FRIDAY EVENING
I have to say that this posting is based on a true story. I honestly cannot remember exactly what happened in what order and who said what 20 years ago. If I just wrote down what I could remember it would be a small not very interesting story. I have therefore padded out the narrative to make it read well. I may have elaborated a little but then again it is difficult to remember what exactly happened as opposed to what I wanted to happen and over the years have made myself believe happened.
It was warm weather in late spring and I was 10 when this took place. I don’t remember the exact circumstances but Mum was away for the weekend with something to do with work, my sister Susan, at some sort of girls’ sports event and Dad was being awkward and wouldn’t have me for the weekend (Mum and Dad separated some years ago). Mum had managed to arrange a weekend baby sitter Debbie. Debbie was a 16 or 17 year-old neighbour’s daughter who I admit I had a bit of a crush on. Mum was going to call daily and Debbie’s mother would be close at hand if anything went wrong.
Just past 7 on Friday night after tea Debbie came round. She had a small bag for her stay and arrived in jeans, red sweater and leather flip-flops. Soon mum and Sue went off in the car, Debbie kicked off he shoes and we sat down to watch Friday night TV.
It was the days when British TV on Friday was either bad sitcoms or imported US adventure / cop shows. Watching the cop show the inevitable scene happened when the son of some character got tied up and gagged. There weren’t many scenes of him tied and he escaped to raise the alarm but it got my interest. Lots of my games were driven by TV programmes and, like most children, my sister and me had played tie-up games with our friends.
After that scene on TV I ran to my bedroom and came back in with some rope from my toy bag. I had tied it into a small loop and put my hands in it then tried twisting them behind my back.
“Look at me I can escape too.†I said untwisting my hands. I took another piece of rope and tied another loop, which I put my feet through, tying my ankles together. I was wearing shorts and t-shirt and bare feet. I pretended to escape again. “Done it.†Debbie smiled and gave a little laugh at me.
“Do you want me to tie you?†She asked. I could not believe my luck when she asked that.
“Sure.†I said. I ran to my room again and came back with more rope, some scarves and other lengths of cloth. As I said, I played tie up games before. I put the pile of “toys†next to Debbie on the sofa and stood in front of her holding my hands behind me. She began to tie rope around my hands then asked if I wanted my elbows tied too.
“Yes.†I said, never having had my elbows tied before I thought it would be fun. You now it didn’t strike me at the time but years later I wonder just how much experience she had of this type of thing. She checked with me it wasn’t too tight then told me to sit on the sofa and put my feet up on her knees. She tied around my ankles and then I noticed she tied between my ankles too. I’d never done that before or had it done to me but I was soon to realise it made things much more difficult to escape. She tied me around the knees too in the same way.
“Is that tight enough?†she asked and began to tickle the soles of my feet. “Ooooh, are you ticklish?†I wriggled squirmed but she held onto my ankle ropes and I couldn’t escape.
She let go of me after a minute or so and I wobbled to my feet and hopped around the sitting room still laughing almost as much as when she was tickling me. She pretended to chase me and when she caught me began to tickle me again.
“No, no please stop.†I cried out. And she did.
“Sorry did I hurt you?â€
“No you can tickle me all you like.†I said.
“Oh so you didn’t want me to stop.†She said mock menassingly.
“No.â€
“So you lied.â€
“Er no.â€
“Yes you did.â€
“No.â€
“You make too much noise.â€
You can all guess what was going to happen next. She went to the pile of cloths and scarves and came back with two. She tied a knot in the middle of one, put it in my mouth and knotted it behind my head. She tied the second one over my mouth again tying it behind my head again. It didn’t really silence me but did muffle me a lot. Debbie began to tickle my feet again to test it. Then she went to sit on the sofa again.
I carried on wriggling and making muffled moans and eventually got back to my feet. I hopped back to the sofa and continued my futile wriggling and struggling. Debbie tickled me intermittently me for the next half hour or so before she untied me.
It was quite late for a 10 year old by now and despite my moans she did manage to get me to go to bed. I didn’t go to sleep straight away however as I was so excited.