bondagefreak wrote: ↑6 years ago
@Jason Toddman
I'm gonna read this newest chapter a bit later.
Yes, the blue box means you've been tagged. You need to click on it for the system to actually tag you.
When it happens, just click on your name.
It only happens when you quote a message where someone's been tagged. This time, you quoted a message that had your name tagged to it. Since "quoting" means starting a new post, the board needs you to click on the tagged name for the tagging to come under effect again.
Very annoying device then, since it kept deleting part of my text. Who came up with that idea? I hate it.
Part 23
“G*d damn you!” John tried to shout as loud as he could. “Don’t leave me like this!!! My arms and shoulders are KILLING me!!! Come back! COME BACK! Goddammit, come back here, or I’ll f***ing KILL you bastards! LEMME DOWN, DAMMIT!!”
But John’s muffled cries and threats might as well have been the twittering of little birds up in the treetops for all the attention they got him. Unfazed, Will and Paul ran over to the pool without a backward glance at him, climbed up to the diving board, and leaped off to splash noisily into the pool.
John’s rage knew no bounds, and he began to writhe and thrash about like a madman as he half-hung, half rolled on his skated feet as he fought to free himself or at least find a less uncomfortable position.
Completely by accident, John managed to twist both his ankles in the same direction at the same time just as his feet were once again seeking purchase on the concrete beneath him. Instead of sliding right out from under him as they had before, the wheels of his skates caught on small imperfections in the hard surface and – as long as John remained reasonably still – ceased to move. For the first time since he’d been hung up on the laundry posts, John was able to support some of his weight onto his feet and legs instead of taking it all upon his aching arms and shoulders.
John sighed quietly with relief and – finally realizing his anger and panic had been working against him - sought to calm down. He looked down at his feet, and realized that he could have seen the solution to his support problem immediately if he’d been calmer to begin with. Maybe, with some more calm thought and planning, he could eventually find a way out of this predicament.
However, calm and rational thought proved elusive as – with simmering resentment - he watched Will and Paul splashing around the cool water of the pool and ignoring him while he hung out in the open sun to slowly bake. John continued to watch the other two boys as they played in the water and then, after a while, emerge from the pool, settle down into a couple of lawn chairs facing him, and sunbathe.
John tried to wriggle his way loose from his bonds, but could scarcely budge.
With a noisy “Caw! Caw!” a rather large raven suddenly fluttered out of nowhere and landed on a part of the snowboard between his left hand and his head.
“Get off me!” John yelled (or tried to yell) in outrage; twisting and turning his head in order to scare the obnoxious bird away.
“Caw! Caw!” squawked the bird as it took fright and flew off.
Will and Paul laughed as they looked at John; evidently finding the scene funny.
“You bastards!” John raged at them in muffled gag talk that was perfectly inaudible from a quarter of the distance between them and was indecipherable even to himself. “You think that’s funny? How’d you like it if I propped *you* up here like a couple of department store dummies and left you to… NOW WHAT THE HELL?!”
John’s final outburst was so loud it was almost audible even from where Paul and Will sat watching him as another raven landed on his snowboard; tis time on the opposite end of it and facing away from his head rather than toward it.
“Shoo! Scat! Beat it!!!” John groused in gag-speak as he sought to scare away this new intruder. But the crow was not only unimpressed with his attempt to frighten it, but a second raven joined it – squatting where the original one had sat.
“Get out of here!” John yelled angrily as he sought to writhe and twist his body enough to frighten the ravens away.
Several more ravens landed on the ground by his feet. Then several more. All of the birds began cawing raucously. The ones beside his head seemed especially loud, making John speculate that they were doing it deliberately just to annoy him.
John was suddenly reminded of the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds” and began to get nervous. Birds didn’t really act like they had in that movie, did they? In a nervous sweat, he looked down at the ravens on the ground. Was it just his imagination, or were some of them eyeing him with sinister intent?
“Look! Even as a scarecrow he’s a dud!” Paul called out to Will in a voice that grated on John’s nerves even more than the cawing of the ravens. Then, with a laugh, he jumped out of his lawn chair, took a few running steps toward the ravens, and yelled “Rarr!” in a mock- threatening manner.
The ravens took wing and flew off with more raucous cries and Paul went back to his lawn chair to laze in the sun; leaving John alone with his thoughts (mostly involving brutal and bloody things happening to Paul and Will) once again. He stood there gazing at the other two in mingled anger and envy, and then once again attempted to attract their attention.
“Come on you guys! This isn’t funny!” he tried to yell. “Come on, I need a drink! I’m drying up!” But the sounds that actually came out would have sounded, even to someone standing right in front of him, more like “Currrmooaannn uuugaahhs! Deeefff fiffin fuuuuooonnne. Cuuurrrmooannn, oooo neee aahhhh drrrreeennn!” From where Paul and Will sat in their lawn-chairs with their eyes closed, it sounded like nothing at all.
Just as John was about to attempt another useless round of pointless thrashing about, a raven landed on the top edge of the snowboard right behind his head facing away from him. A moment later, a feeling of wetness began to creep down John’s neck!
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” he screamed with all his might.
Will suddenly opened his eyes – barely hearing just the ghost of a whisper of sound, and saw the raven perched on the snowboard. Seeing what the bird was apparently doing, he quickly but gently tapped Paul on the shoulder as he stood up and walked toward John. Whether or not he was beginning to doze, Paul quickly opened his eyes, got up, and followed Will a mere step or two behind.
Two more ravens joined the first one on its perch and also began to mistake John for their private latrine. They didn’t see the approaching boys until they were quite close. Then, with more raucous cries, they abruptly flew away.
“Our fine feathered friends left John some presents!” Paul observed with a dry smile.
“Bet you’d like to get that stuff washed off you; huh John?” Will asked kindly.
John nodded his head eagerly.
Instead of immediately letting him down from the posts like he expected, Will and Paul walked over to the nearby hot tub shed and uncoiled a garden hose connected to an outside spigot. Paul immediately dragged the business end over toward a now wide-eyed John while Will turned the water-flow knob.
John started shaking his head as energetically as he had been nodding it before, and went “Nnnnnnnurrrrr! NUUURRR!” This was, however, completely ignored by Paul, who proceeded to wash the back of John’s head and neck – and pretty much the rest of him as well fairly indiscriminately. Within seconds, John was cleaned off and much cooler than he had been. However, Paul didn’t seemed satisfied with this and kept spraying John’s entire body (especially his face) as if his hair were on fire. John’s cries of “NUUURRRRR!” were quite unmistakable from this short distance, but made no impression on him at all.
After a couple of minutes of feeling like a drowned kitten, the relentless spray of water suddenly ceased as Will shut the water flow off. Then he walked up to John and removed his gag. “Wasn’t that refreshing?” he asked with a puckish smile.
“(*Splutter!*) You son of a… aaahhhhggghhh!” John yelped as he raised his voice, forgot about the shock collar he wore, and paid the logical consequences once again.
“He doesn’t sound very grateful,” Paul observed with a grin. “I guess being sprayed off didn’t tickle his fancy.”
“So let’s tickle some other parts of him instead!” Will replied with a grin; responding to Paul’s obvious hint as he closed in on John with hands held forward and fingers flexing rapidly in a tickling pantomime.
John’s eyes bulged wider than ever as he shook his head frantically back and forth. “No! NO! Please don’t! Please! Please!” he pleaded with the best pitiful voice he could manage. It got him nowhere however as Will began ticking his ribs and underarm on one side while Paul did the same on his other side. “Noo hohohooo! Plea-he-hee-eeasse! Noo! Oowww! Ahh… ahh… ahahahahaOOWWWhahahaha! Mercy!! Oowww! Haha Ooww! HahahaOWWWhahahaha! MERCY! Bwaaa-hahahahahaOOWWWhahahahaaaaaa!” John squealed as he writhed and thrashed as if in the middle of a major epileptic seizure. The combined torment of being relentlessly tickled and shocked by the collar for making too much noise was overwhelming.
John’s tickle/shock torture lasted for over three minutes, and there is no way of knowing how much longer it might have continued when Will’s cell phone – sitting on a small table beside the lawn chair where he’d left it – began ringing loudly enough to be heard clearly at several times that distance. “Keep him quiet while I see who’s calling,” Will told Paul as he immediately broke of his tickle assault and hurried over to his phone.
Paul walked in front of John and held his hand out mere inches in front of John’s shorts; making a pretend claw-and–grab motion. The implied threat of what he’d do to John if he attempted to make enough noise to attract the attention of whoever was on the phone was obvious. The threat was daunting enough that John decided that discretion was most definitely the better part of valor. He remained as quiet as of he’d been gagged again.
Will was concerned. No one knew his private cell phone number except his parents, sister, Tasha, and a few maintenance workers. A call from any of them likely meant a sudden and unexpected change in his plans for John for the day. Will hastily looked at the number on his phone. It was his father. Not good! His dad never called unless it was something serious.
Will hit the talk button and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he spoke tentatively.
“Hello, son,” the familiar voice of Will’s father replied on the phone. “I just wanted to let you know that your mother and I have had a change of plans. Rather than spend the weekend at your Aunt Nancy’s house, she’ll be spending the weekend at home with us.”
“Uhhh… not Andy too!” Will moaned in minor annoyance.
“Yes, Andy too,” Will’s father’s voice replied in a toe that implied he’d fully expected this reaction. “So while they’re here, I expect you to be on your best behavior and keep Andy company while he’s here.”
“But dad, Andy’s only nine years old!” Will complained. “And I’ve got company over!”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you plans,” Will’s father replied with obvious insincerity, “but you’ll have to make the best of it and include him in all your activities while he’s here.”
“Oh, yeah! Right!” Will said to himself sarcastically but kept his mouth shut. It had been hard enough to get his parents to let him stay at home by himself for most of the summer rather than drag him along on their numerous dull summer excursions. One more word of complaint could cost him the parents-free liberty he’d hoped to enjoy all summer as he had the previous one. At least it’d be only for one weekend… hopefully.
“Meanwhile I can’t get the grounds crew to mow the lawn again on such short notice, so I’ll need you to do it!” his father continued.
Will just barely managed to choke back a shout of outrage much like those John had been uttering these last few days. “Mow the whole lawn? But … but that’ll take all day doing it all by myself!!”
“You have anything better to do?” his father asked warningly. “Anyway, we won’t be there until about three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, so you’ll have plenty of time. I want that lawn looking spotless rather than the jungle you let it turn into last summer. You said you have company, right? Well, I’m sure your company will be only too happy to lend you a hand. Oh, but the Pool Maintenance place had a spot open, so the pool boy will be there sometime today.”
“The pool boy? But he cleaned the pool just before you left!” Will replied with a whine he hated to hear in his voice. All of a sudden the whole day was going badly wrong! “That was scarcely six days ago!”
“That boy didn’t do as good a job as I’d have liked,” replied Will’s dad. “So the pool company agreed to send another boy for free to do it again. Anyway, I have no doubt you and probably an entire horde of your friends have made it a mess again by now!”
“I’ve only had a couple of friends over!” Will insisted. “And we did *not* make a mess of the pool!” he continued, though with a little less conviction.
“In any case, he’ll be there shortly. So be sure to let him in when he arrives,” replied Will’s dad. “I have to go now son. Take care, do the lawn, and I’ll see you when I get home tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay, dad.” Will replied with a voice of sheer resignation. “So long.” He clicked off the phone without waiting for a reply; something he knew from experience that his dad was undoubtedly doing himself. In the meantime Will walked over to where Paul and John waited for him and then he briefly explained the situation.
“Should we let John down from there now?” Paul asked.
Before Will could answer, the outdoor buzzer at the house rang. A bit alarmed, Will hastily looked at his watch. “Shoot! It’s *that* late? Tasha’s here to make lunch! I’d better go let her in.” Will began to hurry toward the kitchen door.
“Hey! What about John?” asked Paul. “I can’t get him down from there all by myself!”
“Gag him and leave him there!” Will called back without pausing in his brisk jog back toward the house. “We’ll come back for him once Tasha’s made lunch and she’s gone away again. There’s no time to tuck him away now, and he’s already well out of sight from the house right where he is now anyway.”
Paul shrugged his shoulders and began to lock the gag back onto a feebly resisting and protesting John’s face. “Sorry, John,” Paul told him with some sincere sympathy. As he locked the gag straps in place and gave John’s face a gentle pat. “You’re just going to have to hang tight there a while longer!”
Paul hastily ran off after Will; smiling as he heard John begin angrily cursing him through his gag.
Paul and Will waited for Tasha and helped her to fix lunch; forgetting all about John as they leisurely chatted with her and idly helped her prepare a meal of veal parmesan. This took nearly an hour before the meal was in its last stages.
“Okay,” Tasha told Will and Paul as he took out the veal parmesan, placed more cheese on it, and slid the pan back into the oven. “I’ve added the remainder of the Parmesan cheese. Let it bake for about 15 more minutes or until the cheese melts. Then let it cool a bit, and that’s all.”
“Great, Tasha, thanks,” said Will. “I guess we’re set. You ready to go?”
“Yes. Just go out back and call to the pool boy, would you please?” she asked him. “He should be done cleaning the pool by this time.”
Will and Paul looked as if they were ready to keel over.
“The… the pool boy?” asked Paul numbly.
“He... he came here with you?” asked Will with a quivering tremor in his lower lip.’
“Yes. Didn’t your father tell you?” replied Tasha easily as she checked the veal one last time and prepared to leave; apparently oblivious to the boys’ reactions. “I brought him here. He left the car and headed right to the pool to clean it while I went in. I don’t know what’s keeping him though. He should be done now. You want me to go get him?”
“No, we’ll get him! You wait right here!” Will replied hastily as he and Paul hurried out the kitchen door as if their britches were on fire.