Holly Changes the Dynamic - the Inescapable Tie (f/mmm, Part 1 posted)

[puddy300]

It was the 90’s, when I still played tie-up games with my neighborhood friends. There was a core group of us, with me, Zach, Corey (these two were brothers only 1 year apart), and Holly. At the time of this story, we were all 16-17, old enough that our parents (for the most part) wished we’d move on from the tie-up games of our youth. We were going off to college soon, and yes, they’d end then. But for now, they persisted, even when most of the others we sometimes played with had moved on.

As the only girl in the group, Holly did her best tomboy act. She wanted to prove she was as tough as us and never let us ease up on her. So if someone was tied up in a particularly strenuous way, she’d demand to be tied up even more tightly. When she tied us up, she made sure to tickle us to exhaustion so we’d be eager to do the same. She was “just one of the guys”, (we’d been playing since we were seven or eight) even as we got older and started noticing other girls and she other boys.

On this warm, summer day, we were engaged in a pretty typical activity: cops and robbers. We’d gotten quite sophisticated, and the robbers would hide their “loot” in a hiding spot, and then it was the cop’s job to track down the robbers, tied them up, and “torture” them into revealing the hiding spot. (the loot was always our shoes. We rarely wore them around the neighborhood, even as we got older). There was a time limit, if the cop hadn’t caught all 3 robbers within twenty minutes, the robbers won and the cop got kidnapped and tied up.

Holly was the cop this time, ready to play with one of our newest additions to the tie-up games, which was actual rope. For a while, we used jump ropes, scarves, long socks, or whatever was around. But now we had real rope.

I hid my shoes in a bush near our starting point. The cop was allowed to search on their own and if they found the loot, had no reason to bargain with the robber. I thought my hiding spot was good because we usually hid them far away (Zach and Corey ran off to the outer edges of our play area) so Holly would never think to look so close.

Then I went to hide. I thought I had a good spot as well, crouched down behind a tree with another bush as extra cover. But the problem was that I couldn’t see anyone approach, either, and soon heard the ‘pop’ of the nerf dart gun and the slight tingle of the little suction cup dart hit my shoulder.

“Captured,” said Holly, delighted. She wasn’t even far from me, and I hadn’t heard her. She was always so quiet. “Hands behind your back, prisoner.”

“I’ll go quietly, officer,” I said, playing along.

My hands were tied behind my back with the rope. It was tight, but I didn’t think much of it. One thing none of us had ever quite figured out was how to tie someone up inescapably. The only time it had happened was the time we used zipties, but that was cheating. Given enough time, we’d always been able to escape our friends’ attempts.

I was about to realize that while escaping scarves and socks was relatively easy, the rope provided an enterprising girl an opportunity to learn some new skills.

Holly marched me through the grass and down the sidewalk to her house, just a few houses down. The concrete sidewalk was no trouble for our bare feet, toughened from a lifetime of barefoot walks. For us, wearing shoes when we had to (school, for example) was the more difficult part.

Neighbors probably saw us, but that also didn’t bother me. They all knew what we did and had long since run out of snide remarks. I think they thought we were weird, but that was fine.

I was led to Holly’s back yard, which had a small 90’s jungle gym (which Holly and her siblings had outgrown) and a tetherball pole. It was this pole that I was pressed against and more rope tied my already tied wrists to it. Then rope looped around my chest over my t-shirt pinned me to me, and finally Holly tied my ankles together and to the pole. I was pretty stuck and unable to move much other than my head. I’d clearly been the first one to be captured, but that was not surprising. I was often the first one captured by Holly.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said, patting my cheek. “I got two more boys to wrangle.”

So she left there, tightly bound to the tetherball pole. I gave it a performative struggle, but the bonds were strict enough that I wouldn’t be able to loosen anything without untying the whole thing. So instead I calmly waited for her to return.

But it was Holly’s mother, Mrs. Thomas, who showed up next. Among all our parents, she seemed to like our tie-up games the most over the years. She’d even tied some of us up, during moments when all four of us wanted to be tied together, although she hadn’t done that in a few years now that we were older. But there was a twinkle in her eye as she approached me. “You have sunscreen on, I hope?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said. And I was glad for it. The sun was directly overhead and I burn easily.

“My, this looks pretty tight. Have you tried getting out of it?”

“No, that would be against the spirit of the game. I’m supposed to stay tied up here until everyone has been caught. But I could get out if I really needed to.”

Mrs. Thomas was inspecting the ropes behind me. “Hmm, if you say so,” she said with a smile. “Call out if you want some water or want to be let go. My daughter can be quite rough with you boys.”

“She’s no worse than us. Thank you, Mrs. Thomas.”

She went back inside, but I could see her on the couch, watching her soaps but keeping an eye on me.

There was a sense of relaxation, stuck to the pole. I couldn’t really move, so I just enjoyed the sun, the gentle breeze that cooled me every so often, and the soft grass under the soles of my feet.

When Holly returned, she had both Zach and Corey tied. “Two for one special,” she announced to me with a grin.

“We accidentally hid too close together,” said Zach, sourly. Of all of us, he liked doing the tying and disliked being tied the most. He was probably hoping the most to avoid Holly’s nerf gun.

The other two boys were tied to the pole similar to me, there being just enough room to tie us in a little triangle where we were all squeezed together. When we were done, Holly stepped back to admire her work. “You three look so good like this,” she said, which was not a very accurate cop role-play line.

“You’ll never get me to give up the location of the loot,” said Corey, much more in the spirit of the thing. “Do your worst, copper.”

“Someone wants to be tickled,” said Holly. “It’s against police procedure, but no one has to know, right?”

By now, we all knew each other’s weak points. Corey was most ticklish on his armpits and ribs, so that was where Holly focused. She dug fingers into his sensitive skin, reaching her hand up his shirt to get his ribs. The chest rope prevented her from getting all the way up to his pits, but he was plenty ticklish enough even with the mild protection of the shirt. He laughed and squirmed, continuously bumping me, although there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“No, stop, stop,” he said, after a few minutes of panting. “I’ll talk.” He told her his hiding spot.

“That was easy,” she said. She moved on to Zach, who also hated being so ticklish. He tried to hold out longer, but his neck and ears were the most sensitive. I think he was more embarrassed to be tickled there, so when he gave up I wasn’t too surprised.

“Two down.” She turned to me. “I’ve got a lot of time left, think you can avoid a clean sweep?”

“Do your worst,” I challenged.

She did, at least with what she had to work with. As the most ticklish of the group, I was simultaneously the weakest but also sometimes the most difficult to break, because I was so used to it. I’d learned to fight it and take it, and be willing to laugh out loud. Though for me, the bottoms of my feet were in fact the most ticklish and because of the way I’d been tied, Holly didn’t have access to those. I was able to keep them firmly pressed against the grass. My tummy and sides were ticklish enough, though, and I was soon tearing up and gasping for air. It was only a minute or two, but felt like so much more, but Holly finally gave up and let me have a little rest to recover my breath.

“Nice, nice, a tough nut to crack,” said Holly in her most “TV cop” voice. “You two others should be ashamed. Still…”

Holly ran off to the other side of the house, returning quickly with my shoes. She’d found them. Guess my close hiding spot wasn’t so slick after all. “I already had his loot. You all lose.”

“Our plan is foiled,” I said.

“But I’ll give you a chance,” said Holly. “I’ve learned some new knots with the rope. You shouldn’t be able to escape this time. But if you can, I’ll let you go. If you can’t, you’ll have to be tied up in the house and watch soap operas with me and my mom.”

Now these were real stakes. None of us wanted to watch General Hospital, tied up or not. I suspect that Holly didn’t either, but we would in order to inflict punishment upon us. But I wasn’t worried, because I knew we’d always been able to escape.

Certainly, this was going to be harder than normal. But as long as I could find the knot with my fingers, I could…

Hmm, I couldn’t seem to find the knot. It was always annoying, having your hands tied behind your back, because you couldn’t see what things looked like. And it turned out that the thinner, more flexible rope was perfect for tying someone up in a way that socks and scarves were not (who could have guessed?). The knot, I finally figured out, was above my wrists, and it wasn’t possible for me to twist my hands and fingers enough to do more than brush against it.

I wondered why I’d never thought of that.

At that point, I kind of knew I was doomed, although I didn’t want to admit it to myself yet. Corey and Zach were still struggling, but I didn’t want to say anything and kept trying. Suddenly the sun seemed to be hotter, the ropes more restrictive than ever. What if I couldn’t escape? What if Holly didn’t want to untie me?

I kept these questions to myself, especially when Zach, then Corey, painstakingly freed themselves. How they managed the knot, I didn’t know. Eventually, they undid all the ropes, and stood clear of the tetherball pole, while I remained stuck, having made no progress.

“Hah, inescapable, huh?” said Zach, stretching. “Nice try, Holly, but once again you’ve failed.”

“Ah, how’d you get out?” she said, scratching her head.
“Well, he still hasn’t got out,” said Corey, pointing at me.

“I’m working on it,” I said, redoubling my efforts. Now I’d be the only one tied up and completely helpless.

I was saved, a little, by the coming of Zach and Corey’s little sister Jennifer. She was only ten, and so we never included her in any tie-up games, and she thought they were stupid. Kids, what can you do?

“There you are. Mom says you both gotta come back home,” Jennifer said, in her most authoritative little kid voice.

“Ah, well, we just finished up,” said Zach.

“Good luck getting out!” said Corey, grinning. “Don’t take too long or Holly will be insufferable.”

“I’ll get out,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

They left with their good-byes, and then it was just Holly and I. We stared at each other.

“You know, I tied you up a little differently than them,” she said. “I wanted to see the differences. So for them, I made it so they could reach the knot, but barely. But for you, I made it as difficult as possible.” She tickled my side for a brief moment. “I know you can’t get out, you’ve already proved it. So the question is, what are you going to promise me in exchange for letting you go?”

And so the dynamic was changed. For the first time, I really was in helpless bondage, at Holly's mercy, and I left a combination of excited and afraid.

[Chairtiedguy]

Great story! Keep going..