“Do you want to come and spend the weekend with me?” my best friend Clara asked one Friday.
I, of course, jumped at the chance to get to know her a bit better still and gladly said yes.
“OK, fine!” she said. “But just so you know Betty; my life at home is quite a bit different than yours,” she solemnly went on. “The simple reason why I’ve never invited you to my place before is I wasn’t sure you’d be ready for the kind of life I lead.”
“Oh; how do you mean?” I asked, suddenly not sure I should have accepted so easily.
“You’ll see!” was all she said, looking very mysterious.
Clara and I had known each other since before we started school, and we were now in our mid teens, so I thought I knew her petty well by now. She was everything I wasn’t; I had long blonde hair, hers was almost black and very short; I was tall for my age and slender, she was about a foot shorter, and muscular (for a teen-age girl); I’d always worn nice dresses, whereas she’d always dressed in jeans and boy’s shirts or, more recently, black leather trousers and black t-shirts, never in a dress. My family lived in a nice terrace-house, hers in a two bedroom council flat. I had several siblings, she hadn’t. The list of differences could go on and on.
We went directly to her place after school on Friday. I, apart from my school-bag, carried a big plastic bag with a few necessities, such as a tooth-brush and a couple of changes of clothes, including my favourite, pink footed pyjama. She knew I had it, and had seen it and others like it, on several occasions, when she had been sleeping at my place. “I love those pyjamas of yours! I actually think I want some for myself!” she told me, on more than one occasion.
As soon as we got to her place, and had hung up our coats, she went over to a chest of drawers and opened the top one. She took out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed her hands in front of her.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Putting handcuffs on, of course!” she answered, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “I always do, when I’m at home. I think it feels nice. Do you want to try?” She held up another pair.
“Mm, for a little while, I guess. Just to see if I like it.” I hesitantly said.
“OK! I can always take them off if you don’t, but you will; you’ll see. It may feel a bit strange at first; but knowing you, you’ll get used to them in no time.” She cuffed me, securely but not too tight, and I was really surprised by how right she was. Within a few minutes, I had almost forgotten I had them on!
“I was right, wasn’t I!” she asked, the worry shining through in her voice. “You do like the feeling, don’t you?”
I lifted my hands and inspected the cuffs. In my mind they were quite heavy, but not heavy enough to be of any consequence. I could still do whatever I wanted, and reach the things I wanted to reach.
“Yes, you were.” I told her.
“Good, I’m glad you liked them,” she said. “Are you ready for step two of three, then?”
“Step two?” I asked. “What’s that?”
She reached into the drawer, and took out two more pairs of cuffs. These looked even heavier, were larger and had longer chains between them. “These are for the ankles,” she told me, as she reached down and put one pair on her own ankles.
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, and told her to go ahead and put the other pair on my ankles. She did, and I found they were put on just as securely, as the handcuffs.
She stood up, put her hands in the drawer once more, and took out two balls, attached to leather straps. “These are ball-gags,” she explained. “They’re designed to prevent the wearer from talking, or at least make as little noise as possible. They can make your mouth a bit soar if you wear them for a long period of time, especially if you’re not used to them. But they will make you drool pretty quickly. I usually wear one, the question is; do you want to?”
I looked down at my cuffed wrists and ankles, and said:”Having liked the experience thus far; sure, why not!”
She took out a key from a cabinet on the wall, and told me she had to un-cuff one of her wrists, when she put the gaggers in our mouths, but that she’d put it right back on when she was done. As she did before, she first put a gag in her own mouth. When I saw how deep in it went, I almost backed out; but then I thought she might consider me a chicken if I did, so I let her gag me. When it was buckled safely in place, I couldn’t close my mouth properly.
I looked at myself in a full length mirror they had hanging on the wall and saw myself with my hands cuffed in front of me, the ankle-cuffs just visible under the full-length, flowery skirt I was wearing, the gag in my mouth just visible behind my almost closed lips. It actually looked quite nice, I thought. We gave each other a “thumbs up” as a sign that we were OK, and went in to her room to get some homework done before her parents came home.