01 - Outmatched Operative
Story index at the bottom
By Chris
Saturday, November 5th 2005 - 08:45:53 PM
Outmatched Operative
Hi all, I've been a long-time lurker in the forum, and I think many of the stories here are quite fantastic (and yes, some of them are pretty far out there in the 'susprnsion-of-disbelief' department...) My first name is actually Chris and, when I was a little kid, I was always called Christopher by both my parents and schoolmates.
Anywho, to come very clean from the start, this story I'm going to recite did actually happen to me and some friends in my youth. All the events are more-or-less in order and accurate, however I am including a bit of 'poetic license' to try to accurately describe the events, sensations, emotions and filling in some of the blank parts in my spotty memory, in order to give the story a decent narrative drive. Also, the first name I'M using is legitimate, however other participants' names are altered because: 1. its bad form giving out other people's names without permission, and 2: I can't remember some of them...
Before I get to my story of one of the (very few) tie-up games I enjoyed as a kid, I'd like to give a little background of my prepubescent development of a taste for tie-ups and, eventually, bondage (I don't like the word fetish... seems kinda unhealthy, don't you think?)
***WARNING: BACKSTORY***
Unlike many people posting to this site, I was far from blessed with an abundance of tie-up games as a child. I first came to realize that I liked the idea of being tied-up while watching a 'Jetsons' episode one day after school (for some reason, Elroy Jetson had been captured by 'space mobsters' and sat bound and gagged on a couch while the burly goons pondered his fate). Of course before this I always had that small, nagging preoccupation with the kidnapped women, hostage schoolchildren and abducted damsels in movies and TV, but this was the first time that I actually looked at a bound character's plight and said to myself: "wish I was him..."
I was about eight years old when that little revelation hit me. It wasn't an obsessive preoccupation, of course (not many 8-year-olds are bondage freaks...) but more of a subtle yearning. I would occasionally wake-up too early for school in the morning and enjoy another blessed thirty minutes of sleep, during which I sometimes found myself in that hazy area between sleep and consciousness (you know what I mean). I had terrible luck remembering most of my dreams, but not these kind. Often in those lucid dreams I would see myself sitting in a chair with ropes strewn about my chest and waist and an (I'll admit) loose and sloppy OTM clothgag obscuring my mouth (my subconscious always seemed to favor a thin off-white towel). Sometimes I'd see myself lying in the back of my kidnappers' van, a gloomy darkness obscuring my bonds and gag. My liquid blue eyes would widen with alarm at every bump and jostle of the van as it sped away with its young blond-haired hostage stashed in the back and helpless to save himself... Then I'd abruptly awaken to my mother shaking my shoulder, chiding me for over-sleeping and ordering me to get to the bus stop to catch the schoolbus. In 1st grade I was best friends with a freckled red-headed girl (Cheryl, I think her name was) and at recess we would sometimes pretend that one of us needed rescuing from some dire straits (after playing those games I would often find that my dreams involved the two of us tied, gagged and imperiled, here I also started having a few actual daydreams of those scenarios). The apex of my very young bondage fantasies occurred during a 3rd grade math lesson, when I imagined every boy and girl in the room (including myself) tied to his or her desk-chair and OTM gagged by vile masked bandits (that scenario usually ended with me freeing my mouth and crying for help from inexplicably nearby policemen or, in later daydreams, by me loosening my bonds and somehow running the men off...).
After that rather exhilarating series of thoughts I dropped the thrilling daydreams altogether. I still felt many of the same feelings at seeing characters subjected to bonds and gags in movies and TV, but my imagination was less wild (for a time, at least). BTW: the fantasies I've laid out thus far may lead you to believe that I had a tendancy to develop into a 'submissive' for bondage purposes (never liked that term, either), but in fact I became a bona-fide 'switch'. It was later when I started REALLY 'noticing' girls and progressing through puberty when I looked at the VILLIANS on movies and TV who bound and gagged their helpless victims and thought to myself: "wish THAT was me..."
OKAY: ACTUAL STORY...
When I was 12 my family lived in Northern California (great place for a kid to grow-up, by the way). The gang of kids I hung-out with was not inclined to play tie-up games, the closest we came were games of war or modified tag that involved a 'penalty-box' for those caught ('prisoners') and the hope of a team mate coming to the rescue (for a jailbreak). There was little hope for me to experience my latent fantasies in that setting, however I would often stay with a friend of the family for two to three days at a time in a smaller Northern town. The boy I stayed with, 'Sean', was two-years older than me, and most of his friends were either his age or a year older. He hung-out with a group of about 4 to 6 people (three were close friends, the others irregularly went around with them).
The closest I'd come to having a full-blown heart attack occurred when I was having lunch with Sean and two of his friends, 'Matt' and 'Steven' (Matt was 14-years old, Steven was 13). Matt and Sean were discussing afternoon plans over grilled-cheese sandwiches when Sean considered going to the rec center, however since it was a particularly nice day, Matt optioned for an outdoors activity. A few ideas were floated until finally Steven (between bites of grilled-cheese) suggested: "Hey, why don't we just play 'Operatives'?" Matt agreed with this, pointing out that he though at least four other neighborhood boys were probably available on that day. That was a lot of people, I thought.
"Just how many people do you need to play this game?" I asked, innocently. Sean seemed to ponder my presence a little. "As many as we can get, its a really HUGE game: we use a pretty big chunk of the neighborhood as a 'field'" He looked over at Matt and said: "Christopher hasn't done this one before; should we do 'soft' rules or what?"
That got me slightly interested, and not a little apprehensive. I didn't want a really rough game. I enjoyed playing football (having graduated from soccer recently) and didn't mind a few scrapes and bruises ('battle scars' were what we were starting to call them at school) but my physical proportions were not on my side: I was rather skinny and short for my age, and my clear blue eyes and dirty blond hair (it had been platinum three years earlier) didn't inspire fear in my adversaries, and playing a rough game with older boys was not the smartest idea I could fathom.
Matt didn't seem worried about it, though. "Nah," he replied, "Christopher's our top QB; you're a tough guy, right?"
"Yeah," I said, "I can do whatever, but what ARE we gonna do? What's the game like?"
Sean said: "There are two ways to play 'Operatives'. If we play soft then the rules change a little bit. It's no big deal, but we usually like the regular way we play, it's more realistic."
"The question is:" said Matt, "do you mind getting tied-up?"
The thump-thump-thump of my young heart suddenly rang loudly in my ears; my blood pressure must have shot up 30 points. I couldn't have heard that correctly...
"Huh?" I asked.
Steven explained the rules for the game (he was always our best scorekeeper and rulemaker) "See, in the game you have two teams who play on opposite sides of the neighborhood.
On each team there are two kinds of players: 'operatives' and 'searchers'."
"The operatives start in enemy territory, in the opposing team's area" Matt took over, "and they have to get to a selected point in their own territory. We call that 'home' and it's usually a tree or something. The searchers' job is to look for the operatives and stop them from reaching the home point."
Sean added: "The searchers have to physically touch the operatives to capture them, and operatives CANNOT touch home safely with an enemy searcher on their tail. Plus, no goal-tending: searchers have to stay almost out of sight of their enemy's home, but can go into enemy territory whenever the want."
My lips were getting slightly dry. "So... the searcher who catches an operative gets to tie the operative up?" (I regretted that word choice, I should have said: 'HAS to...')
"It usually ends up something like that." Sean said. "A searcher who catches an operative has the power to make the operative go wherever he wants him to, and the operative has to go willingly."
"But" Steven added, "the operative can be rescued by a searcher from their OWN team, and they're allowed to make as much noise as they want AFTER they've been captured for five minutes."
"That's a big rule" Sean continued, "if you're caught, you stay quiet for five FULL minutes. No calling out to team mates, no yelling, period."
Matt added: "After five minutes an operative can yell their head off, and if a searcher from their team finds them, they're free, period, even if they're guarded by an enemy searcher."
"Even IF they're guarded?" I asked.
Matt explained: "Most times a searcher will catch an operative in the open and take them somewhere where they can't be seen. Searchers get nylon cords to tie the prisoners up. That way they can leave the captive operative to hunt for OTHER operatives and not be wasted guarding them until their rescue."
Sean then said: "We used to play so that operatives had to be quiet, but now we have that 'five-minute rule', so unless a searcher stashes an operative somewhere REALLY out of the way, they need gags. The team who gets ALL of their operatives 'home' first wins."
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
"And in the 'soft-rules', there's no tying-up, and captive operatives have to stay quiet no matter what. And searchers need to guard them until they're freed." Steven finished.
"We can do soft play for the first time if you need to, Christopher..." Sean began "you're pretty small and quick, so I think you'll be better as an operative, and we don't want you to be freaked-out by anything, okay? And you don't HAVE to be an operative if you don't want to..."
One of my knees was trembling from beneath the kitchen table. I steadied it with a pale hand. I managed to say: "Eh, that's alright, and the game sounds kinda fun. And I definitely want to be an operative, the other team's slow-poke searchers won't stand a chance." Before gulping down a large swig of soda I added: "and those real rules ARE more realistic, let's just use those..." that was all I could manage to say at that time.
Thump-thump-thump...
Turns out we couldn't get the players assembled until the next day. Joining Sean, Matt, Steven and myself were Mike (14), Carter (14) Seth (13), and James, who was a 12-year-old like myself. As the veteran "Operative" boys talked I got the gist of each of their preferences. Mike was very athletic and tall: he was most often a searcher. Carter, who was Mike's best friend, was slimmer and shorter. I got the idea that he preferred being a searcher but almost always wound-up being an operative. Seth was quite hyperactive and squirrelly, he was always an operative. Despite being slightly taller than myself (although still skinny as a rake) James almost always preferred the operative role. With me as an operative we had 4 boys playing that part. Sean, Matt and Steven rounded-out the remaining searcher positions with Mike (though Matt apparently was used to being an operative).
First, the operatives were divided into teams: Seth was the star operative and, as such, was paired with Carter (whose track-record was likely not as stellar). That left James and myself on the other side. Mike (the star searcher) was paired with Matt, while Sean (second-best searcher after Mike) was paired with Steven. James and I were placed on Sean's team, meaning that our opponents would be Mike and Matt, and our rescueres (if the need arose) would be Sean and Steven. Mike playfully tapped me on the shoulder before we began "Think you're up for this, little boy?"
"You can try to catch me all you want, BM" (we all called him 'Big Mike' but the abbreviation always annoyed him).
"I'll be sure to get you for that one, Christopher." He smirked as we observed the game's boundaries.
The game grid was a row of two parallel streets encompassing three rows of houses. The grid was a slim rectangle, with the brick wall of the town's elementary school our 'home' area and an old oak tree on the other side as the opposing team's 'home'. There were about five blocks of houses in-between each home point. Sean took me aside before we started. "Alright, Christopher, you got all the rules down. Remember, you can't touch home if Mike or Matt is on your butt, so only run as a last resort. If you get caught, I'll find you." He had an overly-noble and comical hero's look in his eyes, but I was too preoccupied to smirk at his seriousness.
I had 'cooled-off' a little bit from yesterday. I didn't tremble now, or stutter, I was fairly level-headed, and at that moment I was actually far more interested in performing well in the game than receiving the 'captive's treatment'.
James and I were escorted several blocks back from the mid-point into enemy territory by Mike and Matt, who watched as we darted-off deep into their turf and out of sight. Seth and Carter did the same thing back in our territory, under the gaze of Sean and Steven.
Steven blew a whistle from what seemed like the other end of the world.
The game had started.
Immediately as we fell back into enemy territory to avoid Mike and Matt, James lithely darted down the block and to the left. He was thin but his legs were fairly muscular (and he had more 'leg' to his body proportionally than I did). His hazel eyes were focused and serious, his black hair spiked-up in a mess as he sprinted. As he veered off to the left he motioned for me to do the opposite. I saw the logic in this: we would get as far apart from each other and begin backtracking up opposite sides of the rectangle for home; that way the two of us couldn't both be captured at once.
It was actually pretty easygoing early on. I stayed to the backyards of the houses on my side of the rectangle. The homes of the neighborhood were designed with irregular property lines and actual hard-plank fences were rare. More common were shurbberies and even a hedgerow or two, which made my stealth all the more easy.
During one heart-pounding minute I had to lie still as a statue next to a sandbox as I saw Matt running down the street on the opposite side of the house. He was only in visual range for 10 or 15 seconds before disappearing between houses (and from a good distance, too) but for those seconds my heartbeats came in twos and threes... After that I weaved to the inside of the rectangle, running alongside the inner street under the partial shield of an overzealous gardener's landscaping project. After that I got a little nervous about being in the open and I ducked into the backyards of those houses. That was the second time I saw Matt.
He was coming back down the street, panting and out-of-breath. "Perhaps James gave him the slip" I thought to myself. I did a clumsy dive-roll into a part of the backyard not visible from the opposite street. I was ducking down with my back to a hedgerow and the street beyond that. There were several people walking up and down that street, the outer limit of our rectangle. That's why I didn't notice when HE came up behind me.
When I felt the gentle tap on the shoulder I thought, for some reason, that it was Sean, come to tell me to keep moving and stop being so paranoid. So when I turned around to come face-to-face with Mike's grinning face I turned white as a ghost.
"Come on, now, don't pass out on me, Christopher, I need those legs of yours to start moving, right now; and remember, no blabbing for five minutes!"
That was it! I was captured. I was now a kidnapped hostage, not just in a daydream, but for real this time (or as real as it could seem to a boy my age).
Mike led me backwards, deeper into enemy territory, gloating and making small-talk, which he reminded me several times that I could not respond to. "Not for another... three minutes at least!" He risked crossing the street with me, luckily for him my team's searchers were not there, or did not see us. He took me through the backyards of houses.
"Mister McCree moved all his gardening tools to his garage last winter, Christopher, but he still has his shed sitting nice and empty!" The five minutes expired as we were walking. Checking his watch at the one-minute mark, Mike commented: "I won't be able to get you into the shed in time, but I wanna make sure we get there 'uninterrupted'." Then something unexpected happened.
Something came down quickly from over my head, fell down my eyes and was jerked taut against my mouth, tight enough to pull my head back. I made a surprised grunt as Mike said: "Don't touch it: you can make noise, but otherwise you gotta do what I say while I'm with you." The gag was knotted at the back, then Mike wadded-up a very small cloth and crammed it up under the OTM and between my teeth. Baffled, I tested his handiwork and produced the classic gagged victim's "Hulmph". It was pretty weird, walking gagged with my captor, my hands free to remove the cotton muzzle but nonetheless powerless to do so.
I had managed to get myself tied-up a couple of times before this game, however those few times involved games with a babysitter or spur-of-the-moment screwing around with friends. This was the first time I was being silenced and taken away to be held as an actual prisoner! Mike continued leading me through the backyards (I can't remember if anyone was actually around to see us: it would have made for a curious display with the athletic Mike marching a younger, skinny boy through their backyard while the captive wore a gag). Soon we heard someone from far off yelling something (I couldn't tell what), but I suddenly heard a voice that I did know: Sean's voice rang out from fairly nearby: "I'm over here, Steve!"
My eyes dilated at this, but Mike was quick to roughly pull me against the concrete side of a house; he held my shoulder down, keeping me in a squatting position as he pressed his other hand firmly over my gagged face. I made some pretty loud moans and grunts as he held me; Mike whispered in my ear: "You're allowed to make whatever noise you can, Christopher, but I'm also allowed to give you a 'Texas titty-twister' like you wouldn't believe, so keep that in mind!" Mike was pretty infamous for his juvenile torture techniques, so I rather wisely decided to stop my "mmmph-ing". I remained squatting on my haunches, staring at Mike with my round eyes as he peered around the corner. He took his hand away from my gag. "Sit down on your butt, Christopher." He ordered me, and I did so. Mike walked a few feet around the corner, looking. Sean was long-gone, and so Mike got me to my feet and we continued to the shed.
"Go ahead and take the gag, off, but remember what happens if you start blabbing." We were in the small tool shed behind Mister McCree's house. One of the doors was off it's hinge, but it was still the ideal place to store things to keep them out of the way, like rakes, shovels, fertilizer, and even a captive boy...
I worked the knot of the OTM off and gratefully pulled the cloth from between my teeth. That had been my first actual gag (not like the cheesy and loose OTM's I had been subjected to once or twice before that, neither time did those other gags involve mouthstuffing, however loose it had been...) "Sheesh, Mike, you didn't have to be so rough with me you know."
Mike sneered as he closed one of the open doors as best he could. "Come on, you're a big boy, right?"
"What now, anyway?"
Mike pulled a coil of black nylon cord from his jeans pocket. "What do you think, genius? Cross your hands behind your back." I did that and Mike spun me around so he was behind me. I felt him whipping the cord around my wrists and tugging it, pulling it, and knotting it tight. After my wrists were totally restrained he motioned to the rear of the shed and ordered "sit down." I looked at the splintery floor dubiously: I was dressed lightly for that warm day, wearing only a tee and shorts. The floor looked uncomfortable. "Do I get a blanket or something?"
"No," Mike said "but you get real beating if you don't put your butt on the floorboards." That ended that discussion.
I had to put my ankles together while Mike tied them in place. The knots were pretty tight against my bare skin. I think I complained about this, and the floor too. "Look, why don't you let me stand-up or something? I wouldn't try to run off or anything-" Mike rolled his eyes as he got up and said: "that's it: I was going to wait it out and babysit your sorry ass while Seth and Carter worked their way back to our home, but your whining is a little too annoying." He retrieved the cloth that had been stuffed between my teeth, still damp with my saliva, and jammed it back into my mouth. He then grabbed a big dirty rag from one of the shed's shelves and folded it to OTM gag me. My eyes widened as I shook my head and tried to spit out my gag-wad. But Mike held the wad forcefully in as he wrapped the large rag several times around my head, cinching it in a monster knot at the back of my head. "I'm going to make sure Seth and Carter make it back so we can win the game. This should keep you safe and sound for awhile, at least as long as I need to help get my operatives get back home." He patted my cheek, which for some reason really infuriated me, "and there's no way for YOUR team to win while you're in here, Christopher." As a final insult, he unlaced my tennies and yanked my socks off (he stuffed the socks into my sneakers so they wouldn't get lost) and left them sitting uselessly next to me. "I wouldn't walk around if I were you: there's lots of splinters in this shed!" He left me in the shed with my wrists bound behind my back, my ankles tightly restrained and my mouth helplessly gagged. I sat against the wall moving my chest back and forth as I fought with the cords binding my wrists: they were very tight and wouldn't simply snap off. It occurred to me to try to reach the knots, but that was impossible. I wiggled each of my legs in a vain attempt to free my ankles. It was hot and stuffy in the old shed, and I soon became uncomfortably sticky with sweat as I struggled. Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead, down my nose and cheeks and collected in the absorbant rag that eclipsed my mouth. I dejectedly put my head against the wall and resorted to "mmmph-ing".
I found that I could understand my own grunting yells (Mike's gag was as precise as a gag in a kid's game could hope to be, which is not totally effective...) but my muffled yells didn't carry too far. I looked at my naked feet and cursed Mike: "Muf-fa fass-farve!" I grunted (that was pretty strong language for me at that age, but I was really angry at how he'd patted my cheek and been so smug about leaving me in the shed. Outside there was pretty much nothing happening; I heard neither Sean or Steven searching for me nor anyone running around the area (once I heard a lady humming next-door as she watered some plants, with some effort my moans could have reached her, but I wasn't about to be freed by anyone other than my team mates).
After being alone for about 10 minutes or so I realized I might be alone for a while. Escape was impossible, there was no one around to hear my grunts, so I quite quickly began to remember some of the fantasies of my younger days. As a younger boy, my daydreams often revolved around my captivity and helplessness. At 12-years-old I had shifted away from that stuff, most of my current fantasies involved me being a hero and doing really neat stuff. Sitting in the shed, sweating, grunting, struggling, all my childhood thoughts flooded back: I was kidnapped by masked men who stashed
me in the shed after driving away with me staring helplessly out the back window of their van, my eyes tearfully shining over my gag. I was a hostage schoolboy, stowed in the school's maintenance shed and waiting for my captors to return carrying struggling boys and girls over their shoulders, everyone surprised and scared in their bonds and gags. I was a captive child in a hideout staring across the room at Cheryl (I remembered her quite clearly, now) as she struggles in a hard-backed chair and tosses her head to and fro, desperate to remove the white OTM that covers her freckled cheeks and muzzles her cries...
Suddenly I really wanted a mirror: to see what I looked like all tied-up and gagged. I was still sweating and, every now and then, I moaned and grunted. I started bumping my backside against the side of the tool shed (my feet were at risk for splinters if I used them) and every now and then I put a lively effort into trying to loosen my bonds. After a time I suddenly realized that I was starting to be physically excited by the situation; I moved away from the wall and rolled over onto my tummy (I didn't want to be found like THAT!). After that I lay there pressed against the uneven wood floor, my body bathed in sweat and the only noise in the shed being the regular breathing through my gag.
Both Mike and Matt came in soon after that. Matt took one look at me and simply saluted and said: "How's it going, Christopher?" I just stared at him mutely. He turned to Mike: "I was babysitting James a few blocks back near a sandbox, but Sean found us, so he got free and I think he made it home."
I got the full story later: He had nabbed James near the sandbox where I'd hidden myself from Mike (I still don't know what he was doing back on my side). James got tied and gagged right there, and Matt kept him lying down behind the box, so he couldn't be seen from the street. I never asked whether Sean had stumbled upon the two of them, or whether James had been able to alert his rescuer by grunting and rolling around.
"Then that means that Christopher is the last one they need to win." Mike replied.
Matt nodded and looked at me head to toe: "But I don't think the guy's going anywhere. Seth made it home a long time ago, but I think Carter got caught."
"Of course he did, what else is new?" Mike said. The two agreed to leave me there and search to free Carter. "See you later, Christopher!" Mike sneered as they both slipped out the one open door of the shed.
We lost the game. Sean came in the shed about 10 minutes later and freed me. I rubbed my wrists and my jaw as Sean recounted how Mike had found Carter (who was being guarded by Steven) and Carter had managed to slip all the way into home after that. I apologized about being caught and being unable to free myself, but Sean insisted that I did pretty well and had gotten pretty close to home.
Mike hadn't ever used the shed for victim storage, and Sean didn't know it was free for that purpose, so he hadn't thought about checking it (turns out he had come pretty darn close to me several times,likely within earshot of my gagged cries, had I been making them at the time). In fact, we assembled for another game later on in the day, with mostly the same teams, and I just barely managed to reach home without being caught (I was chased a few times, but like a rabbit, I'm not too easy to catch). Of course, during that game it was awfully tempting to slow down just a little and get tapped on the shoulder...
Of my very few tie-up experiences, that is the one I remember most vividly. The next time we all played 'operatives' (during another visit) should have been more memorable (since it not only involved me tied and muffled, but ALSO another boy with me in the same room in a similar predicament (his name starts with a 'J', if you need a hint.) The only thing more perfect than THAT would involve being captured with a girl (alas, an unobtainable goal for me at that point...) But this was my very first taste of true helplessness and captivity. Whatever expectations I had had about it were not met, they were exceeded...
Hope you all enjoyed that one!
Chris
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Chris' stories
- 01 - Outmatched Operative (m+/m+)
- 02 - Challenging Lisa (f/m)
- 03 - In the Pale Moonlight: Outmatched Operatives (mm/mm)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section