It's been...a long time since I posted a story, long enough ago it was on the old site. I had a few real experiences posted, mostly from my childhood. This is one of them. I wrote it years ago on the old site and could have possibly found it on the Internet archive, but just decided to rewrite it. I initially wrote it filling in the gaps in my memory with some details that were probably artistic license as my memory on details leading up to and ending the story are very fuzzy, but this time I'm just going to write what I know happened and discuss what I think happened.
I was one of a few kids who lived on a cove. For several years, I was the youngest. Two of my neighbors were boys, older by about 7 and 4 years. I'll call them Mike (older by 7 years) and Jake. Another was the closest to me in age, a girl who wasn't quite a full year older than me, but she was old enough to be a grade above me in school. I'll call her Melinda. She had an older sister who was closer in age to Jake. This happened when I was about 7, I think. You can do the math to figure out the others' ages.
I can't for the life of me remember how this got started, but somehow, Mike and Jake decided that Melinda and I were their "hostages." I do remember that word being used because I wasn't very familiar with it at that age. They used some toy guns or something to hold us down in the back of my dad's pickup truck. Somehow, they were distracted, I think by another kid shouting something at them but I can't remember for sure, and Melinda used the opportunity to jump up to run off from them. I wasn't so fast to react. I remember trying to get away, but they caught me and told me to lay back face down. They decided to let her go and keep me as their prisoner.
They decided to march me across my yard over to Mike's house next door. I probably could've tried to run off, but they were definitely faster, and a part of me was curious what they had in mind. A part of me wants to say they made me walk with my hands behind my back like I was handcuffed, but that could be getting mixed up with other games we played (there were times we faked someone being tied up instead of actually doing it--unfortunately). Mike's house had a covered porch. Mike got some kind of long strap, which I remember being this big, long blue thing, probably used to tie down something heavy, as it was relatively wide. The two older boys had me stand against one of the porch's support posts and tied me to it, my arms pinned to my sides.
I definitely remember this pretty well, pulling and struggling and trying to get free, and Mike and Jake laughing at my attempts for a minute or two. I tried to wriggle myself free, but could not figure out how to slip out no matter what I did. I wasn't tied up for long, probably no longer than 5 minutes. My memory's a bit hazy on what happened next on how I actually got untied. One of my thoughts is they walked off and left me for a minute (I do know for a fact they at least walked off briefly) and then decided to untie me so I could go home, because my mom was pretty strict about me leaving the yard, even to just go next door. I think in the original story, I wrote that Melinda came back and untied me, but I think that may have been one of the artistic licenses I took. I'm pretty sure she did at least see what happened because she made some comment about it. I can't say with certainty exactly how I got released. I know someone untied me, because I didn't escape on my own.
So there's not a lot to it, and after almost 30 years my memory of the details leading up to and the ending are definitely blurry. But parts of it have definitely stuck with me, namely the helplessness of being tied to the post, which was oddly fun and exciting. I also remember being a little frustrated when Melinda ran off and left me behind to be a prisoner by myself. Knowing she was off doing whatever she wanted while the boys "kidnapped" me increased the frustrating helplessness just a little bit. Thought not a major experience, it definitely had an impact on me to remember it even this much after all these years.
Tied by Neighbors (MM/M)
nice story
Great stories