Two days, Six Girls
Introduction
And so it has come to this. My last story for this board for a while. I have many more tie-up experiences that I could tell, but sadly, not the time. I hope those of you who enjoyed my previous stories will enjoy this last one.
This story was the climax of all the tie-up games that we had played during all this time. This story was burned in my memory and the memory of every participant ever since it happened. And I have records of it more than that of any other story. And this story is long. Very long. So many things happened, that writing it forty three years later, if I didn’t experience it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. And everyone of us participated in it. Eight boys, and six girls, plus a couple of adults. Most of you who read my previous stories would know of the characters well, but for those who read this story as their first, let me give an introduction.
Note: You can skip the following and proceed to part I in the next post if you want. It’s not important for the story, but merely a summary of the tales I have given.
We lived in a small town. It was small enough that all our friends, and also our church, school, and the small commercial district, I could reach by foot or bicycle. The next town was far away and can be reached by half an hour’s trip by car. It was surrounded by farms and forests, which contributed to its rustic setting. Indeed, our house was on an abandoned farm. It was a setting conducive to much outdoor activity. The weather for much of the year except summer was cold or cool. Our winters were harsh, the spring and fall colder than most.
My father was a lawyer, my mother a stay-at-home mom. Both of them grew up on farms. Thus, they had considerable knowledge of knots, mostly to tie logs, fences, those kinds of things, and they passed them on to us when they taught us to share in the chores. For example, the diagonal lash, the square lash, and the shear lash, which we used all the time in tying each other up, was taught to us by my parents. And my father also had a book on knots which he used when needed to do something in the house or yard that requires knots which he was not familiar with. We consulted heavily on these to inform us of our tying activities. From there, we made various experiments on each other on what would work and what would not work. I learned that my mother and father, and my uncle and aunt, all lived in the same community growing up. They tied each other up too in games, and they moved together into this small town of ours. They bought houses next to each other, so my uncle and aunt, and thus my cousins, were next door neighbors.
I was the second child of six children. The oldest, Andrew, was a year older than me. Betty, my only sister, was a year younger. Then, in progression, were Bernard (whom we called Barney), John, and Lawrence, each only a year younger than the previous one.
I had been playing tie-up games since I was nine, in the spring of 1966. The first time tie-up games were played in my generation was by my brother and his best friend David, when they tied each other up for fun. I got involved when I tried to bother them one time, so they tied me up. I tried to have revenge by recruiting my cousin Donald, and my best friend Frank, to redress the numerical balance. Then Andrew, my older brother, and David, in order to again gain the upper hand, recruited Chester and Jay, twins, to their side, thus giving them once again, numerical superiority.
For a while, these were the main players of our games. We did not think to recruit girls, because we did not think that they could play tie up games. Of course, we were mistaken.
The other boys were sceptical in letting Angela play tie-up games, to say the least. My brother, Andrew, however, decided that he might let her in, provided she pass an initiation, which we thought, she cannot possibly pass. She did pass the initiation, and we were so proud of her, that whatever feelings we had of not wanting a girl in our tie-up games were swept aside.
The next significant event that would impact our tie up games was our vacation, in the summer of 1966, in our grandfather’s farm in Vermont. The ones who went were my family and my uncle’s family, plus a few friends who obtained permission from their parents to join us—mainly Angela, Henry, David, Nancy, and Cathy. We continued our games there, and two neighbour kids, who we befriended in previous visits, Robert and Jerry, substituted for the twins. We played in my great grandfather’s large house, in the farm itself, in the woods, and besides the lake, both tie up and non tie up games.
After the summer vacation, Chester and Jay resumed their places in our games. What was of primary importance, however, that just after the start of the school term in the fall of ’66, was that we reshuffled our teams, which I will show below. We played a few regular games using the new teams, but what changed now was the introduction of a new member—Louise—my future wife, to our games. She was already nine when we got to know her, so there was not any issue of us being able to tie her up. Louise was my classmate, my seatmate, and Angela’s next door neighbour. That immediately made her very close to both of us, and that resulted in her being tied up soon enough. She proved to be willing to join our tie up games, and after an initiation, she joined our team.
Next to join our tie up team were Nancy and Cathy, David’s little sisters. Since they were not of our family, they were exempt from the nine year old rule, and as a result, David regularly ties them up. Then, Nancy, during that fall, turned nine, and we tied her up as a result.
However, the decisive event of the fall of ’66, at least for our tie up games, was my accident, which happened when I was trying to capture Frank. As a result of that, I got injured, and we changed our rules to eliminate roughhousing that might result in another injury, so we instead substituted the use of a water pistol for all captures.
During the winter of 1966-67, we tied up Betty, and Maggie for the first time. But during that first time, they were still a few weeks short of their ninth birthday, and we were caught by the adults and punished. We made up for that by tying both of them when they reached their ninth birthdays. Then, before the winter ended, we initiated Nancy, Betty, and Maggie at the same time.
Regular Games
The hardening of teams, which constituted members that would be the same game after game, led to the division of tie-up games into two kinds, the regular games, and the non-regular games. The division was not formal, or there was not any kind of action which defined what was to be or not to be regular games and irregular games. Rather, it came about naturally.
Regular games were games between two sets of teams that had more or less permanent members. The groupings as they evolved were:
Andrew and David vs. Tom (me) (which lasted only for one game, the very first I participated in)
Andrew and David vs. Tom, Donald, and Frank
Andrew, David, Chester, and Jay vs. Tom, Donald, and Frank
Andrew, David, Chester, and Jay vs. Tom, Donald, Frank, and Angela
During our vacation in my grandfather’s Vermont farm where my father grew up, the games continued. Angela, Frank, and David secured permission from their parents have their vacation with us, but Chester and Jay had their own vacation. So Robert and Jerry, neighbor kids of my grandfather, and our friends from earlier visits, substituted for twins.
Andrew, David, Robert, and Jerry vs. Tom, Donald, Frank, and Angela
When we came back the teams resumed.
Andrew, David, Chester, and Jay vs. Tom, Donald, Frank, and Angela
After the summer of 1966, we reshuffled our teams. So the teams were:
Andrew, David, Donald, and Angela vs. Tom, Frank, Chester, and Jay
Andrew, David, Donald, and Angela vs. Tom, Frank, Chester, Jay, and Louise
Andrew, David, Donald, Angela, Betty, Maggie vs. Tom, Frank, Chester, Jay, Louise, and Nancy
Andrew, David, Donald, Angela, Betty, Maggie, and Cathy vs. Tom, Frank, Chester, Jay, Louise, Nancy, and Henry
That was how the teams stood during the summer of 1968.
After the boys versus girls game, and the two days of tying up the girls, the teams simply became boys vs. girls.
The regular games were any game where the members of one team try to capture and hold the members of the other for thirty minutes. The captors should leave the captives alone so they could try to escape. If they did escape, they could try to capture their former captors, or they could be recaptured. A game would end when the captors came back after being absent for half an hour and the captives were still tied up, and declare victory. Or it could end with neither team winning, and it would be declared a draw.
A regular game can be initiated almost anytime. As long as you are not doing chores, studying, or in front of adults, you are considered fair game by the opposite team. And as long as you are captured legitimately, unless you really have a good reason, you have to let the one who captured you to tie you up. If you were the last member needed for victory, you could be released after only thirty minutes. However, if you were the first one, and it took a long time to capture your teammates, you could be tied up for a long time. At first, you had to capture all of the opposite team, but later, a simple majority would suffice, especially after my injury and there arose a situation where we can capture all of them, and they can’t capture all of us. And as more kids joined in, it even became more practical to only catch a majority, rather than all.
Tickling was an optional, but not necessary, part of our regular games. Of course, it was almost always taken up.
Capture was at first done by brute force. We tried to jump each other and such, and more often than not, the one with a numerical superiority always wins. So we tried to achieve local superiority to capture the others. As time went on, a struggle was avoided when one who was outnumbered simply surrendered without a fight. It was almost impossible to capture someone by yourself unless you quickly overwhelmed him or her and achieve a quick surrender.
After my accident, struggling was considered dangerous, and we switched to using water pistols to capture each other, which were already in use before in non regular games. Simply put, you were captured if somebody, even a teammate, shot you and declared you his or her captive.
Non Regular Games
Non regular tie up games were any tie up games that were not regular. Most of these games are games where we agreed beforehand the rules, the situation, etc. The teams were almost always different from regular games.
These include our Cowboys and Indians games, our Cops and Robbers game, our Capture the Flag, etc. Any situation where someone was tied up and was not a regular game was called a non regular game. Even when it wasn’t even a game. For example, during our vacation in our grandfather’s farm, we boys would explore a small island in the middle of a small lake. At first, it was only boys who were going, but Angela decided she wanted to come too. To our surprise, Andrew agreed. We thought he had some plan to win a game, so we tied up Angela so she couldn’t come with us. She escaped and went with the island with us, and had her revenge when she tied us up for an entire afternoon and did unpleasant things to us.
Other irregular games includes escape competitions, racing around while tied up, and sometimes, just tying up someone else for being annoying, like what my brother and I did to Betty in my father’s library. Or when we tied up Betty as a surprise for her birthday.
Participation of Non Members
Another hallmark of our tie-up games during that period was the participation of kids too young to be tied up. The fact that kids younger than nine could not be tied up did not mean that they did not participate or interfere in our games. The fact that they were immune from retribution meant that they could interfere for one or both sides with impunity. In fact, several games were decided by their interference, either by freeing a captive, or helping capture another. The ones who were most notorious for this were my younger brother Barney, David’s little sisters Nancy, Cathy, but the one who made the most interferences, was my sister Betty and my cousin Maggie. So much so that we counted the days to their ninth birthday, so we could have our revenge.
Attitude of Adults to Our tie Up Games
The games that we played were no secret to our parents. We played openly. Their attitude to our games was one of tolerance. They did not mind our games too much as long as no one was hurt, everyone had fun, no one was tied up without his or her consent, and all the basic ground rules were followed. In their mind, it was just a game, something that children sometimes do. Their attitude had been informed by their own childhood, where they played their own tie up games.
There are several rules that we must follow if we want to play. The most important one, and was with has the most consequence among us kids, was the nine-year-old rule. It was a rule that my grandparents imposed upon them when they were children playing tie-up games, and they in turn applied it to us (and when our children started to play them, we also applied it to them). Basically, it tells us that anyone not yet nine years old cannot be tied up. There were no exceptions allowed. Even if the said eight-year-old or younger consented to being tied up. The reasoning for such a rule is to prevent siblings who were too young to be tied up. Why nine years old was chosen was not clear. It was basically an arbitrary number, but we stuck to it, nonetheless. It basically shaped our games because those too young to be tied up took advantage of their immunity by interfering in our games with impunity.
The nine-year-old rule applied to our family and to games inside our house. Outside our house and family, it doesn’t apply, as the rules on tie up games would be that of the particular family or place where we played. For example, David’s family didn’t have the nine-year-old rule, so he was able to tie up his sisters Nancy and Cathy even while they were eight and seven, respectively.
They were other ways the adults shape our games. One way was to interrupt our games to ask someone who was gagged a question, or to order a game to end because it was time for lunch, or for limiting the amount of tie-up games on school days.
But the most direct way in which they were involved was when they themselves tied us up or we tied them up.
As a rule, our parents did not take part of our games. Several times, however, they tied us up. One example was during a game where we tied our Mom up, she escaped, tied us up, and told the other kids to clean the house or we would remain tied up. Another was when she punished us twice, once for tying her up and my aunt Rachel without her permission, and another when we broke the nine-year-old rule. Then there were the times she tied us up at our request when there were no kids who could do the job. And there was the time when my father and my uncle told us that their skill at knots, and Andrew, Donald and I boasted to my father and my uncle our prowess in escape, so we let them tie us up to demonstrate our skills.
However, the times when they did tie us up were rare. Even rarer was when we tied up our parents. And when I say parents, I mean mothers, for we never tied up my father or uncle. But for my mother, by the time I posted this story, I’ve tied her up two times, and I’ll tie her up many more times in the future. I tied my aunt once.
And in the next story, my mother and aunt would be deeply involved.
Rope was the most basic material that we used when we tied someone up. Our preferred type of rope was the soft white cotton, which was about an inch in diameter. It was flexible, and easy to tie and untie knots. We usually cut the ropes into lengths of twenty-five feet in length and about fifteen feet in length. We use the 25 feet rope to, believe it or not, tie the hands while the fifteen feet length to tie the feet.
The reason we used such long ropes to secure the hands had to do with our tying technique.
At first, our tying could best be described as rudimentary, as we simply wrapped rope in one direction. It would work with newbies, but it can be easily escaped. We prefer to tie our captives hands crossed, so it was a simple step to tie the rope horizontally first, then vertically.
The next step was to cinch it. As mentioned before, we were taught by our father various techniques to secure logs together, either parallel to one another or diagonally. At first, we did not see the need to apply what we learned on logs on wrists, but that soon changed. So we started to cinch our ropes, thus in effect using the diagonal lash on our wrists, and the shear lash on our legs, although we didn’t know it was called that.
It improved the inescapability. Although some of us can still escape from it using struggling, particularly if it was poorly tied, the addition of a waist rope, and further ropes around the upper body and shoulders made it almost impossible to escape.
The addition of a square lash to the crossed hands was made by my mother when she tied up my brother one time. We quickly adopted it. So our tying technique soon after became like this. We first crossed our captive’s hands behind their back, then used a square lash with three passes, then we cinch it. Then we put over that, a diagonal lash, meaning we tied it first horizontally, then vertically. Then we cinch it again.
The square lash, diagonal lash combination was to prove impossible to escape by simple pushing, pulling or any type of struggling. The next step made escape by oneself without the aid of sharp objects impossible. We wrapped the rope around the waist, then cinched it between the wrists, and back. That made it impossible to bring the hands in front by looping the arms around the bottom.
That is why we used such long ropes. Because of the many steps involved, a short rope would not do. However, sometimes, we used shorter ropes that used different ropes for the lashes and the waist rope. But we prefer it to be one long rope.
We sometimes tie a rope around the shoulders. But as the rope around the waist, as long as it was tightly cinched, and the diagonal square lash combination on the crossed wrists, already made it impossible to move the hands to the front, it was not essential.
Finally, especially if we would keep two or more captives in one place, we make them make a fist of their hands and wrap tape around it. That way, there would be no use of fingers to untie each other’s knots.
As for the legs, we simply wrapped the rope around the ankles, then cinched it. As for the knees, the procedure was different if it was a girl or a boy being tied or doing the tying.
If it was a girl who was tying up a girl, she can usually tie her legs just above the knees, under the dress and cinched it between her legs. She can, like Angela sometimes does, tie her knees under the dress, cinched between the legs and all, and further tie her knees above the dress to make sure it won’t ride up.
Aside from ropes, we also used handcuffs. However, handcuffs were not the preferred means for securing prisoners. We preferred the hands of our captives to be crossed and touching, as we believed that they were more secure that way. However, handcuffs by their very nature would prove useful time and time again. It was especially useful when we have limited time to secure our captives, or when they would be secured in a certain place for a very short period of time, or when we want to join two people together without the hassle of doing complicated ropework. However, when we would tie someone up for a long period, from thirty minutes to hours on end, we usually use rope. Sometimes, we would add handcuffs on top of all the elaborate ropework, intended to discourage any escape attempts. Or we would use cuffs to secure someone already tied up with rope, say, to a pole or to an object or to another person.
Finally, when all else was unavailable, we usually have handkerchiefs to use to tie someone up. The reason was that my mother always admonishes us to keep handkerchiefs in our pockets at all times for hygienic reasons. At first, we usually ignored it when we could, but when we started our tie-up games, we religiously followed it, although for reasons other than what my mother intended. Usually, handkerchiefs were used as gags, and we usually carry two handkerchiefs with us at all times. Thus, when we have no rope available, we usually tied someone up temporarily with handkerchiefs, but it usually gets replaced with rope as soon as possible.
The way we tie someone’s hands with a handkerchief was that we crossed the wrists, then we tie the carefully folded handkerchief one way, usually horizontally, then twist it, then tie vertically, before pulling it tight and knotting it. This type of restraint was usually effective on newbies. And when done right, it would be almost be difficult to slip out of by just struggling, pulling, and pushing. However, if you knew what you were doing, it was very easy to get out of.
Finally, we used tape. Various types of tape could be used, but duct tape was our favourite. Its strength, ease to tear apart, and general availability made it particularly useful. However, the use of tape to tie one’s hands or body was wasteful, and we generally limit the use of duct tape for gags. Plus, we use packaging tape if we want to tape the fingers together into a fist.
For tie up positions, we almost always tie someone with their hands behind their back. We almost never tie someone with their hands in front, except when we used cuffs and when we play a non-serious tie up game. And we almost never use the hands on the sides with rope around the body technique. Having begun to tie-up others by tying our captive’s hands together, we could not imagine a scenario where we can tie someone up and not tie their hands together. The only ones where we secured someone without the hands together was with straightjackets.
There are times when you don’t need a waist rope. One was when if the girl you’re tying up wore a dress that has a sash or small belt where a beautiful bow was tied at the back around the waist. When this was so, we usually just thread the ropes around the loops of the bow, or we simply retied the bow behind the dress around the wrists. We sometimes combine this with a waist rope.
Gags are almost de rigueur among us. There various types of gags that we used.
For us, the two most basic ones were the ‘pretend’ and ‘real’ gags.
What we call ‘Pretend’ gags are gags that were mostly for show. An example would be a piece of cloth tied over the mouth, or a cleave gag. Also, a single piece of duct (or any kind of) tape over the lips. (It wasn’t always a pretend gag. A newbie would always be silenced by a single piece of duct tape over the closed lips. But we pretty soon found ways to remove it without the hands, like blowing through it, and using the tongue to moisten it and such).
Such gags were used when both the gagger and the gaggee don’t want to put the effort to make an effective gag. It was always used on non serious tie-up games, the one where the one tied up is usually free after five to ten minutes. If used on a serious game, it was applied on the unspoken assumption that the one who is gagged would act as if it were a real gag, and should he or she dislodge the gag, or speak plainly, a real gag would almost always replace the ‘pretend’ gag.
For ‘real’ gags, mouth packing was almost always required. When I was tied up the first time by Andrew, he stuffed my mouth with a sock. Andrew said to me when I asked that the idea came to him when he noticed that when we were eating, when our mouth was full and we tried to talk, it was always garbled and hard to understand. And since he started the tie up games among us, we always thought of mouth packings as an essential part of a ‘real and proper’ gag.
Mouth packings usually consisted of cloth. The cloth usually was a rolled sock or a wadded handkerchief. Sometimes we would use a ball, or a sponge.
The important thing about the mouth packing was that it was not too small as to be easily pushed out, nor too large that it can not all fit in the mouth. Our rule was that if you can close your mouth around the cloth, it wasn’t too big. Of course, there was the danger of choking, but we didn’t think about it then. In all our years of playing tie-up games, I have yet to recall an incident where anyone of us came within serious danger of choking because of mouth packing. Mouth packings would make any conversation completely unintelligible, and significantly reduce the amount of noise one can make.
Of course, the mouth packing can only be as good as the thing that holds it in. For a long time, the most common type was a cleave gag, most commonly a handkerchief, tightly tied over the open mouth between the teeth. Then, another variation was that we tied a big knot in the middle of the cleave gag, and put the knot inside the mouth, then tie it tight behind the neck.
Next to cleave gags, tape was common to hold mouth packings. Most simple was the single piece of tape over the closed lip. Then we moved on to multiple strips what would cover most of the lower mouth when we discovered that a single strip could easily be removed.
The types I mentioned above varies in their effectiveness in keeping one gagged. Individually, they have weaknesses that could be worked around, but by combining them, you can make a very effective gag. For example, one of our favourite gags was after one’s mouth was packed by a large wad relative to the captive’s mouth, we would secure that first with a cleave gag with a large knot on its center thrust into the open mouth and the knot settled behind the teeth, and tied it behind the neck. Next, we would plaster the lower face with strips of duct tape. The mouth packing, knotted cleave gag, multiple strips of duct tape would in almost all cases be sufficient to keep someone quiet. And if we could, we would add to it by various means, like tying handkerchiefs over the duct taped face, or even two, and tuck it into each other to tighten the cleave gag further, which we called the three tucked handkerchief gag. But the most effective method was to wrap brown packaging over it about five to six times, after tying some sort of headscarf to cover the back of the head and neck to protect the hair from the tape.
There were fourteen characters who were actively participants in our tie-up games. All family names were changed, and most first names were also changed to protect their identity.
Andrew Ford (12)
My older brother, and with his friend David, the one who got the ball rolling on our tie up games. He was smart, strong, and a little bit taller than me. I look up to him, and measure my successes by his achievements.
Most of the time, he was my main antagonist in the games. He was opposite my team in all regular games. More often than not, our defeats can be attributed by the actions of Andrew. And during the few times during non regular games where we ended up on the same team, he showed to me why his team always was far ahead in our tie-up games.
Aside from being the leader of their team, he was also the leader of our entire tie-up gang. He usually makes most decision concerning all of us, and we usually accept his decisions.
The one thing I don’t like about him was that sometimes, he can be overbearing. He was bossy.
Thomas Ford (11)
That’s me. As the second child in my family, I was the frequent target of my brother when we started playing our games. But as we grew older, we became closer, his target shifted to Betty, my sister, especially as we increasingly preferred girls to be our captives than boys.
I was usually the leader of my team when my brother and I were on different teams.
David Scott (12)
David was Andrew’s loyal friend. The same age as my older brother, he was my brother’s constant companion, and his lieutenant who goes along with whatever Andrew proposes. He was also highly skilled in knots, and most frequently used it on his sisters Nancy and Cathy.
Angela Dale (11)
Angela Dale, presently Andrew’s wife, was the first girl to become involved in our games. She was my sister’s best friend, and sister to my close friend Henry. She was also close to me and Andrew, or we would never have let her join us in the first place.
Highly skilled in tying us up, she was fiery, had a hot temper, intelligent, and hates to lose. She loves to tie up people, far more than she likes being tied up. That’s a reason why she joined what was then a boys only tie up ‘club’. Among all the girls, she was the only one who likes to tie up someone else rather than being tied up, although as she grew up, she had to accept that she would spend far more time being tied up than tying up someone, especially with friends like my sister, Nancy, and Cathy, who always seem to find ways on getting Angela tied up.
Frank Tompkins (11)
My best friend. He was a typical ordinary boy. He likes to tie up someone and doesn’t like to be tied up. He was an enthusiastic player, and one that’s mostly on my side. He could be annoying at times, and sometimes, would be unavailable for games. He was the only one who does not have a sibling or even a close relatives playing with him these tie up games (Louise also, but since I married her years later, I consider Frank as the only one who had truly no family relations with any of the other players).
Donald Ford (11)
My cousin on my father’s side. At first my ally, he became my enemy because of the luck of the draw. He generally doesn’t stand from the crowd. He’s a competent TUGger, and his knotting skills were excellent. His favourite and most frequent captive was his little sister Maggie.
Chester and Jay Adams (12)
Fraternal twins, and in the tie up games so inseparable that I could hardly make a different description for each of them. Almost always together, once my allies, then my opponents in the regular games, perhaps the thing that strikes me most about them was that, relative to the time that they had been playing tie up games with us, they played the fewest games, was unavailable for some games for reasons not their fault. And they were almost totally absent in the boys v. girls game that led to the two day captivity.
Louise Lewis (11)
Angela’s friend and next door neighbor, and my one time classmate, and my future wife, she was a sweet girl who would not be involved in tie up games were it not for her being close friends with not only Angela and me, but with Betty and Maggie too. She took to the games, eventually enjoying being tied up. In fact, among all the players, she had the second least time spent as a captor, behind Cathy. Almost always captured, even in regular games where she was on the winning side, it seems to me that she had resigned herself to being tied up often.
But she was a good sport about it, and didn’t complain when we tied her up.
Nancy Scott (10)
David’s little sister who at first was an annoying spoiled little brat, who most of us did not like, she was Betty’s friend and who with her, actively interfered in our games at a time when she was too young to be tied up herself. Then, David discovered that since they were different families than ours, the nine year old rule doesn’t apply, and he tied his two sisters. And they found out that that they liked to be tied up—a lot.
Nancy’s behaviour became tolerable, as David learned how to leverage his sister’s desire to be tied up. She still was the most likely one to loudly demand that we tie her up, which we sometimes do just to shut her up. And as a result, she’s one of the most tied up characters in our games, whether or not she’s on the losing, or winning side. Several times when her team won, she insisted that we tie her up and gag her along with our captives, and the only thing that would still distinguish her as part of the ‘captors’ and the ‘winning’ team what that we don’t tickle her. And she had the ability to look down on other tied up captives even while she herself was bound and gagged.
But even though she enjoys being captive, she also enjoys tying up others. Her most frequent victim, naturally, was her younger sister Cathy. And she generally likes Angela less than the rest of us do, and so tried to tie her up as often as she could, which sometimes backfire and end up with Angela tying up Nancy instead.
Maggie Ford (10)
My cousin, and Donald’s younger sister. Got involved in our tie up games mostly as a function of supporting, or doing whatever my sister does. Despite being a few weeks older than my sister, she usually follows my sister’s lead. Unlike my sister, she doesn’t have a longing to be part of our tie up games, she just was sucked into it, and learned to enjoy it.
As a TUGger, she was far more likely to be tied up rather than to be the one tying someone else up. And like before, she was tied up far more than she otherwise would because of my sister Betty, who would drag her into situations where they’d be tied up. And Maggie was always supportive of Betty, and would never abandon her to be tied up by herself.
Betty Ford (10)
My younger sister. She first got involved when Angela, her best friend, dragged her to it. Then she herself took to the games, helping in the capture of some, and participating in the tying, and especially of the gagging, and the tickling of the victims, all while still protected by the nine year old rule. We tied up her once a few weeks before her ninth birthday, but were caught by our parents.
She proved to far more enthusiastic about the games than we had anticipated. She enjoyed being tied up, had no hesitancy proclaiming the fact, and often dragged her cousin and friends to be tied up with her. She often found ways to get herself tied up by us. In fact, from the time she was nine to the time she was well into her teens, she was tied up almost everyday when there was no school, from a few minutes a day, to hours on end. Often, when we watched TV after dinner but before going to bed, she often would ask that she would watch TV tied up, and gagged, and when we go for long drives, she often had her hands tied behind her at her own request, and gagged tightly too. Her female friends were very unfortunate, because she had the personality to convince them to get them to be tied up with her even if they were hesitant and didn’t want to. (Although with friends like Nancy, Cathy, Angela, Louise etc., it wasn’t hard to convince them to get tied up with her). Several of her sleepovers ended with me or my brother tying her up and all her friends for the night, even if we did not intend to in the first place.
Of course, not all her experiences in tie up games would involve her as a captive. She was also a good captor, her favourite captive being her best friend Angela and our cousin Maggie. She became very adept at knots. Although once she tied up her friends, she would often get me, or my brother, or even my mother, to tie her up with her captives.
Cathy Scott (9)
Little Cathy was the younger sister of Nancy, and at the time of this story, the youngest and smallest member of tie up club. One would think that being the youngest, we would take it easy on her. But no. Like her sister Nancy, and my sister Betty, she loved to be tied up, and due to her young age, she was always tied up, either by her brother, her sister, or by the rest of us. She was tied up so much, and never got to tie up anybody much, even if she was on the winning team, that she never developed good tying skills.
Like her sister Nancy, she was a bit of a spoiled brat who threw a tantrum whenever things did not go her way. Her love of being tied alleviated such behaviour, for she can be tied up whenever she acted up and not get into trouble because she loved being tied and gagged, and she can also act behaved in exchange for being tied up. It was sometimes complicated, but it always ends up with her in the ropes.
Henry Dale (10)
Angela’s younger brother and my close friend. He was unusual among us in that he was the only boy who was regularly tied up by a girl, and in this case, by Angela. In fact, early on, it was him that usually gets me involved in tying up or being tied up by Angela. He was the only boy who in the course of our games, would usually end up tied up more than being the one tying up.