Summer Days (f+m+/F)

[suedenym]

"Miss Suzanne, hold still!" Jamal's small fingers tugged at the rope coiled around his forearm, tongue poking out in concentration. His knees were grass-stained, one shoelace untied. Behind him, the other kids shrieked and scattered like startled pigeons.

Suzanne flexed her wrists experimentally against the rough bark. The ropes weren't tight enough to hurt, just snug enough to make her shift her bare feet in the dirt every few minutes. She could feel individual blades of grass tickling between her toes where she'd stepped out of her sandals hours ago. The blindfold smelled faintly of sunscreen from when Liam had pressed it against her face with sticky palms.

From somewhere to her left came the high-pitched giggle of Mia pretending to be a jungle explorer. Suzanne tilted her head toward the sound just as something wet and cold smacked against her thigh. "Amal, ogg atck agorer onge?" Her voice came out muffled around the dish towel gag. A fresh round of giggles erupted from multiple directions now—they'd clearly planned this ambush.

Heat prickled along Suzanne's arms where the midday sun broke through the oak leaves above. Beads of sweat traced paths down her temples, but she couldn't wipe them away. The ropes had shifted; one rough fiber was sawing at the tender skin of her elbows with every slight movement. She smelled fresh-cut grass and the scent of barbecue as the occasional jet of a water gun caught her. In the distance shecheard the sound of the garden hose, followed bybhigh pitched shrieks.

A sudden weight pressed against her hip—probably Jamal leaning against her for balance as he retied his shoe. She could feel his small fingers gripping her dress fabric for support. The blindfold had slipped slightly; if she tilted her head back, she could see flashes of movement through the gap near her nose. A blur of neon colored shorts streaked past, followed by the thwack of a plastic sword against the tree trunk inches from her ear.

The ropes groaned as she shifted her stance. Her calves burned from standing so long, and the arches of her feet had memorized every pebble beneath them. Her ankles and knes tied tomthe trunk behind her gave her no option to shift her weight distribution. Just as she was considering asking—well, attempting to ask—for a water break, something cold and slimy oozed down her shoulder. Screams of delighted horror erupted around her. "It's ALIVE!" Liam yelled, his voice cracking mid-shriek.

The gelatinous plop of whatever creature they'd unearthed slithered along Suzanne's collarbone before plopping onto the grass. She could hear frantic whispers punctuated by stifled laughter—they were regrouping, strategizing their next assault. The blindfold's fabric pressed damp against her eyelids when she squeezed them shut. A breeze carried the scent of the neighbor's freshly mowed lawn and something citronella from the patio candles.

"Operation Bug Hunt go!" Jasmine's declaration came half a second before tiny hands patted along Suzanne's ribcage. Fingernails scraped lightly as someone—probably Mia—pretended to extract imaginary insects from the folds of her pink dress. "Found a stink beetle!" Mia crowed, pressing what felt like a pebble against Suzanne's neck before dissolving into giggles.

The ropes dug deeper into her arms and chest as Suzanne flinched from a sudden ticklish assault near her waist. Through the blindfold's gap, she caught flashes of Jamal's neon sneakers executing a victory dance in the grass. The gag absorbed her involuntary laugh as Liam's plastic sword tapped against her bare calf in some improvised knightly ceremony.

Something warm and slightly sticky dripped onto her right foot—melon juice, judging by the sugary smell blending with crushed grass. The children's energy hadn't flagged; if anything, their movements had gained the frantic momentum of bees discovering a soda can. A wet leaf slapped against her thigh (definitely Amal's doing), followed by the telltale squelch of someone jumping in mud.

Suzanne's toes curled involuntarily as a rogue ant navigated the arch of her left foot. The ropes had developed their own rhythm over hours—creaking when she breathed, tightening when she sagged. The bark's texture imprinted itself on her shoulder blades through the thin cotton dress, each groove and ridge mapped by her sweat-damp skin.

A fresh volley of water balloons burst against the tree above her, sending icy droplets down the back of her neck. The kids' footsteps circled like monsoon rain—pattering closer, then darting away—until suddenly five small bodies pressed against her from all sides in a spontaneous group hug. She could smell bubblegum toothpaste and grape popsicles on their breath.

"Pause game!" Mia announced, her forehead bumping Suzanne's ribs. The ropes jerked as tiny hands abandoned their posts—Jamal dropping his plastic sword with a clatter, Liam kicking off his muddy sandals mid-run. They scattered toward the patio in a stampede of hungry yelps, their voices overlapping about juice boxes and who stole whose chicken nuggets last time.

Silence pooled around Suzanne like spilled syrup. The rope around her left wrist finally slid downward, loosened by hours of small fingers' adjustments, but still snug enough to keep her palm flattened against the bark. She could smell charcoal smoke now that the shrieking had stopped, could hear the ice clinking in Mr. Henderson's lemonade glass three gardens over. A ladybug landed on her bare shoulder, its tiny legs tickling before it flew toward the abandoned water balloons.

The afternoon heat thickened, pressing against her blindfolded eyelids. The rope across her stomach suddenly registered—not painful, just *there*, like sunburn you keep forgetting about until fabric brushes against it. Her pink dress clung to the small of her back where sweat had pooled. The oak's bark breathed too, exhaling resin that stuck to her elbows whenever she shifted.

Something metallic clicked near her left ear—the garden hose nozzle? Suzanne tensed automatically. The rope around her knees protested, sawing at the soft skin behind her kneecaps. A bead of sweat rolled down between her breasts, tracing the same path as yesterday's sunscreen. She arched her shoulders back, seeking relief from the pressure points where hemp fibers had begun to feel like heated wires laid directly on skin.

The sun had climbed to that cruel angle where even blinking made her eyelids stick together beneath the sweat-damp blindfold. Every breath pressed the chest-binding ropes tighter—not enough to restrict air, just enough to make her notice how the pink cotton dress had fused to her ribcage. She tasted salt when she licked her lips around the gag, felt a fresh insect—maybe a fly this time—alight on the inside of her elbow where the rope had abraded the skin raw.

Her right ankle throbbed where the knots had gradually cinched themselves tighter with each unconscious shift of weight. The exposed roots beneath her bare feet now felt like hot coals, each pebble a branding iron. When she tilted her head back, the oak's bark scraped against vertebrae already tender from hours of immobility. The ropes crossing her abdomen had begun to feel less like restraints and more like live wires searing horizontal stripes across her midsection.

Sunlight stabbed through the gap in her blindfold, spotlighting individual dust motes dancing in the oven-hot air. Sweat pooled in the hollow of her throat before breaking rank to trickle between her breasts. The ropes at her elbows had absorbed enough moisture to darken from beige to burnt umber, their fibers swelling against raw patches of skin. Even the breeze betrayed her—teasing relief one moment only to swirl more stifling air against her damp dress the next.

A distant shriek split the afternoon like a watermelon dropped on pavement. Footsteps pounded closer, wet and slapping against grass. Suzanne had just enough time to inhale before the first frigid arc of hose water hit her square in the collarbone. The involuntary jerk backward sent bark biting into her shoulder blades as children's laughter crested around her. "Surprise attack!" Amal crowed, his voice bouncing with each skip-step closer. The second blast caught her right hip, shockingly cold against sun-warmed cotton.

The gag absorbed Suzanne's gasp as water streamed down her thighs in ticklish rivulets. Through the blindfold's gap, she saw Liam's polka-dot swim trunks whirl past, the hose nozzle clutched in both hands like a fireman's prize. The ropes groaned as she twisted away—uselessly—just as a third icy jet found the hollow behind her left knee. Her bare feet skidded on suddenly muddy grass, toes curling against the slick earth. Somewhere to her right, Mia was chanting "Ice queen! Ice queen!" between giggles.

Citrus-scented water droplets hung in the air like suspended jewels before bursting against Suzanne's collarbone. The pink dress darkened to rose where it clung to her ribs, cool fabric alternating with sun-warmed patches in a dizzying checkerboard of sensation. Jamal's small hands pressed against her waist as he used her for balance while executing what sounded like a victory dance—his wet sneakers squeaked against the grass with each pivot. The ropes pulled tighter with every shiver, hemp fibers rasping against skin that had gone from damp to drenched.

Liam's improvised firehose technique sent arcing sprays that hit like liquid needles—first across Suzanne's bare shoulders, then diagonally from hip to opposite knee. She could hear the water sloshing inside his overlarge rain boots as he charged closer. The blindfold sagged under the assault, revealing flashes of chaos: Amal mid-cartwheel, Mia shaking out a sopping ponytail directly into Jasmine's face. A rogue stream caught Suzanne just below the gag, icy water funneling between her breasts in a shocking cascade that made her toes dig trenches in the mud.

The ropes had transformed into slick snakes, their fibers swelling against her skin with every shiver. When she arched away from another freezing blast, the bark scraped fresh stings across her shoulder blades. Somewhere beyond the shrieks, she registered the creak of the patio door—likely Mrs. Henderson peering over the fence again, lemonade glass clutched in her perpetual disapproval. The thought vanished as a water balloon exploded against the tree above her head, sending shell fragments of latex pattering down like warm hail onto her arms.

Silence arrived like a thief—one moment the kids were whooping and splashing, the next their footsteps were already fading toward the Thompson's yard next door. She heard the hose nozzle clatter onto concrete, Liam yelling "Last one to the trampoline's a rotten egg!" and then nothing but the drip-drip-drip from her hemline onto the muddied grass beneath her toes. The absence of their energy left her skin prickling, as if the water had flash-frozen in the sudden stillness. Even the ladybug that had explored her elbow earlier was gone, leaving only the ghost of its tiny feet marching across her memory.

The ropes sighed against her skin, relaxing their grip just enough to remind her they were still there. With the children gone, Suzanne became acutely aware of her own breathing—how each inhale made the chest bindings creak, how exhales left condensation on the inside of the gag where her own warmth met the soaked fabric. The sun had shifted position; its rays now drilled straight down between the oak leaves, turning every droplet on her arms into a magnifying lens that focused heat onto already tender skin.

Distant popsicle-fueled negotiations floated from somewhere near the Thompson's azaleas—Mia's indignant "But I called dibs on blue!" overlapping with Liam's fake baritone "As jury president, I declare..." before dissolving into fresh shrieks. Suzanne's left foot had gone numb from standing on an exposed root, pins and needles crackling up her calf whenever she attempted to shift. The garden hose lay coiled in the grass like a sleeping anaconda, its chrome nozzle winking sunlight directly into her blindfold's gap in malicious morse code.

The ropes had tightened in the cooling air, their swollen fibers pressing indentations into her skin that would linger like phantom restraints long after sundown. A trio of sparrows alighted on the fence behind her, their chirps dissolving into what sounded suspiciously like giggles. One bold creature fluttered down to peck at the mud near her toes, its tiny head cocking as if considering whether this strange, tethered creature might bear edible secrets beneath her damp pink plumage.

From three houses over came the unmistakable shriek of a trampoline betrayal—"Jamal PUSHED meee!"—followed by the wet thump of a body hitting dewy grass. Suzanne's shoulders slumped against the tree, bark snagging threads from her dress as she exhaled through her nose. The gag had absorbed enough hose water to taste like a dishrag left in a rain puddle, its folds stiffening as the afternoon heat licked at its edges. Her bare feet had sunk another half-inch into the mud, toes curling around something smooth and likely amphibious.

The ropes now held her with the resigned familiarity of old lovers—chafing where sweat had dried, loosening just enough to remind her of their presence with each shift. A bead of water traced the rope along her ribs, splitting at a sunburn to branch into twin streams toward her waist. She could smell the ghost of Amal's bubblegum where he'd pressed against her hip, could still feel the impression of Liam's grubby fingers in the ropes near her left elbow. The oak shuddered above her, dropping a single acorn that bounced off her shoulder before vanishing into the grass.

Memories surfaced like bubbles in lemonade—eight-year-old Suzanne writhing against jump ropes knotted around the jungle gym's posts, the boys pretending to be pirates while she played the captured mermaid. Back when grass stains were badges of honor and rope burns just meant you'd fought hard enough to earn your pretend ransom. She'd perfected the art of dramatic surrender even then, collapsing with one wrist pressed to her forehead while the boys whooped victory. Now the ropes had grown thicker, the stakes smaller, but the game remained unchanged beneath its sun-faded paint.

Amal's distant squeal snapped her back—1998 was twenty-seven years gone, yet here she stood with oak bark imprinting itself on her shoulder blades just like the jungle gym's chipped green paint used to. The realization prickled like sweat down her spine: she'd never stopped playing damsel, just traded scraped knees for mortgage payments. Even the gag was familiar, though childhood had used bandanas stolen from her father's dresser instead of dish towels grabbed mid-dishwashing. How many afternoons had she spent testing knots with her tongue, cataloging which fabrics soaked up saliva fastest?

The ropes bit deeper as she shifted—not from struggling, but to feel the burn. Back then, escape was never the point. The thrill lived in the moment Tommy Davenport's grubby fingers fumbled with the jump rope around her ankles, his breath hot with penny candy as he whispered "Gotcha good this time." She'd go limp just to feel his startled grip tighten, would let her wrists turn pink beneath the knots because the marks proved she'd been *chosen*. The memory surfaced sticky-sweet as melted icecream juice: crouching behind the tool shed after school, practicing wrist ties with clothesline until her hands went numb and her mother's voice turned shrill searching for her.

A ladybug crawled across Suzanne's collarbone now, following the path of a childhood rope burn long faded. She remembered how the boys would argue over who got to be her captor, how she'd exaggerate her squirms to make their knots slip—not enough to break free, just enough to earn new layers of binding. The gag had been her idea back then too; she'd bring bandanas pre-dampened with grape juice so the fabric would stain her lips purple, convincing everyone she'd been poisoned by pirate enemies. She could still taste the tinny sweetness, could still feel the phantom press of Bobby Fischer's knee in her back as he cinched the final knot.

The sun burned through the blindfold's thin fabric like a spotlight, bleaching her closed eyelids pink. Heat pooled where the ropes crossed her sternum, transforming each hemp fiber into a branding iron. Sweat trickled down her ribs in slow-motion, salt stinging the raw patch near her left elbow where bark and rope had conspired to sand away layers of skin. Even her breath came hot—panting through her nose while the gag absorbed each exhalation, turning the dish towel into a damp prison of flour-sack cotton and her own trapped humidity.

Her calves trembled with the aftershocks of hours spent shifting weight from numb foot to burning foot. The arch of her right foot had memorized every contour of the pebble lodged beneath it—some smooth, wicked little thing that alternated between oblivion and white-hot pressure depending on how she angled her toes. Standing still hurt more than moving now; without the distraction of water fights and tickle attacks, every muscle announced its grievances like petitioners at a medieval court. Her shoulders ached from the tree's unyielding embrace, stretched back, hervelbows straining against the cords, vertebrae pressing into bark with the insistence of a masseuse who'd mistaken her for dough needing kneading.

The ropes had settled into her flesh like old grudges, the fibers expanding and contracting with her sweat—tightening when she inhaled, rasping when she twisted. Suzanne curled her toes against the mud, pink painted nails scraping earth in a futile attempt to redistribute her weight. Her left foot had gone from pins-and-needles to a staticky hum, as if her sole had been replaced with a beehive vibrating at low frequency. The blindfold's knot pulsed at the base of her skull, a second heartbeat syncing with the throbbing where her shoulders met her neck. She imagined her shadow stretching long and lean across the grass behind her, ropes casting zebra stripes over pink fabric gone translucent with hose water.

Pressure built low in her abdomen—not hunger, not fatigue, but the insistent nudge of a bladder that hadn't been reckoned with since breakfast coffee. She flexed her thighs together instinctively, the motion pulling ropes taut across her knees and hips in a way that made her exhale sharply through her nose. Three hours? Four? The sun had burned past zenith while the kids turned her into a human sprinkler, time measured in water balloon volleys and the creeping numbness in her extremities. A drop of sweat rolled down her inner thigh—or was it hose runoff?—tickling a path toward her knee until she jerked against the ropes, sending fresh protest from her wrists where the hemp had begun to fray skin.

The gag muffled her involuntary groan as she shifted stance, toes digging trenches in mud now cooled by evaporated hose water. Every subtle clench sent awareness ricocheting from her bladder to the rope straining around her tummy, the rough fibers pressing just *there* whenever she tried to cross her ankles. Distantly, she registered Amal's laughter from the Thompson's trampoline—the sound like a detonator counting down to some inevitable, humiliating surrender. Her breath hitched as a rogue muscle spasm threatened catastrophe, the ropes creaking ominously when she arched her back in desperate counterpressure.

Her pink dress clung treacherously tight across her hips, the soaked fabric offering no barrier against the ropes' geography of her body. She could trace every ridge of hemp branding her skin—the diagonal slash bisecting her bladder, the horizontal band cinching her waist like a corset gone feral. Sweat beaded along her hairline despite the cooling air, each droplet's descent mirrored by something far more urgent lower down. The oak's bark bit into her shoulder blades as she tilted her pelvis back, buying seconds at the cost of fresh abrasions. Somewhere beneath the blindfold's edge, she caught the golden glint of late afternoon sun on the abandoned hose nozzle—a chrome mockery of her predicament.

The slap of flip-flops approached with agonizing leisure, each impact seeming to be sending vibrations through the packed earth beneath Suzanne's mud-caked toes. Jenny's sandals made that specific sticky sound—the one that meant she'd just stepped out of the kiddie pool and hadn't bothered to dry off. A waft of coconut sunscreen cut through the humid air moments before fingers brushed Suzanne's forearm. "Jesus Christ, Suz," Jenny's voice hovered between amusement and awe, "they really went full *Survivor* on you this time." The ropes creaked as Suzanne twisted toward the voice, her gagged plea translating to a desperate hum when Jenny's thumb hooked under the blindfold's edge.

[JulieG]

Awesome. I love that it was all innocent but that yiu describe carefully the agony, calves aching, shoulders stretched, feet numb and burning with ropes and stones /roots digging into her soles.

And then there his her DiD history as an 8year old