## THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by sarobah » Sun Sep 04, 2011 6:33 pm

THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)
Memoir is how we try to make sense of who we are, who we once were, and what values and heritage shaped us. If a writer seriously embarks on that quest, readers will be nourished by the journey, bringing along many associations with quests of their own.
â€“ William Zinsser, Inventing the Truth
This chronicle of my tie-up adventures is a revamp of my previously published true-life tales, hopefully the best and final rewrite. All are GTU â€“ girl tied up. It takes a while to get into the actual bondage. If you cannot bear with my philosophical musings but still want to read the story, you can skip the Introduction and go directly to Chapter 1.
Introduction: The Secret Valley
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
â€“ T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding
There is a saying: You can never go home again. Which means that when you leave to make your own way in the world, things inevitably change, people move on. And even if some things remain the same, you havenâ€™t. You have outgrown what you were. Old roots have withered and youâ€™ve put down new ones. So what you have are your memories, and it seems to me that the best you can do is not try to reclaim what youâ€™ve left behind but instead to lead a life that provides a lasting store of happy reminiscences.
Yet such wisdom is a foreign landscape to a homesick eighteen-year-old returning to the cosy haven of her youth after ten months away at university. Places you hadnâ€™t been to for years, people you hadnâ€™t talked to since long before you left home, have greater status in your memory than they did in reality. But thatâ€™s the nature of nostalgia â€“ itâ€™s a magnifying glass which makes everything loom larger than life-size. And so the first few days of my homecoming were devoted to reconnecting with all those people and revisiting all those places.
Of course, the house to which I returned was not exactly the ancestral home. My family had moved in just five years earlier, not long before my thirteenth birthday. And yet during that time I managed to build up a bountiful supply of pleasant memories; and among the fondest have been those of the tie-up games I played back then. Not that Iâ€™ve given them up now, but having left teenage innocence in my wake, I have graduated to more â€œsophisticatedâ€ entertainments. Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel just a little wistful for that vanished world of my girlhood.
This is why I decided to produce a chronicle of my tie-up adventures, so that they never completely fade away. And the best means of ensuring their preservation is to share them. At the same time, I remain constantly aware of how easy it can be to slip over the fuzzy line that separates reality and fantasy. While you do your best to stay faithful to the truth of the events as they actually happened, imperfect recall and fertile imagination inexorably intrude. But the fact is that when you journey into your past, you are bound to encounter twists and turns on the trail that will take you in all sorts of directions. However, what you find, in the end, is that for every episode in your life that has been forgotten or misremembered, you gain a new kind of experience and hopefully a better understanding of yourself.
I am reminded of this by a weird incident that happened not long after weâ€™d moved into our new home. At the end of the street is an extensive area of bushland that rises into verdant hill country. My little brother Alex and I had quickly reconnoitred its fringes, but the first time I got to thoroughly explore the forest was just prior to our first summer vacation there. It was a hot, hazy day. The weather was humid, the atmosphere heavy and unsettling.
The terrain was criss-crossed by ridges and ravines which became more rugged the farther I penetrated. I was thinking of turning back, until I passed over a high crest and was presented with a breathtaking sight. Before me the ground fell away into a deep, broad valley dotted with gnarled, scrubby eucalyptus trees and strewn with huge boulders, some the size of houses. Awed by my surroundings, I wandered about for maybe an hour, perhaps two. It was an eerie, almost trancelike experience. I distinctly remember that there was not a breath of wind, and I recall no sound at all â€“ the usual cacophonous chorus of insects and birds had strangely been silenced. I felt dislocated in space and time, as if transported to another world. And yet eventually, reluctantly, with the sun sinking in the western sky, I had to leave. There was no difficulty in getting home, because all I had to do was stay on a north-easterly course until I reached the highway that ran past our suburb.
I didnâ€™t get a chance to return for several weeks. By then Alex and I had made friends in the neighbourhood, and to them I mentioned the valley. None of the kids recognized it from my description, even though they were familiar with most parts of the forest. And while we spent many happy hours and days playing and hiking there, I never rediscovered it. A few years later, sadly, much of the area was â€œdevelopedâ€ as a housing estate, so wherever it was, my mysterious magic valley is probably now lost forever.
To this day, a decade on, I wonder if it really did exist, or if it was just a waking dream, induced by the oppressive conditions, my enveloping fatigue and an overactive imagination. But real or not, I like to think that my secret valley is still there, somewhere, awaiting the return of a wide-eyed girl who has, in a sense, never stopped searching for it.
Chapter One: Backyard Buccaneers and Mediaeval Mayhem
In truth it should be noted that childrenâ€™s games are not really games. Children are never more serious than when they play. â€“ Michel de Montaigne, Essays
During my absence at university, my brother Alex enjoyed his temporary elevation to only-child status. Heâ€™s two and a bit years my junior, and we have always had an ambiguous, ambivalent, antagonistic relationship. Because our family moved around a lot in our pre-teenage years, he and I were never in one place long enough to make lasting friendships with other children, so we relied on each other for company. At the same time, our semi-nomadic lifestyle made it hard for our parents to find a babysitter for Alex when one was needed. The duty fell to me, because the difference in maturity was much wider than our age gap. That was when I had to stop being playmate and become bossy big sister. As a result, we developed an intense sibling rivalry which endured long after he had reached responsible adolescence. I used to call him my Baby Bro, and when I did he had all sorts of colourful names for me. Our enmity was always good-natured, but I had to fight a never-ending battle to shore up my superiority, and he waged a relentless campaign to undermine it.
Although it took him a while to get the message, Alex had an ally working for him, and it was one that lurked inside me. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved being tied up. I adore the feeling of helplessness and isolation that come with being bound and gagged and blindfolded. Not because Iâ€™m masochistic, weak and docile. In fact, Iâ€™m pretty much the opposite. What I find exhilarating is the struggle, the test of strength and endurance, whether it ends with the sweet savour of success or the bitter taste of defeat. But I especially love it when Iâ€™m tied up by guys, and I have made it my mission to be captured and tied up by the men in my life. I have tied up a guy or two, and a girl here and there, and Iâ€™ve been tied up by girls. Nevertheless, I prefer to be on the receiving end, guy-on-girl being my personal style; and I confess that this is when my submissive tendencies, which I otherwise keep suppressed, come to the surface. To yield to the ropes and surrender to the one who binds you, to exchange your freedom for absolute dependence, is an exquisitely pleasurable experience that makes sense only to those who feel it.
This started so early in my childhood that I donâ€™t recall how and when it began. All I remember is that in my fantasies, I was a damsel in distress â€“ the aristocratic lady kidnapped by the swashbuckling pirate, the haughty princess carried off to the harem by some dark-eyed sheik, the Indian maiden who falls into the hands of cruel cowboys, the fearless cowgirl taken by savage Injuns, the lady detective overpowered by the arch villainâ€™s evil henchmen â€“ all the well-known classics. My favourite scenario, however, was the superheroine-in-jeopardy â€“ Lara Croft, intrepid and imperilled; Wonder Woman finding herself on the wrong end of her magical lasso; Buffy getting Spiked (or maybe thatâ€™s a different fantasy!), and so on. And it was thus fitting that in my first memorable tie-up adventure, I was captured by pirates.
I have vague recollections of earlier episodes. When I was eleven years old, we were living near one of my motherâ€™s relatives, who has a son almost exactly my age named Andrew. He and I became the co-founders of a neighbourhood band of about a dozen prepubescent adventurers whose escapades as often as not culminated in someone getting tied up. Usually it was one or all of us girls, although sometimes the tables were turned on the boys. These games were just juvenile shenanigans spiced up with some pre-adolescent girl-versus-boy animus, and I didnâ€™t really associate them with my fantasies. But one Saturday afternoon, things began to fall into place.
Back then I was an unreconstructed tomboy. However, that day there was a family wedding with a backyard reception. I had been coerced out of my usual ensemble of scruffy jeans, frayed T-shirt and tatty sneakers and into a lavender-coloured party frock. It was short and strapless, festooned with frills and lace and ribbons and bows. It was pert, pretty and ultrafeminine, and naturally I hated it. Andrew and I had maintained a stiff competition for the leadership of our gang, and I was sure glad that none of the other members were there to see me like this. Andrew, meanwhile, looked stiff and uncomfortable, albeit rather handsome, in a three-piece suit. To make himself feel better, he started making fun of me, so I chased him around the yard and we ended up in a narrow alleyway between the house and the fence. We scuffled for a minute or two, until Andrew pinned my arms behind me in a double hammerlock.
Although I would stop growing in my very early teens, at eleven I was of average size for my age, and in fact slightly taller and heavier than Andrew. Why I had decided to give up the struggle was on account of my little dress, which I did not think could withstand the rigours of combat. And so I waited passively as he held my arms behind my back with one hand. I was beginning to wonder what he was doing when he began wrapping something around my crossed wrists â€“ it took a couple of loops for me to realize he was using his belt. It didnâ€™t have enough length and was too inflexible for a really secure binding; but I didnâ€™t try to break or twist free, and so far as I can recall this was the first time ever that I allowed myself to be tied without any sort of resistance. It felt good, and I wasnâ€™t quite sure why.
When he was finished, I about-faced and we stood looking at each other. Andrewâ€™s eyes began flitting this way and that. Figuring that he was trying to work out a way of further immobilizing me, I decided I really should, for my own self-respect, make some attempt at either fight or flight. However, at that instant my mother came round the corner, to find out where her little princess had got to. Seeing us, she shook her head disapprovingly but said nothing. Andrew released my hands and we returned to the festivities.
After that, Andrew had the upper hand in our contest for neighbourhood supremacy. It wasnâ€™t so much the tying up as the humiliating picture of me in my party frock, which Andrew gleefully painted in many words for our friends, that undermined my authority. Gang leaders donâ€™t wear girlie frills. But this chapter in my life lasted only a few more months, before my family moved on once more. I had almost forgotten the incident, until I began writing down my reminiscences; and when Andrew and I met up again years later, there would be a sequel. Yet what I have now come to realize is that those few minutes on a Saturday afternoon twelve years ago would prove to be one of the formative moments in my decade-long love affair with tie-up games.
We stayed in a couple more places before finally settling into our permanent home. Itâ€™s a rather posh house in an upscale part of town. The suburb is interwreathed with parks and surrounded by extensive bushland; the beach is within bicycle-riding distance. The yard is large, with a swimming pool and an elegant gazebo. It was the closest thing to paradise for two kids unaccustomed to such trappings of the good life.
It took Alex and me a while to make new friends in the neighbourhood. We had arrived at the beginning of the summer vacation, so we hadnâ€™t had much opportunity to fit into the school community. That did not especially bother me, since I enjoyed my own company and liked nothing better than to be alone with a good book. My brother, on the other hand, was more gregarious. On the next block lived Cameron, who was between Alexâ€™s age and mine, and they quickly became pals.
I was not enamoured of Cameron. I found him to be smug and supercilious around me but obsequious towards Alex. In retrospect, I guess it was sanctimonious on my part to be so judgemental about a twelve-year old boy, and it only occurred to me much later that his attitude betrayed an unrequited crush on me. To a self-absorbed teenage girl, the infantine love of a gauche twelve-year-old was cause for disdain; but the irony is that it was he who, with the able assistance of my Baby Bro, inducted me into the tie-up games that I have played ever since.
It was a sultry summer day about a week into the school vacation. Alex and Cameron were exploring the nearby forest and no doubt terrorizing the local wildlife. I decided to spend the afternoon relaxing poolside in my bikini with a book. It was She Captains by Joan Druett, a fascinating history of the travels and travails of women who went to down to the sea in ships.
I was, rather appropriately, just coming up to Chapter 5, Captured by Corsairs, when Alex and Cameron returned from their foray into the wilderness.
â€œWatcha reading?â€ my brother demanded.
â€œGo away,â€ I replied.
Since this had no effect, I held up the cover for them to see.
â€œGirl pirates?â€ Cameron snorted. â€œGimme a break.â€
â€œSure,â€ I answered, in a most obliging tone. â€œArm or leg?â€
He looked at me with a quizzical expression.
â€œForget it,â€ I said. I tried to get back to my reading. However, there is nothing like the mention of pirates to set a pair of young boysâ€™ hearts aflutter. After the inevitable â€œArr, me heartiesâ€ and the obligatory â€œAvast, ye scurvy dogsâ€ and the classic â€œShiver me timbers,â€ they disappeared into the house. Tranquillity was restored... but not for long. They re-emerged a few minutes later, decked out in full pirate regalia. I had to give them credit for improvisation, even if was only the rare seventeenth century buccaneer who wore blue denim breeches and a Radiohead emblazoned tunic. The lusty lads fought a series of noisy running battles around the yard until they had chased each other into exhaustion. As they collapsed on the grass nearby, I scrutinized them over the top of my book.
â€œWhy donâ€™t you go back inside and watch TV?â€ I said, then added rashly, â€œand leave me in peace.â€
Recovering his manly vigour, Alex scrambled to his feet and swaggered up to me. â€œI got a better idea,â€ he growled. â€œWhat ya think, matey?â€ He turned to his advancing comrade, who responded with a malevolent grin.
â€œFor sure, a comely maiden.â€ Cameron flourished his weapon and let it rest on my shoulder, the tip against my throat.
â€œSurrender, me lovely, or you will feel the sharp edge of me cutlass.â€
â€œWell, actually, since itâ€™s plastic...â€
â€œQuiet, wench,â€ my brother scowled.
â€œAye,â€ Cameron exclaimed. â€œThe lass makes fine booty.â€
So they talked the pirate talk, and did it well; but could they, as the saying goes, walk the walk? So setting down my book, I resolved to test their mettle. I must confess, looking back on the moment, that the stifling humidity and warm stiffening breeze had been making me drowsy. The reading and sunbathing had begun to pall, and the lure of excitement and danger must have gotten the better of my good sense.
Notwithstanding their picaroon braggadocio, I was bigger than either of my adversaries, and even against them together I could have prevailed. And indeed, as I bounded off the sun-lounge to challenge them, they balked and backed off. We stood staring each other down for a couple of seconds; but before they rallied for a counterattack, fearing for the wellbeing of my expensive tangerine Agustina string bikini, I chose retreat as the better part of valour. I elbowed Cody out of the way, sending him into a spin. Alex attempted a tackle, sprawling empty-handed and cursing upon the lawn. With an ear-piercing, eye-popping, blood-curdling squeal, I made a dash for the house. (Iâ€™m not by nature a screamer â€“ it just seemed apt, under the circumstances.)
As I reached the pool-fence gate, the thrill of the chase kicked in, and on impulse I veered off my escape route. Cameron having recovered his balance and Alex his dignity, the boys charged after me, driving me away from my safe haven. Cornered at the far end of the yard, I turned to face my pursuers.
â€œNo quarter!â€ my brother shouted as he lunged with his sword.
I seized the blade and wrenched it from his grasp. So quickly disarmed, he just stood and gaped at me, with a comical, stunned mullet expression. Cameron backed off, shaking his head. This abduction was not going as planned.
I waved the sword about in a suitably menacing fashion, pondering what the next move should be. Despite their setbacks, my would-be captors were not prepared to give up just yet, whereas my own enthusiasm for the fight was beginning to wane. I considered my predicament, and then I thought, â€œOh, what the heck!â€
I flung down my weapon and raised my hands. â€œI surrender.â€
Suspecting some kind of trickery, the boys held back. I gave them a â€œWell, what are you waiting for?â€ look.
Alex reacted first. Tentatively, he reached out and seized my left wrist. When I didnâ€™t offer any resistance, he spun me about and twisted my arm behind my back. Cameron did likewise. With both my arms pinned, I was frog-marched up the yard and forced to kneel beside the pool.
â€œLetâ€™s make her walk the plank,â€ Cameron said with reinvigorated bravado.
Alex thought this was a good idea; but the pool had a collapsible diving board, the kind that is folded and stowed away to save space. It always took a few minutes to set up. Would Cameron be able to handle me while my brother did the job?
â€œWeâ€™ll tie her up,â€ Cameron proposed.
Alex agreed. â€œIâ€™ll get some rope.â€
The boys released my arms, but Cameron put me in a headlock. I was on my hands and knees and he crouched beside me, his arm wrapped about my neck. I began to struggle... but not too hard. His grip was not so tight that I couldnâ€™t breathe. I could have thrown him off, but I was not eager for a wrestling match, since he had me at a distinct disadvantage. The tie-strings on my bikini, top and bottom, had loosened in the preceding battle, and I didnâ€™t want risk having either or both parts come off. It was a repeat of my moment of truth with cousin Andrew two years before. So after some token wriggling and symbolic whimpering, I relaxed in Cameronâ€™s clutches, stoically awaiting my fate.
Alex returned from the garden shed with a number of long strands of thick, soft nylon cord (which I recognized as being from a large spool our dad kept for tying plants onto latticework along the edges of the veranda). The boys drew my arms behind my back once more. They were not gentle, especially Cameron. He was not sadistic, but I could tell that he liked having me in his power. He was at precisely that stage in a boyâ€™s adolescence when aversion or indifference to girls is just starting to give way to attraction and he doesnâ€™t know how to deal with the unfamiliar desire for physical contact.
In what followed, my brother proved remarkably adept for someone who later claimed to be a novice at tying up captives. When I obligingly crossed my wrists, he pulled them apart and looped the cord around each. I wasnâ€™t sure what he was doing but was thinking how easy it would be to work myself free from such an amateurish job, He pulled my wrists together until the insides touched (at the carpal joint) and wove the ends of the rope around and between them several times before applying a cinch. This not only immobilized my hands completely but also put considerable stress on my arms and shoulders. It wasnâ€™t exactly painful but very uncomfortable, and not like in my fantasies. I could not hold in a pitiable moan.
I was still kneeling. While Alex was to my rear, securing the knots, Cameron crouched in front of me, gripping me by the forearms to keep me still. We didnâ€™t say anything, but I tried to look him directly in the eyes. His gaze was instead directed towards my torso, for obvious reasons. The way Alex had tied my hands has the effect of pulling your shoulders back and pushing your chest forward. If youâ€™re a girl, this has an enhancing effect on your boobs. Thirteen years old and skinny, I was not exactly a candidate for Miss Universe, but the result was to strain my little triangle top to its limits.
My brother had no interest in the precarious condition of my bikini. When heâ€™d completed binding my hands, he gave me a sudden hard shove and I toppled forward. Cameron caught me by the shoulders and eased me downwards until I was lying on my stomach. Alex invited him to tie my ankles and showed how to apply the same noose-and-cinch he had used on my wrists. I co-operated by keeping my legs still, but as soon as they had finished and stood up to assess their handiwork, I began twisting and squirming. I was testing my bonds, thinking that all I could do now to show my pluck was to wriggle free. Yet I soon gave up, wondering where my little brother had learned his craft and marvelling at how quickly heâ€™d mastered it. In any case, my flopping about just made them laugh; and as I writhed on the lawn, the freshly mown grass was hideously itchy against my bare skin.
The boys decided that their prisoner now needed to be gagged and blindfolded, so Alex did the deed. He ripped off his bandana and wrapped it around my head. As it was drawn over my eyes, I recognized our motherâ€™s expensive red silk scarf.
â€œYou ruin that and youâ€™ll be dead meat,â€ I told him.
â€œQuiet, wench,â€ my brother snarled, tightening the knot with a sharp tug that jerked my head backwards. As he did so, Cameron thrust a wad of crumpled cloth between my jaws. I was too taken by surprise to clench my teeth before the material filled my mouth. He then secured it with a rag of some kind.
Once my muscles had relaxed, easing the pressure of the ropes, I was beginning to enjoy my predicament. Despite the indignity and discomfort of my position, no longer under my own control I discovered an unexpected sense of calm and contentment. Lying on the ground trussed and helpless made me feel not weak and feeble but rather strong and self-reliant. I realized just how tough I was, allowing myself to be captured by these pint-sized pirates, whom I could have so curtly brushed aside. And at each step of the ordeal, I found myself curious and eager to find out what else my captors had in store for me.
But unlike the sensuous embrace of the bindings and the blindfold, the gag is invasive and insidious, an intrusive reminder of your hopelessness and vulnerability. At first dry and astringent, it quickly became sodden with my saliva and maddeningly irritating. For the first time I began to regret my surrender; but then things got worse. Although I couldnâ€™t see them, I guess the boys must have become bored with just gawking at me as I lay on the grass, and decided liven up the game with some torture. They poked and tickled me with their swords, flicked and slapped me with my towel until I was begging for mercy â€“ a plaintive cry which trickled out through my gag as a gargled mumble.
â€œWhatâ€™s she trying to say?â€ Cameron said.
â€œSpeak up, lass,â€ Alex laughed.
As the relentless torment continued, I began to roll about again, and in my spasms, my blindfold came off, my gag came loose and â€“ to my dismay â€“ the side-string of my bikini bottom came undone. I yelled and swore revenge, and they just laughed and carried on. Cameron reinserted the gag and refastened my blindfold, while my Baby Bro gallantly handled the more delicate assignment.
After that, to keep me still, Alex advised a hog-tie. Cameron giggled at the word, and my brother explained. I was intrigued because I had seen plenty but had never, of course, experienced one. Unfortunately, this was not to be my first, except in the most rudimentary fashion. Alex had reached the limits of his expertise. He bent my legs to bring my ankles up to my backside in order to bind them to my wrists, but he tied it loosely so there was no tension at all. He attempted to tighten it with a yoke about my neck but couldnâ€™t devise a way of anchoring it without choking me â€“ he hadnâ€™t yet figured out how to apply a shoulder harness. Well, he was yet but a lubberly naif in the art of tying up kidnapped maidens.
This must have dampened my brotherâ€™s enthusiasm. Even when the focus of interest is a tied-up girl in a bikini, young boys have very short attention spans, so they eventually tired of their sport. Alex stood me up, released my ankles and removed my gag.
â€œPay the ransom or walk the plank,â€ he demanded.
The price they demanded was to make them afternoon tea, and since I was not sure that they wouldnâ€™t toss me in the pool with my hands still tied behind my back, I agreed to their blackmail. They marched me, bound and blindfolded, into the house to the galley. After I made sandwiches, my captors set me free, and my first authentic tie-up game was over. The buccaneers debarked for places unknown, and I returned to my reading and to catch the last rays of the sinking sun. My mother arrived home from work around five oâ€™clock and sent Cameron packing.
â€œDid the boys behave themselves today?â€ she inquired as I came inside. That seemed to me an odd thing to ask, since she did not normally require a report on my brotherâ€™s behaviour. Indeed Alex did a sort of double take and gave me a funny look â€“ half accusatory, half supplicatory.
â€œNo worse than usual,â€ I answered.
â€œThatâ€™s nice, dear,â€ she replied, not really listening.
Iâ€™m not sure that â€œThey tied me up, tortured me and threatened to drown meâ€ would have evoked a much different response. Nevertheless, held back by gratitude for my discretion, it was a few days before Alex gave in to the urge to tease me about the episode. I reminded him of my oath of retribution and he slunk away, suitably intimidated.
Naturally, I didnâ€™t let on to him about how much I had enjoyed my role as la demoiselle en dÃ©tresse. But from that time, our elder sister younger brother dynamic had subtly changed. From Alexâ€™s point of view, he had won a grand victory by capturing and subduing me, righting a lifetime of wrongs, exacting vengeance for insults and injuries real and imagined, establishing his ascendancy, if only for an hour or so on a sultry summer afternoon.
So it is my Baby Bro whom I have to thank for my induction into tie-up games, and over the next decade there would be many more opportunities for him to tie up Little Big Sis. Of course, itâ€™s important that I clarify that there was nothing icky about our games. It was simply that I had caught the bondage bug, and because we still travelled around a lot on account of our parentsâ€™ professional commitments, oftentimes Alex was my only available tie-up buddy. And even when we were not away from home, at school and in the neighbourhood it was not so easy to develop new prospects. I couldnâ€™t just go around asking guys to tie me up. I was already starting to acquire a reputation as â€œthat weird chickâ€ (for reasons that had nothing to do with ropes and gags and blindfolds).
Indeed, it would be several months before our next adventure. The occasion was Alexâ€™s birthday party. He had a keen interest in the history of the Middle Ages, second only to his passion for pirates. As a result, he decided his party should have a mediaeval theme. The guests came in character; most of the boys dressed as knights, the girls as ladies of the court. My parents had imposed a rule that all costumes be home-made (so it didnâ€™t turn into a â€œwho can afford the most expensive outfitâ€ competition), but some of them were really quite elaborate and adorable. Alex, always the individualist, decided he would be a monk, and he looked disturbingly authentic (though in my view more Rasputin than Friar Tuck).
When the party was in full swing, the adults retreated indoors, leaving me and my friend Susan in charge of the proceedings. For the dubious privilege of entertaining a pack of unruly adolescents, and for a modest fee, we had given up our Saturday afternoon. We stuck to the mediaeval motif in the sorts of amusements and activities that we organized, although â€“ to my brotherâ€™s puerile chagrin â€“ I drew the line at jousts and mÃªlÃ©es. Nevertheless, Susan winced and gasped as the girls romped and tumbled in the grass and dirt in their sumptuous dresses.
I hadnâ€™t known Susan very long. She was in my grade at school, and in many respects my opposite â€“ a tall brunette, well-developed for her age, athletic, moody and rather standoffish. We didnâ€™t really get on that well, but we were both relatively new to the neighbourhood, so we were drawn together. I called her the Anti-Sarah and she called me Bizarro-Susan. I probably should have felt a little insulted, but in fact I took it as a compliment. On this day, she looked every part the princess in an exquisite, off-the-shoulder green Guinevere gown with a gold-trimmed lace-up bodice. My own persona was sort of a cross between Maid Marion, Morgana Le Fay and the Lady of the Lake.
Everything appeared to be running smoothly, until I was forced to assert my authority over some trivial incident involving food in flight. It came as no surprise that the instigator was the Mad Monk, and he thereupon resolved that the malapert maiden needed her comeuppance. So in his capacity as a man of the cloth, Alex organized a witch-hunt. Gathering his flock, he denounced me; and despite my avowals of innocence, he demanded that I undergo trial by ordeal. This received a rousing reception from his acolytes.
Knowing my brother all too well, I had a good idea where this was heading. Yet I submitted without protest, albeit with a defiant â€œthis will not be forgottenâ€ glare. Alex laughed that off and ordered me to remove my scarf and belt. The rest of the mob closed in around me, their faces showing that endearing mix of excitement, curiosity and guilt that kids feel when theyâ€™re not quite sure if the fun theyâ€™re having will get them into trouble. I looked across to Susan, who was standing a safe distance away. With a sympathetic smile and a shrug of her dÃ©colletage, she let me know that I was on my own.
I gave over my garments and Alex wasted no time. He grabbed my shoulders, spun me around and bound my wrists behind my back with the scarf. He turned me to face him again and looped the belt around my neck, to make a halter. This he used to lead me through the jeering throng to the side of the swimming pool. Standing on the edge, staring at the shimmering surface of the water, and not really sure whether I was going to get a ducking, I hastily confessed to my crimes. I admitted heresy, blasphemy, spell-casting, demon-raising, all the usual transgressions, with a couple of supplementary trumped-up charges thrown in by my accuser for good measure, like bearing false witness and scolding (my brother certainly knew his litany of sins). Thus and thereafter, to shouted chants of â€œBurn the witch!â€ I was dragged away.
Princess Precious was not making any attempt to render aid, and no dashing knight came riding to my rescue, so I resigned myself to my ignoble fate. I was paraded around the yard on my leash, hands bound, little kids frolicking around me, mocking and taunting. The procession meandered its way up to the house. We stopped on the patio and I was secured to the corner post. Alex assigned the task to a couple of the girls, who untied my wrists and pulled my arms behind the post before binding them again. I offered no resistance but they made a hard job of it as they fumbled with the knots. I could see that Alex was growing impatient and I responded with a tongue-poking, though I knew that would cost me.
The halter was taken from my neck and used to tie my ankles. This was so I couldnâ€™t lash out when they began torturing me; and because he didnâ€™t trust the skills of his two assistants, Alex used one of the cords he wore with his robe to hold me more firmly to the post. He passed it under my arms and twice around my torso, crossing between my breasts. He relished tugging it to tight that I gasped, but I said nothing, not giving him any more satisfaction than was forced out of me.
My interrogation began with some fiendish tickling. In vain did I protest that I had no more iniquities to confess. My face was smeared with leftover birthday cake and I was sprayed with water and soft drinks. To add realism to his tableau, Alex sent a couple of his minions to collect faggots (thatâ€™s a bunch of sticks and twigs!) which were piled around my feet. Since there was only so far that authenticity can be taken, these were then used to flail and further tickle me. I giggled and wriggled and called down curses upon my tormentors, and we all had a thoroughly good time.
Disturbed by the noise, my mother came out of the house to see what the commotion was. She looked at me, bound and covered in mess and laughing hysterically. She frowned, slowly shook her head and muttered â€œCarry onâ€ before going back inside. We carried on.
When the mob grew weary of my persecution, they looked about for a fresh martyr, and all eyes fell upon Susan. It took her a second to react; but before a hand could be laid on her, she threw up hers in defiance. She frantically turned towards me, but all she got was an unsympathetic grin. Still tied to the post, I was in no position to help even if I had the inclination. However, Alex decided that the game had gone as far as it could, so when his new prey failed to submit without a fight, he backed off. He half-heartedly tried to rally support among the knights to capture the ladies, but the intended victims would have none of that and the witch-hunt fizzled.
Susan pre-empted a renewed assault by organizing some other activities, and she punished me by leaving me, alone and ignored, tethered on the patio. When she needed assistance, I was finally released, still sodden and sticky and caked in various congealed foodstuffs. The party petered out around sunset.
After that day, Susanâ€™s and my friendship began to cool, because we didnâ€™t have much in common and she became more and more convinced that I was peculiar. I could hardly blame her for that, but we eventually turned enemies when we competed for the affections of a boy named Matthew. I won, but my triumph would prove to be a pyrrhic victory.
As for my tie-up games, following the mediaeval mayhem they picked up in frequency. They have yet to end.

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by Billy Shears » Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:55 pm

Sarobah you are a complex, emotive, poetic, romantic, well read, artist-math minded intellectual potent at profilng and assessing character, attitude and intent. Especially INTENT.
( Submissive <> Submissive - Hooray ! )
Last edited by Billy Shears on Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Um, about being a Threatening Psycho ....
People , VOTE to _KILL_ the Threatening Psycho
See : KILL PSYCHO BILLY
under General Chat

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by sarobah » Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:25 pm

> Billy Shears wrote:...strong at profiling and assessing character...

So are you.
:o)
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by xtc » Mon Sep 05, 2011 1:46 am

Thank you. As ever, well presented and intelligently written.
Boxer shorts are cool,
but little speedos rule!
More by the same author: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22729

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by sarumansauron » Mon Sep 05, 2011 5:03 pm

Great story! Thanks!
I love TUGS and TICKLING Torture!!!!!

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by sarobah » Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:24 pm

Chapter 2: War Games and Tent Ropes
O talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory...
â€“ Lord Byron, All For Love
As previously noted, for a good part of my adolescence I was a tomboy. I preferred the company of boys because they were more fun to hang out with than other girls. They were more adventurous. They played more exciting games. They wore more sensible clothes. They got away with more mischief (by playing the â€œboys will be boysâ€ card). I didnâ€™t mind getting dirty and I wasnâ€™t afraid of creepy-crawlies. I was interested in things the guys liked, and had little time for the stuff that my sex was supposed to be into, like shopping and shoes. I didnâ€™t gossip (much), I didnâ€™t spend hours on the phone, I didnâ€™t do dainty or ditzy.
That doesnâ€™t mean I wished I had been born a boy or that I didnâ€™t have my girlie-girl qualities. In fact, in a sense, I had the best of both worlds. My comrades treated me as their equal, but at the same time not just one of the guys. I kept enough of my girlishness intact to remind them of what I was and what I wasnâ€™t. When I was around they watched their language, their jokes and their general manners, if only to an extent. I liked that they were comfortable with me being part of the gang. Sometimes I played the flirt and I liked to show off. While (to my motherâ€™s frequent despair) my gamine uniform was the aforementioned ragged jeans, unkempt sweater and scruffy boots, I knew when, where and how to wear my miniskirts and bikinis. The guys appreciated that, because it gave them a degree of coolness to have me in their ranks. Being moderately popular at school, I even drew a couple of other girls into the group.
One of our favourite haunts was the bushland reserve which adjoined our suburb. It was so vast that you could trek for hours in a single direction without encountering a road or another hiker. A rugged wilderness of eucalyptus woodland and acacia scrubland, of sharp ridges and jagged escarpments, dissected by steep-banked creeks and deep-cut ferny gullies, it was an exciting and mysterious place to explore and play in. The eroded remnants of a long-extinct volcano, the whole expanse was littered with monolithic outcrops and massive boulders of weathered basalt in a startling array of colours, from jet black to blue-grey to olive green. On one hillside near the head of a broad meandering valley, uneven erosion had created a fortress-like cluster of free-standing pinnacles which we called the Citadel.
Alex and I and our friends spent most of three summer vacations there, tramping and camping and organizing war games. And when I felt the need for serenity and solitude, I would go off on my own, on all-day rambles which took me over just about every square metre of the forest. Yet there was always something novel to chance upon, and each new place was so remote and unspoilt that I felt I was the first human to stumble into it. Perhaps I was.
The war games we played could be quite elaborate. On occasion we mustered as many as two dozen participants, although the average number was ten to twelve, ranging in age from around Alexâ€™s to mine, mostly boys but including three or four girls. Weâ€™d camp overnight in the Citadel, and during the day weâ€™d track and pursue, ambush and capture each other. The most popular scenario was aptly named Commando. We split into teams and one would establish a base inside the Citadel. Their mission was to defend their territory by sending out patrols to frustrate their opponentsâ€™ attempts at infiltration. If the attacking team managed to successfully penetrate the Citadelâ€™s defences, the roles were reversed. The game lasted from dawn till dusk, and often we set up overnight camp.
The rules of the game were somewhat complicated. At first we played paintball, but the protective gear was too hot and cumbersome so we devised the tag system. An enemy was â€œkilledâ€ by tagging, literally. If you were ambushed or cornered by an opponent, you were marked with an adhesive patch. You were then out of the game until you could exchange tags with someone on the other side. This was arranged through periodic ceasefires, but also done on trust. To avoid a kill tag, you could allow yourself to be taken prisoner, but that was at your enemyâ€™s discretion. It was rare because it meant the captor had to guard and escort his captive back to his base, exposing himself to the foe. On the other side, being captured meant you were effectively out of the game until you could manage to escape or the two teams organized a prisoner exchange.
It was marvellous, childish fun, but I enjoyed it especially as it was more than just chasing and scrapping, it involved strategizing, exploring, probing and manoeuvring. It was a lot like chess, but with dirt and sweat. Unlike most of the players, who worked in squads, I preferred to operate solo, relying on my own skills and resources. As well as appealing to my independent spirit, this gave me a chance to enjoy the solitude and beauty of the forest. Therefore I usually acted as a scout, and I became very good at subterfuge, concealment and camouflage. These came in handy on the day I captured Vanessa.
On this occasion, the second week of the summer vacation when I had just turned fifteen, we had mustered a record turnout, about two dozen players. We planned our operation on a fittingly grand scale â€“ three days and two nights. We split into our two teams and after the first dayâ€™s play we retired to the Citadel. Our sanctum was so completely sheltered from the elements that we didnâ€™t need to pitch tents, sleeping under the stars. We cooked dinner and told ghost stories around the campfire. I related the story of my secret valley, and everyone thought I was making it up.
The second day started out cool and overcast, but by mid-morning the sun had burned through the clouds and the air had turned hot and unpleasantly humid. I was on the attacking side and was halfway through my customary lone patrol. I was due to rendezvous with my teammates on a hilltop we called Twin Pine Ridge at ten oâ€™clock, but at this point was not very far from the Citadel. I was reconnoitring the enemyâ€™s defensive positions, when I heard the distinctive crackling of dry leaves underfoot. I found a suitable hiding place beside the track and, peering out from between two tall clumps of grass, spied Vanessa.
One of the girls who joined us now and then, Vanessa was statuesque and pretty, about a year older than me. She was a talented athlete, though not the sort of girl youâ€™d expect to be running around in the forest playing make-believe soldier; but she was the girlfriend of one of the core group members. She turned up on our first day dressed not in the de rigueur fatigues, but in a halter top and booty shorts (albeit in tasteful camouflage colours, of course), because she was the sort of girl for whom it was better to look good than to be dressed prudently. But I will give her credit that she went along with our juvenile games and never complained.
Overheated and clammy in my dungarees, I revised my opinion of Vanessa and her minimalist couture until I saw the crimson scrapes and scratches on her bare arms and legs. As I discovered, feeling sore and sorry for herself, she had deliberately become separated from her patrolling squad and was making her way back to their home base at the Citadel. She was following an open trail to avoid the prickly undergrowth, and passed right by the spot where I was lying â€“ no longer in hiding but in ambush. I didnâ€™t normally engage the enemy, even one-on-one, but she was looking so vulnerable that I thought Iâ€™d take the chance. I bailed her up and on impulse announced that she was my prisoner. She looked dejected and thoroughly defeated, but I was a little baffled that she agreed to capture rather than a tagging. It occurred to me that she had maybe gotten herself lost in the green labyrinth of narrow, twisting paths.
When I ordered her to put her hands behind her back, she was surprisingly compliant. She flinched when I crossed her wrists and began binding them with a length of cord I extracted from the first aid kit I carried on my belt; and she cringed when I blindfolded her with a large, square bandage from the kit; but she didnâ€™t resist, nor say a word. I didnâ€™t really think that she was going to be any trouble, but because she was nearly a head taller than me, the blindfold was a practical precaution. Yet when, to make sure she was properly bound, I gave the rope a sharp tug, she groaned so piteously that I felt a slight pang of regret.
Nevertheless, I gave her a mild shove in the back and she stumbled forward. Holding one arm, I guided my helpless, hapless captive along the track, feeling sorry for her as she staggered and nearly tripped several times on the corrugated ground. Her head was turning and tilting as she strained to listen for cues and to catch glimpses of her surroundings from under the edges of her blindfold. She was making soft panting and gasping noises, and rivulets of perspiration glistened on her arms and legs.
As it turned out, compassion for my prisoner proved my undoing. In this part of the forest where the canopy was sparse and light penetrated to the floor, the undergrowth was thick and thorny, so we were forced to keep to the track, to avoid further laceration to Vanessaâ€™s unprotected limbs. That made us visible and thus exposed to ambush. However, it was also my own fault. The oppressive heat had made me somewhat groggy, but I should have been more alert.
My mind had begun to wander when I heard movement about fifty metres up the trail, beyond where it curved around a large embankment. I hauled Vanessa off the path and pulled her to the ground, behind a hedge of thick shrubbery and into a patch of long, spiny grass. I dumped myself over her body, pinning her legs with mine and forcing both my hands over her mouth. After a few muffled protests, she went quiet and still. Being so much bigger than me, she might easily have pushed me off and broken free; but she remained passive, momentarily paralyzed from the shock of my sudden assault.
I lay sprawled across her for several minutes, until I could hear nothing but the birds and insects. The poor girl began to whimper. She must have been in some pain, because her bound arms were being squashed under both her weight and mine; and I was pressing my hands down very hard on her mouth to keep her silent. When finally I determined that I had been spooked by a false alarm, I helped her to her feet and back onto the trail. I brushed away the leaves and twigs that had gouged into her bare arms and legs and midriff, and checked that the rope binding her wrists was still secure. I then thought it wise to gag her as well. She was wearing an elegant chartreuse neckerchief that was ideal for the purpose, and she flinched when I unknotted it, realizing what I was about to do.
â€œI promise not to make a sound,â€ she whispered.
â€œYou just did,â€ I said, being horrible.
We had started moving and I was folding the material into a wad when suddenly I found myself surrounded. Engrossed in my task, I had blundered into a trap. I expected to be tagged but offered my surrender by raising my arms and clasping my hands behind my head.
The enemy squad consisted of three guys, including Vanessaâ€™s boyfriend, and another girl. They freed my captive, and as our roles were suddenly reversed, her expression turned from timid and submissive into a malevolent, vengeful grin. She grabbed my arms and twisted me about, employing the same rope and blindfold that I had used on her, but much tighter and more roughly applied. Iâ€™m sure she wanted to gag me as well â€“ which would only be justice from her perspective â€“ but there must not have been anything to use apart from her expensive scarf, and so I was spared that indignity.
When her comrades were assured that I had been operating alone, that this was not an elaborate ruse of my own, Vanessa volunteered for the job of getting me back to their base. I thought it strange that her boyfriend was happy to ditch her for a second time, especially after what had happened the first. Their hushed conversation made me suspect that she was being given directions to follow, confirming my suspicion that sheâ€™d been lost when I encountered her. Nonetheless, unlike mine, Vanessaâ€™s luck held.
After stumbling blindly â€“ literally â€“ along the rough track, I was thankful when we finally reached the enemy camp. Vanessa had been much less indulgent that I had been when she was my captive, making me walk on my own, guided only by the occasional push or jostle, and letting me fall every so often. When I did, instead of helping me up, she nudged me with her shoe and I struggled to my feet â€“ very difficult to do when bound. Yet I really couldnâ€™t blame her. I think I had caused some damage when I forced her down in the grass, so she was not in a merciful frame of mind.
We had to climb a rugged hillside and traverse a steep-sided depression. I recognized the landscape, even from behind my blindfold, as the boulder field in which the Citadel was located. I could hear a couple of voices as we approached. I think the guys holding the fortress were astounded that the precious Vanessa had managed to take a prisoner. Exhausted, I collapsed in a breathless heap when finally ordered to halt.
After I had recovered â€“ somewhat â€“ I was made to sit astride a coffee-table-sized rock until it was decided what should be done with me. Then Vanessa and another girl hauled me off my seat and dragged me into the amphitheatre-shaped hollow in the middle of the great mass of stone. My hands were untied and I was secured with my back up against a tree, although it was too large for even my outstretched fingers to connect on the other side, so the rope was attached to my wrists and slung around the trunk, then pulled taut. I knew what was coming next, so when I felt the material brush against my lips, I parted my jaws and accepted the gag. It was a piece of cloth which felt greasy but had no taste or smell, so my mouth didnâ€™t become too dry or over-salivated. I never found out what it was and I should have, because it made excellent gagging material.
I was left tied in a sort of half-crouching position, my back and shoulders pressed firmly against the tree trunk, so that after a while my thigh and calf muscles started to cramp and my arms began to ache pretty badly. Fortunately my feet were left untied so I could move my legs somewhat to keep up the blood circulation. I was too proud to complain, though even with my gag I could have made some furious grumbling noises. Anyway, I thought I could more easily work myself free than if I had been bound standing upright. Yet despite my best efforts, I didnâ€™t manage to escape, and spent the rest of the day as a prisoner, at least eight hours. It was my bad luck that there was no prisoner exchange. I was treated well on the whole, with a drink of water every so often and a few minutes each couple of hours when I was untied and permitted to stretch my limbs and massage and flex my muscles. Nevertheless, this was the longest tie-up ordeal I had yet endured.
Over that time people were coming and going in the camp, although I believe that Vanessa stayed around for the entire duration of my captivity. It certainly did not surprise me that she never ventured beyond the secure ramparts of the Citadel again that day. Whenever anyone returned to base, the first thing they would do was to visit me to taunt and torment me. One of them was Jaz, my study buddy who shortly before this had become my magicianâ€™s assistant and helped me produce the Escape Artiste act (which will be described in chapter 4). Rather cruelly, he teased: â€œTry getting out of this one.â€ In the meantime, Vanessa and the other girl subjected me to interrogation utilizing methodical tickle torture. Their pretext was to discover the location of my teamâ€™s field headquarters. I held out, revealing nothing but my anguish, under extreme duress, mainly because I knew they were not really interested in whatever information I had to offer but just wanted to make me suffer.
When the game ended for the day and my teammates came into the camp just before sundown, they joined in making sport of me, especially and not surprisingly my little brother. The funny thing is, though, I was hoping they would leave me tied up during the night, or at least until it was time to hit the sack. But this was not to be. The next morning, I was expecting to be a prisoner again and was rather ambivalent about the prospect. However, my associates reluctantly exchanged me for a couple of kill tags. I resumed my solo scouting and we never did manage to capture the Citadel.
There were two other times when I was tied up during our war games. Each should have turned out more exciting than was the case, and would have if I had just been more creative. On the first occasion, there were eight boys (as I recall) and two girls, myself and Sheree. To make the play more interesting, I proposed that Sheree and I should be prisoners from the outset. We would be taken off by our respective captors, and the aim was that each team would try to retrieve its girl from their opponents. It seemed a good idea. The problem was that within half an hour I had been rescued, and Sheree was freed not long afterwards, so the rest of the game stuck to the conventional Commando format. Still, it was fun while it lasted, because just before the two teams split up, I suggested to my guards that maybe they should tie my hands to prevent my escaping at the first opportunity. They readily agreed. Sheree gave me a withering look as her captors concurred and her arms were wrenched behind her back.
The other time was when I was the only female playing and my own teammates decided I was a liability (the chauvinist cads), so they traded me to the enemy in what was meant to be a prisoner exchange. I got rather a shock when one of my supposed comrades tied my hands behind me, put me over his shoulder and tramped up the hill to the meeting place and handed me over. And it would have been amusing to remain their prisoner for the rest of the game; but I now had something to prove, so I quickly escaped. At least it was a worthwhile challenge to run off and hide and make my way through the bush to locate my own crew with my hands bound behind my back. When we reunited, they were about to release me when I told them no, Iâ€™ll keep my hands tied. It was an act of sheer bravado, to show the boys just how tough I was. But that was, of course, only part of my motivation. For me, it was more fun being a captive than a comrade.
Eventually, my war games came to an end. Around about my sixteenth birthday, my girlie-girl tendencies began to prevail over my tomboy traits, and I swapped the dirt and dungarees for make-up and miniskirts on a more permanent basis. Of course, my tie-games were only just beginning. In particular, I was perfecting my fantastic Escape Artiste routine. But there were some other adventures in the wilderness that need telling.
To be continued...

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by markusthe1st » Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:51 pm

In so many ways you remind me of myself growing up with my cousins - only I played the part of your younger brother with total glee! Like you, my cousin took the "escape artist" route, always challenging me to "do better." I definitely learned a lot in the process, and like you, TUGs has been with me ever since.
I like your writing a lot too - thanks for sharing!
Walk the mile first... then have the fun!

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by sarumansauron » Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:54 pm

Good continuation! Thanks!
I love TUGS and TICKLING Torture!!!!!

### Re: THE TIE-UP CHRONICLES (Revised Edition)

Post by bound-black-girl lover » Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:26 pm

Love the way you dumped yourself over larger Vanessa, pinned her with your smaller body, hand-gagged her hard with both hands and kept her silent!
(Looking forward to MORE descriptions like THAT!)