Jeremy
Jeremy leaned against the car window, passing by a "30 miles to Rockford" sign as he listened to a punk cover of a Richard Marx song. When he first heard he was going to see Sarah Mikenzie at her college, he's been stuck on a wave of nostalgia. He looked up the lyrics he remembered her mother playing through the house whenever he came (Sarah would joke about her mom brainwashing her with the music). Man, their years together had flown by. He was seventeen now, and as he was closer to seeing undoubtedly the closest friend of his entire life, he couldn't help but look back fondly on their history.
She had been a neighbor of his back home for several years. She first moved in when he was nine and she was ten. They were only five months apart, but at times he looked at Sara as someone much older. Jeremy wasn't exactly an alpha. He openly admits he's a scrawny beanpole with the aggressiveness of a butterfly. His confidence was somewhat lacking. He liked to stay in the background.
He first met Sara hen she moved in. His parents knew her parents from way back, and he was made to meet her. He remembered really not wanting to. How was he going to talk to a girl? It was hard enough talking to other guys. He'll never forget meeting her for the first time. Her long red hair is the biggest give away she was a girl. The way she dressed and acted though, total tomboy. She took him by the arm and brought him up to her room. They hit it off with their shared enthusiasm for video games and television. Sara went to a private school so they never met there, but they met outside of school a lot. For awhile, their relationship built from their shared nerdage. There came a bit of a change, however.
It came when Jeremy was thirteen. It was a week after Sara's fourteenth birthday. He hadn't been able to see her since he got sick with the flu. It didn't matter too much, though: it was the first week of summer and his parents wee going on a trip. So he was going to be staying with Sara. He expected to be going to see her that night, but to his surprise she was at his door step before her parents left to help him bring his stuff over.
She was still a tomboy through and through. Also a maniac: wearing her yellow black and orange striped long sleeve shirt, jeans and sneakers in this weather. Jeremy himself was in a pair of brown shorts, a light blue T-shirt, socks and sneakers.
"Not a problem coming over early, is it, lass?" she asked.
For some reason she had taken to calling him lass. She meant it as a term of endearment, or that's how it always sounded.
"Not at all." Jerem said, trying to hide his excitement a little.
"Come along then."
He kept close behind her. In hindsight, that was probably a bit creepy, or would look so, but something about Sara rose his confidence. She never seemed to mind. He remembered that day, she turned and grinned at him.
"Try not to fall behind." she teased.
Her parents were busy talking as they entered the house. Sara slipped her sneakers off and he did the same. They carried his stuff up to her room and pushed it near her closet.
As soon as he did, he knew, like precognition, what was coming up. He should've guessed as soon as the door closed.
She clamped a hand over his mouth and pulled him back. He envisioned his face going red when her soft but firm hand covered his mouth. Now admittedly, if he really, really tried, he could possibly fight her off, or at least keep things at a stand still. However he had to admit, even as a young child, he wasn't much for resistance. Some times other boys would wrestle him down too, though never maliciously.
This is something Sara always liked to do. This time around, her legs wrapped around him like a vice, her socked feet crossing at the ankles in front of him. One hand kept his mouth covered while the other patted his head and she looked at him with a sweet but taunting grin.
"You should know better than to turn your back, lass."
She gently squeezed his cheeks, and he squeezed his legs to be on the safe side. After about ten or so seconds of this, she laughed and let go. Jeremy immediately excused himself to the bathroom.
It was hard for Jeremy to really describe how he felt. He got some kind of enjoyment from this physical domination for a long time, but now it felt, different somehow. It was different with Sara too. Somehow he felt more strongly about her than when he was younger, but it wasn't clear. He was certainly at that age where he was really thinking about girls, but just, couldn't wrap his head around Sara. He felt like he loved her, but he wasn't sure what kind of love. and forget trying to figure out HER feelings.
It was mostly settling in after that. Sara had some chores to tend to, so she told him to make himself at home. He helped himself to some game whose name escapes him. Some anime based game. He had introduced him to anime, but in truth, at the time he only watched it with her. It was still something he was getting used to. Anyway, it was a fighting game, albeit a simplistic one. It was the perfect kind of filler game: if he had to turn it off, well, hat wouldn't matter much, but was still fun enough to kill time.
It was a good thing he didn't mind being interrupted, cause all of a sudden, Sara's arms hooked his and held them there. Her gasped and squirmed reflexively.
"Uh oh, hurry, lass! You're getting yer ass kicked!" she exclaimed with mock excitement, as he was indeed getting beaten as the controller lay at his feet.
He laughed and tried to pull away, which wound up with him face down on the soft, carpeted floor and her on top of me, arms still locked, looking up just in time to see him lose the round.
She used her legs to pin his arms to his side, one hand to cover the mouth and the other to hold his chin up.
"Mmon!" he whined.
The second round started, and as a gamer herself, she should understand it's a bit too cruel to make him watch helplessly as he loses the fight!
"You're not doing so well." she whispered. His sock covered feet hit the padded carpet, for all the good it did. He continued to whimper and looked up at her.
"I thought you were better than this."
What made it worse is that the AI did that thing where some times it kinda just moved around and stood there. It's like it thought Jeremy was trying to lose on purpose and wanted to prolong his defeat. All it did was prolong the humiliation. It was actually annoying him.
"Moon!" he whined again, but she only tightened her hand's grip.
"Sshhh, concentrate."
So much for not minding if he got interrupted, but in Jeremy's defense there's a difference between turning the game off and having to watch himself lose.
"Oops. Game over. Wanna try again?"
Jeremy whined again and was made to watch as the continue screen hit zero.
She reached over and turned the console off.
She let his mouth go.
"That was just mean." he said, not able to help but laugh a little,
"You don't know what mean is, lass." she said, reaching over and pulling his socks off.
"Why are you doing that?" he asked.
It was sort of ironic, perhaps. At his own home, it was pretty lax when it came to indoors, but at the Mikenzie's, there was a strict no shoes inside policy. So this was the only place he regularly spent time with only socks on his feet, and he actually liked the feeling of it.
and now Sara's the one taking them off!
She bound them up together like she was going to put them in a drawer, but instead stuck them abruptly in his mouth, with the bundled end sticking out.
"Mmmmm!" he gasped.
The socks weren't that dirty, but they weren't exactly good tasting! Immidiately he longed for her to reconsider and use her hand again.
She leans her head over and gives him a comforting little grin.
She bucks up and immediately pulls his wrists behind him. Jeremy was taken aback, too much to really appreciate the predicament, but he was curious.
His wrists were bound together by, something. He found out after the fact it was called a zip tie.
"The door's locked, so ya know. Try to make a run for it and I'll tackle you back down."
He tugged at his wrists a little as she walked across the room. He wasn't sure what to make of this. It was kind of scary at first. She had never done anything like this.
She knelt in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm not going to hurt you." she said sweetly.
She sat him up and gave him a hug.
"If you want to stop, nod your head."
Jeremy thought, and then shook it. A lot of it was him not wanting to disappoint her. He never felt threatened by her, not even in this predicament, but she was hard to say no to.
She showed him a pair of his socks from his bag. She undid the bundle and put them on his feet before applying a zip tie to the ankles.
"There, now you can keep your feet warm." she said in a mock cutsey way, patting his feet.
He giggled at that. She then used ductape, winding it around his wrists and ankles.
She, with some effort, got him onto her bed.
"I've got some things to take care of still.So just lay there and relax." she said, patting his cheek. She left the room.
Jeremy lay for a few moments just absorbing the situation. His mouth adapted quickly to the presence of the socks. With a bit of effort, he could dislodge them. They were tucked in deep enough not to immediately fall out, but his tongue could get it out. Thinking about it after the fact, that was probably the point: a gag he could immediately get off if he really needed to.
He played around in his bonds, humming slightly under the gag. The zip ties held strong, and that also negated any chance of breaking the tape bonds.
He curled up a bit. This was actually not so bad. There was a certain comfort in being in this state of helplessness.
The comfort abruptly ended when the door opened.
sara's mother looked in with a quirked brow. You would think Jeremy was embarrassed, but at the time all he was thinking was that Sara was in serious, serious trouble. Did his humming get her attention somehow? The gag was pretty effective, it shouldn't have. For a few seconds, he feared this would mean the end of the sleep over.
She laughed as she walked over.
"Is Sara keeping you out of trouble?" she asked.
He nodded reflexively, and that made her laugh again.
"Do you want me to take those socks out?" she asked.
Jeremy shook his head.
"all right…"
She left the room and called Sara up. Sara came in and closed the door. Sara set some water on the drawer and pulled the socks out. Jeremy spat on the floor. She proceeded to release him from his restraints, and then handed him the water. Without a word.
He drank up, and she sat there, for the first time, awkwardly. It was stunning. He had never seen her looked embarrassed, or in any way, vulnerable. Even at times when she stumbled over herself, she laughed it off. Jeremy leaned in and hugged her quickly. She smiled and patted his back.
"Surprised, huh?" she asked.
"Yeah. I was." he said.
He asked if she got in trouble or not. Sara's mother didn't seem to care about him being tied up, though seeing her amusement as his predicament first hand, he didn't need Sara to tell him that. At the time, Jeremy shrugged it off as over worrying, but in hindsight, her mother was right. Yes, the socks were easily removable, but the door was closed and there was music blaring through the house. Even if he screamed, she might not have heard him, especially downstairs. It was simply inexperience.
Day tore into evening as they found other distractions, but his mind kept coming back to that incident. It must've been getting at Sara too, cause that night, when the lights turned out, she covered his mouth and tapped his sleeping bag.
"Sshhh."
This time, covering his mouth had been a practical step. She uncovered it. She had a cell phone on as a sort of flash light.
"You're not mad about earlier, are you?" she whispered.
"No, it was fun." Jeremy said quickly, maybe a bit too honestly.
"Are you sure? If it was too much, just say so."
"No way. It was all good, promise…."
I added quickly.
"Now go to bed before I gag you."
I saw her grin.
"Maybe if I feel generous some day."
He got the feeling this wouldn't be the last time he was kidnapped. and he would be right.
To Be Continued