moments later he and Farina have tied Jackie’s feet to the other two posts, leaving him more tightly spread-eagled than I was, though able to wriggle a little.
“That looks good,” declares Mickey.
“You stretched me out too much,” complains Jackie. “Can you loosen it a bit?”
“It’s good enough, and we’re in a hurry. Come on, let’s find the stuff we need.”
Mickey, Joe, and Farina go upstairs, and a couple minutes later return with a gallon container filled with water. They execute Mickey’s idea, untying the first rope from the eyebolt, putting it through the ring and then tying that to a second rope which goes through another eyebolt set into a rafter a few feet away. Then they tie the end of the second rope to the water carton. Throughout this they leave the weight lying on Jackie’s stomach.
The three who can move then adjust their device, finally fixing it so that the water container is an inch below the second eyebolt, the feather duster just touches Jackie’s stomach.
“I think we’re ready,” declares Mickey.
Joe holds the weight off to the side and Farina unpeels a piece of tape from the water carton, revealing a small hole. I can see water drip from it as the pendulum starts swinging.
“We better put a bucket there to catch the water,” comments Joe, who goes off and finds one, and then places it under the water.
“Okay guys, it works.” Jackie has seen enough. “You can untie me now and put Scooter here.”
“We have to be sure it works,” says Mickey. “The weight isn’t going down smoothly. There’s probably too much friction between the ropes and the rings in those bolts.”
Mickey is right; the weight and duster don’t get lower for several swings of the pendulum, and then suddenly there’s a drop of a couple inches. Jackie gulps at the sight of that.
“Yeah,” agrees Farina. “And I still think it would look better if he was stretched out in a line.”
Joe states, “He’s fine the way he is, and yeah, we should make that slide better. But don’t we have to be somewhere soon?”
“You’re right!” exclaims Mickey. “We have to hurry. See you in a couple hours.”
“A couple hours?” Jackie is not pleased, but the other three have run up the stairs and locked the door.
Jackie struggles for a few minutes but it’s clear he cannot free himself. He can turn his head to me, and asks, “Can you get me out of this?”
The request comes as a surprise, and all I can think is, “Why would I want to?”
“If you do, I’ll convince the gang not to tie you under here again by saying you’ve had enough for today.”
“So they’ll just do it tomorrow?”
“At least think about it, there’s still some time. See if you can get over here and do something.”
I think about it. It’s highly entertaining to watch that pendulum slowly make its way downward to Jackie’s doom. But then the same thing will happen to me. Well, it can’t hurt to see if I can maneuver my way toward Jackie.
This position is quite familiar by now. My arms are tied behind the back of the chair, and my legs are wrapped around the front chair legs with my knees to the outside and my ankles tied behind the front chair legs. My feet don’t touch the floor at all, so I can’t get any leverage. Other ropes bind my thighs to the chair seat and my torso to the chair back. In addition, I’m far from full energy as my experience took a lot out of me.
“You tied me up too good. I can’t move anywhere.”
Jackie groans, and resigns himself to watching the pendulum of doom. The water continues to drip slowly, but the pendulum stays at the same height for minutes at a time before suddenly dropping a couple inches. This pattern continues for at least an hour. Maybe it’s time for me to taunt him.
“Maybe they’ll come back at the last minute and save you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“No, and I sure hope not.”
Actually I’m anxious for the feather duster to drop all the way and get Jackie before the gang frees him if that is their intention. A few minutes later the pendulum lurches downward again, and the water container is almost empty and only a couple inches from eyebolt its rope is attached to. The gang’s measurements were accurate, as the feathers now swing one inch over Jackie’s belly.
Then Mickey, Joe, and Farina barge down the stairs, almost as if they, or at least one of them, were watching through a hidden camera and waiting for the best time to watch. Jackie suddenly has hope.
“Thank goodness you got here in time. Hurry, get me out of this!”
The other three apparently start to untie the knots around the post, but they don’t get anywhere. Jackie pleads, “Stop the pendulum! Move it out of the way!”
Then I realize they were only pretending. The trio steps back, and the rope finally slips so that the water carton is pulled all the way up and the feathers reach Jackie’s stomach.
“No, stop the …ha ha ha! Stop … hee hee …” and Jackie dissolves into hysterical laughter.
“You okay?” asks Mickey. The reply is nothing but incoherent laughs. They watch Jackie for five minutes, and then Mickey explains to me,
“We’re on a short break, and have to get back. We should be back in an hour. That okay with you?”
I don’t think it matters if it isn’t okay, but I have a good reply.
“I’m good, but I don’t want you to rush doing whatever you have to do. Take two hours if it’s better for you.”
Mickey thinks it over, and sees Joe and Farina grinning and nodding in agreement. “Fine, we’ll take as long as we need. Then we’ll have lunch.”
They leave and lock the door. Despite my being tied up and possibly getting the same tickling pendulum fate later, it is a very enjoyable two hours watching that pendulum relentlessly tickle the helpless Jackie.
The next morning it’s Joe again who comes down to unchain me from my bed. Breakfast is routine, and soon it’s time for me to learn today’s fate. Joe takes the breakfast stuff away and returns with Mickey, both of them in just shorts like yesterday, and a bunch of ropes. A minute later the other two come down the steps, and this time Jackie are Farina are both in their loincloths. Joe notices me making that observation, and explains,
“One of them is going to be tied up somehow today. And congratulations on being a trendsetter. We’ve decided that from now on their loincloths are the only things they’re allowed to wear when they get tied up. Gags and blindfolds aren’t real clothes.”
“Did they make another goofy bet?”
“They might have. And to save time they’re both dressed like that so the loser can get tied up right away.”
“They should always dress like that.”
Joe chuckles. “Good idea, but we all have to go out sometimes, and that wouldn’t work.”
“Then at least inside the house.”
“That might happen.” Then Joe asks me, “Who do you hope loses?”
“I hope they both lose!”
But before that is decided I am going to lose. The four of them tie ropes around my wrists and ankles and set me on the floor.
“You can put up a fight,” instructs Mickey.
It’s too late for that and as always it’s hopeless against the four of them, but I put up some resistance before they slowly straighten my arms and then tie my arms and feet to four posts that form a rectangle. There is some satisfaction in delaying by several seconds getting spread-eagled on the floor on my back. So far it isn’t so bad. I expect to get tickled, but didn’t expect how they were going to do it this time.
Farina ties the rope around the feather duster, and then gets up on a chair next to me and ties the other end of the rope around an eyebolt set into a rafter directly above my stomach. I gulp as I get an idea of what is about to happen.
Jackie notices my gulp and asks, “You got this figured out?”
“I know this story. You’re going to swing that like a pendulum, and it’s going to get lower and lower and eventually tickle me. Either that or you plan to cut me in two.”
“Close,” says Farina, “but it’s too hard to get a pendulum to do that.” He adjusts the rope so that the tip of a feather just touches the bottom of my bellybutton. Then he pulls the duster to the side, and lets it go.
The feathers just scrape my stomach, which maximizes the tickling sensation. I try sucking in my stomach, but can’t hold it for too long, and soon am laughing too hard to talk. Fortunately friction causes the feather duster to stop swinging after a couple minutes, and I get a chance to catch my breath. Unfortunately, the gang is not satisfied with this result.
“I know what to do,” pipes up Joe. “We need to put a heavy weight on the rope. I’ll go get one.”
Joe quickly goes over to the far corner and takes one of the ten-pound barbell weights. “We can tie the rope around the hole in the middle of the weight.”
“Yeah, it will work best if the weight is at the end,” comments Mickey.
It takes them a few minutes to get that set up, but regrettably they get the physics right. Farina holds the end of the rope to the side again as high as he can reach, and lets go.
It works far too well. The feathers barely scrape my belly, which not only maximizes the tickling sensation but minimizes the friction, so the pendulum is going to swing for a long time. This is very frustrating. There is a second or two between sweeps, which is enough time for me to recover initially, but after a couple minutes I lose it and am laughing continuously, harder during the instants when the feathers brush against me.
The gang watches me for several minutes, laughing at my predicament, and then leave. I wish I could lose consciousness and wake up when this is over, but the breaks between contact with the duster are long enough to keep me from doing so. In a moment of lucidity after about fifteen minutes I observe that the length of the arc the pendulum makes has barely decreased, which confirms this isn’t ending any time soon. A little while later I think I become delirious and lose sense of time.
Eventually the pendulum stops, and the gang returns. I am breathing heavily when Mickey announces,
“That’s two hours. That’s enough for now.”
That sounds like there’s more to come later. Mickey continues,
“We better let him rest. Set him in that chair and make sure he doesn’t fall off and hurt himself.”
Farina and Jackie untie me from the floor while Joe holds the pendulum contraption out of the way, and the former two are only too happy to tie me securely to the chair. At this point I don’t mind; this has to be better than that pendulum.
While I have been tied to the chair for a few minutes, I realize the gang is having a discussion.
“I think I figured out how to make a falling pendulum,” claims Mickey. “Tie a carton of water to the end of the rope, and then make a small hole in it. The water will drip out slowly, and then the weight will fall on the other end. We need to thread the rope through another ring so the carton doesn’t get in the way of the pendulum.”
“That sounds great,” agrees Joe. “We have to test it out, though.”
“Yeah, we have to measure things and stuff. And we need a longer rope. Let’s get started.”
After a little while, the device is mostly set up, when Joe says, “We need someone to lie down under it so we know it’s the right length.”
“Scooter needs to rest a few hours. Can you do that, Jackie?” asks Mickey.
“Sure.” Jackie lies down under the eyebolt with his arms at his sides.
“I think he should be in the same position that Scooter will be in,” suggests Joe. “Hold your arms and legs out.”
“I think it would be better if he was stretched out in a line,” recommends Farina.
“No, spread-eagle is better,” claims Jackie, who promptly extends his limbs.
Mickey wonders out loud, “Is that good enough? Maybe Jackie should be tied like Scooter will be.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” opines Jackie.
“I think it is,” counters Joe.
“Me, too,” adds Farina.
Quickly Joe and Farina tie Jackie’s hands to the posts mine were tied to earlier.
“I think you moved him too far that way,” says Mickey.
“I think it’s okay,” offers Jackie, but his opinion gets ignored.
“We can fix that by tying his feet,” suggests Farina.
Joe obviously has the same idea, and moments later he and Farina have tied Jackie’s feet to the other two posts, leaving him more tightly spread-eagled than I was, though able to wriggle a little.
“That looks good,” declares Mickey.
“You stretched me out too much,” complains Jackie. “Can you loosen it a bit?”
“It’s good enough, and we’re in a hurry. Come on, let’s find the stuff we need.”
Mickey, Joe, and Farina go upstairs, and a couple minutes later return with a gallon container filled with water. They execute Mickey’s idea, untying the first rope from the eyebolt, putting it through the ring and then tying that to a second rope which goes through another eyebolt set into a rafter a few feet away. Then they tie the end of the second rope to the water carton. Throughout this they leave the weight lying on Jackie’s stomach.
The three who can move then adjust their device, finally fixing it so that the water container is an inch below the second eyebolt, the feather duster just touches Jackie’s stomach.
“I think we’re ready,” declares Mickey.
Joe holds the weight off to the side and Farina unpeels a piece of tape from the water carton, revealing a small hole. I can see water drip from it as the pendulum starts swinging.
“We better put a bucket there to catch the water,” comments Joe, who goes off and finds one, and then places it under the water.
“Okay guys, it works.” Jackie has seen enough. “You can untie me now and put Scooter here.”
“We have to be sure it works,” says Mickey. “The weight isn’t going down smoothly. There’s probably too much friction between the ropes and the rings in those bolts.”
Mickey is right; the weight and duster don’t get lower for several swings of the pendulum, and then suddenly there’s a drop of a couple inches. Jackie gulps at the sight of that.
“Yeah,” agrees Farina. “And I still think it would look better if he was stretched out in a line.”
Joe states, “He’s fine the way he is, and yeah, we should make that slide better. But don’t we have to be somewhere soon?”
“You’re right!” exclaims Mickey. “We have to hurry. See you in a couple hours.”
“A couple hours?” Jackie is not pleased, but the other three have run up the stairs and locked the door.
Jackie struggles for a few minutes but it’s clear he cannot free himself. He can turn his head to me, and asks, “Can you get me out of this?”
The request comes as a surprise, and all I can think is, “Why would I want to?”
“If you do, I’ll convince the gang not to tie you under here again by saying you’ve had enough for today.”
“So they’ll just do it tomorrow?”
“At least think about it, there’s still some time. See if you can get over here and do something.”
I think about it. It’s highly entertaining to watch that pendulum slowly make its way downward to Jackie’s doom. But then the same thing will happen to me. Well, it can’t hurt to see if I can maneuver my way toward Jackie.
This position is quite familiar by now. My arms are tied behind the back of the chair, and my legs are wrapped around the front chair legs with my knees to the outside and my ankles tied behind the front chair legs. My feet don’t touch the floor at all, so I can’t get any leverage. Other ropes bind my thighs to the chair seat and my torso to the chair back. In addition, I’m far from full energy as my experience took a lot out of me.
“You tied me up too good. I can’t move anywhere.”
Jackie groans, and resigns himself to watching the pendulum of doom. The water continues to drip slowly, but the pendulum stays at the same height for minutes at a time before suddenly dropping a couple inches. This pattern continues for at least an hour. Maybe it’s time for me to taunt him.
“Maybe they’ll come back at the last minute and save you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“No, and I sure hope not.”
Actually I’m anxious for the feather duster to drop all the way and get Jackie before the gang frees him if that is their intention. A few minutes later the pendulum lurches downward again, and the water container is almost empty and only a couple inches from eyebolt its rope is attached to. The gang’s measurements were accurate, as the feathers now swing one inch over Jackie’s belly.
Then Mickey, Joe, and Farina barge down the stairs, almost as if they, or at least one of them, were watching through a hidden camera and waiting for the best time to watch. Jackie suddenly has hope.
“Thank goodness you got here in time. Hurry, get me out of this!”
The other three apparently start to untie the knots around the post, but they don’t get anywhere. Jackie pleads, “Stop the pendulum! Move it out of the way!”
Then I realize they were only pretending. The trio steps back, and the rope finally slips so that the water carton is pulled all the way up and the feathers reach Jackie’s stomach.
“No, stop the …ha ha ha! Stop … hee hee …” and Jackie dissolves into hysterical laughter.
“You okay?” asks Mickey. The reply is nothing but incoherent laughs. They watch Jackie for five minutes, and then Mickey explains to me,
“We’re on a short break, and have to get back. We should be back in an hour. That okay with you?”
I don’t think it matters if it isn’t okay, but I have a good reply.
“I’m good, but I don’t want you to rush doing whatever you have to do. Take two hours if it’s better for you.”
Mickey thinks it over, and sees Joe and Farina grinning and nodding in agreement. “Fine, we’ll take as long as we need. Then we’ll have lunch.”
They leave and lock the door. Despite my being tied up and possibly getting the same tickling pendulum fate later, it is a very enjoyable two hours watching that pendulum relentlessly tickle the helpless Jackie.
Chapter 24
It is almost two hours later when Mickey, Joe, and Farina return. The pendulum is now barely moving, and Jackie is making some kind of noise between laughter and gasping for breath. The trio unties him, and he has trouble getting to his feet.
“Set him down in that chair,” orders Mickey, and Joe and Farina help Jackie to a chair by the table I’ve been eating at.
“Better tie him to the chair so he doesn’t fall off and hurt himself,” suggests Farina.
The idea is fine with Mickey and Joe, and Jackie still can’t talk to object if he wants to. Soon Jackie is bound to the chair, but not very tightly and with his arms free. Then the other three finally turn their attention to me. They untie me to let me use the bathroom, and when I come out Farina is at the table with some sandwiches. Farina and I begin eating, but it takes Jackie several minutes to come to his senses enough to join us.
When we are done with lunch a half hour later, Jackie has recovered enough to untie himself from his chair. Farina takes the dishes upstairs, and comes back down with Mickey and Joe.
“I just figured out how to make the rope slide smoothly,” announces Joe. “Just cover it with Vaseline. We got some upstairs.”
Mickey thinks a moment, and agrees, “Yeah, that should work, but we don’t have enough. We have to go buy some.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
Jackie points out, “We better tie up Scooter again while we’re gone.”
That doesn’t seem necessary since one or two of them could stay with me, but maybe Jackie is upset, or pretending to be, because I couldn’t save him from the tickling pendulum. I really prefer not to be tied to my chair again, and say so.
“Don’t you think I’ve been tied to the chair long enough today?”
Farina cheerfully agrees. “Scooter’s right. Let’s chain him to the wall.”
Before I can think of anything to say or do, Farina and Jackie grab my arms, walk me to the wall and handcuff my hands and feet to the rings in the wall, with my forearms straight up and my elbows bent at right angles. It is better than being tied to the chair again or under that pendulum, so I may as well cooperate meekly like usual.
“See ya in a little bit.” Jackie seems overly gleeful.
The little bit turns out to be about half an hour. The gang comes back and does indeed put Vaseline all over their rope pendulum. I expect to be tied under it soon, but there is an argument.
“I still say he should have his hands straight over his head.” Farina is strangely insistent on this point.
“You mean a rope will go around the post and we tie one end to each of his hands?” asks Mickey.
“No, I mean like this.” Farina puts his wrists together over his head.
Joe appears to understand. “Oh, so we tie his hands together like this?”
Jackie and Joe quickly tie Farina’s hands together with the palms facing each other, and then the other end of the rope around the base of the post, which forces him on his back.
“Yes!” Farina sounds like he is berating the others for taking so long to understand him.
“He might be able to slip his hands out from that,” notes Jackie.
“Not if we tied them tight enough, which I’m sure we did.” Joe speaks confidently.
“And the same thing for his feet?”
“Of course.”
Jackie and Joe promptly tie Farina’s ankles together with another rope, and the other end of that to another post, stretching Farina’s spine some and evoking a small gasp: “Urk!”
“Is this what you meant?” asks Jackie.
“Pretty much except you stretched me out too far. Now untie me and put Scooter in my place, but not stretched out as much. He can’t handle that.”
It sounds like Farina is more interested in getting untied from an unexpectedly uncomfortable position than in my welfare, but he let himself be tied too easily. This must be part of their game. Farina finds the experience more exhilarating by trying to talk his way out of this, but there’s no chance that he will be able to, which is just the way I’m sure he wants it.
“Shouldn’t we make sure the whole thing is set up right first?” asks Jackie.
“Yeah,” agrees Joe. He refills the gallon carton with water while Jackie holds the weight and feather duster on one end of the rope to the side. When Joe returns with the full carton, he reties it to the other end of the rope and sets it at the same height as before. Jackie lets go of his end, and the pendulum starts swinging. Water drips from the hole in the carton, and the device is working as it should be.
“What do you think, Jackie?” asks Joe.
“Looks like this is right over his bellybutton. I think this is perfect.”
Farina seems rather anxious. “Okay, it’s good, now let’s put Scooter here.”
Jackie walks over to me and declares, “Oops, we need the keys to unchain Scooter. Joe, do you know where they are?”
“I’m sure they’re upstairs,” Joe answers. “Come on, I’ll help you look for them.”
“Untie me and I’ll find the keys for you.” Farina is pleading.
“I can find them,” replies Joe. He and Jackie head up the stairs, and see Mickey, who says,
“Hey guys, we got work to do. Come on.”
Joe answers, “We need to find the keys to unlock Scooter so we can set up the pendulum tickler on him.”
“This can’t wait.” Mickey shouts down, we’ll be back in a couple hours.”
I hear the door lock, and Farina and I are left alone in the basement. I can’t help but laugh at Farina’s predicament. The pendulum is working perfectly, slowly and steadily making its way downward toward Farina’s defenseless tummy. His straining on the ropes is totally ineffective, and he can’t even squirm due to being stretched out so much.
Farina can turn his head to face me. “Don’t laugh so much; if you don’t get me out of this this is what’ll happen to you.”
“If you wanted me to help you, you shouldn’t have chained me to the wall.”
Farina sighs. “This is going to take an hour to reach me, right?” I didn’t realize how annoying the wait it.”
“It’s not annoying for me.”
“Bet it will be when it’s your turn.”
He’s probably right, but I can’t do anything about it. I may as well enjoy this while I can. The improved pendulum works rather well, and it is fascinating to watch it make its way slowly and surely downward. This is an improvement over the device when it was used on Jackie since with the reduced friction there’s no chance the pendulum will get stuck before it goes down all the way. The motion isn’t completely steady but it’s close enough.
Farina’s expression turns from annoyance to dread. This looks like it will be a lot more than he bargained for. When the pendulum is two millimeters from his body, I hear the basement door open. The timing is too perfect; I’m sure they’re watching somehow. When Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come down and get here there’s one millimeter to go. Jackie has the biggest grin on his face when Mickey asks me,
“How is Farina doing?”
What is my best response? “He’s doing great. This couldn’t be going any better.”
Farina takes a deep breath and doesn’t respond. Anything he says will probably make it worse.
“Great!” continues Mickey. “We have to do something for a couple hours, so can you watch him till then?”
“Sure.”
Then the feathers just brush against Farina’s stomach, and he immediately bursts out laughing. He recovers for a moment, but then the second swipe gets him and he loses it completely. Joe remarks,
“So far you held up a lot better, Jackie. But it’s close between you and Scooter.”
For some reason that comment upsets me. “Are you kidding? Jackie started laughing almost right away. I lasted a lot longer.”
“But it wasn’t the same,” contends Jackie. “That pendulum swinging lower gradually is really nerve-wracking. But you’ll get your chance to make it fair.”
“I’m going to do a lot better than you and Farina!”
“We’ll see.”
Jackie, Joe, and Mickey leave and I get to watch Farina get tickled relentlessly by the feather duster pendulum for two hours. Yesterday he did say he needed practice in holding up to tickling, and he is totally failing. He needs more practice.
Sure enough, the other three return two hours later just as the pendulum is stopping. When it finally does stop Farina is babbling incoherently. While Mickey unties him, Joe and Jackie unlock the cuffs from my hands, and then tie them together in front of me before releasing my feet. They march me over to where Farina had been lying, set me down on the floor, and tie my feet together. Mickey helps Farina to his feet, but Farina immediately falls down. While Joe makes sure I don’t get up and hop away, Jackie comes over to help Farina up, but when Jackie and Mickey let Farina go, he drops to the floor again.
“Wow, that really got to him!” comments Jackie.
“Yeah,” answers Mickey with some concern. “He can’t even stand up on his own. What should we do?”
A brilliant idea strikes me. “Why don’t you chain him up to the wall?”
Mickey, Joe, and Jackie look at each other, and to my delight, agree with my suggestion.
“That’s a great idea!” exclaims Jackie. He and Mickey lift Farina to his feet and half-walk, half-drag him to the wall and lock his wrists and ankles into the handcuffs. Farina is in the same position that I was, back against the wall with upper arms straight out to his sides and forearm straight up. Unlike me, Farina is still making some strange combination of laughing and blubbering sounds, and appears to have no idea where he is or what is happening.
The other three have a brief conversation.
“That worked very well,” says Jackie.
“But it could have been better,” answers Joe. “We should have greased the ring the rope goes through too.”
“Sounds good”, agrees Mickey.
The trio then turns their attention to me. They stretch my arms out over my head and tie my hands and feet like they did to Farina. Joe takes the water container to refill it while Jackie and Mickey apply more Vaseline to the rope and the ring it passes through. Soon the pendulum device is reset and started.
I find that I can squirm a little, so I’m not tied as tightly as Farina was, but there is still no way I can get loose. I’m not sure this is better as it might be giving me false hope. I am doomed, but there is some consolation in that I can turn my head and look at Farina shackled to the wall.
It takes a long time for the pendulum to descend, and it is very frustrating and agonizing to watch those feathers sweep closer and closer to my defenseless stomach. While a part of me hopes that I will be rescued at the last second, a much larger and sensible part of me realizes that is not going to happen and wishes that it would be over and done with as fast as possible.
After around an hour I can feel the wind caused by the feather blowing across my stomach. The tickling will start any moment now. Then I hear something which turns out to be Farina. He is pulling on the chains and going nowhere.
“Hey, what happened? How did I get here?”
Without much time to think, I respond, “Some burglars broke in and tied us up. Now hurry up and break loose, and get me out of this, I can’t get loose.”
Farina tries to break loose, but there is no secret way to escape the chains holding him against the wall. Then I hear the basement door open and footsteps coming down the stairs. I doubt it, but maybe on this occasion the gang is going to rescue me in the nick of time.
It is almost two hours later when Mickey, Joe, and Farina return. The pendulum is now barely moving, and Jackie is making some kind of noise between laughter and gasping for breath. The trio unties him, and he has trouble getting to his feet.
“Set him down in that chair,” orders Mickey, and Joe and Farina help Jackie to a chair by the table I’ve been eating at.
“Better tie him to the chair so he doesn’t fall off and hurt himself,” suggests Farina.
The idea is fine with Mickey and Joe, and Jackie still can’t talk to object if he wants to. Soon Jackie is bound to the chair, but not very tightly and with his arms free. Then the other three finally turn their attention to me. They untie me to let me use the bathroom, and when I come out Farina is at the table with some sandwiches. Farina and I begin eating, but it takes Jackie several minutes to come to his senses enough to join us.
When we are done with lunch a half hour later, Jackie has recovered enough to untie himself from his chair. Farina takes the dishes upstairs, and comes back down with Mickey and Joe.
“I just figured out how to make the rope slide smoothly,” announces Joe. “Just cover it with Vaseline. We got some upstairs.”
Mickey thinks a moment, and agrees, “Yeah, that should work, but we don’t have enough. We have to go buy some.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
Jackie points out, “We better tie up Scooter again while we’re gone.”
That doesn’t seem necessary since one or two of them could stay with me, but maybe Jackie is upset, or pretending to be, because I couldn’t save him from the tickling pendulum. I really prefer not to be tied to my chair again, and say so.
“Don’t you think I’ve been tied to the chair long enough today?”
Farina cheerfully agrees. “Scooter’s right. Let’s chain him to the wall.”
Before I can think of anything to say or do, Farina and Jackie grab my arms, walk me to the wall and handcuff my hands and feet to the rings in the wall, with my forearms straight up and my elbows bent at right angles. It is better than being tied to the chair again or under that pendulum, so I may as well cooperate meekly like usual.
“See ya in a little bit.” Jackie seems overly gleeful.
The little bit turns out to be about half an hour. The gang comes back and does indeed put Vaseline all over their rope pendulum. I expect to be tied under it soon, but there is an argument.
“I still say he should have his hands straight over his head.” Farina is strangely insistent on this point.
“You mean a rope will go around the post and we tie one end to each of his hands?” asks Mickey.
“No, I mean like this.” Farina puts his wrists together over his head.
Joe appears to understand. “Oh, so we tie his hands together like this?”
Jackie and Joe quickly tie Farina’s hands together with the palms facing each other, and then the other end of the rope around the base of the post, which forces him on his back.
“Yes!” Farina sounds like he is berating the others for taking so long to understand him.
“He might be able to slip his hands out from that,” notes Jackie.
“Not if we tied them tight enough, which I’m sure we did.” Joe speaks confidently.
“And the same thing for his feet?”
“Of course.”
Jackie and Joe promptly tie Farina’s ankles together with another rope, and the other end of that to another post, stretching Farina’s spine some and evoking a small gasp: “Urk!”
“Is this what you meant?” asks Jackie.
“Pretty much except you stretched me out too far. Now untie me and put Scooter in my place, but not stretched out as much. He can’t handle that.”
It sounds like Farina is more interested in getting untied from an unexpectedly uncomfortable position than in my welfare, but he let himself be tied too easily. This must be part of their game. Farina finds the experience more exhilarating by trying to talk his way out of this, but there’s no chance that he will be able to, which is just the way I’m sure he wants it.
“Shouldn’t we make sure the whole thing is set up right first?” asks Jackie.
“Yeah,” agrees Joe. He refills the gallon carton with water while Jackie holds the weight and feather duster on one end of the rope to the side. When Joe returns with the full carton, he reties it to the other end of the rope and sets it at the same height as before. Jackie lets go of his end, and the pendulum starts swinging. Water drips from the hole in the carton, and the device is working as it should be.
“What do you think, Jackie?” asks Joe.
“Looks like this is right over his bellybutton. I think this is perfect.”
Farina seems rather anxious. “Okay, it’s good, now let’s put Scooter here.”
Jackie walks over to me and declares, “Oops, we need the keys to unchain Scooter. Joe, do you know where they are?”
“I’m sure they’re upstairs,” Joe answers. “Come on, I’ll help you look for them.”
“Untie me and I’ll find the keys for you.” Farina is pleading.
“I can find them,” replies Joe. He and Jackie head up the stairs, and see Mickey, who says,
“Hey guys, we got work to do. Come on.”
Joe answers, “We need to find the keys to unlock Scooter so we can set up the pendulum tickler on him.”
“This can’t wait.” Mickey shouts down, we’ll be back in a couple hours.”
I hear the door lock, and Farina and I are left alone in the basement. I can’t help but laugh at Farina’s predicament. The pendulum is working perfectly, slowly and steadily making its way downward toward Farina’s defenseless tummy. His straining on the ropes is totally ineffective, and he can’t even squirm due to being stretched out so much.
Farina can turn his head to face me. “Don’t laugh so much; if you don’t get me out of this this is what’ll happen to you.”
“If you wanted me to help you, you shouldn’t have chained me to the wall.”
Farina sighs. “This is going to take an hour to reach me, right?” I didn’t realize how annoying the wait it.”
“It’s not annoying for me.”
“Bet it will be when it’s your turn.”
He’s probably right, but I can’t do anything about it. I may as well enjoy this while I can. The improved pendulum works rather well, and it is fascinating to watch it make its way slowly and surely downward. This is an improvement over the device when it was used on Jackie since with the reduced friction there’s no chance the pendulum will get stuck before it goes down all the way. The motion isn’t completely steady but it’s close enough.
Farina’s expression turns from annoyance to dread. This looks like it will be a lot more than he bargained for. When the pendulum is two millimeters from his body, I hear the basement door open. The timing is too perfect; I’m sure they’re watching somehow. When Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come down and get here there’s one millimeter to go. Jackie has the biggest grin on his face when Mickey asks me,
“How is Farina doing?”
What is my best response? “He’s doing great. This couldn’t be going any better.”
Farina takes a deep breath and doesn’t respond. Anything he says will probably make it worse.
“Great!” continues Mickey. “We have to do something for a couple hours, so can you watch him till then?”
“Sure.”
Then the feathers just brush against Farina’s stomach, and he immediately bursts out laughing. He recovers for a moment, but then the second swipe gets him and he loses it completely. Joe remarks,
“So far you held up a lot better, Jackie. But it’s close between you and Scooter.”
For some reason that comment upsets me. “Are you kidding? Jackie started laughing almost right away. I lasted a lot longer.”
“But it wasn’t the same,” contends Jackie. “That pendulum swinging lower gradually is really nerve-wracking. But you’ll get your chance to make it fair.”
“I’m going to do a lot better than you and Farina!”
“We’ll see.”
Jackie, Joe, and Mickey leave and I get to watch Farina get tickled relentlessly by the feather duster pendulum for two hours. Yesterday he did say he needed practice in holding up to tickling, and he is totally failing. He needs more practice.
Sure enough, the other three return two hours later just as the pendulum is stopping. When it finally does stop Farina is babbling incoherently. While Mickey unties him, Joe and Jackie unlock the cuffs from my hands, and then tie them together in front of me before releasing my feet. They march me over to where Farina had been lying, set me down on the floor, and tie my feet together. Mickey helps Farina to his feet, but Farina immediately falls down. While Joe makes sure I don’t get up and hop away, Jackie comes over to help Farina up, but when Jackie and Mickey let Farina go, he drops to the floor again.
“Wow, that really got to him!” comments Jackie.
“Yeah,” answers Mickey with some concern. “He can’t even stand up on his own. What should we do?”
A brilliant idea strikes me. “Why don’t you chain him up to the wall?”
Mickey, Joe, and Jackie look at each other, and to my delight, agree with my suggestion.
“That’s a great idea!” exclaims Jackie. He and Mickey lift Farina to his feet and half-walk, half-drag him to the wall and lock his wrists and ankles into the handcuffs. Farina is in the same position that I was, back against the wall with upper arms straight out to his sides and forearm straight up. Unlike me, Farina is still making some strange combination of laughing and blubbering sounds, and appears to have no idea where he is or what is happening.
The other three have a brief conversation.
“That worked very well,” says Jackie.
“But it could have been better,” answers Joe. “We should have greased the ring the rope goes through too.”
“Sounds good”, agrees Mickey.
The trio then turns their attention to me. They stretch my arms out over my head and tie my hands and feet like they did to Farina. Joe takes the water container to refill it while Jackie and Mickey apply more Vaseline to the rope and the ring it passes through. Soon the pendulum device is reset and started.
I find that I can squirm a little, so I’m not tied as tightly as Farina was, but there is still no way I can get loose. I’m not sure this is better as it might be giving me false hope. I am doomed, but there is some consolation in that I can turn my head and look at Farina shackled to the wall.
It takes a long time for the pendulum to descend, and it is very frustrating and agonizing to watch those feathers sweep closer and closer to my defenseless stomach. While a part of me hopes that I will be rescued at the last second, a much larger and sensible part of me realizes that is not going to happen and wishes that it would be over and done with as fast as possible.
After around an hour I can feel the wind caused by the feather blowing across my stomach. The tickling will start any moment now. Then I hear something which turns out to be Farina. He is pulling on the chains and going nowhere.
“Hey, what happened? How did I get here?”
Without much time to think, I respond, “Some burglars broke in and tied us up. Now hurry up and break loose, and get me out of this, I can’t get loose.”
Farina tries to break loose, but there is no secret way to escape the chains holding him against the wall. Then I hear the basement door open and footsteps coming down the stairs. I doubt it, but maybe on this occasion the gang is going to rescue me in the nick of time.
Last edited by skdj 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
Chapter 25
Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come down and show no interest in rescuing me from their feather duster pendulum. However, Farina seems to come to his senses upon recognizing the others.
“What’s the big idea chaining me to the wall?”
Mickey responds calmly, “You weren’t able to stand by yourself, so we had to make sure you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”
“Well, I’m fine now! “Let me go! I got things to do. This wasn’t part of the plan!” Farina looks and sounds really angry. I’m not sure if this is part of an act, but in any case, it looks like Farina wasn’t going to rescue me if he could break loose.
“Ah, you know you’re cute when you’re mad?” Jackie teases the captive.
“I am not cute! Now get me out of this! I’ve been tied up long enough already today.”
“We have to get a picture of this.”
“What?!” Farina’s muscles strain at the chains, but he can’t do anything to prevent Jackie from taking pictures with a cell phone. “Hey! Delete those now!”
“Wow, he has an attitude problem,” remarks Joe. “I think we better keep him like this until he settles down.”
“I agree,” says Jackie.
“I’m going to get you for this!” Farina is shouting.
“Oh dear, maybe we should gag you. What do you guys think?”
Mickey reasons, “There’s no point. We’re leaving, and there’s nobody here to hear him … oh wait, I forgot about Scooter.”
The gang finally turns their attention to me. Mickey continues, “What do you say, should we gag Farina?”
“Uh, ah ha ha ha!” Before I can decide how to reply, the feathers sweep across my stomach.
“I didn’t catch what you said,” says Mickey.
Only laughter comes from my mouth when I try to speak again. My last coherent thought is that I am not surprised the gang didn’t rescue me. At least I know what I’m in for, and am sure I can get through it again.
“Scooter isn’t answering, what do you think, guys?” Mickey address Joe and Jackie.
“It’s not worth the trouble gagging Farina,” is Jackie’s opinion.
“Yeah, maybe next time when we have more time, agrees Joe. We better move.”
“What do you mean, ‘next time’?!” shouts Farina as the other three turn and walk upstairs. They laugh and ignore him, and then close the basement door behind them, leaving Farina and me in the reverse positions from a couple hours ago.
I lose track of time, but it’s probably close to two hours again when the pendulum finally stops swinging. During that time, I occasionally can think straight, and somehow seeing Farina shackled to the wall is comforting. However, by the time Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come down and untie me, they find me incoherent when they ask me how I am. They help me to my chair again but this time don’t tie me to it. Finally, they turn their attention to Farina, who is seething and glaring at them.
“Have you calmed down enough for us to release you?” asks Mickey.
Farina doesn’t sound happy when he mutters, “Yes.”
“All right then. And if you try anything, you’re going back here, and we will gag you this time.”
Joe and Jackie unlock the cuffs from Farina’s ankles and wrists, and once free, he hurries to the bathroom. A few minutes later it’s my turn, and I realize why I wasn’t tied to the chair just now. The few minutes is sufficient for me to recover enough to stagger to the bathroom. That business taken care of, we all can now have a
conversation.
“What is wrong with you all!?” Farina still sounds very upset. It seems like he wants to fight, but would have no chance with three against one. “You weren’t supposed to leave me tied down under that feather pendulum!”
“You said you needed practice in enduring tickling,” pointed out Jackie. “And it was such a convenient opportunity.”
“Yeah, but that was overdoing it big time!”
“Hey,” Mickey explained, “we also wanted to make sure the pendulum worked right and that Scooter could handle it.”
“The pendulum was working good enough on Jackie!” Farina is still raging.
“But it wasn’t perfect, and we made it better,” answers Jackie. “And wow, I sure handled it a lot better than you.”
Joe pipes up. “Actually, Scooter held up a lot better than both of you. You both need to get tougher.”
“I’m plenty tough!” Jackie and Farina exclaimed simultaneously. Then Farina shakes his heads, and then asks,
“And you didn’t have to chain me to the wall! If I couldn’t stand, you could have just laid me down on a couch.”
“But you had been lying on the floor for so long, it was better to get you on your feet.”
At that point the doorbell rings.
“Pizza’s here!” Joe is quick to observe. “We ordered it a little while ago. Aren’t you hungry?”
Farina is still scowling and doesn’t answer right away, so I do. “Yes!”
Mickey and Joe hold my arms as we go upstairs and sit me down at the table, which leaves Jackie and Farina to answer the door. I get a better view of the same college guy delivering the pizzas, and he does a great job of not reacting to the sight of two boys in loincloths greeting him this time. Jackie pays him with another overly generous tip while Farina grabs the food with more force than necessary. The delivery guy thanks Jackie and is off without another word, no doubt hoping for another big payday in the near future.
Still growling, Farina slams the food on the table, tears open one of the pizza boxes, grabs a slice and starts devouring it. He is in no mood for talking, but the others are, and quite willing to tease him.
Mickey asks, “Think we were too tough on Farina today?”
Jackie is eager to answer. “He should have been able to handle it. It was intense, but I recovered in a few minutes.”
Joe agrees. “Yeah, but how about you, Scooter? You okay now?”
I have recovered enough that I’m back to wanting to sound tough. There is quite a bit of satisfaction in realizing I’m enduring the tickling better than Jackie and a lot better than Farina, but I could use a break. “I’m okay now, but … I think I could use some fresh air tomorrow. Remember I was tied down and tickled twice as long as Jackie and Farina.”
There is a groan from Farina, who tries to ignore us by wolfing down another slice of pizza. I continue,
“But Farina really seemed bothered to be chained to the wall for so long, and Jackie was only tied loosely to a chair for a little while after getting tickled. Jackie got off easy compared to Farina.”
“I wouldn’t have whined about it like Farina,” brags Jackie. “And he really hated getting his picture taken.”
“Oh right,” says Joe, “I printed it out. Wanna see it?”
“Sure.”
Joe gets up from the table and comes back a minute later with a large picture of Farina. It is an excellent picture of him chained to the wall wearing just his small loincloth and a very angry expression on his face. I can’t help laughing at the photo with Jackie and Joe, who then shoves it in front of Farina.
Farina glares at the picture for a few seconds, and then his face undergoes contortions. He is trying to hold something in, but loses his composure and bursts out laughing.
I was right before. “I thought you were putting on an act.”
“Yeah … but not everything that happened was planned. But that’s part of the thrill. Like getting shackled to the wall.”
“That was actually my idea.”
“You?” Farina remembers something. “You were right about something you said a week ago or so. I do look a lot better chained to the wall than you do.”
“So you’re not mad at me?”
“No, but that doesn't mean I won’t get back at you. It was a neat feeling waking up like that and not remembering how I got there.”
“I wish I could have been the one to chain you to the wall, but I was already on the floor with my hands and feet tied.”
“Maybe next time.”
We all eat the meal with enthusiasm. It’s weird how I dreaded that pendulum swinging closer and closer to me, and then being tickled for so long, but it feels so great afterward that now I’m kind of glad that all that did happen. I guess I’m getting a lot of confidence. When there’s a phone call, I realize that I hadn’t noticed my parents had called all day and didn’t really care. Anyway, my father says,
“Good news. I was able to change the terms of some accounts and free up five thousand dollars.”
“Oh? Oh, yes that’s great.”
Mickey confirms that he did receive a wire transfer. Then my mother has to ask,
“How was your day?”
“Um, interesting. It was good.”
“You sound good. I’m afraid it will still be a few more weeks.”
“I’ll manage.”
Perhaps because of the rough treatment today, after dinner I get to play video games with Farina for an hour in the basement. Then it’s bedtime, and I’m too tired to put up much of a fight as he ties me securely spread-eagled on my bed. When he’s done, I turn my head and see he has that evil grin on his face. Is he really upset that I suggested he be chained to the wall? In any case, he gets the electric toothbrush and tickles me for a good five minutes, which leaves me sweating profusely and gasping for breath.
I can’t speak yet, so Farina asks, “You doing okay? You look overheated.”
A minute later when I can answer, I almost yell, “Of course I’m overheated! You didn’t’ have to tickle me that long!”
“Sorry.”
Farina leaves, and I’m not sure what that exchange was about. He does forget to turn the light off when he goes upstairs, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I close my eyes and expect to fall asleep from exhaustion in a couple minutes, when I am suddenly roused by a bucket of ice water being pouted on my face.
“I told you I’d get back at you for telling them to shackle me to the wall!” Farina is trying to sound angry, but I’m not convinced. When I get over the shock, I retort,
“Don’t pretend to be angry, you’re totally unconvincing.”
There is a pause, and then in a sweet voice, he responds, “You know what? You’re right.” Then he dumps another bucket of ice water on me, mainly on my chest and stomach but getting some on my legs. There are ice cubes all around and a few on my body, and I can’t shake them away and start to shiver.
“Since you were so hot, I felt I needed to take care of you,” explains Farina.
“That’s overdoing it. I’m okay now. Can you please get that ice off me?”
“I wouldn’t want to risk you overheating again. It’s hot enough that the ice will melt in a few minutes. Good night.”
This time Farina does turn off the light as he leaves. It takes more than a few minutes for the ice to melt, but pretty soon I realize it’s nothing I can’t handle. All it did was make me tougher. It isn’t a bad way to fall asleep at all.
Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come down and show no interest in rescuing me from their feather duster pendulum. However, Farina seems to come to his senses upon recognizing the others.
“What’s the big idea chaining me to the wall?”
Mickey responds calmly, “You weren’t able to stand by yourself, so we had to make sure you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”
“Well, I’m fine now! “Let me go! I got things to do. This wasn’t part of the plan!” Farina looks and sounds really angry. I’m not sure if this is part of an act, but in any case, it looks like Farina wasn’t going to rescue me if he could break loose.
“Ah, you know you’re cute when you’re mad?” Jackie teases the captive.
“I am not cute! Now get me out of this! I’ve been tied up long enough already today.”
“We have to get a picture of this.”
“What?!” Farina’s muscles strain at the chains, but he can’t do anything to prevent Jackie from taking pictures with a cell phone. “Hey! Delete those now!”
“Wow, he has an attitude problem,” remarks Joe. “I think we better keep him like this until he settles down.”
“I agree,” says Jackie.
“I’m going to get you for this!” Farina is shouting.
“Oh dear, maybe we should gag you. What do you guys think?”
Mickey reasons, “There’s no point. We’re leaving, and there’s nobody here to hear him … oh wait, I forgot about Scooter.”
The gang finally turns their attention to me. Mickey continues, “What do you say, should we gag Farina?”
“Uh, ah ha ha ha!” Before I can decide how to reply, the feathers sweep across my stomach.
“I didn’t catch what you said,” says Mickey.
Only laughter comes from my mouth when I try to speak again. My last coherent thought is that I am not surprised the gang didn’t rescue me. At least I know what I’m in for, and am sure I can get through it again.
“Scooter isn’t answering, what do you think, guys?” Mickey address Joe and Jackie.
“It’s not worth the trouble gagging Farina,” is Jackie’s opinion.
“Yeah, maybe next time when we have more time, agrees Joe. We better move.”
“What do you mean, ‘next time’?!” shouts Farina as the other three turn and walk upstairs. They laugh and ignore him, and then close the basement door behind them, leaving Farina and me in the reverse positions from a couple hours ago.
I lose track of time, but it’s probably close to two hours again when the pendulum finally stops swinging. During that time, I occasionally can think straight, and somehow seeing Farina shackled to the wall is comforting. However, by the time Mickey, Joe, and Jackie come down and untie me, they find me incoherent when they ask me how I am. They help me to my chair again but this time don’t tie me to it. Finally, they turn their attention to Farina, who is seething and glaring at them.
“Have you calmed down enough for us to release you?” asks Mickey.
Farina doesn’t sound happy when he mutters, “Yes.”
“All right then. And if you try anything, you’re going back here, and we will gag you this time.”
Joe and Jackie unlock the cuffs from Farina’s ankles and wrists, and once free, he hurries to the bathroom. A few minutes later it’s my turn, and I realize why I wasn’t tied to the chair just now. The few minutes is sufficient for me to recover enough to stagger to the bathroom. That business taken care of, we all can now have a
conversation.
“What is wrong with you all!?” Farina still sounds very upset. It seems like he wants to fight, but would have no chance with three against one. “You weren’t supposed to leave me tied down under that feather pendulum!”
“You said you needed practice in enduring tickling,” pointed out Jackie. “And it was such a convenient opportunity.”
“Yeah, but that was overdoing it big time!”
“Hey,” Mickey explained, “we also wanted to make sure the pendulum worked right and that Scooter could handle it.”
“The pendulum was working good enough on Jackie!” Farina is still raging.
“But it wasn’t perfect, and we made it better,” answers Jackie. “And wow, I sure handled it a lot better than you.”
Joe pipes up. “Actually, Scooter held up a lot better than both of you. You both need to get tougher.”
“I’m plenty tough!” Jackie and Farina exclaimed simultaneously. Then Farina shakes his heads, and then asks,
“And you didn’t have to chain me to the wall! If I couldn’t stand, you could have just laid me down on a couch.”
“But you had been lying on the floor for so long, it was better to get you on your feet.”
At that point the doorbell rings.
“Pizza’s here!” Joe is quick to observe. “We ordered it a little while ago. Aren’t you hungry?”
Farina is still scowling and doesn’t answer right away, so I do. “Yes!”
Mickey and Joe hold my arms as we go upstairs and sit me down at the table, which leaves Jackie and Farina to answer the door. I get a better view of the same college guy delivering the pizzas, and he does a great job of not reacting to the sight of two boys in loincloths greeting him this time. Jackie pays him with another overly generous tip while Farina grabs the food with more force than necessary. The delivery guy thanks Jackie and is off without another word, no doubt hoping for another big payday in the near future.
Still growling, Farina slams the food on the table, tears open one of the pizza boxes, grabs a slice and starts devouring it. He is in no mood for talking, but the others are, and quite willing to tease him.
Mickey asks, “Think we were too tough on Farina today?”
Jackie is eager to answer. “He should have been able to handle it. It was intense, but I recovered in a few minutes.”
Joe agrees. “Yeah, but how about you, Scooter? You okay now?”
I have recovered enough that I’m back to wanting to sound tough. There is quite a bit of satisfaction in realizing I’m enduring the tickling better than Jackie and a lot better than Farina, but I could use a break. “I’m okay now, but … I think I could use some fresh air tomorrow. Remember I was tied down and tickled twice as long as Jackie and Farina.”
There is a groan from Farina, who tries to ignore us by wolfing down another slice of pizza. I continue,
“But Farina really seemed bothered to be chained to the wall for so long, and Jackie was only tied loosely to a chair for a little while after getting tickled. Jackie got off easy compared to Farina.”
“I wouldn’t have whined about it like Farina,” brags Jackie. “And he really hated getting his picture taken.”
“Oh right,” says Joe, “I printed it out. Wanna see it?”
“Sure.”
Joe gets up from the table and comes back a minute later with a large picture of Farina. It is an excellent picture of him chained to the wall wearing just his small loincloth and a very angry expression on his face. I can’t help laughing at the photo with Jackie and Joe, who then shoves it in front of Farina.
Farina glares at the picture for a few seconds, and then his face undergoes contortions. He is trying to hold something in, but loses his composure and bursts out laughing.
I was right before. “I thought you were putting on an act.”
“Yeah … but not everything that happened was planned. But that’s part of the thrill. Like getting shackled to the wall.”
“That was actually my idea.”
“You?” Farina remembers something. “You were right about something you said a week ago or so. I do look a lot better chained to the wall than you do.”
“So you’re not mad at me?”
“No, but that doesn't mean I won’t get back at you. It was a neat feeling waking up like that and not remembering how I got there.”
“I wish I could have been the one to chain you to the wall, but I was already on the floor with my hands and feet tied.”
“Maybe next time.”
We all eat the meal with enthusiasm. It’s weird how I dreaded that pendulum swinging closer and closer to me, and then being tickled for so long, but it feels so great afterward that now I’m kind of glad that all that did happen. I guess I’m getting a lot of confidence. When there’s a phone call, I realize that I hadn’t noticed my parents had called all day and didn’t really care. Anyway, my father says,
“Good news. I was able to change the terms of some accounts and free up five thousand dollars.”
“Oh? Oh, yes that’s great.”
Mickey confirms that he did receive a wire transfer. Then my mother has to ask,
“How was your day?”
“Um, interesting. It was good.”
“You sound good. I’m afraid it will still be a few more weeks.”
“I’ll manage.”
Perhaps because of the rough treatment today, after dinner I get to play video games with Farina for an hour in the basement. Then it’s bedtime, and I’m too tired to put up much of a fight as he ties me securely spread-eagled on my bed. When he’s done, I turn my head and see he has that evil grin on his face. Is he really upset that I suggested he be chained to the wall? In any case, he gets the electric toothbrush and tickles me for a good five minutes, which leaves me sweating profusely and gasping for breath.
I can’t speak yet, so Farina asks, “You doing okay? You look overheated.”
A minute later when I can answer, I almost yell, “Of course I’m overheated! You didn’t’ have to tickle me that long!”
“Sorry.”
Farina leaves, and I’m not sure what that exchange was about. He does forget to turn the light off when he goes upstairs, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I close my eyes and expect to fall asleep from exhaustion in a couple minutes, when I am suddenly roused by a bucket of ice water being pouted on my face.
“I told you I’d get back at you for telling them to shackle me to the wall!” Farina is trying to sound angry, but I’m not convinced. When I get over the shock, I retort,
“Don’t pretend to be angry, you’re totally unconvincing.”
There is a pause, and then in a sweet voice, he responds, “You know what? You’re right.” Then he dumps another bucket of ice water on me, mainly on my chest and stomach but getting some on my legs. There are ice cubes all around and a few on my body, and I can’t shake them away and start to shiver.
“Since you were so hot, I felt I needed to take care of you,” explains Farina.
“That’s overdoing it. I’m okay now. Can you please get that ice off me?”
“I wouldn’t want to risk you overheating again. It’s hot enough that the ice will melt in a few minutes. Good night.”
This time Farina does turn off the light as he leaves. It takes more than a few minutes for the ice to melt, but pretty soon I realize it’s nothing I can’t handle. All it did was make me tougher. It isn’t a bad way to fall asleep at all.
Chapter 26
The next morning when breakfast is done Joe comes down when some familiar items.
“What are these for?” I ask without much thought.
“Don’t you remember yesterday you said you wanted some fresh air?”
“I don’t remember much from yesterday. That feather pendulum … oh fine.”
“We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I shake my head to clear my mind. Fresh air means that I’m going outside, and have to be blindfolded and gagged like a few days ago. Can these guys come up with something to top yesterday? Maybe it would have been better to be blindfolded yesterday and not be able to see that pendulum descending slowly and inexorably toward me, but I’m not anxious to find out.
Gathering my wits, I tie the gag around my mouth and head and put on the blindfold. Remembering to wait until the basement door opens, I hold onto the handcuffs until I hear the door, and then snap them on. The gang doesn’t seem to care as they grab my arms and march me up the stairs and outside to the back yard.
Instead of tying me to the ground this time they set me against a tree. I feel rope tightening around my ankles, and then it must be being tied around the tree. Next ropes are tied around my wrists, and then the handcuffs removed. My arms are forced back around my sides and the ropes around my wrists are tied together. The tree is large enough so my hands don’t touch, but my back is firmly pressed into the tree.
“There, how’s that? Oops, forgot you can’t talk.” My ears are covered by the gag but I think it’s Farina. I nod anyway, as it isn’t really bad. But pretty soon I feel bugs crawling over me and start to squirm.
“Hey, we forgot the bug spray!” It is more clearly Farina’s voice, and within a minute I hear, “Close your eyes and hold your breath.”
My eyes are already closed thanks to the blindfold, but I take the advice and hold my breath as I feel the insect repellant being sprayed all over me. That actually tickles some more, but soon it’s over and there are no more bugs, at least for a while. As always, the ropes hold, but after yesterday I haven’t regained all my energy yet and am not thinking of escape.
There are footsteps leading away, and then the back door slams shut. Did they leave me alone, or are just pretending? They probably left one to guard me. I take a deep breath and wonder what they are going to do to me this time.
The minutes, and then hours pass with nothing happening. The wait is annoying, almost to the point of being unbearable. Whatever it is they’re planning, I wish they would get it over with. Being unable to see is very frustrating. If I could see that nobody was there like all those times I was left alone in the basement I could relax a little, but now I’m afraid to let my guard down. Then again, I’m in no position to guard anything, so I take some deep breaths and bear up the best I can.
Eventually they untie me and lead me back to the basement. When the handcuffs, blindfold, and gag are off, I see that this time it’s Mickey and Jackie.
“You okay?” asks Mickey.
“Apart from being bored, sure.”
“After yesterday we thought we better take it easy on you today.”
“But we can make it more interesting this afternoon,” Jackie pipes up.
“It doesn’t have to be too much more interesting.” I get the feeling that I should have said something else.
Another lunch of sandwiches is over soon enough, and then it’s the same routing preparing to go outside. However, this time the gang has me sit on the ground and leaves my hands cuffed behind my back after they tie my feet together. Then they push me down on my back, and a few minutes later my feet are yanked off the ground, no more than I foot. I’d like to know what is going on, but my question comes out as a “mmphh.”
Maybe fifteen minutes later they do something and my feet are back on the ground. I can roll around some but with the handcuffs it’s more comfortable lying still. Then my feet are yanked higher, so that I’m bent at a right angle at my waist with my back on the ground.
Suddenly I think I realize what is going on. They’re preparing to hang me upside-down and are getting me used to it gradually. How thoughtful of them. I remember talking about this some time ago, and now am anxious to experience it. Sure enough, several minutes later they do something and I’m lying flat on the ground again. After the break, my legs are raised again to the point where only my shoulders and the back of my head are on the ground.
This isn’t very comfortable, but nothing that I can’t handle. Like clockwork, I am lowered to the ground again after another quarter hour or so, and get my final rest before I’m completely suspended by my ankles. I can feel grass against my head, so I’m about a millimeter above the ground. Maybe that means I won’t break my neck if the rope breaks. It’s actually kind of peaceful, and I sway gently in the light wind.
It occurs to me that I might be dangling for a long time, but that turns out not to be the case. Again, it might be fifteen minutes before I am set on the ground again. Altogether this has been a pretty good day. I was expecting to back into the house, but I can wait.
Then I get taken by surprise when I am jerked off my feet again and hung upside-down. Someone grabs my shoulders, raises me so I’m almost parallel to the ground, and lets go. Now I’m the human pendulum, and there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. I’m afraid my head will hit the ground so I try holding it up when I’m at the bottom of the arc, but quickly get tired of that. My head just brushes the tops of the grass blades, so it looks like the gang measured accurately. I can do no more than take some deep breaths and wait it out.
I don’t know how long it is before I’m lowered gently to the ground, but I’m sure I was close to passing out. Maybe I do get some sleep lying on the ground. In any case, it isn’t a long enough break before I’m suspended upside-down again. My protests through the gag are ignored, and I am raised by my shoulders like before. This time I am pushed to the side, so I’m revolving around the spot on the branch my feet are tied to like some sort of amusement park ride. Or, what was it called, a maypole, that kids would run around holding onto a rope, but right-side up? At least this way my head doesn’t come close to hitting the ground.
By the time I’ve slowed down a lot and am lowered to the ground, I’m completely dizzy. All I want to do is lie down and rest, and the gang lets me for a while. But then they suspend me upside-down again. I try to say that I’ve had enough, but they ignore my muffled pleas. This time I’m spun around and around while remaining in place, much like Farina was some time ago. Then I’m twisted hard in the opposite direction that I was wound up in, and given a push besides. I’m swinging, revolving, and spinning too fast to make sense of anything, and convinced I will pass out soon. Turns out I was right.
I wake up to the smell of burgers and French Fries. I can move my head and arms, but not much else. Slowly I realize I’m tied to a chair at the dining room table, and the gang is all set to eat.
“Hey, Scooter finally woke up!” exclaims Joe.
“Wh-what?” I’m a bit confused.
“Ha!” Farina is gloating. “He’s no match for me!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were so full of yourself yesterday, bragging about how good you did with that feather pendulum. Well, today you lost!”
Jackie adds, “Yeah, Farina and I don’t pass out when we’re spinning around upside-down.”
I hadn’t realized how much my performance yesterday bothered these two. It must be best not to make them angry. But I have to stick up for myself.
“Fine, you win. But I’ll get better with practice. That was just too much all at once.”
“We tried to break you in,” explains Mickey. “Get you partway upside-down, then all the way, and not spin and swing you so much at first. Too bad it was still too much for you. You okay now?”
“I will be when I eat.”
“Good idea, let’s eat!” agrees Joe.
Eating a decent meal helps me feel a lot better. It also gives me a reason to avoid talking, which I don’t feel like at the moment. The daily phone call from my parents come through, but the conversation is brief as no more important developments happened.
When the meal is over, I am untied from the dining room chair and ushered downstairs by Farina and Jackie and tied not very tightly to the chair in front of the table on which I have several pages written for my writing assignment.
“Here, go work on that great spy story of yours,” commands Jackie. “We have to makes plans for tomorrow.”
Farina laughs, apparently having some idea of what those plans are, but neither is going to tell me now. They leave, and I am able to get more pages written. I don’t think my story is great, but it should be good enough for school.
An hour later Farina and Jackie come down again, untie me, and let me use the bathroom. When I’m done, I just plop down on my bed all stretched out, and let them tie me spread-eagled on it.
“Too tired to put up any resistances?” asks Farina.
I’m sure resistance is futile, but just say, “Yeah, just get it over with.”
They only tickle me a short while before leaving, giving me the impression they’re afraid they were too hard on my today. I’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings. So ends another day.
The next morning when breakfast is done Joe comes down when some familiar items.
“What are these for?” I ask without much thought.
“Don’t you remember yesterday you said you wanted some fresh air?”
“I don’t remember much from yesterday. That feather pendulum … oh fine.”
“We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I shake my head to clear my mind. Fresh air means that I’m going outside, and have to be blindfolded and gagged like a few days ago. Can these guys come up with something to top yesterday? Maybe it would have been better to be blindfolded yesterday and not be able to see that pendulum descending slowly and inexorably toward me, but I’m not anxious to find out.
Gathering my wits, I tie the gag around my mouth and head and put on the blindfold. Remembering to wait until the basement door opens, I hold onto the handcuffs until I hear the door, and then snap them on. The gang doesn’t seem to care as they grab my arms and march me up the stairs and outside to the back yard.
Instead of tying me to the ground this time they set me against a tree. I feel rope tightening around my ankles, and then it must be being tied around the tree. Next ropes are tied around my wrists, and then the handcuffs removed. My arms are forced back around my sides and the ropes around my wrists are tied together. The tree is large enough so my hands don’t touch, but my back is firmly pressed into the tree.
“There, how’s that? Oops, forgot you can’t talk.” My ears are covered by the gag but I think it’s Farina. I nod anyway, as it isn’t really bad. But pretty soon I feel bugs crawling over me and start to squirm.
“Hey, we forgot the bug spray!” It is more clearly Farina’s voice, and within a minute I hear, “Close your eyes and hold your breath.”
My eyes are already closed thanks to the blindfold, but I take the advice and hold my breath as I feel the insect repellant being sprayed all over me. That actually tickles some more, but soon it’s over and there are no more bugs, at least for a while. As always, the ropes hold, but after yesterday I haven’t regained all my energy yet and am not thinking of escape.
There are footsteps leading away, and then the back door slams shut. Did they leave me alone, or are just pretending? They probably left one to guard me. I take a deep breath and wonder what they are going to do to me this time.
The minutes, and then hours pass with nothing happening. The wait is annoying, almost to the point of being unbearable. Whatever it is they’re planning, I wish they would get it over with. Being unable to see is very frustrating. If I could see that nobody was there like all those times I was left alone in the basement I could relax a little, but now I’m afraid to let my guard down. Then again, I’m in no position to guard anything, so I take some deep breaths and bear up the best I can.
Eventually they untie me and lead me back to the basement. When the handcuffs, blindfold, and gag are off, I see that this time it’s Mickey and Jackie.
“You okay?” asks Mickey.
“Apart from being bored, sure.”
“After yesterday we thought we better take it easy on you today.”
“But we can make it more interesting this afternoon,” Jackie pipes up.
“It doesn’t have to be too much more interesting.” I get the feeling that I should have said something else.
Another lunch of sandwiches is over soon enough, and then it’s the same routing preparing to go outside. However, this time the gang has me sit on the ground and leaves my hands cuffed behind my back after they tie my feet together. Then they push me down on my back, and a few minutes later my feet are yanked off the ground, no more than I foot. I’d like to know what is going on, but my question comes out as a “mmphh.”
Maybe fifteen minutes later they do something and my feet are back on the ground. I can roll around some but with the handcuffs it’s more comfortable lying still. Then my feet are yanked higher, so that I’m bent at a right angle at my waist with my back on the ground.
Suddenly I think I realize what is going on. They’re preparing to hang me upside-down and are getting me used to it gradually. How thoughtful of them. I remember talking about this some time ago, and now am anxious to experience it. Sure enough, several minutes later they do something and I’m lying flat on the ground again. After the break, my legs are raised again to the point where only my shoulders and the back of my head are on the ground.
This isn’t very comfortable, but nothing that I can’t handle. Like clockwork, I am lowered to the ground again after another quarter hour or so, and get my final rest before I’m completely suspended by my ankles. I can feel grass against my head, so I’m about a millimeter above the ground. Maybe that means I won’t break my neck if the rope breaks. It’s actually kind of peaceful, and I sway gently in the light wind.
It occurs to me that I might be dangling for a long time, but that turns out not to be the case. Again, it might be fifteen minutes before I am set on the ground again. Altogether this has been a pretty good day. I was expecting to back into the house, but I can wait.
Then I get taken by surprise when I am jerked off my feet again and hung upside-down. Someone grabs my shoulders, raises me so I’m almost parallel to the ground, and lets go. Now I’m the human pendulum, and there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. I’m afraid my head will hit the ground so I try holding it up when I’m at the bottom of the arc, but quickly get tired of that. My head just brushes the tops of the grass blades, so it looks like the gang measured accurately. I can do no more than take some deep breaths and wait it out.
I don’t know how long it is before I’m lowered gently to the ground, but I’m sure I was close to passing out. Maybe I do get some sleep lying on the ground. In any case, it isn’t a long enough break before I’m suspended upside-down again. My protests through the gag are ignored, and I am raised by my shoulders like before. This time I am pushed to the side, so I’m revolving around the spot on the branch my feet are tied to like some sort of amusement park ride. Or, what was it called, a maypole, that kids would run around holding onto a rope, but right-side up? At least this way my head doesn’t come close to hitting the ground.
By the time I’ve slowed down a lot and am lowered to the ground, I’m completely dizzy. All I want to do is lie down and rest, and the gang lets me for a while. But then they suspend me upside-down again. I try to say that I’ve had enough, but they ignore my muffled pleas. This time I’m spun around and around while remaining in place, much like Farina was some time ago. Then I’m twisted hard in the opposite direction that I was wound up in, and given a push besides. I’m swinging, revolving, and spinning too fast to make sense of anything, and convinced I will pass out soon. Turns out I was right.
I wake up to the smell of burgers and French Fries. I can move my head and arms, but not much else. Slowly I realize I’m tied to a chair at the dining room table, and the gang is all set to eat.
“Hey, Scooter finally woke up!” exclaims Joe.
“Wh-what?” I’m a bit confused.
“Ha!” Farina is gloating. “He’s no match for me!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were so full of yourself yesterday, bragging about how good you did with that feather pendulum. Well, today you lost!”
Jackie adds, “Yeah, Farina and I don’t pass out when we’re spinning around upside-down.”
I hadn’t realized how much my performance yesterday bothered these two. It must be best not to make them angry. But I have to stick up for myself.
“Fine, you win. But I’ll get better with practice. That was just too much all at once.”
“We tried to break you in,” explains Mickey. “Get you partway upside-down, then all the way, and not spin and swing you so much at first. Too bad it was still too much for you. You okay now?”
“I will be when I eat.”
“Good idea, let’s eat!” agrees Joe.
Eating a decent meal helps me feel a lot better. It also gives me a reason to avoid talking, which I don’t feel like at the moment. The daily phone call from my parents come through, but the conversation is brief as no more important developments happened.
When the meal is over, I am untied from the dining room chair and ushered downstairs by Farina and Jackie and tied not very tightly to the chair in front of the table on which I have several pages written for my writing assignment.
“Here, go work on that great spy story of yours,” commands Jackie. “We have to makes plans for tomorrow.”
Farina laughs, apparently having some idea of what those plans are, but neither is going to tell me now. They leave, and I am able to get more pages written. I don’t think my story is great, but it should be good enough for school.
An hour later Farina and Jackie come down again, untie me, and let me use the bathroom. When I’m done, I just plop down on my bed all stretched out, and let them tie me spread-eagled on it.
“Too tired to put up any resistances?” asks Farina.
I’m sure resistance is futile, but just say, “Yeah, just get it over with.”
They only tickle me a short while before leaving, giving me the impression they’re afraid they were too hard on my today. I’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings. So ends another day.
Chapter 27
The next morning Jackie comes down to untie me from my bed and deliver breakfast. The way he is grinning it is clear that something is up, but he isn’t going to tell me until the time is right. He appears to be sizing me up to see if I am fit for whatever is coming.
A short time later, Jackie comes down in the same stereotype of a Native American outfit that Farina wore several days ago. So it’s going to be Cowboys and Indians again. That’s bound to be more bearable than yesterday. Along with the feather headdress, Jackie has two bows and quivers of arrows and a headdress for me, and announces,
“We only have a few minutes to get ready. We gotta put on war paint.”
We hurriedly put paint on ourselves, and sure enough not ten minutes later Farina comes charging down the stairs in a Cowboy costume twirling a lasso. Jackie and I shoot him several times with our arrows, but this allows Mickey and Joe come down unscathed. Apparently they had a plan where Farina was a decoy, and it made Jackie and me use up too many of our arrows too quickly.
The battle rages on, but not quite as long as the one before when Farina and Jackie’s roles were reversed. There are several occasions when Jackie or I are almost captured but the other one of us shoots the attacking Cowboy, allowing a temporary escape. Unfortunately we run out of arrows after half an hour, but somehow we manage to avoid capture for another fifteen minutes. The trio may have been toying with us.
Eventually Mickey is in front of me twirling his lasso without throwing it, and while I’m ready to jump away from whichever direction he does throw it, Farina sneaks up from behind and gets his lasso around me. He pulls it tight before I can react, and then Mickey lunges forward and brings me to the floor. He holds me down while Farina gangs up with Joe against Jackie.
With Joe sitting on Jackie’s back, Farina adeptly ties Jackie’s feet together. Next, Farina ties a rope around one of Jackie’s wrists, and with Joe’s help forces Jackie’s hands together behind his back, and then ties them together. It is not surprising when the next step is to connect Jackie’s hands and feet together with another rope, leaving him in a rather tight hogtie.
With Jackie secured and Joe keeping guard, Farina turns his attention to me. I decide that my best course of action is to put up token resistance and then not struggle so my loincloth doesn’t give me a wedgie like the last time I was hogtied. My plan works at first, but I forgot what comes next.
“Time for some scalps!” announces Farina.
“Aren’t you supposed to ask us where the treasure is hidden?” complains Jackie.
“Are you going to tell us?”
“Of course not, but you’re still supposed to ask.”
“Then like I said, it’s scalping time!”
For some reason I wasn’t part of that discussion, but there’s no way it would have helped. If I said I didn’t know where any hidden treasure was, we’d be tickled immediately. If I said I knew and they checked and found out I was wrong, we’d be tickled and it would probably be a lot worse.
Just as I see Joe take two feathers out of Jackie’s headband and run them across Jackie’s soles, I feel the same sensation on mine. I can squirm, but then there are feathers scraping against my sides. The feeling is all too familiar, and soon I am laughing too hard to keep track of anything.
Several minutes later I come to my senses. Jackie is calling out, “Scooter, you okay?”
I turn my head and see Jackie in the same position as me, on his stomach, hogtied and scalped.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. The Cowboys left, and we didn’t tell them where the treasure is, so we won that round.”
“Great, except it doesn’t feel like a win when we’re hogtied until they come back for us.”
“What are you talking about? We can untie each other, and then jump them when they come back. Move toward me.”
Jackie rocks his body and moves toward me a little. When I try, I go backwards as much as forwards. Jackie shows annoyance at my ineptitude.
“Come on, don’t make me do all the work.”
“I’m no good at this. You obviously have a lot more experience at being hogtied than I do.”
“Sure, so you need to get more experience. Come on, try!”
When I try, I just wobble and then fall onto my side. I can hear Jackie sigh, and then he maneuvers his way over to me, rolls onto his side, and positions himself so that we are back to back. He continues,
“Can you move your hands toward me … oh never mind, I can feel a knot.”
I can’t do much besides hold still as Jackie works on undoing the knot, which turns out to be the one connecting my wrists to my ankles. This turns out to be very difficult, and it takes him more than half an hour to untie it. My legs instantly straighten and I heave a sigh of relief. I can also hear Jackie breathing heavily, and then he says,
“Okay, now it’s your turn. This should be easier now.”
It should be easier since I’m no longer hogtied, but with my hands still tide behind my back it proves to be a big challenge for me. Jackie grunts in disgust while I fumble away, and it takes me more than half an hour to untie the knot connecting Jackie’s hands and feet, which was the easiest knot for me to reach.
The next step is Jackie untying my hands. This goes quite a bit faster, and it is with a big sigh of relief when my hands slip free. With my hands now in front of me, it is simple to untie Jackie’s hands. We are working on untying our ankles when the basement door opens.
That was rotten timing … or maybe it wasn’t a coincidence?
Joe puts some sandwiches on the table while Mickey and Farina quickly scoop up the four ropes we untied but carelessly left on the floor.
“Wouldn’t want you getting any fancy ideas with these,” explains Mickey, and the three of them are quickly back upstairs.
Jackie and I finish untying our ankles and then have nothing better to do than discuss plans while eating the sandwiches. Jackie is in a very good mood.
“That was fun!”
“That was. Wish we had more arrows.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that. Now what should we do when they come back?”
I don’t have any good ideas. “They have all the weapons and we just have these two ropes. I’m sure we’re going to lose.”
“Probably, but we have to put up a fight. Can you think of anything?”
I think. “I could pretend to surrender, and you hide and jump one of them, tie him up, and then it’ll be two on two.”
“May as well try.”
Pretty soon Farina and Joe come down, while Mickey stays at the top of the stairs, covering the other two by aiming one of the bows and arrows. I am in the middle of the basement while Jackie is hiding behind a post.
“Hands up and don’t move!” orders Joe, branding a lasso.
Without thinking I obey, and Farina is tying my hands before I can think of doing anything. Jackie never gets a chance to ambush Mickey since he stays at the top of the stairs, so Jackie desperately charges Farina, trying to stop him before my hands are completely tied. But Mickey shoots Jackie in the back before he reaches Farina, who finishes tying my hands while Joe and Mickey subdue Jackie.
The Cowboys force the Indians against one of the posts with our hands over our heads, and tie our hands to the post with us back to back. Since Jackie is several inches taller, the Cowboys get me to stand on a short stool so our waists are at the same level. Then starting at our feet, they wrap a long rope spiraling up around our bodies and lashing us to the post. It feels like I’m sinking in rope. The rope is so long that it winds all the way up to our waists. There is the usual round of tickling to make sure we are securely tied, and then Farina laughs:
“You look ridiculous.”
“I feel ridiculous.”
“You can guess what comes now?”
I sigh. “Target practice?”
“No, we’re going to … oh wait, that’s a good idea!”
I may have made a mistake, but maybe they were planning that all along and are trying to make me feel foolish. For the next hour Farina, Mickey, and Joe shoot the arrows at Jackie and me, and the rubber suction cup tips hold up very well. They seem to have a game where they stick all the arrows that will fit on me at once before yanking them off. I’m sure Jackie is enduring the same thing, but he does a great job of keeping quiet and not showing any evidence of pain, so I am determined to do likewise.
When the Cowboys have enough target practice, Farina explains, “This is what we were going to do.”
There is something off about Farina’s word choice as he made it sound like the target practice was in place of what is coming next instead of in addition to. The Cowboys proceed to get another long rope, tie it around our waists, and spiral that rope up, covering our stomachs and chests. The sinking sensation resumes, and I expect them to stop, but they continue wrapping the rope around us, covering our heads and then our arms before it is finally tied off. At least the way the rope is wound, not too tightly around our faces, Jackie and I can breathe through our noses and mouths and we haven’t drowned in rope. Still, it seems like a very good idea not to move as the rest of the rope is tied rather tightly around our bodies.
Well, standing there still all covered in rope beats being tickled and shot at, even if it must be another two hours. Eventually someone unties the top of the long rope and the shorter rope binding just our hands, and Jackie and I have to work together again to unravel the rest of the long rope which ends at our waists. Then we have to untie the other long rope that bound our lower bodies to the post.
“That was weird,” I comment when we are done. “Was all that planned?”
“They may have planned it, but they didn’t tell me about it.”
“That certainly left rope marks all over our bodies.”
“Yeah, but that will go away in a day. It was worth it – it’s a lot of fun getting loose when it isn’t too easy. I can tell you feel the same way.”
“Yeah, you know I do.” There’s certainly no point in denying that now.
The war paint is a mess, and I wash up in the basement bathroom. While I am doing so somehow Jackie gets away to clean up upstairs. Now I am not surprised when I few minutes later I am asked to join the gang for dinner.
The meal is a pleasant affair with lots of laughter and joking around. The daily phone call with my parents is fortunately brief, and I’m glad they can’t see me since the rope marks all over me haven’t gone away yet.
After dinner Jackie plays video games with me downstairs for an hour, and then I get some more time to work on my spy story. When it’s bedtime, to avoid aggravating the rope marks from today, especially around my wrists, the gang kindly leaves me pinned under the heavy barbell for the night. This was a very good day.
The next morning Jackie comes down to untie me from my bed and deliver breakfast. The way he is grinning it is clear that something is up, but he isn’t going to tell me until the time is right. He appears to be sizing me up to see if I am fit for whatever is coming.
A short time later, Jackie comes down in the same stereotype of a Native American outfit that Farina wore several days ago. So it’s going to be Cowboys and Indians again. That’s bound to be more bearable than yesterday. Along with the feather headdress, Jackie has two bows and quivers of arrows and a headdress for me, and announces,
“We only have a few minutes to get ready. We gotta put on war paint.”
We hurriedly put paint on ourselves, and sure enough not ten minutes later Farina comes charging down the stairs in a Cowboy costume twirling a lasso. Jackie and I shoot him several times with our arrows, but this allows Mickey and Joe come down unscathed. Apparently they had a plan where Farina was a decoy, and it made Jackie and me use up too many of our arrows too quickly.
The battle rages on, but not quite as long as the one before when Farina and Jackie’s roles were reversed. There are several occasions when Jackie or I are almost captured but the other one of us shoots the attacking Cowboy, allowing a temporary escape. Unfortunately we run out of arrows after half an hour, but somehow we manage to avoid capture for another fifteen minutes. The trio may have been toying with us.
Eventually Mickey is in front of me twirling his lasso without throwing it, and while I’m ready to jump away from whichever direction he does throw it, Farina sneaks up from behind and gets his lasso around me. He pulls it tight before I can react, and then Mickey lunges forward and brings me to the floor. He holds me down while Farina gangs up with Joe against Jackie.
With Joe sitting on Jackie’s back, Farina adeptly ties Jackie’s feet together. Next, Farina ties a rope around one of Jackie’s wrists, and with Joe’s help forces Jackie’s hands together behind his back, and then ties them together. It is not surprising when the next step is to connect Jackie’s hands and feet together with another rope, leaving him in a rather tight hogtie.
With Jackie secured and Joe keeping guard, Farina turns his attention to me. I decide that my best course of action is to put up token resistance and then not struggle so my loincloth doesn’t give me a wedgie like the last time I was hogtied. My plan works at first, but I forgot what comes next.
“Time for some scalps!” announces Farina.
“Aren’t you supposed to ask us where the treasure is hidden?” complains Jackie.
“Are you going to tell us?”
“Of course not, but you’re still supposed to ask.”
“Then like I said, it’s scalping time!”
For some reason I wasn’t part of that discussion, but there’s no way it would have helped. If I said I didn’t know where any hidden treasure was, we’d be tickled immediately. If I said I knew and they checked and found out I was wrong, we’d be tickled and it would probably be a lot worse.
Just as I see Joe take two feathers out of Jackie’s headband and run them across Jackie’s soles, I feel the same sensation on mine. I can squirm, but then there are feathers scraping against my sides. The feeling is all too familiar, and soon I am laughing too hard to keep track of anything.
Several minutes later I come to my senses. Jackie is calling out, “Scooter, you okay?”
I turn my head and see Jackie in the same position as me, on his stomach, hogtied and scalped.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. The Cowboys left, and we didn’t tell them where the treasure is, so we won that round.”
“Great, except it doesn’t feel like a win when we’re hogtied until they come back for us.”
“What are you talking about? We can untie each other, and then jump them when they come back. Move toward me.”
Jackie rocks his body and moves toward me a little. When I try, I go backwards as much as forwards. Jackie shows annoyance at my ineptitude.
“Come on, don’t make me do all the work.”
“I’m no good at this. You obviously have a lot more experience at being hogtied than I do.”
“Sure, so you need to get more experience. Come on, try!”
When I try, I just wobble and then fall onto my side. I can hear Jackie sigh, and then he maneuvers his way over to me, rolls onto his side, and positions himself so that we are back to back. He continues,
“Can you move your hands toward me … oh never mind, I can feel a knot.”
I can’t do much besides hold still as Jackie works on undoing the knot, which turns out to be the one connecting my wrists to my ankles. This turns out to be very difficult, and it takes him more than half an hour to untie it. My legs instantly straighten and I heave a sigh of relief. I can also hear Jackie breathing heavily, and then he says,
“Okay, now it’s your turn. This should be easier now.”
It should be easier since I’m no longer hogtied, but with my hands still tide behind my back it proves to be a big challenge for me. Jackie grunts in disgust while I fumble away, and it takes me more than half an hour to untie the knot connecting Jackie’s hands and feet, which was the easiest knot for me to reach.
The next step is Jackie untying my hands. This goes quite a bit faster, and it is with a big sigh of relief when my hands slip free. With my hands now in front of me, it is simple to untie Jackie’s hands. We are working on untying our ankles when the basement door opens.
That was rotten timing … or maybe it wasn’t a coincidence?
Joe puts some sandwiches on the table while Mickey and Farina quickly scoop up the four ropes we untied but carelessly left on the floor.
“Wouldn’t want you getting any fancy ideas with these,” explains Mickey, and the three of them are quickly back upstairs.
Jackie and I finish untying our ankles and then have nothing better to do than discuss plans while eating the sandwiches. Jackie is in a very good mood.
“That was fun!”
“That was. Wish we had more arrows.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that. Now what should we do when they come back?”
I don’t have any good ideas. “They have all the weapons and we just have these two ropes. I’m sure we’re going to lose.”
“Probably, but we have to put up a fight. Can you think of anything?”
I think. “I could pretend to surrender, and you hide and jump one of them, tie him up, and then it’ll be two on two.”
“May as well try.”
Pretty soon Farina and Joe come down, while Mickey stays at the top of the stairs, covering the other two by aiming one of the bows and arrows. I am in the middle of the basement while Jackie is hiding behind a post.
“Hands up and don’t move!” orders Joe, branding a lasso.
Without thinking I obey, and Farina is tying my hands before I can think of doing anything. Jackie never gets a chance to ambush Mickey since he stays at the top of the stairs, so Jackie desperately charges Farina, trying to stop him before my hands are completely tied. But Mickey shoots Jackie in the back before he reaches Farina, who finishes tying my hands while Joe and Mickey subdue Jackie.
The Cowboys force the Indians against one of the posts with our hands over our heads, and tie our hands to the post with us back to back. Since Jackie is several inches taller, the Cowboys get me to stand on a short stool so our waists are at the same level. Then starting at our feet, they wrap a long rope spiraling up around our bodies and lashing us to the post. It feels like I’m sinking in rope. The rope is so long that it winds all the way up to our waists. There is the usual round of tickling to make sure we are securely tied, and then Farina laughs:
“You look ridiculous.”
“I feel ridiculous.”
“You can guess what comes now?”
I sigh. “Target practice?”
“No, we’re going to … oh wait, that’s a good idea!”
I may have made a mistake, but maybe they were planning that all along and are trying to make me feel foolish. For the next hour Farina, Mickey, and Joe shoot the arrows at Jackie and me, and the rubber suction cup tips hold up very well. They seem to have a game where they stick all the arrows that will fit on me at once before yanking them off. I’m sure Jackie is enduring the same thing, but he does a great job of keeping quiet and not showing any evidence of pain, so I am determined to do likewise.
When the Cowboys have enough target practice, Farina explains, “This is what we were going to do.”
There is something off about Farina’s word choice as he made it sound like the target practice was in place of what is coming next instead of in addition to. The Cowboys proceed to get another long rope, tie it around our waists, and spiral that rope up, covering our stomachs and chests. The sinking sensation resumes, and I expect them to stop, but they continue wrapping the rope around us, covering our heads and then our arms before it is finally tied off. At least the way the rope is wound, not too tightly around our faces, Jackie and I can breathe through our noses and mouths and we haven’t drowned in rope. Still, it seems like a very good idea not to move as the rest of the rope is tied rather tightly around our bodies.
Well, standing there still all covered in rope beats being tickled and shot at, even if it must be another two hours. Eventually someone unties the top of the long rope and the shorter rope binding just our hands, and Jackie and I have to work together again to unravel the rest of the long rope which ends at our waists. Then we have to untie the other long rope that bound our lower bodies to the post.
“That was weird,” I comment when we are done. “Was all that planned?”
“They may have planned it, but they didn’t tell me about it.”
“That certainly left rope marks all over our bodies.”
“Yeah, but that will go away in a day. It was worth it – it’s a lot of fun getting loose when it isn’t too easy. I can tell you feel the same way.”
“Yeah, you know I do.” There’s certainly no point in denying that now.
The war paint is a mess, and I wash up in the basement bathroom. While I am doing so somehow Jackie gets away to clean up upstairs. Now I am not surprised when I few minutes later I am asked to join the gang for dinner.
The meal is a pleasant affair with lots of laughter and joking around. The daily phone call with my parents is fortunately brief, and I’m glad they can’t see me since the rope marks all over me haven’t gone away yet.
After dinner Jackie plays video games with me downstairs for an hour, and then I get some more time to work on my spy story. When it’s bedtime, to avoid aggravating the rope marks from today, especially around my wrists, the gang kindly leaves me pinned under the heavy barbell for the night. This was a very good day.
Chapter 28
The days go by faster and faster. When I make an observation a few days after that last Cowboys and Indians game, Joe informs me that Jackie and Farina made another bet to see who could go the longest without wearing anything other than their loincloths. It appears that each of them is determined to win this bet. Joe and Mickey, meanwhile, are always wearing just regular shorts when I see them.
As the weeks pass, they like to show me more things that they do to each other. One morning Farina releases me early, puts me in handcuffs, and takes me upstairs to where Jackie is just waking up. Like the other time I saw him in bed, he is tied to it with seven parallel ropes going around his body and the bed from his ankles to his armpits, and his hands are in handcuffs over his head. Jackie is about to start the process of untying himself when Farina takes a rope and threads it between Jackie’s arms and ties it to the frame of the bed under Jackie’s head.
“Hey!” Jackie can’t reach the knot, so he’s stuck. “Let me go, I’ve got things to do!”
“They can wait,” calmly replies Farina, who then laughs. I can’t help but join in, and watch Jackie struggle, trying to slide the last rope around to where he can reach the knot, but the knot around the bedframe is too secure. He gives up after fifteen minutes, but Farina doesn’t untie the last rope another hour. Then we get to watch Jackie free himself which takes another half hour, and is followed by a sprint to the bathroom.
Predictably, a couple days later Jackie returns the favor. He gets me up early enough to see Farina wake up. Like before, he is spread-eagled on his bed with his hands and feet in buckles connected to chains that are connected by combination padlocks to loops in ropes tied to the legs of the bed. It is now light enough for Farina to read the dials on the locks. Just as he starts turning the dial by his right hand, Jackie slips a blindfold on him.
“What the?!” Farina shakes his head, but can’t do anything else and the blindfold stays in place. He can turn the dial on the locks by his hands, but can’t guess how far to turn the dials and gives up after a few minutes.
“You gave up pretty fast,” comments Jackie.
“This is hopeless!” exclaims Farina. “I admit it, you got me, now I have work to do so you have to let me go.”
Jackie’s response is to laugh, and again I join in. It’s another hour before Jackie removes the blindfold, and then Farina can see well enough to dial the combinations of the locks by his hands. Once his hands are free, he sits up and does the same with the locks by his feet. That process takes about five minutes, and then he’s off to the bathroom.
One day at breakfast I remind Farina that I’m supposed to chain him to the wall some time. His face brightens up, and he answers, “Okay, let’s do it today.” True to his word, when we’re done eating he calmly strides to the shackles attached to the wall and lets me lock him in place with his elbows at right angles. Mickey, Joe, and Jackie are watching, and promptly tie me to a post facing Farina.
“Have fun, guys,” says Mickeys as they leave us alone after some tickling to make sure we’re secured.
“Yeah, maybe we’ll find the key in a few hours,” adds Joe.
Farina’s response is to laugh. It is a few hours before the others come back with the key.
Another day when Farina takes care of me by chaining me to the wall, he then his feet together, gets up on a chair that is placed under one of the hooks in the ceiling, and closes a handcuff link on one of his wrists. Then he grabs the hook, swings his feet up and catches them on the hook. He lowers himself gradually so he hangs full length upside-down. Next, he pushes the chair away out of reach, and finally he locks the other handcuff link after placing his hands behind his back.
“How are you going to get out of that?” I ask. It is obvious that he doesn’t have the key. “And where is the key?”
“The key is on the dining room table, so I’m not getting out of this until the others get back.’ Farina replies calmly and cheerfully.
“How long will that be?”
“An hour, or two, or three, I don’t know. That makes it fun.”
“But that means I’m stuck here for that long, too.”
“Guess so. You can handle it.”
It turns out to be about two hours, but Joe uses Farina as a punching bag for a few minutes before handing him the handcuff key. Farina then manages to free himself in a couple minutes, able to swing himself up to untie his feet. After taking a few minutes to get oriented, he finally unshackles me. He seems no worse for wear, having tensed his abs to take Joe’s punches easily.
This process is repeated every week, with minor variations. Sometimes Farina puts on a blindfold before tying himself up, and sometimes a gag, or both, or nothing. We can talk when he isn’t gagged, and when he is, he often squeals and pretends to be in agony, but isn’t fooling anybody. After a few weeks of this Farina helps me get into the same upside-down position before doing the same to himself. We get to look at each other for an hour.
I have to ask, “Why are you doing this?”
“I wanted to see what’s it’s like to look at someone when we’re both upside-down. You look almost normal.”
“I don’t think there’s anything normal about either of us.”
“Being normal is boring.”
Another morning when it’s Jackie’s turn to look after me, he comes down with an inflated beachball after securing me to the wall. He puts it next to a chair under a rafter stands up on the chair, and handcuffs his hands over the rafter.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m conducting an experiment. You’ll see.”
Jackie then kicks the chair away and balances on the beach ball.
“Are you seeing how long you can balance on that? And when it rolls away, you’ll be stuck hanging by your hands?”
“No, I want to try this.”
He manages to unplug the beachball with a toe, and the ball slowly deflates. Jackie grins as his footing slowly gives way.
“Now I’m going to put the plug back in … oh darn, I can’t!” Jackie flails away and his left hanging by his bound hands with his feet dangling.
“You’re not very convincing.”
“Fine, I know there was no way to plug it back in. It did feel cool, knowing that soon I won’t be able to stand on anything. You wanna try?”
Do I really have a choice? “Sure.”
A couple hours later Joe returns with the handcuff key to release Jackie, but not before giving him a few punches to the stomach. That afternoon I get to share in Jackie’s experience, but I only have to hang for one hour and don’t get punched by Joe.
A week after that Farina announce, “I want to try something new.” He goes to the shackles on the wall and then does a handstand, bring his feet next to the higher set of shackles. “Quick, get my feet.”
I waste no time in snapping the cuffs around his ankles. We both know what’s next, and I close the links near the floor around his wrists, leaving him shackled full-length upside-down to the wall. His palms are on the floor, so it isn’t too much strain on his feet.
“This … is … awesome!” Farina declares.
I barely notice as Mickey, Joe, and Jackie lash me to a post, thankfully right-side-up. Farina and I are left like that for two hours, and I imagine Farina is going for a world record for time spent up-side-down.
Throughout all this time Joe continues to work out regularly on the universal weight machine and he clearly gets in better shape. I get to work out some more myself, though I am usually tied to the apparatus in some way. However, one day Joe grabs one of the bars that was covered with crazy glue that was meant for me and gets stuck. Jackie and Farina laugh at him when he can just do endless military presses, pushing the bar over his head, for three or four hours. It’s hard to tell how furious Joe is at those two, but he gets revenge by hiding their loincloths while they’re sleeping, and keeps them hidden for a week. Jackie and Farina take this in stride rather well, and appear to be determined not to lose their latest bet. In fact, they trick Joe into getting stuck again, and this time he hides their loincloths for two weeks.
One day during breakfast Joe sees me shaking my head in annoyance.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing, it’s just hair getting in my eyes.”
“Hold on, I got an idea. I need to discuss this with the gang.”
Joe leaves, and a few minutes later returns with the others. Mickey is carrying a scissors and comb and speaks up.
“Joe told me you need a haircut. “I wanna see how good I am at this. Have a seat.”
I sit down, and Joe, Jackie, and Farina come at me with ropes.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask rather unnecessarily.
“We need to tie you to the chair so you don’t move when Mickey’s cutting your hair,” explains Joe.
“I don’t need to be tied up to sit still for a haircut!”
“We have to make sure. I’ve never done this before,” adds Mickey.
“What!?”
It doesn’t matter; the gang does their usual excellent job of securing me to the chair. My hands are tied to the back of the chair by the seat, and my legs are wrapped around the chair legs.
“Hey, since the haircut’s over, you can untie me now!”
Or they can wait three hours.
The ransom payments continue to come in a few thousand dollars at a time several days apart. When the sum is up to forty-five thousand, Mickey tells me,
“We want to show you something.”
They set up the computer in front of me and set up a slide show consisting of hundreds of pictures of Farina, Jackie, and me tied up. In most of them we are wearing our loincloths, but in a few Farina and Jackie aren’t. There are also a few videos of the boys struggling to escape and usually failing.
The next day at dinner is a surprise. Mickey announces, “The ransom’s paid in full. Time for you to go home!”
I eat dinner in a daze. Somehow I got so used to this that I wasn’t expecting to leave. The meal ends, I get a last chance to wash up, and Mickey continues,
“We have to get you ready for your trip home. I’m sure you know what that means.”
They tie my hands behind my back, tight enough that I can’t get loose. Next, they put on a blindfold, and then two hands grab my arms and they take me up the stairs. There is a turn, and I hear a car trunk open, and I know I’m going to be placed in that soon. Then I feel my feet being tied rather tightly. I have a question.
“How is this going to work?”
Mickey explains. “We can’t let you see where you’re going, and also we can’t just drop you off at your house. So we’re dropping you off a couple miles away. Then we’ll untie your feet and take off your blindfold, so you’ll be able to walk home.”
“What about my hands?”
“You don’t need your hands to walk. Just be careful.”
They sound serious. Am I really going to be outside in public walking for two miles with my hands tied behind my back? And wearing only …
“Can’t you let me wear more than a loincloth? And the blindfold doesn’t count.”
“That would mean untying you, and that’s too much effort.”
“Actually,” Joe speaks up. “We got your other loincloth here. You can wear this too, but, … you understand that we have to gag you. Don’t worry, this one was cleaned since you wore it yesterday.”
Even if it’s clean I know where it’s been, so I respond, “That’s okay, I don’t need a gag. I promise I’ll be quiet. And you can’t dump me outside like this, people will see …”
“No they won’t, it’ll be dark,” contends Joe. “Maybe no one will see you till you get home. And besides, it looks like you’re really excited about that idea.”
There is no denying that I still can’t help reacting like that. The gang laughs again, and Mickey continues,
“You probably mean it when you say you’ll be quiet, but we can’t take the chance that you might make some loud noise. We have to gag you now, so it’s time to say good-bye.” They say good-bye in unison, and I answer,
“Good-bye, guys.”
The gag is also rather tight but not hard to breathe through. Then I hear Jackie’s voice.
“Aren’t we forgetting something?”
“Definitely,” answers Farina.
Uh-oh. My suspicion as to what they forgot proves to be correct as I am helped to the floor and get tickled by what seems to be all of them holding feathers. This might be some sort of going away present, as it lasts a lot longer than any before, maybe an hour. If they are planning to disorient me before driving me home, it’s working.
However, once the tickling is over, I feel a damp cloth being pressed in my face, which I guess is chloroform as I pass out. I hope they’ll wait for me to wake up to make sure I’m okay before driving off and leaving me to walk home bound and gagged. Not being able to think of something better, I suppose that’s a reasonable way for my adventure to end.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The days go by faster and faster. When I make an observation a few days after that last Cowboys and Indians game, Joe informs me that Jackie and Farina made another bet to see who could go the longest without wearing anything other than their loincloths. It appears that each of them is determined to win this bet. Joe and Mickey, meanwhile, are always wearing just regular shorts when I see them.
As the weeks pass, they like to show me more things that they do to each other. One morning Farina releases me early, puts me in handcuffs, and takes me upstairs to where Jackie is just waking up. Like the other time I saw him in bed, he is tied to it with seven parallel ropes going around his body and the bed from his ankles to his armpits, and his hands are in handcuffs over his head. Jackie is about to start the process of untying himself when Farina takes a rope and threads it between Jackie’s arms and ties it to the frame of the bed under Jackie’s head.
“Hey!” Jackie can’t reach the knot, so he’s stuck. “Let me go, I’ve got things to do!”
“They can wait,” calmly replies Farina, who then laughs. I can’t help but join in, and watch Jackie struggle, trying to slide the last rope around to where he can reach the knot, but the knot around the bedframe is too secure. He gives up after fifteen minutes, but Farina doesn’t untie the last rope another hour. Then we get to watch Jackie free himself which takes another half hour, and is followed by a sprint to the bathroom.
Predictably, a couple days later Jackie returns the favor. He gets me up early enough to see Farina wake up. Like before, he is spread-eagled on his bed with his hands and feet in buckles connected to chains that are connected by combination padlocks to loops in ropes tied to the legs of the bed. It is now light enough for Farina to read the dials on the locks. Just as he starts turning the dial by his right hand, Jackie slips a blindfold on him.
“What the?!” Farina shakes his head, but can’t do anything else and the blindfold stays in place. He can turn the dial on the locks by his hands, but can’t guess how far to turn the dials and gives up after a few minutes.
“You gave up pretty fast,” comments Jackie.
“This is hopeless!” exclaims Farina. “I admit it, you got me, now I have work to do so you have to let me go.”
Jackie’s response is to laugh, and again I join in. It’s another hour before Jackie removes the blindfold, and then Farina can see well enough to dial the combinations of the locks by his hands. Once his hands are free, he sits up and does the same with the locks by his feet. That process takes about five minutes, and then he’s off to the bathroom.
One day at breakfast I remind Farina that I’m supposed to chain him to the wall some time. His face brightens up, and he answers, “Okay, let’s do it today.” True to his word, when we’re done eating he calmly strides to the shackles attached to the wall and lets me lock him in place with his elbows at right angles. Mickey, Joe, and Jackie are watching, and promptly tie me to a post facing Farina.
“Have fun, guys,” says Mickeys as they leave us alone after some tickling to make sure we’re secured.
“Yeah, maybe we’ll find the key in a few hours,” adds Joe.
Farina’s response is to laugh. It is a few hours before the others come back with the key.
Another day when Farina takes care of me by chaining me to the wall, he then his feet together, gets up on a chair that is placed under one of the hooks in the ceiling, and closes a handcuff link on one of his wrists. Then he grabs the hook, swings his feet up and catches them on the hook. He lowers himself gradually so he hangs full length upside-down. Next, he pushes the chair away out of reach, and finally he locks the other handcuff link after placing his hands behind his back.
“How are you going to get out of that?” I ask. It is obvious that he doesn’t have the key. “And where is the key?”
“The key is on the dining room table, so I’m not getting out of this until the others get back.’ Farina replies calmly and cheerfully.
“How long will that be?”
“An hour, or two, or three, I don’t know. That makes it fun.”
“But that means I’m stuck here for that long, too.”
“Guess so. You can handle it.”
It turns out to be about two hours, but Joe uses Farina as a punching bag for a few minutes before handing him the handcuff key. Farina then manages to free himself in a couple minutes, able to swing himself up to untie his feet. After taking a few minutes to get oriented, he finally unshackles me. He seems no worse for wear, having tensed his abs to take Joe’s punches easily.
This process is repeated every week, with minor variations. Sometimes Farina puts on a blindfold before tying himself up, and sometimes a gag, or both, or nothing. We can talk when he isn’t gagged, and when he is, he often squeals and pretends to be in agony, but isn’t fooling anybody. After a few weeks of this Farina helps me get into the same upside-down position before doing the same to himself. We get to look at each other for an hour.
I have to ask, “Why are you doing this?”
“I wanted to see what’s it’s like to look at someone when we’re both upside-down. You look almost normal.”
“I don’t think there’s anything normal about either of us.”
“Being normal is boring.”
Another morning when it’s Jackie’s turn to look after me, he comes down with an inflated beachball after securing me to the wall. He puts it next to a chair under a rafter stands up on the chair, and handcuffs his hands over the rafter.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m conducting an experiment. You’ll see.”
Jackie then kicks the chair away and balances on the beach ball.
“Are you seeing how long you can balance on that? And when it rolls away, you’ll be stuck hanging by your hands?”
“No, I want to try this.”
He manages to unplug the beachball with a toe, and the ball slowly deflates. Jackie grins as his footing slowly gives way.
“Now I’m going to put the plug back in … oh darn, I can’t!” Jackie flails away and his left hanging by his bound hands with his feet dangling.
“You’re not very convincing.”
“Fine, I know there was no way to plug it back in. It did feel cool, knowing that soon I won’t be able to stand on anything. You wanna try?”
Do I really have a choice? “Sure.”
A couple hours later Joe returns with the handcuff key to release Jackie, but not before giving him a few punches to the stomach. That afternoon I get to share in Jackie’s experience, but I only have to hang for one hour and don’t get punched by Joe.
A week after that Farina announce, “I want to try something new.” He goes to the shackles on the wall and then does a handstand, bring his feet next to the higher set of shackles. “Quick, get my feet.”
I waste no time in snapping the cuffs around his ankles. We both know what’s next, and I close the links near the floor around his wrists, leaving him shackled full-length upside-down to the wall. His palms are on the floor, so it isn’t too much strain on his feet.
“This … is … awesome!” Farina declares.
I barely notice as Mickey, Joe, and Jackie lash me to a post, thankfully right-side-up. Farina and I are left like that for two hours, and I imagine Farina is going for a world record for time spent up-side-down.
Throughout all this time Joe continues to work out regularly on the universal weight machine and he clearly gets in better shape. I get to work out some more myself, though I am usually tied to the apparatus in some way. However, one day Joe grabs one of the bars that was covered with crazy glue that was meant for me and gets stuck. Jackie and Farina laugh at him when he can just do endless military presses, pushing the bar over his head, for three or four hours. It’s hard to tell how furious Joe is at those two, but he gets revenge by hiding their loincloths while they’re sleeping, and keeps them hidden for a week. Jackie and Farina take this in stride rather well, and appear to be determined not to lose their latest bet. In fact, they trick Joe into getting stuck again, and this time he hides their loincloths for two weeks.
One day during breakfast Joe sees me shaking my head in annoyance.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing, it’s just hair getting in my eyes.”
“Hold on, I got an idea. I need to discuss this with the gang.”
Joe leaves, and a few minutes later returns with the others. Mickey is carrying a scissors and comb and speaks up.
“Joe told me you need a haircut. “I wanna see how good I am at this. Have a seat.”
I sit down, and Joe, Jackie, and Farina come at me with ropes.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask rather unnecessarily.
“We need to tie you to the chair so you don’t move when Mickey’s cutting your hair,” explains Joe.
“I don’t need to be tied up to sit still for a haircut!”
“We have to make sure. I’ve never done this before,” adds Mickey.
“What!?”
It doesn’t matter; the gang does their usual excellent job of securing me to the chair. My hands are tied to the back of the chair by the seat, and my legs are wrapped around the chair legs.
“Hey, since the haircut’s over, you can untie me now!”
Or they can wait three hours.
The ransom payments continue to come in a few thousand dollars at a time several days apart. When the sum is up to forty-five thousand, Mickey tells me,
“We want to show you something.”
They set up the computer in front of me and set up a slide show consisting of hundreds of pictures of Farina, Jackie, and me tied up. In most of them we are wearing our loincloths, but in a few Farina and Jackie aren’t. There are also a few videos of the boys struggling to escape and usually failing.
The next day at dinner is a surprise. Mickey announces, “The ransom’s paid in full. Time for you to go home!”
I eat dinner in a daze. Somehow I got so used to this that I wasn’t expecting to leave. The meal ends, I get a last chance to wash up, and Mickey continues,
“We have to get you ready for your trip home. I’m sure you know what that means.”
They tie my hands behind my back, tight enough that I can’t get loose. Next, they put on a blindfold, and then two hands grab my arms and they take me up the stairs. There is a turn, and I hear a car trunk open, and I know I’m going to be placed in that soon. Then I feel my feet being tied rather tightly. I have a question.
“How is this going to work?”
Mickey explains. “We can’t let you see where you’re going, and also we can’t just drop you off at your house. So we’re dropping you off a couple miles away. Then we’ll untie your feet and take off your blindfold, so you’ll be able to walk home.”
“What about my hands?”
“You don’t need your hands to walk. Just be careful.”
They sound serious. Am I really going to be outside in public walking for two miles with my hands tied behind my back? And wearing only …
“Can’t you let me wear more than a loincloth? And the blindfold doesn’t count.”
“That would mean untying you, and that’s too much effort.”
“Actually,” Joe speaks up. “We got your other loincloth here. You can wear this too, but, … you understand that we have to gag you. Don’t worry, this one was cleaned since you wore it yesterday.”
Even if it’s clean I know where it’s been, so I respond, “That’s okay, I don’t need a gag. I promise I’ll be quiet. And you can’t dump me outside like this, people will see …”
“No they won’t, it’ll be dark,” contends Joe. “Maybe no one will see you till you get home. And besides, it looks like you’re really excited about that idea.”
There is no denying that I still can’t help reacting like that. The gang laughs again, and Mickey continues,
“You probably mean it when you say you’ll be quiet, but we can’t take the chance that you might make some loud noise. We have to gag you now, so it’s time to say good-bye.” They say good-bye in unison, and I answer,
“Good-bye, guys.”
The gag is also rather tight but not hard to breathe through. Then I hear Jackie’s voice.
“Aren’t we forgetting something?”
“Definitely,” answers Farina.
Uh-oh. My suspicion as to what they forgot proves to be correct as I am helped to the floor and get tickled by what seems to be all of them holding feathers. This might be some sort of going away present, as it lasts a lot longer than any before, maybe an hour. If they are planning to disorient me before driving me home, it’s working.
However, once the tickling is over, I feel a damp cloth being pressed in my face, which I guess is chloroform as I pass out. I hope they’ll wait for me to wake up to make sure I’m okay before driving off and leaving me to walk home bound and gagged. Not being able to think of something better, I suppose that’s a reasonable way for my adventure to end.
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sarumansauron
- Forum Contributer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 5 years ago
Great story! Thanks! 
Thanks [mention]sarumansauron[/mention], but it isn't quite over.
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I wake up disoriented and confused. When I yawn, I discover that I am gagged. I try to open my eyes, but find I am blindfolded. It feels like I’m lying face down on a bed with a sheet covering me. When I try to move, I find my hands are tied behind my back. Not surprisingly, my feet are also tied together, and I feebly kick the bed. It takes me a minute to comprehend what is going on. I must have tied myself up better than usual, and actually fallen asleep like that.
A thrill surges through my body. This is the best way to wake up! The thing is, I don’t remember doing this to myself. I normally don’t use gags and blindfolds, but maybe I got more daring. So far that was the right decision, but in case it’s morning I better get loose before my parents find out.
When I twist my hands, I find that they are not tied too tightly, which jives with that being the best that I could do by myself. In a couple minutes I pull my hands free but may have made something of a mess on the bed. I push myself up and turn around into a sitting position at the side of the bed and work on my blindfold. It has a rather tight knot and it takes me a few minutes to undo it. I realize I’m not certain where I am, and it is with relief that I find that I’m in my own bedroom.
Still, something is different. I expected to be in my boxers, but instead I’m wearing a … loincloth? … that got substantially out of place during my struggle to free myself.
In haste I take a step toward my dresser to get properly dressed, but forget that my feet are still tied which causes me to crash to the floor, knocking over an end table. The noise sends my mother rushing to the room, and she opens the door.
“Dear, are you all right?”
I die of embarrassment.
Actually, for reasons I cannot understand, I do not die of embarrassment despite my mother finding me sitting on the floor gagged, my feet tied, and rather immodestly dressed. The gag prevents me from making intelligible speech, and at the moment I really don’t want to use my hands to undo it. After what seems like forever I manage to nod that I am okay.
My mother continues, “Your father and I have told you several times that you can play your bondage games all you want, but you must be careful. Do you understand?”
All I can do is nod meekly. But what is she talking about? She and my father never discussed bondage with me, at least not after that one or two times I mentioned it and they acted like they thought I was crazy.
“Now get washed up and dressed. You don’t want to be late for the first day of seventh grade.”
“What?!” I try to shout in the gag, but that prevents me from asking that and a million other questions. “It’s still June!”
My mother smiles at me and laughs at the way the gag muffles everything I try to say. Much to my relief she leaves my room and closes the door. What happened to the summer? I get up and hop to the computer, which verifies the date. Can someone have put in a wrong date? Through the window, the sun seems to be at the correct angle for morning of the end of summer rather than the beginning where it would be much higher in the sky. In any event, I have to untie the gag and the rope around my ankles. Both prove stubbornly difficult. Once I manage that I hurriedly put on some clothes, and then notice that on my desk there are two manuscripts consisting of roughly fifty pages each. One is my 28-chapter bondage fantasy and the other has a title indicating it is a spy thriller. Only now I remember I was supposed to write something for the new school year. I am still not sure of what is going on, but I am sure I don’t want anyone else seeing the bondage paper. I shove that into the bottom of a drawer and put the spy story into my backpack.
I eat breakfast and get ready for school as fast as possible. It’s not so much that I don’t want to be late for school, but I want to get out of the house and get some time to think. Was I under some medication that could cause memory loss? Maybe something had been done to straighten my spine, and I needed to be stretched … nah, that is just too far-fetched.
When I arrive at school after a six-block walk, I am no closer to understanding what is going on. I am still in a daze as I go through the motions at school. Despite the fact that this school is for sixth through eighth grade, it seems like I don’t recognize anybody, and I can’t concentrate during my first two morning classes, history and math. I keep thinking about my writing assignment that I'm supposed to hand in in English class sixth period, which is after lunch.
For third period I have P.E, so I put my backpack in my locker and walk to gym class. Finally, I recognize a familiar smiling face in the hallway and greet him without thinking.
“Hi Farina.”
He gives a little laugh and answers, “My name isn’t Fa…”
The next few seconds play out in slow motion. This guy is a dead ringer for one of the gang in my writing assignment, albeit now dressed normally and with a recent haircut, and the shock causes me to faint. With my vision clouding over, I stare at the face as long as I can but feel myself falling backward and unable to stop myself. The face turns from a big smile into one of alarm, and I’m pretty sure he lunges at me as if to catch my arm but misses. The expression on his face turns into complete desperation as I imagine he makes one last attempt to save me.
I’m pretty sure I black out before my head hits the floor.
I wake up disoriented and confused. When I yawn, I discover that I am gagged. I try to open my eyes, but find I am blindfolded. It feels like I’m lying face down on a bed with a sheet covering me. When I try to move, I find my hands are tied behind my back. Not surprisingly, my feet are also tied together, and I feebly kick the bed. It takes me a minute to comprehend what is going on. I must have tied myself up better than usual, and actually fallen asleep like that.
A thrill surges through my body. This is the best way to wake up! The thing is, I don’t remember doing this to myself. I normally don’t use gags and blindfolds, but maybe I got more daring. So far that was the right decision, but in case it’s morning I better get loose before my parents find out.
When I twist my hands, I find that they are not tied too tightly, which jives with that being the best that I could do by myself. In a couple minutes I pull my hands free but may have made something of a mess on the bed. I push myself up and turn around into a sitting position at the side of the bed and work on my blindfold. It has a rather tight knot and it takes me a few minutes to undo it. I realize I’m not certain where I am, and it is with relief that I find that I’m in my own bedroom.
Still, something is different. I expected to be in my boxers, but instead I’m wearing a … loincloth? … that got substantially out of place during my struggle to free myself.
In haste I take a step toward my dresser to get properly dressed, but forget that my feet are still tied which causes me to crash to the floor, knocking over an end table. The noise sends my mother rushing to the room, and she opens the door.
“Dear, are you all right?”
I die of embarrassment.
Actually, for reasons I cannot understand, I do not die of embarrassment despite my mother finding me sitting on the floor gagged, my feet tied, and rather immodestly dressed. The gag prevents me from making intelligible speech, and at the moment I really don’t want to use my hands to undo it. After what seems like forever I manage to nod that I am okay.
My mother continues, “Your father and I have told you several times that you can play your bondage games all you want, but you must be careful. Do you understand?”
All I can do is nod meekly. But what is she talking about? She and my father never discussed bondage with me, at least not after that one or two times I mentioned it and they acted like they thought I was crazy.
“Now get washed up and dressed. You don’t want to be late for the first day of seventh grade.”
“What?!” I try to shout in the gag, but that prevents me from asking that and a million other questions. “It’s still June!”
My mother smiles at me and laughs at the way the gag muffles everything I try to say. Much to my relief she leaves my room and closes the door. What happened to the summer? I get up and hop to the computer, which verifies the date. Can someone have put in a wrong date? Through the window, the sun seems to be at the correct angle for morning of the end of summer rather than the beginning where it would be much higher in the sky. In any event, I have to untie the gag and the rope around my ankles. Both prove stubbornly difficult. Once I manage that I hurriedly put on some clothes, and then notice that on my desk there are two manuscripts consisting of roughly fifty pages each. One is my 28-chapter bondage fantasy and the other has a title indicating it is a spy thriller. Only now I remember I was supposed to write something for the new school year. I am still not sure of what is going on, but I am sure I don’t want anyone else seeing the bondage paper. I shove that into the bottom of a drawer and put the spy story into my backpack.
I eat breakfast and get ready for school as fast as possible. It’s not so much that I don’t want to be late for school, but I want to get out of the house and get some time to think. Was I under some medication that could cause memory loss? Maybe something had been done to straighten my spine, and I needed to be stretched … nah, that is just too far-fetched.
When I arrive at school after a six-block walk, I am no closer to understanding what is going on. I am still in a daze as I go through the motions at school. Despite the fact that this school is for sixth through eighth grade, it seems like I don’t recognize anybody, and I can’t concentrate during my first two morning classes, history and math. I keep thinking about my writing assignment that I'm supposed to hand in in English class sixth period, which is after lunch.
For third period I have P.E, so I put my backpack in my locker and walk to gym class. Finally, I recognize a familiar smiling face in the hallway and greet him without thinking.
“Hi Farina.”
He gives a little laugh and answers, “My name isn’t Fa…”
The next few seconds play out in slow motion. This guy is a dead ringer for one of the gang in my writing assignment, albeit now dressed normally and with a recent haircut, and the shock causes me to faint. With my vision clouding over, I stare at the face as long as I can but feel myself falling backward and unable to stop myself. The face turns from a big smile into one of alarm, and I’m pretty sure he lunges at me as if to catch my arm but misses. The expression on his face turns into complete desperation as I imagine he makes one last attempt to save me.
I’m pretty sure I black out before my head hits the floor.
“He’s waking up!
It is an unfamiliar woman’s voice. I have a dull headache, but find that I can move. When I blink and then fully open my eyes, I see a strange ceiling.
“How you do feel?”
The woman is dressed like a nurse, and then I realize I must be in the hospital.
“Uh, my head hurts a little. What happened?”
“You hit your head and got a mild concussion, but you’re going to be fine. Don’t make any sudden movements. I’ll get your parents.”
She leaves, and I look around. I am in a semi-private hospital room, as there is a curtain blocking the view to the other half of the room. It seems like someone is in the other bed.
A minute later my parents arrive.
My mother is surprisingly apologetic. “We are so sorry – we had no idea seeing your friend would make you faint.”
“My friend?” I try to recall the last thing I saw. It takes a minute, but then I remember seeing someone who looked exactly like my description in my story … that I don’t want to admit writing. To avoid that I just mumble, “I don’t understand.”
“We have a confession to make.” My father is ready to give a complete explanation. “We saw the story you were writing. Your mother saw it on your desk while she was changing the sheets for your bed, and showed it to me. We put it back, and remembered you mentioned being interested in getting tied up and trying to escape. We said you were crazy back then, but we looked into the matter more and realized you weren’t crazy. Then we came up with the idea of making your fantasy a reality.”
Okay, so they know about my story, but they’re still not making sense. “What do you mean real? It wasn’t real; it was a story I made up.”
“Your experience may have affected your memory. At one point, about one week into your adventure, you wrote that you were having a hard time telling what was real. You did make up the first chapter … originally. After that, everything you wrote was a diary.”
“What?!”
“The day after we found your first chapter, we staged your kidnapping. We got the boys to follow your story as closely as possible, and they did a great job.”
“Wait, where did those guys come from?”
“They told you part of the truth. They all come from broken homes and were in foster care, but they’ve also all been in trouble with the law. Vandalism and theft, and they’ve done time in the county juvenile facility. Nobody in the foster care system wanted them after that, so we tried an experiment that had been under consideration for some time. We placed them in a vacant house and gave them the responsibility of maintaining it as a condition for their probation.”
This was a lot to take in. I have a ton of questions. “But … they kept leaving me alone and tied up all the time.”
“You were never alone; there was always at least one of the boys in the house at all times. As part of their release they each had to perform a hundred hours of community service, but their schedules were staggered so there was always someone with you in the house. They were closely monitored and whoever was out had to check in with a parole officer daily. We figured it would be a better experience for you if you thought you really were tied up and alone a lot of the time. Were we right?”
I’m beginning to accept the situation. “Well, yes. I thought someone was there a lot, but not always. There was this feeling like they’d never come back, or maybe I’d get found by some stranger in a humiliating position.” It could have been worse, though. “What would have happened if I had written that I was sleeping and then walking around the house in the nude?”
“Let’s just leave that to your imagination.”
That’s a good idea. There is another problem. “What about the ransom? Did you really give them thousands of dollars?”
“No. You guys did need money to live like you did, but it came from funds that would have gone to support foster parents. And the total was a lot less than fifty thousand.”
“And where is that house?”
“It’s only a few miles from here. Close enough to be in the same school district.”
It’s all making more sense to me. My mother continues, “Are you feeling better now?”
“Yeah.”
“Well enough that you won’t faint again if you see your friend again?”
“Yes. It wouldn’t be so unexpected now.”
“All right then.”
My father then pulls back the curtain separating me from the other patient in the semiprivate room, and it’s Farina, in a hospital gown like me but with his right hand in a cast and a large bandage on his right elbow. In a very cheerful voice,
“Hi ya, Scooter! And don’t faint this time!”
I gulp, but manage not to faint. Even if I did, I was lying on a hospital bed and wouldn’t have gotten hurt again.
“Hi, uh, what happened to you?”
“Do you remember me trying to catch you when you fainted?”
“I think so. You missed, at least at first. I think you tried again, but I don’t remember, and woke up here.”
“You were falling backward, and I dove to keep your head from hitting the floor. I got my hand under your head, but broke two bones when your head smashed my hand. Also scraped my elbow and both knees, but that’s nothing.”
My mother speaks up. “The doctor said you would have had a much more severe head injury than a mild concussion if your friend hadn’t broken your fall like he did.”
So that’s what happened. “Thank you for saving me. Sorry you broke your hand.”
“Sorry for making you faint. How long will you have that cast?”
“They say about a month. How long are you in for?”
I don’t know, so my father says, “They’re keeping both of you here overnight for observation, but you should be okay for school tomorrow morning, but you’re excused from P.E. for a month. Just take it easy till then, no rough stuff.”
Missing gym class for a month isn’t so bad.
My mother then says, “Are you ready to see your other friends? School let out a little while ago.”
“Now I am.”
Sure enough, Jackie, Joe, and Mickey come into the room. They greet Farina and me, and Joe offers,
“You gotta to come to our house again some time if you can manage not to faint.”
“I won’t faint again. But I have a question – what did I write over there?”
Jackie explains, “You said you had to write something over the summer, and started writing about your time with us. Then you said you couldn’t use that and wrote that spy story also.”
“So that’s why there were two papers on my desk. I … got confused.”
“We may have been too hard on you,” says Mickey. “It looked like you were handling it great, though.”
“Yeah, wait a minute. Aren’t you too young to have a driver’s license?”
“Did you actually see me drive? Or just get into the driver’s seat?”
“I couldn’t see who was driving from inside the trunk. You mean that was a fake-out?”
“Yeah, we had a real driver.”
It’s my turn to offer an invitation with conditions. “You should come over to my house if you promise not to steal anything or kidnap anyone.”
“There’s nothing in your house worth stealing,” declares Joe, “so that part’s okay.”
Jackie agrees sort of. “No kidnapping until you’re all better, so for a month. But there’ll be Thanksgiving break.”
My parents huddle and say it’s okay. Then I ask,
“So they’re all going to keep living there?”
My father answers, “The experiment has been considered a success so it will continue.”
The gang and I look at each other and recognize we’ll have more good times in the future.
THE END
It is an unfamiliar woman’s voice. I have a dull headache, but find that I can move. When I blink and then fully open my eyes, I see a strange ceiling.
“How you do feel?”
The woman is dressed like a nurse, and then I realize I must be in the hospital.
“Uh, my head hurts a little. What happened?”
“You hit your head and got a mild concussion, but you’re going to be fine. Don’t make any sudden movements. I’ll get your parents.”
She leaves, and I look around. I am in a semi-private hospital room, as there is a curtain blocking the view to the other half of the room. It seems like someone is in the other bed.
A minute later my parents arrive.
My mother is surprisingly apologetic. “We are so sorry – we had no idea seeing your friend would make you faint.”
“My friend?” I try to recall the last thing I saw. It takes a minute, but then I remember seeing someone who looked exactly like my description in my story … that I don’t want to admit writing. To avoid that I just mumble, “I don’t understand.”
“We have a confession to make.” My father is ready to give a complete explanation. “We saw the story you were writing. Your mother saw it on your desk while she was changing the sheets for your bed, and showed it to me. We put it back, and remembered you mentioned being interested in getting tied up and trying to escape. We said you were crazy back then, but we looked into the matter more and realized you weren’t crazy. Then we came up with the idea of making your fantasy a reality.”
Okay, so they know about my story, but they’re still not making sense. “What do you mean real? It wasn’t real; it was a story I made up.”
“Your experience may have affected your memory. At one point, about one week into your adventure, you wrote that you were having a hard time telling what was real. You did make up the first chapter … originally. After that, everything you wrote was a diary.”
“What?!”
“The day after we found your first chapter, we staged your kidnapping. We got the boys to follow your story as closely as possible, and they did a great job.”
“Wait, where did those guys come from?”
“They told you part of the truth. They all come from broken homes and were in foster care, but they’ve also all been in trouble with the law. Vandalism and theft, and they’ve done time in the county juvenile facility. Nobody in the foster care system wanted them after that, so we tried an experiment that had been under consideration for some time. We placed them in a vacant house and gave them the responsibility of maintaining it as a condition for their probation.”
This was a lot to take in. I have a ton of questions. “But … they kept leaving me alone and tied up all the time.”
“You were never alone; there was always at least one of the boys in the house at all times. As part of their release they each had to perform a hundred hours of community service, but their schedules were staggered so there was always someone with you in the house. They were closely monitored and whoever was out had to check in with a parole officer daily. We figured it would be a better experience for you if you thought you really were tied up and alone a lot of the time. Were we right?”
I’m beginning to accept the situation. “Well, yes. I thought someone was there a lot, but not always. There was this feeling like they’d never come back, or maybe I’d get found by some stranger in a humiliating position.” It could have been worse, though. “What would have happened if I had written that I was sleeping and then walking around the house in the nude?”
“Let’s just leave that to your imagination.”
That’s a good idea. There is another problem. “What about the ransom? Did you really give them thousands of dollars?”
“No. You guys did need money to live like you did, but it came from funds that would have gone to support foster parents. And the total was a lot less than fifty thousand.”
“And where is that house?”
“It’s only a few miles from here. Close enough to be in the same school district.”
It’s all making more sense to me. My mother continues, “Are you feeling better now?”
“Yeah.”
“Well enough that you won’t faint again if you see your friend again?”
“Yes. It wouldn’t be so unexpected now.”
“All right then.”
My father then pulls back the curtain separating me from the other patient in the semiprivate room, and it’s Farina, in a hospital gown like me but with his right hand in a cast and a large bandage on his right elbow. In a very cheerful voice,
“Hi ya, Scooter! And don’t faint this time!”
I gulp, but manage not to faint. Even if I did, I was lying on a hospital bed and wouldn’t have gotten hurt again.
“Hi, uh, what happened to you?”
“Do you remember me trying to catch you when you fainted?”
“I think so. You missed, at least at first. I think you tried again, but I don’t remember, and woke up here.”
“You were falling backward, and I dove to keep your head from hitting the floor. I got my hand under your head, but broke two bones when your head smashed my hand. Also scraped my elbow and both knees, but that’s nothing.”
My mother speaks up. “The doctor said you would have had a much more severe head injury than a mild concussion if your friend hadn’t broken your fall like he did.”
So that’s what happened. “Thank you for saving me. Sorry you broke your hand.”
“Sorry for making you faint. How long will you have that cast?”
“They say about a month. How long are you in for?”
I don’t know, so my father says, “They’re keeping both of you here overnight for observation, but you should be okay for school tomorrow morning, but you’re excused from P.E. for a month. Just take it easy till then, no rough stuff.”
Missing gym class for a month isn’t so bad.
My mother then says, “Are you ready to see your other friends? School let out a little while ago.”
“Now I am.”
Sure enough, Jackie, Joe, and Mickey come into the room. They greet Farina and me, and Joe offers,
“You gotta to come to our house again some time if you can manage not to faint.”
“I won’t faint again. But I have a question – what did I write over there?”
Jackie explains, “You said you had to write something over the summer, and started writing about your time with us. Then you said you couldn’t use that and wrote that spy story also.”
“So that’s why there were two papers on my desk. I … got confused.”
“We may have been too hard on you,” says Mickey. “It looked like you were handling it great, though.”
“Yeah, wait a minute. Aren’t you too young to have a driver’s license?”
“Did you actually see me drive? Or just get into the driver’s seat?”
“I couldn’t see who was driving from inside the trunk. You mean that was a fake-out?”
“Yeah, we had a real driver.”
It’s my turn to offer an invitation with conditions. “You should come over to my house if you promise not to steal anything or kidnap anyone.”
“There’s nothing in your house worth stealing,” declares Joe, “so that part’s okay.”
Jackie agrees sort of. “No kidnapping until you’re all better, so for a month. But there’ll be Thanksgiving break.”
My parents huddle and say it’s okay. Then I ask,
“So they’re all going to keep living there?”
My father answers, “The experiment has been considered a success so it will continue.”
The gang and I look at each other and recognize we’ll have more good times in the future.
THE END