13 year old Nathalie, dressed in a yellow and orange bathing-suit, put her hands on the edge of the pool, kicked her feet once and heaved herself out of the water. Her swim-coach Dessie, who also was her aunt, came over holding a big, white, extremely fluffy towel which she wrapped around her niece.
“That was great, hun!” she said, smiling warmly. “You mark my words; keep doing those lap-times, and you’ll one day end up on the Olympic team!”
“It’s kind of you to say so aunty, but we both know that’s impossible.” Nathalie unzipped the sheath, firmly holding her legs together. “For one thing: I don’t think they’d allow these things on such events. It would probably be thought of as an unfair advantage.”
Dessie looked, long and hard, at her protégée: “Yes, I suppose it would.” she agreed with a deep sigh. “Pity, though. It’s a great thing for practicing.”
Nathalie stood up, and folded the sheath neatly together, before walking back to the changing-room together with her aunt.
She blow-dried her waist-long, blonde hair, dried off her long, slim yet muscular body and put on a pair of woolly, pink pantyhose, and a green, long-sleeved velvet dress. The sleeves ended in pouches, as all her dresses not meant for school did, so her aunt had to help her zip it up in the back and put her boots, knitted scarf, hat and down-jacket on, before walking to the car.
One of the pouches had a D-ring attached to it, and the other a hook, so the first thing Dessie did before starting the car, was to fasten the girls’ seatbelt and then hook the pouches together again in front of her, before going round to the drivers’ seat and start the car.
Nathalie was living with her aunt, and had done so ever since her parents died a few years ago. The sheath-over-the-legs idea came to both of them, almost by accident, when Nathalie watched “Mermaid” clips on Youtube, and thought it would be interesting to try one and see if it would improve her swimming, which it probably had. Nowadays, Dessie made them herself, but always excluded the tail-part. It always had been in the way, anyway.
Where the inspiration for the dresses with pouches, D-rings and hooks came from, neither of them knew, but it was just possible it came from clips on Youtube as well. It seemed to just sort of come to Nathalie one day, ready and packaged, out of the blue, and Dessie readily agreed. Nathalie always had her hands hooked together when not in school, or when swimming, and her aunt didn’t object. She had even sewn together nice, warm knitted socks for her niece to wear, when they both watched TV at night, before going to bed.
All her bedtime clothes exclusively consisted of diapers and onesies and the bed had straps at wrist-, waist- and ankle-level, so Nathalie was always secured on her back in bed, and had a sleeping-mask put on over her eyes.
All of the things mentioned above had sort of crept into their lives, from some unknown place; one day it was Dessie who came up with an idea for Nathalie to try; the next day, maybe Nathalie herself came up with another. All ideas were of course tested, and most of them rejected, for one reason or another, but some had stuck, and was now part of their daily routine.
It was probably Nathalie (though none of them was really sure) who came up with the idea that Dessie would tie her to a chair whenever her aunt had to go out to shop for groceries; something which Nathalie really, truly hated.
So now, whenever a trip to the grocery-store was needed, Dessie told Nathalie to sit down in a wooden armchair, and tied her legs and knees to the legs of the chair. Then she wound a rope a couple of times around her nieces’ waist and the back of the chair, finishing the procedure by tying her elbows and wrists to the armrests.
She was never gagged, even though she wanted to be in the beginning, because her aunt said it would be too great of a risk. “Besides” she would continue, “there’s no one around who could hear you, is there? Look, I can gag you when I get back. How’s that, for a compromise?”
She would moan, but agree to it, and her aunt had never let her down yet.
Today, when she was tied to the chair, she started thinking about how it all had begun.
She had been sent to live with her aunt, (who was generally considered to be quite an odd character, to say the least) when her parents had failed to return from a business-trip abroad. She had pretty soon told her aunt that she hated anything and everything to do with shopping; unless it was for clothes.
“U-hum, I see.” aunt Dessie had calmly said. “Well: see, I don’t like people digging around in my stuff, when I’m not present! So you either come with me, or I’ll have to make sure you leave my things alone.”
“As coming with you isn’t an option for me, so I suppose you’ll have to stop me from digging around somehow.” Nathalie looked around, adding:” But I’m not so sure you’ve got anything worth stealing.”
“Haven’t got anything worth stealing?” Dessie said, upset. “Well, that does it, young lady! If you’re not coming with me, I’ll have to tie you to something, while I’m gone!”
“Yea you do that, if you’ve got the guts!” Nathalie challenged her aunt, who grabbed a nearby wooden arm-chair, pushed her into it and tied her elbows and wrists to the armrests. Then, she tied her niece’s knees and ankles to the legs of the chair and, just to be on the safe side, tied a rope around her waist and the back of the chair.
“Sure I’ve got the guts!” she established.
“OK!” Nathalie said, in a matter-of-fact voice. Then she proposed Dessie would tie her like that every time she needed to go to the store. A proposal she gladly agreed to. “There’s nothing worse than going to the store, with a sulky child!” she concluded.
As a matter of fact, Nathalie had already found she liked being tied to a chair, which she had been whenever the opportunity presented itself, whether Dessie was going to the store or not.
The diapers and straps in bed had actually been part Nathalie’s own idea, part Dessie’s, which Dessie had vetoed at the beginning, saying it was too risky, what if there was a fire, what if this happened, what if that happened, all the grown-up objections she could think of. But Nathalie had been persistent, and had won that battle, in the end.
“It only makes sense, you strapping me in bed at night.” And adding a rhetorical question: “You don’t want me wandering around when you’re not there during the day, because it might be dangerous, somehow. But you’re fine with it during the night, when it’s pitch-black? Where’s the logic in that?”
Mm, you got me there.” Dessie admitted. The next time she had been out shopping, she gave Nathalie a bundle of straps.
”Will these do?” she asked. Nathalie said they’d be perfect, and they were installed on her bed that very same night. The only condition Dessie had was that Nathalie would start wearing diapers; just in case.