A New Hobby (F/ff) (Part 2 now posted)
Posted: Wed May 06, 2020 4:38 pm
I've been lurking here for ages, so I thought it was time I paid my dues and posted something. So here it is...
Ettie
A New Hobby
So, coronavirus and Britain is in near lockdown. It’s not so bad for my family. I’m a single mum living with my two teenage daughters and our dog in a small house on the edge of a seaside village in the north-east of England. We have a small garden and just across the road is the beach.
By the second week of the schools being closed we’d settled into a sort of routine. The girls are at a high school in a neighbouring town about 16 miles away, so we’re used to getting up early for the school bus, which takes almost an hour to get there. Now we’re all up and breakfasted before 8 o’clock (although sometimes still in pyjamas) and ready to start work. The girls are 13 and 15, so fairly well disciplined at settling down to the on-line schoolwork provided for them. I normally work from home two days a week anyway, so expanding that to five wasn’t much of a change, except for a welcome relief from commuting.
By 1 o’clock, the girls have generally blitzed their work and I’m ready for a break. I organise some lunch for the three of us while the girls take the dog for a walk on the beach, which is generally deserted apart from occasional other dog walkers. (Keeping the required 2 metres away from other people really isn’t difficult under those circumstances.)
It’s after lunch that things get more challenging as time begins to hang heavy on the girls’ hands. I still have work to do, although I’m usually done by 3:30, so I need a bit of peace and quiet. The girls are quite good at respecting that but the noise levels sometimes begin to rise. One day, they were particularly loud as I was trying to focus on a video conference call with my work colleagues. I emerged after my virtual meeting to investigate what sounded like a minor riot. The girls were actually peaceably playing a video game but so engrossed in the excitement that they were shouting at each other as they played. That’s when I inadvertently triggered a whole new chain of events.
As I came into the sitting room, it dawned on them how noisy they’d been. Alice (the 15 year old) paused the game and they both looked at me somewhat sheepishly.
“Sorry, Mum,” said Liz (the 13 year old).
“I should hope so,” I replied. “Do I have to keep you two tied up and gagged to get some peace around here?”
My smile should have indicated that I was joking so I wasn’t expecting the response I got. The girls exchanged what I can only call a significant glance and there was a noticeable silence while some sort of sisterly telepathy went on before Alice spoke.
“We-e-ell,” she began tentatively, “we were thinking of talking to you about something along those lines...”
Liz, always more direct, cut in. “There’s these videos on YouTube,” she began.
I tensed; there are quite a lot of things on YouTube that I would really prefer my daughters not to be looking at.
Liz saw my reaction and hurriedly added. “No, don’t worry. Just lately, lots of Indian women have been putting up videos of them being tied up and then escaping.”
Alice picked up the story. “Usually they get tied up using those long scarf things that Indian and Pakistani women wear.”
“Dupattas,” I said helpfully.
“Yeah, those. and they always get loose in just a minute or two.”
“They call them ‘hogtie challenge’,” Liz explained.
“They get hogtied?” I asked, still trying to gauge how serious this was.
“Isn’t hogtied just very tied up?” Alice asked.
“Hogtied is when someone is lying on their tummy with their hands and feet tied together behind their back,” I said, now worried that this conversation was heading down a rabbit hole I didn’t want to explore.
“It would be easier if we just showed you,” Liz said, getting to her feet.
I followed the girls into the room they used as a combined study, art studio and general hobbies room. Liz sat down at the desk and started YouTube on the laptop they shared. A few keystrokes later and I was watching an Indian woman being tied up by another woman using brightly coloured long cotton scarves. She started off sitting on a rug, sideways on to the camera, with her knees slightly raised. Her legs were tied at the ankles and above the knees. There was nothing complicated in the bindings, just wrapping and knotting. Her wrists were tied behind her back. The way they were tied wasn’t clear from the video but I suspected it was equally unsophisticated. Another dupatta was tied around her upper arms and chest then she was gagged with a scarf over her mouth and blindfolded with one over her eyes. Some very low-key struggling followed with the woman’s hands coming free in less than two minutes, just as Alice had said. She then removed her gag and blindfold and methodically united herself. After a final smile to the camera and a comment in Hindi, the video ended.
“Are they all like this?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” Alice confirmed. “The way they get tied up varies a bit and I’ve seen ones where they get tied to chairs and some where they’re actually hogtied like you described.”
“And they all escape as easily as that?”
“Sometimes even quicker.”
“And why exactly were you going to talk to me about this?” I asked, dragging the subject back to its starting point.
“We thought it looked fun to try,” Alice explained.
“But it really isn’t worth bothering if you can escape in two minutes,” Liz cut in, sounding a bit frustrated.
“We thought it wouldn’t be hard to tie each other up but make it harder to escape,” Alice continued, in slightly more measured tones.
“What did you use?” I asked.
Liz replied by disappearing from the room and returning with a blue and green striped woollen scarf. “We don’t have anything like those...”
“Dupattas,” I prompted.
“...so we just used ordinary scarves.”
“Alice, let’s show her,” Liz said.
Her older sister turned around and held her hands out behind her with her wrists crossed. Liz looped the scarf around Alice’s wrists twice then tied a simple overhand knot. She pulled the ends of the scarf hard, tugging them several times to pull it tight, then tied a second overhand to create a snug reef knot.
Alice bent her elbows and twisted her hands around to find some slack. It was obvious that the girls had done this a few times for Alice to have developed such an assured technique. Sure enough, after only two or three minutes, she was able to pull one hand loose.
“A woolly scarf is really too thick and too stretchy,” I pointed out. “You can pull it really tight and there’s still enough stretch to be able to pull your hands free.”
The girls both looked a little crestfallen at that.
“Bandannas would work better,” I went on, “and we’ve got plenty of those.”
There’s actually a good reason we’re ridiculously well stocked with bandannas. It’s all down to living next to the beach. Our beach is very fine white sand, so on a windy day at low tide, the sand at the top of the beach dries out and gets blown around. It’s not quite a full-blown sandstorm but very unpleasant when you’re facing into it. As it happened, one day like that, we found that our local sells-everything shop had six-packs of coloured bandannas on sale (one each or red, blue, green, yellow, purple, black and white, printed in traditional Paisley pattern). They weren’t top quality but they were acceptable, so we bought one pack each. We also have inexpensive bubble goggles for the same reason.
“Can you show us, mum?” Liz asked.
“What makes you think I would be able to do that?”
“Well, you knew a bandanna would work better,” Alice pointed out reasonably.
“And you’re really good at knots,” Liz added.
That was perfectly true. In my teens I was a Sea Scout and I still know lots of useful knots.
By unspoken consent, we had all drifted to the bedroom the girls shared. I detected just a hint of a challenge to prove I knew my stuff, so I didn’t prevaricate. “Liz, hold your hands out in front of you. Alice, bandanna, please.”
Alice handed me a blue bandanna. I laid it out flat on the bed, folded it into a triangle then into a narrow band. I adjusted Liz’s hands so they were palm to palm then draped the bandanna over her wrists. I pulled the ends tight below her outstretched wrists, twisted them around each other and then brought them up between her arms and double-knotted the ends to form a snug cinch.
“OK,” I instructed. “Let’s see you get out of that.”
Liz struggled with the binding for nearly five minutes before admitting defeat.
“You might be able to get the knot with your teeth,” I pointed out.
Liz looked sceptical but tried anyway. It took several failed attempts, but eventually she managed to get the first half-hitch undone. With a little bit of wriggling of her hands to persuade it to come loose, she managed to untie the second one and held up the bandanna with a smug grin.
“You wouldn’t be able to do that if your hands were behind your back,” Alice observed.
“It would be fun to try though,” Liz replied. “Could you tie us both up, please, mum?”
Liz glanced at her sister to see if she agreed. Alice replied with a thumbs-up.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I advised with mock severity. “Best take a trip to the bathroom; it might be a while before you get the chance again.”
The girls headed off in different directions, one to the family bathroom, the other to the small washroom at the back door. While they were gone, I raided their wardrobe for more bandannas.
Liz was back first. “Are you going to be warm enough?” I asked. “You can get surprisingly chilly sitting around tied up and not moving.”
Liz was wearing a pair of jeans worn through at the knees. Through the holes, you could see the red woolly tights she had on underneath. She was also still wearing the thick grey hiking socks she had put on with her boots when she went out to walk the dog. Her top half was clad only in a long-sleeved cotton tee shirt. She added a thick grey sweater for extra warmth.
Alice was back shortly afterwards. “You look as though you’ll be warm enough like that,” I commented, observing the huge baggy cream coloured sweater she was wearing (actually one of mine that she intercepted when I was going to throw it out). Below that, she had a pair of black leggings and grey socks like her sister’s.
“Right,” I announced, “I’ve got the bandannas already folded.”
“Three each?” Alice queried.
“Wrists, ankles and gag,” I said. “You’re not properly tied up unless you’re gagged. So, who goes first?”
“Meeee!” Liz exclaimed bouncing in front of me and presenting her hands behind her back.
I applied exactly the same cinched tie to Liz’s wrists as I had earlier except that this time they were behind her back. I got her to sit on the edge of her bed and then did the same thing to her ankles. Lastly, I guided the third bandanna between her teeth and knotted the ends behind her head.
“Your turn,” I said to Alice and applied the same restraints to my older daughter.
I checked over my work one last time to be sure that all the bindings were secure but not too tight.
The girls were both sitting on the edges of their beds as I finished. They looked at each other then at me as I was about to leave the room, obviously expecting me to say something.
“Maybe I should have explained the game,” I said. “All you have to do is to escape. If you’re not free in two hours, I’ll come back and untie you.”
I paused in the doorway. “You may find the gags make it a bit harder to untie the knots with your teeth.” I glanced at the clock to note the time. “Have fun,” I added with an appropriately villainous cackle.
I still had work I could usefully do in the peace and quiet so I settled down at my desk with the dog curled up at my feet and began typing on my computer.
After reading a lengthy report and sending a long succession of emails, I was alerted by a polite knock on my office door. (The door generally stands open, but I encourage the girls to knock to get my attention.)
I glanced at the time on my computer screen then swivelled round on my chair. The girls were standing in the doorway, slightly dishevelled but grinning broadly.
“An hour and a quarter, that’s really good!” I said, genuinely impressed. “I thought I’d got you good and proper.”
“It took us a while to work out how to escape,” Alice said. “We spent ages back-to-back trying to untie each others hands with our fingers but we just couldn’t get it to work.”
“Then I remembered why you’d gagged us,” Liz chipped in, excited as usual. “We could still talk in a sort of mumble so I got Alice to sit still while I tried to untie her gag.”
“It didn’t work, so I had a go at Liz’s gag and I got it off.”
“Then I used my teeth on Alice’s hands. It’s really hard to get your teeth in the right place when it’s someone else’s hands and they can’t see what you’re doing. Anyway I got her hands undone eventually.”
“It only took about five minutes after that to get everything else off,” Alice said, concluding the account.
“Really good work,” I said, still very impressed. “No strains or injuries?”
“No,” Alice confirmed, “but I do feel really well exercised.”
“Can we do this again another day?” Liz asked.
“Escapology could be our new hobby during lockdown,” Alice suggested.
“Yes and you ought to make it harder next time so we get better,” Liz added.
“Sounds like an easy way to keep you two amused,” I replied with a laugh.
The girls left me to finish up my work but I was wondering what their next challenge should be.
Ettie
A New Hobby
So, coronavirus and Britain is in near lockdown. It’s not so bad for my family. I’m a single mum living with my two teenage daughters and our dog in a small house on the edge of a seaside village in the north-east of England. We have a small garden and just across the road is the beach.
By the second week of the schools being closed we’d settled into a sort of routine. The girls are at a high school in a neighbouring town about 16 miles away, so we’re used to getting up early for the school bus, which takes almost an hour to get there. Now we’re all up and breakfasted before 8 o’clock (although sometimes still in pyjamas) and ready to start work. The girls are 13 and 15, so fairly well disciplined at settling down to the on-line schoolwork provided for them. I normally work from home two days a week anyway, so expanding that to five wasn’t much of a change, except for a welcome relief from commuting.
By 1 o’clock, the girls have generally blitzed their work and I’m ready for a break. I organise some lunch for the three of us while the girls take the dog for a walk on the beach, which is generally deserted apart from occasional other dog walkers. (Keeping the required 2 metres away from other people really isn’t difficult under those circumstances.)
It’s after lunch that things get more challenging as time begins to hang heavy on the girls’ hands. I still have work to do, although I’m usually done by 3:30, so I need a bit of peace and quiet. The girls are quite good at respecting that but the noise levels sometimes begin to rise. One day, they were particularly loud as I was trying to focus on a video conference call with my work colleagues. I emerged after my virtual meeting to investigate what sounded like a minor riot. The girls were actually peaceably playing a video game but so engrossed in the excitement that they were shouting at each other as they played. That’s when I inadvertently triggered a whole new chain of events.
As I came into the sitting room, it dawned on them how noisy they’d been. Alice (the 15 year old) paused the game and they both looked at me somewhat sheepishly.
“Sorry, Mum,” said Liz (the 13 year old).
“I should hope so,” I replied. “Do I have to keep you two tied up and gagged to get some peace around here?”
My smile should have indicated that I was joking so I wasn’t expecting the response I got. The girls exchanged what I can only call a significant glance and there was a noticeable silence while some sort of sisterly telepathy went on before Alice spoke.
“We-e-ell,” she began tentatively, “we were thinking of talking to you about something along those lines...”
Liz, always more direct, cut in. “There’s these videos on YouTube,” she began.
I tensed; there are quite a lot of things on YouTube that I would really prefer my daughters not to be looking at.
Liz saw my reaction and hurriedly added. “No, don’t worry. Just lately, lots of Indian women have been putting up videos of them being tied up and then escaping.”
Alice picked up the story. “Usually they get tied up using those long scarf things that Indian and Pakistani women wear.”
“Dupattas,” I said helpfully.
“Yeah, those. and they always get loose in just a minute or two.”
“They call them ‘hogtie challenge’,” Liz explained.
“They get hogtied?” I asked, still trying to gauge how serious this was.
“Isn’t hogtied just very tied up?” Alice asked.
“Hogtied is when someone is lying on their tummy with their hands and feet tied together behind their back,” I said, now worried that this conversation was heading down a rabbit hole I didn’t want to explore.
“It would be easier if we just showed you,” Liz said, getting to her feet.
I followed the girls into the room they used as a combined study, art studio and general hobbies room. Liz sat down at the desk and started YouTube on the laptop they shared. A few keystrokes later and I was watching an Indian woman being tied up by another woman using brightly coloured long cotton scarves. She started off sitting on a rug, sideways on to the camera, with her knees slightly raised. Her legs were tied at the ankles and above the knees. There was nothing complicated in the bindings, just wrapping and knotting. Her wrists were tied behind her back. The way they were tied wasn’t clear from the video but I suspected it was equally unsophisticated. Another dupatta was tied around her upper arms and chest then she was gagged with a scarf over her mouth and blindfolded with one over her eyes. Some very low-key struggling followed with the woman’s hands coming free in less than two minutes, just as Alice had said. She then removed her gag and blindfold and methodically united herself. After a final smile to the camera and a comment in Hindi, the video ended.
“Are they all like this?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” Alice confirmed. “The way they get tied up varies a bit and I’ve seen ones where they get tied to chairs and some where they’re actually hogtied like you described.”
“And they all escape as easily as that?”
“Sometimes even quicker.”
“And why exactly were you going to talk to me about this?” I asked, dragging the subject back to its starting point.
“We thought it looked fun to try,” Alice explained.
“But it really isn’t worth bothering if you can escape in two minutes,” Liz cut in, sounding a bit frustrated.
“We thought it wouldn’t be hard to tie each other up but make it harder to escape,” Alice continued, in slightly more measured tones.
“What did you use?” I asked.
Liz replied by disappearing from the room and returning with a blue and green striped woollen scarf. “We don’t have anything like those...”
“Dupattas,” I prompted.
“...so we just used ordinary scarves.”
“Alice, let’s show her,” Liz said.
Her older sister turned around and held her hands out behind her with her wrists crossed. Liz looped the scarf around Alice’s wrists twice then tied a simple overhand knot. She pulled the ends of the scarf hard, tugging them several times to pull it tight, then tied a second overhand to create a snug reef knot.
Alice bent her elbows and twisted her hands around to find some slack. It was obvious that the girls had done this a few times for Alice to have developed such an assured technique. Sure enough, after only two or three minutes, she was able to pull one hand loose.
“A woolly scarf is really too thick and too stretchy,” I pointed out. “You can pull it really tight and there’s still enough stretch to be able to pull your hands free.”
The girls both looked a little crestfallen at that.
“Bandannas would work better,” I went on, “and we’ve got plenty of those.”
There’s actually a good reason we’re ridiculously well stocked with bandannas. It’s all down to living next to the beach. Our beach is very fine white sand, so on a windy day at low tide, the sand at the top of the beach dries out and gets blown around. It’s not quite a full-blown sandstorm but very unpleasant when you’re facing into it. As it happened, one day like that, we found that our local sells-everything shop had six-packs of coloured bandannas on sale (one each or red, blue, green, yellow, purple, black and white, printed in traditional Paisley pattern). They weren’t top quality but they were acceptable, so we bought one pack each. We also have inexpensive bubble goggles for the same reason.
“Can you show us, mum?” Liz asked.
“What makes you think I would be able to do that?”
“Well, you knew a bandanna would work better,” Alice pointed out reasonably.
“And you’re really good at knots,” Liz added.
That was perfectly true. In my teens I was a Sea Scout and I still know lots of useful knots.
By unspoken consent, we had all drifted to the bedroom the girls shared. I detected just a hint of a challenge to prove I knew my stuff, so I didn’t prevaricate. “Liz, hold your hands out in front of you. Alice, bandanna, please.”
Alice handed me a blue bandanna. I laid it out flat on the bed, folded it into a triangle then into a narrow band. I adjusted Liz’s hands so they were palm to palm then draped the bandanna over her wrists. I pulled the ends tight below her outstretched wrists, twisted them around each other and then brought them up between her arms and double-knotted the ends to form a snug cinch.
“OK,” I instructed. “Let’s see you get out of that.”
Liz struggled with the binding for nearly five minutes before admitting defeat.
“You might be able to get the knot with your teeth,” I pointed out.
Liz looked sceptical but tried anyway. It took several failed attempts, but eventually she managed to get the first half-hitch undone. With a little bit of wriggling of her hands to persuade it to come loose, she managed to untie the second one and held up the bandanna with a smug grin.
“You wouldn’t be able to do that if your hands were behind your back,” Alice observed.
“It would be fun to try though,” Liz replied. “Could you tie us both up, please, mum?”
Liz glanced at her sister to see if she agreed. Alice replied with a thumbs-up.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I advised with mock severity. “Best take a trip to the bathroom; it might be a while before you get the chance again.”
The girls headed off in different directions, one to the family bathroom, the other to the small washroom at the back door. While they were gone, I raided their wardrobe for more bandannas.
Liz was back first. “Are you going to be warm enough?” I asked. “You can get surprisingly chilly sitting around tied up and not moving.”
Liz was wearing a pair of jeans worn through at the knees. Through the holes, you could see the red woolly tights she had on underneath. She was also still wearing the thick grey hiking socks she had put on with her boots when she went out to walk the dog. Her top half was clad only in a long-sleeved cotton tee shirt. She added a thick grey sweater for extra warmth.
Alice was back shortly afterwards. “You look as though you’ll be warm enough like that,” I commented, observing the huge baggy cream coloured sweater she was wearing (actually one of mine that she intercepted when I was going to throw it out). Below that, she had a pair of black leggings and grey socks like her sister’s.
“Right,” I announced, “I’ve got the bandannas already folded.”
“Three each?” Alice queried.
“Wrists, ankles and gag,” I said. “You’re not properly tied up unless you’re gagged. So, who goes first?”
“Meeee!” Liz exclaimed bouncing in front of me and presenting her hands behind her back.
I applied exactly the same cinched tie to Liz’s wrists as I had earlier except that this time they were behind her back. I got her to sit on the edge of her bed and then did the same thing to her ankles. Lastly, I guided the third bandanna between her teeth and knotted the ends behind her head.
“Your turn,” I said to Alice and applied the same restraints to my older daughter.
I checked over my work one last time to be sure that all the bindings were secure but not too tight.
The girls were both sitting on the edges of their beds as I finished. They looked at each other then at me as I was about to leave the room, obviously expecting me to say something.
“Maybe I should have explained the game,” I said. “All you have to do is to escape. If you’re not free in two hours, I’ll come back and untie you.”
I paused in the doorway. “You may find the gags make it a bit harder to untie the knots with your teeth.” I glanced at the clock to note the time. “Have fun,” I added with an appropriately villainous cackle.
I still had work I could usefully do in the peace and quiet so I settled down at my desk with the dog curled up at my feet and began typing on my computer.
After reading a lengthy report and sending a long succession of emails, I was alerted by a polite knock on my office door. (The door generally stands open, but I encourage the girls to knock to get my attention.)
I glanced at the time on my computer screen then swivelled round on my chair. The girls were standing in the doorway, slightly dishevelled but grinning broadly.
“An hour and a quarter, that’s really good!” I said, genuinely impressed. “I thought I’d got you good and proper.”
“It took us a while to work out how to escape,” Alice said. “We spent ages back-to-back trying to untie each others hands with our fingers but we just couldn’t get it to work.”
“Then I remembered why you’d gagged us,” Liz chipped in, excited as usual. “We could still talk in a sort of mumble so I got Alice to sit still while I tried to untie her gag.”
“It didn’t work, so I had a go at Liz’s gag and I got it off.”
“Then I used my teeth on Alice’s hands. It’s really hard to get your teeth in the right place when it’s someone else’s hands and they can’t see what you’re doing. Anyway I got her hands undone eventually.”
“It only took about five minutes after that to get everything else off,” Alice said, concluding the account.
“Really good work,” I said, still very impressed. “No strains or injuries?”
“No,” Alice confirmed, “but I do feel really well exercised.”
“Can we do this again another day?” Liz asked.
“Escapology could be our new hobby during lockdown,” Alice suggested.
“Yes and you ought to make it harder next time so we get better,” Liz added.
“Sounds like an easy way to keep you two amused,” I replied with a laugh.
The girls left me to finish up my work but I was wondering what their next challenge should be.