I had curled up in the corner of the sofa I was wearing my pink fleece footie-pyjamas, with a sheep-pattern, had wrapped myself in a duvet, and had a big bowl of crisps and a can of soda within easy reach. This night was a rarity in my life: no parents, no brother, no nothing to bother me! In short: I had the whole house to myself; for the next couple of hours, anyway. I was watching one of my favourite DVD: s (for the umpteenth time), when there was a loud knock on the door.
It was Fred, a friend of mine, whom I hadn’t seen for a while, due to him being hospitalized. When I invited him in, he looked me over and said:
“I don’t want to bother you, if you’ve gone to bed.”
“That’s nice of you to say so, but luckily, you don’t.” I replied. “I’m just enjoying a quiet night, being home alone. But please, come in! I’m watching a DVD. Feel free to join me.”
He stepped inside, and he and I went back to the sofa. He sat in the same corner as I had, so I felt I had no choice but to curl up against him. Not that I minded, not at all. It actually felt pretty nice, and after a while, I could feel myself dozing off.
Suddenly, he clamped a hand, hard, over my mouth.
“Are you gonna be a good girl?” he whispered, in a voice I had never heard before. It had turned all rough, and didn’t sound at all like the quiet, pleasant voice he usually had.
I nodded of course, and he took out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Still clamping one hand over my mouth, he cuffed my wrists in front of me, with the other. He took the hand over my mouth away, but before I had a chance to ask him, what he was doing, he shoved a big handkerchief in my mouth, and covered it in bandages, the end of which he fastened with strips of duct tape. Using most of the remaining tape o the roll, he firmly taped my knees and ankles together.
After having opened the front door, he came back and carried me outside and over to his place.
He carried me to his room and, quite unceremoniously, dropped me on his bed. He tore the tape off my face. I spat out the handkerchief and said:
“What about the rest? Are you going to leave me like this?”
“No, I’m not” he replied, as he lifted me up, “but like this!” He put me in a desk-chair, saying:”And now, we wait.”
“Wait, for what?” I asked.
“You’ll see!” was the only answer I got.
A few minutes later there was a knock on his bed-room door. An unknown man came in and carried me outside to a waiting van. Fred opened the back doors, and I was put on a stack of sacks, and Fred climbed in and sat next to me. He put my head in his lap, gently striking my hair.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Somewhere else,” he said.
“Yeah, well, that much I had figured out for myself!” I snorted.
“Don’t blame me for this! This was your idea. Remember?”
Not all of it, but he did have a point there, even though I wasn’t fully prepared to admit as much. After all, it was I who had called him, telling him about this crazy idea of mine. He promised he’d get things organized; “Just leave it to me,” were the words he had used. And just look at me now: handcuffed, ankles taped together, going God knew where.
The van stopped, the back door opened and I was carried into a shack, deep in the woods. The driver put me against a pillar in the room, and held me there while Fred cuffed my hands behind it. Even more tape was wound around my chest, waist, knees and ankles, securing them to it as well. The driver (I never knew his name) left, and we were all alone.
“What time is it?” I suddenly asked.
“It’s for me to know, and for you to guess!” Fred maliciously said. “No, but seriously, it’s time for you to answer this crucial question: have you had enough, yet, or do you want more? It’s getting late, you know, and your parents are most likely beside themselves with worry!”
“Oh, let them!” I said, with an evil grin. “Besides, I wrote a note, telling them a little lie: a friend of mine from school’s having a sleep-over, (which she really does have) and I was invited at the last minute (which I obviously wasn’t). She knows the truth but will, if my parents call her (which they’ll never do), tell them I’m there, but can’t come to the phone right now. So, the way things are at the moment, we’ve got, at least, till tomorrow.”
“Ah! Well, then we’ve suddenly really got a huge problem on our hands!” Fred sighed. “Because I left them a note, saying I was going to take you to our summer-house for the night. So the question has suddenly turned in to: which note, if any, will they believe?”
If my knees and ankles hadn’t been taped together as well as to the pillar, I would have stomped my foot in anger. “Now, why in the world did you have to go and do such a thing? As far as they’re concerned, we hardly know each other, you numskull!” I shouted.
“All the more reason for us to get to know each other, don’t you think?” he calmly said. “Now, I’m going to check something out behind the shack. I won’t be long, I assure you. Will you be OK, until I get back?”
I nodded, and to my amazement, he gagged me before he went out again.
When he came back, he looked me in the eye and said:” It’s just as I thought. There’s no food, only water. I’ll take away the gag and give you some of it, provided you promise not to start screaming again. There is no one else around, but your voice’ll give me a splitting headache, if you keep doing it.”
I shrugged and he took the gag off and gave me some water.
Real early the next morning, Fred cut off the tape holding me to the pillar, and uncuffed me for a while, before putting them back on in front of me.
I was put back in the van; the key to the cuffs was taped behind me, between the shoulder-blades and I was hurriedly driven back home. As luck would have it, we got there before anyone had woken up. I was laid out on the front porch, and Fred left.
When my parents discovered me a couple of hours later they, naturally, were both happy to see me unharmed, but at the same time angry with me for telling a lie.
Let me just end the story by saying Fred wasn’t allowed to go near me, for quite some time.