

a challenge:
as i heard a noise above me i looked up and stared at a seagull, a hawk and a eagle that was fighting each other in mid air.
“i put my money on the eagle” i said while Riley measured some rope.
she looked up as well to find out what i talked about and answered “ooh, i won’t throw any bets against you on that one”.
it was in the beginning of May and the local scouts would later this month arrange a scout camp for a weekend with scouts from the entire district. the rovers had received the task to prepare an obstacle run that would take place during the camp.
the obstacle run had been standing here for many years, i remember when i helped building it back in 2008 with one of my scout leaders.
but during the years, seasons and storms had passed, so several obstacles had seen better days.
at the moment Riley and i were putting up a net above a pit filled with water so contestants would be forced to crawl through the whole thing.
Shaun and Michael was working on a different obstacle about 50 meters away from us.
“the seagull has retreated, now it’s just the hawk and the eagle left” i said while Riley gave me the rope she had measured so i could start attaching the net to the stick in the ground next to the pit.
like already mentioned, this story takes place in May 2014. my previous story took place around November 2013, so a lot of things had happened since then.
first of all, i had still not cut my hair or shaved my beard for a long time. my dark blond hair was now reaching to my shoulders in the back, and in the front it was now long enough that i could put my hair in my mouth if i wanted.
my dark beard had also grown quite a length.
Riley on the other hand, she had earlier this year gone through a really bad hair day and the result had been she had to cut off almost everything. it had started growing back by now, but it was still shorter than most of the boys haircut.
“we are done” Shaun said as he and Michael approached us.
Michael had not changed much, but Shaun by the other hand had also decided to let his hair just grow.
unlike me his hair was curly, so he started getting something that reminded a lot about an afro.
“Shaun!” Riley said happy as Shaun walked toward her and held his arms around Riley while kissing her.
those who read my last couple of stories probably already noticed how i hinted about something going on between Riley and Shaun.
well, it had happened. they were now a couple and had been together for a long time.
Shaun held around Riley in a way that seemed like he didn’t want her to go anywhere.
i couldn’t resist “you wanna borrow some duct tape so she won’t run away from you?”.
Riley laughed, she might have enjoyed that her self if i know her right.
Shaun smiled and let his right arm go while still holding his left arm around Riley’s shoulders and said “well, duct tape is quite easy to escape from actually, unless if you use a lot of it of course”.
and here we go, you all know how this conversation will result.
“don’t be so sure” i said “if you know what you are doing then duct tape can be very effective”.
“i bet i could get out if you wrapped me up in duct tape” Shaun taunted me while grinning.
“okay, how about later tonight. we still have to finish making the obstacle run, and later we will have to eat”.
“hehehe, fine with me” Shaun said “i bet i can get out all by myself, no matter how you use that duct tape on me”.
“let’s make it interesting. i will only tape your arms behind your back, nothing else but that, and i still don’t think you will be able to get out”.
“just my arms in the back? nothing around me? nothing to pin down my arms to my body?”
“not even your feet” i answered.
“this is going to be easy” Shaun said.
“Shaun” Riley said “do you have any idea what you are getting yourself into? Viking does have a few tricks up his sleeve you know”.
“yeah, i don’t think you should be so optimistic about this” Michael responded.
“pff” Shaun said “i got a few tricks myself”.
we got back to working on the obstacles. later we had dinner and spent some time just relaxing.
except for Riley, Shaun, Michael and myself, the only other people around were the scoutmasters.
the rest of the rovers had other things to do back in town. most of the day the scout masters took care of other preparations for the camp that would take place in just a few weeks.
around 23:30 the scoutmasters had gone to sleep, but us rovers were still awake.
“so, are you still up for the challenge?” i said to Shaun while he was cuddling with Riley while Michael was busy with his phone.
“of course i am” Shaun said. we all got up and walked toward my Volkswagen where i opened the trunk and pulled out my supply bag filled with my kidnapping equipments.
Riley and Michael noticed all the rope i had in the bag that i pulled out a roll of duct tape from.
Shaun had seen it before so to him it was nothing new really.
“don’t ask why i have bag filled with rope in my trunk” i said while closing it.
“Viking” Riley said “why do you have a bag filled with rope in your trunk?” she had been a part of my TUGs several times by now, but she still didn’t know exactly how enthusiastic i was about them.
“i told you not to ask” i said as we walked toward the barn.
we were at the same spot that already have been mentioned in several of my stories. it was getting closer to midnight, it was that time of the year when it simply won’t get dark at night when you live as far north as us.
it was still a bit early for the midnight sun, but it was still bright enough to see clearly without the need of flashlights at night.
“alright, hands behind you” i said. Shaun turned his back toward me and crossed his arms in the back.
now of course i had already made a plan for how to make this escape proof. the bet was that i would be taping his wrist only, but i never said how i would tape them up.
instead of having them crossed i lifted his arms higher up and placed them so his fingers touched the elbow on the opposite arm, resulting in one arm laying flat on top of the other arm.
now it was time for the duct tape.
starting at one side i wrapped it around both of Shaun’s arms, each round halfway over the previous.
this i continued until i reached the other end so his arms was completely immobilized.
“there you go” i said while putting the remaining duct tape in my pocket “think you can escape?”
“this…” Shaun said and started wriggling his arms around a little “…should be easy”.
Riley and Michael studied the way Shaun had been trapped, they seemed curious about what Shaun had planned in order to escape.
after 5 minutes of struggling it turned out that Shaun had overestimated his own abilities to escape.
i figured it was time to make this more entertaining for us. Shaun had gotten himself into this mess and it was time for him to go through some torture.
“hey Riley” i said. she looked at me wondering what i had in mind.
“if i remember, Shaun was very ticklish”.
the evil grin on Riley’s face as she turned over to her boyfriend who realized what was about to happen was priceless.
Riley carefully walked up to Shaun with her hands crossed behind her back.
Shaun looked at Riley and said “don’t even think about it”.
“or else what? it’s not like you can stop me” Riley responded.
“sooner or later i will get free you know”.
“that’s true…” Riley said, they seemed to have eye contact.
“but in the meantime” she continued speaking and suddenly her arm flew forward and the fingers went straight into Shaun’s ribs “there is not much you can do about it”.
Shaun did everything he could to avoid laughing. he resisted with all his strength while Riley continued inserting her fingers up under his armpits.
“AHH!” Shaun let out a short but loud scream and started pushing Riley away with his foot.
Riley did not give up that easily though, she gave her smartphone to Michael and said “look after this for me, things are about to get rough”. she moved closer to Shaun and tickled him more than ever before.
meanwhile Michael figured he would capture the magic moment between the love birds and used Riley’s phone to film everything.
“aren’t you gonna get back at me soon?” Riley asked while tickling Shaun with all her strength.
“i… AH! will as soon that… AH! HAH! i get FREEHEHEH!” Shaun managed to speak between his attempt to resist the tickling.
suddenly Riley stopped the tickling and held her arms around Shaun while looking up at his eyes.
Shaun had gotten a lot taller than her since the last story i shared.
next thing we witnessed was Riley stretching up and kissing Shaun on the mouth.
for some reason he was not resisting any longer.
i by the other hand was standing with my arms crossed next to Michael who was still holding Riley’s phone up.
“i’m trying to come up with a fun quote that totally ruins the moment for you guys” i said “but i can’t come up with anything, so i must be too tired”.
Riley and Shaun just continued kissing each other for the next 5 minutes until Shaun tried to speak.
“i ftill ave o geff ouf”.
Riley stopped kissing him and pulled her face away “what?”
“i said i still have to get out” Shaun said trying all he could to indicate the duct tape still holding his arms bundled behind him.
“oh, but we just had such a nice moment” she said as she started hugging Shaun even tighter than before.
“don’t worry, we can continue afterwards”
“but, but, but…”
“what the hell are you worried about” i said “that Michael and i will steal Shaun away from you as soon as he’s released?”
Riley flipped of her middle finger at me while Shaun started struggling again.
“dammit, the way you have taped my arms together makes it impossible to reach the knife in my pocket” Shaun said while bending his body to the side.
“i know” i responded “that’s the point”.
he started looking around while he said “maybe there is a sharp object somewhere that i can use”.
being at an old farm you would think there was something.
Shaun walked toward a tractor that was parked not to far away from the barn and studied it.
“this might work” he said as he looked at a huge digging tool made out of some kind of metal that was connected at the back of the tractor.
he placed his back toward it and started rubbing his arms up and down at the edge.
“i doubt that is sharp enough” i said “then again, i have been wrong before”.
Shaun continued rubbing his arms against it when suddenly Riley approached him again.
“hey, i’m busy” Shaun said while Riley smiled at him and suddenly inserted her fingers into Shaun’s ribs again.
“HNNGH” Shaun focused all he could at avoid laughing as he went through Riley’s torment.
“Ril-HEH-ey! seriously, i might hu-UH-rt myself if you continue tickl-IH-ing me”
Riley stopped and pulled her arms away as she said “yeah, don’t wanna do that again” remembering what happened when she tried tickling Shaun while he was duct taped to a chair.
he did have a point though, if he really had found himself a sharp edge that he could use to cut of the tape then tickling Shaun would not be a good idea at the moment. he could loose the little amount of control that he had.
but it turned out not to be as sharp as Shaun had hoped for.
of course i knew that already. if it really had been sharp enough then i probably would have stopped him in order to avoid Shaun cutting his skin or anything.
i took my own knife out of the pocket and said “giving up?”
Shaun took a deep breath and admitted defeat. i had found a way to tape up his arms that he simply could not escape and his only hope for now was to let somebody else free him.
i carefully placed the knife between his arms with the edge out so i wouldn’t cut him up instead.
slowly i rubbed the knife and tearing apart the duct tape.
when removing the duct tape we could tell Shaun had spent a lot of energy on his little Houdini game. his arms were covered in so much sweat that it steamed out from the duct tape and into the cold air.
“well, at least you pulled off one hell of a fight. i give you that” i said looking at his sweaty arms.
Shaun started rubbing them and said “yeah, i could feel one of my fingers loosening up on the inside. but it was not good enough to pull my arms apart”.
we went back inside the farmhouse were we slept over. Shaun and Riley sat together on their sleeping bags and cuddled while Michael and i watched an episode of The Cleveland Show on my iPad before we all went to sleep.
we still had some work left on the obstacle run the day after so we needed all the rest we could get.