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How I Got Into It This story is a work of fiction, all characters and plot lines are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. 6– Silvio Maybe I should mention that during his last remark, Stefan winked at me again.Of course Silvio didn’t notice – he mmmphed into his gag in a way that sounded as if the prospect of staying like that all night did not really amuse him. “What did you say? Didn’t understand.” Stefan asked. “Oh I see! You wanna stay like that till noon! All right, I’ll see what I can do for you.” And I couldn’t resist to ask Silvio: “I’m good, ain’t I? You wouldn’t get out of that in years!” We joined the boys who meanwhile had gathered round the fire (except Silvio, of course). While they ate, they discussed the game in a friendly and sometimes joking manner. “Well, if you trample through the wood like a herd of elephants you shouldn’t wonder that you don’t catch anybody!” “Hey Bobby, next time I should stake you out face down, shouldn’t I? You’d look funny with a dark-brown belly and a white back.” “Don’t worry about my back; it’ll get enough sun when I’m kneeling above you and pulling tight your hogtie next time. By the way, can you make your elbows touch behind your back? If you can’t, never mind – you’ll learn!” “Maybe we should invent something so that staked-out prisoners can be flipped.” “Or some kind of revolving cheaters’ frame, maybe electrically driven, that would make an even suntan too.” And so on. My part of the discussion consisted mainly of questions, but all of them were answered kindly and sometimes patiently, so I learned a lot more about the Rope club and its rules. Then Leo had an idea. “Boys, I’m ashamed of us! We’re sitting here stuffing our faces, and poor hungry Silvio gets absolutely nothing! We should let him participate too, shouldn’t we?” He went over to Silvio with his steak. “Oh Silvio, you’re really unlucky. These are the best steaks we ever had. Just delicious! Wanna bite?” He held the steak in front of Silvio’s face so that the unlucky boy had to inhale its tasty smell. The racket that came from behind Silvio’s gag made me think that Leo had better avoid getting caught by him over the next few days. But Leo didn’t care. He continued to tease Silvio, alternately biting from his steak and holding it under Silvio’s nose. When he had finished, he once again posed in front of Silvio. He delightfully rubbed his belly and said: “Hmmm! Yummi-yummi-yummi! As I was saying, delicious! I think I’ll go get another one.” After a few steps towards the fire, he turned back to Silvio. “Oh, I almost forgot! Can I have yours too? Looks like you won’t be able to eat it, doesn’t it? Would be a pity if it was left over.” “Mmmmmph!” “Thanks.” Some ten minutes (or three sausages) later I asked Stefan in a low voice: “What do you think? Shouldn’t we untie him now? He’s been like that for almost two hours now.” “Give him another half hour or so! He shall think that we really ate his steaks – that’s part of his punishment.” I giggled. “Kids can be cruel.” “Can’t they? But don’t worry. Our cruelty mainly consists of teasing – apart from the tieups themselves, of course. The only injuries that ever happened to any of us were ropeburns. All right, and a few little wounds from branches or the like.” While Silvio had to see – and smell – more steaks disappearing in the boys’ mouths, Stefan and I chatted in a relaxed manner. He told me stories that had happened in the club (all of them included ropes, of course), and I told him about my limited experience in tieups. Stefan had first tried to tie himself up too, but that had worked about as well as my own attempts, so he had finally dared to ask Silvio to tie him up, and that was the origin of the Rope club. But that’s another story. He also told me that they had recovered my bike and that it was standing behind the hut now. I had completely forgotten that! Meanwhile, only two steaks were left, placed so that Silvio couldn’t see them. Stefan loudly asked Phil: “Any steaks left?” “No, all are gone.” was the reply. “All right, then we can untie him.” Stefan said. But he didn’t get up to do so, nor did I, so finally Leo had mercy on Silvio. As soon as he was free, Silvio started some kind of gymnastics to bring mobility back to his body. After some moments of that, he came over to us. “Owww! My poor back!” he moaned. “Move a bit so that there is some space for a poor torture victim!” I willingly did. That was a perfect excuse for moving towards Stefan so that I lay skin to skin with him. Silvio sat down on our blanket and took a large drink from my water bottle. “Wow!” he continued. “That’s what I call a stress tieup! Where on earth did you learn that?” I told him and didn’t forget to mention that he deserved the punishment after all. “I sure did.” he admitted. “I’m not complaining; after all, it was because of me that you were tied up all afternoon. I was just surprised that you are such an expert.” I had to admit I was not really an expert, and that was the only stress tieup I could do. (But I was to learn quite a lot more during the following weeks – mostly on the receiving end.) “But I think we are even now, aren’t we?” he asked me. “So no bad feelings, OK?” “Sure. Still friends?” “Sure. But that does not mean that I’ll be soft on you when I get to tie you up next time. And don’t think you’re the only one who browses the internet for things like that. I found some nice things there too.” “He did indeed.” Stefan sighed. “When he got me last time he – “ He was silenced by a handgag by Silvio. “Hush! Don’t tell! You’ll spoil the surprise!” Silvio told Stefan, releasing his mouth. “You’re right.” Stefan replied. “But, Dominik, if he gets to tie you, prepare for the worst!” “You can say that again.” Silvio agreed with a mean grin on his face. “Hey Silvio! You’re not hungry?” Phil shouted. “Ha, ha, hah!” Silvio shouted back. “Very funny! I saw that you swallowed every piece of meat while I was tied up.” “Wanna bet? For a night in a four-poster-bed?” I had some suspicion what the term “four-poster-bed” meant in these surroundings. “Wouldn’t be fair, would it?” Silvio replied with a somewhat forced smile. “Yeah, I forgot. Wouldn’t be fair indeed, hehe!” Phil laughed. Rubbing his back again, Silvio asked: “So where are those steaks?” “Coming, sir!” Imitating the poise of a first-class waiter, Phil placed a dish with two steaks in front of Silvio. “I hope you enjoy your meal, sir.” If Silvio had been still a bit angry about his punishment, it was over when he saw the steaks. For the next minutes, he didn’t say a word. With his mouth full, he wouldn’t have been able to speak understandably anyhow. When he had finished his meal, Silvio lay down on his back. “Those steaks were even better than they smelled,” he said, rubbing his belly. “I think I could do with two more of them.” After he had taken another drink I asked him: “There’s one thing I want to know. How did you know I’m into that kind of games?” “Well, first there were those games at the pond: whenever you got out of Georg’s tieups so easily you looked disappointed rather than proud. And remember the day when Old Cozy had a go at me at the blackboard?” Old Cozy (from “Co-sine”) was our maths teacher. “I told you that I’d love to hogtie him with barbed wire for that, and you smiled and agreed – instead of asking what ‘hogtie’ meant. Someone who knows that term must at least be interested in tieups.” “Then why didn’t you just ask me if I’d like to join the club?” I asked. “Well, many boys who like that stuff are too shy to admit it, and to accept such an invitation. So this method is more promising. But above all, it’s more fun like that, isn’t it?” I had to admit it was. “But” I asked, “there’s one thing I’m still wondering about: How did you know I’d be curious enough to come to where you captured Rico?” “Oh, we didn’t – that was pure luck.” Stefan replied. “When we had just finished Rico I thought I heard some noise, so we hid and watched – and saw you coming through the trees. So we decided to take the opportunity. You know the rest of the story.” “But never mind” he continued, “We’d have gotten you anyhow. Originally we had planned to ambush you – we had placed a log across the path behind the next bend, so you’d have to stop and remove it, and as soon as you did … But then Rico came along, so we had to take care of him first.” “So if I hadn’t been so curious I’d have gotten away?” I asked. “Of course not – we’d have ‘visited’ you at the pond.” Silvio replied. “But what if Georg had been there too?” “Unlikely. I phoned him too – told him roughly the same story I told you, and that you wouldn’t be at his place until half past three, and that he should wait for you. And if he’d have been at the pond nevertheless – well, you’ll have noticed that we had enough rope with us for that kind of emergencies.” Silvio smiled again. I couldn’t resist smiling too. “Hey Silvio!” Leo joined us. “How’s your back?” “Better. But” Silvio turned to me, “that does not mean you’ll not be sorry for that if, no, when I get you next time.” “Don’t be so hard!” Leo said. “Anyway, he saved you from another night in the cheaters’ frame.” “Another night? So you spent a whole night in that thing before?” I asked. “Yeah, He did!” Stefan replied for Silvio. “It was another one of his little jokes gone wrong – for him. Last week – no, it was the week before – when we had to decide who’d be tied up for a payoff – like the one you just witnessed, Dominik – he hurried to get the cards. Knowing our Silvio, we were somewhat suspicious, so I insisted on reshuffling the cards before they were distributed to the losers. Of course, I ‘inadvertently’ dropped them. When Leo and I recollected them, we discovered that there was not a single red card in the deck; our friend here had secretly replaced them by black ones from another deck. Of course, the losers were not amused, and so … But it was fun, wasn’t it, Silvio?” Silvio just grunted. We continued chatting – mostly, of course, about the boys’ Rope club adventures. Meanwhile most of the other boys had left us. I noticed that they entered the hut, only to reappear a few moments later with blankets in their hands, and then disappeared in the woods in groups of two or three. “You don’t sleep in the hut?” I asked. “Most of us don’t – it’s safer out there,” Stefan replied with a grin, “although we took some precautions lately, didn’t we, Leo?” “Yeah – but if you think your ‘precautions’ are sufficient you might have a surprise or two.” Leo replied. Once again I hadn’t got the slightest idea what these guys were talking about. “As if they had heard their cue!” Silvio sighed when he saw Bobby and Phil approaching. “Come on Leo! Come on Silvio! Bedtime!” Bobby said cheerfully. “Already?” Leo asked. “It’s almost half past one! You should say thanks to us for letting you stay up so long.” “All right then!” Leo sighed. “Good night boys!” “Good night Leo! Good night Silvio!” Leo got up and went with Bobby and Phil. With a resigning smile, Silvio waved us goodbye and followed them. I wondered what that was about now! Obviously, for the other boys, there was no fixed bedtime – they went to sleep whenever they felt tired enough. Why not these two? I was to find out very soon. © Copyright Dominik 2007
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