In my job as a camp counselor, I have the express privilege of seeing some weird stuff. Every summer, I spend a week surrounded by about 120 boys between the ages of eleven and seventeen, with the wonderful smell of hormones in the air. And it was this last year that prompted one of the more interesting events I have ever seen there.
I had been reading a bunch of TUG stories all over DA and the like, and decided to try a little social experiment. I set up a knot-tying tutorial for any camper that wanted to take part, and got a fairly large turnout, much to my surprise. When I was a kid, those kind of things tended to generate groans. Apparently, this group was a lot more interested. I would soon discover why.
I spent about half an hour teaching them basic knots; square, butterfly, etc. Then, I told them I had to run to the bathroom, and would be back soon.
However, I had no intention of going to the bathroom. I wanted to see what happened when thirty young boys learn to tie knots and are left unsupervised. I left them alone for about fifteen minutes, letting the situation develop a little.
I came back, and surveyed the craziness before me. Turns out that my presumptions were correct: these kids instantly used their newfound skills on each other. They had all apparently rounded on the littlest ones; five eleven-year-olds were now tightly tied up. I looked at the knots they had used, and it was pretty apparent that not everybody was a novice in this art. I turned to the oldest one there, a seventeen-year-old named David, who grinned at me sheepishly.
"I take it you did this?" I asked him. "Umm, yeah." he replied, smiling. "I'm not going to lie, David. I'm impressed. These are some nice knots." David was taken aback. He was obviously not expecting this response. "Uh, thanks." The bound boys looked at me pleadingly, wiggling fruitlessly in their bonds. Their captors had apparently managed to find a roll of duct tape and bandanas somewhere, and all of the boys were gagged as well.
"Ok, guys. At least take the gags off. Let them breather." They acquiesced, and pulled off the tape and cloths. The smallest boy, James, immediately began demanding David to untie him. The others simply continued to squirm. Once of them, Mike, had been tied to a support post, with nearly his entire body mummified in rope. He could barely move an inch.
"Tell me, David. How did you come up with this idea?" I inquired.
"Well, when you told us about it, I talked to some of the other guys, and we all thought it would be fun. Oh, and Mike there is Brandon's little brother. So he got the worst of it." David replied, smiling at his brilliance.
I looked around, and saw tears beginning to leak out of James' eyes. "Unite him. Now." I commanded the queue around him. They complied and released him, and I scooped him up. "It's OK, James. Don't worry. They didn't mean to hurt you." He looked up into my eyes. "I know. It was just that the ropes hurt a lot. They asked me if I wanted them to do it first. It was just really tight."
I glanced at his wrist, and saw and angry red rope burn on it. It did look quite painful. "Go to the nurse and ask her for some aloe. That'll help it." James nodded and scampered off, and I turned back to the crowd. "Is anyone else in pain or need to get out?" I asked the remaining four bound boys. They all shook their heads or replied no, and continued to squirm. I smiled, and walked up to one boy who had been tied to a chair, his arms behind him and he was, as always, shirtless.
"Corey. How many times have we told you to wear that shirt?" He grinned impishly back at me and stuck out his tongue. He was one of the biggest camp troublemakers, and my fellow counselors had agreed that we had leeway to execute a little playful punishment. We had seen Corey interact with this friends, and he responded quite explosively to tickling. And now that he couldn't really move...
I reached out and gently dragged my fingertips down his bare belly, and the eleven-year-old burst into giggles. The crowd of boys looked at him, and like a pack of lions, descended on the rest of the trapped boys. Mike had been unbound from the pole but was still tied, and was being tickled on his bare feet. The remaining pair, twin boys named Miles and Kerry, had been hogtied on the ground, were turned on their sides, and were getting their torsos tortured.
The squeaky laughter of four ticklish boys rang out through the large room, and after instigating the start, I left the other boys to it. Each bound kid was rapidly going crazy, with the twins especially bad off. The limited use of rope left most of their bodies exposed, and there were fingers flying all over them.
After about five minutes, I called the ticklers off. The boys were all red and sweaty, with Corey still giggling heavily from the phantom tickles. I told all of the older boys to release their captives, and they begrudgingly complied. The group of boys all walked up to me, smiling widely. They then proceeded to jump on me.
Fortunately, they were tired, and I was not. In short order, the challengers had all been vanquished. They stumbled off, looking to go get some sleep. I stood up, dusted off my shirt, and assisted in the cleanup efforts.
It had been a successful experiment.
END